Wow!
Hard for me to believe - but I haven't posted since May - when I was still looking forward to the start of Summer. Summer is here - and it has been moving right along very quickly. Had couple weeks worth of HOT in June and July - but most of it has been simply gorgeous.
Now that the Summer Solstice has gone by - the days are slowly starting to get shorter - which can only mean one thing - that dreaded season - WINTER.
Looking out the window at work, I can see lush green trees lining the roadway, in about 2-3 months, they will be barren or getting that way - with their leaves on the ground.
Like most things in my life, this summer has not gone according to plan - it is by far the summer with the least amount of miles being ridden on my motorcycle, I usually get close to 10,000 a season, at this rate, I'll be lucky to hit 7,000.
However - my time has not been spent idly by posting repeatedly to my blog (as if the gap from May till now is not a clue) a lot of time has been spent out caching!
We (Team Grey Cat on www.geocaching.com) finished out last year with about 103 finds, so far we have found over 300 caches this season - and are hoping to hit 500 total finds by the Autumnal Equinox. Caching an riding just are not working out to be compatible for us - with caching - there are a lot of short duration stops - and since we wear full protective gear on the bike, having to gear-up and gear-down adds a nice chunk of time spent.
Furthermore - since the weather during the summer can be mighty toasty - we have appreciated being able to climb back into the Geo-Mobile ('08 HHR) and bask in the AC in between stops.
The Goldwing is a very luxurious ride, but it is considerably lacking in the forced air cooling dept. on a hot and sweaty summer day.
We have found many very creative hides - which I have been taking pictures of - and someday I'll have an article just showcasing all of them. Until then - trust me - they are cool ;-)
***
Speaking of Summer and Cooking - normally our friends hold the "Iron Chef" competitions during the Winter months, but decided to hold one during the Summer to gauge the interest level. This past Saturday was the trial balloon, and was quite successful.
The theme was "Green" as in every ingredient used had to be locally grown, and delivered to the house via non-fossil fuel propelled vehicles.
Seeing that we live 50 miles away, we chose not to provide any ingredients ;-)
The challenge differed from other ones in that we only had two teams - an "Indoor Team" and an "Outdoor Team". Normally, for the amount of people we had - we would have split into at least 4-5 teams. Julie and I chose to be on the "Outdoor Team" due to the fact that it was a gorgeous day - and that the "Outdoor Team" would be cooking over an open fire.
There was also ANOTHER reason we were on this team - more on that in a bit...
The Indoor and Outdoor teams were decided by two "deadly games" - one was conducted indoors and tested your knowledge of poisonous vs edible mushrooms. This challenge consisted of five plates full of mushrooms - with each one numbered. You had to write on a piece of paper, which ones you thought were poisonous, and which ones you thought were edible.
We were not allowed to eat any - nor give any to someone else as a means to make the determination. It came down to us using our "horse sense" as someone used to call it so long ago...
I actually did very well in this contest - I correctly categorized 3 of the 5 plates of mushrooms - and considering that I personally cannot stand eating ANY variety of mushroom - that was pretty damn good!
With that challenge over with - it was time for the second deadly challenge - which took place out doors. This challenge was done using "Lawn Jarts" - an outdoor game that was very popular when I was growing up - but is now very rare due to the mamby-pambying of this once great nation.
"Lawn Jarts" in case you have never played before, is played like horse shoes - but instead you throw very large and pointy darts from one end of the field to the other - and they stick into the ground for scoring purposes.
As a kid - I used to have fun throwing them over the neighbors garage roof - and he'd throw the back - never once aware of the horrible and imminent danger I was in!
Ah - but now we live in a safer society - where everything has been either rubber coated, velcroed or nerfed.
Due to my extreme luck, I actually did quite well in the Jarts challenge also - and was second overall to decide which team I wanted on.
Unlike previous challenges, this meal was HEAVILY oriented towards vegetables, and seeing that I could identify only about half of them - and have tasted only maybe a quarter of them - I was quite happy to see that there was some meat involved also - at first...
There were three meats provided for the two teams - Veal, Chicken, and a meat we adamantly refused to work with - Squirrel. Yes - you read that correctly - squirrel.
Someone had a garden that was being frequented by squirrels and she decided to have her revenge. I am quite fond of seeing squirrels running playfully through my yard - along with rabbits - so I found the whole idea of them being served as quite distasteful - no pun intended.
The indoor team was designated as the squirrel team - which is why we volunteered to be on the outdoor team as soon as we could.
The cooking went rather well - although with only two teams and approximately 16 participants - there were a lot of cooks in the "kitchen" and I found myself pretty much just keeping out of the way of folks who knew how to prepare vegetables better than myself.
When the smoke had cleared (literally and figuratively) it came down to the usual presentation of dishes and judging. Our main dish and appetizer won - but our dessert lost to the indoor team.
Our chicken turned out very well - although as tends to be the fashion of late - the spices pretty much drowned out the native flavor for me - and kept my mouth aflame for 15 minutes or so after I had finished eating.
I passed on tasting the dishes containing the vegetables I did not recognized, but the ones I was familiar with - they tasted very well.
As every home version of the Iron Chef - the best part of it is the camaraderie - the getting together with friends.
There is still some summer left - so get out and enjoy it!
