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Wordless Wednesday
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If there weren’t any bad news, maybe there wouldn’t be any news at all…
Don’t you sometimes find that some days are just too much? I mean, personally, my own life is fine. My family is healthy, we have jobs, no real problems for us. But leave that circle just slightly, and it gets so much worse that it’s hard to bear. In our own little town, two students at Maya’s high school died this weekend when they decided to take a raft trip down a raging waterway. Such things should be safe, shouldn’t they? People go whitewater rafting all of the time. But in our local city, these waterways, this creek is not natural, it’s man-made. Back in the 60s there were floods…
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Spring Gardening
Winter has finally returned. While most of you lovely people were suffering mightily with huge snowfall and bitter cold weather, we were enjoying temperatures closing in on 80 degrees. One should not complain of such things, 80 degrees in January, but still, here in California, land of the drought, there is always a bit of worry that accompanies such weather. Drought. We had a very wet December, so our snow pack (our source of water) is pretty high, so we’re not too worried. But still, we’re somewhat worried at such a dry and warm January. Enter February, and thankfully, things have cooled off a bit, and we’re having some rain…
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Caveat Emptor
A few weeks ago, several of my Facebook friends mentioned a great LivingSocial deal, where you could get a $20 Amazon gift card, for only $10. These friends weren’t the type to get suckered into fake deals, so even though I wasn’t familiar with LivingSocial, I decided to give it a try. Everything worked out perfectly, I got my $20 gift card, and spent it on a cookbook I had been eying. Which I haven’t used yet, but am looking forward to checking out. A few days later, after receiving and redeeming my Amazon card, LivingSocial had a deal that sounded pretty darned good…a home tooth whitening kit, valued at…
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Revolution in Egypt!
Like so many, we’ve been watching the events in Egypt unfold these last few weeks. What the future holds for the region, it’s too soon to say. For now, I say, we all celebrate the power of the people to bring down a dictator, and the hope of more freedom and democracy in the Middle East. Look at the joy on the faces in this picture, cribbed from the AP. And, on a more personal level, and in honor of the amazing revolution currently occurring in Egypt, (and the overthrow of the dictator in Tunisia a few weeks ago) I decided to change our dinner plans tonight from burgers and…
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Butternut Squash Sauté
The other day, I was watching Jacques Pepin and his daughter, Claudine, make some gorgeous mini savory cheesecakes on arugula (link to the video and recipe), which I vow that I must try…but haven’t yet. On the same episode, they made a butternut squash sauté, where they cooked the squash with butter, apple cider, onions, and a bit of vinegar. It looked and sounded SO good to me, and we’re all big fans of butternut squash, so a few nights later, I decided to make it, and serve it with chicken and roast potatoes. I wish I had taken a picture of it, but unfortunately, I didn’t. I was too…
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The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
But the day was darkening outside, and as I finished that first bite, as that first impression faded, I felt a subtle shift inside, an unexpected reaction. As if a sensor, so far buried deep inside me, raised its scope to scan around, alerting my mouth to something new. Because the goodness of the ingredients – the fine chocolate, the freshest lemons – seemed like a cover over something larger and darker, and the taste of what was underneath was beginning to push up from the bite. I could absolutely taste the chocolate, but in drifts and traces, in an unfurling, or an opening, it seemed that my mouth was…
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Wordless Wednesday – Look what came in the mail?
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Jefferson’s Macaroni and Cheese
The other day, Ted mentioned that it might be fun to try the original Macaroni and Cheese, the kind that Thomas Jefferson brought to America from France. I’m a big fan of Mac & Cheese. I even like the Kraft stuff, though my favorite is the White Cheddar box. I tried to make homemade Mac & Cheese once before, and it was a disaster. The problem was that I didn’t use a recipe, and I didn’t understand the dynamics of M&C, so I just cooked some noodles, melted some cheese, and mixed. Gloppy, disgusting mess. Luckily, my audience that time was 7 year olds, and they didn’t care. So this…
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The Chosen One
Kyra is the 13 year old protagonist of The Chosen One, a young adult novel à la the polygamous compound from Big Love. Kyra is the 5th of 20 children born to 1 man and his 3 wives in a cult-like compound, where the message of fundamentalist Mormonism has gone from marginal and alternative, to cruel and insane. It seems that on this compound, people who believed in the way of polygamy lived a decent life following their belief, in which a man cannot obtain entrance to Heaven without at least 3 wives, and a woman cannot obtain entrance without bearing children. The benevolent prophet of this sect has died,…
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Chicken Piccata
We recently found ourselves on a bit of a red meat kick. Steak one night, lamb another. Hamburgers. Ribs. So then I found myself wanting to figure out something lighter, but I didn’t want to make roast chicken or chicken and dumplings. Or fish. So, what to do? The thought popped into my head, what about Chicken Piccata? So I went looking, and since Piccata seems Italian, I turned to my friend Giada for a recipe. Giada rarely disappoints, and I found a wonderful recipe, here. Chicken Piccata Ingredients 2 skinless and boneless chicken breasts, butterflied and then cut in half Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 2 cups…
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Brave Girl Eating
“These days of keeping Kitty close represent an oddly peaceful interlude in the surreal world we now inhabit, Jamie and Emma and I and this new Kitty, with her pointed chin and enormous eyes and will of iron. I try to remember my daughter as she was just a few months before, dancing through the house, laughing and affectionate, talking on the phone or going out with friends. Already this new Kitty, gaunt and tense and slow-moving, seems normal. Human beings can adapt to anything, from infinite riches to the horrors of Auschwitz. I don’t want to adapt to the way things are now. I want to scream, howl, tear…
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Cocoa Brownies with Browned Butter and Walnuts
One of my Christmas gifts this year was a subscription to Bon Appetit magazine. The first issue came today, and the cover has a delicious looking recipe for brownies. Happily enough, we had all of the ingredients in the house, so after a day that started with a walk and breakfast at Noah’s, and progressed into a viewing of The King’s Speech, Ted decided to make the day even better by mixing up a batch of brownies. Results? Are they the best brownies ever? Ted would have liked a more milk chocolate taste, but he enjoyed the nutty element. I thought they were just about perfect, though perhaps some chocolate…
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Brunette…
So here I am with my new hair color…pretty brunette, isn’t it? It’s about halfway down on the blonde spectrum, believe it or not, but gosh, that’s a dark blonde. I’m one of those blonde’s who had white blonde hair as a young child, dirty blonde hair in high school, and started coloring it for fun not long after. Fast forward 20+ years, and I don’t even know what my real hair color might be anymore. I mean, you can look at your roots, but the sun and the environment sure seem to affect that. At least a bit. So I’ve been coloring my hair for these last many many…
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Chicken Enchilada Soup
Everything I ever needed to know I learned on Facebook. Case in point, my FB friend Donald posted something about his dinner, which was going to be Chicken Enchilada Soup. Mmmm, I thought, that sounds good. I looked online and found some recipes, but they all seemed to be copying the recipe from Chili’s, and included Velveeta and Cream of Chicken Soup, both of which struck me as being pretty non-Mexican, and kind of turned my stomach. Donald had the ingredients he uses, but no amounts. The ingredient list was: chicken, corn, onions, black beans, RoTel tomatoes with chilies, black olives, enchilada sauce, chicken broth, cheese, cilantro, and tortilla chips.…