very interesting

i've just received this week's "site meter" report, which tells me, if i look at a world map view, the location of the people who have looked at our family blog. interestingly, it's not only us nachtigals. someone from indonesia, one from malaysia, two from spain, one from cairo, one from rio and and even one from bogota, columbia have looked at our little blog! how cool is that?

the vegetable of the gods

it's that time of year, when the lovely little asparagus nubs begin to burst forth from the soil. on a warm, sunny day, you could probably lie there in the garden and actually watch them grow up out of the rich, black earth. mouth watering as you imagine a pat of butter melting over them, a few crystals of flaky salt sprinkled upon them.

dad has a huge asparagus patch and during high season can pick bucketfuls a day. giving them away and mom freezes some. but, it's best eaten fresh at every meal (unless it activates your gout) during that short but blissful season.

i remember as a kid, one of the major delights of spring was going asparagus hunting. finding those spots in bovee where someone long, long ago planted a few roots and fed their family on the brilliant green shoots. it was such a delight finding a spot in the ditch where you could see a few of last year's dried stalks and you knew that down at their base you'd find a sign of spring, bursting forth. it felt so delicious, getting such a delicacy for free. there was another place south and west of town where we always hunted asparagus as well, tho' i can't remember the name of it. it was a regular spring ritual, one i so looked forward to, year after year.

as barbara kingsolver says in animal, vegetable, miracle, "Respecting the dignity of a spectacular food means enjoying it at its best." and asparagus is at its best right now. what are you waiting for, go eat some!!!

recipe for a spring lunch

i posted this over on just know where you are, but i thought i'd post it here as well in light of my suggestion that we create a family cookbook. leading by example and such...

i hereby present a delicious spring lunch. should be eaten outdoors if at all possible. preferably from the same big bowl with just a fork for all those who partake. there are a host of inspirations here--japanese, spanish, nordic, "julish."

salad

1 small kohlrabi, diced
1 small bunch of asparagus, cut into bite-sized pieces and put in boiling water for 3-4 minutes, then cooled down immediately with cold water to keep the brilliant spring green
1 chorizo sausage, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 handful herbs (i used that wonderful ramsløg stuff--wild garlic leaves picked in the forest) but a handful of parsley or even cilantro would be good
1 package of cherry (or small plum) tomatoes, cut into bite size
1 small package macadamia nuts
handful of manchego (or other hard) cheese, diced (again with the bite-sized pieces

toss it all together in a bowl

dressing

1 large spoonful of red miso
1 teaspoon honey
good glug of olive oil
a few drops of sesame oil (you don't need much
juice of ½ a lemon

whisk it together, taste. if it needs something, a bit of rice vinegar and/or soy sauce should do the trick

pour it over the salad. serve in the sun with a loaf of good bread slathered in butter and sprinkled with flaky salt. drink white wine with it.

lamb steaks

i bought this gorgeous lamb steak in the grocery store today. lovely cuts of lamb--tenderloins, chops with the beautiful little rib bones and now steaks like this one are increasingly available in our grocery stores. i think that is just great!

i'm marinading this one with chopped "ramsløg"--a kind of wild garlic that grows in the forests around here and which is tender, fragrant and delicious this time of year, a dash of salt and pepper, organic italian extra virgin olive oil and a french white wine made from organically-grown grapes. although it's a bit difficult to judge the size from the picture above, this steak is large enough for the three of us to share for dinner.

all of this provoked me to think about dan and sam's lamb business and how they're also working to increase the amount of lamb on the tables in the US as well. it's a wonderful, delicious, tender meat and i find myself buying it at least once a week. with the increasing availability of tempting cuts like the steak above (i'd never seen steaks before), it will do nothing but get more popular.

at easter, the company which delivers my weekly box of organic vegetables had a special offer on a leg of lamb from their own lambs. we got a beautiful 3500gram leg of lamb that had never been frozen (a lot of the lamb we get in denmark is actually new zealand lamb, so it' s been frozen) and a beautiful lamb sausage. i made it easter weekend and invited my friend who grew up in new zealand. it was simply divine and he even agreed. fresh lamb that hasn't traveled to you from the other side of the world on a ship is well worth it.

i hope dan and sam continue to raise lamb and that maybe this picture will serve as inspiration for a cut they maybe hadn't thought of. we all have to be conscious of our carbon footprint and if we can save "food miles" by eating locally-produced things, all the better. and even better if they're produced using organic methods that are kind to our environment!

Glen visits Las Vegas

I dropped Glen at the airport early this morning so he can catch the United flight through Denver back to Sioux Falls. I had a little mileage left so I brought him out for a few days. He likes to tune up my desert landscaping a couple of times a year and God knows he's a huge help.

He replaced a couple of dead bushes, repaired my drip irrigation where necessary, fertilized and ran up my water bill ("Good God, I don't know how anything lives in this country with so little water!") He sprayed the property for insects and cleaned my a/c-furnace filters (I guess I hadn't thought about doing that since he was here last October). He stretched Sunday night's meal of takeout Chinese through two more noon lunches (Doreen doesn't like Chinese food so he indulges when he comes out here without her). While he's an incredibly generous soul he is also Kate's son and is very frugal. I think he likes to see how long he can go without spending any money and he loves to stretch a meal.

Last night we went downtown and ate at the diner at the Golden Gate Casino (established 1906). Then we each pooled $10 and found a lively craps table at the Golden Nugget. Dad held the dice and made the point 4 times in a row before he crapped out. I tell him he's lucky because he throws the dice with the hand that's missing the thumb...the result of a little encounter with a conveyor belt at Sokota (he refused the $10,000 dismemberment offer from the insurance company because "it's only a thumb.") We left after a half hour with our initial investment and considered ourselves winners (we're not high rollers like Don & Dave). I taught him how to play craps years ago and he only gambles when we're together (unlike Mom, who I'm sure used her free time while Dad was away to contribute to the tribe's slot machines in Flandreau).

When he was going through the security checkpoint in Sioux Falls on the way out they tried to confiscate his full-size tube of toothpaste. By God they weren't going to get it...he turned around, went outside, buried it in the rocks and returned to the checkpoint. I'm sure he will remember to retrieve it this afternoon when he returns.

that same summer

so that same summer that we endlessly baited the dimick boys into touching the electric fence, i remember another striking incident.

the shelter belt around our house didn't amount to much in those days and you could easily see out to the junk pile in the middle of the 40 acres. we probably had a good dozen or more horses at that time and so, generally, i just spent more time out there in the field, going out to catch a horse or some other such thing. we used to go out and climb around on the husk of an old car that was rusting away into oblivion out in the junk pile.

anyway, for whatever reason, i was out there at the junk pile and to my surprise, i came across a dead pig. now that was a strange thing to find out there. we didn't have any pigs and there weren't any anywhere nearby. this one had been strangely cut up. it was, for a child, such a violent image--a half-grown pristine pink pig, cut up his middle. could it be some crazed cult of pig-assaulting satan worshippers on the loose in platte?!?!

i ran to the house to tell mom. uncle red was there and laughed and laughed. turns out he had done a post on the pig earlier that day and had been hauling it around in the back of his little bitty datsun pickup. for some reason, they needed to load something else in the pickup and so the pig got tossed into the junk pile. he had forgotten to go back and get it.

but i will never forget the shock of the sight of that dead pig in the junk pile.

what a relief!

thank goodness dan and nancy are getting a helipad on their roof, now i won't have to wreck mom and dad's lawn the next time i'm in town....

kudos to gisel!

just received my copy of another award-winning edition of the nachtigal family newsletter! hope that it causes of flurry of activity right here on our family blog!

great job, gizzy, as always!

family cookbook anyone?

inspired by the angry chicken, it occurred to me that we have tons of good cooks in this family. they have, over the years, contributed to various community cookbooks. now in this day of desktop publishing, we should make our own family cookbook.

i'll do the compilation and look into publication. your mission is to submit all your best recipes.

we start with grandma kate's noodles and go from there. i know deb has a ton of lovely desserts in her repertoire. let's get them down for everyone to share!! and so that those of us who are far away can occasionally have a little taste of home.

remember, if you want to be able to post on this blog, email jknachti (at) gmail (dot) com or mqwest272 (at) gmail (dot) com (replacing the words with @ and . ) and we'll get you added.

city boys feed the lambs

city boys and puppies

weekend in barcelona

julie & jens-peter

sabin, age 7

we had a faulous long weekend in barcelona. i can highly recommend it. for the gaudi alone. and the food. that was great too. we rented an apartment off la rambla. i can recommend that as well for an experience that's more authentic from the typical hotel and more affordable to boot!

you can read more about our trip here and here.

where have you been lately?

grandchildren

Grandchilren Owen and Finn are here. Very loud, walk in mud, afraid of adorable yellow lab puppies next door, afraid they are city kids. They are playing with a Wii whatever that is and they have created a grumpy old guy called gp.ralph

knotheads

now if ever there was a nachtigalism, "knothead" is it.

"don't be a knothead."

"what a knothead." "

"well, if he wasn't a knothead."

knotheads are not desirable. you shouldn't bring one home. especially if he's dutch.