Something new has sprung up across the street from my office in the last week or so. Actually, work has probably been going on all summer on the foundation but that was hidden within the trees. Last week, the dish was put on and it became much more visible. This is the third large dish installed on the West Ridge of the Fairbanks campus and I can only assume that research funding is still being brought in by some groups on campus.
Another sign of change that is showing up is non-green color on some of the trees. Some say that the trees are stressed due to the unseasonably hot summer but I think that Winter is trying to sneak in. The mornings are in the mid to high 40s (°F) and I'm starting to wear an unheated liner under my non-mesh riding jacket for the morning ride. And the days are getting noticeably shorter.
In case you didn't know it, Saturday, August 17, 2013, was International Geocaching Day. Fairbanks cachers got together for as picnic at a local park and you can search geocaching.com for this GC code if you want to know exactly where the picnic was. Very little geocaching went on during the picnic and I volunteered to man the grill. We did ride the sidecar rig to the picnic and afterwards went out and found a cache.
We are trying to find at least one geocache per day for the month of August. I've exhausted all of the easy ones around the campus and need to venture out further.
Just a few food pics to round out this post. Anytime I see bibimbap on a menu, I feel obligated to try out their version. This was at a local sushi restaurant,
Ajimi. It was pretty good though they did charge you extra if you wanted it served in the traditional, very hot, clay bowl. If it's not served in the clay bowl, the rice doesn't develop the nice tasty crust as it continues to cook after serving. I'd give their version a solid six. BTW, the version I had in Singapore would have barely scored a 3 out of 10.
Conchscooter was
posting pictures from his recent road trip through the southeast and he mentioned having chicken and waffles. That sounded like a good idea for dinner last night. No buttermilk on hand so it wasn't true southern fried chicken but the waffles were the toaster variety anyway. It's hard to go wrong with fried food and maple syrup. Some collard greens would have been a nice addition...
Richard, I've noticed some leaves changing colour early here as well.
ReplyDeleteI so wish the group of geocachers that I was following had been focused on eating rather than finding 50 caches!
This group was still focused on geocaches but since many of them there were the ones who either planted or maintained most of the caches in the area, there wasn't much of a need to go find more.
DeleteWaffles and chicken is a new combination to me though I'm far from against it.
ReplyDeleteHang onto summer and your version of autumn as long as you can Richard!
It's a wonderful combination popular in other parts of the country. We don't have fried chicken too often as it makes a mess in the kitchen and the calorie count is on the high side but once in a while is good. Plus, I used the burner on the outside grill since it still sort of resembles summer....
DeleteThat looks like what's called "leaf scorch" and it's from too dry conditions. Not a healthy or happy plant at this time. Good and frequent waterings would help. Where are your horticulture students!
ReplyDeleteI just saw Morimoto on PBS making "sushi bowls" in CA. Very impressive. Your clay bowl looks good. I didn't think sushi rice was supposed to get crusty (even tho it's always tasty that way).
Dry conditions, eh? I can believe that. There are trees everywhere that look a little like this and some have lost almost all of their leaves. Other trees don't even have a hint of brown or yellow on them.
DeleteBibimbap is a Korean dish made with regular rice topped with pickled vegetables and regular veggies, some kind of meat and a fried egg. You then put on some chili sauce and mix it all up in the sizzling hot bowl to partly cook the veggies. A very nice crust develops on some of the rice that has been in contact with the bowl before and after stirring. I don't know what the temperature of the bowl is but it's pretty hot.
So this is different than the sushi bowls.
Crusty rice... sounds very delish to me.
ReplyDeleteWhile you got it too hot and dry in your part of the world, we had the wettest summer since... ever (?) in Germany. On the plus side, it is very green still.
Today it's raining but probably not enough to help put out the fires in the area. But you can tell that our autumn is starting. Lots of great produce at the local farmers market.
DeleteThe crusty rice is one, to me, is one of the tastiest parts of the dish.
Darn that is a big dish - what do they do with it? Just talk to satellites? Aliens?
ReplyDeleteThe leaves around here are starting to curl but not really change color. I'd guess lack of water is the main cause. Our summer has been so hot and dry and Alaska too. Is this close to the driest on record for you?
The dish is used to talk to polar orbiting satellites. Since we are far north, they can be seen for several passes due to their paths converging near the poles. More efficient for data collection using downlink facilities closer to the poles.
DeleteThe alien seeking dishes are much larger and are generally arrays of dishes networked together.
I don't know what the stats are as far as precipitation. The one that they seem to talk about is the record number of hot days.
Bibimbap! That's good stuff....thanks for introducing me to that dish while in Fairbanks...
ReplyDeleteThe leaves you showed, they looked burnt around the edges....I'd say heat stress but then again, I'd rather you be right and for Fall to get here already.
dom
One of these days I'll take a shot at making it at home. I noticed that the clay bowls were readily available on our last trip but didn't really want to carry a fragile, heavy bowl back to Alaska. I'm sure I can find something local that'll work.
DeleteHave you found many places that have that dish on the menu in Denver?
Yes, any idea what the dish is for? I mean, I'm assuming mind/weather control, but it would be good to have confirmation... ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure it is for downloading data from polar orbiting satellites. One of the other dishes was installed quite a while ago and is on top of an eight story building. Not a very solid foundation for that much moving mass.
DeleteI am looking forward to watching your seasons change even as mine don't. frankly your chicken and waffles looked excellent. Real maple syrup is the key as you know.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely right on the real maple syrup! It makes the dish. Thank you for the reminder of chicken and waffles in your post.
DeleteI'll say that I'm ready for some cooler weather but there are more trips that I want to take this year. Winter brings some additional challenges and expenses that I'm not sure I want to put up with....