02/02/08 - UPS Waterfall Park In Seattle

Apparently, this was the site of the first UPS office, back when they were called American Messenger Service. The park was built in 1977 by one of the founders of UPS. For a tiny bit more info, and perhaps a picture or two, try here or here.

01/13/08 - Return of the Special Surprise Waterfall

01/08/08 - New Software - Sunrise, Sunset and iCal

Apparently, a number of people like using iCal, the Macintosh calendar program, but it is sometimes hard to find the calendar you want. TideCal will make a hiker's tidal calendar, while other sites provide calendars with holidays, sporting events, historical birthdays and other such wonders. Now there is an iCal calendar generator for people who just want to know when the sun will rise and set. We call it Sunrise Sunset.

In the traditional of fine Kaleberg Kludges, it requires that you know your latitude and longitude (try getting a map bookmark from Google Maps), your time zone offset, and if you aren't in the US, when daylight saving time starts and ends. We make no warrantees or representations, just software.

11/29/07 - Lacinato Kale Salad

The recipe is simple. Take a bunch of lacinato kale, clean it, remove the stalks, roll it up and cut it into thin strips, perhaps a 1/4 or 1/3 of an inch across. Toss it with a couple of cloves worth of minced garlic, a teaspoon of dried red pepper flakes, a tablespoon of olive oil and lots of lemon. Some lemons are juicier than others, so sometimes a half a lemon will do it, but sometimes we'll need as whole lemon's worth.

It's a light, refreshing salad, and real taste of the North Olympic Peninsula.

10/04/07 - Olympic Salamanders at Dungeness Spit

On the more positive side, we saw our first Olympic salamanders on the trail to the spit. There is a half mile trail through the forest from the parking lot to the descent to the spit proper. We've been taking it for years, but this was the first time we saw our familiar little friends from the Spruce Railroad Trail, Olympic salamanders. They really are that rusty orange, and they were obviously out enjoying the wet. We don't expect them to be out much longer with the colder weather coming, but it was neat seeing them skulking about.

10/03/07 - Moroccan Steamed Lamb Shank

Now, set up the steamer with lots of water. The cooking time is an hour and a half to two hours. You want the shanks tender. Rub the shanks with the saffron-pepper butter. Put the parsley in the steaming basket as a base layer. Then put in the shanks and the peeled onions. Seal the thing up. Check now and then to see if the steamer needs more water, and after 90 minutes start checking to see if the meat is falling off the bone.

When the shanks are ready, mix a few teaspoons of ground cumin with some salt to make the dip. Use gray salt, fleur de sel or kosher salt for better balance and a nice crunch. This is an amazingly good dish. The lamb will be silken and redolent of saffron.

09/05/07 - Alder Wood Bistro Pizza

08/21/07 - New K'Nex Lighting Option

08/14/07 - Late Season Salamanders

08/08/07 - Lake Angeles Trail Bridge Repaired

08/05/07 - Black Douglas Cod - A Northwestern Treat

This dish was suggested by a dish we had at Coupage, a Korean fusion restaurant in Seattle. They served arctic char marinated in fir eau de vie, and it was quite good. This dish has a slightly stronger flavor, and the light green notes of the fir buds come across as rather bright and fruity. No, it doesn't taste like wood pulp.

You might want to check out Clear Creek Distillery, the folks who make the eau de vie, or check out the Washington State Liquor Board for availability.

07/31/07 - The Kaleberg Luau

07/26/07 - Driving Time and Distance Map of the North Olympic Peninsula

To help the many visitors to the park and surrounding areas, we offer this Kaleberg Driving Time and Distance Map of the North Olympic Peninsula. It is based on the distances as computed by Google Maps, but we have used our own estimated driving times rather than the Google estimates. Google has some peculiar ideas on how fast one can drive on various park roads, and they still have the Hurricane Hill Trail from Whiskey Bend to Hurricane Hill as an automobile road! We're sure that was a trail, even before Google was founded. We've also taken some liberties in defining certain intermediate locations which do not appear on any map. In general, things like Elwha Turnoff and Hoh River Crossing are not marked as such on any other map you might find, but are useful junction points linking roads and turnoffs, just what you want for planning your drive.

07/10/07 - Death Cake 2007: The Best Ever

Of course, some of the difference may have resulted from our using Dungeness Valley Creamery milk and Dry Creek Farm eggs. If you study our recipe, you'll see that an important component of the cake is a chocolate pudding made of milk, brown sugar, egg yolk and chocolate. We used a full bar and a bit more of a Plantations bar (over 4 oz), and the chocolate flavor had a magnificent bitter note that was missing in earlier death cakes.

We also used a bar of chocolate for the fudge Cockaigne icing. It didn't dissolve all that well. There was a bit of chocolate residue that formed while we brought the batch to the soft ball stage, but the icing was creamier and richer than usual.

The death cake can be a challenge to make, but the proof is in the eating. As far as we Kalebergs are concerned, this is the best chocolate cake ever.

05/25/07 - The Elwha River Trails

We've done some more exploring in the Elwha River Valley. We've got some new pictures. We've played around with some Photoshop filters. We've updated our web page again.

We finally made it down to Hume's Ranch. For most people that isn't very spectacular, but for us it was quite a feat. We usually head towards Lilian Camp, but something drew us to the river this time. We even made our way towards the terrifying steel cable bridge, high over the Elwha, at Dodger's Point, but good sense asserted itself, and we backed off, squealing in terror.

Check out the latest Kaleberg hiking trail report on the Elwha River Valley to find out more.

05/13/07 - Russian Easter - Moscow Burns

It was another wild Russian Easter at Chez Kaleberg. This time we didn't even get the date right, but we did manage to defend Moscow from the Monster Napoleon. That's our authentic version of Baked Alaska made out of brownies, coffee ice cream, and meringue. What you can't see due to limits on our camera is the flaming brandy. That's right. As in 1812, it took scorched earth, in this case scorched by ironically flaming French brandy, to repel the invader.

Once the Frenchies were kicked out, Moscow was ours for the eating.

05/13/07 - Cape Alava Update

We were just out at Cape Alava and took the 9+ mile loop from the Lake Ozette ranger station to Cape Alava, then down along the beach to Sand Point, and then back inland to the ranger station. We went at a 0.5 foot low tide, but even then, it wasn't easy going, especially with all the fallen trees along the northern part of the beach hike.

Ahlstrom's meadow was in bloom, the ocean lovely and mysterious, and this time, we found the mysterious petroglyphs. The last time we looked, even the ranger was stumped, but this time, there was a school group, and there were the petroglyphs, graven on the rocks. To find out more, and see our new panorama of the beach, read our Kaleberg Report on Cape Alava.

05/11/07 - Great Year For Triliums at Lake Crescent

Last year there seemed to be an awful lot of trilliums along the Lake Angeles trail. This year, there seem to be an awful lot of triliums along the Spruce Railroad trail at Lake Crescent. Keep your eyes open. A lot of them are along the slow ascent at the eastern end of the trail, and it is easy to miss them with all the ferns and shrubs. Also, keep your eyes open for salamanders. They are out there, especially on wetter days.

04/26/07 - Second Beach Report

In honor of Second Beach being reopened, we've updated our Kaleberg report, and we've added lots of new pictures in hopes of luring more people to this often overlooked gem on the Pacific.