1. The Deke called me this morning. She is relaxing for a few days with her cousin, Sally, at Hilton, Head, SC. The Deke and I have easy conversations together and, when she's gone, more than anything else, I miss shooting the breeze together. It was fun doing just that this morning.
2. My favorite places to take pictures over the last eight years or so have been watery locales. I loved going to Delta Ponds in Eugene, especially to take pictures of waterfowl; when we lived for a short time in Groveton, VA, I loved the time I spent taking pictures in the wetlands of Huntley Meadows Park; when we decided to move to Kellogg, the one place in Washington, D. C. I knew I would miss the most is the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, especially when the lotus and water lilies are in bloom or those days when the many turtles in the park sun themselves.
With this in mind, I went on a picture taking scouting drive today. I drove west of Kellogg on Riverview Dr., on Canyon Rd., and across the Cataldo Slough on Dredge Road. I then headed into the hills a bit and along parts of the Coeur d'Alene on River Road and Tamarack Ridge Rd. Mostly I looked for where I might have access to different sightlines in the Cataldo Slough, to see what the possibilities might be for taking waterscape pictures or pictures of waterfowl, and imagined other possibilities of taking pictures of barns, silos, horses, and other subjects in the general Cataldo and Canyon areas.
3. I returned home from my drive and took the pork roast out of the refrigerator. It had been sitting there for about twenty-four hours, coated with the paste I made of garlic, salt, pepper, dried sage, dried rosemary, and olive oil. Once the roast was at room temperature, I put it in a hot oven (475 degrees) for about a half an hour. I let the roast rest for another half an hour and then returned it to the oven at 325 degrees until it reached an interior temperature of about 145 degrees. I removed the roast and it rested for another twenty to thirty minutes and I carved it. It was moist! It was peppery and flavorful, especially, to me, because of the dried rosemary and the pepper.
I had sliced an onion and put the meat on top of these slices. When I removed the roast from the Dutch oven, the onions were beautifully caramelized and lay in a shallow pool of fatty liquid flavored by the paste I'd made. I had sauteed onion and yellow zucchini in bacon grease and I added these caramelized onions and the tasty liquid to the this saute to create a rich and tasty side dish to the slices of roast I ate for dinner.
Much of what I did in cooking this dinner was experimental. I'm not sure I would have tried out these different experiments if I were cooking for others. During times like the last three weeks when I am home alone, this is one of the things I enjoy about being on my own -- I am much braver in the kitchen.
After all, if I louse up a meal, I'm the only one who has to eat it.
I posted the recipe for preparing this pork roast before. I'll post it again: it's here.
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