A week or so ago we had SO much fun with our friends Barbara & Bob, visiting this restaurant in Indio. It’s new. We’d not heard about it, but Barbara said, trust me, you’ll like it. Oh my, yes we did. With a very Southwest-looking gate entrance, valet parking available, huge grounds, and a fantastic building, there wasn’t anything not to like.

Obviously you need to be in or around the Palm Springs/Coachella Valley area to visit this place. So I’m sure I’ll lose a bunch of readers right now . . . that’s okay. Those who do visit the area or live nearby will be glad to know more about Jackalope Ranch. The restaurant is part of a group that includes several other Valley restaurants (Kaiser Grille, Prime Chop House, Hog’s Breath Inn).

As the population boom has expanded in the valley east of Palm Springs, it’s spread further east toward Indio. More and more subdivisions have popped up, more and more shopping attractions too. Our second home is in Palm Desert, about 5 miles away, west of Indio. We met our friends at Jackalope. Go to the patio outside they said – we’ll meet you there. The only hitch was that we had to BE THERE at 3:15 pm. WHAT, I said? 3:15? Really. Barbara said yes. Again, she said, trust me. We didn’t have lunch, which was a good thing.

The bar area outside probably seats about 100 people. If you sit closer to the restaurant, around a huge bar, there are misters to keep you cool. They spit out a fine mist about every 3 minutes or so. We, instead, sat further out, to what we hoped would be a less noisy space (yes, it was). We overlooked the pond and waterfalls pictured above. Listened to the birds. We sat carefully in the shade. Bob kept moving our cantilevered umbrella to keep all 4 of us out of the sun. It was in the low 90’s the afternoon we were there, but comfortable enough (dry heat, remember, in the California desert).

Jackalope Ranch is a huge restaurant – done in dark woods and kind of upscale country/cowboy decor. They have a mammoth indoor bar too, where there is a large digital indicator of the temperature of the draft beer they draw from a tank. Bob, who is a beer drinker, thinks that’s really “cool.” Every time they pull a tap beer, the temperature rises a degree or two, so it’s a game to see how long it takes to get the temp back down. The restaurant features barbecue (all kinds) and steaks. And a bit of everything, really. We didn’t eat in the sit-down restaurant, but spent all our time out on the patio.

So now, on to the food and drinks outside. Seven days a week from 3:30 pm – 6:00 pm, Jackalope Ranch offers all their bar food, margaritas, well drinks and house wine at HALF PRICE. What a huge bargain. You can easily eat your (early) dinner there, which is what we did. If  you get there later than 3:30, you may not find any outdoor seating. It’s very popular, although now that the weather is warming up, you might have a better chance.

We had their homemade guacamole and multi-colored chips. We had their version of nachos – with some pulled pork sprinkled all over the top (yum). We had margaritas and wine. Then Bob ordered a pulled pork sandwich. I didn’t taste it, but since I’d tasted the pulled pork on the nachos, I’d say it was delicious. Barbara and I ordered a wedge salad that was really refreshing. We were there for exactly 3 hours and 15 minutes. What fun we had. Would I go again – you betcha – in a heartbeat. Except that during the summer months it’ll be hotter than heck on the patio, so we may not go until late Fall. But go again we will.

It’s located right on Highway 111 (that’s the main drag all the way through the Coachella Valley). It’s east of Jefferson, on the left, about a half a block past the date shake place. Look for the big gate.

A year ago: Dijon Chicken Breasts with Panko Crust

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If you’ve been reading my blog for very long, you already know that I am married to a sailor. He’s a pleasure sailor, not a sea captain-type, but he’s been one since he was 6 years old, when he found his first abandoned leaky rowboat floating in the marshes after a big spring storm in his hometown, Ocean City, New Jersey. He hid the derelict boat in a tiny inlet on one of the marshy islands and waded to it at low tide. With no oars for the rowboat, he couldn’t get very far. Finally, his father heard about his somewhat risky adventure, and figuring that if his son was that determined, he ought to buy him a real rowboat (a 12-foot Bateau) at age 7.

When I met Dave he owned a Catalina 27, and shortly after we married we bought an Endeavor 38, a sloop. I wanted it mostly to entertain on it. He wanted it to sail, of course. In either case, it’s a beauty still, I’ll admit, even though I don’t hardly sail. I get seasick, you see, if I get into open ocean. But Dave enjoys going to the boat regularly, kept at a dock in San Diego (even as a double amputee he’s quite agile at it). He sails for the day, or a jaunt of a few days with his sailing buddies.

My hubby reads sailing magazines like I read ones about cooking. And rarely do the two interests intersect. His magazine articles are full of words like “floating sheeting-point tracks” or “wing keel.” Sounds mostly like Greek to me still, even after 25+ years of marriage to a sailor. But one day recently Dave wanted to tell me about a story he’d just read, written by Deborah Shapiro (pictured above in her galley, with some of her on-board dishes) in the recent issue of Cruising World (May, 2009). First he pointed to the gorgeous photo of this boat, the Northern Light, and began telling me about the couple who sail it. The boat is a 40-foot cutter-rigged steel ketch (see, more of those words again – see vocabulary at the end of this post).

That’s the kind of photo that sends chills up my spine. But sends thrills up Dave’s spine, and those of most saltwater sailors. “Rail down” (in the water), it’s called. See how the boat is tilted, the wind filling the sails and leaning it over on its side. Sailors love to have pictures of their boats rail down. That’s macho, you know. But it makes my stomach lurch as I look at it. There, at the helm, is Rolf Bjelke in his yellow slicker. Likely his wife Deborah, the first mate, took the photo.

They met in Fiji in 1980. Rolf is Scandinavian, and was sailing his boat, obviously stopping in Fiji. At the time Deborah (from the U.S. of A) was a novice at small boats. But she was willing to learn. A year or so later she suggested they sail to the Arctic as a “training trip.” [Can you imagine – sailing to the Arctic as a TRAINING trip?] Yes, well, off they went. Some months later on their sailing journey, Deborah had not jumped ship, nor had Rolf put her ashore at the first port. They happened to be shopping in Boston. She spotted some Corelle dinnerware. You know Corelle, right? The glass dishes that don’t scratch and don’t BREAK! Having used some grungy scratched plastic dishes since 1967, my guess is that Rolf didn’t much care about how his dishes looked. Nor did he believe the Corelle dishes were unbreakable. The salesclerk demonstrated – she flung the plate “like a Frisbee” to a tile floor. It landed unbroken. So purchase them they did, and off they went, continuing their odyssey (Arctic to Antarctica). And that began the nearly continuous sailing they’ve done ever since. Rolf and Deborah are now accomplished documentary filmmakers, photographers and authors. Put them in port somewhere and they get itchy to get back into cold-cold water somewhere, in places most people would never see, could never see, except from a boat.

Deborah, along with the Corelle dishes (and a few other dishes purchased along the way – some rimmed china soup bowls especially acquired for a favorite Swedish pea soup that must be grazed through a little jot of mustard placed on the rim, plus a couple of ceramic mugs acquired in 2000) have logged over 22,500 miles aboard Northern Light. Rolf has skippered Northern Light across 214,000 miles (equal to the distance from Earth to the moon). Whew. I’m tremendously impressed.

In 1989 Rolf & Deborah actually sailed to the Antarctic peninsula and let the boat get frozen in the fast ice (that’s why they need a steel-hulled boat) for the entire winter. If you look at the photo of the boat above, just to the right of Rolf you can see a roundish shape – that’s a clear bubble skylight that allows Rolf & Deborah to peek up into the landscape without opening hatches which would let in the frigid sub-Arctic air. It was after that winter they wrote two books about the experience.

They wrote Time on Ice: A Winter Voyage to Antarctica as a shared endeavor, each chapter penned by one, then the other. Deborah wrote Letters from the Sea too. Perhaps the subjects aren’t for every reader, but I like Deborah’s writing style, so I may try to find one or both at my local used bookstore. Even though there will be lots of words and phrases I won’t understand. And since I’d like to know what they did, stuck down below on their boat for months on end, frozen in the ice. Scrabble? Solitaire? Reading? I mean, how many books can you really take for a winter stuck in ice? Surely they didn’t cook a lot. Couldn’t waste either food or the propane to cook it with. Write? – well yes, they obviously “worked” some too. And likely cuddled a lot to keep warm. My curiosity is piqued.

So here’s a salute to the Bjelkes and to Corelle. The dishes are still being made, and I’d guess Deborah & Rolf are still using theirs. Now I want to know what kind of hand cream Deborah uses!

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Photos reproduced by permission from Deborah Shapiro and Cruising World magazine. Yes, I did get permission from Deborah – she responded to a special kind of email called sailmail (messages mostly read by marine radio) as they are sailing somewhere out in the wild blue ocean, nowhere near an internet connection. But do remember, even if you’re confined on a sailboat frozen in the Arctic, some people still like nice dishes. I can appreciate that feeling. For the record, I don’t own any Corelle dishes. On our boat we have some clunky, heavy duty plastic dishes that have knife scratches just like Rolf’s did. And, in case you’re interested, Rolf & Deborah’s ongoing articles will be in upcoming issues of Cruising World. I’ll be reading them. And yes, we have a photo of our boat rail down too. And, I really have learned a lot of nautical language even though I pretend I haven’t.

Nautical Vocabulary Lesson: (mostly defined by my husband):
Ketch – two-masted sailboat, with foremast taller than the aftermast, stationed ahead of the rudder head (fore means toward the front of the boat or the pointy end as my hubby likes to tell novices; aft, or after- means toward the back, the stubby end; the rudder is what steers the boat)
Sloop – single-masted sailboat with sails both fore and aft of the mast
Galley– a kitchen on board a boat (but you knew that one already, right?)
Cutter-rigged (ketch) – a sailboat rigged for heavy weather sailing
Floating sheeting-point tracks – adjustable points on the boat deck for controlling the sails
Wing(ed)-keel – a winged-shaped form at the bottom of the keel (the keel weights the boat AND keeps it from tipping over when you’re rail down among other things)

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The other day we were out at our house in the desert. (We rented it for much of the “season” this year, and the tenants had just left. We want to use the house some in the next few weeks before the weather turns too hot to enjoy except inside in air conditioning.) The weather was absolutely picture-perfect. Temps in the low 80’s, shorts and t-shirt weather. Sandals weather. And I forgot to pack breakfast food, so oh-gee, we’ll have to go out <BG>. I decided to surprise my DH. I said “Trust me, honey, I’m going to surprise you – we’re taking a ride.” I’ve known about The Parker for awhile, but since it’s a 10-mile drive from our house there, it was always seemed a bit too far to go, for breakfast.

My friend Rachel has raved about the hotel for almost as long as it’s been in existence. Her daughter was married there last year and I saw pictures of it. I think it used to be the Merv Griffin hotel, but was redone – in retro 1930’s-60’s chic. It’s a kind of hoot, if you will, to walk into a lobby with funky chotsky from my own bygone era. Naugahyde. Bright orange. Canary yellow. Gee-gaws of all kinds gracing tables. A couple of chain mail just inside the front door seem a bit out of place, but they add to the funky feel. After walking through the lobby building you go outside and there’s Norma’s. It does have indoor seating too, but its charm is the outdoor patio. Also so retro 50’s, I had to laugh. Take a look!

The hot spot (not literally) to sit is along the outside edges (the orange banquettes). None was available when we got there. I snapped this photo from our table, which was just fine nevertheless. First they delivered a little shot glass of berry smoothie. Oh my was it ever scrumptious. It’s on the menu too, but they brought us an amuse bouche. It was piquant. Barely icy. Then they brought us carafes of coffee (you can see the press pots sitting on the table in the left foreground). The coffee was fabulous. I don’t know what they use, but it was elegant, deep, dark, full of flavor. Even my DH, who is a real coffee snob, thought it was excellent.

We ordered a single order of eggs benedict and shared. The eggs were perfectly done – still runny, but oozing just right. The Hollandaise was also light and pleasant (obviously they make it fresh). Not too much. Not too little. They served it with a small mound of mache and some baby purple potatoes that were perfectly cooked. I’ve seen purple potatoes, but never eaten them – they really are purple inside. I liked the texture. And the flavor. We leisurely finished our breakfast, and enjoyed every last slurp of our coffee before wandering out onto the grounds (see greenery in rear of patio photo). It was lovely – with small seating areas here and there, some in, some out of the sunshine. Fountains burbling in various places as well. Trails meander in different directions, eventually coming to the bungalows. Of course, we weren’t staying there, so didn’t get to see any rooms, but you can view a few on their website if you’re interested. The hotel is now part of the Meridien chain (Starwood). We heard several languages being spoken as we sat in the restaurant.

If you enjoy the ambiance of a small hotel, this one fits that ticket perfectly. And I concur with my friend Rachel that the food at Norma’s is exquisite. Rachel raves about the French Toast. The hotel also has a dinner restaurant which Rachel has recommended too. Guess we’ll have to go back to try that another visit. Try it we will, and maybe we’ll even go to breakfast there again. Just have a full wallet – it’s not cheap. Definitely a splurge, but I didn’t begrudge a penny of it. With coffee at $6 per pot and one breakfast entree, our bill was $34, not including tip and valet.

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A couple of weeks ago my friend Linda and I visited the gorgeous “flower fields” in Carlsbad. If you measured the rows, I’m sure it would be many, many miles of rununculus. In full bloom. Turning their faces to the sunshine. Since this is a Sunday, I’m thinking about God, that’s he’s at work here, reminding us of what he’s created for us to enjoy.

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This is not a new recipe to this blog. But I finally got around to taking a photo of it. I’d posted this back in 2007 when I had a fractured foot and was posting recipes, with internet photos or no photos at all.

So, my hubby and I are out at our house in the California desert (it was about 65 yesterday, gorgeous sunshine), and last night after a very light dinner of leftovers, I was craving something sweet. Since we’ve been renting our house here some this season, I knew there wasn’t much in the cupboards, but aha, there WAS a German chocolate cake mix. Sure enough, a few chocolate chips, and pecans in the freezer (the recipe calls for walnuts, but pecans work too). And yes, I had cinnamon, eggs, oil. Took all of about 10 minutes to mix it up (well, maybe 15 since I spilled nearly the whole bag of pecans all over the kitchen floor) and I popped it in the oven.

You can go to the post I did back in ’07 for the full recipe. This is EASY! REALLY EASY! Cake mix, oil, eggs, chocolate chips, nuts, cinnamon and sugar. Done. Makes a 9×13 pan full, great for taking to a potluck. Or camping. Or a picnic. A family favorite I’ve been making since the 1960’s. Nothing like the typical German Chocolate Cake with coconut, etc.

Here are some photos of our desert yesterday when my DH and I toodled around in our golf cart within our complex (1 mile square, 2 18-hole golf courses).

A view toward the west, of snow-covered San Gorgonio peeking through the clouds.

Another view – lantana in the foreground, an ocotillo just beginning to bloom on the right edge, ponds in the background just begging to swallow your golf balls

Would you believe petunias are in full bloom here? The risk of frost is past, so they’re safe.

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I have the itch to take a trip at the moment, but all things considered, the economy and all, the status of our investments that we live on, well, it’s not in the cards. So I live vicariously through the travel magazines I subscribe to. And in December’s Travel & Leisure they offered a list of  “BEST TRAVEL WEBSITES.” So many of them sounded good that I needed to go enter most of them into my bookmarks. But why not share them with you, too. Herewith:

Farecast.com – Predict the ideal moment to buy a ticket
yapta.com – get your money back if a fare drops (only if you have booked a fare directly through an airline)
delaycast.com – find on-time flights at 60 U.S. airports
seatguru.com – snag a seat with the best legroom (I’ve used this site for a couple of years)
insidetrip.com – increase your odds for hassle-free flight (trip quality)
aboutairportparking.com – prime parking at 500 international airports
kayak.com and sidestep.com – get best deals on flights and hotels (both companies now owned by kayak
wegolo.com – book low-fare carriers within Europe
traffic.com – avoid roadblocks in 100 U.S. cities
radio-locator.com – from your PDA or iphone punch in your ZIP and download a list of stations in the area where you are – 14,500 in U.S. and 6,000 international
opentable.com – make reservations here and abroad (8,500 restaurants) – I’ve used it even for local restaurants
seriouseats.com – stay current on the local food scene – an obsessive community of about a million foodies talk about restaurants, recipes, chefs, local markets
tripadvisor.com -reviews of hotels, restaurants, attractions plus 1.3 mil photos too (I’ve used this site for several years when blocking out a trip, mostly for hotel and restaurant reservations)
tvtrip.com – compare hotels in a destination (8,000 properties) via short videos
tripkick.com – pinpoint the best room in a hotel (450 hotels in U.S. only)
uptake.com – search U.S. hotels for theme (romantic, cheap, pet-friendly)
insidetrip.com – organizes flights by price and creates scores based on 12 “pain points” including likelihood of a delay, minimum legroom, etc.
travelpost.com – similar to tripadvisor – user-generated ratings and rankings of hotels, restaurants
urbanspoon.com– only if you have an iphone – provides restaurant recommendations in your neighborhood
ilingo.com – also only for the iphone – download hundreds of useful phrases in foreign languages
i-escape.com – boutique properties with about 1,000 reviews
unusualhotelsoftheworld.com – quirky hotels like igloo in Switzerland, castle in Australia, prison in Turkey, using a colorful interactive map
zicasso.com – custom trip plans (you receive a trip itinerary from a travel agent)
triporama.com – coordinate group travel – great for planning a group or family trip – everybody gets “on board” at the site to make to-do lists, chat, build itineraries
lastminute.com – package deals one week out
tripit.com – create no-fuss online itineraries which can be forwarded via email (includes car, hotel, flight, restuarants, maps, weather conditions and driving directions)
luxurylink.com – bid on over-the-top hotel stays and cruises
quintessentially.com – fulfill singular requests ($1,800 annual membership)
maps.google.com – overall directions (the best of all the competition)
viamichelin.com – driving directions, suggested routes for 61 countries, and in some cases it can be sent to your own GPS
hopstop.com – navigate major U.S. transit systems (bus, subway and taxi) in 6 major U.S. cities
flipkey.com – vacation rentals – 50,000+ listings with photos, maps, ratings and reviews
tripbase.com – destination ideas
luggageconcierge.com – ship your luggage in advance (6-10 days in advance of your trip)

And, the tried and true sites with some new options:
expedia.com – new fare alert tool downloads to your desktop, tracks flights for your desired destination and price range
orbitz.com – new price assurance policy – they monitor any flights you’ve booked up until the day of departure . . . if anyone books the same itinerary at a lower price, Orbitz will send you a cash refund
travelocity.com – new insider’s guide shows you how to find best deals on airfare, hotels, cruises and car rentals with flexible-date shopping and dateless hotel searches

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A  year ago: Chocolate Scones (oh yum, yes!)

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The story about this recipe is certainly unusual. (I love these kinds of providences.) My friend Joan H. brought this pasta salad to our investment club Christmas potluck last month. In my effort to pass on carbs, I chose the protein and green salads instead. Then somebody raved about the pasta salad, and someone else told me that I really needed to try it because it was different. Oh my, was it ever! The group eating at my table determined right away there was curry in it, but it took me a few bites before I detected chutney. It was later that I learned it was Joan’s contribution, so I immediately sought her out at our gathering. Knowing that Joan frequently makes her own chutney, I thought perhaps this was a new recipe from her native South Africa. Well, no, it wasn’t. In case you’re interested, I have one of Joan’s recipes on my blog already – her South African Bobotie – a kind of ground beef casserole that is served with chutney.

Joan (pictured right with another friend, Jackie) and her husband Scott put together an extensive trip to Africa some months ago. It was while their group was staying at a lodge in Namibia that they had a buffet dinner at the n’Kwazi Lodge Randu, on the Caprivi Strip of the Okavongo River. One of the owners of the lodge, Valerie Peypers, provided the recipe for Joan. The curry proportion below is a guesstimate, as the original, pencil-scribbled recipe said one spoonful. Well, how big a spoonful is that? In a Namibia kitchen for a much larger quantity that could have been a huge soup spoon. Or, who knows. The curry flavor, however, was quite prominent, so 1 1/2 tsp. may be quite insufficient to your tastes. Use your own judgment on how much to add and taste it as you go! I’ve cut down the sauce part by half to make it a bit more manageable for a home kitchen, but still the quantity of curry powder is up to you. So is the quantity of pasta to sauce mix, but Joan uses the below proportions.

Above left is a photo of the resort itself. The photo at right shows the evening entertainment. Thanks, Scott, for the photos!
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A view of one of the arbors at the Huntington

The day after Christmas my cousin Gary and I drove up to L.A. (to San Marino, near Pasadena) to visit the Huntington. Here in Southern California when people say “the Huntington,” it can only mean the gorgeous Library and Gardens. It’s a large estate opened to the public (for a fee, of course), with a rose garden, a succulent garden, a Japanese garden, etc. It also has a tea house, well known for its afternoon and luncheon teas, a huge sculpture garden, several art exhibits, and the very famous Huntington Library. Only researchers and qualified people really get to use the library, but it’s housed in a stately old building worthy of its multi-million dollar archives. This visit there was a Darwin exhibit in one end of the building. Gainsborough’s famous “Blue Boy” lives at the Huntington.

It was a cold, cold day when we went. The sun was shining, but the wind was blowing, and only those people who had bundled up really well, were comfortable outside. Anyway, I snapped the picture above while I was out meandering the paths.

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Last week I had a few hours in between cooking classes before I met my friend Linda for a drink in Mission Bay, and then we went to the cooking class together. So I drove out to La Jolla. For those of you who don’t know how to pronounce it – it’s la hoy-ya. The J is prounouced as a y, as in yah. I’ve heard people in other parts of the world trying to say joll-a, as in jolly. Nope. Anyway, since I grew up in San Diego (La Jolla is a very upscale northern suburb of San Diego, right on the ocean) I know the main streets and the back roads. I parked at La Jolla Cove, a rather famous San Diego/La Jolla landmark and took out my pens, pencils and brushes and did some drawing and painting. It was very relaxing. I snapped this photo a few blocks from the Cove, although it was quite overcast. Cool too. Since we live about 10-15 miles from the ocean, we rarely go there, so it was nice to listen to the lapping waves and the squawking shore birds for a couple of hours.

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The north side of Mt. Lassen, California.

We’re actually home – got home late last night – but I hadn’t posted photos of some of the places we visited. I’m not back into the cooking routine yet, but hopefully will be by tomorrow or the next day.

If you’ve never driven the I-5 (it goes from the Mexican border clear to Canada) then you may have missed driving through the northern reaches of California with the high peaks. I posted a picture of Mt. Shasta a few days ago. You can see Shasta from the freeway, it’s that close. But we decided, this time, that we would also drive to Mt. Lassen Volcanic National Park, which is further inland (about 80 miles east of the I-5). It’s a much smaller National Park, but the drive through it a few days ago was really spectacular. There are a few steam blow-holes within the park, but with the temperature below freezing and the wind blowing, we opted (well, I opted) not to park and walk to see the small geysers.

Mt. Lassen from the south side where the sun melted much of the snow. It was 29 degrees and blowing like crazy when I snapped this picture.

Some years ago I bought a National Park Senior Pass (a lifetime pass available for seniors at a reasonable cost, and allows the car – and its passengers – I’m in to enter every National Park in our land at no charge). The morning we drove into Lassen it was a weekday, and we encountered just a handful of other cars. There’s something very special about viewing spectacular scenery when you’re the only people looking at it. It always makes me think about the westward-ho pioneers, and what they thought when they came by covered wagon through those parts.

Mt. Lassen has several lakes within its boundaries. This one is very near the north entrance.

Accommodations in and outside of the park are a bit sparse. After looking online I decided we wouldn’t stay there, which is why we spent the night before in Shasta and made Lassen a morning drive instead. Next time you’re up there, don’t miss it.

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