Kaleberg Archive for Keyword: christmas, Page: 6

There it is in all its glory.

It's high time we posted a picture of our big Christmas tree. It's a nine foot monster. We had to vultch the local nursery where all the car dealers, real estate agents and other commercial sorts with high ceilings get their trees, and we got a doozy. The stand is actually a slightly reduced version of the stand used by NASA for launching the Space Shuttle. Well, maybe it's not that big, but if everyone had a stand like ours the steel industry would be in better shape.

So, click on the small picture here and get a closer look. Oh yes, and Merry Christmas!

Keywords: christmas

12/10/08 - Christmas Firetruck

Every Christmas in Port Angeles the Christmas firetruck comes around collecting money for charity. It's quite a sight, what with Santa riding on top of the truck and the truck all decorated with lights. The sirens blare while Santa and our intrepid firemen make their way up and down every street in town.

Well, the truck just went by. We made our contribution and got our candy canes. The Christmas season is here.

Keywords: christmas, port angeles

12/26/07 - This Year's Candle Tree

It seems that every year the Christmas trees get bigger. Here is our 2007 candle tree, and this year it is too big to rest on our old television table, and, since it is a bigger tree, it needs more candles. We are now up to 18.

There is nothing like candle light to set off the glory of a Christmas tree. This one is decorated with cookies and Hannukah gelt, but it is the soft glow of firelight that makes it beautiful. Move your mouse over the picture to light the candles and see.

Roll your mouse over the picture to light the tree

Keywords: christmas

12/26/07 - Our Big Tree

This is our main Christmas tree. There isn't much to say. It's nine feet tall and chock full of ornaments. The neatest ones, the sea horse and the Pierrot, are up near the top, but no Christmas tree stands or falls by a single ornament. Only the sheer mass of glitter counts.

Keywords: christmas

12/11/07 - The Annual Christmas Firetruck

Every Christmas the Port Angeles Fire Department takes a tour of the town in a well illuminated firetruck. With sirens blaring and Santa atop it does liven things up around here. It's hard to miss.

Keywords: christmas, port angeles

12/10/07 - Seattle Christmas We were in Seattle the other day and had to admire the Christmas decorations as the shopping season gets into full swing. The gingerbread cookie decorations are from the recently remodeled Sheraton Towers lobby. We always check their Christmas display which was as much fun as ever.

Keywords: christmas, seattle, shopping

01/14/07 - Christmas Tree Cookies

We have finally taken down our cookie tree. Here are some of the surviving cookies. In general, if a cookie tree cookie is going to be eaten, it is usually eaten within the first 15 minutes, shortly after it is dried. These cookies are very pretty, and are most likely edible, but we've had enough treats for the season. They are off to Cookie Valhalla, that Great Oven in the Sky.

Keywords: christmas

12/26/06 - Antisolar Crepuscular Light

After our Christmas dinner, but shortly before sunset we took a walk along the Strait of San Juan de Fuca, starting at Morse Creek. As we headed east back to the parking lot we were extremely aware of the failing light and the cloudy sky. We also noticed dark streaks in the sky towards the east, directly opposite the direction of the setting sun. These were not pillars of smoke, but something more interesting. They were the shadows of clouds cast by the setting sun. (Move your mouse over the picture to see a contrast exagerated view).

Basically, when the sun is low, cloud shadows can be hundreds of miles long. They are most visible when viewed parallel to the direction of the casting light and area least visible when viewed perpendicularly. Because of perspective effects, the rays appear to diverge from the setting sun, which was obscured by the coastal bluffs we were at the base of, and they appear to converge at the antisolar point on the horizon opposite the sun.

Antisolar crepuscular light at Morse Creek

Antisolar crepuscular light as seen from the coastal trail along the Srait of San Juan de Fuca, not far from the mouth of Morse Creek

Keywords: christmas, science, atmosphere, morse creek

12/24/06 - The Dungeness Dike Trail

We were exhausted from all our Christmas preparations and just wanted a place to stretch our legs so we checked out the Dungeness Dike Trail off Towne Road. It is right near the Dungeness Valley Creamery and Nash Huber's farm stand, so we could get some exercise and do some shopping.

The trail is a little gem. We had seen cars parked at the dike access area, and we had heard that this was a good area for birding, but now we have discovered another little treasure. Read our report for more info.

Keywords: dungeness dike trail, farms, trails, christmas, dungeness, nash huber, shopping

12/24/06 - Merry Christmas From The Kalebergs

We haven't been doing too many updates this month because we've been really busy, and a lot of that busy has been decorating the house with Christmas trees. That includes the candle tree to the left. We usually have a little candle tree that fits on this old television table that we have, but this year all of the little trees were too scraggly or too lean or too something or other, so we bought the smallest tree we could find that looked good enough to decorate with cookies and candles, and that is the monster to the left. If you move your mouse over it you can see how it looks with the candles lit and the lights out. It is awesome to behold, and silent. For some reason candles seem quieter than electric lights.

Here is our big tree. That's a nine foot ceiling so you get the scope of the thing. We could barely lift it, and only our engineering training enabled us to bring it to a proper vertical. We've crammed it with lights, ornaments and presents, so it looks pretty full, but it could take more. This is a truly huge tree, perfect for this season of excess. We actually had to cut off a bit at the top to fit the finial on, so we're glad we rushed out to the nursery right around Thanksgiving to grab one of the giants.

Keywords: christmas, kale

11/16/06 - A Few Words From Dungeness Valley Creamery

We've just gotten word from Sarah Brown on what's happening at Dungeness Valley Creamery:

Hello to all,

Things are going well on the farm and in the creamery and we thank everyone for their support!

Fall is in full swing and that means two things for us. One, the fields are muddy and cows must come in...and two, the Holidays will be here before we know it. Thanksgiving is next week! Can you believe it? Although we will be closed Thanksgiving Day, we hope that you bring your family and friends out to the farm and visit our creamery beforehand (or after). Come pet the new babies and visit the mamas who provide you with the freshest and creamiest raw milk. Along with the whole raw milk you'll find nummy cheeses made by Mount Townsend Creamery from our "girls'" milk. These cheeses are sure to delight the palette of your Thanksgiving meal guests. Special ingredients make the feast special. Be sure to pick up local foods including the raw milk (with cream on the top), eggs, and freshly baked breads and dinner rolls. Remember, Nash's organic produce store is just down the road from us for your Holiday veggie needs.

Our Creamery store also offers other locally made gift items. You'll find cards, scarves, lavender products, herbal salves, photographs, artwork(BarnArt) and more. For our first Christmas, we will be featuring handmade "KeyAngel" ornaments made by my sister, Kim Bergstrom! All proceeds from the "Key Angels" will go to benefit Children's Hospital. At birth, the Children's Hospital performed emergency surgury and saved her life! She was a patient at Children's for the first six months of her life and wants to support a cause that means so much to her!

Next Holiday season we would love to offer fresh raw jersey cream and that is one of our goals. Another goal is to start making an aged cheese. For this to be possible we must have more help! We need four night milkings covered and one or more morning milkings. Calf feeders are needed as well. We just cannot add on any more projects until this happens. If you or anyone you know is interested please contact us.

One addition to our farm that has helped a lot is our new manure separator! This may sound strange to most of you but this is a huge relief to us as my dad usually spends most of the winter making the separator work. Well, our new one actually works...by itself! That means more time for our new creamery and also more manure solids for your gardens.

On a side note, a few new stores are carrying our raw jersey milk! They are The Olympia Food Co-ops east and west, Nash's (Sequim/Dungeness) and The Gifting Place (Port Angeles). We also have new drop points in Bremerton (Evergreen Market in Bremerton went out of business), Mercer Island, Poulsbo, and Quilcene. Please feel free to contact us with questions about any of these locations or possible new drop points!

Thanks again for supporting local farms and farmers! A community that depends on and supports one another is a healthy community!

Sarah Brown

Dungeness Valley Creamery
1915 Towne Rd.
Sequim, WA 98382
360/683-0716

Keywords: farms, christmas, dungeness, food, milk, port angeles, winter, mount townsend creamery

12/23/05 - Fruitcake Is Illuminated - A Special Report

Wow, have we been busy. It is definitely time for an update. What have we been doing? Well, we illuminated our fruitcake. Read our special report for more on this. That's just a close up on the right.

We've also been decorating the cookie tree. We have some pictures of last year's cookie tree here.

Keywords: christmas, food, special report, kale

12/13/05 - The Port Angeles Christmas Firetruck

Every year the Port Angeles fire department runs their collection for the local food banks, Operation Candy Cane. They deck out one of their trucks with lights and get Santa up on the top of the rig to hand out candy canes to all good boys and girls, and to those who give something for people short on food. You can't miss this food drive, what with the lights and sirens it's quite a spectacle. We always give cash, since we doubt that a bunch of lacinato kale is going to do as much good as a few leaves of lettuce.

The firemen may be back fighting fires now, but you can always find a local food drive or food bank if you want to be good.

Keywords: christmas, port angeles, food, kale

12/07/05 - Flat Screen and Pregnant - A Kaleberg journey into computer French

Christmas season often finds us browsing the internet for presents. It's also finals season, so we find ourselves browsing in French to keep our vocabulary up to date. Such is the price of being a homework helper. All this highly focussed browsing often gets us to interesting web pages, for example, those with gift ideas in French. This led us to ponder the tribulations of being écran plat and enceinte, flat screen and pregnant. It turns out that this is quite easy in French, if you speak proper computer French. For more on this, see our latest Kaleberg journey.

Keywords: humor, science, christmas, kale

02/05/05 - The World's Smallest Lumber Yard

We were just driving through Joyce, a small town west of Port Angeles, and we couldn't help but notice the little lumber yard right along Route 112. Joyce is a rather small town, but it has a restaurant or two, a laundromat, a general store, a health club, and a video rental center. These are all smallish operations, so the lumber yard is perhaps of the proper size for Joyce. Still, we had never seen such a small lumber yard before. Even the few lumber yards we've found in Manhattan, noted for its excruciating real estate prices, were larger.

Our curiosity had been piqued. Does this little lumber yard sell four by twelves, or do you have to make do with two by fours?

Kidding aside, they must have a system. This is Joyce, and Joyce is in lumber country. Perhaps this is a cut your own lumber yard. We've seen self pick strawberries, self pick lavender, and cut your own Christmas trees. Why not a cut your own lumber yard?

It all makes perfect sense. You pick up a chainsaw in the little building by the road, and while you're out in the forest picking out a likely looking tree, they'll be firing up the sawmill. We're not sure how they get the wood properly seasoned. Maybe they have one of those microwave wood kilns, sort of like at the convenience store, except big enough for a whole tree trunk. There is a lot of emphasis on knowing the ingredients in your restaurant meal these days. Why settle for Nieman Ranch beef, when you can meet the steer, and maybe tussle a bit? Why settle for factory farmed Home Depot lumber, when you can cut your own. It's so much more authentic.

Of course, the local tree varietal out in Joyce is probably cedar, but we can almost hear the guy at the yard saying, "Redwood. Not a problem. We've got seeds." But that is another story.

Keywords: humor, christmas, port angeles

01/05/05 - Udjat Beads

We were shopping for some Christmas presents in Port Angeles and dropped into the old Bead Tree store in the newly restored Elks building. The Elks buildings is sort of our local skyscraper and has recently recovered from damage from a fire a year ago. The camera store was back along with a new Internet cafe. There was also the bead store, but not the bead store we remembered.

The old bead store was a bit austere, for a bead store, that is. The new place was lush, with bins and strands and boxes and tubes of beads of all shapes, sizes, colors and levels of specular reflection. Udjat has two rooms full of everything you might ever need for stringing beads.

They also have a variety of belly dancing accessories. Belly dancing has been getting quite fashionable, both as dance and as exercise. If nothing else, it builds up the abdominal muscles, and you can work up a sweat. We didn't investigate their belly dancing products in detail, but they don't stock the DVDs. They do stock the decorative scarves and some shawls, and you can design your own accessories with their full line of beads.

Keywords: shopping, port angeles, christmas, elk

12/18/04 - Our Candle Tree

Here is our candle lit cookie tree, all aglow.
There is nothing quite like the light from a tree lit by candles. Incandescent bulbs have a certain warm beauty and LEDs are pure and elegant, but there is nothing like a flickering candle to evoke the ghosts of the winter season.

To light up our tree, move your mouse cursor over the image to the left.

To see a bigger picture of the tree, follow this link.

Keywords: christmas, winter, kale

12/17/04 - Choucroute Meets Champagne

Tomorrow night is our Christmas party. It's an even year, so we're serving choucroute garni. That's French for garnished sauerkraut, and boy do we garnish. We've got four smoked pheasants, three pounds of ham, tons of weisswurst, bratwurst and smoked duck magret. It is all rather overwhelming.

You make choucroute by laying pork fat, duck fat and a few token vegetables in a matrix of well rinsed sauerkraut. We are using 6 of the 4 lb jars from CostCo, so we should have plenty. On the right you can see an early vegetable layer.

Champagne is one of the ingredients in choucroute, and you have to really pour it on. We'll probably go through four bottles on this batch alone. Click on the choucroute image to the right and see our little Quicktime movie: Champagne Meets Choucroute

Keywords: christmas, food, movies

12/13/04 - This Year's Cookie Tree The Christmas trees are up and our house is becoming one big grove. We held our cookie tree decorating party yesterday and now the air is full of pine scent and gingerbread. We hold a cookie party primarily for children, but it is the adults who do most of the decorating. The children run around and play with our K'Nex. Some of them do decorate cookies, and this should cause great satisfaction to the grinders of extra fine confectioner's powdered sugar and the folks in the food dye plants. Now, all we have to do is hang our stockings by the chimney with care and stuff all our presents under the tree.

Keywords: christmas, food, k'nex

11/05/04 - New York City Update

We have just returned from a visit to New York City, and we must admit that things are bustling there. The tourist trade seems to have recovered. Thanks to the weak dollar Europeans seem to be shopping again. We did some shopping ourselves. We loaded up on chili and curry powders at Aphrodisia in the Village, we bought some books at the Lenox Hill Bookstore, we found a new annular hat at Boyd's, and we got our building supplies at Home Front, a 7/24 hardware store and lumber yard not far from the Empire State Building.

First, we'll talk about the bookstore. There used to be a really nice little bookstore on Madison Avenue. Not the one owned by the IBM heiress by the Whitney, but the other one. It always had an interesting collection of literature and art books. Even when we didn't buy anything, the place always got us thinking. When it closed, we stuck with the Borders on 57th and the Barnes and Noble on Union Square.

Madison Avenue has been changing. It has always been upmarket, but it is going international. This means it is getting more and more mall like over the years as upmarket global vendors leave Fifth Avenue and move north and east. So, we've been spending more and more time over on Lexington Avenue, and the Lenox Hill Bookstore is our latest find. It's a homey little place crammed full of books, including a lot of good reading. They tend to stock fewer authors, but more titles from those that they do. The art book collection was full of interesting stuff, not just coffee table gifts. This is a sign that they know their customers. We bought a few things for the flight home and some Christmas presents.

As for HomeFront, the hardware store and lumber yard, we stayed for part of a trip at a relative's apartment, and there were a few deferred maintenance items, as they say in commercial aviation. We needed to buy a light switch, a door knob and mechanism, tapes, glues, a screwdriver and some other goodies. We have heard that there is a new Home Depot on 14th Street, but our favorite hardware store is on 29th Street off Third Avenue. They are open seven days a week, twenty four hours a day, and they stock a broad supply of electrical, mechanical and plumbing items. They also sell glass, lumber, steel plates, cleaning supplies and the like. It's a big place for Manhattan, with three floors and a basement, and the staff knows its stuff.

We had a less satisfactory experience at Magnolia Bakery. They still have the buzz, and the lines run around the corner, but the quality of the cakes has been slipping over the past year or two. Has this trend reversed? We couldn't find out. We ordered German chocolate cake, but our box contained spice cake. We wound up doing a forced march to Buttercup Bake Shop where the German chocolate cake is still excellent.

Since we are on the subject of cakes and confections, we should note that La Maison du Chocolat is in excellent form, and that our current favorite hot chocolate is Caracas.

We visited a number of our favorite restaurants including some old favorites like the Union Square Cafe, the Pearl Oyster Bar, Wallse and the Tabla Bread Bar. All were at the top of their form. The knockerle dessert at Wallse has really grown, and there is a rumor that the chef at Tabla may be producing a cookbook some time in late 2005. We can hardly wait.

On a side note, we often go over upcoming Claypool comics while having dinner with one of our Claypool friends. Comic book original artwork is oversized, so it is hard to be discreet. One of the folks working at the Tabla Bread Bar noticed that one of us was in the business and dropped by to say hello. It turns out he was Daniel Miller whose Creased original graphic novel is soon coming out from Image comics. We haven't a clue about the book, but it shows that the comic book business isn't quite dead yet.

We liked Savoy so much on our last trip to New York that we went back twice on this trip. The big hit was the roasted cauliflower with hen of the woods mushrooms seasoned with a bit of five spice powder. We also loved the fava bean fritters. That, and everything else.

October, as it turned out, was New York State Wine Month, so we had a number of good glasses of New York State wine at our first meal. New York State wines are quite good, and a lot of them haven't bought in to the Robert Parker fruit bomb 20% alcohol thing, so you can still drink them with a meal. At our second meal, all the New York State wines were gone, even though it was still New York State Wine Month. The reason: lack of demand, and a variety of issues revolving around restaurant stocking mechanisms.

We tried two new restaurants. Spice Market, Jean Georges Vongerichten's new place in the trendy meat packing district, and Tia Pol, a little tapas bar in trendy Chelsea. Spice Market was a bust with bad service and mediocre Thai food. We were distinctly unimpressed. Tia Pol, in contrast, with its imaginative little Spanish dishes and well chosen wine list, excelled. It might be a hole in the wall, but the food was excellent, and they had a great neighborhood attitude.

The Lower East Side has been getting trendy, like so many other New York City neighborhoods, so we decided to check it out. We remember Katz's "Send a Salami to Your Boy in the Army" promotion from the 1960s, but there have been a lot of changes since then. Katz's is still there, and you can now send a salami to Iraq. Walking around, we could not help but notice that the entire neighborhood, once the epitome of an overcrowded slum, has been moving upmarket.

This is happening one store front at a time.

In some neighborhoods gentrification comes in like a juggernaut. Entire blocks are rebuilt, store fronts are remodeled, traffic is rerouted, and if you didn't have a GPS you'd swear that you were somewhere else. On the Lower East Side the overall fabric seems intact, but here and there you will notice a boarded up store front or an empty shop with a building permit posted. That ratty looking place across the street is now selling designer clothing, and the designer is working at the shop. The menus in the window now feature foie gras.

It seems that the Lower East Side was always about retail, despite the "I can get it for you wholesale" bravado. It was a neighborhood of small shop keepers and pushcarts. We didn't see any pushcarts, but the small shop keepers were there in force. Still, we couldn't help thinking about a 1939 article in Fortune magazine about the New York City pushcarts. Apparently shop keepers used to fight to get the pushcarts on THEIR side of the street since they encouraged foot traffic and often meant 50% more business. Now, we gather, that shop keepers want the pushcarts elsewhere.

We'll keep checking out the Lower East Side and see what develops.

Towards the end of our trip, we checked out the new Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. The subway station and new escalators are great, but inside, it's a mall. That's right, it's just a big shopping mall. There was really not much reason to look around, since we knew what we would find, so we left. We really have nothing against malls, except that they lack serendipity. Maybe we should be thinking of it as the Suburban Embassy to New York City.

So, that was our trip to New York. We'd like to thank San Juan Airlines for making this all much more convenient with their $49 (each way) air taxi from Port Angeles to Boeing Field. At $98 a pop for the two of us it was only a little bit more expensive than the cab from Newark.

Keywords: food, restaurants, shopping, new york city, art, christmas, port angeles, wine

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