For the first time since arriving in LA in early September, AEJ are heading out of town for a little R & R. Other than a small amount of work travel — which was, of course, work — it’s been pretty-much non-stop writing since we moved here. So, since “Turbine” is done, and “Strange Humors” is done, I’m taking a week off before I start the next project.

Today we spent the afternoon at the Los Angeles Zoo. (It was a fun time, but let’s just say it’s no Columbus Zoo.) I took lots of pictures, and will try to post some soon. Tomorrow, we head to Palm Springs. Because we don’t know anybody here to watch Loki, we can only stay out of town until Thursday, but even that 36-hour trip seems luxurious.

And don’t worry — I’ll take (and later post) lots of pictures.

See you in a few days!

If you aren’t watching the new season of “24,” well, we can’t be friends anymore.

The wind version of “Strange Humors” is totally done — score and parts — and I posted the score on the new Strange Humors page. There’s no audio yet, of course (the premiere isn’t for 6 weeks), but for kicks, you can listen to the original version and follow the score for the new version, just to see how the transcription came out. The original djembe (African hand drum) part is exactly the same in the new version.

AEJ and I want to have some friends over for dinner next week, so we’re doing some test runs to determine what we can make efficiently that also tastes great.

(We need efficiency because our kitchen isn’t exactly an “entertaining kitchen” where you really want guests hanging out with you while you cook. Our house it pretty cozy — except for the kitchen, which received one of those unfortunate remodels at some point in the mid 1980s. We’re talking backspash tiles with pictures of fruit on them. Yeah.)

Nothing says “hip” like painted lemon tiles.

So our first dinner idea was pan-seared bacon-wrapped filet mignon with a garlic-lemon butter sauce, and a side of AEJ’s famous mashed potatoes. Here are the steaks, salted, peppered, and bacon-wrapped, in our happy new skillet that we bought for the occasion.

And here’s the finished product.

And finally, here it is with cocktails — white cosmos with Cointreau and a splash of chambord.

The verdict: eh. Not so good. We got the recipe for the steaks from the new magazine, “Cook’s Country,” from the editors of Cook’s Illustrated. The first problem — not the fault of the recipe — was that the cuts of filet weren’t great. The bigger problem, though, was that the butter mixture was kind of bad. Way, way too much lemon zest. As AEJ said, not like “not my taste” too much zest, but more of a “what were they thinking?” too much.

So, back to the drawing board. We have a new idea, which we’ll try tonight… Well, assuming we can finish well-before season 5 of “24” starts.