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)

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.

It is our anniversary today (happy us!) and we are up in soggy finger lakes house. I know it has been forever since I have posted but I did want to tell a funny story about yesterday and our marriage (as it relates to food of course) and also post the recipe for a wonderful souffle I made (if I do say so myself).

Here’s the story: we went shopping at Wegman’s yesterday. Some weekends we cart all our necessary food up and sometimes we (read I) are too disorganized to do anything more than make sure there is milk for coffee in the morning. So this weekend was a disorganized one and we needed food for our anniversary dinner. The idea in my brain and vetted with Dennis was duck breast with cherry sauce, rice pilaf and snap peas. Grand Marnier souffle for desert. Well, we get to Wegman’s which was more packed than I have ever seen it — I guess it’s the only thing to do around here when it is pouring rain? And they have no duck. Well one frozen one but it didn’t look like it was going to cooperate with being cooked for dinner in a few hours. So I grabbed a couple of little fresh cornish game hens and figured we’d be down with that.

Get to the check out line and as I lift them up to the conveyor belt thingy I show them to Dennis and say “here’s what I got instead of duck.” Poor guy’s face fell. “Oh,” he says. You see how sweet he is in the face of a disappointment? So I said, “you really wanted steak didn’t you?” and he nodded. So I sent him back to the meat department on his own to return the two little game hens and bring back a steak.

Now we all know what it is like to get to the check out line with all your variously gathered goods and realize that you forgot the sage, or garlic or whatever. The pressure IS ON. Luckily, we had the two slowest check out guys I have ever encountered. So Dennis was able to return with his steak. It was a three pound (at least) sirloin. Huge. All I could see when I looked at it was the slaughterhouse (sorry). I am eating meat again, yes but I am trying so hard to keep it to local and at least grass fed. Food is rumbling along the conveyor belt. He has just dodged about six women in carts and a couple of really old ones who seem to do a lot of standing in the middle of things all with this huge bloody steak in his hands. I looked at him and said. “Umm that’s a lot of steak. Mind if I go grab some smaller grass-fed ones I saw?” He shakes his head no. And now I’m the one running through the aisles past the very same women who are still standing around with the same piece of meat ( I mean I have the piece of meat and THEY are still standing around). I actually started laughing at the spectacle, which only made it more spectacular I guess. Anyway, got my little more appropriate steaks and phew! made it back.

So there you have it. Our daily negotations. Particular to us at that moment I suppose but really not at all. We are all (us marrieds and committeds) juggling daily details and back and forths. Sometimes more gracefully than others. It certainly helps to have a sense of humor and (thank you Dennis) patience.

And it also helps to make a souffle now and then. I took this from Bittman’s How to Cook Everything book and switched it up because we had no Grand Marnier. But we did have Amaretto and it was really, really good and really easy. Believe it or not, this was my first souffle. I am going to make more.

There are a few things that I am pretty bad at — identifying small birds (it was small and brown), mushrooms (it was umm small and brown?) but one of the most seasonal frustrations I run into is my complete lack of talent in the compost-making department. It may not seem very important to those of you who do not fancy themselves suburban farmers (which, btw, is all the rage) but for anyone who wants to tuck some tomatoes into rich, organic soil, harvest some fresh-snapped peas and so on and so forth, you really must have a nice compost pile.  I will admit that Bay Village is not the most compost-friendly environment (sort of feel odd running out in the morning in my “work” clothes, heels and all, dumping eggshells, lettuce leaves, apple cores and the like into the growing pile beside my little vegetable garden). But dump I do and for those of you who are excellent and worthy composters, yes I alternate “green” material with the food and I make sure it has water and it is in a sunny spot. Poo. It is still lumpy and matted and seems to enjoy resurrecting the food that I am trying so desperately to turn into dirt. By that I mean that I think there is a potato growing out of it at this point. Now my mother? She is a damn good composter. Plunge a pitchfork into her compost pile and turn it over… you will be rewarded with rich, warm earth. Perfection. Arthur felt bad enough for me that when he left for college he made sure to print out this article in his favorite magazine (Arthur) about the Sodfather. Take the time to read the article — he’s a real character.  But read as I might, it has been to no avail.

Which brings me to my mother’s placemats. Stay with me here Since seester had her little boy Luca Mom has taken to frequenting local thrift shops very frequently and snapping all sorts of lovely little things for the baby. At some point in her forays she found what she described as beautiful, multi-colored placemats that were like little rag rugs for your table. They were perfect for the Finger Lakes house she decided if a little musty. So home they came and into the washer. Unfortunately, once removed from the wash, it turned out that they had become a little frayed. My mother said they had grown beards. And what do you do with unruly beards? You trim them naturally. By now we were several days into the saga. It took a few weeks for beard trimming what with gardening, yoga, cooking and etc. And then once they were taken off, the little mats turned in on themselves (think those pot holders we all made as kids). Apparently they aren’t as bright either. Mom skyped me last week and said she thought either they were just fine or I might want to use them as mulch. See? Compost connection made. Oh snap.

So at this point I am a little afraid of what they will look like when she presents them to me. I will take a photo and post it maybe. And then if I can figure out polls I will let us all vote: Compost? or placemat? Only I will have to think of wittier questions.

Here’s the thing. When your nineteen year old calls you up in the afternoon of say a Friday and says “mom, I’ve been thinking” it’s best to drop what you are doing (in my case packing frantically for Finger Lakes) and listen up. Turns out that Arthur has made friends with a Sri Lankan prince — or so he says. In any case, the friend has invited Arthur to Sri Lanka and Arthur is wondering, umm, can he go. Well. It seemed unwise to say no immediately. Instead I mentioned that it might be expensive. And he allowed as how he might need to save up. Course, it entirely depends on what airline you choose. Air India seems to be a mere $1200 give or take while Saudi Arabia Airlines is over $6k — guess that latter is for those who need to find interesting ways to spend all their extra money. Arthur says it could be a once-in-a-lifetime chance, which is true — Bennington tends to attract various and sundry international kids — probably a few other royal-types hanging around. OU? Not so much. Also, Arthur says his friend hangs out with elephants. That of course, cinches the deal.

I told him to work over the summer and save his pennies and then asked him if he was at all worried about travelling over there. Isn’t there some sort of civil unrest? I asked….Tamil Tigers and such? He agreed that it would be reallly embarrassing if he ended up being the American-who-gets-kidnapped. How about just plain old killed?

We agreed to discuss it more. But that was before I read the State Dept’s travel warning. (which is linked to under the word “killed”) I support adventure and travel but I’m thinking I will have to draw the line.  Instead, I will be sure to make him some baked cheese prawns. And when the Cleveland Zoo has elephant rides I’ll make sure to encourage a visit.

so I emailed this particular adventure to my painting teacher this morning and then felt it was wasteful to just put it in one, lone email. While at Wegman’s, provisioning for the week up here (NY house) I was struck by how pretty the mackerel were. They looked like a very nice (still) subject for a still-life. Only I wanted three and they were largish fellows. So the whole thing was going to cost me over ten dollars, which seemed extravagant. I already had a pound and half of wild haddock, two pricey cheeses, fava beens, spicy sprouts and other very important food stuffs in my basket.  Instead, I bought three herring (and as I said to Jeff my teacher this is where it begins to sound like an episode from Monty Python - a herring!!)

Well, I did buy them and they are still wrapped in their pristine white wrapping paper, lurking in the fridge. We are 4 days into the whole saga and I am fearful. You know they are just a stinky mess and they were so pretty and shiny. Just four days ago my biggest worry over them was how to arrange them and on what in order to compose my still-life. Now, I’m afraid the whole thing is lost and they area going to have to get tossed in the woods. Maybe I should plant them like the indians did and see if corn grows. Maybe I should put them in the pond and hope to attract a heron?

The moral? If you have an inkling to paint something dead a la olde Masters, do it right quick. Course it makes me wonder exactly how they managed. Those rabbits and pheasants look so fresh.

Here is a picture of the last painting I finished. It’s a view of a storm coming in over Squirrel Island which sits at the mouth of the bay in Maine. Ann Sexton lived there and went mad which must have shaken that old community up a bit.

Squirrel Island Storm

It is Easter morning and the bunny came last night (ok just ten minutes ago but I only have one fifteen year old to manage) and left Christopher a nice organic chocolate fascimilie of himself, some chocolate eggs, malted chocolate eggs and of course, the requisite Silly Putty egg. Last night, Christopher mournfully wondered if the bunny WOULD come? Because we were up here in NY and last year he hadn’t come to Austin, Texas (where C was with his dad) I swear I packed chocolate in his suitcase last year? I say it’s hard when everyone is so far — I had to pack Arthur’s in his masive food box that I send up twice a semester — mostly granola, ramen, emergen-c and the like but I did tuck in the same Easter mix that C just got with a BIG note that said not to open until Easter. Apparently the note was either not big enough or alarming enough or whatever because he claims to have not seen it and has already eaten his way through it. I felt a little bad when I heard that but not bad enough to go out and buy/send more.

Anyway, I smartly did not buy any jelly beans because I would be eating them all right now, starting with the black ones.  And we won’t be having an egg hunt which is my other favorite part. So here are some easter images as much for me as anyone:

Oxford, the perfect dog of our childhood, running ahead in the cold Ohio spring “cheating” because he could with his happy dog nose and finding the chocolate eggs. Coming back with little bits of colored foil between his teeth. I think he may disprove the myth that chocolate kills dogs– we may tell ourselves and them this because there would be no chocolate left for us humans if we didn’t.

Our neighbor Ed Burmeister (this goes back to when I was 11?) merrily tucking a raw colored egg under a tree for someone to find. I did of course, because I was the oldest and the fastest and it is a hard balance to NOT find all the eggs before the other, really slow littler ones — an aside — as a mom I watched Arthur struggle with this one himself; it was so transparent and I thought I was being so discreet walking past that bright yellow one tucked under the almost in bloom forsythia (my mother liked to camouflage her eggs but sometimes it was more of a reference, all depended on how fast spring had decided to arive). Anyway, Arthur did a good job leaving some for Christopher. Back to the raw egg. I found it and plopped it in my paper sack and plunged on. Only to find at the end that it had exploded and covered everything within the bag with its sticky, yolky mess. Now, as a child, I wasn’t really given to letting grown-ups have a piece of my mind but I remember distinctly the sense of just plain old meanness that I thought that joke was. And I told him as much. I can’t remember if he apologized or not. But it is one of my first memories of telling someone that they really ought to think a little before they play a mean trick. And I have never been one for a mean trick since (well hardly ever, but that may be another post).

And to end on a nicer note. Every Easter as I have posted before, we had David Eyres pancake. That cant’ be quite true because it wasn’t published until 1966 but, frankly, it is all I remember. It is sweet,  hot and bubbly and rich, rich, rich and it comes to the table with a sprinkle of lemon juice and confectioner’s sugar. I smear mine with strawberry jam and serve it with cut strawberries as well. I am sure that this morning mom and dad will be having one as will Susanna and Wes (unless little Luca is complicating matters, in which case I will eat my sister’s piece).

Happy Easter to all –

Well, and I was doing so well — posting almost willy-nilly, it seemed (sometimes 2 days in a row!!!) Been a long week, punctuated by a marathon weekend of rockhall events. We had a great time but two late nights in a row tends to muck everything up and I haven’t had much spare time. The extra time I have had has been spent either writing this potential fiction project that I am naming only that. Maybe I will title it “We Shall See…” since that is all I will officially acknowledge. But in any case, I have been working on that pretty regularly in the mornings. And then I am now taking two Creative Coaching online courses and they actually take time.

Anyway, I have been meaning to post a recipe I made in New York and then what I ended up doing with the left-overs. Only I think I left Mr Beard up there in the cold, dark house by his lonesome. I hope he is cooking things and saving them in the freezer! But I can give you all an idea of the recipe and probably there’s one very like it online. Just looked. Not finding one so I will post it later. The basic idea is to brown a seasoned pot roast, then to simmer it for a long while with Mexican-type spices and tomato sauce (I added some left-0ver bean chili that I had in the freezer as well). We ate half of that for dinner and then, a couple of days later, I shredded the meat and made beef enchiladas with the meat, queso fresco, corn tortillas and enchilada sauce. They were the best enchiladas I have ever made — sometimes you hear of beef recipes (the ravioli one I posted awhile back is one) where the cook says the recipe you make from the left-over is worth just making the original for. This is one of those. I say, get you a pot roast and make it quick before it’s an embarrassing meal (it being spring and all and we are now supposed to be making things with spring peas, asparagus, fava beans, and etc.

And finally, check this lovely talk by Elizabeth Gilbert out. It is on the idea (which turns out to be a product of the Renaissance) that the artist should be tortured by their process, that the creative process is laden with fear and responsibility. It’s very, very good and she is so, I don’t know, approachable. Enjoy.

Well, Susanna (seester) is taking a terribly long time to have her baby (she started at two am on Saturday morning, so she’s 34 hours in). I have tried everything…. a long walk in the woods, a sit on a big moss-covered rock, hugging my big dog and wishing away any pain that my “baby” sister is feeling. Too much drink before and after dinner so I wouldn’t think, think, think. And then about midnight I gave up and gave myself over to direct thoughts; trying to zero in on her brain and hold her up. It was exhausting. So I slept and then woke up at four this morning for good (why, you ask wasn’t I downstairs at the computer making myself useful and blogging about the results of the pheasant meal? Answer: I was reminding myself that I was raised for the sole purpose of tending to my sister) That latter statement is entirely not true of course. But everything is so stark in the middle of the night and as I said in my toast to her on her wedding day; her little baby self was one of the first lessons in love that I ever had. Clear memory of lying in the middle of the blueberry patch — it’s softer and nicer than it sounds — and holding her little body in my arms in the sun; her funny curls all about her face. And now she’s hooked up to lord knows what machines, in a hospital 6 hours away doing a very hard thing. Giving birth is crazy hard and you think you know. Then you don’t. And each birth takes its own path so no matter the plan (and this one is not going according to plan) you just have to throw it all away and be in whatever experience you are being given — sounds a little like life, yeah?

So on to more mundane and easier subjects. The pheasant was amazing and I riffed on the James Beard recipe so I will describe what I did (but remember the drinking part above? I couldn’t give you exact portions if I tried). This would work with Cornish Games Hens, chicken, rabbit. And contrary to my previous concerns, those pheasants were the very unathletic sort. I believe they were hand fed grapes and maybe, maybe did a few sit-ups once in a blue moon.