Sheryl says that I have to publish a retraction. They did miss us at the lodge! Anyway that's their story and they are sticking to it.

It’s fall and we are into new projects. Our fun one for this year is to build a new outdoor cooking area just to the right (as you face the lake) or east of the patio. The smoker we use for ribs is going in there but it will be a new one. Ours has given over twenty years of service and the bottom is finally burning out. Then there will be an area to do outdoor walleye fries. But the fun part is that we’re building a wood-fired oven. I am already looking for cookbooks and accessories for the oven. Bruce just rolls his eyes. Bread is no big deal and neither is pizza. But how about prime rib or whole chickens? I think that we can be trying stuff during the winter or at least the fall and spring.

Bruce and I spent a wonderful afternoon on the lake a couple days ago. I am ashamed to admit it was my fish time on Gunflint Lake this summer. As you know, we are working on opening the Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center next summer. One of the exhibits is going to be a dry aquarium with stuffed fish from our lakes. A neighbor sacrificed himself to spend the summer catching these fish. Now it was our turn. We needed some driftwood to make the lake bottom look more real. The pieces had to have a bend and be about four feet long on one side. So Bruce and I had to slowly drive along the lake shore looking for the perfect pieces. We never found this perfect piece but we did find lots of possibles. It was a glorious way to spend a fall afternoon.

On Saturday the partridge season opens up here. I brought some 410 shells home yesterday. Bruce and I love to go hunting. I think much of it is because we love the woods in the fall. While we were in Estes Park, I bought a new game cookbook. It has all sorts of recipes for Hungarian grouse, ruffed grouse and chukars. I have been in a rut cooking partridge so this will give me something new to try. Our much loved partridge recipe is cooking them in cream of mushroom soup with wild rice and baked acron squash as sides. It is a very traditional fall meal in the Kerfoot household.

Obviously cooking is on my mind this week. As things get slower in the dining room, I start to get interested in cooking something new for Bruce and me to eat. As good as it is, nothing on the lodge menu appeals to me right now. After a summer of eating and smelling it, I’m ready for a change. If we find some good recipes, they may appear on the lodge menu this winter.