10-YEAR PICNIC
This past week Linda and I have spent a lot of time reminiscing about our move to Yakima 10 years ago. Saturday we had a picnic at Gilbert Park here in Yakima to commemorate a part of that move. We were doing the exact same thing at the exact same place 10 years ago. It was on May 20th, 2007 that we drove over to Yakima from Tacoma to find a house. We had intended to go to the Greenway to have a picnic, but not knowing much about Yakima, we couldn't find it. So we stopped at Gilbert Park, which was near the realtor's office. At that time, the Allied Arts Building was also on the park grounds, and we ate our lunch sitting in the car parked in front of it. However, this building was torn down in 2015 due to being structurally unsound. The original building was a fruit warehouse that was built in the 1930's. The park is now a wide expanse of grass dotted with large evergreen trees and picnic tables. The weather last Saturday was sunny and warm, but with a cool breeze blowing. We had a nice picnic under the trees and then walked around the park a bit.
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| Site of our picnic |
We left a painted rock at the base of a sculpture in park. This is not a rock that I painted, but one that I got from a memorial rock garden swap site where we stopped on our way to the park. The name of the sculpture seemed to fit the rock perfectly.
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| "Spiraling Upwards" |
This week's recipe was incorporated into our picnic. One of my favorite things for lunch is a simple sandwich. But even a simple sandwich requires some thought to make it memorable, which is what I was going for on this 10-year celebration. So, I went to my absolute favorite chef, Vivian Howard, for inspiration. Chef Vivian has a wonderful show on PBS called A Chef's Life. If you haven't seen this show yet, please check it out, especially if you are from the South. She is one of the rising stars of Southern cuisine these days. Chef Vivian contends that there are three things that go into making a great sandwich. The sandwich must have the following: 1) something creamy; 2) something crunchy; 3) something tangy. You can certainly add other elements to your sandwich, but these are the three essentials. Click on this link here from ABC News Digital to watch Chef Vivian show you how a simple sandwich can become great. My sandwich started with Franz Organic Good Seed Bread to which I added a slather of homemade hummus (the creamy element). On top of that I layered thin slices of Fuji apple (the crunchy element), a slice of cheese, a couple slices of Applegate Organic Roasted Turkey, and finished it off with a slather of homemade honey mustard (the tangy element). It was perfect. Along with my sandwich I also took a thermal cup filled with Decaf Cold Brewed Ice Tea (recipe here) which I saw on one of my favorite food blogs, Simple Bites. It only took a few minutes to prepare all this (the cold brew was done the day before but still only took a few minutes). And it was memorable. (And Linda just had peanut butter.)
BAKING FAIL
This past week also gave me my first baking fail in a long time. I've been pretty successful with my baking endeavors so far, which never ceases to amaze me. But I had a rude awakening over this one. I decided to make a Blitz Focaccia (recipe here from King Arthur Flour) to use in making sandwiches for Friday night's supper. I gathered all my ingredients together and measured everything out into containers. I like to do this so I can focus on the recipe while I'm actually mixing it up. So, I had everything mixed up and had already placed the dough in the pan to stretch it out when Linda walked up and said, "What's the yeast for?" I was so focused on my recipe that I neglected to add in the yeast, which was sitting on the counter in its little container about 5 inches away from my elbow! I couldn't believe I had done that. After a few choice words I removed the dough from the baking pan, put it back in the bowl and proceeded to try and mix in the yeast. This is not as easy to do as it sounds, and I wasn't sure it was going to work but at that point I had no choice. Sure enough, after the rise time the dough did not seem to have risen any. I went ahead and baked it anyway. When it came out of the oven it was decidedly flatter than the previous focaccias I had made. And when I sliced it crosswise there were large blotches of what looked like uncooked dough. We used it for our sandwiches but I believe it was the densest sandwich bread I have ever had. The taste was okay, but the texture was a complete fail. You will notice there are no pictures of this disaster. That is because, according to the Internet, if there are no pictures, it didn't happen!
ASPARAGUS PATCH
I finally got the rest of my asparagus plants in the ground last Saturday. If all of the plants that I have right now survive through to next spring, we will have a nice patch of asparagus. My goal is to be able to harvest our own asparagus and not have to buy it, as it is somewhat pricey. I should have done this 10 years ago, but that's hindsight for you. The weather here has at last warmed up and after a couple of days of spring-like weather, we went directly into summer! We actually had to switch our HVAC system over from Heat to Cool. Monday the high temperature was 88 degrees and it felt like 150. The high yesterday was 93 degrees but felt cooler because it was quite windy. Today the high is supposed to be 72 degrees. This morning I went outside in my shorts and T-shirt to hopefully do some planting and I was freezing (it was about 58 degrees). So I'm waiting for it to warm up this afternoon. After this brief respite today, the temps are going back up and will most likely stay there. Here's a short video showing the asparagus patch. I'm sorry if it's a bit shaky, but it was hard to see where to point the camera. The fence is around it to keep out you-know-who.
PLOTTING THE GARDEN
I like to draw the layout for my garden on a piece of paper each year. That way I can use it to reference exactly what is planted where. Sometimes you can't tell which tomato or cucumber is planted in a particular spot until they start bearing fruit. So the garden layout drawing comes in handy. Also, I can reference last year's drawing to see where I planted things, so I don't plant the same vegetables in the same spot this year. Right now, I am struggling to find a spot to put everything. As usual, I went a bit overboard buying plants, and now I have to try and fit them into the available space. Also, I grew a lot of peppers from seed so that adds into the mix. I think I have it figured out, but you never know for sure until it's all in the ground.
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| 2017 Garden Plot |
PARTING SHOT
Last, but certainly not least (so she tells me), we have our Parting Shot for this week. I happened to be outside grilling supper and Summer Girl came up and was rolling around in the grass. I asked her to pose for a picture to go on the blog, and she obliged.
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| Summer says "Hi" |
That's all for this week, I hope to see you back here next week! Have a good one!!
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