First you make a roux

Theoretically, that's the first line in any Cajun recipe. This is on its way to becoming roux and then it will serve as the basis for a gumbo. Just oil, flour and heat. Oh, and a lot of stirring so the roux doesn't burn. For years I would baby the roux and it would take forever to darken properly, but I eventually learned to keep things pretty hot and rely on stirring to keep it safe. It's working.


The next step is to add the holy trinity: peppers, onions and celery. And then some sausage (very difficult to get real andouille up here in Portland, so I have to settle for something inferior but not necessarily bad).


Cayenne, bay leaves, salt and chicken stock. Now it gets to simmer for a few hours. Then some chicken, some seasoning and more simmering. That's pretty much it.

Then it will be gumbo.

More snow and more snow and . . .

When I came out of the apartment this morning to slog to work I was shocked by how much snow had fallen through the night. This just does not look like Portland. At work we had to shut down a lot of bus routes and I think the customer response to that is not going to be pretty. A lot of people are going to have (or have had) a really difficult time getting home from work. I just hope a lot more of them decided this morning it wasn't worth the effort to go in in the first place.

That car on the right, where you can see that it's silver? That's mine. It's not going anywhere any time soon.

Please melt!

Better not be a white Christmas!

It's December 20th at roughly 4 p.m. and it has been snowing since about 8 a.m. There still isn't an enormous accumulation of snow, but for Portland it's pretty impressive and the forecast is for more and worse to come, including sleet or freezing rain. And temperatures are supposed to stay low enough through the week to call for more snow (or snow mixed with rain) right up to and through Christmas Day. Bah. Humbug.

At least it's a weekend, so my demands at work relating to this weather have been reduced. There are a lot of people traveling on public transit today, though, because it's the last shopping weekend before the gifts fly on Thursday. I've been hoping and planning to host a Christmas dinner with my parents (86 and 91 y.o.) and my son Alex. The kid may be the only person to show up.

So, thanks, it's all very pretty but it's also cold and Portland doesn't cope with snow very well. I know there are people out there laughing at us, but they live in regions where snow is a normal part of winter and they're equipped to deal with it. I think the City of Portland has all of three snowplows. 50 miles south of here, from Salem on down, they've got rain and grass. Not a bit of snow. Humph.

Pounding in the kitchen

File this one in the "learn something new every day" drawer. For years, I've had a mortar and pestle in the kitchen, first a little one and these days a nice big stone device I got for pennies at an Asia grocery. I have dutifully used it many times to mash and mix and I've always thought it was a heck of a lot of work for so little payback.

I have a cookbook by Mai Pham, who apparently has a Vietnamese restaurant in Sacramento. Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table has some great recipes in it, most of them based on her research among street vendors on annual trips to Vietnam. Tonight I stumbled on her description of the mortar and pestle as the "one thing" to buy for a Vietnamese kitchen. And I ran across this: "When using the pestle, pound it freely in an up-and-down motion. Many novices make the mistake of pressing (as opposed to pounding) the pestle into the mortar, which tends to make the job harder and longer." (emphasis added) So, a novice, huh?

Since I was just busily stirring some garlic, bird peppers and sugar in what would certainly prove a pointless exercise, I gave it a try. Amazing. I could easily have gone through the rest of my life ineptly using one of the oldest tools in human culture. Thank you, Mai Pham!

Random Photo of the Day

Several of my co-workers have bought Smart Cars recently, and I have seen a couple of the cars around town in this particular color scheme. I'm obviously not the only person who was struck by the resemblance to a bumblebee. The license plate has a special joke, though, once you know that the owner is a bus driver.

OK, new rule

New Rule: no running out of Irish whiskey. More to the point, no running out of Powers Gold Label. There are clearly evenings in which nothing else will do, for sipping quietly after dinner, while watching a movie or reading a book, or when battling a nasty cold. Or all of the above.

Rant all you want about Scotch whisky and the superiority of peat monsters over the gentle Irish version, but there are times when a hairy single malt is just too much work to enjoy. Some times, one might crave "red hair and black leather, my favourite colour scheme" (thank you, Richard Thompson) but at others only a soft voice and a cool hand on the brow will do.

Powers is subtle, quiet and smooth. In fact, it perfectly defines "smooth" while studiously avoiding "bland." And they practically give the stuff away. Even in Oregon, land of the State monopoly, it's $21 a bottle. So there is no excuse for running out.

And if someone wants to give me a bottle of the 12 Year Old Reserve, I promise not to complain.

No mo' blow!

There's nothing that could solidify my hatred of leaf blowers more than having one screaming away outside while I'm home sick. The groundskeeper is just cleaning off sidewalks by blasting leaves and needles into the surrounding shrubbery as far as I can tell. This could just as easily be done with a good push broom and some sweat--much more quietly and with none of the unnecessary exhaust filling the air.

The facilities staff at work use these all the time to clear the parking lot and sidewalks, always very politely turning it away when I walk past. Get a broom!