Megh and I enjoyed a collective life goal tonight: seeing the Aurora Borealis with our own eyes. I’ve wanted to see this for nearly my entire life, ever since I saw the movie Antarctica.
Megh, Beta, and I found a dark spot near Rockport, arrived as dusk approached, and waited for the fireworks. Nature did not disappoint.
It started before the sky was completely dark, and initially appeared to be a whitish haze across the northern part of the sky. We started to despair that high clouds were going to interfere, until we realized… the show had actually started.
I really like this one because the Big Dipper constellation is visible behind the aurora.The camera’s “night sight” mode not only brought out the colors, but also enabled us to see the reflection off the water.You can really see the classic undulations and spiresThe colors were so strong in this shot, the camera didn’t really add much to this photo. I really enjoy the strong break between color and night sky.The aurora climbed the northern sky until it was overhead, which is when I caught this photo.
These photos are color-accurate, but a little brighter than what we actually saw.
Just a couple of happy gerbils in their little hut.
They’re just a couple of dudes that like to snuggle
They generally head below to the main part of the enclosure to nap, but this time they decided to stay up above, and have a siesta together in the remains of their “house”.
Their eyes may be open, but they were definitely in low power mode.
Beta child had just cleaned their enclosure an hour before. It’s amazing how fast they can litter up the place. It must be tiring.
Prepare the stew beef by cutting it into bite-sized pieces (about 1 inch cubes)
Put on a pot of water to boil
Mix flour, pepper, and garlic power together in a bowl
Dredge the cut-up stew beef through the flour mixture until all pieces are well coated
Heat pan at medium heat with a tbsp of butter and a tbsp olive oil
Once butter is melted and oil starts to shimmer, you're ready to start cooking the beef.
Cook the beef in batches
add beef one piece at a time
Let each side brown for about a minute, flip to brown next side, repeat until all sides are brown, and then push to the side of the pan.You can generally add about 10-20 pieces at a time before it's time to flip the first piece. Flip everything until all sides are brown, then push to the side and start the next batch.
Add more oil as needed to keep the "landing area" for new beef coated in a thin layer of oil.The flour will tend to soak up the oil. You don't want the pan to get dry, or the new pieces won't brown properly.
Once all pieces are browned, spread evenly across the pan and allow to cook for 10 more minutes or until pieces are cooked through.
Make the Egg Noodles
Cook according to package directions, drain, then return to the pot and add a tbsp of butter. Mix to coat noodles with butter.
Serve
Spoon noodles onto plates and top with beef.Scrape the bottom of the pan to get the cooked-on bits unstuck, and divide among your servings. (they carry a lot of flavor.)
Notes
This recipe scales very well. Increase ingredients proportionally. I've made it with just over two pounds of meat; much more and I would have needed a larger pan, or a second pan.
Keyword beef, egg noodles, stew beef
Every time I make this recipe I can’t help but wonder when egg noodle companies cut their bag weight from an even pound of noodles to 12 oz.
Back in 2017 I made a road trip with Alpha to view an eclipse as it passed over Illinois. (We got tangled in traffic before we reached the path of totality, but it was a good trip overall.)
When we got home I started planning our next eclipse trip, so that pesky traffic wouldn’t prevent me from seeing totality. Enter the six-year plan leading up to the latest eclipse in 2024, with the path of totality passing over Niagara Falls.
NASA’s map of the eclipse’s path
We arrived a couple of days before the eclipse, and left the day after. Traffic would not be a problem this time. We had hotel rooms, cameras, snacks, and chairs.
The one thing you can’t control is the weather. It was cloudy.
Most of the path of totality was cloudy, as a matter of fact. A relatively short swath from Vermont to the Atlantic was mostly clear, but the rest of the path had varying levels of poor weather, including some nasty storms.
We eked by with a mostly cloudy experience, which had a pleasant side-effect: filtering wasn’t required for most of the time.
The one artificially filtered picture I took. The rest were filtered by the cloud deck.During peak totality the sun and moon were completely obscured by clouds, so I took a few photos of the landscapeThe clouds thinned out just enough during totality for me to catch a glimpse of what appears to be the corona, just before the moon slid out of the way. It could also just be glow from terrestrial clouds.As totality came to an end, we could momentarily see the border between darkness and light over the Canadian side of NiagaraThe clouds add some drama to the scene as the sun slides out from behind the moon againA few minutes post-totality, the moon’s shadow leaves a Cheshire-cat-like visage
Baba, aka my mother-in-law, invited beta child on a lightning trip to Montreal as a Christmas present. Three days, two nights. I was invited to attend as well.*
Baba had two requirements. One was seeing the Notre-Dame Basilica. The other was eating in a French restaurant. Beta’s sole requirement: shopping. (I had no additional requirements besides going on a road trip. I love road trips for themselves, so anything else is gravy.)
So off we go for a 300-mile drive.
Beta child’s view from the backseat as we cruised through Vermont
There’s an interesting bit of geography: the border between Vermont and Canada coincides with a geographical border between mountains and plains. Shortly after crossing the border we were struck by the immediate change from hills and trees to flat plains and farms. A few hills, including Montreal, stick up from the ground in anomalous fashion.
Montreal in January is not a popular tourist choice. It’s cold. Being from New England, we’re used to cold, but Montreal is still pretty cold.
Montreal is like NYC and Boston had a baby city. Medium-sized office buildings. One-way streets in a grid pattern with lots of potholes. Mostly clean, but homeless people scattered around. Not many people on the streets in the middle of night, but still 24-hour businesses. Mostly new, but a mid-16th-century section.
We found a French restaurant for dinner on our first night: Modavie. Baba ordered an appetizer called “Normandy Sweetbreads”, but she didn’t know that sweetbreads are actually organ meat. Not knowing what it was, she thought it was delicious. She had second thoughts the next day, however, when she found out they were probably made with a calf’s pancreas. We also had charcuterie (Beta) and salad (me). Entrees were seafood pasta (Beta), salmon filet (me), and Filet Mignon (Baba). The food was excellent.
The next morning was crisp and cold. Our first stop: the bus stop. I had procured some 24-hour bus passes (unlimited rides for 24 hours) so we could get around town and have a cheap bus tour of the city. It seemed wiser, as well as more environmentally responsible, than pulling the car in and out of the small parking garage by the hotel for each trip. Waiting for the bus was a cold experience, however. Beta child under-dressed for the occasion despite my warnings, and was visibly cold.
Standing at the bus stop by our hotel. We didn’t visit the Ferris wheel on this trip – too cold.
The Basilica was worth the cold.
The Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal. The pulpit is to the left. Stained glass windows and paintings adorn the outer walls.
After a quick lunch at a bakery near the Basilica, and a pit-stop back at the hotel for Beta to change into warmer clothes, we paid a visit to The Underground City. Baba took a breather in a food court near our entry point, while Beta and I took off to see the malls.
After the mall we killed the remaining hour of daylight by riding the bus home from one end of the line to the other. We went through neighborhoods we never would have seen otherwise. The driver’s confusion when we didn’t immediately disembark at the end of the line was palpable. “Where are you going?”
We ended the day with takeout dinner from a restaurant next to the hotel called “The Pastaman”, and talking about life for a couple of hours.
Coming home was uneventful, except the border crossing. The guard asked us some off-the-wall questions, like “where have you been? – not just today.” “Why did you go to Jordan?” I think they try to ask unexpected questions to throw people off balance a little and shake loose anyone who may be concealing something. I’ve only been out of the country a couple of times, but it happened each time.
* After some indecision on how to get there, because the train required 24 hours each way (due to an overnight stop in NYC) and neither wanting to drive a car for that long, I suggested that I could drive them. They readily accepted my offer. I very much appreciated the chance to join the trip, and I had a great time!
1-5 cookie sheets the more cookie sheets you have, the faster you can swap macaroons into the over
1 ice cream scoop optional, should be around 1 tablespoon in size
aluminum foil
cooling racks
1 small sauce pan
Ingredients
21ozflaked coconut(3 packages, around 7 2/3 cups)
1cupall purpose flour
1/2tspsalt
14ozsweetened condensed milk(1 can)
2/3cupcream of coconutNOT coconut milk
1tbspvanilla
1/4tspalmond extract
1egglarge
6ozsemi-sweet chocolate chips(1 bag)
1tbspvegetable oil
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350
Line cookie sheet(s) with aluminum foil, and sprinkle 1 cup of the coconut flakes over the pan.Bake for 2-7 minutes, take out as soon as it's golden.Cool the toasted coconut.Reserve the foil for later.
Mix toasted coconut, flour, and salt in large bowl.
Beat milk, cream of coconut, vanilla, almond extract, and egg in a medium bowl, then pour it over the dry ingredients and stir.
Drop batter onto foil-lined cookie sheets by heaping tablespoons.
Bake 12-14 minutes, or until golden. Move macaroons, still on their foil sheet, to a cooling rack.Repeat until all dough is cooked.
Allow all macaroons to cool for at least 30 minutes.
Melt chocolate chips and oil in a small sauce pan over low heat. Stir constantly until melted.
Drizzle chocolate over cookies. Allow to cool until it sets, about 30 minutes.
So, we have this bay window right? And its big, and pretty, and has a decent amount of room for a display in it. That decent amount of room is usually covered in all kinds of detritus of the house. It leaks cold air like a sieve. You can feel it flowing over your hand like a liquid if you put your hands on the bottom.
Not today. Not any longer. I did a thing. I took everything out of it. The Terrarium. The random horse statue. The weirdly healthy african violet. All re-homed (some of it needs to be permanently re-homed, but I’ll get there).
Once I had it clear, I cut several pieces of 3/4 inch foam insulation to fit in it and covered the shelf.
Then I had to trim it to make it look pretty.
Once it was (almost) completely covered, I hit my stash. A couple years ago I made a quilted circle skirt. I had a fair amount of the cotton batting left over that I should have thrown out years ago. I used that to cover the foam insulation and make it look like snow. Its cotton with no glitter in it so we don’t have to worry about microplastics. I used scraps to fill in the gaps that I couldn’t get into with the foam core.
My ability to throw things out has taken a huge hit, but hey. It looks amazing.
Once it was covered, I broke out the lasercut village display Michele gave us years ago. It is really pretty and I love it. I hung two strings of LED lights around it, and added our window candles. It looks so cheery and light!
I sent pictures to Michele. Hopefully she likes them.
I can’t feel cold air pouring out of the windows anymore, so hopefully that is all set, too. It would be nice to not have to plastic the window this year.
Megh and I recently celebrated our anniversary (22 years!), and we took the train to White River Junction, Vermont, for an overnight to celebrate.
On the train to Vermont
The weather started clear and warm, and we ate dinner outside.
The town holds an annual parade for Halloween called “Gory Daze.” It started at 9 pm and featured a few hundred young adults in costumes and small marching band. We didn’t know about it until we saw the participants gathering in front of the local museum. It’s a hoot!
The next morning was cold, cloudy, and (eventually) rainy. We walked around a bit to check out the town.
The Connecticut River from White River Junction
We started by heading across the river to a breakfast place in New Hampshire, then came back to do a little shopping. About the only thing open on a Sunday morning was the local co-op grocery store. We picked up some maple donuts and oatmeal cookies for the train ride home, and some local syrup for Meghan to give to her coworkers.
