Richter the Oversized Squirrel

This squirrel actually has multiple chins and when it lands on the patio we feel it in the apartment. Hence it's name, Richter, as in the scale.

Andrea says, "I think he is going to burn out his pancreas and then we'll see him hopping around the porch with a squirrel-sized insulin pump attached to his belly."

Thanksgiving Weekend

I had a lot of fun baking and cooking with my girlfriend this weekend! On Tuesday night I started a sponge for the Rustic Country Bread pictured below. I finished it Wednesday just in time for Andrea to taste after she passed her endocrine exam.

Isn't it Rustic!

Then on Thursday we finished the Sage Stuffing, two types of cranberry relish, a turkey, kale with panfried walnuts, sweet potato coins, gravy, and mashed potatoes. For dessert, we tried Trader Joe's pumpkin cheesecake (decadent!).

Sage Stuffing

Full-on gourmet dinner

To burn all that off, we walked around in the woods. Well, by Saturday we'd managed to get off our keesters. We took Kaaren and Chi to hike on the Banks-Vernonia trail. I think Chili will sleep the rest of the weekend.

Andrea was trying our new camera's zoom.

Oh, you didn't need your pillow, right?

Snow day!

Or maybe a better description would be "classes cancelled due to treacherous icy roads day." As I was stumbling around the apartment this morning with coffee in one hand and my Blackberry in the other I read that classes today had been cancelled. I looked out and saw 1/4" of snow on the balcony....woot! It's actually quite nice to have a snow day because it gives me an extra day to study for tomorrow's (hopefully tomorrow's) endocrine exam. It has been a long 6 weeks and we have been going non-stop through Pulmonology, Cardiology, and now Endocrinology. The fatigue of the entire class is palpable. Prof Von tells us to just hang in there in a little bit longer! After the Thanksgiving break we have GI as our final module for the semester. Then it is back to Montana for 3 whole weeks. It is amazing to realize that the didactic year is now half over and that in 6 short months I will be starting clinical rotations!

Dusting of snow on the porch

Mushrooms!

Last week I got to go on a "walkabout" with the other volunteers from Jackson Bottom Wetland and 2 experienced mushroom hunters. We found MANY different fungi, including the 2 very interesting ones I have in pictures below. The boletus edulis is also known as porcini (Italian for "little pig"). I was very excited to see so many, and such big ones! Because they are so tasty, other critters like to eat them as well: maggots, centipedes, slugs, etc... so it is important to pick only firm specimens, and to remove as many of the interlopers as possible while you are still in the field. I brought a bagful home and sauteed them in butter and olive oil before freezing them for later.

Boletus edulis

We also came upon a whole mini-forest of poisonous toadstools! The brightest ones were Amanita muscaria. These can cause hallucinations, but they also can make a person very ill. Very pretty, though!

Amanita muscaria

Taller than a sunbear

"I'm taller than a sunbear"

Humboldt Penguin bellies

Duck!

I call it drizzle, you call it mist, let's call the whole thing off

So, the fall/winter/spring rains have set in for good it seems. We are living in a cloud, and so to describe our scenery we need more words for this thing falling from the sky (or hovering in microscopic drizzlets) and NOT coming down in Andrea's favorite form, snow.

I found a great page with a spoof of the Beaufort scale, but done for rain in the Pacific Northwest: http://home.comcast.net/~pwmeek/boat/beaufort.html

Also, we thought we'd share a video: a day in the life...

Changing Seasons

As we move into serious, somber fall in Oregon there will be plenty of time to hone my baking skills. Today as the darkness (and Rain) descended, I decided it would be just the sort of day for baking Anadama Bread. This is a classic New England loaf with molasses and cornmeal, perfected in the Cook's Illustrated laboratory, and it did not disappoint!

Anadama Bread

Last week, the sun came out for a few days and we were very excited. I took Chili to the arboretum to document the fall colors and get a walk.

Hoyt Arboretum fall colors

"What is that giant orb of light in the sky?"

Concert at Old Church and Other Adventures

Since it is Wednesday again, I rode MAX into Portland for the weekly free concert at Old Church near the central library. It was a mixture of contemporary and classical piano and guitar pieces. Not bad for the price.

Oldest church in Portland

Church bathroom fixtures I liked.

Crazy people doing windows overhead caught my eye

After the concert I found my way to the local haberdashery shoppe and was milling around, feasting my eyes on all the nice things when lo and behold who should walk in but the lord of nerdy cooking and editor of Cook's Illustrated, Chris Kimball!!! The nice shop lady took our photo.

We both like hats, and cooking

While in town, I was able to meet up with my little brother and go on a longish hike around the posh, terraced neighborhoods above NW 23rd Street. It really is amazing how much UP you can do in the "west hills" (a.k.a. Tualatin Mountains). You don't notice until you walk it all.

Fancy pumpkin carving! (Micah, for scale, is 6'4")

Even the stairs are green in Portland

HOW many more steps?

Forest Park find en route to Pittock Mansion

Andrea's midterm election editorial

Lunchtime walk around Hillsboro

Andrea and I munched on deli sandwiches and then walked around neighborhoods near campus. We found this tree in a boulevard. It's so huge the sidewalk had to be scooted over several feet to accommodate it! I tried to look it up in my "Northwest Trees" book but couldn't find it. Lucky for me I can google: it is a giant sequoia! The cones have really interesting texture, so I grabbed one to draw later.

Andrea snapped this photo with her phone.