new blog direction (temporary)

At swim practice this morning (5350 yards! I'm at 44 miles and change for the month. YES!) I realized what the true purpose of this blog could be. Who needs to read about some food I ate or some trip I took? Really. No, what I realized I need to do is post photos of my single gay friends and use this blog as a matchmaking service.

So, you've all seen Dominic now. And if you've read the other blog, you've seen and heard about Frank and Chuck. Today's victi-- FRIEND is Christopher.



Actually, I can't say much about Christopher. He's a recent Smelt, about 40 years old, seems quite nice, definitely attractive (remember, we've seen him in his swim suit - and less!), seems to have a solid and grounded personality. Wow, except for the age, it's almost like I'm pimping out Miss America. We won't discuss his enormous face-mask goggles. Let's just leave it at single and likely a really good catch.

See, these are the things we talk about in the locker room. People think that our gay team must be doing unspeakable things in the showers and locker areas, but no. Most of us are old marrieds, in fact, and most of us really are there to swim. Besides, unless you're a swimmer, you probably wouldn't care for that curious fragrance of chlorine that each of us gives off after marinating in the pool for an hour and a half!

Off for drinks at IML this afternoon, then on to the XMen movie with CG. This blog will return to food and travel talk soon, though if talk of pimping out my single gay friends arises in the future....

leather.chicken.banana cake

A whole lot going on this week, and because of the multiple photos I decided to post here rather than over in the Yahoo! 360 blog. I'll simply send people this way instead.

Wow. Weird week. I shan't get into details here; this is not a work blog. Things have conspired to keep me swamped, though. The three-day weekend ahead is welcome. The trip to Sweden in only two weeks will be all the more welcome!


Last night was a terrific start (well, there was the wake and funeral, but, in fact, I left them feeling celebratory, which is how one should leave such an occasion, I think), dining late at Frontera Grill, sitting at the bar (eventually joined by Jill Gubesch, the sommelier), enjoying the grilled shrimp with a verde sauce made with fresh peas, asparagus, and mashed turnips. Very yummy. A late night, though, as we were in the door at 11 and I still had to brine a chicken before bed.

Yes, I did the brining again. It's a very good recipe. I'll be using it more in the future and browsing the source cookbook some. We've got a houseguest this weekend: Conrad's friend Howard is in town from San Francisco so he can attend IML. (Jeph, stop panting!) He was with us at Frontera last night, and enjoyed dinner out on the balcony with us tonight. He just left about 10 minutes ago, dressed in leather pants. I don't think I understand the leather community much, but oh well. Howard is fine company for dinner, so that's all that matters. Mind you, he did use my towel this morning....


Also with us was Bill. Dr. Bill, as Allison calls him. Another Smelt, and a super nice, sweet, handsome guy. Single friends, this is a hint! Bill appreciates food and wine, so we did our best to have a simple and good dinner. He made a salad, Howard bought a baguette, and I put the chicken on the table.


In short, it was lovely. Cool outside, but one really neat thing about the big city is the glow of the sunset in adjacent apartment towers. We sipped an Illinois white wine that had a pleasing herbaceous nature to it (one of the first notes I picked up was mint!).

After a break, we resumed eating. Dessert! I made a couple of banana cakes, split one in half, and filled and frosted it with a sour cream ganache. Really lovely with the very fresh cake. Alongside it I poured some small tastes of a Michigan apricot dessert wine. The wine stood up to the cake fine. A satisfying way to end it all.

Conrad is finishing dishes. I am drained from the week and too little sleep last night.

Swimming at 9:00 tomorrow. After a couple of days away from the pool but with a full plate of food ever at hand, I'm back to fat and bloated. A little self-punishment tomorrow morning, then! I am within easy striking distance of 40 miles for the month. Now to get the Sweet Handsome Boy Friend back swimming regularly as much as possible before vacation!

Caught!

There must be a blogging primer out there that lays down certain rules. I imagine it says things like

1. If you use photos of your friends, use flattering ones.
2. Try not to say anything remotely disparaging about anyone you don't want to offend.
3. Maybe it's not a good idea to slag your workplace but add a blog link to your CV in your P&T papers.

Hmmmm.

Dominic caught me. Whoops!
I didn't realize he was reading the Yahoo! blog, but he is, and he followed a link to this one and saw the story of him, the pears, and the soy sauce. And the almost naked (but in a good, clean way!) photo of him. Let me state, then (and since I know he'll come back to add comments), that Dominic tried everything that came his way that night of sushi, even when I totally lied to him and told him that the tuna was red tofu made not from the green soy beans, but from the red ones, of course. To his credit, he more played along than believed me.

The first photo is from Big Shoulders, 2003. Dominic is in front. You can tell I'm in the photo by the blindingly white glare from my body!

So there, a story fully fleshed out with balance added. Sounds like a nice white wine blend. Ah, for some more of the Joie....

Dominic does, by the way, wear shirts. I will admit, though, that most of the time I've known him, he's been mostly undressed and fairly wet!

Sunny Saturday

It's cliched, perhaps, but there is something about a gorgeous day - sunny, not too warm - that really does make a body feel good to be alive. Heading home from Conrad's hotel this morning up Lake Shore Drive, I watched the runners, the sun on the lake. And then to have a good, hard, strong practice? Terrific! I've capped it all with a venti misto and low fat cinnamon swirl coffee cake from Starbucks and some leftover rice casserole for lunch, and I'm good to go.

So, of course, I'll stay in this afternoon!

Hey, it takes a lot of work to be this fishbelly white. Days like this make anyone feel good, but I am anything but a sun worshipper. Besides, there is always work to be done. Alas.

Eh. I'll do it this afternoon.

It was a late night last night. Conrad's company function hosted cocktails until 1:00, and I was there to meet a few of Conrad's colleagues from out of town. We had a lovely chat with one woman, Lei, from the Honolulu office. We shared travel and dining experiences, and ended, I sort of recall, by talking of our visits to Sedona. It's a place I hope Conrad and I can return to this year: we've been twice now, last in 2004. The photo of us is from that trip. Yes, like many communities that rely on tourism, it has its share of tackiness and traps. Ignore them. The natural surroundings are remarkable, and when you sit outside your hotel room at night, able to see the stars because so little light from town bleeds into the night sky, you'll be glad. Or you will be, at least, if you come from a big city.

The other shot is from that same afternoon of hiking. I think that's a yucca. I'm not sure. My grasp of southwest plants is shaky unless I'm cooking with them! I found it fascinating, though, the skeleton of the flowering stalk still there in November. I get a little funnily obsessed about sights like that when I'm on trips; I'll keep returning to them, utterly fascinated for that day or so. Mary Alice moments extended, I guess. I use the shot for my profile in Last.fm (a fun site, if you are like me and you love the stats you can harvest from iTunes and the like).

Puff ball

Just posted over the Yahoo! blog some assorted nattering including about my friend Greer at the Farmer's Market back home. Darn good place. Terrace is blessed with decent soil and reasonable growing weather. My Mum got a lot of potatoes, peas, scarlet runner beans, and zucchini out of the garden, and usually a nice batch of tomatoes and English cucumbers in the green house. Other stuff from time to time, as I recall, but those were the mainstays.

And flowers. Canterbury bells were my favourites, and I loved the hollyhocks, nasturtiums, pinks, stocks, delphinium, and sweet peas. Again, she grew other ones, but those are the ones I recall most fondly.

I digress. I was talking of the Farmer's Market, and it has started up already. No, not much local produce, but local products, certainly. That recalled to mind a photo from a few years back, one Saturday morning when I was visiting home.



A puffball someone had brought in to show. Mushroom picking is big back home, with scads of people combing the autumn forests for pine mushrooms to sell and never to eat. Chanterelles are popular, too. From what I know, the puffballs are edible, but I'm not one much for mushrooms, and I think this one may have been too large,

Greer, incidentally, denies that the foot is hers, but I am pretty darn certain it is!

Dominic and the pears

Just in from swimming, sitting eating a leftover pear anise crisp from earlier in the week. And I think, "Peter, what should you write about?" The dessert was the answer: write about Dominic and the pears (and hope he never sees this or else he'll be cross and embarrassed).

This is Dominic (Gay Pride Chicago, 2005).Dominic is a terrific guy. Smart, funny, very good looking, universally adored as the former swim team president and occasional subsitute coach. He's a bit younger (late 20s). Grew up in the Chicago 'burbs.

Dominic, at age 25, had never eaten pears in his life.

Are pears not common in the US? I would have thought so. Somehow, though, Dominic had never tasted pear until coming for brunch a few years back. I knew of this gap in his culinary experience, so I served the pear anise crisp (a bastardization of Mark Miller's rhubarb anise crisp from the Coyote Cafe Cookbook). Dominic, I am happy to report survived.

It shouldn't have been a surprise to me that when we went for his first sushi experience a year or so later, I learned that he had made it to age 26 or so without ever having tasted soy sauce either.

Root Beer Schnapps

I don't know what got me thinking about this today. Root Beer Schnapps. An odd think to think of while walking across campus. I hadn't even got my coffee at that point, so it wasn't the thought of Creamo. Which was, of course, an essential part of the beverage being poured in the photo. Some Creamo, some ice, some Grand Marnier, some lemon juice, some Root Beer Schnapps.

Frankly, I rather dislike root beer as a pop. Still, we were a little loopy from wine with dinner. The whatever-it-was we made was a lovely nightcap.

From a trip home to Terrace in summer, 2002. As is frequently the case when I visit people, I am conscripted to cook. That evening was no different, though I wasn't all that pleased with the effort. The panna cotta didn't set well, though the poached cherries were tasty. The fish was fine if ordinary. Ah well.

At least I got Greer to take care of the salad fixings. If only she had a salad spinner....

Going back. Part 2

Jeph is a whiz at posting seventy-leven-billion posts a night (now that I've given him a kick in the seat of his pants and reactivated his mighty blogging powers. Why do I feel like Zan and Jayna all rolled into one, now?). I'm not so amazing. I'm actually sort of neglecting the other blog to get some more content on here. Ah well, someone might see it and actually read it.

Another old food thing for you: a wonderful photo from the single best meal I ever had.



Let me set the stage....

In 2003 I started on tenure track at UIC Library. I had told Conrad that as a celebration of getting the position, I wanted to have a great dinner to celebrate. We were heading up to British Columbia for a two-week, whirlwind drive around the province, and I knew exactly where I wanted to dine: Sooke Harbour House. It was the end of March when I got the offer, but I e-mailed them right away and got a reservation for July 25, thus pinning down the dates of our travel.

We were going to dine with my close friends Kendall and Kevin. No, neither is gay. I've known Kendall since my first year of undergrad and Kevin was a close friend from Terrace who swam, got me through my first marathon, and shared a July birthday with me.



We ended up adding a last minute guest, Kevin's friend Sara. Even better - a good restaurant deserves fine company. The last minute change meant a 6:00 reservation rather than 7:30, but it was just as well: we lingered 4+ hours there over the courses.

Dinner was phenomenal. We stuck with BC wines throughout, enjoying a Venturi-Schulze white, a Quail's Gate Pinot Noir, and the Brandenburg No, 3 dessert wine from Venturi-Schulze. All were good, plus discussing the wines with the sommelier (who was delighted we were chancing some Vancouver Island wines he liked) was fun. The Brandenburg No. 3, when I sniffed it, struck me as scented with peppermint candy. Wonderful and unexpected and my own perception of the wine.

But the food was the star. The restaurant prides itself on mostly local products; if it doesn't grow locally, it doesn't go in the food. So, for example, I'd read that rhubarb was used as a souring agent in place of lemons. Wonderful idea.

Some of my other courses:

Sea lettuce and crab broth with wild rice and mushroom-stuffed nasturtium blossom.


Seared weathervane scallops with fingerling potatoes and chanterelle mushrooms.


The main course, pictured above: trap-caught sablefish marinated with miso and tamari, served in a lemon eucalyptus broth with sea asparagus, gooseneck barnacles, rutabaga slice, and red onion.

A logan berry tart with bing cherry ice cream for dessert.


A selection of local cheeses with a glass of armagnac, followed by coffee.


My birthday was around the corner. My friends and my wonderful man were with me. The weather was terrific, the meal was fantastic.

Is it any wonder why I'm sooooo fat?

Going back. Part 1

A little while ago I had the idea that it might be interesting to post to my Yahoo! photo albums a collection of food photos from the past. It's still not a bad idea. But I kind of have a hankering to use this blog a little more even as I maintain my Yahoo! blog. Crazy? You tell me.

But how about this: use this blog to highlight some past travel and food and the like, and use the other blog for current events. Hmmm. Not a bad idea.

So, I sit here sipping some Viognier, just finished with some banking, and I decide to launch into some oldies but goodies. (after all, I didn't even meet my NBF until this past February - lots to catch up on!)

So let's start with this one: an old menu. When we got the colour photo/document printer, we started getting wilder about how we did dinner parties. For this party we printed 4X6 photos with the menu printed over top or alongside some key ingredients. Frank, as I recall, thought these were lemons.

Just for the sake of a profile photo....

Oh look, a second token entry. I'm not yet used to this site, and there are doubtless many ins and outs I should know. Ah well.

For the sole purpose of adding a photo to my profile, I'm putting it in an entry. The photo was taken at Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver at the end of March.


In other news: 5700 yards at practice this morning, bringing me to 21,500 for the week and to 134 miles already this year. A mile a day, that is! I'm utterly chuffed.

Token May entry

I've been commenting a bunch lately on Jeph's blog without adding too much to this one. Really, I still play more with my Yahoo! blog than this one. Still, in case anyone actually sees the comments and wander over here, I thought more than a blank entry would be nice.

But what to write?

The title of this thing is Peter.Food.Travel.Musings. Maybe I should have called it Mumblings.Ramblings.Ill-formed and Shallow Opinons.

But here:

Peter
Food

Travel
Musings

Okay, I'm stumped on a photo for that one....

Off to the pool. The mean coach in me has to crack the whip this morning!