Here's a picture of our new puppy.

I'm not sure if this cold is porcine in origin, but it sure as heck hurts. I can't even take a full, deep breath without bronchial spasms. At least my fever is gone. I'm taking vicodin for its cough-suppressing properties while I make myself some chicken soup. Recipe follows:


Home-made Chicken Soup:

Chicken Stock:
1 Rotisserie Chicken -- Costco makes 'em cheap ($5) and good.
1 celery heart
3 large carrots, washed, but unpeeled. An equivalent amount of baby carrots is fine.
1/4 sweet onion
3 cloves garlic
6 sprigs fresh thyme
3 sprigs fresh sage
Salt and pepper to taste -- If you can, use a mortar and pestle to crack whole pepper corns, the flavor is better.

Separate the meat from the bones on your rotisserie chicken. Reserve the meat in a bowl for later. Put the bones and skin into a large stockpot. Coarsely chop the vegetables and garlic and put them in the stockpot along with the thyme, sage, salt and pepper. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Boil for 3-5 minutes, then simmer for 2-3 hours or until vegetables are completely mushy. Don't be afraid to add in parts of the veggies or chicken you wouldn't normally eat -- they'll be strained out later.

Once the stock is made, Strain out the bones and remains of the veggies. They will hold on to a lot of the liquid, so be sure and press it out of the (now flaccid) veggies. If you're concerned about the bones getting in the way, make the stock using just the bones first, strain, then cook down the veggies in the pure chicken broth. Once you're done with the combo broth, you can even puree some of the veggies back into the broth.

Once you have your broth ready to go, it's time for the elements of your actual soup.

Final Soup:

Previously Reserved Meat and Stock
1 celery heart
3 large carrots, washed, but unpeeled. An equivalent amount of baby carrots is fine.
3/4 sweet onion
6 sprigs fresh thyme
3 sprigs fresh sage
Salt and pepper to taste -- If you can, use a mortar and pestle to crack whole pepper corns, the flavor is better.

Same as before -- coarsely chop your veggies and throw them in the pot with everything else. Simmer until your veggies are cooked. If you want noodles, throw them in at as you're cooking your veggies. They'll help to thicken the sauce, but you'll lose volume. If you need more liquid, don't be afraid to add extra store-bought broth or cook your noodles separately. Alternatively, you can thicken the sauce with corn starch and serve over biscuits if you're more into the chicken and biscuits thing.

If any of you have been itching to try out the new Google Wave service, I've got 10 invites. I need some people to wave with.

First 10 email addresses get 'em with the understanding that you'll pass on some of your invites to help it spread.

This weekend, Em and I decided to leave our schedule open for work and spend the weekend as a family. While it was pouring rain yesterday, we decided to do a little kitchen prep work. I was able to accomplish the following:

- Roasted an entire bag of garlic heads from Costco. Resulted in a full quart of peeled, roasted garlic.
- Caramelized 9 Hermiston, OR sweet onions. We now have a half-gallon container full of pre-caramelized onions.
- Made beef stew with 2 lbs of well-marbled tri-tip steak, a full bottle of Merlot and orange zest. Served with horseradish-infused sour cream.
- Prepped supplies for the following soups to be made in the next 3-5 days: chicken noodle, roasted tomato w/ shallots, cream of asparagus, french onion.

Recipes to follow upon request.

I spent the bulk of my day up at the studio yesterday, working with tech support and trying to get our Clear service functioning properly with Back To My Mac. No dice. They will be getting a cancellation call later today or Monday. I'm still exploring other (non Qworst) options, but it's looking like I'll be going with Verizon FiOS or Comcast. Anyone with suggestions for other companies, I'm open to it.

FOR THOSE OF YOU LIVING IN UTAH:

We will be making an excursion to SLC on the first weekend of October and we're doing some special mini sessions. Mini sessions are 30-45 minutes and run 100. Full sessions are still 200 and include 2 hrs and a print credit. If anyone's interested, leave me a message here or email me.

Growing up, my mother always made tuna salad different than all the other moms. There were no chopped-up bits, no dill taste, nothing. Mom's recipe was simple: sweet pickle juice, Miracle Whip, and fancy chunk white albacore with the water drained. It was sweet and plain, but delicious.

When I moved to Japan, I had to modify the recipe a bit because bread for sandwiches was expensive, chunk white tuna in water was unheard of and they didn't have Miracle Whip. I started mixing a can of oil-packed tuna (the low-grade stuff) with Japanese Mayo (laden with MSG -- yum) and serving it over rice. I called it a Japanese Tuna Sandwich.

After I moved back home, I reverted to the old recipe, but kept serving it on rice. The rice was more filling (and nutritious) than white bread and it was warm, which felt nice in the morning. Em started calling this Tuna Rice and we'd occasionally have it for a quick dinner or lunch, almost always served with some nori so we could make ad-hoc rice balls or onigiri.

Recently, the tuna salad recipe itself morphed into something my mother wouldn't approach unless there was a nuclear holocaust on. It's now a can of tuna, juice from Bubbie's bread and butter pickles, capers, mayo, deli mustard and some Japanese pickles. It's really good.

Upon seeing a commercial on TV:

"Oooo... look! Dental care things!"

No longer the mod over at dp_snark. YAY!

Found this article via damnportlanders and wanted to share it with everyone. Not only was the guy a great director, he sounds like a fantastic man as well.


http://wellknowwhenwegetthere.blogspot.com/2009/08/sincerely-john-hughes.html

( Article text underneath the cut )

Up until recently, I've been watching the weddingplans community for (at least to me) pretty obvious reasons. I finally decided to give up on the community, so I'm looking for something to fill out my FL again. Ideas? Fun personal journals will also be considered.

After the last wedding we shot at the beach, I couldn't stop talking about a particular image I caught of the bride and groom on the beach at sunset. Because I just have to share, here it is:

Saw this on tastee's journal and just had to re-post it.

For those of you who are interested in following the RLP Blog, I've set up an RSS Feed since we moved from our old home (thereversedlens) to our new wordpress blog.

The feed can be found at reversedlens.

I found an awesome mix CD on the side of the road the other day and have been able to identify all but 3 of the 22 tracks. Two of them are covers, which renders programs like Shazam! useless. I figured out the original songs, at least.

#1 - Cover of Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" featuring prominent piano and a female lead vocalist. It's by Detroit artist MoZella on her "I Will" album.
#2 - Cover of Eliot Smith's "Between The Bars", also with a female vocalist (Regina Spektor?) and prominent piano. I'm almost certain that it's not Metric, though it could be an alternate version of the Metric cover. Chris Garneau, "Music For Tourists".

I'm willing to do some more looking, I'm just not quite sure where to look. Any ideas? Both were found through iTunes and Everyday Music is holding copies of the CDs for me.

Thanks to whoever threw out their mix disk! I love it!

There is a half-mile stretch of pavement between Scholl's Ferry Road and the private school I attended for twelve years. It is a long, straight stretch with two lanes and a few houses lining the quarter mile closest to Scholl's. On the west side of the street is a chain link fence and holes 5 and 6 of the Oregon Golf Club. It is a picturesque approach to the school that includes a bridge so narrow that some of the parents will wait on one side or the other rather than cross at the same time as another car.

The straightness of the road and the length make it a severe temptation to students who wish to speed. It is so tempting, in fact, that I have personal knowledge of two of my classmates who were caught drag racing down this road. Campus security banned them from driving to campus for two weeks. I'm sure they're not the first students to do it, nor will they be the last.

On any given weekday morning during the school year, the road is bustling with cars: young parents in Volvo station wagons and SUV's, high school seniors speeding down the road at twice the posted limit. It is a ritual that each student must go through, every day of the school year.

School is full of these rituals -- the smells of the cafeteria at lunch time, the colors and sounds of campus at various times of year, the road to school, high school assemblies. They serve as way points, markers for how we grow and change over the course of our lives. These way points are constants that remain in spite of the change that occurs around them and around us.

The fascinating thing, and really the way we can measure ourselves, is how we view the constants. There was a time when the road seemed a dauntingly long stretch; by the end of my time at the school, I was surprised when I measured its length at only half a mile. It seemed tiny, a short processional to my daily academics that was typically ignored in favor of the food I was frantically ingesting before 8am. Smells were the same way; they pointed to events in the course of a year or a day. The smell of the cafeteria meant gastronomic risks and socializing. The smell of spring meant sun and laying in the grass during recess and free time.

I attended an assembly at the school today. The teachers, the announcements were all the same as they've always been. The students are frozen in time, the only thing changing is their faces and the style of their clothes. In my eyes, it used to be a different animal, but I can see now that this was just me changing and seeing where I stood in relation to everyone else. It was like a series of pictures where the photographer moves around a central object: the pictures are more about how the photographer is looking at something than they are about the object he's looking at.

I am the photographer. See how the world stays the same as my eyes change.

I ran into one of the Yelp ambassadors at an event a couple weeks ago. I knew what Yelp was, but had never gotten into it. After chatting with Don for a while, though, I decided to give it a go.

It's so fun!

If you do not have a Yelp account, I highly recommend it. It's a great way to find out about a business without using a site like citysearch that takes advantage of the businesses it shows off.

I know theamazingjosh is on Yelp, but are any of the rest of you? Send me your info and I'll add you.

A recent jaunt to Costco in Aloha yielded a case of Mexican-produced Coke made with real cane sugar. In spite of my lack of love for Coca Cola, I find the cane sugar stuff to be great -- and it even comes in glass bottles I can save for later. But I'm still looking for something else.

I would like to find some Dr. Pepper made with real cane sugar. I've had it before thanks to a small bottle ritzcrackerman purchased for me while he was down in Texas and visited the plant. I'd like to use some to stock my photography studio for when we meet with clients, but that requires finding a local source. Plus I want some for myself.

Last night was dinner at Popeye's. Chicken was on sale, 8 pcs. for $4.99. We ate some and then headed up to the studio to meet with a client and secure their deposit. I'm really excited about shooting that wedding -- the reception is at The Secret Society, a local ballroom / recording studio.

This is what I eat when I'm really tired.

1 can stewed tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
2 small cans sliced mushrooms
2 cloves garlic
half an onion

Sauté the onion until caramelized. Add in garlic and mushrooms, cook for 2-3 minutes. Add in stewed tomatoes and tomato sauce. Salt and pepper to taste, simmer for 10-15 minutes. Serve.