Creepiest Spider Ever?

I think so.

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Originally uploaded by renidemus

On My Table

What would you like for dinner tonight?

One perfect tomato, please.

Slice it up, if you don't mind, so I can share it with my best friend.  We'll each have two quarters, I think. With just a little salt.

And can I get a delicious summer vegetable salad to go underneath it?  That would be perfect, Thank You :)

Summer Vegetable Salad

1 head romaine lettuce, made bite-sized
1 small yellow squash, sliced in coins
1 small zuccini, sliced in matchsticks
1/4 yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 green pepper, sliced bite-sized
3/4 c grated cheese of choice
1 handful meaty bits (bacon bits, chopped salami, prosciutto slices, etc)
3 T garlic scape pesto
1/4 - 1/2 c olive oil
1-2 T red wine vinegar (to taste)
salt and pepper to taste
One Perfect Tomato

Wash, dry, and chop vegetables and lettuce and put in salad bowl with grated cheese and meat pieces.

In a small jar, combine pesto, olive oil, vinegar.  Screw on lid and shake vigorously to combine.  Add salt and pepper to taste, adding more vinegar if needed. Shake again to mix in spices.

Pour salad dressing in salad bowl and toss well to combine all ingredients.  


Top with one perfect tomato and serve.

Nero Wolfe's Corn

My mother loved mysteries.
Especially murder mysteries.  I don't know why, specifically, but she loved to read (and re-read) her mystery books.  There were whole summers where I can only remember her sitting on the couch with two stacks of books nearby, one shrinking, one growing.  She loved to pick apart the mystery in her head as she read along.  My guess: she probably  knew who did it as soon as the author did.

She was a smart cookie :)

These weren't any mysteries either--she definitely had her favorite authors.  She loved the Judge Dee stories by Robert van Gulik.  She would check out the books-on-tape from the library and we would listen to them in the car on long drives.  Sometimes they were kind of intense for us kids, but they were still great stories.  And hey--they kept us quiet, mostly. 

I don't recall any books by Agatha Christie on her thickly populated paperback shelves, but I know she also loved the A&E Poirot series with David Suchet, and we would watch them while doing all sorts of things--Christmas baking, spring cleaning, painting, sewing, decorating for a party or baby shower or dinner.  Oftentimes, it would happen that those who hadn't seen the episode before, or hadn't seen it several times (i.e., most of us), would end up sitting down to watch the thing through while Momma worked.  It's hard to follow a detective story while doing something else if you don't know the ending, after all :) She didn't mind, I think.  Listening to the movies helped her work. 

Her other favorite detective was Nero Wolfe, an overweight eccentric who lives in mid-century Manhattan. With him in his 4-story brownstone live his cheeky, handsome, and rascally assistant, Archie Goodwin, a Swiss chef named Fritz ("Freetz"), an entire floor devoted to his orchids, and a full-time assistant orchid tender, Theodore.  Wolfe loves fabulous food, good beer, Iranian saffron, and great books, and hates onions, anchovies without heads, boiled corn, Spanish saffron, and women-in-general.  Eccentric is an understatement ;)


When I "got into" reading a bit more (sometime in high school), I decided to try one of her murder mystery books, just to see what it was like.  I picked Rex Stout's Some Buried Caesar.  For those of you who know Wolfe and Archie, Some Buried Caesar is the book where Archie meets Miss Lily Rowan :)  I was hooked. I love Stout's quick-moving writing style and the bits of himself that he cast into both Wolfe and Archie (mostly Archie).

As I read more and more books, I began to realize (to myself, of course) that Momma reminded me a lot of Nero Wolfe.  At least, she reminded me of him in some ways.  She hated onions, too, and she liked whole anchovies.  She didn't have a particular affinity to orchids, but she was very particular in other ways, and was never afraid to let you know exactly what she thought.  I miss her.

"But," you're thinking, "What does all this have to do with Wolfe's corn?"  And you are right to ask. I promise this post has a point.  A&E also made a series for the Wolfe mysteries and Momma and I both bought the full collection.  Just like Momma, when I need to get some good work done, I put on my mysteries to listen to as I putter around the house cleaning, cooking, tidying, and folding.  For some reason, they keep me on task.

In one of the episodes, centered around a delivery of not fresh summer corn, Wolfe rails against the evil of boiling corn on the cob in water on the stove.  While Inspector Cramer just wants to find the murderer, Wolfe goes on about the perfect way to prepare corn.


Here, then, is Wolfe's recipe as taken from the episode.  I have to admit, he's absolutely right.  This is the best way to prepare fresh summer corn on the cob:

"Boiled in water, sweet corn is.. edible, and nutritious.  But roasted in an oven, at the hottest possible temperature for 40 minutes. Shucked at the table. Buttered. Salted. Nothing else! Ambrosia."

Pretty simple, right? :)



First, though, I trim off all the corn-silk scragglies so they don't smoke up my oven too much (warning: your kitchen will smell like roasting corn husk).


I roast them at about 500 degrees, put 'em right on the rack, and set the timer for 40 minutes. That's it. No tending, no turning.  Just let them roast contentedly.

Unlike Wolfe, and probably because I just have a smaller dining space that he does, I don't shuck the corn at the table.  But I do shuck it in the kitchen, right before we all sit down to eat, and I let each diner butter and salt it for himself.

It's quite a treat, this summer corn thing :)

What Did YOU Do This Weekend?

We were busy.  We had four of our dear friend stay with us--the Camachos (who were married last year) and the van Versendaals (who were married last month).  It's true, in our one bedroom apartment, that things were a tad.. squished, but all the merrier with good friends, right? :)

They arrived Friday evening, which was a good thing because I've found it difficult to keep my house clean this summer!  It's in a fairly consistent state of tidy-ness, but the cleanliness is a variable factor.  I don't want my guests to have a clear but mucky floor to sleep on, after all. So when I got off work early on Friday it was the perfect opportunity to tidy and clean the house thoroughly enough for our friends.  It calms me, too, y'know, to know I've done a nice cleaning before people come over and that my house is just as ready as I am to welcome them with warm (or, this time of year, cool) arms.

We had home-made sushi for dinner that night--with (nearly) everyone jumping in to make a roll. And we wives were in a prime spot in the kitchen because (you see) when one is still learning how to properly roll up the sushi, there are always pieces that aren't.. presentable :) and must be disposed of! Also, I am happy to report that the sushi-grade tuna I got from my fish lady was a success!  It was tasty, perfect texture, plenty of it, and we're all still alive and healthy, which is really the deal-breaker. Exciting!

I made a spiced fig upside-down cake for dessert, which (seriously) was totally delicious.  I didn't even have anything planned for the figs when I bought them on Thursday, since I didn't have a chicken in my freezer, but they were there, all lonely and they seemed to be calling to me: Annie! bring us home! So I did. And they seemed quite happy in their cooked-soon-to-be-gobbled state :)

Saturday was another affair entirely.  The Camachos had brunch with their sister, but the van's stayed home with us for oatmeal, leftover fig cake (!), and Taylor-made coffee.  We had a lovely chat, hearing all about their (amazing!) pilgrimage-honeymoon on the Way of St. James, and leisurely made our way to Harvard square to meet up with the Camachos for the afternoon.  Strolling around Harvard was hot business, but (to make it feel cooler outside) I got a delicious dry cappuccino at Crema Cafe.  The theory is that if my insides are hotter than the outside temperature, stepping outside will feel cool.. ish.  Sort of :) Eh, it was a great capp regardless!

We stopped at Trader Joe's for some provisions for the evening and headed home.  T and I hosted a pizza party for our wonderful guests, so that lots of their Boston friends could see them all at once.  I made eight pizza crusts, set them all out on the counter to rise (it's very warm in my kitchen this time of year), and put my stone in the oven.  It was a bit of a rush to get the house straightened up and the pizza prepped, but T is a great helper and it was a screaming success.

Pizzas we made (two of each): 

Salami with chunky tomatoes and Parmesan cheese

Wilted arugula with crumbled sausage, olive oil, and fresh Parmesan cheese

Garlic Scape pesto with peppers, zuccini and onions

Onion pizza with prosciutto, fresh sage, pepper, and olive oil

Deliciousness.

Sunday... T and I headed to Plum Island beach with a big group of friends.  We brought bread from Clear Flour, truffle salami, fresh fruit, veggies and hummus, homemade pickles, and I made a tuna salad (with artichokes and capers) for sammiches.  We had lots of water, happy beach towels, and much fun with our friends.  I went in the water (all the way in!) three times!  You see, I grew up surrounded by swimming pools, where you can always see the bottom and where there are no large living things in the water.  I was quite impressed with myself.  I had loads of fun.  We're totally going again this summer. Maybe every weekend :)

Plum Tuckered Out

And that was our weekend.. Our guests left Monday morning and T and I went to work.  Now I'm spending the week recovering from all the fun I had :) It's a good exhaustion! 

Flipped!

I made this cake for dessert last Friday, because figs are in season, and I have to have them!

We had two dear couples over to stay with us for the weekend and we made sushi together.  This cake wasn't quite a traditional finish to a sushi dinner, but it sure was tasty :) I totally flipped for it!




Spiced Fig Upside Down Cake
adapted from this document

Ingredients:
2 T coconut oil, melted
3 T brown sugar
10 medium fresh Black Mission figs, halved

1 1/2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp salt
1/3 c butter, softened
1/2 c brown sugar (not packed)
1/2 c light molasses
2 large eggs, white separated
1/2 c milk
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9" round cake pan with cooking spray and coat bottom of pan with melted butter.  Sprinkle 3 T brown sugar evenly over butter.  Arrange fig halves, cut side down, in the pan. Set aside.

Batter  Sift dry ingredients together in mixing bowl. In separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Add molasses and egg yolks and beat well.  Add milk and vanilla until incorporated.  Add wet to dry, gently mixing until just combined.

Beat egg whites in separate bowl until stiff peaks form.  Gently fold egg whites into batter. Spoon batter evenly over figs  in cake pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Cool cake for 15 minutes on wire rack (very important! If you don't let the cake cool, it will fall apart when you try to take it out.  But don't let it cool too long or the brown sugar on the bottom might stick too much).

Loosen cake from sides of pan with spatula.  Place serving plate upside down on top of cake pan.  Holding cake plan and plate together with both hands, flip it all upside down.  The cake pan might need some tapping to get the cake to come all the way out.

Serves 10.

Also, side note: this cake is really easy to make vegan!  I used Ener-G Egg Replacer no problem (following the instructions on the box for egg yolks and whites respectively) and I used shortening instead of butter--but a margarine substitute would work as well.  Super tasty!

... (Wordless)

The saying goes: A picture's worth a thousand words.

But I've always been one of those pesky people who wants more than a thousand words.  I want the whole story behind a picture. I want to know who the people are; where they came from; what they're doing; why the photographer was struck by the scene and decided to shoot it.  I want to know what kind of animal it is or where the photo was taken or how long ago.  A thousand words just isn't enough.

And yet, I also recognize that certain photos are meant to speak for themselves, without additional explanation.  That the photographer doesn't always have anything in mind when composing and shooting the scene--perhaps he was simply (and wordlessly) struck by its beauty or tragedy.

When I encounter photos without explanation, it is an exercise in patience for me to look at them, to search them for the story and for details not readily apparent.  It is an exercise in going beyond the surface, out the photographer's lens and stepping into the scene.

So this will be my exercise--to post a picture every week without any explanation from me.  I will try to make it a new photo each week, but I reserve the right to tap into my archives! ;)

I have not decided if I will post a title or not.  Titles are important to me and I almost always "name" my photos that I share, and I find it frustrating when I see photos without anything, even a title. But perhaps it will be good for me to leave that blank too. I don't know.

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if I were to add a title, this one would probably be "bucket stroll"

Summer's Roasted Vegetables

Someday, when I have my own garden, I want to carry heavy laden baskets full of fresh vegetables into my kitchen, to be prepared that night and gobbled up by eager mouths.  Someday, I want to know which foods go best for what season, which foods are most practical, so that I can eat in line with what the earth can give me.

We will have fresh fruit and ripe squash all summer and into the fall, and we will have hearty root soups and whole grain breads in the winter.  In the spring, we will enjoy the precious tidbits of little delicacies that only Spring in her perfect weather can provide.  Each season will have its own favorite dishes and menus, and each dish will conjure up memories of the seasons.  Hand in hand. They go together like sisters.

or cousins :) 

My sister Summer was named after my Daddy's first crush, Princess Summerfall Winterspring from the Howdy Doody show.  These weren't my sister's vegetables.  And it's not her recipe, either.  But all these veggies tend to make their appearance in my kitchen around summertime, especially the garlic scapes and zucchini, and it feels distinctly summer-ish to me. So, it seems fitting that the recipe belongs at least to the season, if not to my sister, and the Princess :)

In any case, it's also quite variable, and very simple.  I've written out what I used below, but you can substitute any of your own favorite vegetables and seasonings.

Serves 4

Ingredients
olive oil
1 medium onion
1/4 small red cabbage
about 8 whole basil leaves
4 medium to large whole beets
1 large zucchini
about 1 c garlic scape pesto
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
salt and pepper to taste

In a medium dutch oven (mine's 6 quarts and I had plenty of extra room), layer vegetables as follows:

sliced onions
cabbage, thinly sliced
basil leaves (laid evenly over the cabbage)
drizzle of olive oil
chopped beets (mine were big chunks--they don't have to be bite-sized--and I didn't even peel them)
pesto (spread as evenly as possible over the beets)
zucchini (halved and sliced)
another drizzle olive oil
sprinkle of thyme leaves
salt and pepper

Cover the vegetables and bake in a 350 degree oven for about an hour, or until the beets are tender. Serve it up as a side dish if you like, but we served it as an entree, with quinoa and a honey-dressed salad to go with it.

Delicious!

Substitution Ideas


Instead of red cabbage, basil, beets, and zucchini: green cabbage, potatoes, and/or turnips, mustard sauce, and carrots/parsnips on top (St. Patty's day in a pot!)

Instead of onions, substitute leeks, sliced in dollars, layered thickly on the bottom.

Rather than zucchini, use eggplant, sliced in rounds or chunked.

Instead of garlic scape pesto, use basil pesto. But make sure it's nice and garlicky! The acidic garlic is a nice complement to the beets and cabbage.

Use butter instead of olive oil.

Add Herbes de Provence instead of thyme and/or basil.

As you can see, the possibilities are endless :) Enjoy!

House Full

When Daddy was a younger man, he tells us, he always wanted to live in a house full of beautiful women.  Wouldn't y'know it? He forgot to specify: "whom I'm not related to."  :)  Instead of a houseful of wife-like women, he got a houseful of daughters.  "Even the tortoise turned out to be a girl!" he'd say.  Now, most of his grandchildren are grand-daughters :) Ah well.

Viv and I flew out to CA last weekend because, you see, Summer was visiting from CO  and we thought it'd be fun to have all the sisters together again.  It was :)

The weekend before we flew out was Daddy's birthday.  My sister Bethany, who teaches at our old high school, thought it'd be a good idea to take Daddy out to an encore performance of a Johnny Cash play the school was putting on.  It was awesome!

We went to sushi for dinner and Daddy even tried a piece of raw fish! He didn't particularly like it, but that was fine--it left more for me.  We sipped tea and talked--about theology of the body, music and lyrics, dividing things up, visiting at Christmas--and laughed. It was also nice to sit down to eat dinner that 1) we didn't have to make and 2) we didn't have to clean up.  It was a great meal.  I think sushi should become a tradition in the family now.. one of those things that's developed without Momma around to orchestrate large meals.  It's easy to order, pick up, serve, fill us up, and clean up after.  Addenda to the meal are easy too (rice and miso soup), and (my favorite reason) I'm mostly not allergic to anything in sushi. Hooray! How 'bout it, Family--New Tradition? :D

After dinner we headed over to the high school and sat through a wonderful performance of Ring of Fire, a musical about Johnny Cash.  It was, of course, a high school musical production, but it was wonderfully done--and the troupe is going to Scotland to perform it in a competition!  Well done, alma mater :)

After the concert, Daddy treated us all to ice cream.  We went to Baskin Robins and each got a scoop, which we ate outside--the weather was so nice [really, there's nothing like summer nights in the desert].  I got daiquiri ice, a favorite of mine from childhood.  I love real ice cream, but on a hot summer day (and "hot summer day" where I'm from translates to 120+ degrees with no humidity and glaring sunshine), the cream is just too much. Daiquiri ice was the most refreshing thing out there :) and it hit the spot.

I love my family.  We're all a little nutty, but that keeps things interesting! It was good to see my sisters again and hang out with Daddy a bit.  We really missed you Ray (et al.)!  Hopefully we can all meet up for Christmas--it's been too long since we've all been together (grandkids and spouses included)!

Here's hopin' :)

[baked] Fish and Chips!

If you're like T and can't really stomach really greasy foods, you'll be happy to try out this oven-fried fish and chips recipe.  I didn't have any cornflakes, so I used a bread crumb and cornmeal breading instead, which still turned out well (though probably not as crispy) :)


I also used blue potatoes instead of regular spuds.  I never knew there were such things as blue potatoes until flying on jetBlue, and sampling their Terra Blue potato chips. Yum!  :)

For the greenery, I made green beans and tomatoes.  I know I've posted about this before, but these are just about my favorite summer treat ever, and totally simple, quick, and very tasty!

Annie's Broiled Green Beans

about 1 pound fresh green beans
1 pint cherry tomatoes (it works with regular tomatoes, but the cherry ones are easier to broil)
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 500 degrees on the broil setting.

Rinse green beans well (picking out any ugly ones) and shake dry.  Spread evenly across a baking sheet.  Cut cherry tomatoes in half (or larger tomatoes into wedges) and place among the green beans.  Drizzle olive oil over beans and tomatoes and sprinkle salt and pepper (or any other seasonings you prefer) to taste.

Place the baking sheet in the oven (with the door ajar) and broil until oil sizzles and beans are crisp-tender.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Coco-nutty Ice Cream

Act I, Scene I


NARRATOR: It's been rather warm here lately, and I was craving ice cream.

ENTER: (Vegan) Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream

STAGE LEFT: ::happy dance::

:)

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1 1/2 c. coconut milk (don't bother with the "light" stuff--coconut fat is way good for you!)
1 1/2 c. chocolate hemp milk (if you don't want to go vegan, just use regular chocolate milk)
1/4 c. sweetener of choice (I used evaporated cane juice)
1 tsp. vanilla and/or almond extract (I used both!)
1/4 - 1/2 each of the following (to your taste):

--chocolate chips
--nuts of choice (walnuts here)

--shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened, as you prefer)

Combine liquid ingredients and chill (if necessary).  Freeze according to ice cream maker directions.  Add nuts, coconut, and chocolate during last few minutes of freezing.

With all the extras in this ice cream, it was stiff enough that we could have eaten it right out of the freezer bowl, but I put it in a tupperware and froze it some more. Still very tasty later on :)

Enjoy!

Farmer's Market

T and I went to the Brookline Farmer's Market today to get our weekly bunch of produce and fish. It's been great this summer to get local food--the fish is so fresh and tasty, and the produce is so good! We had roasted beet salad for dinner tonight, and we got some lovely sweet onions (which will go in the roast chicken pot on Sunday!), eclectic carrots, and tasty radishes. A few weeks ago, I got some garlic scapes. This week they have harvested the garlic, which is so good...

and so huge.

Next week we'll get some honey. *Ahem* I hope it's as tasty as the honey this bumblebee will make "for [bumblebee] babies, in very small pockets scattered around the neighborhood" :) (love you, Ben!)

Weekend in WA

Yes, we had another weekend in Washington with the fam. It was fabulous! T's parents have a cabin on Lake Chelan and (because it's very cozy with (almost) the whole family there) they rented us our own little cabin a few docks down. I don't have a whole lot of time to post right this minute, but I wanted to let you all know I posted the pictures of our trip. What a fun weekend (we got tan, too!)

Wild Waves

Lady in Red!

I made a dress :)

(without a zipper!)

(or buttons)

(or too much trouble and frustration)

and it doesn't look like a bag!

But I have to say, without feeling too boastful, that this is also a dress I made from my very own pattern (I traced a pattern from another dress I liked). My mother was surely watching over me for this project, because it was the smoothest sewing project I've ever undertaken. In fact, the mending I did today was pretty easy, too. That's a good sign :)

Now, this dress, as it turned out, isn't exactly like I was envisioning, but I'm still very happy with it--it's very comfortable, very modest, and very red (which is just fun!).

I added a pocket, with a pretty patch for a splash of color, too.

And one of my very-own tags that Momma got me when I started sewing :)

This dress was, admittedly, my practice dress, because I wasn't overly attached to this material. I have other material I want to use with this same pattern (though there will undoubtedly be some modifications). Then I'll be all ready for the warm(er) summer weather, now! C'mon, sunshine... let's get going and burn up all this humidity!

'Tis the Season

That is, it's the season for strawberries! I am so excited to have a farm someday and grow my own strawberries. This dessert was a real treat for us last night--so light and refreshing, but so satisfying! Ingredients: Fresh Strawberries 1/4 c plain yogurt 2 T sugar 1 tsp vanilla Combine yogurt, sugar (you could use maple syrup or honey if you wanted), and vanilla until smooth. Place in bottom of shallow serving dish (a long skinny one would be very elegant, good for a buffet. I like my triangle one, too). Place strawberries in yogurt mixture and serve. Tasty :)

Summer's Over?

On Monday this week, the city of Boston unanimously decided that summer is *over* Sunday, the public pool in Cleveland Circle was a rollicking flesh pot and the nearby field was full of twenty-somethings playing sports. The sun was out, the air was warm... a perfect vision of summer. But there were signs. Moving trucks of all sizes were inching their way through narrow one-way streets, bearing college students and their muchness. Piles of no-longer-wanted items discarded by busy moving-inners littered the sidewalks, free for the taking. BC itself was freshening up before the "impress the parents" events happen: painting crosswalks throughout campus, cutting the grass, trimming the bushes, adding "Welcome to BC" signs all over. And the shuttle started running its regular school year schedule last Friday. Then Monday we went to work and the pool was completely empty! Students with stuff were everywhere! BC looked immaculate and the shuttles were buzzing and humming all over campus. And, as if all that wasn't enough, it's been delightfully cool these past few evenings. It was a bit warm yesterday, but with the over-use of a/c in office buildings, it always feels nice to walk into the welcoming warmth of the sun. Fall is coming :) And it will be beautiful! We'll try to go out of the city this year to be "leaf peepers." We'll take Dave and Mandy if they're available. Anyone else wanna come? (This is my 100th post) :)