Today we rise with the sun (well, sort of), and Ja makes Orange French Toast - cinnamon-raisin bread bathed in a mixture of orange juice and milk and toasted on the comal. Well-breakfasted, we climb into the Wrangler and, literally, head for the hills to look at wildflowers. We begin in Sand Canyon, where, a local paper tells us, a rare Charlotte's Phaecelia has been sighted. We drive up into the canyon and take the aqueduct road up, up to where the flowers paint the south-facing hillsides - yellow, a hint of blue here, a wash of white there. We park at the high point on the road, and enjoy the vista.
There are fine specimens of many flowers here, like the primrose in the picture, and the lupine is a startlingly dark blue, but we find no Charlotte's. There are sand verbena, coreopsis, more common phaecelias, lots of chia, desert dandelions, brittle bush, purple mat ... and many many flowers that we cannot name.
Having looked our fill, we drive back down the aqueduct road and continue south on that road, winding around the steep hillsides into the next canyon. Here we see marvelous bush lupine, and very happy cholla. We drive up the Grapevine Canyon road -- we've heard that it's equally as good a Short Canyon. But, the gates are closed on the private ranches deep in the canyon. We continue along the aqueduct road, occasionally having to dodge a pole or barrier that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has erected.
Finally the road leads us to Short Canyon. It is very windy here, and quite cold even in the sunshine, so Ja and I wait at the car while B takes the camera up the hill to check the Charlotte's Phaecelias usual haunt. And he finds them! They are such a beautiful blue, a true blue.
Now we are at home. The wind is still rushing by, sometimes, it seems, in several directions at once. Multi-grain bread made with my own starter rises in the oven. Our dinner tonight will be some luscious ahi tuna scored yesterday at Costco, grilled and served with garlic mayonnaise, as suggested by Alice Waters in The Art of Simple Food. With it we'll have rice with pine nuts and grapes and some braised spinach, and some of our home-made bread. We do like to eat!
OBTW, I just finished reading Alice Waters and Chez Panisse by Thomas McNamee, and really enjoyed it. Then I read The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman. Very interesting -- perhaps we will someday have "American cuisine".
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