Random Stuff

Still enjoying my summer vacation here though it is rapidly coming to end. I still have several items on my summer projects list. Better get to them!

Since my last check in I've seen a few movies. I still don't get the zombie thing but I went to see World War Z anyway. Not great but not bad either. Redemption was interesting though I think the title really was in reference to the nun rather than the Jason Statham character. Just like I don't get the zombie thing I don't get the vampire thing either. Ooo look sexy vampires in the goth club getting all hot and steamy.  Zzzz... With that said I am not sure why I went to see Byzantium but I did. I thought the movie was slow but not terribly so. It was an interesting take on the vampire movie, though I really wish that there was more time spent on the origin story (told through flashbacks) and more about the Brotherhood that is part of the movie. Maybe these missing bits will be in the director's cut.

About a week ago I was invited to go to the Musical Instruments Museum in Phoenix. I wasn't expecting much but as the museum was shutting down for the day (they close at 5 pm except on Thursdays) I wished we had gone a little earlier so we could have spent more time walking around. There are areas in the museum devoted to different geographical areas of the world. Most cultures seemed to have developed very similar instruments, but there was some that left me wondering how in the world did anyone think up that???? My one quibble with the museum was the headsets. The plus side of the them is you get to hear song clips featuring many of the instruments displayed. The song clips were well-chosen and featured traditional and folksy songs. So the quibble, you have to stand very close to the screens that mark the different areas. Take one step in the wrong direction and you lose the signal. I understand why they do it that way but this made it difficult to look at the displayed instruments and listen to the song snippets at the same time.  Boo hoo. The museum's website suggests allowing two hours for your visit. I was there for about 90 minutes and barely scratched the US+Canada and Europe galleries (about half the floor space) so plan accordingly.

In the interest of time I didn't take too many pictures but below are photos of a few stringed instruments...

 and a Spanish clavichord.

K-12 educators! I assume it is on-going but you can get free admission to the Musical Instruments Museum if you bring some form of teacher ID with you. Ask at the counter.

It's summer so I took the opportunity to cook a load of vegetables to make Stufato.

 

Summer Movie Disappointment

So far I've been pretty disappointed with the movies I've seen this summer. Iron Man 3 was good, but not great, Star Trek Into Darkness was good but not great, Man of Steel was "eh", and The Purge was pretty stupid. I'm likely to see World War Z and Pacific Rim in the near future but don't think either will be particularly good. Hopefully I'll see something good this summer.

Last week when I stopped for lunch at Luncha Libre and stepped away from my quesadilla obsession and ordered a Sloppy Jose. This is basically a sloppy Joe but made from ground beef and chorizo topped with a habanero queso sauce on a toasted roll. Wow it was good! I'm starting to think about trying to recreate it at home.

A little more on the healthy side was the pasta and bean soup I made last weekend.

Not quite a traditional recipe-it has zucchini in in it-and I use a tomato topping (diced tomato and basil) instead of adding tomato to the broth. This version seems more summery to me. Also for some reason this soup tastes best to me when warm instead of steaming hot. Yes, the daily temperature is near 110 degrees where I live and I made soup for dinner. I see no problem with that.

Northern Arizona

I spent this past weekend in the area around Payson, Arizona. The last time I visited the area was when my Ph.D. supervisor invited a bunch of us to the cabin that he and his wife built. I call it a cabin but it has been referred to as the Chateau of Fun. On the recent trip I got to spend some time in the area seeing the Tonto Natural Bridge, the Strawberry Schoolhouse, Fossil Creek Creamery, and the Mogollon rim.

The natural bridge was awesome! Standing underneath it was like standing in a light rain shower as the water fell from the rocks above. The cold water felt good on such a warm day. It wasn't very strenuous to walk down to except for the little scary part where the rocks were very slick.

We walked the shorter Waterfall trail too:

 

After stopping for ice cream in Strawberry, AZ I took these pictures of the outside and inside of the Strawberry schoolhouse. This is "the oldest standing school in Arizona".

There were some amusing rules for teachers posted on the walls. Apparently men could only go courting one night a week, unless they were a regular church goer, in which case they could court twice a week.

The last stop of Saturday before returning to Payson for the night was the Fossil Creek Creamery. I've enjoyed samples of their goat cheese at a local store.

Goats!

We spent a little of Sunday afternoon at the Mogollon Rim. The rim offered splendid views of the Tonto National Forest.

I wish I could remember the name of the lake (Wood's canyon lake, I think). People were out fishing but don't know how much luck they were having. A fun weekend!

Geeking Out

Summer has finally arrived and I have the next two months off. Let's see what I can do this year.
Just as final exams were wrapping up in May I was able to attend Leprecon, a small, local science fiction convention. Due to its timing I haven't been able to spend much time there the two times I have gone, but I do like supporting the con. This year the author Guest of Honor was Jack McDevitt. There are two of his books in my library: The Engines of God (a novel) and Standard Candles (a collection). The con's meet the author session was pretty empty so he invited those present to pull up some chairs and talked with us for just over an hour. All present swapped stories about what got us reading science fiction. For me it was Star Trek, classic horror films, Japanese monster movies, and bad 1950s science fiction movies that were a Saturday afternoon staple. As mentioned elsewhere I was (and still am) fond of old radio programs. I didn't think of it at the time but as I write this I also have to credit my interest in science and the space program.

Star Wars was a big influence too but not really until The Empire Strikes Back was released and my parents spoiled the snot out of me with lots and lots of Star Wars Toys. That's where it really started and likely responsible for me reading somewhere around 1000 books so far. That said, I confess here to not reading much other than short fiction and comic books the past couple of years.

After the author panel I visited a few of the tables set up and took a walk through the art room. When I left for the day I felt inspired to try and find some novels to read. I promise to get on it as soon as I clear out the unread books on my shelves!

Someone could (and should) write a dissertation about why there are so few young people at these types of events. I am over 40 and I was on the lower end of the age range of the attendees I saw. There are many young writers so what will it take to get the young fans to attend a con?

I'll contrast the small science fiction convention with Phoenix Comicon, which I attended for the first time this year. Now I am not expecting Leprecon to attract over 40,000 people, but it was sad to me when only about a dozen people showed up to meet their guest of honor.

Phoenix Comicon was fun. I was able to attend some meet the author sessions and a few other panels. I was happy to take pictures of Stormtroopers and Darth Vader! Though I was very put out by the Mos Eisley cantina area where you could have your picture taken with Greedo shooting. GAH! Talk about revisionist history. I enjoyed just walking around and checking out all the costumes. These people need to share their talents with me. Please! It was also good see friends and even some former students during the weekend. Based on the positive experience I am likely to attend next year too.

So far, this summer vacation, I have attended a science fiction convention, attended Phoenix Comicon, and am registered for this year's Coppercon. This will be my first time at Coppercon which will be right before the fall semester begins. This means I will have attended a con just as the spring semester was ending and will attend a con just before the fall semester begins. The physicist in me finds the symmetry appealing.

Wacky Weather

I wish the Arizona weather would make up its mind. First it was cold, record overnight lows in many places. With the low temperatures I would like to thank my neighbors for blasting their heat and keeping my apartment at a fairly reasonable temperature that week. A week after this we broke record highs with temperatures making it in the low 80s.  I nearly had to turn the AC on!



With the cold leaves fell off many of the trees giving the area around where I live a fall feel. The picture with the bare trees and leaves piled up remind of September growing up.  While walking around someone shared that "It feels like Indian Summer back home." That it did.


Then the rains came. This is the pond near my office. It isn't supposed to be a pond.

 I played with the image a little by cropping it:

Then to be silly I rotated the image

 Then I cropped it some more

And I rotated it too. You can tell this is the reflection by the patch of grass visible at the upper left and the ripples in the upper right.

I've been pretty busy with classes and other administrative duties so I haven't been particularly creative in the kitchen lately. This weekend I did make tacos. There were plenty of leftovers so I will be able to properly celebrate Taco Tuesday this coming Tuesday. I usually make fairly dull tacos by browning ground beef and adding some kind of seasoning packet (Simply Organic's Southwest Taco this time). To make them less dull I pickled some sliced red onion and also added boiled cubed potatoes to the ground beef just before adding the seasoning packet.  The tacos turned out well. The melted cheese with seasoned ground beef and potatoes made for good eating. I ate my tacos with Amy's Traditional refried beans which I maintain are the best canned refried beans on the market.



While shopping I came across a can of beer that caught my attention. Ska Brewing Company (I'd add their link but it makes noise when it loads!) made a Mole' Stout as a seasonal release. The description sounded interesting so I bought a six pack to give it a try. Not bad as stouts go. I don't detect any chiles but I did taste the cocoa. Given that this stout is a little sweet and with the cocoa powder and the spices I have to say it tastes a lot like a cookie my mom makes at Christmas.  Yes a beer that reminds me of cookies! As long as they don't make a samoas beer I'll be okay.

The Year's Best

Since I am not that social or mainstream I don't have too many categories to name my favorites from the past year.

Most of my reading last year was various comic books, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and back issues of Physics Today. I didn't read many novels this year and there were no standouts that I will mention.  However there was a lot of graphic novel reading going on over here.  I am by no means a Comic Book Geek but a majority of what I read came from The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman and Birds of Prey written by Gail Simone.  Most of these volumes I found to be very well done.

Probably the best pickup of the year though was getting a copy of The Ship that Sailed to Mars. WOW! Thanks to Paul Di Filippo for writing a review of this book in a recent Asimov's (Jan. 2013) that made me want to pick up a copy. This is an illustrated children's book done by William Timlin and published in 1923. I thought the story could have used some help (you won't get any spoilers from me) but the art included is just amazing.  Did I mention how good the art is in the book? I am tempted to get a second copy of the book so that I can take it apart and the hang the illustrations on my walls. Thanks to the folks at Dover (their Calla imprint) for making this available.

For my favorite game pickup I liked We Must Tell the Emperor, part of the States of Siege series of solitaire games published by Victory Point Games, which allows you to run in an abstract way the Pacific Theatre during WWII from the Japanese perspective. The first part of the war is pretty easy going unless you have bad luck, but once the game takes you into the later periods of the war you get a sense of the hammering the Japanese took. Another game I liked was Onirim published by Z-Man Games in the USA.  Think of it as a type of solitaire. The object is to play a series of three cards of the same color but with different symbols on them to open a door. To win you need to open eight doors, two from each of the four different colored suits, to escape the labyrinth before the nightmares get you by depleting your draw pile. There is also two-player variant of the game. A good game but I'd like it a lot more if it weren't for all the card shuffling.

I didn't travel much this past year but I enjoyed walking through Cave of the Mounds and also Mission San Jose.

As much as I've cooked this past year I don't feel like I did enough.  At least I tried making some new things like dill pickles, purple cauliflower, and cranberry sauce to name a few.

Unless I've lost a ticket stub I saw 10 movies in the theatre this year. I saw nothing that was fantastic. Every movie I saw had some kind of flaw, but The Avengers was probably the most solid. I would have liked this movie a lot more if they deleted Bruce Banner and The Hulk from it. Puny human says Hulk bad. Prometheus seemed to be a flop but I liked it, probably more than I would have had I not saw it in 3D. It was cool to watch that way. I will say the same thing about The Hobbit. For some reason my eyes kept bugging out on me during the showing. I'll leave it to others to pick that movie apart. The movie that surprised me the most was Total Recall. I really was expecting to have two hours of my life wasted so I was surprised walking out of the theatre that I did not feel that way, probably because it wasn't exactly like the original. The effects were cooler too.

My best food find last year was Luncha Libre. Their quesadillas are very good and creative. I've had several different kinds: mushroom and roasted potato (the pot head), roasted potato and green chile (papa verde), bulgogi (the koreadilla), and steak and mushroom. (Why no special name??) Their tea and fruit drinks are good too. Thanks to ASU for inviting local food trucks to a spot near campus on Wednesdays. The Wednesday lunch time routine is to stop at Luncha Libre and then visit the nearby Pop Culture Paradise to see what new Comic Book Day brings.

That was 2012, what's in store for 2013?

Happy New Year

I write this at the end of my first day back in the classroom.  Winter break was far too short this year so I was unable to catch up on the to-do list. Hopefully this doesn't keep me from posting here on a regular basis.




The week before this I cooked batches of brown rice and farro to use.  The farro I used two ways: one was tossing it with roasted onions, mushrooms, and kale and the other was using it in a batch of soup. Both of these dishes turned out very well. I am a big fan of farro.












One of the uses I had for the rice was making a batch of fried rice. Normally I would add a bit of beef but having none at hand I didn't sweat it. My fried rice is seasoned with soy sauce and sake. I didn't miss the beef serving the fried rice with baby broccoli and a mug of green tea .










I had some potatoes hanging around too so I decided to make a batch of fried potatoes. I've experimented over the years with this and the best results have come from boiling the potatoes first and then frying them in a mixture of olive oil and butter. Near the end of cooking I added some rosemary and thyme that got crispy, but not burned. I named these The Best Fried Potatoes Ever! I was happy with the results. I don't save mine (I probably should) but bacon fat makes for good fried potatoes too.





To go with the potatoes (and the bread) I made some beans and greens.  When thinking about making it I knew I wanted it to be "soupy" so I added some chicken broth to the pot and let it simmer for a little while. The best beans and greens comes from using swiss chard and I like to boil the swiss chard and the stems first before adding them to the oil, garlic, and beans. Oh and don't forget the red pepper flakes, it is the magic ingredient here, even if you use just a little to add some zing. This time I made it soupy, but sometimes I will make it "dry" using a little of the swiss chard's cooking liquid to moisten everything. I also prefer using ceci (garbanzo beans), white beans tend to be a little mushy. If I close my eyes I can remember the sitting in the basement of my uncle's house with my father snarfing the beans and greens my uncle made from fresh-picked swiss chard. Good stuff and good memories.

Merry Christmas

Okay so I am a little late with that.

Christmas just seemed to pop out of nowhere this year. I wasn't sure what to make for Christmas Eve dinner and said as much to my mother. Her reply was "fish." Settled that question. I made a fish stew and had some bread and green salad to go with it. One of the nice things about Christmas in Arizona is that I was able to have Christmas Eve lunch outside. You can see it's "cold" based on the amount of steam you can see rising from the bowl of soup.

Here are a couple of pictures from the church I go to decorated for Christmas.

 I didn't take a good look at the indoor nativity scene. There was a bit of a scandal a couple of years ago when a child snuck in a little red-nosed reindeer.

I did some Christmas baking again this year, making a batch of blueberry scones and a batch of ginger spice cookies.

The scones didn't turn out quite so well as have other batches I have baked. I am used to adding (dry) chocolate chips to the flour instead of frozen (wet) blueberries so the dough didn't hold together very well and was a bit harder to work with. Add to this all the candy and chocolate I was given and you can see why I was happy to have had a dental check-up the week before Christmas.

Being on my own I don't really have any Christmas traditions. Thinking about the last time I was home for Christmas and having dinner with relatives recalls the traditional (for us) Christmas Eve dishes of bacala cooked in tomato sauce served with boiled potatoes (helps cut the salt), angel hair pasta with anchovy sauce, sausage, salads, treats galore, and peperoni pizza.  Yeah, pepperoni pizza. Turns out the twenty-something kids in the family aren't really into the other stuff. I realize that not everyone likes anchovies and salted cod like I do so I am not passing judgement and certainly life is too short to eat food you are not interested in. Oh well, their loss.

What are your Christmas traditions?

Fall Semester Ending

The last few weeks of the semester kept me very busy.  I finished everything later than I had planned, but hey everything got done.  Given the late finish to the fall semester I can't believe that Christmas is early next week! (Yeah, I am late getting this posted!) There isn't much down time before the spring semester starts so the only thing I really have planned is to go see The Hobbit a few times.

Being busy I didn't have time to cook much. We had a cold spell (I use that loosely) here in AZ and I wanted to make soup. Not enough time so I had to wait until this weekend to do it.  The piles of kale at the store were looking pretty good so I made kale and potato soup by sweating some onion, garlic, celery then adding white wine, rosemary, and thyme. After the alcohol boiled out I added canned tomatoes (fire roasted with green chiles), potatoes, and vegetable broth, cooking until the potatoes were done, then adding the kale. Tasty, but then again I love soup.

A little late maybe but I finally got around to making some cranberry sauce.  I followed this recipe for the cranberry-orange sauce.  Very easy to make.  So easy to make I wonder why people still serve the jellied stuff in the can.

Post Thanksgiving

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone. The traditional Thanksgiving meal is probably my least favorite holiday meal. Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, it just bores me. This must be why I got the opportunity to have two Thanksgiving meals this year.

Thanksgiving Thursday I spent with some friends and their family.  A mostly traditional meal was served which included some extras from the ethnic backgrounds of those present to spice things up a bit.  In addition to the usual meal we also had spanakopita and some curried cauliflower.  Yeah!

On Sunday, my second meal was completely traditional, but was spent with family. I have an aunt and uncle that live here in town.  Their son moved from Arizona to New York about a year or so before I got here. He is the cousin that is closest in age to me, but we only lived near each other for about five years or so when growing up. In recent years our visits home never seemed to put us in the same state at the same time.  It had been about 20 years since I last saw him and this was the first time I got to meet his now teen-aged son. Wow how time flies.

Earlier this week I read an essay by Michael Chabon that was published in the October 2012 issue of Bon Appetit. Like the author I have bounced around celebrating Thanksgiving in many different homes  over the years. While I have yet to spend the holiday in an old hunting lodge I am thankful for all of the families that have invited me into their homes since I left my own over twenty years ago.

I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving.

Sunday Dinner

It's been a rough couple of weeks around here. Saturday at lunch my mind wandered to my father. There was a little boy at Rubio's that slopped some salsa on his shirt while scooping some into the little serving cups they provide. After uh ohing he ran over to his father and said I have to change my shirt when I get home while showing off the salsa splash. For some reason this made my mind wander to something that happened several years ago.  I was a coffee shop working and there was a guy with his little boy.  Dad (for some reason) was giving him airplane rides complete with sound effects. Of course the kid was just loving every second of it. Why I asked, "can I have a turn?" I'll never know. I can see why the dad was weirded out by that.  I don't remember getting airplane rides from my father but today I was reminded of the way my father used to tickle my belly with his beard stubble.  It was tickly and scratchy at the same time.  I really liked when he did this.  To feel safe and not have a care in the world again...I'd really like that right about now.

Before my thoughts turned this way I decided I wanted to make a batch of sauce, the Sunday Gravy kind.  I can't make mine taste like my mother's used to.  I've tried on my own. I've tried with her on the phone with me.  It doesn't work so I improvise.  Mom's sauce always has sausage links and meatballs.  When I was young mom always used strained tomatoes (passata; the pictures here bring back memories!).  Every fall we would spend a Saturday passing  a bushel or so of tomatoes through our hand-cranked Victorio Strainer. It was a grind (can I get a rim shot?) but I look back on it fondly.  After passing the tomatoes and then the pulp through the strainer, the juice would get cooked and put into jars with salt and sugar before processing them.  I may remember wrong but I swear we must have made 30-40 quarts at a time, enough to last until next fall. There was a local pizza place-now closed-that used an automatic Victorio Strainer to start their pizza sauce.  I saw that and thought "Lazy!"

For my sauce I didn't make meatballs. I did use sausage though I took it out of its casing rather than leaving it as links. The sauce also had onion, garlic, dried oregano, basil, red pepper flakes, salt, tomato paste, and the strained tomatoes. I added a salad to complete my Sunday dinner. Now if only I had some Trusello's bread to go with it. Though I could go for some of their pizza...

Food Trucks at ASU

A few weeks ago I came across an article in one of the many newsletters I am sent as a member of the ASU community.  This item caught my attention because it was advertising that some food trucks would be set up within walking distance of my office on Wednesdays at mid day.

I've gone three weeks in a row and have tried two different trucks. The first two weeks I went to the truck Q Up Barbeque.  I had their pulled pork, brisket, and southwest slaw.  The meat was well-done, but I've had BBQ I've liked more. I'll give this one another shot after I've gone through the other trucks.

The truck I tried today was LunchaLibre. The sweet tea and other drinks served in canning jars and Mexican wrestling masks was the initial draw.  My lunch choice was the Pothead Quesadilla.  Wow it was good!  It was a flour tortilla filled with roasted potatoes, spinach, pico de gallo, and jack cheese.  I washed it down with a jar of cinnamon black tea.

When I stopped by the table with the ASU folks at it I let them know what a great idea it was to bring the trucks in and let them set up once a week.  From what I heard the event will go through the end of the semester and be back in the spring.  Sounds good to me!  Looks like I have my Wednesday lunch spot for the foreseeable future.

The Return of Old Pumpkin Guts

As Halloween approaches I start counting the days before I pick up a pumpkin.  Not that I can carve anything that looks good since I am so terrible at anything artlike I only do this so I can roast the seeds. Yes, they are cheaper to just buy at the store, but there is not much fun in that.  This year's pumpkin had a good amount of seeds so I will have some treats for a few days.

I only salt my seeds, nothing fancy here. Good stuff.  As tradition dictates I did this while listening to The Great Old Pumpkin as podcasted on Escapepod.

Last weekend I made a batch of giardinera. This is the second time I've made this.  I didn't take any notes when I made it last time (of course) so I don't know the exact amount of things I used then to see what was different between batches. Leading up to making this I tried to find the pickling spice I used last time, but no luck there so I ended up using the same pickling spice as when I made dill pickles earlier this year.  I wasn't sure how it would work out here since I've never had giardinera made with cloves and cinnamon and some of the other random things. The last time I made this I thought the cauliflower tasted a little weird from the pickling spice since commercial giardinera doesn't use pickling spices, and that is what I am used to eating.

To make the giardinera I dissolved about a half tablespoon of sugar, 3 tablespoons of salt, and 2 tablespoons of pickling spices in about 4 cups of hot water.  I poured this over the cut up vegetables (a smallish head of cauliflower, a few carrots, a few stalks of celery, several cloves of garlic, and some peeled pearl onions).  I steeped the vegetables for a few minutes and then added an equal volume of white vinegar.  After it all cooled I packed it up into jars and stored them in my refrigerator.  This weekend I tried some after the jars had set for a week. Turns out the spices give the vegetables flavor beyond just salt and vinegar. Imagine that. Success! What I made follows a recipe I got from a guy named Skip who ran a website called northend dot com many many years ago.

Fall Break

I didn't need to do any cooking this weekend.  On Saturday I was invited to a kid's birthday party, complete with a bounce house.  The Greek food was excellent and so was the company. My favorite is the pastitsio.  I could eat this weekly, too bad it looks like a pain to make.  Since the family cooked enough for a large army I might get my chance to eat pastitsio for most of this week based on the size of the plate I was sent home with.

For a change of pace here, I took pictures of some flowers in the neighborhood where I live.  I like the colors of these flowers.  This morning I watched the bees buzzing around doing their thing and I also saw some butterflies.  It is hard for me to see the display on my phone in sunlight so these pictures aren't the greatest, and too bad the camera on my phone does not appear to have zoom.

Can you spot the butterfly?

The other big event that happened this weekend was my copy of Godzilla vs. Megalon showed up.  Oh, wow, how bad you are! This movie is so awful, it's great. I only watched the version dubbed in English.  Soon I will get around to watching it in Japanese with English subtitles.  This was definitely one of my favorites as a kid and I'm glad it is now available on DVD.  And you should watch this because everyone needs to listen to the Jet Jaguar song.

Punch, punch, punch!

Purple Cauliflower Eater

Things are still pretty busy here so I opted for some quick meals this weekend.  Saturday I made tacos, tamales, and beans.  I cheated on most of those.  My neighborhood Whole Foods carries some Arizona made frozen tamales (Tucson Tamale Company).  I'd prefer tamales with pork rather than these vegetarian offerings, but they are pretty good.  I've had a couple of varieties, one was cheese and green chiles (Green Corn Tamale) and the other was black beans, corn, and cheese (Madison).  The Madison has been my favorite so far.  Normally I would serve tacos with Amy's traditional refried beans, but while shopping I discovered the Whole Foods brand ranchero beans.  Amy's have the absolute best canned refried beans, other brands just make me say yuck.  I have to say the ranchero beans were pretty darn tasty,  Amy's now has some competition for my bean dollars.  As tasty as they were my search still continues for a replacement for Campbell's chunky chili beef. I am pretty sure the last time I ate it was in the early 90s but I still think about it.  Most likely it is one of those things that you remember as being better than it really was.  The chili beef was one of those things that got me through college, other than ramen.

It had been quite a while since I made trofie with potato, green beans, and pesto so I made that my Sunday dinner.  That would make a one-pot dinner but I decided to make a separate side.  Purple cauliflower has crept into the store recently so I bought a head.  Never having it before I didn't know what to expect.  Yeah, it tastes like white cauliflower. It just looks weird on the plate.  After cooking it for a few minutes in water I wonder if the liquid could be used to dye Easter eggs.  I tossed the cooked cauliflower into a pan with olive oil, garlic, and onions.  This side is eaten at room temperature and I topped it with some basil.  (Thanks to The Italian Country Table for this recipe).

The temperatures are finally starting to drop here.  I will declare it officially fall now because I saw a large display of pumpkins in the store. I sense pumpkin seeds in the near future.

Food Bites

Fall is here in theory so my mind begins to turn from stone fruit to hard fruit like apples and pears. My mom swears by Cortland apples to make apple pie.  At some point I will take a stab at apple pie but not this weekend. Recently I've tried a couple of Arizona grown apples recently. One was organic red delicious apple.  Since it didn't actually look like a red delicious apple I bought it to see what it would taste like. I should admit that I hate red delicious apples. I seem to remember liking them when I was kid and thinking about it now I can't figure out why.  They taste weird, not like an apple should. Anyway the red delicious apple I bought actually was sweet and had flavor. Whoa! It must have been an heirloom variety or something.

I also picked up a few small bunches of Arizona grown concord grapes.  These were also grown locally in the area of New York I grew up in.  I called them squeeze grapes when I was a kid and thinking about it I can't remember when the last time I had them.  With this recent batch I thought they were kind of a pain to eat, but had fun doing it.

In the last couple of years I've had several things grown in Arizona that I had no idea could even grow here.  Wonder what else grows around this state that I don't know about.