JON SARRIUGARTE

The 2011 Oscars with Skywalker Ranch

Tron was up for an Oscar for sound editing  this year. Gwendolyn Yates Whittle & Addison Teague along with the their team from Skywalker Ranch that included Kyrsten Mate, got to attend along with their families.

More pictures of the night

Kyrsten & Jon on the red carpet. We had a lot of fun and I was so proud of my wife! I got to see lots of stars and hang out with real Oscar winners! The Oscar itself is very heavy. Looking forward to one on our mantel soon.

Gary and Kyrsten with the Oscar he won

Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick all took home Oscars for sound mixing on Inception

Skywalker crew and family ready for the Oscars

Jana Vance, Maya, Cecile Benson, Denise Thorpe, Kyrsten Mate

Steve Boeddeker, Phil Benson,  Mac Smith, Jon Sarriugarte, Dustin Cawood

Eli Wallach is saying to Kyrsten “You look gorgeous in that dress! Gorgeous!” No joke!

Homemade Fig Jam

The rains a few weeks ago came at just the right time for our last fig crop of the year making them nice and plump. Conveniently the biggest branch, well out of reach and covered with figs, snapped in the rain giving us figs galore right at our feet! Zolie and I picked them and cut firewood Sunday and started making Jam early Monday morning. After getting things started, Zolie got Kyrsten up to speed so I could get to work. While I was gone the two of them reduced the mix down to very nice jam, canned it and even made beautiful labels. We tried out the new fig jam this morning on pancakes with the homemade butter we made a few weeks back. Yum! Apple butter is next!

Homemade Butter

My daughter Zolie and I thought it would be fun to make butter to go with Mom’s pancakes. My local homeless friend Hank found this great Daisy Churn #4 for me a few weeks back. With the leftover cream from the birthday pies we made last week and a copy of Joy of Cooking from 1964 we got to work. Right away we knew we were in for the long haul when we read “how much slower the process was in threatening or stormy weather”. We looked outside and saw it was still raining. We worked the handle on top of the table, then on the floor and finally we moved out to the living room to catch a movie while we finished. Finally we had what looked like butter. After removing it from the churn and washing with cold water we had to decide what kind of salt to add. We split it up and added French British Maldon sea salt to half and Korean parched salt to the other. The whole time we made it Zolie kept telling me to go slower dad. How she knew that I have no idea. I kept asking her where she lived last and who she was. Old souls make great butter even in the rain!

cranking hard on the table

It’s thicker now and she had to move it to the floor for better leverage.

Home made butter on Kyrsten’s buckwheat pancakes!

Update

The butter tastes great and the little bit of Buttermilk left in pockets of the butter makes it moist on toast.

Buttermilk will get used this Sat. for more Pancakes and fresh butter!

Here is how you can make at home

Make Butter