November, 2006

Susan and I alternate between families to visit for Thanksgiving. This year is a Clark year. However, my parents went to Indiana to spend Thanksgiving with my brother and his family. We didn’t want to screw up the pattern, so we came down to Utah anyway. My brother Curtis and his wife Shandy were kind enough to have us over for dinner. So we made the fairly uneventful, aside from a few fights and threats to turn the car around, trip to Salt Lake City.

Last Thanksgiving I was introduced to Sugar Cream Pie by my brother-in-law Ben who talked my sister-in-law Tracie into making it for him. I liked it quite a bit, but knew it should only be a once-a-year thing (it’s pretty rich and loaded with calories and fat). So, I downloaded a recipe and was set to make one for Thanksgiving this year. I talked my sister Carrie into making one with me. We looked at the ingredients, made a list and went shopping. I was also making corn bread stuffing, so I needed stuff for that as well. So, we tried to find heavy cream, but all we could find was heavy whipping cream. I’m still not sure if it’s the same stuff, but that’s what we got. The recipe called for 1.5 cups of cream, so for some reason I bought 6 cups.

We got home, mixed up all of the ingredients, poured them into the pie shells, but had way too much stuff. We didn’t think much about it and cooked the pies for the recommended 55 minutes. The resulting pies had a beautiful sugary crust with a sugary soupy liquid underneath. We cooked them for twenty more minutes, still soup. We covered the pie crusts with foil to prevent them from burning and continued to bake, still soup. I then rechecked the ingredients and realized we had put 3 cups of cream in each pie instead of 1.5. So, we went to the store, got more pie crusts and cream and baked them again. This time they came out pretty good, but they still seemed a little soupy, so we cooked them for 15 extra minutes. We finally took them out of the oven. The filling settled a bit, leaving a crusty sugar top that collapsed a bit on itself. The pies however were pretty dang tasty. I’ll probably make another one next year.

So, we finally made it down to Curtis and Shandy’s home in Provo with our contributions of pie and cornbread stuffing. We had a good feast of the traditional stuff including turkey, ham, two types of stuffing, mashed potatoes, fruit salad, BYU rolls (man BYU catering has go those things figured out), and cherry, apple, sugar cream, pumpking, and coconut cream pie. Shandy’s brother Dave brought his own pie (oreo cream) because he hates pie crust. I don’t know that I’ve ever met somebody who hates pie crusts. Everything was awesome and there were plenty of leftovers. I promised Shandy that I would let them eat the leftovers this year though.

After dinner, Curtis, Jarom, Josiah (I’m not sure of the spelling) and I scouted the Provo River for fishing on Saturday, which looks to be pretty good, and got some ice cream at Wal-Mart. We then spent a pleasant afternoon at their home watching television, visiting, and watching our children behave like wild animals.

Shandy, as always, was great with the boys. She organized a movie party in their bedroomn, did an art project with bubbles and food coloring, and even volunteered to take them to the dinosaur museum at thanksgiving point tomorrow.

Anyway, it’s been a great weekend so far…

Ethan, Jacob, and Kevin on the Drive Down (for some reason Kevin was hot, so he took off his shirt)

Carrie and Me Making Sugar Cream Pie

Sugar Cream Pies

Watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade

Curtis and Lorraine Carving Turkey and Ham

Shandy, Jacob, and Ethan making Bubble Art

One of Ethan’s Masterpieces

Last Friday (November 17) Brian and I took our BFA (senior project) class to Jackson to have lunch with the students and a few alumni, see some galleries, and make a couple of internship contacts. Unfortunately one of the internship providers was out of town, but the other was there.

Our first stop was the Brew Pub for lunch. It was a pretty nice, casual place (I’m told Rachael Ray ate there on her visit for her Food tv program). We had fun visiting with Tyler, Jon, and Jen. Tyler is a recent graduate who happened to be in Jackson doing a job. Jon works for a photographer in Jackson, and Jen is a student doing an internship with the same photographer that Jon works for. Lunch was good.

Our next stop was the Jackson Center for the Arts. Here we saw a fun show called Apron Chronicles. Essentially, a woman started collecting aprons and stories associated with them. Later she collaborated with a photographer who documented the people with their aprons. Like I said it was fun, if a bit silly. The gallery provided aprons to wear if the mood struck. Brian and some of the students got into it as you’ll see in the photographs. We were fortunate enough to run into both the writer and photographer at the art center and were able to speak with them for a bit.

We then went to the Oswald Gallery where we were able to view contemporary and historic works. This is a great treasure to have so close and the gallery personnel are always accomodating. We then gave the students a bit of time to wander the various shops and galleries before heading home. I browsed a couple of fly shops.

Lunch at the Brew Pub, Jackson Hole, WY, 2006

Brian and EllynAnne Geisel (Apron Chronicles Writer), Jackson Center for the Arts, 2006

Shalese, Royce, Jessica, Emily, and Brian, Jackson Center for the Arts, 2006

We had a lot of family in this past weekend to see Kevin’s Baptism. You can read Susan’s Blog for the details.

On Friday I took my brother Curtis and my father-in-law Keith fly-fishing. Curtis had never been fly-fishing and Keith has done quite a bit of fly-fishing, but mostly with nymphs and streamers. We had a good time. Curtis and Keith each caught 5 or 6 fish and it was great to be out on a beautiful cold and cloudy day. Here are a few photographs:

Henry’s Fork, ID 2006

Keith Fly-fishing on the Henry’s Fork, 2006

Curtis Looking Cold, Henry’s Fork, 2006

Curtis Holding a Brown Trout, Henry’s Fork, ID 2006