It’s that time of year where we’re finishing up the last of the supplies put up last year and taking stock of what we want to do this growing/picking/preserving season.
Need more garlic, always need more garlic. Although I will say that this year we managed to use it up just as it was starting to sprout. The onions and shallots didn’t do so well last year but I have hopes for this one if I ever remember to order those sets. I forgot to order the seed and start it in late January, which was just as well considering what a gloomy late winter we had. They never would have survived.
The Mutsu apples we picked at Bishop’s weren’t impressive fresh but dehydrated into bits of yummy goodness that work well in oatmeal or straight out of the jar.
Strawberries, need more strawberries. The frozen ones are long gone and the dehydrated ones soon after. Probably have enough dehydrated raspberries and tomatoes to last for another year. They didn’t move as quickly as I expected them to.
The root cellar (aka the giant plastic bin in the basement) needs to be better secured against the mousy hordes we seem to be infested with. But until they found their way in, the sugar pumpkins and apples kept pretty well.
I used up the last of the apples, I can’t remember what kind they were, in my favorite quick and easy apple dessert – a galette. All the flavor of a pie but for some reason ten times as easy to make.
It may be ugly but still tastes great.
All you need is a pie crust, some apples, sugar (I like turbinado sugar for the extra flavor), cinnamon, Clear Jel or flour and an egg wash if so desired.
It’s easy, really. Peel, core and slice the apples. Toss them with a bit of sugar (not too much!), cinnamon and a splash of lemon juice to keep them from browning. You can add in a bit of Clear Jel or flour to hold it together if the apples are especially juicy.
Roll out your pie crust (I try to keep extra ones in the freezer for this recipe and quiche) till it’s pretty flat. If you do it on a piece of parchment paper it’ll make everything easier. Transfer the flattened pie crust to a cookie sheet. Pile the apple slices in the middle and fold over the edges to keep them from escaping.
Here it is all snuggled up and ready to bake.
Paint the edges with egg wash if you want to be fancy. Sprinkle the entire thing with a bit more sugar. Bake in a 350° oven till it’s done and yum!
I’d show you a picture once it was finished but it didn’t last long enough.
I’ve lived in the same city since I was forcibly transplanted here thirty some odd years ago and have lived within about a three-mile radius ever since. Four radically different neighborhoods for different stages of life but a very small geographical range.
There were various reasons to abandon this city for another after college but I came to the realization that leaving here would be leaving too much of myself behind. It sounded as cheesy then as it does now but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Of course there have been moments where I wondered about the paths not taken, but I’ve never been truly regretful.
This fall will mark the twentieth year that I’ve lived either in the house I’m in now or the one next door. We moved in when Cassie was two weeks old. For the past twenty years I’ve been on the crappy end of a good neighborhood and it’s been a somewhat affordable option. We don’t tend to have much property crime because the thieves are only moving through to the places where the people with the really good stuff are. The house taxes were more than I made in 2013 but that was also a bad year for me working. We wouldn’t be able to rent a place big enough for all of us, not anywhere in the city or even the suburbs. For that we’d need to move to the really ratty, outer ring burbs. Or maybe one of the still depressed industrial towns that New England was once littered with but are now being bulldozed in the name of progress and gentrification.
For all these years, there has been a three acre property in sight. The buildings grew organically since the first one was built around 1882 to be the Elm City Dye Works and Laundry. It’s a huge piece of land, for the middle of a city, and highly contaminated from the wide range of business that have been there over the years.
January 2014
In my time of observation there’s been a plumbing supply business there and a liquidator for second-hand goods from hotels and motels. Most of the buildings were empty and crumbling. Neither of the aforementioned concerns ever used even half of the space available let alone all of it.
May 2014
Over the years, one developer after another eyed the site with dollar signs in their eyes and seen what it might be. There was a proposal to clear the site and build a chain drug store in an ocean of parking lot. Another wanted to wipe away all the history and construct an extended stay hotel that would have been as tall as the I91 overpass. Yet another developer wanted to build a mixture of retail and 139 rental units, some of them affordable in order to secure the funding.
I remember sitting down with the developer after a zoning meeting concerning the project and over a beer she mentioned that she had been part of the team that redeveloped Broadway and turned it from a shopping district with a wide variety of local businesses into a generic outdoor mall . When I responded with “And how is that a good thing?” she was completely bemused and befuddled. She just couldn’t understand why I didn’t see it her way. What they were planning became irrelevant as the deal fell apart due to internal conflicts that were never really specified.
January 2014
Another developer looked at it and then quickly backed out when the Great Recession got going.
So the site sat. The buildings continued to degrade. It was a home to rats, which the neighbors complained about on a regular basis. I’m sure there was all other sorts of fauna in there as well but they kept to themselves. It was an eyesore to many but urban decay doesn’t really bother me. I find it intriguing in a way that a shiny new building never will be. They fall apart too quickly.
Enter into the picture yet another developer. His early plans of 250 rental units with a seven story building were shot down pretty quickly due to neighborhood opposition but they came back with a new/old partner who had been part of round two and a revised plan and now there will be up to 225 rental units inside what is effectively a walled off, gated community. Someone, certainly no one I know, is going to be paying for a 400 sq ft studio more than what I pay for mortgage, taxes and insurance for 1700 sq ft of freestanding house. Talk about shifting the neighborhood in one fell swoop.
December 2014
During the neighborhood meetings to drum up support, the developers kept talking about “the neighborhood” and “the community” and how there would be amenities like off-street parking and a gym and other things that make life a bit nicer for those with a bit of paper in their pocket. The people around me were all nodding their heads and getting excited. I kept trying to explain that the developer isn’t talking about making their lives nicer with off-street parking and a gym but the lives of their future tenants. That was the neighborhood and the community the developer were concerned about and building this wonderful space for. The ones inside the wall and paying exorbitant rents are the only ones that matter. We certainly won’t be allowed to enjoy a bit of sun on the landscaped grounds or sweat on the same machines. Us hoi polli aren’t even going to be allowed past the gates.
December 2014
The contribution of an estimated $500,000 annually to the city tax rolls will be nice but what about the fact that suddenly all of our houses are going to be worth much more and that our taxes will be going up accordingly? Everyone I’ve mentioned this to sees it as a good thing. Yeah it is, if I want to sell my house and move but I don’t want to be forced to do that. I want to leave here because we’ve finally been able to get that place in the country with plenty of land around us and room for goats, dogs and bunnies. I don’t want to have to leave because I’ve been priced out of my home, and the ensuing increase in taxes, by a shift in demographics. It’s happened before with these sorts of developments and I’m self-interested enough to not want to have it happen to me and mine. And don’t tell me to get out and vote and advocate for change. Trust me, I’ve done that. Because this will negatively affect just one small area of the neighborhood there just isn’t the political will to do anything about it. I’m surrounded by people who purchased here because it was cheap, not because it was the best they could afford.
December 2014
Let me be clear here: I’m not against change in theory or expecting the world around me to never shift. But I do feel that we all have a right to be here, in this neighborhood that we’ve been a part of for two decades, a neighborhood that we helped build and make better which is entirely the reason that this behemoth of a development is now being bestowed upon us. Those of us who made this city a good place to live will soon find no shelter in it. We’re being pushed out as fast as the granite counter-tops and hardwood floors can be installed.
December 2014
We already hardly ever eat in the restaurants or shop in the lovely and interesting stores surrounding us unless it’s the very occasional treat. I believe in shopping and living locally as much as possible but if it’s the difference between living on imported organic beans and rice because that’s all the dollars will buy and getting in my car and going to Costco for a wider variety of fare, you can bet your buttons I’ll be doing the latter.
January 2015 – At least they saved part of the oldest building but it’s still sad to see it chopped.
So, I already can’t shop or eat here.
I have to drive to the suburbs for work.
Will I soon not be able to afford to live here either?
Exactly whose lives are being made better by all of these changes?
At what point do the rats turn around and swarm those that are evicting them from the ship in the name of progress?
January 2015 – Trudging home after shooting in the snow and ice for over an hour.
One of those nights where I’m constantly turning over and around in bed like a chicken on a spit trying to find a comfortable spot. None of them are ever good for more than five minutes or so. I don’t know how Sy sleeps through it but thankfully he usually does.
I was flipping through my phone and learned through social media that the Anchor had closed its doors, probably forever, before 9 p.m.
Fucking Yale, was my first thought.
I’m not saying that the owners of the establishment don’t bear a large part of responsibility in the demise of a watering hole that’s been there since the 1940’s. But I do hold Yale responsible for taking advantage of a bad situation and forcing the issue, just like they’ve done with so many other small and local shops, bars and restaurants in New Haven.
So many places gone. Whitlock’s, Rhyme’s, Richter’s, the Old Heidelberg, Yale Co-Op (I thought they were weenies but at least they were local ones), Rudy’s (the name may live on in a new location but we all know it’s not the same), Cutler’s, and so many others.
Just gone.
It’s not about nostalgia.
It’s about class warfare.
These places have not been replaced with other establishments that serve the general population of New Haven. The buildings have been sanitized into kitschy versions of collegiate gothic. Local business have been replaced with chain stores that can be found at any high-end mall crawling across the planet like the scourge they are.
It’s the mallification of our city for the benefit of the 1%.
Sy and I have griped more than once that we miss when New Haven was shifty.
The kids laugh at us and call us old.
Maybe we should make up bumper stickers or something.
I managed to drift off sometime after 4 a.m. and had to wake up at 7:30 a.m. to start the day. I was dreaming about Marcus. He and I met at the Anchor for one last drink before they shut off the lights and kicked us all out.
I woke up crying.
Life is change. I realize that but it doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it. There is also a big difference between the end of an era and being forced out of your city because someone else wants what you have and can afford to pay more.
The Old Barge Cafe is being disassembled and (hopefully) put in a museum somewhere. I wasn’t even old enough to drink when I was going there but they would still serve me. I was usually the only female in the joint but it didn’t mean that I wasn’t welcome. I always was curious about the very odd and obviously old building.
Rudy’s got kicked out so the restaurant that shared the building could expand and put in a buffet. The plans fell through, probably as a result of the recession, and a perfectly good dive bar lost its home of 76 years for nothing.
It was never my favorite bar in New Haven but that doesn’t mean I didn’t spend plenty of time there. It’s where I had my first Irish Car Bomb, with Marcus actually. He was nice enough to make sure I realized the trick of putting your finger across the glass so you don’t smash your teeth out with the shot glass that got dropped in right before one knocks back the pint.
The Anchor was more my style. It was in the same location for eons. Painted tin ceiling and blue vinyl booths. A jukebox with a very eclectic mix and the entire city walking by the windows. I like things with a bit of age on them. It makes life more interesting. Gives the illusion of permanence.
There was always a strange mix of people at all hours of the day and night. Union members from the theater across the street. Lawyers and other city notables still in their suits and ties. Students dropping in for a quick one and thankfully leaving just as rapidly. You could sit and have a conversation with someone you just met or sidle up to the bar and drink yourself stupid.
I wrote a poem at that bar on a beer stained cocktail napkin. It came to me all in a rush, like poems always do, and I had to get it down before I sobered up and lost it. The person I wrote it about is as dead as the bar it was written on. Once I dig it out of the nightmare that is my desk I’ll be shopping that poem around for publication. I’m hoping it’ll be my first published creative piece.
There is a comfort to be found in places, whether they be bars, restaurants or other businesses, that are there for the long haul. They were there before you and, hopefully, will continue on after you’re gone.
Cassie didn’t understand why I was upset this morning that the Anchor had closed. To her it’s just a bar and now that I don’t go to them all that often, what’s the big deal? Maybe it’s because she’s still too young to drink or maybe it’s a generational thing. What places will she miss at some point in the future? I don’t see anyone getting upset when Urban Outfitters goes under or if the new Barbour store doesn’t make it because no one can afford to shop there. Will those sorts of places really become part of people’s lives like the Yankee Doodle or Educated Burgher were?
It was at the Anchor that I handed Sy a manilla envelope full of his writing that had been published in his college newspaper and poems he had written for me back in the day. I held on to his history and gave it back years later with a small red bow on it because I knew he loved the color. Is that where round three began?
It was there I got obscenely drunk with my friends A and F and pondered what had become of my life and where the Hell I was going with it. I remember stumbling across the Green, the three of us arm in arm, feeling like it was still possible for it all to turn out alright. That the person I had been wasn’t dead and buried and that I might still have the chance to become the person I always wanted to be.
My sister JQ had her 29th and 30th birthday parties there. The latter event was the only time we managed to get all of her siblings (whole, halfs, and step) all together in the same room at the same time to celebrate the birth of a person we all love very much. I remember, as the responsible person at the table, that I was in charge of collecting money as people came and went for the bar tab. I had a wad of bills stuffed in my bra because standing to put it in my pocket was not a viable option with that many shots and pints in my system. For some reason, her brothers just found that freakin’ hilarious.
It was to the Anchor that Sy and I went for an after dinner drink when a snowstorm postponed the Pixies show we were supposed to go to out-of-town but we didn’t want to waste an evening without kids. We had dinner around the corner and walked through the snow for a drink before heading back to a quiet house.
The city is so hushed on stormy nights.
The bar was pretty dead but it was wonderful to be out and about and acting like the adults we’re supposed to be.
That’s how I’ll remember the Anchor.
Calm and quiet, with only the buzz of a few people.
The snow falling outside the window.
Us two huddled over the table,
having a real conversation,
warmed by the drinks in our hands.
Photo courtesy of Mike Franzman. A wonderful photographer of life in New Haven.
Spending a quiet evening tonight with a bit of the extended family. The hostess is roasting a turkey. I offered to bring a dessert.
Sugar and I have an understanding. Especially if chocolate is involved.
I was originally thinking about zebra caramel corn but Sy and I got home at 10 p.m. last night and that’s just too damn late to start a project of that scope. Especially since I had work in the morning.
What to make?
Brownies.
Brownies are easy and we always have the ingredients.
But it’s New Year’s Eve. Need to class it up a bit as Cassie would say.
We had a pound of cream cheese open and leftover from the holiday baking blitz. Might as well use it up.
So cream cheese brownies it is. With a bit of raspberry jam to make it even more decadent.
Insert brownie recipe of your choice. Mine is 1 stick of butter, melted. 1 egg, 1 1/2 tsp of vanilla, 1 1/3 c of sugar, 1/2 c cocoa (I like Sacco), 1 cup of flour. Bake at 350° till puffed and done. This makes an 8 x 8″ or 9 x 9″ pan (depending on how thick you like them). I doubled it since I’m not sure how many people are coming.
I also threw in a handful of chocolate chips just for fun. Used semi-sweet but dark or white chocolate chips could be interesting as well.
The cream cheese soften up while I was making the brownie batter. It got thrown into the mixer with an egg and sugar to sweeten to taste. Keep it a bit on the sour side as the brownie batter is rather sweet and makes a good contrast.
Once the two batters are mixed put 2/3 of the brownie batter in a well-greased pan and smooth out to the edges. My house is on the chilly side so this is easier said than done. Blop the cheesecake batter on top. If you want, add in the jam of your choice as well.
Batter and jam blopped and ready for the final layer of chocolatey goodness.
Blop in the rest of the brownie batter and swirl with a knife point to blend the layers slightly. It’s ugly at this point but don’t worry, it’ll all smooth out in the oven.
Scary now but trust me. It’ll be beautiful.
Bake at 350° till it puffs up. Under cooking a bit is preferable to drying them out. Leave the pan in the oven as it cools off and then pop in the fridge. Preferably overnight.
Aren’t they beautiful?!
I’m sure dinner is going to be wonderful but I can’t wait for dessert.
I’ve been stalling since the spring on writing the last four sections of The Tome.
Oh the irony. I’m 90 thousand words in and I can’t get the final 40 thousand written.
I’m not choking. I’m ruminating.
I’ve been poking at the next section for a couple of weeks now. Making good progress even. Almost 5 thousand words of a projected 10 thousand done. The next scene is a heart breaker. It’s three-quarters of the way through the book so I suppose this is the pivotal scene of the entire damn novel.
Incidentally, I finally figured out who my main character is. Hint: It’s the dead one.
Next up on deck is writing this scene and it has to be good. No pressure at all. The main character sings a song to her great love who is going off to war.
So of course, me being the immersive sort I can’t just read the lyrics. I have to hear the song.
Over and over and over again.
So I start with a classic rendition. The Clancy Brothers are wonderful. It’s beautifully sung but not quite what I was looking for. It’s a bit slower than someone would probably be singing to a live audience in a bar.
Then I moved on to my version of a classic. The music is really good and Shane is enunciating well but he sounds like a bored teenager who’s just doing what he’s told. It’s very flat emotionally. Phoning this one in perhaps?
The character I have singing this song is female. So I started poking around for a version in a feminine voice.
This is female and sweet but Bea’s voice is stronger. She has a classically trained voice.
I had my first calzone when I was in my late teens. So big. So crusty. So cheesy. Where had this wonderful thing been all my life?
It’s been true love ever since but those around me have never shared my lust for the gooey mess that is a good calzone.
The 3 lb tub of ricotta was on sale about a month ago so I grabbed it, forgetting that no one but me really likes the stuff. My excitement at the price just swept all those thoughts away.
Sy and Mal are not picky eaters. They will literally eat whatever you put in front of them and probably go for seconds even if they didn’t truly like it. It’s food.
That said, they really don’t like ricotta.
It’s a texture thing. Too wet.
So there goes the idea of stuffed shells, too much work anyway. I didn’t want pasta and sauce for dinner, too much heartburn. I wanted a calzone but no one but me in the house is happy to eat one.
I don’t due multiple meals for different taste buds. No one will starve if you refuse to make chicken fingers for every meal. Really. That said, is there really any point in making a meal only one person will enjoy? Seems like a waste of time and food.
Hence, the not-recipe for calzone haters that blends nicely with the ingredients necessary for a calzone:
I cooked off a pound of pasta, al dente, since I was going to bake it in sauce and didn’t want it to get soggy.
Mozzarella was also on sale recently (as the four pounds in cheese cave section of the fridge can attest) so I shredded 1/4 of a pound, set it aside and cubed the rest.
Once the pasta was cooked I added a couple of pints of sauce from the 100 pounds I processed and canned over the summer. I threw in some of the mozzarella cubes and poured 2/3 of the pasta into a baking dish. Sy added slivers of ricotta like pats of butter for flavor and then the rest of the sauced pasta went on top. Bake for a 1/2 hour or so. Add the shredded mozzarella and bake till melted.
For the calzone I made up a batch of pizza dough. I use the Neapolitan pizza recipe from How to Bake by Nick Malgieri but any pizza crust will probably work.
Into the rest of the ricotta I added the cubed mozzarella and some shredded Romano (maybe a 1/2 c). Spread out the dough on a piece of parchment paper (or a cookie sheet) glob in the filling, fold over and pinch to seal the edges.
I baked it on a pizza stone at 450°till it looked done. I got a bit distracted playing Harvest Moon: Animal Parade so at first I was pissed that I’d overcooked it. Once I tasted it I realized it was actually perfect. Turns out I’ve been under-cooking my calzones all these years. Don’t be afraid to cook it! Then again, we like a bit of burn on our crusts in this part of the country.
I let it rest on the pizza stone in the oven till it wasn’t lava hot inside. The crust did get a bit soggy so maybe next time I’ll try draining the ricotta overnight (strainer in the fridge method) to see if that helps.
The boys were happy with their cheesy pasta bake and I got to have a calzone without feeling like I’m imposing my food fetishes on an unappreciative audience.
Everyone hates Chicken Little. For good reasons too. He’s annoying not only in his delivery method but also in the message.
No one wants to hear it.
But yet the sky is falling. It always has been to varying degrees.
I didn’t get the MacDowell fellowship.
Damn.
Nothing ventured, noting gained Sy reminded me.
What exactly has been gained? was my response.
Another whack to an already fragile ego. Annoyance that we used up $30 that could have gone somewhere “better.” Staring at the 90,000 word high wall that is The Tome and bashing my head against it wondering how I’m going to find the time and brainspace to rip it apart and rebuild it better.
Ugh.
The sky is falling!
I’m never gonna finish this damn book. It’s going to be like every other piece I’ve ever written. I’m only going to get so far with it and then it’s going to get tossed into a drawer and forgotten about until the grandkids are cleaning out the house after my demise and it ends up in a dumpster.
Fuck.
It’s a chilly rainy night. I have a couple of hours to myself, which is rare these days. Window open, probably for the last time this year, so I can enjoy the breeze and fresh air. Bit of Irish in the hot cocoa and the Buzzccocks at an ear ringing volume.
Time to start adding a bit more to that wordy wall before I rip it apart and build it again.
I’d heard about the Coventry Farmer’s Market here and there over the years but never managed to make it up for a visit. Then a couple of weekends ago I got a notice that my favorite cupcake truck was going to be at the market the same day we were going to be visiting the eldest at college in the same corner of the state. How could we not go?
Visiting Cassie at school is always a double-edged sword. We all miss her terribly and it’s difficult to only see her occasionally and for summers. New era of life and major changes and all. It’s great when we arrive but both Sofie and I get rather melancholy when it’s time to leave her there. I’m also a wee bit jealous that she gets to go away to school and hole up in her room and do nothing but learn and study and figure out who she wants to be. But I’m so very thankful that she gets this opportunity that just wasn’t in my reach.
Yes, I went to college. First in my family to get an undergraduate degree let alone a Master’s. But my experience of college started several years after the traditional age so I always felt like an oddity on campus. College also involved having to live somewhere I really didn’t want to be in order to afford it and working as many hours as I could squeeze in around my classes. I didn’t have time to do extracurricular activities that might have drawn me into campus life. It was almost impossible to keep up with my friends, most of whom were not in school and therefore had very different schedules and lives.
I don’t remember sleeping much those four years.
At the end of every semester I would be sick for at least a week. My body worn out and this was its own special way of telling me to slow down, at least for a moment.
My focus was always on scraping together enough to pay the bills and buy my books, always looking ahead to the next semester so I could graduate as quickly as possible, move out and get on with my life. It was a very rushed experience. No time to dawdle and reflect or question the nature of the universe and my role in it.
Then there’s my life experiences in the years before college. By Cassie’s age I’d already had two alcohol induced blackouts and dabbled with other sorts of illicit substances. My high school sweetheart died in an unfortunate accident (“Free Spirit Dies in the Night” is the newspaper headline burned into my memory) while we were on the outs. Never going to be able to make amends. After graduating high school I’d been kicked out of my natal home. “Find alternate living arrangements” were the specific words used. My heart had been broken numerous times and I was living with a bad boy who had more psychological issues then I did. That’s saying something considering the steamer trunks I was lugging around.
She hasn’t experienced any of that.
yay
Her life has had its share of sorrows and difficulties but hopefully the joys outweigh them. If nothing else, she knows she has a family who loves her beyond all reason and that we’re all here in whatever way she needs us. I wish I had the same, especially at her age.
She’s doing good in school. She’s happy with her life and plans for the future, which are well thought out and have her on the path to a decent, useful life. One down and two more to successfully launch but they too are on a good trajectory. This has not been a given in my experience, both personally and for those around me.
Life is rather fraught with all sorts of pitfalls and traps, some self-induced and some just from what life tends to randomly throw around like monkeys in a cage flinging poo. At least I’ve been able to help my three avoid stepping in the biggest piles and getting sucked down into the morass.
What more could I ask for?
By market day we hadn’t seen Cassie since we’d dropped her off at college. She was thrilled to get off campus and we were happy to see her and hear about the new semester. We took a Sunday drive on a beautiful autumn day through the country to the fair. Even went down Pleasant Valley at one point which amused me to no end. We had a delicious lunch, wandered among the vendors, had some of the best cannoli I’ve ever been lucky enough to eat and Cassie found some yarn to add to her stash like a squirrel getting ready for winter.
We tuckered each other out in the most wonderful way running around that day. We don’t get to do that often. As I said in my MacDowell application, time and money are equally tight. For once we didn’t have to worry.
We were together.
We had fun.
It was a beautiful day.
Can you ever have too much of that?
We got kettle corn at the fair. I’d never had it before but the very smart vendor had samples out and after one taste you’re hooked. I’ve discovered caramel corn in the past year or so and plan on making a batch as soon as the humidity levels drop low enough. I loved Screaming Yellow Zonkers as a teenager. Ate so many that I had a line of empty boxes pinned to the wall in my bedroom, like a hunter displaying pelts, in a strip that went from floor to ceiling.
All very different variations on the theme of salty, crunchy, sweet. Each has their own merits.
Sy and I are working our way through the first season of S.H.I.E.L.D. and noshing on the remnants of the kettle corn. Another long day of work but it was a good day of getting lots of stuff done and hopefully more of the same tomorrow. It’s days like these that remind me of how much I love what I do for a living.
There’s a chill in the air to remind us of the upcoming season. I love that crispy tang so much.
I’ve decided that popcorn is a good snack for summer and caramel corn is for winter. Zebra caramel corn is for blizzards and special occasions. We now have kettle corn for the seasonal transitions.
Every time I eat it I’ll remember the day we went to market.
Update: I wrote this a couple of weeks ago and then got sick. Everyone is already settling into the school year schedule but it seemed a waste to discard an already finished post. So here it is…
Our household tends to move towards a more nocturnal schedule during the summer. Three of us are natural night owls. One is an early bird no matter how late she goes to bed but at least she’s easily amused by the television and can now feed herself breakfast. She’s also learned that if she lets us sleep she gets to watch more shows. The other one really has no schedule but he hates the heat so being up later when it’s cooler works as well as anything else.
Sy is off during the summer and I sorta make my own hours so it works for us even though it’s going to change in the next week. I’m going to be the only one in the household NOT going to school so it’s back to the regimented lifestyle. It’s going to be strange being the only non-student, but I’ve got a novel to finish up. That should keep me a wee bit busy.
I’ve been doing a lot of museum related side-work this summer. The extra cash has been wonderful but the extra hours have virtually eliminated my writing time. Having everyone home at practically all hours put the final nail in the coffin. It’s very difficult to focus when being pulled in several different directions. I need peace and quiet and some time to shuffle around the house in my slippers while making endless cups of tea for the words to flow.
The summer side-work and everyone home are not a bad thing, really. Just different. I don’t deal well with different. It takes me too damn long to adjust and by the time I do adjust everything has gone and changed all over again.
Being off my typical schedule and working more means that I haven’t been cooking a lot lately. Too hot. Too busy. So not hungry till well after dark.
Eating at midnight is not a good idea. But sometimes inspiration takes its sweet time arriving.
We don’t do take-out much, not nearly as often as the kids would like. I’ve been relying a bit more on the lovely roasted bird that Costco makes for a very reasonable price. We still had a carcass in the fridge from a couple of days ago as well as some remnants of a meal I actually managed to cook. When you’re putting together dinner after 11 pm you really need to work with what’s already cooked.
I made a big salad with leftover chicken and extra feta from a previous night’s couscous and chicken salad. Added some croutons for crunch, red onion for zip and dried apricots for a bit of sweet. Drizzled on Cesar dressing and my dinner was done.
While building the salad for dinner, something I never would have done in years past, I realized that I want a perfect Big Salad bowl.
We have a full kitchen’s complement of bowls but I’m pulling a Goldilocks. A mixing bowl is too large. A soup bowl too small. I’m going to have to keep an eye out for The One. What size exactly is the perfect Big Salad bowl?
I would consider this 9 x 3″ pasta bowl from Bauer Pottery as a potential Big Salad bowl. It is beautiful but I don’t think I could spend $38 on a single bowl.
Sy didn’t want a salad. He eventually settled on some leftover red meat, a toasted roll with red onion and goat cheese. He let me have a bite. It was pretty yummy. I’d show you a picture but he ate it all before I could get a shot.
We don’t have red meat all that often anymore. Maybe once or twice a month. It seems odd in comparison to the standard American diet (I’ll resist making SAD jokes) but there is precedence in the shift in that we’re moving towards what our grandparents ate, especially in the Old Country. I’m hoping me and mine stay on this economic continent but the sad fact is that there just aren’t enough resources for the entire world to consume the way Americans have been for the last fifty years or so. These are one of the many things that keep me up at night. What kind of world are we leaving for those to come?
At least it’s been a gradual “decline” in eating standards? I didn’t even realize how long it had been since we had steak till the kids starting asking for one. I’m not about to raise up a cow in the backyard but I can at least still go to the grocery store for one on demand, occasionally.
I’ve been working a lot more out in the garden and even cleaning out areas of the house that haven’t been touched in years. I’m looking at you potting hole. Does anyone really need over 200 small pots? They’re getting returned to the nursery they originated from.
I never remember to take before shots. You’ll just have to trust me that it was completely terrifying.
Summer is almost over. Kids go back to school in the next couple of weeks. The nights are getting cooler. The leaves are already starting to change. It’s time to finish up the outdoor chores and get ready to settle in for the coming winter.
I’m trying to get in a second planting of various crops before it’s too late. I even rediscovered the supplies for building an insulated hoop house over one of the raised beds while I was cleaning out the potting hole.
I can’t wait to eat my own salad greens and herbs again.
My eldest and youngest have been lucky enough to attend camp over the years at Common Ground. It’s a high school, a farm and runs the most wonderful camps and programs. Check them out if you’re around or try to find something similar in your own area. These photos were all taken on the Common Ground campus when I went to pick up Sofie the other day.
Someday I’m hoping to have some chickens of my own but till then I’ll just have to visit with these girls.
I have my gardens for food production here and there but these just blow me away. I wish I had a quarter of this much space to work with.
Only one of my Thai basil plants survived early summer rains. This patch is beautiful.
I think it’s important for us all to know where our food comes from, how it’s grown and how to prepare it. Where I work we cover a bit of agricultural history in our educational programs. These are intelligent, mostly middle class kids and I’m always stunned at their ignorance of where food comes from. They barely associate meat with the animal slaughtered and don’t understand why spring was a hungry time for early settlers. Then again, in a world where you can buy a strawberry in January, why would they know any better?
The entire Common Ground site is organic and literally buzzes with all sorts of insects and critters.
Every year Common Ground gets at least two piglets in the spring, They are raised on the scraps of students and campers, slaughtered in the fall and then fed to those same students and campers who helped raise them. It’s a wonderful series of teachable moments. One year, when they were soliciting names for the piglets, Cassie suggested that they be named after herself and her sister. The head of the camp called me, not because she found the suggestion disturbing, but merely to confirm that Cassie did indeed know what was going to happen to the pigs in the fall. I confirmed that she did and they were named in my daughters honor. They were indeed delicious but it was a bit odd to eat a creature that had been named after my babies.
Sy loves the imperfect nature of bee balm so I took this photo for him.
Even if you hate to cook or don’t do it often, you should still know that meat comes from an animal and that apples ripen in the fall. With our current food system it’s easy to lose the connections between seed and plate, farmer and eater, fowl and its crispy fried leg. When you know where your food comes from and what it takes to get it there, I believe you’re more apt to cook it with care and maybe even waste less. Could that possibly be a bad thing? People, in this country at least, don’t go to bed hungry because there isn’t enough food, but because we’re not efficiently using the food that’s being produced.
So what jokes do sheep tell each other hanging about the barnyard?
At Common Ground, depending on the program or the day of the week, campers spend their days in the gardens, helping out with the farm animals, playing in the woods or hiking up and down West Rock. They come home dirty, happy and sleep really well at night. Just like kids should in the summer.
Sofie has no idea why this giant nest was created but I asked her to stand in it for a bit of scale. It was too cool not to photograph.
My own childhood experience of summer day camp were less than idyllic. That probably had more to do with family circumstances than with the camp itself but it’s still there in my memory as a sore spot. Going to camp was a solution to no one wanting to have to care for me during the summer. It wasn’t for my enjoyment or enrichment, merely very expensive babysitting. I don’t remember having any choice in the matter, just being dropped off one day in the New Hampshire woods and told to deal with it.
The remains of a pump and cistern that once brought water to the summit for visitors.
I don’t make friends easily so being thrust into a camp full of strangers was a nightmare. I spent most of my time building cities out of pine needles in the woods or wandering by the lake shore trying to catch fish in the shallows, watching out for the ginormous snapping turtle rumored to live in the lake’s depths.
Seeing weeds in this beautiful garden makes me feel better about the ones in my own.
Camp swimming lessons were a bad combination of early mornings, a cold lake and needing to jump off the dock without holding my nose. The Red Cross curriculum dictated that such a thing Must Be Done before I could go beyond the rope that contained the non-swimmers. I was an adequate swimmer, I just didn’t like water up my nose. I didn’t understand what being able to dive in had to do with not drowning. I still don’t.
I find cosmos beautiful in all stages of life.
I remember the tang of the Lestoil used to clean the brushes whenever we did arts and crafts. It seemed to permeate the building after so many years. I can’t recall a single thing I made, or any friends, but I do remember seeing my first penis, or at least the glimpse of one, at summer camp. A counselor, who I had a wicked crush on, was rowing a group of us about the lake. I remember just the tiniest bit of something peeking out the leg of his swim trunks. I was rather intrigued by this mysterious member but had to wait a couple more years before becoming better acquainted with the species.
This reminds me of something…
My kids know that my childhood was less than ideal. They don’t know the gritty details but they know something is there, lurking just out of view. I don’t want them burdened by the weight of my issues so I often remain quiet about the past, rather than continue the generational dysfunction. Camp is one of the few common childhood experiences we share, at least in the abstract.
All different but still reaching for the sun.
As a parent, I’ve attempted to actually raise my children, as opposed to letting them raise themselves. Part of it is a generational shift in what is considered acceptable. In the 70’s, so many adults were busy getting their own heads on straight to bother with their younglings. Today, it’s a more hands on approach. Maybe too hands on for some, but that’s what camp is for. Send them out into the woods. Let them get dirty. Let them have unstructured fun and get all tuckered out. Hopefully they won’t see anything inappropriate, but even if they do, it just becomes part of the memories of summer camp.
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