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That turned out nicely

Sunday, March 8th, 2015

I made dinner last night – a paprika-heavy pork stew served over pasta, accompanied by sweet-and-sour red cabbage, with apple strudel for dessert. I don’t know if there’s a particular name that people would expect for the stew. The cookbook, which I found in Budapest last year, just calls it pork stew (The Hungarian name is “sertés pörkölt,” which Google Translate tells me means “pork stew”).

Very nice meal, and we’re having the leftovers tonight. Marion has told me I can make this dinner anytime I’d like. The last meal she said that about was a sweet potato, pine nut, and goat cheese strudel. I’m planning on making that again tomorrow night, actually – now that I’ve opened the package of phyllo dough, I need to use it.

I’ll admit that I’m surprised at the price of the cookbook. The back cover lists pricing in several currencies, and the price in dollars is just about $15. I paid in Hungarian francs, and I probably still have the receipt, but that sounds about right. When I wrote this post, Amazon had one copy available for over $60. I didn’t expect that.

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My weekend could have been better

Monday, February 9th, 2015

Not that it was bad, but it could have been better. Yesterday, I made meatballs. Good meatballs. Made a spaghetti sauce and pasta to go with them. It was all good, then I decided to open a bottle of red wine to go with dinner. I pulled out a bottle that had belonged to my father, which didn’t have much of a label. I could read parts of a few words, and could tell that it was French wine, but that was it. Unfortunately, the wine was well past its prime – it was a weak, brownish red, and had a distinct vinegary flavor. So, I discarded it and opened a different bottle, which was still good.

Later, I did a search on the partial words I found on the label, and found that currently, recent vintages are going for $90/bottle. In 2003, the wine was $400/bottle. I’m not sure, but this may have been the bottle I bought for Dad’s 50th birthday. The wine was a couple years shy of 50 years old at the time, and I remember telling him, “Don’t wait for it to catch up.” If it is that bottle of wine, it was a vintage that was over 80 years old, and I’m not surprised that it had turned to vinegar.

Then today, Marion and I went to Barr Lake State Park and walked around the lake (a 9-mile walk). Barr Lake is a fairly reliable bald eagle nesting area, so we were hoping to see at least one. We saw a lot of seagulls, a lot of geese, a few hawks, a kestrel, at least one eagle which was either a golden eagle or a juvenile bald eagle, and I took a lot of pictures. Unfortunately, when I got home, it was brought to my attention that I had neglected to reset the resolution at which my camera took pictures.

Earlier this week, I’d been taking some product photos for work, to be uploaded to the web. However, resizing 18MB photos down to 130×150 pixels for thumbnails caused problems. Selecting 720×480 for photos in the camera solved the problem. However, I hadn’t realized that I was still taking photos at that resolution today.

I have several photos of an eagle’s nest that appear to show an eagle on the nest, but it’s not quite good enough to tell, and there’s no zoom available on the photos.

In other words, a good weekend with a good meal and good photos, but it could have been better.

UPDATE: I wrote and posted this late Sunday night, but it got noted as published just past midnight. Apparently, my ISP is on MST already, or is located in the Central Time Zone.

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Not that there’s a good time to get sick …

Sunday, February 1st, 2015

… but this weekend was not the best time for it. Friday, I thought it was something I’d eaten, because it was apparently just an upset stomach. When I started coughing on Saturday, I realized that wasn’t it. Unfortunately, as I said, this was not the weekend to be inconvenienced in that manner.

Marion’s cousin was visiting, and I missed a nice Italian dinner Friday, had to pass on using my ticket to the Cartier exhibit, and missed Saturday dinner at the Buckhorn Exchange.

I was feeling better this morning, so Marion and I went up to Breckenridge for the 25th Annual International Snow Sculpture Championships. We got about 6″ or so of snow last night here in Arvada, and with fog and snow on the highway, travel was pretty slow until we got close to Idaho Springs, at which point the highway dried up and the sun came out. It’s not often that we have more snow in the metro area than in the mountains.

The weather in Breckenridge was cold, but the weather was glorious. We looked at all the snow sculptures, and decided that the judges must have different criteria that they’re operating from. Lithuania was awarded 1st place in the competition, and Germany took 2nd. Based on the early voting for public favorite, I’d say the Alaska and Breckenridge teams are the top contenders (the public votes for their favorite by stuffing money into jars – $1/vote, running through this week). I also liked the Chinese entry and one of the two Mongolian entries, but they didn’t seem that popular, and won no judges awards.

It was the first full day of public viewing, which runs until next weekend. We like to get there the first weekend for viewing, because snow sculptures are ephemeral, and sometimes they’re too delicate to last the week. I took photos of all of them, and may post some later.

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Back from vacation

Monday, January 5th, 2015

Most years, usually in December, we visit Marion’s relatives, also spending a few days in New York City. The trip was enjoyable, and we had a good time. Then again, we normally do. We didn’t see a Broadway or off-Broadway show this trip, but we had enough other activities to keep us occupied, including a birthday party for a 95-year-old and seeing the pterosaur special exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History.

We had a number of very nice meals during the trip. The previously-mentioned birthday party was one of them, but we also had a good meal at a Cuban restaurant in Manhattan, as well as several nice meals with Marion’s relatives. One special treat for me was having a glass of 30-year-old Macallan Scotch. Very nice, and it totally outclassed the bottle of 15-year-old Glenlivet that I gave Stuart.

The trip back wasn’t a good part of the trip, though. Because of heavy weather, our flight was routed through Canadian airspace. I don’t know how much time that added to the flight, although we were scheduled for a flight time of just over 4 hours. According to the Travel Math website, the average flight time from NYC to Denver is 3 hours and 45 minutes. The corresponding time in the other direction is 3 hours and 15 minutes.

In any case, even though we had some bothersome turbulence during both takeoff and landing, we actually made better time than scheduled, and landed five minutes early, at 7:37pm. Then we spent just over half an hour waiting for the gate to become available. Our luggage finally showed up on the carousel at 9pm, and the time to get to our of-airport parking, clean the snow off the car, and drive home meant that I didn’t get into my house until 10:21pm. Bleah.

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Merry Christmas

Thursday, December 25th, 2014

It’s been a good Christmas. Right now, snow is falling outside, and Marion and I are staying warm and watching a recording of Victor Borge’s performances. Wonderfully humorous stuff.

Christmas dinner went well, but with some glitches at the start. I thought I remembered saying that I’d have the food ready to go between 12:30 and 1:00pm. My daughter and her guest arrived at 1:00pm, because that’s when she remembered that I’d said dinner started, and Marion remembered that it started at 1:30pm. Luckily, we all managed to get together while the food was still hot.

The menu included a rib roast of beef, roasted root vegetables, and Yorkshire pudding. Dessert was pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream. The rib roast came out very nicely, perhaps because it had a little longer to rest than I normally give it. I put a sea salt/grains of paradise crust on it, and had let it dry-age in the refrigerator since the weekend. I also made a double batch of Yorkshire pudding, which was a good thing. There was actually a little left when dinner was over. We had a nice Spanish red wine with our meal.

Dessert had to wait until presents were opened, because we all ate too much.

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The Shop in Budapest

Sunday, December 21st, 2014

A couple of weeks ago, Marion and I saw a local production of “She Loves Me,” a 1963 musical based on “Parfumerie,” a play by Miklós László. Friday night, we watched “The Shop Around The Corner,” the 1940 Jimmy Stewart-Margaret Sullavan movie based on the same play.

We liked the movie much better than the musical. It’s not that the musical was bad, although the female lead had a voice that I felt was too piercing at times. Not that there weren’t things in the movie that I didn’t care for, either. Specifically, I didn’t care for the scene where Jimmy Stewart fired his coworker – it just felt wrong to me.

After seeing the movie, I appreciate the staging of the musical more. It was a compact set that reconfigured quite well for inside versus outside scenes. I thought it was very well done. We both liked the musical, but we felt that the movie was better (not the first time we’ve thought that).

Before we watched the movie, I presumed that the entire film had been shot on a soundstage, but I wondered if they used any stock footage of Budapest for background. Since the movie was made in 1940, I was wondering if they’d show Buda Castle before it was bombed. Unfortunately not – I don’t remember seeing any shots that showed more than a portion of a street. Looking around the web, I found a site complaining that the shop was supposed to be located just off Andrassy, but the street it was supposed to be on didn’t actually meet Andrassy. Pity. We took a circulating tour bus along Andrassy twice before our tour started (a good way to get around town), and walked along it down to Heroes Square the first day of our tour.

Still, even though I didn’t get to see Budapest in the movie, it was a charming and delightful film.

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I’m being threatened, too.

Monday, November 3rd, 2014

Jonathan Coulton, a singer-songwriter whose work I enjoy, recently received a letter from the Democratic Party of New York, which stated that they knew he was registered to vote, and that although his actual vote was protected by law, whether or not he voted was a matter of public record. They noted that if he didn’t vote, they’d be interested in knowing why not.

He posted a picture of the letter on his Twitter feed, saying, “I think the Democrats just threatened me.” A number of sites, such as this one, agreed that it was a threat. He’s not too thrilled with that, actually, because he usually votes Democratic, and meant the comment sarcastically.

Similar letters have been sent out by the Democrats and affiliated PACs in Connecticut and several other states, as well.

I received one in the mail today. It’s not a letter, though – it’s a glossy flyer paid for by the campaign for my local Democratic state senate candidate, Rachel Zenzinger. One side states in large type that it is “2014 General Election Information,” and, “Who Votes Is Public Information.” The other side has large type at the top that says, “Records indicate you voted in the past.” At the bottom, in bold, it says, “We may contact you after the election to hear about your voting experience.” In between, it makes the claim that Ms. Zenzinger, whose name never came to my attention before canvassers came through my neighborhood last month, has a record of standing up for all that is right and good.

Ms. Zenzinger was appointed to her post when Evie Hudak saw the writing on the wall and resigned, rather than go through a recall election. This allowed the Democrats to keep the seat, which an election would likely have cost them, so this is Ms. Zenzinger’s first election for the seat. The flyer is kind of a waste, though. Among other widely-unpopular actions the Colorado Democrats, who control the state government, have taken recently, they made this a mail-ballot-only election, which Republicans have called an invitation to vote fraud. Oh, I imagine that there are some people who have yet to fill out their ballots, and will drop them off tomorrow, but I suspect that the vast majority of voters have, like me, already submitted their ballots. I’m just wondering how many people will take advantage of the same legislation that made this a vote-by-mail election to walk into a polling station tomorrow, register to vote, and receive and fill in a ballot.

UPDATE: Apparently, my WordPress installation had (maybe has) the wrong time – it hadn’t been adjusted back to MST.

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Eastern Europe, part 2: Sighisoara

Tuesday, October 14th, 2014

We left Budapest on an overnight train to Sighisoara, Romania. I did not sleep well on the train, because it was hot and muggy, and the bunk was too short for me. Sighisoara itself has a small “old city” on a hill, which is surrounded by the larger, more modern, main part of the city.

We stayed at the Hotel Sighisoara in the old city.

One of the entrances to the old city is through a gate in the base of a clock tower. The clock has figures that are supposed to perform actions on the hour, but the clock has been broken for a long time.

One building had an interesting architectural feature. I have no idea what’s going on, other than I presume someone thought it was appropriate.

Sighisoara is the birthplace of Vlad Dracula, also known as Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler), a name he was given after his death. There is a picture of this bust of him in the Wikipedia article about him. The plaque reads (with a few Romanian letters I haven’t used):

Vlad Tepes
1431-1476
Domnitor al Tarii Romanesti
Intre Anni
1448;1456 – 1462;1476

It means, “Vlad Tepes, 1431-1476, Ruler of Romania during the years 1448-1456 and 1462-1476.”

The name “Dracula” came from his father, who was a member of the chivalric Order of the Dragon (“dragon” being “dracul” in Romanian back then – we were told it has a meaning more like “devil” now). The house he was born in is now a restaurant, which we ate in the first night there.

We took a day trip to see a few old villages and churches. The only photo I’m showing from that trip is of a window – you can see that there is a glass pane that’s been added, but the original window has a wooden block used to “close” it.

The afternoon of our second day in Sighisoara, we took a bus to Brasov.

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Eastern Europe, part 1: Budapest

Monday, September 29th, 2014

Our tour of eastern Europe started in Budapest. We got there two days early, which turned out to be a good thing – the night before the first day of the tour, the weather turned wet, so most of my good photos come from the time before the tour started.

I took about 500 photos in Budapest, so there’s a lot that I won’t be showing or talking about in this post. For those pictures I include, clicking on them will get you a larger version.

Budapest was originally two cities, separated by the Danube, with Buda on the western side, and Pest on the eastern side. We heard a number of references to “the Buda side” and “the Pest side” during our stay. Our hotel was on the Pest side, and we crossed the Danube several times, both on foot and on tour buses. We never did get around to taking a Danube cruise, though.

There were a number of beautiful and historic buildings in Budapest, including St. Stephen’s, the Dohány Street Synagogue (near which I had some wonderful honey-elderflower ice cream), and the Parliament building. Buda Castle was pointed out on the city tour we took, which was somewhat amusing, because it was destroyed during World War II. Some of its ruins are still visible near the Presidential Palace, which is the white building on the hilltop to the right of center in the photo below. The yellow building on its right is, IIRC, a music school, and the large building to its left with the green copper rooftops is a museum. My understanding is that Buda Castle covered that entire area (roughly from the center of the photo almost to the spire on the far right).

Some of the older buildings had interesting architectural details, such as these satyrs on a hotel exterior:

There were some whimsical decorative touches as well, like the entry to a teahouse near our hotel:

Also whimsical, or at least strange, is the astroturf topiary that we saw in a few places.

And who can doubt the whimsy of a statue of “Anonymous?” The tip of the pen appears polished because a legend has grown up around it that states that holding the tip of the pen will make you a better writer.

We enjoyed our time in Budapest. We had several very nice meals – we liked one restaurant enough we went back again – and we could have spent significantly longer seeing more of the city. Once the tour started, though, we had one day in Budapest with the group before we took an overnight train to Sighisoara, Romania.

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Autumn Colors

Sunday, September 28th, 2014

We went up the Peak-to-Peak Highway to look at the aspen this afternoon. If this wasn’t the best weekend for it, then last weekend must have been, but probably not by all that much. We drove up Coal Creek Canyon to where it hits the Peak-to-Peak between Rawlinsville and Nederland. We should probably have gone through Boulder Canyon into Nederland, though – traffic into and through Nederland was horribly slow, but coming up through Boulder would have bypassed most of it.

People used to the wonderful autumn colors of the hardwood forests of the east won’t be terribly impressed, but aspen is what we have here, and it’s certainly pretty.

We stopped in Lyons for a late lunch. They’re still recovering from the flooding, but, as they say at the visitor’s center, “Any time or dime spent here helps the recovery.”