Time flies......

 It's been almost a month since I last did a post.    We're all settled in and comfy.   The weather has settled down and we're enjoying mostly sunny, blue sky days and cool clear nights. 

We've moved from our early fall, shady happy hour spot to our late fall/early winter sunny happy hour spot.    Lewis approves of course, especically when he gets his stuffed Kong to schlutz on while we enjoy our wine and conversation.

nom nom nom

Our days don't hold much excitement, but excitement is often overrated.....

As in when I was making a chocolate cake and the cocoa box exploaded all over me!   You know how hard cocoa is to wipe up....Excitement!     The cake turned out very well, but the shirt (and underlying underwear didn't clean up all that well).  

Dave has been busy "working around" as he says.    New door latches, rearranging his work space in the garage and in Beluga's building, ordering and receiving things to make his work easier, convincing a 100 + year old piece of oak from one of the farm's barns to become a table leaf....rematting a couple of pictures brought with us from the lake, laying in front of the fireplace.....

oh baby baby he says!

 

But the month hasn't been all working around and finding places to drink wine outside comfortably.....We've been social!

One Friday we picked up Steve and MonaLiza and made the long, twisty, beautiful drive up through the mountains to Prescott, Arizona.     Our destination was lunch at Farm Provisions, a great restaurant just down the street from historic Whiskey Row and the picturesque Courthouse Plaza.      We ate and drank well there.     I can't recomment it enough......

Dave's Walleye tacos

my wild mushroom bisque

The food was so delicious and the preparation so interesting, MonaLiza even ate the orchid garni!

As we walked back to the Jeep, after a lucious meal and shared dessert,  we may or may not have made a slight detour to Grama's Bakery.

The next week, Pam and John drove down from Boulder City for a shared adventure.    The night they arrived MonaLiza and Steve came over and we had our first adventure - a fondue party!    We've been married long enough to have received fondue pots as wedding presents (it was a "thing" in the 70's you know).      MonaLiza and Steve have never had fondue so it was a fun evening recreating a meal from our youth and guiding newbies through the ins and outs of how to safely dip bits of raw meat into boiling oil.    And, how to retrieve your meat/bread when  it escapes into the pot as a result of incorrect spearing techniques......

Needless to say it was a "hands on" meal so very few pictures were taken.     We had an Italian cheese pot with Italian bread dippers, filet mignon, pork tenderloin, shrimp and ahi tuna to be dipped in HOT oil with 6 or seven sauce choices, and a huge vegetable tray. Chocolate fondue with bananas, cheesecake bites, strawberries, pretzels and pound cake dippers for dessert.    burp   

The "boys" were enthusiastic about the chocolate fondue....

The next morning Pam and John piled into Rocky with us and we set off in search of two crested Saguaros.    Finding them in the desert is Pam's "thing" and friend Janna had given me What3Words coordinates to find these two.    

Off highway 60, off paved Gates Road, over the dry (ish)  Hassayampa Riverbed, up through the gate (carefully closing it behind us - thanks John) and into the desert on some decent and some very not decent tracks up and down and around.

After some "discussion" about whether we should go "up there!!!!", we can't go up there, let's turn around, let me get out, we're going to slide back down!   This is far enough, we're happy with this, we don't need to find those saguaros, oh look, there's a cave up there!  (mostly heard coming from the female voices in backseat),    Pam finally realized we WERE going up there so she made a very timely and knowledgable suggestion that the driver took and up we went, easy peasy! (thanks Dave)

We parked Rocky and made our way up to the cave we had seen.   It turned out to be an arch also!

After scrambling around a bit we scanned the distance in all directions.    A forest of Saguaros below us, which way were the two crested?    None of us had a clue.    Did we call it quits, say we had a great adventure and head home?      Not Pam!    She saw she had cell service so she called Janna (in Montana) to ask for more help!     Thanks Pam, Thanks Janna!

TA DA!

  Success!    A few feet beyond the first, was the second.    They were both huge and magnificent and complicated. 

 After we ate our lunch, we walked around the area a bit, you never can tell when you'll run into another crested, right?      The desert was healthy and vibrant.    Careful where you walk!

Mission completed, we headed home.    MonaLiza and Steve were waiting with dinner for us all!    I didn't take any pictues while we ate Steve's delicious Taco soup and home made bread.    I didn't even take a picture of MonaLiza's yummy Bibinka.    I guess I was just too tired and too busy eating.    Here's one of old Lew, using their fountain as his water dish.    

Phew!   This post is longer than I thought it would be.     Just one more story of food and friendship, I promise.

Saturday night we were guinea pigs, a role we always enjoy.    MonaLiza and Steve had been served Maqluba on their recent cruise and she was anxious to try and replicate it.    It was that good.    Basically it's a one pot meal of layers of protein (chicken), vegetables and rice cooked together with fragrant spices and then dumped, upside down, onto a serving platter - BANG!     Pot removed (with a flourish) to reveal a layered delicacy.

She cooks, she layers, she cooks again, he pours, he dons sequinned red pot holder gloves, he carries to the table, we confir and discuss process, BANG! he slams the pot onto a waiting dish.   BANG, she pounds the top (bottom) of the pot.  She, very carefully, very carefully, removes the pot,  et voila - Bob's your uncle -  Maqluba ala Lowe!    Mmmmmm

BANG

That's what happens here, while time is flying.....