Travels with The Rayman

It’s Thursday night here in the Northwest.  I’m in the back of the Dog House blogging having thoroughly beaten Rayman at Scrabble tonight with mostly vowels.  My first hand  drew had 4 “o”s, an M and 2 “e”s.  I spelled “moose”.  And then I drew about a dozen “i”s.  The whole game was like that.  Twice, my hand had not one consonant.  However, some how, I eeked out a solid victory.

Rayman is out front watching the end of a football game.  Beau is sleeping next to me.  He had a big day.  We drug him all over the place.  Today’s venue was house hunting in Washington state, in the Vancouver area.  Our main interest was some new homes that are green, eco homes.  It took us a while to find them.  The first address was a new site they were just starting to build on.  Boring is all I can say.  Then we plugged in the next address and we ended up near the Columbia River in a questionable neighborhood.  Ends up, that’s where their “corporate offices” are.  We went inside and asked where we could see an actual model.  Finally, we drove to the new model.  It as very nice.  The houses with the view were all the two story houses.  That’s a non-starter for us.  No more stairs.

We then drove more or less willy-nilly around Camus, WA.  Found some lovely hilltop homes that were way too big.  I feel like Goldilocks.  “My, what big houses you have.”  Oh, well.  It was a lovely day for a drive.  And we managed not to get lost.  Must be losing our touch.

I’m in the mood to talk about food.  Yesterday we played golf in Wilsonville at a lovely development that we would considering living in EXCEPT for the freeway noise.  It is too close to the freeway and the prevailing winds moved the noise to the houses.  Too bad.  The golf course was comprised of 3 courses of 9 holes each.  They were short courses so it only took about 3 hours to play 18.  Nice.  I like the concept a lot.  Just because it was short didn’t mean I couldn’t lose balls, get in the bunkers, go in the water, hit trees and sundry other faux pas.  It was great fun and after we finished we went to California Pizza Kitchen for a late lunch (3 ish).  Ordered chopped chicken barbecued salad and a flat bread with bacon and Brussel sprouts.  Yummy for a chain restaurant.  Also fast and very convenient.  For dinner we had ice cream and chocolate.

Today, after we returned from our house hunting, I brined some skinless, boneless chicken breast and thighs.  Also made some tziki which is yogurt, garlic, cucumber, dill, lemon juice and lemon peel.  Then after Rayman cooked the chicken, he roasted one ear of corn and two pita breads.  We then stuffed the pita bread with the chicken and the tzini and boy, was that good.  Had it with some watermelon on the side.  Some of the simplest things are so delicious.

Here’s the link for both.

http://http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/06/hot-to-grill-boneless-skinless-chicken-breast.html

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/claire-robinson/easy-tzatziki-recipe.html

This Saturday we are going to return to Vancouver to cook dinner with Ryan and Tamara.  Almost all recipes are from a cookbook Ryan gave me for xmas last year.  Hazelnut crusted salmon, a celery root and apple salad, and wild rice cakes and asparagus.  Polishing it off with a plum torte which is really more of a plum cake.  Got that recipe from the NYTimes yesterday.  It happens to be the most sought after recipe they have ever published.  I’m expecting good things here, folks.

Rayman has dry skin on his thumbs.  It is driving him crazy.  The only known remedy is to sleep with cotton gloves on after gooping up the thumbs.  Then he has to avoid water and soap on those poor thumbs.  This is driving him to wear little “thumbettes” of pretty blue latex.  He cuts the tip of the thumb off two latex gloves to do this.  It does look, uhm, interesting to the casual observer.  And i think he bought latex gloves that are too small.  He just huffs and puffs to get them on and off.  He dons the full set when he is going to work in water, like squirting the Dog House, washing the car windows, that sort of thing.  My recommendation that he buy larger gloves went completely unappreciated.   But until these thumbs heal themselves, he is consigned to protecting them against egregious soap.  I am now the main dishwasher, which is not my favorite thing to do but for the good of the order, it is what I must do.   Of course, I am part of the problem because I insist on using dishes that are dishes, not plastic or paper plates.  I enjoy a good meal on good dishes.  Call me crazy, I know it’s true!!!

Didn’t take any pictures today.  So, drats.  The blog is a bit of a bore, I’m afraid.  Perhaps tomorrow.