Freecycle for Dollivers

This is part of a freecycle haul, and it looks like one of those pictures of a family's entire possessions strewn in front of their home. Remember those?

Except that in this case it's handmade furniture and accessories headed chez Dolliver, and doesn't include their extensive wardrobes nor their dogs.

All the bedlinens and everything fabric is now in the laundry, the furniture damp dusted, and an old bookcase pressed into service as a habitat.

Quite a few tiny dolls and their stuff came too, but they're going to be part of the Christmas decor.

So here's the Dollivers, relaxing in the roof garden

While Canadian Doll,on her custom embroidered pillow is trying out the beds there. Angel Bear is guarding the new baby,  Little button and bobbin doll from Minnesota is galloping her new rocking horse.

Not much happening below in the dining room, not surprising since there's a total lack of interest in cooking as you see from the deserted kitchen.

Everyone's busy loafing in her own way.

Except boud who got no thanks for this labor, but loud requests for some more attention to the decor. Also Fall outfits.

To which I explained this is moving day , you can't expect Better Homes and Gardens the first day. Everyone got a seat, what do you want of my life?

Crumble, flowers, early fall

The Montauk daisies bloom very late, after you're sure they won't. And there's a lovely mound of them. A couple came in, with some creeping Jenny, posed on a very old rescued crochet doily.

And the farm fruit, last peaches, blackberries and apples, in a crumble for dinner tomorrow with Handsome Son.

Roast chicken, spicy, with sweet potato mashed and buttered, lovely cheese cauliflower head. The farm is serving us well.

Rescue food

Handsome Son visited yesterday, and  brought over a bag of organic, fancy chips, vinegar flavor, which turned out to be waaaay too salty, in case I could use them.

So I offered to crush them, bread chicken with them, bake, and see how it worked. Very well, as it happened.

This is one section of then. Two more lots in the freezer.

Used as the only seasoning, the chips mellowed down to very good. As you see, they were very crackly and couldn't reduce to crumbs. So they're crunchy and very good.

He'll come over when I'm over this cold and have time and energy to make a fruit crumble, with apples from the farm, and we'll address it all together.

This is supposed to be a sick day. I've baked a raft of chicken, rescued herbs from drying up outside, taken out the garbage, brought in the mail, finished a stitching project and cleaned the stovetop.

Aside from that, I've just been loafing about.  It's evening now and I'm definitely taking the rest of the day off.

9.11

Vicks plant, cutting from friend's garden, flourished last summer in my garden, then caught and felled by an early frost.

Except for one tiny leaf. Which I tended indoors over the winter, put outside this year, and it's now almost as big as the parent, and doing well.

I brought it indoors early this year. Today, in fact.

It seems appropriate.

It must be Fall, there's brambles

Local farm grown known hereabouts as blackberries, but to me they're brambles. Local farm Honeycrisp apples.

First crumble of the Fall. Bramble and apple. Fruit macerated days ago and frozen ready. Oatmeal topping, which I ground today and chucked in whole oatmeal flakes too. Molasses and just a bit of white sugar. Butter to bind the crumble.

Afternoon tea on a cool rainy day. Crumble with plain yogurt. English breakfast tea.

Continuing mystery why people don't cook for one. Some for neighbors, for handsome son if he visits, to have a little something in the afternoon, to freeze for later.  All fresh ingredients, because I'm worth it.

Back to watching Grantchester now. Rewatching.

Major highway, aka Autumn Joy sedum

This season, the sedum is heaving with bees, several species, all kinds of other insects, several kinds of butterflies.

Here's  one of my favorites, a dusky swallowtail, a ragged old guy whose wings have seen better days. He's spent most of the morning on this sedum.

Walking is happening again

Now that the weather is cooler, 70sf, I can get out and walk for my half hour daily meander. Everything feels better when I can get out without risking heatstroke.

Bit of gardening, deadheading, pulled an armload of daylily foliage, and observed, outside the fence, this hardy soul.

The pansies bloomed from April to August through all the heatwaves, undeterred, then when they finally wilted, I put the pot outside the fence for the winter. And now she seems to be saying hey, not so fast!

Brown butterflies around, too, I've forgotten what they are for the moment.

And a great half hour walk, mostly on grass, some sidewalk, past groups of families putting kids on the bus for their first day. New shoes, backpacks, grandparents, parents, dogs, everyone seeing them off.

Funny how for the rest of your life, September is about going back to school. Even when you are only an innocent bystander, which I'm happy to be. Not even teaching a workshop, despite strenuous efforts to get me to.  Just doing what I feel like.

Wheeeee!!

If it's Bad Food, it must be a holiday!

Labor Day weekend under way. So, in keeping with a long Adams tradition, it's Bad Food.

Never on the menu at other times, but it's lovely now and then. Hot dog, relish mustard, chips.

Now I'm going to demolish it. Bon appetit, everyone.

Coda, apple turnovers

After the recent pie caper, there was a little chunk of leftover pastry, which I put in the freezer for possible apple turnovers.

So they happened today. Only enough pastry for three, but enough filling left over for a nice dessert, with a spoonful of sour cream, gala apples, seasoned with nutmeg, cinnamon, molasses, lemon juice.  Eaten with a cup of strong Vietnamese coffee, on the patio, to accompany reading, lovely afternoon.

Meanwhile back at the cooling rack the turnovers clearly staging some sort of protest, look at those expressions!

Did they think it was a poor substitute for being excluded from the pie? Not sure I like angry turnovers.

Pie run complete

One piece for afternoon tea, piecing in the background for now.

 Two pieces in the fridge. The rest wrapped and frozen for future reference. Probably next visit of Handsome Son.

The fact I thought I'd better freeze some indicates that this is seriously good, and needing restraint on my part.

Pie happened

So a friend who decided she'd never use it,gave me a ready-made piecrust thing. I'd never used it before, so that was interesting. I'm a good pastry maker when I can be pestered to do it. Not a brag,  just a fact of having naturally cool, dry hands. So I haven't used ready made before, but okay, trying it.

And since I had some gala apples and ripe peaches, it seemed like a nice two-season pie idea.

I did macerating a la Rose Birnbaum, where you season the fruit, with the usual sugar,nutmeg,cinnamon, cornstarch, lemon juice and let the juices flow for an hour.

Then you drain the fruit, catch the liquid and reduce it to about half,  as you see above on the stove, thereby raising the flavor from one to five stars, then pour the reduction back over the fruit in the pie crust. Then you put the lid on.

It's really worth the extra step. Much better than putting all the same seasoning in then baking right away.

Then you go off and do useful things, or not, as it bakes at 425f. I even remembered to put the foil around the edges so they wouldn't brown too fast.

And here we go.

Post-it posse underway

I've been assigned millennials in a shore town to write to, with vbm paperwork, which I download and print out,encouraging post-it notes, and handwritten envelopes.

stamps, check,ow, envelopes, check, Post-It notes, check, forms downloaded and printed out for the appropriate county, check, instructions studied in case they changed since last time, check, printer cartridges ordered, ow, check.

We're officially under way. These millennials are registered voters, so they're already ahead of the game.

I'm one of many volunteers working with Action Together NJ on this push. We succeeded in making the blue wave in 2018, so we have to keep up the momentum, and not flag. There's a lot at stake.

And if you'd like to help, this volunteer on a modest fixed income would welcome a few $$ towards the cost.

If you can be active locally in getting out the vote, please do. And those readers in other countries -- your moral support is also welcome, never underestimate the value of an encouraging word.

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.