Category Archives: Days in My Life

I don’t just sit around and watch TV.

Eat Cheese

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My cheese is delivered and I have a cheese tasting dinner with friends.

The cheese (referred to in a previous blog entry) arrived on Thursday. It came in a box fitted around a Styrofoam cooler that contained the cheese and a reusable ice pack. The cheese was still cool, despite its long trip from PA via FedEx but the box was stinky, like you’d expect a box of moldy cheese to smell.

Moldy is a strong word. Blue-veined is the word the cheese descriptions use. It appears that I’ve hit that magical age where a person starts liking blue-veined cheese. Oddly enough, Mike has, too.

John and Lorna came for our cheese dinner. I put out an assortment of crackers and some sliced french bread. And the cheeses. Not only the four I’d bought online from iGourmet.com, but two others I’d bought locally.

Here’s my cheese review.

Amarello is a sheep’s milk cheese from Portugal. I bought it because I’d never had sheep’s milk cheese. It has a semi-firm texture and a rather sharp (to my palette), salty flavor. It reminded me of a cross between Provolone and Romano. I give it a thumbs down.

Brie is a soft cheese found in many places. I bought this particular brie at the local Safeway supermarket. They have several brands there and I know from experience that I like the store-brand “Primo Talgio” the best. I put it on the serving plate beside Coulommiers, a French cheese described in the catalog as the “ancestor of all bries.” When tasted side by side with the brie, it had a much more complex flavor and an interesting finish. I give both a thumbs up, but the Coulommiers gets a bigger thumbs up.

Saga is a blue-veined, brie-like cheese. I bought it at Safeway. It’s one of my favorites. It has an interesting flavor and should not be eaten with brie as it makes the brie taste bland by comparison. Thumbs up.

Morbier is the cheese that started me on this cheese quest. It’s a French cow’s milk cheese that has a unique appearance — a blue line running horizontally across its center. This cheese was the big hit of the evening. Everyone liked it. Even John, who has extremely conservative tastes in food. This cheese not only gets a thumbs up, but it will likely be on every future order.

Gorgonzola Dolce is a very soft Italian cheese that has a strong flavor and even stronger aroma. I think this was the cheese that, despite its double-wrapping, stunk up the box. I like this cheese, but I don’t think it’s because I like the flavor. It think I like the difference of the flavor. I’m always interested in eating something different and this definitely is different. I give it a thumbs up for that reason, but a thumbs down because the piece they sent is so enormous that I’ll be eating it for longer than I probably want to. I’ll probably try different gorgonzolas in the future. Smaller ones.

My cheese experiment cost about $60, including the locally bought cheeses and crackers. I have enough cheese left to do it again, several times, Mike and I will probably work through them over the next week or so.

I’ll probably do this once a month or so, just to build up my knowledge of cheeses and enjoy their flavors.

Got any recommendations? Use the comments link or form for this post.

Say Cheese!

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My love for cheese has me shopping online.

I love cheese. Not the kind you buy in the supermarket’s deli counter: American, Swiss, cheddar, etc. Not really even the kind you buy at the supermarket’s cheese display: brie, Gouda, Havarti, Fontina, etc. (Although I admit I’m fond of Saga, which is available in one of Wickenburg’s supermarkets.) I like the kind of cheese available in cheese or gourmet shops, the kind imported from all over the world, the kind with complex flavors and interesting histories. The cheese that’s very difficult to get when you live in a small town on the edge of nowhere.

Oddly enough, Wickenburg’s Safeway store — the better of the two supermarkets in town — has a big cheese display and a rather impressive assortment of supermarket-type cheeses. It’s there that I can find the pseudo-fresh mozzarella that goes so good with tomatoes and fresh basil, the Saga that’s so nice on a crispy cracker, the double-creme brie that’s wonderful melted onto a slice of toasted French bread, and the goat cheese that tastes so nice melted on a Boboli crusted topped with olive-oil sauteed eggplant and garlic. That cheese display can meet most of my cheese needs, but not my cheese desires. I like to eat cheese as a meal itself and after a while, the supermarket cheese selections get about as boring as the supermarket meat department selections.

When we were out in California for the New Year, we stumbled into a cheese shop at La Jolla Shores. The shop had lost its original purpose. Although named “Cheese Shop,” it had clearly turned into a combination gourmet grocery store and deli. There were very few cheeses to choose from. In fact, I think Safeway has far more. But among the selections was a cheese called Morbier. We bought some, I ate some, and I remembered how much I liked cheese.

When we got home, I searched the yellow pages listings online to find a cheese shop in Phoenix. The closest I could find was A.J.’s supermarket. A.J.’s does indeed have a more expansive selection of cheeses than Safeway, but it doesn’t satisfy my cheese desires. Besides, A.J.’s prices tend to be outrageous. The Saga you buy there costs about twice the price of the Saga in Safeway. And it’s the same stuff. So how much is that other stuff overpriced?

Not to say that I shop for cheese based on price. Price doesn’t stop me from buying a cheese I really want, but it does prevent me from buying a lot of it.

Not satisfied with the Yellow Pages results, I went online with Google to search for cheese shops. I found a place called DiBruno Brothers, based in New York. Of course, I couldn’t remember what Morbier was called, but I remember what it looked like. (It has a very distinctive appearance.) And I remembered that its name began with an “M.” So I browsed DiBruno’s Web site until I found Morbier and clicked the Add to Cart button. Then I shopped around and bought a few more cheeses based on their description and checked out.

Shipping for my order was supposed to be $9, which I thought was very reasonable. But the next day I got an e-mail from DiBruno telling me that they had to charge me $10 more for shipping. I don’t like “bait and switch” tactics — which this appeared to be — so I cancelled my order. No Morbier for me.

That was about two weeks ago.

igourmet.comYesterday, after munching on some Saga and longing for something different, I tried again. I found a Web site called Cheeses.com, which has all kinds of information about cheese. From there, I followed a link to iGourmet.com. I searched for Morbier, found it cheaper than DiBruno’s, and clicked the Add to Cart button. More cheese went into my digital shopping cart before I checked out. Shipping via FedEx is a reasonable $12.45, so the whole thing didn’t cost a fortune. Well, it did cost more than steak dinner for two at Charlie’s, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy it a lot more.

I wish there was a cheese shop locally, one where I could buy the cheeses and other unusual “gourmet” items I like to eat without leaving town. But if Phoenix and Scottsdale can’t support a cheese shop, I can’t very well expect Wickenburg to. Especially when the most affluent businesses Wickenburg can attract these days are Dollar Stores and Check Cashing Places.

Hangar Cleanup Time

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I prepare my hangar for inspection by the FAA.

Cleaning a hangar is a lot like cleaning a garage. But instead of cars among the miscellaneous non-automotive junk, there are aircraft among the miscellaneous non-aviation junk.

I really shouldn’t say junk. Our hangar has far less junk than our garage has. That might be because we’ve only occupied it for two and a half years. We’ve lived in our house for about eight years now, so we’ve had far more time to stuff junk into the garage.

Hangar ClutterI’m applying for an FAA Part 135 certificate. As part of the approval process, the FAA has to come take a look at my operations base AKA my hangar. I want to make the right impression. So this weekend, while it drizzled outside, I did a cleanup. I share the hangar with a Grumman Tiger, a stagecoach, four motorcycles, a Porsche, a Go-Ped, a short row of theater seats, and various pieces of furniture. The Grumman Tiger belongs to my significant other, Mike, and his partner, Ray. They bought the plane about two years ago but they don’t fly it very much. In fact, I was thinking of selling partnerships to it. I figure I could get another two or three partners on the plane and neither Mike nor Ray would notice. It’s a nice plane — 1974, I think — and in very good condition. Every airplane person who sees it is impressed. To me, it’s just a nice, shiny plane. I can’t fly it and I don’t really enjoy riding in it as a passenger. The thought of doing 60 or 70 knots when the wheels touch the ground on landing scares me. I’m doing zero when I touch down and that suits me fine.

The stagecoach belongs to the Desert Caballeros Western Museum, located in downtown Wickenburg. If you ever drive by this place, don’t let the dinky exterior fool you. It’s an incredible little museum, with exhibits on two floors (there’s a basement, so it looks like a one-floor place from the street). My favorite exhibit is the semi-permanent collection of antique horse gear, including bits, bridles, spurs, saddles, and chaps. Anyway, the stagecoach in my hangar was donated to the museum by Vi Wellik of Flying E Ranch. The stagecoach is authentic, originally used in the 1880s. It was meticulously refurbished some years ago and was used on the ranch and in the town’s local Gold Rush Days parade every year. I even met one of the wranglers who used to drive it. Now it’s sitting in my hangar, waiting for the museum to build something to house it in.

Why is it in my hangar, you might ask? (I ask myself the same thing quite often these days, as my hangar fills with other stuff.) The previous hangar tenant agreed to house it for the museum. When he died and I moved in, I was told it would be there for another three months or so. That was 28 months ago. I don’t mind too much. The helicopter fits snugly in the place between it and the hangar door and it does tend to impress visitors.

The motorcycles belong to me and Ray. I own a 1993 Yamaha Seca II and a 1996 Ducati 900 SS CR. Ray owns two cruisers, one of which belongs to his wife. Frankly, I don’t know what they are, but I know they’re not Harleys. He came by and ran one for a while in the hangar and it didn’t make enough noise to be a Harley. They don’t drip any oil, either. Ray and I ride our motorcycles even less often than Ray and Mike fly that plane. I’m always on the verge of selling mine. I should, really. They cost about $100 per year to insure and that again every two years to buy them new batteries. I’d ride mine more if I could get them out of the hangar. But that darn airplane’s wings take up so much space and, with the helicopter in there, I just can’t wheel either one of them out. That’s my story and I’ll stick to it.

The Porsche belongs to Ray. He stored it in the hangar when he moved to Montana. But he never fully moved. He’s back now, looking for a new place in Wickenburg. It seems that winter temperatures of -5°F don’t really appeal to him. His wife is still up there with her horses, but she might come down. In the meantime, the Porsche is tucked in the corner, behind one of the airplane’s wings, covered with a car cover. I can’t even remember what color or model it is.

The Go-Ped is mine. The idea was that I’d use it as ground transportation when I flew my helicopter someplace that I needed ground transportation. But the darn thing is a menace. I had a bit of a scare on it and don’t like to ride it. One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to practice riding it so it doesn’t scare me anymore. Or sell it.

The theater seats are something I bought on impulse when the local theater was replacing its old used seats with new used seats. They were selling the seats for $5 each to raise money for a local charity. I bought six of them, along with the hardware to put them together. Now they’re in a row in the back of the hangar, covered with cobwebs and looking a heck of a lot worse than they did in the theater.

The furniture includes our old bedroom set, which we’re saving in case we ever do build something on our Howard Mesa property, and some kind of cabinet that Ray moved in with the Porsche. Our furniture is up on palettes, shrink-wrapped, and covered with an old sheet. We’re trying hard to keep it nice. My grandmother gave it to us as a wedding present back in 1986. It’s Scandinavian stuff, teak and very nice. But it didn’t go with our southwest decor. So about six months after she passed away, we ordered a new bedroom set. We’ll use this one again someday.

Yesterday, I cleaned around all this stuff. I started out with a broom, but quickly switched to a Shop-Vac. There was some dried mud along one wall (we get some water in the hangar when it rains really hard.) There were also lots of cobwebs, which I really can’t tolerate.

I also assembled a brand new Black and Decker storage closet. It cost me $69 and it was probably worth about $64. No tools required. Everything snaps into place. Give me furniture that requires tools any day. But once assembled and with 18 quarts of oil on its bottom shelf for ballast, it was fine. I’m using it to store all of my stuff, in an effort to 1) segregate it from the Tiger stuff and 2) to keep the dust and cobwebs off of it.

I also threw out a bunch of junk. We have a big trash can in the hangar with an even bigger heavy-duty trash bag in it. It had never been emptied. I emptied it yesterday and was pleased to find extra bags at the bottom of the can.

While I was cleaning, my hangar landlord, Rusty, came by to look at the new helicopter. It’s always good to have a landlord stop by while you’re cleaning. Especially when that cleaning includes using cat litter to soak up oil drips and installing a drip pan under your aircraft.

I had to take a break in the middle of the hangar cleaning process to have lunch and take care of other chores. Those chores included buying new filters and bags for the Shop-Vac, which was spitting out as much dust as it was sucking in.

I finished late in the afternoon. The hangar looks good and ready for inspection.

New Year’s Weekend

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How We Celebrated the New Year.

After several painfully boring New Year’s Eves spent in Wickenburg and one relatively interesting one spent in Prescott, we decided we wanted a more memorable New Year’s Eve.

So we left town.

We stuffed the trunk of my Honda S2000 with overnight bags, dress clothes, and two bottles of champagne, wedged ourselves into the passenger seats, buckled up, put the top down, and sped off to the west on Friday morning.

We went to La Jolla, CA, which is just north of San Diego. We booked a room at the Sea Lodge at La Jolla Shores. Our room featured a huge sliding glass door and private balcony that faced the ocean. All day long, we could watch the waves and the people and birds on the beach. We could listen to the rhythm of the ocean waves. We could watch the weather move in and the kayakers move out and the surfers just float around, waiting for the perfect wave.

On New Year’s Eve, we had reservations for the early seating at Nine Ten, the restaurant in La Jolla’s Grand Colonial Hotel. We chose dinner with a wine pairing. (For those of you who don’t know what that means, each course is served with a different wine that has been selected by someone knowledgeable about wines and foods.) Four courses, four wines. The food was exquisite. I had chestnut soup, sea bass, venison, and a chocolate desert. Everything was both beautifully prepared and delicious. It was the kind of meal you’d couldn’t get within 40 miles of Wickenburg. And I enjoyed every bite of it.

After dinner, we changed into regular clothes and went for a walk on the beach. It was a nice night and there were very few people out and about. Then we had some champagne on our balcony and listened to the waves to welcome in the new year.

On Saturday, New Year’s Day, we drove into San Diego. We spent some time walking around the popular Gaslight Quarter, which reeked of beer from the previous night’s celebrations. Most shops and restaurants were closed; we got there too early. We walked a total of about 20 blocks and saw three Starbucks coffee shops. In all three instances, the Starbucks had been placed near an existing coffee shop. I realized that Starbucks is trying to put all the other coffee shops out of business. This was a revelation to me. We went into one of those little coffee shops for some latte. It was quaint and had lots of character — much nicer than the cookie-cutter design of a Starbucks. And the person who took my order actually made my coffee — imagine that! I wondered how long the place would survive with Starbucks right across the street. So I decided then and there that I would no longer buy coffee (or anything else) in a Starbucks. I’d like to see some little coffee shop put a Starbucks shop out of business and I’ll do my part to help make it happen.

We drove over the big bridge to Coronado Island. We walked around the east side of the island for a while, admiring the view of San Diego, then headed west to the Coronado Hotel. I got an excellent parking spot on the street near the hotel entrance, saving the $5 per hour parking fee I’d have to pay to park on the hotel’s parking lot. We walked around the hotel for a while and I bought a gift for Lorna who, with John, was housesitting for us. The Coronado Hotel is a wonderful historic landmark that is magnificently maintained. We had lunch outdoors in the sunshine: sea bass prepared two different ways. Then a long walk around the town in search of just the right desert. We found a coffee/pastry shop (with a Starbucks right next door — the nerve!) but didn’t find just the right bit of chocolate to satisfy my after-lunch craving. We left town heading south on the long causeway that ends just three miles north of the Mexican border, then headed back north.

Our last stop for the day was Cabrillo National Monument, where the original Point Loma lighthouse stands on a hill overlooking the San Diego Bay. Magnificent views all around. I took lots of pictures and used the movie feature of my camera to create a panoramic movie of the bay and city beyond.

By this time, it was late afternoon and the warm sunshine we’d been enjoying all day was fading behind thin clouds on the horizon. We headed back to La Jolla Shores for a rest before dinner. We had dinner in La Jolla, at a place called Roppongi. The restaurant featured “Asian fusion” food. We ordered five different tapas dishes, all excellent, and a sake sampler. More food you can’t get at home.

On Sunday, we checked out early and headed back down to San Diego’s Balboa Park. Many people know the park as the home of the San Diego Zoo, but the park also features many museums. We visited the Air and Space Museum there, which was surprisingly good. There were many airplanes and spacecraft on display, including the Apollo 9 Space Capsule and an actual GPS satellite. Exhibits were arranged historically, with early aviation exhibits near the entrance of the building and space exhibits near the exit. The building is round, so you walk in a circle to see all of the exhibits. A courtyard in the middle of the building has a glass ceiling and, since the building is in the flight path for San Diego Airport, jets fly right over the roof just a few thousand feet up. It reminded Mike of growing up in Flushing, NY, in the flight path for La Guardia.

Lunch was at Ole Madrid, a restaurant in the Gaslight Quarter that was supposed to offer Sunday Brunch. They called it brunch, but it wasn’t the buffet style meal we expected. Instead, we ordered tapas from a menu. Everything was good.

We left the city soon after that and headed east on I-8. We made one stop: in the town of Alpine where there’s an Indian Casino and large outlet mall. The mall was beautifully designed and landscaped with lots of statues, fountains, and vegetation. It was a pleasure to walk through it. After picking up a few things we can’t get in Wickenburg, we hit the road again. The day was cloudy and we drove with the top up to keep warm. (We’d had the top down all weekend long.) After coming through the mountains on I-8, we turned off, following the road toward Mexicali. The drive along the border was mildly interesting — certainly more interesting than the drive along I-8. We joined up with I-8 just west of the sand dunes and followed that to Yuma. Then 95 to Quartzsite, I-10 to SR 60, and SR 60 to Wickenburg. We got in just after 8 PM.

It had been a nice trip away, made possible, in part, by our friends John and Lorna, who stayed at our house and watched the menagerie (Alex the Bird, Jack the Dog, Jake and Cherokee (horses), and the chickens).

Now it’s back to reality in Wickenburg.

The Silence is Broken

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Why I haven’t written a blog entry in over a week.

My last blog entry was dated 12/22. It’s now 1/4. Where have I been?

First of all, you need to understand that I do my blogging in the morning, while having breakfast with my bird. I’m normally awake sometime before 4:30 AM and, while Mike continues to sleep and then gets up to do his morning thing, I’m downstairs at the kitchen table with my PowerBook, typing away. Like this morning. Alex the Bird has his breakfast and is eating quietly, dropping scrambled eggs all over the floor by his cage. In a while, Jack the Dog will come by to clean it up. Meanwhile, I just type away.

Trouble is, I don’t always finish before Mike comes down for breakfast. That means I’m still typing away while he’s sitting across the table from me. And he doesn’t like that. He wants my full attention.

He deserves most of my attention. (I don’t think too many people deserve all of it; there’s really not enough to spend on any one person.) So I’ve stopped blogging in the morning. And since I don’t do it then, I don’t do it at all.

I’m not too happy about that. You see, I like writing these blog entries. It gives me a chance to write what’s on my mind and what’s going on in my life. It’s like a diary that just happens to be public. It’s not the public part that I like so much. It’s the discipline of writing on a schedule, of regularly documenting things that are part of me. The benefit: looking back over these pages, I have a record of what’s been going on in my life.

So this morning, I’m at it again. It’s 5:15 AM and Alex the Bird is asking me if I want to go upside-down. (He’s also calling me a goober and asking if I’m a duck.) Mike is upstairs doing his morning thing. Jack the Dog is somewhere, avoiding being turned out in the rain. Life goes on.