Hot tub mind melt

No blog today...

On the road

What's a road trip through the redwoods without The Trees of Mystery tourist trap near Klamath?  It's nice to know some things don't change. This is the very same "talking" Paul Bunyan who scared Amanda when she was a little girl.  John doesn't look too intimidated by the teenage wiseacre hiding inside.

We spent our second night on the road at Miranda Gardens, a cottage motel along The Avenue of the Giants.  We've stayed at this place twice before and I love it there, because it is peaceful and old-fashioned. This time we got the nicest cabin, spacious with a private deck looking into the forest.

However, our raft of technology (2 smartphones, 2 computers and an iPad) was dead in the water.

Maybe that's why it was so relaxing.  The swimming pool was freezing cold, and there wasn't much to do but admire the redwood trees.

We spent the day today winding down Highway 101. Round and round, up and down.  Northern California is very beautiful, but pack your patience, or else head over to I-5.

We had a long lunch in Hopland, which has become fancy, like so many wine country towns.  But folks are very relaxed here and that attitude is catching. More stops at a winery or two, and we finally reached our destination in Calistoga late in the afternoon.

"That's why I love road trips, dude. 

It's like doing something without actually doing anything.” 

John Greene

The view from here

Florence, Oregon

Driftwood Shores Motel

It isn't as cold as it looks here, but very windy tonight, with sand and mist blowing by our balcony like smoke. We're enjoying the view from the room without any desire to walk out there.  We're just listening to the ocean and relaxing after an 8 hour drive through multiple traffic jams in Seattle and Portland and Salem. Hey, Google maps is dreaming, with their optimistic driving times for folks who never want a Dairy Queen,  or have to go to the bathroom.

Anyway it doesn't matter, because today is the first day of vacation.  And we ate a fine dinner, at the restaurant just steps away from the room.  I had fried oysters. On to the Redwoods in northern California tomorrow.

A famous, unknown cat

"Next to the wife that I idolize, give me a cat."

"A cat is more intelligent than people believe,
and can be taught any crime."

Mark Twain

Mark Twain loved cats and kept up to 19 of them at a time.  This painting sat on the mantle in his library with a bunch of other stuff.  He would play a game with his young daughters, making up stories that incorporated all of the items on the mantle. The catch was that it always had to start off with the "Cat in the Ruff."

We don't see many free-range cats in our neighborhood anymore, fortunately.  Although a young tabby has been passing through lately, and he stares at us like the ghost of Vino, with that same attitude of entitlement.  The birds immediately set up a racket in the holly tree, so I'm not too worried about him.

We're ready for a nice break and our vacation is finally here. Tonight we stuff the suitcases and hit the road in the morning.  We're spending the first night along the ocean in Florence, Oregon, and the second night in the California redwoods.  It looks like beautiful weather up and down the entire west coast for the coming week.  No fog, no rain, and a perfect 75 degrees when we get to the Napa Valley.  Wow.

Free water

Nothing like a little rain to perk things things up after a dry summer.  By September, the grass is a matted, dead-looking mess, although here we say "gone dormant." Which is true, because it's not politically correct to water big lawns in our part of town.

Those isolated bamboo roots under the ground have not given up by a long shot. They just keep changing their growing habits in desperation, and now they're sprouting like grass along the length of the buried root, instead of sending up single culms which were easier to control.

I hack off the new growth with the weed-eater, which destroys what passes for grass in that part of the yard.  Now that they've had a nice refreshing drink of water, who knows what we'll find after vacation? You can't turn your back on bamboo for a minute.
   

It gives you a grudging appreciation for the astonishing vitality contained in bamboo stalks and roots.  This "lucky bamboo" has lived in the dark downstairs bathroom for over 10 years, in the same vase of water, without a lick of soil or fertilizer.  Everything it needs to thrive is still stored in those stems. When the humans are long gone, the whole earth might be carpeted with bamboo.

Gnocchi artisan style

This is my hand-cranked gnocchi maker, and it's been featured many times on the blog.  It makes those mythic gnocchi pellets that John's mother and grandmother turned out by the thousand.  I pull the old contraption out occasionally because he loves gnocchi, and the BeeBo type have the evocative power of Proust's Madeline to him.  Such is the power of our childhood food memories.

The dough must be extremely dense (i.e. lots of flour) or it sticks to the crank like glue. I add cooked, riced potato to lighten it, but you still wind up with rock hard nuggets. Then you have to boil the heck out of them to even make them edible.  Maybe you've guessed, this is not my favorite to make or eat.

In a fine Italian restaurant where the pasta is hand-made, the gnocchi is often described on the menu with adjectives like "soft, light, pillowly."

For a change, I made a small batch entirely by hand yesterday. Let's just call it quality over quantity.

I found a recipe on the Internet with just five ingredients:  flour, egg, potato, Parmesan cheese and salt.

Flour is added sparingly to the egg and potato, just enough to bind...

 And form a soft, sticky dough.

The rolled strips are cut into small pieces.

And then the "magic thing" with the fork happens.  Mine look a bit lumpy.
(Julie, I need a lesson on that technique.)

These are larger and much softer than anything that comes out of the old gnocchi maker. I put them in the freezer for a few minutes to firm up before cooking.

They sink in the boiling water...

And then rise in a few minutes-- all done.  Unlike the indestructible bullet kind, these fall apart if you boil them hard and long.

So, what did the birthday boy think?  Well, he said he never met a gnocchi he didn't like, and these were "kind of like" the ones in the shrink-wrapped package from Italy.

"Yes," I replied snidely, "but without all the preservatives and heaven knows what else that gives them a shelf life of 3 years."

Long story short, this was much more fun than wrestling with the machine, and start to finish it only took me about a half hour.  I even ate a few!   Maybe we'll have gnocchi more than once a year.