Weekend Plans

Sadly, I can relate to this video. Getting older sucks.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/b776c00c54

Life List Item No. 31 Completed: Try Truffles

There's two different kinds of edible truffles; the little candy bon-bon forms, and then there's the stinky mucho expensive fungus from France or Italy. This posting deals with the latter.

One of the fringe benefits of going to culinary school is that I get to knock out most of the eating related life list items about every month or so. In my final quarter at Sullivan, one of my classes is Garde Manger Lab. In this class you learn a lot of the more advanced butchery techniques, classical and banquet preparations, and plate presentation. It's a lot of fun, but also I think it is one of the more challenging labs.

Falling under the category of butchery, this week our classes made pates (in my case, one made out of rabbits). So class, now that we each have a tube of what tastes like meat-flavored butter wrapped in bacon, what do we do next? We garnish it with more expensive food of course! The truffles came in a can (which I guess connoisseurs turn their noses up at). But at $68 for what was about an 8 oz. can, I don't see a lot of fresh truffle in my future. When the can was opened there was a distinctive "earthy" smell, and the truffles themselves resembled lumps of charcoal.

I would describe the taste as a mushroom on steroids. I mean there was definitely that meaty taste that all mushrooms have, but this was much more intensely so. It also tasted a lot more earthy and complex than your average porcini. All in all, a fun item to complete, but at these prices, hardly habit forming.

Happy New Year!

I'll be perfectly honest with you - I'm just not all that excited about nature. I hate canoeing and mosquitoes, I dislike camping and snakes, and to me hiking is just walking with a bunch of trees and bushes in your way. My idea of "roughing it" is using the little bottles of 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner that they give you in the cheaper hotel chains. I think of a "good hike" as walking 10 blocks in Chicago because you don't feel like having weirdos breathe on you in the L. I prefer to get my nature while whizzing by it at 70 mph in my nice, comfy car, or having the wonder and beauty of it explained to me by glossy documentaries narrated by Morgan Freeman (as an aside, I'd also like to state for the record that I HATE the Grand Canyon. "OOOhhhh, look Honey - we just drove 4 hours through the sweltering desert heat with are kids fighting in the backseat to LOOK AT A REALLY BIG HOLE IN THE GROUND FOR 10 WHOLE MINUTES!!!" It would be awesome if somebody bombed this thing, but then it would probably just become a "Grander" Canyon, since it would be just that much bigger of a hole to gawk at).

However, fate would lead me to marry a man raised in the backwoods of Northern Michigan. If you've ever been to Northern Michigan the primary activities available to you are: drinkin' beers underage eh, drinkin' beers of age yah, choppin' wood, riding your 4-wheeler, and lookin' at dah nature. Due to this fact, about every 3 months or so, Rory starts clamoring that it's time for us to "go hiking" (but I'd like to point out that in 4 and 1/2 years of marriage, I've only had to camp once, so ha ha). Well folks, today was that day.

We went to Red River Gorge in Eastern Kentucky, about 2 hours driving from Louisville. This park is famous for it's natural arch formations like the one shown above. We did a little less than a 5 mile hike in 35 degree weather. And now for a visual representation of what each of us brought to "go hiking":

Rory:

• 1 giant back pack
• 1 specially formulated walking stick
• 8 changes of clothes
• 3 days worth of food
• 2 weeks worth of water
• 1 giant thermos of hot coffee (yum!)
• 1 first aid kit
• Matches
• Probably a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica

Nicki:

• 1 Swiss Army knife
• (Also I had chap stick and hand lotion in my coat pocket, but I won't count this since in the case of an emergency all it would do is soothe and heal our cracked and dry skin)

I did find one thing kind of neat on the hike though. At one part we had to cross over this narrow ridge, and the gorge literally fell away in a sheer drop on either side. This is not a great picture, but it looked like this:

My favorite part of the day was when we came home and ate clam chowder for dinner (MMM.... LOVE CLAM CHOWDER!!!). It was a pretty good hike, and here are some more pictures (for those of you that are into the whole nature thing):

Some creepy caves that probably have Deliverance style hillbillies living in them:

More gorge:

Random Gary shot for no good reason:

The End. Happy 2008!!!