Rehoming Largely Complete

We ended up in that hotel for a lot longer than anticipated, but we are finally out and ensconced in our new permanent residence. Even better, our old residence is finally off our hands only slightly under a month after its closing was originally scheduled. We may even receive the money for its sale at some point!

Our new home is dangling off the tail-end of an older gated community in unincorporated Windermere. The view above is from the master bedroom, across the huge walled lanai, and down the lot to a little pond where we saw a wood stork the other day.

The house is empty but for a few statues, which will be corrected -- perhaps over-corrected -- tomorrow. It is also in need of continuous updating for the next several years, so we are really looking forward to AM moving down here to join us. Initially though we are going to concentrate on getting some fencing up for the dogs and knocking a desk-sized hole in the wall separating what will be my office space from the family room.

What a relief!

The Seventh Day of Giftmas (7 of 12)

We all gathered around our massive red counter for the Dawn of the Stockings. This picture was actually taken by yours truly, so doubtless has many issues of composition, lighting, and et cetera.
Líle needed help with her stocking. She's such a gentle little girl when she isn't knocking people over at the door and licking them to death.
'Dolon, on the other hand, yanked out the best part of his stocking and ran away with it in about three seconds.

Belgian Ale Night

Last night we had AM, ALS & RWM over for fish tacos and a sampling of Belgian ales. NDM sucked down a fruity lambic while the rest of us worked our way through 5 bottles of ale.

• The first, and still my favorite, Chimay Grande Reserve. I don't think anything can beat this dark, sweet, malty, creamy elixir. I wouldn't normally have started out with this one, but all the others needed some time in an ice bath to reach the proper temperature.
• Next we hit the Slaapmutske Triple Nightcap. Creamy like one expects from a corked Belgian, but much lighter than the Chimay. Despite a nice bitterness I found this beer a little short on character.
• Third was the Caracole, whose snail label I really liked. (I'd assumed this beer was named after dressage before I noticed the snail.) This beer was close kin to the Slaapmutske, with some more Christmasy aromas of cloves and allspice.
• Finally another winner with the Koningshoeven quadrupel! You can tell where my tastes lie; this was a much darker, deeper brew than the preceding ales. Harsher and less creamy than the Chimay, it was still an excellent beer.
• We finished off with another lighter ale, the Chouffe. At the end of the night whatever faculties I use to judge beer are mostly spent; this was an acceptable version of the light Belgian ale.
  

Besides the great food (NDM even made corn tortillas and refried beans from scratch to go with her usual fantastic fish; my only contribution was a hot slaw for the tacos) and beer I had an opportunity to learn all about chlamydia's effect on koala population decline from RWM, an expert in the field. Beer and education, what more could you ask for?

Líle Branches Out (Pets)

Earlier this month Líle met AM's dogs, Ollie and Max, for the first time. She handled it pretty well. Ollie continues to be surprisingly aggressive and controlling...he's been a timid bottom for most of his life, but as his lipomas have grown so has his assertiveness. Max was also all over Líle, but he just wanted to play.
As you can see, Líle wasn't too sure about Max, but we're hopeful she'll warm up with time.

We also took Líle for a walk to meet one of our neighbors' dogs, Daisy, a sweet lab who is probably about 80,000 times as well-trained as our dogs. It was Líle's first meet-and-greet without 'Dolon present, and it went fine, although she was a lot more interested in playing with people than Daisy. We were unable to arrange a mutually acceptable trade for Daisy.

First Soup Of This Spring (Chow)

I made another experimental soup to foist off on AM while he is recovering from his last hospital adventure. This is a bunch of celery and a large leek reduced to tiny components and stewing in a little white wine, vegetable stock, and garam masala. Wow, this makes an aromatic soup! After cooking it down I hit it with the immersion blender to give it a nice, smooth, slightly thick consistency just a step or two shy of a split pea soup.

The leek, which is something I don't cook with much (because it is really just another evil onion trying to masquerade as food), had a synergistic effect with fresh pepper I did not expect which made the soup end up a bit more peppery than I had intended. But it was still quite good, unexpectedly so given the only modestly appealing ingredients I used.

Of course at the time I had not yet been informed that AM does not like celery. Luckily, he was too weak from his surgery to prevent my forcing the soup upon him anyway.

For The Love Of Feet (Pets)

Líle loves her feet. AM visited us for breakfast, and here she is taking advantage of the situation.
Normally she's curled up on my feet in a dark little cave under my desk, proof versus attempts at photography. Here, she has accidentally leaked out into daylight and become vulnerable to the lens.
A better shot kindly provided by the wife.

Epic Cheese Dinner (Chow)

This past weekend CRB, JAL, and AM came over for an extraordinary cheesetravaganza. NDM and I had visited Caputo the previous weekend and required a rationalization for buying too much cheese.
We started with a cheese board. Not shown are two loaves of artisan bread I made, one standard and one whole wheat, with some olive paste and fancy butter churned between the thighs of nubile Irish lasses.

• Gjetost. This was the only cheese I'd had before, a really nice Norwegian goat cheese that tastes like caramel. Three stars!
  
• English Shropshire blue. An incredibly rich, creamy, luscious cheese; smooth and buttery with an acid bite of a bleu underneath. Three stars!
  
• Ireland cheddar with Guinness. This was a fine semi-sharp cheddar with a notable bitter taste from the beer, but I felt it lacked any genuine Guinness character, so I was a bit disappointed. One and a half stars.
  
• Goat cabra al vino. This is an acceptable firm goat cheese, a little mild, without much hint of the wine it claims on its label. Two stars.
  
• Chimay cheese. Like the Guinness cheese, this one was a bit of a let-down. It was like a Port-Salut with a bitter tang from the beer, which is OK as far as it goes -- but I didn't really get any of the deep delicious heady flavor of my favorite ale. Two stars.
  
• German Mirabo with walnuts. A slightly pungent variation on a Brie; I enjoyed the cheese, although I wasn't sure that the crushed walnuts added a lot to its experience. Two stars.
  
• Baltic Red 4 year Asiago, which I also substituted for Romano in the lasagne. This was the best Asiago I've ever had, wickedly sharp and tangy. Three stars!
  
• White Stilton with blueberries. A smooth, sweet, creamy desert cheese that I could even imagine eating with vanilla ice cream. Three stars!
  
• Ukrainian marble cheese. An innocuous mild jack cheese whose sole recommendation was that NDM is Ukrainian. One and a half stars.
  
• French Rodez. I don't know much about this cheese other than I assume it is from Rodez; it is a fine parmesan-like cheese which didn't offer any dramatic uniqueness beyond the standard Italian hard cheeses we use. Two stars.

CRB brought two nice red wines -- apparently JAL thought I was too rambunctious at our last three wine dinner, so she cut me off. CRB did bring me a nice consolation price which I might post a picture of in a later NSFW post. Maybe. (He knows me so well!)
After gorging on the cheese course we had the real meal, a spinach and zucchini lasagne made from fancy ricotta and fresh buffalo mozzarella from the same cheese store. I'll try to write it up and pop the recipe on the Kitchenarium later in the week.
We finished the evening with some yummy chocolate cannoli that NDM made. (I don't deep-fry stuff, it scares me.) I don't normally like cannoli, but these were pretty darn good.

Thank God for lactase!

New Year's Eve

Now that we're a staid married couple, NDM and I have quiet New Year's Eves with the beasts. Well, beast-level quiet. For dinner, NDM treated me to shrimp cocktail -- which I am required to mention was, and must always be, made with ecologically green Hawaiian farmed shrimp. I made the wife take lots of documentary pictures of her process, so I may post a recipe at some point. The nice horseradishy cocktail sauce is of course also home-made.
We had dark chocolate mousse for desert...and no, those aren't dishes that traditionally go together, NDM was merely indulging my lack of refinement. There is never a wrong time for mousse. My offhand comments pay off again!
NDM actually spent a good portion of the day studying, her activité du tout jours. Every once in a while, however, she can be caught doing this... Any activity on the couch that lasts for more than a few minutes will generally end in dog brackets.
Demonstrando. Gracias, AM. He'll also be the sole guest gracing us for our highly exclusive New Year's Day party, which is planned to consist of eating some succulent lobsters and steaks my parents gifted us with while working on a puzzle.
This evening is also when we bid farewell to our Seasonal Tree Of Agnosticism. Farewell, tree, and happy New Year's, readers!