Kaleberg Archive for Keyword: port angeles, Page: 2

07/13/10 - Klahane Ridge It took us a bit of doing, but we managed to climb up the Switchback Trail to Klahane Ridge. We had been putting it off for all the usual reasons which generally come down to laziness and possibly cowardice. We hadn't really intended to get all the way up to the ridge. In fact, our goal was the junction with the trail to the lodge, around 630' above the parking lot. Somehow, we pushed on, climbing another 850' or so. We were well rewarded. The snows have melted, save for a few patches by the side of the trail. The flowers are in serious bloom, and we even managed to catch a few avalanche lilies along with the usual glacier lilies, violets, phlox, indian paintbrush, cow parsnip, and a host of others. But, the big reward was at the ridge itself. No, there wasn't much of a view of Port Angeles. The bowl in the mountains was full of cloud, but right on the trail was a male mountain goat in a clearly mellow mood. He posed for the camera, munched on the foliage, gave himself a dust bath and sauntered on. There was another reward waiting for us near our trailhead. All along the trail the air was full of phlox, a deep sweet scent, but there was a different scent, a familiar one. The bog orchids in the streams by the parking lot were coming into bloom. All told, it was a most rewarding hike. P.S. Did we mention the views? Yes, there were spectacular views.	Our ascent into the clouds
The hanging gardens	The view from above
A surprisingly mellow mountain goat	Posing for the camera
He's so cute.	Another view
Violets	Phlox
This is a great year for larkspur.	Bog orchids

Keywords: flowers, klahane ridge, port angeles, animals

06/28/10 - Farmers' Market Update

We do more shopping than ever at the Port Angeles Farmers' Market. That's where we get most of our beef, lamb, and seafood, as well as almost all of our vegetables. This has been a slow year, and, frankly, we're a bit worried about Nash Huber's stand which has been surprisingly bare of produce. "Where's our broccoli?" Where's our cauliflower?", we asked. Nash's folks say that this is a seed year, which is good news for the future, but not for 2010. Despite this, there was broccoli, at Lazy J! We loaded up. We have some catching up to do. Knock wood we'll be seeing more early summer vegetables next week.

Broccoli!

Keywords: farmers' market, nash huber, port angeles, shopping, summer

The old Blockbuster Video

05/16/10 - The Video Store That Would Not Die

The death of video stores is big news lately. Between movie downloads, falling DVD prices, one dollar movie rental kiosks, and the collapse of Blockbuster Video, one wonders how many video stores will be around in a few years. We remember way back before Port Angeles even had a Blockbuster that there was a video rental store on Lincoln Street that had a great VHS tape collection. That store turned into a Blockbuster, and many of their VHS tapes are at our local library. Now Blockbuster is gone, and that video store is still doing business, now as The Movie House. We'll see how they do.

Keywords: port angeles

05/05/10 - From the Air Yes, we post an awful lot of pictures from our Kenmore Air flights to and from Boeing Field, but we can't resist. There is some amazing scenery around here.	Port Angeles, banking after take off
Sequim Bay	Hood Canal
The Hood Canal Bridge - It looks closed.	Our evening return to Port Angeles - sunset

Keywords: kenmore, flying, port angeles

04/21/10 - Kol Simcha Lamb Shanks

Kol Simcha Farms has been selling their lamb for a few weeks at the Port Angeles Farmers' Market. We've finally gotten around to doing a taste test with a bunch of lamb shanks. We steamed them up Moroccan style in our couscousiere. We put the shanks in the bowl with an onion, some parsley, some butter and a pinch or two of saffron. Then, we steamed for two hours or so, and when they were ready, the meat was falling from the bone. We served them with a mixture of ground cumin and salt, and Kaleberg Laboratories says they were delicious. The meat was tender and full of flavor. We don't know what kind of sheep they're raising, but they are mighty good eating. That's our first report. Now we have to try their lamb chops. They are next on our list.

The shanks are sold frozen, in packages

That's our couscousiere on the stove top.

Those are tender lamb shanks.

Keywords: farmers' market, port angeles

04/11/10 - Farmers' Market Update

When the icy winter winds howl through the Port Angeles Farmers' Market at the Gateway Center, it seems as if a mere handful of survivors huddle in its vasty space. Now that the Gateway is beset more with icy spring winds, that huddle of survivors has grown to a goodly number of farmers and other vendors, and the vasty space is filling up nicely.

One of this week's arrivals was Mount Townsend Creamery. They're based in Port Townsend, and they've been selling some pretty good cheeses for a few years now. One of our favorites, their Trailhead cheese, seems to have vanished, but they've replaced it with a new cheese, Red Alder, and from our sample, it seems to be just as good. Another new cheese, their washed rind tomme, also seems to be a Trailhead descendant. They are both farmhouse cheeses, great for melting on toast. They're also selling their Seastack and Cirrus cheeses, which are soft, rather than farmhouse in style, and, for a real treat, they have their delicate fromage blanc.

Other notes: There are more greens, everywhere. The garlic shoots made a great stir fry, and check out Johnston Farm for their garlic radish leaves. They were great sauteed.

Mount Townsend Creamery will be at the market, and they are selling two new cheeses.

Westwind Farms with their potatoes

Nash Huber's stand in the foreground as the market fills out for the season

Lazy J greens

Bell Street Bakery

Keywords: farmers' market, farms, johnston farm, nash huber, port angeles, westwind farm, mount townsend creamery

04/03/10 - The Farmers' Marking is Springing Back

The Port Angeles Farmers' Market is springing back. Red Dog Farm, The Family Farm and Johnston Farm are all back, a sure sign of spring. Wild West had some magnificent halibut and kushi oysters. We went for the oysters at Mystery Bay, because we were too lazy to shuck our own. We were quite loaded down with beef, eggs, fish, kale raab, garlic radish leaves, german butterball potatoes, and other goodies, so we didn't explore everything. We did notice the jam and preserves people had their stand up, and even more people were selling eggs. We will get around to everyone eventually. Word is that more farmers are harvesting, so we're looking forward to the season.

P. S. There is a real demand for local foods around here. The Clark Family Farm expected to sell two animals in their first month. They sold out in a week.

Johnston Farm is back

The Family Farm is back - It looks like spring!

Red Dog is back too!

Keywords: farmers' market, johnston farm, oysters, port angeles, spring, clark family

03/21/10 - Bicycle Art

Now that they've paved the Morse Creek to Port Angeles leg of the Olympic Discovery Trail, you might think that you'd see a lot fewer bicycles with bent wheels and damaged frames, but you'd be wrong. One of the local families, with one of the prettiest gardens, has put up an art installation that can be seen as either an ironic comment or perhaps a warning against tresspassers. We'll let you judge.

Keywords: morse creek, port angeles, art

03/08/10 - Sefrina

Sefrina isn't the next town after Hilda. Sefrina is a Moroccan cholent, a great, easy to make Moroccan stew with a ridiculously long cooking time. We found out about it in Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco. Aside from the six hour cooking time, it is an easy dish to make. That's right, it cooks for six hours total, but your oven does all the heavy lifting. Everything gets wonderfully tender, and the eggs develop an amazing creamy texture as they hardboil.

We made this version with a 3lb 10oz pot roast from the Clark Family Farm. It had a nice big marrow bone which you can see floating there in the photo. The potatoes were from the Johnston Farm and the eggs from Westwind Farm, so this qualifies as a Port Angeles Farmers' Market dish. We also used dried chick peas, but they weren't from the Farmers' Market. You can make this dish with canned chick peas, but this is obviously not a dish you can throw together in a hurry, so why bother with time saving conveniences?

Our Moroccan stew

The eggs get tan and creamy.

The recipe:

The night before, soak a cup of dried chick peas in water overnight.
Start boiling six cups of water in a tea kettle.
Preheat the oven to 375°F.
Take a big casserole with a lid and dump in the chick peas.
Add 3 or 4 pounds of beef cut into big chunks. Pot roast is great, but it is better if there is a bone or two.
Add six potatoes.
Gently tuck six raw eggs into the ingredients so far.
Chop up four cloves of garlic and sprinkle them on top.
Sprinkle with a few pinches of salt, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/4 teaspoon of saffron or turmeric.
When the water comes to a boil, pour it on.
Cover and put it in the oven for an hour.
Lower the heat to 250°F and let it cook for another five hours.

Keywords: farmers' market, johnston farm, port angeles, food, westwind farm, clark family, recipe

02/18/10 - What's the next town after Joyce?

We were looking at an old map of Washington State in an early 1930s edition of The Volume Library and couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot more towns west of Port Angeles back then. For example, there was the town of Ramapo, right there on the statewide map. What was Ramapo? Where is it today? There were even towns west of Joyce; the next town was Hilda, and even further west, there was the town of Majestic. How could we not have heard of a town named Majestic? We had driven out west on route 112, but we had never noticed any signs for Majestic.

Naturally, we decided to investigate. So, follow the link for the mystery of the missing towns, or who's Hilda.

The map that started it all

Keywords: science, port angeles, maps

01/02/10 - Winter Market Just because it is the middle of winter doesn't mean that the Port Angeles Farmers' Market is closed. It's open every Saturday from 10-2 at the Gateway Center, and the farmers are there including Westwind, Johnston and Nash Huber stands along with Tuna Dan, Bell Street Bakery and the guy with the mushrooms and seafood whose name we have forgotten. We bought a lovely piece of black cod from the guy whose name we forgot, so he is worth a trip to the market in his own right.	Johnston Farm
Westwind Farm	Nash Huber
Tuna Dan	Bell Street Bakery

Keywords: farmers' market, johnston farm, nash huber, port angeles, winter, westwind farm

12/10/09 - Santa Is Coming To Town

Every year the Port Angeles fire department sends out one of their old trucks, adorned with lights, with Santa on board. You can hear the siren making its way up one block and down another. Then come the lights, the siren getting closer, one of the volunteers handing out candy canes and then, there he is, Santa! We can't resist, and we always give something. It's a great way to get into the spirit of the season.

Keywords: port angeles

11/24/09 - Wild Weather on the Morse Creek Trail The Morse Creek Trail is that section of the Olympic Discovery Trail that runs from Morse Creek west to the town of Port Angeles. It should be a relatively mild trail. It is paved, and it runs through Port Angeles proper and the unincorporated area to the east. In fact, it is a surprisingly wild and open trail since it runs along the Strait of San Juan de Fuca at the base of the bluffs, and there is little access to the trail between where it meets the strait and Hollywood Beach in town. The recent rains that left much of Clallam County without power for the better part of a week, and claimed the life of one of the brave folks trying to repair things, left their mark on the Morse Creek Trail as well. To start, the creek was swollen and high on its banks. There were twigs and branches all over the trail. More seriously, parts of the bluffs had collapsed sending mud across the trail. There were trees down across the trail in places, and the trail had officially been marked as closed,	Morse Creek - That L shaped branch on the left is covered with water. usually the creek flows well under that branch.
One of the little waterfalls at the top of the bluffs	The trail blocked
The ominous trail	More trees on the trail
Wild waves and great views	An expedition ship searching for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow

Keywords: morse creek, port angeles

08/28/09 - The Port Angeles Farmers' Market Has Moved The Port Angeles Farmers' Market has moved back downtown, to the new Gateway Center on Front and Lincoln. It's a nice space, and most of the regular vendors are there. We're hoping the market's new home works out in the long run.

Keywords: farmers' market, port angeles

07/30/09 - Farmers' Market Update

We haven't been reporting on the Port Angeles Farmers' Market lately, so it's time for an update.

Right now, the market is in full swing. We've seen the Johnston Farm, Lazy J, Nash Huber, Red Dog, The Family Farm, Westwind, Rick's, Black Sheep and a number of others including the Korean lady who has great garlic. We've probably missed a few in that list, so we'll apologize now, and next time we'll take better notes.

One farmer we had been waiting for was Harley of Dry Creek, who has excellent organic eggs. He had been between flocks of chickens, but we had expected him in late June. Now he's back, and we're glad to see him.

We've been to the Saturday market and the Wednesday market at the Gateway, and this last Wednesday we noticed a new non-farm vendor, Chocolate Serenade with handmade chocolate truffles. We particularly liked the cayenne pepper truffles, but, then again, we like spicy food.

Dry Creek Farm is back

Lazy J

Chocolate Serenade

The Johnston Farm

Black Sheep Farm

Keywords: dry creek farm, farmers' market, johnston farm, nash huber, port angeles

06/14/09 - Angelcrest Farm We recently needed a new hanging basket, so we stopped at Angelcrest Farm on route 112, west of Port Angeles. We had driven by quite a few times, but never had occasion to stop in. Now we had an excuse, and we were well rewarded. They had a great variety of hanging baskets, and a good selection of plants on sale. We bought a white fuschia, and we plan to return.

Keywords: port angeles, farms, flowers

06/07/09 - The Marathon

We were on the Olympic Discovery Trail heading west from Morse Creek, so we couldn't miss the marathon. It wasn't as crazy as the Boston Marathon, but there were lots of runners and lots of folks out being encouraging. Some folks had put up signs. Others had left messages in chalk on the trail. The Coast Guard had a stand giving out water, orange slices and good cheer. The Strait of San Juan de Fuca was as beautiful as ever. We did our part and tried to stay out of the way. For the most part, we succeeded.

We loved all the posters and messages for the runners.

Keywords: morse creek, port angeles

05/14/09 - Flight To Tacoma

We just got back from Tacoma. We'll post more in a bit. For now, here's a photo of the view west from our takeoff at Fairchild Airport (CLM). You can see Striped Peak and probably out past Clallam Bay.

The view west from Port Angeles

Keywords: port angeles, tacoma, striped peak

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