thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving 2011 was another great one, with Adrienne at the helm of the Foodship and me as second mate (read: I baked the bread).  Uncle Mark came down - this year escaping the snow and ice - and stayed the night, which as always was a good time.  And the Packers went to 11-0 for the first time in franchise history - it was a day to be thankful indeed.

Here's the menu, which was another of AJ's stellar creations:

 

The humble beginnings of a Thanksgiving feast

Brunch: Shoofly Pie and mimosas

Mid-afternoon appetizers: oranges, olives, pumpkin seeds, 

crackers and a blueberry cheese wheel with a 2007 Airlie Chardonnay

 Dinner: philo-wrapped braised tofu and bread pudding (beer bread, leeks, carrots, chantarelles, and cheese), brussel sprout salad, crunchy parsnip mashed potatoes, ciabatta, and gin-cranberry sauce 

with a 2001 Morro Bay Cabernet Sauvignon

Dessert: a rustic crostata (I learned a crostata is an ancient pie, before our ancestors had pie-pans) filled with pears, hazelnuts, chocolate, and sugar.  There was also a pumkin pie, but I failed to get a picture of either of these treats when they were finished baking....

A terrible picture, but you get the...well...picture!

the REAL first bottling

 

This is my first bottling with real fruit - nothing canned, nothing pasteurized, nothing fake. It looks like Robitussen (and tastes a bit like it too, but I am telling myself it just needs time...) - but it already tastes way better than the stuff I made before.  We'll see - it needs a year in the bottle now! 

landscaping with edibles

Adrienne's dream of turning the 20th Avenue Garden into an urban farm continues to become reality.  As part of the Centenarian's quest to be beautified, we did a bit of landscaping in the front yard using plants that will subsidize our food intake.  We added huckleberries, currants, thimbleberry, Oregon myrtle/bay laurel, and elderberry - all natives and all bearing delicious fruits and leaves.  Adrienne also tore out the strip of lawn near the street and planted a bunch of different bulbs for some spring color.  We also threw in some lupines and a native rose for good measure.

The giant juniper comes out next to be replaced by a ceanothus, a west-coast plant that loves this climate for some reason, but is super abundant on the hillsides of California.  Stay tuned!

apparently I am a 70 year-old man

Birdhouses.  My new hobby.  I am going to make a complete tiny-town for the birds in our backyard.   

progress

This picture probably doesn't look much different than the last house posting, but there are three new things:
1) a sunny sky
2) a newly finished and gleaming porch rail
3) a new fence replacing the old one (did you really think AJ and I are the white-picket types? Puh-lease!)

Not much more to share beyond that.  Adrienne came home with a car full of plants yesterday, so now the landscaping is going to start changing.  A few more changes inside, too - got some cool old lights that really make it feel like the 100 year old bungalow that it once was.  I guess you'll just have to come visit to check them out!

question: how are these two things related?

Answer: re-siding our house made us poor again, so back to boxed wine we go.

There you have it - the Ravenna Centenarian's facelift is complete.  Sure, we have lots of details left - a little more trim work, a new fence to replace the white pickets, some major landscaping.  But that's going to take a while, so I wanted to post a few pics in the meantime.  We are really stoked - everything turned out like we'd hoped and now we have a restored little Craftsman that fits will all the others on the block.  Our neighbors are equally stoked.

Below are a few before and after pics.  I kind of miss the shabby beach shack, but now its hard to imagine our place in anything other than its dapper new digs.  (you can click on each picture to make it bigger)

the 20th avenue cellar

My masterpiece...is finished.

Adrienne and I have long pondered what to do with the funky little 8ft x 8ft room we have in our basement.  Painting studio?  Guest room?  Man Cave?

Behold, The 20th Avenue Cellar.  We now have a 150 bottle wine rack - enough for my homemade vino and our small collection of good stuff - shelves to house AJ's canning bounty, plenty of space for her homemade varieties of beer, and lots of storage for bottles, corks, jars, fermenters, siphons, etc.  Temperature fluctuates between 60 and 65 degrees, so its pretty good to store wine and beer long term. Doubles as a nice work space to do your racking, bottling, and aging too.

You should stop by and enjoy a beverage with us!

How the room looked when I began

I got everything out of there, then discovered that every bit of wallspace was covered with multiple layers of paper and cardboard

Ripped out the paper/cardboard, then added some insulation - gotta keep those wines/beers from getting too hot/cold!

A little more insulation for good measure....

Covered up the insulation with some random boards, built a workbench and shelving, painted the floor and concrete walls

Covered up insulation with old boards from the shelves that were in this room

Cut and stained one-billion pegs for the wine rack

Stained the workbench, finished the floor, built the wine rack, and added some finishing touches

Built shelving for AJ's canned goods and beer and my wine