Summer About Town - Part I

I got bobbed. He said no no just use my camelbak day pack to do your Mt Wittenberg overnight hike and i'm missing the bladder to the pack also. I was bleeding on both side and my back after 20 miles of hiking. Thanks a lot Bob. Next time I am buying a modern proper pack as last time i used one of Derek's from the 70's that also hurt a lot.

Camembert, honey, Berekely Tye Dye tomato tart

garden action

didn't know goya turn yellow and sweet

So with the Celestron 8mm-24mm zoom eyepiece stacked with the Orion 2x Barlow lens on the Orion Skyquest XT6 Dobsonian telescope that we acquired for free from Sophie, we can see the rings of saturn. The telescope is a 6" reflector scope. There's a whole 'nother world of science and nerdom in telescopes and I researched and found for this scope these lens would get the max magnification before distortion rendered the whole thing useless. You can get more magnifying lenses but then it looks bad.

night out in the east village with the crew.

bob and steve

we ate at Black Emperor

one of Jenny's summertime somen bowls with our tomatoes and gaennip, avocado

first time teaching ever. I taught digital illustration techniques to juniors in the fall and every class slowly got better, starting from I don't know what i'm doing up to I slightly know what i'm doing. The hardest part is getting the students to care and recognize i'm spitting out gold nuggets at them and not to just keep rendering that wolf or superhero on one layer the same way you've always been doing it.

Hidden Pearl in Greenpoint has great cocktails in their speakeasy and decent food in their restaurant

Laputa II, our castle in the sky and happy place

Jenny Said beer by Singlecut

our hops

not a lot of harvest this  year again, is it worth growing hops on our roof in containers.......

Mt. Wittenberg For Real This Time

this was Steven's 3rd attempt to camp at the top of Mt. Wittenberg. First time he went solo and didn't make it in time before nightfall. Second time we went with Bartlett and the weather was horrible. Third time an incoming storm almost ruined it but we made it with about 20 min of twilight left. The hike is 11 miles in 11 miles out.

there's the peak we'd camp on

waiting out the storm before making the final big ascent so we don't get struck by lightning

we set up camp, wasted a lot of time trying to cut huge logs with a small hand ax. We were destroyed and drank whiskey and ate SPAM and rice

we drank more whiskey and shot the sh!t as we watched the moon rise

best campsite ever but...a woman hiker came early in the morning and was like you're not supposed to camp this high in elevation because the soil is too thin and you damage the delicate balance and she's right and we felt a little bad and a little annoyed at her but also at how she's right.

it was a heatwave and the temperature down at ground level was like 95f. Luckily it wasn't up on the mountain but it was still super hot. Steven ran out of water so we shared water and both ran out and at one point in the horrible descent Steven was sitting on a rock asking himself out loud it it was worth it. We made it back to the car barely and slammed ice teas we had prepped and waiting in a cooler and stopped by Great Falls Brewing Company in North Canaan. We felt like this was the brewery where we were most likely to get slandered/our sexual orientations called into question/racially profiled. Maybe that's on us but on this saturday at this time it felt like that. The beer is ok and was welcome after such a hike.

we made it to Jill and Derek's with 3 huge steaks for the meat eaters. We first sat in the hot tub looking at a far off thunderstorm over the hills thinking how we were just in there and now we're drinking fancy beer in a hot tub soothing our pains, life was sweet.

after a hike of such proportions this plate is the most welcome sight in the world.

Derek's barns storage

up a mountain on the dirt bikes

back down at the murder bar/biker bar parking our hogs next to their hogs.

Post 4th of July

the Cherokee purple heirlooms got a disease at the young plant stage so I planted all Berkeley Tye Dye tomatoes

the biggest Berkeley Tye Dye at a half pound, certainly not as big as the 1 pound Cherokee Purple last year but nonetheless they are still delicious

西红柿炒鸡蛋, xihongshi chao jidan. Is tomatoes and eggs and Bob and I were introduced to this in Beijing one night when we ventured out and its been a favorite ever since.

BLT via Kenji Lopez Alt's Serious Eats recipe which basically makes you pan toast the bread in the bacon fat. Used smoked bacon and pickle and bread from the Polish butcher and greens from the roof. Made these about 6 times over the summer and that's not enough times

Goya, Japanese bitter melon

Goya Champuru is an Okinawan dish that uses SPAM due to the US military history in the region.

A Citroen 2CV in Parkslope

moon through the telescope captured with phone camera.

Cricket in Prospect Park.

forget what this is but maybe some kinda pork loin

I'm With Her is a supergroup comprised of Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, and Aoife O’Donovan

Darlingside