Beef and wine

We learned many things this week.

       1) Judd taught himself to make a pork Wellington (although he's never made a beef Wellington) This included looking up  duxelles which coats the seared meat.  It's a minced, sauted-in-butter mixture of mushrooms, onions, thyme and seasoning. While we cooked, we hors d'ouevred on the first Dungeness crab of the season. Meaty! The pastry puff surrounded pork was fabulous. Watch Out Thompson Christmas Dinner! 

  

        



2) After listening to Handel's Messiah on NPR (Judd is so sweet to let me sing along on all the choruses like I did during my college days) while we hot tubbed at our hotel vacation, we started hearing classical Christmas songs.  We researched voice actor Thurl Ravenscroft who sings the Grinch-You're a Mean One song in the original1966 movie. Thurl also is the voice actor in SO many Disney movies, (101 Dalmations, The Aristocats...)--he voices  the steam boat narrator at Disneyland and some bear in Country Bear Jamboree.  But come to find out, he is most famous for one word:  GRREAAAAT!  Yup-- he was also Tony the Tiger of my childhood.  I LOVED Frosted Flakes.  May Thurl RIP: 2.6.1914 to 5.22.2005. And there must be a special place in heaven for folks whose parents name them Thurl. I guess it means strong/fort in Irish but here is what the web says:
Thurl is the 21,956th most popular name of all time.
https://www.names.org/n/thurl/about#fun-facts

        

       3) We learned that a thing called Weeping Sequoia  trees exist (like weeping willows but weirder.)They look like DR. Seuss growths, out of place in a vineyard.  We had just left a frosty reception where a cleary open wine tasting room, all decorated up for the holidays, asked what we were doing here.  We said we stopped by to taste wine.  They said, "we're getting ready for an event; we don't really have anything open."  I'm thinking, "Yeah, the door is open....."  So we said never mind and went not a mile down the road. The Yakima Valley is teeming with fruit:  we passed apple orchards, cherry orchards, hops-already-harvested and vineyard after vineyard.  At the Hyatt tasting room we received a warm welcome.  We had been only #16 and 17 patrons for the day, so the hostess looked almost excited to talk with us. We're getting more discriminating tastes about this.  Just because a pricey wine is HALF OFF IF YOU BUY A CASE, it wasn't good enough to buy 12 bottles of the same thing.  We each picked one bottle (which never matches) to take home. 

4) Paradisos del Sol Vineyard-- "Swirl Swish Sip Sip Bite Sip."  Everything on Yelp is correct (which we read AFTER our visit.) We usually choose our stops by geography (where we are at the time) and time (are they open today? Is it after 11:00?)  Two thirds of customers on Yelp express their delight at the friendly staff, the quirky setting and the philosophy of pairing food with wine (always what Judd laments is lacking at most all places.)  One third of reviewers complain the food-tastes were smaller than the size of a dime and came out of a pretty grimy-looking tin, and that after the owner had come across the lawn from feeding the turkeys and sheep and hog.   I didn't see any handwashing going on. But Judd and I left agreeing with the majority of reviewers:  it was one of the most fun tastings we've done. We visited the animals outside. The view, if not cloudy, would have stretched to include Mt. Rainer and Mt. Adams. This time of year, the view reaches across all the gone-by fruit trees and vines. We were the only tasters so got the full attention of the vintner, explaining his 10 wines and why they pair with the tiny bites. 

dude on the left by the dog is the vintner Paul "7/8 Norwegian and 1/8 Italian"

5) Toppenish (a town 1.5 hours northwest of us) is famous for three things: murals, the Hops Museum and the Railroad Museum.  We found auténtico Mexican food at Lula's.  Her restaurante wall is bedecked with award after award for her tamales.  When we arrived 6pm on a Saturday, she explained they were all sold out--come back for breakfast..... unless you wanted a chicken one.  We shared the last tamale of the day, even though it was "only chicken."  It was still really good. And THEN we had dinner: chicken mole and chile relleno--always too much but always good leftovers. 

We didn't see many murals until the next morning but it was raining so we took a very short walk down the main street to soak in as many as we could. (Probably only 20% of what decorates the town.) The valley produces 75% of the hops for the nation! Although we missed the museum, we visited "Old Timers Plaza" and saw a mural the size of a very big building portraying hops harvested by hand.  (Of course, I don't know how they harvest them now.) Here's Irish Dick who, as the story goes, traded a bear cub to a saloon owner ...
Long Description from WayMarking.com:
"In about 1910, a strapping, hard-drinking shepherd called Irish Dick traded a bear cub to a Toppenish saloon-keeper for whiskey. 
Some months later, the rowdy shepherd was in town when his grown-up pet escaped, panicking townsfolk. He offered to return the bear to its tether. This led to a legendary man/bear fight on main street that sent Dick, a brave and bloodied Irishman, to the hospital and an unharmed bear was returned to saloon servitude."

Street corners are lit at night by cowboy boots and hats for Christmas
That guillotine-looking equipment on the left is some kind of ginormous juice press (see below)

harvesting hops by hand

in Old Timers Plaza-- Native American statue with juice press behind

Public "WestRoom" mural depicts Halloween shenanigans (someone tipped over the outhouse)

Judd's leased VW parked under a building where all the folks in the windows are painted

Upon departing Toppenish, we found a Mexican bakery and bought pastries. I haven't felt like the only white person for a hundred miles since we were in Peace Corps. It was truly where the locals get their traditional Mexican breads and pastries.  We smelled El Provenir before we found it, following Google-walk-there-in 2 minutes-directions. The flavor of the day must have been sugar and butter.  We took a scone-like coconut thing and a turnover apple thing and every one was very nice and helpful to us.  SO MANY cookies and pastries and mini-loafs!.  We then went down the street for drive-through travel tea and coffee. We saw one more mural and had to google Maud Bolin to discover why someone painted a whole wall about her. In 1927, she was one of the first female aviators (just 9 years after Amelia Earhart.) Maud was also one of the first women to parachute jump and was a rodeo competitor around the West. Born and died in Toppenish. You go Girl--make a wall for yourself!

get OUT of town!

We have been hearing from locals that "this is winter in Walla Walla-- grey skies, no sun and under 30 degrees everyday."  The right-out-of-town landscape is a barren yellow where the wheat or soybeans were harvested. Some faint hint of green sometimes lines the dirt, but we can't believe anything is going to grow before April when it's been 28 degrees every day as the  high. Some folks report the need for SAD lights*** or a trip to Arizona to get them through. 

We spontaneously decided to pop in the car for a road trip east (not ALL the way east.)  I did download a phone app of the Washington and Idaho DOT so you can tell which mountain passes are clear or which require chains to get over. In my steel-studded tires, we hit Idaho in two hours and Montana in five. Judd had researched hot springs along the way and Lolo Pass (5233 feet) also had a lodge, cabins and a saloon.  Yes! The terrain gets greener and forest-ier as we, once again, traversed along the Lewis and Clark trail.   This route was their eastward way home and although they went in June to Oct, it still must have been incredibly cold and rough going. The pass has already seen 17 inches of snow this season.

    We got to the lodge which was all decked out and then discovered that we had reserved a cabin, not a room in the lodge.  The cabins were across the street, run by a different team.       The Lewis Room was decorated cutely, but we could see our breath. Judd valiantly went to up the thermostat and turn on the heater but when I remarked that there were icicles dripping out of the sink faucet and he found the water in the toilet frozen, we decided it was a little TOO rustic. We went back to check in desk and they put us in the Clark Room, cursing the cleaning woman who must have turned the heat down too far.  The next cabin was warm enough. Same art work over the bed-- a big mural-like drawing of white men coming upon Native Americans at a river--Didn't look violent yet.  For purchase for $650.  Hmmm--where would it look good? We unpacked so we could head over to the saloon for dinner and then the hot springs.
     We were the only patrons in the saloon, but then we dine so elderly-early that perhaps the crowds were coming in later after skiing/snowmobiling.  We had a great steak and potatoes dinner and met the local Santa, getting ready for a kid event the next day.  The hot springs are in- and out-doors.  We opted for the indoor pool attached to the changing room as it was 17 degrees outside. The water, at 105 degrees, was awesome. And if you think about the tingling sensation as the minerals doing healthy things for your, it takes away 'ew' factor of a public hot tub.

 

 The cabin included breakfast which we were told would start at 8:00.  We were up and about by 7:30 so read books until 8-- Judd reading The Stranger in the Woods (the Maine hermit) and me reading The Other Einstein (about Albert's first wife.) Then, come to find out, the posted winter hours are for breakfast to start at 9:00am.  We decided to just get a move on and have breakfast in Missoula.  The town has a cute downtown at the foot of some big Bitterroot Mountains. We had too much food for breakfast at The Shack and then did a little shopping downtown.  We were on the road by 11:00  and back in Walla Walla via Spokane by 4:30. We took ourselves to a new wine tasting room:  Eternal and learned that the Mexican restaurant next door, The Saint and the Sinner was having their last night.  We spoke with the chef who was running a special on his chicken enchilada (grandmother's recipe.) He is moving on up to Bon Appetite. We hear a Greek restaurant will be moving into WW.   We're okay with that too.   Now, about those SAD lights......

Back to Washington.  We get that we're driving through the remnants of a massive flood bed. Why do they call it the Evergreen State?

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Thanksgiving and pogonip

     When we rented this half-house, we were pleasantly surprised to find this kitchen feature:  a hemi-oven right above the regular oven.  Most all the time, we never need the big one and have been happily saving energy (and it heats to temperature much faster) all this time.  Then, lo and behold, the night before we want to cook our Thanksgiving day 12 pound turkey, we find that the big oven is broken. A call to the landlord Wednesday did not remedy this in time.  Judd taught himself (actually Youtube taught Judd) how to spatchcock a turkey. We don't have kitchen shears so Judd deftly wielded our sharpest knife so he could flay and splay our bird.  We just tucked the stuffing underneath and it all fit in the top oven. All the usual sides: pearled onions, mashed potatoes and gravy, squash, cranberry relish,pumpkin pie, pecan pie and apple crisp. On Thanksgiving morning a flock of ducks showed up on our creek.  We've never seen them before--maybe they were hiding out lest they become someone's dinner for the day.

   We've encountered a new weather phenomenon: frozen fog. The bastardized Shoshone word is pogonip. (see below)  For almost a whole week, it was 26-31 degrees, day and night. With some kind of inversion where the fog stays down close to the land, all the precipitation dripping on everything freezes.  It makes the trees look like they're flocked without it ever snowing. It makes the porches/roads look like an ice storm. (Not to be confused with ice fog which is an Alaska thing.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_fog
We may yet have to buy a shovel and some ice melt. For now, my studded tires are on for the season.

After dinner activities include Judd's Lego robot fun

From ON-line Merriam-Webster: pogonip

 noun

pog·​o·​nip | \ˈpä-gə-ˌnip  \

Definition of pogonip 

: a dense winter fog containing frozen particles that is formed in deep mountain valleys of the western U.S.

Did You Know?

Readers of The Old Farmer's Almanac might recognize the odd-sounding warning, "Beware the pogonip!" So what's a pogonip? In the mountains of the western United States, the fog condenses into tiny, biting ice particles in extremely cold weather. The English-speaking settlers who encountered this unpleasant and sometimes scary phenomenon when they went out West in the 1800s needed a word for it. They borrowed "payinappih" ("cloud") from Shoshone, altering it to "pogonip."

Our week as vegetarians

  The week before Thanksgiving (and after our Leavenworth trip with a surfeit of cheese and meat) we started planning for our "Maintain, Don't Gain" Campaign." The campaign is where we put our weight on the calendar before the holiday month+ of Thanksgiving to New Year and try not to gain weight over the holidays. I was sad that all the German food and road trip had already increased our numbers so thought it was a good idea to cut back for a week.  We (okay, me) thought we could sensibly lose 1-2 pounds in a week by being vegetarians. So at our Sunday grocery shop, we stocked up on nothing but vegetables--some our usual weekly fare like eggplant for grilling and carrots and celery for work snacks. But then some specialty items:  jack fruit, tofu, cauliflower to make into rice, hakurei turnips for snacking (like radishes only milder) .....etc

Pre-packed jackfruit tastes like chicken;
blender pulverized cauliflower looks like rice--season it and you won't know the difference 

poblanos; asparagus and onions

DAY 1 -- He looks almost excited:

DAY 3 -- Lookin a little despondent
portabellas, summer squash and shishito peppers

DAY 5-  one hubbard squash which was our doorstep fall decor for autumn--froze 2/3 of it

We lasted 6 days and then broke into the pepperoni that we'd purchased at the German meat market, "Cured",  in Leavenworth. The next day was Thanksgiving and were prepping and  brining the turkey and making pies. 

Weights: 1.5 pounds down! mark the calendars and commence the festivities.

not just a prison....

...Leavenworth

We honor Veterans by closing health care services for them on the Monday closest to their celebratory day.  Judd and I decided that was a three-day weekend for a road trip.  Leavenworth is 4 hours northwest of Walla Walla as the car drives--just this side (east) of the snow clad Cascade Mountains which come into view on the drive into town. Previously a booming pioneer town for the logging industry, when the railroad pulled out Leavenworth fell upon economic hardship. A bunch of town councilmen got together in the 1960's to brainstorm how to revive the town.  They came up with the creative plan to remodel the town into a Bavarian hamlet. Now there are city ordinances about which old European font can be used on signs--even MacDonalds and Starbucks had to comply. Indeed, now tourism is the big business and they do it up right. Although Fall is not quite over, they were hustling up all the Christmas regalia and shopping, eating and drinking, Bavarian style are the things to do.  We did.

We checked into Mrs Anderson's Boarding House via a complicated passcode system. Mrs. Anderson is no where on the premises. She emails you a push button code to get into the foyer and then another code to release your room key from the wall. Someone is available by phone if you can't negotiate the system.  We parked in our designated part of the alley as the town is small enough  (and crowded enough) to walk everywhere.

In between beer and wine tasting there is shop after shop of kitsch, some with a single theme:  ie. "Russia," or "Clocks," or  "Socks," and some with everything under the tree in one store. (more samples below)
We started making notes of some of the catchy phrases on everything from T-shirts to plaques to block of wood to place on your mantle.

We did gin tasting at Blue Spirits and the owner told us why he was allowed to make whisky without and "e" even though he's not in Scotland.  We'll fact check that again. For dinner, I was in search of weinerschnitzel which I recall fondly from my two years in Germany (Fourth and Fifth grade.)  My Dad was stationed in Illisheim and although we lived on the Army base, we got authentic cuisine downtown. King Ludwig's was hopping, probably because of the live polka band and they had authetic beer maids and real weinerschnitzel.  Judd had the Jagerschnitzel.  (the weiner- is breaded veal chop and Jager- is breaded pork chop.) Yum.  

We continued our tour through town by stopping at a beer and cider bar--26 types on draft.  Then we listened to live music at The Stein. We were so inspired by the swing band number at the end that we danced a little on our way out the door.  Strangers on our walk the next morning asked if we'd enjoyed the Stein and I didn't recognize them.  Judd realized they'd "appreciated" our dancing.

Saturday-- More food and beveraging:  
Cafe Renaissance for breakfast

Ginerbread factory for strudel but I had a linzer torte cookie and Judd got a  totally nuked cinnamon bun schnenckennudein

I redeemed my menu selection when Judd got a street brat at Cheesesteak.

We were window shopping along side streets and came upon several places for wine tasting in between shops.  We started at Kasia and proceeded to Water from Wine. They suck you in because the lunch shop gives you a coupon for a "free taste" at the place around the block and when they get you in the door, it's for one taste not a flight of tastes.  We bought a bottle at Water from Wine because some of the proceeds go to getting clean drinking water around the world.  You feel almost virtuous that you're drinking wine at 11am.

Our favorite vineyard (for decor and stories, not necessarily for wine) was "Hard row to hoe."  Only after hearing the owner describe her story did we understand the pun. The woman-run establishment has a nautical-brothel sort of theme, red undies with black lace hanging around, complete with a Burt Reynolds centerfold hanging over the bar = "Nauti Buoy." Wines have such names as Burning Desire or Afternoon Delight.  The story goes: when the Coulee Dam project was closing down, the local female talent needed a new venue. They moved up to a house on Point Lovely on Lake Chelan.  When the mining men got off duty on one side of the lake, an enterprising lad with a row boat, took men over to Point Lovely-- "a hard row to hoe."  http://www.hardrow.com/story/

We had an ill fated Nutcracker Museum visit. The museum boasts over 6000 nutcrackers.  We weren't sure we wanted to pay the fee as we were seeing plenty of nutcrackers from the street entrance and the museum entry way. I was going to snap a quick selfie and leave but the matron behind the desk seemed on to me. My pic was so bad I deleted it anyway. But I was put off by the sign on the door "Veterans and their wives enter free today."  I know a whole lot of women Vets who don't have wives.  I did feel I should gently educate the nice lady.  I started by saying I really appreciated her generosity for Veterans that day, but that I worked with many women Vets who wouldn't appreciate the sign.  She did say, "well then they can bring their husbands" and I said thank you.  But then when Judd and I left she came following us down the stairs.  I think she thought we were mad about the sign and thus leaving without an entrance fee.  We were just leaving because we didn't want to go. I felt like a jerk for not paying the $5 and making ourselves politely go look around.

We had first dinner (giant pretzels with mustard and horseradish) at Rhein Haus where it was warm enough with the fire pit in the table to eat outside . Our table overlooked the Ricola lady blowing her alphorn.  She had been carrying her ginormous horn all over town and every so often we'd hear her play it. Second dinner was tasting cheese and sliced deli meat at CURED.  We retired early and decided to depart town early Monday.  Still in search of a strudel, we stopped at the fancy-font Starbucks and finally succeeded!  It was a meat-, cheese -and bread-dense weekend--A last fling before we go vegetarian for the week before Thanksgiving and the holiday month.

 

 

A Sample of the signs for sale: 

A meal without wine is called breakfast

If a cat could talk, it wouldn’t

MAN CAVE—no wife no kids no problem

There will be a pause in this marriage

            for football season

I’m sorry for what I said when we were

          backing up the trailer