A Stuffed Cabbage Kind of Day as Scottsdale Begins to Get Crowded

Evie and Dot Making the Cabbage Rolls

Sixty Plus

Dot Finishing the Rolls with Tomato Sauce

Done

Well,  I am up at 5:30 because I went to bed early, about 9:30, so I am paying for it by getting up at this time.  I had expected to see a light outlining the hills but it's pitch black outside.  I walked out into the yard and there was still a nearly full moon and stars even now, at 6:15.  It's now 6:35 and there's just a soft blue glow above the darkened mountains.  As I sit her writing, the sky has now become a light blue and I can make out the surface of the mountains though I have yet to see an orange color.  If it were April, the last time we were here, the sun would be rising at 6:00, right in front of us, instead of off to the south, beyond our view for now.  It's just about 7:00 and I can see a light pink hue on the tops of the mountains.  It's too chilly to sit outside unless I put on a  fleece.

We had a bright, sunny and warm day yesterday, what else is there in Arizona, a perfect day to enjoy.  We started with a walk of about an hour, along the Aqueduct that brings the water from the Colorado River to Phoenix.  There's a path on both sides of the Aqueduct, obviously made by hikers and walkers and you have to cross an overpass on both ends if you wish to make a circle.  We did work up a sweat by the time we returned, as there was no shade as we walked through the rocky, sandy trails, around trees, cactus, and other bushes.  It felt good to be in the warm sun, something we will lack in Chautauqua for another six months.  And being almost any where warm in the winter is delightful, so out of the ordinary if you are used to winters in the Midwest like us.

7:00AM

7:40 AM

About 11:00, we started our project for the day, the making of Dot's cabbage rolls, with sauerkraut between the layered rolls, a recipe from her Czech ancestry. We mixed 5 pounds of beef/pork with onions, eggs, salt and pepper, and two cups of cooked rice.  After boiling the head of a cabbage for about ten minutes, the leaves fall off. We cut them in half, rolled them with the meat mixture, put them in a large pan, and poured a tomato sauce over them after putting the sauerkraut between the layers.  We cooked them for at least ninety minutes and we had sixty plus cabbage rolls, for the family dinner  of around twenty five later in the week.  It took us about an hour and half to get them in the oven, perhaps a little less. Mid afternoon, Jean came over and took Dot off for a meeting with her CPA and Evie and I just enjoyed the afternoon, spending some time out in the backyard sunning and reading.

Enjoying Happy Hour at the Stone and Vine with Jean White

Around 5:30, Jean, Evie and I went off to one of Jean's favorite early bird spots, the Stone and Vine.  Dot elected to stay home; I assume she needed some quiet time for herself, understandably when you have visitors, even family staying with you.  It's nice to just be alone.  Anyways, we sat around enjoying the atmosphere of the busy restaurant, ordered a few beers, and split three appetizers between us which was quite enough, an egg plant rotini, clams with a garlic sauce, and a Margarita pizza.  We got back around 7:30 and Dot had been busy, grinding nuts for the potica, a Slovenian pastry we all love.  So, we sat in the kitchen, helped her put together the dough for the potica, to let it rise over night, talked and went to bed early, around 9:30.  The dough was interesting, as it has sour cream and eggs in it as well as flour, sugar, and yeast.  This morning, after our walk, we will put together around twenty nut rolls or potica and bake them, getting them ready for the arrival of all the family over the next two days.  We hope to walk the Mc Dowell Sonoran Preserve, an area my brother in law, Henry Kartagener, introduced us to last April.  It's only about a five minute drive from us, just beyond Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's winter residence.

Dusk, 5:15 PM