Tag: postaday

Imitation is the finest form of flattery.

We love to make homemade pizza at the house.  Monte has longed to have a wood-fired pizza oven of our own.  We opted out of one when we remodeled the kitchen a few years back.  For Christmas this year I got him a Kettle Pizza kit for making pizza outdoors, on the grill.  It had great reviews and seemed to be worth checking out.

We also love the pizza from our local Brick Oven pizza restaurant.  We like to call it the second best pizza in town – next to ours. 🙂

There is one pizza they make that is fantastic and we have always wanted to try making it ourselves: the Tuscan Truffle.

So…tonight we fired up the kettle and gave it a go.  And…. We NAILED IT!
Here is a shot if our first try in the kettle:

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Tuscan Truffle pizza

The “sauce” is a mushroom pesto – made out of sautéed mushrooms, parmesan cheese and truffle oil puréed in a food processor. The toppings are prosciutto and mozzarella cheese (just a little, not much of either).  It only took about 5 minutes in the kettle pizza oven.  After removing,  add arugula and grated asiago cheese on top to wilt / melt from the heat of the pizza.  Drizzle a little more truffle oil on top and VOILA!  Delicious.

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Framed.

I finally got around to framing a print that I bought on my last visit to Pike Place Market in Seattle. The artist is Leone Ardo.
Monte made the frame out of western red cedar. It turned out nice, I think.

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You know it’s cold when…

…the neighborhood gargoyle is wearing his woolies.  🙂

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Back to work.

We’ve survived the flu!   We were supping on Tamiflu for two in the week since Christmas.   Not what I had imagined for the end of my vacation, but…. it is what it is.  And we are all better now!   Just in time to get back to work.  :/

Temps have been dipping low again in the 20s overnight.   We are keeping warm with hot cocoa, and a dose of mini marshmallows, of course.  It makes the work day go by faster.

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A most excellent Christmas Eve Eve.

Yesterday was the first day since my vacation started that I didn’t have anything already on the todo list.  It was all my day.  So I lounged around in the AM, hit the gym, did a little bead shopping, made some shepherd’s pie (yum)…. Just relaaaaaxed.

An extra treat was to see a couple of friends that stopped by the house:  first Rob, and then Marty.

THEN in the evening we headed downtown to Donn’s Depot to listen to the amazingly talented Chris Gage during his weekly gracing of the stage there.  WHAT a great show.  Chris was joined onstage, as usual, by a host of other musicians in the house singing rockin’ Christmas songs til the wee hours – his wife and music partner Christine Albert, the King of Hillbilly R&R Jon Emery, newly Grammy nominated Kym Warner of The Greencards, David Carroll on upright bass, Jeff Tveraas, and the incredible Marcia Ball…   It just can’t get better than that.

I saw my friend Winker, and I ran into my friend Kathy who I haven’t seen in at least a couple years.  It was fun to catch up with her.

A simply perfect night.

Albert and Gage are one of my all time favorite musicians.  Chris has a brand new instrumental christmas album out, Ornaments, which I’ve played a few hundred times already this year 🙂  And A&G have a Christmas album called One More Christmas that I bought last night which is fantastic as well.  Check out all their stuff whether solo or together, you’ll enjoy them.  By the way, A&G are playing the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar at noon today…go see ’em!

Here are a few pics from the night…not great, since I didn’t want to use the flash, but you can see the awesomeness of the night…

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Sunday ups & downs.

The ups:
A trip to the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar.

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The music was really nice, as usual – the band Sons of Fathers was playing while I was there.

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This afternoon we found a nearby bar that the local Seahawks club meets up to watch games, which was a fun experience.

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The downs:
The Seahawks lost 😦

Next week I guess…

A mind is a terrible thing to lose.

I have been impatiently waiting to make christmas cookies. So, when I passed the rack of cookie cutters at the store I picked out 3 shapes I liked, because I was sure I didn’t have any at home. I got home and….

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I already had the exact 3 cutters that I just bought. Early alzheimers, I fear. Oh well.

I soon got busy making some sugar cookie dough. The before:

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And the after:

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Ever wonder why they’re named “red” oaks?

This is why….just beautiful….happy winter solstice!

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Trail of Lights.

We made it to the Trail of Lights tonight in Austin’s jewel, Zilker Park, for the first time in probably 5 years or more.   We used to go more frequently, but it has either not been easy to get down there in recent times, or it has been postponed for financial reasons.   I remember, in the good old days, being able to decide at the last minute to go, and just zip down to the park and park for free on the grassy field and walk over.    No more.   We had to plan ahead.   I got a parking pass online which made it a little easier, but the traffic was really crazy, and the crowds were enormous.

In any event, the lights were simply lovely.

This is the tunnel at the entrance…

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This is a view of a bunch of different lights, with the Zilker tree in the background.13121901

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And one last look back towards downtown.  It’s a little blurry, but you can see some of the Trail lights, some of the city lights, and the waning Cold Moon.13121905

 

The ginormous grapefruit are here!

We ordered another load of giant ruby red grapefruit – finally using up the generous gift certificate mom gave us last year from Pittman-Davis. They arrived today. They are so delicious. I wish we could get them year-round.

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Teri and Jim are on their way home. It was so great to see them.

Upriver.

It was another beautiful day. Clear blue sky, temps in the 60s. We went back out to the lake for a sail with Teri and Jim. The lake is at 628.23′. Up about 10 feet from our low this year. Not nearly enough, but I can tell the difference.
Keep it coming!
This is a shot of the breakwater in front of Lakeway Marina as we sailed past.

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Ace & Deuce.

Our friends Teri and Jim are visiting us this weekend – some of our good sailing buddies who moved out of state a couple years ago. We had a fun reunion party last night. Today we went to the lake and anchored out for a few fun hours. We made it back to the marina in time for a pretty sunset sky. The moon is the nearly full Cold Moon.

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Last workday of the year!

….well, sort of…. I will be on call for work client emergencies during Christmas. Come to think of it, i got stuck with oncall last christmas as well. Crikey. Oh well. Nothing could go wrong, right?!
Anyhow, that will not dim my unbridled anticipation of turning on my out-of-office email message in a few short hours.
That makes today a VERY special TGIF for me.
I hope you have a great Friday, too.

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Reflection.

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