Pinball continued

... There was a lesson on tamale- and tortilla-making. Rosa, our teacher, hails from Michoacán, and is the wife of the overseer out here. She is so lovely and her chile sauce is out of this world regarding its depth of flavor. We made so many tamales and a small mountain of tortillas, and I plan to source some great masa back home so that I can practice and make my own. Rosa plucked these corn husks from her own garden.

Here was dinner, which included a spectacularly delicious salad of dandelion greens, roasted sweet potatoes and beets, candied pecans, fennel, orange segments, dried cherries, pecorino and an incredible vinaigrette crafted from reduced balsamic, Prosecco, fresh orange juice and a million herbs.

Our main was a short rib ragù atop fettuccine. I told y'all we'd eat well!

This morning there were petroglyphs, dating from the 1400s or later and assumed to have been crafted by Comanche tribe members. Most were of animals, presumably those they hunted. To get to these, we drove to a part of the ranch we'd not yet explored -part of the Llano Estacado- forded a shallow river and hightailed it by enormous slabs of layered rock under and between which rattlesnakes could definitely be staying cool. I'm sure I looked like a prancing ninny, but having been told two days ago of a six-footer having been seen recently and just this morning hearing about it being tarantula season, I'd have walked to those glyphs on stilts if I'd had some. Can y'all imagine an effing six-foot rattlesnake?! Jesus h. I am not an overly fearful gal, but snakes and spiders are not creatures I wish to encounter at any time.

I made four small apple-pear pies -one for Rosa, one for the ranch owners who have been so generous in showing us around, two for us- and played with my adopted passel of kittens, deeply wishing I could bring them all home. I finally got to talk to the boys who begged me to return today. Tomorrow, boys, I promise! And so I'm off now, to shower and pack. There are tamales to be eaten, chile to be made, kittens to snuggle.

Holy Cooking, Batman!

It's possible I set some sort of personal cooking record today, bracketed by a meeting and dealing with the car window repairs amidst a pending rainstorm, just to keep things interesting. In short order, I: cooked 4 tarts (two herbed tomato, two leek confit + aged goat cheese) poached 4 pounds of salmon made the frosting for and then iced a chocolate-almond cake deboned and shredded two large roast chickens made olive-artichoke dip for twenty threw together some din for the boys thawed some short rib ragu and cooked pasta to go with it (well, we needed dinner)

and planned for the rest I've to prepare tomorrow.

The boys and I had a terrific dance party to various YouTubed videos of their (my children) hit songs, and now I'm in hysterics over last night's The Daily Show playing in the background.

Have y'all seen the footage of the racist, lunatic ass-wipe from Nevada, Cliven Bundy, who appears to have just come back alive after having been frozen in carbonite in, oh, 1840? He not only refuses to pay the back-taxes he's now about 16 years behind on but also had an armed standoff with reps from the Bureau of Land Management (who were attempting to procure said back-taxes) AND went on and on about how slavery was better for blacks than emancipation or any time since. Oh.My.God. It takes a lot to stun me, and watching him, I was stunned. How grotesque and tragically antiquated.

Who knew how gross Komodos are? Awesome ragu.

A new fascination for Jack and Ol is the Gila monster. In attempting to stay smarter than are they, I did a bit of research on Gilas this evening and, perhaps naturally, ended up reading about Komodo dragons. People, they are revolting animals. Just read through this passage from Wikipedia: Komodo dragons eat by tearing large chunks of flesh and swallowing them whole while holding the carcass down with their forelegs. For smaller prey up to the size of a goat, their loosely articulated jaws, flexible skulls, and expandable stomachs allow them to swallow prey whole. Copious amounts of red saliva the Komodo dragons produce help to lubricate the food, but swallowing is still a long process (15–20 minutes to swallow a goat). A Komodo dragon may attempt to speed up the process by ramming the carcass against a tree to force it down its throat, sometimes ramming so forcefully, the tree is knocked down.To prevent itself from suffocating while swallowing, it breathes using a small tube under the tongue that connects to the lungs.After eating up to 80% of its body weight in one meal,it drags itself to a sunny location to speed digestion, as the food could rot and poison the dragon if left undigested for too long. After digestion, the Komodo dragon regurgitates a mass of horns, hair, and teeth known as the gastric pellet, which is covered in malodorous mucus. After regurgitating the gastric pellet, it rubs its face in the dirt or on bushes to get rid of the mucus, suggesting, like humans, it does not relish the scent of its own excretions.

Possibly interesting, but completely DISgusting.

Bashar al-Assad is SO physically unattractive. What happened to his chin? Did he gas it? And why would anyone remotely sane sport a mustache so utterly reminiscent of Hitler?

OK! To the good stuff. Today was good but looong. As such, I was extremely excited to find one last batch of short rib ragu in the freezer and some wide egg noodles in the pantry. Ol and I had just purchased a gorgeous bunch of kale, and so...T and I enjoyed noodles and ragu and a raw kale salad with garlic oil, sultanas, tomatoes and young chevre. An awesome, slap your mamma, kinda meal.

Circle Yoga Arts Market is coming! Saturday, 9/7, 1-4p, 3838 Northampton St, NW!