madbaker | Domestic-y Goodness

Went to Yerba Buena Gardens yesterday with the wife. Restrained ourselves, because we're on a budget. Difficult to do there. Unfortunately, I was given bad info last time I called them -- they won't get CA milkweed in until the fall. That was our main purpose for going, as we want to attract Monarch butterflies. Others too, but we like Monarchs. Oh well; we bought a CA beach daisy, which looks like a regular daisy except the leaves are a pale lavender instead of white. Odd, but pretty. Also a couple other ground cover-types.

Because it sounded really, really good, and it was a nice day, we drove back along Skyline Blvd to Half Moon Bay. Where we (ahem) happened to stop by a fish market to buy some local salmon. We took one of the smaller filets - four pounds.

Since we couldn't eat that much (although it'd be fun to try) the wife called the upstairs neighbors, inviting them to dinner. Drove home, started the smoker, made strawberry pie with the berries purchased at the farmers' market that AM, and smoked the salmon on an alder plank for an hour or so. Yum! We left about a third of it in the smoker to smoulder overnight. It's a bit on the dry side now, but wonderfully concentrated. A bit of olive oil rubbed in should fix the dryness issue...

Got up this morning relatively early, I made pesto omelets (with a side of smoked salmon... well, did you really think we could resist?). Then the wife planted everything from yesterday while I weeded and made a vain attempt to hack back the ivy. Also "planted" the remaining pieces of slate sitting in our pit to form a walkway below the hill. The wife swept the stairs, which probably hadn't been done in a year (since our housewarming).

Tired, but feeling like we got a significant amount accomplished.

What I'm reading: John Ringo & Linda Evans, Road to Damascus