Nicci Carrera

November 28, 2014November 30, 2014 Nicci Cooking

Thanksgiving menu, the keepers and the never agains

I thought of this post as I was making this stuffed kabocha squash because my plan was NEVER AGAIN! Ugh, it was awful trying to cut off the top of the squash. It might has well have been a rock. I did get the cleaver in about a millimeter then called for my husband. He managed to get through it, not low enough, but I just cut through the inner meat until I found the seed cavern. I cut up the little bits of squash that I had to cut away on my excavation and threw them into the center, once I cleaned out the seeds. Then the recipe proceeded mostly as planned. This was from a recipe in Sunset Magazine 2010, the contest winners. I use it every year for one of the recipes I’ll explain in a moment. This was the first time I tried the squash. We decided to modify the sauce for the veggies massively, to make it sweeter, low fat, and to lose the Asian taste (soy sauce).

Unfortunately, it was SO GOOD!!!! that it is on the keeper list. Next year we’re going to try to cut through it with the electric carving knife, but I think that will wreck the carving knife. I want my husband to get a clean blade for the Sawzall.

This year I also tried making the fresh cranberry relish that has lemon zest instead of oranges and with chopped ginger. The recipe called for crystallized ginger, but my husband said to use fresh instead. Well, I used the same amount of fresh that the recipe had called for as crystallized, and when I tasted it, my mouth exploded. We added more cranberries (thankfully we bought the jumbo bag at Costco) and more sugar, and after it was chilled, it came out really tasty. Powerful, but tasty. I also made the regular kind with just an orange and sugar.

Fresh Cranberry Relish, on with oranges, one with ginger and lemon zest — Fresh Cranberry Relish, one with oranges, one with ginger and lemon zest

The cranberry duet is also a keeper.

My husband smoked the turkey. It was incredible.

Verdict: keeper.

He made a totally vegetarian stuffing, using those vegetarian sausages you can get at Costco now. He used the chorizo flavored one, another idea from the same magazine. Sorry the photo is blurry. I was too bleary eyed from cooking and cleaning all day to notice!

And for the grand finale, (I already know I’m stuck making this every year…just kidding, I enjoy baking), sweet potato cheesecake with maple cream (not shown). This is why I open that old magazine every year. The fam has to have this.

If you celebrate Thanksgiving, what did you have, and did you enjoy it? Do you have any Never Agains? If you don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, does your country or household have any feast-oriented holidays? If so what do you like to eat and/or cook for that holiday?

November 25, 2014 Nicci Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday!

November 24, 2014November 23, 2014 Nicci China, Travel

A vertical garden in Hong Kong

It was a little hard to photograph this vertical garden, which was in the ICON Hotel restaurant/bar on Kowloon (on the peninsula across Victoria Harbour from Hong Kong Island). Before this one, I had never heard of a vertical garden before, let alone seen one.

And here’s a panorama from a window, Kowloon in the foreground, Hong Kong Island across the harbor.

November 23, 2014 Nicci Uncategorized

Writing contest on Poetry Sans Frontieres

I wanted to let you all know about an opportunity to flex your creative wings. With this contest, you have a chance to win a beautiful book, (including one of the ones I edited), and to have your winning piece published on the Poetry Sans Frontieres website (http://poetrysansfrontieres.weebly.com/contest-page.html).

This contest is for 500 words of poetry or prose. Here is the prompt, which you must respond to in your entry:

“I had gone to no such place but to the smoke of cafes and nights when the room whirled and you needed to look at the wall to make it stop, nights in bed, drunk, when you knew that that was all there was, and the strange excitement of waking and not knowing who it was with you, and the world all unreal in the dark and so exciting that you must resume again unknowing and not caring in the night, sure that this was all and all and all and not caring.”

― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

November 21, 2014 Nicci China, Travel

The Hutongs of Beijing

The Hutongs are the old part of Beijing, quickly disappearing, where you can slip into the past. We took a taxi there, traveling through streets lined with shops and looking quite contemporary, not fancy, but not rundown, lots of restaurants and clothing shops. Then we arrived at the area called the Hutongs.

As old as everything is, there’s a Starbucks near the entrance!

We were wandering along, wide-eyed, wondering how to find a rickshaw driver to take us around, when a very industrious man found us. He had a laminated piece of paper that showed his rickshaw and all the stops on his tour. So we went with him.

He was wonderful. His rickshaw had a little motor, so we didn’t have to feel badly about him peddling large Americans around on his tour. He didn’t speak much English, but what he did speak, he put to good use. “Nice to meet you!” He would say, with a big grin. And “Rickshaw photo!” Then he’d pull over and take our picture with our cameras. We really loved our tour.

November 16, 2014 Nicci Sweden, Travel

City Hall Stockholm

The city hall of Stockholm was really fun to visit.

We were there just before an election and there were campaign signs up everywhere. We walked there, which was quite a ways, and the signs for candidates became denser the closer we came to City Hall.

This is the approach.

We passed the back side of the castle and saw some of the foot guards going up this back road, which was on the other side of the wall where we had watched the changing of the guard the day before. We had been standing by a door, which they opened to admit the guards who started the ceremony. On the way to City Hall, we saw the guards queued up behind the door. (This shot doesn’t have the guards, it just show the bridge leading up to the back of palace.)

There’s a cafeteria in City Hall where we had, for Sweden, a moderately priced lunch.

This shot isn’t city hall, actually, but it’s across from it.

City hall is more of a traditional looking building.

There’s a funny story behind this weird Medusa looking figure, which is in a very beautiful room. That’s real gold paint, by the way. Anyway, what happened was the artist died and the architect had to get someone else to do the figure. I think the substitute artist wasn’t quite as good. The citizens of Stockholm weren’t too pleased with the result! It’s quite huge, too…he he.

This is the roof of the meeting room, which is lovely. I was wishing I had Leanne Cole’s photography skills. I didn’t get great shots of the meeting room, but you can see what it looks like here:

The blue room is a huge hall where they seat the Nobel Prize laureates for the formal dinner.

Here is the what the place setting for the Nobel prize dinner looks like:

They have around 1,300 guests. The number is exact, and all the places are measured precisely so everyone can fit.

At the end of the tour there was this brightly colored board. We figured out all the colored discs were people’s tour stickers. So we added ours. It was kind of fun.

Overall, the tour was really good. I recommend it.

November 15, 2014November 15, 2014 Nicci High Sierra, Photography, Travel

Fall’s farewell

These were from Wednesday. The aspen is one of the three remaining trees I was able to find with leaves still on them. They are in a sheltered spot.

Those blue jays are in for a jolt to their happy existence. They’ll survive the winter, some always do, but I don’t know how.

Wednesday night it started raining and snowing. The last stand of autumn foliage has fallen by now, I’m sure.

November 12, 2014 Nicci High Sierra, Travel

Sky crane at Squaw Valley

They are clear cutting trees out of one of the ski runs at Squaw Valley. This helicopter picks the tree up from the mountain and deposits it in the parking lot at a rate of one every 5 minutes. I was awestruck. I’m told one name for this kind of helicopter is a sky crane.

Here it is after it has picked up the tree and is rising up over the ridge back into view. P1060280

Delivery. P1060296

November 9, 2014 Nicci Photography

Fall colors

What a gift tonight’s sunset was!

November 6, 2014 Nicci Doubtful Sound, New Zealand, Travel

A moment of silence in Doubtful Sound

On the way back on the second day, we were taken into a pristine bay and instructed in the rules of a moment of silence. We were to take our positions so that even the sound of someone’s sneakers slapping on the steps wouldn’t disturb the silence. Of course, we couldn’t take pictures either, not for our “moment,” though we could all happily resume video and photos as soon as it was over.

The sounds of the bird life in Doubtful Sound are faint, perhaps because not so many birds exist due to the introduction of predators to which the native species were not adapted. But with all the engines off, including the generators, and everyone being quiet, birds could be heard calling to one another in the trees on the mountainside.

The water was so still the mirror it made reflected even quite distant waterfalls.

The air was pure and the moment was as spiritual as any I’ve ever experienced.