Spring in Paris

We arrived in Paris Saturday morning about 30 minutes early. This gave us a little time to get some money before the shuttle picked us up to bring us to the hotel. We are staying at the Hotel Sezz which is in the 16th arrondissement, a half a block from the Seine and about 2 blocks from a metro station.

The weather has been typical for this time of year. A mix of sun and clouds with scattered showers. A light coat and an umbrella a perfect for walking around.

This morning we went for an hour run along the Seine and then under the Eiffel tower and through the Champs de Mars. We timed it perfect getting back just before it started raining. There were a lot of people out running this morning.

We spent the afternoon walking from the hotel on our way to the Musee de Orsay. After admiring the impressionist paintings we to the metro to the Bastille station were we had a wonderful French dinner with ile flottante for dessert. The might be nothing better!

Posole with Venison

Tonight we thought we would try something new for dinner and since it was cold today, soup sounded good. We thought we would make a posole but with a twist.  The twist being venison as the meat.  I started with a bag of dried hominy from our trip to New Mexico last September.  First I soaked the hominy all day in water to re-hydrate.

After the hominy soaked, I then boiled it for about two hours.  While it was boiling I roasted five Anaheim chili peppers with the broiler.   After roasting I peeled the skins, de-seeded the peppers.  The next step was to add the meat to the hominy, followed by chopped roasted peppers, 1/2 tablespoon of dried oregano, a couple pinches of salt, a couple minced garlic cloves, four dried chili peppers, a bay leaf and juice from half a lime.

This now simmered covered for another hour and was ready for eating.  I served mine with some fresh cilantro, cheese, a spoonful of salsa and tortilla.  A great dinner for a couple of nights.

Barn Quilts

Apparently the hottest trend in the rural mid-west is to decorate a barn with a quilt.  Here are some barn quilts at http://www.barnquilts.com/ that have been put up across the US.  The quilts are actually plywood that are painted in quilt patterns.  This past winter my mom and dad worked many hours on three separate blocks.  So after all the their work making the plywood blocks, we spent yesterday actually hanging the two that were finished.  The barn quilts were made for my dad's tractor shed and my Grandpa's tin shed in Waseca.

My dad I started putting up the barn quilt on the tin shed.  It was a 4'x4' piece with a pattern that is on point.  This one was definately the more difficult one to put up.  It took us about 3 hours total time to hang.  We did have to install some backing material for mount, which took more time.

The second one we put on the tractor shed.  It was a 4'x4' piece as well called "Farmer's Daughter".  This one was put up square and we didn't have to put up any additional backing material.  Both ended up looking really good and just may be the talk of the town.

Here is the slide show of the whole process for both quilts.