Gay Pride Parade

My kids have heard this story so often they could tell it better than I, but I'll post it here anyway.

Before I retired I traveled to San Francisco often, usually to consult at UCSF Medical Center. San Francisco is perhaps my favorite city to visit, the restaurants are among the best in the world.

For several years I would rent a car at the airport and drive into town; the hotel I liked to stay at was a half block from Union Square. I found that I usually left it parked for my entire stay, taking taxis or walking wherever I went. Then I belatedly discovered BART, and found that I could get into the city center faster and much cheaper.

One Sunday I flew in, my talk was scheduled for the next morning, and took BART to the Market St. Station, went up to street level, and this greeted my eyes:

Market street was wall-to-wall, or I suppose sidewalk-to-sidewalk, with no break in sight. I had to cross to get to my hotel, so I joined the fray, me and my roll-aboard, wearing a suit. As I tried to angle across, I was handed a bloody mary, given a paper hat, and merrily walked along. It was like getting into a river and attempting to cross against the current, except a lot more fun.

4 blocks and several minutes later I emerged, now carrying a balloon in addition. It was great fun, a 'pause for the cause', as we used to say.

Far in the Past Friday

My buddy, the cook down the street and me, back in the day, Mulege, Baja Mexico, 1976.

The dinner that went overboard

So yesterday I read a post from some Oddball that made me hungry, so I decided to make some shrimp and pork won ton soup. Off I went in search of ingredients, sometimes difficult in this town. However, this time I found the various things I thought I needed.

A trip to the aptly-named Terminal Meats yielded a quarter of a pork shoulder roast, which the butcher ground up for me. At the supermarket I found some semi-frozen shrimp, a dozen I thought would do, fresh ginger root, Serrano chilies, water chestnuts, and a small jar of black bean and garlic paste and a pack of won ton wrappers.

The farmer's market was also yesterday, the Hmong farmers from the Bitterroot had green onions and immature garlic, and some bok choy.

I first made the filling. The pork was coarsely ground, I chopped up the dozen fairly large shrimp, grated the ginger, chopped the green onions, two chilies, mashed the garlic, added some soy sauce and the black bean paste and mixed it all together. The picture is about a quarter of what it yielded.

By this time I was wondering about the amount.....I've never been good at cooking for one; no matter what my intentions it's usually enough for 4 people.

I tried the traditional method of folding the won ton wrappers around the filling, and was unsuccessful. So I just made triangles.

I ended up with 16 largish won tons. And roughly three times as much filling left over unused. I put the rest in the fridge.

The soup was easy, I used chicken stock that I had frozen, added bok choy, some tom gai kai paste that my daughter had given me, chopped up the remaining green garlic shoots and simmered, adding the won tons for the last 10 minutes.

Tonight it'll be lettuce wraps, using hopefully the rest of the filling. Gotta figure out how to cook the paste.

Iraq

There's been quite a bit in the news about the new civil war in Iraq. Much of what the US did in terms of driving the Al Qaeda forces out has been undone, and now we're puzzling over what to do. The New York Times and others have done pieces about the reactions of vets who served there. I thought I'd get my son Henry's take on it, he was there in 2007-8, an Army Ranger.

This him on the left, clearing the city of Tamiyah.

He also spent 2 deployments in Afghanistan before getting out of the military and returning to university.

His company had several losses, some friends of his.

He said he's pissed their lives were wasted, but blames it on the lack of a clear mission when they were there. He went on to say that he feels they went in, created chaos, killed a lot of people, screwed up the little infrastructure they had, then said "good luck".

Anybody got an opinion?

17 june, hopefully the last time

Remember the sunny pictures from the last post? Here's what it looks like outside this morning:

Yep, it's snowing. June 17th. I couldn't make this up. The Saudi students living next door for the summer just walked by on their way up to class, looking like deer in the headlights.

Finally living up to my nom de plume

With a blog name Should Fish More, you'd think I'd post occasionally something about fishing, so here 'tis.

Every year, about the time the lilacs bloom in town, a phenomena occurs on the local river: the stonefly hatch. To trout who's average tidbit most of the year is a fragile little winged bug or it's larvae, these must seem like a 20 ounce porterhouse steak.

They are around 3" long, and fat. They winter over as larvae, buried in the rocks on the bottom of the river. Come June, they emerge, crawling out on the shore and up in the branches of bushes, or stalks of weeds and grass. They dry off, then fly about like small clumsy birds, fluttering and banging into things.

The large trout, usually wary and only feeding at night, suddenly and for a short period behave like drunken sailors on liberty.

Like a old streetwalker, I decided to take advantage of their behaviour. I headed downstream from where I usually fish to an area where the river splits in two for a half a mile, the flows are less and it's easier fishing from the bank.

Arriving early afternoon, this is one of the results.

I caught three others near this size, and missed or lost some others. Not bad for 3 hours of fishing. I wasn't tempted to keep any of these fellows, the once or twice a year I want a trout dinner I head up one of the tributaries and get a few pan-sized brookies.

I'm thinking of dyeing my hair........

The oldest grandchild got a new do! And it appears that her sister approves.

A little excitement in the neighborhood last evening. I was sitting watching a movie when there was a really loud CRASH! noise outside. I live at the start of a steep hill going up to the university a half-block away, and a pizza delivery fellow had parked at the top of the hill to make a delivery. He left his car in 'park', engine running and dashed to the house. His car somehow went into neutral, the car rolled backwards, gaining speed, and plowed into my neighbor's new red prius. Totaled both cars. The poor kid was distraught, moaning that he was going to lose his job...."...and my parents just bought me this car!"

All the neighbors were out, it was like a mini-block party.