Things to do with grandkids in Avocado-land

We had the pleasure of a visit from 14-year-old Gabriel last week, and managed to fit in a few things we like to do and thought he would enjoy. He and I took the train (and connecting Amtrak buses), from where he lives in Petaluma to Oceanside, and Grandpa (aka Mike) picked us up. The train trip is long, the bus links feel longer, but thanks to electric outlets at each seat on the trains, computer chess and the snack bar, it was fine. There's even wifi.

Gabe loves Mexican food, and we have plenty of that around here. However, here he was in Avocado-land, and he doesn't like avocados! He was philosophical about it when his two tacos arrived with guacamole spread across them. He just scraped as much away as he could. We also went out for western style barbecue (Gabe had some amazing barbecue nachos) and for Mongolian barbecue. Spicy-food-loving kid after my own heart. And very adaptable!

A couple of days we took morning walks at Kit Carson Park, where I finally got a picture of the momma duck and her remaining eight ducklings. She started with eleven. I hate to think.
Kit Carson Park is 285 acres, 100 of them developed. I looked it up. There are trails through the undeveloped parts, and a large amount of the developed acres are devoted to playing fields of all types. Lots of shady picnic areas too. Since Gabe plans on doing cross-country when he starts high school in the fall, we sent him on a trail loop while we dawdled along in our elderly fashion.

And, Kit Carson Park has one of the most imaginative and colorful features you'll find anywhere, Queen Califia's Magical Circle, designed by Niki de Saint Phalle. We always take visitors to see it. It's maybe three miles from our house. These shots were taken on a previous visit, close to sunset.

A small section of Califia's domain

The Queen herself

We went down to La Jolla to the Birch Aquarium, overlooking the Pacific on the UC San Diego campus. The original aquarium, which we visited when Gabe's dad was a kid, was part of the original UC Oceanographic Institute facility there. Now there's a full-scale aquarium (it's not Monterey Bay, but it's nice, and inexpensive in comparison.) I never saw a nautilus in real life before, and the seahorses (sea dragon) and coral reef exhibits were gorgeous.

And finally, the San Diego Safari Park, which is just up the road. We went around mid-day and most of the animals seemed to be taking their noon naps. Here's my favorite animal. He's getting tall! 

It's great to have enough things to do within striking distance of home when we have company. So get in touch if you're coming our way. 

Zydeco for Mom's Day

Today is Mother's Day. Coincidentally, we celebrated, because it happens that this weekend is the annual Gator by the Bay Zydeco Blues and Crawfish Festival in San Diego. Today is the last day. We drove down way early so we could get a free parking spot at a free festival shuttle stop, and then get breakfast in Little Italy before the gate opened. Gigantic breakfast. Must change eating pattern tomorrow. 

Then we wandered along the water by the Maritime Museum until it was time to catch the shuttle. Must make that a trip of its own. 

The festival was great. Five stages strung along Spanish Landing Park across from the airport, interspersed with vendor booths and the extensive food court. I wish I'd taken a picture of the boiled crayfish servings I saw people eating -- a huge huge pile. The Louisiana sausage sandwich and the barbecue tri-tip steak sandwich were plenty. Must change eating pattern tomorrow.  

We watched all or part of performances by five different bands, and we didn't even stay to the end. Each stage also had a big dance floor, and boy, do people dance! Folks dress up, sometimes in goofy outfits, and ham it up. Zydeco dancing has it's own tricky steps, and if you've ever tried to waltz to Cajun music (and have two left feet) you know how challenging that is. We know because we tried it at a previous festival without taking the free lessons that were offered. "Oh, we don't need lessons," he said. Must take lessons next time. There was a parade led by a brass band, and also a great blues band with some very funky dancing happening on their dance floor. Today we were observers, just walked around, sat in the shade on the handy hay bales and watched, cameras ready. A few pictures. 

Must learn to dance Cajun before next year.

PS I'm double-posting this because my Restless Barb travel blog has been so neglected lately. You could go there if you want. It's at http://restlessbarb.blogspot.com/

Consumer Supported Agriculture

Ever since I heard of this, I've wanted to do it, except that it didn't make any sense because we had a garden. I should say Mike had a garden; he was the hard worker. And he loves gardening, he's a dirt mystic, and it would be silly to make him stop so we could buy stuff instead.

So, we already had produce. I had enough to cook! Have you ever had a man walk into the kitchen and plunk down a five pound zucchini? And wondered why you weren't excited? Wondered, in fact, why you screamed?

Note: I never cooked one of those giant zucchinis. You have to draw the line somewhere. There was also the year with all the pak choy. I say, this is why you have a compost pit.

Well, this year he's taking a break from garden responsibility. The garden is at my brother's place, and required a trip every couple of days, interrupting his painting. My sister-in-law is picking up the slack.

So, this week we picked up the first box from the CSA we joined. It's called Be Wise Ranch, and they have a location less than five miles from us. If you don't know how this works, here's the deal. You join the CSA and pay up front for three months at a time, which gives the farmer operating capital. Then you go get your produce on your assigned day. We signed up for the big box, $30 a time, every other week. There's a smaller box for $25, but since we already ran out and it's 4 days to go for our next box, I think this will work out. We'll see if my cooking enthusiasm dwindles -- maybe we'll even increase the order.

Here's what we got this time: cauliflower, asparagus, mustard greens, red Russian kale, celery, carrots, golden beets, Romaine leaf lettuce, cabbage, blueberries, strawberries, oranges, lemons, tangerines, tangelos. There are a few Valencia oranges left in the fridge, but I have plans for those, and there are some carrots left. I tried a couple of new recipes (mustard greens with balsamic glazed garbanzos, and cream of celery soup with no cream) that turned out great.

The farm is organic, which is nice, and I plan to research the prices at my usual produce departments to compare. As of yet I have no idea how that calculation will come out.

I am excited to see what's in the surprise box on Thursday. And we are eating so healthy!

Modern commerce

I'm getting fed up with it. I don't remember how many contacts we've had from the Toyota dealership since we bought the Camry hybrid last year, but stuff comes in the mail, we get emails, we get phone calls, we get voicemail. Mike had some routine service done on the car, plus a warranty-covered repair, and I've answered one followup call already and told them everything was fine. Then today, weeks later, another call with a message to call back if we had any concerns, just wanting to make sure we were happy. We've had opportunities to fill out questionnaires about our experience, and I think we even did one because actually Mike was quite pleased with them. I just opted out of an email newsletter that we never signed up for -- good grief, who wants a newsletter from their auto dealership! We're being stalked!

By the way, they did find a rodent nest in our vent system -- it's a good idea to leave the air conditioner recirculating option on if you're going away for a month and leaving your car in your garage.

I'm not picking on Toyota. Notice all the opportunities to give feedback to every single place you go, every single thing you buy? The chance to sign up for deals from your favorite restaurant and they just clog up your mailbox, no coupons? Invariably you are given an opportunity to "like" a company on Facebook! What's that about? From now on I say no, and every morning I look for unsubscribe links if any extra email sneaks through.

Enough of these faux relationships! Before long the only mail I get will be from people I wrote to, on purpose. Which means, I'll get hardly any mail because I've been lax in writing to people. Don't have time -- have to keep reading messages from companies I have a "relationship" with. They must think we're starved for meaningful encounters. Well, I sort of am. Write me -- I promise I'll write back.

Wineries

During all those years in Sacramento (25 of them) we thought of wine country as the traditional Napa Sonoma counties. Of course we knew there were grapes in the San Joaquin valley, but thought of them as  table grapes. I even seem to remember boycotting them for the farmworkers! But now there are some toity toity wineries in Lodi, and we did get up to Amador County while we were still in Sacramento and had some yummy zinfandel. There are west side of the San Joaquin Valley wineries, notably Paso Robles, which have some of my favorites, and then on down through SLO and Santa Barbara, of "Sideways" fame. When we were in Washington we discovered there are well-thought-of wineries there, and also in Oregon, but I have to say for the most part they aren't hunky wines.

Surprise surprise, there are wineries galore in San Diego County. Escondido itself has an old winery called Ferrara, been around since 1932. We had mixed results from buying wine there, but the port was yummy. Then there's Temecula, the town near where Mike grew up in Elsinore. They have a wine trail there, with 35 or so wineries with tasting rooms, and probably restaurants at most of them. Food is good -- we just took our second jaunt up there for lunch. Apparently 1984 was a significant year in the development of the area as wine country. And then there are wineries in Fallbrook and down the road to Rancho Bernardo and beyond. These turn out to be the drives we want to take. The heck with walking trails -- those are usually so hilly, have so much elevation!

The Bernardo Winery claims to have been founded in 1889! But I read that Napa had it's first official winery in 1859.

Just some random info before I pour my second glass.

Kitchen as home

It's taken me a long time to absorb that one of my major pleasures is cooking. Not cooking as in coming up with a meal two or three times a day -- I still wouldn't really like that. But I like putting together meals now that we have evolved (or devolved?) into people who will just as easily go out for a bite than to eat at home. And especially since I no longer live under the pressure to provide meat at every meal! Gosh it takes a long time to un-train a man from the eating assumptions he grew up with.

So now that it's not an expectation, as in "When are we going to have dinner," which has turned into the more recent "Do you have anything in mind for dinner," I find it enjoyable to make up a meal. The reason it's enjoyable is that I've done the work beforehand, either by shopping for the quick-to-fix, or by noodling around in the kitchen and cooking in bulk -- soup, roasted vegetables, stuff like that -- so that there are things on hand. It's the noodling around, or the puttering, that I've just now recognized as parallel to my spouse's puttering in the garden. It's meditative.

And I have a nice kitchen here in Avocado Land. Plenty of counter space, almost enough cupboard space (is there ever enough?) and the freaking big refrigerator of my dreams with a large freezer drawer on the bottom. For the last couple of years we've also had food from our own garden, which Mike produced with his own puttering (which often looked like hard work). But this year he's taking a break. The garden is two miles away, and always needs water (we are in Southern California, remember?), and takes too much of his time away from his other love, painting. He'll do herbs in pots here at the condo instead.

So we're going to try something new to us -- CSA, or Consumer Supported Agriculture. I know a lot of people do this -- it's very cool -- but I couldn't make use of it when we had a garden. So, we'll pay for a quarter of a year at a time, and get a box of whatever is in season, weekly or bi-weekly. We'll start with bi-weekly and see how it goes. I like the idea of planning meals depending on what shows up in our box.

Just another part of the food game.

The road to everywhere

We've returned from a month on a Caribbean island that became our usual place to escape the ice, snow, and the frequent cold wind and rain of Western Washington. Sometimes we barely made it out ahead of weather that would have trapped us. One year the Bellingham airport closed and they sent us on a bus to Seattle. Once we came back to that sort of weather, again took a bus that took seven hours to get us the 100 or so miles home.

This year when we left for Bequia it was 80 degrees in Escondido. Bequia was pretty humid, besides being in the 80s temperature-wise. (Hot flashes didn't help.) Still gorgeous, still culturally entertaining, still friends there we've met before and enjoyed, still that crisp and cold Hairoun beer that tastes so good after a walk to lunch, sitting on a patio overlooking the harbor.

But not a relief from home. When we got home it was around 75 degrees. It's arid here, and my hair quits frizzing like it does in the tropics. And I have no complaints.

What this seems to mean is that traveling is now for its own sake, not to escape something. We still want to go back to Bequia, and other Caribbean spots, perhaps next winter. Bequia is a wonderful place, and feels like a second home now that we've stayed there five times. And there are other islands to revisit, and new ones to see for the first time. But Restless Barb is looking for other parts of the world and our own country to explore, any time of year. And then to come home, any time of year.

And here's the deal. If I want I can catch a bus on the street outside my home and link to connections anywhere in the world. So I will never feel trapped here, at home, in Southern California.