I had a busy week, which included cranking out a couple of Live in Everett pieces I'd been meaning to get to for a while. I'll share those when the time comes, though. Where LIEv is concerned, I'm excited about a few things. This week I'm finally going to record an episode of the podcast, which I've been wanting to do forever. A story I started work on over a year ago finally came together and is coming out this week. And last but definitely not least, Live in Everett surpassed 1,000,000 page views!
Much of my plan this week revolved around my tattoos. I hadn't been to the pool in a while because of the Freckle tattoo on my calf. That's now mostly healed except for a couple of spots, but it was good enough to finally go swimming Wednesday. I had another tattoo appointment yesterday, so I got three days of swims in before it. Jimmy filled in the hair on the Nagels yesterday, and heavy blackwork is about as much damage as you can do in a session, so it may be even longer before I'm in the pool again. We'll see.
My favorite views of this rainbow were in the car, but the view from the Safeway was pretty good. I get a lot of my best sky pictures there.
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We may not have driveway lions, but at least we have a thriving indoor garden and window kitties.
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I don't believe in an afterlife, but if there is one, my ex must shake his head at the thousands of photos I've taken with this comforter in the background. He hated it.
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A week ago I had a rare Saturday walk because Garrett had a Fly-in meeting and needed to get a bunch of work done before heading to it. I went to Edgewater and enjoyed all the stuff laying around the construction site for the new ferry terminal. It was still pitch black out, and this pile looked really cool lit up by the nearby train station.
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Stuff like that is very fun in Instagram Layout.
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I normally don't make slut-shaming jokes and things like that, but! I have exactly one friend I make "your mom" jokes with. He's in the navy and they're very good at that. When my mom died, I made sure to tell him it was still ok to do it. I saw this and had to send it to him with the caption, "Rules for sex with your mom."
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He's underway and hasn't seen it yet, and likely won't for a while.
Sometimes they really seem like they're posing.
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When I got back to where I started, I found all this metal laying around looking like Georgia O'Keeffe painted it.
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I've always loved what happens with the old tank farm walls when the puddles around them grow large.
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On Monday I had a good walk at the marina, but it was so dark I didn't take a single photo. My 6:30am weekly calls with Europe have resumed, and there's not really enough time to go out and get back in time for that and enjoy myself, so I decided to go out after. I chose Lowell because I don't like walking it in the dark much and haven't been in a while. I think I'll make it my Tuesday destination for a while.
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I had quite a few culinary accomplishments this week. On Tuesday, I made perfect steaks sous vide and a really great baked potato in the slow cooker that I split between us. The green beans were steamed in a bag and also great tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.
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Melissa (Mellzah for those who know her) told me about some frozen ramen at Costco and I bought it a while ago and finally tried it Thursday. The guy who checked my receipt at the door when I bought them said I should add a little sesame oil and I suggested he should add soft boiled eggs. His "ooohhh" face was perfect. I did both of those, plus some sugar snap peas and nori.
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Several people have commented that the eggs look perfect, and they are! If you want perfect soft boiled eggs, they're quite easy. Get some water boiling, lower in cold eggs directly from the refrigerator, cook for 6 1/2 minutes, then move them immediately to an ice water bath. I suggest saving dishes by using the bowl you'll eventually eat the ramen out of as the ice water bath bowl.
Mellzah saw that and also suggested a black garlic oil recipe. I happened to have just enough garlic to make it, so I did that as a side project while making dinner that night.
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She was correct, it adds an amazing depth of flavor to ramen. She and several recipe writers warn that it tastes like death warmed over on its own, though. So now I'm curious what else can be done with it. Would it taste good mixed in cream cheese? I'm sure I'll try it soon.
That night's dinner was salmon which I cooked to a perfect medium texture sous vide, but it was wildly underseasoned even though I had it in the bag with green sriracha all day and salted it a little before torching it. I prefer baking salmon anyway. It's too wet in the sous vide bag and too delicate to do much about it afterward.
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I guess if you like poached salmon, sous vide would be the very precise version of that. I'm more of a fan of crispy skin and seared-on sauces.
Although honestly one of the best ways to make salmon is to do a light coating of olive oil, a little salt and pepper, and then a nice layer of lemon zest. Bake it and squeeze some lemon juice on. Simple and perfect.
