Little Library and other musings

This week one of my knitting friends mentioned that her husband is planning to build a little free library outside their house as a birthday gift for her this year. It reminded me of one of the local ones, which I took in during a really successful day yesterday.

You know what little free libraries are? A little structure on a post, glass door, room for a few books, take one, leave one. Great fun. I've left cookbooks and mysteries now and then, which go fast. You find them all over once you start looking. Often nicely decorated, too. People build and stock  them as community services, or scouting awards, or just because.

Anyway, yesterday. I finally forced myself to go to the gas station and get air in my tires. No idea why this is so daunting, must be a previous life thing.

And went to the post office to get my sample get out the vote  post-it material weighed, and buy a roll of stamps. Which cost me a surprisingly large amount. Another thing I hate,local post office not being friendly, no idea why, but I did avoid the rudest man.

Two small victories, then the little library being en route, I finally donated an art book. It's located in the parking lot of a local art center, seemed appropriate.

And the universe reached out to me and said  well done, thou good and faithful servant, here's a Georgette Heyer in exchange for the art book. Very fair find. The Corinthian.

More piecing at work, but see https://beautifulmetaphor.blogspot.com for that.

Post-it posse on the move again

More than ever, we in the US need to vote. It's a great tool and a civic duty. Our republic is in crisis, and we need a secure voting mechanism.

The best is voting by mail. I've been doing it ever since it was opened up to the general electorate, beyond the previous disabled voters-only option.

Before the 2018 elections I took part in a similar GOTV, get out the vote, drive,  and we had some great results, good new folks in Congress partly as a result of our efforts.

We're back!  I just received my bank of registered voters information and I'm all set to encourage them to vote by mail. Personal notes to all, copies of everything they need to sign up.  It's clerical work with importance way beyond the tasks. Activism at my dining table.

It's entirely volunteer driven, we pay our expenses, printer cartridges, postage (a big one), envelopes, Post-It notes to attach because we can't write on official documents. We can't promote a candidate either, just a clean encouragement to vote.

Last time around when I couldn't afford any more postage, after my first batch, Action Together NJ' s leader, Winn, sent me some. She tries to raise funds to help pay postage.

She herself, Winn Khuong, is an immigrant and a model of how to do activism based on great research and energy. Great respect.

Scones for tea

Lemon curd tarts didn't happen today for various reasons largely having to do with needing to piece, and not feeling pestered to rub butter into flour and all that. Maybe tomorrow.

Meanwhile here's my substitute. Scones with walnuts and chocolate kisses, lemon curd hovering helpfully like Jeeves, ready to serve.

Excuse me now, have to go piece.

A day of parts

Hot day, good for working indoors, on paper piecing, which you can witness at https://beautifulmetaphor.blogspot.com.

But there's more. I suddenly got a plan to make lemon curd. For putting in lemon curd tarts, which I'll make tomorrow.

I was wondering why it's been so long since I made lemon curd. So I  assembled the lemon juice, salt, sugar and egg yolks and butter. Ages since I separated eggs, and there was a bit of combat with bits of shell, but I triumphed. I had to bring the butter and eggs to room temperature. Interval while that happened. I'll bet any money lemon meringue pie happened when someone made lemon curd and had to use up the egg whites.  Where was I.

Then the recipes I checked all insisted, in bold type, italics, and various other ways of shouting in print, that you HAD to make it in a double boiler, not directly over heat.

Short interval while I figured out a substitute for the double boiler I don't have, since they all insisted, as one, that you couldn't use a metal bowl, or it would taste metallic. Oh. So I did find a nice pottery bowl which fitted over the big pan nicely.

Then I noted that after you assemble and mix all the items, that you set them over the boiling water, and here's why I haven't made it recently, you have to whisk it continually for 15 minutes.

Several chapters of my current audiobook. My whole upper body was whining by the time it thickened and I whisked in the butter. I'd had a mason jar boiling quietly away, sterilizing, to receive the curd.

And finally I got it done, and this is the entire amount:

The texture,after cooling in the fridge a while was fine, just right for spreading.

So I tasted it, thinking this better be worth it.

Whereupon there was a blast of trumpets in my mouth, and I remembered exactly why this is worth all those pesky assemblings and separatings, and whiskings and cursings, and holding your aching ribs.

No, neighbors are not getting any of this. Handsome Son will get lemon curd tarts and tea when he visits Saturday. But it is totally a five star, reserve edition, curd.

In fact, it's not bad.

In other news, the family across the street suddenly felled a 40 foot tree, no idea why, perfectly healthy.

This is what's left.  All hands to the pump. One man doing most of the work, the others issuing commands.

I noticed this when I went out to check on the situation with the condenser pipe of my central air conditioner. In a climate like NJ with hot and very humid summers, not cooling below 75f even overnight, it's vital that the moisture wrung out of the house get safely away. Hence the pipe sticking out of the exterior wall.

It is usual to install this pipe above grade, for obvious reasons. However the builders of this development buried mine. So every spring I go and riddle it out, removing debris, or the condensation would back up and come through the living room ceiling. This has happened to neighbors who didn't know about unblocking it.

We also have a very high water table all year round, and our torrential rains have raised it more. I found the pipe under several inches of water. Oh.

Sooooo, I dug  and bailed, and chucked mud around until I'd reduced the water level to where the pipe began to flow nicely, and removed debris.

It's pretty tricky digging below ground level, quite tiring. But it's done for now. I notice the hole is filling up again. So the bailing may become a feature of life around here. I did have a picture, but I thought it'd be repulsive in the same post as the lemon curd..

And, not being very quick on these things, it occurs to me that it's not surprising my ribs are tired, what with piecing and whisking and digging. Hadn't added it all up till now.

It's nine pm. I'm taking the rest of the day off.

A sighting and a harvest

This afternoon just feeling a bit dull, too hot to walk, when I noticed a bit of activity on the patio.

Thinking goldfinches maybe or butterflies, both in short supply this year, I peered out, and saw, wheee a hummingbird! First this year. That instantly cheered me up, and reminded me to see if my container of potatoes was ready to lift yet.

And they were, couple of good meals there. They're the golden skinned, not Yukon, something else, which roast wonderfully with that cheese crust I like. 

These grew from a small potato with eyes I planted a few weeks ago. I'm surprised they didn't rot in the endless rainstorms.

So the day suddenly improved quite dramatically.

Artisanal afternoon break

Scene: indoors, mid-afternoon, July, temp in mid nineties, feels even hotter, who cares, once it gets up there, might as well be 150f.
 

Break from morning at knitting group, afternoon home again, piecing.

Homemade everything: lemonade, whole wheat bread, yogurt cheese, apricot preserves. Puffick!

Honesty harvest

So the seasons being all mixed up this year, pansies still blooming which are usually gone early May, daylilies bang on schedule, Rose of Sharon two months ahead, honesty likewise, I thought I'd check the potatoes and the honesty.

Potatoes not ready, late this year, honesty ready to harvest for lovely addition to everlasting flowers, and for replanting the seeds.

,

I love gently rubbing the seedpods to expose that silver disc, and the seeds embedded in it.

So that's today's gardening in the short time I can be out in the heat.

Also happy to announce the departure, as of yesterday,  of a huge and ugly dead limb on my wild cherry, courtesy of next door neighbor, on condition I kept the rest of the tree. He hates to cut, but wanted to help me.

Original plan was to have yet another friend,  in the tree business,  fell the whole thing and just leave the suckers coming up from the roots. Then his sister, who's a neighboring friend, would have the wood for lovely cherry fires.

But his sick wife and desperate home situation made it impossible. This was the fallback. And now I can see it, it's better than removing the whole trunk. It won't fall on me now that fifteen foot dead bit is gone.

I've been nervous for ages in case this came down on me, having had a near thing with the previous branch after a storm. This gnarly dead old branch reached right across the patio.

Now it's cherry firewood for another neighbor, husband of the sister of the tree feller (both senses), if you follow me,  helped with the cutting and hauling away. Same fireplace, different route to it.

It looks a whole lot better now. And I set up shepherds' crooks for birdfeeders so they won't suffer from the departure of that limb.

I also note that squirrels have been totally unable to turn the feeder round two full turns to get it off the crook. And the split ring keeps it locked. They still feed but nobody gets to snaffle the entire feeder and drag it away so I have to search for it under the trees.

Then last night Handsome Son took us to the local Fourth of July fireworks, postponed because of wild storms last weekend. Lovely evening, great display, including some unofficial ones going off at a local business. Surround sound effects.

This has been a nice, if hot, weekend.

Musings on craft ales and other summer preoccupations

Since it's definitely summer now, high temps, high humidity and thunderstorms, I have switched to pale ale.

Wine works better for me with hot food.

And I've made a a couple of happy discoveries. One is that a glass of ale goes down very friendly, with no agonizing rolling about an hour later, which is why I abandoned my nice glass of red each evening some time ago.

The other is that craft drinks come with their own literature. Get this:

People seriously write this. I thought it was only wine that inspired these purple passages, but it turns out ale does too. Strikes me as a bit beyond the pale..malty undertones shaking hands with the hop character. All sounds a bit Bertie Wooster to me.

Perfect timing since I'm rereading for the nth time Less Than Angels, my favorite of all Pyms, where collecting wine booklets becomes a bond between Catherine Oliphant and an unlikely suitor. I definitely see her point.

My summer entertainment is all set. I wish now I'd noted the similar flowery prose on the craft ale Handsome Son and I had to celebrate his late father's birthday. I could have started my own collection.

I'm easily amused!

Apricot preserves 2019

The farmer's market tweet this morning mentioned peaches and apricots. So I thought I'd better get over there, since the apricot season is only days long. This year has not been kind to fruit. Rain, cold nights, not enough sunshine to sweeten them.

So I got a container of each while the getting's good. Peaches can sit a couple of days to get riper. I tasted an apricot, hm. Better for jam than for eating raw.

Around here, to think is to do, so apricot preserves happened.

Sugar, lemon juice, apricots cooking, jars boiling in the background.

Unstirdownable mass here. This is where you're glad you used a big pan.

And lovely jewel-like results. There's a bit more, in a yogurt container, less glam.

And now I'm off to read the latest Donna Leon.

Handsome partner's birthday

Andy Adams, June 27, 1932 -- August 8, 2011.

I like to celebrate his birthday as a remembrance rather than the day he died, which is our son's birthday. So I keep that day for Handsome Son.

And Andy's favorite of all fruit was the strawberry, I remember the total enjoyment each year,  when he had the first of the season.

Dosa coda

I froze half of the batter, to see if it freezes. And it does. Thawed it out and

 had two dosas and a fried egg for breakfast. Crisp edges, cooked middle, really good.  Just passing it on.

Handsome son trying out dosas this evening

Here's the stuffing, yellow potatoes with mustard seeds, salt, chili powder, mushrooms, onions, hot Italian sausage.


Cooked on top of the stove, to be finished in the oven while the dosas heat through.

And the dosas ready to reheat and fill.

Just a snack, really,  not a dinner, but not bad anyway.  And any leftover stuffing will come in handy for me.

Bumper June cherry harvest

I've had cherry bushes on the patio for years. Sometimes they fruit, reluctantly.

This is the entire 2019 crop.  For them it's a bumper one. Everything's relative.

I could eat one a day and have a week long season.

Dosas, part two. whoa!

Today I did the potato stuffing. Yellow Idaho, like Yukon gold, I think, nuked five minutes to get tender. Cut up, too tender to dice.

 Meanwhile in olive oil, chopped onion, mushrooms, in fresh ground methi (fenugreek), turmeric, salt, mustard seeds, chili powder, sizzling nicely, tipped in potatoes and added more olive oil. 

Turned to get all the moving parts mixed while it heated through. While the dosas reheated in the iron pan on top of the stove. I also toasted them a couple of minutes to get crisp edges.

Spooned in the potato mixture, rolled it shut, took a picture quick before it was history.

One of these is very filling. And aside from healthful spices, you get potatoes, mushrooms, onions, rice and lentils. Checking off a few boxes.

Dosas, my version

I was just thinking about Indian food, and leafing through an Indian cookbook, and realized I had the makings of dosas, right in the kitchen. Always a good point.

Dosas are south Indian crisp pancakes you roll up with some spicy filling.

I more or less winged the prep, used up my remaining couple of cups of basmati and jasmine brown rice, and a couple of cups of red lentils. Soaked them for a couple of hours. Added in a very nontraditional egg, but traditional turmeric, salt, cumin, chili powder. Blended all this together, then left it in the fridge overnight. It's a thin batter.

Then today I made a couple for lunch, rolled around spicy chicken, and they were fine. Not as crisp as normal, probably because I added the egg, but fine.

Done in medium cast iron pan, oiled, over high heat, couple of minutes each. I'm thinking of making all the batter into dosas, and freezing the extras, just to see if it works.

Meanwhile tomorrow I'll have them with a spicy potato filling, more traditional. And I'm wondering about other fillings. If you have any ideas, please comment.

Books I have readed

I read a lot but only occasionally feel moved to recommend books.

Here are a couple worth your time:

Noreen Crone-Findlay you may know from YouTube, very appealing presenter.

Here's her book about bags, entertaining and very well written, illustrated, and generally presented.

It comes in an ebook too, but I can't work from e-books, can't see several places at once, refer back and forward, so paper is my choice. This one you really can work from, and it's just fun to read anyway.

Then a new discovery, though not a new writer. This is a really great mystery, with a cast of actual characters, not just puzzle pieces. Set in the first world war, in London, some excellent women protagonists, really well plotted.

Just one problem:this just came out, and it's the first of the series. So I have to wait till she writes another.

And, since it's Bloomsday, I made my annual Kindle visit to Ulysses. As you see, I'm getting there.

Visiting kitties

So, next door has an infestation of moths or something. They're bombing the upstairs. So the two resident dogs and two visiting cats need to be elsewhere for now.

After much calendar comparing, we decided today at 10am I could stand by for boarders.

Now these are beloved people and I know from experience that timing is not their strength. Another family member was supposed to get the dogs away by 10, then the cats could be captured and carried over. Just from next door. Right.

At 11 the relative arrived, seized the chance to visit and to load the grandchild's little bicycle, then the dogs. That took a while.

Then the capturing of the cats took  another while.

So, near noon, we're all set. Maui and Finny do not approve, but they've stopped howling now, and have taken up their stations, one at the patio checking the same view as theirs next door, one on the top step of the second flight.  They already tested the view from the front door and the landing.

Nice to have them here. They've decided to just tolerate it all. They won't accept their regular treats from me, because you're not my mom, you don't know how to do it.

New mantel, old wood

Several months ago I asked my contractor friend to look out for a nice piece of seasoned old wood to build me a mantel. I really wanted a mantel, years since I had one.

So he kept it in mind, then last week came dashing across the street to show me a marvelous old mahogany shelf. Probably about 75 years old, taken out of a house on the market, heirs wanted a wallful of shelves gone. He works with a realtor on situations like this.

I knew he'd find something, and he'd know what I like. So a blizzard of texts and pix happened at each stage of deciding.

And here's the result. He got the shelf, apron and five corbels all out of one piece. Beautiful warm mahogany. Works a treat.

Now I have to spruce up the living room to live up to it!

Farm to fork!

Stopped at the farm on the way home, and added freshpicked lettuce and raspberries to my lunch of local mushrooms, pasture raised egg and roasted Yukon gold potatoes in a crust of parmigiano reggiano.

Early summer

Ants in the kitchen, strawberries in at the farm.

A Month in the Country, J.L.Carr

I just found this, and wondered what took me so long.

Short, a novel that reads like poetry, a wonderful piece of writing. 

A survivor of WWI  trench warfare, after the war, still in recovery, gets a project to uncover a medieval fresco in a village in the East Riding of Yorkshire. It's a Summer's work.  And it's so much more.

It's about trauma, about being in the presence of great art, about history and transience. And it's funny, on top of everything else.

Just read it.

Irises, heirloom and reblooming

The purple and white are from the farm of a friend's grandmother, who inherited them from her mom.

The white and the blue are reblooming, and are only just finding their feet after two years. With luck, they'll bloom again in the fall.

Taken five minutes ago.

And is there honey still for tea?

Quotation, beloved nostalgic poem about England, from the trenches. Followed by the Peter Sellars' skit: 'oney's orf,dear!

All flashing through my ragbag of a mind as I put out afternoon tea, English breakfast, strong, scones hot from the oven, walnut and choc bit, homemade raspberry jam.

Midst shot and shell and political attacks on my sisters, afternoon tea still helps.

Cookerama

So it was windy and rainstormy and I had to go out anyway. So when I got back all wet and tired,  I was a little peckish.

And thought, it's cold enough for soup even if it is mid May. So I started a pot, tomatoes, garlic, scallions, bits of stuff from the freezer marked soup makings, chickpeas.

And since I had finished up all the bread, I thought maybe I should make those Jack Monroe crumpets, now that the special rings have arrived.

And after I'd mixed up the batter and put it to rise, I thought, as I put the flour back in the freezer, why not use the rest of the frozen raspberries I just put the flour next to, to make jam for the crumpets..

See how the crumpet rings work, like egg poaching rings.

Which is how it came to pass that I ended up timing soup, spooning in crumpets, 12 minutes per batch, sterilizing lid and jar, while stirring jam so it didn't burn. All at once.

I did stop for a bowl of soup to keep up my strength.

And now I have a large quantity of excellent soup, a pot of jam, and enough crumpets for several breakfasts and teatimes. The kitchen is clean. I am lying down writing this.

Marcella Hazan's all purpose Swiss army knife sauce

Just finished that recipe and it turns out to be the Swiss army knife of sauces.

Had it at first as prescribed, over pasta. Then realized that the tomato chunks I'd left in made it great for bruschetti. Pieces of whole grain bread, toasted, chunks spread on, excellent snack. Then over cheese and onion (the onion that had been cooked in it, saved) and ham, toasted, lunch.

Then today the rest of it, chicken thighs and chicken garlic sausage, baked for 45 minutes at 400f, then the sauce added, back to oven for ten minutes, very good (two) meals.

I'd say this was worth doing.