NOT YOUR BASIC PICNIC

A FOODIE REPORT

       Hello Lightbreezes readers.  I hope you will permit a bit of indulgence, in more ways than one.  Today's post is about food, good food and a lot of it.  For a year now, a group of friends have gathered about every month for a "moveable feast." The offerings at our 

"American Independence Feast" push Fourth of July picnics to a new level.  I assure you the pictures can't do justice to the meal.  

Beginnings

Provolone and Pesto 

Stuffed Mushrooms

Fennel Salad with

Chickpea/Fava/Spinach Cakes

Quiona and bean salad

THE ENTREE

Kosher hot dogs with

New York Style Cole Slaw

pulled chicken barbecue

bourbon baked beans

smoked tri-tip with

chimichurii sauce

SWEET ENDINGS

Strawberry Muerbeteig

Aunt Bertha's Cherry Pudding

Peruvian Chocolate

the wines 

Pipestone Grenache Rose

Sofia Rose

Crawford Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc

D'Abnbino Sauvignon Blanc

Kukkula Lothario

Justin Petitt Verdot

Pipestone Zinfandel

Venteux Farmhouse Cuvee

It was an extraordinary evening,

See you down the trail.

INDEPENDENCE

A UNIQUELY AMERICAN DAY

Do your self a great favor today.
Take a couple of minutes to read
the Declaration of Independence by linking here.

Here's something to add to your conversation at a barbecue or party today.
Two of the framers and signers of the Declaration
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third 
Presidents of the US, died on July 4th 1826, the 
50th Anniversary of the signing.
Both men had been ill.  Jefferson asked his doctor
"Is it the Fourth yet?"
"It soon will be," Robley Dunglison replied.
Later Jefferson awoke to say,
"I resign my spirit to God, my daughter to my country."
Adams was asked if he knew what day it was.
"Oh yes.  It is the glorious Fourth of July. It is a great day. It is a good day. God Bless it.  God Bless you all."
He lapsed into unconsciousness. Later he awoke and said
"Thomas Jefferson.  Thomas Jefferson survives."
Actually Jefferson had died a couple of hours earlier.
It remains an amazing coincidence that the two men, infirmed and dying  held on to life until the 50th Anniversary 
of perhaps America's greatest day.
Happy Independence Day!
See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER :) WONDER AND FUN

SHOULD HAVE PAID MORE ATTENTION 

Here is a bit of wonderment for you.

If you were a better math and/or science student

 than me, you might know the principal behind this.

While I don't have a magic wand for you-

try this 

The magic button — Make Everything OK

Enjoy the weekend.  

See you down the trail.

SIMPLE PLEASURES

CREATING A WILL TO SEE

The trainer at a creative workshop challenged

us to begin to see beauty in the everyday.

As a producer, I was always looking

for shots, angles and points of view that

would illustrate or "tell" a story.

So it was not a stretch to begin to 

"see differently."  The mundane can 

offer up something lovely.

Here is an exercise, as an example-

Kitchen Shelves

 Lines and color in utility

 Drying pasta-a nice visual of shape prompting an anticipation of taste.

 Tight quarters, an efficient use of space. 

Function creates form.

And another hide away-the secret ingredients spark thoughts of recipes or memory of meals.

Rather than look through or over or past everyday items

try to see them as shape, color, prompters of other senses.

Seeing, tasting and smelling working in concert

remind us of the full palette we have to 

help us create a day.

They are not really such simple things after all.
Try it out, open a cupboard and "see" it.
SPEAKING OF SEEING
REEL THOUGHTS

As we left the theater after seeing Tree of Life, we looked
at each and said, "not sure I understand it all." We 
felt like we needed to see an explanatory guide. However, it is a grand, sweeping, cosmic, provocative, beautiful, intricate, moving and powerful film.  Terrence Malick makes art, as much as he makes films.  The acting is superb and the film has a lot to say. The score is magnificent.  As I say, I'm going to listen to
others as they explain the mysterio/spiritual aspects.
You leave feeling a lot.  Just what all you think about it takes a while.  And I guess that is a good piece of art.


See you down the trail.

BRER' BEAR

THE BEAR TRUTH

        By the time I snapped this shot at Brooks Falls in Katmai in Alaska, I already had a fascination with bears.  The Grizzly Bear, pictured in these shots, is a ferocious beast and can be a man killer.  Still, I've always thought of bears as a sort of super steroid sized dog.
I know that's not the case, but their loping amble almost seems playful.  
        I suspect the image of bears was set in me back with the old Brer' Bear character in the Joel Chandler SONG OF THE SOUTH literature of the Uncle Remus stories.  The Disney
version painted Brer Bear as slow, somewhat dimwitted and always being tricked by Brer Rabbit.

       Living in the west, you learn to live with the reality of Bears.  We've had bear sightings within a couple miles of our home.  We have hiked into brown bear country in the Sierra.  Bear lockers are something we frequently use and we always observe the no food in the car admonition in certain areas.  
       What we think of as the California Golden Bear is really a type of brown bear.
They are less lethal than the Grizzly, the bear on the California Republic state flag. Ironically the Grizzly is probably extinct in the state.  
        However, interaction between bear and society is problematic, even in mostly wild, pastoral, agricultural  or undeveloped San Luis Obispo County. A local bear that has developed a taste for chicken, is now on a hit list.  The term we use out here is a "depredation permit."  That's a lyric Uncle Remus never sang about.
The bear/community interaction has been lethal. Link here for the San Luis Obispo Tribune story of the bear kill.
  Read abut the background of the story by  linking here to the San Luis Obispo Tribune.

      

        Enjoy seeing the Big Grizz in their natural environment.

       Do you figure this gull has any idea of who he may be trying to steal a fish from?

       Katmai National Preserve and Park in southern Alaska, in the area of the 10 thousand smokes is an extraordinary place. Not only can you observe Grizzlies in the wild, you are also in one of the most active volcanic regions in the world thus the name-The Land of the 10 Thousand Smokes.   

See you down the trail.

WILDLIFE BATTLES

KILLING THE BIG CATS

  

Photo by California Department of Fish and Game

The graphic scene from high in the Eastern Sierra near Rovana illustrates
the centerpiece of an ongoing wild life management debate.
Should big mountain cats, mountain lions, some call them cougars,
be killed to protect the endangered Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep?
Wildlife experts say there are maybe 400 Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep. They say
at most, there probably has never been more than 1000.  When they were federally
listed as endangered in 1999, the number was down to 114.
The Sierra Nevada Bighorns are a relative to the more common Desert Bighorns with their rounded horns, the type used on Ram trucks and by the football team.

The alpine Eastern Sierra is vast, rugged and a harsh environment.
The Associated Press reports 23 mountain lions have been killed by trappers in the 
last ten years.  There are said to be some 5,000 Mountain Lions in the region. The AP says the cats have eaten at least 59 sheep. In the same ten years 1,079 mountain lions have been killed for threatening livestock or pets.  
THE NUMBERS
5,000 Mountain Lions
400 Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep 
Passions run on both sides of the kill issue.  
For the time being the lions can be killed only  if
they are proven to have killed a sheep.  Of course a
lot can happen in the wild that goes beyond monitoring.

DAY BOOK

HAPPY COWS
as the commercial says
"California Cows are Happy Cows."

See you down the trail.

THE CABLE DRAIN

THE HOT BOX

      Did you see where an HD DVR and HD cable box burn an average of 446 kilowatt hours a year?  That is 10% more than a 21-cubic-foot energy efficient refrigerator. It is estimated there are more 160 million cable boxes in the US.

            A study by the Natural Resources Defense Council says the boxes consumed $3 Bllion in electricity but the stunning fact is 66% of that was wasted because no one was watching.  The energy hogging boxes run all day, even when not in active use.

            Elisabeth Rosenthal in the New York Times, quotes John Wilson, former member of the California Energy Commission-"Companies say it can't be done, or it's too expensive.  But in my experience, neither one is true.  It can be done, and it often doesn't cost much, if anything."

            The former energy Commissioner is talking about what is done in European countries.  Energy draining devices go into a stand by mode or even deep sleep when

not being used.

            Rosenthal quotes Alan Meier of Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory about the industry in the US-"I don't want to use the word lazy, but they have had different priorities  and saving energy is not one of them."

            Maybe American consumers need to smell the coffee and remind those companies

that depend on our dollars, we demand a more energy efficient model.

           

DAY BOOK 
SHORE SCENES

See you down the trail.