Kocevski.com

Having been attacked by al Qaeda, for us now to go bombing Iraq in response would be like our invading Mexico after the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor.

Richard Clarke
Against All Enemies

Remove Justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a grand scale.

Augustine
The City of God

Our trip out to the East side of the Sierras turned out to be lots of fun. Dan Clark and I did the High Sierra Century on Saturday, which consisted of us biking 100 miles around the high desert just south of Mono Lake. The views were amazing, but so were the climbs and the head winds. Combine that with the fact that we were starting at 7,000ft and you have one but kicker of a ride. All together it took us 8 hours to complete the course, but the amazing views of the lake and the Sierras made up for the pain. We met up with Molly Huber and company at the Mobile station on 120 for a concert after the ride. Sunday was spent driving around and taking pictures. We made visits to Convict Lake and Mammoth Lakes before heading north to explore the ghost town of Bodie. The town has been left amazingly intact, consisting of dozens of buildings and the original stamping mill that processed the cold from the surrounding hills. Most of the buildings and their contents remain as they were 100 years ago, it was quite remarkable. The inaccessibility of the town kinda explains why it was abandoned once the gold ran out. We finished off the trip by visiting the Tufa formations on the South side of Lake Mono. The formations made for great pictures, but I only wish we could have arrived a bit later in the day to get some sunset colors. We drove back through Yosemite picking up a CHAOS friend who was in need of a ride back to the bay area.

Photos:
http://www.kocevski.com/photo-album/album/2006-mono-lake/

Here’s a way to make a tasty stew:

1.5-3 lbs lamb or beef, cubed into roughly 1″ chunks, salt and peppered
and refrigerated overnight or as long as possible

one onion, diced
a few garlic cloves, crushed and diced
root vegetables if you want them, chopped into fairly large chunks

raisins, apricots, and/or other dried fruit–maybe a total of 1 cup
minced ginger–about an inch of a skinned root or a tablespoon or the
minced.
1/2 tsp cinnamon or one stick
about 3/4 cup red wine
one juiced orange
mint leaves
bay leaves
other spices like parsley, rosemary (available wild all over Berkeley),
marjoram are good.

Heat the pan with a thin layer of oil on the bottom over medium high heat. Put in the meat to sear. It is really important to do this right: the meat must be placed with a little bit of space between pieces, not just poured in, because you want to sear the meat, not steam it–often you end up having to sear the meat in two or three batches. Turn the meat with prongs or a fork to sear on all sides; this typically takes about four minutes per batch (Unless you want to make this right away, you may want to watch someone do it right before attempting it yourself.)

Remove the meat from the pan, pour off excess froth, and saute onions and garlic until semi-translucent, 2-3 minutes. Put the meat back in, deglaze the pan with the wine (turn heat on high for a few seconds, pour in the wine, scrape the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to take up the seared bits), then add all the other ingredients and cover. If you’re doing this in a pressure cooker, seal the cooker, bring the pot to it’s high pressure mark (80 kPa gauge pressure), stabilize the pressure (medium to medium low heat usually suffices), then cook for about 20 minutes. Turn off heat and allow to cool naturally until pressure valve is released. In a regular pan, cover the pot, reduce temp to low, and simmer for at least 2 hours, checking every half hour or so whether there is adequate liquid and topping off with broth or water.