The Willows Wine Dinner

Last Thursday night we headed out to the Lummi Island ferry and took the 10 minute ride across Hales Passage to the eastern shore of the island. A short drive to the northern tip of the island brought us to our favorite B & B in the area--The Willows Inn.

Our purpose for a Thursday night drive over to the Willows was our long awaited wine dinner with chef Greg Higgins of Higgins restaurant in Portland, Oregon. We have dined at Higgins before, usually on our way south to either the Oregon Shakespeare Festival or on to California. Greg's restaurant is one of the highest rated in the country and Greg is a James Beard award winner.

But what makes Higgins such a fabulous place is Chef Higgins food philosophy. He is a strong believer in sustainable, local foods and his belief in this system comes through in everything he lovingly prepares.

Thursday night the theme was "The Whole Hog Dinner." The day before Greg had taught a class on dressing a pig and using all the parts to prep for the Thursday night festivities. I was unable to attend the classes Wednesday, but those that did had wonderful things to say about their experience.

We were the first to arrive Thursday night and that gave us an opportunity to have a wonderful conversation with Greg and his helpers in the kitchen. We just sort of hung out on the edges of the kitchen and watched the preparations.

The appetizers for the evening were presented in the common room adjacent to the dining room. This room with large picture windows looks out across the Strait of Georgia towards the north. The 40 or so guests mingled and noshed on several kinds of raw oysters served on the half shell, a half dozen varieties of fresh hand made salumi, and several kinds of pickled treats including cucumbers and fiddlehead fern fronds. A 2009 Cameron Giovanni Pinot Bianco accompanied these tidbits perfectly.

Next, The Willows proprietor, Riley Starks called us all to dinner in the beautiful candle lit dining room. Greg emerged from the kitchen before each course to explain what we were about to experience and then the wine was discussed by the wine maker himself.

Our first course was "selected bits of our hero" (the pig) which included presskopf, rillettes, and a terrine a la gascogne accompanied by a Cameron Chardonnay.

The main was a porchetta with polenta, wild nettles and braising juices. The porchetta was the hit of the evening. Made of several iterations of the pig, Greg's porchetta versions was stuffed with a delicious sausage with a bit of a kick. The inner layer also had chunks of pig meat that melted in your mouth. The whole thing was wrapped in the skin of the pig and slow roasted over night. The porchetta was sliced into disks about 8 inches in diameter, laid atop the creamy and served with the polenta and hearty greens. Each bit of porchetta surprised the taste buds. Each bit offered flavors and the textures that were lay your head on the table great! The creamy kick of the sausage and the crunchy crispiness of the crackling skin were just to die for. Aong with this cource the Cameron winery served a 2007 Abbey Ridge Pinot Noir and a taste of a magnum of '04 Clos Electique.

Our dessert was an Alsea Acres chevre tart served with a rhubarb compote and wild ginger sauce. It seemed sort of like a fruit and cheese plate. The tart was not sweet as you would expect a dessert but rather allowed the fresh clean taste of the cheese to speak for itself. The 1985 Eugenia wine was a wonderful surprise to finish of the meal.

Sadly, we had to leave early due to it being a school night, so we thanked our hosts and chef Higgins before heading back to the ferry dock for the 10 o'clock ferry home. Thanks Riley and the staff at The Willows as well as Chef Greg Higgins and his staff. for a wonderful and memorable evening. We will be back soon.

Spring?

Well, the calendar says it is. And for a few days it seemed like it had arrived. But now I am on my spring break, a few lazy days to relax and re-energize before the long haul towards the end of the school year. As in years past, the weather is not cooperating for me to be able to take full advantage of the outdoors. Between the rain, cooler temps and even a couple of days of thunder and lightening, I have had to take care to find the time to take active advantage of the outdoors. But I have managed to accomplish a few things?

Well, so far I have managed to get the tender down to the yacht, and with the help of my friend Rick, inflated it, got it mounted to the davits on the swim step and flipped up on its side. Before I mounted the tender I mounted the outboard motor to the transom and tootled around the harbor for a few minutes to make sure it was operating correctly. I hadn't actually tried it out since refurbishing it over the winter. I took a few tries and some advice from Rick regarding how to start it up, but I managed to get it running. I felt much more secure in the new dinghy than I had in the old fiberglass Glasply. So, we are all ready for the cruising season aside from bringing aboard the overnight articles like bedding and food.

On Sunday I pulled out my pressure washer, cleaned it, gassed it up and, with a couple of pulls, got it started. I love that machine. It is a Sears Craftsman and just works every time. I washed the build up of moss and mildew on the back deck, the deck furniture and BBQ. Yesterday I wheeled the pressure washer around front and washed the front deck and sidewalk. It looks much better and is ready for spring should it ever decide to make an appearance.


Today we have the section leaders from Concert Choir coming for dinner so I will be making a couple of pans of Baked Ziti for their dinner. I see the sun is trying to make an appearance outside my family room door. Hmmmm, I may just have to get out there and finish up my pressure washing, load the pile of downed tree limbs and debris into the truck so it can be hauled to the green dump on Saturday.

2010 NCCE Conference

I'm in Seattle at the 2010 Northwest Council for Computer Education convention. To be very specific, I am in a workshop at this very moment learning to use some new Adobe on-line software. That's why I am on-line writing a blog entry right now. More about that in another blog.

My hero Captain Jacques Cousteau

This morning's opening keynote speaker was Philippe Cousteau, grandson of one of my childhood heros, Jacques Cousteau. As a kid I looked forward to the occasional National Geographic specials broadcast on TV. Even though his thick French accent was sometimes difficult to understand, it nevertheless forced me to listen more carefully to the important message he delivered about the wonders of the world's oceans, their beauty, mystery and the connectedness of my life to that of the creatures of the sea. He inspired me at an early age, to study marine biology and for a time I did think of majoring in that field in college. In fact he inspired an entire generation to go to sea, to study it and to become more aware of what our human actions were doing to the oceans of the world.

His son and grandson have tried carried on their grandfather's legacy and Philippe has created popular programs on the Discovery Channel that bring the wonders of the sea as well as the continuing crisis in our oceans into our living rooms. So as you might imagine, I was anxious to hear what he had to say as well as to be in the presence of a member of the Cousteau family.

The presentation didn't start out well. Philippe is a very good looking man. In fact the buzz around the convention was that he was a McDreamy type, a reference to the popular TV show Grey's Anatomy. His video introduction splashed across the screens in the hall flashing snappy, fast-paced photos of him in various GQ-like poses. I would have thought that he would have wanted to down play the GQ model image in favor of a more legitimate scientific, thoughtful, introspective image. Perhaps that doesn't go well with today's fast paced sound bite documentary style.

Philippe Cousteau, grandson of Jacques Cousteau

His grandfather's documentaries unfolded slowly, letting the beauty of the oceans and the story he was telling wash over us. No fast paced, thumpy music score or contrived near death experiences. Just the beauty of the sea and the lessons to be learned. Sadly, his speech lived up to the shallow image of his video intro. What he had to say had no more depth than a tide pool at low tide.

The depth of his thoughts could have been given by most anyone with the most basic knowledge of the issues of our oceans. The one saving grace was that he interspersed it with thoughts, video clips, quotes and insights into his grand dad's life. It seemed to me that he is doing what he does, not because of any personal driving passion to acquire further knowledge of our planet, but rather he is capitalizing on the family name and his good looks to carve out a career in the family business. Sad and disappointing!

A Visit to the Olympics. . .Sort of

We made the decision that we should at least go up and check out the Olympics in Vancouver. Only a 45 minute drive from here, it did seem like it'd be a shame to say you hadn't bothered. Honestly, our real reason for going up was to go to hear the Mike Allen Quartet play at O'Doul's on Robson Street. Since a lot of the free Olympic activity was happening within a few blocks of Robson Street, why not take a walk around and see what was going on?

We also thought it would be a great idea, what with all the crowds around the Olympic areas, to try taking the SkyTrain. It would whisk us to within a few blocks of O'Doul's and we wouldn't have to fuss with parking or navigating around the streets that had been blocked off for the duration of the Olympics.

We got across the border easily with our new Nexus cards. Actually everyone did with or without one. A car in the non-Nexus lane adjacent to us got through faster than we did. Only a 5 minute wait at the Canadian side. Great! Smooth sailing so far.

We headed for Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver, where we could park and take the SkyTrain the rest of the way. We drove to the first station we found and pulled into the parking lot only to find that only customers of the adjacent shopping mall were allowed to park there. Hmmm. No problem. We'd follow the elevated track on down to the next station. Same thing. Parking only for customers of this shopping center. Plenty of parking. None allowed. Why were these stations built here if no one is allowed to park?

Finally, we decided to go to the airport a few miles up the road to park at their SkyTrain station. Found it. Only airport employees were allowed to park. What?

So we decided to go ahead and attempt to drive into the city despite all the warnings we had heard about trying to do so. We jogged a few times to avoid streets we knew to be blocked off but managed, with absolutely not one bit of trouble, to drive right to our usual parking garage 2 blocks from O'Doul's on Robson. We even parked in the same slot we had last time and the rest of the garage was mostly empty. What is going on? As we drove into the city up the four lane streets that we just knew would be parking lots full of cars attempting the same thing we'd just done, we were incredulous at the lack of traffic. It seemed to us no worse than it is anytime we've gone to Vancouver.

We walked up Robson and within a couple of blocks the crowds appeared and it got more and more crowded as we went along. Intersections were controlled by traffic cops. Eventually barriers blocked off the street to pedestrians only and then it got crazy. The areas where the free public activities were located was a sea of humanity. Still you could get around. But getting in to do anything required standing in long lines, something I do not do. So we watched and took it all in. Then we turned around and left walking back down Robson towards the way we had come.

Slowly, the crowds thinned out and within a couple of blocks the crowds were no worse than they would be on any summer day. The crowds were all concentrated within a very few blocks. Otherwise, you would have had a difficult time knowing anything unusual was going on in the city. Seriously. Oh, there were the occasional clutches of boisterous fans waving the Canadian flag. There were a few groups of fans who were a bit too over the top obnoxious or drunk, but no more so than you would expect after a big game of some sort.

The rest of the city was simply dead. Little or no sign that the Olympics were in town.

We ducked into O'Doul's, our main reason for being here and got our favorite table right in front of the band stage. The only table in the bar had been reserved for us. We took our seats and were joined by Mike and his wife, Donna, our friend and drummer Julian McDonough and by others as the evening went on. We ordered drinks, had dinner and listened to Mike's group play all evening. As soon as they began my wife and I both sighed and realized how much we had missed their playing. Julian was up from Albequerque, where he lives with his wife and baby, just to play here for the 2 weeks of the Olympics. A nice gig. Of course we all wanted to know when he was moving back to Bellingham. We always ask. We miss him.

We had several opportunities to sit and chat, and get caught up with the guys. Two other tenor sax players and another drummer sat in for a few tunes. The "three tenors" played wonderfully together, each taking a turn soloing and all playing off each other's riffs. What a night. Who needs the Olympics.

We've noticed that Mike has a set of groupies that frequent O'Doul's when he plays and we have gotten to know some of them over time, just like the jazz fiends we hang out with in Bellingham. About midnight, we said our goodbyes to everyone and headed home. We did make a detour through the downtown area to drive past the Olympic Flame. Even there, there were no crowds. We stopped to shoot a few snaps and then continued for home. The drive out of the city was exactly as it would be any other night of the week. No crowds leaving the Olympics to cross the border or go home to the suburbs. It was dead.

As for the SkyTrain, Vancouver you have a few kinks to work out of your mass transit system if the purpose is to keep traffic out of the city core. Because, from my perspective, it ain't workin'. Of course, if that is as crowded as it gets in Vancouver, it doesn't need to to work.

The Renaming is Complete!

Today the new life of a grand lady began when she was officially renamed The Key of Sea! As I have previously reported, the old name has finally been removed. Unremoved since we purchased it in August of 2009, by the time we were ready to remove the name, the weather had turned too cold for either removal or applying the new name.

In November I contacted local sign company Special T Signs here in Bellingham and asked them to design, create and install the vinyl lettering that would be applied to our boat. Working with one of their designers, we batted around font ideas and color schemes until we found what we liked. The lettering at the top of this entry is design we decided on. We like its style, the classy and classic look and the way the gold edging makes the dark blue pop. The capital letters are 12 inches tall and the entire display 52 inches long which works much better in relation to the scale of the bridge face when compared to the old lettering. So here it is, the before and after. Drum roll please. . .

Before, Nameless






After, The Key of Sea

Dinghy Outboard Motor Project Completed

I am finally getting to some of the photos of our dinghy outboard motor during the refurbishment project recently undertaken. The project as you may recall, began when I got my friend and fishin' buddy to take a look at the old 4 hp Mariner outboard that came with our yacht. At first glance it looked pretty hopeless. The housing was pretty corroded, dinged up and just generally beat up and mistreated. Add to that the fact that I had attempted to start it only once and, though it did start, after very nearly wearing myself out trying, it ran only a brief few seconds and then died. Nothing I could do after that would get it to restart.

Enter Rick, the master outboard mechanic! He emptied the old fuel out, poured in fresh, took out the spark plug, cleaned it and reinstalled it. After some brief confusion over which way the controls should be pointed before starting, he pulled the lawn mower-like crank handle a couple of times and the engine sprang to life. Yes!

So now we knew it wasn't a lost cause and was worth investing a bit of time and energy into. I ordered a couple of new spark plugs, installing one and putting the other aside in my spare parts kit aboard The Key of Sea. I learned early on ordering or buying two of everything, was, like in Noah's time, a good idea. Especially when dealing with older equipment. You never know when it may be impossible or at least very difficult to get a new part. And out at sea miles from the nearest parts store is not the time to find out you need a new cotter pin for your prop!

So I went on a mission to find the local rep for Mariner engines finally discovering that Clearwater Marine way out behind Chambers Chevrolet off I-5, is a Mercury dealer (the makers of the Mariner motors) and therefore the place to order parts for my motor. Order is the word of the day here since this motor was made back in 1988 and therefore parts off the shelf are pretty much not going to happen. I special ordered new zincs which I still wound up having to machine a bit so the flat-headed bolt would seat properly onto the base of the lower unit. I spent a lot of time cleaning off old grease and oil, lightly sanding and double 0ught steel wooling the exposed painted areas of the motor. I spray painted a good bright green Chromium primer paint onto all areas showing corrosion and or rust. Then I sprayed any public areas with Mariner gray paint including masking anything so that there was as little overspray as possible and the job would look as professional as my talents, experience and know how allowed.

I must say I am pretty impressed with the way it looks. Scattered throughout this blog are some photos of the project. Baring any unforseen issues, we should look pretty good out there this summer tootling around in our new dighy and like-new outboard.

Valentine's Day Dinner

Most years we aren't even in the same town for Valentine's Day. Leslie is usually at the Washington Music Educator's Association (WMEA) state convention. I am usually just around the house (or the boat). This year was no different. So we, as usual, celebrated our V-day on the 16th. As I am home AND at least to my way of thinking, this holiday is really about and guy pampering his significant other, I had the time to organize a nice dinner.

So here is the menu for our Valentine's Day dinner.

Salad Course--

Seared Scallops on a bed of micro-greens and served with hand-made croutons and dressed with a balsamic reduction and parmesano reggiano.




Main Course--

Garlic Fettucini tossed with jumbo shrimp, julienned asparagus, capers and tomatoes.



Dessert--

Chocolate cheesecake with raspberry sauce

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It is all about using fresh ingredients and cooking from scratch. Taking the time to do it that way shows that you care and cooking it with love always makes the food taste better than anything you'll get in a restaurant. And whether or not you can cook as well as the chef at your favorite bistro, I guarantee your efforts will be appreciated.