Morsels

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, 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.

We are up in NY this weekend to celebrate Dennis’s birthday (which is monday). Tomorrow night, I will be cooking beef filet and stuffed shrimp and haven’t nailed those details exactly but last night, in a pre-bday celebration, we went out to dinner at a local restaurant that we are very fond of. It is about 20 minutes from the top of our hill to this little roadside bistro near Naples, New York and it is the place that we sat together in a little nook over a bottle of local white wine and determined that, yes, we were going to buy our beautiful Ganyard Hill house. So, we return and feel that anticipation and happiness whenever we walk through the door.

The bistro is owned by Trish Aser, a petite, lovely blond woman who has always cooked the bistro’s renowned brunches but, has for the most part, left the evening meals of late to an executive chef. Well, she let him go in October as the bottom fell out of their business (she came down from the tiny , overheated kitchen last night to tell us all this) and has changed the menu to be very flexible, full of little plates and half-orders of the mains (which is a very good idea if you think about since we all eat too much at restaurants anyway).

I started with a winter salad that was dressed with a lovely, lemony coriander vinaigrette that I am going to try and re-create followed by a half order of duck breast with cherries and sides of wild rice pilaf and roasted squash.  The food was good, not incredible but homey and well-thought out and the atmosphere? Really unmatched. The room is tiny, the lighting low and warm and there is a musician named Bill Brown who plays quiet blues in the corner for you. He was tired last night because of the cold and his dog woke him early and then his horses got all antsy and before you know it he’d done laundry and made calls and then had to head over to the Brown Hound but his quiet rambly picking on the guitar and his whispery warm voice washed over us all and made the good food even better.  Our waitress had made a very tasty orange chocolate cheesecake. It was nice to praise her to her face. Yes, I think that is what makes this place so special. The person cooking for you comes down and hangs out, the waitress made you your dessert, even your ambient music responds when you ask for something sad. He played Nobody Loves You When You are Down and Out. And somehow, it was more winsome than sad. Probably the wine.