I'm So Excited....

I'm 62, people. What gets me excited these days is spending the entire day getting my studio organized. When we moved into this house a year and a half ago I just sort of unpacked the cardboard boxes in my studio and put stuff . . . where ever. Cuz I was sick to death of looking at cardboard boxes in general (they still make me nervous). I did manage to get my fabric and beads more or less organized since that stuff is all on open shelves and more or less follows the organization of the studio in our old house. But everything else? Including books? Fagetaboutit.

But now?! Ah! MUCH better! Still not finished, but I made major progress today, especially in regards to all things basic equipment, polymer clay, paint/dye, and paper. Threw out a bunch of stuff. Recycled another bunch of stuff. Passed on some plastic containers to someone else since I now have drawers. The end is in sight. All my paper scissors are together. All my paints are together. All my paper is sorted and organized and together. And so on and so forth. As you might expect, I found a lot of stuff I'd been looking for, and even more stuff that I didn't know I had. It was like shopping. It was like Christmas.

I also hung the wonderful Cindy Dubber "believe/love" collage that I "won" from her recently. Cindy thinks I won it. I think that her creative spirit worked through the universe to send me a message.

Speaking of which, today's Devotional project was introspective. I considered the specific, unique DNA that sparks my creativity. Oddly enough, I pretty much know what this is. Let's put it this way: Gee's Bend quilts. Those images sum up my own strand of creative DNA about as well as anything I can think of. It's funny, because I don't live in a mid-century modern type of environment, although as I think of it, this house probably does reflect my creative individuality as well as anything.

Otherwise, Rhonda and Laurie cleaned today. God bless them. I'm so grateful for them and the wonderful way they care for our house. Then Randy and I went out for pizza. And football. On TV, I mean.

Some Surprising Information

I make microloans through Kiva. I started doing this after reading _Half the Sky_. While we were in Peru, our trip leader dug out some interesting information that makes me very glad I loan.

Gross National Income Per Capita in US Dollars:

USA - $33,070

Mexico - $5,778

Peru - $1,898

Guatemala - $1,629

Bolivia - $911

Otherwise, I got 2 classes of supplies cleaned out, sorted and organized in my studio today: coloring agents and paper. Since it's after midnight and I'm tired, you won't get any more information out of me than that. I also got my desk significantly cleaned off of stuff I don't need every day to make stuff. Shasta Sue Latte and Stuart Little provided personal assistance.

We went out for lunch at Fig. They had just made fresh pasta. I had mine "alfredo" with some seriously garlicky garlic bread. Oh yum. Lots of leftovers for dinner. God bless leftovers.

Renewal is On a Roll

Cleaned the kitties' water bowls and food bowls yesterday morning. No small task since it also involves taking apart and thoroughly cleaning their little water fountain. Then I ran a bunch of errands, culminating in a consultation with my new oral surgeon. The Tooth has got to go, we all agree. As we studied the X-ray, he showed me in great detail why. He listened to me, bless his heart. That's the most important thing. The upshot is that the tooth with be removed, in pieces, next Tuesday while I (ta-da!) am totally out cold under general anesthesia. I'm scared to death. Don't know why. I've had teeth removed, while awake, 2 or 3 times. I've been under general anesthsia at least 6 times now. But, I'm scared. Still, I feel somewhat relieved now that the decision is made, the date set, and I've met the dentist and his nurse.

Afterwards I saw Natalie Portman in _Black Swan_. I have a mixed reaction to the movie itself, but I relate to Nina's need to be perfect, which quickly led to her mental breakdown and suicide. I so suffer from that damned perfectionism, too. I'm remembering something Anita Myer, a wonderful weaver, always says -- that if you don't fail at least half the time, you aren't taking enough risks. I like to think of it as, "If I don't f--- up at least once in awhile, I'm not trying hard enough." Which is, of course, a more stressful way to think of it. More perfectionist. Still, it helps.

I'm also doing a little work with _The Crafter's Devotional: 365 Days of Tips, Tricks, and Techniques for Unlocking Your Creative Spirit_ by Barbara R. Call. This is cool. It's what prompted me to drag and and re-energize my Big Black Art Journal Monday. I skipped yesterday. Not ready to tackle yesterday's entry and too busy with the dentist anyway. Today I get to drag out my Lion King and Bambi coloring books, my crayons, and just color! Cool. Works right in with continuing studio organization and de-cluttering.

Back to work/play!!

Renewal

I tend to feel quite upbeat once Christmas is over. It's New Year's!! Time for new beginnings, or at least renewals. And Monday, too. I hit the ground running this morning after a good night's sleep.

I did Round One of pantry cleaning and reorganization. Did the laundry. Ordered my/our new Christmas Breville stand mixer. Sent out some thank you cards and emails, and a birthday card to my step-father-in-law. His birthday is January 1 and I usually remember it on January 2.

Drug out my art journal and got it cranked up again. Worked on finishing the bunch of folding origami books I've been making. Did some repairing/reorganizing in my studio. AND, made pumpkin soup. Which was, I must say, incredibly good. Not to mention that it used up a can of pumpkin that has been in the pantry forever. Seriously. It got moved from Los Osos, and I know it had been there for a l-o-n-g time.

Of course I never accomplish as much in a day as I think I should, or as much as I planned, or as much as I would want. But, today wasn't too bad anyway.

Christmas in All Its Consumptive Glory

You can make of that title what you want.

"Whadja git fer Xmas?" A new TV for the kitchen. A 20-incher that mounts on a swing arm on the wall, so you can turn it to face the dining room, too. So I can watch TV while I cook, especially the news. Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera. This was part of the house plan all along, but now, God bless my Dear Husband, it is a done deal. Yeah!!

A new stand mixer which I will order later tonight. A Breville. From Australia. Cupcakes, here I come.

An unbelievable ruana that was actually purchased in Peru. Handspun wool and alpaca. All natural dyes. Woven on a backstrap loom. Hand joined and edged. Unbelievably fine fiber art.

Chocolate. Nuts. Cookies. Fruitcake. A sweater. Some weird stuff, which apparently is part of the Happy Season.

Dear Husband got wine glasses and promises. And homemade granola. And chocolate. Nuts. Cookies. Fruitcake. Socks and a shirt. No weird stuff.

Christmas dinner with friends was a 4-course affair. I took curried couscous and the best lamb tagine I've made to date. After which several of us went to see _True Grit_. An Oscar nomination for Jeff Bridges for sure. I love it. But then again, I love everything the Cohen brothers do.

Did I mention that I saw _127 Hours_ last week?? NEVER go hiking without telling someone where you're going and when you're turning. And if you do, take water and a VERY SHARP KNIFE.

Today?? A lot of pick-up, clean-up, put away. Reading. Petting cats. Making granola for Randy. Turns out that making granola is not as easy as one might at first guess. This will take a number of batches to master. Pity.

Dinner With Wayne & Scott

Pork Shoulder Braised with Dried Chilis - pg. 139

Roasted Root Vegetables - pg. 116

Dear friends Wayne and Scott stopped for dinner Monday night on their way from home base in Berkeley to San Diego where they will spend Christmas with Wayne's mom. Another excuse to cook, and an opportunity to test the "entertain" waters.

Since I still had nearly all the ingredients, I reprised the Ina Garten wild rice salad. Just had to buy some more wild rice which, as things turned out, was on sale at New Frontiers. Being fresher, it cooked up a little better. I also just happened to have exactly 8 stilton and walnut crackers left. So much for the 1st course.

For the second course, I took liberties with 2 Alice recipes. I braised a pork shoulder roast, but used leftover Trader Joe's carrot/ginger soup for most of the braising liquid, adding a little water just at the very end. One of the chilis was the prescribed dried chipotle, but lord knows what the other 2 were. The whole thing was very good in any event. Nice "piquent" sauce to pour over the rather dull (IMHO) meat.

I have become quite a fan of oven roasted vegetables. Very quick. Very easy. Dependably wonderful. At last, I'm checking off "Roasted Root Vegetables" on pg. 116. Alice's offering calls for carrots, celery root, and parsnips. Celery root just can't be found around here. The only ones I've come across were in Berkeley. OTOH I've now made other medleys of oven-roasted veggies at least a dozen times, so I'm going to call the technique mastered. Monday night's offering included carrots, red potatoes, sweet potatoes, golden beets and brussels sprouts. Oh yum!

(I'm becoming so much more confident in my cooking skills. I'm even willing to take some liberties with TAOSF, especially if it involves using leftovers from the frig or ancient things from the pantry.)

Dessert was way too simple-- Tom's wonderful cookies and candies that he sent home with us last Thursday. He did all the work and got all the credit. Oh yum, again.

86 recipes completed; 219 to go

The Latest Neighborhood Dinner Party (s)

We have a core of 3 couples out here at the end of Corona Road who are serious foodies. Tom G. is, without doubt, the best and most enthusiastic cook among us and our unofficial leader. We get together periodically for dinner parties which are evolving into participatory feasts. Sometimes it's just the 6 of us. Sometimes others are invited, too.

Before Randy and I went to South America, I was relating my pitiful attempt to make ravioli to the group. I had tried to roll out the dough by hand. Can't be done, unless you are the Incredible Hulk. Tom immediately offered to hold a ravioli party to teach us all the finer points of pasta making. Thursday night was the night.

Tom made the dough and a 4-cheese filling ahead of our arrival, then got all of us involved. Randy and I rolled out the dough and passed it to Bruce who cut out circles. Pat piped in the filling. Sharon dampened the "outskirts" of the dough rounds so Steve could put on the pasta tops and seal them up. Tom supervised this whole operation while Marie cheered us on. Altogether we made about 3 dozen nice fat round raviolis. All of this hard work was, of course, accompanied by Pat and Bruce's antipasti course and Italian sparkling wine. Did I mention that Tom is also a major wine expert? (I'm not.)

At which point I plated up my salad offering and to the table we went. I made a wild rice salad accompanied by stilton walnut crackers. Both recipes are in Ina Garten's latest cookbook. The cracker recipe is also, I know, on the internet. I was intrigued by the whole notion of a savory shortbread type cracker that was actually "hand crafted." They were pretty easy to make. Everyone liked them. The salad was well received, too. Tom commented favorably on the texture of the wild rice, which I appreciated since Randy just had to tell me when we got home that the rice was undercooked. It wasn't. Tom had a white wine perfectly chilled for the salad course.

Then we had our raviolis, topped with a pork ragout, basil chiffonade, and parmesan. Well, they were absolutely delicious! We were all impressed and inspired. The red wine for this course was something that had been served at the White House recently, although I can't tell you anything more about it. Okay, one thing. It was exceptionally good.

Steve and Sharon, with Tom's assistance, quickly made a zabaglione dessert. Served with perfect fresh raspberries and a chocolate dipped biscotti. And more sparkling wine. O.M.G.

If that wasn't enough, Tom and Marie sent all of us home with huge baskets filled with 8 different kinds of homemade Christmas cookies and candies. This afternoon Randy and I inhaled the brown butter cookies topped with black salt and white sea salt.

Now, if you can imagine it, we went to a Christmas party at Pat and Bruce's home last night, too! This was a party for the people Pat works with, a wonderful group of respiratory therapists and other health care folks, God bless them all. Everyone brought something to add to the buffet spread that Pat and Bruce had prepared. As you might imagine, the offerings were wonderful and we ate like kings and queens for a second night. We won't do too badly tonight at home, either, since the frig is full of leftovers.

So, my most recent cooking adventures have been from Ina Garten. But, do not worry. I haven't abandoned the Alice project. This afternoon I started a braised pork shoulder, coating it with a dry rub I made awhile back for ribs. The roast will just rest in the frig for a day or 2 before I braise it. I have apples and pears for a crisp or cobbler later, too. Leftovers first, I say.

Burp. Excuse me.

How to Avoid a December Resentment

I had to think about this one for 24 hours. Should I blog about this bizarre (IMHO) incident or not? No question that it's a whine, but those who know me well know that I have a lot of trouble limping through Decembers with my sanity more or less intact. I'm the first to admit that the problem is entirely mine. I would love to have a world-class birthday and a world-class Christmas. A merely acceptable New Year's Eve would be nice, too. However, I've never been surrounded by the sorts of people who would be necessary to make this happen. It's hard to celebrate alone. Not impossible, but hard. (Actually, I think the best Christmases I've had were the ones between marriages.)

In reality, I tend to be surrounded by people who cannot see any magic in the events of the season, who would prefer to be insulting, pick fights, and generally who tend to behave quite unmagically. It's a long story that reaches from the beginnings of my memory to the present moment, with some seriously nasty stops in between. So, I have learned to dial down my expectations to near absolute zero. My best defense has become to expect nothing, absolutely nothing. Worse yet, I set it up to be that way. Yessiree, the best offensive is a good defense. Or, the best defense is a good offense. Or something like that.

There IS one thing I shoot for, that I pray for: please don't insult me. Ignore me if you want. Discount me; I can live with that. Just don't be insulting, okay? Is that possible? Apparently not. It's fate.

Here's this year's story, as briefly as I can tell it. Talented craft group has a basically anonymous Christmas gift exchange. Rules are: something handmade or something a fiber artist could use. Value range is about $20, more or less. (One always hopes for more.) The gift I offered, tucked into a tissue-lined gold gift bag, was a handmade origami-style foldout book that can be a journal or scrapbook, and a box of upscale chocolates. What did I get when I selected my anonymous wrapped gift? Oh lord. A fabric gift bag. No gift. A gift bag. A WRAPPED gift bag, no less. Handmade, I'll admit, but nothing special. It took all my graciousness, assisted by a good shot of shock, not to blurt out, "Cool! Where's the gift?!" I didn't do it.

Now, I quickly figured out that to avoid developing a serious resentment against the woman who was so clueless as to offer up a gift bag rather than a gift, I knew I had to get rid of the damned thing ASAP. I had to release it to the universe, like, NOW. Seriously. I was insulted. Thirty five real gifts were exchanged. And a gift bag. Can you just, please, not insult me world? Well, by the time I left the party, I had a plan.

Our local Art Museum annually holds a Holiday Craft Market for its member to sell their wares. I took the gift bag to the Market and gave it to the staff to offer as a freebie to someone buying something from the Market. Good-bye gift bag. I then searched the Market for something for me and found a delightful mixed-media book on the subject of . . . (you can see this one coming, can't you?) . . . cats! Thus, I traded the gift bag for a real and wonderful handmade gift, putting money into the hands of the artist who made it AND the Art Museum in the process.

I've sent the dreaded gift bag off into the universe to find a better home, one where it will be appreciated with the same spirit with which it was made and given. Whatever that is, because I swear I don't get it. Forever after I'll remember this particular gift exchange as the one where I took care of myself, shared a bit of my monetary wealth, and released a potential resentment into the universe. I love the woman who made and gave the gift bag. Seriously. And I kinda like me, too. (A lavender-honey gelato afterwards didn't hurt, either.)

Birthday Thoughts

Yesterday was my 62nd birthday. I'm not fond of getting old. But today I couldn't help but reflect that Elizabeth Edwards will never have a 62nd birthday. She could have done far more good in the world with a 62nd birthday than I will ever be able to do with mine. Life isn't fair. I would gladly have given my birthday to her.

But I did have a lovely birthday yesterday. Randy and I had lunch at McPhee's Grill in Templeton, one of my favorite restaurants and home of the world's best ice cream sundaes. Then we went up to Paso Robles and saw the latest Harry Potter movie. Randy even sprang for popcorn. After that, I lived a fantasy. We went to Pier One where I picked up a few little things that I wanted/needed. And Randy paid for everything! It pained him, but he did it. With only a tiny bit of grumbling. We topped off the festivities with lattes (chai for me) at Starbucks where I also indulged in one of their sinfully iced polar bear sugar cookies. Just a nice, pleasant day.

My Big Cooking Whoop today was to make a lamb tagine with a hunk of lamb I drug out of the freezer. (The freezer is over-full, so there will be a few mystery meat meals coming up.) I sort of followed a Martha Stewart recipe, but I thought the directions in a recent special issue of Fine Cooking, which I'd made a few months ago, were better, so I sorta winged it. Used apricots. I love to cook with fruit. I made couscous (never did that before, either) to go with it, adding raisins, cumin and cinamon. It was all pretty tasty. Wonder what the next mystery meat meal will be?

Why I Bought What I Bought in Peru and Bolivia

I just need to say this. With 28+ of us shopping in Peru, and 20+ continuing to redistribute American wealth in Bolivia, there were a bunch of different shopping strategies and goals at work in our tour group.

Some people espoused trying as often as possible to buy directly from the craftsmen and artisans. There's an argument for this, although too often, I think, tourists are also looking for a "bargain" by shopping this way. I'm kind of over the bargain-hunting and bargaining strategy in developing nations. I'll haggle a little bit, but not much. I do like putting money directly into the hands of the person who made the item in question, but that isn't often possible.

There are the dedicated bargain hunters. Give me a break. Everything our group members bought in Peru and Bolivia was a bargain no matter the price. Same can be said for handmade goods in this country. I weave. I know what's involved and what handwoven and other handmade things should cost. Craft in general is given away, especially since we've grown so used to cheap, cheap, cheap goods "Made in China". Give the weavers and other artisans in Latin America the money, people. We live lives that are so much more privileged than those in most other nations -- the differences are truly staggering. Give 'em the money.

Many of our shoppers collected some or a lot of old, vintage, and antique textiles. This I will not do. Peru and Bolivia have been through some dark economic and political times in recent decades. During those times many important heritage textiles were sold so that people could merely eat. More textiles, many of them pre-conquest and downright ancient, were cut up to use in making items like dolls, again just so that families could eat. I hate to see these people lose their heritage textiles, and it's not my place to guess which ones are important and which ones aren't so that I could buy only the unimportant old pieces. As lovely as they are with that patina of use and age, I couldn't bring myself to buy old textiles.

What I did want to do -- and this was my purchasing strategy -- was support and promote today's weavers and artisans as they work to keep their traditions alive. Often, I bought from cooperatives, museums, and shops because those institutions are the ones that are marketing and promoting traditional weaving. Weaving and other crafts cannot be kept alive by individuals marketing and selling their own work, each individually. They need to band together in cooperatives. They need to have their work actively promoted and sold in markets and shops where the tourists are, since the tourists aren't all going to get out into the countryside to visit individual artisans and obscure markets.

So, yes, I paid more than other shoppers in some cases, but I know I was supporting not only the weavers and artisans, but the institutions that are on the ground working with them to help them keep their crafts alive. Plus, it meant spreading some wealth to those retail workers, too, and supporting the shops and museums. I am delighted to have some traditional works that are also useful and relevant to our modern world and life styles. Sure, I missed out on some bargains, and passed up all those lovely vintage and antique treasures, but I've come home feeling really good about supporting today's weavers in a way that reflects some level of social justice.

Just a Nice Day

Yesterday, Saturday, was gloomy, cold, and a little rainy. In spite of the unseasonably cool, crumby weather (which has been going on for a few weeks now), it was just a nice day.

We skipped Farmers Market since we have plenty of produce in the frig from last weeks trip, and instead headed out to Las Pilitas Nursery which is in the middle of nowhere, but a lovely drive in the backcountry away, even under cloudy skies. Randy bought 50 1-gallon native chaparral plants to continue his restoration project on the west slope just away from the house.

I petted, and provided a warm lap for, the resident Las Pilitas cat, NiNi, who is alleged to be an unpredictable attack cat, but who has never been anything but sweet and gentle with me. Go figure. I always look forward to seeing NiNi. I think she's misunderstood.... By the way, she's a lovely long-haired brown tabby whose coat is in great shape in spite of spending so much time outdoors.

As long as we were halfway there, we continued on to the Pozo Saloon for a lunch of tri-tip sandwiches and chili beans. We hadn't been there for ages, and then only for Sunday breakfast, so we practically had the whole ancient place to ourselves and sat at the antique bar near the fire (a stove, not a fireplace). Kinda swell.

We came home and unloaded plants. Then, while RDK attempted to sell his sailboat to a couple of CalPoly students (I told them I'd let the boat AND trailer go for $50....), I went to Templeton for car juice and a few groceries from Trader Joe's. And it rained a little. Here and there.

Early darkness found us heading to Atascadero Lake, a smarmy fake pond which is nonetheless, a center of community activity, for the 12th Annual Musical Walk Around the Lake, an event we apparently overlooked last year. It really was amusing and entertaining. Even RDK said he had fun.

Many of the homes around the lake decorate rather extensively and host various musical events and/or snacks. One home had Christmas rock tunes and lighting effects with a local restaurant serving up big, saucy meatballs in bowls. Another had a puppet show and cotton candy. The City Council served hot cider, cookies, and candy canes at the half-way point of the walk. There were choirs and popcorn and bonfires dotting the way. The streets were closed off to allow pedestrian-only traffic. Lots of kids and dogs and the Atascadero High School marching band.

The added bonus was having our little Charles Paddock Zoo open and serving roasted marshmallows. (Man, those flamingoes were busy and noisy!)

Best of all, all of this was free to anyone attending. All of it! Other than a bit of the old "Jesus is the reason for the season" pitch, no one was selling anything or promoting anything. No wine or other alcohol. Just a lot of people walking around, frequently in the dark since most of the streets around the lake aren't lighted, enjoying the holiday lights and music and other simple pleasures of the holiday season. It was all quite refreshing!

We came home and watched National Geographic animal shows while munching on yet more minestrone and bread and cheese.

It was just a nice day.

Back to Cooking with Alice Waters!

Fall Minestrone with Kale and Butternut Squash - pg. 73

No, I haven't given up on my cooking/blogging project! I'm in this for the long haul. I'm almost feeling human again today (and somewhat organized), so today it's Fall Minestrone. I've discovered that if I were a good (i.e. brutally honest) person, I would increase the total number of recipes in TAOSF by 3 since Alice offers 4 distinct, seasonal variations for minestrone. Heck with it. I'm too tired. Human, but tired.

Alice's basic minestrone is a summer version. For dinner tonight, I made the fall variation. I now know about soffritto and sweating the Basic Three (carrots, celery & onions) to develop the flavor base for vegetarian dishes like this. (I'm feeling so smug.) I cooked cranberry beans this afternoon after soaking them overnight. (Another smug.)

But, I'm also taking liberties with Alice's recipes these days. (Mea culpa.) I have no idea what type of squash I used. It's not a butternut. It's something we bought early in October from Dragon Springs Farm in Cambria, my favorite local grower of all sorts of wonderful heirloom winter squashes. I'm using dried herbs. I just don't have a total palette of fresh herbs at my disposal all the time. Sorry. Last, I threw in a leftover dried-up bit of parmesan. It adds a bit of flavor to the soup and is a good way to get some use out of those last bits of parmesan. I read that somewhere.

In the bread machine I made a loaf of light rye to go with the soup. Good grief -- I just realized that with the exception of milk on my cereal this morning and the cheese in (and shredded on top of) the soup, I was a bloody vegan today. Oh yes, I did nosh on a small piece of Edam this afternoon. Does that count? Okay, I was a vegetarian today. That alone is big.

On a political note, I'm amused by the uproar over the Wikileaks leaks. Ambassadors acting as spies? I'm shocked!! The Saudis would love to see the USA cut the head off the Iranian snake? What a surprise!! Is there one thing in all those leaked documents that we didn't already know? I doubt it. By the way, I need to tell you that Clay Aiken is gay. Sorry. It's true.

84 recipes down; 221 recipes to go (plus those other 3 minestrone variations)

Vivian Harvey Receives an A+ as a Tour Guide

Before I go on, I must say a word about the wonderful woman who held our 3 weeks in Peru and Bolivia together. She's a champion cat herder: Vivian Harvey. I know that a number of people worked very hard both before and during our trip to make everything run so smoothly. Believe me, there were a LOT of details to attend to. We covered a great deal of ground, including who knows how many different buses and drivers, a cadre of local guides, and 4 internal flights in South America. Not to mention the boat captain on Lake Titicaca and the train trip to Aguas Callientes and Machu Pichu from Cusco and back again. We visited villages, markets, and museums all over the place. A real hacienda, too. Not to mention 3 meals a day (more or less). And more. Lots more.

Through it all, Vivian kept the 28 of us in Peru and the remaining 20 of us in Bolivia, on track. She always gave us exactly enough information about schedules and plans, and never too much information. She kept us on time and counted us over and over and over again. Indeed, she pretty much knew what was going on with each of us most of the time. Which was NOT an easy task. Plus all of our luggage. And there was lots and lots of luggage. She kept us safe and smart and tolerated our unending desires to shop, shop, shop. Vivian has a great sense of humor, a voracious appetite for people and conversation, and a wonderful attitude toward the people we met everywhere we went.

Vivan is as close to a perfect tour leader as anyone will ever be. Indeed, my only sadness about Vivan is that I doubt any other tour leader we ever have will come even close to her. She will forever be one of the best aspects of our trip. I never got tired of her conversation, her enthusiasm for Latin America, and her incredible wealth of knowledge. Perhaps most importantly, she was always there when we needed a little help negotiating some critical aspect of shopping.

P.S. Just so you know, in spite of some genuine South American adventures, there were NO incidents on our trip. No one lost anything. No injuries. We always felt safe and, indeed, were safe. This is to the credit of Peru and Bolivia and its people, and to the leadership we were lucky enough to experience.

P.P.S. Randy took _War and Peace_ with him to read since he was sure he'd have lots of long, dull evenings stuck in some miserable hotel room with, gulp, his wife. Randy never cracked the cover of _War and Peace_. Vivian didn't give him time. Yeah Vivian!!

First You Fly to Lima; Later You Clean the House

Yup, today was the first Big Cleaning Day since we got home from S. America. Our 2 wonderful cleaning ladies did their thing while I did mine. Result: a clean house! Hardly a loose cat fur or hair or whisker anywhere to be seen. Oh glory!

No, I haven't called the oral surgeon. I don't want to. The tooth is feeling better today. Fine most of the time, in fact. Mostly, I'm in denial. Sure, I've always wanted to go to Egypt and see the pyramids.... Why do you ask?

Flying to Lima. Now that was a trip. Plane was to leave San Francisco for Lima at 1:00 p.m. on a Saturday, thus getting us into our cozy Lima hotel bed by, oh, say, about 1:00 a.m. Sunday. It was me and Randy, and another couple in our tour group. We were the last 4 people scheduled to arrive in Lima. Randy and I had arrived in San Francisco the night before so we wouldn't have to get up before dawn or risk getting stuck in some traffic snarl somewhere. When we got to the LAN counter, we discovered that the flight had been delayed by 4 hours, leaving at 5:00 p.m., thus guaranteeing that we would arrive in Lima with time for a cup of coffee before our first full tour day. Swell.

LAN managed to add plenty of insult to the injury. We stood in line at the check-in counter, on those lovely, soft terrazzo floors, for 3 hours. No explanation. No comfort or aid of any kind offered. Three solid hours standing on concrete. At which point we were forced to check our carry-on luggage. We had both very carefully packed to ensure that we could carry-on our bags to Lima. And now they were taken from us. Too heavy the bitch, oops, employee at the counter said. Can I tell you how many "too heavy" carry-on bags other passengers carried onto the plane??? Lots. ... Lots. I was in a lovely mood when we finally boarded and took off. I hate LAN. A month later, by the way, I still hate LAN.

The flight was long and sucky as these things usually are. Jam packed. We 4 were so happy to see our driver in Lima, ready to pick us up and deliver us to our hotel. God bless him, where ever he is. It was just about sunrise then. We did manage to get an hour or so of sleep before that cup of coffee before -- hello! -- it was time to get on the bus and start the tour! The thrill of discovery kept us going and we survived. And thrived.

Now? Here and now? I still have to put clean sheets on the bed. More tomorrow.

Tooth #14

Apparently there is some call for The Return of the Blog. Mostly because of our recent trip to Peru and Bolivia, but I'll pretend it's all about ME. So first you have to listen to me talk about ME.

For the first time in many weeks I actually cooked (sort of) last night. My favorite. Oven roasted veggies. Parsnips, carrots, sweet potatoes and yellow beets (in my eternal efforts to sneak beets past Randy's lips). Accompanied by sliced cheese, crackers (including the last Argentinian sesame crackers purchased in La Paz), and a new product--homemade sopressa sausage made by the Paso Robles Buon Tavola Restaurant. This is a new venture for them. The stuff is obnoxiously expensive, even purchased at the Templeton Farmers Market. A true "artisanal" food. But oh so good.

Now, about the damned tooth. Tooth #14. (Apparently teeth no longer have names, just numbers.) Same tooth that underwent a miserable, painful root canal nearly 2 months ago. You know, when I first felt a twinge in the upper left jaw, my immediate thought was, "cracked tooth -- it'll have to come out." Keep this mind as you learn the rest of the story.

So, local dentist did a root canal on the tooth, trying to save it, since no crack was immediately evident in the X-rays. It was a "challenging" procedure for both dentist and patient. Hurt like hell for some time afterwards, but I took cipro and vicodin and the whole thing was starting to settle down by the time we left.

However, apparently (according to all dentists concerned), the long flight to Lima and subsequent move to high altitudes (over 10,000') in Cusco, did me in. I now have a lovely dentist in Cusco, Peru. Her name is Jenny. Jenny took the top off the temporary cap and cleaned out a nasty, nasty infection. More cipro. More vicodin. The infection cleared up, but low-level pain persisted as did gum tissue that wouldn't quite heal.

I already had an appointment with my general dentist for the Monday after Thanksgiving. He listened to my long story, checked things out. Took yet another X-ray. And declared that the root was probably cracked and would probably have to come out. So now it's off to the oral surgeon for further evaluation and most probable extraction. Which is what I said in the first place if you've actually read this far.

I was just about in tears last night. I had another failed root canal due to a crack that didn't show up in the X-rays a couple years ago. The extraction occurred on an emergency basis in the dentist's office on a Saturday morning. I was in so much pain. The extraction was gruesome, from my point of view. When the novocaine (or whatever it is they use these days; personally, I would recommend direct injections of vodka) wore off, I thought I was going to die. Worst pain ever up to that point in my life. I just curled up on the bed in a fetal position and prayed to pass out, which I eventually did. It took a few days to recover just from the pain. There wasn't enough vicodin in the world. I do NOT want to go through that again, but it looks like I have no choice. Ignorance was bliss that other time. I am neither ignorant nor blissful this time.

As you can see, Tooth #14 was a major player in my experience of Peru and Bolivia. As was the cold-turned-into-bronchitis that I caught from Randy who caught it from the flight to Lima. As was the nasty case of the turistas that struck my gastro-intestinal system right after the Farewell Dinner in La Paz. I spent our last day there in bed with a fever.

Other than that, the trip was wonderful and I'm delighted, if still somewhat tired, to be back home. Stay tuned for further installments. I'll try to write every day.

This IS the First Day...

Well, it's always the first day. My life has been pretty boring lately. And stressful. And it's basically no one's fault but my own. My only excuse right now is a root canal that isn't going well and has had me in a world of pain for 6 days now. Other than that? Get a life, Sally. Get a life.

Gonna Be a Busy Day

Lots to do today. I'm taking the NCHS Shelter Manager, Sherry, to Woods Humane Society to meet her counterpart there and get a tour of that facility. After 8 years of working at NCHS, Sherry has never been to Woods. This is part of my plot to start the revolution. I want to plant Big Ideas in the minds of people who can Change Things. WHAAAAAA?????

Later I'll work with volunteer Priscilla to continue improving the NCHS shop, McPaw's Marketplace. I love Priscilla. She takes no prisoners. She's a lawyer. She's consistent and steady. I need that in my life.

Then, we interview our last candidate for Shelter Services Coordinator. That person will also be a leader of the revolution, so we'd better get it right.

Then a nice, quiet session of yoga -- chai ball, to be precise -- at the Paso Robles Kennedy Club. I'll need it by then.

I have new plants from yesterday's Central Coast Cacti and Succulent Society meeting. Euphorbia decaryi v. decaryi. It's endangered in its native habitat in southern Madagascar, but won't be here at the hacienda. I like it. I also obtained 2 succulents that will probably join some others in a dish garden. One is spiky and therefore, maybe, deer resistant? The deer eat stuff on the south patio, but not stuff on the north patio. I've got to do a little research to find out what the spiky one is. The other is a semperviven.

I did a little clothes shopping after the CCCSS meeting yesterday. Then came home and cleaned out some old stuff from my closet. I can tell I'm still pissed. I tend to clean out my closet when I'm pissed. Clothes I don't like any more is one thing I can actually get rid of.

For My One Reader

Thanks, Georg. If you're reading, I'm writing.

Today? Stuff I'm sick of.

I'm sick of hearing about New Orleans. It's been 5 years people. Quit whining and start pulling yourselves up by the bootstraps. You weren't the only ones hit by Katrina. Since then plenty of other neighborhoods and communities have been hit by fires, floods, storms, tornados, whackos and idiots. Every hear of Haiti? San Bruno? Santa Barbara? Boulder? Nut cases killing their families and co-workers? Rape? Multilation? Genocide? I could do on. So I will. Homelessness is widespread. Children all over this country live in poverty. Plenty of people have lost their homes and their jobs and live in deplorable conditions. New Orleans has become the poster child for the me-me-me entitlement generation. If you vote for Reagan, don't expect FDR to come to your rescue, people.

I'm sick of hearing about 9/11. A bunch of nut cases commit mass murder. Let me explain something. Bunches of nut cases commit mass murder all over the world every day. So what did we of the USA do in response? Went to other countries and loosed our nut cases on other populations for the purpose of committing mass murder. In the name of what, I've never been able to figure out. To destroy weapons of mass destruction? There were none. To wipe out the Taliban? Can't be done any more than we can wipe out mortality. And we cry and fly our flags and feel sorry for ourselves and hate a little more on every anniversary, on every 9/11. That'll help a lot.

Shit happens, people. Deal with it. Move on. A hundred years from now, no one will alive who remembers any of this. What are you doing TODAY to make the world a better place?

End of an Era

Tomato Soup - pg. 261

Tomato soup. I made tomato soup from scratch. It was very good.

Otherwise, this is the last entry ever in my blog. Husband is bitching that I don't -- what -- I don't know. Spend enough time with him? How do you spend time with someone who's married to his damned computer and his work. I guess I'm supposed to be available to drop everything and jump when he says jump. So, I have to clear time in my life that I have otherwise filled with my own life because he's not available to me. But I have to be available to him, all the time.

No, it makes no sense. When does life ever make sense. It doesn't.

Next to no one ever reads this anyway, so who cares.

Ba-bye!

83 down; 222 to go

Awash in a Sea of Summer Veggies

Fusilli with Tomato Sauce, Eggplant, and Ricotta Salata - pg. 266

Who needs a garden when you have friends who have gardens? Not us! Tom brought a big bag of tomatoes the other day, along with Japanese eggplant, yellow pear tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. (No zucchini, thank heaven.) It's okay. I have miles to go in TAOSF. For example, tonight's dinner.

A fairly simple dish by Alice standards. Sliced and fried thin eggplants slices. I called the results "eggplant chips." The simple tomato sauce I still had in the frig from the last batch I made with the food mill. Chiffonade of handful of basil leaves. I couldn't find any ricotta salata, so I used grated pecorino instead, which Alice allows. Fusilli from Trader Joe's.

I did add thinly sliced high-quality salami to the table. Lord, I'm a carnivore! There's a limit to this "all-veggies, all the time" thing.

Last night we went out to movie-and-dinner. Saw The American. George Clooney. I like it for the character study, for Clooney's excellent acting, and for the cinematography. But, was turned off by the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold bullshit and the totally predictable story line. However, watching George Clooney is NOT the worst way to spend a couple hours....

82 down + 223 to go

Showdown With the Dreaded Raw Tomato

Raw Tomato Sauce - pg. 265

I love tomatoes. When they are cooked. I love tomato sauce in all its many forms. I love ketchup. I love stewed tomatoes. You name it. Cook a tomato and I love it. Raw tomatoes? Well, that's another story altogether. My mother loved raw tomatoes. My husband loves raw tomatoes. Everyone I know pops raw cherry tomatoes into their mouths like candy. Me? I hate raw tomatoes. I can get them down. Occasionally. But not often and not because I like them. I'll make a face every time. I can't help it.

Do not put raw tomato slices on my burger, my sandwich or my salad. Spare me the cherry tomatoes on the crudite platter. There isn't enough salad dressing and vegetable dip on the planet to drown them. I don't like the taste of raw tomatoes. I don't like the texture of raw tomatoes. In other words, I do not like raw tomatoes.

I have struggled for years, decades even, to learn to like raw tomatoes. Nearly every summer, when we're awash in a sea of garden-ripe gifted tomatoes, I choke a few down in hopes that some divine intervention will occur in my taste buds. No such luck. Ever. Me? I take all those red orbs and turn them into cooked tomato sauce. Look, I even have to steel myself to peel and seed them. It's almost stomach turning. That's how much I hate raw tomatoes.

So there it is on page 265 of TAOSF. My nemesis. My ultimate culinary challenge. Because the things I'm cooking I'm going to have to eat. Page 265, on the left side of the page. Raw Tomato Sauce. WTF??? Why would anyone ever consider dumping chopped up raw tomatoes on top of perfectly good freshly cooked pasta? This makes no sense to me whatsoever. Two pounds of raw tomatoes. Skinned, seeded and whacked up into bits. Add torn (not chopped) basil leaves and plenty of olive oil, salt, pepper, and a shot of Pepper Plant sauce. Cover tightly (why??? will it produce air pollution???) and leave it alone for at least an hour. Boil the best pasta in the pantry. Put the oh-lord-help-me RAW tomato sauce over the pasta, hide it all underneath a huge mound of freshly grated Parmesan and, saints preserve me, eat it. Chase back with plenty of toasted crostini dripping with olive oil.

I made it. I ate it. Raw tomato sauce. It wasn't bad. Not my favorite dish. But, I'd make it again and eat it again. Obviously I agree with Alice that this is a dish for that time of year when tomatoes are at their very best. These were from a friend's garden, so I knew they would be as good as tomatoes ever get. Whatever that is. Randy liked it. There is easily enough sauce for another meal. Oh sigh. Well, whatever. It's done. Another major hurdle cleared.

Reminds me of one of my favorite sayings. Swallow a whole frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse can possibly happen to you for the rest of the day. I have eaten my TAOSF frog.

81 recipes down; 224 to go

Caponata!

Caponata - pg. 304

Alice continues to change my mind about various veggies. I made caponata (you could call it eggplant and tomato stew) to take along to dinner at friends last night. Really good stuff! Friends sent us home with a lot of tomatoes. Yeah! I just made some tomato sauce and now I can make more since I used a lot of the last batch in the caponata. However... I now also have zucchini and yellow summer squash coming out my ears. Ooooph. Can Alice change my attitude toward zucchini? Good luck Alice!

80 recipes completed - a mere 225 recipes yet to make

Ratatouille The Alice Waters Way

Ratatouille - pg. 322

While out with our friends Tom and Marie recently, we planned (or rather Tom planned, since he's that kind of guy) a neighborhood bbq for this afternoon. There are 3 of us couples in the neighborhood who are friends and foodies all. Tom has quite a vegetable garden. I told him that if he'd provide the veggies, I'd make a batch of ratatouille. Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food ratatouille, of course.

Today was the day. I walked over to Tom and Marie's house this morning to get veggies directly from Tom's garden: eggplant, summer squash, and tomatoes. I supplied the sweet peppers, onions, and basil from Trader Joe's.

I've made relatively traditional ratatouille in the past, although it's been a very long time. Alice's approach is different in that she cuts everything into 1/2" dice, cooks the veggies more or less separately, adds a good bit of basil, and then mixes everything together. Since I was making a double batch to feed 9 people with plenty of leftovers, I appreciated this approach. I cut up stuff for an hour, if not more. Then cooked everything (except the tomatoes) separately in a deep 12" skillet, adding the basil bouquet, garlic, salt and crushed chili to the onion and pepper mix. When everything was cooked (except the tomatoes), I mixed it all together and just let the whole thing simmer while I took a shower and got dressed. By then, the tomatoes were well heated through, but not really cooked. Seasoning was adjusted by adding salt, pepper, and our favorite Pepper Plant Sauce (a local product).

I turned the whole thing into a covered cast iron casserole so it stayed warm all the way until dinner time. While I am not a big fan of these summer vegetables, I must admit that this ratatouille was fabulous. I ate a lot of it. There was plenty for everyone who wanted some to take it home with tons left for us. I know from past experience that ratatouille only improves with age so I'm looking forward to leftovers for several days to come. I was delighted with how the different vegetables all retained their own textures and flavors, even having been cut into such small pieces. Ratatouille can easily turn to mush, especially the eggplant. I used Tom's Japanese eggplant which probably helped. And the tomatoes were ripe but still firm.

Now. What the heck do I do with all the excess crook neck yellow squash, tomatoes, hot peppers and Japanese eggplant I still have? Tom sent me home with too much bounty from the garden. Sigh. What a horrible problem to have. (ROFLOL)

79 down - a mere 226 to go

A Triple Play!

Grilled Steak - pg. 153

Cucumber Yogurt Sauce - pg. 232

Grilled Eggplant - pg. 304

A night for experimentation. I've never gotten into grilling outdoors. I think it's a pain. But in the summer, every other recipe you encounter is for grilled something or other. Well, sometime in the not too distant past we got one of those ribbed grill pans to try out for stove-top grilling. It's just a cheap one, but good enough for experiments.

I gave it a whirl tonight, grilling 2 very nice flatiron skirt steaks and some eggplant. The results were pretty good. I may go ahead and invest in a better grill pan now, one of those nice cast iron Lodge numbers, I think. The el-cheapo pan doesn't stand up all that well to the heat required for proper grilling.

With the last dregs of some yogurt and the end of a cucumber I made some cucumber yogurt sauce for the eggplant, but it worked just as well on the steak. With a little garlic pounded in my smaller mortar-and-pestle, and a hefty pinch of cayenne. Even without the required fresh mint, it was pretty yummy.

Otherwise, I recently saw Tilda Swinton in "I Am Love." Visually beautiful if otherwise a bit strange. But what the heck, it was Tilda Swinton. I think she's amazing.

bottom line?

78 down and 227 to go

Corn on the Cob

Corn on the Cob - pg. 301

I know. I know. It's been way too long. Facebook. Blame it all on Facebook. I suppose that's a story for another time. Or, just check out my page there and be done with it.

Believe it or not, Alice has a "recipe", directions really, for Corn on the Cob. Good grief. Even I know how to cook corn on the cob. Even I have done this multiple times in the past. Anyway, we got a couple ears at Saturday farmers market. Randy made pesto and pasta tonight. I "made" corn on the cob.

75 down; 230 to go

I Roasted a Chicken

Roast Chicken - pg. 110

Seriously. I roasted a chicken. I'm not sure I've ever done that before. Seasoned with salt, pepper, rosemary sprigs and garlic cloves. Ya live, ya learn.

Oh yes, it is very good!

74 down; 231 to go

Marinate Those Greens!

Marinated Chard - pg. 216

(This is our front door from the foyer looking out onto the front porch, which has nothing to do with anything, but it cute eye candy. That's a Steve Handelman lantern on the wall.)

We spent the weekend in the Bay Area. Dinner at Ajanta with Scott and Wayne after delivering Scott's quilt to him. Impressionists at the Legion of Honor (and lunch). Ikea, Ethnic Arts (to pick up our 3rd David Marsh end table), Pendragon (one of my favorite bookstores anywhere), and the Oakland Pasta Shop from which we brought home all manner of good stuff, including roasted eggplant salad and bar-be-qued chicken for dinner that night (which was Monday). Grilled liver and onions at Saul's, too, from which I brought home kosher dills (I begged for them; I'm shameless).

So, we've been eating leftovers from that meal and other stuff, and "day old" fresh pasta from the Pasta Shop. And pickles. But last night I nuked fresh eggplant parmesan from Trader Joe's which was wonderful! And made some marinated kale to go with. Alice recommends marinated chard as an appetizer/snack, but says you can prepare any greens that way. I had some kale in the frig, so kale it was. Once again, the results, served warmish, were better than I'd anticipated.

This morning I took Stuart in for his second kitten shots. All his previous foster moms and caretakers were happy to see him and his big feet. This afternoon I joined a health club, which I really need to do. Tonight? Who knows. Oh yes, last night our new book club met for just the second time to discuss Larry Watson's Montanan 1948. Pretty decent group, all things considered.

73 down and a mere 232 to go

New Ingredient; New Appliance

Tomatillo Salsa - pg. 232

Randy and I have just given up on our Cuisinart combination blender and food processor. It's a lousy appliance and is going to the thrift shop, instruction booklet and all. We decided that what we really need is a pretty basic blender, one that actually works well and isn't too much of a pain to clean. Internet research revealed that an awful lot of buyers are loving their Kitchen Aide hand-held blenders, so last night we found one at the local Target and brought it home. (I don't want or need a food processor; I enjoy whacking stuff up with a big, sharp knife.)

A new appliance needs a new ingredient, don't you think? How about tomatillos? I've had tomatillo salsa at Mexican restaurants, but haven't ever cooked with them myself. Alice describes a basic tomatillo salsa: tomatillos, jalapenos, cilantro, garlic and a little salt. Alice recommends a variation that adds a mashed avocado, so I threw one of those in, too. All blended with the new appliance. What a great job it did! Wow! I didn't have to turn the setting up any higher than "1" (it goes from 1 to 9) to blend perfectly in just a few seconds. And I actually had good control over what was going on.

It splashed a little bit, but the minor resulting mess was much, much less than the mess I usually make cleaning the damned blender. The new appliance was extremely easy and fast to clean. The thing I've always hated about traditional blenders is cleaning them. Taking all the pieces apart, washing them, drying them, putting them all back together again. Aargh. Takes twenty times longer than the actual blending. Well, those days are OVER. I'm in love with the hand-held.

So we had tomatillo salsa over Trader Joe's enchiladas (which were disappointing), and on flour tortillas (which were good). Looking forward to tomatillo salsa over chicken, fish, oven-roasted veggies, on corn chips. Maybe it's even time for more quesadillas and nachos. All easy-to-fix stuff that's my idea of good early summer food.

Otherwise? Sewing like a maniac to finish Scott's quilt for his sister. And I've just survived 2.5 days of having a builder here working on the eternal list of "little things" that need adjusting and fixing and touching-up. These guys are wonderful, but I find their presence in my house, when it goes on for days at a time, to be seriously disruptive. Pisses me off. On the other hand, our viga ceilings are looking really spiff now after their year of shrinking since installation. And you wonder why I need chocolate....

72 down; 233 to go

Salad for Dinner

Rocket Salad with Parmesan - pg. 237

Alice loves rocket. In these parts we call it arugula, so I'm not sure how she comes to call it rocket, living as she does only 4 hours drive from here. At farmers market Randy and I nearly always buy the "spicy mix" of lettuce for salads since we love stuff like arugula and spicy mustard greens.

Last week Randy had a bug to make arugula "pesto" which was really good. So, we bought a lot of just plain arugula, enough for his "pesto" and for me to make this salad. Just arugula with a basic vinaigrette, topped with shaved curls of parmesan and toasted walnuts. Okay, I just basically heated the walnuts in my omelette pan on the cook top. What I didn't know before this was the thing about using a vegetable peeler to cut curls of parmesan. Boy, was that slick! Way easier than grating hard cheese.

Saw two movies this weekend: Ironman 2 and Toy Story 3. The first didn't have the sass of the original, but the Toy Story franchise has just gotten better with every installment. As a dedicated Barbie lover and collector, I especially enjoyed the Barbie and Ken subplot in Toy Story 3. Yes, I saw it in 3D. Love 3D. And, I finished John Pipkin's "Woodsburner," part of my library adult summer reading program. "Woodsburner" is historical fiction, based on a fire accidentally set by Thoreau the summer before he went to Walden Pond. The fire nearly destroyed the town of Concord.

71 down; 234 to go

Getting Sauced

Bagna Cauda - pg. 230

This is pretty cool stuff, although served warm. Butter, olive oil, thinly sliced garlic, lemon zest, a pinch of salt, and (wait for it...) 10 anchovy fillets carefully stripped from 5 salt-packed anchovies. Alice must really like playing with her food. Although, pain as it is to fillet those salt-packed anchovies, I read somewhere today that they are bigger and something elser (I can't remember what) than the canned ones. (Is bigger really better?)

Bagna cauda is Piedmontese for warm bath. The warm bath is the olive oil/butter that all the other stuff is in. You use it as a dip, in the traditional manner, but we used it as a sauce over wild Alaskan sockeye salmon fillets and oven roasted veggies (potatoes, carrots, red onions, and green beans all cut into pieces about the same size and tossed with a bit of olive oil and salt).

This fish and veggies thing is my current favorite dinner. Put everything on parchment lined baking sheets and stick the whole thing in the oven. The veggies for 15 minutes, then add the fish for another 10-15 minutes, all at 400 degrees. Season and sauce as you wish. Clean up is a breeze. Well, it would be anyway since Randy cleans up when I cook....

Otherwise, I'm enjoying our new kitten, Stuart, who was a gift to my husband for his 60th birthday last week. I want Stuart to be a traveling cat, so we did some errands today and voted in our special election. Currently reading "Woodsburner" by John Pipkin as part of my summer adult library reading program. And spending too much time of Facebook.

70 down; 235 to go

Peach Salsa

Peach Salsa - pg. 231

I know, I know. You can buy the stuff at Trader Joe's. But, I made some. There will be variations in the future. We ate a whole bowl of the stuff tonight on quesadillas. It will be better when I can get better peaches. I still have lots of red onion, jalapenos and cilantro to make tons more. And there is something to be said for fresh, fresh, fresh salsa.

69 down; 236 to go

Getting Back Into the Groove

I'm finally getting back into the groove after bugs and travel. The library now is totally organized, which is a good thing. It's such a pleasant room -- I really enjoy hanging out there. The books are optimally arranged. All the art that needs to be placed and hung is in the little closet so I can take things out and place them, one by one. Our cross and sun collection is hung in the dining area on the big arched wall so that there is plenty of room for the collection to grow. I've order museum putty for pots and baskets and such. I must be a nester, maybe a bird, in some part of me. I feel SO much happier and more productive when my environment is in order.

I really enjoyed our time in Concord last week. I got a whole new view of US history. E.g., what part of "well-ordered militia" don't the gun nuts understand? And, if early Concordians are typical examples, citizens have never trusted their governments and have always hated taxes no matter who was running the show! Of course, they've always wanted what taxes pay for, they've just not wanted to pay for it. They resented having to actually pay for the Revolutionary War almost as much as they resented that tax on tea.... And, I have a renewed interesting in the literature that grew out of Concord, especially since I realized that one of my favorite "shot heard 'round the world" figures, Rev. William Emerson, was the grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Connections. It's all about connections.

This morning I'm just catching up with assorted paper pushing and bill paying. Not my favorite thing to do, but part of straightening up my nest nonetheless.

Oh yes. Last night for dinner I made a pasta dish with leftover Simple Tomato Sauce and Trader Joe's spinach-chive linguine. A few bacon pieces scattered on top with chopped parsley and parmesan. Oven-roasted cauliflower, which I absolutely love. A Romaine salad dressed with the leftover honey-mustard sauce from last night's dinner. Nothing new, but nearly all stuff I've learned from TAOSF.

What I've Just Read

Montana 1948 by Larry Watson. A short novel about a family caught in a moral dilemma. Which is more important, family loyalty or doing the right thing? The first would be easy. The second is hard and life-changing for everyone involved. Well written. Spare. Reminded me of Annie Proulx whose work I love. A good book. Not a great book, but a good book. I read this for my new book club.

The Minutemen and Their World by Robert A. Gross. Winner of the Bancroft Prize in 1977 (google it). Read at Mount Holyoke right before a visit to Concord. Using the research methods of social history, Gross writes an engaging and illuminating story of the lives of ordinary Concordians before, during and immediately after the "shot heard 'round the world" at the North Bridge (the first Patriot shots in the Revolutionary War). Gave me a whole new perspective on a lot of contemporary social and political issues. My favorite Concordian was Rev. William Emerson who is the grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson, which leads us into the great literary history of Concord: Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and the Alcotts. I loved this book. No soap opera is as good as real life.

Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America by Ellen Chesler. An exhaustive and exhausting bio read on the 50th anniversary of The Pill. Not always an easy read unless you really want tons of detail, but certainly illuminates the life and personality of Sanger. I now very much admire Margaret for her tireless and politically savey fight for the most basic of human rights, the right to control one's own reproductive life. We all owe her a lot.

My Mother Was Wrong About Cauliflower

Roasted Sliced Cauliflower - pg. 299

Oh hell, let's be honest. My mother was wrong about a lot of things; cauliflower was just one of them. She wasn't much of a cook. Then again, she wasn't much of a mother, either. But, I digress. Last night I oven-roasted sliced cauliflower, served with a sprinkling of bread crumbs and chopped parsley. Oh my! Delicious! As long as the oven was on, I roasted the last few asparagus spears still lurking in the frig. And some sweet Italian chicken sausages from Trader Joe's which were mighty tasty with a little mustard smeared on them. Randy made a Romaine salad.

Otherwise, as long as nothing is totally screwed up in my life right now (how unusual is THAT!?), I'm just moving forward with my ever-so-long list of stuff that needs to be done. I like working on that list. Makes me actually believe that I'm accomplishing something. Still, having been around the sun a few times, I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. When life is good, I never forget that "this, too, shall pass." Cheery thought, no?

68 recipes completed; 237 to go

Tomato Sauce with Bacon and Onion

Tomato Sauce with Bacon and Onion - pg. 265

I made a batch of Simple Tomato Sauce from fresh tomatoes from farmers market. This is great stuff to have in the frig since it can be the base for all sorts of very quick dinners. Tonight I made a TAOS recipe (sort of) with the sauce and some fancy pancetta from the fancy deli/market in Berkeley. The recipe actually just calls for using fresh tomatoes, but I figured the Simple Sauce would do just as well. While the pancetta was certainly good, rather more ordinary bacon would have been okay, too. I used green garlic in the sauce which made a milder flavor. And, I oven roasted a batch of asparagus for something green on the plate.

Yesterday I volunteered at the Central Coast Cactus and Succulent Society's annual show and sale. Wow! I've found my flora niche, so to speak. I can see that my collection will start mostly with agaves. I love agaves and they will do well here in pots.

Oh yes, I saw a very strange movie yesterday. The Good, the Bad and the Weird. A Korean western set in Manchuria in the 30s with decided Tarantino influences.

Best of all? It's true. The bugs are dead. We've got our house back. Yeah!!

67 down and 238 to go

Alrighty Then...

Gary Coleman and Dennis Hopper are gone. So are the wood-boring beetles in the library woodwork. None of this happened quickly or easily. The house is pretty much clean, reorganized and back to normal. Yeah!! As you might imagine, I'm feeling a whole lot better emotionally now. Got a pedicure and a haircut this morning. Yeah!! Went, with Randy, to the Central Coast Cactus and Succulent Society's annual show and sale this afternoon after a nice Thai lunch. Yeah!!

In the spirit of Alice's very latest cookbook (theme is techniques to learn by heart), I made a no-recipe dinner. Trader Joe's lemon pepper noodles. Bacon. Garlic. Parsley. Olive oil. Parmesan cheese. Tasty and pretty quick.

Do I have anything remarkable to say? Hell no. Only that I love, love, love having my house clean and organized. It means that I can go on to do more productive things with my time. It's the same way I feel about making the bed first thing in the morning. All is right with the world and I can get on to bigger and far more interesting things. Like cook, garden, play with our cats, read, bead, sew. You get the picture.

Life Is Weird, But Peas Are Good

Green Pea and Asparagus Ragout - pg. 316

Clearly, life has been unsettled of late. And I've been depressed about various things. And sidetracked. Between the last new-recipe cooking entry on May 5 and today, I only made sweet tart dough. Which was intended for a lemon tart, but that didn't happen. I ate the dough. Raw. Does that tell you I've been miserable, or at least distracted?

Somewhat better now, although it's been 3 steps forward and 2 steps back. Maybe more like 2 and 1/2 steps back. But, I managed to crank out a meal tonight. Just some Trader Joe's chicken sausage ravioli with the very last of the Simple Tomato Sauce. And (ta-dah!) Green Pea and Asparagus Ragout. Tasted good, although I'm not sure I'm much into ragouts -- all that stuff whacked up into little tiny pieces. I guess I like my veggies a bit more chunky. But, it was nice to chaw on fresh green peas and asparagus. Yah good love fresh veggies.

66 down and 239 to go -- must pick up the pace since this pace is pathetic

Up to Our Ears in Animals

Dinner tonight was swell. Chard frittata slices sitting in pools of simple tomato sauce. Oh yum! And there's plenty of frittata leftovers. Maybe for breakfast tomorrow?

For lunch, I made some liver, potatoes and onions. And a blood orange balsamic reduction for the liver. Good grief. Talk about gilding the lily....

Our local bobcat paid us an extended visit this morning. I think it's a girl. She's a doll. We enjoyed watching her so much.

Then our project manager came up with the Ecola bug-killer-guy to investigate what can be done about the wood-boring beetles that are continuing to eat the woodwork in the library. Heat treatment. Which means I have to take EVERYTHING out of the library. And then, of course, put it all back. Oh thrill. These animals I could live without.

There's a lizard in the garage. Cute little guy. But he belongs outside, not in the garage. I think he left this afternoon, but I'm not sure. If he gets into the house, he's cat food. So let's hope he leaves. Soon.

On the way home from our late-afternoon coffee date, I saw our local doe-and-2-fawns. The babies are growing fast, and learning about life around roads very quickly, thank heaven. But still nursing if mom stops for a rest and look around!

After dinner? Lots and lots of swallows showed up. Wow! What a show! Today, life is good.

Quick Catch-Up

Saw a good movie-- The Secret in Their Eyes. Good murder mystery, even though --nah, probably because of the fact that --we know the killer half way through the flick. Argentine; I was surprised how little I needed the subtitles. Won the Oscar this year for best foreign language film. Read a crumby book-- A Reliable Wife. I read it, but don't bother. Believe me. Don't bother. It's a highly unreliable book.

New plant!! Euphorbia tirucalli. It's my new baby. I love this plant. Won it at the raffle at the monthly meeting of the Central Coast Cactus and Succulent Society. Mine was the LAST ticket drawn and I still won the plant I'd had my eyes on from the moment I walked into the room. Yippee!!

All my children have paws, you know. They sent a card and had their dad take me out for breakfast. They got me a cool new octopus-themed apron from Anthropologie. They cuddled with me on the settle at the end of the day to read and enjoy the fireplace.

Haven't cooked anything interesting, but I did have some wonderful Gliddon Point oysters at Pier 46 Saturday. For lunch. That's my idea of lunch. A diet Coke and 6 oysters on the half shell.

Day 89 - Pasta Alla Puttanesca! Ah Naples!

Spicy Tomato Sauce with Capers, Anchovies and Olives - pg. 266

You may recall that I now have a small stash of salt-packed anchovies. Today, I filleted 3 of them. I am now qualified to do brain surgery on goldfish. The things I'm learning to do!

Really, I love this dish. Plenty of garlic, olives, parsley, olive oil, capers. Fishy, spicy, olivey. What's not to love. And since I first had to make up a batch of Simple Tomato Sauce, I now have enough sauce to tackle something else new. It was all pretty easy, too. Even the filleting, although I did tackle that one when I was certain that all the cats were sound, sound asleep this afternoon.

It was a good day for deer sightings. One was nose-pressed-to-the-glass outside the foyer this morning. And this afternoon I saw the first fawns of 2010 -- 2 tiny babies out with their mom. So small! So cute! And just dumb as boards as their mom herded them out of the middle of the street.

I'm taking a break from Homer, reading a rather trashy page-turner from a recent best-seller list. I think the list is called Trashy Page-Turners. Sometimes a reader just has to have a little fun.

65 recipes down and 240 to go (blows me away that I'm cooking all these new things)

Not By Alice Alone

Well, I suppose one COULD live by eating just from TAOSF, but I'm also now working from another new (to me) cookbook: "Healthy Eating: Use the Glycemic Index for Optimal Health." Now THAT'S a title that should send any normal person running in the opposite direction! But the great color photos sucked me in. That, and the fact that I knew this would be a lot of protein and veggie dishes. Plus, these recipes are pretty easy and quick to make for dinner. Seriously, as I thumbed through the book I just wanted to cook and eat everything! It's my kind of food. Alice would approve, I'm sure.

I started tonight with Vietnamese Beef Soup. Had to make a couple substitutions, thus yielding Atascadero-Vietnamese Beef Soup, but we got the basic idea. I don't think I've ever cooked with rice noodles before. It was just delicious! Tasty. Loaded with veggies. A little beef.

My Big Accomplishment for the day was to hang Tibetan prayer flags outside above the garage door. Last fall we hung them between 2 oak trees, but one tree lost a major branch in a storm, thus bringing down the flags. I decided to wait until the winter storms were over before trying again. The project moved ahead nicely, except for the huge bee swarm that came up the draw and past the house in the middle of things. First I heard them. Then I saw them. Then I got into the house, closing the garage door behind me, as fast as I've ever moved before in my entire life. Didn't want to get in their way....

Such is my life these days. Boring, but low-stress. One out of 2 isn't that bad. At least I'm not getting into trouble and not pissing anyone off.

The Iliad

I'm tired. Got up way too early this morning to get out of the house before a crew came to test our house for air leaks. Sort of. More or less. Something like that. We are a test site for all kinds of weird stuff. New passive-solar strawbale house and inability to say "no."

Anyway, last night I finished The Iliad, the first reading in The Lifetime Reading Plan. Yes, it's a good read, if you're into that sort of story. War, murder, pettiness. Great art reaches across centuries and cultures. However, it reminds me once again that mankind is still little more than a power-hungry, egotistical, murderous savage. And that we always have made our gods and goddesses in our own image. We don't know today why "God lets bad things happen to good people." In ancient Greece, even the gods could not control Fate. Same thing. I'm further amazed at the graphic nature of the killing in The Iliad. Makes modern media look nearly tame -- certainly no worse. Maybe The Iliad speaks clearly to us today because we haven't changed one iota since that time, nor has our arts and entertainment. I couldn't care much about any of the characters no matter how hard I tried. Well, I guess I'm a better person for having read The Iliad. We'll see. On to the next item on the list.

Day 88 - Remember Shelling Peas??

Spring Pea Soup - pg. 238

It's been a jillion years since I've shelled peas. I didn't even know you could get them at our local farmers' markets. It was fun to shell peas. Meditative. Getting back in touch with your food and all that. "What do you mean green peas don't come out of plastics bags and cans???" The soup was wonderful. Very Alice. Butter, onions, salt, peas and water. Delicious. I just served it with a loaf of fresh-from-the-machine bread, butter, and olive jam. Oh yes, big dollops of creme fraiche on the soup. Gotta have a little luxury.

This weekend I've been doing the ings. Shopping. Cleaning. Washing. You know the drill. But we did go out for breakfast this morning at a little local cafe that makes great biscuits. Yesterday I checked out the new T. J. Maxx in SLO and found 2 little saucepans, one a Calphalon (my favorites) to replace 2 seriously old and beat-up ones. And saw "The Art of the Steal," a documentary about the sad theft of the Barnes art collection. The more I see money and power in action, the more I hate it. Which reminds me that I'm within 14 pages of wrapping up The Iliad.

64 down; 241 to go

Sew On and Sew Forth

Sewed my brains out today. Finished the back for a large quilt. Made the binding for it. This makes 3 finished tops/backs/bindings in the pile to go to the machine quilter. Sew, I tackled another UFO in my pile which is to make storage bags for all my quilts. Well, that will happen one at a time, but at least I can start with the 3 in the pile. And maybe the 1 of mine that is currently at the quilter's shop. I started one after dinner.

Dinner. Yes. Fish and chips at Pier 46. I love the food there. And I sewed a lot. Did I mention that I sewed a lot?

Leftovers Again

But you'll hear no complaints from me! There was plenty of the bean gratin for dinner tonight. Since we're still in asparagus, I'll go through all the ways Alice teaches to cook them. Tonight? Boiled. Briefly. Then served at room temperature with a blood orange vinaigrette. We had a few pieces of Pier 46's wonderful pickled herring as an appetizer. Is there a cuisine on the planet that doesn't have pickled fish?

Gorgeous here today, although windy and chilly. But the air is crystal clear and you can see forever. Gawd, I love this place. And Randy reports that the Lonesome Turkey who's been hanging around here for the last couple weeks finally has a girlfriend. You go, Guy!

I'm shooting for completing the back for another UFO quilt, which will make it a total of 3 ready to be quilted. Yeah!

Back Is Finished!

Yeah! I have finished the back for The World's Ugliest Quilt! I'm getting these babies finished and in a pile to take to the machine quilter, one by one. She has 2 right now. I have 2 more ready to go in the pile now. And at least 2 more that are very close to ready to add to the pile. I AM the Queen of UFOs!

Photography

Probably no cooking today. Our kitchen designer and her hubby are coming around dinner time to photograph the kitchen and laundry room. They're bringing pizza! I'm so looking forward to seeing John and Jan since it's been way too long.

Otherwise, it's chilly today and alternately cloudy/sunny. Shasta Sue Latte has become my very best friend, hanging out with me at the computer all the time I'm there. I'm combing Maizie and Fannie and Nicholas today since they all need it.

Otherwise, I WILL finish that back for The World's Ugliest Quilt today! I will, I will, I will. As soon as I eat lunch.

I'm within the end of reading The Iliad, too. I guess this is making me a better person, but mostly it just makes me hate war all the more. Pretty deeply rooted in our western culture, isn't it? You'd think we could get past such things, but the growing competition for resources, combined with human population explosion, will ultimately only make things worse.

Day 87 - Beans at Their Best

Cranberry Bean Gratin - pg. 80

Toasted Breadcrumbs - pg. 63

Alice is really into cranberry beans, although I have to admit I don't know why. They are cute, but lose their cuteness when cooked. Alice also prefers that they be fresh, not dried, but I gotta tell ya -- it took me months of searching to finally find them dried, never mind fresh-in-the-shell. They were found in Berkeley, of course, although even then it took a trip to an obnoxiously upscale market to find them. Anyway, the bean gratin, not only vegetarian but also downright vegan, was absolutely delicious. I would make it again and again and again. With other beans. With bits of (gulp) meat. With other veggies tossed in perhaps.

The best part, purely from an emotional point of view, is that the toasted breadcrumbs (well worth the little bit of work) were made from Acme bread brought home from Chez Panisse. We had lunch at the Cafe Saturday, a belated birthday gift from Randy. As we left I mentioned something about seeing where the loaves of bread were stashed in the servery to our busboy. Sweet kid asked if I wanted to take any home since lunch time was over and they had a number of pieces cut up already that would only be (argh!) thrown out. Yes, yes, yes! We bought cheese across the street and had 2 of the bread hunks in our room for dinner later that night. The other 2 hunks I brought home, perfect for breadcrumbs.

Since we're in the heart of the season, I oven-roasted asparagus, too for dinner tonight. We'll be eating a lot of 'em while they are in season. I love 'em cooked that way and it's so easy, it's criminal.

Yup, we're home from a long weekend in Berkeley and San Francisco. Food, as always, was big on the activity list. Dinner at Ajanta, lunch at Chez Panisse, grocery shopping at some fancy market in Rockridge (boy! did we ever score some great hard-to-find stuff!), and lunch at Inka (a totally authentic Peruvian restaurant) in San Francisco.

And we shopped 'til we dropped. We filled up the back of the CRV at a plant sale at the UCBerkeley Botanical Garden. New hiking boots for both of us at REI. A couple of David Marsh end tables for the library, and 1 more ordered for June delivery. Books from Moe's. A food mill and a spiffy red-and-white striped apron from Sur La Table. Then we took the long scenic route home past Pinnacles National Monument, home to 27 California condors, none of which we saw.

Now? Back to real life. It's raining again. It doesn't rain here in April. Heck, it doesn't even rain here in March. But, it's raining. And the lupines still smell like heaven.

63 down; 242 to go

What My Mother Taught Me...

1. My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE.
'If you're going to kill each other, do it outside. I just finished cleaning.'

2. My mother taught me RELIGION .
'You better pray that this will come out of the carpet.'

3. My mother taught me about TIME TRAVEL
'If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle of next week!'

4. My mother taught me LOGIC .
' Because I said so, that's why.'

5.My mother taught me MORE LOGIC .
'If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you're not going to the store with me.'

6. My mother taught me FORESIGHT.
'Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you're in an accident.'

7. My mother taught me IRONY.
'Keep crying, and I'll give you something to cry about.'

8. My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS.
'Shut your mouth and eat your supper.'

9. My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM .
'Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!'

10. My mother taught me about STAMINA
'You'll sit there until all that SOUP is gone.'

11. My mother taught me about WEATHER ..
'This room of yours looks as if a tornado went through it.'

12. My mother taught me about HYPOCRISY
'If I told you once, I've told you a million times. Don't exaggerate!'

13. My mother taught me the CIRCLE OF LIFE .
'I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.'

14. My mother taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION.
'Stop acting like your father!'

15. My mother taught me about ENVY.
'There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don't have wonderful parents like you do..'

16. My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION.
'Just wait until we get home.'

17. My mother taught me about RECEIVING .
'You are going to get it when you get home!'

18. My mother taught me MEDICAL SCIENCE.
'If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they are going to get stuck that way.'

19. My mother taught me ESP .
'Put your sweater on; don't you think I know when you are cold?'

20. My mother taught me HUMOR .
'When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don't come running to me..'

21. My mother taught me HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT .
'If you don't eat your vegetables, you'll never grow up.'

22. My mother taught me GENETICS.
'You're just like your father.'

23. My mother taught me about my ROOTS.
'Shut that door behind you. Do you think you were born in a barn?'

24. My mother taught me WISDOM.
'When you get to be my age, you'll understand.'

25. And my very favorite:
My mother taught me about JUSTICE
'One day you'll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like you '

Wildlife at the Hacienda

Since moving into our new house in west Atascadero, we find ourselves surrounded by wildlife. Our area is one of steeply rolling oak woodland hills. Lot sizes run around 3 to 8 acres, and there is still a fair number of undeveloped lots around.

Sooooo-- we are a haven for birds of all kinds, deer, bobcats, coyotes and turkeys. The deer and turkeys and birds we see every day. The carnivores less often, but still regularly. There are certainly a whole lot of other creatures about that we don't see very much. I know we have skunk about. Great horned owls hang out occasionally. I've seen mice. Lots of little lizards sun themselves on the south-side boulders, tantalizing the cats.

Yesterday we watched a new little guy in action. A gopher. Lucky for him he's excavating in an "allowed" area near the lizards' favorite sunning rock. I think he's kinda cute, but I don't really want to get close enough to see for sure. I've heard that the Macabee gopher trap is quite effective, so the little sucker better stay out of our flower garden. He's got acres of allowed ground to tear up as much as he wants.

Cold, windy and rainy again. Dinner was strictly crappy-weather comfort food. Nachos. A bag of corn chips. A can of Cuban-style black beans. A bag of shredded cheese. A container of fresh salsa. I call it dinner, even if Alice Waters would never eat such a thing. God bless Trader Joe's.

My Life's Biggest Disappointment

Is me.

I wish I had leadership qualities. I do not. I wish I didn't piss people off all the time, but I do. There is so much I would like to do, so much I would like to accomplish, but if it means that I have to connect with another living human being to do it, it ain't going to happen. It's so frustrating. I've just never in my whole life been able to put all the pieces and parts together.

This reality doesn't freak me out like it used to. Just makes me sad. Makes me sorry for the waste that I am, wanting to make something somewhere better and unable to do so.

Dinner? Fennel and red pepper gratin. Pan-sauteed fish. Tossed green salad. A little weird all the way around, but it did use up some of those (ugh) leftovers in the frig. For which we are eternally grateful.

Lost in Space

That's how I'm feeling today. Lost in space. Let's see, last night I made oven roasted asparagus and salmon together on the same baking sheet. How easy! How tasty! Thank you, Alice, for teaching me how to do these things.

I'm sewing like a madwoman to finish the ugliest quilt I have ever made. Okay, it will be done. Then I can move on. This sucker is bad looking. Seriously. Someone out there want an ugly quilt????

I watched Rachel Maddow's special while sewing madly-- "The Timothy McVeigh" tapes. About the Oklahoma City bombing. The one thing I can say with certainty: Timothy McVeigh was a very boring person. Very boring. He was just a nothing. The fact that he thought he was really something was just a part of what made him such a boring nothing.

And in the rest of my life I'm feeling confused and adrift where I was recently feeling secure and filled with purpose. Oh well, this too shall pass.

Day 86 - Carrot Puree with Caraway and Cumin

Carrot Puree with Caraway and Cumin - pg. 298

What is so rare as a day with peace. At least peace in my little corner of the world. I love it.

Thursday afternoon I took Roxanne W. Furrperson to the vet for a check-up. In spite of having heart disease, she's doing great. She'll be 12 in August. Here's the good news! After several years of giving her heart medicine compounded in a triple-fish flavor base served on top of wet food twice a day (which gets to be miserably tedious), those nice Greenies people have invented pill pockets for cats. Pop a pill in a pocket (a cat treat in disguise). The cat greedily snarfs up the pill pocket. And the pill is now in the cat. Roxanne, bless her, loves pill pockets. Our lives have just become simplified. I like simple.

Yesterday afternoon Megan and I presented Puff as the pet-of-the-week on Dave Congalton's radio show. Puff was a star. I've never seen a cat so relaxed and confident in Dave's studio. Puff just explored and said hi to everyone. He (yes, Puff's a boy) even rolled over on the floor and asked Dave to rub his tummy. While we on the air. Puff is 10 years old and is a perfect cat for our Seniors for Seniors program, and Puff previously lived with a senior mom. I hope Puff gets a good home and an appropriate home.

This morning Randy and I went to farmers' market and then went shopping for the rest of the pots we need to pot up our cacti and succulents. And potting medium. Compost, perlite, bone meal.

And tonight I actually cooked again! My favorite old stand-by tuna spaghetti. And Alice's Algerian-inspired carrot puree with caraway and cumin. Lacking any fresh lemon juice (poor planning on my part), I added a bit of fruity red vinegar at the end. Muy tasty. I'm getting into this vinegar thing. A whole world of previously undiscovered flavors. There's more to vinegar than salad dressing. Who knew.

In the meantime, I'm working furiously to finish one of my many, many UFOs. This one, a quilt from 1996 for heaven's sake. Very corny. But, the top is very nearly done. Persistence occasionally pays off.

61 down; 244 to go

My New Favorite Cookbook

Although I haven't actually made anything from it yet, Randy brought home from the Smithsonian the coolest cookbook: "One Fish, Two Fish, Crawfish, Bluefish: Sustainable Seafood Cookbook." I've shared it with Eric and Tony at Pier 46, my favorite local purveyors of seafood. They're pretty excited about it.

No one's taking me up on my contest offering yet??? Maybe I'll try it on Facebook.

Oh Crap!

And I'm not kidding.

Monday promised to be a long day in any event. Randy out of the house early to take his car in for some work and wouldn't be home until late. Refrigerator repairman scheduled to come in the a.m. Emergency meeting of the NCHS Board at 5 p.m. to discuss a difficult matter. Oh sigh. And then it got a whole lot worse.

How can I make this long story short? Well, after showering and starting a load of laundry, the plumbing suddenly developed a serious problem. Toilets wouldn't flush, sewer gas came up through the kitchen sink, and (gulp) there was suddenly sewage in both downstairs showers, complete with those little floating brown bits. There ensued several panicked calls to our project manager and a panicked rush to the neighbor's house to use their toilet. Back to the house to await the refrigerator repair guy who, bless him, was understanding, supportive, AND fixed the frig!

Now some background information. When we were first beginning to design our house, I had 2 books that were my main design inspiration, my bibles as it were. One was The New Strawbale House by Catherine Wanek. Catherine's photos are inspirational, moving, and just plain gorgeous. I couldn't help but think, "If I ever had a beautiful house that Catherine would come and photograph, I'd just die and go to heaven." As the project moved along, we learned that our builder is a close friend of Catherine's. When Randy and I were last in New Mexico, we stopped in to meet Catherine's husband and mother. Catherine was away at the time, but we enjoyed touring their B&B and Catherine's mom's strawbale house which appears in TNSH.

So, right in the middle of the shit-in-my-showers situation, waiting for the project manager and the septic pumper to arrive, the project manager calls to tell me that Catherine Wanek is in his office and wants to come up to my house, camera in hand. WTF!!?? Fine, just tell her to pee first. Catherine Wanek is coming to photograph my house and I have shit in my showers. Fine.

Well, I can go with the flow. So to speak. Catherine came and photographed. The refrigerator guy did his thing (the frig is now quiet as a church mouse). The pumper arrived. I left the house to get some lunch and find a place to pee. The project manager cleaned up the showers and toilets (bless him, all you gods and goddesses, bless him). Everyone left and I prepared for the meeting.

And we all got through our meeting, successfully. After which I was a puddle. Take-out from Mickie D's. Sewed some when I got home. Randy joined me with his take-out burrito to watch the end of Dancing with the Stars. And I read some Iliad.

This morning Catherine came back to photograph for another few hours. She's a terrific woman. Nicholas, our big white cat, was a very cooperative model throughout the whole photo shoot. He's social and loves being the center of attention. I think that the chance of Nicky NOT being in Catherine's next book is somewhere around zero.

This afternoon I was able to run a couple errands. NCHS got a great first-page above-the-fold article in the last edition of the Paso Robles Press. Two adorable 5-day old kittens, one of whom is Larry. I tracked down a copy of that paper. Then I took 2 quilts to a quilter for quilting. This is a woman I haven't worked with before, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Again, I'm just going with the flow.

Came home, took a nap, and made dinner, which was a variation on the last dish I prepared.

Oh yes! Here's a contest! Randy and I have booked our big fall adventure. Two weeks in one country followed by 1 week in an adjoining country. Any guesses where we're going? Guess right and I'll bring you a special present from one of the countries.