A Delicious Conversation

A couple of days ago, Mary baked some of her amazing bread, and she promised Kathryn and Elizabeth,our daughters, one of the finished products. While we were driving over to Powell's on Hawthorne, where Elizabeth works, to drop off a loaf, an interesting conversation arose. Mary had begun to think aloud about dinner, wondering what she might make.

"What about huevos rancheros?" I suggested. "We haven't had those in a long time." Now, huevos rancheros, to my simplistic cooking mind, is an easy dish. Grab a tortilla, throw on some black beans, maybe a little salsa, top with a fried egg, and you’re done. I offered this, never actually having cooked it.



“What do you have in mind by huevos rancheros?” she asked. I described to her my vision of same, surprised that the real thing might be something different. “That isn’t exactly huevos rancheros,” she said.

This was getting a little out of my cooking depth, which is roughly comparable to a puddle on a street. But I plunged ahead. “So how would you describe huevos rancheros?”



“Well, what you described sounds like Wackety Eggs.” This was a reference back to our restaurant days in the ‘80s and early ‘90s. In our cafe, called Pywacket’s, we served a dish called Wackety Eggs, which was a big hit with everyone, including me, although apparently I wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on under the runny eggs.

“Huevos rancheros,” she continued, “has some other things in it, usually a homemade sauce of some sort, and there are different ways to make it. You know, it’s really interesting that you should suggest huevos rancheros, because this month’s issue of Bon Appetit has several recipes for egg-type Mexican dishes.”



"So," I said, feeling a little full of myself, "I guess that means I'm on the cutting edge of cooking these days."



“Yes, you’re right on the cutting edge, at least according to Bon Appetit.”



“Maybe that’s why I never learned to cook,” I said, “because I already knew how.”

"I’d like to see some evidence of that,” she parried.

Wow! Not only can this woman cook, but she can also deliver the crisp little zinger when the occasion calls for it. I did a two-second scan of my entire life and found no such evidence to offer, so I shut my mouth and turned my attention back to driving, something I am at least moderately capable of doing.

For dinner that evening Mary cooked huevos rancheros -- the best I have ever tasted. The picture below (click to enlarge) shows how this Mexican-inspired delight came together. Check out the huevos rancheros veggies (a mix of  onions, potatoes, tomatoes, 4 kinds of peppers, black beans, perfectly seasoned), along with the topping (yoghurt, sour cream, garlic, green onions, aleppo pepper), combined on a flour tortilla and cheese, and topped with eggs cooked to perfection.

Even as I write about it, my mouth waters . . . and my mind begins searching for something else I don't know how to cook.

A note from the cook:
Every good cook needs both inspiration and an appreciative audience.  As you can see from this blog entry, David is both, in addition to being great at making salads and cleaning up after we have enjoyed a meal.  I love trying new dishes, and David is always a willing guinea pig.  So, in my book, it's a great partnership!  

A Behavior Update

Piper (left) and her mother, Molly. Pic taken 3 weeks ago.

Here is an update on what Piper has learned to do since we began her training last spring. She can:

• Shake. Actually, she learned how to shake hands in puppy school, but perfected it in CT training. Comes in handy when her leash is tangled and she is acting rowdy.
• Loose-leash walking. She has become a good walker, and will return to the loose leash if we ask her to (we give her a lot of latitude for exploring and smelling on walks). Still tugs at times, but she has made great progress.
• Heel on command. She has trouble with this when around a lot of people, such as at the local outdoor shopping center.
• Sit. Nothing special -- nearly any dog can do it. The trick is to get her to do it every time we ask, even when something "important" is going on.
• Wait. Works well at intersections, or when about to pass through a gate or door.
• Touch a target stick. Really likes to do this. Targeting has a lot of uses, and we plan to take advantage of her facility with this.
• Spin. Will turn around in a circle, but doesn't seem to enjoy it,  so we rarely ask her to do it anymore.
• Touch the ball. Involves pushing a ball under a gate or through a narrow passageway. A fun back-and-forth game that she really enjoys. If we make it more comples by tossing the ball behind her, she will get it, drop it down in front of the gate, and push it under with her nose.
• Goes to her mat. We have a small rug in the kitchen, and she trots right to it when asked, knowing that she will get some peanut butter. 
• Down-stay. She'll do this for several minutes. Haven't tested it in highly distracting circumstances, but she's quite good at it.
• High-five. She knows the difference between this and "shake".
• Retrieve. Will get a ball, bring it back, and drop it. Time after time, as long as treats are a possibility. (See below.)
• Leave it. One of our favorites -- if she is starting to get into something she shouldn't and we tell her to "leave it", she will pull back and go do something else. Probably 90% of the time, at least. Really amazes us sometimes.

What we're working on:

• Recall. She is getting better at this, but still a long way from having it down.
• Four-on-the-floor. This is by far the hardest behavior for Piper to learn. Meeting people is just the most exciting thing in the world for her, and she wants to jump up while saying hello. One of the ways we train her in this is to take her with us to Starbucks and sit outside so she can get used to people coming and going. Some people want to "meet" her, so we let that happen -- she has some lapses, but is getting better.
• Drop it. She is a retriever, for sure. But when we throw her frisbee or her play-bucket and she returns with it, she often decides that playing with it herself and whacking us with it is more fun. Treats make a difference here.

With the difficult behaviors above, progress and success are usually related to the quality of the treat. Dogs are always weighing their options when it comes to executing behaviors. They're asking, "What's in it for me?" and "Is the treat I'm going to get more exciting than what I'm doing or about to do right now?" The problem for us here is that the tasty treats are usually higher in calories or salt, or messier to carry around; and if we use them a lot, she becomes desensitized, so it's an ongoing balancing act. 

The picture above was taken a couple of weeks ago when Piper visited her parents, Molly and Boomer, at the home of the breeder, Jenny Wiepert. That's Piper on the left, Molly on the right.

The Clicker is Quicker

Piper recently graduated from a 5-week Obedience Training Course from Auntie Sally. All the dogs graduated, actually. She wasn't the best, wasn't the worst -- each dog did well in some areas, not so well in others. Piper proved to have a quick learning curve, undermined by her over-the-top sociability, which at least is better than being a biter, a barker, or a "scaredy dog".

The class was based on Clicker Training (CT), in the mode of Karen Pryor, best known for her work with dolphins and as one of the founders of what is now the familiar method of "click and treat" (CT). This method turned out to suit Piper much better than traditional methods, many of which use a strong dose of negative conditioning, including choke collars and frequent use of the word "No". With CT everything is positive. When the dog engages in a behavior desired by the trainer, she hears a click and gets a treat. That simple. There are a lot of web sites that talk about CT, but for an excellent and thoroughly enjoyable account of the origins and applications of operant conditioning for animals in general and dogs in particular, we suggest her book, Reaching the Animal Mind.

CT does not guarantee instant success. The dog has something to say about it, and Piper's bugaboo is her strong, playful attraction to people and other dogs. Training her to be more relaxed around others is difficult for us because we don't have a lot of people coming and going here at home, nor do we have any other dogs, only a justifiably wary cat called Pywacket. CT has helped in this regard — Piper gets rewarded for not chasing Mr. Py and not jumping on him. The training has proven to be effective here and in many other areas as well, although Piper's desire/compulsion to chase or bug her kitty friend is obviously still there, even when it is overcome by treats.

We like Clicker Training and will continue to use it with Piper. Her graduation meant mostly that we were trained in how to train her in over a dozen basic behaviors. So we have a lot of work ahead of us, and she has a lot of treats ahead of her!