3.24.2010 - Luke's Joint (Arcata, CA)

I had the pleasure of going to Luke's Joint for the first time today. I had only heard good things about the place and had been dying to go and try what looked like some pretty succulent fare.

I got what was cleverly titled the Great Cornbowlio. Essentially, it was a piece of their homemade cornbread topped with coleslaw which is then topped with pulled pork. This is served with the soup du jour (that day it was a broth-based beef soup with vegetables). The cornbread and coleslaw were fantastic, but the pork was a bit dry, however flavorful. I couldn't quite tell if the pork had been cooked to perfection and then left out in a warming pan all day or if it had been dry from the beginning; I suspect, and hope for, the former. I got the chance to also taste their biscuits in gravy. They were good though I would probably never order them. The biscuits were light and tasty, but the gravy was too busy with bits of vegetable and the like. It seemed to be trying to be something it's not; sometimes really good basic gravy is indeed best. My friend and I went on to share the chocolate mouse with white chocolate and raspberry sauce. Though I don't normally like anything about white chocolate, there is nothing bad I can say about this mousse. It was delicious. In fact, all their baked items looked really good.

I want to and will go back.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Arcata-CA/Lukes-Joint/418854965446?ref=ts

Luke's Joint

887 H Street
Arcata, CA 95521

3.23.2010 - Whiskey Tasting

Yes! This was great! Somehow I convinced some friends to come with me to a whiskey tasting at one of the local casinos, Cher-ae Heights. The tasting itself was put on by Myrtlewood Liquors and John's Fine Cigars and featured a "Whiskey Master" (one of, apparently, only 17 in the world) who is pretty much a liquor distributing company representative who- through that distributing company- represents the drinks giant Diageo, which, in turn, owns brands like Johnnie Walker, Bushmills, Oban, Dalwhinnie and Lagavulin, among many others. Nontheless, he seemed very nonpartisan about which whiskeys to drink; he thought they were all good. He was definitely a good speaker and was knowledgeable; he provided some clever anecdotes and witticisms and guided us through some of the whiskey making and tasting processes. The tasting also included a five course meal that consisted of grilled shrimp with risotto, Brie en croute with microgreens, crispy duck springrolls, roasted lamb chops with coffee and chocolate, and bread pudding with a whiskey caramel sauce. The food was good, but relatively uninspired and was scant and sparse. Notably my favorites were the Brie and bread pudding.

Below is the list of the whiskey we were able to taste. Surprises included serving chilled Johnnie Walker Gold at 28 degrees- it was great and delicious, mellowed the flavors and smoothed out the feel- and how much the bourbon stood out from the others. I came overly enthusiastic about tasting the Johnnie Walker Blue and left largely the same way about how great it was, but intrigued me further were the Oban, Dalwhinnie, and Talisker Distiller's Editions. They were all complex, but different and drinkable.

Johnnie Walker Blue

Johnnie Walker Gold 18 Year

Dalwhinnie 15 Year

Dalwhinnie Distiller's Edition

Oban 14 Year

Oban Distiller's Edition

Bushmill's 16 Year

Glenkinchie 12 Year

Talisker 10 Year

Talisker Distiller's Edition

Bulleit Bourbon

Crown Royal Cask 16

Newest dinner idea

Fillet of salmon on braised leeks with a rhubarb reduction. Could be good...

5.22.09-5.26.09

One of the absolute best weekends ever! I went to Montana to play in a tournament with some awesome people (the Flycoons). There is way to much awesomeness to write about here (my computer may crash, your computer may crash, this website may crash, or some strange combination of the three if I put it all into words). Let's just say I was shown an excellent time and feel like I have twenty new friends.

Word of the weekend: Awkweird
Product of the weekend: George Dickel Whiskey
Resultant quote of the weekend: "A little Dickel do her."
People of the weekend: Lampshade, Hugh, A-Lo, and JR

5.20.09

In the morning we ate breakfast, drank black coffee (so naturally I felt like a badass), continued sampling for a couple of hours and picked up the copious amounts of trash around the lake (unfortunatley most was fishing related). Ian caught one steelhead, while the rest of us were left wanting.

What did we find? Basically, bass are on the rise and steelhead are falling. Boo. Options? Possiblity of getting more fishermen to fish out the bass and/or gill net for bass, and restock the steelhead. There are, however, downsides to stocking wilderness lakes with fish that were never naturally there. It adds more visitor pressure to the area and changes things from "pristine" to disturbed. There are also ecosystem shifts that result that are still poorly understood.

I do not remember what went on after we packed up and hiked out. The rest of the day paled in comparison to the trip to the lake!

5.19.09

Time to play catch up...

Today was the beginning of the two best days of "work" ever.

First, we did some Port Orford Cedar surveying. Port Orford Cedars have recently (in the lsat couple of decades) been deccimated by a root disease caused by a fungal pathogen. Recently, a resistant strain of POC was found and an experiment was set up to see just how resistant they are. So we surveyed a couple of hundred trees on several treatment plots to see which trees have survived or perished since they were planted by volunteers a year ago.

Then, four of us from the Forest Service and one guy from ODFW (Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife) hiked into Babyfoot Lake to do some fish "monitoring." An explanation of the quotes to come... Babyfoot is a mountain lake located in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness, west of Cave Junction. The Kalmiopsis was engulfed by the Biscuit Fire back in 2002, so it is just starting to rebound from that disturbance and there are thousands of standing dead pine (pictured below) that eerily hung over us for the easyish mile and a half hike in. Babyfoot is (I believe) the only stocked lake in the Kalmiopsis. It was stocked with steelhead several years ago by the local chapter of the Steelheaders Club. These members (the youngest of which is something like 48 years old, but most being in their sixties) carried one year old smolts in five gallon buckets full of water and ice strapped to their chests all the way to the lake. Ian told me that one stocking year there was a foot of snow on the trail and another was swelteringly hot. Impressive. Anyway, sometime recently someone took it upon themselves to bring largemouth bass into the lake the same way and do a little stocking of their own. Unfortunately, the bass can outcompete the steelhead and also predate upon them, so dramatically decrease the steelhead population.

We came to the lake to deduce some things about the status of the two fish populations, to see if the bass population is increasing or decreasing and if it may need to be eradicated, and to see if it would be wise to further stock the lake with steelhead. Luckily, our sampling method consisted of fishing with rod and reel. We arrived at the lake around 5:00 pm, set up camp, and began sampling for the next three hours. Much to the two girls' chagrin, Ian and I were the only ones who caught anything. Ian caught one steelhead while I caught one steelhead and seven bass. The steelhead were recorded and, of course, released. The bass were kept, filleted, cooked in flour and butter, and eaten. Steve (the ODFW guy) brought all manner of goodness to eat as well. He brought a fillet of salmon, a hunk of elk, and some cheap corned beef hash (all of which was cooked over the fire). The bass may have actually been the best of all, but it was all awesomely delicious and an excellent way to finish an excellent day.

5.15.09

Computer work. It wsan't as bad as it sounds.

Here's some pictures of the area that I took: