Torrey Pines & Tuna Steaks

When I lived in Cleveland, my local municipal course was Highland Park. Now that I’m in San Diego, I get the pleasure of having Torrey Pines as my muni (not a bad upgrade, huh?). These courses have two things in common: they are both public 36-hole facilities and have hosted PGA Tour events. The similarities end there. Having a U.S. Open course in your backyard is just one of the many perks of living in America’s Finest City and I try to take advantage of it as often as possible. Friday I was able to sneak out on the North Course for a twilight round, my favorite time to play. Torrey has two courses, the North and South. The South Course is the more revered of the two, especially since hosting the 2008 National Open (Tiger/Rocco/”Broken” leg/Monday playoff), but the North features the signature hole of the complex and is a much more “playable” course. The South is designed to beat you up, the North is there for you to enjoy (though my best round on either is on the South from the Open tees. Figures). Twilight is the best time to play IMO because of the ocean breezes and the setting sun over the Pacific. Even a bad round is enjoyable on these two courses thanks to the breathtaking views. One of my favorite things about municipal courses are the people that you get paired with. This can either make or break the round, depending on your attitude. Invariably you will get at least one person that annoys you, angers you, or makes your wanna jump off one of the bluffs. My advice? Laugh ’em off. [My playing partner Friday insisted on giving me swing tips throughout the round. Nothing annoys me more! But this dude was so happy to relive his 80’s high school golf glory days that I let him ramble. He reminded me 5 times that he played high school golf. Apparently I need to work on my reverse McKayla Maroney face to show my awe.] My round at Torrey was pretty blah from a golf perspective, but the pictures are worth sharing. I am sucker for seaside courses and the photo ops they provide, as evidenced by this blog. More to come on this topic when I visit Pelican Hill this week!

Approach to #5

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The signature 6th at Torrey Pines North

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Sunset from the 17th tee

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After the round it was my turn to cook for Lo, since she had been doing most of the kitchen work this week. When I cook I like to try something new and usually don’t do the same thing twice, so it’s always interesting. For dinner I decided to make seared Ahi tuna steaks while Lo made fried rice and steamed spinach for the sides. Now, I have never cooked fish. I don’t even like fish (unless its raw and wrapped in rice), but I’m making an effort to branch out here. I rarely use any type of protein when I cook unless I have a grill available. Another thing; my kitchen is not meant for cooking. My apartment is very small. My mother told me today that her kitchen is bigger than my apartment (thanks Mom!). Unfortunately she wasn’t exaggerating too much. My kitchen is more regularly used for bicycle storage than it is for any non-microwave cooking. Like I said, I like to keep it interesting. So I grabbed a recipe from Epicurious and decided to give it a try. After Lo and I danced around each other in the galley-like kitchen and the smoke detector went off twice, we came up with this.

I was pleasantly surprised with this outcome

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Personally, I liked it. Lo told me she did too, and she’s usually pretty honest about my cooking (except for the first dish I ever made for her…). The tuna we got was great quality, so it wasn’t very fishy at all. We added a couple splashes of sauvignon blanc and it ended up being cooked perfectly (RAW!). If I did it again, I would ditch the whole peppercorns and encrust it in a salt/black pepper/cayenne pepper mixture. I did do a balsamic reduction (oh you fancy huh?!) to get the unpopped peppercorns onto the dish. I think this added a lot to the flavor. Also, I forgot to put the salt and cayenne pepper on one side (the smoke alarm distracted me!). All in all, not bad for a first time fish cooker. If you like tuna, I would definitely give this recipe a shot. I’m sure it is easy if you know what you’re doing.

Good win for the Buckeyes this week! Tough loss for the Eagles and a blowout for the Brownies. A draw from Liverpool felt like a win.

Travel plans for this week take me to Huntington Beach and Long Beach. The weather here is getting cooler (thankfully my fall FJ gear arrived in the mail this week!), but it should be a beautiful week in the OC. Expect plenty of pics from Pelican.

Au revoir,

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MWMcK

S.D., CA

Song of the Day: “No Interruption” – Hoodie Allen

Course Rating: 8.5/10

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