Smithy

That's a nice idea! Thanks!

I'm having an afternoon snack of potica. You guys started it.

This looks so good! We like stuffed thighs but are not overly fond of pesto. I have used roasted red peppers and cheese among other things. Tying them is a bit of a pain at first but it is surprising how how quickly one gets the knack of it. Haven't tried dental floss though. ← What do you use to tie them? Heavy thread, as for a turkey, or something lighter? (I'm guessing not nylon!)

Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying the tour. No, Ichi-Ban hasn't shown up yet. We spent a lot of time looking for him this morning. My old (over 17 years) cat, Tab Hunter, once spent 3 or 4 days gone, and I finally found him up a tree. I'm hoping that will happen this time too, and that Ichi-Ban hasn't become some coyote's meal. He can climb. This morning was the usual cup of coffee, then a prolonged woods trek, then a slight change to the pita sandwich: smoked turkey with avocado, and a plum on the side. So far that's been stretched out to cover lunch as well. I'll edit this to add photos after I get them uploaded. (It tasted better than it looks.) We also noted hairy woodpeckers, red finches, black-capped chickadees, and - a new one! - Gray Jays (a.k.a. Canadian Jays, a.k.a. Camp Robbers) at our feeders. Alas, none of the photos was worth uploading. Edited for photos and bird breakfast commentary.

Sorry, I don't know about that market in Cloquet. But now you know about the Makinen market. I don't think I've bothered with the Cup and Saucer, ever. If I'm eating out in Two Harbors, chances are I'll go to the Blackwoods Inn. It's part of a chain of 3 or 4 (Two Harbors, Duluth, Cloquet? and/or Proctor?) but it's still excellent food. For one-of-a-kind, go another 9 miles north to the Rustic Inn in Castle Danger, or for that matter the Grand Superior Lodge more or less across the way. Or stop shorter and go to the New Scenic Cafe on old highway 61, around French River. I didn't know that about the Coke cans. That's a good one. It doesn't look as though this blog will encompass a fly-in breakfast or lunch, but I may well work in another aerial photo or two. In the meantime, here's a bit of information. Have you ever wondered how one of these gets up on land, or back down again, without wheels? Here's how:

It took me a second take to read this right. I was wondering what a mumpkin (rhyme with pumpkin) was I'm thinking of getting A the Pimsleur Arabic (Eastern), I've heard very good things. How did you start learning Arabic? ← My husband dragged me along in the souks in preparation for a camping trip, with me being besieged by people shouting at me in every conceivable language. At every turn I'd try to say the equivalent of "don't want" or "no thanks" and by accident be saying "don't know" or "hello" instead. That's how I started. After that, I picked up a copy of Russell McGuirk's Colloquial Arabic of Egypt. It won't help with the alphabet or reading, but it started me off on the phrases. Russ tells about being at almost the same language skills as I was when he first lived in Egypt. One day he frantically jumped aboard the People's Ferry (across the Nile) as it was slipping away from the dock. He bonked somebody on the head with his tripod. As the victim turned angrily to Russ, Russ said, ever so politely and quickly, in his very best Arabic, "No thank you!"

I headed home tonight, camera in hand, taking photos to continue the discussion about changes along the North Shore. I bought smoked fish at two places. I learned a lot. I did not continue into Duluth for my final smoked fish because of the hour. I had things to taste and things to write. When I got home, I learned that Ichi-Ban, our beloved firstborn-of-the-litter not-quite-year-old cat, still hadn't come home from his overnight excursion. He's never been away this long. We spent the hours beating the woods, to no avail. The upshot is that dinner was a mere skeleton of what I'd planned, and there is no photo essay on changes to the North Shore. Tomorrow, I hope. In Egyptian parlance: bokra, mumpkin, insha-allah. Tomorrow, maybe, God willing. (SnowAngel, did you know that Russ Kendall and Smokey Kendall are not the same person? They don't even run the same business! They're rivals!) Dinner, such as it was, was pesto chicken. There were to be fabulous sides and salads and mint ice cream, all from the garden. Sorry. There was toast. The pesto is pesto - basil from my garden pots, walnuts from California via my freezer, olive oil and salt and grated parmesan from wherever. I assume you're familiar with this, but believe me, if you aren't, ask away! This recipe is an adaptation of one in Cooking Pleasures magazine, June/July 2003. I've made a few changes, but not enough to claim it and post it. Put the pesto into boneless chicken thighs. (The original recipe specified boneless skinless chicken breasts, with pockets slit in them for the pesto. I didn't have any, and I prefer thighs anyway.) Roll the thighs up and skewer them closed with toothpicks. Brown them in olive oil, making sure that they're cooked safely through. When the chicken is adequately cooked, remove it to a warming platter and put it in the oven. Deglaze the pan with cherry tomatoes cut in half (the largest of these were from our garden pot). So goes the recipe. I added some of the red wine I was drinking. Deglaze, cook down until there's a nice sauce with tomatoes. Pour those over the serving platter, and serve at once. Remember to warn your dinner guest(s) that there are toothpicks in the meal. I'm wondering about thread to tie the chicken rolls closed next time. Russ said I could just use dental floss; then he could eat and floss at the same time. Such a deal, eh? The wine in the photo and the sauce is a Dogajolo dry red table wine of Tuscany, 2004. It's mostly sangiovese. Pretty good with the chicken. Russ is drinking MGD light. The chicken is drop-dead simple and drop-dead good. I recommend this treatment.

We've always suspected there was more to the trade war than the citrus council let on! I really do think the coating is the ticket. Scrub it hard. Maybe there's even something like vinegar, or a mild detergent (sounds dangerous, doesn't it?) to help get the coating off. Maybe someone reading has some ideas. Here's another question. Could you pack the lemons in NZ and transport the jar with you to Japan? I don't know the rules about that. It sounds as though a metal cookpot would be more appropriate, then. The heavier your vessel, the better it will be for braising. It seems to be something about the way the mass evens out temperature fluctuations. Although...as I think about it, your braising temperature doesn't have to be above boiling. Maybe you're looking at a good sous-vide vessel? We've picked out feeder spots to suit ourselves, and the bird community has spread the word. I think it's more a question of providing the right sort of food for the birds that will come near the house. They seem to like having an easy getaway, so something that's under a rail (on which a predator could perch, unseen, and then leap) isn't likely to do as well as something with a good view for the bird and multiple exits. Certain birds just won't come near the house anyway; they're too shy, or they're bug eaters and not interested in our seeds. If we were to set feeders out at the edge of the yard we might attract some of the shy seed eaters, but without a telescope it wouldn't provide the birdwatching opportunities. I don't think sun or shade matters much. Many of our birds sit in the shade until they're hungry, then come perch at the feeder whether it's sunny or shady. Interestingly, the blue jays have stopped coming to the rail feeder at all. I think they don't like the cats. The chickadees are less careful. I've gotten the chickadees to eat out of my hand, once or twice, but it took a great deal of patient standing with my hand out. It was hard not to laugh. Edited to add a lemon question.

Well, there was the time that first winter when I decided the space between the inner and outer window was a fine second refrigerator for my stash of colas...and then the bright January morning when I came out to see a cola-colored frozen waterfall all down the inside of my window. The Coke had frozen, expanded, and apparently exploded the cap right off of the bottle, and the gush had frozen onto the window as it flowed. It took forever to get that thawed and cleaned. Oh, that's not what you mean? Nor learning not to leave champagne outside too long in the snowbank? Nor realizing that if the deer carcass is left too long hanging it'll freeze and make more work? You ask an excellent question. It's hard to know how much of my change has been due to adapting, and how much has been due to my expanding interest in cookery. When I first arrived here, my usual cooking was pretty darned simple. Eggs and bacon for breakfast if I had time, toast otherwise; sandwich for lunch, fried chicken (from the frozen deli case) or broiled chicken (in my toaster oven) or broiled steak or pizza from the frozen deli case were pretty much it. I don't remember what I ate for vegetables. Probably not much more than potatoes. What I did miss, terribly, was good fruit. I didn't expect summer fruit in January, since you couldn't get it in Central California then either, but I pined for it in summer. There came a summer when I realized that by careful selection I could get good nectarines for about 2 weeks around here, and I started pigging out for those two weeks. I've learned to be grateful for good transport and better storage for non-local produce like coffee, avocadoes, summer nectarines, lemons. In the meantime, I've also learned to seek out and appreciate what grows well here. You can't get raspberries like this in California, at least not in the central farmlands where I grew up: There's no better woods snack than these sunlit jewels, eaten out of hand as fast as you can pick them. Blueberries and wild strawberries are right up there, too, but raspberries are my terminal weakness. Tomatoes. Garrison Keillor said in a monologue that along about April you'd be ready to kill for a tomato - a real tomato, not those tomato-flavored styrofoam things you get in the store. And he's right. I learned to love tomatoes and savor them while they lasted, whereas before I'd taken them for granted. Being a born hoarder, I do my best to put some up in order to savor them year-round. In California, we just did without for a few months, knowing they'd be back soon. I learned to can only after I moved here. The smoked fish to which I referred is something I never saw when I was growing up. Dad brought home fresh fish (trout from the mountains) and game from his beloved hunting and fishing trips, but there weren't commercial fisheries where we lived. There are commercial fisheries here. While we don't have the variety of fish you have in the Gulf, we do have people who catch the fish to enjoy now, and put some of it by for later. Smoking it. Pickling it. (Pickled herring wouldn't be my choice for a steady diet, but it's a fine appetizer.) I confess, I haven't cottoned to lutefisk. Raw materials such as nuts travel well and store pretty well, so I could expand my variety with those kinds of materials. Was that adaptation, or growth? A bit of both, I think. I'm rambling here, but I think the long answer can be summarized by saying that I've learned more to pay attention to ephemera and savor them fully, while still trying to preserve what I can for later. I took it all for granted when I was younger. Is that adaptation from this climate, or from maturity as the years start whizzing by? You tell me. Is that the kind of thing you're asking, or did I miss the mark? (And yes, sometimes I think I'm nuts too.)

I've tried just about every way. My preferred method, when I have time, is to peel and de-seed them. When I'm in a hurry I just de-seed them and call it good. This particular batch had been chopped in a food processor (not pureed, just chopped) but I've sometimes just cut them in half, dug or squeezed out the pulpy seedy stuff to the extent possible without damaging the flesh, and crammed them into a container or freezer bag. ← Hm. In our Ohio days when we had a garden, we never got so fancy. We'd take the tomatoes just as they came off the vine, give them a little bit of a rinse under the hose, and then freeze them like you'd do for berries: on a sheet pan in a single layer until they're solid, and then packed into a double layer of freezer bags. Then, when you're ready to use them, you take out as many as you'll need, and stick them in the fridge inside a bowl. When they thaw, the skins slip right off. If you can catch them while they're still a little frozen-crunchy inside, it's also pretty easy to dig out the seeds and the slime they're encased in. If they're completely thawed, the tomato flesh is a little more fragile. MelissaH ← I tried a similar method first, but found that I prefer doing the work up front. It turns out to be easier for me to prep things as much as possible in advance, then freeze, to minimize the work on the cooking day. I'm disorganized enough during the actual cooking without the extra steps of thawing, then prepping. There's also the lovely time of spending a day, or a weekend, or times during several weekends, just pottering around the kitchen and putting things up for later. Edited for clarity

Oh, dear...now that you mention it, it does look like that from the road!

Breakfast this morning was yet another pita with avocado and the last of the salmon spread, and a plum. Lunch will be leftover beans and chicken from last night. Summer's back. I hope to get some good North Shore photos - and a representative sampling of smoked fish - on the way home tonight.

I've tried just about every way. My preferred method, when I have time, is to peel and de-seed them. When I'm in a hurry I just de-seed them and call it good. This particular batch had been chopped in a food processor (not pureed, just chopped) but I've sometimes just cut them in half, dug or squeezed out the pulpy seedy stuff to the extent possible without damaging the flesh, and crammed them into a container or freezer bag.

Those are home-pickled lemons, and they more or less puree their own pulp after they sit long enough. I just slit them into quarters still connected at the end, pack with kosher salt, mash down into a jar and cover with more lemon juice. Turn the jar over every day or so to redistribute the settled salt, and they're done in about a month. I tried using some other spices once, but the batch went wrong and I wasn't impressed. By the way, I've had the best success doing this with lemons right off the tree. In the USA commercially packed lemons, even the organic ones, have been harder to get right because the peels have stayed hard instead of going soft and salty tasty. I think the food-grade wax coating must prevent the brine from penetrating the peel. The last time I tried preserving store-bought lemons, I scrubbed the exteriors thoroughly with a clean new abrasive pad (safe for Teflon, no soap, that kind of thing.) It worked better, but I still prefer getting them off the tree. How is citrus handled in Japan, or New Zealand? There's something about porous clay that really seems to make a difference in the cooking, but beyond that there seem to be differences among the clays. I haven't tried side-by-side comparisons yet, but my Moroccan Rifi tagine seems to behave differently than either of my Egyptian (Nile clay) pots. What's your earthenware nabe like?

Isn't ceviche a Mexican take on cured fish? (Sorry, no recipes at hand, just an idea.)

Dinner was djej mqalli from Paula Wolfert's Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco. I used the tagine again and made almost the right adjustments, but needed to make a couple more. Start with a cut-up chicken, marinaded in a mix of preserved lemon pulp, garlic, salt, oil. The chicken is supposed to be coated with this mix and left overnight in the refrigerator, but I only was able to give it a couple of hours. Pour chicken and sauce (don't forget the livers, they really do make a difference) into the tagine, along with other spices and seasonings. Bring it to a simmer, and turn the chicken periodically. I started warming the chicken before adding water, and I added much less than the recipe called for, because that seems to be what the tagine wants. After the chicken has simmered for a bit you're supposed to add the olives and preserved lemon peel, and mash the chicken livers. I forgot all that until the boiling-down step. After the chicken is nearly done, put it in the oven to brown and crank the heat up on the sauce to boil it down and thicken it. Here's where I went wrong, I think: I should have put the sauce in a different pan and put the chicken in the oven in the tagine. I kept the tagine on the burner with the sauce. It didn't really thicken properly, even after a half hour. It might be that I didn't defat the sauce, but I think it was because I didn't dare bring it up to a furious boil. As it was, I had the heat on medium-high, and even with a heat diffuser I hated to turn it up more. Eventually I gave it up and put the browned chicken back into the sauce. You're supposed to spoon the thickened sauce over the chicken and serve at once. Oh, well... ...it was still very, very good. I really like this recipe, a lot. I served it with Cub Foods Italian Peasant Bread, one of the reasons I shop at that particular grocery store. The bread is one of those heat-and-eat things. You good bakers don't need that sort of thing, but this has a better texture and flavor than anything I've ever made. Djej mqalli, Cub Foods bread, and green beans tossed with a vinaigrette and sesame seeds. Oh my, oh my.

Good heavens, that's something I'd've never thought of, and it looks wonderful! (I love eggplant.) Can you give the rough proportions of about how much bechamel per eggplant? It's definitely something I want to try! I'm really enjoying the blog! Thanks - Marcia. ← It's one cup milk, plus a couple tablespoons heavy cream, so whatever amount that makes of bechamel in the usual proportions (1.5 - 2c?), to 3 lbs' worth of large globe eggplants (I use 3). The eggplants really collapse in on themselves, so there isn't as much eggplant volume as 3 lbs would suggest. It's darned close to half and half, judging by the eyeball. It really is wonderful.

Downy woodpeckers already? Ours pretty much vanish for the summer. We've given up on leaving suet out once it gets warm: not because the suet melts (our orchard store actually sells suet blocks that are guaranteed not to melt) but because the &^%$ squirrels demolish a whole block in about ten seconds. Do you have a squirrel issue? ← Our downies stay around all year, courting and raising babies and sticking through the winter. I hadn't realized they'd be migratory elsewhere. The squirrels can't get at these suet blocks because they're suspended from second-floor windows. It's fun watching them try, but they haven't needed to since we have put out a feeder for them on the deck rail. They haven't been there lately either, though. I'm afraid they've either disappeared into the woods (I hear some occasionally) or into the gullets of our animals. I've done something stupid with the formatting, and after 3 or 4 attempts I'm going to give up trying to requote you. As for the dishwasher: I looove having a dishwasher! When Russ and I were courting we used to compare notes on the most important features in our living quarters. For him a dishwasher was a prerequisite, and for me it was a garage. He bought me a dishwasher, ostensibly as a gift but really out of self-defense. It's made a huge difference in the way I cook, and I'd hate to do without one now. I'd still forego the dishwasher before the garage in this country, but it would be a closer race. As for the range hood: don't I wish I were so skillful! It's definitely an issue not to have a hood, and I choose what I cook accordingly. Unfortunately our stove is on an interior wall, with a bedroom on the next floor up, so there's no good place to send a vent. That's something I'll want to change if we ever remodel.

Glad to oblige, and thanks for the compliments! Here's a cross-section of potica. Noted the ultra-thin layers - one of a fine breadish dough and the other of a sweet walnut filling. It's all rolled together like a jelly roll, but considerably more delicate. This is usually a special-day or holiday treat, because it's so labor intensive...that is, unless you get it at the bakery and pay someone else for their trouble. When you slice it, you can warm it up if you're patient enough. I wasn't. It's sweet and nutty, a wonderful pastry. Edited to add: I don't know whether there are regional versions of it. I've never heard of any, but I only heard of it - much less learned to pronounce it - last year.

How interesting! Any idea whether they taste the same? I guess I'm going to find out, one way or the other, but guidance never hurts.

I'm finally caught up to this morning, and wondering whether everyone's bored and wandered off, or doing something else, or feels as though he or she is being offered a drink from a fire hose. Breakfast was buttered toast and coffee. I didn't have to go anywhere right away, so I could enjoy the bright sparkly morning. It's warmed up in the last couple of days, although the wind blew hard while it did so. I tell you, I'm so thrilled with the bouquet Shubie made for me yesterday, I feel a bit like Winthrop in The Music Man: "Thithter, thithter! Ithn't thith the motht thcrumthiouth thing you've ever theen?" (It's really hard to write a lisp, isn't it? ) While I was enjoying coffee and sunshine, I heard a suspicious bump coming from under the sink. Gracie Mu has taking to exploring cupboards lately. Here's a better picture of a downy woodpecker eating outside the window. The downside of having these feeders so close is that the suet that holds the seeds together gets sloppy when it's warm, and it speckles the window. I think this bird is starting to molt. Someone asked offline about what the kitchen looks like, and over on MelissaH's thread there's certainly been a lively discussion about kitchen design. Here are some photos of my kitchen. Not much counter space, given the way I cook and tend to clutter things up, so this cart rolls out to be a work surface when I need more space. Most of my good china and glassware is here - at least, the stuff we got for our wedding. Now that my parents have cleared out their house, I've got more tucked away out of sight. Mom and Dad gave us money some years back, when we moved into this house, "to buy something nice for the house so that when you look at it, you'll think of us". Well, we bought the china hutch and Mom and Dad were able to come see it before it was too late. Dad choked up; it was just the kind of thing he'd wanted us to pick out. I think of them often anyway, but now that Dad's gone it's more poignant. MelissaH, this last is especially for you, in light of your kitchen renovation thread. Note the storage, but not much useful work surface, under the corner cupboards. Now. I'm going to go away and do some useful things like the critical shopping I didn't do yesterday. I'll check back later to see if there's any feedback on what I've posted so far. Any questions? Anything you'd especially like to see? Am I already giving too much information? Edited for spelling and clarity.

Dinner last night was an experiment of adapting a recipe to the tagine, and doing one of my favorite eggplant treatments. Both of these recipes, or at least the originals before I messed with them, came from The Sultan's Kitchen, by Özcan Ozan. First, my adaptation of Sultan's Delight, a tomatoey lamb dish that I wanted to try in the tagine. (He calls for doing it in a standard metal skillet.) Start with these ingredients: and, if you have a tall dog, be vigilant. I threw him outside (politely) after I snapped this photo and before he got any closer. Unfortunately, the phone rang later and distracted me while I was overseeing the outdoor charring of the eggplant. I lost a lamb chop then, and threw the dog back outside less politely. Cut up the lamb and start browning it. I used probably more fat in the tagine than I needed to, but the lamb was lean. After a bit, add the chopped onion, garlic and seasonings, and still later add the tomatoes. These tomatoes are the last of my frozen hoard of wonderful Farmers' Market tomatoes. Mountain Pride is one of the most memorable tomato varieties I've run across, in terms of flavor. Deb Shubat says she'll start some for me next year. I spooned them out to avoid adding more liquid, because I could already see I had more than I needed. Cover, and simmer until the meat is tender. While that's simmering, start the creamed eggplant (Hunkar Begendi). Watch, and you'll see some magic. I'd never heard of creamed eggplant before finding this cookbook. I'm amazed at how it works when you do it right. Poke the eggplants all over with a fork or knife. Char them over a flame, or under the broiler, until they collapse. It's important for them completely to collapse, or you'll have extra work later. (I did.) After the eggplants are soft all over, put them someplace until they're cool enough to handle. Peel them and drop them into a mix of water, lemon juice and salt. This is to keep them from browning too much, but it also adds flavor. Rather than show you those steps, I'm going to show you one of my favorite kitchen gadgets: my trusty Wear-Ever lemon juicer, rescued by my mother from a Navy wife who threw it away when Mom and Dad were in Okinawa. My mother knew a good thing when she saw it. This juicer has done yeoman's service for 2 generations now, squeezing countless lemons for lemonade, lemon meringue pies, and the odd bits of cookery. I use it nearly every day. If you ever see one on eBay or at a garage sale, get it. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it. So. The next step, basically, is make a bechamel sauce: butter, flour, then milk with a touch of cream, all whisked until it's creamy. I'm glossing over this but I'll add detail if anyone asks. Once it's creamy, add the (drained) eggplant. Now here's the magic: if you've done your job properly at the charring stage, the eggplant just falls apart and whisks into the bechamel. If you haven't been patient enough, you have to do a bit of choping and pureeing. A wand blender works well for this task. At some stage, shredded kasseri cheese is added in to finish the deal. Meanwhile, back at the tagine, the lamb is done. I used too much fat for the meat, I think. I hadn't added any liquid (the recipe calls for a lot, but I didn't think the tagine would want it) and there's still a lot there. Still, the lamb was tender and tasty, and the marriage of lamb with tomato and creamed eggplant with kasseri is perfect. I don't especially like kasseri on its own, but with the rest it's delicious. Isn't Shubie's bouquet wonderful?! That pinky dangly flower is called "Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate".

Nope! (That reminds me, I'm out of saffron, and I need it!) What size are your typical juice bottles over there?

There rises now a single tide of tourists passing through They've traded old ways for the new, old ways for the new --Stan Rogers, "The Citadel" How Duluth has changed, Part the First. PamR, you asked about what Duluth is like now, how large, that sort of thing. Where did you go to school in Minnesota? Duluth's population is now around 85,000. It's shrunk since the early 1980's when it had a larger industrial base and heavier shipping industry. The 1980 census had the population at just over 100,000 people, although wags claimed that the census takers went out and counted all the crew members of ships in port, no matter their citizenship, to get that number. Regardless of how justified the count was, at the time Duluth had a lot of grain shipping, a lot of iron ore (taconite) shipping, and - if not in 1980, then just before that - a steel mill. Maybe I'll get energetic enough to find a map and post it, or at least a link to one, but in the meantime, for those who don't know, Duluth is a seaport via the St. Lawrence Seaway to the Atlantic. With something close to 1000 miles (CBATG) worth of seaway, Duluth is the United States' most inland seaport. It might even hold the world record, but again, CBATG (with thanks to Adam Balic). When I moved to Duluth in the early 1980's, industry was slipping and a lot of areas were going derelict. The spirited mayoral race of 1984 was between the incumbent mayor, champion of the blue-collar boys, and an upstart who said Duluth is a beautiful place, a natural for tourism, and that its future depended on attracting the tourists. Well...Mr. Blue Collar won the race, but Ms. Tourism's ideas prevailed. Over the years, industries have swung up and down many times, but the derelict areas keep being beautified, the city council keeps working to attract more tourist dollars, and - for better or worse - the tourists are coming in. It's a mixed blessing. Frankly, I like a lot of the selections available up here now, far better than I did when I moved here, because appealing to tourists means providing more variety. On the other hand, I hate crowds and have a low tolerance for traffic. Around here, more than 5 cars in line constitutes a traffic jam. During high tourist season it can be dozens...and then there's the Lift Bridge, but I'll get to that. The Farmer's Market is an example of the old that hasn't changed much but is flourishing nonetheless. Despite my best intentions, I didn't get out the door and to the market until around 9 a.m. By then a lot of the selection is gone. In fact, this woman - from whom I bought garlic, and wanted to buy shallots but she was sold out, commented to another customer that "these photographers should come earlier before we're all sold out!" She was a bit embarrassed, she said, to have her produce look so puny, and wanted me to make it clear that she'd had a lot more earlier in the day. I missed Talmadge Farms, somehow; she's a neighbor and she sells not only produce but also jams, jellies and pickles. She's been willing to sell me dill on off-days on occasion. Next to Talmadge Farms is Shubat's Fruits. Deb Shubat runs the greenhouse at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, as well as her own busines. I bought some garlic from her, also, as well as a bouquet. Check it out: 3 different varieties of garlic! That's my bouquet she's holding. You'll see it better in later photos. Cucumbers. I bought some lovely cukes here a couple of weeks ago, and now can't remember from whom, so I bought from several people. This lady was a bit bemused that I wanted her picture, but she gladly complied. That's a Diva cuke she's holding. She sells flowers, too. The Hoffbauers had the best-looking tomatoes, so I bought some and a few potatoes from them. I didn't buy a chicken this time, as I usually do, because I was sure I had one in the freezer. More potatoes came from Mark's place. Through it all, a couple of our local musicians were jamming. We have a strong music community here, and the old-timey and Celtic musicians often oblige on Saturday mornings. I haven't seen too many of the bluegrassers around, and the blues/rock folk don't seem to be the Farmers' Market types. Just up the hill from the Farmer's Market is one of the changes. The Whole Foods Co-op started out oh, 15 years ago? in a little storefront in some obscure neck of the city. Perhaps 10 years ago they expanded and moved into their present location. They're now doing so well that they've worked out an owner lending program enough to finance a new location by renovating what was a large restaurant in a more central downtown location. They expect to moving this fall. When I asked about photos and explained that I'm trying to show how Duluth has changed in the last 20 years, the manager said, "For the better, I hope!" He was delighted to hear about some free (good) publicity. Here's just a small selection of what they have. The deli case is the latest and greatest addition - I think only a couple of years old. When I'm hungry I'll pick grab something from here, but I was still running on coffee, fruit and sandwich at that point. SnowAngel, you asked where I shop. This is one of the places I shop regularly; I get most of my spices here. I get some fresh produce here (you see why), but I have to admit, I often forget something and I don't get here as often as I get to Cub Foods. Here's my haul from the day, except the green beans, which I forgot to include in the photo. Notice the 3 white eggplants in there? Except for the color, the round one looks like what I see in Egypt but never here. I don't know what to make of the long ones - albino Japanese eggplants? Does anyone know what I got? What should I do with them? From there I went down to Park Point, where my airplane lives at this time of year, for a lesson. To get there you go through Canal Park, one of the best and most vivid examples of city renovation. I wish I had a "before" picture. This was the warehouse district when I first moved here. There were warehouses and bars and rough streets with rundown paving, and it wasn't a place to be after dark unless you were large and burly. Now it's filled with shops, restaurants, hotels, and a few offices tucked away. That building on the left at the end, the Dewitt-Seitz Marketplace, is home to 2 of my favorite shops: the Blue Heron Trading Company, where I get a lot of kitchen wares and take the odd cooking class, and the Northern Waters Smokehaus, home to artisan cheeses and smoked fish. I hope to get photos for you, but I didn't get them yesterday. That bridge is the Duluth Lift Bridge, and they're celebrating its centennial this year. The entire span goes up and down to allow the ships through. Pretty, isn't it? What you can't see is that this is the only way on or off Park Point, and during the tourist season the traffic can be backed up for a mile, waiting for the bridge. When an ore boat or a salty is coming in the bridge is raised well in advance, becuase it Just Won't Do for a vessel to be coming in to port and suddenly discover that the bridge is stuck. The stopping distance for these vessels is something between half a mile and a mile at low speeds. They're impressive, and fun to watch. When one is coming through, the best thing is to shut the car down and go watch the ship.

I realized sometime in the night that I'd left out the return trip from the Range on Friday, and the meal I made with it. One of my favorite stops, when I can take the slightly-back-roads route home, is the Makinen Market. Makinen's one of those typical small widely-dispersed communities around here with its own volunteer fire department and its own Post Office, and that's about all I know about it - except that this guy makes excellent sausage. Here's a small sampling of what he offers. He makes it there on the premises, but since "he" wasn't actually around I couldn't see about getting any photos. I bought a package each of Cajun, Smoked Italian, Landjager, and Smoked Polish sausage there. This is called "stocking up", and this is why our refrigerator, freezers and pantry are always stuffed. I'm a frightful impulse buyer. Dinner involved some of the Smoked Italian sausage. In progress: This is one of my typical "wing it" dishes, with some basics but no firm ingredient set. Can you identify what went into it this time? Can you guess what I'm sprinkling into the pot right when I shot that photo? The finished operation, about 15 minutes before my company arrived. I knew they wouldn't be eating. Most of mine ended up in the leftovers, too.