Lunch for the week

Back on the straight and narrow. This evening I packed lunch for the coming week. Basically this consists of fresh veggies (radishes; apple; celery and cucumber); rice cakes with furikaki and seaweed wrap; boiled egg with garlic and spice; yogurt and a Cliff Bar. I will also have some protein shakes (not shown) and a multivitamin and fish oil supplement.

Outdoor mini

The mini is going to be sleeping outside until we can work out what to do with the garage.

We both love the funky cover that we got for it at the dealership. Hopefully it will keep it in good condition although we will need to work out something for snow days.

Gris with her new Mini cooper

Isn't it cute!

Gris's new mini

Happy anniversary! Griselda trying out the car at the dealership

Squeez bacon

This is so very, very wrong

Öhlins motorcycle 2WD system.

This is so cool. Öhlins have a two wheel drive system for motorcycles. I wonder if it will truly take off?

BACON!!!!

Or more correctly "A wolf loves pork". The concept behind this is amazing!

Sunny Monday Slide

Looks like this Monday is going to be wet and un-sunny :-(


View Larger Map
Proposed route

Mountainboarding go's hitec

I saw this on engadget today and all that I can say is WOW! The biggest thing about mountain boarding that sucks is walking up the hill. Now with one of these one can go anywhere!


The present


The future!

Mount Rainier

Mount Rainier as seen from the Ginko state park rest area.

Adventures in Eastern Washinton

This morning Griselda and I went to the Cave B Vineyard in eastern Washington for brunch. The vineyards restaurant is called Tendrils and the scenery is absolutely stunning and a stark contrast to the greenery that we have here in western Washington.

Whilst the experience was a lot of fun the food was very average and in all honesty all of the wines except for one at the wine tasting were undrinkable. Fortunately for the vineyard I think a large percentage of there revenue is derived from the hotel, spa and golf course or they might be in big trouble.


Cave B Tasting room


An example of the sage brush

Eastern Washington reminds me a lot of the Karoo in South Africa. It is very dry and there is a lot of sage brush. With the Columbia river providing a near endless volume of water agriculture is abundant.

After visiting the vineyard we went to the petrified Forrest and did another hike. Here are a few pictures from the petrified forest.

Adding a tan

Matt Kloskowski at ExtremePhotoshop.com has a great little tutorial on adding that fake tan in a realistic manner. I'm normally a bit of a slacker and don't go to the trouble of adding the extra layers and my results unfortunately show it.

Fortunately his tutorial makes is so easy to do that I don't think I'm going to have that excuse any more. Let the fake tans begin!


Don't worry mine won't look anything like this!

BMW magnetic tow technology

BMW Magnetic Tow Technology.
For once, we're happy to be behind the competition.

Why burn your fuel, when you can burn someone else's? BMW Magnetic Tow Technology us the ultimate in BMW EfficientDynamics, designed and engineered by BMW's head of Innovations, Herr Noitt All. This ingenios new system locks on the car in front via an enhanced magnetic beam. Once your BMW is attached, you are free to release you foor from the accelerator and turn of your engine. The vehicle in front will then "do the pulling" without noticing any change in maneuverability. When turning of MTT, we suggest a courteous flick of the headlights to let the obliging driver in front know you are leaving them. It is important to note that MTT does not work without another vehicle. Please email uve.Vollenvorit@bmw.co.uk or call 0800 777 119 for more product information.

I love the reference to "Mr Know it all" (Herr Noitt All) and "You've fallen for it" (uve.Vollenvorit@bmw.co.uk). Happy April fool

First snowflake freakout lady

These profiles that Pemco has on there site are spot on.

My first Japanese single malt

Alan introduced me to something new today; Japanese single malt. Who would have thought it. It is interesting. Reminds me a lot of an Irish whiskey with a very clean taste but then it does has a but of that peaty goodness as well.


Suntory Yamazaki Single Malt Whisky

It's a tree

There are worse things that one could have on top of your power lines for sure...


But what kind of tree indeed?

Creamed spinach

Making creamed spinach is the easiest thing in the world, if you use super Grissie's recipe as follows:

Bechamel (White sauce)
Equal parts of butter and flour and enough milk to make the sauce the consistency you desire. Season with salt and pepper, tiny bit of nutmeg, tiny bit of Cayenne pepper, tiny bit of mustard. Taste frequently!

Spinach.
Wash spinach and shake off excess moisture. Place in saucepan (no additional water) with lid on until steam comes out. Leave for a few minutes. Remove drain and chop and then mix with the bechamel.


1. Put the butter in the pan and melt


2. Start mixing equal parts of flour


3. Cary on whisking until it looks like this


4. Start adding milk


5. And keep whisking until it thickens up.


6. Drain and chop the spinach


7. Add to the vechamel


8. And mix


9. Until it looks like this.

So easy even I can do it!

Americas Test Kitchen: Angel food cake

Griselda and I signed up to be test subjects for America's Test Kitchen. Anyway today we received our first recipe. This was an interesting experiment as I am a terrible (AKA total NEWB) baker and Griselda is an expert.

Anyway to cut to the chase I documented the process that was taken and the finished result. As you can see it was pretty easy to do, however I must confess I was less than thrilled with the result. It tasted like it had to much flour in it and in my in-expert opinion could probably do with about half as much as was used.


The test recipe


Our mini-angel pans

Step 1.


Pre-measured ingredients


Put the sugar in the blender


And blend it for a minute


Then halve it






















The end result

Airbags for your horse

Pauline, we have found the perfect riding outfit for you! It's a jacket that inflates if you fall of Millennium!

Where am I and what am I doing?

Loopt is similar to Facebook in that you can publish information on what you are currently doing, but with the addition of geographical information. The application runs on my iPhone and can publish short status messages.

Pauline' little pony

Pauline sent this picture of Millennium playing in the snow. Isn't it awesome?


Photo by Pauline

Tapas rocks!

Tonight Griselda made tapas. WOW! It was amazing. My personal favorite was the tomato salad and the anchovy bread thingies ;-)


Tapas from Jose' Andres new book

1/12 scale Yamaha YZR-M1 2004

This man is a wizard! If you follow the link you will see the incredible detail and effort that went into creating this scale model.


Amazingly detailed model

Two percent or regular milk?

What milk do you think makes the best late'? Two percent or fat free? We decided to put it to the test. Both of the these late's are identical except for the milk used.


The late' taste off.

Late' Art V1

Well I almost created my first piece of Late' art tonight. The idea behind late' art is to draw the image on the crema with the foam during the pour. As you can see I suck at it still.


Late' Heart

And this is what the fuss is all about

I figured I had better post a few videos of the addictive device at work so you to case bathe in its shear awesomeness! As you can see even the completely inept such as myself can create something that rivals what your average Barista can make.


One of the problems I have had in the beginning is making sure that I don't put to much milk in the agitator. To much milk == messy counter and a sad panda bear.


Here you can see the milk being agitated. It makes the perfect, driest most consistent milk froth.


And here we have the expresso being brewed and poured. As you can see the advantage of this system is that it is really quick and easy.

New Years Dobos Torte

Yes I know, I married wonder woman. Once again Griselda has over achieved and created a fantastic culinary piece de resistance in no time whatsoever. I must apologize for the truly atrocious image quality. These are the raw photos straight from the camera and have not been cropped or edited in any way, which to be honest they need to be as they do not represent the overflowing awesomeness of how good these really look.

For you foodies out there the cake has nine layers and is based on one of the high priestesses (AKA Martha Stewart) recipes.


View from the top


And from the side showing the wonderful caramel.

For those of you who are interested in creating this mountain of magnificence have a look at Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook on page 203 where you will see the following:

3 sticks unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cups sugar
8 large eggs white and 3 large eggs yolks
1 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
Chocolate swiss meringue buttercream (what you don't know how to make this mere moral?)
Caramel sticks and dots

So who is going to make the next one?