Cook 'em Dan-O

Our New Chickens

Here are the latest additions, Milk Chocolate and Dark Chocolate. Don't ask me which is which.

Cactus Anyone?

Got adventurous at Dos Amigos tacqueria and ordered the cactus and goat cheese burrito. Pretty tasty. Cactus is a bit like gelatinous bell pepper. No really you should try it.

Garden Update

I've posted some additional photos to the "Expanding Our Garden" photo library.  

We now have everything planted:  various salad greens (the arugula is already coming up--yum!), radishes, carrots, cucumbers (for Danielle), beets, beans, corn, swiss chard, a load of peppers (from mild to mouth-scorching), asparagus, potatoes, muskmelons (for Crystal) and (queen of the garden) an abundance of tomatoes.  To top it off, we've added in some herbs at ends of the beds--oregano and dill--both because we love to cook with fresh herbs and because they should attract beneficial insects.

Last year, I hacked up the ground, added some compost, and chucked in the plants.  They did well, but when you're an OCD farmer more and bigger is always better.  So as I've already noted, I put a lot of work into amending the soil in the beds, and it's already showing great results.  We've added row covers (not shown in the photos) and some bird netting to keep the little birds from munching on the miniature carrot tops and other shoots.  We followed the full Grow Better Veggies recipe for planting the tomatoes, including use of fresh fish heads.  OK, they were from farm-raised trout bought at Costco, but I was proud of being able to put expediency ahead of rigorous adherence to a preconceived plan of going to Morgan Hill (Poppy's) for fresh-off-the-boat fish heads.  I've also taken to visiting the garden in the evening, picking off the bugs and tossing them into the chickens' area for immediate "recycling".

The asparagus is already starting to flower.  We have to let it flower this year, then cut it back and we can begin to harvest next year.  I had a bite from one of the stems the peacocks bit off, and it was very tasty.  

So things are just starting to pop up out of the ground, but we can't wait to begin harvesting and enjoying our crop.  We've got a variety of peppers and tomatoes (no tomatillos this year), so just add onions and tortilla chips and salsa by the pool is in our future!

How To Spot a Good Restaurant

When I was traveling with my sister and some of our offspring on a cross-country trip (for me and mine, stopping at New Orleans) we made a pact with the mostly-teen passengers--no junk food.  No McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, etc.  Any place we stopped had to be of the non-chain variety.

Pretty quickly, the task of finding restaurants fell to me.  We found a great place in Pecos, Texas (which has a reputation much bigger than the town) where the owner and cooks all laughed at my attempt to eat the spicy Mexican food.  We had what Sean still considers to be the best tamale ever at a place in Albuquerque that was located at the back of a souvenir shop (I had my doubts about that one).  OK, there was the place outside of Baton Rouge where seemingly everything was deep-fried.  But all in all we ate at some amazing places.  And with no Internet or Lonely Planet guides to help us.

Some tips on how I did it:

• Look for locals in the restaurant.  Lots of people know this one.  It's especially true in San Francisco's Chinatown.
• Skip the chains.  It doesn't take long to figure out that Waffle House is going to be a lot like Denny's.
• Stay away from the high-rent districts.  Not entirely (as I'll explain), but just remember that if the restaurants are paying a lot for rent, they're going to have to charge a lot.
• The less neon the better.  Neon is the visual equivalent of the barkers in the French Quarter or North Beach trying to get you into the peep shows.  And as with those shows, once you're in you're likely to be disappointed.
• Look for a side street.  I found the restaurant Adega by walking up Yonge Street, past the Eaton Centre (think Toronto's version of Picadilly Circus) and lookiing down side streets.  Eventually I cam to Elm Street and found Adega, along with a number of other places.  If you're on the main street, all the neon and glitter will get people into the restaurant; the food doesn't have to speak for itself.  On the side streets, you only go there if you're lost or if you're looking for good food.
• And don't ignore the ethnicity of the neighborhood.  If there are lots of Middle Easterner's, you're going to find some great falafel places.  One of the best gyros I've ever had was purchased from a hole-in-the-wall place near Athens, for a Euro.

That should be enough to get your started.  And once you've gone to the trouble of finding a promising place, follow through and try something that's a signature dish.  Don't wimp out and stick with your starched-tablecloth version of a cheeseburger.  I had the octopus carpaccio at Adega and it was fantastic--thin slices of (cooked) octopus, with a great olive oil and pepper sauce.

Bon Appetit!