Tortes and Whales

Yesterday evening we made the fatal error of watching last week’s episode of The Great British Baking Show. . .tortes.

Care Package

Formula                            -        Check

Diapers                             -        Check

Rolls for lunch                   -        Check

Chicken salad for lunch     -        Check

Curried chicken with                              

    olives and artichokes    -        Check

    for dinner

Packaged couscous for      -        Check

    chicken dish

Rhubarb/Peach tart          -        Check

for dessert

Pesto pasta salad for         -        Check

     next day

Blueberry bread for          -        Check

    breakfast

Single serving Prosecco     -        Check

   for daughter-in-law’s

   mental health

I don’t usually write about my efforts in the kitchen, but it’s a good thing I enjoy it. I’ve been cooking for two days. Tomorrow I’m on my weekly mercy mission in a very small attempt to lighten a little of the load for the new parents in our family with some supplies and food they can just grab. My son’s back to work and my intrepid DIL will be squaring her shoulders and dealing with our two brand new twin grandgirls on her own.

          One person helpfully advised them that what they needed to do was, “get those babies on the same schedule.” Uh huh. That’s what’s needed – two tiny people hungry at the exact same time, needing their after-meal cuddling at the same time, having their diapers changed at the same time.

          Since that’s patently impractical, the other option is non-stop feeding, burping, cuddling, and changing. I’ve seen it in action and it really is non-stop.

So I’m packing the car and heading to Baby Central for the day. With any luck, this a hired day-time mother’s helper will soon be installed for the rest of the week.

Those years of my own are so far away, and I’m freshly impressed every time I go at how well son and DIL are managing. 

God, it’s good to be old.

Trails, tinkles, and tarts

We began our Memorial Day weekend at a nearby reservoir, which has a very manageable bike/walking path that runs through the woods and beside the water in spots.

          I like it much better than more popular trails – unlike in Northampton and Amherst, I’m not dodging skateboarders and herds of families with kids that wander across the path or come teetering toward you. Having only learned to ride a bike as an adult, I’m not all that confident myself and appreciate an empty lane for my own teetering.

  

 

        There were a few patches of fisherpeople.

          Banks of ferns.

          And reminders that if I fell, to go for the asphalt instead of these three-leaved dangers.

          My afternoon was more mundane, with a trip to the garden/pet supply place where fortunately, no one spotted Mamie shamelessly peeing on the floor. 

(No photos - I was busy quickly shuffling us off to some other part of the store)

          But the evening proved that you never quite know how life is going to work out. 

 

Who would have ever thought that this new care-free condo life would also come with my own rhubarb patch (thank you, previous owners) that I could harvest for a tasty rustic tart. 

Food for Thought

Considering the way things are going here in the U.S., it’s probably a good thing that I’m learning how to manage one aspect of life in a bomb shelter.

The good oldies never get old

Before Nutrition

 I remember my grandmother telling about her shame at school in Mangum, Oklahoma when she had to take “dirty bread” out of her lunch pail. Even back then my forward-thinking great-grandmother Lucy Wilson had already figured out the benefits of whole wheat bread.

And I like to think my mother approved of watermelon for breakfast because of its antioxidants and amino acids. (In reality, a grumpy kid in the blazing hot Virginia summer mornings could have been a factor.)

But John Gray’s recent post at Going Gently about his sheep and their love of white bread triggered a couple of memories from the 1950s food pyramid.

It’s been years since I’ve had one, but every now and then I’m tempted to pick up the ingredients for a baloney sandwich: spongy white bread, Miracle Whip, and the ultimate illicit pleasure, a big pack of baloney.

Granted, your peanut butter and jelly sandwich was usually bleeding grape jelly through one side by the time you opened your metal lunch box in the cafeteria, but the bread itself was great for wadding into grey balls and flicking at your neighbor.

And in spite of my mother’s offerings of a crunchy peeled white turnip or celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins for a snack, just as common as an after-school treat at our house was white bread spread with margarine and a generous sprinkling of white sugar.

Post Christmas Epiphanies

1. Who needs a Roomba robot vacuum to deal with the steady rain of dropped food from the grandchildren when you have a tiny dog snuffling across the floor.
2. It sharpens aging reflexes to have kids exploding from closets and behind furniture during ongoing three-day games of hide and seek.
3. Your trash is your friend. No one benefits from finishing up the leftover garlic bread.
4. Latkes (multicultural here) perfectly represent Hanukkah’s eight-day miracle since the smell of the oil they’re cooked in stays in the house for about that length of time.
5. Follow up behind your departing guests as they gather their belongings if you want to avoid an emergency trip to the post office to overnight missing car keys.
6. Dim the lights and fake a clean house before the holiday since after everyone leaves you’ll be getting out the industrial vac and that big new bottle of PineSol.

If my refrigerator could talk

     If, through some unlikely series of events, a person had lost his calendar, all access to the internet or any other media, and had been living on an uninhabited mountain top, he would only have to check my refrigerator to know that Thanksgiving is coming.

Two Dinners

          Life feels as though it’s zipping along, although I’ve had large swaths of downtime so I fear my absence here is due more to lethargy than pressing obligations.

          The past week included a visit to the hills of New Jersey to visit grandchildren (and their parents) where we stood on a succession of wet soccer fields in unrelenting mist. Still, it was pleasant – isn’t that what the Irish call “soft” weather ? -  and brought back memories of other fields with my own children galloping up and down.

          We also managed a grown-up dinner at a newly opened local restaurant that, sadly, was so excellent its success will likely move it on to a larger venue.

I mean, pork chops with an expresso hazelnut demi-glaze and mustard spaetzle, heirloom carrots and baby kale? Or my chkoice: wood grilled shrimp with creamy heairloom grits, smokey bourbon butter, braised greens, and jalapeno jelly?

Hackettstown, New Jersey never had it so good.  

          This week I met for dinner with a newly-formed gathering of mystery writers of Western Massachusetts where I found myself becoming uncharacteristically quiet, surrounded as I was by writers much more accomplished than myself. “Unpublished” felt as though it was tattooed across my forehead.

Among those in attendance –

Lisa – cultural and intellectual historian, author of at least six books, subject of

          several interviews on National Public Radio, and absurdly pleasant and

          self-effacing. 

Lee – former television writer and producer (Edgar Award for best television

          teleplay, author of several fiction and non-fiction books.

Glenn –author of 15 mysteries, professor of philosophy

Ray – our organizer and representative from the Boston branch of Mystery

 Writers of America, author of God-knows how many Boston-based

 mysteries, winner of this award and that award. Also absurdly pleasant and self-effacing.

          I just tried not to use double negatives and pick my teeth. My degrees, years of teaching English, and 2 ½ (mediocre) books were mere foothills to their Mt. Everests. Still, it was helpful to be surrounded by writers and be reminded that this was something I enjoyed and should stop neglecting. And my pasta was excellent.

Heaven in a can

After all that virtuous talk of vegetables, it’s only right that I own

up to a few guilty pleasures.

Basket Case

The weekly farm share allotment - and therefore the weekly challenge of what to do with this latest batch of vegetables.

Oxymoron

Really?
Does this make sense to you? 
Do my "native" hot houses differ in some magical "local" way from hot houses in say, Virginia or North Dakota?

Red Menace

          It took 46 years of marriage, but the day has finally come.

A green morning

This morning we took the bikes out for a quick ride – we haven’t been on them since last fall.

Eat Your Veggies!

We’ve always been good vegetable eaters at our house, my husband, kids, and I.

Just When I Think I've Seen Everything Department

     It was just another day at water aerobics until I stepped into one of the shower stalls to wash off all that industrial-strength chlorine.

          This is what I found:

          So let’s see if we can picture this. Someone felt the need to replenish her protein levels while she was showering?

          Possible scenarios:

She’s such an efficient multi-tasker that she eats as she bathes.

She’s so important and in such high demand that when confronted with the choice of eating or bathing, she cleverly decided to do both.

She’s a binge eater, but in a good way, judging by her choice of nosh.

She’d had a workout that drove her blood sugar levels to a dangerous low and had barely enough strength to stagger into the shower with her protein shake and protein bar. 

She’s an inconsiderate slob who couldn’t even be bothered to pick up after herself.

Christmas Miracle

I set out yesterday morning as the family gatherer to score the Christmas roast.

Dangers of Capitalism

     We all prepared as though for a military operation.

Sweet Visitor

          As I sit here, even though there’s not a breath of air in the trees, the leaves of the mountain laurel outside my office window are fluttering away. It’s not a teensy, tiny microburst, but rather the hummingbird who has become my new BFF. 

Adventures in Food

     The other day my daughter called me for advice. This happens less often than you might think – she’s a very capable and self-sufficient adult, something I’m grateful for since I’ve never felt like much of a fount of wisdom.