So here we are again, as usual at this season, everything's left to us Dollivers to attend to. What with Boud moaning all this time about her arm and her birthday (you'd think she'd had enough of them by now, but nooooo), and nobody giving a thought to us, waiting to get into our festive kit.
Well, we took it into our own yarny hands and organized a thing or two. Speaking of which, if we had a problem with an arm, we'd get Boud to just knit us a new one. But she hasn't thought of that for her own arm, so typical.
Anyway, we broke out the red dresses, including the tinies who actually never got out of them from last year, so tickled with them, with our Dolliver Kennels Champions in attendance, plus Greensleeves, sporting a new gold bow for the occasion, and Elton.
He refuses to give up his sweater and hat. He's afraid that the bear will come and reclaim them. So we made a Dolliver Tree, as you see, with Blondie Firstborn, of course, grabbing the top position. And the Irish Setter jumping up on Greensleeves, he's incorrigible, note the big word. You can't really see the ornaments on the ficus, which plays the part of a fir at this season, Boud being wildly allergic to the real thing
And Boud put out the creche with two babies, what's that about, is one an understudy? one is in the creche and the other couldn't even get a place in there, talk about hardship, and other characters, plus various animals. Nobody knows how the dancing clock got in.
And since the temps have been in the 70s lately, the sparkly yarn is the nearest we've come to snow, but that's fine anyway.
So finally we get to wish you happy holidays, no matter what you celebrate, happy days and a good New Year. Actually we'll be back before New Year, but just in case, we thought we'd put that in.
And Elton serenades us out with O Christmas Tree, The First Noel (good job there is one, though, otherwise his name would be Eton and who wants that), and Silent Night, at which point Boud rudely commented that that would be the day in this house...and Deck the Halls, which we already did.
We don't plan to get Blondie Firstborn down for a while, in case you wondered. And this transmission was interrupted as we all listened up for the sirens and bells and whistles and Santa riding past the end of the street on a firetruck! hope he remembers that yarny people like presents, too.
Maybe a whole new approach to dresses could happen..don't tell Boud we said that, or she'll start up with we have such a lot already, the little dolls in other countries would love to have all our clothes, and maybe she'll send them off, and other such dangerous ideas.
But we were happy about the bears she knitted and sent off a while back, and the Izzy dolls she made, and now the ones that some of her readers are busy on. That's good.
Thank you everyone, for flowers, which arrived five minutes after I got home, impeccable timing, lovely edibles, good wishes, cards and other celebrations. Great fun. I must say this birthday is a lot better than this time last year, when I was deathly sick, also injured, and wondering if I would even survive the day, well, that's a slight exaggeration, but only slight. Anyway, today's great, I feel wonderful, energy back in full force, and I have a new Thing to offer you.
Okay, take a few sheets of paper, not smaller than 8x11, printer paper is fine, doesn't have to be special. And a marker, preferably black.
Now face your Inner Critic. You can see her right there, business suit, sharp white shirt, briefcase, highly polished closed toe shoes, looking grimly at you. And turn her gently toward the door and give her a big shove out there, explaining she's not invited here right now. Her turn comes much later.
Okay, back to your paper. Take the first sheet and using your whole arm, holding the marker very lightly, not in the deathgrip of writing, but the loose hold for drawing.
Draw one curved line. Do it fast, without pausing. You can see two edges of the paper, to see the size of this one. Breathe.
Now do that again, but a different curve, different angle. Breathe again.
And the third one, crossing the others, to create a lovely little balanced drawing. A little bend at the end of this one is nice, gives a natural effect.
Continue breathing! this is important, since as you draw you need to be relaxed, your whole arm involved, big generous movements.
Do several of these. Vary the curves, as long as one clearly crosses the others. I did thousands of these years ago when I was first serious about art and wanted to train my hand to calm down, focus and do what I asked. You can do this with a nice fat charcoal stick, too, turning it to vary the width of the line, and indicate depth.
This isn't a doodle, and it's not the sort of thing you just do in an idle moment, or on the phone. Art is done with total focus even just for a few minutes. You can do this as a meditation. And you can notice it reminds you of Japanese art, of early drawings, of all kinds of art passages. And of the rule of three.
And it reads left to right. This pleases Western eyes, which tend to see visuals in that order, also top to bottom. Hence the placement of news items in the paper -- big story top left, next big top right, below the fold bottom left next in importance, and last, just making it onto page one, below the fold bottom right.
Readers of other languages see right to left, or vertically, but most of your viewers, if you're in the West, feel happy with the left to right emphasis, and a bit uncomfortable with right to left.
Anyway, this is a true piece of art you just created. And no doubt you already have ideas on how to incorporate it into crazy quilting, and stitching, and painting and printmaking, or just to enjoy making these simple drawings for fun.
That's today's gift: banish your inner critic, then just enjoy making your own way. The thought police are on vacation for the foreseeable future. In fact that's true of a lot of things in life.
I was at Terhune Orchards today, picking up two artworks at the end of an exhibit, and since the day was amazingly warm for December, 70F, seized the day and took a little stroll around the farm, checking in on various animals, pets and working, and kids of both kinds, to share with you.
One goat, two sheep, one goose who strolled across, timing it perfectly, the other goats out there somewhere
This might be pyracantha, more knowledgeable gardeners please chime in
What dogs do on a warm day, completely blocking the steps
And amusing a small visitor to the farm store
At the other end of the porch, the cats groom and snooze
And encourage recycling
Small tractor driver finishing his day's work.
Me too. Just a few images to amuse you! in a few weeks we'll probably look back in amazement at these pictures, warm, no wind, no snow.
So an interesting little package arrived today, early for Christmas, from friend K., who is evidently way ahead of the game on organization this year, and in it there was, . as well as one of the few interesting Christmas letters and great selfie card, a parcel for the human, and one for the kitties, courtesy of Buddha, the Malinoisx.
I set the parcels on the counter while I did some other stuff in the kitchen, and the first thing I knew was a plaintive cry from kitty Duncan, paw stuck under the toaster oven on top of the counter, this is the kitty who officially can't jump. And on investigating found that the kitty package is stuck under there along with his paw.
Retrieved that and found that the ribbon is who knows where, the wrapping paper is a masticated heap, and the coveted contents, the best catnip, now has tooth holes in the package. Marigold is highly involved at this stage, too, till Duncan boots her off. I figured it was safer to put the nip and what was left of the wrapping on the floor, to save falls when they get spacy.
This stuff is the BEST
Spacy? nah, I always look like, uh, what was I saying there..
I know it was all here a minute ago..
I explained about the Christmas embargo, on till next Tuesday, and he explained in return that cats know not of embargoes, since every day is Catmas. Which is a point. Good thing I have the self control to restrict myself to sniffing my package, squeezing it, shaking it, holding it up to the light, and deciding I am further up the foodchain than the kitties, can leave it till the Proper Time. There.
But I already had a great seasonal entertainment watching Duncan and Marigold going totally apecat over their early Christmas. Thanks for a great floor show, K and Buddha!
Some days are beset with worries of various kinds, this being one of them. I don't usually use my blogs as crying towels, horas non numero nisi serenas, as the sundial puts it. I figure it's not very interesting to readers, but now and then I do get anxious about my nearest and dearest, as now. Then, when I've realized there's little I can do about that, and what I can do I have done, it's time to give myself a little present.
Today it was one to share with you in our monthlong celebration: a cookbook recommended to me by K, on not just cooking for one, but "The Pleasure of Cooking for One" by Judith Jones, quite a different thing.
When I was teaching myself flute, using a high end silver instrument that was in my custody for a couple of years, I found a great book called How to Love Your Flute, an inspired title. Not how to get the better of your flute, or how to master your flute, or any of that warlike approach, just how to enjoy and love your time with it. I already do all this, in art and music and cooking, but it's so good to find a book that validates the whole thing with great energy.
This cookbook is very much like that, how to enjoy and celebrate cooking for yourself, and remember you are worth it. Streets better than those ghastly books that show how to cook at warp speed, or as simply possible because the writer thinks it's boring, or as cheaply as possible and nemmind the taste.
Barbara Pym, herself a good cook in real life, often has her characters speak contemptuously of people cooking for one and setting the table for themselves. An in joke, I think, perhaps a plot a clef, with real life friends in mind. And she's very sharply funny at the expense of men who see a meal alone as "an opportunity to cook a small plover" when her lone heroine plans on a bit of cheese and maybe a sliced tomato! Some very good lines, though.
Anyway, I also feel free to laugh at my own efforts, too, and the irony of talking about a book with a souffle for one on the cover, with a glass of good white wine, then proceeding to make fish cakes, does not escape me. But they were fun to make and pretty good, too. Aside from being very meat heavy, something I rarely if ever have any interest in, it's a very happily written text, and worth the time to study it.
And while I'm foofing around in the kitchen, I like to have an audio book going, this week being a fine work by Helen Macdonald, H is for Hawk.
Aside from the gormless title, which nearly put me off completely, I decided that, since I love hawks and know nothing of falconry, this would be a good adventure. Which it is.
It's about grief after the sudden death of a parent, mixed with the life of T.E.White, the writer, goshawk lover, and tortured soul, her life with her father, and the history of falconry, along with the writer's own adventure in taking on the taming and flying of a goshawk, and the emotional journey back to psychological balance in the process. She's a professional falconer as well as historian, and knows what she's doing, don't try this at home folks.
I have huge reservations about taking a wild creature and working with it or taming it, or using it for sport, so that was part of my reluctance. But she's also a poet, and the recording was done by her, which means there is great understanding of the meaning, and of the ambivalence both of bird and falconer throughout the process. She has great powers of weaving all the strands of her narrative without getting us lost in them, and showing us eventually how they all work to illuminate one another.
Which puts it right up there in the ranks of good reading, despite some weird mispronunciations I decided were her own quirks, falconers not being your everyday run of the field or fen folks. And it reads like a long prose poem, full of exactly the right wording and imagery, but not in a self conscious way.
Anyway, take a look or a listen. My gift to you. I am not recommending any other audio books at the moment, having been driven bonkers by people who can't pronounce the simplest words, even the name of the author, and haven't checked the way to say the slang words, or foreign phrases and so on. Shoddy work, a lot of it.
But this one is good, melodious voice, very well phrased and cadenced, musical prose. So there's a two-part birthday celebration: enjoy cooking for you, if, like many of my blogistas, you cook regularly for one, and treat yourself to this reading, too. Both at once if you can. Then you'll have an experiential diptych.
High falutin' way of saying enjoying two things at once!
Today's natal gift to you is a few minutes of your time allowing your limbic brain to take over. It's about the sense of smell, and what it can evoke.
I pulled out a few random spices in the kitchen, since it's winter, and not much to smell out of doors, beyond a bit of frosty air. But if you do something like this, or use flowers and herbs if your garden is flourishing because it's your season, just give yourself the gift of a few minutes to sniff and enjoy.
No need to be methodical just inhale the smells and let your mind go where it wants to. Often this kind of pleasure brings up all sorts of buried memories, usually very vividly, and good ones. Just a few minutes away from stress and into pleasure.
For me, nutmeg is about my mom, cooking with it, cinnamon from a later period, the Indian spices from early married life when I experimented with curries and had a great time doing it, garam marsala is about Girija and Shabnam, garlic about studying in France, coffee likewise. The banana never fails to bring me back to the first time I ever saw or tasted one, at age seven when the Atlantic shipping lanes were open again after the end of WW2.
It's not just food, though. You can choose cleaning materials, if you like the smells, or things from your toolbox or your toiletries. Turpentine swings me right back to early days of making art, Dove soap to bathing a newborn, homespun wool to my experiments with fleece, then Carol Q comes to mind as my spinning guru. You have your own gallery already stored in your limbic brain, waiting for you to give it a chance on stage.
Just pull them out, set them up and sniff from one to another till your nose gives out -- this will happen fairly soon, so it will be just a short time for this experience.
And the other thing is that as you do this, you are laying down new memories for the future. Years hence if you smell one of the items you choose today, that will be one of the memories it brings back.
I occasionally gave workshops when I had a large garden, about sensory memory to local groups, bringing in armfuls of herbs from my garden. People were amazed that some of the memories dated back to babyhood, before they were verbal, and certainly before they could read. This part of the brain does that. And you tend to form metaphors around it -- the smell of apple pie means home to many Western people.
This is a gift of just a few minutes to enjoy for yourself. Happy Natal Month! and particularly to those people who also celebrate this month, I'm looking at you, Quinn! And Tarang, my honorary granddaughter, and Gary, my next door neighbor. Not to mention Jane Austen, Beethoven and other everyday folks..
To continue the Birthday Month Caper, go here for a five minute sculpture. Yes, you can do this!
Such a relief to eat simple food after the Tgiving extravaganza. Here's today's Alaskan fillets, with egg and panko breading, plenty of spices in the panko, especially turmeric, together with broccoli from the farm. Also it's fast food, took about 15 minutes fridge to plate!
And here's day two of the Great Natal Caper: a little thing to do for yourself, particularly if you have never managed to get okay with meditation. It's very good indeed for your health, calmness, bp, all that, but the monkey mind tends to interfere with it.
So here's a new one I sort of hacked from a series of other attempts, and it works nicely for me. I found that it reduced the pain in my arm significantly, probably because the related muscles and tendons calmed down, and only the actual hurt part hurts, much better to deal with.
Anyway, it's ten minutes twice a day if you can remember. Usual getting very comfortable, lying, sitting, whatever works. And start to count your breaths, one count for in and out, while you visualize scenes or items that please you, and are not related to your work or your worries.
I find that the counting gives a structure that keeps my mind on the job and not galloping about on hobbyhorses, and if I lose track of the number, I just estimate where to start again, and resume the counting and visualizing. If you make art you will have a bonus: great new ideas will swim up, but don't act on them right away, get through the session first.
I find that by about breath 80, I've reached the 10 minute mark, nice chiming bell timer on my Ipod tells me. You may have fewer breaths to the minute, if your lungs are not permanently degraded by scars as mine are, misspent sick youth (!).
But anyway, it's not hard to fit in, and it really helps with mood and ability to cope. So here's a present from me to you-- just give it a shot and see if it's working for you, too. I'd feel honored if you were to do that.
Since today is the start of my natal month, I decided to take my own advice to other people: celebrate yourself for the whole month. And I thought, ha, here's a good start, after the White Rabbits ceremony, that is.
What I'd really like any or all blogistas to do, if you are interested in taking part in the Birthday Caper, is to consider making a few comfort dolls, the kind I made years ago and sent to Willie at ICROSS Canada. It would be a gift to me, just to know it's happening.
Here's a blurry, old pic, ancient camera long ago, of a few of the ones I made and sent to ICROSS Canada
They are simple enough that beginning knitters can make them -- the shaping all happens after you've knitted and stuffed the doll -- and they are great fun to make, just a few inches high, right size for a little kid in need of a comfy doll to hold. using small amounts of yarn. I like to make the faces a range of colors, too, to include all the groups of children we can.
Right now Canada is getting ready for an influx of child refugees from Syria, and the comfort doll is one thing that would be nice for kids tossed all over by political struggles they have no part in, to have on arrival.
Or you can make and send to Willie at ICROSS. Or to the parent people in Canada, info in one of the links below. And it doesn't have to be international shipping: you might find a local cause that might like them -- some police departments like to give these to kids they come across in crime situations. And even teens are not above liking them.
Whatever you feel like doing, please do that, singing Happy Birthday to Liiiiiz as you knit...or maybe not. But here are the links you need to get under way:
http://www.hpicanada.ca/izzy-dolls/knitting-pattern
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/african-comfort-doll
Either or both links will give you enough to be going on with. And it was a Raveler who reminded me of this little doll, also known as the Izzy doll, and I will credit her if I can find her name anywhere. Any other raveler who knows, chime in, and I'll update!
And thank you all! Hippo Birdies to the Great Me!
Noticed this on the way in to the library to stop and chat and generally bother friend Carol Q. the director, soon to be retired, and delighted with it! perfect work of nature, the fungus, not Carol, though she's not so bad either, look at that design, the fungus, not Carol. This belongs in Beautiful Metaphor, too, come to think of it. I believe it's growing on an old remains of a tree.
But, having made plans with Carol for art and craft related expeditions once she's got free days, that's next spring, I set off for the doctor's office to find out what's up with my arm.
After she moved it hither and yon, noting at what points I screamed, she said, hm, this is bursitis in your shoulder. What have you done for it up to now? so I recited the things that didn't work, Aleve, and the things that did, Advil and meditation, and she suggested a quick cortisone shot to clear it up fast. Which would have been good if the cortisone doctor had been able to fit me in before another eight days...by which time it may have resolved on its own, but we'll see. If not, I'll get it done.
It does feel like the ailment of a wimp, though, after a mere painting of a kitchen, installation of insulation, and two backsplashes along with various other physical jobs involving chucking heavy stuff around the garden and the studio. And all the plans for painting the laundry area, and making yeah many artworks for next year to exhibit. Not to mention carrying the Dollivers about loaded down with jewels.
Oh well. I guess I'm no longer 40, though it does come as a surprise. In spirit, I'm perfectly capable of continuing to paint and reno, and all that. But perhaps I have to pace it just a little. Well, we'll see about that, too... in fact the pacing has started. Instead of ordering kitty litter, which I have to carry up a flight of stairs, in 28 lb boxes, I've ordered it in 19 lb boxes. So that's a start.
On a brisk chilly walk today, I remembered the witchhazel bush I spotted last year, and included it on the walk to see if it was in flower. And it was. I love witchhazel for flowering at the most unpromising time of the year. Early this year, too. Usually I pick a sprig or two in January, and as it warms in the house, it scents the air.
So here's this year's sprig, in glass pebbles in water, along with peppermint from the patio. And the other container has parsley. t
They rooted in water so they may keep going for a while.
Herbs need the hot sun to move the aromatic oils about and give that scent off, but they have a pale version of it indoors, too. In the background you see the Russian sage, out in front of the window, now dozing off and ready to be trimmed back before we get snow.
So Tday is done, and the remains have become a very good turkey and mixed veg soup, to be eaten with caraway hot biscuits. But there was a marked lack of the rum raisin motif up to now.
That has now been addressed, with a loaf of Rum Raisin Banana Bread. This came about while I was leafing through a few recipe books, dark, rainy day, in search of something new to bake, and found a different idea, but which involved raisins in rum.
Aha, I decided that it would probably make a good addition to my trusty banana bread, and in fact it did. Cup of golden raisins, soaked for about an hour in white rum, best Puerto Rico, drained, the rum going into the vanilla I'm soaking to make my own essence, and the raisins into the bread.
Worked a treat, it did. And here's what I do after the bread is baked and cooling on the rack -- wash and dry the loaf pan,and then use it to serve the bread from. It occurred to me after I tasted it that this is the closest I'll ever come to making a fruit cake, and that's okay, too, to quote Stuart Smalley.
So the day was lovely, went well, remembered to serve all the food for once, having taken the precaution of putting all the items on a previously emptied shelf in the fridge, weather was nice enough for a walk between courses.
And here are most of the leftovers, not many this year, today's lunch.
Shared with Handsome Son, who left me some pumpkin pie and cheese and crackers and took home a meal's worth of turkey and cranberry jelly but passed on the vegetables. The turkey leg roulade was not an unqualified success. For one thing it took much longer to cook than the recipe claimed, and the meat itself, while it tasted good, was not sliceable into the neat rounds they promised. More of a good tasting shambles, to be exact.
Son suggested that perhaps the pix with the online recipe were not of a leg rouladed, but of a turkey breast,which I now think is correct. Even they couldn't make this one look neat. He also wondered if they'd actually tested this recipe at all, or just used clip art and a series of guesses as to how it would work. We indulged in all this bitter dialog while whipping into it, I ought to admit.
However, the stuffing was good, and all that extra the recipe made will go into some bird for Christmas, maybe cornish game hens, we'll see. I still like the principle, just doubt whether the turkey leg is a good subject.
The cranberry jelly was out of a can, this being HS favorite, and I got a can of what claimed to be cranberry sauce, but which turned out to be another jelly. Hm. Cranberry and raspberry. Which in fact was pretty good, even if there was a big lie on the label. To me a cranberry sauce has whole fruit, and it pours from the can, as if you'd made it yourself, which I didn't this year.
The applesauce was excellent, great apples went into it, and it really paid off. And the delicata squash and various other farm veggies played their part just fine. In fact a lot of the veggies were finished on the day. Handsome Son attended to the baking of the pie in between watching Poirot, causing him to miss essential plot points and be unable to fill me in on them, since I had fallen off into a little doze on the sofa..
All in all, a very nice day, and thank you all for the notes and emails and comments and texts on the day. Also my friends who left a bag of Indian goodies to add in, hanging from the doorknob before they left for the weekend. Included was a little gold box of chocolates with a jingle bell attached, which has now become the first item on the ficus tree, which acts the part of a seasonal conifer.
Plenty to be thankful for, I'd say. My birthday comes in a couple of weeks, and Handsome Son is inviting me to his place to cook me lunch, his choice of menu. Usually he comes here, but I thought it would save his carting about all the ingredients and tools (he doesn't trust my kitchen tools). So that will be great. This will be a double digit birthday, both numbers the same, and I wonder if there's a name for that? any blogistas who happen to know, please say. No, I'm not 99. Yet.
No mention of Christmas is allowed until my bday is past. Not that I have an exaggerated sense of my importance, at least that's my story, it's just that, well, the season doesn't begin till then. Even if there's a jingle bell already in place.
So here's the stage set for the Turkey Roulade caper. The idea is to bone the turkey thigh, and roll it with a savory stuffing, tie it with string, roast, then slice it for serving.
Boning was a first for me, also tying with string, and I was surprised that I was able to do it. Twice. Two legs, that is.
The stuffing is all about sausage, mushrooms, egg, rosemary, thyme, breadcrumbs, red onions and garlic, quite fun to do, but I'm glad I'm not trying this on the day. Took much longer than the recipe happily indicated. Recipe written by an experienced chef, with hot and cold running sous-chefs, I'm guessing. And it turned out that there was a lot of leftover stuffing, which will be frozen for future adventures of this kind. You can stuff chicken breasts this way, it might even give them some flavor.
So here's the product, resting seam side down, with a sprig of rosemary on one, thyme on the other, from my garden, and now resting in the fridge, to roast tomorrow. I suspect that this is the kind of thing that's interesting and exciting to do once, but once might be a lifetime supply. Like tiling a floor.
And I have a list of items so as not to forget anything for the groaning board. I often forget something interesting and the groaning is coming from the cook when that happens. All the veggies are from the farm, always a happy point.
So Happy Thanksgiving, however you celebrate it, and if you don't have a special day tomorrow, Happy Thursday anyway!
And just so it's not all about food, I always remember you, dear blogistas, with great thankfulness that you're there and reading and enjoying and responding and adding more than you can know to my life!
So, long time since fish was on the menu, and in anticipation of heavier fare later in the week, I thought I might make a nice fish dinner.
Proceeded to marinate a piece of Alaskan pollock, which always sounds like an insulting term more than a food item, in cherry balsamic vinegar, later breaded it with panko, chunked up a scrubbed but not peeled potato, tossed the pieces in olive oil and kosher salt, sprinkled a bit of coarse sea salt over, and roasted the lot. Well, the potatoes for about 45 minutes, and the fish for more like 9, at 425F.
Here the fish is resting on a rack for half an hour after the breading, so that it dries a bit and the breading is more crisp.
Served it with a nice glass of homemade lemonade (lemon slices from freezer, that way I always have some lemon around).
And realized that this posh and labor intensive poisson et pommes frites a la mode de chez Liz really amounted to fish n chips and lemonade. Well, fish n chips maison, to hang desperately onto a bit of posh description. But it was pretty good anyway.
Which I naively thought would give me leftovers for a couple more days. Here's the picture this morning, the nearer dish being a single serving, the giant glass dish now washed and away again:
I suppose it means it was good. At any rate, it was enjoyed, and there was enough dessert to share with two other friends. But it does remind me of a friend who used to say what's the point of cooking? they'll only eat it!
Sunday has become a good cooking day around here, what with the weekly family dinner with HS and all.
Today was all about roasting vegetables and chicken.
The vegs are spaghetti squash, tomatoes, another kind of squash and gnocchi, all tossed in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, cumin, turmeric, baharat, and sumac, with kosher salt. The curry leaves will rest on top as they roast.
A chicken leg each, tossed in breadcrumbs from the remains of the hot biscuits made with red lentils, and various other spices that occurred to me. They will roast alongside the vegetables.
Then the fruit crumble, a mix of Martha and Rose. The topping is sort of Martha, except that I used whole wheat with the oats, and added in nutmeg and crushed walnuts. The fruit is some of that apple supply from the local tree, which reminds me to make applesauce for Tgiving, and prune plums waiting in the freezer for just such a chance to star.
I added brown sugar (well, white with added molasses) to the plums and salt plus nutmeg, and macerated that for an hour, so that liquid emerged. Then I did a reduction of the liquid, swirling it around in the pan, no stirring (swirled, not stirred, sounds like a movie star), this being the Rose part, then added in the resulting syrup over the fruit in the dish. I'd been thawing the apples during this procedure, since I'd noticed the plums suddenly looked a lot smaller after macerating and needed some company.
So that's tonight's dinner. With the addition of a terrific hot veggie, no idea what veggie, pickle, my Indian neighbor sent over this morning via husband! I can taste cumin, coriander, and hot pepper, but I don't know what the veg is, some small sliced green thingy.
They'll get a share of fruit crumble in their near future, I think.
Yesterday was a mad rush of helping next door neighbor take action against squirrels which have invaded our building, inside the skin of the place, inside the soffits, you name it. He had parts of his ceiling open for electrical work, and parts of the storage area, for a new breaker box, so we urgently set to work to close them. And that extra insulation material from a couple of my own jobs were just the ticket. He now has squirrel proofed at least the inside of his house, and has partly insulated the storage area. Everybody happy, not least me, because the leftover insulation stuff came in handy right when needed.
He found a place in the soffit near the corner of the building where a squirrel sized hole had been evidently gnawed, explaining one of their doorways into the soffit. Another neighbor said he'd seen a squirrel running up the front of the building yesterday then mysteriously disappearing somehow. Evidently into the soffit.
And, at my strong suggestion, since he'd also seen a squirrel in his eaves where he stores stuff -- his dogs detected it -- he invested in a couple of havahart traps, the kind where the animal is caught but unhurt and can be transported to a better location, and he baited and set them up. And found that these gifted squirrels sprang the trap, and got the bait, from outside the trap. Nobody caught.
But since I saw squirrels mating like anything on top of my fence this morning, perhaps we've at least unnerved them into leaving and continuing their wild gyrations outside.
So perhaps it's Gary and Liz 0, squirrels sort of 0, this time. Anyway you can see why I was glad to stay indoors and cook this morning, no climbing up and down and measuring and cutting. Also cooking smells great.
I wonder if there are any plans afoot for aroma apps? this one would get my vote.
After I'd looked through several of the One Pot Meal books, I ended up doing a dessert from the Martha Stewart One Pot Meals book, a hybrid in fact.
There were two giant cookies, where you make just one huge one and cut it up or break it at will. One used the castiron skillet, which I like for baking, but was about chocolate chips, don't like chocolate much at all, and chips not at all. The other one used ground almonds, which I wanted to try out, but a springform pan, which I don't have. Soooooo, I made a hybrid sort of thing.
I made brown sugar by mixing molasses with white, and did the top recipe on the page you see here, but instead of chocolate chips, used the ground almond, and added in almond essence as well as the vanilla essence they list. And I baked the thing in a castiron pan, for longer than the almond recipe, several minutes longer, and reduced the heat to finish.
It slid out of the pan easily, no problem, and I put it in another dish to take it to the meeting, castiron being too hefty to sling about. And we'll see what the gathering has to say about it. I found that a package of sliced almonds for 1.5 cups will make a little more than one cup of ground almonds, about right for my needs. I'm taking in a pizza wheel to help people cut into it if they don't want to break into it by hand. I suppose this is what makes it one pot.
Speaking of favorite tools, I use my pizza wheel to cut all kinds of flatbreads and biscuits and flattish baked goods, much easier than a knife. And I use it to mince herbs, too, just run it back and forward until the herbs are minced.
So substitution ruled the day yet again, and it does look pretty good.
Excitement in the food world: Christopher Kimball is leaving America's Test Kitchen, which he helped found. Apparently things have been very exciting since they took on their first CEO and this is the next big event. I guess they all got their aprons in a twist! You simply never know how passionately food can get people, and the business dealings attached thereto. I certainly wouldn't get into an argument with people who all have sharp instruments to hand and are skilled in their use.
This is just a note to remind us all to
give thanks for the lives of the departed, prayers for their survivors, a
determination to live our lives as we choose, not be ruled by fear, and
to remember that ISIS is a tiny group of extremists. They don't
represent the vast numbers of peaceful Muslims in the world, including
some close friends of mine.
Peace.
It dawned on me that there was no federal law against buying a 12 inch pizza pan, useful for all kinds of things as well as pizza, since it's designed to go in the oven. I never have a big enough pan that will do that. And shoving all that flatbread into a pan two inches too small because it would go in the oven, didn't make a ton of sense.
Soooo, I did, I sent away for a nice Teflon one, complete with warnings about not poisoning your pet parrot with the outgassing. Which actually can only happen if you totally overheat and burn the thing and start to degrade the surface. At which point you are endangered as much as your poor old polly. It's a product of the Tort Lawyers' Full Employment Act, I think.
Anyway, it arrived today, the pan, not the parrot, and was instantly pressed into service since I was out of bread, horrors, can't happen here, and quickly decided on hot biscuits. This is adapted from a great recipe in the Silver Palate, which uses oils instead of solid fats.
I use either a mix of canola with some other veg oil, I forget what, or olive oil. And I've changed and added so much over the years that it hardly resembles the original, but it's still good. I long ago ditched the vanilla essence she uses a lot of, ew, and use all oil instead. I make my own buttermilk, never remember to buy any, by using lemon juice to sour the milk, if I don't happen to have any soured milk handy.
And since I had that lovely pink lentil flour, I figured I'd use half and half that and ap flour. Then wondered what nice inclusions I could run to. Sometimes it's sunflower seeds, sometimes crushed walnuts, but I thought, hm, seeds, what have we here..fennel? nah, anise might not work here, but caraway now, well, that was an idea. One teaspoonful of caraway seeds.
I've always liked inclusions, nuts and stuff in icecream, seeds and nuts in bread and cake. Poor Handsome Son as a little boy once refused to eat his bread because, Mommy, my bread's got rocks in it!
So here's the new pan on its maiden voyage, I declare this pan open, and God bless all who bake in her
and here's the hot biscuit with a bit broken away so you can see the nice pink inside.
I had to transfer it to a board, can't cut it on the Teflon surface. And I often make one giant hot biscuit using all the dough, then cut it into squares. I like this better than separate biscuits all with a crusty outside.
It tastes fine, neutral enough to go with cheese or whatever else I fancy, maybe a little sausage. It's tender, breaks easily, because the lentil doesn't have gluten, but it's protein rich because of the lentil. For some reason I felt very Moroccan doing this one...
Oh, and no pix of my latest apple crumble, just a couple of notes, since it's the best evah! I had no brown sugar, so I browned white sugar with molasses, worked a treat. And I treated the apples, nice flavory ones from the farm, by macerating in salt, maple syrup and a bit of the homemade brown sugar. Drained the liquid off after an hour, reduced it to half, like a syrup, then drizzled it over the fruit in the dish. So good.
And I used Martha's oatmeal crumble on top except that I doubled it by using a cup of almond meal as well as the oatmeal and o. flour along with homemade b. sugar. Must remember all this, since it was really worth doing.
It went over so well when HS came to dinner last evening, and I had to have some for breakfast, no toast in the house, that there's not enough around to make a blogworthy picture.
Today was time for a visit to the labyrinth, in honor of a recently departed husband of a friend. I got lost getting there, because one of my landmarks had changed so that I overshot the place. I navigate by landmarks, since directions and the sense of direction are foreign to my hardwired brain, and when they change, or as in this case, cover them up as they demolish behind them, well, I ask you.
So I wheeled around and got found again, wonderful light and blowing leaves and then found that the labyrinth is ankle deep in beautiful leaves, impossible to walk it.
So I had a change of plan and did a sitting meditation on the bench there instead.
And my alarm telling me when time was up defeated my efforts to turn it off, because in bright sunshine the screen's unreadable. Eventually I managed it, quiet returned, and I did take a couple of pix to send to my friend.
And then once home, spent upwards of an hour trying to get them to upload. Yahoo in its wisdom, has changed the app on my tablet, so that it's no longer possible to simply send images to my regular email for uploading. Noooooooo. I managed after numerous efforts to get one uploaded and sent. The other not so fast.
So I figured the culprit was Yahoo, who have put out a buggy app instead of getting it working before installing it, as in ready! fire! aim! so perhaps I could send it to another email address.
But my backup email, good old Juno, used it for thirty years, one single crash in all that time, no bugs, just a simple email that works, well, my tablet won't talk to Juno. Won't even list it. So I sent to yet another email I never use, and forwarded on from there. And now it finally works.
So thanks to Yahoo's yahoos, it is now a multipart process: take pix, send to one email, ship to another, download to hard drive, upload to thumbdrive, download to blog, lie down, have a cup of tea. But the pix are nice to see, a good memory of a quiet meditation period.
And, on the principle of the Shakuhachi effect, I learned a workaround instead of just getting all irate and arm waving.
Today I was out of ideas for lunch and remembered Mark Bittman's flatbread idea, for using wholegrains. So I figured this was a good way to use some of my split pea flour, ground in the coffee grinder at home, and to roast some vegetables at the same time, to put on top like a pizza of some kind. The corn and broccoli went in about 15 minutes before the bread was done, also in a castiron pan, don't know how I ever managed without them.
I had forgotten how filling this flour is. One quarter of this pizza was plenty for now. So it made four meals rather than the two I'd thought of. Seen here before cheese arrives
and after.
And, since the flatbread takes 45 minutes (hot oven, 450F) I seized the moment and since I'd already got the split pea flour out, organized the flour part of the fridge, cleaned the shelf and got up to date on grinding various items that have been waiting to turn into flour.
I add these into breads, pancakes, other sorts of baked goods, and they're interesting. Here, posing left to right, chickpeas, oats at back, red lentils in front, barley, and almond flour. I also make walnut flour and just now realized I'd forgotten it. The red lentils look lovely ground, like a tropical beach.
I do keep some of the items whole, in case I want to cook with them, not wishing to have to go out and find lentils because all mine are now flour, guess how I found this out. And always this kind of thing stays in the fridge or the freezer, because you never know when a critter will appear in it. Enough strife with squirrels outside without inviting tiny cousins indoors.
Out on the road today, hanging art with the Creative Collective artist group, at Terhune Orchard, I had my first sighting of an electric car, here plugged into the power right on the pole, the joys of having a farm where you can do this! very exciting first for me
And, second Great Start, Handsome Son is at the beta stage of setting up his blog, which supports his brand new enterprise, working with clients in their homes on their computer software issues. Already has some happy clients, and would welcome more! go here to find out more and to see a nice image of him, too.
But, best till last, I had a surprise visit yesterday from a close friend's daughter, bringing with her her own daughter, five months old, and visiting from their home in Colorado.
The baby, the divine Miss K. spent a while here, being adored and held and admired, while she smiled and looked coy, and made interesting noises and examined the cat, and studied the designs on the sofa. It was such a treat to hold a baby, been a long time! and to see J. the mom, again, that's been a long while, too, since her shower before Miss K was born. I've known J since she was a little girl and it's amazing to see her as a competent mom, totally relaxed and happy with her little girl.
I was lucky they fitted me in, what with a whirl around many relatives all meeting Miss K for the first time, she's making a royal progress through many houses! I booked another visit before they leave again, and one with older brother M, now a great big four.
A rich couple of days! electricity in several forms.
