Fallen Tree

 Last Tuesday evening was very windy. In the middle of the night, I heard something but didn't think much of it. When I got up on Wednesday morning and looked out of the window, I was surprised to see the tree as shown in the photo above. Initially I was a little sad because it was a big tree, and now it will need to be removed. We had more rain in the past few months than the past several years, and its shallow roots got wet rot. It didn't take much for the tree to fall over.

Rotted roots

During the weekend, I started breaking the small branches apart. For bigger branches, I used my Silky Pocket Boy to saw them apart. My wonderful next door neighbor came over with his electric saw on Sunday afternoon and saw apart the biggest branches. He's saving those pieces as firewood for summer camping. After all the tree parts were removed, he came back with his lawn mower and gave my overgrown backyard a complete makeover!  See how nice it looks now in the photo below.

I ordered a very small dwarf mulberry tree a few months ago. I will work on improving the soil condition and transplant the mulberry to where the tree was before.

Smoke's Poutinerie

Someone told me about Smoke's Poutinerie in Downtown Berkeley a while back. Poutine is a Quebec classic consists of french fries, gravy, and cheese curds. At Smoke's, they have over 30 varieties of toppings in addition to the traditional cheese curds. They have grilled chicken, steak, bacon, scrambled eggs, pulled pork, Korean BBQ, with BBQ sauce, cheese sauce, chili, sour cream, Sriracha, etc., etc., the combination could be limitless, and you can even design your own. I love french fries and anything else that can possibly come with them.  Smoke's is right in my old hangout, but sadly it took me over a year to make it there. This is the sad part about growing up and having a job. You just don't have time to explore your own neighborhood anymore.

I made a special trip there today on President's Day since I have the day off from work. I got there 15 minutes before 11 o'clock, when they open. I was lucky to find parking right across the street from it. Since it was my first time there, I wanted to try the traditional poutine, which is called Traditional Veggie Poutine, with fries, rich brown vegetable gravy, and Quebec cheese curds.

While I waited for my poutine, I looked at their wall of poutine news. How exciting!  It reminded me of my trip to Middle Earth, when I took the time to explore each street and local eateries. 

I ordered a snack size poutine, but it is enough as a meal. The cheese and gravy are both great. The gravy has mushroom bits in it. Of course I love the fries. I hope to return and try other combinations.

Once a Mushroom Hunter, Always a Mushroom Hunter

One beautiful shaggy mane

It had been over a year since the last time I went out hunting for wild mushrooms. I often think about those delicious morels.  I was walking around Lake Merritt today with the pooches, and suddenly I saw a fresh full size shaggy mane sticking out of the grass. Coprinus comatus, commonly known as shaggy mane or ink cap, is one of the wild mushrooms that I am very familiar with. It is very distinctive with the scales on its cap. This mushroom is unusual because it will turn black and dissolve itself in a matter of hours after being picked or depositing spores.  Another sure way to identify the mushroom is to cut it in half as the photo below. The cross section of shaggy mane has a unique kite line. It's hard to see from the photo below, but I have a better photo I took years ago in my wild mushroom photo album.

The biggest one started to turn black

I walked through the grass over to the shaggy mane and found 3 more smaller ones next to the big one. I took a photo before plucking all of them off the ground. I didn't have anything to put them in, and suddenly I remembered that I had doggy bags in my pocket. Perfect!

After taking them home, I sautéed them in some olive oil with some baby spinach then sprinkled some gorgonzola cheese on top. It was delicious!  We are supposed to have more rain. I can't wait to find more presents like this while out walking!

Rodeo Beach, Sausalito, California

After days of raining, we had a sunny day today on Christmas. I took advantage of the nice weather and drove to Marin Headlands in Sausalito with the pooches. I ended up at Rodeo Beach. It was beautiful out there. I don't think I had ever been out there before. It was also Cracus' first day trip. He was so excited and couldn't stop pulling and sniffing everything.

There were many dogs around. Some had leashes on and some were leash free. Since it was Cracus first time there, I kept both of them on the leash. It had been a while since I took Kelsey on a day trip, too. She was very excited as soon as we got off the freeway. She got up in backseat and started barking at the bicyclists passing by the car.

Kelsey is probably about twelve years old now, which is quite old for a dog her size. She has been getting slower and slower. However, she always wants to come along. I was worried she would not be able to make it up the hill. As soon as we got to the top, she laid down and took a break to enjoy the view. Both Cracus and Kelsey seemed to really enjoyed the hike along the coast. I had a good workout as well.  Both dogs were so tired after they got home. They went to sleep early tonight.

Lékué Egg Cooker

Last week one of my new colleagues gave me a set of Lékué egg cookers as a holiday gift.  They are just the cutest things. If you have been following my blog, you know that I love mushrooms and anything mushroom shaped. I have only been at my new job since end of August this year, so I was just amazed how she picked this gift for me.

Today I finally got the time to try it out. I brushed inside of the cooker with olive oil and lined it with some baby spinach. I put a couple grilled shishito peppers in there just because I grilled a bunch last night. Now about these shishito peppers, according to Wikipedia, about one of ten peppers is spicy. Last night I had them for the first time, and the first one I ate set my face on fire. I was very surprised and wasn't sure if I could eat another one.  Fortunately, the next 2 peppers weren't as spicy, but I would say one out of five is spicy for the batch of peppers I got. They are very good though, so I couldn't stop eating them. I think my tolerance for hot peppers just went up a notch last night.

I sprinkled a little salt and pepper and put the lid back on. It was cooked in microwave for about 50 seconds, then I heard it popped. I guess the egg popped.  Luckily it didn't make an explosive mess in there because it had a lid.  The egg was fully cooked after 50 seconds.  Next time I will try 40 seconds for a softer egg. This is a great way to cook an egg with other vegetables or meats. I am going to pick up some gorgonzola cheese and mushrooms later for more experiments.