Wait a minute! Is this a food blog?!

Picked up a printed copy of Edible Baja Arizona. There is an article about local, small scale meat processing plants, which artisinal beef producers need to use. The big meat processing houses aren't interested in five head of cattle, they need more like 5000 head for a processing run. One of the few small plants happens to be the University of Arizona Food Products and Safety Laboratory, in the UofA agricultural school.

An easily missed photo caption practically gives me whiplash. "On Friday morning, butchers are busy preparing for the UA Meat Sale, every Friday from 3 - 6 pm."  *WHAT!* I gotta find this meat sale and check it out. This is like going to a opthalmology school for an eye exam, or a dental school for dentistry. This is a doggone butcher school, folks. I am so all over this.

I mention this to a friend who is equally intrigued, and agrees to go with me. There's a steady stream in and out of the parking lot and a line at the meat case. As tempted as I am to buy one of everything, I remember my earlier post about "Enough" and restrain my purchases to two beef tenderloin steaks, one grass fed, and the other conventional grain fed. You can also pre-order any cut and quantity of meat from any four footed critter that you want, if you can plan in advance. We are just going to take our chances. Ohh, I have died and gone to butcher heaven. The young students selling the meat cuts told me that the guy who has run the lab for forty years or so loves it when lay people are interested, and will welcome such interested people to sit in on a class. Tucson has just risen waaay up in the hierarchy of places I've visited.

When I was a student at the CCA we were exposed to butchery, but not very much. We had to process a lot of small cuts, but only had one chance to experience the break down of a side of animal, in our case, a goat. (A goat? It must have been cheap.) Sol used to like butchery a lot. His grandfather was a butcher, so he came by his interest  legitimately.  I picked up on this, and have been interested ever since. The money quote from butchery at cooking school?  "Follow the natural separations."

Fast forward to tonight, I decide to cook the grass fed tenderloin steak for dinner. It gets a rest out of its cryovac for about an hour and a half. (Don't worry, food safety purists, its maybe 60 degrees in here if I'm lucky.) The steak, fairly thin, but large in diameter, gets a generous salt and peppering during its rest. The newer school of thought claims that salting a steak in advance is a good thing. No sun dried garlic, I just want to evaluate the pure flavor of the grass fed beef.

Not gonna use a non-stick pan for this, unh,unh, I want the sear. I have a tiny Calphalon saute pan that will do nicely. It is problematic to saute in such a small space, so I can't get the pan quite as hot as I'd like, but it will do. I figure three minutes a side will be a good place to start. Remember, its a room temperature thin steak. The three minutes per side goes by in a blur of activity, adjusting the flame, covering the pan (heresy! but I don't want a thin film of beef fat all over everything), carefully loosening and wiggling the steak free, (condensation from the lid makes it stick, the price I have to pay), and turning it without a splatter.

Its done. Off to another plate to rest. Hmmm, am I going to let that fond in the pan (the brown bits) go to waste? Oh, no not me. A splash of the pinot noir I'm drinking into the saute pan, a nice deglaze, then a pat of butter swirled in to the reduced wine. Too many lumps, so I strained it onto top of the steak.

I was going to eat only half the steak and save the rest for a sandwich, but nope, I ate the whole thing. It was done perfectly, if I do say so myself. Consistently rare to medium rare, one or two bites were truly the purple dark red rare. It was just like I like it. The grass fed flavor was a little different, perhaps slightly gameier, but it had a lot of flavor, a lot of juice. I was very happy. Perhaps I'll go back to eating good steaks that I prepare myself.

Look, done perfectly!  Hungry?

 

Lessons from a very small refrigerator.

The refrigerator in my RV is 4.43 cubic feet, not all of which is usable. Let's say its really 4 cubic feet. The freezer is 1.51 cubic feet. After two and a half months of cooking out of my small kitchen with its tiny refrigerator, I am slowly coming to an important realization, and that is, I have to scramble to keep up with the food I buy. This is a very curious piece of dawning awareness.

I have tens, if not hundreds of thousands of calories on board. Now who exactly do I think  is going to eat all of that? For ease of calculation, let's say I need 2,000 kCal/day, 60,000 kCal//month. That's just not very much.

I have three pantry drawers that are full of food that is seldom accessed. Canned good include tomatoes in several different forms, tomato sauce, water and oil packed tuna, coconut milk, evaporated milk, pineapple, white beans, canned soups, a can of media crema. That's just the small drawer. The two larger drawers have various types of dried pasta, dried legumes, three types of rice, barley, dried shiitake mushrooms, a bag of Splenda,  a box of kosher salt, gelatin, back up Britta filters. Oh, yeah, flours sugars and coffee have another storage spot I forgot to mention. All the oils, vinegars, molassas, honey, fish sauce, chocolate, cocoa, raisins, currants, nuts, are stored in an upper cabinet. I have more teas than I could ever hope to consume in three years, if I drank tea every day. I very seldom eat out. I cook three meals a day for myself.

I have enough. I have more than enough. In fact, I have too much food. I've gradually realized this, and tried to adjust. but it is painful. I'm used to going to the grocery store and buying food because it looks good at the time. I buy more than I can eat.

If or when I live at a fixed address again, I wonder if this hard-earned realization, still not completely learned, will totally change the way I shop and cook.

I have enough.

Exploring Bisbee, and a concert.

A weather advisory for high winds is now coming to pass. Nothing quite like being cozied up with a warm computer, listening to the wind gusts having a tussle, and watching heavy clouds sailing majestically towards the northeast. (I like having a compass app in my smartphone, seeing as how I'm directionally challenged.) It looks and feels like it wants to rain, but Weatherbug says only a 30% chance. Too bad, I was hoping for some rain sounds.

Its a perfect day for some gingerbread! Something about all these clouds scudding by that makes me want to turn on the oven. Mise-en-place not so easy in my tiny kitchen, but all's well, cake is in the oven, smelling wonderful. I think I have the ingredients for lemon sauce, too.

I've neglected to tell you that I attended the Bisbee Communty Chorus concert last Saturday night. It was at the Queen Mine visitors center just a few steps away from the RV park, so how could I resist  a concert title of  "A Miner's Life". They did a good job, the programming was interesting and varied, and I learned a few things.

The chorus in miners costume,except for the conductor. 

A dramatic reading of "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night".

Stairs, stairs everywhere. Many follow old mule supply line trails ending who knows where.

Sometimes the stairs follow the contour of flumes built to carry desert monsoon runoff. I can see that this gets to be a problem in a canyon. A flume was originally just an arroyo, the naturally occurring water courses that you want to make sure you stay out of if there is rain anywhere nearby.

New stairs built over the water flume. It looks like something straight out of "The Secret Garden." The black pipe you can see along the side of the flume is natural gas pipeline (gulp!).

These grey pipes snaking their way across the landscape are more gas lines. The building inspector would be having a heart attack.

And finally, here's the gas meter. Who gets to read the meter? Words fail me.

On the way back down the stairs, a little respite for the imagination.

More art, tucked in the landscape.

Staircase #5, 151 steps, part of the Bisbee 1000 race route.

A yarn bomb! First one I've ever seen in the wild. 

Look! Its the RV park, waaaay off in the distance at the right, across the canyon. It gives you a idea of its prominent, yet largely invisible setting. My rig has the blue stripes. Awesome clouds, aye?

Bisbee photos, as promised.

There is a hike up to the top of the hill overlooking Bisbee. Yesterday, I thought I'd take this hike. Got half way up and turned around because I lost the trail which was entirely rocky and quite steep. I also had neglected to tell anyone I was going. A couple of near-tripping incidents and I realized I'd have a hard time getting back down the hill if say, I sprained an ankle. However, I'll try again with hiking poles and a more detailed inquiry as to the route. Maybe I can find someone to go with me.

All was not lost, however. I had a chance to get some good photos of Bisbee from a unique perspective. Here they are, enjoy.

Note Hwy 80, behind the town at the base of the far mountains.

Roots on the rocky trail all look like snakes! Fortunately, tis not the season for snakes now, they hibernate.

Erosion control.

Mining pollution remediation. Cute little conveyor belt system, small dump trucks.

"Reconstructed" retaining wall. Yikes!

Double retaining wall?

Corner retaining wall.

Really old retaining wall.

Cute retaining wall.

Retaining wall rehab.

Another post comming with Bisbee stairs, and some local color.

Where is Kathy living, anyway?

Its a lovely Sunday afternoon in Bisbee. I'm listenng to the Cajun/Zydeco show on WWOZ, doing a little cooking, got laundry in the machine, and generally having a lovely time in my little house. So I thought y'all would like a house tour. Wish I could add video and a sound track, but my technical skills aren't quite up to that task.

First, the loft bedroom, over the cab. Note the skylight, good for ventilation and stargazing. Drapes below are insulated curtains for the purpose of keeping out the cold and keeping in the warm, or visa versa, depending on the weather.

The dining room, seats three, or four if we're friendly.

The kitchen, very functional. Refrigerator of 6 cubic feet visible at the far right.

Shower, skylight, round drying rack.

Other half of the bathroom.

The back parlor, panoramic 180 degree view. Also the computer room and music system. Note stereo speaker at the front. Table has multiple uses, conference table, outdoor cooking zone, work table, or can be put away against a wall for open seating.

Mirrored closet doors, reflecting wall where table goes when not in use. See clock at the top?

That's it, home sweet home!  :-)

Bisbee No. 1

First, lovely little Bisbee, just waking up at dawn. View from my back passenger side window.

The view from my center back window, across Hwy 80. Notice the human made stone structure or foundation on the hillside. This RV park is up on a bluff overlooking the highway, the town, and a couple of mountains. Some sites overlook the pit mine. I was trying to find a location in Bisbee that would let me take a photo from afar of my RV, but I couldn't fnd a view. No wonder this RV park has a low profile in town. You can't see it from anywhere!

Thought I was at Burning Man for a minute.

Stone walls.

I didn't get too many more photos yesterday because I got sidetracked here. Thought I heard live music coming from this direction, and one thing led to another.

On my way back to the car, another stone wall, advertising the Bisbee 1000 and Ironman Ice race, which consists of a route through town climbing up various staircases totalling 1000 steps. The staircases were apparently built by the WPA during the depression to follow the old original mule paths. They're everywhere, but hard to photograph.

A spot on Tombstone Canyon Road. Note stairs going up to blue house. I think the rock formation is natural, i.e. not the result of mining.

A little wall between the two spires of rock.

Much more to see, do and photograph. Will try not to get sidetracked again, but no promises.  :-)

Sunday morning in the desert.

Okay, Facebook friends, you're right, I should be blogging. What I have to blog about, however, is fewer travelogue adventures, and more internal wanderings and wonderings. And now as I type, KDFC is broadcasting Mozart's Great Mass in C Minor, a work I've had the privilege of singing. Its profound beauty and familiarity brings tears to my eyes deep from my diaphragm. Kyrie eleison, indeed.

You see, I had left my home of nine years rather abruptly. I needed to leave, I'd planned on a two month RV trip anyway, so it occurred to me, why come back at all? For a very long time I've wanted to live and travel in my RV. Here's my chance, might not get another one. A hasty pack-up of all my worldly possessions into a "stuff-coffin" rental storage space, and off I went. However, in a case of "be careful what you wish for," the reality of my life has only some correlation with what I had imagined. For one thing, I had always imagined I'd do this traveling with a partner. Nope.  Big difference. Alone. Who am I, anyway??

At the end of my planned travels, now faced with a completely open itinerary, I became really sick. Now I don't do sick, I rarely come down with anything.But three weeks ago my body just came to a screeching halt. I think, I know it is directly tied to a fresh and immediate awareness of the looming chasm of being alone into the great unknown. Fortunately, after two weeks of misery, a week of amoxicillin has gotten rid of the illness, and my frame of mind has also much improved. Getting out for a walk or a hike helps a lot!

I'm at the end of my second week at an RV park in Benson, Arizona. I have made friends here that I plan to keep in touch with. Thanks for everything, DB. The desert is a remarkable environment, quite out of my normal comfort zone. Last night, the unexpected rain somehow amplified night sounds. There were coyotes quite close by, and the sad bellowing of a steer alternating with coyote cries and yips. I don't think it ended well for the steer. But the creosote smell was powerful and refreshing.

Next I'll be heading to Bisbee, and the Queen Mine RV Park. This park is right on the edge of a large abandoned copper pit mine. Talk about being right at the edge of the looming chasm! Bisbee is a cool little mining town. Its been through its ups and downs, but seems to have recovered from the loss off copper mining, and has turned itself into a quirky artists' colony of sorts.

So, I'm not, I can't, quit just yet, even though I miss my friends and my communities tremendously. More to learn about so many things.