Sriracha Mayonnaise and Crispy Baked Apples

No, not together.  Although they could be part of the same meal, those two things do not belong on the same plate.  Just being clear.....

Everyone has (or should have) Sriracha sauce in their pantry.  If you don't, go get some. Now. It's useful in oh, so many ways: drizzled on scrambled eggs, added to soups and stews to offset blandness, mixed with things like mayonnaise or ketchup as a condiment, dabbed on ordinary cheese before it turns into a grilled cheese sandwich, on and on. It's spicy, (made from chilies) but it has a lot of flavor layers that makes it a great addition when you just need a little hit of heat.  

A week or so I was out to dinner, eating a corn fritter and dipping into a delicious sauce.  I asked what was in the sauce and was told it was a "sriracha aoli."  In other words, sriracha mixed with mayo.  Zut alors!  It makes a perfect dipping sauce for fritters or for those frozen onion rings that you just had to cook for dinner.  Or french fries, or fish sticks (do they still make fish sticks?) or cold chicken or a hard boiled egg.  Try it.  You'll like it.

Crispy Baked Apples:  you know all those apples you have hanging out in your kitchen, the ones that seemed so full of promise when you picked them from your neighbor's tree or said "Yes!" when asked if you wanted a bag full?  (Substitute the word "pear" for apples, the over-abundance is the same.)  You could make applesauce, or you did and you still have apples left.  You could make an apple pie, which would be delicious, but a lot of work and then you have to invite friends over to eat it and you really aren't in the mood for company right now and you have no vanilla ice cream in the freezer and what's the point of apple pie with out ice cream, you ask yourself.  Apple crisp: same thing, yummy but too much work.

Solution:  Crispy Baked Apples. Four ingredients, one small bowl, one baking dish.  Cut apples (or pears) in half.  Core.  Put in baking dish, shaving a teeny bit off the bottom if they are wobbly.  In a small bowl, combine about a half cup raw almonds that you have chopped as fine as you can.  This will mean some pieces are the size of small peas, some the size of grains of rice, some even smaller.  (You can do this in a food processor but then you have to clean it and I hate that part, so I use a knife and a cutting board.)  To the finely chopped almonds add about 1/3 cup sugar and a scant half cube of melted butter.  Mix up.  Add a pinch of salt and you could add a little cinnamon if you wanted.  Smush it onto the apples, tamping it down a bit, so it covers the top of each apple, like you were covering it in clay, molding the topping onto the apple with your hand.  The topping should be compacted on top of the apple, not just plopped on.  Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, until the topping is lovely golden brown and apples are tender.

That's it.  You could serve these warm with some of that vanilla ice cream that is missing from your freezer.  I mixed a little honey into some plain yogurt and used a little of that and it was perfect, not too sweet.  The topping on the apples is crisp and crunchy, which is perfect with the softness of the apple.  Even refrigerated until the next day the topping stays crunchy, more than you can say for an apple crisp.  A perfect way to use up some of those apples before the fruit flies build a condo in them.

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In-N-Out Burgers in my Backyard

If Buster Posey was in my backyard and hit a high home run , it would land in the parking lot of the In-N-Out burger joint two blocks away from me.  That's how close it is. Now, that's a good thing if you love burgers.  Especially if you love fast food burgers, as opposed to the real, slow, meaty, juicy bacon and blue cheese burgers on a substantial bun.  Well, OK, In-N-Out doesn't do bacon or blue cheese but they do decent fast food burgers. In fact, on an NPR thing I listened to about a year ago, the environmental beef advocate guy who was doing the interview said the only fast food place he would eat was In-N-Out because they actually used beef without fillers, they made their own patties instead of buying them pre-made and they cooked them at a high enough temp to kill off any latent creepy bacteria.  Plus they actually use real, whole potatoes to make their fries (I have seen this!) and their shakes have ice cream and milk and a little flavoring, what a concept.

But I digress.  The reason I brought them up is because most of the time you can open the back door to my  house and smell sautéed onions.  It is a delicious smell. It is mouth-watering.  At other times you can smell meat, that thick, deep smell, which can be off-putting if you are a vegetarian but bothers me not.  At the best times you can get a whiff of not only the sautéed onions but the entire burger: meat, grilled mustard, lettuce and tomatoes.  I must say, it makes a person want to march over there and just get a burger and sit down and eat it.

But I don't.  I lick the smell off the air and drool a little. Maybe once every two months Jenn and I indulge in a burger, but it is probably not even that often.  I must admit, I like that it's around the corner, just in case.  Sometimes a burger is the only thing that will work.  And don't even get me started on their "secret" menu.  Did you know you can get the entire burger works without a bun?  Or the entire works without the burger?  Or a grilled cheese?  There was a site for their secret menu but it has disappeared because of too much web traffic.  However, if you are diligent and have the time to search around,  you can find it.

For now, I am happy to have them as a neighbor.  I wonder what they will be giving out for Halloween...... we will have to check that out!  It's more than a month away but I will report back. Maybe free burgers?  Free milkshakes? Free nothing?

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Garden Post Mortem

Sad, but true.  My gardening acumen is nada.  I have the Black Thumb.  Yes, for a short while I had things moving along, some basil, squash, peas, arugula, green beans and the much hoped for tomatoes.  Alas, the arugula was the most successful, which is fine, I love the stuff.  The basil was good for a while but then got woody and tough.  Peas gave some goodness but then acquired a furry mold.  Green beans, maybe total there were 30.  Squash total: zero. Who else out there cannot grow zucchini, come on, raise your hands.  See, no hands showing.  So sad.

Tomato plants are still out there, in their ten gallon buckets, the plants themselves looking like survivors of a concentration camp.   We got maybe a dozen good tomatoes, another dozen small but fine, and there are still at least a dozen on the plants, some reddish, many green.  However, now they are being guarded by a gigantic spider, one with fangs and a small metal helmet, holding a tiny spear with a poison arrow on the end.  The spider is about the size of my dog's face.  Just seeing it made my hair do that shivery thing, where it feels like there are crawly things in your hair and it itches, but you know it's just the creep factor of the huge and dangerous spider defying you to try and touch one of your tomatoes.  There are small things, about the size of hummingbirds, spun in tight webs that the spider is clearly saving for a later feast.  It is so unsettling I can't even go near the plants for fear of it jumping at me with its fangs and spear ready to puncture my face.  

So, that's about it.  I know I have said this before, but even the mint I tried to grow is languishing and everyone told me "No, don't plant mint, it will take over the garden!!!!"  Rest assured, it hasn't.  There are some nasturtium plants growing a little bit, which I count as a triumph.

Ah, well, so it goes. Many people told me that all you need is good soil (check) and sunlight (check) and water (check.) Maybe I used too much water or too little, I don't know.  All I know is that if we live here next year I am not going to waste the water trying to grow anything.  I am going to bake dozens and dozens of shortbread cookies and offer to trade them for produce.  I have friends with gardens who can't (or won't) bake their way out of a frozen Sara Lee Cheesecake Box and perhaps if I tempt them with shortbread they will be willing to part with tomatoes and squash and beans and peas and basil and more tomatoes.  I will even throw in a carrot cake (now I can see the gleam in your eyes!)  But I don't think I will attempt to conquer the Curse of the Black Thumb again.

But I have to say that those 30 beans and that arugula and those few tomatoes that I did get before the radioactive Spider Henchman came along were really, really good.

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SOFA Santa Rosa

OK, this is not about sofas in Santa Rosa, although it could be.  In my personal house there is a huge shortage of sofas, and we could therefore use some more.  We have one small one but it is in a small room and a larger one in the other room, where people actually sit, would be nice.  Not a flower pattern but..... oh, wait, I digress.

SOFA means something like South of A Street Artist Area or South Of Funky Artists or some such thing.  Actually, it's a very cool little artist area here in Santa Rosa that is pretty much defined by one of my favorite places, the restaurant Spinster Sisters.  That place is almost the cornerstone of the SOFA incarnation.

Today was Vine Arts, the second (I think) sort of art and wine and food event in this area.  Buy a ticket, get a glass, get to taste wine, eat some food samples and see totally eclectic art.  The weather was lovely, not too hot, not cold and the crowds were, unfortunately for the participating artists, small.  But we had fun, we saw a lot of art we liked, met very nice artists, and finally ended up with the best eats in SR, Spinster Sisters.

Four of us sat at the bar, of course, and had the following:  sweet peppers with goat cheese, corn and coconut fritters with siracha aoli, potato and red pepper samosas with the most amazing mint and cilantro sauce, red curry mussels with broth that we soaked bread in and scooped up with the mussel shells, it was that good, charred calamari with a summer squash salad, Kennebec fries, olives, and some other things I have now forgotten.  We had delicious Cab on tap and the bill for the four of us, with tax, was $102.00.  Honestly, with the quality and quantity of the food, one of my brothers was looking for the rest of the bill, disbelieving that a dinner that good could be so inexpensive.  

And I haven't even mentioned the service.  In the dozen times I have eaten at SS, the service has always been spot on.  Recommendations on wine, and tastes, are always given, water is always there when you need it, food comes out quickly,  plates are removed when appropriate, servers are always happy to see us and they make us feel like family.

All in all, it was a great evening in the'hood.

Feeling like I am stuck in Lodi again

Not sure, maybe it's the relentlessness of the summer weather but I am feeling like I am stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits lately.  Just mired in muck.  Can't really put my finger on any one thing.  It's more like a lot of small things that add up to one big sense of dissatisfaction and restlessness.  

As happy as I am to have a job, by this time of the season the fake hospitality voice I project at the hotel is getting very tiresome.  I find myself, in the middle of my canned informational speeches, wanting to say something like "... and if  you have questions about the local restaurants, don't ask me, I don't eat here."   Or  "Honestly, I am so over wine tasting at wineries that I don't even want to discuss it with you."  You get the point.  Giving the same answers to the same questions over and over is making me sick of my own voice.  I heard this story on NPR a few weeks ago about a Japanese company who had a holographic receptionist created for a big business building.  She was programmed to answer many typical questions like "what floor is Mr. Yakasumi on" and "where are the bathrooms" and other things people might ask her.  It was a lot cheaper to have such a "robot" created than it was to hire a person.  I sometimes think the hotel would benefit from doing the same thing.  Of course, then I would be out of a job.

The traffic getting to and from work is getting worse all the time.  On a weekend morning I can get from my house to the hotel lobby in 24 minutes.  That's acceptable.  However, any other time the journey can take up to 40 minutes.  That is not acceptable. If I got paid more, fine, but at the low wage I make it is annoying to spend more than 80 minutes on a commute.  And the drivers all seem to have come from the same driving school, going ten miles under the speed limit.  Grrrrr......

And the fact that I do a great job but get paid so little is also very frustrating and insulting.  Scrounging around for rent money every month is not what I thought would be happening at this point in my life.

Added to all of it is the uncertainty about living here.  Between me and my daughter, we are just barely getting the bills paid.  When the season slows down and there are less hours on the schedule, what will happen then?  

If you have read this far, I apologize for the whining but that's the thing about typing a blog.  You get to say anything.  No one needs to read it, but it helps get it out of my internal hard drive.

A less depressing blog will follow, I promise.

Oregon, gone in a hurry

Why is it that getting out of town and having a great time makes you more tired than going to work?  Is it the force of the anticipation?  The intensity of family and friends (and all that wine?)  Or is it that we want it to last and last and it, the road trip, the party, the dinner, the conversation, is over in what seems like a day and a half.  Oh, yeah, it was just about a day and a half if you factor in the morning that was lost in a wine-hangover!

The drive up was great, left Santa Rosa at 5:00 am, went up 101 past Crescent City, took 199 over to Grants Pass and 5 up to Eugene.  I love leaving before sunrise, there is such mystery and promise in the dark, few cars on the road, no cops.  Light comes up quickly and by then you are almost in the Redwoods.  Beautiful.

Dinner on Friday where much red wine was consumed, a slow start to Saturday, the party with 200 pound pit-roasted pig on Saturday night.  Tons of sides, lots of excellent beer and even a bonfire, although I was on my air mattress on the patio, snoozing the night away by that time.  Very quiet Sunday, visited a couple of wineries, went to bed early, again outside on the deck.  We drove home down 5, which is fine until you get to Redding, then it gets boring.  We stopped in Redding to see the Sundial Bridge which is very cool and a good place to stop.  Took the turn-off near Clear Lake, came back through the Calistoga area, all in all a nice drive.

But honestly, this entire week has felt like I worked a double shift every day.  Maybe it is just that time of the year in the hospitality industry:  you have been working hard since May (4 long months) and you know that there are  almost three more months to go and just that realization is exhausting.  But then, after Thanksgiving, there are two weeks of vacation.  Vacation somewhere far, far away.

Now it's time to do research on plane tickets, hotels, trains, cities, foreign phrases.  Just realizing that fact is energizing!