Summer Reading: Producer--Lessons Shared from 30 Years in Television

My latest summer reading pick.

I really enjoyed reading the book Producer: Lessons Shared from 30 Years in Television because I work behind the scenes in the television industry and I identified with some of the same experiences the author, Wendy Walker went through.

In this book, Walker names the chapters after lessons she's learned. These include lessons like "freaking out is not an option" and "everything happens for a reason."

As the senior executive producer of Larry King Live, Walker illustrates these lessons with anecdotes about the famous people she's met and worked with and the challenges she's faced at her fast-paced job.

I also liked reading about her career path from college, to working at a clothing store, to working for the Kennedy family, and beyond.

I recommend this book for anyone who likes to read about interesting people and places and wants to learn lessons in the process.

Garden Notes: May 17, 2014

I'm sitting on the patio in my backyard listening to Mute Math songs that are new to me on my retro hot pink iPod shuffle, which matches my straw hat.

It's around 64 degrees out, but on my patio it feels warmer that that--warm enough to wear shorts, a tank top and flip flops and not be cold. I call that summer in Oregon after the Fourth of July.

Anyway, back to the garden. My peas are about eight inches tall now, dwarfing the radishes and the hidden lettuce and spinach seeds. I think I planted those seeds too deep or the soil wasn't moist enough. Oh well, I'll water and wait. That seems to be the theme sometimes.

My transplants, courtesy of my mother-in-law, Rachelle, are doing well. I even saw a really tiny bee-looking creature flying from blossom to blossom. It seems to like the ornamental strawberry blossoms. I wonder what this bug is.

My sage plant that I got for free from Bi-mart last year has gone to seed. It has light purple flowers. I haven't decided if I'm going to trim them off yet. I probably should. 

I need to go to the store this weekend to get some Sluggo to keep the snails at bay from the peas and daisies. I read that Sluggo is safe to apply around vegetable plants because its active ingredient, iron phosphate, is safer than other slug repellents that have a more harmful active ingredient. There are also other methods to deter snails, like copper tape, hair, gravel and coffee grounds. You spread it around along the border of your garden bed or container.

And there are the weeds. The unfortunate thing about some retals is some of their yards have a lot of weeds. I will venture to guess that my backyard does not have grass, only weeds and rocks. However, I do have a nice tree. I need to trim it.

Lastly, I need to figure out what to plant in these other pots I have. Looks like I have plenty to keep me busy.

Apartment Gardening: Planting Seeds

I remember the first time I planted anything from seed. I was nervous that it wouldn't work. It's much easier to plant vegetables and flowers when all the hard has already been done for you by someone who knows what they're doing. But a couple years ago I took the jump and planted basil from seeds I got from my mom but was afraid to plant myself until then.

It actually wasn't as hard as I thought. However, I didn't bother to look at a planting calendar, which tells you the best time to plant things. But the basil came up and soon I was able to eat my favorite herb with spaghetti, Caprese salad and scrambled eggs. Since then, I've also planted lettuce, peas, spinach and cilantro from seed.

But, like every gardener, I'm still learning. I recently started producing a gardening segment at work (see video below), and the first topic we did was starting from seed. The new thing I learned was that if you want to start from seed in those little trays that you then transplant from, you have to use seed starter, not just any old dirt or potting soil. This explains why the lettuce plants on my window sill this year haven't come up yet. I used the wrong dirt. Well, there's still time to start over. I guess I know what I'm getting the next time I'm in the garden shop.

Snowshoe Adventures: Blue Pool and Sahalie Falls, Oregon

     Wintertime in the Northwest is a great time to enjoy the outdoors. I recently went on a snowshoeing day trip with my fiance, Nathan, and his best friend Keith to celebrate Keith's birthday. It was the end of January, and in Eugene we had gone through series of what we consider really cold temperatures--highs in the low 20s. I know, it's worse in other parts of the country, but to me that's really cold. But snowshoeing is one of those activities that I did once at Gold Lake last year, and I enjoyed it so much, I knew it was worth it to get out in the cold and do it again.
     After stopping for coffee--the boys only, of course, because I don't like to drink it--we set out for Highway 126 East, also called McKenzie Highway. I like this drive, especially in the fall when the leaves turn vibrant colors. This is the highway I like to take if I go to Bend or farther, like when I went to Boise one time. But that Saturday we didn't go that far, only about an hour to get to our first stop, the beginning of Tamolitch Trail to go to Blue Pool, also called Tamolitch Pool. This turquoise pool is one of the clearest, most beautiful bodies of water I've ever seen. The trail to it isn't that far either. It's only a few miles, according to one website. We made plenty of photo op stops along the way to take pictures of the McKenzie River, snow and a bird that kept diving into the middle of the river. The three of us were the only ones on the trail for a while. We only saw about four other people and one or two dogs the entire time we were there. It's peaceful, almost like it's your own backyard, especially when you get to Blue Pool. The water is so clear, you can see almost all of the rocks covered in a shade of turquoise. The only experience I can compare it to is when I first saw Crater Lake. It's so picturesque, it almost doesn't even look real. The is definitely a place I'd like to see once each season to see how it changes throughout the year.



     After getting back to the car, we ate lunch and headed to our next destination not too far off: Sahalie Falls. I've been there in the summer, but not the winter, let alone with snowshoes. This was a little more tricky to do with snowshoes because the trail is a little more steep and winds back and forth a little bit. I'm glad I rented poles. This is a great place to take pictures of the falls and the river, especially with slow shutter speeds which make the water blur. Nathan and Keith, of course, always want to get a better angle for their pictures, so they carefully make their way off the trail to take some great shots. I also recommend this hike in the summer.





     Our last stop was Koosah Falls, but I kind of wimped out and stayed in the car. They guys were only gone for about 15 minutes, but I had been in a jazz performance at the Hult Center the night before so I was pretty tired, and I didn't know I was going on this trip until the day before we left. It's kind of fun planning last-minute trips though. I'll have to check out Koosah next time.
     I recommend showshoeing to anyone who hasn't tried it. It's basically walking on snow. You can take your time, and there are plenty of trails available for all skill levels. If there's a trail that you enjoy during the warmer seasons, check to see if it's a good place to snowshoe on because it will give you a different perspective that you might find more interesting.
     Let me know what your favorite place to snowshoe is! I'd like to check it out.

Stew for a Winter Day

I just finished another bowl of some delicious vegetable beef soup for lunch today. I made it with my slow cooker last week and still tastes just as good as the first day I ate it. It was very simple to make, and I encourage you to give it a try. If you want to cook it on low heat, cook it for no more than eight hours. I've made the mistake of trying to do these types of recipes for 10 hours, due to my work schedule, but my roommate was kind enough to turn the heat to warm when she got home. That was the key to making the meat perfectly tender.

If you are short on time for prepping, chop the onions and potatoes beforehand and put them in airtight containers. That way all you have to do is throw them into the slow cooker. You can also measure and mix the spices ahead of time too, but only put two teaspoons of beef buillion in it or else it will be too salty. I was able to avoid that by ready the reviews online. One thing that did differently with this recipe was use vegetable broth instead of water. I like broth more than water in stew because it adds more flavor. So if you want a good winter dish for dinner and leftovers, give this one a try.

Radish Plants Get Surprise Neighbors

      When I was a kid, I didn't like radishes. I thought they were too spicy or hot. My grandpa liked them too, so I thought it was a grownup thing--that grownups liked radishes and other vegetables that kids never eat, like beets. But after trying a radish for the first time in a long time, and checking local planting calendars, I thought I'd try growing my own. I picked up a packet of cherry belle radish seeds, which are a cute, small kind of radish and decided to plant them in the same raised bed as where I planted my snap peas. However, I forgot the radishes would end up competing with some bulb flowers that I forgot can come up in late summer.

 

     The funny thing about planting bulb flowers is there's a chance that you forget where you put them. That was the case with my grape hyacinth after I started watering the radish seeds. Within a week or so, at the the beginning of September, they started coming up. I hadn't watered that area all summer because I thought those flowers were spring bloomers, not fall bloomers, so I figured I could just leave them alone. But they came up anyway, after I started watering that area, and since then they've become garden roommates more or less.
    A couple side notes--first, I've confirmed with a local master gardener that the holes in the leaves aren't worth worrying over this late in the season. Second, because I planted the seeds so late in the season, I've been told that it will take a lot longer for them to be ready to eat than what is specified on the packet. I can't wait!

Planting Spinach in a Hanging Basket

I've never planted vegetable seeds in the fall before. It always seemed complicated to take of. But new this year, I decided to give it a try. I checked the Portland Nursery's chart and found that I could plant spinach at the end of August. I love putting spinach in my sandwiches and eating spinach salads, so I picked up a package of spinach seeds, along with some radish seeds (more on that later) at the Down to Earth garden store.

      My pots were already full of other things, and an empty patch of my raised bed would be used for radishes, so I had to find somewhere else to plant them. (Enter the incredibly dead hanging flower basket.) I was able to resurrect its flowers this season for a little while after pruning, but something got to it and killed it. So, I decided to empty the basket, fill it with new dirt from Bi-Mart and plant the seeds in it.
     That week the seedlings started to come up, so I thinned them apart according to the seed packets directions. It will take a while before they are ready to pick and eat, but it's fun to watch them grow in the meantime.

Stock up on seeds

This might not be the best time of year to look for vegetable seeds, but if you look hard enough, you can find some for a great deal. This morning I stopped at a local drug store called Hiron's to browse. Outside the front of the store, I found a lot of vegetable and flower seeds on sale. Each package marked 59¢ regular price was on sale for 10¢! I didn't want to go too crazy, so I used some of my quarters to get just $1 worth of seeds. I bought carrot, parsley, tomato, bunching onion, marigold, lettuce, pepper, cucumber and radish seeds.

I will save most, if not all, of these seeds for next season. I'll have to do more planning for sure to make sure I don't get overwhelmed.

So as you're getting ready for fall, stock up on seeds, trade seeds with fellow gardeners, and plant what you can for your fall and winter crop.

Hotel Gardens

During my vacation in Hawaii, I've seen so many great gardens and landscaping at the hotels and towns I've visited. Some many of the plants grown here would not grow well in Oregon. It is very humid and warm here. However, the impatients grown at the Grand Wailea do well in my backyard. But they grow so much bigger here and spread like a think carpet or blanket.
Here are pictures of some of my favorite plants I've seen here so far:

Gardening in Airports

Gardens and plants catch my eye when I see them in places where I don't expect them--like airport terminals.

At the Seattle-Tacoma airport on Saturday, I saw some planter boxes in the undercover area where I walked from my plane to inside the airport. I thought it was random to see red geraniums in a place surrounded by loud industrial equipment. Most people would probably just pass by them in a hurry to their next flight, but a few may stop for a moment to enjoy their pop of color against the gray Seattle sky. Hopefully more airports do things like this.

Salad Ingredients Travel Short Distance

It's interesting to think that a lot of the we get at the grocery store sometimes has to travel across states to get to where we live--even produce that can just as easily be grown in your back yard.

Although not not all of the ingredients in my salad I ate with dinner last night came from my garden, some of it did. It was fun to be able walk two feet from my back door and pick fresh loose leaf lettuce, basil and chives to add to the mix. If I had grown carrots, I would have added them instead of the ones I got from the store. Maybe someday.

The lettuce and basil came from seed, and the chives were from a start I planted last year.

I encourage you to plant produce close you, either from starts or seeds. It's quite fun and satisfying when it comes time to cook, especially when you plant something that is cheap to grow but expensive to buy at the store, like herbs.

Gardening When You're Broke

If you want to bring newcomers to your garden, but you're short on cash, one thing you can do is check places where people are giving away plants for free.

A couple months ago, I looked under the "free" section of Craigslist and found an post for free grape hyacinth. This caught my eye because I planted some of these bulbs on my back porch at least a year before. I called the woman listed, and she set aside a grocery bag full of them that she thinned out in her front yard. My mom and I planted them along my fence and also at my front door. They will look much better next spring. It was a neat experience because I got to get free flowers for my garden and meet a fellow gardener. I hope to return the favor.

So before you go out to buy lots of plants, check online to see if someone is giving any away.

Blooming Chives

Sometimes I think gardens can oftwn resemble the illustrations of a Dr. Suess book. The chives in my garden are no exception. They are now blooming their puffy purple flowers and weighing down some of the long, thin green scapes (the part you dice and eat).

I ate one of the green the other week, and it tasted so fresh. I'll have to make some potatoes or another dish that I can add the chives to soon.

One thing I like about this plant is that I got it for free at a garden event. I'll write another post about how to get free plants later.

Flower Basket Resurrected

When Mother's Day roles around, that's when I start to see a lot of hanging baskets for sale. My mom usually gets one with fushias in it as a gift and has to keep my uncle from popping the blossoms open. He does this to my grandma's fushias as well.

I like to get my own hanging flower basket every year because it's so easy to take care of, adds nice color and hopefully attracts bees. There are a shortage of them partially due loss of habitat.

This past year I decided I would see if the flowers in my basket from last summer would come back. And they have! I think I might call them Frankenflowers. Other gardeners probably call them perrenials.

In the meantime, I've planted flower seeds I got for free at an Earth Day event in between the stems to add some variety.

I'd encourage you to buy or build your own flower basket. Bring those bees!

Apartment Gardening: Basil and Lettuce Plants Have a New Home

I took advantage of this morning's dry, cool weather by transplanting some of my plants. The basil, and especially the lettuce, outgrew their small spaces and needed room to expand. I moved lettuce from three small pots to one large blue pot and planted another round of seeds in the small pots again. Transplanting the lettuce was difficult because I planted too many seeds in each pot, so they were hard to separate and probably not very strong. I hope they survive.

The basil wasn't as difficult to transplant, but again, I should have planted fewer seeds in the small blue pot they were in. The transplants are now in a medium red pot and medium-sized leftover black plastic pot, and I planted some more basil seeds in the small pots.

Elsewhere on my windowsill, the forget me nots still have not come up. I think the seeds might be a bad batch or I should try something else. I need to do more research.

Apartment Gardening: The Peas are Growing!

It's been about a month since I planted snap peas in my garden. Now they have grown a few inches tall!

I installed a synthetic net along the fence this past weekend, so the peas will have somewhere to go in order to grow nice and tall. The first time I planted peas, they were starts instead of from seed. I made the mistake of not researching how to plant them. I didn't trellis them and the bugs ate the pods.

I wasn't about to make that same mistake. Hopefully, the net that I put up will do the trick.

If you have any tips about growing peas, feel free to post them below.

Apartment Gardening: Peas in the Ground

Every year I try to plant something new, and this year I chose to plant sugar snap peas. I love how sweet and crunchy they taste, and since they can be spendy at the store I thought it would be a good idea to try to plant myself.

I bought some Cascadia pea seeds from Territorial Seed Company at the Down to Earth garden store and some legume inoculant, which helps increase yield but I haven't used it yet. Instead, I soaked the seeds between wet paper towels in a Tupperware container for a few days until the seeds started to sprout. Then they were ready to be planted.

I scraped a trench close to the fence and placed the peas in a row in the trench. Then I covered them up with the dirt. That was a week ago. They are starting come out of the ground now. When they get tall enough, I will make a net with jute on the fence and wrap them around to encourage them to grab it and grow.

Apartment Gardening: Growing from Seed

It's finally spring and the March snow is gone, so now it's time to check on my seedlings. A few weeks ago, I planted basil, lettuce and forget me nots from seed. I remembered to keep the soil watered, and my memory has paid off. The lettuce already has two sprouts and the basil has one. That's not too bad considering my windowsill doesn't get a whole lot of light. I hope they turn out well because a lot of seeds come in a packet.

If you have any tips about growing seeds, let me know.

Chocolate Owls (and other baby shower cuteness)

I've never thought of owls to be a theme of a baby shower, but aparently it can turn out to be really cute. I attended a baby yesterday for one of my co-workers and from the food to decorations to games, it was about the details.

The food: the desserts have to be the cutest things I've seen in a long time. My favorites were the owl cake balls. The chocolate cake was the moistest cake I ever. Anothe co-worker of mine said that it may have been made by first make the cake, crumbling it up, mixing it with frosting, working it into balls and then freezing it. After that you dip it in melted chocolate and set it to harden. However it's made, it sure is some of the best cake I've ever had.

One of my favorite decorations was the photo display that had wires with clips hanging down like a tree. In addition to photos, it had pastel baby washcloths wrapped around white tissue paper and wrapped in clear celofane like a giant salt water taffy. It was very creative and looked easy to make.

The craftiness came full circle with the game that could be called "The Closepin Game." Every guest is given a tiny closepin. If one guest catches another guest saying a certain word, the can keep that person's pin. Our words were "baby" and "peanut", the baby's nickname. Our pins followed the them by having paper owls on them. Too cute!

All in all, the event was not only a treat to see such creativity, but a great time to celebrate and catch up with friends.

Wild Turkeys of West Eugene

One of the things I like about Eugene is the random things I see there.  On March 18, I was load my stuff in my car at a friend's house for a St. Patrick's Day sleepover when I heard something coming from the woods: turkeys.  They weren't just any turkeys.  They were wild.  There were about five of them in a group, and they looked intimidating.  I just had to snap a picture of them. 

I know around here we get raccoons, squirrels and nutrea, which you don't go near, but what about turkeys?  Do they have rabbies, or are they just territorial?  So I kept my distance as they gobbled loudly at me, took the picture with my phone and ran back inside the house to tell my friends about my encounter.  If you see the West Eugene Wild Turkeys, take a picture and send it to me, and I will post it on my blog.

Schef Schwander: Cooking Chicken Paprikash

Cooking chicken thighs is something I've never done before, and last night was my first time. I cooked a dish called Chicken Paprikash. You can find the recipe in the December 2011 edition of Food Network Magazine or here.

This dish was pretty easy. However, with all recipes, it's important to read the directions several times before you start cooking so you aren't as surprised by the next step. If it's your first time cooking this dish, I recommend prepping the food beforehand -- cutting, slicing, portioning out ingredients -- as much as you can so you can concentrate on doing the recipe right. While cooking this dish, I found myself rushing at times while chopping some of the ingredients because I worried others would burn. Thankfully nothing really burned.

This was somewhat the case when I went to prep the chicken. I have only ever cooked chicken breasts, not chicken thighs. I was supposed to cut them in half. But when I opened the package, I found that the thighs had bones in them with sockets, which I left in, so they weren't going to be cut exactly in half. For some reason I forgot that your thighs have a big bone in them with a socket to connect them to the rest of your body and the same was true for chickens. I think the last time that I had eaten a chicken thigh was from  a KFC bucket at a family reunion picnic when I was 9 years old. That just goes to show that I have a lot more cooking and eating to do, which I have no problem doing.

Instead of putting the chicken and the sauce on top of egg noodles, I served them on top of whole wheat spaghetti. I also used half a teaspoon on dried parsley instead of fresh parsley. It tasted really good. I served it with a side of cooked mixed veggies -- corn, carrots, and green beans.

Photo courtesy of foodnetwork.com

Schef Schwander: Cooking Yummy Pork Chops

Thinking of something great to cook tonight? You should try out this recipe I did on Friday. I made pork chops from a recipe I found in the December 2011 edition of Food Network Magazine. By the way, I love how the table of contents in the magazine has pictures of the food from the recipes inside. That way it's easier to look up what you want to make. Genius!

The pork chops I made were really tasty. The sauce wasn't as thick as gravy but was a great dipping sauce for the biscuits I made to go with them. It took about 40 minutes or less to make just like the recipe said.  What I did differently is I sprinkled dried thyme instead of using fresh time, because that's what I had.

If I could change anything about the recipe, I would have used boneless pork chops instead, or bought a better cut of pork in general.

I can't wait to try another recipe in this magazine!

Photo courtesy of foodnetwork.com

Living Your Life on a Tightrope: Reviewing the Documentary Man on Wire

In my search to find a good documentary to watch, I came across Man on Wire.  It's the story of Phillipe Petit, the man who tightrope walked between the World Trade Center towers in 1974.  This film came out in 2008.  It was based on Petit's book To Reach the Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between the Twin Towers written in 2002.

During the first few minutes of the movie, it was kind of hard for me to watch.  That's because there were all sorts of shots of the Twin Towers as they were being built.  I went to New York in the summer of 2000, so I had some sort of idea how high these were.  But knowing what became of those towers a year later, it was eerie for me to see footage of the crews putting the towers together piece by piece.

As far as the movie goes, I think it was put together really well.  There was so much footage that Petit and his crew took that it seemed like he knew someone would put a movie together about the event someday.  I think the situations that were recreated in the movie were pretty good too.

I also enjoyed the music.  It was mostly classical, and there were some songs that were probably released during that time period.

Risk taking seems like an obvious theme in this movie, and Petit seems to tell the people who watch it to challenge themselves.  Toward the end of the film, he briefly talked about how to "live your life on a tightrope".  To me this seems like it's easier said than done.  I think it's hard in a world where I often pressure myself to to stay safe, be smart, do only what I know and not take too many risks or else I might lose what I have.  I wonder how many people my age feel the same way.

Petit didn't seem to let those kinds of things get to him.  Sure, he felt nervous and scared that his plan wouldn't work, but he kept going.  I think he's crazy, but sometimes being kind of crazy brings out something good.  For the people in New York, I think it brought them a new thought that seeing something out of the ordinary is kind of refreshing and amazing, like what the police officer thought and recalled during an interview after "Le Coup", the name Petit gave to the incident.

I think Petit's feelings when he was at the World Trade Center tightrope walking incident and his outlook on life, and hopefully for us, was summed up well in his following remark: 

"What a beautiful death, to die in the exercise of your passion."

Image courtesy of imdb.com

Fresh Blueberries Worth the Sunburn (But Next Time I'll Wear Sunscreen)

Summer arrived in Eugene Saturday (on July 23, no less) with a double-dose of sunshine.  To celebrate, I went blueberry-picking with my friends Britni and Angel.

Instead of going during the cool morning though, for some reason we decided to go during the hotter part of the day, around 2 p.m.  Oh well, it was worth it.  We arrived at Green Hill Aire Blueberry Farm to find a few cars lining the rural road off of Royal Avenue and Greenhill Road in northwest Eugene.  Apparently we weren't the only ones with the bright idea to satisfy the craving for freshly-picked berries.  Britni says it's not truly summer until you go berry picking.

From there you can see some white-capped mountains off in the distance.  I think they were the Three Sisters, but I'm not sure. 

We were welcomed by some friendly folks who have lived there for about 30 years.  They told us they planted the blueberry bushes about 29 years ago.  I thought, if the bushes are older than me, they must be good.

And good they were.  There were so many tasty blueberries, we could have stayed all day.  But then the owners would have had to weigh us before and after we arrived to determine how many berries we actually ate and picked and should therefore pay accordingly.

After guiding pincher bugs and spiders out of our buckets and trying to not to knock off the berries that were still green, we paid for our treats.  To our surprise they only charged us for three-quarters of the two-gallon bucket even though the berries were about an inch below the top.  But I think we would did pick a full two gallons.  We just ate the difference.

I hope we go back again soon.  Until then, I need apply plenty of aloe to the sunburn I got and decide what to do with my berries.  Muffins perhaps?  Or maybe just freeze them and eat them during the next hot summer day.  That is if they all make it home without ending up in my stomach :) 

 

 

Savory Side Dishes

I think side dishes often get overlooked when it comes to trying new recipes. I know I have a habit of looking for a great main dish recipe but I forget that a strong side dish can almost always be modified into a main dish.

I recently tried cooking a couple of side dishes that can be made any time of the year.  They both came from Food & Wine Magazine.  I'll talk about one of them in this blog entry.

But first I'll tell you how I found the recipes.  Whenever I find a recipe in a magazine, I take a picture of it with my phone and use that when I go grocery shopping. That way I don't have to worry about losing a piece of paper, but I can add it to a recipe card later if I like it. I started doing this when I found recipes in magazines in the break room at work.

The first side that I cooked was called Summer-Vegetable Casserole.  The ingredients are very simple, but it does take a while to complete.  You'll need the following ingredients:

1. Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
2. 1/2 pound Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/4 inch thick
3. Salt and freshly ground pepper
4. 1 yellow bell pepper, thinly sliced
5. 1 small onion, thinly sliced
6. 1 large garlic clove, minced
7. 1 teaspoon thyme leaves
8. 1/2 pound plum tomatoes, sliced 1/4 inch thick
9. 2 small zucchini (1/2 pound), sliced on the diagonal 1/4 inch thick
10. 3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese 

Instead of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, I used Parmesan cheese.  It wasn't until after college and started really cooking for myself that I realized that I could buy a block of hard cheese and grate it myself instead of buying it in a can.  I think it tastes much better too.

If you want to get really "fancy", buy a wedge of Pecorino Romano cheese.  It's kind of expensive, but it has a great flavor and is a nice change from other standard hard cheeses.  But for this recipe, I think your favorite hard cheese will do just fine.

Here are the recipe instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Coat a 9-inch baking dish with olive oil. Spread the potatoes in the dish in an even layer; drizzle with oil and season with salt and pepper. In a bowl, combine the bell pepper, onion, garlic and thyme and season with salt and pepper. Arrange two-thirds of the bell pepper mixture over the potatoes and drizzle with oil. Top with the tomatoes and the zucchini; drizzle with oil and season with salt and pepper. Cover with the remaining bell pepper mixture and sprinkle with the cheese. 
2.  Cover the casserole with foil and bake for 40 minutes. Increase the oven temperature to 425°. Uncover the casserole and bake for about 20 minutes longer, until the vegetables are tender and glazed on top. Let stand for 10 minutes. Serve warm.

This dish would be really good with baked or grilled chicken or your other favorite meat.

Shooting My First Gun

A couple weeks ago, I went to Florence to visit the Campbells. While I was there, Nathan's dad Kim offered to teach me how to shoot a gun.

"Sure," I said.

"Which one?" he asked. They have a lot of guns.

"I don't know," I said.

He picked up a Weatherby pump action 12 gauge and told me it would be a good one to try. I thought it was big, considering it was about three-quarters of my height.

So after getting instructions on how to load it, hold it and use the safety, he handed me some ear muffs and we were off to the back deck to give it a try.

It was a little heavy, but was able to manage. He told me to aim for the trees, not the wood carvings shaped live cute bear cubs attached to the trellis arch.

I lined up with the sight, took a deep breath and fired. The air started to smell like fireworks, and a green piece of plastic from the shell shot out with it. The kick wasn't that bad. I just had to make sure I didn't move very much.

Nathan kind of smiled or laughed and said I needed to pose for a picture. I held the gun and smiled for the camera, but Nathan said, "No, you need to stand like this with the gun on your thigh."

I thought that would be really weird, but he said, "Everybody does it that way."

Because I'd hardly seen pictures of people with guns, I figured he was right. So I posed and smiled.

After that, Kim asked if I wanted to try another gun. I said okay and we went back inside to pick out another one. I chose a 357 pistol.

I held on tight and fired two shots. The kick was definitely not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

After Nathan shot some bullets, we headed back inside. Kim showed me how to unload and clean the guns before putting them away.

I'm glad I finally learned how to shoot a gun, even if probably looked a little silly doing it.

Thanks Kim!