Boise and pickles other stuff

I have just returned to San Diego from Boise where I was visiting my friend Kathy.  Never fear, I still have some posts left in me.  Also, it's projected to reach 102 today in San Diego, and I prefer to hide inside with the air conditioner and my MacBook.

Lucky the cat in Kathy's garden.

In addition to Basque adult beverages and urban garden tours, Kathy and I decided to make full use of her bountiful garden, and make "bread and butter" pickles.  Bread and butter pickles contain no bread and no butter. The name apparently refers to the dark days of the Depression when you buttered some bread and threw a few pickles in and called it a sandwich.  These pickles are slightly sweet and maximally sublime with just the right blend of vinegar, sugar and spices.  We used the the recipe from Food Wishes (Use Google to find "bread and butter pickle video recipe").  Most of the ingredients Kathy had on hand, though the mustard seeds required a walk to Albertsons.  Luckily, this also allowed me the opportunity to purchase a Boise State Broncos t-shirt.  We "borrowed" the red jalapenos from a neighbor's yard whilst unloading a too-big cucumber on Charlotte, the neighborhood pig (see previous post).

While visiting, or trying to visit, various urban backyards on the Tour de Coop (see previous post), we sliced and salted and simmered our pickles.  See visual details below.

Freshly sliced cukes, soon to be covered with kosher salt.
The little cukes are Mexican spicy cucumbers. 

Salted cukes, with spices, sugar and vinegar.

Kathy stirs the masterpiece before cooling.
(We let the pickles finish cooling while we went to the movies.)

Final step, filling the jars.  We left the last pickle jar open for easy noshing.

So sometimes it snows in Boise.  Kathy is prepared.  She has knit herself a hat and a scarf, a hat scarf. See picture essay below.  I'd knit myself one too, but I might develop heat exhaustion in the non-snow of San Diego.  

Step1. On wintry Boise nights, knit scarf hat in cozy living room.

Step 2: Don and wrap scarf hat. 

Step 3: All set for Boise blizzard. 

Boise's Tour de Coop

Koontenai Street backyard.  "Happily Ever After" this way. 

Day #2 of Boise off the beaten track.

There is nothing better on a sunny September day in Boise than touring urban gardens and running around with the chickens.  Boise's Best Flower Shop (real name) puts on a Tour de Coop every year with verdant backyards, clucking chickens, butter cookies and new t-shirts.  They also were holding a raffle, for a new chicken coop, a bicycle, and our favorite, a painting of a monk and chicken (see below).  Kathy hopes she wins the painting, but will settle for the chicken coop.

Betsy shows off the monk & rooster raffle prize. 

Visiting with the chicken (the other was in the coop.)

Our first and longest visit was to a house on Kootenai Street that looked like a retreat for elves, but we sneaked a peak anyway.  The backyard was a child's delight of hidden paths with benches and swing sets and a lamp covered in ivy.  A red chicken strutted around us as Kathy and I relaxed with punch and banana bread.  A sign to our left pointed to "Happily Ever After."  We agreed lounging in this backyard felt like happily ever after, but pickle duty called.  See next post for all pickle details.



 

Boise's best vegan

Slow night at Shangri-La.  

"Cheesy" kale chips

After our long tour of downtown Boise, Kathy and I didn't feel like cooking dinner.  Instead, we went to the local vegetarian/vegan joint, appropriately named Shangri La Tea House and Cafe.  The cafe is in a nondescript business park but it sits across from the Boise River.  Kathy tells me it sits on a flood "bench."  You are immediately encased in a zen zone, with Divine Lotus tea and calming sleep tincture.  The waitresses, having not eaten meat or dairy in months or years, are fresh faced and happy.  We started our repast with "cheesy" kale chips, pictured above.  Surprisingly good.  Then I had tuna melt, without the tuna.  Also, surprisingly good.  Then I topped it off with chocolate overload (Overlord) torte, likely all organic.  Also, surprisingly good.  Kathy had some kind of nutritious chocolate pudding, which was just a little too nutritious.  Meanwhile we eavesdropped on the waitstaff chatter and discovered that the waiter and waitress were two of a set of quadruplets. Then the music started up.  The guitarist was a white haired gentlemen who played some riffs on the backstage and told the three diners to not feel obligated to stand and applaud.

We left sated and with a tincture of organic linden leaf and passion flower to help with any insomnia. A delightful evening.

Boise's Charlotte the Pig

Charlotte the pig accepts a slightly overripe cucumber from Kathy

So I've been visiting my friend Kathy in Boise.  She said we should visit Charlotte down the street.  I said fine.  She grabbed a cucumber from her garden that was a little past its prime.  I thought, will Charlotte mind it's a little past its prime?  Charlotte did not mind at all.  It turns out Charlotte is the neighborhood pig and she welcomes your garden excess.  She took that cucumber with great gusto and thanked Kathy with a few delicate pig grunts.

Tomorrow Kathy and I are making bread and butter pickles from her abundant cucumber harvest and we needed to pick more cucumbers.  Kathy came across another cucumber that was too big and too ripe. She said, "We'll save this one for Charlotte."  That's how the gardener rolls in Boise.

Boise's Freak Alley

Freak Alley Gallery, a Boise institution since 2002

Most people think alleys are for trash bins and small cars.  In Boise, they can also be works of art. Since 2002, an alley in downtown Boise has been beautified anew each year with exceptional street art.  As our tour guide Bill walked us through what is now a swirl of art, we happened upon his boss, who stood against a wall of art, while her body was painted to match.  Now that's supporting the arts.

Can you see the person in the art? 

Enjoy additional art below.  

This and that in Freak Alley.

There's art on that alley wall. Close up below. 

A face in the crowded lines.

Last supper? Anubis? Aliens? All of the above.

Boise Basque

The Basque have their own museum in Boise

Kathy and I enjoy Basque food and drinks at Bar Gernika.

  

The Basque are big in Boise.  For those not familiar with this ethnic group, the Basque are a friendly folk that originate in Spain and France.  They have their own unique language of unknown origin that looks somewhat like a combination of Greek and Olde English.  They build Frontons and play pelota. (Think racquetball played with sticks in large barns.) They have big outdoor weddings.  They combine wine and coca cola and call it Kalimotxo. (See picture above.  Surprisingly good and surprisingly strong.) Above all, they are very welcoming.

How do I know all this?  Because my friend Kathy and I went on a tour of downtown Boise, sponsored by the historical society.  We started our tour at the Basque Museum, across from the Basque Market and the Basque square where they were setting up for a Basque wedding.  Our tour guide Bill, most recently of New York, had no previous experience with the Basque.  But he saw an ad for singers for the Basque choir when he first moved to Boise and decided, why not?  He called the number and spoke to a Basque gentlemen with a sonorous voice and told the gentleman he knew no Basque (considered one of the hardest languages on the planet to master), was not Basque, and couldn't really sing that well either.  The Basque gentleman paused for a moment, and then said, "Perfect."  Bill has been a fan of the Basque since.  And now I am too.

Boise breakfast

Breakfast in Boise

So I'm visiting my friend Kathy in Boise, Idaho. This is the state that, as my son Samuel says, has the audacity to separate Montana and Washington.  Today Kathy and I are going to look at Basque architect downtown, but first I had a Boise breakfast in Kathy's cozy dining room.  This consisted of toasted Bigwood Bakery multigrain bread from Ketchum, Idaho, topped with apricot jam made by Kathy's friend Margaret, accompanied by Kathy's homemade bran muffin. On the side were fresh raspberries (imported from California), and some French pressed coffee.  Yum.