Hood to Coast 2008

Ken's team finished the sub-200 mile relay race in 30 hours, 56 minutes and 39 seconds. They had a great time. There are 12 people on a team and they break into two groups/vans. Van 1 runs while Van 2 rests and vice versa. They started at 8:55 on Friday morning and arrived in Seaside, Oregon at 6:30ish on Saturday evening.

All of the runners play dodgeball with us, so they were the Dodgeball Run Kids (or DRUNKS for short). All of the photos are here, but here are a few to get you started.

Ken's van before the race on top of Mt Hood:


Here's Ken leaving the Timberline start on Friday morning:


Ken flying down Mt Hood at a 6:37 pace. Apparently he checked an incoming text message as he was running.


While one van runs, the other sleeps. Imagine this times thousands, scattered along the Oregon woods and roads.


Here is the finish line in Seaside. Kinley got to run around the beach and play fetch in the ocean while we were waiting for the runners to arrive.


And here is the team leaving with their medals of completion. It was a long day. Everyone should be very proud of themselves.



I watched Ken's transition under Portland's Hawthorne bridge on Friday night before driving to the coast with Kinley. We rented a house on the beach and a few of us went down early to go crabbing on Saturday morning. We woke up before 5 AM and hit the road. We rented a boat, traps and got bait (fish carcasses and chicken -- crabs looovvvee chicken) and were on the bay near Rockaway Beach shortly after 6 AM (high tide that day).

There were six of us and our first pull brought up at least 30 crabs, about 6 inches deep in the trap. Most were females or too small to keep. At the end of our 3 hours, we caught 7 Dungeness crabs. The boat outfitters cleaned and cooked the crabs for us on the spot. We ate for brunch and drank a beer by the fire while we dried our stinking wet clothes.



On our way back, we decided to do a shellfish tour. We went hunting for mussels and clams but there was a red tide advisory so we decided to not eat any mussels. And our clam hunt was a muddy bust.

Overall, we had a great time. Crabbing was great* and the trip was terrific. We got back around 4 pm. Ken watched a movie and I drywalled the basement some more since it was raining.


* I have washed my shoes out twice by hand and they've gone through the washing machine twice. Nasty crab water and clammy mud is a difficult smell to remove.

Rafting Photos 2008

Just got the rafting photos from last weekend. Thought you'd like to see them since Ken is guiding and Kinley is in the back of the boat, too. I'm front left.

Here is our descent over Oak Springs:

1. Heading in



2. Lisa is submerged, Kinley is in the back of the boat looking over


3. Lisa is out of the water but thrown back. Kinley and Ken submerged.


4 And we're all up. Phew!



What a blast!

And here is the town of Maupin, Oregon. It is a small town in Oregon's high desert. You can see Mt Hood in the background.

Hood to Coast

They're on their way. Ken is running the first leg -- which starts at Timberline lodge on top of Mt. Hood and drops 2000 feet over ~6 miles.

He called around noon to say he finished, averaging around 6.5 minutes/mile. He's a little sore but fine.

Kinley and I are heading to the coast tonight. A group of us are going crabbing tomorrow morning and will then watch the race tomorrow when they get in.

Mud Pies

It has been raining here. My garden loves it but I am loving it more because I have a great excuse to not scrape the paint outside and refinish the basement instead.

I love drywalling. LOVE it. Seeing something go from ugly to finished is amazing. I'm working on the corner where my craft stuff is. I figure if I do a little bit of the basement at a time, it will be finished in no time. Here's my schedule this week:

Sunday afternoon: Taped the joints and put the first coat of mud on. I even cut a piece of drywall to fit and reinforced some loose areas with drywall screws before I started the mud. Very exciting. It took around 3 hours. Drink of choice while I worked: root beer

Monday after work: Applied the 2nd coat of mud in about an hour. Used the remaining mud in my pan to cover some screw holes elsewhere in the basement. I also taped another seam since I had a bunch of mud leftover. (I don't like to put used mud back into the bucket -- hard/dry chunks can ruin a nice 3rd coat finish.) I also tried a new trick that my friend Beti taught me -- instead of sanding, use a damp sponge to smooth the mud as it dries. So I sponged the mud after I finished. That took about 40 minutes and was much easier than sanding. Drink of choice while I worked: sake

Tuesday after work: Applied the 3rd and final coat of mud. The wet sponge trick really made a difference. I sponged again after the 3rd coat. Everything took about 90 minutes. It looks beautiful and ready for primer. I'll give it a quick sand in areas that need it, but the wet sponge trick made a huge difference in the amount of time it takes (and thus improves my morale 10-fold). Drink of choice while I worked: Old Fashioned with homemade bitters

Wednesday morning before work: wow, I really love drywall because before I came to work this morning, I was patching some missed areas and smoothing things out. It will be ready to prime when I get home. Drink of choice while I worked: nothing.

Wednesday after work: I plan to take a picture of the progress and then paint the first coat of primer. I can hardly wait. Drink of choice while I work: TBD

I found this picture of the area I'm finishing from before we moved into the house. Everything purple is unfinished, painted drywall. I'm excited for that purple to go. You can also *kind of* see into the gear room.

Bailing in the Middle of the Night

We went rafting this weekend. It was the hottest weekend of the year in Portland, so we decided to spend it in the high desert.

We had a great time. We made Kung Pow Chicken the first night (yum, see post below in comments under Camping Food: Lessons Learned). We went rafting on Saturday with a fun group of people. We had a great time; Ken hit the rapids better than he ever has. We finished around 3. That's when we started overheating. We sat in the river for a few hours. Nice but hot. Ken went and got us milkshakes. Delicious but still hot. We tried to eat dinner. Too hot to eat.

We tried to sit back in the river. We tried sitting still. Neither cooled us down, so we decided to go to bed. It was 9:45. We were in as few clothes as possible but neither of us could sleep. Our neighbors played loud music. Each song kept reminding us that we were still hot and couldn't sleep.

At 1 AM, Ken shook me up. "I packed up the car. I'm ready to go home if you are".

"Huh? OK." (We have a standing rule in our house that the person who cares more gets to decide.)

I didn't care if we stayed until the next morning or left now, so I got dressed and packed my sleeping bag. We were on the road within 15 minutes. Ken told me in the car that the straw that broke his hot camel's back was when Kinley woke him up by panting heavily on his face. By 3:30 we were home and turned on the A/C to cool down our burning hot bedroom.

We slept until 10. I kissed Ken in the morning for making a good decision for us. We slept well. And more importantly, we slept. Ken spent the day working on his Fantasy Football draft that afternoon. I cleaned the basement a little bit and, as soon as he left, I started drywalling my craft area of the basement (hey, it was too hot to scrape paint outside). I finished the second coat yesterday and am happy. We both feel like we got two weekends by (unexpectedly) coming home early.

Win, win.

The one person who reads my papers...

I got this from my graduate advisor the other day:

... I just received a message from a lawyer in VA wanting to talk with me about your publication. They want to sue someone regarding using (drug deleted) on middle aged women that causes (disease deleted)...

What?! I believe in my research and what I published. Yet basic research is just that, the foundation for further research. Everything that scientists publish needs further testing by other researchers.

Suing someone based on this one study is like putting the cart before the horse. Or suing a toddler, who will go to medical school one day, for malpractice based on a paper cut or telling a friend to eat these delicious mud cakes. I know my advisor will tell the lawyer that, but it's still odd yet flattering to think someone believes in my research wants to make money off of it.

Camping Food: Lessons Learned

We've done quite a bit of car camping lately, usually with large groups of 15-30 people. Ken organizes the trip logistics (activities and campsite) and I tend to be in charge of organizing the food. Divide and conquer.

Making burgers and brats for a large crew is easy but gets old quickly. So I've been thinking of new meals for camping that can be made with at least a few of the following characteristics (in no particular order):

1. easy to make
2. parts of the dish can be made ahead of time
3. ingredients easy to transport
4. entertaining to me
5. tasty
6. easy to clean

Some dishes that I've done in the past that are great for a group are:

Thai curry (veggie and/or meat) over rice - A few cans of coconut milk, a premade curry paste and then the veggies/meat that you want to add. The hardest part is the rice, which is why I'll use instant rice if I'm worrying about it or want to relax. I imagine this could be expanded to indian food, like a simmer sauce, but I haven't tried that yet.

Shrimp and grits - Shrimp and bacon are packed frozen. Veggies and grits are easily stored without refrigeration. Cook the grits over a low heat while you're making your shrimp gravy... Saute bacon until crisp, remove and crumble. Saute onions, bell peppers and garlic in the grease until soft. Add your flour to make a roux. Season the peeled shrimp with salt and cayenne and add to the mix. Adjust seasonings of shrimp gravy and grits to taste. Yum.

Low Country Boil - Another south carolina dish that is awesome for feeding a large group while camping. Plus it's easy to prepare and super social to eat. To make for 20 people, I use 2 sacks of little red potatoes, 7 sweet onions, 8 lbs sausage, 20 ears of corn, 8 lbs frozen shrimp. Shrimp and sausage are frozen. Everything else can be kept at room temperature. I make the dipping sauces ahead of time: cocktail sauce, tartar sauce and a honey mustard. Everyone helps chop and those who don't like cooking (or if you run out of jobs) can decorate the sauce containers. I cook it in a turkey fryer pot and dump it out onto newspaper. Simple cleanup.

Omelettes in a bag - an old boy scout trick. Perfect for a breakfast on the last day and great for using up leftovers. A sharpie allows each to mark their own bag. Dump in eggs and desired ingredients. Cook in simmering water until cooked through. (Note: I'm starting to steer away from this though since eating food cooked in heated up plastic probably isn't good for the body)

Reubens - This is a decadent treat. Pastrami can be pricey, but if you can find a great deal on it, these are so fun to make. Rye bread, thousand island dressing and sauerkraut can be pre-purchased and kept at room temperature. Pastrami and cheese need refrigeration, but they don't take much room. Easy to bang out a bunch of them on a griddle. I find that slicing them in half and serving halves is easier. People can come back for more and they're hotter/less soggy than if you gave each person a full one.

Burritos - Nothing fancy but they sure are delicious after a long day and everyone can choose their own toppings, so everyone is happy. Perfect for the lone vegetarian in a sea of meat-eaters. I used 3 lbs of ground beef for 20, which I froze ahead of time. Season it in camp. Toppings include: iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, avocados (decadent), salsa, sour cream (critical) and as a great touch of sweetness, some chopped nectarines. The latter may sound crazy, but it brought out a flavor that was unexpected and exciting. I brought the nectarines to make a fruit salsa, but I left all of the other salsa making ingredients at home. Other note: I also had taco-sized flour and corn tortillas, but everyone preferred the burritos because you don't have to get up as much and it's less messy. Good to know. I'm skipping the taco sized tortillas next time.

Things I recently tried that were a huge hit:

Arepas - Venezuelan english muffins, if you will. They're cornmeal that's similar to the masa of tamales. It is cooked on a griddle on both sides until it sounds hollow, then it's split and filled with deliciousness like shredded chicken, cheese and avocado. Served hot off the griddle -- people add their own fillings, so it's similar to burritos in a sense. The Arepa dough is made from equal parts of P.A.N. precooked cornmeal (at latino stores, not the same as masa harina) and warm water. The cornmeal was kept at room temperature and I made the chicken & caramelized onion filling ahead of time. The only thing I had to do after setting up camp was warm up the fillings and make/cook the arepas. I will cook them on a griddle next time instead of a small pan. People loved them and were staking them out.

Monte Cristo Sandwiches - Perfect for breakfasts and a nice change from sausage and scrambled eggs. You'll need bread, some ham, cheese (I used provolone) and a few eggs. Make your ham & cheese sandwiches and then dip them in an egg mixture (a few eggs mixed with a touch of milk or water and some salt/cinnamon). Cook them in a pan like you would french toast. I cut and served halves for the same reason as the reubens above. I also learned that a little bit of jam on the bread before closing up the sandwiches brings out a great sweetness -- think cranberry sauce on a turkey sandwich. People ate them with their hands and then came back for seconds. Not messy and easy to prepare.

Mussels or Clams - I've done mussels for a large group before. Sara brought littleneck clams this weekend. Both were cooked in a pan a little bit of butter and beer (or wine if you have it). It is amazing. Didn't serve either with bread, but I bet it would be delicious. Folks go nuts for these. Perfect for a first night of camping. Especially if you have a fast river/ocean/dumpster to throw the leftover shells.

Irish Cream - I know this isn't exactly food, but I always bring milk and sugar for my morning coffee. A friend brought a bottle of baileys this weekend. Needless to say, a little irish cream in your camp coffee is totally luxurious and covers a multitude of bad camp coffee issues... overbrewing/too hot/lots of grounds in your cup, etc. I don't do this at home, but it's a great change when camping.

New ideas for camping food (but I haven't tried them yet so take them with a grain of salt):

Korean BBQ - This past weekend, I was all set do do a Korean BBQ with chicken for the group (marinate it in gallon bags and put it in the freezer a couple of days before you leave -- the frozen chicken serves as ice packs until it thaws and then marinates some more). However, they had fire restrictions so I decided to cancel the BBQ since I didn't want to do it over a small propane camp grill (too messy). I have 10 lbs of chicken waiting in my freezer right now, but I digress. Even though it's essentially the same as normal BBQ chicken, I thought it would be a nice change to adjust the seasonings.

Indian Food - sooo many options. A spinach/paneer dish over rice? A tandoori chicken? A korma? I think there are a lot of options that I haven't even begun to explore yet. Plus, if you can do some of these indian dishes in a crockpot, you can do them in camp. Plus, it's outside the normal realm of typical camp cooking and can be spicy, both things people tend to like while sitting in camp chairs.

Grilled Pizza - I think this could be a great campfire dish, but I would need to test it out before recommending it. Expanded metal grates could work well for this -- or cast iron griddles. I see them sitting over hot coals. I hear that pizza dough needs only a few minutes on each side before it's topped with cheese and some easy toppings. If you keep the toppings pre-cooked and simple, this could be a winner.

Chicken and Dumplings - could be a nice alternative to chili on a chilly, fall evening.

I'm sure there are more things, but that's all I can think of at the moment. Feel free to post your favorites. I'm always looking for something new and fun.

Grandma Julie was in town

I meant to post this about a week ago, but since this is the perfect prelude to my next post, I'll post it now.

Julie was in town the last week of July. She was visiting Robin who just moved to Portland. Julie's doing well. Still silly and up for anything. We went to lunch on Saturday and then I took them to a badmitton tournament at a friend's house. Here are Robin, Julie and I at my friend's house.



The next day, I convinced them that I'd make them dinner if they'd help me make 8 lbs of sausage for a rafting trip. They agreed. We made a smoked andouille and a smoked polish kielbasa, just over four pounds of each. Here we are stuffing it into links.






If you want to Julie's narration of the process, here's a video she took of it. Classic Julie.

Happy Anniversary and Birthday

to Sara and Drew -- they celebrated their first anniversary yesterday. And to Drew. His birthday is today.

You can do this: Make Mozzarella

When I hit the brick wall the other day, I was on my way to a cheese class to learn how to make mozzarella. I made my first batch on Sunday when we got back from camping. It took about 45 minutes, including the time to heat the milk. It was easy and delicious. Here's how it's done. Note: I used pictures from the web for illustration purposes, I didn't take them.

What you need:

Gallon of whole milk (grocery store is fine, skim also works but you get a lower yield)

Pot to hold the milk

Citric acid (in bulk spice aisle of grocery store; juice of 3-4 lemons also works)

Rennet (sold as tablets in pudding/baking aisle of grocery store)

Slotted spoon or sieve

Thermometer

Heat

Instructions:

1. Heat gallon of whole milk over medium heat.

2. Disslove 1.5 teaspoons of citric acid in a 1/4 cup cold water. Add to milk when temperature hits around 55.

3. Dissolve a half tablet of rennet in a 1/4 cup cold water. When milk hits 90 degrees, add rennet to milk and briefly/slowly stir to combine.

4. Allow to sit until the curds separate from the whey (~5-10 minutes...they whey looks like yellowy water.....If it's not working after a decent amount of time, you can add a little bit more lemon juice or rennet.




5. Use a slotted spoon or sieve to strain out curds. Put the curds in a microwave safe bowl. Here's a picture of what the cheese curds look like at this point.




6. Add 1 teaspoon of salt.

7. Nuke for one minute and then strain whey out. Poke with a wooden spoon to get more whey out. They say to work the cheese your hands, but it gets hot! So I just kept kneading for about 30 seconds with a wooden spoon. Here's a picture as the curds are coming together:




8. Repeat step 6 two more times. The goal is two-fold: first, to remove the whey and second, to get the cheese curds to about 135, which is perfect for stretching. After the third time, the texture will visibly change. Here's a pretty picture of what the stretching looks like:




9. Using your hands, shape the cheese into a ball.



10. Eat. It's best warm or on the first day but it lasts up to a week. Mine lasted less than a day (due to hungry Roko's, not spoilage). We made pizza with it, ate it straight and I took the last bits of it for lunch the next day. Delicious.

For more detailed instructions, check out these photo instructions on making mozzarella.

Oh Yeah No!

A three-point turn went horribly wrong last night.


I pulled into a driveway so I could turn around, but apparently I missed the small brick retaining wall which I demolished, Kool-Aid style. Crap. I turned off the car and knocked on the owner's door, but there was nobody home so I wrote a note explaining what happened and left my phone number and email address, which I slipped through the mail slot so it wouldn't get blown away or taken.

I checked email before going to bed to find the following email:

Hi Lisa,

First let me say thank you for your honesty regarding hitting my wall. My first reaction was how could someone do this and not leave a note. Then I checked and found your note.

I will call you tomorrow to discuss.

Thanks,
(name deleted)

This morning I talked to our masonry expert/neighbor/house godfather to find out more about the project and what I should look for in a contractor/estimate. He's going to go by and bid on the repairs for me, possibly even to do the work himself this weekend. He's awesome -- his work is great and he knows everyone in town. So at least when the owner called, I could tell her I made some progress to rectify the situation.

When I got the owner's call around 10 am, I apologized immediately and told her I wanted to get her wall fixed properly as soon as possible. I think she was relieved. She mentioned she called the police (before she found my note) and they said the repairs wouldn't be that bad. She also said she had her chimney fixed recently and had some masonry work bid out before. She would call them and I would call for other bids. I got this email a few hours ago:

Hi Lisa,

Thanks again for caring and being responsible.

I did call (company deleted) and they can't get someone out to give a bid until Tuesday afternoon. So why don't you let me know when you have the bids from your people and either we can wait until Tuesday to get one more or perhaps select a contractor before then.

I know you will be out of town, so just give a call/email once you are back.

Thanks,
(name deleted)

I wrote her back the following:

Hi (name deleted),

That sounds great; thanks for calling (company deleted). As far as bids go, I have one bid coming by today, another scheduled for the 12th (which is also on Tuesday, the soonest they could come out -- (name/company deleted) will be there between 9:30 and 11:30 although you don't need to be there for it). And I have a call out to another place but have yet to hear back. It sounds like Tuesday would be the time to make the most informed decision about contractors since we'll have (at least) three bids to consider. I'll let you know what (the bid today) says when I talk to him -- if he's able to do the work this weekend, are you more inclined to go with him or would you prefer to wait until we get the other bids? If it's the former, I can arrange for him to do the work this weekend while I'm away.

Have a good afternoon and I'm so sorry for the hassle,
Lisa

So that's what's going on in Portland. I'm thankful nobody was hurt and the only damage to my car is the bumper coming off (which can be easily reattached). I'm disappointed that I caused so much trouble/damage but relieved that it's not worse. And now I can say I drove through a brick wall*, but I don't know if that's a good thing.




* The wall is only 2-3 feet high and I hit it smack in the corner, knocking the whole corner down -- say 3 feet in each direction. For such a slow speed, I'm surprised there was so much damage. I feel like I should be the Kool Aid man for Halloween, although I'm pretty embarrassed about the whole situation.

Fall/Winter Vegetable Garden

I get sad when summer ends and our tomato plants die back from frost. I know there are lots of veggies that can be started from seed now for fall/winter harvest. We did several varieties of garlic, shallots and leeks last year -- they were a big success and made me very happy to see something green in the winter -- but reading about winter gardening made me excited for the other things I can grow.

So I went to the store and got a bunch of seed packets. I planted them yesterday with my fingers crossed. Here's what I'm trying to grow from seed this year:

* Rutabagas
* Turnips (asian variety called shogun)
* Spinach
* Mache (type of salad green)
* Red beets
* Golden beets
* Swiss chard
* Kale
* Winter peas

plus the hold-overs from this year, garlic, leeks and shallots. I like how they keep coming back year after year.

Gear Room Finished

I finished the gear room this weekend. Pictures to come but here's what I did:

* Tape and mud the drywall - 3 coats plus sanding = 1 week, ~$30 in materials
* Paint primer on the smoothed drywall = 1 day, got 5 gallons for ~$25
* Paint 2 coats of white paint on ceiling = 1 day, $12
* Paint walls a dark chocolate brown, 2 coats = 1 day, $1 (hooray for the oops paint!)
* Install baseboard trim around the room = 1 evening, ~$6 (hooray for the rebuilding center and using reclaimed wood for $0.15 a foot!)
* Install moulding around the door = 1 hour, ~$4 (reclaimed wood from the rebuilding center)
* Hang furring strips (to space out the pegboard) and pegboard on two walls. Ken came down for moral support for a few hours on the first day since there were lots of custom cuts around our odd-shaped old house. = 3 days, 4 sheets of pegboard x $18 = $72
* Paint pegboard a rusty red color, including drying time = 1 day, $1 (oops paint)
* Install track lighting from Ikea so we can now see things too dark before (Note: Ken helped me with this) = 1 hour, $29.99
* Move shelving back in, re-hang wall mounted ski/snowboard supports and hang screw-in/locking pegboard hooks = 1 evening, ~$15 for the hooks

Total time: 14 days, 2 evenings and 2 hours.
Total cost to refinish the gear room: $189.99

It looks awesome now (even better than when Sara saw it yesterday). I am very proud of what I accomplished and learned to do. I hadn't finished drywall before or cut moulding to fit. I was very intimidated before starting but I learned that none of it was very hard. In fact, it's pretty easy. The hardest part is getting started and believing that you can do it. Which you can. I learned by flipping through picture instruction books at the store or looking online. Then, you just need to get in there and do it.

Spending $190 on a room that holds stuff may sound ridiculous, but it's totally worth it. We were busting out of the room -- nothing else could fit without putting more holes in the wall. Now, we can expand easily (and flexibly) without damaging the wall. I am most proud of myself for doing the job right. I could have just put pegboard over the unfinished drywall. Instead I take satisfaction in knowing that the walls are finished under the pegboard (should we ever sell the house). And the feeling of finishing a first project like that is amazing.

Next project: scraping the exterior of the house to prep it for painting. Estimated time to complete (per Sara's dad): 16 hours. Cost saved by doing it yourself: ~$7000

Next next project: refinishing the rest of the basement. I can't wait to get down there but I know painting has to come first before winter rains arrive.

I am so proud

Ken was on the news. You can see his smiling mug in the black shirt and his arms as he hands over his money.

Um, yeah.