Tonight's menu:

- Marinated boneless porkchops. Peach glaze.
- Fennel baked potatoes. Sliced fresh fennel bulb, potatoes, butter, salt, pepper.
- Vegetable, probably thin whole green beans.
- Homemade bread. We were almost out of flour so I had to improvise. White + wheat + rye + spelt = ?? I formed it into a focaccia-type shape topped with olive oil. On one half, I put shredded Parmiggiano Reggiano and sliced kalamata olives. Other half is unadorned.
- Columbia Crest Merlot.
- Dessert - Lemon-raspberry flan in individual ramekins.



Mom hasn't called so I assume she will be home for dinner. Of course, Imax and Copper have had the phone busy talking about runescape. No calls on my cell yet though.

Update...Mom just called and said they were going out with the karate gang and would not be home for dinner. Oh well, I guess we'll eat it without them. Which is better...the menu above or the Golden Corral ;-). I guess I'll save them some dessert since there's a ramekin with each of their names on it. The rest? We'll see...

Imax (age 10) and I went to the Elephant Rock bike ride This morning. We took the 25-mile fat tire (off-road) route which turned out to be 29.8 miles, as reported by my GPS. We completed the course in a little over 4 hours--7:45 AM to 12:05PM--including breaks at the rest/aid stations. It's a great route through rolling hills and "horse country" east of Castle Rock--very green this year and spattered heavily with wildflowers.

One guy a couple of bikes behind us wiped out by running off the pavement into the gravel shoulder. We heard the crash. I looked back and a couple of people had stopped to help. The cyclist was up and walking around so nothing serious.

Elephant Rock is one of the 10 largest bicycle events in the country. They maxed out at 7000 riders across 5 different courses from 7 miles to 100 miles. Our house is just off the 100 mile course and when we came home there was still a solid line of bikes heading to Castle Rock, with about 30 miles left to go.

Tonight's menu, an old standby. Hungry but not ambitious.

- Meat loaf (family recipe)
- tater tots
- tossed green salad
- homemade yellow cake (made with Copper) to be topped with sliced fresh strawberries and a lemon sauce left over from a dessert last week.

Parmesan-sage pork chops

Tonight's menu:

Parmesan-sage boneless pork chops (adapted from http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Baked-Pork-Chops-with-Parmesan-Sage-Crust-104711).

Diced potatoes and onions rolled in spices and baked

Broccoli with butter-garlic sauce

A nice vinho verde

fresh strawberries on ice cream