happy day for Tom!

As most of you know, Tom is a huge fan of Alaskan Amber. Moving to CO was a bit dicey, as (up until recently) there has been absolutely no distribution of Alaskan Amber to CO. Well, recently, our local liquor store finally managed to start carrying it -- which has made Tom an extremely satisfied customer.

soakin' up some sun

Tom recently mowed our yard o' weeds (not an easy task -- we have a big yard, and the weeds were TALL). Happily for sable, he left her a patch of tall grass to hide in. She enjoys her tall-grass patch immensely.
Yesterday, I went out looking for her (to put her in the house, before we picked my parents up at the airport). I was standing about 10 feet away from her; she was nestled in the grasses. I called to her, but she didn't answer -- and I didn't even see her!

ghost sign

Tom noticed this in downtown Denver -- it's what our friend Jim Bolek calls a "ghost sign." Jim, if you're reading: this picture is for you!!

1515 wows again

My parents are here for a visit. Last night we wanted to take them out to a special Thank You dinner (we finally finished repaying a loan to them). We took them to 1515 (at 15th & Market, in Denver) and had the Chef's Choice menu (5-courses) with wine pairing.
I was enjoying the food so much, that I only took a few pictures. Of course, now I wish I had photographed every bit! At any rate, our meal went something like this:
Starter: dandelion salad with a goat-cheese "crouton" (which was basically a cheese curd/fried cheese croquette, made with EXCELLENT goat cheese). This was paired with a white wine -- unfortunately, I cannot remember the name.
Course #2: thin-sliced salmon, cooked in a suvee (I have no idea how to spell that, but basically they vacuum-seal the food in a bag, and cook it in a water bath at a specifically controlled temperature). The salmon was served with a basil-seed garnish, as well as some greens, and paired with a blended white wine -- the wine had grapes from 5 different types of white varietals.
Course #3: seared monkfish and mussels with green curry. The curry was phenomenal. This was served with a fantastic Chilean Malbec.
Course #4: kobe beef carpaccio -- this was my favorite course. It was topped with shitake mushrooms, nori slices, crisped onions, and had a garnish of wasabi-mayonaise. Normally, I don't enjoy wasabi (or mayo), but I really liked this combination. This was served with a Cabernet.
Course #5: buffalo (shown above) with a wine-reduction sauce, served with artichoke hearts and riccotta-cheese gnocchi. This course was paired with a Pinot Noir; it was fabulous!
Desserts: they brought 4 desserts to try/share. The two pictured here are the 3-cheese cheesecake, topped with a lemon curd and sprinkled with blueberries. The bottom photo is a chocolate "free-form creme brulee" -- served over oranges. Both were superb. We also had an apple-rhubarb crisp (which was so delicious that it disappeared prior to picture-taking) and a pear-tart type of dish (also yummy enough to be gobbled down instantly). The desserts were served with a Sauterne (a sweet dessert wine). There were no morsels left over!
The owner was nice enough to chat with us quite a bit -- and (since he recognized us as return customers?) he also provided us with a very nice port to sip prior to our departure.

maple leaf mobile

OK, this photo doesn't really convey as much as I want -- but I had to try.
Last month, my aunt & uncle were here from CA. They bought us a GORGEOUS mobile -- made from cut-silk maple leaves. The leaves are reddish brown.
We first hung it up in our bedroom -- the leaves match the color of our tobacco-stained cherry bed, and contrast nicely with our sage-green walls. But I love the mobile so much that I wanted to display it in a public place in our house.
So next we tried in the corner by the kitchen table. Good -- but then Tom suggested hanging in right over our island, to make it a real centerpiece for our home.
I don't know if this will be its final resting place, but we LOVE it!! Thank you so much, Kathee & Paul!

Mmmmm.... strawberries

Tom went to the store the other day, and decided that strawberries looked good. I love it when he does that!

batter blaster video

OK, I'm going to try to include some camping-trip video. Unfortunately, I "shot" the video vertically, and I don't know how to move it to be viewed horizontally. Despite this, I'm going to give it a shot....

bookend photos

I forgot to mention that our trip started out with a great deal of fuss. We packed one suitcase to check, and brought one carry-on. We have marked all of our luggage with a metallic Sharpie -- so that when our luggage comes down the chute/baggage carousel, we can identify it. We've both checked and brought with us the bag shown here -- many times before.
Well, this time, (for some unknown reason) the TSA didn't like our bag. (This is one reason why I really hate the TSA -- if they are so inconsistent, I don't think they could possibly be effective.) When we put our bag into the xray, they not only stopped the bag to re-xray, but they stopped the WHOLE security process (momentarily), for ALL of DIA. People shouted, "Code Yellow! Stop screening!" and everything came to a halt. They xrayed our bag twice, then took it off to "sniff" it with the chemical-tissue (that I believe is supposed to find bombs). They never opened the bag, and eventually handed it back to us. All I can figure is that the metallic ink showed up funny on the xrays (which didn't seem to bother the TSA in Seattle on our return trip, by the way).
When we arrived home at the end of our weekend, we were greeted with quite a lovely sunset....

walk through Lanie's neighborhood

Lanie lives right by East Lake. Tom really enjoyed looking at the houses on the water. (I don't think they're really called house-boats, but I'm not sure what to call them?)

????

These signs were outside a house near Lane's apartment. I have no idea what to make of them!

spring time in Seattle

We enjoyed a lovely walk through Lanie's new neighborhood (with Queenie, of course). Her neighborhood is filled with tons of really great gardens, and lots of flowers. I don't see poppies in CO (I miss them), and irises have been a long-time favorite of mine.

doggie heaven

Our 13 humans were joined by 2 dogs. Above is Angus -- Steve's Golden Doodle, fast becoming wonderful service-dog. Below is Carrie's Australian Sheperd, Riley. I was having trouble getting Riley to look at the camera, until I said, "BACON." As you can see, that perked him right up...

S'Morgasmic

We enjoyed awesome s'mores on our trip. One reason is that Carrie (I believe) purchased the chocolate from a Seattle-famous choclatier called "Theos." Indeed, the chocolate was top notch.
As it was Steve's birthday, Carrie bought Steve a special piece of chocolate -- that had marshmallow inside. He decided to "kick it up a notch" by also roasting a marshmallow (in addition to toasting the graham cracker and heating the chocolate) thereby creating a double-marshmallow s'more of gooey goodness. As you can see, the result was an explosion of chocolatey mess.

camp food

Camp food does not mean bad food, by any stretch! Our evening feast included kabobs -- with chicken, red onions, bell peppers, mushrooms & zuchini, topped with a garlic-tahini sauce. MMMmmm.
Our breakfast the following day was a 2-hour saga. (Given the fact that we had one cast-iron pan, one grill/open fire, and 13 mouths to feed, this wasn't bad.) We started with pancakes -- with batter from the Batter Blaster. Don't ask me how batter which is jet-propulsed from a can could possibly be "organic"! Then we fried up 3 pounds of bacon. We all agreed: everything is better when prepared with bacon fat! We finished up with scrambled cheesy-eggs, prepared by Marico. I am convinced that Marico has a 2nd career opportunity awaiting her... as a Tepan chef.

return to Alaska?

Last weekend we flew to Seattle to celebrate our friend Steve's birthday. We hooked up with a group of his friends & enjoyed a brief camping trip. The terrain really reminded us of Alaska...

Bolder Boulder

This year was the 30th running of the bolder boulder 10k and my third in a row. Elise was working so I ran solo. It was a spectacular event as usual. 52,000ish runners, joggers and walkers of all kinds and ages dressed in all manner of costumes and such. My personal favorite was a young woman dressed as the statue of liberty complete with flaming torch. I was also passed at mile five by a man wearing a shirt that said " I'm 74 whats your excuse!".

Last year we finished just over 70min. so this year my goal was to finish under 60min. It was overcast and cool, I also had an early start time of 7:35 that had more runners and less walkers to avoid. I finished with a time of 59:45:58.

Paul's fishing lesson

Evidently, Paul had never been fishing before. (What kinds of summer camps did he go to, anways?!) So Tom gave Paul a brief lesson at our local reservoir. They only fished for about 30 min (Tom caught one trout) but I think they were both unscathed.

Kathee makes the BEST blue-corn crepes

The night before Paul & Kathee left, we had our (CPMG-hospitalist) journal club. It has been our tradition that Tom cooks for these events. Well, we had a double-bonus for this journal club: 1) Paul was our guest-expert (our theme was Hem/Onc topics), and 2) Kathee helped with the meal prep. She made this unbelievable dessert: blue-corn crepes, covered in fresh berries and served with strawberry icecream.
As a side note: the other dinner pictures did not turn out that great, but the remainder of the meal was excellent (as usual, thanks to Tom). We started out with a cheese platter, served with port-candied pecans; the salad was a roasted-red onion with blue cheese, and the main course was a pulled pork burrito bar. Mmmm, journal club!