World's Best Carrot Cake

In honor of my wife's birthday, my daughter Amy (shown above) made a delicious carrot cake using a recipe from America's Test Kitchen. Moist, rich, delicious. The best carrot cake I've ever tasted. Recipe is here. [NOTE: Don't even think about putting raisins in this].

Cooling Off

Scorching temperatures in New York remind me of standing knee-deep in the Taron River (see Crossing the Taron) in northern Myanmar with my pants rolled up trying to take a photo of an elephant and his handler wading out into the river to cool off. And trying not to drop my camera in the water. And wondering how long before it started raining.

Dosho Port

In April of 2009, Dosho Port visited the Empty Hand Zen Center to give a talk and promote his fine book, Keep Me In Your Heart a While. I introduced myself during dokusan, but when I later gave him a copy of his book to sign, he looked up at me, pen poised, with a questioning look on his face, i.e. what's your name? I gently replied, "It's still "Chuck". His inscription is shown below:

[NOTE: I still chuckle about this. What a wonderful teacher - and teaching. Haven't managed to get rid of Chuck, yet].

Oil to Gas

More from the basement (See Washer and Drier). We are replacing our antique, oil-burning furnace (above), originally installed to be used with coal, with a more efficient, gas-burning furnace. We are installing the award winning Burnham ES 2 gas boiler (below) which has an AFUE Energy Star rating of 85%. As shown at the back right in the image, we also installed an A O Smith Effex gas water heater, which, I am told, is the highest-efficiency, residential water heater available. I am thrilled by the propects of improved heating and financial savings, and impressed by the clean, sculpture-like quality of the piping work done by the plumbers (thx, Ed). [NOTE: I actually know nothing about this stuff. My ecologist wife did the research, chose the best models, and even found the plumber (thx, Elysa)].