inking of Warmer Days and Beef Pot Roast

barbie butz COLUMNIST

Well, so much for needing rain. It’s exciting but a little frightening to listen to the statistics about the storms and all the rain we are getting. I noticed just before the last big storm that the trees around town were in bloom, but with the wind and rain, they are looking rather sad right now. However, we all know that it won’t be too long before we’ll be discussing the heat! I know there will be some beautiful sunny, comfortable days in between.

Speaking of warmer days, mark your calendar right now for the Atascadero Lakeside Wine Festival on June 24 at Atascadero Lake Park, starting at 4 p.m. and ending at 8 p.m. during that wonderful late afternoon-early evening time we all enjoy here in the North County. Voted “Best Outdoor Experience” by Atascadero News Magazine, come and see for yourself. You won’t be disappointed.

e “best deal” pre-sale tickets are available now through

April 31 for $80 per person and includes $10 Festival Bucks to spend on food, art, crafts, or as a donation to the Charles Paddock Zoo. General Admission tickets after April 31 will be $90 and will include the Festival Bucks. Tickets at the gate on the day of the event will be $100 and include the Festival Bucks. So, buy now and save.

Tickets can be purchased at the Atascadero Chamber o ce at 6907 El Camino Real, Suite A, or online at atascaderowinefest. com

In addition to tasting some spectacular wines, beers, and distilled spirits, there will be great food, live music to listen to or dance to, a fun “Roar ‘n’ Pour” tasting area in the Zoo, Fine Art vendors, and much more.

For more information and lists of participants, visit the website atascaderowinefest.com.

For this week’s recipe, I was looking for cold-weather foods and not those that say “spring.” We love a beef pot roast now and then with mashed potatoes. So, here’s what I found to share with you.

Red-Wine Pot Roast with Porcini

Ingredients:

• 1 cup low-salt chicken broth or beef broth

• 1/2 ounce dried porcini mushrooms

1 4-pound boneless beef chuck roast, trimmed

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion coarsely chopped

• 2 celery stalks with some leaves, cut into 1/2-inchthick

• 3 garlic cloves, smashed

1 tablespoon chopped fresh marjoram plus sprigs for garnish

1 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes, drained

• 1 cup dry red wine

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Bring broth to simmer in saucepan. Remove from heat; add mushrooms, cover, and let stand until soft, about 15 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer mushrooms to cutting board. Chop coarsely. Reserve mushrooms and broth separately.

Sprinkle beef with salt and pepper. Heat oil in heavy large ovenproof pot over medium high heat. Add beef and cook until brown on all sides, about 15 minutes total. Transfer beef to large plate. Pour o all but 1 tablespoon drippings from pot. Place pot over medium heat. add onion and celery. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and sauté

e Dictionary of Junk

lee pitts COLUMNIST

If you’re a reader of classi ed ads like myself, you know there’s some confusion as to what we should call the sale of the debris left over from living our lives. What is the di erence, for example, between a yard sale and a barn sale? I’ll attempt to answer that question, and many more, about what you should expect next time you go looking for the junk you don’t need and will never use.

Garage Sale — is is what happens when the husband nally cleans out the garage after years of nagging. Since none of the man’s stu quali es as junk, that means everything that’s for sale will belong to the wife or kids. Mostly it’s Tupperware without lids, kid’s clothes that have been handed down two times too many, broken Roseville pottery, 1954 World Book Encyclopedias and napkins for a wedding reception that ended in divorce years ago. e garage sale is seen as a quick way to generate some income to keep the lights on and the family fed in a cashflow emergency. But beware, some entrepreneurial types buy stu at other garage sales and sell it at their own after marking it up 300 percent. I know one guy who actually tells people at his weekly garage sales that if they didn’t nd what they were looking for, he could order it for them.

Rummage Sale —This is a garage sale on steroids for churches and PTA’s. e organizations and churches ask their members to bring any unwanted items and on a Saturday all the junk is o ered to the general public. Except ... if there’s anything good some church member will grab it long before the general public ever sees it. I know one atheist antique dealer who joined the Methodist church just to get rst crack at their rummage. at’s why the only things left are year-old calendars, clothes with broken zippers, ancient computers and printers, jigsaw puzzles with pieces missing, Danielle Steele and John Grisham paperbacks, Time-Life books and Pyrex nesting bowl sets that are missing the blue bowl. (Why is it always the small blue bowl?)

Yard Sale — ese are nothing more than drive-by garage sales where people can look at the junk while creeping by in their cars at ve miles per hour. e problem is the driver often forgets they’re driving. ese sales are good if you need a mangled Chevy pickup bumper from 1970, particle board furniture or an old couch that’s missing a cushion or two. ey’re also good for avoiding sales tax because no one charges it. Once I really scored when I bought a 100 piece ball cap collection. Since most of the caps were the kind with webbing, which I hate, I use the caps as oil strainers and throw them away when clogged. I also bought what I think is the largest ballpoint pen collection in the world featuring pens that advertise constipation drugs that I think belonged to a gastroenterologist.

Barn Sale — ese should really be called “Rust Sales” because everything is covered in it. People go to these because they’ve heard about “barn nd” Ferraris worth two million bucks and Snap-On toolboxes lled with hundred-dollar wrenches. Mostly what you’ll nd are certied pre-used bolts and rusty until beginning to brown, about 8 minutes Add garlic, chopped marjoram, and reserved porcini mushrooms, sauté 1 minute. Using hands, crush tomatoes, 1 at a time, into pot. Cook 3 minutes, stirring frequently and scraping up browned bits from bottom of pot. Add wine; boil 5 minutes. Add reserved mushroom broth, leaving any sediment behind. Boil 5 minutes. Return beef and any accumulated juices to pot. Cover; transfer to oven. Cook 1 1/2 hours. Turn beef and continue cooking until tender, about 1 1/2 hours longer. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Cool slightly. Refrigerate uncovered until cool. Cover and keep refrigerated. Transfer beef to cutting board; tent with foil. Spoon fat from surface of juices in pot. Bring juices to boil; cook until liquid is reduced to 4 cups, about 7 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Cut beef into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Transfer to platter. Spoon juices over, garnish with marjoram sprigs, and serve. 6 Servings Cheers! nails. Lots and lots of rusty nails because no one has pounded a nail since pneumatic nail guns were invented. You’ll also nd pallets of one-gallon paint cans that are one-fourth full of mustard yellow or pea-soup-colored paint. Here’s some good advice: never buy a rattle can of paint at a barn sale and always plug in those old Craftsman drills to see if they work. right or happy?

Barbie Butz is an independent columnist for e Atascadero News and Paso Robles Press; you can email her at barbiewb@ hotmail.com.

Estate Sale — These are far-and-away the best junk for the money, but be advised, there’s an entire subset of dealers who scan Craigslist for these sales, get up at two thirty in the morning to be rst in line, and then buy up all the good stu to sell in their booth at an antique mall. Also, because the words “estate sale” attracts buyers like bars do drunks, oftentimes you’ll see garage or yard sales advertised as “estate sales”. But remember, to be a true estate sale, someone had to die.

Estate sales are unbeatable for acquiring junk to sell at your own estate sale when you croak.

Lee Pitts is an independent columnist for e Atascadero News and Paso Robles Press; you can email them at leepitts@ leepittsbooks.com.

Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy? Asking yourself this one simple question can save you time and energy that can be used to create what you deeply desire for yourself and your life.

(805) single goal is to be right — loss of a nity, isolation, disempowerment, inauthenticity, and so on. e need to be right usually occurs on an unconscious level and tends to dictate how you move through the world. Once you become aware of this habit, which you likely picked up from your family, community, or society, it will no longer run you or your life. move through the world with. have you been, and where are you headed?

It takes practice. As you slowly begin to loosen your mental grip on the need to be right, transformation occurs. You’ll start to notice the areas in your life where you’re putting too much of your precious time, energy, and e ort into making yourself right.

Some of us were raised with the need always to be right, or maybe you know someone who is always right, or at least they think they are. Getting caught up in the need to be right has one payo , which is that you get to be right. e cost is very high if your

With this new awareness, you now know what you didn’t know, and you can make a conscious choice between being right or being happy — being right results in temporary happiness. True happiness comes from the deepest place within you as the result of your being satis ed with the nished kingdom through which you walk. Living your life from an authentic, empowering, connected, and loving context is a much stronger foundation to

Without the need to be right, you have created freedom. is freedom is the fertile ground for your mental and creative energy to imagine and breed greater possibilities in your life rather than the mediocre satisfaction that comes with being right.

No longer are you a hamster running on the wheel of “I need to be right,” wasting your one precious life. You are now free to talk about your dreams, your ideas, and your vision. What do you love about your life as it is today? What would you like to experience in your life? Where e artist, musician, speaker, writer, philanthropist, or you name it, which is within you and has been waiting to come bursting forth into existence through and as you now has an opportunity to do so. Doesn’t this idea spark joy and uplift you? I believe it’s time to “Marie Kondo” your need to be right. Time to release this energetic, mental usurper which is no longer serving your highest and best good.

Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy? Choose happiness and be amazed at the transformation you experience for yourself and your life.

And so it is.

Rev. Elizabeth Rowley is an independent columnist for

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