Chef Ralph

Where have I been…have I forgotten my poor blog…Noooooo bad excuse but I have been busy. Mrs. Chef and I went to Northern Kentucky for 4 days and that takes 2 days to get ready and 2 more to get back into this time zone !  We crammed allot into those 4 days. We visited my dad 6 times, went shopping for him twice and visited 3 housefuls of friends and relatives. Whew! Got back to rain and flooding, but not at the house here, but at the river at the bottom of our bluff….

We have started moving along with the media room, Mrs. Chef said no more photos…it is even worse than the before picture, but hey…

Well Later we’ll talk about carrots and what’s in the last box and Thanksgiving!

 It’s a beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest. (read: not raining) It’s in the low 60’s and fall is in bloom. We have a Japanese Lace Leaf Maple that is close to 10 years old and this is it’s weekend to be beautiful! We spent 5 hours today trimming trees and pushing the woods back a bit. But we did take a break to enjoy the colors of fall.

We’ve always had a make shift media room in the basement. That would be a good tv with some good chairs. Now we have decided to take this to the next level. We went shopping yesterday and came home with a car full of ideas. Here is the before picture, let’s see where this takes us.

This past weekend was Oktoberfest time and this time we had it with kids. People with kids tend not to go to something called Oktoberfest for fear that their kids, which are not typically invited to something like that, may get Bier spilled on them or something. Well this year we decided to have kids and act like adults. It was allot fun really. The kids ate burgers, chicken nuggets and fries, cookies soda etc, and we had the best sauerbraten, potato pancakes, sauerkraut and finished with apple crisp. Fun times were had by all. No photos this year, but you know….

We have received 3 boxes of veggie’s from Boistfort Valley Farm and each one has been different and fun. We have been eating vegetarian twice a week and find it very different to cook while including all the vegatables. Here is a sample of last weeks box full. Also note that we get a bouquet of flowers with each week.

I wish I could say that day 100 was great! To be honest day 75 was better, working on my feet has been a real chore.  Move left 3 steps, move right 3 steps, it’s like a dance step. Life is better than pre-surgery, so every day is a better day!

Last night Mrs. chef and I went to the neighbors for dinner. They also had 2 other neighbors over at the same time. Life was good, three hours of talking about the neighborhood over 3 bottles of wine. The interesting part of the wine was that both neighbor #2 and I brought the same wines just different years. What are the odds. We went to a local winery last weekend and brought one of the wines from that tasting and so did they. It was a wonderful evening filled with laughs, food and good neighbors!

This past Saturday Mrs. Chef and I drove to a farm outside of Curtis Washington about 70 miles from here to see what it was all about. We first learned of the Boistfort Farm from this blog. We became groupies of sorts because they offer a CSA program. A what? Community Supported Agriculture, the name says it all. It is a organic farm that grows food that it ready to be eaten now, not shipped, not preserved, not green in hopes of getting ripe , NOW! Their season starts in late June and runs for 20 weeks. Well late June was when I was busy getting my knee replaced. This weekend they had an open house and we went. The people were amazing, laid back, farm folks! We loved it, we signed up then and there and we were given a sample box of food to take home with us. Wow, that was fun, I’m not 100% sure of everything we got but it has been fun the past 2 days eating from the box that I can’t wait to see what is next.

 I’m one of the strange guys who really likes Mondays. Not because I’m glad the weekend is over, just because I enjoy what I do. If you add the fact that I have been off for 10 weeks, it becomes a double Monday. The kids came back to school with their new clothes on and their new backpacks, and really seemed to be glad they were there. There are about 72 kids and there may be 15-18 new kids. The new kids are fun. They come from different schools where I feel they are lost in the crowd into an environment where every kid stands out and get noticed. Friday we had BBQ chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans for lunch. The look on the new kids faces when they got to the line and said things like “wow, we never had anything like this at my old school.” Or “ wow, this is just like we have at home!” Well they haven’t seen anything yet, just wait until next week!

Today is Labor Day, the un-official end to summer. Tomorrow school starts and it’s back to work time for me. As always I look forward to getting back to work..But I didn’t finish one of my summer reads. Every time I pick the book up, I fall in love with it all over never wanting to put it down, but 40 pages later, it’s down. I had 3 books slated for this summer’s read. To be fair, I did try to read while I was just home from the hospital, but never being able to stay awake for more than 30 minutes at a time kinda put a damper on that. I did log in a lot of TV/Movies. I watched 3 and a half seasons of Weeds, a show that seems to have taken a wrong turn late in season 3. I watched season 6 of 24. I had seen it live a year ago, but this was still good. I watched the 1^st season of Mad Men. Really liked that, the 60’s were so different.  Tried to watch the Planet of the Apes series…didn’t make it through that. Watched all 5 Dirty Harry movies. Time for another one to be released.  Watched some of the Oscar winners from the past year. There Will be Blood, that sucked,  No Country for Old Men, that sucked. Went to the movies and saw the Dark Knight, that was fantastic. No chance of a movie like that winning an Oscar, except for editing or something.

The summer has been cool, we did have a few 90+ days, but there seemed to be more under 70 days, and what with all the rain? Hear that world, Seattle and rain, it’s true! Well, I have to polish my shoes and sharpen my pencils for ready or not, it’s back to school time !