The Kids and Kahlie

inside a log

Originally uploaded by Thomas Miguel.

John and I-Ju joined us for lunch and a walk through Capilano River Park. Thomas was quite smitten with I-Ju. She took this picture from one end of a hollow log. See more pictures on flickr.

Thomas continues to be a chatter box. He is constantly practicing his favourite words and thinking about the words for the things he sees around him. While he still loves to spot ‘yellow cars,’ blue cars and red cars are becoming fast friends. And he is applying knowledge learned elsewhere to situations here. After a week in Ottawa, he got used to Abuelo’s white car. Now, all white cars are ‘Abuelo’s car’ in much the same way that many red cars are ‘Moma’s car.’

We are back from a great weekend tripping around the middle of Vancouver Island with Dave and Nikki. We took in Cathedral Grove (during a shower of slush), Nanaimo (in all weather), and Courtney-Comox (in a fairly steady drizzle). We ate well, didn’t break anything at the B&B, saw eagles, a seal, arbutus trees galor, and got very close to a number of deer. All in all, it was a classic west coast weekend.

To see Thomas’s pictures, follow this link. To see Tad’s pictures of big plants, click here.

On Thursday afternoon, I ran along the West Vancouver sea wall.  It was drizzling lightly, cool, and basically empty.  The first interesting sight was an enormous seal bobbing along beside the wall.  Then, on the return run from Dundarave, a steady fleet of sea planes flew westward from downtown, over the Lion’s Gate Bridge, towards the Island.  There must have been ten planes flying by in about 20 minutes.

Update: Check page 67 of the Brown Weber Book for more information.

Now that the Weber has a new engine, it heats up well over 550 degrees. With that kind of heat, Greg offered the following suggestion for the perfect 1-1.5 inch steak.

• Heat up the Weber as high as possible and leave the burners on high direct heat throughout the cooking process.
• Place the steak onto the grill for 2 minutes.
• Pick up the steak with tongs and move it to a hot part of the grill, rotating the steak 90 degrees before setting it back down. Do not flip it yet. (The steak sears again and a beautiful cross-hatched pattern ala The Keg commericals appears on the steak.) Set timer again for 2 minutes.
• Flip steak, placing it on a hot part of the grill for 2 minutes. (Do not flip in place.)
• After 2 minutes, pick up the steak with tongs and move it to a hot part of the grill, rotating the steak 90 degrees before setting it back down.
• Remove steak.
• Total cooking time: 8 minutes, with four 4 moves to hot parts of the grill.
• Key point: let steak sit for 10 minutes. This allows juices to flow back into all parts of the steak.

When completed, the steak is done to medium / medium-rare.

(Note: This technique is described in one of the Weber books, but since our house is in such a state, I can’t find it right now.)

Thanks Greg!

I converted our Weber over to natural gas this week. My intention was to change only the gas regulation manifold, but once I started poking around I realized that the starter was corroded and that the burners were getting old. I ran out to the local gas barbeque store and replaced the burners and the starter, and then wondered if I was going to be able to dig through nine years of barbeque grime to update the machine.

I was pleasantly surprised. While the gas manifold required the removal of two or three screws, those screws were outside of the barbeque box itself. Replacing the burners and the starter did not require the removal of any screws and was incredibly simple. Weber engineers have designed a barbeque that holds together without tightening or loosening screws; rather, the parts slide into place or require, at most, the bending of pliable metal tabs. I would not hesitate ever to upgrade the Weber in the future!

Show Time!

Originally uploaded by Thomas Miguel.

Thomas and Mariela have been having a great time in Ottawa. We have been learning lots of new words, and he is becoming very good at saying ‘Gracias!’

We have been to the Children’s Museum, the Science and Technology Museum, to  the park to play soccer and for lots of trips in Abuela’s car.

Check out our new pictures on flickr!