punkerdoo

Immediately after I completed yesterday’s post, I did exactly as I said I would.  I made myself an omelette using the remaining chanterelles. I also threw in the rest of the pancetta and fontina. Served with a side of fried potatoes, it was the best breakfast I have had in a long time.   Darren was working in Atlanta and would not be getting home until 7PM.  Sshooting a cap/gown and a graduation ceremony of 1500 students in Philips Arena takes up most of your day.

I spent the rest of my day nailing down our route and lodgings for the outgoing part of our trip.  Texas does not use Reserve America for their state parks, so it took me quite a long time to find good places to stop.  I found a place near Dallas and then went looking for somewhere to stay near Amarillo.  That is when I fcame across the Palo Duro Canyon State Park, the Grand Canyon of Texas.  It looks really beautiful  and I can’t wait to see it.  Originally, I had only planned one night in Amarillo, but I made reservations for two nights so that we will get the chance to see the park.

Slipped up already.  I skipped yesterday’s post, but yesterday was a really weird day and I would rather just move on. Besides I told myself I would not let this blog make me feel guilty, I do that enough as it is.  So backing it up to Thursday…..

For lunch I wanted to use up the leftover squash and pasta dish I had made for Wednesday’s dinner.  I thought that the squash would be sort of soggy sitting around in the fridge.  Darren was going to run some errands so I asked him if he would be willing to pick up some jarred pasta sauce for me.  I reheated the pasta with the sauce, grated a little parmesan over the top and it was a quite nice lunch.  It also did not seem like leftovers this way.

Then in the afternoon we needed to pick up our order at Athens Locally Grown.  Later, I put a pic of all of our goodies on Flickr so that I could tag them with the grower’s name.  We were hungry we when left and dinner was going to be some hours off yet (slow-cooked ribs and cabbage) so I thought we might stop off somewhere and get a snack.

After our goodies were procured , we headed over to Farm 255 for their wonderful Butcher’s Plate.  We had the Butcher’s Plate on one other occasion and it had been far too long for us not to have had it again.  The Plate is a wooden slab covered with all sorts of sausages, pates, and pickled items, all locally grown/raised.  Most of the ingredients are produced by the restaurant’s own farm.  If you are ever in Athens, this is a must place to go.

As we are talking to our bartender about the plate, and CSAs.  She asked if we ever go to Athens Locally Grown.  We tell her that we just came from there and she says ” I just sold there for the first time today.”  She goes on to tells us that she forages for chanterelles.  Amazed, we tell her that we bought some of her mushrooms and they were in our car at that very moment.  Apparently we were only one of three people to buy them.  Very slim odds of us meeting.  Anyway, I am very excited to try them.   I wanted to use them yesterday, but as I already said yesterday didn’t work out.

Yesterday was fast food and football-soccer. The United States’ group played in World Cup and we faced Slovenia.  What an exciting match! We were down 0-2 at the half.  We battled back to 2-2 in the second half.  We kicked in a penalty kick  for 3-2 and the ref called it back!  None of the experts could see anything that would cause the ref to blow the whistle.  We were robbed!  In the end we had a draw, which keeps our hopes alive. I am beginning to really enjoy this football-soccer.