Food, parade and nature fill Fourth

VIC LEIPZIG AND LOU MURRAY

Last weekend was the first time we’ve been in town for the Fourth of

July in ages. Last year, we went to Santa Clarita to visit our

friends Paul and Sue Hertzog and their daughter Katie. This year,

Katie wanted to come to the beach, so they came here.

To prepare for the weekend, we bought a new three-burner gas

grill. Wow, what a difference. We can now burn steaks, hamburgers and

chicken in half the time it took to do over charcoal.

Actually, the grill is spiffy. We even made desserts on it. By

cooking in a cast iron skillet indirectly over the unlit center

burner, we made a delicious fudge brownie cake drizzled with Triple

Sec and lemon-blueberry wedges with a brown sugar cookie crust. We

slathered corn on the cob with butter -- mixed with sea salt, chopped

sage and oregano -- and chopped garlic and barbecued them wrapped in

foil.

We marinated chicken in orange juice, lime juice, sherry vinegar,

chopped garlic, olive oil, a dash of Louisiana hot sauce and a

dusting of cumin, and grilled that.

We even grilled our salad. After a brief fling on the fire, we

topped Romaine lettuce wedges with creamy cilantro dressing and

toasted pumpkin seeds and pine nuts.

While waiting for hamburgers to grill, we snacked on smoked salmon

that had been mixed into whipped cream cheese with capers and chopped

red onion and spread on bagel crisps. We had English double

Gloucester cheese layered with Stilton and spread on crackers and a

baked brie smothered with mango chutney and topped with cashews.

In case it sounds like all we did was sit around and eat, that’s

not the half of it. Over the course of the holiday weekend, we also

downed a half dozen bottles of terrific wine that Paul and Sue

brought.

On the morning of the Fourth of July, we drove Downtown and parked

in the city’s parking structure. We headed up to Fred’s Cantina,

where we watched the parade while enjoying a Mexican buffet. The $25

per person entry fee went to the Bolsa Chica Conservancy. It was a

highly successful fundraiser, and one we will participate in again,

in part because our view of the parade was terrific.

We saw Grand Marshall Shirley Dettloff and her husband Bob;

Citizen of the Year Charlene Bauer and her husband Ralph; Assemblyman

Tom Harman and his wife Dianne, and plenty of other dignitaries.

The tinkling, blaring, banging and thumping of one marching band

after another blended with the ooga-ooga of Shriners’ little

putt-putt cars, the clomping and stomping of horses’ hooves and the

thrum of idling engines as the floats went by.

But our favorite was the skateboarding dog. That animal is a hoot.

He pushes his skateboard and hops on for one short ride after

another.

All too soon, the parade was over and we had to face the traffic,

which was predictably awful.

Next, we headed over to Shipley Nature Center to show Paul, Sue

and Katie all the progress the Friends of Shipley Nature Center has

made there. They were amazed. Just two and a half years ago, the

place was just bare dirt and weeds. Now many parts are planted with

lovely California native plants. Birds flitted through the

underbrush, a hawk darted through the trees and the pond was alive

with egrets and herons.

We showed off the interior of the Interpretive Building, with

displays of an ancient bison skull compared to a modern plains bison

skull, a saber-toothed cat skull compared to a housecat skull and a

mammoth tooth the size of a brick. The diorama that Shari Engel is

working on in the main display room was half complete and looking

very professional. There was a nice display of Native American life

in one display case and an updated mammal fur display that Vic and I

worked on together.

After the visit to Shipley, we took our guests to Wieder Regional

Park to admire the border of California native plants that is looking

lush and healthy. Katie was more interested in the playground

equipment. It is definitely not like the swings and slides of our

childhood. We couldn’t name one single piece of play equipment there,

but Katie assured us that the odd-looking jungle gym thingies were a

lot of fun.

At the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve south parking lot, we

admired the progress on restoration. Katie found a round stingray

swimming below the walk bridge, while Vic and I were more fascinated

by some new species of underwater plants we saw growing there.

We pointed out the deep trench filled with crushed rock that now

lines the parking lot. This barrier is supposed to discourage ground

squirrels from burrowing under the asphalt and ruining it.

Our drive down Pacific Coast Highway showed that all the beach

parking lots were filled by mid-afternoon. We had heard that the

police were probably going to close Downtown by 4 or 5 p.m. We had

had enough of traffic jams for one day, so we decided to watch

fireworks on television. It wouldn’t be our fireworks, but we didn’t

want to face the crowds, wait for hours and fight more traffic for a

half hour show.

Vic just brought me a plate of Triple-Sec-laced fudge brownie cake

and a lemon-blueberry wedge, with a 10-minute warning that the

fireworks are about to start on TV. Hope you enjoyed your weekend as

much as we enjoyed ours.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].