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One Local Summer 2011 – Week 8

By Sheetar 8 July 2011 8 July 2011

I’m late getting this one posted, but it was cooked during week 8, honest! We had an abundance of dill growing in the planter on our deck, so I decided to make some tzatziki, one of my summer favorites. It’s just cucumbers in yogurt with dill, but I LOVE dill like nobody’s business. Husband grilled up the chicken to perfection, and our guest, Abbie, slid all the vegetables (squash, onions, and bok choy) onto a skewer that also went onto the grill. Pretty basic, but it was DELICIOUS and we were able to put it together last-minute before dinner.

Chicken with tzatziki and vegetables:
Chicken – Mt. View Organics
Cucumbers – North Star Orchard
Dill – My Garden
Squash – North Star Orchard
Candy Onion – Smith’s Produce (Anselma Market)
Bok Choy – North Star Orchard
Smoked Sea Salt – Pureblend Teas
Non local – olive oil, pepper, red wine vinegar

Foreign

Eurotrip 2011 – Venice

By Sheetar 8 July 2011 7 February 2012

Rome > Siena > Florence > Venice > Munich > Brussels > Amsterdam

Still 20 March. We hop the train at Florence for Venice. On board the train, there was a little drama – a woman behind us swore up and down, over and over and OVER again that she had paid for her first class ticket, but didn’t get a receipt from the conductor. She spoke broken English (she looked to be from asia, though I wasn’t sure exactly where) and got very upset with the other conductors (the one she paid had gotten off at a prior station). The police were called aboard, twice, and we could not get off that train fast enough to get away from the constant whining coming from her seat.Anyway, we hop on the vaporetto (Venetian water-bus) that takes about an hour to get to our stop at Santa Maria della Salute and just a short walk from there, we find our hotel, Hotel alla Salute da Cici. They had a pretty spectacular deal online for a great room with canal view, toilet/shower, and a bottle of wine so we went for that. The view was worth it (photo at right). Room was a little smaller than our last three, but it was just fine. Dinner at the restaurant next door was included with the hotel price, and it was okay, but nothing to write home about. We were pretty tired, so it didn’t matter all that much anyway.

March 21. Breakfast was at the hotel and there was a fantastic selection of food laid out. We left our bags, PacSafed again, at the hotel in the bag area and headed out to Piazza San Marco. Sadly, Venice was nearly completely under construction while we were there – everything was scaffolded and covered in canvas painted/printed to look like the building it covered. The really disappointing part was the Bridge of Sighs which was nearly entirely encased in advertising by the folks who were sponsoring the restoration. I understand the importance of donors and restoring/maintaining historic landmarks, but it was really disgusting – there’s a photo in the flickr set. There are still plenty of pigeons around though (photo at right), even if there were less than I remember from years ago.

We hopped on the Vaporetto and went to Murano, the island of the famous Venetian glass. We oogled the chandeliers, and Doug even picked up a small glass faucet dripping out a fish sculpture that he’d been eyeballing at every shop. It’s really cute and we need to find a neat place for it at home (still!). We also hit up Burano, the painted island of lace, and wandered around the beautifully colored homes (photo at right) for a while. I had been feeling ill all day (weird stomach/gut pains?) and didn’t have my advil on me, so we were kinda taking it easy.

On the Vaporetto back to the hotel, we get to watch a gorgeous sunset over the water (photo at right). While we probably spent more time on the vaporetti than actually sight seeing, it’s a good way to get an overview of Venice without setting foot on land. Anyway, we grabbed our bags at the hotel and prepared for the night train to Munich!

Slideshow of photos from Venice

Foreign

Eurotrip 2011 – Florence

By Sheetar 2 July 2011 7 February 2012

Rome > Siena > Florence > Venice > Munich > Brussels > Amsterdam

Still March 19. Our hotel in Florence was the Katti House B&B. We checked in easily enough, though the owner didn’t speak much English – just enough to get by – but it gave me a good chance to work on my Italian a little bit, so I didn’t mind! We were brought to our very spacious room (with shower/toilet), and wandered off to find dinner. We ended up at Regginella, a small place near the hotel (which was also near the train/bus stations). The food was excellent, and we were even served some Limoncello on the house to end dinner. Back to the hotel, and to bed – the street was a little noisy, but it wasn’t peak tourist season, and it was chilly enough to need the window shut at night, so it wasn’t that bad.March 20. We end up having to catch the earlier train to Venice, so we only have until 2:30pm. It was also Sunday, and a bunch of things were closed or running limited hours, and really, Florence wasn’t appealing to either of us that much – it’s a very americanized and tourist filled city. If you’re going to visit for the art, that’s wonderful, but the city itself is kinda dirty and leaves a lot to be desired. After Siena, Florence was a huge disappointment. We got up and I got a chance to chat with our hotel owner in Italian which was great fun. She thought Doug was German (his family is near 99% Dutch) They allowed us to leave our bags in the hotel check-in area and again, we PacSafed them just in case. (Photo to the right is of the Duomo (cathedral) of Florence, a view from halfway up the bell tower)

After finding some good espresso for breakfast, we found that the Campanile (bell tower to the Duomo) was open for business. Made it all the way up the 414 steps with the bells clanging in our ears every 15 minutes (photo to the right is the view looking up). At the top, it was REALLY windy, but crystal clear and made for a great view. Here, we’re going to suspend the stair counter since this was the last tower we climbed – 1496 stairs in four days. I’d tell you how hard it was to get out of bed in the morning, but that number speaks for itself.

We spent a little time wandering around Florence. Crossed the Ponte Vecchio and oogled the gold, walked past the Uffizzi, and through the markets at San Lorenzo. Near the Ponte Vecchio, there’s a chain set up to separate the pedestrians from the street. The entire chain was FILLED with padlocks stuck to the chain. We got home and found out they were Love Locks (photo to the right) – couples in love lock a padlock to a bridge, chain, fence, etc and then throw the key in a nearby river symbolizing how they’re locked together in love. AWWW. Anyway, short entry for Florence, but we made our train on time and were off to Venice!

Official Stair Counter: 1496

Slideshow of photos from Florence

Foreign

Eurotrip 2011 – Siena

By Sheetar 29 June 2011 7 February 2012

Rome > Siena > Florence > Venice > Munich > Brussels > Amsterdam

I realized that I was WAY behind on these, so here’s the next installment from our trip in March. (Is it really almost July already? It can’t be!) As always, click any photo to see the larger version on flickr.

March 18. We missed the train to Siena from Rome by about three minutes – the train was at the far, far end of the station and as we were quick-walking to get there, it pulls away. Ugh. Next one was in two hours, so we spent a little time people watching outside the police station which proved to be good entertainment. We ended up on the 10:58am train which arrived at Siena (via Chiusi) at 3:20pm. Somehow, I had neglected to write down the address to the hotel on my master-sheet, but thankfully a very nice cab driver knew exactly where to go, the B&B San Francesco. It’s tucked in a tiny alleyway near the Basilica of San Francesco (St. Francis). The room we booked came with a toilet and shower (somewhat of a luxury for European hotels on a budget), check in was easy, and the folks at the desk spoke enough English, and I had apparently remembered enough Italian that we figured things out just fine. We got to the room, dumped our bags, and ran out after taking a quick peek at the view (to the right) – Incredible.

We booked it on over to the Tuscan Wine School, making it there just in time. Doug and I had decided to do the small wine school class in the city rather than a full wine tour of the region mostly due to time constraints. If we had spent the full two weeks just in Italy, it would have made sense to do a full day wine tour, but I really wanted to go back to Siena (the city where I spent four months for a semester abroad) and spend time in the city proper instead of just being there for the hotel. Anyway, the class we took was the Tuscan Wine class, and I can tell you, having already spent four months (granted, years ago) studying Tuscan Wines in great detail, that this class was SPECTACULAR. I learned a few new things (my studies were more casual, perhaps), and the range of wines presented was absolutely perfect. The teacher, Maria Luisa, was very knowledgeable and spoke English perfectly though we did share a few words in Italian after she found out that I studied there nearly 10 years ago. The tasting ended with Cantuccini and Vin Santo, two of my all-time favorite things.

We wandered off to the Piazza del Campo for dinner – pricey, but it’s quite the experience to sit in that piazza under the moon and take in a meal (photo at right). After that it was off to the Dublin Post for a beer seeing as we had missed getting beer on St. Patrick’s day, and Doug felt it was his duty to have at least one beer. They had a great selection (as always), and overheard a number of English conversations (lots of exchange/study-abroad students in Siena). Then it was back to the hotel to collapse.

March 19. Breakfast at the B&B San Francesco was included, so we helped ourselves to an AMAZING spread in the common kitchen/dining area. They allowed us to leave our bags at the hotel in the hallway while we were out sight seeing for the morning. Since it was in a hallway, we decided to lock up the backpacks with our PacSafesjust in case – it’s not that we didn’t trust the staff of the hotel, it’s just a travel precaution (and really, if anyone wanted to help themselves to some dirty socks, they were more than welcome). Anyway, we went to the Duomo Museum and climbed the facciatone (big facade) (131 stairs). The facciatone is the remnant of a very ambitious plan to expand the Duomo (cathedral) in 1339 which would have made it larger that St. Peter’s in Rome. Unfortunately, the plague swept through shortly thereafter leaving them with no workforce and no money to finish the project. The view from the top of the facade is rather spectacular and well worth the climb (photo to the right, top).The same ticket that permits entrace to the Duomo museum (if you do the city-attractions ticket), also allows entrance to the Bapistry, Crypt, and Cathedral. Doug jokingly called the cathedral (Duomo) the zebra church (photo to the right, ) – the entire inside is made of black and white marble arranged in stripes. It’s really quite a sight to behold. The floor is marble as well, and while mostly covered up, a few open spots show the incredible detail of the marble murals. I’ll let you go poke at the flickr set (linked below) for those photos, otherwise I’ll be posting every photo from Siena here in the blog. I just love it that much.We did lunch at a little place called La Vecchia Taverna di Bacco. INCREDIBLE. I think I had this gorgonzola cream sauce gnocchi which was just to die for. Siena in general is pretty expensive, so you just can’t look at the bills and be shocked, but I didn’t think this place (on a side street) was too bad for lunch with wine.Post lunch, we decided to burn off some of those calories. The big tower in the center of the photo at the right/top is the Torre del Mangia – 400 stairs to the very top. That brings our stair counter to 531 for Siena. The view of the piazza below, and the countryside is always incredible (photo to the right, bottom), and well worth whatever they’re charging for it (and the time spent in line as well).

We finished off the tower at the bottom with Frittelle di Riso (fried rice balls, photo to the right). In honor of San Giuseppe (St. Joseph), a little shack is set up in the Piazza del Campo and sells fried rice balls covered in powdered sugar. It was something I remembered from my study-abroad days, and LOVED back then. Doug really liked them too, so we enjoyed one last paper cone full before going back to the hotel to grab our bags.Back at the hotel, we collect our bags and head out to the bus station. At the end of the little vicolo, there’s a small square with a fountain. A table was set up, and one of the youths at the table calls out to us (something I didn’t catch at first), so we curiously walk down to see what’s going on. He pegs us for Americans and hands us more Frittelle and cups of prosecco, “For San Giuseppe! From the Contrada del Bruco!” (Bruco = Caterpillar) Siena has these contrada, or neighborhoods, that each have some pretty fierce pride. There’s an annual horse race in the piazza, and each contrada raises money, cares for a horse, chooses a rider, flag bearers, etc. It’s a pretty elaborate thing, and I suppose it would be like Eagles fans vs Cowboy fans, but with 17 neighborhoods each in competition with the others. They have little festivals and special feast days and whatnot throughout the year, and it’s sort of like an extended family in a way for people who live in the contrada’s boundaries. Anyway, short cultural history lesson aside, it was pretty neat to be flagged down like that, and we thanked them and wandered off to the bus station. We grabbed our tickets to Florence, deciding not to get on the VERY PACKED first bus and grabbed the second one instead. It’s just an hour’s bus ride to Florence, and is MUCH easier by bus than train.

Official Stair Counter: 1082

Slideshow of photos from Siena

Photography

The Stereo Realist, Scanning, and You

By Sheetar 25 June 2011 14 August 2011

I picked up an old Stereo Realist camera on ebay a while back and finally developed my first roll of film today. Yep, I developed the film all by myself and didn’t fry it. Took a little bit of a refresher course in the chemicals and dilution ratios, took a deep breath and popped open the canister post-final rinse. It worked. Beautifully.

Now, with dry film in hand, I sat down with my Windows 7 machine and trusty old Canon Canoscan 8400f. The two have been having a disagreement (Scanner is TWAIN and Windows 7 is really primarily WIA, two differet protocols for image aquisition), but I finally managed to get things rolling after downloading the TWAIN plug-in for Photoshop (it’s not standard anymore). Your scan driver/software should have a way to allow you to specify the size of the negative and to turn off any auto-correction (exposure, tone, sharpness, etc). Ideally, every scan should be exactly the same, straight from the negative. Then there was finding software for the 3d stereo vision setup. The one most peple use, apparently, is StereoPhoto Maker. Free to download, and the installation/set-up instructions are pretty straight forward. The instructions tell you to also download something called AutoPano. The version they tell you to download doesn’t comply with Windows 7, or at least it doesn’t right now. However, AutoPano Pro is available here, found via google search and works perfectly. You just have to plug in the path to the .exe file in StereoPhoto under Edit/Preferences/Adjustment. I found it best to make sure my left and right images are both about the way I want them (cropped, adjusted, etc) before importing them into StereoPhoto. Then let StereoPhoto run Auto Alignment, go into Edit/Add Fuzzy Border (turn the fuzz down to zero for a plain border), and File/Save Stereo Image. VOILA! Just cross your eyes a little (or look down at your nose) and allow a third image to appear between the two images and come into focus. That image should be in 3d!

It’s been really fun going through the stereo images and now I can’t wait to go back out and burn through another roll! Click Here to view my Stereo Realist set on flickr.

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2011 – Week 7

By Sheetar 22 June 2011 22 June 2011

Okay, I know I say this every week, but, I REALLY made a good one here. It’s no secret that I love garlic scapes, the spirally green vegetation that grows above the garlic bulb. In order to get a proper garlic harvest, the green shoots need to be cut back to allow the garlic bulb to grow and harden. Those shoots, or scapes, are gently garlicky, and can be cooked up much like scallions. After a little googling last week to find other uses for garlic scapes, I came to a brilliant conclusion. Garlic scapes could be steamed and blenderized and then used to make pasta (why no, I haven’t been on a pasta kick either), and then topped with a garlic scape pesto. That’s exactly what I did. I steamed the garlic scapes for about 10 minutes. Then, using a stick blender, added in a little of the water from the steam pot, and blended until I got a thick slurry of garlic scapes. Made and rolled the pasta using about 1/4th cup of the garlic scape slurry instead of water and allowed that to rest while I cooked up zucchini, diced scapes (yes, ALL THE SCAPES!), spring onions, and some crimini mushrooms along with pork sausage. The remaining garlic scape slurry was given a boost of smoked sea salt and a little olive oil to make the pesto sauce. Boiled the pasta, threw some sauce on top, added the sausage and vegetables to the plate, and there was dinner! A little chunk of cheese on the side of the plate finished off dinner – which, I’ve just finished off dinner as I’ve been sitting here typing this up for you, it was THAT GOOD.

Garlic Scape Pasta with Sausage and Vegetables:
Garlic Scapes – Jack’s Farm & North Star Orchards
Crimini Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Mill at Anselma
Zucchini – North Star Orchards
Spring Onions – Jack’s Farm
Pork Sausage – Countrytime Farm
Smoked Sea Salt – Pureblend Teas
Fat Cat Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Non Local – Olive Oil

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2011 – Week 6

By Sheetar 15 June 2011 15 June 2011

My, my, how time is flying already. It’s over a month of One Local Summer meals. For those of you late to the party, the One Local Summer challenge involves spending the summer (or at least here, our summer farmers market season) cooking one meal a week using only local ingredients with a few allowable exceptions (salt, olive oil, seasonings, etc). This is my third year of doing the One Local Summer challenge, and I’ve learned so much about my own cooking skills (or lack thereof sometimes), different foods, and new vegetables. The benefits are many, probably too many to list here, but for me, the big deal is that we can get soo much food locally, without hauling food across the country or even halfway around the world. I’d love to hear your take on eating locally and what’s important to you, and if you’re interested in participating too!

This week is an amazing Asian Pork Cutlet meal complete with Bok Choy and a little veggie side of spinach, mushrooms, and garlic scapes. I was SO excited to see garlic scapes this past weekend at our Phoenixville Farmers Market, that I couldn’t help but add them to the plate. The real big non local item this week was teriyaki sauce, but it was only used in the marinade, so I’m calling that a spice/seasoning and giving it a pass. The scapes and mushrooms were sauteed with a little butter, and then the heat was turned off, spinach added overtop, and then covered to allow the spinach to wilt. Meanwhile, just as the pork was nearing perfection on the grill, I dabbed the bok choy with a little olive oil and threw that on the grill as well. Everything came out so perfectly (or am I just that hungry?), I believe we have a HUGE win for today. No real recipe with this one, just your basic grilled pork and vegetables.

Asian Pork Cutlet w/ Vegetables:
Bok Choy – North Star Orchards
Garlic Scapes – North Star Orchards
Spinach – Maysie’s Farm
Portabella Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Pork Cutlets – Countrytime Farm
Non Local – Olive Oil, Butter, Soy sauce

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2011 – Week 5

By Sheetar 10 June 2011 10 June 2011

We had an unexpected trip away from home, but still managed to hit the Anselma Farmer’s Market, and with some help from our freezer, got a meal together for One Local Summer. It’s pretty basic, but was nonetheless delicious. The husband cooked the steak to perfection (read: brown and fully cooked the whole way through – I like my steaks WELL WELL done) and topped it with some delicious goat cheese, threw together a salad, and found some sugar snap peas to add as a vegetable. It was all last minute, but we made it!

Bison Delmonico Steak w/ Salad:
Bison Delmonico Steak – Backyard Bison
Sugar Snap Peas – Brogue Hydroponics
Mesclun mix – Maysie’s Farm
Strawberries – Brogue Hydroponics
Cucumbers – Brogue Hydroponics
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills Farm
Italian Herb Goat Cheese – Yellow Springs Farm
Smoked Sea Salt – Pureblend Teas
Wine – Chaddsford Pinot Noir
Non Local – Olive oil, Pepper, Salad Dressing