Swans A Swimming, Rafts Of Buffleheads, Mallards, And A Single Horned Grebe

Jill Celebrating Her Fiftieth, In Nashville, With Friends And Family

7:12

It's 7:30 and I have been up for forty-five minutes, listening to a Bill Simmons podcast on the NBA.  The lake is smooth to the south, a bit rippled to the north and I have yet to see any waterfowl.  They must be hiding in the reeds.

Kayak Morning

Swans

A Couple

A Gaggle 

Yesterday was a busy Saturday for Evie, not so much for me.  I did get in a good paddle before coming home, finishing the blog and gathering the trash to take to the Transfer Station.  Once that was done, I had little else to do other than clean up the kitchen because Evie was busy. First, she made another big pot of her world-famous vegetable soup, with lots of mushrooms, cabbage and black beans, enough for a healthy lunch all week.  Earlier, I sent her two recipes that sounded good, one for a Lisbon chocolate cake, the other for roast chicken.  Because we were having company over for dinner on Sunday, Evie decided to make the cake but finish the ganache on Sunday.  Since its a flourless cake, it took a while to make, bake, then pull out of the pan without it crumbling.

Mallards

A Trio Of Buffleheads

A Solitary Horned Grebe

Once that was done, it was lunchtime so I had some soup and a pumpernickel bagel, a new flavor at our Wegman's.  I watched my show, some Ohio State football before starting the new Jack Reacher novel and taking a brief nap.  Meanwhile, Evie, having finished the cake and made the soup, took off to workout at the YMCA and do some shopping at Wegman's while I played at being a sloth, something I do well.

When Evie returned home, she started on dinner, making a brussel sprout recipe involving baking the sprouts with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and garlic until they were toasty even blackened and tossed them with a lemon, mustard sauce.  We had them as an appetizer with our wine and with dinner.  We have never been happy with roasting a chicken so I did some research on how to make the skin crispy and avoid oven splatter.  So Evie got busy making sure the chicken was dry,  then separating the skin from the bone and poking 30 holes over the entire chicken, allowing the fat to leak through and crisp the chicken.  She also stuffed the chicken with four garlic gloves and a lemon and set it on a pan filled with potatoes and onions.  The veggies absorb the fat so the chicken does not splatter or smoke.  She also made gravy from the giblets and added store-bought stuffing for me.  I did the cleanup, mostly watching Evie prep and cook.  The chicken took around an hour and fifteen minutes and was perfect, juicy with a crispy skin.

We really enjoyed our dinner, as everything was reminiscent of a great Thanksgiving dinner, but with chicken, not turkey, with potatoes, Brussel sprouts, stuffing, and salad.  And we have enough leftovers for at least one or two more meals.  I think we have found a go-to Sunday dinner every couple of weeks. After dinner, we watched another episode of Succession and things are not going well, not a surprise.  And we ended the night with Bill Maher's Real Time.  In this episode, he tended to take over too much, not allowing his guests to talk, often a problem with him.  Still, it was good for lots of laughs and insight into the madness of King Don.