h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Rhubarb and strawberry jam.

My figs have come back up from the roots. I didn't lose them after all. Yay!!!!!

Rhubarb and anything.

Hypatia, how does this sound for dinner in November? With a garden salad?...and figs???

TUSCAN HALIBUT
4 sheets (12 x 18" each) Reynolds Wrap® heavy-duty aluminum foil
2 cans (15 oz. each) Great Northern or cannellini beans, rinsed & drained
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
4 tbsp. prepared pesto, divided
4 (4 to 6 oz. each) Alaska Halibut steaks
4 tsp. lemon juice
2 tsp. lemon pepper
4 lemon slices
Preheat oven to 450°F and combine beans, tomatoes, and 2 tablespoons pesto; mix well. Center ¼ of bean mixture on each foil sheet. Top with one Alaska Halibut steak; drizzle with lemon juice. Sprinkle halibut with lemon pepper. Top with lemon slices. Bring up sides of foil and double fold. Double fold ends to form four packets, leaving room for heat circulation inside packets. Bake 16 to 20 minutes on a cookie sheet in oven. Serve with remaining pesto. Makes 4 servings

Lemons cost $1.49 each here in fairbanks. So do cucumbers. Tomatoes are $4 a pound. I think the government is fudging the inflation numbers.

We need more illegal aliens to keep the vegtable prices down, I think.

Sounds delicious. You will probably have to eat whatever halibut I can find. I have some halibut in the freezer that needs used. Must fix it tomorrow for Mother. I might try your recipe.

After all that fish, sure you won't be hungry for some good aged midwestern beef?

Oh

Fresh fruit and veg has always been expensive in Alaska. They have to import nearly everything. Can you switch to limes?

Found some really fresh mahi mahi fillets today. We'll fix those on the grill.

Figs??? Yay!!!

Our apple tree got caught in the late spring freeze this year...not an apple on it.

The birds got all the gooseberries so we have no fresh fruit in the yard at all.

good evening pilgrims of the this and the that and the other ...

what's a mahi mahi fillet ? kind of makes me hungry ...

not to mention rhubarb and jam, (?) Tuscan Halibut, s sprinkled with aged balsamic vinegar ....

we were thinking about you, Lady C, just last night ... we were packing our picnic supper into our ... what do you call it in the States .. we call it a coolbox ... or a cooler .. you put ice packs in it and pack in your cans or picnic .. it has a flip lid that turns into a tray ..

this is getting really geeky now ... ...

anyway .....ours is a Coleman coolbox ... and the label says 'made in Wichita, Kansas, USA ...' .... the Coleman website even gives the address. 'cos I just checked ...

The Coleman Company, Inc.
3600 North Hydraulic
Wichita, KS 67219

Chris says its 'Kool from Kansas' .. its the best coolbox ... last night he packed a tub of hummus/two raw carrots/two miniature bottles of sherry and two tofuburgers wrapped in silverfoil into this Coleman Kooler .. he reckons Grace Slick would be impressed ...

hmmm ... I slunk in a piece of cheese when he wasn't looking ... and dreamed of s and of being a third-gender poet who sings his/her poems in a plaintive falsetto voice, in a language that sounds a bit like Mexican Spanish, but isn't (quite)...

wait a minute .. what's that got to do with Coleman Coolboxes .. I'm straying into the (part)-female role models section ..





some pretty dynamic female role models listed there ... cor ... (wipes brow .. )

the Aliens lady ....Sigourney Weaver?



what's an Oreo ?

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

gotta go .. eat some raspberries and honey, a cough-lozenge for my cough, a pink fizzy cough lozenge for the spirit of Hunter S, washed down with a whiskey and lemon juice (for my cough) ... maybe an Oreo (?) and some rhubarb .... (for my cough)

I haven't had any rhubarb this summer .. I need rhubarb ..

coughs and falls over

///////////////////////////////////////////////////

Mahi mahi fillets are fish. The ones I bought were imported from Taiwan.

An oreo is a chocolate sandwich cookie with white creamy vanilla filling in between the layers. Most people twist the two layers apart, lick the filling off and then dunk the chocolate in their milk or coffee. I just eat the whole thing--no twisting, licking or dunking for me!

Coleman has a big factory in Wichita. Several of our friends work there. They make all kinds of camping supplies. There is a factory outlet store on the premises. We have talked about going down to see what's available, but since we don't camp..............

I think everyone in KS owns a Coleman Cooler. Ours is maroon with a white lid.

http://www.nabiscoworld.com/Brands/brandlist.aspx?SiteId=1&CatalogType=1&BrandKey=oreo&BrandLink=/oreo/memories/&BrandId=78&PageNo=1

I have a Coleman cooler. It has wheels and a retractable handle like a suitcase.

I don't have any mahi mahi filets. Is that the one that is actually porpoise, but they gave it a different name because no one would want it if they thought they were eating Flipper?

Kool and even Kooler ! we're in with the Koleman Kids ! thanks for info .. Chris will now totally revere our little coolbox (red with a white lid) ....



and thanks for Oreo info also ..... (plans to twist. lick n' dunk before she dies) ......



... better make it sooner rather than later .. I'm coughing my guts out here ... its weird having a summer infection .. too much rain and damp air .. I'm breathing in watery-weirdbugs ... not as bad as having our life flooded out though .. some folks up-country have had their homes ruined by floodwater and no power or drinking water for days ....



the local paper just told us that summer is arriving on August 15th .. (at 2.30 pm .. no it wasn't that precise ..) but a late summer is forecast ..

crescentmoon
lighthouse
moon zoom elf
lighthouse

there's a story in 'ere somewhere .. probably about a lighthouse ..

llabwons ? ....


llabwons

Dawson, The Yukon

Gold is formed in the heart of stars which in turn have been formed from elements transmuted in older stars, they say. Blown out into the cosmos, coalesced into planets, the gold bubbles and rises to the surface in titanic upheavals.

The glaciers slowly grind down the mountains. The lighter rock flows out to sea as glacial silt. The heavy gold slowly settles though the gravel of stream beds to the bedrock below.

Somewhere here is the mother lode, a lake of pure gold, inside one of these hills.

I consider what we will need to find it:
- Axe (for cabin)
- Gold pans
- Poke pouches
- Shovel
- Vitamin C (for scurvy)
- Lanterns
- Bacon
- Beans
- Blankets.
- Rifle and ammunition
- Books (for winter nights)
- Matches
- Toilet paper
- Tooth brushes
- Canoe and paddles

I plan to approach Mrs. Phred today about parking the RV and going out into the wilderness for the winter to find the golden lake.
-

hah ! yes ! The Golden Lake .. The Golden Lake ..

the map the map where is the map (eats Vitamin C ) ....

Its the wandering road-artiste, still dusty from Chicken Alaska ...



almost named Ptarmigan Alaska .. funny that .. so a few days ago Chris buys me a little bottle of Grouse whisky to soothe my razzled throat, and I'm checking the handsome picture of a grouse on the label and I get to thinking about this noble bird and its sort-of-cousin the ptarmigan, spelt with a pt .... and I'm going on about ptarmigan things to Chris, and he says he can't listen now 'cos he has to get to the Firecloud Report as its breakfast time and he can't live without it ... The Firecloud Report that is ... even though he can't live without breakfast either ..

and the first sentence he reads runs like this ...

<<<<>>>>>

.......................

....and there are psychedelic flower photos and a green and blue swirly sky ... and the map to the golden lake is to be found in .....

oh ...... have to go .....



sunshine ! we have sunshine !

plus photographic evidence of the splendid Tuscan Halibut recipe ...

The Map

Whitehorse, Yukon

Mrs. Phred and I go into Bombay Lil’s Casino here in Whitehorse to get a drink and watch the can-can girls. We sit at the bar and order doubles of Famous Grouse whiskey and watch the show. A grizzled old man turns to stare at us. His cheeks are scarred and black from frostbite. His right hand is missing three fingers. .

We talk awhile and finally he asks if we have money to partner with him so he can get back to his gold. I offer to buy him drinks and ask for more details. After several drinks, he loosens up and tells his story.

“I found this here map and journal on a dead man”, he says. “He’d fallen though an air-hole on the iced- up Klondike River, crawled half-out and froze there. The journal told about a cabin full of gold down on the Tintina Trench.”

“I spent my last money outfitting a dogsled. I followed the map and left caches of fish about every 100 miles so I could feed myself and dogs on the way back.”

“When I got to the cabin, right where the map said, I found hundreds of pounds of gold in flour sacks, coffee cans and any container that would hold gold dust and nuggets When they run out of containers, it looked like they’d just started dumping it on the floor. That stuff on the floor of the cabin was about a foot thick.”

“Outside there was three graves. Notes scrawled in charcoal on birch bark told the story. One died of scurvy, one was mauled by a grizzly and the other went mad and wandered out into a snow bank to freeze. The last one hiked out, it seems like, and froze in the Klondike, like I told you.”

“They were working a vein almost 12 inches thick. I seen it myself. Looks like no end to it. It just keeps getting thicker as you dig down. Seems like they couldn’t bring themselves to stop digging and piling up the gold. I decided not to make the same mistake, so I loaded up about 100 pounds on the sled and started back to Whitehorse.”

“The wolverines and bears got into all my fish caches, so I had to kill off the dogs one-by-one for food to keep the other dogs and myself going. Finally the dogs were all gone, so I left the sled and gold. The last 200 miles I walked out and almost starved. I lost these three fingers to frostbite.”

He pulls out the map and journal and his hand held GPS and showed me the cabin coordinates and where he left the sled. He accepts my offer to go fifty-fifty. I contact my broker for a wire transfer to charter a heavy lift helicopter. I know how to fly a Chinook.

Whether he’s telling the truth or not, I figure that the old prospector and I can fly out there together, but I really don’t think that both of us need to come back.

(With apologies to Jack London)

Not to be a killjoy, but... How much of that account is true?