ness

Just home from two weeks in Italy. In addition to the fantastic pasta, beef, seafood, pizza, etc. at restaurants, we cooked a lot of our own meals at the three different locations we stayed. Here come some photos: Our first place -- a farmhouse in Tuscany -- had a welcome basket waiting for us with enough to make a meal that night. Whipped up a quick pasta with jarred sauce and a salad. Pasta and sauce were Barilla but I doctored it up some. Threw together a pasta e fagioli the next day to eat later. That's basically a bean & pasta stew with a chicken broth base with some tomato. At least the way I cobbled it together it was. Interesting that the tomatoes come in a glass jar and the beans came in a paper carton. The fruit was fantastic every where we we went. Loved the prosciutto and melon we'd had at a restaurant, so we bought the stuff and had it about three more times at the house. Recipe: 1) cut up melon, 2) lay on some prosciutto. They don't cube the melon and wrap it like you'll see here, so we didn't either. The welcome basket also had those flat peaches -- I learned they're called Saturn or donut peaches. Those things might just be the best fruit I've ever put into my mouth. Deliziosa! We had to stand over the sink to eat them because the juice would just flow when you bit into them. Made sorta-bolognese, but I cant find the picture in the 350 or so I took on my phone. Basically a meaty sauce with red wine, herbs, a little tomato. Will add later. It wasn't the long, slow cook real thing like RPS did, but it was really good. Served with fresh parpadelle pasta we bought. Got home and still wasn't tired of pasta. Watched Nick Stellino make pasta with a 'white sauce' so I copied that last night. Garlic, onion, carrot, celery softened in oil with red pepper. Add white wine and reduce to nothing. Add ground beef, basil, sage, parsley, bay leaf and chicken stock. Simmer, reduce and toss pasta in it with a knob of butter. Best meal I ate was a Bolognese with tagliatelle pasta in Cortona. Dang -- so flavorful -- wish I new what all they had going on in there! And the tender pasta -- it's the reason I'm buying a pasta machine. Kathy's favorite was at the same restaurant -- pici pasta with oil and truffles. Best pizza was at a place in Villa a Sesta -- done in a wood-burning oven. They rolled the dough -- which I know is a no-no in the Neapolitan pizza circles -- but it was excellent. I'll be rolling mine from now on. Still got a nice edge, just not huge and puffy. Sauce was just tomatoes, and the cheese was mozzarella di bufala. Perfect amount of topping. Also had pizza at a highly-recommended place just down the street from our apartment in Florence that bragged of using all the ingredients and technique for a real Neapolitan pizza. (Neapolitan DOP; the right flour, tomatoes, cheese, etc. In Italy, food, cheese and wine are subject to strict laws if you're gonna use the name designation, like 'Chianti', etc.) They just blew it. They oversauced it and it was soggy. No way you could pick up a slice, and it was barely possible even if you folded it. The cornicione (edge of the crust) was 1/4 of the pizza and too puffy. Just bad.

Sounds cool. I remember the plant ID books, where you went through a series of questions and it would get you to the right plant in surprisingly few steps.

That is a different looking petal from what I'm used to seeing on a Dahlia though. I Googled and they are all over the board -- which isn't really surprising.

Let's go with that then From the web

Looking at just the leaves, I don't think it's a peony. Those leaves look serrated and the veins look different. Peony look like this:

I never think to do that. Looks tasty!

Looks good. Can you share the marinade ingredients please? Always looking for ways to improve the taste of lo-cal foods.

Those are probably swallows. Cool birds to watch fly and skim bugs off water, but I wouldn't want them building their adobe houses at my place either.

Saving Private Ryan...Forrest Gump...Castaway...Apollo 13...Big...Toy Story ...Green Mile...Money Pit...Road to Perdition... But, now that I think of it, I've taken a pass on a lot of his more recent stuff.

Sounds good!

For clarification please -- the vegetables and herbs, etc. were in the water?

I saw him do a stand up special on Netflix or somewhere recently. It ranged from hilarious to just gross. Wouldn't watch another. How 'bout them Blues?

Some beautiful flowers in this thread. I’m glad to see some new participants sharing.

That is one determined robin! At least that spot isn’t over their door or porch.

My next door neighbor 😂

Many more than one. Love being in my canoe on a small local lake, at dawn or dusk, anytime spring through fall; me and my dogs in a patch of CRP in the late fall; wading a small creek in the Rockies targeting native trout; curled up in the chair in my library and reading a good book about any of the above .

‘As senior rooster ‘round here, it’s my duty, and my pleasure, to instruct junior roosters in the ancient art of roostery.’

Way to go, grandpa!

See -- you just assume that's Larry Scott in the picture. Geez.

And one of the funniest characters of all time!

I'll say this about you Wrench: not matter how backwards and/or misguided your (many and often repeated) positions are, you articulate your justifications pretty well! Not well enough to change my mind, but pretty well. And they just about always make me smile.

Oh, I’d eat all that!!

Did some baby back ribs, burnt ends, beans and cole slaw. Same basic method I've been using the last few years since I got rid of my rusty old smoker. Bot a nice looking point for the burnt ends. Started the meat on a Weber kettle with indirect heat, then pulled it, wrapped it in foil and finished in a 225 degree oven. Pretty precise temperature control and no babysitting. Pulled everything out of the foil and finished it with a sauce glaze under the broiler. Beans in a shallow foil pan on the grill to get some good smoke. Very happy with the results, and nobody complained. My all time favorite dessert:

A few additions: Scott Nesselrode, cousin, Vietnam; Dan Casper, uncle, Vietnam; Chad Brown, nephew, Afghanistan, Iraq, Guatemala and currently Kuwait. And sitting on the deck with me Jim Clark, USMC, Afghanistan. Thanks

It’s not just a long weekend, a reason to bar-b-que or the official beginning to summer. It’s really a time to remember those who put their lives on the line for all the rest of us. Mansor John Mansor, 1915-1944, United Stated Army, killed in action 9/22/1944 at Futa Pass, Italy, my uncle. John Harvey Nesselrode, 1922-2004, served in Korea 1950, my dad. Clifford Calvin Nesselrode, 1917-2011, USAAF WWII, my uncle. George Harvey Nesselrode, 1919-1981, USAAF WWII, my uncle. Thank you. So, add yourself, your family or friends. Go!