While dinner cooks I’ll pass along two cool sites I came across in my work-related travels today:

What Are You Craving?
In the mood for something with chicken, mushrooms and cheese, but don’t know what to make? Plug your cravings into CookThink.com and get showered with a bunch of yummy ideas.

Are You Okay With That?
Play a game with a few ashtrays before you decide to light up in public again. Non-smokers, it’s worth a few minutes for you to play, too, to be aware of what you’re getting into when you sit down at one of the few bars and restaurants that haven’t yet banned smoking.

Posted by tee in sidetracks
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Tags: food, health, recipes

It’s been raining steadily since we woke this morning and I, used to the powerful but brief rains in the desert, keep expecting it to pass any time now but it doesn’t. But despite that and being a sunworshipper, it’s been kind of nice to just sit and be rained on all day.

If it doesn’t let up by tomorrow, though, the creek out back is in danger of flooding and we’re just a few feet away. Parts of northern Aroostook County have already had their own share of trouble today.

Down here we’ve got the wood stove on, but the windows cracked, and while Ryan for whatever reason Ryan does these things is studying his seven chakras and Sarah and is browsing YouTube for High School Musical outtakes, Shane and I are wandering the house trying to decide what stays out and what gets boxed and taped and put out in the box room, formerly the cat room, for later when we leave – a date that’s still being hopelessly shuffled around in the soggy air.

Posted by tee in de la vida, sense of place
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Tags: living, maine, sense of place

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Tags: food, maine, photos, potatoes

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Tags: maine, photos

A 4.7 quake hit the Reno area last night just before midnight local time, knocking stuff off shelves in stores, cracking archways and busting a flume northwest of the city. Aside from the shock of the initial thrust (that lasted a full 10 seconds), interestingly, residents were most unnerved by a sensation many people described as a constant “rumbling” underfoot for hours before and after the quake. The quake comes after more than 100 smaller quakes, most less than 3.0, were recorded in the area on Friday alone.

Plenty of news stories to choose from over at RGJ.com.

A couple of weeks ago they had a record-breaking windstorm. Now an earthquake cluster? Why does this stuff always happen when I’m gone?

Posted by tee in sidetracks
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Tags: earthquakes, geology, nevada, reno

Posted by tee in fun stuff
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Tags: music, video

There’s a restaurant out in the middle of nowhere here, alongside the highway on a ghostly exit that never seems to have any traffic on or off, or any signs of civilization for as far as you can see in either direction, but for this one small place always teeming with customers.

The food is all fantastic, all homemade, but it’s their buttermilk biscuits that draw us in. They’ll sell you a dozen, if they haven’t run out yet (better get there before the lunch rush), for $4/dozen.

We brought some home the other day and had them with salad and pasta, but there were a few left over and in danger of going stale. We had some Maine blueberries on hand, so I put together (yes, me) a really simple breakfast/dessert dish that ended up so eye-rollingly, dreamy-sighingly good that I think I’m brave enough to share it.

Start with four almost-fresh buttermilk biscuits — the more lumpy and imperfect the better. Stick them on a cookie sheet or plate in the oven on low to keep them warm.

Pick up a lb. of fresh or frozen wild blueberries. Make a basic double-boiler with a sauce pan and a heat-tolerant bowl, and start 2 cups of water boiling in the pan.

In the bowl, stir the blueberries in with a cup of warm water and a 1/2 cup of sugar, place the bowl in the pan. Once the mixture is slightly warm, add 2 tbsps of pure maple syrup and 2 shakes of cinnamon. Keep stirring. Taste. Be careful not to taste so much that there’s none left for the biscuits.

When it’s very very warm but not hot, put a ladle full of blueberries into the bottom of a small bowl, place a warm biscuit on top of the blueberries, and then drizzle one more 1/2 ladle of blueberries over it. Done.

You’re welcome.

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Tags: blueberries, food, photos, recipes