... but close! Mine look more like chile relleno popsicles because the chilies were small and the cheese sticks stuck out quite a bit on their own. But at least everything was encased in batter and they were delicious! The batter needed to be a teensy bit thicker, but all in all we were pretty pleased.

When I named my earlier blog post the other day I’m sure you noticed that I had “normal” in quotes. It seems like things haven’t been “normal” here for quite some time. We had an earthquake, then Hurricane Irene. After Irene we had tropical depression Lee who dropped just as much rain on us as Irene had the week before! Roads are still washed out with gaping swathes where the pavement used to be.

Then we went to Colorado to the cabin. After being home for not quite two weeks we went to New Mexico. Then the big freak October snow storm comes along and dumps 19 inches of snow on our fair township and we are without power for four days. What’s normal about any of that?

Now we are finally feeling like we can settle down to normal New Jersey life again. I’ve been in the West so much lately that I am having a little trouble adjusting. But maybe that’s due to the power outage. It was strange, I have to tell you. But now at least we know what it’s like and that we can survive just fine on our own for a while. Any longer than four days might be pushing the limit. Especially in the dead of winter. If that happens and we know something is coming we’ll be sure and blow up the air bed beforehand so we can sleep downstairs in front of the fire. Just in case ...

Before we left we made sure to get up most of the leaves that had fallen. I’m glad we did because now we have more than ever. Too bad Johnny is in the shop—again. The belt on the deck broke again but this time there was a pulley that was broken as well. So, back to the John Deere hospital Johnny went on Wednesday. He’s due back mid-week but rain is expected by then. I’m sure the leaves will be taken care of eventually, but I hate to see them blanketing and stifling the grass.

This morning we will head off to the farmer’s market at Warwick in search of really good bread for our cheese fondue tonight. The market is looking very sad this year due to all the crop loss with Irene and Lee. All the squash and pumpkins were lost along with the other late season crops. It’s pretty slim pickins’. Usually we would take Mia but it’s pretty chilly out there. We’d have to bundle up for sure. Even our seat heaters and Mia’s adjustable temperature controls wouldn’t make a dent. Maybe we’ll give it a go anyway.

We should get out the chain saw and take care of some huge limbs but I don’t think either one of us feels much like it this weekend. Our beautiful big oak tree in the back yard suffered the most damage. A whole part of the upper trunk broke off plus a huge limb. It’s sad but we can’t see the damage too much from this side of the tree. A few other trees in the front yard lost significant portions of their tops, most of which ended up straddling the fence on neighbor Aileen’s side. Poor trees.

I did so enjoy spending alone time with my in-laws. I’ve never done that before and I thoroughly enjoyed both of them. We kept busy with lots of little drives around the area and eating great Mexican food. I’ll be sharing some photos very soon. We also had a special day where we drove to meet up again with Rick to the tiny town of Cloudcroft at an elevation that equals that of the cabin (over 8,600 feet) where it had snowed the night before. We ate a wonderful lunch sitting by the window watching the fog roll in and blanket everything in soft white and grey. Very magical.

on the way up to Cloudcroft

Rick and I then drove back together, stopping at White Sands (more pics coming of that too!) and Aguirre Spring.

Aguirre Spring is right at the foot of the Organ Mountains, but on the opposite side from the town of Las Cruces. Here are the Organ Mountains as seen from Las Cruces.

And a shot of them with the late afternoon sun on the opposite side.

The following two photos were taken at Aquirre Spring. It’s a beautiful place!

I rambled a lot more in this post than I expected too and was just going to talk a bit. Instead I ended up doing photos of my trip to New Mexico! Oh well. Sometimes it just goes like that. I hope you enjoyed both the rambling and the photos! More coming soon!

OOPS! I almost forgot! Did I ever tell you that my mother-in-law makes THE BEST Chile Rellenos in the world? Yum!!!!!!!

I know you all might not be interested in these particular goings-on (is that a southern phrase {goings-on?}) but you did sign up for this so I hope you are ready for my “sort of” personal and almost-but-not-quite daily diary. You might just decide you want to unsubscribe.

After all, this is why I started this blog in the first place, to record my daily life for myself and those closest to me. Somehow it expanded to a slightly larger audience than that, but still small enough to feel comfortable (knowing the whole web is not open to reading my personal life just in case they cared) to just be me. Not that I haven’t ever been me, but I think you know what I mean. Most of you who are now members have been reading me long enough to know me even if you’ve never met me. I like that. Knowing that, I feel free. Able to say what I want. Well, within reason that is.

Tonight we sat down with a glass of wine (maybe two) on the deck before dinner and went through our recipes that we had selected as candidates for meals at the cabin.

For those of you that remember, our cabin is situated about a 45 minute drive away from the nearest town, which happens to be Laramie, Wyoming. The roads leading to our cabin our not paved, but dirt. Red dirt. Red dirt roads that can become washboarded and rough to travel over. Roads that have free-range cattle and antelope roaming freely over them. Once we are at the cabin it’s hard to pry us away for any reason. We can go a week (if we plan meals accordingly) not leaving the cabin environs except to go on nightly drives to see elk, etc.

For most people, this isolation would drive them crazy. Not us. We relish the opportunity to “tune out” from the stress of daily life. We take long walks with the dogs. We do jigsaw puzzles. We nap when we want to. We read when we want to. Heck, we do most things when we want to. The fewer the trips in to Laramie, the better.

All the more reason to plan out our eating strategy wisely. It’s not easy, but we seem to manage on the “less is more” strategy just fine. If you forget an ingredient there is no ringing up the neighbors to borrow something. No convenience store conveniently close.

I think we came up with some pretty tasty meals. We’ll get groceries on our way in to the cabin to last us up to four days and after that we’ll go in to town to do a bigger shop. Somewhere in Nebraska on the last day of travel I will unravel Rick’s list and organize it.

Bella, our ever present companion, helped us make the list. The devilish glint in her eye and big grin on her face says mom, when we leaving? can we go now? my beaver pond awaits!

Last Saturday we drove into the city for the Chinatown Food & Culture Tour. This makes the third tour that we have taken with Foods of New York Tours. We did the Greenwich Village tour last year around this same time, and when my sister was here visiting in June we did the Chelsea Market tour. This time we invited neighbor Kim’s mom, Bea, to join us as she loves Chinese food and Kim does not! Of course, it was one of the hottest days in the heat wave that we’d been having.

We left early since our tickets said they did not recommend driving because the area was very busy and congested. It took us exactly one hour from our door to pulling into the parking garage. So much for leaving plenty of time! I think going on a Saturday was helpful because we encountered no problems.

Right from the start it was obvious we were in Chinatown. Everything was in Chinese! Of course it was in English as well, but the English was very tiny.

We were to meet our guide in Chatham Square (now also known as Kimlau Square) which turned out to be a short walk from our parking garage. It’s a very busy intersection with roads branching off from every aspect.

This statue of Lin Zexu stands in the square.

photo by Rick

Our first stop was Dim Sum Go Go just off the square.

At first look it appeared to be a fast food place as the name sort of implies. When I walked up to the window to look at the menu I saw lots of Michelin awards—one from every year for excellence. Once inside our guide directed upstairs to a large table overlooking the street and square. Air conditioning, yes!

I didn’t know that literally translated Dim Sum means “from the heart.” I also didn’t know that the first Dim Sum were created as a packet to hold medicinal remedies by a village doctor as an easy way to dispense medication to the sick. It later became popular in tea houses as a way to serve food to bring more people in.

Here was our first round: steamed Dim Sum. The white one that is crimped on top like a clutch purse is a duck dumpling; the pink one is a chicken dumpling (and my favorite of this group!); the round white one was a chive and shrimp dumpling and eaten last as a palette cleanser—very fresh and bright.

Are they not tiny works of art? Everything here is made to order. Nothing is ever frozen.

Our second round was a fried pork dumpling (in the back) and the very delicious steamed roast pork bun (the very white one). Yummy! (The dumpling in front half eaten is my chive and shrimp from the last round. I was slow eating.) Our guide described the wrapper for the roast pork bun as being a kind of extremely dense Wonder bread, so it was not a dough like the others were.

After this I was pretty full but I knew there was quite a bit more food to come. From here we did a short walking tour to help digest our food.

Chinatown was apparently a very seedy area of town at one time. Gang wars, opium dens, bordellos, gaming dens, saloons, etc. Doyers Street was famous for gang wars because of it’s abrupt turn. Anyone hiding around the bend could not be seen from the street creating a great place for an ambush. I love the streetlights here—they are shaped like lanterns.

There are also lots of underground tunnels in this part of town, now most of them blocked off and unused, that were used as quick and dirty exits from all the nefarious activities that once took place. We went down in one that is now taken over by businesses and shops in what is pretty cheap real estate.

Nom Wah Tea Parlor has been around since the 1920’s. Our guide told us that Woody Allen loves to come here every Wednesday.

We also learned that not everything is as it appears to be in Chinatown. This “restaurant,” The Gold Flower, is right next door to the tea parlor. However, it is not a restaurant at all. Behind those doors lies one of the trendiest bars in New York City: Apotheke!

According to our guide who has been there, all the staff members wear white lab coats and they claim to “serve prescriptions daily.” Prescriptions in this case being cocktails to match the mood you want to be in. The drink menu is creative and varied and the cocktails are listed under these categories: Health & Beauty, Stimulants, Stress Relievers, Pain Killers, Aphrodisiacs, Pharmaceuticals, Euphoric Enhancers, Therapeutic Treatments and House Remedies. Sounds like a fun time to me!

Another building masquerading as something it is not is this one at 37 Mott Street, “Mei Dick Barber Shop.” Don’t go here to get your hair cut. This is really a poker den.

Our next stop was Elite Health Products, a shop selling all kinds of Chinese herbs, teas,  and a colorful array of all things ceramic for tea. There were many strange things in large clear glass jars. Abalone, dried sea cucumbers, swallow nest, ginseng from Wisconsin (of all places). It turns out that Wisconsin has better ginseng than China does! Imagine that!

 

 

Now that we had digested our dim sum we were ready for our next food stop:

Once we were seated in this lovely little restaurant our guide proceeded to tell us the behind the scenes story of how they prepare the duck from start to finish. I won’t go into the whole thing here, but I was unaware of all the special preparation that went into making Peking Duck, Peking Duck. The quick and dirty explanation is: “First, air is first pumped into the duck to stretch and loosen the skin, and then boiled water is repeatedly spread over the bird, which is then carefully dried. The dried skin is rubbed all over with maltose and the duck is then roasted in a hot oven for a period of time until the meat is tender and the skin crispy.” I think there is a lot of controversy about how the birds are raised, like there is with foie gras. If you want to know more about what happens before it arrives at your table looking like the photo below of ours, follow this link.

Don’t be put off by the head and neck still being on the bird. As it turns out there was some sort of law in New York years ago that fowl could not be frozen with the head on, so leaving the head and neck on the bird was one way to prove your bird was fresh. The law is no longer in place but the tradition goes on.

It was carved table-side. First the crispy prized skin, then the meat.

 

He then folded the duck (crispy skin on top) along with cucumbers, scallions and a hoisin-based sauce into homemade pancakes. Delicious! I am getting hungry just telling you about it!

Then it was a walk around the streets to just look and observe.

 

 

 

 

Next stop was the ABC Restaurant where once again we sat down in a lovely air-conditioned dining room and more delicious food: a traditional Cantonese Roasted Eggplant dish and the yummiest fried rice I have ever had. By this time I was getting very full and wishing I could have eaten more but space was limited!

We sampled some iced plum tea at Ten Ren’s Tea Time and browsed the tea selection. Some were very pricey!

 

Our one and only sidewalk tasting was dessert. While our guide Burt ran across the road to Hon Cafe to pick up our Tiger Roll, we stayed in the shade under the awning of Ten Ren’s.

And so, with the consumption of our final tasting, our delightful tour of Chinatown was complete.

I hope I’ve inspired you to visit on your own or take the tour yourselves some day! I know we are going back very soon!

 

Those my thoughts yesterday as I bobbed around the pool. What a perfect day for it! Blue sky, hot and slightly humid, cicadas starting up. The pool temperature was perfection! Here is Rick before I nabbed his hat.

We did get up early though and go into the Warwick Farmer’s Market. It’s a great drive in Mia over all the back roads.

 

The rest of the day was spent around the pool. Here’s to lazy summer days!

Side note: I know it’s not the Panama Canal but at least it’s something!