I don't know how to make a post about scallops funny.

The Esch household kitchen has been turning out delectable culinary creations as of late.  Seared Ahi tuna with chili-lime corn, gazpacho, and bruschetta have all been enjoyed lately.

The Price Cutter in Springfield on Battlefield runs specials that the other stores don't.  The head of the meat department, Dave, brings in really high quality product every Thursday.  It's typically either very fresh seafood or prime meat of some exotic variety.  Yesterday my dad asked me if I wanted him to pick up scallops at Price Cutter (by the way, my dad and Dave are on a first name basis).  That was a dumb question.  Of course I wanted them!  Scallops are the first semi-fancy/gourmet food I learned to cook, so we have a special relationship.  The key to cooking good scallops is BUYING good scallops.  The difference maker is wet packed vs. dry packed scallops.  Dry packed scallops aren't treated with the phosphate solution wet packed scallops are and in turn they don't absorb excess water.  Not having the excess water means the scallops will brown exponentially better and will not shrink like wet packed scallops do.  To get even pickier, buying scallops that have never been frozen are the best.  Luckily, this is what my dad was getting.

I was determined to branch out from my mundane 'seared scallops with lemon butter' dish.  I really wanted to try something with mangoes or pineapple, but my dad isn't a big fruit guy so he shot those ideas down.  I settled on something equally as light and refreshing- a lovely Brie cream sauce.  Ha.

The ingredients await manipulation

The sage will later be flash fried in peanut oil and used as a garnish.

Though I prefer thick bacon for a BLT, I used a normal thickness for this.
Put the bacon in the oven at 350 F for 5-7 minutes as the cream is reducing.

White pepper and salt were used to season the sauce and olive oil to brown the scallops

1 quart of cream.  Yum.

Chop 8 oz of Brie cheese into small bits

Reduce the 1 quart of cream by half.  Add the chopped Brie and stir

When the bacon cools, wrap the scallops and secure with a toothpick.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Sear the scallops until they are golden brown.  Put back in the oven if needed to finish cooking

Served with spinach and the sage as a garnish.

Back by popular demand!!!

If blogger accounts got deleted for inactivity, mine would definitely be gone, but they don't so here I am!  Believe it or not I've had two people ask me today about my blog and I'm just here to appease the masses so here we go! (Shout out to @pistolpete0013 and @emilie_bell).  

I'm spending the summer in Idaho at my grandparent's house.  The house is in Idaho, but I work in Montana, and I go hiking in Wyoming.  It's kind of like Four Corners except the corners don't touch and there are only three states involved.

My dad and I drove out here the last week of May and I've been livin' the dream ever since.  If you think I listened to a song without at least one of the following words in it: dog, drunk, beer, whiskey, truck, horse, or girl in it, you would be very mistaken.  The video below is probably my favorite country song of all time and just happens to be one that I do a remarkable rendition of.

This video has been dubbed and the music doesn't quite match up to what the video shows, but there are just too many good things for me to post a different one.  The great 90's vibes are classic Garth.  First, how about his electric guitar player's outfit?  The hair of his backup singers is phenomenal.  Besides singing along to this song, I also play this air guitar to it.  At 3:34 when it really gets rocking I get goosebumps every time and I'm confident that my emotion carries over to whoever is around me.  Last thing about the video- the head bobs that start at 4:11 are sweet.

My dad and I went fishing on the lake right across from our house (Henry's Lake) and Dad did a real solid and caught dinner.  Not only did he catch it, he cooked it.

Great catch, Dad!

The fish went from this,

to this,

to this,

to finally this!

Where we took the boat out from.

It was clearly not my dad's first time pan frying a trout because it was absolutely delicious!!!  We went fishing on another lake in a beautiful valley a couple of days later.

The half you can't see was HUGE!!!

Good thing we had dinner reservations.

The week my dad was here the weather was still pretty cold and we woke up to a winter-wonderland in June several mornings.

Bison along the Firehole River.

I've seen quite a bit of wildlife since I've been out here.  There was a herd of about 50 elk that was hanging out in the mountains off the highway our house is on when I first got out here.

This is Leo.  He was the only bull I saw in the herd of 50.  Tough life.  I haven't seen him or any of the other elk around the house lately because they finished their migration and are at their summer grazing grounds now.

This is Herman.  He hangs out in the willows by the lake.  I saw him with two other buddies the other night which was quite a sight.  Three bull moose together?  Insanity!

Lots of bison and their babies in the park!

Beep, beep! Excuse me!

Notice the sweet bell-bottoms.

Clear Lake.  Named for obvious reasons.

Sup bear track that wasn't there when I hiked through the first time.

Life hasn't been all play and no work, contrary to what many will probably think.  Since I've been out here I've had about every job at a restaurant besides owner.  I've washed dishes, bussed tables, been a line cook, and waited tables.  I had two jobs but wasn't getting any free time so I put my two weeks notice in and will be down to just one very soon.  Hopefully I do some cool stuff sometime soon so it won't be so long until my next post.  I know there are many anxious readers out there.  Enjoy!

Casual mountain-scape in the middle of the restaurant where I work.

Delicious food and Maine adventures!

There have been quite a few blog-worthy moments happening to me lately, so I'm not waiting any longer.  First of all, I ran the Boston Marathon a week ago today with some of my friends (and about 27,000 others!) and will write a blog about that very soon.  I'm still letting some thoughts percolate.
  

It was actually the 115th marathon

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon (literally, using the website) a recipe for sweet potato gnocchi with a gouda cream sauce.  Three thoughts popped into my head after I wiped the drool off of my chin-1) I want to make this. 2) I don't have a kitchen and 3) One of only two times I've ever seen my mother have trouble making something in the kitchen was when she tried to make gnocchi.  The other time I remember not being impressed with something my mom made was some Asian dish with rice and shrimp that just turned out horribly.  This is not me bashing my mom, this is me saying that literally there are only two times I can remember my mom not being able to create a masterpiece in the kitchen.  Lisa is a saint and routinely serves dishes that leave people stuffed yet wanting more all at the same time.

The first two thoughts that popped into my head were both easily resolved.  Luckily for me, my great friend from home, Emilie Bell, moved out to Boston after spending freshman year at Mizzou.  She is a wonderful cook and is always up for a new creation.  I made my way over to her spacious, North End apartment.  She's already blogged about this experience on her site which you can get to by clicking here.  I took the easy way out and waited until she did the hard work so I could just link to it.  Thanks Emilie!

Her apartment isn't actually spacious

This would not be the end of our adventures together as we had a camping trip to Maine planned for the weekend.  I went back over to the apartment Friday night so Emilie, Kaston, and I could get an early start to Acadia National Park.

  

 It was a very gray and rainy day in

as we    to Maine.

We had been checking the weather and thought the rain would be letting up.  That didn't happen.  It rained the whole way to Maine.  I checked the weather on my phone to see if the rain would be leaving anytime soon, and the weather report for where we were said it was only "cloudy and windy."  Tell that to the rain that was pounding down all around us.  After throwing the weather report out the window (figure of speech) the three of us went to go do what we do best, eat.  We ended up at a place called Geddy's right by the water.  While waiting for our food Emilie spent most of her time 

While Kaston and I took pictures of his

I only had a sip.

                              

Seafood was the obvious choice for me and I quickly decided upon an oldie but a goodie- fish 'n chips.

Rest be assured, that nasty tartar sauce stayed in its plastic container and the golden brown food was smothered in malt vinegar.  It was a great meal and left me quite happy.  Over lunch we came to the decision that camping would be miserable and we might as well just get a motel room for the night.  Emilie and Kaston had spent the night in Bar Harbor before, so they knew the sketchiest place in town.  Unfortunately this motel had been shut down and boarded up since the time they stayed there, so we had to find the second sketchiest place in town.  Aurora Inn provided us with exactly what we needed- a room to sleep in.  We spent the night watching Modern Marvels, taking a break to go get sweets (I had lobster ice cream), and talking with a Dutch couple that was staying in the room next to us.

I was a little bit groggy when Emilie woke me up the next morning at 9, but I got myself and my sleeping bag into the car as we headed into Acadia to cook breakfast.  The weather was beautiful on Sunday.

We went to Blackwoods Campground to cook our breakfast burritos.  We just threw a couple of eggs in a plastic bag with a dash of cream, a pinch of yellow peppers, and a handful of cheese.  After massaging all of the ingredients together, we just plopped the baggies into a pot of boiling water and waited 10-15 minutes for it to cook.  This gem of a recipe goes all the way back to my Boy Scout days (bring on the jokes, haters).  

The orange pot was where we boiled the eggs and we boiled water in the red pot to pour into the Frech press for our coffee.  Who says you can't eat well when camping?

We had planned on cooking dinner Saturday night, so we still had chicken teriyaki in our cooler and decided that we might as well gorge ourselves and go ahead and cook the chicken, too.  Kaston started a wonderful fire that had the grill sizzling in no time as the chicken breasts cooked.

  

Dig in!

             

Emilie's mom, Marcia, had sent out some s'mores supplies and even though we didn't come close to eating all the chicken, all of us had room for a couple of roasted mallows.

I find this picture hilarious.  It appears as if there is just a pile of smoking sticks that Emilie is trying to roast her marshmallow on.  I promise there was an actual fire at some point.

After packing up while groaning under the weight of two meals and dessert (gluttony?) we drove to Otter Cliff Point and had some amazing views from the cliffs.

He's so far down!

                                      

From here we hiked along a coastal trail enjoying spectacular views of the coast and ending up at a spot where huge chunks of granite made up the coast and the waves came crashing over them to make a tremendous sight.

Kaston couldn't dodge all the waves and ended up getting wet.

By the time we walked back to the car we decided it was best to depart Maine and head for home so we wouldn't get back too late.  It was a wonderful weekend with some wonderful people!

You have homemade blackberry cobbler?! I'll have some with ice cream, please.

Well this post is long overdue and a lot of it isn't that relevant anymore but there are definitely some meals I need to blog about. As far as my adventures in Charleston, after the first day I mainly just walked around the city during the day and ate at night. I went to mass at the cathedral on Ash Wednesday, went to the Old Slave Mart Museum on Thursday, and took a nap in the sunshine on Friday.

Jestine's Kitchen is a gem of a restaurant I stumbled upon.  It's a real life version on the Cracker Barrel.  Yes, I know Cracker Barrel's are obviously real, but Jestine's feels like you're walking into a real person's kitchen, not a movie set.  Jestine's embodies everything that is right about Southern hospitality; the delicious food, welcoming atmosphere, and cute waitress.   Jestine was the daughter of a Native American mother and a freed slave father. She died at the ripe old age of 102 and I'm convinced she lasted so long because she ate such delicious

and guzzled gallons of

 (sweet tea!)

The blue plate special that day was a whopping portion of shrimp creole.  After polishing that off I still managed to have room for some of that blackberry cobbler.







Jestine's was a late lunch for me so I didn't have any dinner, but did stop back by Manza for a little late night snack of gelato.

      Without a doubt my favorite part of the city of Charleston are its buildings.  They are very old and have a hint of Spanish influence in the architecture.  I was more than satisfied with meandering the streets and thinking about the many stories that had been told on the porches that every building had.



On Thursday I walked down the historic, cobblestone Chalmers St. to get to the Old Slave Mart Museum.  Even though it was $7, I knew that if my mom would have been there she would have gone for sure, so I did it for her sake.  It was a quite interesting place.  Turns out the most expensive slaves were sold for around an equivalent of $40,000 in today's dollar.  That night I stopped by Hyman's again for some delicious

After a shower I headed to a restaurant called Anson's that I had scoped out earlier in the day (always thinking ahead).  I started off my dining experience by enjoying a crispy risotto in a cream sauce.  My main course-crispy flounder-came highly recommended from the two cougars sitting next to me.

                                                              

My conversation with the creeping cougars eventually revealed that one of the ladies was the owner of the establishment, and her more...outgoing friend blabbed about her ex-boyfriend who was a lawyer and asked me to show her how to use her blackberry.  It was kind of an odd night.

The following day was my last in Charleston and I spent it napping in the sunlight at the battery and watching the dolphins hat the Harbor Park.

That night my friends Emilie and Kaston drove in to town and we went to Justine's together and enjoyed some hookah down by the Old Market before they were kind enough to drop me off at the train station to begin my trek home.  This blog has been sitting unpublished for weeks now so I'm sure there are things I've forgotten, which is probably a good thing.