Sky Diary: the blog

At some point when you’re trying to outrun an outflow boundary – what was a pretty shelf cloud, during the brief glimpse I had of it – you run out of road. At least around here. My pursuit ended at the Atlantic Ocean in Cocoa Beach, but I got shots of the shelf as it pushed out over the sea this evening. The colors were so silver and blue, almost monochromatic, that I converted the image to black and white so the textures would come out.

I’ve often heard people say that in Florida, “like clockwork,” a storm pops up about 3 p.m. in the summer. That’s almost true, and it may be more true farther south in, say, Miami. Probably somewhere in the state a storm pops up, but we don’t always get them here on the east-central coast. Today, we sure did, as storms moved in from the west, with a lot of lightning and dramatic structure. I’d still rather have a nighttime lightning storm for photography’s sake, but this one was impressive as it moved into Cocoa, as seen from next to the S.R. 520 causeway.

John Besh’s restaurant August played host to a Bombay Sapphire-themed lunch Friday entwining cocktails and cuisine as part of New Orleans’ Tales of the Cocktail. The gin was not just the basis for diverse cocktails, but was used in interesting ways in the food, as in the Bombay-cured lemonfish. The lunch was a marvel of delicate flavor combinations. The crispy softshell crab tempura was the perfect, tender consistency.

Meanwhile, the gin allowed the mixologists to play extensively with sweet and savory flavors, as in the gazapacho-like Red and Yellow Snapper that started the meal. Herbal flavors were abundant. And all of it was beautiful.

Tales of the Cocktail is a high-end liquor convention in New Orleans, but it’s a lot more. While it attracts top mixologists, bar owners, vendors, writers and foodies, it also offers an opportunity to pair amazing cocktails with sublime meals. So for me, it’s as much Tales of the Food as anything, though, of course, that doesn’t rhyme.

These pairings culminate in Spirited Dinners; I went to the Rio Mar’s last night with friends, featuring food by chefs Adolfo Garcia and Frank Stitt and cocktails by historian Wayne Curtis and Martin Cate of Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco. The beautiful drinks and dishes tasted as good as they looked. The savory, slightly salty country ham wrapped around grilled figs with walnut and mint cream, for instance, contrasted wonderfully with the sweetness of a plantain daiquiri.

The simple, fresh Gulf shrimp was enhanced by the Hedgehog’s Delight (rum, fresh lemon and lime juice, Darjeeling tea, Demerara sugar and spices), named in honor of rum sponsor and film legend (of a certain kind of film, anyway) Ron Jeremy. He was one of the dinner guests, and a sponsor, because he’s offering a very nice rum these days, Ron de Jeremy, which was used in the cocktail. We got to taste the rum naked (ugh, did I really write that?) in a flight along with Ron Abuelo 7-year rum, Trigo Reserve Anejo, and Zafra 21, which was wonderful all by its lonesome and decadent in the dessert cocktail with Benedictine and spiced cream, served with chocolate flan.

Tales is a flurry of tasting rooms, fabulous meals, seminars and other events, a party where you can actually learn something. If you want to.

How much I’d give to see an old photo of my grandfather come to life in a video in (simulated) three dimensions, as if the camera were there, moving in on that face and the cigar and his great old car and the old house I remember from my childhood.  I can’t, yet, but Miklos Falvay, a Hungarian media design artist, used 3D software to create such an effect for a documentary, “Motalko.” It’s amazing. I heard about it on BlenderNation via Twitter. Please watch … it’s lovely.

ARCHIVE PHOTO INSERTS FROM MOTALKO from Miklós Falvay on Vimeo.

I don’t necessarily have all day to wait around in central Florida for storms to fire, but I did go out before sunset to check out a line of storms in extreme western Brevard County. They made for a pretty backdrop to the anglers courting lightning strikes out at the Lone Cabbage Fish Camp. After dinner, I went out again, hoping for the storms – and the lightning – to persist. I saw a few crawlers while I got into position and barely anything after that. Once again, the storms didn’t survive much beyond sunset. I had a similar experience when I tried to chase the Arizona monsoon several years ago, though I’m sure I gave that too few days to be successful. Here’s hoping we get more lightning shows this summer – at night, when I can see them!

I didn’t have a special view of Atlantis’ final launch today -it was from Cocoa, and hindered by haze and a deck of clouds. But it still had that import of history, and a tear came to my eye when I heard shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach wish the crew well as he bid farewell to the shuttles. The mission is still ahead, but Kennedy Space Center has launched its last orbiter.  The crowds came out by the thousands to wish it well – and now a lot of them are driving home.

I can’t grasp that the shuttle program is actually ending, even though we’ve all known it’s been coming for a long time. Atlantis is due to launch this morning, though weather is likely to be an issue. And then it will come home, if all goes well, for a permanent berth at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

I covered space for four years and was completely immersed in the shuttle program. I haven’t retained the level of detail I knew then, but it was a huge part of my life. I was awed by it, then dismayed after the heartbreaking Columbia accident, but always impressed by this technological colossus and the people who put it together. They’re the ones who have made history.

I’ve put together a tribute to the shuttle – a gallery of some of my favorite images. It’s not complete yet; I still have to upload all the high-res files and write detailed captions. But it helps me share that sense of wonder I still have when one of those shuttles aims for the stars. See the gallery

We had a really nice July 4, first at a pool party, though I dozed off with the dogs for a little while during the sixth hour of conversation about cycling, and then watching the Cocoa fireworks down by the river. Before and after the big boomers, which of course terrified the little dog, our niece and nephew and our friends and their boy went nuts with sparklers. Ah, the simple joy of flying sparks. Only these days, all the kids were attempting to cast spells out of the “Harry Potter” books as they thrust their sparklers at unseen enemies. Fortunately, I was not turned into a were-rabbit, or whatever people get turned into by Harry Potter spells.

As I was on the way to the memorial service yesterday, a mass of rain and storms was rolling into the Space Coast. I stopped for just a moment to get this photo of a toothy shelf cloud moving over the barrier islands. At points it looked as if there were fingers draping over the landscape as I got closer to it and then was lashed by the rain. Florida is king of the shelf clouds.

We’ve had much-needed rain this week in the form of daylong gully-washers. The National Weather Service in Melbourne recorded 2.48 inches of rain June 29, a record. The next day, it noted 1.29 inches. June had 5.9 inches, compared with 16.91 for the year overall – more than a third of the year’s rainfall, much of it in two days!