What Do You Have to Do To Get A Lamb Burger Around Here?

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Pamela

Pumpkin recipe booklet from the High Desert Museum. Or should that be High Dessert Museum? I’m going to give it a workout if my pumpkin patch works out. It’s not looking very promising at the moment.

Last week co-worker and I went to a lunch restaurant that we haven’t been to in a long time. They served a lamb burger that peeled your face off. They took the lamb burger off the menu and we stopped going there.

One of the food carts made a great lamb burger but then it closed.

We randomly checked the old restaurant last week and lamb burger was back on the menu. We phoned and asked specifically about the lamb burger and they said they were serving it.

Then we got there, ordered the burger and drinks and five minutes later the server returned to tell us there were no lamb burgers.

The server was very apologetic. I would say even too apologetic. We’re not the kind of people to fly into a rage about a dumb burger but she apologized a million times and blamed herself, she should have asked the chef, etc.

Meanwhile we ordered something else and got on with our lives. Except she forgot our drinks . The thing is *we* were embarrassed about bringing it up after the excessive burger apologies. We mentioned it to the busboy who then brought us the wrong drinks. And then she came over to tell us the drinks were on her because of the burger mistake and we clarified what we’d actually ordered and then she just brought one. And never came to our table again until it was time to pay.

It was like this minor thing that didn’t have to be a big deal turned into a weird awkwardville exercise. I don’t think we’ll be going back any time soon which means we still haven’t got our lamb burger fix.

Posted in doing it wrong | 4 Comments

Clarion West Write-A-Thon Wrap Up

Posted on July 30, 2011 by Pamela

In honor of the Timbers match tonight, these are sunflowers in my garden. (Here’s the link if you want to get the reference.

Week #6 words: 3099
Stories submitted: 0

Total words written for the entire WAT: 25,020
Total stories submitted: 2

I exceeded my goals.

And, now that I’ve signed the contract, I can announce that I sold one of the stories I submitted.

Yay, the 19 month sales-free drought is finished. (Yes, technically I sold 2 reprints of one of my stories during that time. But, come on, does Limahl call his Mom every time “Too Shy” makes into another 80’s compilation?)

My story “Lottie Versus The Moon Hopper” was accepted into the anthology Future Lovecraft to be published by Innsmouth Free Press at the end of the year. Don’t worry, I’ll announce it a million times when it comes out.

Huge thanks to everyone involved with the write-a-thon, especially my sponsors. I will send you all personal love notes thanking you soon.

It’s never too late to donate. There’s info here and my donation page is here.

Posted in Clarion West | 4 Comments

Future Pumpkins

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Pamela

Whenever I’m running around I always think of a ton of things I want to post about. Then when I’m sitting here I can’t remember. I also have tons of notes but then when I sit here I don’t understand them.

Like this one: “white space”

I have no idea.

Also, I finally posted my photos from the Portland Timbers v. Seattle Sounders game.

Posted in garden, TIMBERS! | Tagged | 1 Comment

You Can’t Have Any Pudding If You Don’t Eat Your Meat

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Pamela

This is the tomato plant that I grew from a seed and knocked all the leaves off when I planted it in the garden. It’s about 4 feet tall and has a half dozen green tomatoes on it.

It is the smallest of my tomato plants. I have two that are as tall as I am with huge branches flopping out the sides of the cage. They are sagging with green tomatoes. The early girl has a few that have gone shiny and yellow-ish. I think I’m going to be eating home grown tomatoes very soon.

I’m convinced that the early settlers stayed alive by eating greens. But you never hear about that. You never find pioneer tested recipes for turnip and beet greens. I don’t even try that hard and I have giant piles of greens that we can’t even begin to keep up with. Especially since I represent about 90% of the greens consumption in my household. The Dining section had an article about all the plant tidbits that most people throw away that you can eat. More garden stuff for the plate.

Last weekend I finally got around to picking some beets to roast. They were soft-ball size with big healthy tops. I saved all the greens plus I yanked up some kale.

The first thing I do with my greens is soak them in water so all the slugs and snails rise to the surface. I know, gross. Better to find them now than later. Then I sauté in olive oil and garlic. Even though the greens shrink when cooked there was a giant bowl which I still haven’t finished. (They taste great with a little ume plum vinegar sprinkled on them.)

The other night I ate about 4 pounds of vegetables for one meal. I didn’t set out to eat that much I just kept finding more stuff in the fridge and thinking, “I want some of this, too.” My digestive system still hasn’t figured out what happened.

Posted in garden | Tagged | 3 Comments

New Library

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Pamela

Self Portrait

Our new public library finally opened and it’s awesome. We visited the second day it was open so it was still crazy but I’m looking forward to spending more time hanging out there.

Photos here.

Posted in doing it wrong | 1 Comment

Dumb Phone

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Pamela

Ancestor memorial in Grants Pass, Or

On our drive down to Grants Pass we passed an old falling down barn that had painted on it: hauntedbarn.com

I said: I wonder what hauntedbarn.com is.

Bob said: iPhone

I don’t have a phone that can do fancy tricks. I’m chained to the Internet enough already. I don’t want to carry it around with me. I’ve never even played with Bob’s phone.

But I was stuck in the car for a few hours and I wanted to see what hauntedbarn.com was all about.

I did not have an easy time with iPhone. First we’re in the car. Second, you need the world’s tiniest fingers. I kept typing a wrong letter and then I’d try to fix it and type more wrong letters and then I’d try to fix that and next thing you know, iPhone was trying to pull up: haymtd.com

“I can’t believe people like this,” I said as I tapped on that stupid phone.

I got mad and gave up but then I wanted to know what hauntedbarn.com was so I tried some more. I was not going to be defeated by an iPhone.

I finally pulled it up and it was a domain for sale. Damn you hauntedbarn.com

Posted in doing it wrong | 1 Comment

White Chocolate – Raspberry Pie

Posted on July 24, 2011 by Pamela

I had two really busy weeks and didn’t have 5 minutes to go out and check up on the yard. When I finally went out there Friday morning it was madness. All kinds of weeds and tall grass. There were flowers tangled everywhere. Some of my garden stuff had bolted. The peas were finished.

I picked about 2 pounds of raspberries and there was at least another pound that was overripe and no good. Raspberries are a part-time job.

But I finally had the time and the berries to do my first invented pie.

Ingredients:

Your favorite 2 crust pie dough.

5 cups raspberries
3/4 to 1 cup sugar
1 T orange zest
1 T lemon zest
2 tsp. lemon juice
8 oz. white chocolate chips (I suspect a dark chocolate would work great, too. I’m going to try that next.)

Combine everything except the white chocolate chips together. Don’t skip the citrus zest, that’s what makes the flavor extraordinary. I was worried that the raspberries would be tart and I used the full cup of sugar. The white chocolate provides plenty of sweetness. Next time I would use less sugar.

I baked the bottom crust for about 10 minutes at 400 degrees and then spread the white chocolate chips in an even layer. Initially I thought I was going to let them melt a bit and try to spread the melted chocolate but I ditched that step.

I kept forgetting that I was documenting my baking process so there aren’t many photos.

Gently scrape your raspberry mix into your pie plate and cover with top crust. This makes a very juicy pie so you’d be wise to set the pie plate on a cookie sheet before putting into oven.

Bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes then reduce heat to 350 and bake another 30-40. If you’re not lazy you might brush a little milk on the top crust before baking to help it brown. I sometimes use foil on the edges of my pie but I didn’t this time and had no problems. Use your judgment.

Those white-bits don’t look especially pretty but the pie is delicious.

Posted in cooking, garden | Tagged | Comments Off on White Chocolate – Raspberry Pie

Week #5 Beg-A-Thon Update

Posted on July 23, 2011 by Pamela

Another busy day.

Here’s a quick update on my write-a-thon progress:

Words: 3490 (Goal 3000/week)
Stories submitted: 0 (Goal 1 during the write-a-thon, I’ve submitted 2)

Today I opened up a story that I thought was almost finished and I could submit before the end of the write-a-thon. Turns out, it’s a bit of a disaster. We’ll see if I can get it together in time. I’m going to try.

There is still plenty of time to donate and I would love it. Even just a few bucks would be fantastic. Instructions for donating here or my donation page.

Thanks for supporting nerd writers.

Posted in Clarion West, doing it wrong | Tagged | Comments Off on Week #5 Beg-A-Thon Update

Rogue River, Oregon

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Pamela

Here’s our cute boat driver joking with my family about how I’m sitting in the dunk seat and don’t even know it.

Osprey nest with baby osprey ready to fly away. Also there might have been a story about this bridge but I don’t remember.

Hellsgate Canyon.

Rogue River, Oregon.

Tower of power. That’s the water that comes over the side of the boat when it does a 360 or when it stops suddenly. I loved wringing out my clothes after the excursion to make sure I didn’t take home too much Rogue River.

Posted in pamily | 1 Comment

Searching For Bigfoot

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Pamela

I went on my favorite weekend excursion: looking for Bigfoot. Not sure what I’m going to do when I find him.

Really we did a quick lap through Oregon. We went to Bend for a night to visit relatives and made a quick trip to the High Desert Museum which was awesome. They have Indian and pioneer exhibits AND animals and environmental exhibits. There was an indoor exhibit with turtles and lizards in a faux westerny setting with train tracks.

One of the turtles tried to crawl from between the train tracks and he couldn’t get his big boxy self over one of the rails. He stood on his back legs and strained while his front legs windmilled around trying to push over. It was harrowing to watch. I thought we’d have to cancel the rest of the weekend so I could stand there until he made it over. He had his scrawny neck pushed out so far I though they might have to examine him for neck strain later. Finally I had to stop watching because I was getting neck strain standing in front of the glass trying to show him (or her, whatever, it’s so hard to tell with turtles) what to do.

Before we left we went back to check and he was doddering around another part of the exhibit. “Whew,” I said. “Now I can relax. Let’s go to the gift shop.”

Awesome gift shop. We almost got Aunt Janet a t-shirt that said, “Endangered Feces” and had drawings of different kinds of scat.

Also in Bend I had an Ocean Roll which is like a cinnamon roll only 1000 times better. It’s a flakey pastry roll with salt, sugar and cardamom. After every bite I said, “This is the best roll I’ve ever had.” I actually didn’t realize it was cardamom and kept saying it had a magical flavor that stayed in my mouth so that I kept saying, “Ocean Roll” long after we left Bend. When I got home I did a little poking around and found someone who adapted a recipe after trying the same roll. I’ll post when I try the recipe.

Meanwhile, at lunch we had a brisket sandwich that was like a rodeo in your mouth.. That was the end of the Ocean Roll but mmmm, brisket.

Eventually we ended up in Grants Pass, Oregon where I met my family and we did lots more eating and took a jetboat excursion on the Rogue River which was amazing. Bald eagles! Osprey! Lots of water soaking me because no one warned me I was sitting in the dunk seat.

I took a waterproof camera on the jetboat but I had to be all old timey and drop it off for processing and I haven’t had a chance to go pick it up. More photos to come.

One more story from the weekend: the motel in Bend had a loud mini-fridge and since I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately, I decided to just unplug the dang thing so it wouldn’t disturb my sleep. I woke up at 3AM to DRIP DRIP DRIP. At first I thought it was raining but it sounded like it was inside. Then I realized CRAP! And while muttering, “I am so stupid,” under my breath I jumped up and had to move all our stuff near the fridge and grab a towel and clean up because the fridge was defrosting. Or defrosted, I should say, and got some clothes and papers wet. I remember thinking when I unplugged it that there was probably a good reason why I shouldn’t but I couldn’t possibly be the first person to do that.

Well, it was all nice and defrosted when we left in the morning.

Posted in doing it wrong | Tagged | 3 Comments