There are red-winged blackbirds telling my dog not to walk beneath their tree (it’s on a public path) and geese coming in. Soon there will be snowmelt and the ducks and my favorite Greater Sandhill Cranes will re-appear.
This is the first and last I saw of these incredible cranes last year, from April through October. I love watching wildlife here, but love veggies as well and cannot wait until the farmers’ markets open once again. Since my organic mystery box is no longer an option, I’ll go to the markets and find whatever’s fresh and piques my interest.
I’m already thinking of planting herbs and flowers but my few containers are still covered in snow and the shovel has broken a couple of drip pans, which can easily be replaced.
Today I may make a stew. No, pot roast. And instead of regular egg noodles I’ll get pappardelle. Yesterday it really looked like holiday snow, big, fat flakes. That may continue today. A nice pot roast with noodles and tomato gravy, fireplace going, sounds like Sunday to me! Enjoy your weekend, Dee
Categories: Editorial
Tagged: Sandhill Cranes
The privacy team. Now there’s a new government facility to be located nearby to listen in to anything anyone might say. Will its installation help the economy? Yes.
Years ago we had a P-Team pre-Internet that saw dangers in banking, healthcare, insurance and other industries that would erode personal privacy. My area was cable TV, and potential interactive situations that would leave consumer information out there to be mined.
Little did we know what was down the road. I still think our own self-appointed privacy team had the right idea in the 80’s. I’m proud to have been a part of that brotherhood and to see fellow members succeed in their careers.
I did a lot of work, plugging holes in the dike and pushing paperwork. This is the first chance I had to focus (and lose big) and it shaped my life, helped me focus on the important things and know for the first time it’s OK to have enemies.
My loving husband calls me a “feminist homemaker” because I had my share of battles in the workplace, as an advocate and volunteer. Cooking is always something I come back to, a grounding force, and cooking for two is much better than one.
Yes, I get my ire up over major government issues but so should everyone, pro or con. We’ve been too complacent over the years and the biggest battle over this healthcare issue is disinformation and lack of information. Insurance companies et al vs. The Bill Payers, which is us.
Just as we financed the banks that formerly financed us, now the insurance industry wants us to fund them too, because their business is to take our money, invest it and not give anything back.
We need to take this past the healthcare issue and the newly-issued jobs and education initiatives (to make healthcare pass or mask its flaming defeat) and think about where we’re going as a nation. A serious post, Dee
Categories: Editorial
There are specific and non-specific gauges. Like finding out about who likes a political candidate or the most popular television shows. Then there are specifics.
My dear husband, non-cook (but a phycist and software engineer) does grill while I’m in the kitchen preparing side dishes and setting him up for anything he needs on the grill.
The other night I made Jacque Pepin’s Grilled Lamb Robert with a 2.88 lb lamb leg cut. It was an unwieldy cut and I wanted to do the entire piece with bone and on the grill. As you may know, all of our stuff is in storage so I don’t have an instant-read thermometer.
Jim ran out to get one. What did he come back with was a tong device to instantly measure meat temperature on the grill, an instant-read thermometer, and an oven temperature gauge. Leave it to the physicist to get every gauge imaginable.
The lamb was very tasty, coming out at 135-140 degrees and resting. It turns out that at lower temps my oven seems to be 25 degrees above the set temperature, and at 350 degrees the oven thermometer registers 400. Nothing can be placed on the bottom two shelves because it’ll burn up.
Soft public opinion gauges say that measuring your oven temp and large roast temp’s are worthwhile. But that’s only my opinion. Cheers, Dee
Categories: Editorial
Tagged: Grilled Lamb Robert, Jacques Pepin, oven thermometer
Last night, while deciding not to cook dinner and waiting for my husband to arrive home, I turned on Create TV and ‘Mexico: One Plate at a Time’ with Rick Bayless. He explained tacos (no, not the kind you get at a fast food US “Mexican” restaurant).
One preparation really interested me, Tacos al Pastor, with thinly sliced, marinated grilled pork, onions, and pineapple on small, soft corn tortillas. When Jim got home I asked where he wanted to go to dinner, knowing the answer. Our local Mexican joint.
In the past few weeks they’ve re-vamped their menu and right in the center, staring me in the face, was Tacos al Pastor! I mentioned to our Mexican waiter that sure enough, Rick Bayless had talked about and prepared that dish a couple of hours before! He evidently knew who Rick Bayless is. My husband asked, as expected, “Who’s Rick Bayless?”
Since we’re regulars and have had this waiter a number of times before, I asked if I could explain and he agreed. I told Jim, “he’s arguably the best gringo chef of Mexican cuisine in El Norte.” Our waiter laughed. I loved the dish! Folding up mini corn tortillas with pork, onions and pineapple and dunking it in a tomatillo salsa. Yum!
Find the recipe on www.rickbayless.com. Enjoy! Dee
Categories: Editorial
Tagged: Rick Bayless
Nasty title, but it comes from Monty Python’s “Holy Grail” movie. It was funny at the time. Last year a stoat/ermine lived beneath our empty hot tub for a couple of months.
He was so darned cute.
Well, we saw him bring a dead mouse by and leave it for a few moments because Zoe flustered him behind the glass doors. The story is that our neighbors fired their hot tub maintenance man because he raised his prices so they hired a new person. The new maintenance person kept finding rats and other critters in the hot tub. The owners, who don’t live here, thought the old maintenance guy was sabotaging their hot tub by putting dead stuff in there.
A couple of months ago we met the owner and pieced together the real story. The stoat/ermine was living in our hot tub and keeping his extra prey a few feet away, and the old maintenance guy was re-hired on our recommendation.
And no, thank you, I don’t want a recipe for par-boiled two week-old rat, nor will I give you one. We told a real cowboy that story and he liked it. Cheers, Dee
Categories: Editorial
Tagged: ermines, stoats
aka “Why I Don’t Twitter.” Yes, I edit myself and try to provide you with the best copy/stories I come up with. But hear this. I’ve been bothered by a recent episode of Rick Bayless’ One Plate at a Time.
Permit me a setup. Twenty years ago I slaved in the kitchens of Margaret Fox at Cafe Beaujolais, in Mendocino, CA. It was a month-long unpaid internship and I wasn’t even allowed a portion of the kitchen’s share of the tip money, which I could have used for firewood because it was freezing in my unheated cabin. I’d spent all my savings on cooking school and a rental car to drive to and from work. Luckily the subletter left a mattress and several blankets, and flying termites by the thousands.
The infamous Diana Kennedy was coming to visit, doyenne of Mexican cooking. One cook was caught rinsing a painstakingly roasted chili to rid it of seeds and skin. NO! Diana Kennedy is coming! She came and went, I got to spend three hours driving her to the airport (I was the only one with a day off, new car and insurance) and she made us some lovely shrimp with garlic, and picked fruit and made us berry ice cream.
I very much enjoy chef Rick Bayless, can’t wait to go to Chicago to visit his restaurants, and am a new devotee of Create. I love Mexico: One Plate at a Time. He makes his dishes sound so easy for the home cook. Recently I watched him rinse off a roasted chili pepper to get rid of seeds and skin. I was told 20+ years ago that was a no-no because you lose all the flavor you imparted through the roasting process.
So I asked him, and congratulated him on winning Top Chef Masters. If there’s any top chef I’d like to apprentice with, it’s him, because he’s a perfectionist, an innovator, a classicist and seems to value the people who work for him. And his website made me make it 300 characters. That took four edits. Perhaps they just want to weed out people without the patience to whittle down to 300 meaningful characters. Anyway, this is MY blog and hopefully you’re still reading.
I love getting inspiration from others, moms who bake, cooks/chefs with other styles of food and ethnic traditions. Right now I just wanted to know if it’s OK to rinse the pepper and retain the flavor! It’s a pain not to use water except to get the skin pieces off my hands. I’ll let you know if he answers. In advance I’ll say Thanks, Rick Bayless, for being the creative chef you are and I’ll see you in Chicago! Cheers, Dee
p.s. 452 words, and I do this as a hobby! I would’ve been horrified to get this assignment in high school…
Categories: Editorial
Tagged: Margaret Fox, Mexico: One Plate at a Time, Rick Bayless
You did it! And my favorite song won as well. Although I must admit that the melodies of others from Crazy Heart run through my brain, even in dreams, as I begin the mental process of taking up the guitar as a rank beginner at my age.
You can see from my postings over past months that this isn’t the traditional post-Oscar blogger as I’ve even e-mailed the producers to get the movie out earlier here. It’s next door and I’ve seen it twice, bought the CD and while the movie was tough for my husband he loves the songs.
The book brought me home to my neighborhood and the lights of the city. Author Thomas Cobb should be commended for his work, also T Bone Burnett, Ryan Bingham and all the songwriters and musicians.
Congratulations to all, you’ve earned it. Cheers, Dee
Categories: Editorial
Tagged: crazy heart, Jeff Bridges, the weary kind
Tonight Jim and I are having my (still to be made) homemade pizza and watching at least part of the Academy Awards. One year, recently, I had two girlfriends over to our mainly open loft and we (totally out of character) reviewed the red carpet and event while Jim slept a few feet away. I miss you, gals!
Jim’ll go to sleep again tonight but perhaps he’ll set me up with headphones. Yesterday I finished reading Crazy Heart, and am glad I saw the film first. It’s interesting that we lived a few blocks from where the fictitious Bad Blake lived in Houston, and his recollection of the skyline is fresh in my mind as if we were still there. Also the tunnels, the fictional Blake should have talked to me because I hate those things. I don’t care if they’re air-conditioned, even if it’s 100 degrees I walk above the surface because I know the restaurant is on the corner of Dallas and Fannin or wherever.
Best of luck to everyone tonight, especially Jeff Bridges. Cheers, Dee
Categories: Editorial
Tagged: Academy Awards, Bad Blake, crazy heart
Jim asked for a different breakfast today, something I’ve only tried a couple of times in my life and have not been successful at execution.
He wanted pancakes. That’s fine. We need to use up the last of our Grade A dark amber maple syrup we picked up in VT and transported to TX then here. I put my game face on and made the most of it, but used a mix.
In the past, when I was a kid my dad would make us pancakes for Sunday breakfast. I didn’t know if I didn’t like them for their sweetness (give me a savory frittata or omelet any day) or now I figure that it’s because I didn’t like the two strips of bacon or sausages to get syrup on them. Also, we weren’t using pure maple syrup.
So, dad started making me one “crepe” but he didn’t thin the batter. He just took one big pancake, spread strawberry jam on it, rolled it up and put a bit of powdered sugar on top and I was brought back to the Adirondacks and the German musicians in the hills and my first real crepe.
To the present, on Friday I received my weekly order from a local organic producer who brings milk (in glass bottles), juices, breads, applewood smoked bacon and maple sausage. I usually cook up the pound of maple sausage one day then refrigerate the rest to quickly microwave for a couple of days. I cooked it up this morning.
Then I used some of the fat from the maple sausage to make pancakes. I waited until the bubbles burst to flip them and they were gorgeous, tasty thick cakes only made better by the sausages and pure Vermont maple syrup. I intend to change up breakfast a bit, keep things fresh. Thanks, Dad. Cheers! Dee
Categories: Editorial · Recipe Ideas
