Thanksgiving evening.

Son gone home after a lovely day. Great food and chat, and video we slept through. Nice texts from friends.

Handsome Son always brings the cheeses and crackers to start, ginger ale, and the dessert. I do the bit in the middle.

Then, when he leaves, we have the Great Holiday Shareout. He  leaves me some pie, cheese and crackers, and I give him turkey, stuffing, sweet potato and cranberry sauce, so he has the makings of another meal. He turns down the peas and corn, already had his quota of them.

And now it's me and the bear in the corner, vegging out. Dishes can wait till tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone who celebrates today. Happy Thursday to everyone else.

Art starts off the Christmas season

Yesterday two artworks arrived here.

One is a handmade unique cookie from Petra's unique cookies, the other a wonderful crazy quilted artcard from Mary Anne of Magpie's Mumblings fame.

Lovely. The card will be treasured forever, the cookie not so much.

Bread, new twist

No pic, you've seen bread before. It's just that this time I put two cups of oats with the 5.5 cups of whole-wheat, and shook in some fennel seeds.

Really good idea. I've used oats before. It doesn't rise as much as with all flour, but it's dense and very good, great crust. And the fennel seeds, never used them before, are a great licorice flavor, very light, and really interesting. I'd reached for caraway seeds, found I had none, and tried these.

I'll do this again. Cheese toasted on slices for supper was very worth eating.

Two words. Kate Atkinson

The latest, a JacksonBrodie.Unputdownable.

For me, a bonus location, the Northeast coast of Yorkshire, recognized practically all of the scenery in a terrifying, great, narrative of human trafficking, heroines, dogs, incompetence, justice sometimes happening outside the law.

Just read it.

Salt, fat, acid, heat and I

I've been hearing about this for a while, in fact I know of a entire course created as a result of a local great cook reading it, and thought I'd take a look.

It's this month's book selection for the Bite Club, run by the aforementioned great cook, who's a reference librarian by day.

And, by gum, it's as transformative as they say. I've just read the section on salt and already I've decided about the Thanksgiving turkey breast prep. I'm going to brine and spice it.  And, to read  is to act around here, I tested my new salt knowledge  with my nightly cup of cocoa.

I always use the real cocoa the kind in the can where the complete list of ingredients is: cocoa.  And a pinch of turmeric, honey, whole milk powder. And this time I used sea salt, coarse. And remembered to taste it after each few grains.

It was a whole lot more interesting than the unsalted kind I've always made. I figured that since salt on dark chocolate is great, this might be, too.  Try it. It's good.

And there's a lot more to salting than I realized. I like kosher salt for a lot of use, coarse seasalt and pink salt too, rarely use iodized, don't like the aftertaste. And we can get iodine from other foods. But now I'm learning a lot more about using it.

So I thought I'd just say.

Shopping in the closet, again

Needed a jacket, decided, after studying catalogs, not necessary to shop. I had this one, up to last night a v neck sweater, nice cashmere, from the thriftie. I've worn it quite a bit.

Now it's a jacket, just cut down the front. I thought about a silk edge binding, using Indian sari silk, but decided it didn't need it. So here's my new jacket.

I don't like taking sweaters off over my head at meetings etc., so this joins my little wardrobe of Nice Handy Comfy Jackets.

I've done this in the past to alter turtleneck sweaters which are hopeless for meetings where you never know how hot the room might be, and they became really useful.

DIY meets wabi sabi

This all started when a mosquito bit my ear, it swoll up real bad, the ear, that is, well I guess the mosquito too, come to think of it. By the time the ear had gone down enough to put in earrings, the piercing had healed up along with the bite.

So I'm looking for ways of converting pierced earrings to clip ons, and there are findings you can use for that. Which took me up to the studio to rummage through my jewelry findings, just in case I had any, which I didn't, have to buy some

And I noticed a supply of gold metallic paint while I was rummaging, which reminded me of a wabi sabi approach to several areas of my bathroom needing repainting.

This is where a squirrel bit into the roof and chewed through a condensation pipe above the ceiling,a caused a leak and exploratory cutting into the ceiling to find and  fix it.

This is where Andy long ago fell getting out of the shower, clutched at the towel rail on his way down, it tore out of the wall and hit his head, insult to injury. That's when I had all the towel rails replaced with ADA-compliant grab bars, which I strongly recommend.

And this is the access port I had cut into the wall which backs onto the shower in the other bathroom, which reduced s subsequent plumbing visit dramatically since I had it open, found the leak and it was fixed very fast. But it needs painting, not very scenic. Bare wallboard.

I'm not up to painting entire rooms at this point, but I think painting just the bits where repairs were done, might work. And rather than buy a gallon of paint for a couple of square feet, why not make it a wild contrast, enjoying the imperfection instead? Art instead of  matching.

So this may happen tomorrow.

Bread, security food

Today the just in time bread, only one slice left from previous batch, is whole wheat, with one cup each oatmeal and unbleached white.

The white lightens the texture of the crumb, and the oatmeal makes a lovely crisp but not hard crust.

Toasted, with butter and honey, lovely with a cup of tea.

I always feel more secure with bread in the house. What's your security food? The one you really don't want to run out of?

Dogs and pumpkins, perfect together

The NJ tourist motto is NJ and you, perfect together, spoken in the patrician voice of gov Kean, puhfect togethuh.

Gov Christie Whitman, thanks to whose TDR legislation this farm is permanently protected from developers, used to do a killer impression of him.

Anyway, today beautiful October day at the farm, pumpkin picking, and every dog owner seized on it as a great outing for pooches and their people. I must have seen a dozen dogs happily dragging their owners to the pumpkin patch.

I was in search of apples and tomatoes and broccoli and sweet potatoes, all picked this morning. Stocked up now.

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.