Sunday, September 19, 2010

First Rain

The first fall rain, 19 September about 8 am this morning as the front of a weak Pacific storm made it's way into California. Seems pretty normal to me but the Catalpa Tree is starting to turn colors and other trees about town are similarly donning their Fall manner of dress. Nice, I like fall colors and the coming of winter even in a sublimely gentle climate like California's. The big flat wet Pacific storms will follow and snow will fall 10 feet deep in the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains in the course of the next 6 months or so.
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The Political Season is upon us, it's also The Crazy Season. Wingnuts, mostly on the far right of the Republican Party are trying to wrest public opinion from the Teed Off Partie groupies who are nutty beyond belief. They are so stricken with Racism, hate and strife they need serious anger management classes...daily! I have long decided they are not fit to govern anybody, least of all Americans with any education or sensibility at all. They object to everything, anything, everybody who doesn't think exactly their way, there is no centrist Tea Partier. The Republican Party has been long hijacked by the far right and the religious wingnuts who join them. We shall see where this all leads. Not good folks. Not good.
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Trying scallops with vanilla sauce again tonight, with candied orange baby carrots and boiled/roasted fingerling potatoes. The vanilla pan juice sauce didn't come together correctly last week when I made the same dish. Not enough vanilla flavor, I refuse to pay the 8 dollars a vanilla bean so I used Bourbon Vanilla extract, far cheaper but without the punch I wanted. I'll make a different style sauce tonight, probably a white sauce or béchamel and caramelize the scallops a bit more as well...
1 minute per side was just not enough, they were slightly undercooked, so two minutes in a 450 degree skillet this time. That should do it. Tell you later!
H