Play Ball

The Baseball Season Starts!

Next week we are headed to Arizona to visit our friends Barb and Leon in Surprise.
They have purchased tickets for an Angels spring training game when they play the Texas Rangers in Surprise.

The stadium is fabulous, 

This is how baseball is meant to be enjoyed!

Well apart from the ridiculous beer prices that is.

We will be sitting in this area, between Home and 1st just a little to the right of this view.

Look out for fly balls and stray bats!!!!


More from Arizona next week.

Hasta Luego!

Norm

The Lunch Special

Lunch Al Fresco

What a fantastic day, March 15th, and over 90 degrees in the back yard.

We had a group of five for lunch, for those of you who have met the suspects, I'll just put in the names, for those of you who have not, well that's just terribly unfortunate!

Paul Rogers, Brent Water, Rick Damrel and the inimitable Ms. Mary.

As Mary will readily tell you that's not her name, she is Asian and thinks that we are all too dumb to pronounce her real name. 

Come on! 

How hard can it be to say Sally?

On the menu:

Focaccia

Salad (Not for Moi)

Lasagna

Dessert was going to be Cannoli but Brent upstaged me on that and brought Italian Shave Ice.

He added Grenadine, wow was that good.

Later we tried a little Crem De Casis and that was, if anything even better.

Thank you Brent for that wonderful idea.

This the Focaccia ready to eat.

Lasagna sheets, I know they're green, how bizarre.

Every part of this Lasagna was made with my own fair hands right here in the kitchen of Hotel Ameri-Cain.

And here is the Lasagna.

All in all a great day with some wonderful people.

Classes are available in the Hotel Kitchen, places are limited so reserve soon.

Ciao Bella

Norm

Italian Chef (Kinda Sorta)

Different Stuff

For the Non-Wrench- Heads

On Tuesday I went to a cooking class at a place called Sur La Table in South Coast Plaza.

It was titled "Mastering Authentic Italian Lasagna"

It was a good class with just four students, one chef and one washer upper. (That's the best part you don't have to clean up)

Of course I'm sure that there are those among us who would say that I don't clean up any way.

But, hey when you are the Chef De Cusine you need some help.

This was without doubt the best lasagna I have ever tasted.

The fact that it had half a cow and quite a bit of pig in it may have helped.

Every part was made right there including the lasagna sheets.

I will be adding a step which is just my preference, I will grind the meat  myself.

So as they say in the North East "Faint Heart Never...." Enough of that.

I have invited some friends over on Sunday for an Italian lunch, Lasagna and Focaccia, with Cannoli for dessert.

Getting ready for a big day in the kitchen, well two days actually tomorrow and Sunday.

I've got all my gizmos and gadgets ready to go.

I'm not sure if you can see over on the table there is something with a pink bow.

The bow is sitting on the recipe holder my good buddy Leon made for me.

Here is the recipe holder in close up, it works just as well for paper recipes, cook books or iPads.

We have been having a mini heat wave this week. I took this picture today on my way back from South Coast Plaza (That place is addictive) Look at the temperature on the truck screen. This was real, the truck had been moving for about 30 minutes, this was just a small pocket, in about half a mile it dropped to 90.

For those of you on the other side of the pond, that is 38 degrees and 32 degrees.

Clear to Palos Verdes and to the local mountains.

Sorry about the crap composition on this picture, it's a bit tough with Missy tugging on your camera arm.

More soon, I'll tell you how the Italian lunch works out.

Ciao Bella

Norm

A Bit Lax

I've been a bit lax in the blog posts recently.

I just noticed that the last post was after the Vintage Bike meet in February and yesterday I went to the March meet.

Tempus Fugit.

Since the last post I've been working on the Velocette and the Triumph.

The Velocette headlight came back from powder coating looking like new. Probably better than new.

Whilst the headlight was off the bike I decided to take the seat and have the hole in the side fixed.

I took the seat to Long Beach to the motorcycle swap meet and handed it to Bar Enterprises for repair.

The luggage rack which came with the bike looked stock, but once the seat was removed it was obviously aftermarket.

So that came off and will not go back on.

You can see by the bracket that it is a bit Rube Goldberg.

The headlight is back on the bike, the wiring was a bit of a nightmare with different colors connected together in places. Thank goodness for digital cameras.

Now I'm just waiting for the seat.

At the swap meet I saw this helmet and thought "Oh Yes" that's the one for riding the old bikes.

More soon on the escapades with the Triumph and the March OC Vintage meet.