Idaho

Red Light Garage Grilled Cheese

07.28.2012 by J. Doe // 6 Comments

I’m sure there are fabulous, elegant grilled cheese recipes that involve artisanal cheese, tapenade and a panini press. I’m sure too that you will be a hit among your adult friends if you make one of those recipes and serve it to them with an Alice Waters-inspired salad and perhaps a nice glass of wine.

This is not that recipe.

This recipe is for some night when it’s late, and your child is tired and hungry and just really wants a nice, comforting grilled cheese.

The Child and I had such a night on our recent Idaho trip: After a long day, she laid in her hotel bed and said, Mommy, I’m hungry.

Only the grilled cheese from the restaurant next door would appease her. So, I went and got one for her.

I mentioned to the waitress that The Child thought there was something very special about their grilled cheese: She’s only ever had one and it’s already become her comfort food. The waitress replied, there is something special about them – do you want to know the secret?

Of course I do.

And she told me – no extra charge.

Red Light Garage Grilled Cheese

2 slices white bread

1-2 slices cheddar cheese

1/2 slice provolone cheese

salted butter, softened

Place cheddar cheese slices on a slice of bread to make a single, even layer. Place half a slice of provolone cheese on top of cheddar (at an angle or however it works best for you. Put the other piece of bread on top.

Butter the bread on the outside and fry in a very hot pan until cheeses are melted.

If you should happen to visit Wallace, Idaho, stop by the Red Light Garage and thank that waitress in person.

This is my comforting contribution to Weekend Cooking, hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Why not swing by and see what other temptations await?

To Idaho We Go: The Trail of the Hiawatha

07.20.2012 by J. Doe // 2 Comments

The original point of going to Idaho – and the reason I drove for an entire day with two bikes nervously strapped to my car – was to take a bike ride on The Trail of the Hiawatha.

I’d had visions of training rides all spring, culminating in this summer ride along 17 miles of mountainous railroad track converted to bike trail. In fact, I’ve gotten very little bike riding in, and none whatsoever in the month immediately before the trip.

I feel silly schlepping two bikes for a day and then not riding them, but when the day of the bike trip arrives, I realize, I’m going to feel sillier if I have to be airlifted out of there, or perhaps pulled out on a dogsled.

I ask the waitress. She tells me, honey, little kids do that trail. It’s not hard.

Have you ever done it? I ask.

No, she says. But little kids do it. You can do it.

I load the bikes back on the car, and realize the reason they’ve been making me so nervous: one of the straps on the bike rack was not tightened properly. I’d managed to tighten every strap multiple times and miss that strap, every single time. We drive to the trailhead and I manage to spend the entire drive looking out the front window.

Okay, maybe I glanced in the rear mirror once or twice.

We buy box lunches and bottled water and a backpack to put them in. We buy trail passes and shuttle bus passes for the return trip. Someone helpfully suggests that we need headlamps for our bikes, too, so I rent one for each of us. Nobody seems to care that we are unprepared; instead, they just tell us what we need and show us where to get it.

We get to the trailhead, and start to bike through a two-mile long railroad tunnel. It’s completely dark, and quite cold. Water drips on us; it feels like the mine. But we have jackets and we’re moving, so we’re not too cold, and we can hear people ahead of us singing Thriller.

It’s creepy in a fun way.

We go slowly and gradually our eyes adjust. Before we know it, we’re at the end of the tunnel and biking on a gravel path.

We don’t have to pedal much, because the trail starts at the top of a mountain and ends at the bottom: It’s all downhill.

We go across trestle bridges and through more tunnels. We sing zombie songs in the tunnels, and say hello to the intrepid uphill bikers who occasionally pass us. They say hello back. We take group pictures for people, and they take pictures for us.

As we neared the end, I realized: If The Departed had not left, I would never have gone to the Seattle Bike Expo and chatted with the man who gave me a bike map of the Idaho Panhandle. I would not have planned a road trip, because I could have afforded much more. I would not have strapped bikes to the back of my car, because it can’t be done in my kind of car.

I would never have seen this:

Do you see that little bridge off to the right? Yeah, we biked that.

To Idaho We Go: Glittering Garnets

07.19.2012 by J. Doe // Leave a Comment

The next two days of our trip we spend on script. Tuesday, we drive to the star garnet mine, which takes about two hours of driving to get to, including numerous stops on the side of the road to let all the Idaho drivers pass me.

I spent three full days in Idaho, during which pretty much every resident of the panhandle passed me on the road.

The mine was at the end of a dirt road, and much smaller than I expected. We set about digging and lugging and panning, and generally not finding much. Every so often The Child or I would find something that might be a garnet, and she’d run off to ask the opinion of one of the Forest Service employees, and we’d be informed that no, it wasn’t one.

It’s especially disheartening when the small children who are panning nearby seem to be finding garnets every few minutes. I persuade myself that they have no idea what they’re doing, and just think they’re finding garnets.

I find a few things so I continue with my process: dig up dirt, take it to wash, find maybe one or two star garnet chips … maybe. The Child is frustrated at her lack of success so she decides to go to the dry panning area, where, she says after an hour, she has found nothing.

We eat lunch and The Child announces she’s done. We’ve found enough, she declares.

We’ve found next to nothing, I say, but that’s fine. I’m frustrated too.

A Forest Service employee – a college student on summer break – comes over to chat with us. We haven’t found much, we tell her.

She suggests that we might want to pan the dry mud first, then take it to the washing area. She suggests a spot to dig where the dirt is mostly dry, so it will pan more easily. We decide to try just one more bucket before we go. Mostly, because we don’t want to hurt the girl’s feelings.

I don’t really like panning in the dry dirt. It gets caked under my fingernails and in the cuff of my rolled-up jeans. I feel disgusting but I dry pan through one complete bucket with The Child, and then we lug the muddy pellets that remain to the wet area.

We find a lot of garnets now. We jump up and down like the small children did earlier. We show the Forest Service girl our finds, and she shows us which stone are best for rock tumbling, and which could be cut and mounted into jewelry.

Be careful who you let cut them, she says. Very few people have experience with star garnets. You can only find them here, and in India.

I totally knew that. Idaho and India: Who knew?

The Child spends the rest of the day lugging buckets of dirt between the different stations and gleefully showing off her finds. There’s an area where you are supposed to dump all the rocks that you’ve panned through that aren’t garnets, and she spends quite a bit of time looking through those rocks with the Forest Service girl and finding all the garnets that other people missed. Like those little kids.

That’s the best way, she says. Other people do all the work for you.

She’s got a bright future. I’m sure of it.

We leave after four hours with five ounces of start garnets, including one that is whole, which we’re especially proud of. People came over to look at that one, and the Forest Service girl explained its finer points to everyone, but then it went into our ziploc.

Next year, said The Child, we should try opals. We can mine opals in Idaho, too.

We’re experts now, so we know these things.

Red Light Garage Grilled Cheese

To Idaho We Go: The Trail of the Hiawatha

To Idaho We Go: Glittering Garnets

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