Cannundrums

Jane (Restaurant): Santa Barbara

2012-01-28T07:52:00.000-08:00

I had a continuing education seminar in Santa Barbara recently and Judy accompanied me on a beautiful, sunny, January Saturday. After my three hour seminar ended at noon, Judy guided us to a restaurant she scouted out on Yelp called "Jane," located at 1311 State Street in Santa Barbara, California 93101 (805-962-1311).

The unusual name comes from the first name of the owner's grandmother. Jane is found throughout the restaurant in wonderful black and white photos, my favorite, Jane sitting on a camel with a pyramid in the background. Although sunny, it was windy and a little chilly, and we loved the large fire roaring in the center of the restaurant in a glass enclosed fireplace. The downstairs is airy, with high ceilings, while additional seating is upstairs on either end, on a second floor. It is clean with a mixture of old and new, including some fun old plank tables and large wooden candlesticks. We started with goat cheese pancakes, topped by smoked salmon, sour cream and golden caviar.

The gold caviar was centered in a dollop of sour cream and my initial impression was that it was a sunny-side up egg.

It was a very nice starter. Judy got the Idaho trout salad with avocado, cucumber, tomato, spinach, butter lettuce and creamy dill dressing.

The two trout filets were moist and soft and complemented the butter lettuce perfectly, as did the dill dressing. I got two lamb chops with french fries and arugula topped with a lemon vinaigrette.

The french fries were good, particularly accompanied with a forkful of lemony arugula and the lamb was good. I would have preferred it a little less cooked (I ordered it rare), but lamb is always good. Finally, we got a slice of the coconut cake with creme anglaise sauce which many raved about on Yelp. Creme anglaise is a light pouring custard and is really what makes the cake.

The cake itself is very light, but made much, much better by saturating it in the sauce. The white topping/frosting was a different texture, not very sweet, not creamy, and for me, was saved only by the copious amount of shaved coconut on top of it, which I love. We left much of the frosting, but ate all of the cake itself to get every bit of the creme sauce. Over all, it was a fun menu and a nice atmosphere. Good, not fantastic, food and a tad bit on the expensive side. I would recommend it as a place to visit, but was not so enamored with it that it will be a must visit on our next trip to Santa Barbara.

Bottega Louie

2012-01-15T22:00:00.000-08:00

We visited Andrew and Lauren this weekend and they suggested we eat at Bottega Louie, located at 700 S. Grand Ave in Los Angeles (phone: 213-802-1470).

I'm glad we visited late on a Saturday afternoon. Downtown was not crowded and we had no problem getting around or finding parking. It is located among the high rises

and has a European feel to it. Inside it has extremely high ceilings, lots of whitish marble (the restrooms were beautiful) and French tables. Because of the high ceilings and spacious room, it felt a little like eating at an elegant train station. The servings for the most part were quite small and it is expensive. When we walked in we passed a refrigerated section with European type sandwiches and soft drinks. On the way out I bought a hard bread type sandwich with prosciutto and burrata cheese which I ate in the car. It may have been the best thing I ate. Nice and chewy, flavorful and European to the core. I had to gnaw on it for a while to get each bite, and then chew and chew, but the texture and taste were wonderful. Further into the restaurant we passed displays of wicked looking desserts

and

which we also purchased some of on our way out. I got a praline pecan creme brulee which I ate at home when it was cold, but it was still very good. It reminded me of some of the beautiful French desserts we saw on display in Montreal. Finally, once at a table, Andrew and Lauren ordered a clam pizza which was clammy with surf clams and mozzarella and Pecorino Romano cheese.

It was nice and mild, surprising because Pecorino is very salty and strong. It was pretty good as far as pizza goes, but I'm just not much of a pizza person.

Judy got trenne pasta with prime rib eye, kale and shaved Grana Parmesan cheese.

I only tasted one piece of her pasta and it was kind of hard and crunchy, but I'm not a pasta person either. Judy had read a review on Yelp that raved about the trenne pasta, but she was disappointed with it. She said the ribeye with it was good, but did not like the pasta much. I got what was identified as a lamb porterhouse which was two very small lamb chops with small baked potatoes and garlic cloves.

I asked for medium rare lamb, but they said it was small and would be cooked through. Of my two pieces, one was thicker than the other, and was thus rare, and I enjoyed it more than the more cooked piece. It was good, but not great. The vegetables were tasty. The portabello mushroom fries were truly unique, with a thin crisp coating and a nice green, quite flavorful, dipping sauce.

The fries were crisp on the outside, but with the meaty, juicy portabello taste inside.

They were a truly nice dish and a nice value, comparatively, even at $10.00. The other menu item that was very nicely cooked was grilled octopus.

It was $12.00 for a very small amount, but it may be the best octopus I've ever eaten. It had a nice, firm, grilled exterior, had a nice taste and was not rubbery. Finally, we all shared a chocolate souffle dessert there. A hole was punched in the top of the souffle and cream poured in.

The souffle was very light and fluffy and the cream not very sweet.

It was fun and different, but I would not pay $15.00 to eat it again. Bottega Louie was fun to visit, but given the cost I would probably not go for a sit-down meal again. However, I do look forward to trying some more of their take out sandwiches and desserts. I love the crusty European bread and need to try some more of their luscious looking desserts.

Ground Kangaroo Hash

2012-01-10T21:00:00.000-08:00

I purchased a pound of ground kangaroo from Charlie Brown Farms in Littlerock, California.

I'd previously had kangaroo medallions, which were okay, not great, and I thought the ground meat, with some additional add-ins, would be a fun variation. I was cooking a goose at the same time and added the goose liver and kidney (but not the pictured neck) to the meat.

I put some olive oil and cut-up red pepper, garlic cloves, turnips and onion to a frying pan and partially cooked it, then added the meat

and cooked it all together.

and

For the same meal, Judy had prepared a potato casserole, with shredded potato, that was good on its own, but fantastic when added to the kangaroo mixture. The kangaroo is quite lean, but mixed with the vegetables and potato, it added a nice texture and flavor.

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the potato casserole. We had the LDS missionaries over for dinner, one in particular, from Fiji, who was an adventurous eater. In fact, he detected the taste of the liver and asked if some was included. I sheepishly admitted it was, because I knew the other missionary did not like liver, but figured it was diluted enough it would go undetected. They were thrilled to try the unusual meat and it made it a meal for them to remember.

Nilgai Antelope Shoulder Roast

2012-01-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

The nilgai is an antelope primarily found in India, eastern Pakistan and southern Nepal.

They were also introduced to Texas in the 1920s and there are now about 15,000 wild nilgai in that state. For a pre-Christmas dinner, I purchased a 4.54 nilgai shoulder roast from a Texas free range animal.

I found a recipe for antelope pot roast from Texas hunting site and hoped for the best. I'd previously had antelope steaks from a Wyoming antelope and it is probably my least favorite game meat ever - the sage brush diet does not translate into great meat - it was lean, dry and very gamy. I hoped this would be better. The meat was very lean and very dark.

The recipe called for wrapping the meat with six slices of bacon (I had seven and wished I had more), a good idea for lean meat, and baking it in the oven for 40 minutes per pound. I made a rub of 1/2 tsp of garlic powder, 1/4 tsp of black pepper, 3 tbsp of cider vinegar which was rubbed on before putting on the bacon. I then cut up about four potatoes, two turnips, quite a few small carrots and a large onion and cut them into approximate one inch pieces. The roast and a 1/4 cup of beef broth were placed in a roasting pan and into an oven at 350 degrees.

About every hour I added another 1/4 cup of beef broth and with an hour left, added the vegetables.

The result was way short of what I hoped for. It was cooked too long which made the otherwise dry meat even dryer and it was quite gamy. I did find the pieces that had a little fat on them better tasting.

The vegetables, on the other hand, were very good. Everyone was a good sport and had some, but it was not a best seller and we had quite a bit that ultimately was not eaten.

There may be a good way to cook antelope, but I haven't found it yet (I do hope to keep trying).

Grilled Iguana

2012-01-06T21:00:00.000-08:00

A number of years ago, when our children were young, a friend of ours gave us some iguana meat that had been brought into the U.S. from Mexico and cooked by his Mexican workers. It was excellent. We finished off what we had quickly and the kids were asking for more. I've wanted to try more iguana since that time.

This year, for Christmas, I found some iguana meat for sale on the internet and ordered two pounds of it. What recipes I found were mostly for whole iguanas and so I ended up adapting one of them. I wish I could find out how the Mexican workers cooked their iguana because it was really excellent. Our two pounds included what looks like a portion of the torso and hind legs and half of the back bone and one of the front legs.

I cooked it for our family the day before Christmas. The recipe called for soaking guajillo and pasilla chiles and blending them with vinegar, oregano, salt and pepper, then marinating the iguana meat in that mixture for two hours or more, then roasting it at high heat until tender. I got a mixture of three different types of dried chiles from our cupboard and soaked them for several hours and then blended them with apple cider vinegar. I was concerned that it would overpower the meat and I was right. Fortunately, I only marinated half of it.

The other half I coated with olive oil and cooked all of it on our outdoor gas grill.

As strange as it sounds, iguana meat is actually quite a bit like chicken. It is a white meat and has much the same consistency and is very mild. I did not like my combination of peppers and was not fond of the meat cooked in the marinade. I quite liked the meat that was coated in oil and grilled. It was mild and had a nice grilled taste.

I was a little disappointed with my experimentation and would really like to try cooking a whole iguana someday with a better recipe. Below, the backbone portion is much more recognizable with most of the meat pulled off.

Washugyu: Kobe Style Beef

2012-01-04T18:40:00.000-08:00

For Christmas one of my partners gave me an amazing gift: 8 individually wrapped 8 ounce

Washugyu filet mignon steaks.

As I said in an prior post, Washugyu is the American version of Kobe beef. I've had Kobe beef once, raw, at a restaurant in Tokyo, and it was very good. Not a lot different from good tuna sashimi. I've had Washugyu once, a small grilled ribeye steak, that was disappointing. With my adventurous family gathering together for Christmas, I emailed a challenge: each would be given an opportunity to cook one of the steaks, any way they wanted; we would each get to sample a small piece of each steak and then pick a winner. I figured we could do it at odd times and spread it out over several days, to eat as appetizers along with our other food.

Because Rachael is such an adventurous and good cook, I gave her the first crack at it. She tweeted Gordon Ramsay, of Hell's Kitchen fame, and he responded with a cooking suggestion. Unfortunately, I do not have the exact directions, but as I recall he suggested leaving the steak at room temperature for 20 minutes, coating it in olive oil and rosemary, then frying it very hot in oil for three minutes on one side,

then flipping it over and cooking it on the other side for a minute, I believe, then adding in butter and cooking it for an additional minute, spooning the melted butter over the top of the steak.

When I heard this, I had Rachael cook two steaks, I wanted to make sure we each had an opportunity for several bites. As you can imagine, it was extremely good. The outside was a little crispy and buttery

and the inside was melt in your mouth, warmish, and smooth beef butter.

Andrew, our other real adventurous cook, took the next turn. Living in Koreatown, he is getting quite a Korean food education. So he decided to cook his Korean style. He made an elaborate marinade that included a puree of onions, garlic, soy sauce and red pepper paste. He poked the meat with holes and let it marinade for two hours. He sprinkled the outside with sea salt and red pepper flakes and then fried it.

He then sliced it and put it on a bed of lettuce for a nice visual effect.

It was quite strong, both salty and hot, and was more limp, less plump. It was very good, but not as good as Rachael's.

We were getting full, along with the other food we'd eaten, but I decided to proceed ahead with mine. I decided to cook mine on our outdoor gas grill. I'd cooked a goose recently and there was a lot of goose fat in the grill that needed to burn off (I'd cooked it over the two middle burners that were off, with the two outside burners on high). I put all four burners on high and the goose fat created a large flame that burned for awhile. I decided to take pieces of Gordon Ramsey's suggestions and let the steak sit out for 20 minutes, put on a light layer of olive oil, rubbed on some red Hawaiian sea salt

and decided to cook it for three minutes on each side. When I got out to the grill it was REALLY hot, but the result was amazing. It was a little more crispy on the outside (than Rachael's steaks) from the high heat, the salt mixed in and gave it great flavor and the whole textural and flavor components were great.

Andrew and Judy proclaimed mine the winner, and it was so good, I tried to do it again. However, my next attempt was not as good (still very good, just not as good). Because all of the goose fat had burned off and the grill had not been on as long, it was not as hot. Instead of using red Hawaiian sea salt, I used truffle salt. And for the last minute on the grill I spread butter on the outside. The combination of the butter, different salt and the less hot grill resulted in the steak being less crisp on the outside, the salt flavor was not as pronounced, and the texture was just not as great.

By this time, everyone was rolling and we had to hold on to the remaining steaks for another day.

Over the course of the next two days I experimented with the remaining steaks, sharing with Judy. I let the steaks stand, rubbed them in olive oil and red Hawaiian sea salt, and cooked them on the grill for four minutes on each side, instead of three. I tried butter again on one, and did not like it as well as without.

We had some Cambozola triple cream cheese, the name intentionally suggesting a combination of soft Camembert cheese and bluey Gorgonzola. For one, we added a layer of Cambozola on the top for the last minute on the grill.

Then, for the last steak, I sliced the steak sideways, nearly through, then for the last minute put Cambozola on the inside.

That was crazy good. We still got the benefit of the crispier textured outside, but then the warm, bluey, buttery cheese combining with the already buttery meat. I think it came close to my first steak.

Judy proclaimed this the best beef she has ever eaten. It was very fun to have high quality meat to experiment with. The Washugyu truly is excellent beef.

Peking Goose

2011-12-28T21:00:00.000-08:00

We had our firm Christmas party at Lotus Garden this year and I asked them if they would cook a goose Peking duck style. I love their Peking duck and we have had them previously cook a special occasion roast goose. Goose is not normally on their menu, but they located a fresh 11+ pound goose in Los Angeles and picked it up specially for our party. They brought out the goose as the beginning course of our meal and I loved the presentation:

it looked like it was swimming on the plate, webbed feet, wings, head and neck all still attached.

The chef came out and carved the goose in front of us,

placing a little meat with skin,

scallion and hoison sauce on a crepe for each person in our party.

The finished product.

From a taste standpoint, the goose can't compete with duck. The goose is not as tender or flavorful. But the overall effect, the presentation, the carving and the food itself, amounted to a wonderful addition to our Christmas party. And almost as fun as the bird, a group of about five Lotus Garden cooks and waiters lined up and sang a Christmas song for us in Chinese strangled English which was hilarious and we responded with good humored laughter and clapping. I'm sure the rest of the patrons in the restaurant were wondering what was going on. I love restaurants, like Lotus Garden, that are willing to make an extra effort to make a gathering special.

Sausage: Blood with Barley and Liver

2011-12-27T20:30:00.000-08:00

Shortly before Christmas I was in the Antelope Valley and stopped, by a whim, at Valley Hungarian Sausage & Meat Company, located at 8809 Pearblossom Hwy in Littlerock, CA 93543 (phone: 661-944-3351). It is a very small house turned into a commercial establishment that sells mostly Hungarian sausage and appears to be quite popular. A bought a number of different kinds of sausage, but was most excited by the blood and barley sausage

and the liver sausage, neither of which I'd had before.

Christmas morning, I asked Mariusz Redzikowski, Sam's friend and current BYU roommate, staying with us over Christmas, to cook the sausage. He indicated that blood sausage is a traditional Polish dish cooked with onions. I asked him to cook it for us. He'd never cooked it before, so he called his mother in Poland and got instructions. We had only one large red onion, so we used it, cooking it in a little bit of olive oil. Then he sliced up the blood sausage with barley

and added it to the cooking onion.

The casing naturally disintegrated as he stirred it around with the onion.

It turned into something that looked more like boiled bird seed than blood, and even more surprising, it had very little blood taste to it.

We all enjoyed it very much. It was rich and not off-putting at all. Next he cut up the liver sausage,

something he said was not a Polish dish, although they quite often cooked up liver and onions. So he cut up the liver sausage, discarding the casing, and added it to cooking onions as well.

It also appeared to have barley or some other grain in with it. It looked like hash, but was incredibly tasty, very soft with a pleasant texture, not very livery at all.

It was even better than the blood sausage. In fact, I think I might prefer the liver to most other sausage I've had, except perhaps Polish kielbasa. Neither were like any sausage I've ever had. The sausage casing acted more like a container to hold the blood or liver and then when cooked, the contents had no real semblance of sausage at all. Mariusz said that it made him feel like he was home in Poland and it added a very nice touch to our Christmas.

Aside from the prime rib we ate later Christmas day, this was my favorite food we ate over the Christmas holiday.

Le Rendez-Vous Restaurant

2011-10-09T18:54:00.000-07:00

I have heard about Le Rendez-Vous,

a French restaurant located at 4775 N. Sierra Way in San Bernardino (phone: 909-883-1231), for years, but I had never been there until recently when Judy got a Groupon for it.

I was more than pleasantly surprised at what a wonderful dinner we had. Many reviews on Yelp indicated that the service was slow, but we got there early, about 5:45, and had our courses coming in pretty much right after each other, and we were very pleased with how the evening went. We initially got some sliced French bread, butter and olive tapenade, with both black and green olives.

When we finished the tapenade we were offered more, but declined, to save room for the rest of the meal. We got two appetizers, both of which were marvelous. First was escargot Roquefort,

six snails baked with Roquefort blue cheese. The snails were cooked out of the shells in a round plate with holes, similar to what our snails were served to us in on our Princess cruise. There were six snails smothered in butter with blue cheese and it was absolutely divine.

When the snails were eaten we had left over butter which we dipped our bread into and polished off.

In short order, our waiter wheeled in a cart with a skillet and a large bowl with raw spinach to create spinach salad flambee. He added ingredients to the skillet I don't recall, including bacon, then toward the end added a mixture of brandy and cognac which created a large flame which burns off the alcohol. The cooked ingredients were added to the spinach, tossed, then served to us. I was surprised that the spinach still retained its fresh, raw texture, but the sweet warm liquid and smoky bacon bits melded with it to make a delicious salad.

Next, I got French onion soup. I opted not to get a cheese cap on it, in order to save some calories, and regretted it. I love French onion soup, but this was average.

It is usually the cheese that makes it, so I din't really give it a good chance. Judy got a vichyssoise, a cold vegetable soup. She won. It was whitish in color and had a nice vegetable soup taste. For my main course, I ordered le carre d'agneaux aux herebes, or roasted rack of lamb.

I ordered it on the rare side of medium rare and the meat was cooked perfectly. It was covered in some sort of reduced vinegar that was okay, I didn't love it. I would have preferred a sweeter sauce, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the dish. It came with mashed potatoes that were okay and fresh cooked vegetables that were fantastic. They were nicely spiced and softened up, but still retained a little crunch. If I could get them to double the vegetables and forget the mashed potatoes, I would. Judy got a filet mignon with a creamy tarragon sauce.

The filet cut like butter and the tarragon sauce added wonderfully to the flavor of the meat. She won again, which is surprising to me because I almost always prefer lamb to beef. This time it was not that the lamb was not good, it was, but that the beef was tremendous. Finally, we were full, but just had to get the flambeed crepe surprise, a crepe filled with nutella and topped with sliced almonds, strawberries and some sort of warm, sweet, delicious sauce. The waiter wheeled the cart to our table again, fired up a skillet, then used the brandy/cognac mixture to again ignite the pan with flames and light up the room. The sweet warm mixture was added to the crepes and served. This dish capped the night. We were full, but we struggled to eat every bite. The almonds added some nice crunch, the strawberries were cool and juicy. The crepe was soft and filled with warm nutella, which soaked up the warm, sweet mixture which had a base that consisted of copious amounts of butter.

This was not a Weight Watcher dessert. Not even close. It is a dessert I have dreamed about since. The dessert was worth it all by itself. Add it to the fantastic snails and spinach salad and good lamb, and it was a night to relish. As we left that night, we wondered aloud if we could come again just for dessert.

Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village

2011-10-09T14:24:00.000-07:00

My previous post was on Canterbury Shaker Village in New Hampshire, where I mentioned a little bit about the Shaker religion. Several days after visiting Canterbury, we visited the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in New Gloucester, Maine, near Sabbathday Lake. I regret that we passed up an opportunity to take a tour there. We'd already taken a tour in Canterbury and Sabbathday looked so much smaller and access was so much more restricted that we decided not to spend the time and money. As I look back and read a little more about it, I wished we'd taken more time.

I quote some excerpts from Charles Nordhoff’s 1875 book titled, The Communistic Societies of the United States.

"The New Gloucester Society lies in Cumberland County [Maine], about twenty-five miles northwest of Portland. It consists of two families, having together about seventy members, of whom one third are men. In 1823 it had three families, the third being gathered in 1820, and broken up in 1831. The society had in 1823 one hundred and fifty members. It was "gathered" in 1794…[There] are persons who were farmers, merchants, printers, wool-weavers, and Some mechanics.

The Church Family lives in a valley, the Gathering Family on a high ridge, about a mile off, and overlooking an extensive tract of country. The society has two thousand acres of land, and owns a saw-mill, grist-mill, and a very complete machine shop. The people raise garden seeds, make brooms, dry measures, wire sieves, and the old-fashioned spinning-wheel, which, it seems, is still used in Maine and New Hampshire by country-women to make stocking yarn. But its most profitable industry is the manufacture of oak staves for molasses hogsheads, which are exported to the West Indies. One of the elders of this society, Hewitt Chandler, a man of uncommon mechanical ingenuity, and the inventor of a mowing-machine which was made here for some years, has contrived a way of bending staves without setting them up in the cask, which saves much time and labor, and makes this part of their business additionally profitable. They made last year also a thousand dollars' worth of pickles; and the women make fancy articles in their spare time. They employ from fifteen to twenty laborers in their mills and other works, most of whom are boarded and lodged on the place.

The meeting-house at this place was built in 1794, and the dwelling of the Church Family in the following year. Both are of wood, are still in good order, and have never been re-shingled. The second family at this place was "gathered" in 1808, at Gorham, in Maine, and removed to its present location in 1819. It had then twenty brethren and thirty-two sisters; and has now only twenty members in all. Very few of the people here eat meat. Some drink tea, but coffee is not used. They have flower gardens, and would have an organ or melodeon if they could afford it. The young people promise well; and they have lately received several young men as members, sons of neighboring farmers, who had worked for them as hired people for a number of years.

This society is less prosperous than most of the others. It has met with several severe losses by unfaithful and imprudent agents and trustees, who in one case ran up large debts for several years, contrary to the wise rule of the Shakers to "owe no man any thing," and in another case brought loss by defalcation. The hill family have built a large stone house, but owing to losses have not been able to complete it. The buildings at New Gloucester show signs of neglect; but the people are very industrious, and have in the last three years paid off a large sum which they owed through the default of their agents; and they will work their way out in the next two years. To prevent their being entirely crippled, the other societies helped them with a subscription."

The red brick building below, to the back left, is the Dwelling House, built in 1883. The white building to the immediate right is the Spinhouse, then to its left, the Boys' Shop, then the Herb House, and then the Sister's Shop.

A closer view of the Spinhouse.

The Trustee's Office, just across the dirt road from the buildings above, which also has a small gift shop now.

A Garage, built in 1910 for the first car, and fenced in pasture behind it, full of sheep.

A closer view of sheep and Sabbathday Lake barely visible in the center, just to the left of the large, center tree.

Barns.

340 acre Sabbathday Lake. The village owns 29 cottages on the lake which they lease to help support the land and buildings.

Canterbury Shaker Village

2011-10-07T22:12:00.000-07:00

The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, commonly known as Shaking Quakers, or Shakers, because of their ecstatic worship, originated in England in 1747. Their worship included “singing and dancing, shaking and shouting, speaking with new tongues and prophesying.” Ann Lee joined them in 1758 and soon became the leader. In 1774, Ann Lee and eight followers emigrated to the U.S. and settled in New York, north of Albany, at a place they called Niskayuna, later known as Watervliet. Over the next century, the Shakers built more than 20 settlements and had more than 20,000 converts. Among those settlements were two we visited on our recent trip: Canterbury, New Hampshire, begun in 1792, and Sabbathday Lake (originally New Gloucester), Maine, begun in 1794. The maximum membership of the Shakers, at any one time, was about 6,000 in 1840. The Shakers have virtually died out, so I will refer to them in the past tense. There are now only two or three Shakers still living and they reside at Sabbathday Lake in Maine.

The Shakers believed God was both a man and a woman. That the fall of Adam and Eve was due to sexual intercourse and that men and women should be celibate. They believed that Jesus was the male manifestation of Christ and that Ann Lee was the female manifestation of Christ and that Ann Lee was the fulfillment of Christ’s Second Coming. They believed in revelation, through visions and inspiration, including inspiration that led to teachings against the use of pork, tea, coffee, alcohol and tobacco. Joseph Meacham, who became the Shaker leader in 1787, developed the Shaker form of communalism. After 1790, those who joined the Shakers signed a written covenant to consecrate their property to the society, to labor for the society and to live celibate. Those who were married when they joined essentially ended their marriages.

A Shaker Village was divided into families. The leading group was the Church Family and there were satellite families named for points on the compass rose. Each family shared a large house and a group of families was a Shaker village. Each family had its own farm and businesses. The village was governed by two Elders (men) and two Eldresses (women). Each family was also led by two Elders and two Eldresses, the Elders overseeing the men and the Eldresses overseeing the women. Houses were divided between men and women so that they did most things separately. They used different staircases and doors, sat on opposite sides of the room in church and at meals, but they did treat each other as brothers and sisters and cooperated together in tasks around the village such as food production.

When the early Mormons were living in Kirtland, Ohio, there was a Shaker community known as Union Village, consisting of about 600 people, nearby. Leman Copley, a former Shaker, had joined the Mormons and had consecrated his farm, between 700 and 1,000 acres, for settlement by church members arriving from Colesville, New York. Copley insisted on retaining some of his Shaker beliefs and Joseph Smith, “In order to have [a] more perfect understanding on the subject, …inquired of the Lord, and received” a revelation that is now codified in Doctrine & Covenants Section 49. This was in May 1831. Counter to the Shaker belief that Christ’s second coming had occurred in the form of a woman, Ann Lee, the revelation stated that “the Son of Man…reigneth in the heavens, and will reign till he descends on the earth…which time is nigh at hand - …but the hour and the day no man knoweth…nor shall they know until he comes….[T]he Son of Man cometh not in the form of a woman, neither of a man traveling on the earth.” (verses 6-7, 22) Counter to the Shaker prohibition against eating pork, and many that did not eat any meat, the revelation stated, “whoso forbiddeth to abstain from meats…is not ordained of God; For, behold, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and that which cometh of the earth, is ordained for the use of man for food and for raiment, and that he might have in abundance.” (verses 18-19) Counter to the Shaker belief in a celibate life, the revelation stated, “whoso forbiddeth to marry is not ordained of God, for marriage is ordained of God unto man. Wherefore, it is lawful that he should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, and all this that the earth might answer the end of its creation” (verses 15-16). Sidney Rigdon, Parley P. Pratt and Leman Copley took a copy of the revelation to Union Village and read it to the Shakers there, but they got nowhere with it. The Mormons had their own experiences with communal living in Kirtland, as well as later in Utah, which were similar in many respects to the Shakers, but ultimately abandoned those efforts as unworkable. Joseph Smith later introduced the Word of Wisdom which counseled against the use of tea, coffee, alcohol and tobacco, but not pork. However, he went the opposite direction of the Shakers so far as celibacy is concerned, introducing plural marriage.

Shaker meetinghouse were white and simple. There were no pulpits or decorations because those things were worldly. “In meeting, they marched, sang, danced, and sometimes turned, twitched, jerked, or shouted. The earliest Shaker worship services were unstructured, loud, chaotic and emotional.” Later they “developed precisely choreographed dances and orderly marches accompanied by symbolic gestures.” The Shaker meeting house at Canterbury Village is below, down a tree-lined lane.

There are two entrances. The entrance on the left is for men and the one on the right is for women.

A side view of the meeting house.

The back of the meeting house.

Charles Nordhoff published a book in 1875 titled The Communistic Societies of the United States, in which he described the various Shaker Villages. Language in quotes from his book is below as I share some more pictures from Canterbury.

“The society at Canterbury lies on high ground, about twelve miles north by east from Concord [New Hampshire]. It consists of three families, of which, however, two only are independent; the third, which has but fifteen members, receiving its supplies from the Church Family, which contains one hundred members. The three families have in all one hundred and forty-five members. In 1823 they had over two hundred, and forty years ago they had about three hundred...This society is prosperous. It owns three thousand acres of rather poor farming land, some of which is in wood and timber. It has also a farm in Western New York, where it maintains eight hundred sheep. Its industries are varied: they make large washing-machines and mangles for hotels and public institutions, weave woolen cloths and flannels, make sarsaparilla syrup, checkerberry oil, and knit woolen socks. They also make brooms, and sell hay; have a saw-mill; make much of what they use; and they keep excellent stock, having one enormous and admirably arranged barn. The sisters also make fancy articles, for which they have a good market from the summer visitors to the mountains, with whom the Canterbury Shakers are justly favorites."

The picture below was taken from near the botanical garden of the village. The white house at the left, with the largest chimney, is the Dry House, built in 1879, where laundry was dried by steam on indoor, moveable racks. To its right, with a red roof, is the Laundry, built in 1816. The brown building to the right of the Laundry is the Syrup Shop, built in 1785. Medicinal syrups were distilled there, food was canned and herbs were dried. The smaller white building, to its right, with the red roof is the Garage, built in 1923, for village automobiles. Just visible to its right, with red walls, is the Power House, built in 1910, with a DC generator. The brown building to its right, and more in the foreground, is the Woodshed, built in 1861. The yellow building to its right is the Bee House, not moved to that spot until 1940. It originally was an area for drying apples and lumber, but later used as a bee house. Finally, to the farthest right, the long structure with a light brown roof is the Cart Shed, where horse-drawn vehicles were stored and wagonloads were weighed.

The Fire House, below, was built in 1908. Its tall red tower is just visible in the picture above the Woodshed. The white building to its right and behind is the Creamery, where they processed milk and made butter, built in 1905.

The School House below, was built in 1823 and expanded to its current size in 1863.

The building in the foreground to the left is the Carpenter's Shop, built in 1806. It was originally used to house guests, then later to manufacture brooms. The building in the right foreground is the Brethren's Shop, built in 1824. It was used by farmers, wheelmakers, shoemakers and physicians. The Creamery is just behind it and the North Shop is at the far back, built in 1841, to provide workspace.

"Their buildings are very complete and in excellent order. They have a steam laundry, with mangle, and an admirably arranged ironing-room; a fine and thoroughly fitted school-house, with a melodeon, and a special music-room; an infirmary for the feeble and sick, in which there is a fearful quantity of drugs; and they take twelve or fifteen newspapers, and have a library of four hundred volumes, including history, voyages, travels, scientific works, and stories for children, but no novels."

"The Canterbury Society was 'gathered' in 1792; the leading men owned the farm on which the buildings now stand, and gave the land to the community. The old gambrel-roofed meeting-house was built in 1792, and still stands in good order. The founders and early members were Free-will Baptists, who became Shakers after a great "revival." They had some property originally; and soon began to manufacture spinning-wheels, whips, sieves, mortars, brooms, scythe-snaths, and dry measures; they established also a tannery. As times changed, they dropped some of these industries and took up others. One of their members invented the washing-machine which they now make, and they hold the patent-right for it."

"They employ six mechanics, non-members, and occasionally others. The members mostly eat meat, drink tea but not coffee, and a few of the aged members are indulged in the use of chewing-tobacco. They take fewer children than formerly, and prefer to take young men and women from eighteen to twenty-four. They take great pains to amuse as well as instruct the children; for the girls, gymnastic exercises are provided as well as a flower garden; the boys play at ball and marbles, go fishing, and have a small farm of their own, where each has his own garden plot. Once a week there is a general "exercise" meeting of the children, and they are, of course, included in the usual meetings for worship, reading, and conversation."

"The "shops" or work-rooms are all excellently fitted; in the girls' sewing-room I found a piano, and a young sister taking her music-lesson. The children are trained to confess their sins to the elders, in the Shaker fashion, and this is thought to be a most important part of their discipline."

"In the dwelling-house and near the kitchen I noticed a great number of buckets, hung up to the beams, one for each member, and these are used to carry hot water to the rooms for bathing. The dwellings are not heated with steam. The dining-room was ornamented with evergreens and flowers in pots." Picture of the dwelling house is below. It is the largest building at Canterbury, built in 1793, but expanded several times until 1837, and has cooking and dining areas, sleeping areas, common rooms and a chapel.

It housed 80 to 100 people who ate in two to three different seatings. The first floor had a butcher shop, bakery, kitchen and dining room.

The large domed cupola on top, built in 1832, has a Paul Revere bell that was used to call the family to meals and meetings.

The second and third floor were bedrooms and the attic was a storage area.

"They have no physician, but in the infirmary the sisters in charge have sufficient skill for ordinary cases of disease. The people are not great readers. The Bible, however, is much read. They are fond of music. In summer they entertain visitors at a set price, and have rooms fitted for this purpose. In the visitors' dining-room I saw this printed notice:

At the table we wish all to be as free as at home, but we dislike the wasteful habit of leaving food on the plate. No vice is with us the less ridiculous for being fashionable.

Married persons tarrying with us overnight are respectfully notified that each sex occupy separate sleeping apartments while they remain."

"They had at Canterbury formerly a printing-press, and printed a now scarce edition of hymns, and several books. This press has been sold."

"The trustees here give once a year an inventory and statement of accounts to the elders of the Church Family. In the years 1848-9 they suffered severe losses from the defalcation of an agent or trustee, but they have long ago recovered this loss, and now owe no debts." The Trustees' Office is below, built in 1831. It was the residence and offices of the Trustees. They interacted with visitors from the outside there.

"Agriculture they believe to be the true base of community life, and if their land were fertile they would be glad to leave off manufacturing entirely. But on such land as they have they cannot make a living."

"The leading elder of the society remarked to me that, though in numbers they were less than formerly, the influence of the Canterbury Society upon the outside world was never so great as now: their Sunday meetings in summer are crowded by visitors, and they believe that often their doctrines sink deep into the hearts of these chance hearers." The Garden Barn, built in 1828 (this is a reconstruction) is in the distance to the left, below. The Garden Shed, also a reconstruction of an 1877 building, is to its right. The Vegetable Garden in front of it is much more limited now, it used to be three acres.

A closer look at the Vegetable Garden.

From the Garden Barn looking back at the East House on the left, built in 1810, used as the first Trustees' Office, then later as a dwelling place for girls. The brown building to its right is the Sisters' Shop, built in 1816, used as work and office space and a music room for the sisters. The cupola on top of the Dwelling House is visible just to the right of the center tree, and the red-roofed Laundry, built in 1816, is the long building to the right.

Below is a picture of the front of the East House (to the right) taken from the side of the Meeting House. The Sisters' Shop is the brown building to the left and mostly hidden by the tree.

The Ministry Shop, below, was built in 1848, and used by the Elders and Eldresses, the men and women responsible for the spiritual leadership of the families.

My favorite part of the village was the beautiful pond to the back. I understand that they had a series of ponds at differing levels and used the water running between the levels to generate power.

Another view of the same pond, looking from a different area.

It is really impressive that the Shakers were able to build and sustain these beautiful, functioning, villages for so long, much longer than the Mormons were able to maintain their communal villages. It would be interesting to study the differences. I wonder if celibacy was part of the difference?

Boulangerie Premiere Moisson - Montreal

2011-10-03T22:15:00.000-07:00

Judy's friend, Elizabeth, went to Montreal earlier this year and blogged about Premiere Moisson. The pictures of the food looked so good that I commented to Judy it would be worth flying to Montreal just to eat there. Well, we unexpectedly made it to Montreal later this year, and I couldn't get those pictures out of my head. So Premiere Moisson was high on our "to do" list. It took us awhile, but after finally parking our rental car near Place d'Armes, having a French (and barely English) speaking store clerk call the restaurant for the nearest location (because our cell phone was not working), and buying a subway ticket from a machine which only had French instructions and would not take our American issued credit cards, we took the subway to Mont Royale and found one of several of the bakeries.

We had dinner reservations at Au Cinquieme Peche later that afternoon, but after surveying the beautiful looking breads,

pastries,

tarts,

cakes

and the deli section, we could not resist buying a goodly quantity of the bakery's goods. We went to the deli section and bought a roast beef sandwich, warmed panini style, and Greek salad.

We also got a baguette and a lunch size piece of blue cheese to eat with it, and a salad with egg, tomato, mayonnaise and other ingredients.

For dessert we had a fruit tart with fresh peach, blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, strawberry and kiwi,

a Napoleon,

and a piece of chocolate raspberry mousse cake.

The panini, particularly with some of the creamy blue cheese on it, was quite good,

the vegetables in the Greek salad were fresh, and I particularly enjoyed the fresh fruit in the tart. Fresh fruit with a little added sweetener is a tough combination to beat. Judy, who is on to all things chocolate, focused on the chocolate mousse pie and I focused on the Napoleon, although we did share pieces of each. It is tough to beat a fresh Napoleon from a French bakery. We were lamenting that we had no room to try some of the other delights, but that just gives us reason to go back.

Notre Dame Basilica - Montreal

2011-10-02T22:23:00.000-07:00

Notre Dame Basilica

is located in Old Montreal and faces Place d'Armes square. Place d'Armes means "parade ground" in French and refers to locals who would come to watch the military do their maneuvers there. The Place d'Armes contains a prominent statue of Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve, the founder of Montreal in 1642, which faces the Basilica.

Construction of the current church began in 1824 and the sanctuary was finished in 1830. The western tower was completed in 1841 and has one 11 ton bell. The eastern tower was completed in 1843 and has 10 smaller bells.

It was the largest church in North America when it was completed, large enough to hold 4,000 worshipers. The three statues on the facade represent Montreal (the Virgin Mary),

Quebec (John the Baptist)

and Canada (St. Joseph).

A parish church of Notre Dame, dedicated to Mary, and completed in 1672, was on this same site. It was only when it got too small for the parishioner's needs that the existing church was built. The sanctuary is particularly noteworthy because of the glowing blue and gold behind the altar.

It creates the feeling that you are looking out at the sky.

A closer view.

The focal point is Jesus on the cross flanked by two women.

Above it is a statue of what I am guessing is Mary being crowned by the Father.

Below was a depiction of the Last Supper.

On the opposite end was a large organ

The stained glass windows along the walls of the sanctuary depict the history of Ville-Marie after Roman Catholics from the Sulpician Order arrived in 1657 rather than traditional biblical scenes.

The stained glass windows were imported from Limoges, France.

Much of the rest of the interior contains rare woods, gilded and painted, which was difficult to appreciate because of the dim lighting.

However, there were also quite a few statues carved out of wood, several of which were quite spectacular. My favorites were the carvings of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, seated next to each other.

One of Jesus on the cross

was above beautiful lighted candles.

There were a few paintings, but quite dimly lit.

A more intimate chapel, the Chapel of the Sacred Heart (Chapelle du Sacre-Coeur) was built behind it in 1891. It is used for ceremonies for smaller congregations, including marriages and funerals. The Sacred Heart Chapel was destroyed by arson in 1978 and rebuilt from old drawings, photographs and the addition of a large bronze altarpiece. The altar has 32 panels representing birth, life and death.

It is very well lit and much more modern, quite a contrast from the quite dark, but glowing Basilica.

This is rated as the no. 1 destination for Montreal by Trip Advisor. I wish we'd had more time in Montreal to see some of the other churches. It appears that there are many other beautiful churches in the city.

Mabel's Lobster Claw - Kennebunkport, Maine

2011-10-01T21:16:00.000-07:00

Mabel's Lobster Claw

is located at 124 Ocean Ave in Kennebunkport, Maine (phone: 207-967-2562).

We ate at Mabel's at the end of an overly ambitious food day. In fact, we almost didn't go at all. So it may have fared better if it had been first on the list of the three restaurants we visited that day (the others being the Maine Diner and The Clam Shack). I was on my quest to try the top-rated lobster rolls. I got a lobster roll which included two sides: I got coleslaw and french fries.

I only ate a few of the french fries, just to try them, and they were average. I only ate a bit of the coleslaw. It was unusual, but also average. The dressing was different than any I've had before and there were no other visible ingredients. The lobster roll was beautiful. It had big chunks and plenty of mayonnaise and a little lettuce.

The only problem was that it was too cold, kind of like eating hard butter instead of butter after it has melted - the taste was muted. I think the taste would have improved significantly if I'd let it sit for about 20 minutes. Judy got their clam chowder, which was rated the no. 4 clam chowder in New England by 500 Things to Eat Before It's Too Late. It was thick, which I like, and it tasted good.

But it had lots of potatoes, too many per ratio of clams. It was not as good as the clam chowder at either Cabby Shack in Plymouth, MA or Splash Cafe in Pismo Beach and San Luis Obispo, CA. It was also not as good as the seafood chowder at Maine Diner, but that's not a fair comparison as it has more ingredients and is more expensive. That said, it was still very good clam chowder. We were also provided corn bred and it was great. We had some wonderful corn bread in New England. Between the three seafood restaurants we tried, this one seemed a little less oriented to seafood than either The Clam Shack or Maine Diner and given a choice between the three, I would probably go to Maine Diner first, then to The Clam Shack. I wish we lived closer so I could have more opportunities.

A Day for My Dad: Utah and the PAC 12

2011-09-30T22:12:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow the University of Utah hosts the University of Washington in Salt Lake City for their first PAC 12 football game. As I checked the ESPN website, which I normally do about three times a day this time of year, there was an article by Ted Miller talking about the U's MUSS (Mighty Utah Student Section). Miller gave the words to "Utah Man," the school fight song, which is sung by the MUSS multiple times during a football game. I had not seen the words in years:

Who am I, sir? A Utah Man am I. A Utah Man, sir, and will be 'til I die; Ki-yi! We're up to snuff; we never bluff, we're game for any fuss, no other gang of college men dare meet us in the muss. So fill your lungs and sing it out and shout it to the sky, we'll fight for dear old Crimson, for a Utah Man am I.

I can't hear or read those words without thinking of my father. I went to many, many Utah football and basketball games growing up. Dad had season tickets to both. We both sang those words with relish at the games, even though I've never really known all the words.

They also remind me of my father's funeral, because I sang part of the words, loudly, with a fist pump, when I gave a short talk during my allotted time on the funeral program. I pulled out the words to my talk today and have had Dad on my mind. So I decided to do a post. Dad died on June 19, 2002, a little more than nine years ago. My talk was as follows:

Dad and I shared a love of sports.

When I was growing up, New Year’s Day was sacred. Dad and I would watch four to six football games, from early morning into the night, while we ate a healthy dose of shrimp, crab legs, chips and dip, and other New Year’s staples.

Dad took me to a baseball game between the Oakland Athletics and the Salt Lake Bees and he and I went to many Utah Stars basketball games. He coached my little league baseball team and regularly attended my football and basketball games.

We loved the University of Utah basketball games and had season tickets each year. I started attending games with him at the Einar Nielsen Fieldhouse and, when the Special Events Center opened, we got season tickets on the second row, right in front of the cheerleaders. At the games, my buttoned-down Dad would transform into a maniac: yelling or booing at the refs and screaming the Utes on to victory. Together with Dad, I loved to sing the Utah fight song: “A Utah man sir, a Utah man am I, a Utah man sir, I will be till I die, aye, aye.”

Dad had season tickets to the University of Utah football games and I regularly attended with him, but my favorite game occurred on November 9, 1968. I was traveling with Dad back to Kentucky to pick up Mike from his mission. We stopped in South Bend, Indiana and Dad took me to the Notre Dame/Pittsburgh football game. I was a huge Notre Dame fan: I watched every game on t.v. and knew all of the players’ names. In fact, I still have the ticket stubs, the program, and newspaper articles about the game. We saw Joe Thiesmann start his first collegiate game as a quarterback. The next day, at my request, we stopped for lunch at a Holiday Inn in Seymour, Indiana. Only my Dad understood the significance of this to me. You’ve go to understand that Jim Seymour was my favorite player on Notre Dame’s team.

When I went to BYU and learned to love BYU football, Dad also became a BYU football fan. After I got married, we traveled to San Diego for several Holiday Bowls. We also greeted the Cougars after their Holiday Bowl victory over Michigan for the national championship as they got off their charter plane in Salt Lake in freezing weather at 2:00 a.m. Mom even came along for that one.

In recent years, Dad and I often talked by telephone after a big victory, or a close loss, by either Utah or BYU, and discussed the highlights. But best of all, several years ago, as a coup de grace, we fulfilled a dream we had discussed over numerous shrimp cocktails and crab legs every New Years Day since I was a young boy: we attended a Rose Bowl game in Pasadena, watching Ohio State narrowly beat Arizona State.

Dad, if you have any clout up there, I’d love to see you pull some strings and get BYU into a BCS bowl game. I’ll be watching. I love you.

Well, Dad really must have some clout up there, because he's pulled off a few miracles. BYU used to be the great football team and Utah was usually a few steps behind. Well since he's passed, Utah has been to two BCS bowl games, beating Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl and Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. And now, something I never could have imagined - Utah is in the PAC 12. They just played USC in the Colosseum and now they will play Washington at home. I was urging Dad to push for BYU, but as you can see, he's really a Utah man at heart.

This morning when I sent the ESPN article out over the family email, Judy responded, "I just have to reflect on Bob's dad's funeral here, where Bob sang the first part of the Utah fight song from the pulpit, complete with the "Ki-yi!" fist pump. Elder Faust [of the LDS First Presidency], sitting behind him on the stand and a Utah Man himself, had a big grin on his face. It's one of my favorite memories."

Judy's brother, David Kenison, responded: "I was there, and it was one of my most STUNNED moments. I had never seen anything like that in a funeral, never have since, and don't expect I ever will. Mom was with me, and I think she was even more shocked and stunned than I was."

A few years ago, my sons, Sam and Andrew, both said they were horribly embarrassed when I did it.

Ah, good memories. It is nice to sit back and reflect occasionally. I'll be watching the game tomorrow and hoping the U will account well for themselves. I'll also think of Dad and how much he would enjoy this moment. It would be a nice day to break out the shrimp, crab legs and chips and dip. I am a Utah man, sir.

Well, the game is over. Utah got beat 31-14, had 5 turnovers. Dad wouldn't have been able to watch it all. Dad, it looks like Utah needs some more help - see what you can do.

Joseph Smith's Birthplace - Sharon Township, Vermont

2011-09-29T21:45:00.000-07:00

Joseph Smith was born in a small cabin on the Sharon/Royalton Township line on December 23, 1805. The picture is of a small replica which sits on the cabin-site today.

This was land owned by his maternal grandparents, Solomon and Lydia Mack, purchased by them in 1804. They rented the cabin and 68 of the 100 acres to Joseph's parents, Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith, who moved there from Royalton in 1804. They lived in the cabin for three years, until 1807, when they moved to Tunbridge. The LDS Church bought the land in 1905 and erected a granite monument near the site of the home.

The shaft of the monument is 38 1/2 feet tall, a foot for each year of Joseph's life.

It was dedicated on December 23, 1905, the 100th anniversary of Joseph's birth, by his nephew, Joseph F. Smith (his brother Hyrum's son), then president of the LDS Church.

A short distance from the monument

is a marker where the hearthstone (27 x 54 inches) rested.

The actual hearthstone is in the visitor's center about 200 feet away.

Just a few feet away is the front door step

of the cabin

with a small marker on it.

These two stone items are all that remain of the original cabin. The area is still extremely rural today, in a beautiful green, hilly, countryside.

Having grown up in the west, I have always envisioned the west as the area of the U.S. with rural, open land and the east as crowded and full of people. It was a little shocking to me to see how rural Vermont is. In most ways, it seems more rural and undeveloped than what we live in out west. It was a pleasant surprise.

Joseph Smith's Leg Surgery - West Lebanon, New Hampshire

2011-09-27T22:06:00.000-07:00

In 1811, when Joseph Smith was age 5, his family moved to West Lebanon, New Hampshire from South Royalton, Vermont. They stayed in a rented home just south of the Mascoma River. The picture below is of the river looking east from the Main Street bridge.

Below is the river looking west from the Main Street bridge.

This is just east of the junction of the Mascoma River and the gigantic Connecticut River which serves as the state line between Vermont and New Hampshire. Below is a picture of the home before it was torn down in 1967.

It is now the site of a gas station

on the southeast corner of Benning

and Main Streets, not too far off the I-89 freeway. This picture, taken from near the river, looks past the home location, on the other side of the sign on the left side of the street, to the freeway overpass.

Dartmouth College is located 4 ½ miles north. Joseph’s brother Hyrum attended Moor’s Academy, located near the northwest corner of the Dartmouth College green, which was run by the same board of trustees as Dartmouth.

A typhus fever plague arrived in 1813, when Joseph was 7, and all of the Smith children got it. Hyrum had to take a year’s leave from Moor’s and Joseph’s sister, Sophronia, nearly died. A quart of pus was drained from Joseph’s armpit and the infection migrated to his leg below his knee, where more infection was drained. The infection was in the bone and refused to heal. Hyrum was classmates with five of Dr. Nathan Smith’s children. Nathan Smith was founder of the Dartmouth Medical School and later founded the Yale Medical School. Perhaps because of Hyrum’s connections with Dr. Smith’s children, Dr. Smith, with a team of surgeons and medical students, visited the Smith home and used a new procedure to open Joseph’s bone and allow the pus to drain, saving the leg from having to be amputated. Joseph Smith described the surgery as follows: “Trying an experiment by removing a large portion of the bone from my left leg, which they did, and fourteen additional pieces of bone afterwards worked out before my leg healed, during which time I was reduced so very low that my mother could carry me with ease.” Joseph’s mother, Lucy, described the operation as follows: “The Surgeons commenced operating by boring into the bone of [Joseph’s] leg, first on the one side of the bone where it was affected, then on the other side, after which they broke it off with a pair of forceps or pincers. They thus took away large pieces of the bone.” Dr. Smith thereafter visited Joseph 18 times over the course of the next 20 days. It took Joseph three years on crutches before he could fully walk without them.

Joseph had what is now known as osteomyelitis and Nathan Smith happened to be the person who developed the medical procedure for curing it without amputation. Amputation remained the usual method for treatment of osteomyelitis until 1874. Lecture notes from one of Nathan Smith’s students at Dartmouth in 1812, reveal details about the operation. “Necrosis [osteomyelitis]…is a disease of considerable importance but surgical writers have said little about it….When matter is found within the bone, it should be punctured with a trephine [a small cylindrical saw] a little below the center so that the matter may be discharged. Sometimes it is punctured with a common perforating instrument with a point. When this is used, there should be a number of holes made, that it may discharge freely…Nature begins to form new bone, which generally surrounds the decaying part, the dead bone is sometimes thrown out by the surgeon keeping the wound open…The new formed bone is much larger than the original and confined both ends of the dead part within its walls. In this case, the dead bone should be cut with a trephinie or Heys saw in the middle and extracted with a pair of common forceps…The operation should not be deferred until the bone rots away, for in this case, the patient generally becomes a cripple the remainder of his day. By operating in the right time, a small piece being taken out it generally saves the loss of a large portion.”

This story of Joseph Smith as a youth created a great impression on me as a young boy. It is a story my mother told me about many times and she later included the story in her writings about Joseph as a young boy. I found it very satisfying to be able to find the approximate location where this took place and think about those events in the context of the geography I was seeing. In some respects, it was almost more significant to locate the site amidst a modern development than it would have been to have it developed as a historical site, like his birth location, in South Royalton, Vermont, which we visited later in the day. A painting of Joseph at the time of his operation (perhaps before it?) is located in the visitor’s center in South Royalton.

Sources for this were P. Douglas Kiester, MD, Professor of Orthopaedics at the University of California, Irvine, “The ‘Uneducated’Prophet", part of the Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum; Lamar C. Berrett, General Editor, Sacred Places: New England and Eastern Canada – A Comprehensive Guide to Early LDS Historical Sites, pp. 69-73; and Leroy S. Wirthlin, assistant clinical professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, “NathanSmith (1762-1828) Surgical Consultant to Joseph Smith", BYU Studies Volume 17:3, pp. 319-337.

Maine Diner

2011-09-26T22:20:00.000-07:00

The Maine Diner,

located at 2265 Post Road in Wells, Maine (phone: 207-646-4441)

had three items highly recommended by Jane and Michael Stern in their book, 500 Things to Eat Before It's Too Late: (1) the no. 2 rated clam chowder; (2) the no. 3 rated lobster roll; and (3) the no. 2 rated lobster pie. We arrived about 2:30 p.m. and I thought it would be a great time when no one would be there. Wrong. It was jammed, people waiting inside and about 10 or 15 people outside. I checked in and got a buzzer and went next door to their Gift Shoppe where about ten more people were shopping while waiting to get a seat. We got seated about 30 minutes later in a quite crowded room. We discovered that Diner, Drive-ins and Dives had visited in 2010 and they had a dish named after the show, apparently the combination of items served on the show. I came in determined to eat clam chowder, but switched when I saw Triple D had eaten the seafood chowder and that their seafood chowder had been named best chowder at the Ogunquit Chowderfest for seven years (I don't have a clue what the Ogunquit Chowderfest is, but I was impressed anyway). I noted that Triple D had also featured a lobster pie. First our waitress brought us out a nice cornbread muffin,

then the seafood chowder. The chowder was thin, but very buttery, and big chunk after big chunk of scallops (in almost every spoonful), lobster,

clams and shrimp.

We had a few chunks of potato, but the chunks were mostly seafood. I tend to like chowder thicker, but the massive amounts of chunky seafood made this a real winner. Then the lobster roll. In my post on lobster rolls, I rated this my favorite of the five I tried. It was simple, just fresh, warm lobster meat, very tender and sweet, on a hot dog-type bun, with drawn butter on the side.

I poured on the butter and ate.

It was like eating steamed lobster out of the shell, without having to do the cracking and cleaning. It also came with some potato salad (one of several choices I could have had) which was very good and creamy. Finally, the lobster pie.

It had chunks of lobster meat and lobster tomalley, butter and Ritz cracker crumbs in a little pie dish. It also came with drawn butter, much of which I added to it.

It was warm and the lobster was moist, but I felt the Ritz crackers covered up part of the lobster taste. By adding to perfection (fresh, warm, moist lobster and butter) you detract from the perfection.

For me, the plain lobster and butter on the roll could not be beat. I wish I lived closer. The Maine Diner has a sizeable menu with some very fun and tasty sounding items. Everything we had was fresh and good.

Saint Joseph's Oratory - Montreal

2011-09-25T23:15:00.000-07:00

St. Joseph’s Oratory is a Catholic basilica and shrine on the west slope of Mount Royal in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

I had never heard of a building called an “oratory.” I think of oratory in conjunction with public speaking. Another meaning for oratory is a place of prayer or private devotion. That could apply, but I think the primary meaning in this case is a Roman Catholic church of one of the religious societies of secular priests who live in religious communities but do not take vows. St. Joseph’s Oratory is on the hill above Notre Dame College

and started as a small wooden chapel begun in 1904 by Andre Bessette, of the Congregation of the Holy Cross. Because of the number of visitors, a larger church was needed. The Crypt was completed in 1917. The basilica was started in 1924 and was completed in 1967. I love that the basilica is dedicated to Joseph,

the husband of Mary, and ostensible father of Jesus, who generally gets short-shrift in comparison to Mary, because so little is said about him in the Bible.

Joseph is the patron saint of Canada.

Andre Bessette was born as Alfred Bessette in 1845 and was formally canonized as a saint on October 17, 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI for his miraculous healings. St. Andre was orphaned at age 12 and went to live with his aunt and uncle. In 1872, at age 27, he was accepted into the Congregation of Holy Cross in Montreal and received the religious name of Brother Andre.

He was the porter, or doorman, at Notre Dame College and also did other duties such as cleaning, bringing in firewood and acting as receptionist. Brother Andre visited sick students and others and would anoint them with oil from a lamp in the college chapel which was before the St. Joseph altar. He recommended that the sick pray to St. Joseph. Many people were cured and Brother Andre became known for his healing powers which he always deflected to St. Joseph. It was his desire to honor St. Joseph which initiated the campaign to build the chapel on the hill across the street from the college. When he died in 1937 a million people passed by his coffin during a time of bitter winter cold. His body is in a tomb below the main chapel and his heart is on exhibit in a reliquary inside,

which he requested as a protection for the basilica.

The original wood chapel, just 15 by 18 feet, was named St. Joseph’s Oratory, and cost $200, raised by donations and haircuts given by Brother Andre for $.05 each. It still exists across from one of the back parking lots. St. Andre’s healing powers attracted pilgrims from great distances, but he never personally witnessed any of the miracles, they all happened after he had left the scene, a cause of suffering for him. There are 283 total steps up to the Oratory,

but the middle set of 100 steps leading up the hill is reserved for pilgrims,

who climb the steps on their knees, pausing to pray at each step, coming to seek intercession from St. Joseph and St. Andre. This is done by the pilgrims to share the pain of Christ he suffered on the cross. We saw one such pilgrim as we were leaving. St. Joseph’s now receives over 2 million visitors each year. At the top of the steps we turned left and encountered an entrance with beautiful flowers.

From there, it is possible to take another set of stairs to a higher mid-level

where there is a viewing platform

and another level of steps up to the basilica.

Judy, with Montreal behind her.

The Votive Chapel, a corridor with votive altars, has 10,000 candles. Each altar is a tribute to Joseph, carved in stone: (a) as a model for workers;

(b) a guardian of virgins;

(d) terror of demons;

(e) consolation of the afflicted;

(f) hope of the sick; (g) patron of the dying; and (h) as protector of the Church.

These carved scenes are my favorite part of the Oratory. Between the altars are rows of crutches of those healed by Brother Andre.

In the middle is a statue of Joseph, arms outstretched,

and 3,500 of the 10,000 candles before him. The tomb of Brother Andre is located just off the Votive Chapel. I didn’t go inside, but Judy did, and there she found a number of nuns on their knees praying to Brother Andre. On the other side of the Votive Chapel is the Crypt, the church built in 1916 which seats 1,000 people.

A statue of St. Joseph is toward the front. It gets its name from the flattened arches that look like a crypt which support the ceiling, as well as its place at the foot of the basilica. When we visited there were many people inside worshiping and we didn’t feel comfortable taking many pictures. As we left, an actual service was taking place, directed by a person dressed in red vestments, perhaps a cardinal?

The basilica itself, located above the Crypt, is an enormous church as well.

It is the largest church in Canada.

It can hold 10,000 people standing up, or 2,200 people on folding chairs. The copper dome is the third largest of its kind after St. Peter’s in Rome and one in the Ivory Coast which is a tribute to St. Peter’s.

The dome of the basilica is somewhat the shape of the Duomo in Florence, but much greater in size. The top of the cross on the dome is the highest point in Montreal (higher than Mount Royal’s three peaks). Behind the altar is a wood cross with several women below it.

In a large horseshoe behind it are mosaics from the life of Jesus.

The organ at the back of the basilica has 5,811 pipes, one of which is 32 feet tall.

Modern style stained glass windows depict scenes from Canadian religious history attributable to the intervention of St. Joseph.

The basilica also has wonderful reliefs relating to the crucifixion of Christ.

And Joseph and Mary with Jesus as a youth.

The basilica had a large, elongated, wood carvings of the apostles.

I particularly enjoyed the carvings of Paul and Peter, which depicted Peter behind Paul.

Note the upside down cross and the rooster representing Peter and the inscription of both names at the bottom.

Finally, the basilica has a statue of Brother Andre.

We have seen many religious buildings in the last several years and this was one of my favorites. The setting on the hill is beautiful, the focus on Joseph is unusual, which made the reliefs based upon his life unusual, and the modernness of the stained glass, reliefs and other items was also much different from what we have been seeing. We could have spent much more time than we did here. It is a must see if you go to Montreal.

The Clam Shack - Kennebunkport, Maine

2011-09-24T21:51:00.000-07:00

The Clam Shack

is located at 2 Western Ave, on a bridge over the Kennebunkport River

in Kennebunkport, Maine (phone: 207-967-3321),

summer home of the Presidents Bush family which is about two miles away.

I had it on our list of places to eat based on 500 Things To Eat Before It's Too Late, by Jane and Michael Stern. They had rated the Clam Shack as having the no. 2 lobster roll and no. 2 fried clams in the country. I've already done a post on lobster rolls and indicated in that post that I was very disappointed with the Clam Shack lobster roll.

It had very little meat compared to other lobster rolls I had at other places and the meat was overshadowed by the bun.

If my experience was based just on the lobster roll, I would say to go somewhere else. However, their fried clams were very, very good.

I didn't have a chance to try fried clams anywhere else in New England, and I don't think I've ever eaten them before, but they were beautifully cooked: still very moist with the flavor of the underlying clams still coming through the breading.

The clams are worth going back for. I also decided to try the fried haddock sandwich, an item several people commented about favorably on Yelp. The sandwich was three pretty big chunks of haddock, breaded and fried, then put on a lightly buttered bun,

the same bun used for the lobster roll, although there was no mayonnaise on the haddock sandwich. The sandwich was only $9.95, a bargain compared to the lobster roll ($16.25) and a pint of fried clams ($21.95) and the haddock was very moist and juicy.

It was very good as it was. I tried it with some tarter sauce they provided, which was okay, but I would have preferred it with a little salt, and perhaps some vinegar. I would like to try some other menu items. The seafood was very fresh and given the good clams and haddock, I would love to try their lobster, but this time inside where it is possible to get a boiled lobster with butter.

Cafe MoMo: Nepalese Cuisine

2011-09-23T21:00:00.000-07:00

While driving through Manchester, New Hampshire recently Judy looked on Yelp to find the highest rated restaurant. It turned out to be Cafe MoMo located at 1064 Hanover Street (phone: 603-623-3733). What was particularly intriguing is that it serves Nepalese food. I've never even heard of a Nepalese restaurant. At least several years ago, it was the only Nepalese restaurant in New England. The high rating became even more fascinating when we pulled up and found that it was located in a sort of industrial area and was rather humble looking.

An older man (the proprietor?) served us. He came from Kathmandu, Nepal 8 years ago. He was a Hindu and had been an "Untouchable" in Nepal. The decor was very simple but loud with bright yellow, orange,

red, blue and green.

We were initially brought a flat herbed bread with a dipping sauce which I believe was avocado, cilantro and some sort of pepper.

The bread was okay, but the sauce was fantastic. It was very spicy. I ate bread until the sauce was gone and stopped. Judy and I each got a strawberry lassi (yogurt) which was good.

As an appetizer we ordered momo, traditional Nepali dumplings.

We got four with a lamb filling and four with a shrimp filling.

The filling had less impact on the taste than the outer pasta and the very spicy orange sauce which came with it. It was the sauce that made the dumplings great. In fact it was really the wonderfully spicy sauces and the fresh vegetables that distinguish this restaurant. As an entree, Judy got goat curry rice, which was marinated goat prepared in its own juices with mixed vegetables.

It also had a scoop of white rice with avocado and cilantro chili sauce on top. The vegetables (carrots, cherry tomatoes, red pepper, green beans, onion and zucchini) were very plentiful, fresh and crisp, only lightly cooked. The spicy brown sauce perfectly melded with the goat and made it the best item we ate. I got lamb Nepali way as my entree, which was three or four small lamb chops marinated in rosemary basil and thyme sauce, grilled in a cast iron skillet in olive oil, red wine and ginger garlic.

It was also on a bed of fresh vegetables, only lightly cooked with a scoop of white rice with cilantro and avocado sauce on top. It was good, but I felt the spice masked rather than enhanced the taste of the lamb.

We were asked how spicy we wanted it, on a scale of 1 to 10. We said we like things spicy: our waiter suggested a 7. At 7 it was plenty hot. At 10 we would never have tasted the food - we would have called 911. Our waiter said he primarily ate goat in Nepal as he was poor and lived in the city. He didn't eat lamb until he got to the U.S. I asked if they ate lamb in Nepal and he said they did in the mountains. I have probably never had a better medley of fresh vegetables. We learned that many of the vegetables they serve are grown on the premises. As we left, he showed us the peppers and green beans he grew in pots right in front of the restaurant. They also had plants growing next to a chain-link fence along their property line with some other commercial business.

These are the kinds of restaurants I love: very ethnic, very original, very good food, and very open and willing to share and teach you about their culture.

Hen of the Wood

2011-09-22T21:00:00.000-07:00

Judy and I spent our 32nd anniversary in Vermont. For dinner, we went to a wonderful restaurant in Waterbury called Hen of the Wood,

located at 92 Stowe Street (802-244-7300). It is located in the old Waterbury Feed Company gristmill

on a small creek. At the back of the restaurant, there is a beautiful view of a cascading rocky creek,

although if you look the other direction, you see the freeway crossing the creek via a bridge.

The restaurant is in the basement of the building. It is very dark, lighted with candles, and loud, the sound is probably amplified by the cement floors. The menu changes daily, although from what little bit I've watched it on-line, it appears the same dishes cycle through. For one appetizer we had a locally made goat cheese, aged at least four months, with apple butter, candied fennel, hazelnuts and crostini.

By itself, the cheese was rather hard and dry, but in combination with the apple butter and candied fennel on a crostini, it was a blended orchestra of tastes and textures that was fun to eat and delicious. It epitomized what a great chef can do by combining ingredients. As a second appetizer, we had the signature dish, the "hen of the wood" mushroom toast with hen of the wood mushroom (a picture of what the mushroom looks like in the wild is below),

a poached egg and bacon on toast. I believe the bacon may have been cooked in some maple syrup.

This was probably the best tasting item we had. It was fatty, juicy and something more akin to an upscale loggers breakfast. We were sharing, but I could have eaten two or three by myself and happily called it a night. As a third appetizer, we had rabbit liver pate with whole grain mustard, onion jam and grilled toast.

The liver pate was very mild, but as with the cheese plate, I ate it in combination with the other ingredients to get the orchestrated version. The crisp and buttery toast, the sweet and limp onion jam, the coarse and slightly bitter mustard and the creamy and slightly sweet, slightly organy, liver pate was a delightful mixture of taste and texture. Finally, as a fourth appetizer, we had fried oysters with aioli (a garlic mayonnaise), lemon and parsley. Here again, it was all about a mixture of tastes and textures.

The outside breading was still hot and crispy, the inner oyster was still coolish and explosively juicy and the aioli added a creamy texture, a little lemony, but not overly strong. I really liked the first few I ate, but then grew a little tired of them. This came later with our entrees (I ordered it later) and by then Judy was getting too full to eat her share. As her entree, Judy had goat's milk gnocchi, with cauliflower and broccoli.

I'm not a huge pasta fan, so to me it was alright. Not something I would order. For my entree, I got rabbit leg and loin in sauces and a green vegetable that I cannot recall. The vegetable was much like spinach, but I think it was something different. I think one of the sauces was cognac based.

The rabbit was extremely juicy, not over-cooked at all, and had a very nice flavor, both without the sauces and with the sauces. We passed on dessert as we'd just come from the Ben & Jerry's factory tour before-hand and had a pint of B&J's Boston Cream Pie ice cream waiting for us in the car. Besides, we were stuffed. Hen of the Wood is difficult to get into. We made reservations more than a month in advance. I read of people unable to get in even with two weeks advance notice. It is worth a visit.

Maple Syrup

2011-09-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

While in Vermont and New Hampshire recently, we were exposed to maple syrup and learned that there are different grades. In Walden, Vermont, we stopped at Rowell Sugarhouse and purchased three different grades with the intent of taste-testing them to see if we could discern a difference, and if so, which one we liked the most. We bought: (a) Fancy, which we also saw as Grade A Light Amber; (b) Grade A Medium Amber; and (c) Grade A Dark Amber. We also saw Grade B Dark Amber which we did not buy.

I did a little research on maple syrup and was surprised to find that 75% of the world's production comes from the province of Quebec, Canada and another 5% comes from other provinces in Canada. I suspect that is a great part of the reason that the sugar maple leaf is found on the Canadian flag.

Vermont produces 5.5% of the world's maple syrup supply, and Vermont has the sugar maple as the state tree and sap collection depicted on its state quarter.

Other U.S. states that produce marketable quantities of maple syrup include New York (which produces about one-half of what Vermont does), Maine (which produces about one-third of what Vermont does), and Wisconsin, Ohio, New Hampshire, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Connecticut, which each produce less than one-tenth of what Vermont does.

Grading in the U.S. is based on translucence (how much light is allowed to pass through it): Grade A Light Amber has to be at least 75% translucent; Grade A Medium Amber has to be 60.5 to 74.9% translucent; Grade A Dark Amber has to be 44 to 60.4% translucent; and Grade B Dark Amber has to be 43.9% or less translucent. The light syrup is more mild and it develops a greater maple flavor as it gets darker. Our syrup is below in order of light to dark.

Most maple syrup comes from the sugar maple, red maple and black maple because of the high sugar content in the sap, between 2% and 5%. A tree is not usually tapped until it is at least 30 years old and a tree can support one to three taps, depending on the trunk diameter. An average tree will produce up to 3 gallons of sap in a day and 9 to 13 gallons of sap per season. The season will last four to eight weeks, depending on the weather. The sap is then boiled down to obtain the syrup. Depending on the concentration of the sap, it will take 5 to 13 gallons of sap to produce a quarter gallon of syrup. The syrup is filtered to remove sugar sand which has a gritty texture and it is graded while it is still hot. The Cornell Sugar Maple Research & Extension Program states that syrup grade is impacted by weather conditions, time during the season when the sap is collected and the processing technique. Other internet sites indicate that the grades correspond to the time within the season when the sap is collected. The lighter grades are produced early in the season (when there is more sugar in the sap) and the darker grades are produced later in the season (when there is less sugar in the sap).

We saw packages which contained small containers, one for each of the four grades. The color difference was quite noticeable. The three we purchased are less discernible color wise,

but there is a definite difference taste-wise. We did both a dip the finger in the syrup taste test and tried each type on a pancake. I found the Light Amber to be sweet without a deep taste. Judy said it was too mild, not mapley enough.

I found the Medium Amber to have a more full taste, to have more substance. Judy felt it was not as sweet, but had more flavor.

I found the Dark Amber to be thicker, more full and more mapley. Judy felt it was stronger and more mapley.

We both highly preferred the Dark Amber and I am kicking myself for not also buying some Grade B Dark Amber as I suspect I would like it even more. I had only eaten pure maple syrup a few times in my life. The syrup I had growing up was a boiled mixture of sugar, water and maple extract. It may be that it had a stronger flavor. The woman I talked to at Rowell Sugarhouse said the maple syrup producers prefer the Light Amber and keep it for themselves.

A few days later, Judy came home from Trader Joe's with some Grade B Dark Amber. So we just had to go through our taste test again, this time with four different grades of maple syrup. From left to right, Grade A Light Amber, Medium Amber, Dark Amber and Grade B Dark Amber.

Just as we suspected, the Grade B Dark was less sweet and more mapley.

and

To me, it almost had a coffee flavor. Judy, who does not like coffee flavor, disagreed and really liked it. I made up a batch of pancakes and tried each grade on a pancake. The picture below is of a pancake with Grade B Dark Amber.

Judy preferred the more mapley Grade B on her pancakes. I preferred the less mapley Grade A Dark Amber. In fact, this time I decided I liked the lighter, sweeter, Grade A Light Amber. It has been really fun to take a product we know little about and get to know it better.

Lobster Rolls

2011-09-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

Planning for our trip to New England I was reviewing Jane & Michael Stern's book 500 Things To Eat Before It's Too Late. I noticed that in southern Maine he clumped a group of restaurants together that serve lobster rolls and then rated the lobster rolls. I put three of the restaurants on our itinerary, the ones that served the number 2, 3 and 4 rated lobster rolls (out of 9 rated). I had never eaten a lobster roll and so I wasn't sure what to expect. Wikipedia states that the traditional Maine lobster roll has cold lobster meat with mayonnaise served on a grilled hot dog bun. The bun is usually lightly buttered and then lightly grilled. It may also have diced celery and/or scallion and lettuce. An alternative, called the Connecticut lobster roll, is warm lobster with drawn butter on a hot dog bun. I guess the idea behind the roll is that eating a lobster is messy and requires a lot of work. The lobster roll is easy to eat and mess free, as long as you are careful. One source said that a variety of meat is essential: the knuckle provides tenderness, the tail gives juiciness and the body provides the most flavor. During our stay I had five lobster rolls, one from the Clam Shack in Kennebunkport, Maine, rated the number 2 roll; one from the Maine Diner in Wells, Maine, rated the number 3 roll; one from Mabel's Lobster Claw in Kennebunkport, Maine, rated the number 3 roll, one from Daniel's Restaurant & Pub in Henniker, New Hampshire, not on any list; and one from the Manchester (New Hampshire) Airport, which definitely is not and should not be on any list. The Clam Shack uses a non-traditional hamburger type bun

and 500 Things To Eat claims that the lobster pieces in the roll are big, six to ten big chunks of meat.

The bun was buttered and grilled and had a little mayonnaise on it. I either got a bad example, or perhaps Clam Shack knows when they are being reviewed for a book and piles it on, because I got less meat on that roll than any of my others, except for perhaps the airport roll.

There were bites where we could hardly taste any lobster. At about $16.25 for a roll, it is not cheap and I was sorely disappointed. What is more, I picked up the order from a window and sat down at an outdoor table (which I wouldn't mind if it was really good). Although rated as no. 2 by 500 Things To Eat, it rated fourth on my list, just above the airport lobster roll. The Maine Diner lobster roll was warm lobster on a hot dog bun that had no butter on it.

I don't recall if the bun was grilled or not, I suspect it wasn't. It had a side container of warm butter to go with it. It rated no. 3 on the 500 Things To Eat list, but no. 1 on my list.

It was $16.75, $.50 more than the Clam Shack, but it also came with a choice of sides: I chose a scoop of potato salad which was very good. The lobster was warm and juicy, there was a lot of it, much more than was provided by the Clam Shack, and the melted butter mixed with it and provided a similar experience to what you would get if you were eating the lobster from the shell with drawn butter. This was as good as eating it out of the shell without the work and without the mess. This made sense and it was good, no. 1 by a landslide. It was also served inside at a table with a waiter, which made it nicer to eat, but also more expensive because it required a tip. Mabel's Lobster Claw had a $20.00 lobster roll, but it came with two sides: I got coleslaw and fries.

They also provided a wonderful piece of corned bread and another type of bread. So, although most expensive, it had other things to go with it. The hot dog bun was not buttered or grilled, I don't believe it was even warm, it had some lettuce on it and chilled lobster meat with quite a bit of mayonnaise.

The quantity of lobster was as much or more than Maine Diner's, but I found that the chilled lobster meat did not have the same texture or taste. So it was better than the Clam Shack's, but it rated third out of the five I tried. My second favorite lobster roll came from Daniel's Restaurant & Pub in Henniker, New Hampshire. We went to Henniker so that Judy could visit a fabric store featured in a magazine. I knew she was going to be engrossed there for quite a while, so I visited the Pub down the street and decided to try the lobster roll to see how it would compare with the more famous Maine rolls. I was very pleasantly surprised. It was about $16.50 and came with a slice of watermelon and honeydew. It was not on a hot dog bun, but something bigger. The bun was not buttered or grilled. It came with more lettuce than Mabel's and it was more like a lobster salad, with more mayonnaise and pieces of diced celery and onion.

I believe it was the most substantial of the rolls I tried and I really liked the juiciness, wetness and flavor of the added mayonnaise, celery and onion.

Finally, as we were leaving to come back home, I decided to see if the airport had a lobster roll and it did! It was $12.95 and as I went to the cash register the clerk asked if I knew how much it cost and I said, I did. I guess others have complained after she rung it up to find how much it was and she has had to undo the transactions. It was on a cold hot dog bun with no butter and perhaps just a tad bit of mayonnaise. Lots of lettuce and mostly claw meat.

I was surprised the meat was as fresh and tender as it was, although it lagged way behind the others in freshness and quality. We ended up leaving most of the lettuce and bun and just eating the lobster off the top.

It ranked no. 5 and last in my poll by quite a margin. In summary, given a choice between a lobster out of the shell and a lobster roll, I would take lobster out of the shell. Warm lobster with drawn butter on a roll is very close to lobster out of the shell and would be my second choice. If you are going to have the lobster cold and with mayonnaise, get it lubed up and make it into a lobster salad. Frankly, I think it would still be nice to have the bun moistened with butter and lightly grilled, even with the cold lobster salad.

Au Cinquieme Peche: French Canadian Food

2011-09-19T21:00:00.000-07:00

Before our recent trip to New England and Montreal, I saw an episode of Bizarre Foods where Andrew Zimmern visited the restaurant Au Cinquieme Peche (the Fifth Sin) in Montreal and tasted seal meat. It looked wonderful, so I did a little investigating. Seal hunting has been banned in the U.S. since 1972 and it is not legal to serve in the U.S. Commercial seal hunting is still legal in Canada and the seals that are hunted are apparently not endangered. The hunters are seeking the seal skins and usually leave the seal meat to rot. Therefore, the seal meat is not the target of the hunters and the seal being eaten would otherwise go to waste. There are only a few restaurants that serve seal meat, Au Cinquieme Peche being one of them.

It is located at 4475 rue St.-Denis in Montreal, just a short distance from the Mont Royal metro station (phone: 514-286-0123). Judy and I had reservations for 5:30, when it opened, and had one of the most wonderful meals we've ever eaten. The menu was in French (appetizers,

and main course)

so our waiter spent quite a bit of time with us describing each item in detail, including all of the ingredients. I was disappointed to find that seal was not on the menu. I asked the waiter if there was any chance there might be some extra seal in the freezer that I could try. He said he would check. Therefore, it was a wonderful surprise when he brought us out two small breaded pieces of meat, consisting of 70% seal and 30% pork, with a pureed squash.

Our waiter explained that the seal meat is so lean, that pork is added to give it some fat. The taste was very different, unlike anything I've ever tasted before. It was very dark and very lean.

I appreciated very much their effort to accommodate my desire to eat some seal. Judy got borscht, a cold beet soup, that was amazing. It was relatively thick and had a beautiful pinkish red color.

It had small bits of yellow beet in it and several large chunks of octopus. The octopus was not rubbery at all, in fact it was more the texture of ham or a similar meat and had a nice flavor. Judy proclaimed it the best octopus she has ever eaten. I got two appetizers, a ravioli filled with head and shoulder pieces from a roast suckling pig and with several types of mushrooms, including shiitake and black trumpet or black chanterelles.

The pork flavor in the ravioli was divine.

Perhaps most interesting was the duck heart tartare, chopped up raw duck heart

which was surprisingly creamy, along with fresh green beans and soybeans.

For an entree, Judy got a hangar steak and pork shoulder (I'm assuming the pork shoulder was from the roast suckling pig) and some fried bread.

The hangar steak was beautifully textured, nice and rare,

with a succulent taste. The pork shoulder was very moist, but could have used a little more seasoning.

I got guinea fowl, known in France as pintade,

which I have eaten once before, but not cooked anywhere near as deliciously as this was. The flesh was extremely moist and flavorful and the skin had an even better flavor.

It was accompanied by pureed squash, pieces of both red and yellow beet and lobster mushroom.

I've not been a real beet fan, but the texture and taste of these beats were pleasing and tasty. I would chow down on beets like this at any time. This was also my first experience eating lobster mushrooms. Although we were both full, the food was so good we had to try some dessert. We got a cheese plate which included locally made blue cheese, what I believe was probably a double cream brie and a semi-soft cheese.

It also included a cup of white peaches. The other dessert was fresh strawberries in a chocolate brownie with sweet cream on top, served in a canning jar.

At the end of our meal, as a very nice touch, the chef, Benoit Lenglet, visited us at our table and asked us how we liked the meal. This meal was a wonderful blend of fresh ingredients and unusual foods. I wish Montreal were closer so that we could go back.

Mount Washington

2011-09-18T19:58:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, Judy and I took the Mt. Washington Cog Railway to the summit of Mt. Washington, at 6,288 feet, the tallest mountain in New Hampshire, and the tallest mountain in the northeastern United States (the closest mountains that are higher are to the southeast in North Carolina (6,684 ft.), to the west in South Dakota (7,244 ft.) and to the southwest in Tennessee (6,643 ft.). The photo below, I believe of Mt. Washington, was taken from the Kancamagus Scenic Byway in the White Mountains.

The cog railway, completed in 1869, was the first cog railway up a mountain in the world.

There is only one other in the United States, up Pikes Peak in Colorado, which Judy and I rode two years ago. The Pikes Peak Cog Railway starts at 6,537 feet and climbs 7,439 feet in 8.9 miles, to 14,110 feet. The Mount Washington Cog Railway starts at 2,700 feet

and climbs just short of 3,588 feet in 3 miles.

Although Pikes Peak is substantially taller and the views from the top are more spectacular, there are quite a few things about Mount Washington which made it, in some ways, more fun. It is more rustic and not as technologically advanced. We were in one car, made of wood, with a door open to the elements (it was raining and windy at the time).

The seats were tilted forward on the way up to compensate for the 25% to 37% grade.

Below, the grade is so severe that we were able to lean forward substantially and stay upright.

and

On the way down, the hinged seat backs were flipped which made the same seats now tilted backwards to compensate for the grade going down. We were able to interact with the conductor, ask him questions,

and watch while he inspected the track to make sure the switches were working correctly.

The grade was generally steeper and the terrible weather

on Mt. Washington and its history made for fun and interesting stories. Also, there are grave markers along the route highlighting some of the deaths that have occurred on the mountain over the years. The Appalachian Trail, which goes from Maine to Georgia, crosses the cog railway near the summit and is marked by rock cairns to help hikers follow the trail in poor visibility.

This is my first time seeing any portion of the Appalachian Trail. Very near the summit we passed a marker for Miss Lizzie Bourne, daughter of Judge Bourne, of Kennebunk, Maine,

who died on that spot in 1855. Later, in the observatory at the top, we found a chart detailing those who have died on Mt. Washington. The first one listed is Fredrick Strickland of Bridlington, England who died in a ravine on the way down on October 19, 1849. Lizzie Bourne is listed as the second death, on September 13, 1855. She died of exhaustion and hypothermia just short of the summit.

The last listed death, number 145, was Christopher Baillie of Forked River, New Jersey, who slipped on some some rocks at the top of a water fall and fell to his death on July 18, 2010. It is renowned for its bad weather and holds the world record for the highest recorded wind speed at 231 miles per hour.

We got a taste of that poor weather. While we were up there, there were significant winds, rain and fog. The engine (on the left) and the passenger car (on the right) as seen from the observatory.

A marker, right near the observatory, showing the path to the summit.

A closeup of the Appalachian Trail symbol.

The summit sign at the top of some rocks.

Judy and I at the summit.

The Appalachian Trail touches the summits of each of the peaks in the Presidential Range and this experience has whetted my desire to hike the portion of the AT through the Presidential Range and perhaps to the terminus at Mt. Katahdin in Maine.

Cheese: UnieKaas Reserve Naturally-Aged Gouda

2011-09-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

UnieKaas Reserve,

formerly known as Amsterdam Reserve, is cave-aged at least 18 months. One site described it as "a hard orange cheese with salty butterscotch, roasted nuttiness and crystallized crunchy bits of salt that melt into a creamy, meatiness on the tongue."

I'm not finding much about it on the internet other than the typical marketing stuff that every cheese seller uses. It appears that UnieKass is the "leading cheese company in the Netherlands" which I assume means it is the cheese company with the most sales.

We found the cheese to have a nice crystalline crunch, very tangy or acidic, and a deep taste, or as Judy put it, it hits you "mid-tongue."

I have been tasting a number of aged Goudas recently (Old Amsterdam, Rembrandt Extra Aged, and Beemster Classic) and it gets hard to distinguish them without being able to do a side-by-side taste test. All have been aged at least 18 months and all of them are good.

Cheese: Beemster Vlaskaas

2011-09-15T21:00:00.000-07:00

I have previously done a post on Beemster Classic Aged Gouda, a premium Gouda cheese aged at least 18 months. Beemster Vlaskaas

is a recipe recreated in 2004 for Vlaskaas cheese originally made once a year to celebrate the flax harvest. It accompanied a meal of thick porridge and buttered multigrain bread.

Vlaskaas means flax cheese, not because it is an ingredient, but because it is a plant that is in the local countryside for which the harvest festival was celebrating. At the 2004 Wisconsin Cheese Makers Competition, which one website says is the most fierce cheese competition in the world, Vlaskaas won a gold medal in its category (the category was not stated) and took third place in the overall competition. It is distinguished by its purple wax outside coating.

It is aged a minimum of 13 months and is richer, creamier and deeper yellow in color than regular Gouda.

It was very wet coming out of the package and did not have as strong a flavor as the Beemster Classic which is aged five months longer, but the flavor is very nice. Between the two, I prefer the Beemster Classic, but the Vlaskaas is very tasty and a great cheese.

Cheese: Leyden

2011-09-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

Leyden cheese is traditionally from the Leiden area of the Netherlands.

It was originally developed as a way to use semi-skimmed milk, a byproduct of the butter making process. The farmers in the Leiden area added cumin seeds and anatto to give it a reddish color. Cumin is an aromatic spice sometimes used in curry powder blends and used in Mexican and North African cooking and imparts a strong, smoky flavor.

The Leyden cheese is also salted with dry salt or immersed in a brine bath and cured in a cool, moist cellar. Judy and I both like the texture of Leyden cheese, but the taste was not our favorite.

The cumin taste is very strong in it and it apparently intensifies as it matures. However, I have noticed that as I have eaten more of it, I am becoming more accustomed to it and like it more and more. It is fun to try because it is so different. It is also less fatty than most cheese because it is made with less fatty milk.

Forelle Pears

2011-09-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

About seven months ago I went through a pear phase where I was buying and trying many varieties of pears, including Bartlett, Comice, D'Anjou, Bosc, Fragrant, Ya and Asian. As I was going through Albertson's the other day I spotted a variety I'd not seen before, Forelle Pears.

Sticking with the categorization from that post, the Forelle would be a mushy pear. Forelles originated in the 1600s in northern Germany and the name means "trout" in German, likely because the red lenticles on the Forelle is similar to the red on a rainbow trout.

They are grown in Oregon and Washington and are generally available from October through March. It appears that the Forelles I purchased are from Argentina, and based on my familiarity with fruit grown in Chile vs. the same fruit in the U.S., were probably not as good as Forelles grown in the U.S. I found the taste to be uneven,

some were quite mushy and unappetizing, and several had some of the Bartlett pear taste, though not quite as sweet and a little more crunchy. Forelles do change color as they ripen, turning from green to yellow and developing a red freckling called lenticles.

The Forelle I ate that was bright yellow with substantial red freckling was the best one I ate. They are quite small, more the size of a fragrant pear. They often have a bell-shape, similar to the Bartlett, and a long, narrow, straight stem. Because of their small size, they are known as a snacking pear. I peeled a couple, but after doing that several times, I ended up just eating them, skin and all.

I am reserving judgment on them somewhat until I can eat some grown in the U.S. I think they have potential as a real nice pear.

Brown-Capped Rosy Finch

2011-09-12T21:00:00.000-07:00

After climbing Mt. Sherman outside of Leadville, Colorado in August, Sam and I stopped to take a rest at the Sherman/Sheridan saddle at about 13,100 feet. I ate a little and drank some water and Sam had a bird land near him which was quite bold.

It walked within a foot of him and stayed with him for about ten minutes while he rested. I tried to get a good photo of it, but it kept shying away from me. Because of my blistered toes, we decided to leave the trail and go straight down the mountain in a spot that allowed me to shuffle down sideways, saving the ends of my big toes which were very sore. This bird continued to follow Sam down the mountain for about 10 or 15 minutes.

It would land and walk, then fly in circles and land near Sam and walk again. It must have done that five or six times and followed as as we dropped about 500 feet of elevation.

I have been searching bird books and the internet trying to figure out what kind of bird it is and I think it may be a brown-capped rosy finch. They are found in the high mountains of Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico, but their very restricted range is almost exclusively the high peaks of Colorado. They are considered rare in Wyoming and rare to uncommon in New Mexico. They breed at a higher elevation than any other North American bird and stay at high elevations even in deeply negative temperatures and heavy snows. Females are duller and and often have little evidence of a crown patch. Juveniles are a drab gray-brown all over, which seems to match this specimen.

Because of the difficulty in studying this bird at high altitudes, not a lot is known about it. Because of its limited range and drop in population, there is some conservation concern for it.

Mountain Thistle

2011-09-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

On our recent trip to Colorado we found a wonderful plant known as mountain thistle.

It is also called frosty ball and woolly thistle for obvious reasons.

It has lance-shaped leaves with half-inch long spines

and nodding heads that are very dense and hairy.

The flowers can be yellow or purple. Those we saw were all yellow.

They are found on rocky and gravelly slopes on the sunny side of mountains in the alpine and subalpine zones. We found a wonderful grouping of them on the rocky ridge between Mt. Oxford and Mt. Belford at about 13,900 feet.

Buffalo Bone Marrow

2011-09-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest foods I've ever eaten is buffalo bone marrow. I just recently had it for the second time at The Fort in Morrison, Colorado, one of the most fun restaurants I've ever been to. The buffalo bone marrow appetizer is great on a number of levels. First, it is initially shocking to see how big the bones are, which are sawed in half lengthwise.

Next, once you dig into the marrow with a spoon, it is shocking to see how much marrow there is in each half-bone.

Then, once you put a big spoonful in your mouth, or onto a crostini and then into your mouth, the richness and decadence is overwhelming. It is so rich and fatty that you can only eat so much, but those bites are luscious! Finally, it is great because it is so unusual. Where else can you get something like this? Nowhere that I've been able to find. I love exploring new places and I find that exploring new foods is just as fun and thrilling. As a boy I used to love bone-in ham. I would stick my finger in the bone and scoop out as much marrow as I could on my finger. I preferred the marrow from warm ham, but I would also eat it from cold ham. Likewise, I loved (and still do love) cuts of lamb or beef that included a sideways cross-section of bone with the marrow. Put on a little bit of salt and pop it out with your finger, or if the bone is too thin or too long, plug one end with your finger and suck on the other end and release the finger - the succulent, juicy marrow flies into your mouth. The buffalo marrow gives you that same experience, but amplifies it about 100 times.

Lamb Ribs

2011-09-09T22:50:00.000-07:00

The Fort in Morrison, Colorado has an appetizer I've never seen on another menu: lamb riblets tossed in a spicy citrus bbq sauce.

The only other time I've eaten lamb ribs was when Andrew slaughtered a lamb for his graduation and we ate the ribs from it. The Fort citrus bbq sauce was very strong and spicy and really covered up most of the taste of the lamb. However, it was memorable because it was so unusual and has increased my interest in finding lamb ribs elsewhere.

Cheese: Soignon

2011-09-07T21:27:00.000-07:00

Soignon is a goat cheese

made in the Poitou region of west central France since 1895. After adding a bit of rennet and lactic ferment to the goat milk, it slowly curdles over a day or two. The curd is then put into a mold and salt and enzymes are spread on it which helps it develop a moldy rind. It has wonderfully soft flesh, almost like a Brie.

I was not able to find a copy of the specific label I had on the internet,

but by taste I believe what I had was a ripened cheese. Ours had a little mold, not only on the rind, but on the outer flesh as well.

I was unsure if it was supposed to be that way, or if it was getting old. I flew caution to the wind, decided to treat it as though it belonged, and it tasted great. It was quite strong, not as goaty as we expected, and it had a slightly blue taste, perhaps because of the mold on the flesh. If it wasn't supposed to be there, it was good anyway. It was not as soft as Brie, but close.

We really liked it, both the texture and the taste. It was our favorite of about six cheeses we were sampling. We will definitely be trying more.

Barbecued Bluefin Tuna: Filet and Belly Meat

2011-09-06T22:20:00.000-07:00

My partner, Michael Lewin, went fishing off of San Diego this past weekend and caught five bluefin tuna, the limit. He brought some fresh bluefin into work on Tuesday (the day after Labor Day) and I got a beautiful filet and two large pieces of belly meat, the part of the tuna known as fatty tuna.

The filet is the piece that is darkest, at the far back, and the belly meat has silvery blue skin on the outside and pinkish flesh on the inside. I decided to take it home for lunch, while it was still fresh, fire up the barbecue, and see how it tasted.

I did not have any wasabi, but I did have some ginger wasabi teriyaki marinade which I put on it.

and

I resisted the urge to eat it as sashimi as I do not believe it was flash frozen and I wanted to avoid getting any worms or parasites that are otherwise killed by that process. I put it on the barbecue for several minutes

and tried it,

then put it on for several more minutes

and tried it again. It was seared just a bit on the outside and still quite raw on the inside.

Michael indicated that the tuna were each about 18 or 20 pounds and that the bellies were just a small portion of the bottom of the fish. The freshness and texture were amazing. It is nice to have really fresh fish. I enjoyed both the filet and the belly meat without a strong preference for one over the other. I wish I'd had some wasabi sauce. There is nothing quite like the saltiness of soy sauce and the heat of wasabi to complement the texture and taste of mostly raw tuna. A while back I bought some fatty tuna from a store and was quite disappointed. At that time I'd hoped to have some belly meat from tuna caught by Michael. This was fulfillment of that wish. I don't have a lot of experience cooking fish and a good chef with the right ingredients could have made something pretty spectacular with this fish. As it was, what I made was quite good.

Rocky Mountain Oysters: Buffalo vs. Bull

2011-09-01T21:57:00.000-07:00

While in Colorado recently, we stopped to eat at two of my favorite eateries: Buckhorn Exchange in Denver and The Fort in Morrison. For lunch at Buckhorn Exchange, I was with Andrew and Sam, and my nephew, Scott Jones, son of Judy's sister, Chris Jones, who lives in Denver. Andrew had not eaten Rocky Mountain oysters before and wanted to try them.

They are bull testicles cut into thin slices, breaded and fried. They came with cocktail sauce and mild horseradish.

They were actually quite good - better than I recall them being two years ago. I did not notice an organ meat taste I recalled them having before. They were quite popular among our group and we finished the plate. Several days later, when we had dinner at The Fort, Andrew was interested in trying the Rocky Mountain oysters again. We thought it would be fun to see how they differed from the Buckhorn Exchange version. It turned out that they were very different. They were breaded, but they were in much smaller round pieces and did not have as much breading on them.

They were also much softer, almost like eating soft cheese or butter. They were really excellent. We asked the waiter about the difference. We then learned that The Fort "oysters" are buffalo testicles. Buffalo testicles are each about the size of a baseball. They cut them into small pieces before breading them. I'm not sure if The Fort prepares them differently than the Buckhorn Exchange does theirs, other than the cut, or if the difference is due to buffalo vs. bull, but whatever it is, The Fort buffalo testicles are far superior in taste and texture. We cleaned the plate and could have eaten another one or two just like it. They were that good. They are also far superior to the turkey testicles I've eaten.

Cheese: Campo De Montalban

2011-08-31T05:48:00.000-07:00

Campo de Montalban is a cheese made from a blend of cow, sheep and goat milk in Toledo, Spain

and has an embossed herring bone or basket weave design on the outer rind.

From that standpoint it appears to be an identical twin to Iberico cheese, another Spanish cheese made with those same three types of milk and the same rind design. It also greatly resembles Manchego cheese, a sheep milk cheese with the same rind design, also made in the La Mancha region of Spain. All three cheeses have similar looking creamy white flesh, with irregular eyes throughout it,

and the same semi-hard texture. However, the Campo de Montalban rind is olive green while the Iberico and Manchego rinds are brown. In fact, Campo de Montalban was known as Manchego until 1985 when the Spanish government enacted regulations that required cheese known as Manchego to be made only out of sheep milk. Therefore, most comparisons I found on the internet were to Manchego, although I think Iberico is a closer match because Iberico is at least 50% cow milk, 30% goat milk and 10% sheep milk, while Manchego is 100% sheep. I can't find anything that gives the percentage composition for Campo de Montalban, other than a site where people were making their own similar cheese and one suggested an equal mixture of all three types of milk. Campo de Montalban is aged for at least three months and is variously described as having a flavor of "sweet, warm, roasted onions," "milky and nutty," "milky and slightly sharp, less nutty than Manchego," and "slightly tangy and buttery." Judy really liked it. She said that although it is dry, it has almost a creamy taste, a smoothness. It does not have much after-taste, like goat gives.

I thought it was complex, with many different tastes, but did not feel that either the goat or sheep milk stood out. I probably would not have much of a preference between Campo de Montalban and Iberico similarly aged (the Trader Joe's Iberico was aged four months), but I found that I really loved the Iberico aged six months, and also greatly preferred it to the Manchego.

Cheese: Juni

2011-08-29T21:53:00.000-07:00

Juni cheese is one of the more unique cheeses I've eaten, which is not to say it is one of my favorites.

But sometimes food is fun to try because it is so different and this is one that anyone who likes trying different kinds of food should try. Juni is made from raw Rossa d'Oropa cow's milk (apparently a very rare cow) near Biella, in Piedmont, Italy, by the Rosso family that has been making it for four generations. The base cheese is Toma Brusca which means "acid cheese." The milk sits for several hours to acidify which helps it to coagulate naturally. Then, with just minimal rennet, it coagulates. Crushed dried juniper berries, harvested in the local mountains, are added to the curd right before it is put into molds. After removal from the mold, the cheese is cured for at least two months on spruce wood in damp caves. One of its unique features is its shape. It is a small cylinder 4 inches in diameter and 6 inches high.

The rind has a rough gray-brown color with abundant mold and is said to have the aroma of "damp stone, buttered popcorn and mushroom."

They say the interior texture starts out firm and crumbly, then turns creamy as it ages.

The Juni I bought was quite hard and crumbly and I thought it must be old (compare the picture above, from the internet, to the one below, mine). However, it maybe needed to sit awhile to get more creamy, because the pictures of mine sure don't look like other pictures I found of it on the internet.

The interior color is pale in the center and and gets darker near the rind.

The best description of the flavor I found was "salty and lemony and somewhat meaty, with a pronounced hit of spicy juniper and a bitter finish if you eat the rind." Apparently juniper berries are what gives gin it distinctive flavor. One source described it as the "tang of pine."

I thought it looked like a core sample from a rotted tree. The taste jumps out: it is salty or tangy, unlike anything I've ever eaten. Judy described the flavor as very acidic, very piney (like pine needles), woody, sappy, tangy and moldy tasting. Not her favorite.

Colorado Blue Columbine

2011-08-22T21:00:00.000-07:00

Colorado blue columbine (Aquilegia caerulea)

has blue and white flowers

with five sepals that are pale to sky blue and five petals shaped like sugar scoops and generally paler than the sepals, sometimes even white, and they project backward into spurs.

It flowers from June to August high in the mountains from Western Montana to northern Arizona and northern New Mexico.

It is the Colorado state flower. The flowers vary in color to white, pale yellow and pinkish. Three years ago when Dave Kenison and I did Mount Sneffels in Western Colorado we saw these blue and white beauties and I felt like they were some of the most beautiful flowers I'd ever seen.

While with Sam and Andrew on our recent trip to Colorado, we saw them around 11,800 feet below Mount Sherman and at about 11,400 feet near Mount Belford.

We stopped many times to admire these beautiful flowers which add so much to the enjoyment of being in the high mountain country.

Mount Sherman

2011-08-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

The night after we climbed Mt. Belford and Mt. Oxford, I promised Andrew and Sam that they could sleep in the next morning. It had been a long day and we were tired. Andrew wasn't feeling very well and my two big toes were heavily blistered. I had serious doubts about doing any hiking at all because of my toes. I didn't want to injure them any more than they already were. We had planned to do Quandary Peak, but a couple we met on Mt. Belford recommended against it as it was a Saturday and they said it would be extremely crowded. They recommended we do the back route of Mt. Sherman out of Leadville. She said there would not be many people at the beginning, but we would meet quite a few more people when we hit the ridge and got the hikers coming in from the standard route on the other side. We were sleeping in a motel in Frisco, and Mt. Sherman meant driving a greater distance, then having to travel back to Littleton that night where we had a hotel and then dinner reservations at the Fort. I was concerned that with the driving, we wouldn't have time to do the hike. I let the boys sleep until 8:00 or 8:30. I decided to drive to Leadville where they were having the Leadville 100 mountain bike race. I was kind of hoping that it would be so crowded we wouldn't be able to get through and it would prevent us from hiking. Not so, so we stopped and ate a nice leisurely breakfast at the Delaware Hotel. After breakfast we drove to the end of town, turned left on Monroe Street, then right on Toledo Street and followed it about 3.8 miles out of town. We hit a fork in the road and took the dirt Lake County 2B road and followed it 3 miles to the trailhead at 12,000 feet. Mt. Sherman is huge. As we drove up the road all we could see was a very large, long and nearly flat topped mountain.

As we rounded the corner to our left, we could see the summit off to our left.

To our right, we could see the trail winding around the south side of the Mt. Sherman massif.

Andrew decided he didn't want to hike with us, rather he would walk lower and look for mushrooms. So Sam and I set out about 11:20 p.m. and I was concerned about having enough time to summit and return to the car. I had no detailed route information. All I knew was that Mt. Sherman was rated the easiest of the Colorado fourteeners and we would have a little over 2,000 feet of elevation gain. I decided we would have to turn around by 2:00 p.m., no matter where we were, and be back to the car by 4:00 p.m. We found the trail which is not marked and started to cross Iowa Gulch, a small valley, then out of the green grass and foliage and onto the rock and scree trail which wound south and then east out of Iowa Gulch. I was still having doubts about the hike and considered turning back. We got a different view of the Sherman summit

which looked pretty impressive.

But the ibuprofen and acetaminophen kicked in and my toes became less of an issue. As we rounded the south end of the massif we were looking up at 13,748 ft. Mt. Sheridan, a large rounded mountain

and we continued up the gully between Sherman and Sheridan. We encountered a couple coming down the trail. They said they'd made the summit in 1 hour and 40 minutes and confirmed the trailhead was at about 12,000 feet. I felt much better about things. The trail continues up some pretty ugly terrain in the gully with very little vegetation, very few large rocks, and some old telegraph poles coming down the side.

So far it was not a scenic hike. It was fairly steep and I was worried how my toes would fare on my way back down.

We switch-backed up the left side of the gully

until we reached the Sherman/Sheridan saddle at 13,100 feet.

There we met lots of people coming up from the other side of the mountain, although nothing like what we experienced last year when we did Grays and Torreys Peaks. The couple we'd seen previously warned us that what looked like the summit wasn't, that it was further along. We started northwest up the relatively loose talus trail

and found it pretty easy hiking.

We were following a very rounded mountainside and encountered lots of people, the most on this trip. At about 13,600 feet the ridge narrowed

and there were some spots with some pretty decent exposure on both sides,

much more than what we encountered the day before on Belford and Oxford.

This made what had been a pretty ugly hike so far much more fun and memorable. We eventually hit a really flat area

and had been warned that we needed to continue on along the flat for some time until we reached the summit. We eventually saw the summit in the distance, quite obvious by the flapping American flag and the people around it.

We reached the 14,036 foot summit at 1:13 p.m., 1 hour and 53 minutes from when we started, 2.25 miles from the beginning.

It was without a doubt the easiest fourteener I've done. In fact, Mt. Baldy is much harder, although it has much less exposure. From the summit we looked down and could see where our car was parked and got a good view of Leadville and Turquoise Lake in the distance.

We spent 5 minutes on top, then started back down.

It was pretty easy going down

to the Sherman/Sheridan saddle

at 13,100 feet

and the scree was big and loose, for the most part, and I was able to avoid jamming my toes into the ends of my tennis shoes. Views from the east side of Sherman

and the standard route.

and another route down at Iowa Gulch where our car was parked.

The gully between Sherman and Sheridan is where some poles would have come in handy. In order to minimize the impact on my toes, we headed straight down from the saddle, not following the switchbacks. There was enough loose scree and grass that I was able to walk and slide sideways on my feet. We eventually hit the trail and followed it, but I was able to minimize the impact on my sore toes. We got back to the car at 3:00 p.m., just 11 minutes faster than our way up, although we did take a rest break on the way down to drink some water and eat a little bit. Like Belford and Oxford, the trail is rated class 2 and I believe it should be class 1. It is a good trail all the way. This would be a great first fourteener. It is also a great fourteener for a short day or a rest day.

Mount Oxford

2011-08-20T12:11:00.000-07:00

Mt. Oxford is in an area called the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness in Colorado which includes nine fourteeners. It has the highest average elevation of any wilderness area in the United States. The name comes from the peaks named for famous colleges in the rarefied air of academia: Mt. Harvard, Mt. Oxford, Mt. Yale, Mt. Princeton and Mt. Columbia. But what about Missouri Mountain, Mount Belford, La Plata Peak, and Huron Peak, the other fourteeners? Don't they also represent colleges? In the Times rankings of world universities for 2011, Harvard is ranked no. 1, Princeton no. 5, Oxford no. 6, Yale no. 10, and Columbia no. 18. The University of Missouri, with 32,000 students, doesn't make the top 200. Neither does Belford University in Humble, Texas which offers unaccredited degrees for "life experience" with certificates mailed from the United Arab Emirates. Neither does Huron University in Huron, South Dakota, which closed in 2005, or the College of Southern Maryland in La Plata. I guess they aren't in the same rarefied air of academia, but in the rarefied air of mountain tops, they are all near equals.

Sam, Andrew and I hiked to the summit of Mt. Oxford (14,153 feet) from Mt. Belford. Unfortunately, I didn't take any great pictures of Mt. Oxford from Mt. Belford. I cropped the following picture from the three of us standing on Belford with Oxford in the background and that's the best I have.

Like the trail to Belford, this trail is rated class 2 and I think it should be class 1. It is a good dirt trail most of the way. It is listed as having a little more exposure, but I can think of only one small section, where despite the pretty good trail, you might have had to use your hands to hold on to nearby rocks for support, but I don't really recall being conscious of exposure at that point, something I am usually quite attuned to. Below is a photo of that portion of the trail, taken from Mt. Oxford on the way back over to Mt. Belford. The upper portion of the trail, where it is steeper and less defined, is the portion I am referring to.

It is not in the same universe as the northwest ridge of Mt. Tyndall which is also rated class 2, with virtually no dirt trail (all rock climbing), and massively greater levels of exposure.

From the summit of Mt. Belford, you hike east about a quarter mile (toward Mt. Harvard which is straight ahead), then turn left and hike the connecting ridge between Belford and Oxford. The picture below shows that connecting ridge to the left, looking at it backwards, from Mt. Oxford toward Mt. Belford. Mt. Belford is the high nob toward the upper right-hand part of the picture.

If you look right, you see another ridge which connects Belford and Missouri Mountain, which is Elkhead Pass. The photo of Elkhead Pass below, was taken from the summit of Mt. Belford. The summit of Missouri Mountain is to the far right of the photo.

When we got to the top of Oxford we talked to several hikers who originally went up Missouri, then did Oxford, then were doing Belford and hiking out, completing three peaks in a day. They all started substantially earlier in the day than we did, one started at 4:45 a.m., 2 1/2 hours earlier than us, but I think if we could do do-overs, that is what I would do.

The connecting ridge starts down steeply among some rock outcroppings, but was not bad. The most memorable part of that trail was an abundance of of thistles with thorny stems

and big fuzzy heads which made them look like octopus.

By the midpoint and low point of the ridge, about 13,500 feet in elevation, the rock had disappeared and it was mostly a dirt trail among grass. The route up Oxford was much easier than the northwest ridge up Belford, or the saddle down from Belford. Below, Sam is a speck at the top of the ridge.

It was pretty much all uphill, but was not as steep. Below, the summit of Oxford is left of middle below, even though the portion to the right looks higher. Sam is on the summit with another person.

A closer picture of Sam on the summit (he is the person to the left and sits at the actual summit).

The summit of Oxford is relatively flat and large, studded with rocks. There was a small area of rocks built up to provide protection in bad weather, which included one rock with the geographic marker for the peak imbedded in it. Below, Sam sitting at the summit.

The most impressive view from the top was the view back toward Belford (Sam and Andrew below, with Belford just to the left of Sam),

which from this angle, looked quite imposing, with a steep cliff below it.

Sam and I at the summit.

That is one of the fun things about mountains, similar to life, depending on the route, some ways of getting to the top are easier than others. I gave my attention to a couple of pikas that were playing around near the summit, cute little rabbit or hamster like animals that only live at very high elevations.

I had one run by me within a couple of feet, but couldn't get my camera out fast enough to get a good picture of it. Then Andrew got my attention by waving to me and motioned me over to see a congregation of white-tailed ptarmigan hiding among the summit rocks.

We probably spent 30 minutes or more watching the ptarmigans.

We spent at least 45 minutes on the summit, a nice break.

The hike back down Oxford was easy, then the most difficult part of the day's hike was going back up the dividing ridge to the Belford massif.

It was the steepest part of the trail and required a few short rests. Once back up to the ridge, we got the Belford summit in view

and got there to find a group of several young families with young children on top.

A number of very small children had made it up, the youngest being age four. It brought back fond memories of hikes with my boys when they were young, although I didn't do anything as adventurous as this at that young age. We did do Mt. San Jacinto when Andrew and Sam were 6 and 9, White Mountain (a fourteener) when Andrew and Sam were 8 and 11, and Mt. Whitney (a fourteener) when they were 9 and 12, respectively. Below, Sam still on the Belford summit ridge and Missouri Gulch and other Colorado high country in the background.

Once we got off the Belford top ridge the hiking got steep downhill and my toes were pretty much jammed into the tops of my tennis shoes most of the way down. It got much better once we hit the valley in Missouri Gulch. Looking back up Missouri Gulch toward Missouri Mountain.

Looking ahead at Sam in front of me as we hike down Missouri Gulch just below treeline. It got much steeper as we got lower, but not anywhere as steep as the northwest ridge of Belford.

One of my big toes was missing a toe nail and the big toe nail was damaged and will come off at some point. My toes were also still a little sensitive from my Sierra climbs of Mt. Williamson and Mt. Tyndall a month earlier. So we had the interesting experience of taking almost as much time to go down the mountain as it took us to go up it. On the way up, I only recall one significant rest of a few minutes or more to eat something and drink. On the way down, we took a number of such rests. Part of it was being more tired, part of it was not being in a rush to get down, part of it was the extra stress on knees and toes from the downhill. I normally do these types of climbs with hiking poles. The poles provide stability on the steep downhill and take some of the pressure off the knees and toes. Those we watched with hiking poles were able to do this downhill much quicker than we did. I didn't bring my hiking polls because it would have required me to check a bag on the airplane, which adds about $50.00 to the cost of the flight, and then also takes time to wait for the baggage to make it off the airplane. I was ultimately happy to get off the mountain. The uphill, although significant, about 5,800 feet of elevation gain, was nice hiking on a very nice trail. The downhill, however, without poles, was very tough because of the steep descent. I had no blisters on the bottoms of my feet or toes, but had very large blisters with blood in them on the tops of both of my big toes, something I don't think I've ever experienced. I think it may partially relate to the beating my toes took last month and just never fully recovered from.

From the standpoint of fourteeners, I was going to rate these as the easiest I've done, other than California's White Mountain (which is a longer hike, but much less elevation gain), and the ones I've cheated on, using the cog-railway up Pike's Peak and the road up Mount Evans. However, I then compare the one day trip up Grays and Torreys Peaks which was a combined 8.25 miles in length with 3,600 feet of elevation gain, to Belford and Oxford which were a combined 11 miles and 5,800 feet of elevation gain. Why would I rate Grays and Torreys as more difficult? That doesn't make any sense. I guess going back to my earlier comment about some routes going up mountains being easier than others, sometimes our experience with those routes are greatly impacted by the circumstances, both external and internal, that make a more difficult route seem easier and an easier route seem harder. When we did Grays and Torreys, the routes were extremely crowded with people, which greatly detracted from the enjoyment of the trip. There were much, much, much fewer people on Belford and Oxford and that greatly impacts the enjoyment, the sense of solitude. I was probably not in as good a shape when I did Grays and Torreys, and I had some altitude sickness, particularly some fluid in my lungs, on that hike which impacted my physicality and made that hike seem harder. It also rained on the Grays and Torreys trip which made it colder and a little miserable. So I guess I have to amend my impression and thoughts, formed while coming down Belford. For me, Belford and Oxford was a much more enjoyable trip. It was nicer weather, there were fewer people, we had wildlife encounters with white-tailed ptarmigans, pikas and marmots, and I felt better physically. I guess it works that way in other parts of life, where what should be an easier situation, based on an objective look at the facts, is more difficult because of circumstances.

Mount Belford

2011-08-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

Last week I had the opportunity to do one of my very favorite things, go hiking with my boys, in one of my very favorite places, Colorado. We stayed at Ores and Mine Bed and Breakfast Thursday night in Twin Lakes and woke up to a wonderful breakfast at 5:30 a.m. of home-made oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar, orange juice, yogurt, a muffin and a nice slice of watermelon. Donna Cornella was a saint to wake up so early and feed as such a nice breakfast. The Missouri Gulch Trailhead was about 14 miles away, 8 of it down a good dirt road. The parking lot was nearly full when we arrived and we started hiking at about 7:15 a.m. The trailhead is at 9,650 feet. What we did not know when we started our hike was that it was also the trailhead for Mt. Missouri, another fourteener. We almost immediately crossed the very large Clear Creek on a beautiful bridge. I'm very glad we had the bridge because Clear Creek would be extremely difficult without it. The trail does not waste any time starting steeply uphill through a beautiful forest. We could hear a small stream to our left, which went down through the center of Missouri Gulch, a valley between the Missouri and Belford massifs. After climbing more than 1,100 feet, at about 10,800 feet, we went to our left and crossed over the stream and continued up the other side of Missouri Gulch. At 11,200 feet there is a partial log cabin still standing and things started to flatten out at about 11,300 feet, as we left the thick pine forest. Mount Belford lay before us with the northwest ridge we would climb in full view. Below, Sam and Andrew.

Andrew and Sam with a little clearer view of Mt. Belford.

At about 11,600 feet we reached a junction with the Elkhead Pass Trail which is a route to Mt. Missouri (although we did not know it at the time). We met a group of women hikers from New Hampshire that had climbed the tallest 40 or 48 mountains in New Hampshire and were trying their hand at Colorado fourteeners. Below, the top-not of the Mt. Belford summit is visible left of center. To the right and down a bit, is the flat ridge at about 13,900 feet.

We stayed left and pretty quickly hit the northwest ridge and started to climb steadily upward on a very nice, mostly dirt, trail. The trail is steep, but it is a series of very tight switchbacks which give enough sideways movement to flatten out the trail, but not so much that it significantly lengthens the hike. Below, Andrew is behind me and Missouri Gulch unfolds back toward the trailhead.

Sam is above me and some other hikers are visible further up the switch backing trail of the northwest ridge.

Sam was wearing some very unique shoes that were little more than a little protection for the bottom of his feet. He did very well in them.

I wish more trails would use these sort of compact switchbacks. The area around us was still covered in green grass, but the scenery was not particularly great. It was pretty much all steeply uphill until about 13,900 feet, when we hit a flat spot with a beautiful view of Mt. Missouri across Missouri Gulch. Below, Sam and Andrew with Mt. Missouri in the background.

From there we got a fantastic view of other high mountains in the area and Andrew and Sam were both awed by the sight. Below, a beautiful basin southeast of Mt. Missouri.

Another hiker coming up the trail toward us.

From the flat spot, we turned left and continued up the mountain for another 200 feet before it leveled out on a ridge, at 14,100 feet. From there the views got even better. Mt. Harvard, another fourteener, to the east.

Right before the ridge, Sam called out that he could see a huge bird, like a turkey. I scrambled up to get close to him and saw a white-tailed ptarmigan walking casually very near him.

I recognized it from pictures, but this was my first time seeing one in the wild. It let me get amazingly close as I tried to get some good pictures with my point and shoot. From there, the summit of Mt. Belford looks like a little dollop of yellow that has been plopped onto the ridge

and it was an easy uphill walk to the 14,197 foot summit. Below, Sam right before the summit block.

Looking back toward Andrew as he climbs toward the final ridge.

Sam on the 14,197 foot summit block.

A couple from Denver approaches the summit and Andrew in his red jacked is following the trail along the ridge behind them.

I loved the summit because it was a mass of yellow rock, probably full of sulphur, that was unlike any other rock we'd encountered on the way. Perhaps dropped by aliens? Andrew on the yellow summit block, as seen from the east side.

Across Belford Gulch, the valley between Mt. Belford and Mt. Oxford, lay Mt. Oxford, to the east, another fourteener on our itinerary for the day. To our south was Mt. Harvard, another fourteener, and then to the west lay Mt. Missouri, another fourteener. It all made for a very wonderful view. The couple from Denver took our picture on the summit. Mt. Oxford is in the background.

The hike up Mt. Belford is rated as a class 2 hike which I don't understand, because it is an easy and good dirt trail the entire way. It really is class 1. However, it is a monster climb as it covers 4,500 feet of elevation gain in 4 miles, or 1,125 feet of gain per mile. By contrast, the Sierra Club ski hut trail on Mt. Baldy covers 3,904 feet of elevation gain in 4.2 miles, or 930 feet of gain per mile, at a substantially lower altitude. This was to have consequences on the way down, which I'll cover on my Mt. Oxford post. Looking back at the east side of the Belford summit.

Angus M. Cannon: Cannon v. U.S., 116 U.S. 55 (1885)

2011-08-17T20:27:00.000-07:00

Angus Munn Cannon was the grandson of Captain George Cannon, the son of George Cannon the Immigrant, and the brother of George Q. Cannon, my ancestor. He was the defendant in a court case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court which had a significant impact in the struggle between the U.S. government and the LDS Church over the issue of polygamy.

On January 20, 1885, Angus was arrested for unlawful cohabitation. On February 7^th Angus entered a not guilty plea in court. His trial began on April 27^th in front of Judge Charles S. Zane, with U.S. attorney William H. Dickson handling the prosecution. Angus was represented by Franklin S. Richards, son of apostle Franklin D. Richards, who had previously represented the Church in the court battles over the Brigham Young Estate, and later, from 1903-1908, represented Joseph F. Smith during the Reed Smoot hearings.

To set the stage, Angus had four wives at the time: (a) Sarah Maria Mousley, his wife of 27 years and mother of six of his children, four still living; (b) Ann Amanda Mousley, Sarah’s sister, married to Angus immediately after Sarah, thus the second wife and mother of ten of his children, nine still living; (c) Clarissa (Clara) Moses Mason, a widow, with two living children from a prior marriage, Angus’s wife of 10 years and mother of three of his children, one still living; and (d) Martha Hughes, who Angus married just three months before he his arrest. It is apparent that the prosecutor was not aware of Martha who lived in a separate residence. Angus was prominent in the community as president of the Salt Lake Stake, which included all of the wards in Salt Lake County, and had been for nine years. His brother, George, was first counselor to John Taylor, president of the LDS Church. Angus had been in Judge Zane’s courtroom the year before, as a witness in the polygamy trial of Rudger Clawson, an apostle.

The U.S. government had taken many steps over the years to get the Mormons to abandon polygamy, including various laws that had been enacted without much success. In 1879 the U.S. Supreme Court case of Reynolds v. U.S. struck down the freedom of religion defense relied upon by Mormons in polygamy prosecutions, but prosecutors still had to prove a marriage ceremony had taken place, which was difficult to do and a significant barrier to prosecution. In 1882 Congress enacted the Edmunds Act which made polygamy a felony with a maximum sentence of five years and a fine of $500, for marriages entered into after March 22, 1882. It also made cohabitation a misdemeanor with a maximum sentence of six months and fine of $300. However, the Edmunds Act did not define cohabitation, which became the issue in the Cannon case.

At trial there were only three witnesses, all called by the prosecution: Clara, Angus’s third wife; George M. Cannon, the son of Sarah, his first wife; and Angus M. Cannon, Jr., the son of Amanda, his second wife.

The substance of the trial came down to one issue: Did the government have to prove that Angus had sexual relations with Amanda and/or Clara, his second and third wives, after passage of the Edmunds Act, in order to prove cohabitation? Franklin S. Richards offered jury instructions which said, yes, sexual relations were an element of the crime of cohabitation and the government had to prove that sexual relations had occurred. Judge Zane disagreed and allowed jury instructions which said that if Angus lived in the same house with Amanda and Clara and held them out, by language or conduct, or both, as his wives, he should be found guilty.

On April 29, 1885 the jury returned a guilty verdict. At a sentencing hearing on May 9^th, Judge Zane asked Angus about his intentions in the future, as it might impact the sentence he would order. Angus replied, “I cannot state what I will do in the future…I have become a [U.S.] citizen. When I did so I had no idea that a statute would be passed making my faith and religion a crime; but having made that allegiance, I can only say that I have used the utmost of my power to honor my God, my family and my country. In eating with my children day by day, and showing an impartiality in meeting with them around the board, with the mother who was wont to wait upon them, I was unconscious of any crime. I did not think I would be made a criminal for that. …[T]he consciousness of my heart is visible to the God who created me, and the rectitude that has marked my life and conduct with this people bears me up to receive such a sentence as your Honor shall see fit to impose upon me.” Following Angus’s remarks, there was vigorous applause from the audience. Judge Zane responded that since “the defendant had declined to promise to obey the law, and advise others to obey it, no leniency could be shown him.” He imposed the maximum sentence of six months in prison and a $300 fine. On June 27, 1885, the Utah Territorial Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence in an opinion written by Judge Jacob S. Boreman.

By September 1885, after the number of prosecutions for polygamy and cohabitation increased dramatically because of this successful trial, the LDS Church First Presidency directed Franklin S. Richards to try and negotiate a way out of the prosecutions. This was unsuccessful, so Richards tried to retain a former U.S. senator from Missouri, George G. Vest, to argue Angus’s case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Vest had previously argued in a Supreme Court case on behalf of the Mormons and had also worked against passage of the Edmunds Bill in the Senate. Unable to secure Vest, Franklin S. Richards represented Angus in the matter. Richards filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on October 21, 1885 and apparently did not have to do an oral argument, at least none is mentioned.

After Angus spent six months in prison, the full term under his sentence, Angus voluntarily stayed in prison because of concern by his attorney that if he was no longer in prison, the U.S. Supreme Court would deem the issue moot and refuse to rule on the merits. The LDS Church wanted a ruling on this issue.

In mid-December 1885, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the Utah Territorial Supreme Court in Cannon v. United States, 116 U.S. 55 (1885). Samuel Blatchford wrote for the majority and was joined by Chief Justice Morrison Waite, who authored the Reynolds opinion, and Joseph P. Bradley, John M. Harlan, William B. Woods, Stanley Matthews and Horace Gray. Samuel Miller and Stephen J. Field dissented, based on their belief that proving sexual intercourse must be an element of the crime.

By the time of the ruling, Angus had served about eight months in prison, two months voluntarily.

After this ruling which made prosecution of polygamy and unlawful cohabitation much easier, prosecutions increased dramatically. Making things even more difficult, Congress enacted the Tucker Amendment to the Edmunds Act in 1887. It: (1) Required wives to testify against their husbands by repealing the spousal immunity; (2) Allowed prosecutors to jail witnesses until trial if they suspected them of being uncooperative; (3) Added the crimes of adultery, incest and fornication; (4) Required an anti-polygamy oath of all jurors, office holders and voters, effectively eliminating many Mormons; (5). Repealed suffrage, negating womens’ right to vote; (6) Annulled incorporation of the Church as a charitable entity as well as the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company; and (7) The attorney general was directed to seize and liquidate Church holdings on behalf of the government.

By 1890, about 1,300 Mormons were convicted of crimes related to polygamy and over $100,000 in fines had been collected by the government. Perhaps the needle that broke the camel’s back, on May 19, 1890, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States, which upheld the seizure of Church holdings by the federal government. Within a few months, in September 1890, President Woodruff issued the Manifesto which ended the practice of plural marriage by the LDS Church.

Ken Driggs, the author of “The Prosecutions Begin: Defining Cohabitation in 1885” Dialogue 21 (1988), pp. 109-125, from which most of the information in this article was obtained, gives his opinion that it was the Cannon decision, not the Reynolds decision, which had the greatest impact in ending the practice of polygamy, because it paved the way for successful prosecutions.

But aside from the importance of the Cannon case, which I was unaware of, I was fascinated by the look inside the polygamous household which the facts of the case provide.

After passage of the Edmunds Act, legal counsel for Angus offered to prove that Angus abided by that law and did not have physical relations with his plural wives, or at least Clara, but continued to support them and take meals with them. In this light, Angus’s marriage to Martha Hughes, only a few months before his arrest, after the effective date of the Edmunds Act, becomes more interesting.

The house owned by Angus was located at 246 First South in Salt Lake.

It was divided into three apartments, one for each of the three wives that lived there. Each apartment had an adjoining parlor and dining room and a separate kitchen located at the back of the house. A hall ran through the ground floor and each of the three apartments opened on to the hall. Clara’s parlor and dining room were located on the east side of the hall. Amanda’s parlor and dining room were located on the west side of the hall. The location of Sarah’s parlor and dining room was not given. Angus ate all meals with each family every third day, or twice a week. On Sunday he had breakfast with Clara and her family, dinner (the main meal, at midday) with Sarah and her family, and supper (the evening meal) with Amanda and her family.

The second floor had four bedrooms, with two bedrooms on each side of a hall. Clara used the bedroom in the northeast corner which had two beds. She shared the bedroom with her three year old daughter through Angus, her 23 year old daughter from a prior marriage, and two orphaned children, both girls, ages 10 and 12, children of her niece who left them to Clara when the niece died. Amanda used the bedroom in the southwest corner. She slept there along with her eight children still living at home. Angus used the bedroom in the southeast corner and Sarah must have used the bedroom in the northwest corner, along with her four children. Before passage of the Edmunds Act, Angus alternated sleeping in the bedroom and bed of each wife. After the Edmunds Act was passed, Angus’s attorneys offered to prove that he intended to live the law and did not occupy the rooms or beds or have sexual intercourse with at least Clara, and presumably Amanda, as well. However, he continued to eat with them, support them and allowed them to occupy the separate apartments.

Following his prison sentence, it is clear Angus continued to have relations with at least three plural wives. Martha Hughes, whom he married three months before his arrest, bore him three children, one of which was born after the trial and before the U.S. Supreme Court decision. On March 11, 1886, less than four months after the Supreme Court decision, Angus married Maria Bennion and fathered three children. A year later, on March 21, 1887, he married Johanna Cristina Danielson and fathered one child with her, which died in infancy. The Cannon Family Historical Treasury, edited by Beatrice Cannon Evans and Janath Russell Cannon (published by George Cannon Family Association, 1995), which also provides information for this post, notes that these wives lived on the “underground” in an attempt to avoid prosecution.

White-Tailed Ptarmigan

2011-08-14T20:03:00.000-07:00

At 14,000 feet in the alpine tundra of Colorado we almost literally stumbled over the bumbling Inspector Clouseau of birds, the white-tailed ptarmigan.

Within 30 yards of the summit of 14,153 foot Mt. Oxford, Sam and Andrew were startled to find themselves surrounded by a congregation (yes, that is correct terminology) of them. To their amazement, the ptarmigans did not move. As Sam or Andrew would get close to a bird, that ptarmigan would cuddle up against a rock and freeze.

When they got so close that they could literally touch a bird (although they did not try),

the ptarmigan would walk slowly away, appearing to be really stupid or without care, or both. I was sitting at the summit, watching a pika, not paying much attention to them, when Andrew flapped his arms like a bird to get my attention, pointed down, and then gestured to me to come over. As I got near them I saw the congregation, 15 or 20 ptarmigans, some walking, some stationary, and it was incomprehensible to me that these birds were not taking flight or running away. In fact, I later had to research to find that they can fly (like a quail, in short bursts, and then gliding). I pulled out my camera for pictures, and found it difficult to focus on the ptarmigans because their disguises were so good. Just take a look at some of these and try to spot the ptarmigan. I've even made it easier for you by cropping some of the pictures. This first picture is of the summit of Mt. Oxford. Can you find the ptarmigan in the picture (it is just left of center)?

I took quite a few shots where I knew a ptarmigan was in the picture, but could not actually see it through the view finder.

Find this ptarmigan just north of center.

They even blend in standing in a patch of green grass.

The feather mixture is so amazing, that even in pictures it often looks fuzzy (note the name-sake white tail).

What you would think might stand out, the reddish-orange comb some of them had above their eyes, perfectly matched the color of nearby lichens (click to enlarge and compare the lichen to the comb).

The browns, blacks, whites and grays of their plumage matched the color of the rocks that they hid among. I have subsequently learned that the white-tailed ptarmigan is the only full-time bird resident of the Colorado tundra, generally the treeless high country above 11,500 feet. Ptarmigans have learned to conserve their energy in both cold and hot weather, by playing statue when predators approach (the golden eagle and man appear to be primary), by avoiding flying, and even by immersing themselves in snow banks for warmth. They have also evolved white feet feathers that act like snowshoes

and they have feathers around their nose which helps heat the cold air before it is breathed in.

The color of their plumage changes with the seasons. We saw them in their summer splendor, but like the weasel that turns into the ermine in winter, the ptarmigan turns completely white, except for the red comb and black beak.

Ptarmigans do not live along, only about a year. I suspect it is a combination of the rugged environment they inhabit and the ease with which they can be picked off once spotted, but overall the evolutionary features seem to be working as they still retain healthy populations. We saw three separate groups of ptarmigan on this particular Friday, all at an elevation over 13,800 feet on Mounts Oxford and Belford. I remember reading about ptarmigans as a young boy, and recognized them immediately when I saw them, but I was thrilled to see them for the first time and to have such an amazingly, up close, encounter.

Indigo Bush

2011-08-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

Last year when I was regularly visiting the Hayfield Road area, off the I-10 past Chiriaco Summit, about the border between the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts, I regularly noticed an ugly looking sagebrush type bush in the wash area I hiked through. Imagine the bush below, without any of the blue, and you get a glimpse of what I'm talking about.

It would be hard to think of an uglier type of bush. The bushes appeared old, scraggly, and very dirty, many brown, dead looking spots.

They looked like they had survived the Oklahoma dustbowl during the depression, and just barely at that. There was nothing attractive about them. Other spring flowers were gloriously strutting their stuff, taking their turns in the beauty competition that happens each year, particularly when there have been good rains. Then, as spring ended and summer arrived, the beautiful flowers died out and the full heat of the desert arrived, erasing the color from the landscape. In a somewhat depressed mood, on July 10th, walking through this moonscape that had rivaled Butchart Gardens just three months previously, I was blown away to walk into the wash and see a landscape of blue leaves with bees buzzing everywhere.

Where there had previously been only drabness, there was blue everywhere.

It was as good an imitation of Fawkes the phoenix resurrecting itself that I've seen.

It really lifted my spirits and increased my appreciation and wonder for the desert that continues to surprise and teach lessons. I'm finding eleven types of Indigo bush on the calflora website that exist in the area and the exact subspecies of these particular bushes is eluding me.

What I love is that these bushes bloom when most everything else is done. They are the ugly ducklings during spring when the other plants are taking their turns strutting their stuff, but these late bloomers have the show all to themselves during the heat of the summer.

The shame is that there are few people there to notice them. It is now too hot and most of the outdoor enthusiasts have headed for pine tree country at greater elevations where it is cooler. For me, it was worth the trip into the furnace to enjoy these beautiful bushes.