Southern hospitality

Today I'm in Atlanta, Georgia for a few meetings. Overall it's pretty city, with surprisingly little graphiti for a major city. The landscape is surprisingly similar to Dallas, fairly flat with a few tall buildings and spread-out. Lots of dense green trees in the distance crowded up next to the buildings.

As urban myth has it, Southern hospitality is quite friendly. People talk to you when getting on and off the elevator. Kind of odd, but I'm getting use to the "Ya'll" greeting. It's catchy.

We ventured over to South City Kitchen for dinner tonight. It was a more up-scale "traditional" southern food restaurant. I had the Slow Smoked Pork BBQ & Prawns for an appetizer. Washed down with some delicious corn bread (fantastic) and local 240 pale ale. For the main dish I had the Cider and Chile Braised Pork Shank. It fell off the bone it was so tasty.

Overall, I give it two thumbs up.

http://www.southcitykitchen.com/midtown/index.htm

Phinney Winter Beer Taste

On Saturday night I walked over to the Phinney Neighborhood Association Winter Beer Taste event. As luck would have it, I was the last person they accepted into the event. Phew! The Phinney ridge association building is actually an old school house built in 1917. Each room had about 6 local breweries show-off their latest brews, most of which were Winter beers, ready for tasting and feedback.

All in all, it was a great event. Wall to wall packed with beer conosiours, good blue grass music and a good layout.

I was able to take a sip or two of most of the beers on draught. Some of my favorites were Lazy Boy, Deschutes, Issaquah, Scuttlebutt and Alaskan winter beers.

28 Miles of Pain

On Saturday I decided I would ride from my house to the Burke Gilman trail and see how far it would take me. As I found, it goes really far. 28 miles to be exact on my route along lake Washington, through UW and up into Lake Forest Park.

It was a beautiful ride. All the leaves turning, sun out and temperature moderate.

The ride would have been more fun if (a) I were in shape (b) I hadn't fallen when still attached to my cleats at the stop sign (c) the way back wasn't up hill.

Blue is the new black!

I'm supposed to be taking a break from posting, but I know Scott isn't going to comment on the elections last night so here I am!

We both sent in our absentee ballot (did you know that more than half of all Washington-onians vote by absentee?) and therefore did not have to line up at the polls like other people, which is good becuase it HAILED here yesterday. I am glad we did not have to wait in that!

We headed over to Greg and Lauren's for an election night party, and sadly, Scott was the only one wearing red in the room. He took it all in stride though while the rest of us whooped and hollered it up when the news stations called the election a few minutes after 8pm. Yes We Can and Yes We Did!!

To be fair, McCain's speech was very nice AND that both women on that team sure dressed better than Michelle last night!

The robe - newly discovered "indoor jacket"

While on a recent Cost-co expedition, May and I stumbled into the clothing section and May pointed out a particularly soft and fluffy bath robe. At first I laughed, then I felt it and said, "you know, that might be comfy".

Today marks the day that I'm officially an old man. I like to read while lounging in my bath robe with a good cup of tea or scotch.

Next on my list of winter must-haves is a pair of calf-skin slippers lined with alpaca fur.

Spider mania

Back in Los Angeles, I remember the first rain storms usually brought droves of ants inside to seek shelter and find new treasures. Not surprisingly, Seattle is in a constant state rain and there aren't many ants. What we lack in ants we more than make up for in SPIDERS. At any given point in time there are a dozen or so spider webs on our trees, windows and front doors. I know, pretty creepy. So far though, we have managed to live in harmony with them.

In honor of our six-legged friends, May decided to make a spider Halloween costume for a friend's party last night. As you can see, it turned out awesome!

I was a "Land Rover mechanic" in my usually overalls, gloves, head-lamp and wrench. Unfortunately, everyone thought I was just a cole miner.

Roasted Pears

We bought a bag of D'Anjou pears from Costco but since they aren't ripe yet, they just sit on the counter looking very sad and lonely. I wanted to use them up so I tested out a new roasted pear recipe. There are a gazillion recipes out there on this, and I went with the Giada De Laurentiis version because it is SO easy to do.

Melt brown sugar into equal part apple juice, then stir in 2 tablespoons of butter. Pour that mixture over your peeled and cored pears and then let them sit in a 400 degree oven for about an hour. The pears come out soft and caramel-y, perfect with some vanilla ice cream!

For day two of our Autumn exploration weekend, we decided to wake up early for a hike and take a 2 hour drive east of Seattle to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness on the east slopes of the Cascades. What made the journey particularly exciting was driving the last 30 miles on a fire road full of potholes. If only we had my LandRover!

Since fall foliage is in full turn right now, the reds, yellows and greens were quite the treat on the drive up. However, the hike itself was a little bare on the fall colors. Don't get me wrong, the alpine wilderness was beautiful, but it was pure evergreen pine trees. Hike stats:

Trail name - Ingalls Lake
Length - 8.6 miles roundtrip (5.6 miles roundtrip to the summit only)
Hiking time - 5 hours
Elevation gain - 2,400 feet
Temperature - freezing in the shade*
Mental note, when deciding what gear to leave in the car for a climb steeper than you thought, don't skimp on the water.

The hike was brisk, refreshing and a lot of fun becuase it went through such different types of terrain. We walked through pine forests, barren rock slope sections and quite a bit of snow at the top of the summit. We started too late though, so had only enough time to get to the summit before heading back down the trail back to the car. Lucky us, this first half was the hard part! What we didn't get to see is 2 miles past the summit is supposedly a pretty little lake. Next time, I guess.

Fall in Seattle

We wanted to check out all the fall colors that are going on right now and heard the Washington Park Arboretum has a lovely Autumn Colors walk. The walk was very nice and the colors were gorgeous! Half of the walk (about 3/4 of a mile) is along a grassy path and we saw a ton of little kids running around. There were also quite a few photographers out and about. The arboretum is huge, so we'll have to go back every season to see what is blooming.

Cream Braised Brussel Sprouts

Somehow, Scott has taken a big liking to Brussel Sprouts. Whenever he sees them in the grocery store, he insists on getting some. We bought a 2 lb bag from Costco the other day and I've been looking up brussel sprout recipes ever since. We usually either saute or roast them with S&P, olive oil and maybe garlic. If you know of any other interesting recipes, send them our way!

Anyway, while I was doing a brussel sprout search online, I came across this Cream Braised Brussel Sprouts recipe. I normally dislike creamy foods, but my mouth started watering becuase the blogger goes on and on about how fantastic these are. I decided to give them a try just becuase it's different.

They were super easy to make. Basically, I cleaned and quartered the sprouts. Then sauted them in some butter and salt until light browned. Added in a cup of cream, and braised for half an hour. To finish, I sprinkled with some lemon juice. Easy peasy. I stuck a meatloaf in the oven, and then was able to time this recipe so everything was done right on time and was spooned onto our plates piping hot.

Our general assessment: eh. They weren't bad, but we didn't think they were great either. I couldn't eat too much becuase it was too rich for me, so I would prefer to eat them our regular way.

Next brussel sprout recipe for us to try is Brussel Slaw. Sorta like cole slaw, I guess. I think I'll wait to make these when the weather gets warmer, or when I grill some pork chops!