from the air

I've always been the kind of person who suffers greatly from motion sickness. We lived 17 winding miles outside out of town and I missed out on many gymnastic and ballet classes because I arrived feeling too sick. Most public transportation makes me sick and every time I've ever flown there's been at least a moment where I was pretty sure I was going to throw up. Magically on our flight home yesterday, I was fine throughout the entire descent. So fine in fact that I was able to photograph the incredible sunset.

black friday

I hope you'll join me in buying handmade this holiday season.

olives day 1

Last week a friend dropped off almost 20 pounds of fresh olives. Apparently I have the reputation for a willingness to deal with free food that is labor intensive. This is the same friend who brought me pounds upon pounds of quince. So my knowledge of curing olives is about zero, which meant I headed straight to the internet and luckily found some suggestions that seems valid enough. The only trouble is that you don't know if the experiment is going to work until you are at least a month in, probably even longer. With so many olives, I decided to try 2 methods.
Method 1: Slice each (and every) olive and dump in a bucket filled with cold water. Alternately you can gently bash them with a mallet or rolling pin, I did some of each as an experiment, Make sure they are all fully submerged and put the container into the fridge. Once a day for about a month, dump out the water and fill with fresh water. When the olives are palatable, fill bucket with brine and season with herbs and spices as you please.

Method 2: Place all un-rinsed olives into a bucket, fill with vinegar salt solution and put into a cool dark place. Every month or so, dump out solution, don't rinse olives(!) and re-fill with fresh brine. In about 6 months they should be tasty.

Since this is is such a long term project with variable outcomes, I'm not giving you the exact recipes until I know they work. But I will give you the link to the methods I'm following. I'll update you as we get further along.

traffic

I am very lucky to have a short commute to and from work. I'm even luckier that it takes me past one of the best views in the whole city. Lately I've been admiring the lights on the bay bridge made from all the poor people stuck in traffic. By the way, there are more shots from this series on Flickr.

weather update

Oh my god, summer in November! Last night we were seriously tormented by a mosquito in the bedroom. After 4 attempts to find the little stinker, we finally gave up. He certainly had the last laugh having bitten my honey on the eyelid. Really mosquito? There's very little blood there for drinking but does it ever swell up! I'm taking advantage of the sunshine spending every possible moment with the kids outside. It's inevitable that we'll be stuck inside from rain soon enough. For now it's clear blue skies, lovely grass and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

cookie on your face

I can't believe I dared to complain about the sun setting too early. We have had the most gorgeous weather. It's mid November and 75 degrees. Better to just be thankful for what I got. Like for instance that I can take the kids to eat lunch with my wife at least once a week. It's special for all of us, doubly so when I bring cookies.

 

 

sunset

I do not love the fact that the time change has made it dark by the time I get home. I took this yesterday as I left work.