Fires

My home is just north of the fire shown on the lower right in the Sierra Nevada Foothills

Smoky Saturdays

Ahh, Melody, I can hear you already. Oh for pete's sake, Mother, whole wheat pasta! She hated the tofu and falafel years, and especially the whole wheat macaroni and cheese.. But today I went to the farmer's market and amidst the berries and peaches and tomatoes I found these amazing fennel bulbs. It's hot and smokey outside, a good day for cutting up produce for the week and cooking things that will keep me eating well while the working hours get long. I made some addictive quinoa salad that has a ton of fresh ginger, cilantro and garlic, with a thai chili and lime kind of dressing. It's great cold for lunch in the field, but I am probably the only one thinks it's addictive. For me, ever since going to thailand, put cilantro, lime, ginger and hot chili in something, and I'm hooked. Those flavors just get to me.
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But back to the fennel bulbs. I don't think I have ever actually cooked fennel. I love the smell of it, and I use fennel seed in my spaghetti sauce, a secret of Italian cooking that I read somewhere, but the bulbs were so pretty I had to buy a couple. Searching the internet yielded several recipes for braised fennel, but nothing looked like a summer dish so I just went for it. Sliced it up, sauteed some garlic in a really great olive oil and added the fennel. Put in some veggie broth from a can to braise it for 20 minutes or so, and hmmmm. It looked a bit boring. Ahah. Box in the cupboard. What if I added pasta, and healthy pasta at that. So I boiled up a cup of this stuff and added it to the fennel, added some pine nuts, ground in some pepper, sprinkled on some kosher salt, and voila. !!! Food for a goddess! I can't quite figure out how the fennel makes the pasta seem creamy when there is nothing creamy at all to be found. So, a couple of dinners for the week and a refrigerator full of fresh strawberries and a pot of really fresh blanched green beans and I am good to go. Smoky hot indoor days can be fun after all!

Fires in California

I took these photos while driving down HWY 4 toward Stockton from the foothills. The smoke extends for a few hundred miles in the valley and foothills. I hear it's in tahoe as well. These photos were taken on Wednesday, and returning to Sonora today on Friday afternoon shows no relief. Now we have thunderstorms predicted for the weekend with dry lightning and no rain. More than 1000 fires are burning in California tonight. Breathing is challenging, even indoors. It's June. Hard to imagine what August will bring.
Just for comparison, here's a shot of the view from near here in the spring.

A Sunday Hike in Yosemite

I grew up in an LA suburb, with memories of smog and tract houses, but every summer, for two amazing weeks, we would travel the 8 hours up old HWY 99 to Yosemite. Almost every year we would hike Vernal Falls, we being my dad and me and some assorted kids. Dorothy usually went as far as the first bridge and waited for us. In 1974 I took my 4 children to Yosemite to camp, and we hiked Vernal Falls. I had to carry Melody most of the way down. Yesterday, climbing these stairs, I wondered how I managed that.

It is a truly lovely hike. Gorgeous vistas, and it is called the Mist Trail for a reason. I was glad for the hot day as I was soaked by the spray of the falls. Last night as I fell asleep, I could still hear the roar of water that accompanied our journey. Alison runs marathons, and digs holes at work like no one I have known, but she said at the end of the day, she was tired too! I'm so glad I wasn't carrying a child.

If you look closely at the next photo here, you can see the trail snaking up along the Merced River with tiny little people climbing along. It's only 4 miles round trip, but that last mile is just exciting enough and challenging enough that when you are done, it feels as though there is something to celebrate in addition to the power of those amazing falls. Actually, my greatest moment of celebration came AFTER I managed to get down all those steep wet craggy stairs. Thank you, Knees. You made it one more time . Many more photos on the Picassa Web Site, of course.