What a treat! Fresh Oregon lamb, right off the farm – grazing Monday, on the grill Wednesday! I made this 4 pound leg of lamb in a very simple way – rubbed with plenty of olive oil, salt, hand-crushed pepper, fresh picked rosemary and a large handful of fresh garlic, then grilled to perfection. Whoa – good stuff!

Our friend Jerry has a huge farm where all kinds of goodies are grown. Codi and I were given a big assortment of fresh-picked, organic Oregon strawberries. We had a big block of Swiss chocolate in our pantry, so Codi got the bright idea to whip up a very large, high calorie batch of a-m-a-z-i-n-g chocolate covered strawberries. They only lasted 2 days. Frankly, it’s surprising they lasted that long! (I had some for breakfast!)

I had a hankering for BBQ the other day, so I stopped by a rather popular BBQ restaurant. It was highly recommended. As soon as I arrived, I noticed some things that I should have paid better attention to.

1. Hand written sign on door: “Jiggle door handle. It’ll open.”
2. Inside restaurant: distinct smell of cats.
3. Quote from chef/cashier: “I’m so nervous. I’m here all by myself.”
4. 75% of the people who walked in, looked around and left rather quickly.

I toughed it out and got my BBQ sandwich. Sharp stomach ache followed about 15 minutes later. Woops.

“Necessity is the mother of invention.”

I was jonesing for a hamburger. Alas, we had hamburger buns but no hamburger – only hotdogs. While some would have given up, I was inspired. I made a hotdog hamburger, a.k.a. the HotDamBurger. With homemade mustard, a little relish and some ketchup, it was pretty damn tasty!

Surely a sign that hell has begun freezing over, I voluntarily drank (and didn’t dislike) an entire glass of vanilla soy milk. Not even a week ago, I would have preferred to eat a pound of sala (Russian salt-cured pork fat) rather than take even the slightest sip of soy milk. Lo and behold, people can change and so can tolerance for foods. Besides, maybe migrating from milk to soy will help me get rid of those extra few pounds I can’t seem to shed. It’s one of those 2008 resolutions. =)

I was making some BBQ shrimp last night (in the rain) on our deck and I noticed that the light was hitting an evergreen in a particular way that made it sparkle. I got up close and noticed that the sparkling was due to tiny water droplets that had been caught in between the needles of the tree. I thought it looked neat until I got my 100mm macro lens. The closer I got to the droplets, the better they looked.

P.S. The shrimp was awesome!

Most people think that vodka was invented by the Russians. From what I know, it originated around Poland some time in the 13th or 14th century. It was referred to as ‘hot wine’ or ‘burning wine’ (gorilka).

It wasn’t until nearly 100 years later that the word ‘vodka’ was used by the Russians. ‘Voda’ (the Russian word for ‘water’) was used to dilute excessively potent grain or bread-based alcohol. Because Russians loved the voda-distilled drink so much, they gave the word voda a standard grammatical twist to indicate affection and reverence. To do this, they added the suffix -ka to voda (adding -ka to a word or name in Russian is like turning Joe into Joey or Bill into Billy in English) and thus voda was renamed vodka.

Blah blah blah… long story short, vodka is popular all over the world. Personally, I had enough of it while living in Moscow. Portland-based Medoyeff, however, is really impressive.

I took this photo at the Medoyeff distillery today, where world-class vodka, gin and Scandinavian aqua vit are made.

Codi and I were in downtown Portland for a little while. I had a tasty lunch at the Pearl Bakery. A few blocks away, I caught a great view of clouds passing by UV-coated windows on a new building. The purple hues are great.

Fresh Breath, Dirty Mind?

Ever since I lived in Moscow, I’ve had a thing for real, authentic Turkish coffee. It’s a bit strong. It is, of course, unfiltered and typically brewed for 15-20 minutes. It makes espresso seem like colored water. I just made two shots for myself. Woweeee!

I love oriental food! Anyone who’s ever been to an oriental restaurant has undoubtedly seen some funny spelling errors, like “Cheikan in Garlac Sause”. That’s part of the fun!

Earlier today, I found a funny website with scans of poorly translated Japanese and Chinese menus. These are about the worst (or best?) that I have ever seen!

In violation of common sense and every diet book ever published, I’ve been eating pancakes and crepes for dinner for the last three nights. Tonight’s menu included peach crepes with vanilla-infused pure maple syrup. OMG.