Morsels

It takes days for the tension of everyday life to drop away. Even here where there is mostly silence and acres of nothing and no one around us. Every night I’ve dreamed of work; meetings, proclamations, very involved, hushed conversations. But the country is seeping in. Today I drove down to the Shur-Fine market which is only 8 minutes away instead of the 20 it takes to get to the nearest Wegman’s. Shur-Fines is where you go when you need a quick quart of milk, or two rawhide bones for the dogs. Or…. the best mixes I have EVER had.  I remember Mom and I picked up one of these mixes on a whim when we were shopping for a few extras and such (this is that kind of place for me — basic, easy, close). We got the Gingerbread mix and made it up. Best ever. Today, I made sugar and spice cookies and they, too were tremendous. Here’s the link.  Order some of this. Seriously.

I drove the pick-up to the market in olive green Columbia pants, LL Bean Boots, Dennis’s Navy fleece. Yeah, I looked a mess. But everyone else did too! When you go to Heinen’s in Bay Village, there’s make-up and making sure your clothes aren’t on inside out or are even wrinkly for god’s sake. Here at the local Shur-Fine just about anything goes.

So, the fire is going, the dogs are sleeping. Dennis is playing chess on his i-touch. It’s a cozy family scene. Bless us everyone.

Dennis and I are up here all week until late Wednesday when we hightail it back to Ohio, pies in hand so that I can make Thanksgiving dinner for us. It is quiet up here as always, except for the scattered shooting around us (but hopefully not too close!) It’s opening week for deer hunting and the country is rife with brightly colored men shooting at the deer. I love the taste of venison and I actually don’t have any huge issue with the idea of hunting.  But I have to say that I am on the side of the deer. There are two little yearlings who tend to wander through our front meadow at dusk.  Sometimes they come right to the house and look at the windows. Who is watching whom I wonder. I haven’t seen them this visit but I am pretty sure that’s because all the deer are hiding where they can.

Yesterday morning Dennis heard some shots a little too close to the house. So he decked himself out in that lovely orange (which our neighbor informed me is the new black) and headed down the pond in the direction of the shots. He didn’t find anyone hunting on our property but he flushed a large 10 point buck.  The buck ran in the direction of our neighbor’s property. It would be nice if you could hand them (the deer) little maps with safe zones so they could all gather and wait until the bad guys were gone. But humans being what they are it would probably turn into a slaughter-fest.

Wow. Sorry.  That just came out. I will leave it as a testament to early morning ramblings and left over dreams.

Meantime in between thinking misanthropic thoughts in my log home, I am experimenting with collaging and transfers and raiding Michael’s Craft Store and painting pears. Not directly painting on them. I am painting still lifes. I think I enjoy pears because they are like little, simple bodies. And you can do studies of light and color without worrying too much about much of anything else. (like bucks on the run)

Well, I have tried all day not to write about last night’s Springsteen show. But I can’t help it. I’ve seen a lot of shows, a lot of his shows. And I cannot remember a better, more heartfelt, more open and generous show in my life.

Of course, I am predisposed to love him and the E-Street guys and I always feel my life flash a little bit before me when I watch them onstage — for a lot of different reasons which those of you who know me well will understand. And last night, they all looked just a little older, a little stockier. Even Bruce. So there was that. And then they started the show (I am TERRIBLE with set lists but there’s one and a good review here). He took us through the whole Born to Run album (I saw that tour when they hit Oxford Ohio in the mid 70’s) and the songs, which we’ve all heard in concert before, had such a new resonance when you heard them strung together as they originally were. It was just as it was when he seemed to spring on us all back then. After the last song from the album, he stepped forward with his original band minus Federici and said “these are the guys that put together the album” and you felt all their history and yours in that moment.

But he wasn’t morose or even really nostalgic. He played those songs with all the heart he ever poured into them and it just broke my heart wide open with everything a heart can experience. He played Back In Your Arms as if he might not make it through the song. I looked behind me and saw a woman rocking back and forth sobbing.  The whole night was like that. He walked through the crowd, was lifted to the stage (a la Peter Gabriel); hands, almost every hand swayed in the light. Of course we sang every word as loud and as long as we could.

It was even poignant to see that they lifted a disco ball to the ceiling for the points of light that we might have all raised up with our lighters way back when.  (sorry, now I am getting maudlin).

Anyway, for three hours and more he and the band gave us everything they had until it was clear we all needed a rest and I am so thankful I was there.

The market is ending next week so I went up and bought 25 pounds of potatoes. And we don’t even eat many potatoes. But everyone is out blowing leaves around on this beautiful fall morning, my amish Covered Bridge Farm friends are giving out free samples of their incredible eggnog and I got worried about having enough potatoes to last through the winter. Plus they were seconds so they were less than fifty cents a pound. Still…. well, it should be interesting to see how many I have left at the end of the winter.

I also bought a lovely whole duck and some short ribs. The hardest part about getting through the winter is worrying about getting good, local meat but it turns out the beef guy will deliver to Crocker Park once a month. If I plan accordingly, that ought to work out just fine.

Meantime, it is a lovely, warm fall day and the entire neighborhood is out attacking the leaves with their loud blowers; the town leaf-sucker is out and it is general mayhem. You’d think leaves were a scourge or something! It’s a little disturbing. I took a quiet walk through the woods this morning and crunched through the leaves — in their place, ready to crackle with frost and turn sodden after thaws. Making warm, fresh earth. And then there are all these poor suburban leaves, blown to the curb. It’s so loud out there, one really would prefer to stay inside — even on such a pretty day.

Actually, I’m not a lumberjack - not even close (well I do have a nice collection of flannels as well as heels so maybe I’m closer than I think). Point is, this is the song son C the younger was singing as HE put on his flannel and boots on his way over to our neighbor’s house to do some chores for him. We are in Finger Lakes and everyone is getting wood for the winter fires. I walked over to visit him at some point with IPod headphones and a coke and he was splitting and stacking wood. Hours later, he and Dennis returned feeling that sense of satisfaction only a nicely split and stacked log will give you. Turns out C is actually quite the log splitter, which only surprised me because of the activity itself. It’s been a bit of a challenge to get him interested in the sort of outdoors/wood work that this place affords. But he is perfectly happy working really hard at home on his skateboarding or playing basketball — he knows the enjoyment of physical exertion. And he knows that Metallica can help any strenuous activity (or so he claims, but it seems reasonable if you are a fifteen year old boy).

We had Chicken Marbella for dinner, that famous, easy and great recipe from The Silver Palate cookbook. It’s really the only recipe from that book that has survived for me — but it is a keeper.

Since it’s been so long since I have posted I have all these thoughts saved up. Trick is, to get them out faster and more frequently, I know. I actually changed laptops — gone back to a PC and have been experience FEAR OF THE NEW. I miss my MAC but it just wasn’t practical for my office environment. And I used PC’s for so long that once I got through the fact that my computer wasn’t as “cool” looking as my Mac, I find the navigation, etc to be second nature. BUT the point is that I have wanted to write about this conundrum that I have been rolling around for some weeks now.

The other day (ok week) I was having a business lunch with a group of wonderful women, one of whom is a new mother who also happens to work for me at cleveland.com.  We were discussing food and cooking and she allowed as how she fed her son chicken fingers (you see why I am keeping her anonymous?) There was much exclamation and concern and advice. One of the women goes to Costco every few months, buys chicken breasts, salmon, etc and packages them up into meal proportions, freezes them and pops them out for her weekly meals. They all plan and shop for the week on Sundays.

But it occurred to me that there are many women who don’t know how to plan and cook for the week and beyond that, if you add the desire to eat like a locavore, eat responsibly and healthily AND cheaply — it gets pretty daunting if you haven’t had a certain amount of background in that kind of cooking. It is actually not that hard to do but it is very hard to explain because there is so much that goes into it.  I read somewhere recently someone who suddenly realized that she could save a LOT of money not by shopping around a recipe but shopping for what is in season and on sale, THEN creating meals around that. Well, duh. But to actually learn that and then do it when someone tells you to plan your meals on Sunday and cook some of them or else you and your family are going to turn into chicken nuggets with legs? Another story.

I suppose the only thing I can do is try and impart what I know — and to be fair, it is all passed down from my mother who learned how to cook this way by being a poor wife of a poor graduate student in France in the 60’s (how romantic does THAT sound?) and then cooking for our family on a faculty salary in the middle of the natural food revolution and then on a farm.

By the way, I know there are plenty of people who know how to do this and are doing it — but it is that time-crazed, suburban, urban working mother who is most in need of this and the least likely to know how to tackle it.

When I was a kid and my father was away at a conference or the like, mom would gleefully serve tacos, grilled cheese — let’s see, I’m trying to remember all the other meals that he didn’t like that we got to eat? My memory is not serving me so well but what I think the food had in common was its ease of preparation and that we always sat at the kitchen table instead of in the dining room. When we were together as a family, dinners were much more of an elaborate affair, elbows were in their proper place and the like. Which is all to lead up to the fact that Dennis doesn’t much like clams and he is off in Florida at a conference and… Arthur is just now driving up from OU in anticipation of Clam Spaghetti. And I am very happy. I am looking forward to seeing my boy and feeding him good, homemade food. I won’t even care if he puts his elbows IN his spaghetti!

I may be the last person as obsessed with food and cooking as I am to have made my way to the theater to see Julia and Julie (or vice versa). It’s a sad commentary on my life that I had no girlfriends to go with me — though Dennis and I did get invited by a friend to go to a fabulous screening followed by a four course meal prepared by a local chef. But we were going to be out of town (Maine, lobsters, clams, fine recompense). And then all the women I knew had already gone with their friends. In any case, I have to say that I have the finest, bravest fifteen year old son because he agreed to go with me tonight (Dennis out of town) and sat there and laughed at all the right parts — I think he was a little amazed at all the sex that big galumphing Julia had. But I am hoping he learned something from that… at some point after one of their back and forths (so wonderfully portrayed by Streep and Tucci) I told him I hoped that he found someone in his life to love as much as they did one another. I think he understood what I was saying. Think it might have been overkill if I had suggested we head to the store, grab a duck and debone it together — just for the hell of it? It’s late and I am tired. Not really up to ducks, or sauces, or even poaching an egg.

Also a little jealous of that Julie Powell. Not the best writer but a hell of a concept. I empathized with her and her book dreams (and Julia’s as well). No cooking tonight — just a loaded burger from Five Guys. Yum, yum, yum. And hooray for American cuisine, n’est-ce pas?

Just a quick note — made more bread (finished it last night) and it is getting better and better. Also, inspired by my SBF (serious bread friend), I have some sourdough pizza dough fermenting in the fridge. We’ll probably have that this weekend.

Anyway, I’m just writing to say how very much I love september. Tomatoes, peaches, one or two leaves skittering across the road, crickets, cool nights. And so forth. Last night I tackled my peck of peaches and now they are all very politely resting in their freezer bags in the freezer. They are a promise kept for winter when I want to cook them with vanilla, nutmeg, some cinnamon and maybe cardamom — you don’t even need pastry or ice cream to go along with really good peaches — but you might want some just to add to the fun. As for the tomatoes, I bought a case this past weekend of very nice romas and slow-roasted a bunch on Saturday. There are still plenty left. And THEY are not being polite at all. They are lurking in their basket as only impatient ingredients will do. I suppose I should blanch them and cook them down tonight. I’m sort of wishing that they would turn themselves into a sauce (do you think nanotechnologists are considering these sorts of issues?).

Finger Lakes this weekend.

Well, the bread worked more or less. Would I have liked my boules to be boulier, I mean higher? Yes… but the bread is crusty and has a nice sour taste that is not too sharp. I shall be making more and hopefully fitting it into my weekend routine. I have to admit to letting the second rising get a little attlepated by a slight distraction — I went to my neighbor’s beautiful garden and painted a pretty wretched painting. But it was a lovely day and she has the most amazing garden. Of course, she is a landscaper — she and her husband own Maple Landscaping. I was painting in front of a pond which has a pet turtle whose name I am blanking on but I promise was a very apt turtle name. This turtle comes when you call him. They had two but the other took off. My friend explained that the entire fence is turtle-proof (ie chicken-fenced) except for one gate which leads out to the front and then beyond across Lake Road and then, yes to the Great Lake.

Someone found the roaming turtle dead on the little beach the neighborhood tends together. I suppose he thought the bigger water was better. And I’m happy he made it across the road and that he actually got as far as he did. It must have been nice to see all that wonderful, wavy water. He was probably as surprised as I was when I first saw Lake Erie and discovered that you couldn’t see the other side!! He may have suffered from a little turtle heart attack. All that effort, all that desire and then everything is perhaps too wondrous to believe.

Now I’m feeling morose. Probably, actually because I’ve been reading Kennedy funeral coverage all day.

Tomorrow I’m going to make a huge batch of oatmeal/raisin/chocolate chip cookies (can you tell that Arthur is about to head off to college? Warning: Aggressive home-cooking on the horizon…)

In one of my more relaxed recent vacation moments I had the thought that I ought to bake my family bread every weekend instead of buying it at the supermarket. And, as I just posted a few days ago the result was dreadful. I literally threw the two warm loaves into the garbage. In retrospect I think the whole wheat flour was rancid? Anyway, I called my nice, talented friend David Farmer who is very SERIOUS about most cooking projects to see if he might have some sour dough starter for me???

Of course he did. Made from the skin of organic grapes. And he delivered it on Sunday afternoon with a half loaf of warm bread and a handwritten recipe that he has spent some time perfecting.  It looks quite that was simple I will grant it that but all the ingredients are in grams. So I think I need a digital scale? NO jokes please.

He said I could convert everything into regular cups and etc but he looked a little pained when he said this. I am afraid that I have wandered into a whole new very obsessed world of bread baking. It’s not the first foray I’ve had with bread.

I remember back when I was 15, deciding to save up with my best friend, Jeanne McKenzie to go to France. We very reasonably thought that baking and then selling french bread from Mastering the Art of French Cooking was an appropriate (and attainable?) way to make the money. We did make great bread and we did sell it — I think to many grateful people in the Miami U French Dept where my father taught… but, being 15, we lost our focus and moved on to something else. She and I never did get to France together. I’ve since lost touch with her. And I clearly have lost my way with bread as well.

Here’s hoping that I find it this weekend. Keep your fingers crossed.

Update: I wrote this mid-week and never pubbed due to various forms of disorganization and distraction (the one breeding the other). Anyway, on my second “refresh” of the dough and it’s looking/smelling sour. That’s a good thing. More later.