Making Stuff, Making a Life

Cliffhanger Resolved: Faithless Lover Makes Rice

2012-02-01T21:14:00.000-08:00

Boiled and Baked Long-Grain Rice - pg. 101

Geez, that was quite a cliffhanger, wasn't it. Well, whatever was wrong with my intestines (or whatever it was that hurt), thank the goddess that it resolved on its own. Plus, I tried a new doctor and think I'm going to like her. She has solved my IBS with the right probiotic, is paying strict attention to my blood pressure, and has sent me to a neurologist to get my minor hand tremor diagnosed.

Then we went to Borneo. Which was wonderful, enlightening, fun, and just basically a swell trip. We had a few days in Singapore on the way. I love Singapore. I want to spend 2 weeks in Singapore. Then we went to Ft. Smith Arkansas to spend Christmas with Randy's mom and step-father. Then we went to Bakersfield to see Randy's brother and his wife and their twin college freshman sons. Then we went to San Francisco for a business meeting. Okay, Randy conducted business, I shopped and played and ate. And, we've had to give our oldest cat, Maizie Jane Valentine, a lot of extra care and attention to deal with her severe arthritis -- she's doing a lot better now on gawd-awfully expensive narcotics. Well, heck, I would be, too.

Meanwhile, back at the range.... I've been a faithless lover. I haven't cooked much and haven't pursued my Alice Waters TAOSF project. OTOH, I have made Alice recipes that I've made before. And I've played "Chopped" in the kitchen, cooking from the frig without recipes. And I've played around with my Crock-Pot slow cooker and America's Test Kitchen Slow Cooker Revolution cookbook, both of which I LOVE.

Tonight! Tonight! I'm back at it. I made Boiled and Baked Long-Grain Rice. Doesn't sound like a big deal, I know, but I gotta tell ya I've NEVER been able to make rice. Ever. I've always made Randy make the rice because following the directions on the backs of the rice bags has never ever worked for me. I've always ended up with gummy messes. Now I've made rice with all 3 of Alice's methods and every single one of them has yielded the fluffy rice of my dreams. Now Randy makes ME make the rice! (Lately, his rice has gone down hill. Sorry about that, Dear Heart.) I topped the rice with a "Chopped" dish: left over shredded chicken and fresh chopped broccoli in a sauce made of chicken sauce from the originally cooked chicken (in the Crock-Pot) with a big shot of very spicy fresh salsa finished with a bit of hickory smoked salt. It was really good!

So, it's a new year. I've been very productive in my studio in 2012, and now I'm back to TAOSF and blogging about it.

104 recipes completed; a mere 201 yet to tackle

Walk On In

2011-09-06T22:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, this new clinic I've been assigned to (and people worry about socialized medicine? we don't have doctor choice already, people! unless we're Donald Trump) takes walk-ins. I walked in and saw a physician's assistant. I generally prefer PAs to family practice docs anyway. So, I've had blood work and an abdominal sonogram already. (And an annual screening mammogram, too, while I was at it.) Maybe a cyst on the spleen??? Who knows. Anyway, it shot the whole day in the head. Should know more tomorrow.

Whining

2011-09-05T12:00:00.000-07:00

Sick as a dog. A whole raft of weird symptoms and getting worse every day. Trying to get a doctor's appointment is like pulling teeth. (Yes, I've got one -- for the 20th!) I'm on the verge of heading to the ER, but fighting to resist the urge every inch of the way.

In the meantime, I gotta pay bills. If it isn't one thing, it's something else. I need a glass of whine.

And Yet More Tomatoes

2011-09-02T19:41:00.000-07:00

Greek Salad - pg. 53

Well, as long as I'm at it, why not make Alice's version of the classic Greek Salad. In spite of the fact that I don't like raw tomatoes, I've eaten a yacht-sized load of Greek salads in the last few years. It all started when we were in Greece for a couple weeks not long ago. In the summer, in Greece, every restaurant serves endless quantities of Greek salad; and it's all delicious. Very simple. Tomatoes, cucumbers, olives and feta cheese with lots of herbs and vinegar & oil dressing. You can hide the taste of anything under plenty of olives and feta. Alice's version is a little more elaborate, adding thinly sliced red onion and red sweet pepper. It was good. I'd forgotten how much I like Greek salad, in spite of it being loaded with raw tomatoes. Of course, nearly anything tastes better on the plaza of a restaurant at the base of the Acropolis, in the evening, in the summer. Or on a sailboat at anchor along the Aegean, at noon, in the summer. Oh sigh. I'm so grateful that I've been there and have done that.

103 recipes completed; a mere 202 recipes to go

Tomatoes

2011-09-02T13:47:00.000-07:00

pg. 241 - Sliced Tomatoes with Basil

As you know by now, I do not like raw tomatoes. I consider this to be a moral failure on my part, a personality defect, if you will. For decades I forced myself, off and on, to eat raw tomatoes, hoping in vain that eventually I'd "get it," that something would snap into place and I'd join the ranks of adult tomato lovers. I'm 62. It has never happened. I've pretty much accepted this personal defect and have admitted defeat. I do not like raw tomatoes.

As you also know, I chose my Alice Waters cooking project to actually learn to cook well. My goal is to make every recipe in TAOSF. I figured that would take me into uncharted territory and that I wouldn't necessary like everything I made. The cucumbers in cream and mint certainly wasn't my favorite thing, but today I tackled something I knew I wouldn't even be able to sample: Sliced Tomatoes with Basil. It's a very simple salad, easy to make. It's typical of Alice's celebration of fresh, local, seasonal ingredients. But, good grief, it's basically a plate of sliced raw tomatoes.

For his lunch today, I made Sliced Tomatoes with Basil for my husband. I didn't even have one little bite. Not a taste. Not a lick. Spread out on an antique yellow fiesta plate, all that glistening red and green was indeed gorgeous and glorious. He ate every last scrap of it, bless his heart. And I can now mark that particular recipe off my list.

102 recipes completed; 203 recipes to go -- I HAVE COMPLETED 1/3 OF MY PROJECT!!

"Screw Calm and Get Angry" (and Cucumbers)

2011-09-01T17:01:00.000-07:00

pg. 247 - Cucumbers with Cream and Mint

"Screw Calm and Get Angry" is the title of a cool little book of quotations that I just got. Just in time for the facebook campaign I'm waging against the Tea Party and its attack on government. I'm so sick of the crap that's going on in Washington I could just scream. I can't understand for the life of me when -- or why -- or how -- the majority of people in this country became so self-absorbed that they've decided to engage, en mass, in cutting off their noses to get revenge of some sort against their own faces. How have we lost any sense of community, any sense of being all in this lifeboat together? I don't understand. And I'm pissed.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, it's that time of year when I become convinced, annually, that there is absolutely no need for us to have a garden since we are awash in a sea of vegetables gifted to us by our wonderful friends and neighbors. Eggplants, tomatoes, peppers, chili peppers, cucumbers of several types, summer squash. There's a great BIG bowl of the stuff in the kitchen. I'll be the first to admit that summer vegetables are still an acquired taste for me. I really love meat and fat and sugar. Beans, rice and pasta, yes. Cheese and dairy, yes. Fruit, yes. Spring, winter and fall vegetables, yes. Summer vegetables? Well......... I don't like raw tomatoes, for one thing. I've already had a lifetime quota of summer squash. Cucumbers? Not so much. It's these heat-of-summer things that mostly leave me cold.

So there they were, staring at me: FOUR lemon cucumbers. (It's not bad enough that we get the neighbors generous offerings, Randy brings yet more of this stuff home from Farmers Market! Two lemon cukes from the neighbors + 2 brought home by RDK. After saying to him: DON'T BUY VEGETABLES THIS WEEK! JUST FRUIT!) Yup, 2 people in this house. FOUR lemon cucumbers. Fortunately, I had cream in the frig. And lots of spearmint in the herb garden. So, I turned to page 247 for Cucumbers with Cream and Mint. Now, I suppose this really is one of the world's greatest salads, but it didn't do much for me. Nonetheless, it's another recipe completed. Nobody said I'd love 'em all.

On another front, I've purchased "Slow Cooker Revolution" from America's Test Kitchen, as well as their recommended slow cooker, the Crock-Pot Touchscreen Slow Cooker. Three reasons: (1) Randy will be teaching again come 2012 and it's often hard to time dinner when he's teaching late afternoon labs, (2) I want to be able to have some main courses stashed in the freezer for times when there just isn't time to cook, and (3) when we entertain, I prefer to have everything ready before guests arrive so I can be with them, not in the kitchen.

Last weekend I tested goal #3 with Moroccan Chicken Stew, served with an old favorite of mine, Ina Garten's Curried Cous Cous which is made ahead of time and served at room temperature. One of the guests brought a green salad. I did go a little overboard on dessert, but it was all made ahead of time. Randy took care of beverages. I got to hang out with our guests. Afterwards clean up was fast and easy. And we still had dinner twice more from the leftovers!

Earlier this week I made Fancy Pork Stew with Fennel and Prunes. I have 3 meals worth in the freezer right now. Yeah for goal #2! This weekend I'll make marinara sauce or maybe some chili. After a dinner or two, the rest will go into the freezer.

Who would ever have guessed that food and cooking would become a new passion for me? Although, Randy is making dinner tonight at my request. I just can't face that big bowl of vegetables on the kitchen counter. And he'll be making fried okra for himself, too. Oh well.

101 recipes completed; 204 yet to conquer!

Stuff I Hate. Stuff I Love.

2011-08-25T15:08:00.000-07:00

Hate. Right-wing fundamentalists who can't think. You know: do research, analyze the information, and come up with a slightly original thought (perhaps a thought of their own?).

Love. Crab cakes.

Hate. Frying crab cakes. ("Frying" is not my forte in the kitchen.)

Love. Cheese-stuffed roasted peppers.

Hate. Myself when I spend too much time on the computer.

Love. My car.

Hate. When husband takes my car for the day.

Love. Cats.

Hate. Cleaning litter boxes (well, who doesn't?).

Love. Modern medicine.

Hate. Going to the doctor.

Love. Our recent trip to LA.

Tuesday: Check in to the Ambrose

Walk the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica

Watch filming of "Private Practice"

(Tim Daly from "Wings"!)

Dinner at Josie's

Wednesday: Breakfast at the hotel

Warner Brothers VIP Tour

New Dinosaur Hall at the Museum of Natural History

Dinner at The Bazaar at SLS

Thursday: Breakfast at the hotel

The Getty Center

Hollywood Bowl (LA Symphony: Beethoven's 9th)

Dinner at the Bowl (take-out picnic)

Friday: Breakfast at the hotel

Huntington Gardens

Lunch at Celestino's

Hate. Oh, snap. I guess I'm fresh out of hate for the day.

Recipe #100

2011-08-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

Lemon Curd - pg. 199

Yeah, yeah. I know. It's been awhile. Travel (his and ours). Sick cat. Garage cleaning (a major project, but part of moving into the not-so-new-anymore house). Ya da, ya da, ya da. You know the drill.

So, I declared today to be cooking day. First, I had 2 test recipes from America's Test Kitchen (home of _Cook's Illustrated_ magazine, a favorite of mine) to make: Simple Almond Granola, and Kale and Sunflower Pesto. Both were delicious and lots of fun to make. Since we're awash in the stuff, I'm also looking forward to making Mark Bittman's Mint "Pesto". (I've recently bought his great cookbook, _How to Cook Everything_, which is billed as a hipper version of _The Joy of Cooking_. It looks to be a more useful cookbook, too. I've never been a fan of _Joy_.)

And I made Lemon Curd! Man, I could eat this stuff straight up. Turns out to be easy to make (since I'm actually a whiz at separating eggs, as well as "stirring constantly") and totally delicious made from Meyer lemons. In the homemade stuff, you add a good bit of lemon zest which really "ups" the flavor. Alice says you can also make fruit curd from any citrus! Oranges! Grapefruit! Limes! Tangerines! Considering that you can also make candied citrus from any citrus, this is an area for further exploration that I'm pretty sure will be made in heaven. Okay, actually made in my kitchen. And -- you can make fruit curd from any berry puree. Who knew!?

Here's where we stand. It's a milestone of sorts.

100 recipes down; 205 recipes yet to make

Lemons and Spiders

2011-07-30T13:18:00.000-07:00

Candied Citrus Peel -- pg. 382

Good lord, what a week. Couple of weeks. Month.

Did I mention our pet spiders? Two orb web spiders have set up shop on the outside of our kitchen windows. They are Big Girls who have lived there for at least a month now. (We've had to instruct our cleaning ladies to leave their webs alone.) Absolutely fascinating to watch. They're nocturnal, coming out about 8:30 in the evening. They're back in the sack before I get up in the morning. I'm not normally a big fan of spiders, although I'm not an arachnaphobe either. I mean, I'm willing to go mano a mano with the snarliest of black widow spiders. But these 2 are pretty cool. I was cheering for one last night as she caught and ate a small cricket. What a woman!

Did I mention that we were essentially stood up for a dinner date a couple weeks ago? I mean, a dinner I was making? After buying $120 worth of groceries, developing a menu, and planning a day of cooking? (Who does something like that?!) Soooooo, we've been eating endless homemade tomato soup and pork loin chops and potato salad. And then there's that 4 pounds of Meyer lemons. Well, when life gives me lemons, I check the index in TAOS.

Ta-da! Candied Citrus Peel! In this case, Candied Lemon Peel. Sometimes I read these recipes in TAOS and wonder what the heck Alice is thinking. Who wants to make candied citrus peel, for heaven's sake? Then I actually make the recipe and all is revealed. Here's a great way to use (instead of throw away) the peels left over after juicing citrus. Candying the peel is a two-day process, but is simple. Honestly. Then you put the candied peel in a glass jar in the frig and there you have it! Free candy! Dessert. Toppings for pudding, fruit, ice cream, cupcakes, and so on and so forth. Or just a little treat right out of the jar. Oh yum. I think I finally have a reason to squeeze fresh orange juice. I'll never throw away a citrus peel again.

99 recipes down; 206 recipes to go

Potato Salad, Recipe Testing, a Nook & Uninvited Dogs

2011-07-22T20:07:00.000-07:00

Potato Salad - pg. 245

Alice's potato salad is what you call a French potato salad. Made with a vinaigrette. I used Chaparral Gardens Winter Ambrosia vinegar which I totally love. The recipe is very simple, which not everything in _The Art of Simple Food_ is. Actually I've made this twice in the last week. Believe it or not, I don't think I've ever made potato salad before in my entire life. I learned that the potatoes have to be whacked up into smaller pieces than you might at first think, and that both the potatoes and eggs chop up far more easily when chilled. I love this potato salad.

Here's more fun in the kitchen-- I'm now on Cooks Illustrated list to test recipes. Yippee! Someone actually wants my opinions! Tonight I made Spaghetti al Vino Rosso with Swiss Chard and Pinenuts, except I used walnuts since pinenuts are way too darned expensive right now. Simple Almond Granola is the next recipe to test. Bring 'em on!

Even though you'll never see me get over my life long love of real books, I have purchased a Nook Color (Barnes & Noble). Randy bought the simplest Nook Reader a few weeks ago and said we could "share." Right. ... (Crickets chirping in the background) ... Every time Randy has come home with something "we can share," we don't. However, I did some research and decided that if I were to get a Nook, I would want the color version since it does just about everything an iPad can do for a lot less money. And then a refund check came in the mail. Made out to ME! Seems that the insurance is paying for more of my implanted molar than the oral surgery thought they would. Mmmmmmmmmmm. What to do with this sudden windfall? Guess. I thought it was the voice of God speaking to me, "Buy a Nook Color, Sally." So I did. I'm learning my way around it a little bit every day. And still reading real books.

Now about the dogs. Well, let's back up a bit. A week ago we were expecting dinner guests for whom I had planned a terrific dinner and bought a $$$lot$$$ of groceries, if you take my meaning. They backed out at the last minute for no good reason. (And you wonder why I've been making all this potato salad....) Fortunately, we also had wonderful house guests early this week; they took the sting out. But then, my weaving study group came yesterday morning. Two women arrived with a total of 3 uninvited, unexpected dogs. I'll spare you the details except to say that I now have a trashed window screen that has to be entirely replaced, and a scratched-up front door. This is the fancy-shmancy custom-made-in-Santa-Fe Big Splurge front door. I could kill. Who in hell takes unleashed, unsupervised dogs to someone's house uninvited and unexpected??? I was speechless to say the least. When do you think that any of these people will be invited to my house again? You got it.

Well, so much for that. We really did enjoy the heck out of our house guests this week. One of Randy's PhD students from when he was at OSU, with his wife and son. They're doing to college tour thing, hunting for exactly the right school for their son. I'm cheering for CalTech so they can stop and see us more often. We're also expecting the wonderful plein aire artist, Becky Joy, to stay with us again in October. Becky wanted to come back to our house and we are totally delighted to have her. We have 2 of her paintings from last year and may add one or two this year.

Now all I have to do is use up 4 pounds of Meyer lemons that I bought for the fizzled dinner party. Sherbet, pies, sauces, chicken and olives and lemons (it's Tunisian). Yippee! Oh yes, and candied citrus peel. That's on page 382. Stay tuned.

98 recipes completed; 207 to go (time to get cracking here, Girl!)

It's Saturday!

2011-07-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

Yup, it's Saturday and I'm STILL being a Responsible Adult. Okay, maybe that's Responsible Adult Lite, but that still counts, doesn't it? I did a necessary but Pain in the Butt (PITA) task this afternoon. Put away winter clothes and brought out summer clothes. If I had fewer clothes (I'm working toward that; really I am) or a bigger closet (as if this one couldn't house a small family in a third-world country) I wouldn't have to do this. In fact, I never had to do this in Los Osos since it doesn't get hot there in the summer (for the most part) and I could always stuff extras in other closets. But here in Atascadero there is a decided winter and summer, and usually an actual spring and fall, too. So, the toasty fleeces, hats, sweaters and wraps get put up on the high shelf for the summer while the short-sleeved tees and linen tops get brought down. Like I say, it's a PITA that I keep putting off because it involves numerous trips up and down the little step ladder. But I did it. And it's done.

In the fiberist area, I bought a black wire mannequin sort of thing at Ross Dress for Less today after our weekly trip to farmers market. Eventually I'll make a custom dress form and this thing will be the stand. Something I've wanted to do for a long time, but didn't know what to use for a stand and was, apparently, too lazy to research and solve the problem. Well, it's solved now. So there. And in the mean, the mannequin will adorably show off my latest whatevers. Cool.

More About Iterative Development

2011-07-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

But first, a word about today's Be A Responsible Adult goal. I haven't tended my composting worms in about 6 weeks, although they don't need a lot of attention. Today I just checked them out (they've gotten a lot of work done in 6 weeks!), added some vegetable scraps that themselves had gotten pretty, ah-hem, degraded. I cleaned the dust and dirt off the bins, set the legs into water-filled plastic containers since I found a few ants in the bin, refilled the vinegar fly trap, and drained off accumulated worm tea to feed to plants under the big oak. While I was at it, I cleaned off the outside of the front door and wiped off a few exterior window sills.

But, on to iterative development. I got some helpful feedback from Tien after I emailed her that her WeaveTech post was turning out to be very useful for me right now. I had also commented on iterative development on facebook and received a reply from a retired IT friend of mine, Bill who was just on the Alaska adventure with me and my husband and Bill's wife Mary. Mary is a pretty serious knitter, so Bill was able to see how iterative development might apply to a fuzzy goal (I love the bad joke there) such as "become a better knitter". I added that using iterative development, one might decide over time to specialize in 1 or more specific types of knitting. The beauty of it is that that decision would not have to be made right up front, or even ever really. It would just emerge. Anyway, it was helpful to me that Bill also recognized what I was getting at.

So, feeling that the pressure to perform is now off, I assigned a particular area of endeavor to each of the 5 weekdays. Of course, this is flexible and subject to change, but it ensures that I don't get stuck on any one project or type of work. For the moment, Friday is beadwork day. Today I made a new neckpiece for a much-loved elaborate locket. The previous neckpiece had broken twice. I'll fix something once, but if it breaks again, it clearly is a design that isn't working well. I also didn't want to spend a lot of time on it. I had earlier made a multi-strand ribbon neckpiece with a beaded clasp for a similar locket, so I used that idea for a variation for this locket. Done. What I learned is that my beading skills are a little rusty. Surprise, surprise.

Dinner was Trader Joe's lasagna. But, I think I've found a scarf pattern for my skein of qiviut.

"Setting Goals as a Fiberist"

2011-07-07T20:41:00.000-07:00

Maybe that's what I should call myself. A fiberist. But no one knows what that means either. I think I've met exactly one person who knew what I was talking about when I said that I'm a fiber artist. Anyway, that's not the point here.

The point is that my Responsibility Goal today was/is to clear 6 things off my desk. Just start at the top of the pile and start working at it. I got to a really interesting post from Tien Chiu (a very talented and accomplished fiberist) written a couple years ago on the topic of setting goals as a fiberist. I knew that Tien would have something really meaty to say on the subject, so I printed the post from the WeaveTech list. Studying it today was great timing for me.

Tien talked about iterative development from the realm of software development. Basically you develop your "product" in quick iterations EACH OF WHICH PRODUCES A USABLE PRODUCT. For me, personally, I see this as a call to quit thinking about it and just start doing it. (Yes, I often suffer from the paralysis of analysis.) I see this as looking at my UFOs in a whole new light. Here's the new attitude:

Each project, each UFO, is a lesson -- a learning opportunity, if you will -- in design, technique, whatever, that I can then carry on into the next project. So the projects, the learning, keep accumulating like Russian dolls getting bigger and bigger and bigger. This approach puts the emphasis on the process while still offering the payoff of completed projects. All of which builds toward mastery and excellence, which is really my goal in everything I pursue in the fiberist world.

That's it.

Still Responsible...

2011-07-06T20:22:00.000-07:00

July 5 - The monthly trek to Costco and Petsmart. (Mostly for soy milk, toilet paper, paper towels, cat food and cat litter.) I even stopped in at my salon and made appointments for a pedicure and hair cut.

Jyly 6 - (That would be today.) Did piles of laundry. But, the real GOAL today was to clean out -- and clean -- the kitchen cabinets under the kitchen sinks. I understand how they get so messy, but I will never understand how they get so dirty. Anyway, they're neat and clean now.

As a reward for being so damned responsible, I'm back in the studio again. I'll probably spend the rest of my life just making stuff I've already planned to make, but that's okay. Most of the time. Saves me a lot of shopping time. A few years ago I got some great fringy, tasselly trim in pink, blue, green and ivory and some upholstery fabric that looks great with it. This afternoon I started making a bag out of it. I want more bags (what we used to call purses), so get to it, I say. I've got plenty of fabric, even a few patterns. I'm even taking process photos since soon, very soon, a daily goal will be to get up to speed in that area.

In the meantime, I'm watching So You Think You Can Dance and continuing to knit the aqua mohair and silver crochet thread strand ribs-and-lace scarf that has given me vast quantities of grief in the last couple of months. Yeah, I'll take a photo of that, too.

Is there anything philosophical to discuss tonight? Nothing knew. Same old stuff. How do I become the person I'd like to be instead of the one I am? I'm 62. I haven't got all day.

Dinner tonight? A melange of leftovers. Leftover control is a constant battle since there are only 2 of us. What does Alice do with leftovers, that's what I want to know.

Moving on With Alice!

2011-07-04T21:26:00.000-07:00

Cauliflower Salad with Olives and Capers - pg. 247

Good grief! It's been nearly 4 months since I last worked on my cooking project, which is cooking my way through Alice Waters' cookbook, The Art of Simple Food. Well, I was on a pretty strict diet for awhile, then we went to Alaska for a couple weeks, then I had a bad cold. That's just the way life is.

Yesterday we got a call to attend an impromptu 4th of July neighborhood potluck. Aha! What's in the frig? A cauliflower, capers, frozen lemons (for juice for dressing). Looks like the start of a salad to me! I zipped out for a couple jars of kalamata olives, which I should have on hand anyway, and a red bell pepper for color in the salad. I picked a fistful of spearmint from the garden. Whack, whack, squeeze, squeeze, steam and toss. And an excellent salad that was well received by everyone at the potluck was born. Okay, husband wasn't thrilled with the olives, but then he doesn't like olives. Neighbor Tom, OTOH, praised the addition of the olives.

I've got a long way to go. 97 recipes completed; 208 recipes to go. I've learned so much already. My confidence in the kitchen is so very much greater. I'm excited to see where I'm going to be after another 100 recipes, then at the very end.

Otherwise, I'm feeling scared about a potential health issue which is, in all probability, nothing. And I'm feeling that I'm not being responsible or disciplined, but then again I never do. During July I'm trying to have one, just one, I MUST DO THIS RESPONSIBLE THING TODAY goal each day. And I MUST do that one thing.

July 1: Catch up with spending records and bill paying. DONE

July 2: Box up Bill's bird book and Mary's birthday present to mail next week. DONE

July 3: Sort out rug wool that's been living in the guest shower. DONE

July 4: Clean cat fountain and order new filters for the coming year. DONE

Will I ever reach a point in my life where I don't feel guilty for falling short in all areas of life? Oh, probably not. But life goes on.

97 down, 208 to go, so let's keep cooking!

Part of a New Tooth; Sore Throat

2011-06-27T15:01:00.000-07:00

Life is strange and bizarre.

Thursday I had another round with my oral surgeon to place the root of the implant molar that will replace the tooth I lost in January. I'm a whimp. I had general anaesthesia again. Worth every penny. Probably makes the surgeon's job a lot easier, too. Result? Perfect placement. No bleeding. No pain. No kidding.

(Here's the best part: once again Dr. Whitcher's FABULOUS surgical assistant, Susan, wrote me a THANK YOU NOTE afterwards! "Thanks for being a great patient..." "Call if you have any questions." I love these people!)

So, after a frappuchino and a couple of errands, hubby took me home to sleep off the anaesthesia. I woke up with a dreadful sore throat. Didn't take me too long to realize it had nothing to do with the tooth. Just a wretched-bad summer cold, probably picked up on the way home from Alaska. Viral, of course, since I'm on a week's worth of antibiotics which is standard practice for this kind of oral surgery. Meaning that the antibiotics won't do me any good for the cold.

Such is life. I sleep. I knit. Today I'm better, so I'm at the computer a little. The knitting is a specific project which I'll describe tomorrow.

Where Did The MONTH Go?!?

2011-05-25T20:44:00.001-07:00

Just to keep from dropping off the face of the blogging world, I gotta share that I've been working very hard at weight loss, specifically "releasing" fat. Basically by aiming at 1200 calories/day of lean protein and plants, and working my butt off at the health club. Can you picture me starting to kick box?? Well, picture it. I'm making great progress, but hanging at the club so much is sucking up a lot of my time. Such is life.

Where Did The Week Go?

2011-04-24T19:36:00.000-07:00

It's true. The older I get, the faster time whizzes by. I'm in the habit of taking a shower nearly every morning before I get dressed. Then I feel awake and fit to tackle the day. Sometimes I feel like I'm just going from shower to shower to shower to shower. Does anything happen between showers? Do I actually DO anything, ACCOMPLISH anything, between showers?

Well, I'm just getting that first batch of full-sized sample napkins hemmed and I've made some adjustments on the loom's cables to get a better shed. I've wrestled with the horrible health care system we have in this county, and lost this round. But, my toe is healing nicely. I've run a lot of errands and drunk numerous chai lattes. I've taken advantage of Randy's being out of town for a couple days by seeing 4 movies. (Win Win, Winter in Wartime, The Conspirator, and Jane Eyre, all of which were good.) I found containers for my rolls of paper and my weaving reeds, something I've been hunting for for many months. I've taken Roxanne W. Furrperson to our new vet for a meet-and-greet checkup. I've read lots of bits about weaving and attended my study group's monthly meeting. But it feels like I've done nothing.

Well, better luck this week.

The Full-Size Sample Club

2011-04-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

To jump-start my return to weaving, I signed up to participate in an international serviette/napkin exchange. I did this once before years ago. It's really fun. We're still using, on a daily basis, the napkins I received in exchange for the ones I submitted.

I decided to weave 8-shaft broken twill blocks since our local study group is exploring twill this year. I love the look of broken twill blocks. It's one of those structures that can look way more complex than it really is. Appearance-wise, it's probably the closest you can get to damask on 8 shafts.

Since I have a lot of 8/2 unmercerized yarn that I want to use up (it's time to move on to finer and better yarns), I've going to make a whole slew of different color-combinations, all of which will work with our collection of Fiesta dishes.

Well, I'm still getting re-aquainted with my 8-shaft Harrisville loom. It's a quirky little thing. At least I think it's quirky. Maybe it's me that's quirky. And I've never weaved broken twill blocks, so I'm making full-sized samples. It's not that I don't believe in sampling. I do. It's just that I want something to show for it. And I know, from experience, that small samples and the full-sized real item do not necessarily behave the same way all the way through the final wet finishing.

Sooo, I'm in the throes of weaving boysenberry napkins, maybe about 4 of them, with gold and teal stripes. The stripes are the width of blocks, all of which are 1 inch wide and, hopefully, 1 inch square. nnnnvggggggb (That comment is from Stewart.) Of course there is lots of room for variation. It's a good exercise. I'm slowly getting on better terms with this loom. I certainly need all the practice warping that I can get. And, I'll be able to fine-tune a few things based on how these puppies turn out, especially the size of the blocks and the napkins.. Hopefully, the napkins will turn out. Well, that's sort of the point of sampling.

Friday

2011-04-15T21:28:00.000-07:00

Okay. Not a terribly exciting day.

Mostly I threaded heddles and I'm still not done.

Randy helped me finish the set-up of the 4-shaft Newcomb which is designed to be a rug loom, but will weave anything. It has a MASSIVE red and black carpet-warp warp already on the sectional backbeam. My father put that warp on years ago and I do mean years. Maybe 20-25 years ago. I haven't a clue what he had in mind other than it was no doubt for rag rugs because that's what he wove. I have boxes and boxes of Pendleton wool strips for rugs that will be perfect for the black and red warp once I figure out how to thread and "tromp" it. It appears to still be in perfect condition. But after those Pendlestrips are woven off????? Well, stay tuned for further adventures. I took Randy out to lunch at Pier 46 to say "thank you."

When we got home, I kept threading heddles. I don't dislike the process, but it does suck up a lot of time because I am not fast at it. Oh well. It's part of the process.

Whine. Sort Of.

2011-04-14T21:25:00.000-07:00

Toe that had surgery last week is feeling achy tonight. And I'm feeling whiney as a result. Oh well. Blog for awhile and then crawl into bed with a good book and a couple magazines.

I feel like a hunter-gatherer today. At our monthly weaving guild meetings we hold a raffle. You bring in stuff you don't want anymore (I donated 4 partial cones of red and orange weaving yarns), buy 4/$1.00 raffle tickets (I always buy $5.00 worth; it supports the guild), and put your tickets into paper cups next to stuff you want. I won a book (_The Root of Wild Madder_ by Brian Murphy; it's about Persian rugs), a nice batch of hang tags for selling handwovens, and a wonderful skein of black wool yarn flecked with white that I had to rescue when Stewart and Nicholas just ran off with it (Stewart has a thing about wool and mohair skeins; he thinks they are wild animals). And, I bought a back copy of Handwoven magazine that I didn't already have.

After the meeting I took a Borders gift card that I have on a shopping expedition for the latest copy of Vanity Fair, Stampington's newest Haute Handbags, and a very interesting book by Jeff Sharlet: _The Family, The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power_, although I'm not sure what's so secret about it.

To top it off, when I got home my copy of _The Art of Bolivian Highland Weaving_ had arrived. This is a very exciting (to me) out-of-print book that I found on Etsy for all of $11.00 with shipping. Elsewhere it costs at least $30. And on up. So I was pretty excited to find it at a bargain price. Turns out it is signed by one of the 2 authors, and it arrived with a bunch of weaving patterns and notes from the original owner who was obviously a weaver!

Last but not least, I brought home Roxanne W. Furrperson's heart pills and my toenail fungus pills, and 2 Linn's chicken pot pies for dinner. Linn's is a local company that makes the best pies, both sweet and savory, in the world. We hadn't had Linn's pot pies for dinner in a long time. They are a little pricey, but worth every penny. It was a grand dinner. I also got a multigrain baguette, and made a green salad which I served with a little of that Rogue River Caveman Blue cheese.

To top the day, we just watched an Atlas rocket launch from Vandenberg from our south-facing upstairs balcony.

Okay. Tomorrow I thread those heddles for sure. I promise. I can't wait to start weaving those broken twill block serviettes!

Landscaping

2011-04-13T22:15:00.000-07:00

The other thing that's been going on around here is landscaping the areas right around the house, especially on the south and east sides. We hired a company, Sage Ecological Landscapes, to do that work. Design-wise we were all on the same page in the hymnal. Lots and lots of native bunch grasses, some striking agaves, and a few other native shrubs and perennials. Three big California buckeye trees on the north side. And culinary herbs around the birdbath right outside our bedroom window. Sage reworked the flagstone pathway on the south side and added a french drain under the balcony. The guys pretty much finished up today. They were totally wonderful. Friday they'll return to plant my culinary bay laurel tree, a Saratoga cultivar. And they will add more grasses in a couple weeks when those plants are big enough to plant. We generally used smaller plants and put the money into gopher baskets for everything. I think going with smaller plants and baskets is going to pay off in the long run. We bought the baskets ourselves and have plenty left over for future expansion of plantings on the north and west sides where Randy is working of restoring native vegetation. The three men who did the actual work here over the last 2.5 weeks were fabulously skilled and very professional. I'm kind of going to miss them.

I did the tie-up and sleyed the reed for my first batch of serviettes. This is exciting, to be making fabric again. It seems quite magical to me.

Weaving and Stuff

2011-04-12T21:55:00.000-07:00

I know. I've not been the daily blogger I mean to be. Stuff on my mind. Politics. Religion. The future of life on the planet, if any. And my big toe.

Ah yes! The big toe! The right one. I've got this cool podiatrist. He's helping me get rid of my toenail fungus. Heading my call to fix problems now while I'm "young" and can still actually reach my toes, he allowed as how he could remove, permanently, the outside parts of that nail. While it hasn't bothered me in years, that ingrown nail did give me a lot of grief when I was younger, so I volunteered to go along with his plans for a little quicky surgery. All went well when he whacked on me a week ago. But it looks like hamburger and is a little bruised and sore. I couldn't do yoga for a week, and even now will have to be pretty careful with it until it heals. Well, whimp that I am becoming, I did volunteer for this one.

Cooking? Venison! Not in TAOSF. Venison pot roast the first day, following a a Cooks Illustrated method for beef. Venison in left-over sauce over noodles the second day. And tonight, risotto with red wine, broccoli, and diced venison. I love venison. I was testing, tonight, Alice's thoughts on using risotto as a base for assorted odds and ends in the frig. I think we're on to something here. I think that risotto is the new meatloaf. Odds and ends used in this risotto: broccoli, venison pot roast, ends of parmesan, odd bit of leftover beef stock, and opened red wine.

Weaving? Yes, I'm weaving again. A large reason for starting to think about building this house we now live in is that I did not have room at our old house to weave. Right now, all 3 of my floor looms are sitting side-by-side in their permanent locations in my new studio. The Harrisville is in use. The Newcomb rug loom is nearly ready to go. And then I'll start working on the 16 shaft Macomber that I've never been able to use although I've had it for years.

What I'm working on is my contribution to The 2011 Occasional International Serviette/Napkin Exchange. I'm planning to make tons of napkins since my goal is to make a bunch for myself as well as for the exchange. My inspiration is our Fiesta dishes, of which we have a lot, both vintage and new. I'm using 8/2 unmercerized cottons from my stash, since I'm looking for casual napkins that will hold up well to constant use and laundry. And, I don't want to buy new yarn! I've got a monster stash to use up! The yarn colors I'm using are all echoed somewhere in the Fiesta collection.

The hard part, of course, is figuring out what sort of structure to weave. I'm starting with 8-shaft, 2-block, broken twill. The blocks are 1-inch square across a 20" wide warp set at 24 epi. The first group of 4 napkins are on a mostly red-purple warp with yellow-orange and blue-green stripes that coincide with the blocks. I'll start with a plaid sort of layout and see what develops. I'm a member of the full-sized sample club.... If this warp works out well, I'll simply use the end of the warp to tie on succeeding warps in other colorways.

In any event, today I made all these decisions and wound the first warp. Tomorrow, the world. Or something.

Life

2011-03-25T12:09:00.000-07:00

It's true. I haven't blogged for awhile. First, I was too pissed off about what's been going on Wisconsin (and Michigan, and Ohio). You don't even want to get me started. Then I was too shocked and saddened about what's been happening in Japan. Then I got busy weaving again. And I still don't know what to say. But I'll try. Honest I will.

I Am a Risotto Master

2011-03-15T21:26:00.000-07:00

Risotto Bianco - pg. 105

No kidding. I am a risotto master. I knocked off risotto bianco tonight, along with a loaf of no-knead walnut and raisin bread. Of course, I can't resist screwing around with recipes these days, I'm getting so cocky in the kitchen. So, I added chopped brown mushrooms to the onions at the beginning and tossed in a few fresh shrimp toward the end. It wasn't very "bianco," but it sure was good. (Roxanne W. Furrperson got a cooked, chopped shrimp after our dinner. She loves shrimp.)

I've decided that (1) risotto is easy, and (2) risotto is my new meat loaf. (1) I didn't even bother measuring anything to make the risotto bianco since you judge everything as you go along by taste and texture anyway. How easy is that! (2) Like meat loaf, you can put any weird stuff you have in the frig into risotto. Whatever odds and ends of cooked veggies, meat, cheese you happen to have on hand. Just toss it in. I certainly wasn't sure about combining mushrooms and shrimp, but it was delicious.

I'm so into this risotto thing that I just ordered Vialone Nano rice and Carnaroli rice from igourmet. It would be fun to have a dinner party comparing risottos made from these 2 rices with some made with Arborio (which is easy to find locally; the other 2 are not).

Otherwise, as we wait for massive explosions and/or meltdowns and radiation releases from 6 (count them: SIX) stricken nuclear reactors in Japan, I tied on my red chenille warp. Tomorrow I weave! Yeah!

96 recipes completed; a mere 209 yet to make

Big Week for Cooking

2011-03-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

Moroccan Carrot Salad with Ginger - pg. 246

Earlier this week we hosted our neighborhood foodies for a north-African themed dinner. This involved days of menu planning, shopping, and cooking. I loved every minute of it.

I made bread, a total of 4 loaves so guests could take some home, too. Served simply, family style, were lamb tagine, curried cous cous, and carrot salad with ginger. Numerous bottles of wine and sparkling water littered the table.

For desert I made red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and chocolate cupcakes filled with chocolate ganache and frosted with Mexican chocolate frosting. Tom brought a nice dry champagne to go with.

As you might imagine, everyone went home with cupcakes as well as bread; and we've been eating leftovers ever since. What a way to go!

95 recipes conquered (more or less) and 210 left to tackle

It's All About Japan Right Now

2011-03-12T19:36:00.000-08:00

Apparently I'm the only person who has had trouble tearing herself away from the TV and what's been going on in Japan and around the Pacific Rim. We are one earth. These things impact all of us. I remember 3-Mile Island. Southern California is way overdue for a Big One. The question is not "if". The only question is WHEN. Are we paying attention? Are we learning anything at all from Japan's experience?

A Day of Round Two-its

2011-03-07T21:08:00.000-08:00

Oh, you know what I mean. All those little niddling tasks that pile up all over the place. The ones you don't want to do right now. So, you'll do them some time when you get a round to it. Today, I did a lot of round two-its.

Boxed up stuff in the garage that will be donated somewhere. It's all in boxes in the car, which is 90% of the battle. First donation drop-off I pass gets it.

Cleaned and slightly reorganized several drawers in the kitchen. As I'm getting more and more into cooking and baking, where things should be stored is becoming more obvious.

Resolved a bunch of pending projects in my closet. (Where should this go? Where should that go? Fix broken earring? Nah, toss it. Put jewelry back in appropriate places. Dust -- that would be a verb, not a noun. Etc.)

Put stuff away in my studio. (There is always stuff in my studio that needs to be put away.)

How on god's green earth can this stuff take all day? I haven't a clue, but it does.

Rice Again

2011-03-05T21:21:00.000-08:00

Plain Rice: Absorption Method One - pg. 100

I tell ya, I've just about got this rice thing under my belt! Tonight I poured Trader Joe's green curry tuna over short-grain rice, prepared by Alice's first absorption method. I can also make pilaf and risotto, so as soon as I make "boiled and baked long-grain rice" and risotto blanco (I always make gussied-up risottos), I'll have this whole rice conundrum conquered. No small achievement for a girl who was brought up on Minute Rice. Heck, that was the only kind I made for decades. I mean, decades.

Otherwise, we shopped today for our neighborhood foodies dinner next week. I made a shopping list in the morning. We went to farmers market, lunch, our new favorite winery, Trader Joe's, and Home Depot for blocks to extend our upper retaining wall. Farmers market yielded red-leaf lettuce, strawberries, green onions, fennel, cilantro, and flat-leaf parsley. We found a nice organic cauliflower where we had a not-so-impressive lunch. Mostly I wanted the cauliflower for the Blue Bunny label....

Our new favorite winery is Dubost on the west side out of Paso Robles. We bought Reserve Syrah and Zinfandel after tasting a variety of red wines and one chardonay. I'm feeling sad tonight, though, since I've learned that the family's 34-year-old son and head winemaker was killed in a vehicular accident just 6 months ago. What a terrible loss for many people.

Well, life goes on and so did we. To Trader Joe's for most of the rest of what I need, and to Joebella for coffee. Truthfully, I almost always get chai lattes these days. They are especially good at Joebella.

We picked up our blocks, came home. Randy placed the blocks. I made dinner. And here we are. Basically, that was the day. A good day to be alive and a beautiful day on the Central Coast.

P.S. I also made glazed carrots for dinner. Randy, who is not a big carrot fan on the best of days, said they were the best carrots ever. Yeah!

94 recipes down and 211 to go, more or less

Boy, Am I Steamed

2011-03-03T21:52:00.000-08:00

Steamed Sole - pg. 331

Yeah, well, besides the bullshit that's going on in Wisconsin and Ohio.... Don't even get me started.

Other than going to yoga and the grocery store, I literally spent the day in the kitchen. I'm searching for a good lavender cupcake. Tried 2 different batches today, although neither one was the lavender cupcake of my dreams. Topped them both with a lemoncello frosting which seemed a good complement for the lavender flavor. ...Not to mention that I washed all those same dishes 3 times!

And I finished and baked my second no-knead rye loaf. This one came out much better than the first rye loaf. I just let that sucker ferment away for a full 48 hours! Nice to know you can mix the dough and just ignore it.

For dinner, I tacked steaming fish, dover sole in this case. This was somewhat difficult since I don't really have whatever appropriate equipment you're supposed to use to steam fish, but it was still okay. And quick. And seems pretty fool-proof. Served with oven roasted butternut squash and potatoes. And the rye bread, of course.

Whew. I'm pooped.

93 recipes down; 212 recipes to go (100 recipes down or bust!)

Carcass. I Love That Word. Carcass.

2011-03-02T19:31:00.000-08:00

Turkey Soup with Kale - pg. 254

The first ingredient in this recipe is "1 roasted turkey carcass." Alice says this is "a good soup to make the day after Thanksgiving." Alice, apparently, thinks I make turkey for Thanksgiving. Alice is wrong. What I make for Thanksgiving is reservations. For which I then proceed to give thanks. However, I happen to have a meaty chicken carcass left from the recent French Chicken in a Pot. More importantly, I have everything else I need, so Poultry Soup with Kale it is.

I can't say this is the most exciting thing I've ever made or eaten. Alice seems to have a fondness for thin, light soups. I have a fondness for soups you eat with a fork and knife (almost). But, it's in the book and I've made it and I can now check this recipe off the list.

92 recipes completed with a mere 213 recipes to go

Tuesday was Shopping Day

2011-03-02T09:05:00.000-08:00

I don't often get in the mood to shop. But it hit me yesterday. Must be that first-of-the-month thing when I'm feeling flush.

#1 Petsmart for cat food, kitty litter and pill pockets.

#2 Costco for assorted groceries and a memory foam contoured pillow since I've taken to stealing Randy's when he's out of bed before me in the mornings.

#3 New Frontiers for bulk rye flour and whole wheat flour. And organic lavender. I want to make lavender cupcakes.

#4 Two black T-shirts from the sale rack at Chico's. My uniform of choice these days on top of black jeans. Or blue jeans.

Topped with a movie and dinner with my dear friend Laurel. We laughed out loud all the way through "My Dog Tulip". Ya gotta love British humor. Dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant, Thai Palace.

This morning it's back to the gym since I ditched yoga yesterday for shopping. A girl's got to do what a girl's got to do. Although I did start another loaf of no-knead rye bread before I left home yesterday morning. That counts for something, doesn't it?

TGI Monday

2011-02-28T21:35:00.000-08:00

I've noticed lately than Mondays seem to be lost days for me. I just don't seem to get anything accomplished on Mondays. This is NOT a good way to start a week, since it's all downhill from there as often as not. Soooooo, I made an extra effort today to have a plan and to stick to it. It worked.

#1 NO HOUSEWORK! Housefrauing can quickly eat up a lot of time, plunging the day into creative darkness. Housefrauing NOT done!

#2 Clean the rug loom's canvas apron. It had fallen pray to what appears to have been a large kitty hairball of the soggy type while it was in the garage at the old house. Desperately needed a thorough cleaning. And I do mean desperately. With Chlorox spray cleaner followed by lots of water and sunlight. Done!

#3 Clean and set up the little 8-shaft Harrisville floor loom. It needed all of its pieces and parts thoroughly dusted and put into their proper places, wing nuts tightened, that sort of thing. Fortunately, it survived its years of inactivity and the move to the new house in better shape than I had feared. It's all ready to warp. Done!

#4 Unpack, sort, and organize weaving tools. Some went into what I now call the Ba-Bye Box. Everything else is cleaned and put in appropriate places. Done!

#5 Finished a loaf of no-knead rye bread. Oh yum! Done!

#6 Went to the Paso Robles Kennedy Club for my favorite yoga class, Chai Ball. (I know it sounds weird, but it's wonderful. Trust me on this.) Done!

Damn, that was good.

Fennel!

2011-02-27T20:33:00.000-08:00

Sauted Fennel - pg. 306

Fennel is becoming one of my new favorite vegetables. Who knew it was so easy to saute and so tasty with a little of our local Pepper Plant Sauce and a healthy squeeze of lemon added right before serving?! This was another of Alice Waters' recipe in TAOSF.

I also made French Chicken in a Pot from America's Test Kitchen and Cooks Illustrated. You can google it. Best chicken I've ever had, and chicken au jus. I've never had chicken au jus until tonight. OMG.

And we ate the last part of The Perfect Bread. (Rise, rye dough. Rise.)

And I did housefrau stuff today since I am NOT, NOT, NOT doing any cleaning or laundry this week. No, no, no.

And I spent too much time on the computer.

And life goes on.

91 recipes completed and 214 yet to tackle

At Last! Bread!

2011-02-27T14:35:00.000-08:00

I've kneaded bread in the traditional way. I don't care to ever do it again. I don't have the arm muscles of a cross-channel swimmer. I am a confirmed bread machine bread baker. I love my Zojurushi. But still, I have lusted after that perfect artisan bread that usually costs a small fortune at fancy bakeries, if you can find it at all, which, in San Luis Obispo County, you cannot. It's that crunchy-crusted round full of holes that you rip apart and dunk in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It's the bread of my dreams.

So, months ago I purchased Jim Lahey's book, "My Bread." It's a no-knead, no-work (no kidding) method that yields that bread of my dreams: the Perfect Bread. I've also been prompted, by Jim and my other cooking experiments, to invest in 3 covered cast iron pots, all of which get used a lot these days. Friday I finally got my courage up (my cooking courage has grown immeasurably in the intervening months) and started a loaf of the basic bread.

The key to Jim's method is a very slow rise using little yeast. Twelve-18 hours normally. Since it's been a bit nippy here, I let my first rise go nearly 24 hours, which was just fine. The second rise was increased from 2 hours to about 4-5. My point is that if you don't get around to whatever the next step is right away, it's not a big deal. After 2 rises, and NO KNEADING between, you just dump the dough into a hot pot and bake.

Out of the oven came . . . ta-da . . . The Perfect Bread. OMG.

Since it takes all of 10 minutes, even for pokey me, to get a batch going, I've already started a rye loaf. Even my picky, picky, picky, highly critical husband says this is the bread of his dreams. And, believe me, he is impossible to please.

So, get the book. Read it. And make bread. I know, I know. The recipe is on the internet. However, as is the case in many things, the information on the internet isn't necessary everything you need to know to get The Perfect Bread. Believe me on this one. Plus, Jim's book tells you all about both the science and the art of The Perfect Bread. And, he gives you lots and lots and lots and lots of other ideas and recipe connected with the dough. Pizza! Focaccia! The sandwiches of your dreams! And what to do with any leftovers that get stale, as if that will ever happen.

Rice! Another Peak Experience!

2011-02-25T20:40:00.000-08:00

Plain Rice: Absorption Method Two - pg. 100

As mentioned in an earlier post, I've never been able to cook rice. It's been a bloody mystery to me. I was heartened to read this from Alice: "Cooking plain rice used to seem mysteriously difficult to me...." If Alice has struggled with rice, it's okay that I, a mere kitchen mortal, have endured the same struggle.

But tonight! With Alice's guidance! I have triumphed! I used her method of pre-washing the long-grain rice to remove excess starch and then soaking it before adding heat. And now I know to let rice rest after cooking, too. It worked! Nice, perfectly cooked, fluffy rice. Seriously! A triumph!

I just topped the rice with a Trader Joe's find: tuna in green curry sauce. Sounds a little weird, but it's really good as are most things from TJ's.

Next I will track down some short-grain rice and try absorption method one. And the boiled and baked long-grain rice. This rice study is really paying off for me. My confidence is soaring.

90 recipes completed and a mere 215 to go...

Awww, Nuts

2011-02-23T19:59:00.000-08:00

Roasted Almonds with Herbs - pg.216

Leftover Red Rice Pilaf for dinner tonight, followed by an apple crisp which I've been meaning to make for about 6 weeks now.... But I'm still on a roll! What else new can I make from TAOSF? There is a chapter called "A Little Something..." which includes some stuff that looks pretty ambitious to me, but the chapter starts with roasted nuts. I have nuts. I have fresh sage leaves. I'm good to go.

Alice says to roast the nuts in the oven. No way, Alice! I know that roasting nuts can go over the edge into charcoal land in a flash, so I did mine on the cooktop where I could watch them like Fannie Foxtail watches finches on the birdfeeder. I mean every second. I'm not sure what the point of the fresh herbs is, since those went off into charcoal land pretty fast. But the final product, a mix of pecans, almonds and walnuts, was scrumptious. We inhaled them with our leftover pilaf.

Otherwise... Have I mentioned how much I love my Chai Ball class, which is one of my yoga classes? Yoga resterday. Chai Ball today. Restorative yoga tomorrow. Love it, love it, love it.

Then I went on a hunt for 7/8" ID plastic tubing. Nothing locally, but darned if I wasn't able to track it down in an instant on Amazon. No shipping. No sales tax. I'll get 6 feet of the stuff when I only really need 18", but at least I'll have it. Shopping in the 21st century.

Still unpacking rug loom parts. Thank heaven the heddles are in good shape. I have to get all new heddles for the 16 shaft Macomber which is going to cost a fortune. And, I fished out the Harrisville brochures, so I hope I can get that one up and running in the next few days.

89 recipes completed & 216 yet to tackle!

I'm On a Roll (or Maybe It Was Leftover Herb Bread)

2011-02-22T21:21:00.000-08:00

Red Rice Pilaf - pg. 102

I've always struggled with cooking any rice other than Minute Rice. I make Randy do it when I need rice. Alice, however, has an entire chapter just on rice. Shoot (and that's not exactly the word I am really thinking). I gotta do this. I gotta cook rice. Sooooo, I started the rice chapter with Red Rice Pilaf. The rice is actually sauteed in olive oil and already-sweated onions before you add the liquid which, in this case, is chicken broth. This might help me.

The other thing that's cool about this recipe is that it calls for a bunch of stuff I happen to have: leftover chicken, a couple Roma tomatoes, and some broccoli. You could make this recipe using any weird leftovers, however, which makes it a great go-to dinner.

Long story short, it turned out GREAT! I know enough to leave the lid on, since I've looked too often many times before. And I know enough to let the damned thing just rest for awhile after the heat comes off, although Alice has you do that, too.

I am a happy camper. I cooked rice. Randy was amazed. So was I. And I hardly thought about politics all day.

88 recipes completed; 217 to go

Back to Alice Waters and The Art of Simple Food

2011-02-21T20:33:00.000-08:00

Herb Bread - pg. 60

Good grief! It's been 2 months since I've cooked something from my TAOSF project. I've taken a lot of side trips during that time. To Cooks Illustrated. To The Barefoot Contessa. To Martha Stewart. To Fine Cooking. To recipes discovered on the internet. And to some of my own creations.

Today I made Herb Bread for dinner, along with a salad. Actually, Alice uses the same recipe for both herb bread and pizza. So, I made something half way between, a gussied-up herb bread topped with sliced roma tomatoes, whole kalamata olives, chopped sage and parsley, and lots of shredded mozzarella. It was amazingly good. It's a dough with character, provided by the inclusion of rye flour. Plus, I got to use my Breville stand mixer to mix the ingredients (which took seconds) and knead the dough.

I'm amazed at how much I actually have learned about cooking since I started this project a little over a year ago. I read. I watch the Food Network. I talk about cooking with other foodies. But ultimately, nothing substitutes for doing it. My confidence is building. I'm feeling more in control in the kitchen. I'm understanding the science of cooking more and more. It's quite an adventure.

Otherwise, I'm getting all the pieces of my rug loom unpacked, cleaned, and assembled in my studio. It's going to be quite the jigsaw puzzle to put it all back together. Tell me it will happen. I'm filled with doubt.

87 recipes completed; 218 left to explore

Busy Day for the Brain in My Head

2011-02-21T15:19:00.000-08:00

Stuff I've been thinking about today. And it's only 3:30 p.m.

It occurs to me that because she reads my blog, my mother-in-law knows more about me than anyone. (She certainly knows more about me by now than does my husband!) Well, this is true with the possible exception of my friend Giana/Georgiana/Georg.

I've been thinking about which is more important: the message or the messenger. Do you dismiss an important message because it comes at a time when it isn't truly relevant, or via a messenger you don't like?

What IS the "mainstream media"? NBC/CBS/ABC/Fox? CNN? MSNBC? PBS? NPR? The New York Times? The Los Angeles Times? The Washington Post? Newsweek? Time? People Magazine? Star? Which ones are owned by corporations? Which are owned by individuals? Which are owned by us citizens? How do you define "mainstream media"? And what, if anything, is wrong with "mainstream media"?

Has political discourse EVER been civil and well mannered? Ever?

What IS the purpose of government? The people banding together to do for themselves and their fellow citizens what individuals cannot do singly or in very small groups? That's what I think. Or should we leave most of those tasks and obligations to civil groups or religious groups or individuals and just band together for national defense and leave it at that.

When did our government become The Enemy to so many people? Why did those people turn their backs on their own responsibilities to keep that from happening? Or is The Enemy just a convenient boogeyman to blame when life is tough (and it always is)?

What will it take for the middle class in the USA to start standing up for itself?

I'm thinking of how proud I am to have been part of the public employee labor movement in Wisconsin. I was the first Grievance Committee Chairman, married to the first President, of the only public employee labor union that successfully struck in the entire history of the state of Wisconsin. Man, how I wish I were in Madison right now to add my voice to those at the Capital.

How do I know if my stand mixer is really kneading dough properly?

Will I be able to figure out how to set up my looms? And weave? It's been so long. I'm more scared right now than eager.

What should I do about the quilt top I just finished that has the wrong yellow (it's too green) in the setting strips? Ignore it? Toss it (send it to Goodwill)? Finish the quilt anyway, since it won't be the only weird quilt I've ever made?

How do I know if bread dough has been sufficiently kneaded? If all those little glutens have been sufficiently developed?

Why is there a chicken over there?

Progress, or Lack Thereof...

2011-02-20T22:21:00.000-08:00

I guess I'm just hard on myself, but I never seem to have a truly productive day. So this morning I made one of those lists with priorities A, B, and C, and a few other things. Well, son of a gun, I actually got A, B, and C all accomplished. And nearly all of the rest of it, although "the rest of it" consisted of such thrilling things as laundry and ironing, repairing a shirt of Randy's, and cleaning litter boxes.

Dinner was excellent: whole wheat spaghetti with kale and shredded chicken. I'm sometimes quite amazed at the progress I'm making with my cooking skills. Passing up all those prepared-food type recipes in favor of "from scratch" approaches to cooking is really paying off. The flavors and textures are worth the time investment.

But still I wonder: will I ever grow up? or just grow old?

Red Velvet

2011-02-19T20:25:00.000-08:00

But first another word about my toenail fungus! (Appetizing thought, isn't it?) Over the years I've tried knocking it out with Vicks, Miranol, vinegar, bleach, and many bottle of tea tree oil. Plus, vigorous clipping and filing with sterilized equipment. All the over-the-counter and witch-doctor self-help ministrations known to man. I'd say that slow progress has been made. The good news is that my nails and nailbeds are actually in pretty good condition as a result. Except for the stubborn fungus. #$%^&@*&!

What finally drove me to the podiatrist is that one nail has become so raised and misshapen that I can't wear normal dress shoes anymore. This is not necessarily a big problem now, but it might be when I am truly geriatric, God willing I should live that long. If I ever become truly elderly, I may not physically be able to care for my toenails as thoroughly as I do now. I want to go forward in time with my body in as good a condition as I can get it (given my love of food and fat... ahem). That's why I had my hiatal hernia fixed. That's why I joined a health club and do lots of yoga.

Another reason I saw a podiatrist is that the FDA has recently approved laser treatments for toenail fungus. However, after discussing all the pros and cons of various approaches with the podiatrist I decided to follow his recommendation to try oral medication. What the heck; why not. Tea tree oil. Pills. As of now, I'm doing both simultaneously. My concern is more with results than it is with method. If I can't get that one misshapen nail under control now, it might eventually have to be removed altogether. Ick. Don't want to go there at all.

So, yes. Right now I am taking oral antifungal medication AND continuing my use of tea tree oil, at least twice a day, as a topical treatment. (Stuff stinks, though.)

On to Red Velvet! Cupcakes, that is. I finally used my new Breville stand mixer (which I now love, love, love). Last night I made nearly 2.5 dozen red velvet cupcakes using Bobbie Flay's recipe. This morning, I made his cream cheese frosting and finished the little cakes. YUM. I'm looking forward to making more cupcakes, which I love, love, love; and using the Breville again and again. It's a gem. Very intuitive to use. Very easy to clean.

Oddly, the potluck group where I took the cupcakes was not impressed. I didn't think Randy and I could eat 2 dozen cupcakes on our own. So, I stopped at one of my favorite eating spots, Fig Good Food here in Atascadero, and shared them with the staff and customers there. Got good reviews, too.

Another hot event today was the Central Coast Weavers' first Pay-It-Forward event. Members who wanted to participate brought books, yarn, equipment and supplies they no longer wanted and took home new stuff that other participants no longer wanted. No money was exchanged at all. Several looms changed hands, lots and lots of yarn, some spinning fibers, and a wealth of books and miscellaneous stuff. The only firm rule is that you had to take your own stuff home if no one else took it.

As you might guess, I was thrilled with the stuff I brought home since it all speaks immediately to things I'm interested in right now. My first pick was some fine mohair weaving yarn that is of a quality I don't think you can even buy anymore. It's a rich golden yellow color, and used to belong to the grand dame of our guild, Ena Marston, who passed away a few years ago at nearly 100. I want to weave a twill scarf with this yarn as a memory of Ena and the encouragement she gave me, and many others, as a beginning weaver.

Which reminds me. Ena's mother was pregnant with Ena and living in San Francisco at the time of the Great Earthquake there. A pretty cool memory.

More Surgery! Wow! Yippee!

2011-02-18T12:48:00.000-08:00

You know that I'm a frustrated health care provider. I get a big charge out of being a one-woman medical experiment. In fact, I even did that for real once and would do it again. (The drug in question that time was giving us test subjects neurological problem, so the study was ended abruptly.) As it turns out (who knew?!), the older you get, the more opportunities you get to be a medical test subject. It's just one experiment/experience after another!

At age 62 I have a family physician and a physician's assistant, a dentist and an oral surgeon, an ophthalmologist, a general/vascular/thoracic surgeon, an orthopedic surgeon and a physical therapist, a pulmonologist and a gastroenterologist, a menopausal medicine specialist and a nurse practitioner, and -- now -- a podiatrist! (This is in addition to the women who cut my hair and give me pedicures.) (I used to have a psychologist and a psychiatrist, but now I take pills.) For extra measure, I'll throw my pharmacist into the mix since I consider him a valuable and valued member of my health care team. Good lord.

Which brings me to the podiatrist. In an effort to get on top of health issues before I get really old and decrepit, I saw this guy to see what could be done about the toenail fungus (ick!) that I've battled for a very long time. I will soon be taking more pills for that. He says the outlook for me is good. While he was at it, he noticed that I have a large toenail that is prone to being ingrown. I've battled with that one since I was a little girl, but it hasn't bothered me in a long time so I've taken to ignoring it. "That," he informed me, "could easily be permanently fixed with a little 'procedure'." I LOVE how they call whacking your body up with sharp things "procedures." I'm game! So, in 6-7 weeks I'm in it for more surgery! Yippee! Also, turns out that Dear Hubby had this same "procedure" when he was a teenager. Who knew? He doesn't tell me anything, but that's another story.

Otherwise, yesterday I attended my weaving guild's study group meeting. I didn't learn all that much, but got to eat brownies and knit, both of which activities are hard to do at home since Stuart loves to see what I'm eating and to run off with my yarn. And, I went to the second meeting of my Islam class, a lecture and discussion about Mohammed. Our rapidly expanding class met in a local movie theater so we had the option of buying popcorn. I admit it. I bought popcorn.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Money and Food

2011-02-16T22:46:00.000-08:00

Two of the things that dominate our lives, eh? Money and food.

I spent a good part of the day working on financial records since one of my resolutions for 2011 is to keep better track of where my money is going. I'm actually breaking ALL expenditures down by category. I want to find out, e.g. how much I spend each month on groceries, on art supplies, and so on. It's a pain. I have to write down everything, every penny I spend. But, hopefully, with better information I will be able to manage my money more effectively.

Yeah, no one wants to talk about death, sex or money. So, how about food instead?

Last night I made a simplified version of coq au vin with my expensive "leftover" zin. I was pretty disappointed, even though I followed Julia Childs' directions to the letter. I just didn't think it was anything special, and the sauce desperately needed reduction. So tonight I reduced the sauce and gussied it up with mustard, pepper, spinach and green bean pieces (the latter 2 remainders from the depths of the veggie drawer). Tossed in some of the leftover chicken, shredded, and served it all over lightly buttered pasta. Much better. Much better indeed. This version was good. Watching "Chopped" on TV is making me much braver in creating meals from odds and ends and leftovers.

I also took a shot at making spicy hot chocolate as a sort of late-afternoon snack for Randy and me. Wonderful stuff. Basically, hot chocolate with cinnamon and cayenne. I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to the plain stuff.

I wouldn't call this a productive day. Shuffling numbers is not my idea of great fun. But, I'll admit, I feel more secure and holier-than-thou after getting caught up with financial stuff. Plus, American Idol is finally getting good. I love Hollywood Week. Finally! People who can actually sing!

It's Been Awhile, Eh?

2011-02-16T13:05:00.001-08:00

Lordy, lordy, where does the time go?

The turquoise mohair lace scarf with the silver thread and silver beads is knitting along quite nicely. I had to start the thing over about 8 times to get everything right (needle size, how to manage the 2 strands plus beads, knit-3-together on very fuzzy yarn which is hard to do). It is going slow, however, since I can only work on it OUT OF THE HOUSE. Why? Stuart loves, loves, loves to run off with the ball of mohair. He's very persistent. He's a kitten. Need I say more?

I'm almost ready to try downward dog again. I'm feeling stronger and more secure in yoga. I stretch until serious pain sets in during yoga classes. I need to do that and it's really helping. I love my yoga classes. Seriously.

What else.... We're starting work on landscaping. By which I mean we have a signed contract with the landscaper and a place on their calendar for early next month. Can't wait to see all those grasses and agaves in the ground!

Randy's brother and his wife were here for part of the weekend. We went to a guitar concert, ate a lot, and yakked.

I shopped. I did laundry. I cleaned. My last 2 cooking attempts were flops, in my opinion. Well, they can't all be great successes. Ya gotta learn by doing. Fortunately, even the flops are still edible. So far.

I finished and reviewed (on Amazon) _The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet_ by Reif Larsen. Loved it, but it's strange.

Accompanied RDK to a winemaker fundraising dinner on Sunday. Excellent food, drink and company. Plus, I got to bring home a couple opened bottles of wine for cooking. Expensive opened bottles of wine for cooking. A rare treat.

Today I have GOT to tackle the current pile of crap on my desk. Which I did Friday, too. How does this happen?

Did I mention the Taste of Islam class? Thursday evenings for 6 weeks? Sponsered by Congregation Beth David, Mosque of the Nasreen, St. Andrew's Greek Orthodox Church, Mt. Carmel Lutherna Church, and SLO United Methodist Church. Led by Rev. Jane Voight (who must be a stand-up comic in her spare time), Dr. Stephen Lloyd-Moffett from Calpoly (a terrific lecturer), and Dr. Rushdi Abdul-Cader (who is so good looking, he gets me tongue-tied). The class is free and absolutely jam-packed with about 4-5 times the number of participants who were expected. How cool is that?

Last, but far from least, I am now an ordained priest in The Church of the Latter-Day Dude. Only because The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't seem to have an ordination program. But, Dudeism is good for me. Reminds me to not take things too seriously, which I have a tendency to do.

Okay. Back to that pile of crap.

I'm Still Here!

2011-02-08T22:31:00.000-08:00

Made saffron risotto with oven-roasted butternut squash for dinner. Then spent a couple hours researching agaves for our landscape. I've chosen A. gentryi 'Jaws', A. montana 'Baccarat', and A. zebra. Just what you always wanted to know.

I've been so busy! Working like mad on what is turning out to be a rather bizarre quilt. Getting back to the fitness center -- yoga is not for whimps.

Forgive me for straying, yet again, from TAOSF. The risotto is an Ina Garten dish. Because we have a squash on the kitchen counter and because I've had a craving for risotto.

The Packers won!! Yeah!!!

We went to a free dress rehearsal of the SLO symphony.

I found 2 large Calphalon pots at Ross and snapped them both up. Also, 3 T-shirts and 1 pair of shoes. Under the new regime, 3 shirts IN means 3 shirts OUT. So far I've offed only 2..... And 1 pair of shoes IN means 1 pair of shoes OUT. I did that.

Did I mention that yoga is not for whimps?

Working on a Quilt Top (Yes, It's a UFO...)

2011-02-01T12:18:00.000-08:00

On my way to yoga last night, I took the brown tweed yarn to Laurel. She likes it. I thought she would. I think it will work perfectly for the project she has in mind for it. She turned me on to a cool web site for knitters and crocheters: Ravelry. I joined and found a good pattern for a NEW project (of manageable size) that I have in mind. Unlike so many web sites, this one has tons and tons of actually useful, accessible content. ... My only problem with doing a knitting project right now is Stuart. Stuart has a new pastime. He likes to pick things up in his mouth and run off with them. Pieces of plastic wrap. Measuring tapes. Pencils and pens. But his very favorite? Balls of yarn. ... Balls of yarn. ... Oh well.

Lately I have been madly working on a UFO quilt. It's called Building Blocks, for lack of a better name right now. The fabric is all hand dyes, made by me and collected in swaps. The blocks are done. Today I'm working on the setting strips (b-o-r-i-n-g). I'd love to have this top and back done by the end of the week. So, I'd better quit writing and get back to it. Okay.

Letting Go and Moving On

2011-01-28T10:21:00.000-08:00

Another UFO is out the door.

Years ago when I worked for the County I knitted in staff meetings to avoid strangling my co-workers. I know. I had knitting needles in my hands, but my hands were kept busy, which is how I avoided wrapping them around the throats around me. (I'm on medication now. Don't worry.)

So, in those meetings I made most of a sweater from some lovely brown tweed Phildar Superwash wool. But eventually the project got set aside and forgotten. Last year, in the process of packing and moving, I "unknitted" all the yarn and started another project with it, but it just wasn't happening for me. Since this project has been toward the top of the overall UFO pile, it's been on my mind lately. Last night at dinner I was telling my sister knitter, Laurel, about it and she, the goddesses bless her, expressed a desire to have the yarn for her very own. Yippee!! This morning I happily boxed up the whole thing and will take the yarn to her this weekend.

In this case I have to admit that the value of the project was in the process, not in the end result. I got my money's worth out of that yarn sitting knitting away in those meetings. Been there, done that. Let it go and move on. I've honestly never had this experience before, that is, the experience of knowing in my heart that the value of the thing was in the process, not in the product, and that it was okay -- good even -- to let the thing go and move on to something else that really interests and excites me right now. Wow.

Not to mention that giving the yarn away gets yet one more UFO out of my studio.

Life is good.

That First Box of UFOs

2011-01-24T22:09:00.000-08:00

After I blogged last night I was gripped by the spirit and stay up late dealing with that first box of UFOs. I managed to whittle the remaining contents down to 2 projects. One is a small quilt that I really like and will finish. The more I think about it, the more I think I'll just have someone else machine quilt it so I'll only have to bind it. The other is an antique wedding ring quilt which was hand pieced and really needs to be remade so that it can be finished. But, that's a BIG project that can wait for another time. It can just go on the shelf for the time being.

I tied up a lot of little loose ends today. It's always hard to know where to start. I just picked a pile and started. Funny how when I take that approach I tend to get a lot of collateral tasks accomplished, too. So, this all is part of the grand get-organized-and-unpacked project. I also got set up to bind the last big quilt I had machine quilted. It's a Hunter Star quilt, blue and green with gold stars. Very scrappy. Probably the biggest quilt I've made. It's about 120" long which was necessary to accommodate the design. Now I'm getting excited to get it finished. I love the colors and fabrics. I'm going to get a lot of kitty help with this project....

Tonight I started going back to the gym/health club/fitness center/whatever you want to call it. Kennedy. The name of the place is Kennedy. I went to my favorite class, Chi Ball. Sort of a yoga class, but more active. And I did about 20 minutes of intervals on the stationary bike to warm up beforehand. Man, I'm pooped. Hope I'll be able to get out of bed tomorrow.

Life is good.

The Bucket List

2011-01-23T20:30:00.000-08:00

There is one thing that is definitely on my Bucket List: offing the UFOs. Finish 'em. Trash 'em. Recycle 'em. Repurpose 'em. Whatever. Today, another one went the way of all flesh. It's a tulips-and-butterflies small quilt top that at one time I felt obligated to make because a dear friend gave me the pattern. It was an epic failure. I managed to upgrade it to a mere failure, but I never finished it. To me, it didn't even rise to the level of a charity quilt. However, after not laying eyes on it for a number of years, it looked to me today like it could at least become part of a quilt back. Quilt backs take a lot of fabric, so I use weird stuff for quilt backs. Anyway, they should be fun. Quilt backs that is.

Most of the time I don't even know something's on my Bucket List until I do it. Case in point. I've always loved Pendleton wool Indian blanket coats. A couple years ago we were in Santa Fe and I rather spontaneously picked one out and Randy gave it to me for Christmas that year. At that point, I realized that having a Pendleton wool Indian blanket coat was on my Bucket List.

I've always loved Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I loved them before Paul Simon produced Graceland. Last night we saw them in concert and I was mesmerized. Totally. For one thing, their music has much in common with that of Phillip Glass. I didn't know. And I love Phillip Glass. Years ago, when I was single in fact, I went to a Glass performance of 12 Pieces -- all 8 hours of it. And loved every minute. How was I to know that seeing Ladysmith Black Mambazo in concert was on my Bucket List? It was, and now I can check it off.

And I'm thrilled that the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers won their playoff games today. It's gonna be a great Super Bowl!

P.S. This means I can officially check 4 UFOs off the list. Four!!

Another One (2 Actually) Bites the Dust

2011-01-22T18:37:00.000-08:00

I brought out the first of many boxes full of UFOs yesterday. Given my new attitude toward life in general --and a burning desire to off as many UFOs as possible as fast as possible-- I've decided to think creatively about them. First out of the box were some small quilt tops, (#1) a group of 3 improvisationals and (#2) 1 I made as a demonstration for block-of-the-month years ago. All too good to hit the garbage can, but none worthy of finishing as small quilts. So... 3 of the four pieces have become part of 2 quilt storage bags which I'm still making for my existing (and future) bed quilts. The 4th one will be incorporated into a quilt back for a specific quilt that's in the UFO pile. Yeah!

Last night we went to an all-JS Bach organ concert which was just wonderful. When I was in high school I had the privilege of playing my church's pipe organ. Yup, I was a bona fide church organist for a year or two. I loved that instrument, along with the baritone horn. Those have been my favorites.

And today my big project was in the kitchen. I made chicken broth/stock from an actual chicken and the carcass of a roasted chicken I made awhile back. From there I went ahead and made Chicken Chowder. I followed directions from Cook's Illustrated, but I don't think Alice would mind since Cook's is all about fresh food, seasonality, and other good food practices. The chowder took some time but wasn't at all difficult. No exotic ingredients or tricky directions.

Oh yes! I seasoned the Chowder with my new favorite flavor: smoked salt. I've used coarse smoked salt as a finishing salt. This was the first time I used fine smoked salt in a dish. I think it really added some wonderful flavor.

Okay then. Off to another concert tonight. We're such social butterflies. Ha!

YES!! (fist pump, fist pump)

2011-01-19T14:08:00.000-08:00

It's only 2:00 p.m. and already I have declared my studio FINISHED and I have FINISHED a small quilt I started in (gulp) 1999 and I have STARTED a little sketchbook collage. Holy cow!

There's still some fine-tuning to do in the studio. I need to put the rest of my Barbies on the doll shelves. What do I do with old (expensive) cameras and Kodachrome slides and and my slide projector? I have to get some Command strip hooks to hang wall dolls I've made. Eventually I will probably sell my spinning wheel. Maybe not. I've not come to a final decision about that. But next week I can launch into setting up my looms. And I'm otherwise good to go on everything else. Done! Finished! Life is good!

To celebrate, I FINISHED a small wall quilt I started a light year or so ago. It is "cute" and there is no way I would do "cute" at this point in my life. I hardly did "cute" even then. The story is that I made one for my quilt guild's annual small quilt auction. I thought it would be a very fast project (it wasn't), so I started 2 of them: one for the auction and one for some other unspecified purpose. The auction quilt has long since gone on to some other home. Today I finally finished the other one. For the time being, it hangs in our sitting room (or TV room or whatever you want to call it) between my studio and Randy's office. Considering the length of its journey, time wise, I'm not going to part with it real soon. (Yes, I hung it immediately. That was part of getting it finished. I LOVE those 3M Command strip hooks. For this purpose I use their photo clips.)

As for the collage... My sketchbook is full of lots of stuff, but not very many sketches. Mostly it's collages of various kinds. Often involving color schemes. Sometimes just ideas and compositions. This is the first one heading in a new direction: practicing using materials and methods that are new to me. They aren't meant to be anything more than exercises just to see "what happens if." It's nice to be back in that place again, doing "what happens if" things.

Life is good. Which probably means I'll be killed in a car accident this afternoon. Every time life is good, I wait for the other shoe to drop. Life is so good right now that I expect all of Zappos to fall from the sky on my head momentarily. Oh well. I'm just going to enjoy it at as long as it lasts.

Why Travel?

2011-01-18T07:27:00.000-08:00

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts." --Mark Twain (1835-1910)

My Studio is Coming Together

2011-01-17T09:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Robert, one of the terrific young men from Semmes & Company who built our passive-solar strawbale house, came over for 4 hours to hang shelving in my studio. So now I am in the final stages of unpacking and organizing, including a little more purging. As big as it is, storage space (aka "places to put stuff") is not unlimited here. (Nor would I want it to be.) I am so excited! Not to mention that working with Robert is a joy. He's a smart, talented young man. He lives in a house of women (his gorgeous wife and 3 adorable daughters), so he knows very well how to work with women. That alone is worth everything to me.

So, today I'll finish (more or less) the unpacking and organizing. Yippee!!

P.S. Last night for dinner I made an original dish. Chicken and brussels sprouts tossed with egg noodles (good ones from Trader Joe's) and a sort of an Alfredo sauce made with cream cheese, white cheddar and pecorino romano. I know this won't sound great to all of my readers but, believe me, it was. Fortunately there is enough sauce left for another round of something similar.

Adult Truths

2011-01-15T13:58:00.001-08:00

1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

10. Bad decisions make good stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

15. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

16. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay.

17. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

18. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

19. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?

20. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!

21. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

22. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

23. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time.

24. The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important.

Clutter and Parsnips and Phillip Morris

2011-01-14T20:08:00.000-08:00

January seems to have become the retail world's annual time for all of us to get organized. Every store is selling bins and baskets and storage something-or-others for every possible kind and type of stuff you can imagine. They must make a mint off all our crap and clutter in January. Fortunately, there are those occasional glimmers of sanity. How about saving some money on plastic storage bins by getting rid of some of that stuff?

You've read my recent thoughts on the subject of purse "ephemera." Into the mix wades Linda Lewis Griffith this morning in the San Luis Obispo Tribune. Here's what she wrote:

"Want to increase your personal tranquility? Clean out your closets and medicine cabinet. Research shows that the state of our desk drawers and garages reflect the amount of chaos in our lives. The more clutter we keep in our environments, the more scattered we feel in our heads."

Right on, Sister! Griffith suggests targeting some small area and going at it with a garbage can and recycling bin (I'd add a big box for a charity) for 30 minutes. Set a timer. And work like a fiend for that 30 minutes. Good advice. Don't know where to start? Linda lists 5 "sure-fire clutter-traps that invariably need cleaning out."

1. THE PURSE You've already heard me on that topic.

2. THE SPICE CABINET Mine got purged when we moved, but we cook a lot so there are a lot of different items in ours. When I buy them now, however, I write the date on the jar using a little stick-on label. That should help the aging herb issue.

3. RECIPES AND COOKBOOKS Again, ours got purged by half when we moved. I have dedicated shelf space for recipes, related magazines, books about food and cooking, and cookbooks. (The shelves above the desk in the kitchen.) When this space fills up, something has to go in order for something else to come in. Period. End of story.

4. TOOL KIT Randy stole my old one. So I bought a new one. Actually, he bought me a new one, although he doesn't know it. And new tools and supplies. This tool box lives in my studio NOT in the garage, which is how the old one ended up being stolen.

5. UNDERWEAR DRAWER Oh goodness. This is a tough one for me. As in, "They're just underpants. So what if they have holes. No one will see them." Sprung elastic, however, does get to me every time. The undies I'm wearing right now will be hitting the garbage can at the end of the day.

Yes, recluttering and getting organized (the organization of my studio is continuing) really does make me feel calmer, more confident, and more in control of my life. I love knowing what I have and where it is. I love being able to put my hands on things instantly. I love not having to move 6 things to get at the thing I actually want. I love not being visually cluttered. So, for me, the task month, the joy month really, is January and every other month. I make an ongoing effort to get rid of boxes and containers, not add more. (I just gave 5 of them away!)

Parsnips. I tried an experiment tonight. Kind of hard to describe. It's something that Chris Dillow at Fig Good Food wants to try. It's led Chris and me to have smoked salt sampling and discussions. Anyway, I tried it and thought it was a flop. Maybe Chris will have better luck. I LOVE parsnips, by the way. A highly underutilized vegetable.

"I Love You Phillip Morris." A very funny movie. Jim Carey really is a fine actor, as is Ewan McGregor. Either of them could sell freezers in the Arctic. They sold me on this movie, which I saw yesterday.

Meat and Guns

2011-01-11T12:23:00.000-08:00

I'm a total carnivore. I never met a meat I wouldn't at least try. I've eaten mystery meat tacos in Mexico. I love venison on a plate as much as I love the does and fawns that grace our property with their gentle presence. I enjoy watching cattle out in their pastures, and I enjoy their muscular tissues on my plate. I eat chicken a lot. I had a pet chicken when I was a young child. While my mouth waters over bacon and pulled pork, I've been a pet sitter for pot-bellied pigs and I've enjoyed their company (they're very independent, more like cats than dogs).

Since I love animals, I do my part to ensure that meat animals are treated with respect when they are forced to give up their lives for my sustenance and culinary pleasure. I have no issue with hunting when it is hunting for food. I come from a long line of food hunters. One of my favorite childhood memories is eating Aunt Blanche's canned venison and gravy that she made every year from Uncle Harold's kill. I have hunted. I would hunt again if I had to for food. (However, I condemn trophy hunting. I have a relative who travels to South America to hunt. I assume it's for trophies. I have to take a don't ask, don't tell stance with him since we are otherwise close friends.)

But, whenever I talk with vegetarians and vegans and hear the reasons why they eschew eating animals and/or animal products, I listen closely to their positions. I'm always interested in hearing from them. Each one tells a different story about why they eat as they do. I've learned a great deal from them and have actually modified my cooking and eating as a result. Today I eat less meat and more vegetables. I frequently prepare vegetarian meals not because they are vegetarian, but simply because they are good and they are sufficient. I'm not likely to give up cheese, eggs, butter, and milk, but I am willing to eat less animal flesh.

My point is that when it comes to meat, I'm willing to listen to vegetarians, I do listen to vegetarians, and I allow them to have an influence on me because I am willing to examine my own position and modify it based on what I learn from them. I'll never give up animal protein and fat altogether. I crave the stuff. But my position is not the only viable one, nor is it etched in personal granite.

Here is something I have observed in the wake of the Tucson massacre. Gun toters are not willing to listen, or learn, or modify their behavior. (Of necessity, I speak only based on those with whom I've tried to have conversations.) The gun nuts are out in force on the internet, terrified that they will lose some particle of their ever-expanding right to carry and use ever more powerful weaponry.

I've had some exchanges with gun nuts since the killings and woundings. The only thing any of them seem to think about is the gun aspect of this horrific crime and how it applies to them. They don't seem to care about the why of the massacre, which is pretty complicated anyway. They don't seem to care much about the victims, of which there are hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions. They aren't interested in hearing about the political and social climate of our times. They're just worried about losing their guns. They need their guns to hunt. They need their guns to protect themselves. They need their guns for recreation. They need their guns to stay in control of their own lives (an illusion at best). They need their guns to... I don't know what all else. The list goes on.

And when it comes to listening, to considering another point of view, to willingness to modify their own outlooks on life in view of occurences such as the Tucson shootings... well, it just isn't there. There are many, many aspects of the massacre to consider. But the one that has stuck with me the most is the extreme defensiveness of the gun nuts. That's why I've chosen to contrast their reactions with those of mine, a self-described animal fat and protein nut. I guess some nuts can be cracked and others just become harder and harder and harder.

A Mixed Bag

2011-01-09T12:57:00.000-08:00

What a mixed bag this weekend is. In the first place, I'm on my own for a few days while Dear Hubby is in Florida. And I'm not? Get this-- it's colder where he is than it is here. Need I say more? I thought not.

I took advantage and went to 2 movies yesterday. "The King's Speech" is simply superb. Of course, Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush are 2 of my favorite actors anyway, but this movie had me in tears at the end. Based on the true story of 2 incredibly brave resilient men, this character study wrapped me around its little finger without sex, violence, or sexual violence.

I stuck around for "The Social Network." Not quite in the same league as "The King's Speech," but darn close. An intriguing character study of a different sort, told without the usual trash as mentioned above.

But then I came out to a world where the Tucson shootings had occurred. I can't imagine how the right-wing whacko gun nuts and general hate-mongers are going to spin this. I don't even want to know. A judge. A congressional staffer. A pastor. Two grandmothers. And a child. Not to mention the wounded, the friends, the families, the neighbors, the people whose livelihoods depend on that grocery story, and all of us who still have consciences and hearts. I'm still kind of in shock. No matter the killer's mental health, this is yet another act of domestic political terrorism. All the Taliban has to do, really, is sit back and wait for us to destroy ourselves with our own hate.

Anyway, this morning I made steel cut oats for breakfast. That's a new one for me. The steel cut part, that is. Good stuff, although it does take a bit of time. Not a bit of work, just a bit of time. I'd certainly do it again, although it's always easier to make stove-cooked oatmeal for 2 or more people.

I'm otherwise just being a bum today and doing some housekeeping. That's all.

Steig Larsson's Books

2011-01-07T13:00:00.000-08:00

I just finished the first of the 3: "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." I will read the second one just because I have it since a friend gave it to me, but I don't know about the third. I realize this is the hottest thing since "Inception" and that EVERYONE has read them, but... I don't get it.

Honestly, I could have walked away from the book at any point. It was obvious to me from the beginning of the Vanger family story that Harriet was still alive and well somewhere. The sexual torture and brutality (always, always, always inflicted by men on women) has gotten really old with me as I have gotten really old. Isn't there any other way, other than extreme victimization, to make a female character's back-story interesting? The rest of the Dragon Tattoo story was as overwrought as a tangle of wild brambles. It could have stood a whole lot of pruning in my estimation.

The most interesting part of the book for me, maybe the only interesting part, is that it's set in Sweden, so you get a look at a different culture, a different way of life, a different climate. I almost always enjoy reading authors from other countries translated into English just for that experience.

So, I've read it. I'm no longer the only person on earth who hasn't. I'll even proceed on to the Played with Fire book and pray that Ms. Salander becomes a more interesting woman with a greater claim to fame than sexual victimization and Asberger's.

Purse Ephemera, and Ephemera in General

2011-01-06T10:37:00.000-08:00

Today's Crafter's Devotional exercise involves dumping out one's purse(s) ephemera and using it as part of or inspiration for new work. Alternatively, one could dump out "other vessels or places that accumulate ephemera, such as suitcases, backpacks, glove compartments, and junk drawers."

Good Goddess of Inspiration! I can't tell you how much I fight, constantly and every day, against the accumulation of "ephemera." To me, this kind of stuff is just garbage and clutter. I've been through the phase where I couldn't throw anything out -- or, better yet, recycle it -- because it might be useful one day. I'm so glad to be over that. When I watch those TV shows about hoarders and hoarding, my battle against over-consumption and against stuff is simply and terrifyingly reinforced. There's a not-so-fine-line between "collecting" and "hoarding." Since I come from a long line of "collectors" and am inclined in that direction myself, I work hard to keep up my self-awareness in that direction.

While moving from our old house to this new one, I de-acquisitioned a lot of stuff. And I continue to do that. Stuff comes in?? Stuff must go out. In the last 2 weeks, while getting my studio organized (or at least better organized), I offed plenty of purse-type ephemera. I'm not about to go hunting for more. And what's so interesting about old Costco receipts and used kleenex anyway? Which is what my purse ephemera usually is.

In the interest of full disclosure, I do have some boxes of ephemera here in my studio, all nicely and just recently edited and organized. This is the good stuff, the "junk" that isn't junk and the "junk" worth saving. So, again, I quote: "Think of these collections as forgotten fragments of your life that can be reassembled, reorganized, or reused as art, as inspiration for new projects, or as craft materials." And I'm sure I will collect more of this kind of ephemera in the future, for just this sort of use.

My point is that there is a fine line between useless junk and garbage, and ephemera that truly has some potential. There is a fine line between collecting and hoarding. Your purse may be a better collector of swell stuff that mine is. But I can guarantee you that my suitcases are totally empty when not in use, my glove compartment is tidy, and my "junk drawer" is actually more of a "miscellaneous" drawer and I intend to keep it that way.

I Finished a Project!

2011-01-03T19:20:00.000-08:00

I am famous for not finishing stuff. I can't tell you how many unfinished projects I have. Really. I can't. However, as recently discussed, this is a New Year. This morning, I FINISHED a project. I FINISHED making a total of 16 origami books (can be used as little journals or little scrapbooks or whatever). FINISHED, I tell you. FINISHED.

I'm having a good time with my Crafter's Devotional project. Do something or thing about something and then move on to a new day. Hit it. Do it. And then-- next?? I'm not going to be able to do the exercise every day (which, honest to the goddess, will be okay), but I'm going to actually exercise my creativity every day that I do, in something that can actually be accomplished. In the meantime, I'll be solving design problems and learning more about how to use my materials. Today I'm recovering my Big Black sketchbook. It will become my Big Green sketchbook. (That's a dusty blue-green, actually.)

Let's see.... We spent at least an hour this afternoon watching "our" bobcat couple hang around the house. Bobcat and Bobettecat are in love. They cuddle and flirt and groom each other and just hang out. We also walked through our preliminary landscape plan. Much to be done yet. Since I'm having my Tooth from Hell removed tomorrow morning, Randy took me to Pier 46 for a fish sandwich. I didn't want to have leftovers for my last meal.

My Breville stand mixer arrived today!! I'm so looking forward to trying it out. But I gotta deal with this tooth before I can think about any more cooking or baking.

Happy New Year!!

2011-01-02T10:26:00.000-08:00

I am a happy camper. We're getting lots of rain which is a very good thing. My studio organization project is coming along very nicely. I'm ready to call in Robert to put up the shelves that will house my dolls (some are my own art dolls and art dolls made by friends; some are my fashion dolls -- Barbies and Gene Marshalls and Gene's friends) and my Japanese pink cats plates and bowls. I now know what art supplies and equipment I have and where it all is. Pretty much. Between organization hours I've been working on finishing the origami books.

Yesterday my very good friend Jane and her partner Dan spent most of the day with us. I was very close to Jane and her older brother Michael in high school. Jane and I were freshman roommates in colleges. Jane's daughter Lizzie married in SLO on New Year's Eve to Spencer, whose parents are from Wisconsin but are retired in SLO. Wedding planning in the fall facilitated our reunion in September when our other high school friend, Janice, now in Texas, was able to joint us. Dan has some ties in southern CA, so I'm hoping that will help facilitate all of us seeing more of one another in the coming years. Too, I'm planning a trip to Texas in the spring, which will include seeing Janice and her family. Renewing these old friendships is simply making my heart and soul feel good. These women and their families enrich my life. Honestly, it makes me teary-eyed thinking about it.

Altogether, I'm feeling more centered and grounded than I have in a long time.

I'm So Excited....

2010-12-30T20:22:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-30T00:02:00.001-08:00

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

2010-12-29T11:11:00.001-08:00

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

2010-12-27T21:24:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-26T20:05:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-22T12:32:00.000-08:00

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)

2010-12-18T16:06:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-13T19:59:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-07T19:09:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-05T13:21:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-05T11:03:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-12-01T20:04:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-01T15:31:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-30T20:38:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-30T09:09:00.001-08:00

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...

2010-10-24T18:41:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-13T08:07:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-12T12:22:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-08T21:36:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-05T20:49:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-31T22:50:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-08-26T12:50:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-15T21:26:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-08-09T20:22:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-20T15:07:00.001-07:00

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!

2010-07-08T16:18:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-30T21:02:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-27T20:09:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-22T18:09:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-21T22:08:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-15T10:14:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-04T12:27:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-31T21:34:00.000-07:00

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...

2010-05-29T20:48:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-23T19:20:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-14T20:21:00.000-07:00

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.