Appetizers:

• Rosemary/Lemon White Bean Dip
• Crostini
• Bias Cut Carrot Slices
• Maple Spiced Nuts  (I added a bit of cayenne as well.)

Dinner:

Beef Tenderloin with Roquefort Sauce.   From 150 Best American Recipes and oh so good.  We forgot to add the creme fraiche to the sauce but it was so good I’m not sure it’s worth it to add the creme fraiche.  I was nervous about cooking my first tenderloin and it turned out fabulous.  Jim did most of the actual cooking on this one – so I can say that without blushing.

Wild Rice Pilaf (Gourmet Cookbook – a fine basic pilaf.  Recipe said it served 8 and it would have served 12 easily)

Sauteed Red Kale with Pancetta (Adapated from Gourmet Cookbook Kale with Bacon)

For dessert we had Cranberry Poached Pears.  I took the advice of one of the reviewers and added a bare touch of ground cloves.  This was a nice, refreshing dessert after the rich tenderloin.  We garnished with a dollop of creme fraiche and chopped toasted filberts.  A sprig of mint would have have been nice.

Beth brought a great Casa la Postole Cabernet and I opened an ’05 Caymus Cab.  The Caymus needed decanting and breathing and turned out fine after a few hours.   I preferred the la Postole but they were both great with the beef.

Related posts:

1. OED Party
2. Portsmouth Truths
3. Party

Beth, fresh from intensive Yoga training, was happy to show off her muscles:

Soon all seven (or was it nine?) balloons were launching.

We did a splash and dash in the  Willamette River.  I thought we’d just touch the water and rise up, but we actually floated in the river for several minutes.  We were amazed and impressed.  We had some wine to celebrate.

Airborne again, Beth continued to bliss out.

Jim’s favorite part may have been when I helped squish the balloon back into the bag.

We both pretty much liked the whole trip!  
 

If that wasn’t enough, we have a whole album of pictures.

Other notes:

• We (and the winemaker) recommend that if you have any ’05 Laurène you cellar it several years.
• At the delicious breakfast they served after the balloon ride Jim tasted the multi-berry crisp and told me to learn how to make it.  A few weeks later I made one, he pronounced it one of the best things I’d ever made and told me never to make it again.

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1. Wine Tasting
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The verdict on the engine was good. The only mistake I made on the first build was forgetting to put the plugs in the end of the camshafts. This caused the top of the engine to have too much oil resulting in the leaks and the flooding of the valve guides.

On the plus side, the engine should be strong at 137.5 hp on the Dyno

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When I woke up I thought, “That’s weird, I never went to Math Camp.” Ten minutes later I realized that I HAD. Oh, the humanity.

It was the summer between my sophomore and junior year in high school. While I was a bit of a math geek, the real reason I went was that my Grandmother and Great Aunt lived in Oxford and were friends of the two professors who ran the camp at Ol’ Miss. (So, yes, I mean Oxford, Mississippi. The one with William Faulkner’s home and two Confederate war memorials.) With this trip I could enrich my mind and visit with the family.

I went for six weeks, lived in the dorms – girls in one builidng, boys in another, no visiting allowed – and had a grand time. And, to my shame, did not learn one wit of math.

We had two courses in the morning, one in topology, which started out interesting and then I got lost. The second was something called Analysis and to this day I’m not really sure what it covered. Perhaps Calculus. The professors would lecture and call us to the board to do proofs. The one time I went to the board, the professor said, “Well, that’s nice but it’s not very correct, is it?”

In the afteroons we had study hall with two very nice TA’s. I think I spent it writing letters home. Around 2 or 3 we were free to run around the beautiful Ole Miss campus, mock the girls at cheerleading camp, have watermelon fights, play video games and disco dance in the Student Union, and hike throught the tick-infested woods to Pizza Hut. For a big night out we’d head into town for movies at the Hookah, a theater in a converted quonset hut.

I discovered I could check books out of the University Library and spent hours in its cool halls, with its intriguing study carrels. I read Marjorie Morningstar. I wore cut-off jeans shorts which shocked the other students, who were all from the South. When my grandmother bought me a beige knit dress, the boys told me I looked like a proper Southern girl. The black girls were mysteriously assigned to room together and only socialized with us during the very largest of the dorm floor shenanigans.

Only in the last few years did it occur to me to wonder why the professor and TA’s let me give up. The homework consisted solely of writing proofs, and we had no text, only notes from our classes. I was completely and utterly lost. OK, sure I was lazy too, and didn’t go looking for help. That’s why it’s only recently occurred to me that perhaps since I was the child, and there were four grownups around, they should have done something about a girl who had signed up for Math Camp and then not done the math.

For the record, no boy ever did ask me to his room. They were Southern and proper. I, despite my Confederate ancestors, good manners, and Colonel Reb charm bracelet was neither. I would have gone.

It was one of the biggest events of my teen age life, and for 10 minutes this morning I’d forgotten all about it.

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I ran 5 20 minute sessions and put about 130 miles on the car for an average speed of 78 mph. During that 130 miles I used two full tanks of gas and a third of a set of brake pads.

With only 3200 miles and three track days on the car, I’ve worn out the brake pads.

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While hanging out after the work was done, we broke out his scale set and weighed everything in sight. For my Elise, Touring pack, hardtop and about 1/2 tank of gas, the weights were:

Empty
LF 369 RF 373
LR 632 RR 602
Total 1976

Me only
LF 452 RF 402
LR 718 RR 633
Total 2205
(Quick, how much to I weigh?)

With two people in the car
LF 475 RF 483
LR 736 RR 696
Total 2370

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2. 87055 Miles
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Yesterday, through the generosity of a friend, we attended the Doc Martens Warehouse Sale. It’s really in the warehouse. All adult shoes were $30 a pair. When we walked in they handed us each a BIG clear plastic bag. The shoes were on tables by size. We learned the trick was to throw everything that looked good into your bag, then find a spot to sit – probably the floor, since the 12 chairs were usually taken – and try them on.

We managed to find a few pairs. When we got home, Jim oiled them up with the Dr. Martens shoe wax, since they’d clearly dried out a bit sitting in the warehouse pining for us. I now own lavender boots.

Please note that one of these pairs is for Laura. Laura – guess which one?

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Of what? Of the fabulous dinner party my friends threw for me last night to celebrate my birthday. 10 of us along with two magnums of wine, and several standard bottles, descended on The Melting Pot, which just opened downtown. We had a fabulous time with the four fondue pots on our table – wandering back and forth to sample different treats, chair hopping and just enjoying each others company. I think we were there for four hours. The staff was great, even breaking out the “good” wine glasses and carafes for us. And the food was yummy. Some of my favorites were the Wisconsin Trio Cheese Fondue, cooking my own lobster and shrimp, and the Cookies and Cream Marshmallow Dream, which had a lot more dark chocolate than the name suggests.

At the end of the night everyone signed one of the magnums as a keepsake for me. We’re thinking about making this the group’s new birthday tradition. (It’s fun to have friends who work at wineries!)

A big warm and fuzzy I feel special thank you to all of you!

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We moved on to Domaine Drouhin, to see our friend Tabitha and admire their excellent Laurene Pinot. The day was otherwise uneventful until we reached Archery Summit. The wine was excellent as always and we poked our heads into the caves. When we were done, we walked out to the car and discovered we had a flat. Our driver was rather unfamiliar with the procedure to change a flat so Don and Jim rolled up their sleeves and changed the tire. Steve was the smart one and talked with the women folk.

Back to the house for dinner, cribbage and lots of talking. Nadya and Anita eventually fell asleep with the dogs.

The last time we hired a limo, we swore not to bring a camera along. After not bringing a camera, we swear to always bring a camera.

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