the bokey chronicles

Let them eat cake

2010-10-17T21:20:00.003-04:00

Bernice

So, today was the 12 anniversary of the day we adopted Bernice, our oldest dog. As such, we decided to make a cake and have a little celebration. Jess keeps all these dates in his head, and I don't know how he does it. At any rate, I had told Jess that I was really jonesing for some good devil's food cake. So he suggested that I make that for today's celebration. Good idea, but my problem is that I am particularly finicky about chocolate cake, and I didn't want to waste time on a cake that I didn't just love. That's a tall order, because I also am finicky about frosting. I don't like most frosting. It's not made like it used to be, and most of it just doesn't taste that great. I was looking for frosting like my mom used to make for birthday cakes. I remember it was called buttercream, but I've tried a lot of buttercream frosting recipes and didn't like them.

At any rate, I found a recipe for the cake that sounded good and I adapted it with some ingredients from other recipes that also sounded good. And I found a recipe online for a buttercream that sounded like it could be good with a little modification.

Well, the cake batter tasted good when it was ready to be put into the pan, so that was a good sign.

After baking it, I made the frosting. I was so happy when it turned out exactly like it was supposed to. After frosting the cake and letting it rest for a few hours, it was time to celebrate. And celebrate we did, because this was a fabulous combination that was moist, very chocolate-y, very dense, and had a terrific frosting. Exactly what I wanted. Now the question: what am I gonna do with all this cake tomorrow? Jess and I don't eat bad stuff like this as a rule.

So here's what I did:

Devil's Food Cake

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
3/4 cup strong coffee (hot)
1/2 cup boiling water
3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
8 ounces unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened, plus extra for greasing pan
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
3 large eggs, room temp
1 tablespoon molasses
1/2 cup sour cream (I only use Breakstone's)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Meanwhile, grease three 8-inch cake pans with butter and line bottom of each pan with parchment paper round, or grease one 9x13x2 pan with butter. Combine chocolate and cocoa in medium bowl; pour boiling water and hot coffee over the chocolate and whisk until smooth. Sift together flours, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl.

Add butter to bowl of stand mixer and beat at medium-high speed until creamy, about a minute. Add brown sugar and beat on high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Stop mixer, scrape down bowl with rubber spatula. Increase speed to medium-high and add eggs one at a time, beating 30 seconds after each addition. Reduce speed to medium; add sour cream, molasses and vanilla and beat until combined, about 10 seconds. Stop mixer and scrape down bowl. With mixer on low, add about one third of flour mixture, followed by about half of the chocolate mixture. Repeat, ending with flour mixture; beat until just combined, about 15 seconds. Do not overbeat. Remove bowl and scrape bottom and sides of bowl with rubber spatula and mix gently to thoroughly combine.

Pour batter into pan, or divide batter evenly among cake pans if using round pans. Smooth batter to edges of pan with rubber spatula. If baking 9x13x2 cake, place pan on center rack of oven. If baking three 8-inch cakes, place two pans on lower-middle rack and one on upper-middle rack. Bake until skewer inserted in center comes out clean, 20 to 23 minutes for 8-inch cakes, or 26 minutes for 9x13x2 cake. Cool on wire rack 15 to 20 minutes. For round cakes, run knife around pan perimeter to loosen. Invert cakes onto large plate; peel off parchment, and reinvert onto lightly greased rack. Cool completely before frosting.

Wonderful Buttercream Frosting

(Make only 1/2 this recipe for a 9x13x2 cake)
1 cup shortening
1 cup butter, softened
8 cups confectioners sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup heavy whipping cream or half & half

In a mixing bowl, cream shortening and butter until fluffy. Add sugar, and continue creaming until well blended. Add salt, vanilla, and 3/4 cup whipping cream. Blend on low speed until moistened. Add additional 1/4 cup whipping cream only if necessary. Beat at high speed until frosting is fluffy.

Valentines Day Eve Dinner

2010-02-14T00:05:00.002-05:00

I have one word for it - incredible. More to come.

Rufus Wainwright plays the Bardavon Opera House

2010-02-13T23:58:00.000-05:00

It was a magical night at the beautifully restored Bardavon Opera House in downtown Poughkeepsie as Rufus Wainwright took the stage with nothing more than a grand piano and two guitars.

As charming as he is talented, Rufus greeted the audience and got right to business singing Beauty Mark, an homage to his mother, Kate McGarrigle, from 1998's "Rufus Wainwright" album. He very touchingly thanked the audience for their concern for him (Ms. McGarrigle, a noted singer herself, recently died from cancer).

His performance was moving; simple yet dramatic, minimalistic in terms of accompaniment but richly complex in melody.

Unlike some of his prior works which feature complex orchestration, the material he performed at this show was acoustic; less complicated, yet totally riveting. Throughout the evening, the audience marveled as he developed an elegant set of vocal tapestries, such as a hauntingly beautiful performance of The Art Teacher, featuring accompaniment on french horn by Louis Schwadron of the band Sky White Tiger that had opened the evening's show. (Those whoops you hear at the end of the number would be myself and our friend Jeffrey. We were a bit out of control, but it was terrific.)

The audience was entirely captivated, and during one set, where he played 4 different pieces from his newest work, "All Days are Nights: Songs for Lulu", he asked that we not applaud after the individual pieces because they needed to have silence between; but then he jokingly encouraged us to applaud during the pieces if we wished. And just as requested, one could have heard a pin drop during the fleeting moments between the pieces (though no one would have dared drop one). Only after the fourth piece was completed did the audience offer its rousing approval.

Wainwright was particularly complimentary of his mother this evening and spoke of recording some of her songs in tribute to her. As he began to perform one particular number, he spoke positively of recognizing her presence in the wings, and he jokingly spoke as her telling him, "don't f*ck it up."

He also spoke of his musically talented father, Loudon Wainwright III, as well as his childhood spent in school in nearby Millwood and how performing at this particular venue was really performing at home.

The richness of such songs as Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk from his 2002 album "Poses" were not lost with this acoustic performance. He still manuevered every brilliantly composed twist and turn of the melody with dead-on accuracy - truly impressive. It was as if he was toying with us, much as one dangles a cut crystal before a window, painting the room with vibrant, playful color.

The end of the initial performance came all too soon. I was disappointed that he hadn't played an acoustic of Natasha, one of my personal all-time Rufus favorites from "Want One". The numbers he did play from that album, Vibrate and Want, were a bit more suited to his acoustic performance than Natasha, but I was hoping.

He was quite particular about the numbers he did play, even eschewing a couple of different numbers in tribute to his mother that he said just "weren't there yet" and that he couldn't perform them and do them justice. As I am sure the rest of the audience would have agreed, we didn't think that possible, but Wainwright is one of those people who is very demanding and largely critical of himself and his performances. Not that he should be, because his compositional and vocal styling prowess exceeds that of practically any musical performer out there today, but it is what makes him such a talent.

During the encore, after a playful protest, he performed his much-requested cover of Hallelujah, which he claimed would be one of his last live performances of the song (in fact, his third-to-last, I think) for quite some time to come. It was terrific.

Equally impressive was the final number of the encore, Les Feux d’artifice t’appellant (Fireworks Calling You) written for his opera "Prima Donna" that will be premiering in London shortly. Knowing that the audience was hanging on his every note, and approaching a quiet area in the piece that might have otherwise been mistaken for the end, he lifted his finger to his lips to discourage the audience from applauding. They dutifully complied, and the piece came off flawlessly.

This being my first live Rufus experience, I can only now understand why our friend Jeffrey is willing to travel all over the place to see him. Riveting. Truly remarkable. And many other adjectives.

Do those Debbie Meyer Green Bags work?

2010-01-30T09:48:00.007-05:00

I know, this has been a burning question for many of you. Do they work? They're so expensive. Is Debbie Meyer just a charlatan?

Well, here in my test kitchen, I have been using the bags for about a year and I will tell you what I have found.

The bags are absolutely terrific for considerably lengthening the life of citrus fruits, delicate leaf herbs, green vegetables like broccoli, and carrots.

Ever notice that within a few days of being left out on a countertop, your lemons or limes will turn brown, and putting them in the vegetable drawer of the fridge doesn't do much for them either? A Green Bag can keep them nice for 2-3 weeks.

Broccoli turning yellow or brown at the tips of the florets before you can get it used? In a Green Bag, I can make whole broccoli last 2-3 weeks.

Big pain: do you buy cilantro, dill, rosemary, mint or parsley to use in a dish, only to go back 3-4 days later and find it brown and slimy? In a Green Bag, I can make these last 2 weeks.

Oh, and for tomatoes...you can actually keep tomatoes in them for quite a lengthy period, just on the countertop (don't refrigerate tomatoes, ever).

Bananas turning too quickly? They market the bags as the answer, but the problem is, most people need their bananas to ripen because they are shipped green to the store or gassed with ethylene to bring them to yellow when they aren't really ready inside yet. At any rate, I don't find them very useful for bananas, the skin tends to stay pretty but the inside continues to soften, in my experience.

Now, the commercials or the box would have you believe you can extend life to 30 days. Not my experience, Debbie. And honestly, I would feel a little weird using something that old. But for these aforementioned items, the bags do work well.

Two things you have to be diligent about: 1) moisture is the enemy of the bags and will cause them to fail. You must thoroughly dry whatever it is you're putting in the bags. I sometimes even go so far as to put a paper towel in the bag with whatever it is I'm storing, and I also check the bag for moisture regularly and dry it if it occurs; and 2) you don't seal these bags, as you might be inclined to...you simply press all the air out and fold the top down over itself and lay it in the drawer or on the counter. Don't seal it with ties or a sealing device. The ethylene gas being produced by the food as it ages needs an escape, albeit a minor one.

Okay, so here are some things that the bags don't work well with, in my experience:
1) Basil. Basil is ridiculously tender, and if you buy bunched basil, it is usually dirty, so you have to wash it. It is then tough to dry, even with a salad spinner, and dry is the key. Don't waste your money if you're thinking you'll buy the basil for one night to make whatever dish, and then make pesto a week later when you have time. Your basil will have turned by then, just like it would in any bag. As any good Italian mama would tell you, "you gonna make your pesto immediately with whatever you not gonna use in your dish, and you gonna freeze it until you're ready for it." (By the way, if you want a tip on the best jarred pesto ever made, you'll find it at Oliviers and Co., but it ain't cheap. It is, however, the best pesto short of Mama Leoni making it fresh for you, and people will notice!)

2) Celery. The trick to lengthen the life of celery is to thoroughly dry it, cut off bottom and top, and roll it up in aluminum foil, sealing both ends very tightly. It will keep for several weeks this way. The bags can't keep it fresh this long.

3) Cut peppers (such as green peppers). While you will be able to keep whole peppers for about 7-10 days longer than you would normally be able to, cut peppers won't work. Slimy in no time, just like any other method of storage.

4) Cut vegetables. I would attribute this somewhat to the moisture issue, but the fact is, cut vegetables just have a limited shelf life, because they have been cut. You won't get the much additional life out of using the bags on them to justify it.

Now, about the expense: it depends on what items you use them for and your usage patterns of those items as to their worth. My bags have paid for themselves because I regularly use cilantro, thyme, rosemary, green or red peppers, dill, chives, mint and broccoli and so I don't have to pay for a new bunch every time I make a dish with any of these in it. I also reuse the bags, washing them with only a single drop of dishwashing liquid and rinsing them thoroughly, then drying them gently and letting them finish drying by standing them over an upright paper towel holder or a glass turned upside-down. You can reuse the bags up to 10 times each, so say the instructions, but I probably reused mine only five times before retiring them or getting them so slimy as to not want to reuse them.

So, there's the answer to the burning question you most assuredly wanted to know!

When did I become my grandmother?

2009-11-25T20:14:00.003-05:00

I'm wondering when this happened. I am pretty much a traditionalist when it comes to Thanksgiving. My mother was to a degree, but she would always play around with some element of the dinner (or in her case, luncheon) and do something different with vegetables, dessert, et cetera. Maybe it was because she did this any number of times and missed the mark with whatever the "new" item was that I became annoyed with it and decided that my Thanksgiving dinner was not some experiment.

I don't like turkey that much. I eat it once or twice a year, and I can enjoy it then, but that's enough turkey exposure for an entire year. And I am not too fond of it as leftovers, no sir-ee. My mom could make a million things out of leftover turkey. Not me. Get it out of my sight after dinner and don't make me look at it again for another year. Maybe my mom's abuse of turkey leftovers drove me to the point I'm at today.

Stuffing is hotly debated. Some people like it with white bread, some with cornbread, some with oysters, some with chestnuts, some like it only from the bird, others would never stuff their bird. Well, I was raised on pan stuffing, not from the bird. I never much cared for it because it was usually too dry. My trick was to drown it in gravy. When in doubt, cover any food with fat and it will taste better. Of course, there's also the safety issue of stuffing the bird, for those people who don't belong in the kitchen in the first place. Cooks who know what they are doing wouldn't make the mistake that causes the bacterial issue that the media has hyped into such a big deal.

Jess grew up on stuffing from the bird, and convinced me that I should do that the first year we were together. I did. it's fabulous. It's moist. It's loaded with flavor from the bird. It's a hundred times better than pan stuffing. There are a couple of rules to know: #1, you don't stuff your bird until moments before you are ready to put it into the oven, and #2, you don't give the stuffing time to cool before you stuff, because the stuffing needs to get hot enough to kill anything that may be lurking in it, and cooling it won't help in the heat department. Oh, and #3: the stuffing has to reach 165 degrees or else it's not safe. If it doesn't reach 165, then take it out and nuke it until it does. It won't hurt it.

My sister-in-law makes chestnut stuffing, and I also really like that. I don't make it myself, and I don't remember liking anyone else's chestnut stuffing. Hers is the best. She'll be bringing it this year, yay! Oyster stuffing? Yuck. Cornbread stuffing? C'mon, stuffing is dry enough without making it with cornbread. That was just invented by someone who ran out of regular bread and happened to have cornbread on hand. Not for me.

I don't like sweet potatoes that much either, and the only way I'll eat them is like my grandmother made them: candied, but with sauteed pears and apples. Obviously, it was the apples and pears that got me past the sweet potatoes. But I want sweet potatoes with apples and pears on the Thanksgiving table.

Potatoes and gravy are also a must, and I make them every year. I make them and don't let anyone bring them, because, once again, I rarely eat mashed potatoes, and when I do, I want them to be fabulous. Not too many people I know make fabulous mashed potatoes. Even fewer make fabulous gravy. But I do, and I won't apologize for it.

Now when it comes to vegetables, many people will split camps and say that there isn't really a standard vegetable for Thanksgiving. I say that green beans are it. Now I might do variations on them (like my friend Brad's recipe that uses dill and water chestnuts - yum) but they are always going to be on the table, and if any other vegetable shows up, it won't be because I made it.

Bread is also one of my requirements, and by bread, I mean homemade rolls. Almost all my aunts and both grandmothers were all about the rolls, and so I was spoiled growing up. We never ever had anything but homemade bread on the Thanksgiving table. The smell of the rolls baking as we came through the door was like something out of an old cartoon, where you floated on air following the scent through the house. And loads of real butter to go with, because a good roll is about half roll and half butter. Maybe 3/4 butter and 1/4 roll. Again, put fat on anything and it will taste better.

Finally, dessert. While I have evolved from pumpkin pie to pumpkin torte, it's another one of those only-once-a-year tastes that I want on the Thanksgiving table but don't ask me about it anytime after. Hmmm, so maybe pumpkin torte isn't traditional, but the pumpkin is. I hate pumpkin pie. The bottom crust is typically clammy and limp with moisture, the pumpkin is almost always over-spiced for my taste (because I generally loathe cinnamon and almost everyone uses too much) and the only way it can be choked down is buried - and I literally mean buried - in whipped heavy cream. Don't give me that Reddi-Wip crap, because it's wuss cream. Too light. So I make pumpkin torte, which is much lighter and fluffier and doesn't taste, well, so pumpkin-like.

Now I may occasionally make another dessert for the people like me who aren't big fans of pumpkin. In this year's case, it's baked chocolate custard. Well, not actually baked, but pressure-cooked. I learned the trick from our friend James, who taught me about Cuban flan made in the pressure cooker, and I will never go back to making custards in a water bath and separate ramekins! Love you, James! You have saved me hours of frustration, you will never know. (And that's not the only reason I love you.)

Once the dinner is made tomorrow, I'll see if I can't get Jess to take a few shots with his new fancy-schmantzy D300S and post them here and on Facebook.

Happy Turkey Day, everyone. Hope yours is just like you like it. Mwah.

It's a cruel, cruel summer...

2009-09-10T22:33:00.000-04:00

Summer is done and fall's chill is in the air. The days are markedly shorter; mornings are later to have the sky fully lit, evenings are sooner to make the sun disappear. The cold wind is blowing the sunshine right out of the sky.

It's cruelly ironic that, all summer long, the weather was so cool that the tomatoes didn't produce flowers like the should so they didn't fruit well. About three weeks of very warm temps finally pushed them into production, but most of the new fruit that has set will never mature and ripen since temperatures are back down into the 60s at night.

So, two weeks ago I gave up on the fact that I was going to get any appreciable crop of tomatoes and went to the farmer's market down the street. I bought a large box of ripe tomatoes and slaved away an entire Sunday making 19 pints of salsa.

In the past week, though, some of the biggest tomatoes in my crop began ripening at a very speedy pace, and today, there are 18 very large tomatoes sitting on the counter. Had I only waited, I could have made the salsa from my own tomatoes. But now that I've made it, I'm loathe to run through the whole process again, because it is an onerous task. And by onerous I mean that I was so put off by making this year's batch that I said I wasn't going to make it next year. And here I'm thinking about making it again THIS year. Of course, if I do make it again this year, I'm almost certain to never make it again it after that. And if I don't make it, all these tomatoes I've slaved over go to waste. It's infuriating.

A little time in the garden

2009-08-25T20:55:00.012-04:00

So I wanted you to see what's been going on in my garden. I especially wanted Pua, Averie and Caris to see the flowers they just missed when they were here!

So here we go:

This is a collection of flowers that unfortunately wilted just before Pua and the girls arrived. Hydrangea, pink callas, pink glads and purple glads. And yes, this has been photo-manipulated to appear as a painting...but it's still my photo. Click to get the BIG size.

These glads are white with pale lavender trim. The glad in the back is an electric pink with a bright yellow throat. And the pink callas, of course. These bloomed just after Pua and the girls left, wouldn't you know.

These lovely pink glads are called "Video". I have gotten several compliments on them.

A closeup of the lavender-trimmed white glads.

Okay, time for a fun shot from the kitchen. Pua, Averie and Caris enjoy the cupcakes (there were two types: German chocolate and banana).

Purple clematis.

Close-up of pink calla. I love these.

Yet another variety of pink glad that I love. I wish I could remember the name!

I really love the purple "Macarena" glads with the pinks.

That's all for now.

From one lover to the next

2009-08-25T20:25:00.002-04:00

Ah, the loveliness of Stupice is surpassed by Purple Haze, a relatively new cross of three different varieties that is about enough to make me swoon. The only problem is that these babies are pretty small, about the same size as Stupice or a little smaller; bigger than a large marble, smaller than a golf ball. Oddly colored but deliciously rich in tomato taste. I will definitely be growing these again.

Ending a new beginning

2009-08-12T20:00:00.000-04:00

Sunday, we arose at 3:30 a.m. to send our houseguests from last week back to southern California. Since last Tuesday, Pua and her two daughters, Averie and Caris, had been staying with us while Averie interviewed in the city.

While we've known Pua for some time and gotten to know her well through her comments on her blog, other friends' blogs, and eventually our own, we'd never met her in person. We really liked her, though, and felt as though we knew her already.

So we began talking about what Pua and the girls would like (or not like) while here. Jess gave them expert opinions on things to see and do, places to eat and fun stuff in general. For me, it was more about the food they liked because, you know me, I am all about the food.

We had discussed before they came out that Caris loved pickles and bloody marys and Averie loved cupcakes and margaritas; all things I could do well.

So before they came, I was busy in the kitchen; I made some German Chocolate cupcakes and some banana cupcakes, both of which turned out very nicely. The banana cupcakes, which were my first attempt at banana cupcakes, were rich, moist and very banana-y, if a bit over-spiced. The frosting was the best: a butter and powdered sugar base had just a bit of cream cheese base in it, mixed with mashed overripe banana.

On the drive home from the airport, Caris, Averie and I had conversations over food, discussing condiments (Caris and I share a love of all things condiment), pickles, potato and macaroni salad, and more. I knew this was going to be a fun trip.

When we got home that evening, I knew that they would be hungry, having been on planes all day, but they would have to go to bed shortly after we got home, so I prepared a light salad of lettuce and spinach leaves, with mandarin oranges, pineapple, slivered almonds and grilled chicken. I think they were impressed that they had six types of salad dressing to choose from. Gotta have those condiments!

The next morning, we're getting ready and the coffee is being made. Caris opens the cupboard to get out a coffee mug. As she reached for one of our more unusual mugs, she exclaimed, "Look, Mommy, they have the same coffee mugs as you do!" I just loved that. Just one of many things we would learn that we had in common.

A box had been sent to us by them ahead of their plane trip and we waited on them to be here in person to open it. A set of two beautiful tiki martini glasses, a great Hawai'ian bartending book, coasters, napkins and drink parasols greeted us, along with a CD of beautiful music by Israel "Iz" Kamakawiwo'ole and some scented soaps. We loved all of it! The drink book was full of interesting libations and Jell-O shots that I will have to try, as well as some racily-named ones: Dirty Sanchez, Red-Headed Slut, MILF, and Rough Sex among others.

They all were big fans of the dogs, and the dogs loved them. It was a doggie love fest. Now that they're gone, it's a doggie sulk session.

Wednesday and Thursday were the interview days, so each morning Jess dropped them at the train and they would make their way into the city. We'd pick them up in the evening. The second night they were here, I made Cheddar Burgers with Red Onion Jam, which went over very well in spite of how long they took to prepare. Thanks to Pua, who proved to be an expert bun-toaster, we ate that night instead of the next day! I later learned a couple of shortcuts to preparing the herbs and the burgers took less time the second time around. Note to Brad: you would love these!

Friday night, we had a little party at the house and invited bloggers from around the area who knew Pua. Jess and I had taken the day off Friday so that we could clean and prepare...and we did. Jess planned to grill burgers and dogs, and I made several dips as appetizers, to be served with chips and the FlipSides crackers that Brad had gotten us hooked on when we were in Kansas. Jess had asked Pua and the girls to pick up a cake at the Black Hound Bakery on 2nd Ave in the East Village. We only needed one cake to feed all the guests, but they said that when they got there, they couldn't decide which to choose...so they chose THREE of them! Holy cow. There would be cake!

I surprised myself with how well the guacamole turned out, and the watermelon, mango and jalapeno salsa was also a hit. Pua took one taste of it and rolled her eyes. "This is so good...and it's not even hot!" That's because the jalapenos were mild. Maybe too mild. I would have preferred just a bit more heat, and next time, I will probably make it with serranos and jalapenos.

Caris was in the kitchen just before the guests arrived. Sampling the guacamole, she said, "This is delicious. Is there taco seasoning in it?" I laughed and explained that the chili powder and cumin that I used probably made that impression since both are ingredients in taco seasoning. A few minutes later, Averie came in and Caris was encouraging her to try the dips. Averie tasted the guacamole first: "Wow, this is really good. Is there taco seasoning in it?" We had a good laugh over that.

As Averie was tasting the watermelon salsa, Caris was explaining to her what it was. "This is watermelon? No way! We never eat watermelon." It was quite good, if I do say so myself. I'll give you the recipe at the end of this post.

Jess grilled the burgers and dogs to perfection and the food was devoured. I mixed up margaritas, bluberry mojitos and blackberry cosmpolitans to go with it. Caris helped me butter the buns for toasting. The party went very well. Probably one of the most fun parties we have thrown since we've been in this house!

Saturday morning, after a breakfast of light chocolate chip pancakes, we piled into the car and headed east on a tour of the Island. As we do with most of our guests, we wanted to show them all the things that Long Island has to offer, and so we drove out to the south fork of the island, up to Sag Harbor, taking the ferry to Shelter Island and then to the north fork, showing them the charm and history that the east end of the Island has to offer. We stopped in Cutchogue at Pindar, our favorite vineyard, for a wine tasting, which everyone enjoyed. Caris and Averie frolicked in a patch of sunflowers on the grounds of the vineyard. It was a fun afternoon. Leaving the vineyard, we drove on to Modern Snack Bar in Aquebogue, another favorite stop, where we had a delicious dinner. For me, their meat loaf beats about any restaurant's. I think everyone ate too much. I know I certainly did.

Arriving home at about 8:00, I set about to make some homemade ice cream to go with the leftover cakes from Black Hound. But wait! In all this time, I hadn't gotten to make Caris a Bloody Mary! And I make the best Bloody Mary! I asked her if she'd be up for one. She was too full. I can't say that I blamed her. But I was a pest and asked if I could make her a small one, and she obliged my pushiness. She was impressed. Hooray!

I made chocolate ice cream. This was only my second time to make chocolate ice cream in my large freezer, but it was incredible. Way, way better than last time. I think it had something to do with who I was making it for...I was really hitting on all cylinders.

These ladies were such helpful guests, too...each night, they were asking what they could do to help us, they kept things very clean...it was just the easiest hosting job. They were so polite and thanked us for each meal, for picking them up and dropping them off at the station, for each trip we made. It was just so...refreshing.

Of the gifts that Pua, Averie and Caris gave us, the two that I especially liked were the glasses and the CD. They were two special gifts of aloha that we will always treasure because they will remind us not only of Pua and the girls but the Hawai'ian spirit that Pua and her family embody.

And so, sending them back, it was the ending of the beginning of a wonderful friendship. We miss you, and we hope you come back soon. And we hope we get to meet Charlie on the next trip!

Watermelon Mango Jalapeno Salsa
2 cups (1/4-inch dice) cubed watermelon, seeds removed
1 cup (1/4-inch dice) cubed peeled ripe mango
6 oz. pineapple tidbits, drained
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons finely chopped seeded jalapeño pepper (about 1 pepper)
1 teaspoon finely minced serrano pepper, seeded, ribs removed
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 small clove garlic, crushed
3 tablespoons soy sauce

Mix all ingredients together and chill. Serve with white corn chips.

Sad

2009-08-09T22:30:00.003-04:00

I'll blog more about the last week later, but suffice it to say for now that I am a little sad, a little depressed. Our guests have left and returned to California and we're missing them. We had such a good time with them, with so many memorable moments crammed into about five days. We had never met in person before this past Tuesday, but blogs, blog comments and facebook posts gave us so much insight into each other that the connection was there before we ever picked them up at the airport.

This past week was one of fun and food (as usual) and I was particularly happy with the way the cooking went throughout the week. A watermelon, mango, and jalapeno salsa that I made up for Friday night's party came out exceptionally, as did the guacamole and the sour cream dip. And the burgers were delicious, prepared by Pua and Marc and grilled to perfection by Jess.

Saturday night, I made some chocolate ice cream in the ice cream freezer and I must say, it was about the best I have ever made.

But now, they have gone, and as I strip the beds, load the washer and clean up the bathroom, I am a little melancholic that our friends have gone and the week went so quickly.

I hope they will return again soon.

My new favorite tomato...for now

2009-08-02T12:54:00.005-04:00

I have a new favorite tomato...well, at least for the next four weeks. It's a Czech variety called Stupice. It's a salad tomato, so it's not large; about twice the size of a cherry tomato. The flavor is fantastic and the best part is that it is an early-yield tomato...so these are our first of the season. And let me tell you, based on this season, the third coldest July on record, one of the coolest springs overall on record, it has not been a good year for tomatoes in New York. Unfortunately, we haven't gotten to enjoy many of these little jewels...only about 4 have ripened thus far.

Stupice tomato. (Not my photo - I borrowed it from the Net.)

Fortunately for me, most of my tomatoes are growing in EarthBoxes, which are bottom-watering, self-feeding containers. The reason that the EarthBoxes are doing better is that what little heat there has been has managed to heat the soil in the containers to some degree. The tomatoes in the ground haven't done that well because the ground is still pretty cold...it isn't just the part of the plant that's above the ground that matters to tomatoes and tomatillos.

Why do I say it's my favorite "for at least the next four weeks"? That's when I expect the rest of my plants to finally give me some tomatoes, if the heat stays up.

I am growing 14 different plants this year, each a different variety. Three are varieties I have grown before: Cherokee Purple, Brandywine and Big Beef. The Cherokee Purples were about my favorite last year, but because of the way I treated the soil before planting, they weren't as acidic as I'd have liked. So I did things a little differently this year and I hope they are better. They produced moderately, but were late, so I didn't get as many of them as I'd have liked.

The Brandywines don't produce much fruit, it's a hallmark of the plant, but the fruit tastes very good. Most gardeners would tell you it's their favorite for eating, but I mark it way down for production. At least here in the northeast, they don't produce much. Still, because of the flavor, I grew them again this year.

The Big Beefs had a pretty good harvest last year, but the flavor wasn't acidic enough; again, I suspect because of the way I treated the soil before planting last year they weren't as good as they should have been. I have greater hopes for them this year.

But onto this year's new ones that I can't wait for. The person who turned me on to the Stupice variety also highly recommended some others: Paul Robeson, her all-time favorite; Goose Creek, her second-favorite; Striped German, Cindy's West Virginia, Berkeley Tie Dye, Purple Haze (purple cherry tomato; can't wait to try it!), Earl's Faux, Cuostralee and Amazon Chocolate. I also have a Sweet 100 cherry tomato in there somewhere that came up as a volunteer from last year.

This year was supposed to be lots of tomatoes so that I could make lots of salsa. But since the harvest is already about a month behind because of the weather, I am thinking that there won't be any more salsa this year than last, when I only had eight plants...and my peach tree...well, I don't even want to talk about my peach tree, which hasn't had enough heat to grow the peaches this year. They have been the same size for about two-and-a-half months, and some are starting to rot on the tree.

So, for the next four weeks, I am proclaiming Stupice as my favorite tomato. We'll see if anything happens with the others in the next month to prove me wrong.

No time to blog...

2009-08-02T10:23:00.006-04:00

...but I do have some stuff to say, however. Guests are coming Tuesday - Sunday so I doubt that I'll be blogging while they're here. We're busy cleaning and tidying and planning at this point.

One thing I will quickly talk about was a problem I discovered last week in my tomatoes. Some nasty tomato worms have found their way into our yard and one of them did some major damage to one of my biggest, nicest plants. All within about 36 hours.

They aren't easy to spot on very leafy tomato plants (like mine) because they are the same color as the tomato plant, and since they usually feed at night and not during the day, even harder to see because you have to use a flashlight.

Here's a pic of a tomato worm.

So while I was on the phone with our friend Bob from Kansas the other night, asking him if he thought I had a tomato worm as I described the damage to him, I was out with flashlight in hand trying to see if I could spot one. And I did...it took a few minutes, but I found him, happily munching on my beautiful plant. When I went to pull the bugger off, he held on so tightly that I literally had to yank him three or four times at different spots to get him loose.

Needless to say, he's dead now, but I have found other damage that lets me know he has company that's still around. Crap.

For persnickety pickle people

2009-07-28T20:00:00.001-04:00

Okay, we interrupt the regular blog posting to present a message to Long Island residents in search of pickles - Heinz Hamburger Dill Chips, to be exact - because they are practically impossible to find on Long Island. Most stores carry a variety of other brands, and if they carry Heinz, it's usually only sweet relish.

Persnickety pickle palates recognize that the Heinz Hamburger Dill Chip has the right pickle punch - the right amount of crispiness, a nice vinegar tang that doesn't overwhelm, and nice ridges...it's the way a hamburger dill is supposed to be.

And where can you get Heinz Hamburger Dill Chips on Long Island? In Nassau County, you can find them at Uncle Giuseppe's Italian Market at the corner of Hempstead Turnpike and Prospect Avenue in East Meadow. I can't speak for their other locations in Port Washington or Smithtown, but in East Meadow, besides pickles, they have a great selection of Sterling Silver meats, Bell & Evans chickens, and some delicious in-store deli stuff including some crazy good fried Italian chicken cutlets and tomato-mozzarella salad.

So there you have it. Go to Uncle Giuseppe's in East Meadow and get your Heinz Hamburger Dill pickle fix.

Oh, HAIL no!

2009-07-18T18:25:00.002-04:00

So last week, we saw that there was some severe weather in Brad and Bob's neck of the woods and, sure enough, Bob sent an e-mail with a frightening delivery: pictures of the aftermath.

Kansas weather is so extreme...hot hots of 105 degrees in the summer are not terribly unusual, and bone-chilling cold temps of 5 below zero are possible in the winter. It wouldn't be unusual to have a foot or more of snow, and sometimes 2-3 feet. And in the spring and summer, when the hot and the cold have fights as to who will win, tornadoes and hail are the result.

Okay, so let's have a before/after look:

Bob sent pictures of their tomatoes on July 5. His were a lot larger than mine, having had 45-day jump on us since the weather heats up in Kansas a lot earlier than here. They were lush and beautiful plants and they were loaded with tomatoes, as you can see. A few had ripened. The one you see in the front was about 5.5 feet tall, and the one in the back by the fence was about 7 feet tall.

The hail that did this was golf-ball size or larger. Here's the plant in the container...

...and here's the one by the fence.

Here's what it did to a piece of lawn furniture...note the completely broken arm and seat.

Bob reported that when the hail struck the ground it would bounce 4-5 feet in the air. Can you imagine? Well, I can, having lived there. It's fairly terrifying to watch, and even more terrifying to be caught out in. I can remember one day being caught in a similar storm and the hail ripping my poor umbrella to shreds as I raced from the car to the house.

These are heavy, round citronella lamps that sit on the ground and are lit at night. Bob said he thought it odd that the hail wouldn't have just glanced off them since they are round and smooth and metal, which is exactly what I thought when I saw them. But apparently, the hail had other ideas, as you see.

Another area of disaster. Can you imagine the work to clean all this up?

The pool was filled with leaves and debris and had to be cleaned out. The storm had caught Bob by surprise and so the pool, which he was swimming in just before the storm started, didn't get covered as it usually does. Probably best, though, as the undoubtedly would have ripped the cover to shreds.

Look at all the holes made in the lawn by the hail. Bob put his shoe into the picture on purpose near one of the holes to give a perspective of how large the holes were. If you're thinking, "the lawn doesn't look so bad," you should have seen how thick, green and lush it was before this. Take it from me, this looks bad.

Oh, and here is the lawn, covered in the icy stuff.

Bob holds one of the hailstones in his hand. It's not one of the larger stones, it's just one he happened to pick up and photograph.

The cannas alongside the house were decimated. Unfortunately, he can't cut them down because the leaves need to continue collecting sunlight to feed the bulbs for next year.

They had broken storm windows, it totaled their roof, put dents into their wood clapboard siding...just a lot of damage...and a lot of clean-up. Bob remarked that they clean up and clean up, but every day they find new messes as debris continues to fall out of the trees or they come across other damage to property they hadn't noticed yet.

The insurance adjuster is coming Sunday, and this storm happened 10 days ago. Bob called the morning after the storm as soon as the agency opened but the line was busy, busy, busy.

Hmmm....I hear a song playing in the background..."I..love New York..."

I feel for you, my boys. I really do.

Once home from Kansas...

2009-07-16T21:12:00.002-04:00

I took the last two days of the week that we went to Kansas off, so I could spend some time with our friend Tom, who house-sat and dog-sat for us while we were traveling. On Thursday, I had intended to drive out east and pick strawberries to make strawberry preserves, but the weather had other ideas. It rained like cats and dogs, or as Jess likes to say, puppies and cats, so there was going to be no picking that day. So we went to a nice little comfort-food diner that serves terrific breakfasts and pigged out, then went to a movie in the afternoon, My Life in Ruins. Tom had already seen it and thought it was cute, I hadn't so we went. It was okay, but tedious. I am not the biggest fan of Nia Vardalos. I don't understand what draws her to boring, drippy scripts, but that's apparently her specialty. I was, however, impressed with Richard Dreyfuss, who looks great and acts well, and he basically stole the show from Ms. Vardalos; even with its sappy-ness I still thought he was pretty good. But would I pay even $3 to rent it from Netflix? Nope.

So, Friday, we did get our chance to go out east to the berry farms, and go we did. I picked eight quarts and then we went to another stand where I bought four more. I wound up with about 11 pints of preserves, which I had to make up immediately, so there went the weekend. It didn't matter, it was fun.

On Friday afternoon, Tom and I stopped into an antiques shop and picked up a table for the living room, which I got a great deal on, and when we got home, we played "rearrange the furniture." Tom is an interior designer and so he is always looking for ways to change things up a bit and, boy, did he make some good suggestions. With just a few moves here and there, he brought a much nicer, more comfortable look and feel to the dining room, the front room, and the library. It's nice to have a designer as your close friend!

HAIR - The Musical

2009-07-14T22:00:00.000-04:00

The revival of Hair is, without a doubt, one of the best shows on Broadway right now, and in some time. We went to see it last Saturday night, thanks to Jeff, who bought us tickets as our wedding present back in April.

If you are 40 or younger, you will like this show. It's frenetic, has great singing, and it's very audience-involved. If you're my age or older, you're going to love the show because it brings back memories of the original and, amazingly, is as well-sung as the original, which is saying a lot. In spite of its outrageousness for the time (1967), with pot smoking, full nudity and the like, Hair managed to produce music that resonated with the mainstream pop market and produced classics through groups like The Cowsills (Good Morning, Starshine), Three Dog Night (Easy To Be Hard), and The 5th Dimension (Aquarius/The Flesh Failures/Let the Sun Shine In).

Even though I liked them, I never was as big a fan of these pop versions because my sister had the original cast recording, and I really liked that album. The pop versions weren't as gritty and genuine as the originals. Surprisingly, a few years ago, Jess and I had been discussing Hair and we both surprised each other that 1) we both liked the show/recordings and 2) that the soundtrack from the 1979 movie was actually our favorite. Jess had downloaded the music onto his iPod and we'd been listening to it regularly ever since then. So, to be honest, when we heard they were reviving the show, we were more than a little concerned that it wouldn't meet our musical expectations. Was that ever unfounded.

Of course, it's a bit funny to see some of the stuff today that caused such shock 40 years ago, but the message of the show is still a good message: practice more tolerance and love of others, and don't be afraid to be you.

The actors were terrific, and there was a good deal of interaction directly with the audience. Actors would come down the aisles and dance with show-goers, dance on the seats in front of them, swing their hair in people's faces, etc. At the end of the show, the audience was invited to join the cast on the stage to dance and sing "Let the Sun Shine In," which was so very cool.

If the traveling show comes to your city, go see it. It's not for kids, though.

Thanks again, Jeff, from both of us! It was the best wedding present we got!

Kansas trip, part 4

2009-07-14T21:10:00.002-04:00

Okay, so this is getting really long and drawn out. Okay, okay, yes I said I would post yesterday and didn't...sorry!

So we're up to Monday. We did a little of this and that before heading over to Brad and Bob's for lunch. Brad had invited my mom to lunch because she was anxious to see them and the remodeling, and he also invited his mom and her husband to lunch. In all the years I've known them (hmm...that would be about 28 years!) our moms had never met, and Brad thought that would be a fun day, which it was. We had good conversation and great food that Brad made, again, that boy can cook like nobody's business. It was a great afternoon. After lunch, we took my mom over to the mall to Waldenbooks so she could pick up a copy of Eat, Pray, Love, which Brad's mom had recommended to my mom as reading for her flight home. Then we dropped her at her car and she drove back to her brother's, while we went back to Brad and Bob's and decided on where to eat dinner.

We wanted to eat a good steak while in Kansas, because there just isn't anything like Kansas beef. We settled on Ted's Montana Grill, which Bob had recommended. It's a chain of about 50 restaurants owned by Ted Turner, and surprise, Ted knows his steak. I had a Filet Mignon, and it was one of the best steaks I'd eaten in years. The margarita was kick-but delicious, too. The service was terrific. I would definitely go back. As we exited the restaurant, we looked to the east and the sky was purple-black. There was a strong wind and huge drops of rain began to pelt us on our way to the car. We sprinted and jumped in, and the storm gave chase as we drove the circular around the north side of the city.

The storm caught up with us, beating us with heavy, almost blinding, rain. We continued on, but the storm was nasty. At one point, we encountered a small bit of hail, but it didn't last long. I was worried that there would be tornadoes. There were tornadoes further back in the storm, but not by where we were.

We dropped the guys off and decided it would be better to go back to the room. It poured as we entered the parking garage. When we got up to the room, it was beating hard against the windows. The lightning was everywhere, and the thunder was close behind. It was a pretty spectacular show. At one point, there was a 20-minute span where the sky never darkened because the lightning was continuously striking. I am not exaggerating, it did not stop for 20 minutes and it was going all directions: cloud to cloud, cloud to ground, all over the place. I wish we had had a video camera.

Tuesday was also fun. We went to an old favorite, La Galette, a french patisserie and sandwich shop in the Delano area, and then made a drive to Karg Art Glass Gallery in Kechi. They have a gorgeous selection of gallery-quality handmade glass that they create on the premises. It's always fun to shop there. Last trip, we bought a nice piece that we have displayed in our front room as a nice reminder of Wichita. (Mark Thaut, if you're still reading this blog, you need to visit their web site!) After the gallery, we spent some time in the pool. It was blazing that day and the concrete around the pool was so hot it hurt to stand on it for more than 10 or 15 seconds.

For dinner, we went to yet another new place to me, but a longtime Wichita staple, Felipe's, which is a Mexican food place. The food was good (I had carne asada tacos) and the margaritas were fabulous, and for $7 each, I was in heaven. You can't get a $7 margarita in New York, that's for sure. There was way too much food on that plate, and I left feeling like a stuffed pig.

On the way home from dinner, we stopped at one of my favorite stores anywhere, Dillard's, one of the few non-Macy's stores left in the country. I have always loved Dillard's and dearly missed it when I moved from Kansas. After I moved from Atlanta, that's when they got a Dillard's there. Every trip back, I try to make a stop in. I bought a couple of shirts there that I have received a number of compliments on when worn. Definitely worth the stop.

As we drove back to Brad and Bob's, I phoned a friend of mine whom I recently renewed contact with when I learned that her husband passed away. She has been in poor health and I wanted to see her on this trip because I don't know if I'll get to see her again. You know how sometimes when you change jobs or move or both, you lose track of people? Well, I had lost track of Dorothy for almost 30 years, but thought about her often. We used to work together at Beechcraft (yes, the plane-maker) and I often drove her home when we had to work overtime, since her husband usually drove her to work in the morning. At the time, we only lived a mile or so from each other. She was a good friend and a good cook, and no one told funnier jokes than she.

So when I had re-established contact, she had mentioned she was in poor health and it was sometimes difficult for her to breathe or walk. Since that time, she's had to move from her 3-bedroom home of 50 years into a studio in a assisted living facility, and she has told me she thinks she will have to move into more of a nursing home setting soon because she is needing medical care more and more often.

We've had a number of nice phone conversations since re-establishing contact, but I wanted to see her in person and had called her at the beginning of the trip to see if it could happen. Unfortunately, it wasn't a great time for her as she was having a lot of tests over the weekend. I called her two different days and both days, it wasn't going to work for her. But magically, on this our last night of the trip, I called and she said she was up for visitors. It was a 25-minute drive and we only got to spend about 20-25 minutes with her, but it was 25 minutes I will treasure for the rest of my life. I am so glad I got to see her again, and she was glad to see me and meet Jess.

She called me on July 4 to see how I was doing and we had a nice chat. It's time for me to call her.

On Wednesday morning, we had breakfast in the hotel and headed for the airport for the trip home. It had been a lovely trip with lots of memories rekindled and new memories made. A trip I wasn't exactly thinking I was going to love turned out to be one of my nicest in a long, long time.

Kansas trip, part 3

2009-07-12T21:50:00.001-04:00

I hope I haven't bored you to tears with this very long report.

So, we slept in Saturday morning because we were exhausted. The reunion invitation said to arrive at 11:00 a.m., so we got up around 9:30 to get ready. We made a quick drive past Brad & Bob's on the way there, so that we could pick up the gallon-sized container of bean salad I had made. I was anticipating about 80 people to show up and, like my mother, I made enough to feed at least half that size crowd.

It was a lovely day for Kansas in June: what could have easily been a day with temps in the high 80s or even 90s was actually in the mid-70s and with a slight breeze. It was nice.

At any rate, one of the things I have always liked about Wichita is the speed with which you can get around the city. Nothing is more than 15-20 minutes away, even if you're driving from the furthest edge of the city limits west to the furthest edge of the city limits east, and north to south can be even quicker.

We left Brad & Bob's and drove on over to the zoo (oh, yes, did I mention that our reunion was held at the zoo?! How apropos.) and made it inside 8 minutes, arriving promptly at 11:00. Having paid our admission (yes, we had to pay to attend...I generally eschew paying to see family members other than my immediate family) we went through the entry gates, where we ran into one of my cousins and his wife who were toting their food in. I introduced Jess and my cousins, and my cousin says, "Wow, that's good! You remembered my name!" This gives you an indication of how long it had been since I attended a family reunion (16 years, but who's counting?).

Once inside, I placed my salad and then began helping some cousins get the food tables prepared. I talked with a few cousins, and Jess moved to the back of the pavilion and sat down at a table to wait for me. Meantime, people came up to him and introduced themselves to him. One of them was my aunt, who has always had a dry wit and has always spoken her mind. She was describing where she fit into the family and who was there that was in her family. As she pointed people out, mostly the men, she quipped, "...and they're all the same!" in a tone of exasperation. It's so her. And it's so true.

I was happy to see a lot of people at the reunion whom I hadn't seen in a long time. Two were cousins whom I had only heard about and never met. You see, my mother is the youngest of her 8 siblings, and I am her youngest child. Her oldest brother was about 15 years older than she, as I recall, and so his oldest children are only a few years younger than my mother, who is 83. He and his family moved away from Kansas before I was ever born, and they didn't come back often. Generally, only my uncle would come when returning to Kansas, so I didn't ever know his children at that time. I met two of them for the first time when I was about 25. The other two, I met for the first time at this reunion. I'm 48. By the way, not going to a reunion for 16 years has its disadvantages: people stay the same age in your head as when you last saw them, and it's a bit jarring when you see them again and the children they had who were 5 or 6 the last time you saw them are grown and have kids of their own.

My bean salad wasn't alone on the salads table. There were three other bean salads there, and I was not happy. That would mean a lot of leftovers, and I hadn't been counting on having to take stuff back with us. Oh, and remember I said I had made enough to feed about 40 people? Well, there were about 40-50 people who showed up, and not all of them would eat bean salad, especially not when there were four to choose from, so we did wind up with a lot left over. But it would turn out to come in handy later.

The meal was good, and there was plenty to eat: there was barbecued brisket, a large tray of deli meats and cheeses, and pulled pork, among other things. There were deviled eggs, potato salad, and lots of other picnic foods that my family is good at, and everything was pretty good. I was impressed that so many had brought home-made food, because in past years, KFC and the like had been making appearances. You have to know my family and its cooking heritage to understand what a travesty that is, but the kids were always happy to eat it, so no harm.

The desserts table was ridiculously appointed with enough desserts to feed at least 100, if not more. I didn't make any desserts, but my mom had. I didn't know what she had made, but I had a guess or two. My mom is a the best baker in the family and nobody's stuff usually even comes close to hers. Jess had picked up a couple of cookies and a small piece of some blueberry-type dessert. I was more interested in a german chocolate cake that my cousin had made, and surprisingly, it blew every other dessert there completely out of the water. It was spectacularly heavy and moist and the coconut-pecan frosting was sinful.

So I asked Jess about the cookies on his plate: "How are those?"

"Ermm....these are okay" he said, pointing to a sandwich-style cookie that looked familiar to me. "These oatmeal are really good, though."

"So, what flavor are the sandwich cookies?"

"Ummm...cookie flavor," came the reply. He really didn't know what they tasted like.

"Oh, well, I'll skip those, I guess. I thought they might be lemon or something, they kind of look like something my mom makes. What about the blueberry stuff?"

"Eh...not terrific."

"Okay, so I guess I'll skip that, too."

I went looking for homemade ice cream, because there is always a lot of it at our reunions. I found a lot of empty ice cream freezers. My mother tried to pull me away from the last ones left, but too late: my cousin's son, who had made the ice cream that was remaining, noticed my rummaging for ice cream and offered his. He had made chocolate almond. My mother said under her breath, "you really don't want that," but I didn't feel it would be right to just say, "Oh, never mind, I don't really need that," since that would have been rude. I peered into the container. There was quite a bit left. It didn't look chocolate so much as a very pale tan color. There were lots of sliced almonds in it. Lots. Hmmm.

He had done a great job of roasting the sliced almonds before putting them in, but there were just too many of them, and there was almost no chocolate flavor. I was disappointed, but oh, well. Meanwhile, I had a chat with my mother:

"So how is that?" she asked dryly, knowing what the answer would be.

"Um, it's okay. It's not very chocolaty and there are too many almonds, but it's okay."

"Well, I tried to steer you away from it!"

"Okay, yes, I know. So what of this did you make?" I inquired as I pointed to the cookies.

"Oh, I made some lemon sandwich cookies, oatmeal cookies and chocolate chip cookies, and I also made that blueberry dessert there."

Fuuny. So my mom had made the sandwich cookies that were just ehhh, and the blueberry stuff that wasn't great. What happened? I attributed it to her not having her own kitchen to work in. I was glad I hadn't tasted them so I wouldn't have to have told her that I wasn't crazy about them. Her lemon cookies are usually some of her best.

We had a couple of animal visitors while we were eating. One was a blackbird that kept jetting through at breakneck speed, at a very low altitude...low enough that people were ducking wildly as it buzzed through, to get out of its way. The other was a large peacock, who made his way in near the end of the thing and stood there and screamed loudly, demanding to be fed. We ignored him.

Here's the peacock.

So, we left at about 2:30 and went back to Brad and Bob's. They would be having a little party for us that evening and had invited some other friends of ours to drop by. We took a nice dip in the pool to pass the time until the party, and Brad had put out some delicious appetizers. Brad always manages to get me hooked on some food type of thing, and this time it was crackers. Keebler Town House FlipSides. He had bought them to go with a dip he served, and both the crackers and the dip were quite addictive. The crackers were Town House cracker on one side, pretzel on the other. I don't even like pretzels much, but I couldn't quit eating them. In fact, when we got back here, I promptly went out and bought a box.

My friends Russ, Richard, Randy and Darrell came by and we had a great time and some wonderful food. Brad had prepared a barbecued brisket that was delicious and some beef short ribs that were just simply spectacular. He also made some delicious au gratin potatoes and we put out the leftover bean salad from the reunion. What a terrific meal. Jess and I have still not stopped talking about those short ribs. Damn, that Brad is a wonderful cook.

Russ had closed on a new house earlier in the week, and so we wanted to see it. We made a short 15-minute drive to the new place, which was as far west as the city limits go. He had made a very good buy - Wichita is an aircraft manufacturing town, and with the economy in the tank, aircraft orders have gone right out the window and so have a lot of Wichita's jobs, forcing people to move elsewhere as they look for work. The place was huge. And behind it, in the backyard (or the back 40, as it were) there was this gigantic, two-story barn-type storage shed with a covered side area to put a boat under.

The house visit ended our evening - we dropped Brad and Bob off at their house and headed back to the hotel.

Sunday, after a stop at the church I had attended growing up (where I saw people I hadn't seen in 30 years) my mom and I went to lunch and then went to Russ's parents 50th wedding anniversary, which was concidentally planned for the weekend we were there. What a trip. Again, people I hadn't seen in years...some as many as 35 years. Russ's mom and my mom used to work together back in the day. Russ started attending school in my district in my class in the 5th grade. We became friends quickly. We didn't know at the time that our mothers worked together, but we quickly found out at a parent-teacher night when they ran into us at the school. We lived on the same street, about 3/4 of a mile apart. So we knew lots of people in common, and a lot of those people came to the anniversary party. It was more fun than I thought it would be.

Sunday night, we went to a seafood place called Bonefish, and the food was good. It's a chain, but a pretty good one, and the service was particularly nice. As one is so prone to do in Wichita, we ran into someone in the restaurant whom Brad and Bob knew. It's a small world, especially when you live in a town of less than 500,000 people.

Tomorrow, I'll blog about the remainder of the trip, which had some excitement...

Kansas trip, part 2

2009-07-04T20:40:00.011-04:00

So we rented our car, left the airport and went straight to the hotel for check-in. The Hyatt Regency is the city's newest high-rise hotel and it is right on the river bank. While he was reserving the room, I had directed Jess to get the highest floor available with a corner room, and he did. We were on the 15th floor in a corner room with a spectacular view facing the river and looking south down the river. Lawrence Dumont baseball stadium is located on the opposite bank and I was surprised that there was a game going on almost every night we were there.

A view down-river from our room. Click to enlarge to see the detail of the metal architecture work on the bridge, which is repeated on the next bridge upriver, and lit with neon at night. All the photos are courtesy of Jess - thanks, hon.

The view of the stadium from our room by day...

...and at night!

Jess made our check-in and as we entered the room, he said, "Get this. The name of the person who checked me in was Pandora."

"Pandora?! As in Pandora's Box? Who would name their kid Pandora?"

"Well, somebody did. See? It's right here on the card she handed me. Pandora."

That was not really a very nice thing to name a child. She was a very lovely young woman.

The fountain in front of the hotel as seen from the room.

We called our friend Bob to tell him we would be over in a few minutes to discuss dinner plans. Being downtown, I knew that we would be close to Brad and Bob's house, but I didn't know how easy the new road surrounding our hotel had made it to get to. We pulled out of the hotel parking lot and made a right onto what has now become a service road for the hotel. That road then crosses the river in about 1/10th of a mile. We drove about fourteen blocks, turned onto their street and drove less than 2 blocks to their house. Since we would be spending most of our time with them, it was a terrific location.

Bob suggested Sabor, a Latin place downtown that was relatively new, as a place for dinner. We hit the supermarket to pick up some ingredients for a bean salad that I was making for the reunion lunch the next day and then made the short drive to the restaurant. I was impressed with how the "Old Town" area of downtown Wichita has continued to grow and flourish. In the area where Sabor is, there was a nice parking garage to accommodate the traffic for the Warren Theatres, and a number of restaurants and shops built around a large public square where people gather to enjoy the evening. The evening may be spent listening to local musicians who come down to play if you're lucky.

So we walked into Sabor. There were three other couples in the place, it appeared to be a quiet evening for a Friday. We ordered an appetizer of tostones, patties of green plantain that are fried crispy and then served with a savory mayonnaise-based chili dip called "pink sauce." I also ordered queso with corn, which was served with chips and herb pita bread and was outrageously addictive. I could have made a meal of the appetizers. A delicious red sangria helped to wash it all down.

Service was conducted at a very relaxed pace...a little too relaxed for me...and the place quickly began filling up. By the time dinner arrived, the house was filled...and noisy.

For the meal, I ordered Beef Picadillo: beef tips which were served, or rather, swimming, in a roasted tomato molé and chipotle cheddar mashed potatoes. The molé was highly spicy and piquant and, while good, a little over the top in seasoning and spice. The potatoes, on the other hand, were fabulous. As I got to the end of my beef, there were two pieces that weren't quite cut apart. The meat had been fork-tender, so I began to cut into the juicy bits with the fork, but it was a piece of gristle that was keeping the two pieces together and not just meat. As a result, it didn't cut easily and so I moved the fork into a different area of the piece to cut it again. The next thing I knew, the stubborn piece of meat had flung the the highly spicy molé into my eyes (owwww!) and all over my shirt. I was a splattered mess, and I knew that the shirt was probably ruined. Tomato-based stuff is hard enough to get out, but roasted tomato plus chocolate is a combo for disaster.

On the way home from the restaurant, Bob suggested a stop by the new location for the Keeper of the Plains statue, which was given to the city in 1974 by American Indian artist Blackbear Bosin, as a tribute to the area's native American Indian heritage. Bosin was half Kiowa and half Comanche, and his art is widely known throughout the central Midwest. The Keeper, which had been in a bit less prominent location since 1974, has been given a large pedestal and its own park area which is connected to other park areas by suspension bridges that frame the area nicely.

The Keeper of the Plains offers a blessing to the sky at the confluence of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas rivers. The modern suspension bridges near the statue, one of which is seen left of it, are a nice architectural touch.

A plaque that tells the story of the sculpture is located at the base of the pedestal.

Jess photographed Bob and me on one of the bridges.

A partial view of downtown Wichita as seen from the suspension bridge near the Keeper monument. The building in the center, the former Holiday Inn, is now condominiums, but in 1976, while the building was still a hotel, a maniac named Michael Soles went to the 26th floor and, using a rifle, shot 10 innocent victims on the streets below. Three died. This prompted security measures to be put in place for downtown skyscrapers. In our hotel, you had to have a room key to control the elevator...and it knew which floor you were on and wouldn't let you go higher than your own floor.

We left after that and went back to the house, where Bob tried to Shout out the stains on my shirt, but after four or five stain treatments and washings, we gave up. They were still visible.

I quickly assembled the bean salad for the next day's lunch and moved it to the refrigerator. We were really impressed with all the improvements Bob and Brad had made to their kitchen: new granite counters, new ceiling tiles and lighting, new appliances, including an induction cooktop-equipped range, which I loved, and a French-door refrigerator with an interior water dispenser, which was also very nice, beautiful leaded glass inserts (which Bob made by hand) in the china hutch and in several of the overhead doors, and new stools for the peninsula, which was just a bit longer than before. And in the dining room, a new table and chairs brought a more modern feel to the room than the old antique oak table and Victorian highback carved chairs, while remaining classical with Danish furniture made in the style of Stickley.

And in the backyard, a new stone path to the pool had been laid, and new landscaping elements had been added. Truly, right out of Architectural Digest.

Brad made it home from work and we chatted a bit about what we would do Saturday evening, since they were hosting a little get-together for us. We finished things up and went back to the hotel. The reunion was the next day, beginning at 11:00 a.m...

Kansas trip, part 1

2009-06-30T20:46:00.007-04:00

It's now been almost two weeks since we left Kansas. I've been wanting to write about it but haven't gotten to it...until now.

We flew out Friday morning, narrowly making our flight after the ticket agents at Northworst couldn't figure out why our e-tickets weren't properly checking in through the kiosk. We routinely buy three seats together in coach because it's more comfortable for us, but with some airlines, like Northwest, they don't get it and it creates big headaches when it should be a simple thing. At any rate, 20 minutes of fiddling by the ticket agent at the counter (and I do mean fiddling) and we were on our way to the security line. There are separate lines at LaGuardia for casual travelers, travelers with children and expert travelers. All are based, supposedly, on how well you understand the rules of security. We got into the expert line, but for some reason, the line for people with children moved about three times faster than our line, as did the casual traveler line. Time was ticking. Our flight was being called for boarding.

When we finally got to the scanning machines, we had exactly 10 minutes before our flight was to depart. We were supposed to have already been at the gate. We made it through the body scanner with no problems, but the TSA agent barked at me to come back because she had to inspect my carry-on. The last thing we did before leaving for the airport was stop at the store for shaving cream because we didn't have any, and I had made the mistake of quickly stuffing it into the carry-on instead of the checked bag. Big mistake. So that held us up while they looked in the bag for the offending can. Right into the trash, a hell of a lot of good it did us to stop and get it. Shit.

But for the time being, we were concentrating on making it to the gate in time. We made it, barely.

We changed planes in Memphis and boarded a Canadair regional jet to Wichita, since very few airlines fly full-sized jets into Wichita any longer. The ride in was rough. We were routed around a storm, but the air was so rough that by the time we landed, I declared to Jess, "I hope you enjoy this trip, because it's the last time I'm flying into this airport!" I hate small jets. Not only do they not handle turbulence well, the narrow seats and complete lack of legroom would make a toddler feel cramped.

Our flight was supposed to have arrived close to 5:00 p.m. My mother's plane from Atlanta had been due to arrive Wichita at 1:55, and she was worried about getting her luggage lifted into her rental car. She was hoping we would arrive within a close enough proximity to her flight that we could help her with that, but with a three-hour difference in arrivals, she wasn't going to want to hang around for us. I told her to tell them that she was an old lady (she is 83) and that she needed help getting her bags into the car, and someone would surely help her. She balked at that because she doesn't ever like taking the "old lady" stance, but I told her she would have to.

At any rate, our flight times and plan kept changing, right up to the day of the flight. At last notice, we were to arrive Wichita at about 4:20. We actually arrived well ahead of schedule at 3:45, the first really refreshing aspect of a so-far difficult day. We walked from the terminal to baggage claim (two - count 'em - two baggage handling belts for the whole airport!), and as we were passing the rental car counters on our way to baggage claim, a distraught, tiny white-haired woman walked across my path right in front of me without even saying "excuse me," and approached the rental car counter with agitation. I had time, we were just off the flight and our baggage would take a few minutes. I decided to follow the woman to the car counter and eavesdrop on what could have her so mad.

"Oh, yes, ma'am. May I help you?"

Flustered and red-faced, the woman was practically in tears. "I am just so upset! I have been fighting with that car that you gave me for almost 30 minutes now! First, the windows didn't work right, now the air conditioner won't come on! It's 90 degrees out there! I can't drive a car without air conditioning!"

"Unfortunately, there aren't any more mid-sized cars available, ma'am." (Uh, yeah, it's Wichita, there was only one to begin with!) "I will have to give you a compact, but I will have someone check the air conditioning for you first."

"A compact?! But I requested a mid-size car!"

"Well, I am sorry, but we just don't have any more available right now. If you come back tomorrow, there may be one, but for right now, all I can offer you is the compact."

"I can't come back tomorrow! But if I have to switch cars, what about my bags? I need my bags moved from the other car."

"It's okay, ma'am, I can have someone do that for you. I just need the keys from the first car and we will start a transfer transaction."

I tapped the distraught woman on the shoulder. "Excuse me, what's going on?"

She didn't even look up. "I need some help with my car, the air conditioning didn't work and now I have to change my luggage from one car to the other," she said, with a decidely disgruntled tone in her voice.

"Well, I'm not with the car company. The way you cut me off back there, do I not even get an apology?"

She blinked and looked up. Without pause, she hissed: "I am never doing business with Thrifty Car Rental again! They have been terrible!"

"Hmmm. Well, this is what happens when you don't listen to my advice on car rentals."

She looked up and then gave me a hug. "I didn't see you."

"Obviously."

I walked my mother to her rental car and made sure that the AC worked.

"Why are you still here? I mean, I know we arrived early, but you should have been gone long ago."

"The flight was delayed due to weather. We took off late and then we had to go around storms, so we didn't get here until almost 3:00. So by the time I got my luggage and rented the car, and then this mess..."

To be continued...

Screw peas

2009-06-28T14:49:00.003-04:00

A few months ago, I planted some peas in my EarthBoxes. The way it normally goes, you plant peas in early spring and they grow quickly enough that you can turn over the ground and grow a different crop, like tomatoes, where the peas were planted.

Thus was my plan, to get some peas in early and then have the rest of the summer to grow tomatoes. The best laid plans ...

I planted about 120 seeds in my 4 EarthBoxes. You start with that many and then thin them out to about half that. I once had planted them in the boxes before but only planted in two boxes, and only 8 plants in each box, so I didn't have nearly enough to make a sufficient quantity of peas to eat. That's why I went with 120.

So I planted and, no sooner than I had, squirrels dug in the boxes and ruined the plantings. Did they eat the peas? No, they just were digging to see if they had left other stuff there. But they messed up the planting. So I tried to fix it, but many of the peas had been thrown from the box. I put a mix of black and cayenne pepper in the box to try to thwart this from happening again, and re-set as many of the seed peas as possible. Three days later, it rained and the pepper was washed away, so the squirrels came back to look for more stuff again. I should have stopped there.
much so for most any vegetable. Peas can take the cold, but they need sunlight daily to grow and this spring it may as well have been Seattle here. They didn't grow that well, and the lack of sunlight and preponderance of precipitation caused them not to produce many flowers, which in turn produce peapods.

So I finally get some peapods on the vines, but it is long past the time the peas should have been harvested normally. Now they were fighting with the tomatoes I had planted in the same boxes. I was expecting the peas to be finished by now.

So this past Monday, I had my first harvest of peas, and what a harvest it was:
. That bowl you see is a small cereal bowl, and there were exactly four teaspoons of peas there. Yesterday, I had my second harvest, about the same. I was so agitated I went out and pulled the little shits right there, swearing off growing peas ever again.

You have to understand how much I really love peas. From when I was a kid until the time I was 30 or so, my mom and dad would grow a large garden and there were always peas. I don't remember how many pea plants we had, but I'm thinking it must have been half a frigging acre's worth to produce the amount of peas we would have in a season. They would also plant potatoes, and the peas would be ready to harvest at about the time the potatoes would be the size of large walnuts - at that point, they are known as "new" potatoes - and my mom would fix a large dish of creamed new potatoes and peas and it was one of the best garden dishes ever. Even our friend Jeff still raves about them from when he stayed at my mom and dad's house years ago. I have always wanted to make them since, but it doesn't appear that I will be growing them myself.

Oh, and did I mention that this year's peas were probably the sweetest, best peas I have ever tasted in my life? They were incredible. But as plants, they suck. Screw peas. I am sticking to tomatoes from here on out.

Oh, and by the way, I don't know who ordered the cold spring we had in New York, but it really sucks. When we were in Kansas (and I will be writing more about that in a day or two), I was appalled to see how large our friends' tomato plants were! Mine were about 16 inches tall at that point and maybe 9 inches wide, while theirs were at least 42 inches tall and 30 inches wide! Because spring heats up sooner in Kansas, they plant tomatoes in March or April, while we have to wait until Memorial Day or later to plant. So they get a lot more tomatoes out of their plants and a lot longer growing season. Of course, they have to live in Kansas to do this, which is the trade-off...

Normally, Long Islanders might expect to have their first few tomatoes by the end of July. We are going to be lucky if we have them by the end of August.

I hope you're having a good weekend and I hope next weekend is a nice one for all, too. Summer can't come soon enough.

An old but good tip

2009-05-31T18:57:00.003-04:00

Ever go to someone else's house and the towels for your shower just don't smell fresh? In fact, they smell a bit mildewed or moldy? Nobody likes a stinky towel, especially a guest.

It's a common problem because the bathroom is often so humid and poorly ventilated that the towels stay damp for a long period of time, giving them the tendency to mildew; especially in the deep South, where the ambient humidity is routinely above 50%.

So, what's a good host to do to knock out the stinky towel syndrome?

When washing your next load of towels, add a cup of white vinegar (and do NOT use any other kind!) to the prewash soap, and then use your normal soap in the wash cycle. It may take a couple of washings using this regimen, but the odor will vanish like magic. You will be happy and so will your guests; unless, of course, you don't use softener and your towels feel like sandpaper. For shame.

White vinegar will not harm colors and, used in prewash, will leave no scent on your clothes.

Let's set a record!

2009-05-25T13:36:00.005-04:00

Okay, so this is three posts in two days. Nothing like a holiday weekend to give you enough time to get things done and post to the blog!

So, first things first. I went out this morning and more of the clematis had bloomed. I just had to take another shot!

I had to go to Lowe's this morning to get some Roundup for Poison Ivy, to kill off that nasty stuff I blogged about yesterday. While I was there, I couldn't help but wander on in to the garden center. I went around the side of the building and to the back, where they keep plants they don't have enough room for or that have gone, or are about to go - out of season. I was shocked to find a Sappho rhododendron back there...like the one I lost to the squirrels and drought last year. I was even more shocked to see the price. I paid $90 for the Sappho I bought last year from the nursery. (No one else was carrying Sappho last year, it's an unusual rhodo and it's just on the edge of its hardiness zone to be sold in this area.)

Granted, the nursery Sappho was in better shape than this one, and perhaps about 1/3 larger, but it was $90. But still...the one I found at Lowe's was $24.98. $24.98!! It needs a little TLC because it has been somewhat mistreated and underwatered, but it will come back with no problem. And for $24.98 to replace the one I bought last year that I was just sick about when it got eaten...well, I am in gardeners' heaven. You can be assured I won't be putting it in the same place as last year.

Here's a shot of the bloom on the Sappho. As I said, it's a little wilty, but that's okay, it's temporary...the poor thing was as dry as a bone. I can wait until next year when it should put on a very nice show after it's had a year to acclimate.

Now, a note about Lowe's...I can't say a lot for the quality of Lowe's nursery stock at time of purchase. Their people aren't gardeners for the most part, so plants are underwatered, overwatered, shade plants put in sun, sun plants put in shade...some are just beaten up. If you can buy their plants shortly after they arrive, you can get a good plant at a really good price, but every day that the stock stays there, the quality goes downhill. You will occasionally see sales on stock, which really make it worth the trip. I bought 18 impatiens there that totalled $5. They were small, but they don't take long to really get going. Earlier in the day, I had bought 18 at Home Depot that were about twice the size, but they were three times the price!

Here's our peach tree. This is its fourth season. For the past three years, I haven't been able to get a single peach from it. First year you plant it, you must pluck all blooms to encourage branch growth. Second year, squirrels got 9 of the 12 peaches that set, and the other three fell off before they ripened, probably because the squirrels go apeshit in the trees here. Third year, I only got two blooms...two...because I failed to realize that the forsythia that sits next to it was shading the branches the prior fall and winter and that is when the tree is working to produce its little blossom nubs. This year, I had hundreds of blossoms. It was amazing. I sprayed those puppies with Spray-n-Grow and they had about a 75-80% conversion rate! So I have been busy thinning the tiny little fruits from the branches in order to get a better end product. I am really excited about the fact that I have more than 100 peaches on the tree right now! Of course, squirrels will no doubt eat some of them, but it looks like this could finally be the year - knock on wood - that I get peaches. Whoo-hoo!

See the babies?

Here's another shot.

And yes, I know I show you this every year, but I always am so amazed at the loveliness of this Superstition iris...and it smells as lovely as it looks.

Now I can't wait for the gladiolus, callas and caladiums to come up!

Too much?

2009-05-25T09:01:00.003-04:00

Well, it's clear from that last post that I've been gone for a month. Holy cow, that was long. Paraphrased conversation following that post:

Marc: "Arrgh. Now I know why I don't blog that much. That was a long and tedious job."
Jess: "You know, you don't have to blog all this stuff in one post."
Marc: "Yes, I do."
Jess: "You could post it a bit at a time, in a few short posts instead of one gigantic post. Just a few pictures with each post instead of all of them."
Marc: "No, I couldn't. You can do that. I'd start and then forget to post the rest, or I'd get too tired of it or too busy to deal with it."
Jess: "I do it with my blog all the time. A few rubgy pictures in each post and it's not such a big task."
Marc: "I like to have everything at one time so I don't wind up posting stuff when it's two months old. Even stuff in this post was weeks behind."

I'm so neurotic and perfectionistic that I can't turn loose of a post until it's just the way I want it. And I don't want to create a post until I have all the stuff to make it nice. Unfortunately, that means that a lot of posts never make it here because I think they need pictures or links or other stuff that takes time to post.(sigh)

Will you still love me tomorrow?

Weekend

2009-05-10T19:12:00.025-04:00

One thing every weekend has in common: it's too short. Even the ones that have an extra day, like this one.

Two weekends ago I did some planting. With our friend Jeff's help, I put in Wave Petunias along the fence and planted a tree peony (above). You will find that the whole yard is all about purple and pink. Oh my gosh, the peonies smelled heavenly. We went to a rugby tournament Saturday and watched some hot boys play ball. Very hot. And lots of them.

That Saturday night, Jeff and I made some delicious cornflake-crusted cod with chili-cilantro aioli, some green and yellow baked squash, and some butter and herb deep dish potatoes, along with a wonderful pitcher of sangria...I'm still working on that sangria two weekends later. Yum.

I put in two rhododendrons four weekends ago, and also planted some basil, some peas, and a yellow bell pepper plant. The pink dogwood bloomed, the purple azalea bloomed, and little violets and vinca were blooming everywhere. Three weeks ago, the wood hyacinths were just beginning to bud.

That Sunday, we went to see Star Trek in IMAX. It was truly an experience, and one of my favorites of all the ST movies. First movie that I've ever seen in an IMAX theatre that wasn't just a "made-for-IMAX-movie" like "First in Flight" or some such. I have to say, between the sound and the screen, it was impressive. Now I'm ruined for seeing an action film any other way in the theatre. We rarely, rarely see a movie in the theatre, maybe once a year, if that. Usually we do Netflix. So when we do go see one in the theatre, it's a big deal. This was definitely worth the trip to the theatre. The characters were just terrific. I especially liked the guy who played McCoy, because he had the accent and delivery nailed. But the whole movie was amazing. And let me tell you, the Romulan villains are quite sexy. But hey, the chief bad guy is Eric Baña. What's not to like?

Last weekend I didn't get as much done gardening-wise. I did manage to get eight of my tomato plants into the ground or into EarthBoxes, and I got six Coral Bells heuchera in as well. But that was it. It was the weekend of our employee appreciation party. I emcee the ceremonies. Part of my job is to get the crowd energized and then introduce the CEO. Oh, I got them energized, all right. I led them in "Shout" by Otis Day and the Knights, and it went over VERY well. People were telling me I should be on American Idol. Ha, fat chance. But I can sing well, and that's something most people at work don't know about me. So they were quite surprised.

So this weekend began Friday evening. We judged the finals of LIGALY Out Idol, which we have been judging for about the last four years. This year was a lot harder than past years because we had three really talented kids in the finals. In prior years, it's pretty much been one standout amongst a mediocre crowd. Not this time. We crowned our winner, who is somewhat of an enigma: he has enlisted in the Marines and he is Republican. Unusual traits for someone on the team. A sweet kid, nonetheless. And a great voice.

Jess and I had had several discussions since seeing Star Trek that the IMAX theatre we saw it in wasn't "real" IMAX, meaning it wasn't in a theatre that used the true IMAX "surround" screen. We wished we could see it in the real IMAX, and it was playing in the IMAX theatre about five minutes from our house. This weekend was its final run there, and so we decided to check showtimes. Because another movie had opened there, Night at the Museum (barf), it was only playing at midnight each night until Monday. Well, we were on the road home from Idol at 11:30 and decided we were going to do it. When we got into the theatre, we sat in the middle, and during the previews we quickly realized that we had made a big mistake sitting there. We had our heads tilted all the way back into the headrest and up in order to see things, and the trailers for the previews nearly made us sick (Harry Potter...lots of flying and zooming camera angles) so Jess suggested we move to the top of the theatre, and we were so glad we did. It was still too intense, even from where we re-seated, just three rows from the top. We decided that maybe the real IMAX wasn't such a better venue after all. But I will say that it was every bit as good the second time. I could probably watch it 20 times and not get tired of it, it's that good.

So Saturday I got out and planted some more, and took some photos. I planted about 30 bulbs; some glads, some caladiums and some calla lilies.

Meanwhile, the clematis is really starting to put on a show. There's this one, which is my favorite color of purple ever. It's called H. E. Young, and this year it is bigger than last. It's a rebloomer, so it will bloom really nicely now, and then bloom again in about two months.

Here's a Nelly Moser clematis that's in its second year. Clematis take 3-4 years to really establish themselves before they become a bushy mass of flowers. I can't wait for this one to really go crazy. This is Jess' photo.

This is my photo of the same plant. Jess' camera is obviously a lot better than my automatic point-and-shoot, but my camera takes pretty good shots.

Here's a shot of the fence where Jeff and I planted the wave petunias, taken the day after we planted.

Here's the same fence shot, two weeks later, and the plants have nearly tripled in size and blooms. I can't wait until they really get bushy.

Here's a close-up of our pink mountain laurel. It has a couple of weeks before it blooms, this is just the bud phase. It's beautiful when it's in bloom. It has about four times as many blooms this year as last, when I planted it. Jess shot this. Isn't it lovely?

This is the small-leaf rhodo I planted three weeks ago. It's more like an azalea in size. Azaleas are members of the rhododendron family, so it's not surprising that they look so similar. I loved the soft pink color of this one.

Here's a close-up of a little azalea; it's in its second year after planting. It's a deciduous azalea and not an evergreen. The deciduous azaleas come in a wider variety of colors, hence the really cool purple color (more like a rhodo) that you can't get in an evergreen variety. I absolutely love this.

I like my rhodies to be different, and so I haven't bought the usual light purples that everyone else has...I've leaned toward more fuschia-colored varieties in the big rhodies, and I have been considering a white one as well. I bought a white one last year that the squirrels and slugs devoured before it could bloom, and then during the summer, it died due to dryness. The area where I had planted it wasn't getting enough irrigation from the sprinkler system. And this year, the nursery where I bought it didn't get that variety in its shipment, so I have to wait another year if I'm going to plant it...that's a big if right now.

So here is the rhodie I bought four weeks ago that has since bloomed. It's called Lord Roberts and it is fuschia-pink with a dark burgundy splotch in the throat. From the photo at the nursery, it looked redder, so I was a little annoyed that it turned out to be very close to the same color as the rhodie in the backyard, the only difference being in the flower throat.

See how closely this rhodie flower from the backyard resembles the one above from the front?

Here's a shot of Mandy enjoying time out in the sun while I planted. Jess took this, and I love this shot, it's so her.

Here's another rhodie tragedy. Last year, my Hachmann's Charmant rhododendron was new, and it bloomed beautifully, as seen here.

But then the slugs and squirrels feasted on it until it was just a shadow of its former self, with only three small branches left. I've replanted it in a place where the slugs aren't so well-traveled and I am hoping that it comes back. It has just one bloom this year. It was so lopsided that I had to plant it in the ground at a severe angle to make it look upright. I hope it comes back. It's one of the most beautiful rhodies I have ever seen.

The grapevine is starting to show its clusters. Every year, it puts on lots of clusters but they don't survive to fully ripe, and I haven't understood how to prune it. But when we visited the vineyards out east last summer, I paid attention to how they had theirs pruned and did mine similarly. I hope they produce something edible this year.

This is weigela (pronounced vy-guh-luh); it's somewhat like a deciduos azalea in that it's not evergreen. It has pretty little pink trumpet-shaped flowers, and the leaves are a bit reddish-green.

This is White Christmas Hosta, a white hosta with green accents that I just love. I am not a big fan of hosta, but I really like this.

Here's a long shot of the front yard. It's difficult to see where all the color is, but if you click on it to enlarge it, you can pan around and see it.

Today I planted some more annuals. I planted 36 impatiens in the front and back yards. During today's planting, I noticed some renegade leaves in the English Ivy that turned out to be a bunch of big vines. It had spread everywhere. I pulled and pulled this crap; some of it was really entrenched and I don't think I quite got all of it. I worked on the ground portion of it for about 15-20 minutes, when I noticed it was also climbing in one of the trees. So I worked on that for a bit, but as I looked up into the leaves on the tree, I noticed tiny little flowering mechanisms on the plant that were unusual. And that's when it came over me that I might be in big trouble. I ran in and asked Jess to look up poison ivy photos on the Net. He did, and it was. Fortunately, I have never been sensitive to it, and apparently am still not, because I didn't break out. I calmly walked into the house, removed my clothes and threw them into the washer, then took a shower. No reaction. Hooray.

That's all for now. Hopefully it won't be another month before I post again, but who knows? Next month, we'll be in Kansas at my family reunion and the week after that, I'll be in the strawberry fields on the east end of the island picking the crop for my annual canning of preserves. I can't wait for that.

Pioneer

2009-04-26T09:14:00.005-04:00

Lady Godiva was a freedom rider –
She didn't care if the whole world looked.
Joan of Arc, with the Lord to guide her –
She was a sister who really cooked!

And Isadora was the first bra burner,
Ain't ya glad she showed up?
Mmmm hmmm, and when the country was fallin' apart,
Betsy Ross got it all sewed up!

And then there's Maude (and then there's Maude),
And then there's Maude (and then there's Maude),
And then there's Maude (and then there's Maude),
And there there's...
That uncompromisin', enterprisin, anything-but-tranquilizin'
Right-on Maude!

From the moment I first saw her in the episode of All in the Family as out-of-town cousin Maude from Tuckahoe, who promptly put the bullying Archie in his well-deserved place, I loved Beatrice Arthur. Maude made her a household name, and she played the part brilliantly, but she was so much more than her saucy, sassy character. And as Dorothy Zbornak on The Golden Girls, she continued to deliver her raw, acerbic wit with grace and style.

I grew up in a very, very conservative household where topics of women's lib, abortion, premarital sex, menopause and bralessness were rarely brought up, let alone discussed. While my dad liked All in the Family, my mother didn't like it, so it was not watched if she was in the house. He didn't really like Maude much (she was too liberated for his tastes), and my mother would never allow that show to be watched in her presence, so I had to sneak my watching in when I could. Fortunately, we moved into a new house about eight months after the show launched, and the TV was "banished" from the living room to the basement. I liked that because I could then watch whatever I wanted as long as I kept the volume low enough.

About four years ago, Jess and I saw Ms. Arthur in a one-woman Broadway show and I came away with an entirely new appreciation for her because the show really let you see Bea and not just her characters. She was truly a pioneer of stage and screen. Bea, may you rest in sweet peace.

MIA

2009-04-25T22:18:00.002-04:00

So I have been missing here for quite some time. My laptop was stolen at the beginning of the month and so I am using Jess' laptop until I can get a new computer...and I just don't have the time to keep up the blog at this point. I am considering shutting down the blog altogether because I have just become so lame at posting anything and really don't have the energy to keep it up as I would like. I haven't made up my mind yet, but I'm strongly considering it.

Um...yeah

2009-03-11T21:11:00.003-04:00

Does anybody else think it's a sign of the apocalypse that in world news, we have Madonna and Jesus; Madonna who, coincidentally, is old enough to be Jesus' mother; and that they are undoubtedly doing the nasty? You can't make this stuff up. It is just too twisted for color TV.

Long time coming

2009-02-09T21:15:00.003-05:00

Okay, so I haven't posted in more than a month...and so much has gone on during that month. I had ear surgery last month, and I am still recovering from that. I am really tired of the dry mouth and constantly metallic taste in my mouth that has come with the surgery. It really throws off my sense of taste and I have to drink a lot of water to keep the dry mouth at bay. I hope that it will go away in another week or two. Fortunately, the numbness toward the back of my tongue has pretty much faded. You wouldn't think all this came with ear surgery, but it did, it has, and I hope it doesn't stick around. On the positive side, I can hear in my right ear for the first time in more than 15 years, which is very rewarding.

Jess took this personality DNA test, which I found intriguing since it pretty accurately captured his personality. He found out about it from Will over at Designer Blog. I took the test and found out that I am an "encouraging architect".

On another topic, we have some blogger friends who are just terrific; some of the nicest people we know we have met though blogging. Well, Jess has met most of them and introduced them to me, I can't take credit for many of our blogging friends. At any rate, our friend Byrne, whom we met through a fellow blogger, is a real gem. When he learned of the vandalism at the GLBT youth center we support, he immediately went online to their site and made a $300 donation, and then he was kind enough to approach Joe.My.God to request he post it to his audience, which he did (thanks, Joe!) and many of whom responded with donations as well. Byrne, you're the best. Our friend Puaknitted us some beautiful scarves "just because", which we received in the mail today. Now I can't wait for it to get cold again...and I hate the cold! In spite of things being turned somewhat upside-down for her right now, she took the time to make something nice for us. Nice! Same for Karen, who sent us some nice chocolate chip cookies for Christmas. Yum.

Okay, that's it for now. More in a few days. I'm hoping to post some pictures of the scarves that Pua made for us.

And speaking of cake...

2009-01-04T10:13:00.002-05:00

I have had several people ask me for the recipe for the peanut butter dog birthday cake, which is basically a yellow cake with peanut butter icing. In high school, the chief of the cafeteria was someone who attended church where we did, and she was a terrific cook. (When there were church potlucks, I would always ask to determine what dishes were hers, because hers were the only dishes as good as my mom's.) So I don't have the complaints of horrible high school food like so many people I know, because the food was always great. It was always a red-letter day when the dessert was peanut butter cake.

This peanut butter part of this cake is all about the frosting, but the best thing is that the cake itself is just the way I like cake: very dense and moist. It's not very yellow unless you choose to put some food coloring in it, which I never do, it's just barely yellow...but I can practically guarantee if you like peanut butter you'll love this. It's also great with chocolate frosting or banana frosting (and I am not talking from a can), but the peanut butter is my favorite, and the peanut butter is something I don't have to worry about with the dogs.

The other nice thing? You can mix this with a good hand mixer all in one bowl and dump it into the pan. And it freezes well so that if you're one person (hint, hint Pete) you can make it and not worry about the leftovers.

Fantastic (Semi-)Yellow Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 Tbsp baking POWDER
1 1/2 cups milk (12 ozs)
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 Tbsp vanilla
2 eggs

In a large mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients so that baking powder is distributed well throughout. Add milk, softened butter and vanilla and beat at low speed with electric mixer until ingredients are combined, then beat at high speed for two minutes. Add eggs, beat two minutes. Pour into 9 x 13 cake pan. Bake at 375F for 30 minutes for 9 x 13 pan, or 20-25 minutes for round pans (pans must not be touching), or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean; there will be some light browning. Cool thoroughly.

(Variation: you can also add a teaspoon of finely grated lemon zest to the flour mixture, and you will frost with lemon frosting)

Peanut Butter Frosting:
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
4 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
2 tsps vanilla
extra milk for consistency

Beat peanut butter with 2 cups of the powdered sugar, beating well. Slowly beat in milk and vanilla, and then gradually beat in remaining sugar. If mixture is too thick to spread, add milk 1 tablespoon at a time and beat in until desired consistency is achieved (not more than two tablespoons). Spread on cake. Cover tightly until ready to use.

This cake is best on the day after you make it, so if you can make this a day in advance, you should!

They had their cake and ate it, too...

2009-01-02T15:30:00.007-05:00

So, yesterday being January 1, it was Bernice's and Dodger's birthday party. Bernice is 11 and Dodger is 8. In human years, that is. In dog years, that's anyone's guess, because different breeds have different lifespans, different co-morbidities, etc., that determine their lifespan.

Whatever. What matters is that every year, you give the dog the best you have to offer and treat him/her as you would like to be treated if you didn't have any way to communicate other than a raised paw, barking/growling, crying or running around like crazy. Oh yes, and one of the most important things, don't overfeed. That's especially cruel for older dogs who naturally have more difficulty getting around.

I learned the lesson on overfeeding at a very young and impressionable age from an aunt with a chihuahua named Trixie, whom she spoiled rotten. I suppose she thought that her spoiling was just puppy love, but Trixie was fed table scraps all the time. While she was well-behaved with company and food, it was only because she knew that my aunt was the one to go to for the food and not company. Trixie was so overweight that at 5, her hips started giving her problems, and by the time she was 7, she had such problems walking and breathing that she had to be put to sleep. Now that just isn't right. I never forgot that, and I always held that against my aunt. Jess is also extremely animal welfare-conscious and, as a result, we keep our dogs in excellent shape. The vet always compliments us on how trim they are. Table scraps are the exception rather than the rule, and they only eat dry foods, with biscuits for treats; no soft foods or treats that would cause dental problems.

But two times a year (on the birthdays), our dogs are spoiled. The doggie parties usually feature a peanut butter cake, and this year was no exception. The problem was that I gave them a little too much each. They attacked the bowls of cake and Bernice and Mandy managed to flop their cake out of the bowl and frosting-side down on the kitchen floor. It was a mess, but you've never seen happier dogs. Mandy was so enamored of it that she continued to go to everyone's bowl and see if she couldn't find some more crumbs.

Happy birthday, kids, and many more, okay? You're the closest thing we'll have to children and we hope we've given you great lives so far.

Happy New Year 2009

2008-12-31T23:23:00.002-05:00

Well, I'd like to wish all of you a happy New Year. 2009 can't be much worse than 2008, can it?

Okay, so we were not about to watch Ryan Seacrest and the sad state of Dick Clark, so we watched New Year's Eve LIVE on CNN, with what turned out to be the painful pairing of Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin. While I like both of them separately, together they were awful. Kathy was over-the-top obnoxious and Anderson was as nervous as a whore in church. Kathy kept talking over him, interrupting him constantly, to the point it wasn't fun. It was painful in places. While he did manage to get in a several bitchy comments, it just didn't work. And speaking of not working, CNN had so many technical difficulties with the switch-offs to other reporters that it makes you wonder how they run a network for their day job.

I think the best thing for the country in 2009 is that Dubya will not be running it after January 20. I have my fingers crossed that Obama does a better job.

In which I become a butch contractor

2008-12-28T23:52:00.003-05:00

Occasionally, I take off the cook's apron and put on the contractor's apron. Today, I wore both. I made chicken fajitas for dinner and some fresh guacamole that really rocked. We were both very happy with them.

Later, however, we began discussing the fact that we may be having several guests for New Year's Eve, and this would present a problem if some of said guests were to sleep over and occupy the upstairs guest room, since the upstairs shower has a bit of an embarrassing eyesore. You see, because our fuck-up contractor didn't do the tile job right, a problem has arisen within the last 8 months where the grout began cracking and crumbling out of the tile joints. This led to tiny amounts of water seeping behind the grout. And because aforementioned loser contractor didn't install the bathroom ventilation fan I specified, but instead used an inferior cheap-shit it's-what-I-could-get-at-Home-Depot-because-I-was-too-lazy-to-go-to-the-
specialty-store-and get-what-you-specified model, we have an issue with getting moisture out of that bathroom easily.

So all this leads to mold and mildew issues. Well, eight months ago, I had to re-caulk the tiles to the shower pan because the grout was beginning to crumble and the caulk was starting to peel. Yes, only three years into the remodel, and we're already having to play fix-it. Four months ago, the re-caulked area was peeling in a couple of places (because that's what re-caulking often does), so I (re-)re-caulked. When I was doing that caulking, the grout had so deteriorated that I had to dig much of it out of the seam. I made the mistake of not re-grouting, but instead filling the seams with caulk. Caulk is difficult to work with and sets up very quickly, so you have to work very fast when applying it. Apparently I didn't get the caulk to completely fill the seam to its full depth, so there were air pockets that allowed moisture and air to be trapped behind it, and within three months, I noticed that there were particular areas of the caulk that were beginning to change color. I scrubbed with Soft Scrub with Bleach, with bathroom cleaner and Lysol Mold & Mildew remover, but to no avail since the mold was behind the caulk and coming through it.

So tonight, I had to dig out all the old caulk and remaining pieces of grout and start over again. Having learned my lesson regarding using caulk as filler, I went to the garage and found the bag of caulk that the contractor had left, mixed it up and grouted the tile to the shower pan, taking great pains to squeeze the grout into the joints and get them filled completely. And it looks damned good, too. In a couple of days when it has cured, I will then caulk over the grout to give it water protection at the edge where it needs it most, and let that cure for 24 hours, which will be just enough time to have it ready for guests.

Sometimes the butch side of me surprises even me. If my dad were alive, he'd take the credit for that, I am sure, because from my childhood to the day he died, I can count on one hand the number of times he had to call a contractor for anything. He did everything himself: fixed cars, installed sinks, installed lighting, hung crown molding, laid linoleum flooring, installed tile, put new Formica on my mom's countertops and dining table, unclogged drains, built our TVs from kits, rebuilt carburetors, assembled and finished furniture, laid brick, poured cement expertly for driveways, steps and patios, built a fully-engineered shingled and guttered patio cover, and hundreds of other projects. He often asked me to help him or watch him do these things so that I could do them later, but I was not interested in most of these things and had the attention span for them of a gnat, so I learned very few of them. I am sure if he were alive, he'd remind me that if only I had paid better attention when I was a youngster, I could have saved a lot of money doing things myself; to which I would probably reply: "I'd rather pay someone to do it than have to do it myself." But for little jobs like this one, it feels good to know what to do and how.

Something nice for Christmas...

2008-12-25T10:56:00.004-05:00

...on Christmas day, no less! Not an easy feat when you're working from almost 400 miles away and given the very limited delivery options.

Let's rewind, briefly. About 10:15 this morning, Jess and I were having a conversation about Christmas cards and who we hadn't heard from this year. We got fewer cards this Christmas than we had in the past, and we were comparing that also with the more limited number of Christmas baskets that we received at our respective offices. Not that we minded, just observing. We usually hear from Tuna and her crew at Christmas and hadn't...we were waiting to get her card so that we would have an address for her to send her card, since the Tuna clan moved not that long ago.

Back to present: at about 10:30 this morning, the doorbell rang and the dogs went crazy. I'm thinking, "it's Christmas! Who the heck is coming over unannounced on Christmas?!" We were not at all dressed for a visitor, and the house was hardly visitor-worthy either, so a little twinge of dread swept through me. But as I looked through the visitor viewer, a simultaneous flush of relief, curiosity and excitement came over me.

It was the mailman. On Christmas day.

About 15 years ago, the US Postal Service started delivering Express Mail on Christmas Day, and they later expanded that to include Priority Mail.

Now the question was, "who the heck is sending us a package on Christmas day?!"

Lo, and behold, it was a big box...from Tuna Girl! And inside?

Two dozen delicious chocolate chip cookies, neatly wrapped in pairs in plastic wrap and packed into a sealed container.

And they are delicious. What a great gift! Now we have cookies to enjoy on Christmas and we don't even have to bake! Woo-hoo!

Thanks, Karen and family...that really made our day!

And Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah and a blessed Kwanzaa to all.

A week of delicious food

2008-11-30T21:14:00.003-05:00

Two weeks ago we were in Penn Station and killing some time in a magazine and convenience store. We were looking through a Cooking Light magazine and saw a few interesting recipes so we decided to buy it. My previous experience with it was only okay, and I wasn't that sure that it would be worth the trouble.

However, this past week, we made three recipes from the magazine or its online version. The first was a Potato, Corn and Leek Chowder that turned out spectacularly, thanks in part to 1) my having homemade chicken broth on hand to put into it and 2) I read comments online that it wasn't thick enough and so I added 2 tablespoons more flour than it called for. I don't make many soups, and this one was time-consuming, but I would have to say it was the best soup I ever made.

The second recipe was for Turkey Noodle Soup. It was suggested as a way to use leftover turkey from the Thanksgiving meal and, fresh off the success with the chowder, we thought it might be good to try. It was wonderful. I will definitely be making it again as chicken noodle soup. It was relatively easy prep, it was very filling and once again, having my own homemade chicken stock on hand in the freezer was what put it over the top.

Finally, tonight we made Spicy Chicken Sandwiches with Cilantro-Lime Mayo. The interest in this dish was the breading of the cutlets: it used egg substitute instead of eggs, and it used Baked Tostitos that had been ground to powder in the food processor for the flour. The cutlets were marinated for two hours in the egg, along with salt, some Franks Red Hot sauce (I prefer it over Tabasco) and oregano. They might have been even better if marinated longer, but they were pretty terrific as they were. Served on a roll with lettuce and onion and the cilantro-lime mayo, they were quite delicious, and I would definitely make them again, even for company.

All in all, a great week for food, especially with the Thanksgiving meal we had, with some spectacular sweet potatoes that even I liked.

I want to be done...

2008-11-30T21:08:00.000-05:00

...but I am not yet done. Today, I baked 400 (yes, 400) cookies as part of the holiday candy prep. I'm more than two-thirds of the way done with the whole ball of wax, but I am tired and ready to be done. The problem is, I can't just quit at this point and say, "Okay. That's all I'm doing," because I have several batches of centers that are already made and waiting to be dipped. I also have to finish another 32 Key Lime Pie candies, because I only have about 25 at this point and 25 won't be enough to do more than one tray, because the two largest trays go to Jess' office and my administrative office. There's also a tray that goes to my staff, and they are expecting the Key Lime candies, as are my administrative staff, so I have to make more. Thirty-two may not seem like many, but they are time-consuming and difficult. Grrr.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

Valley Stream, NY: Shame knows no bounds

2008-11-28T23:02:00.002-05:00

The news that a rabid mob literally broke the doors of the Wal-Mart in Valley Stream and trampled a 34-year-old greeter in their bloodlust for bargain-priced merchandise is not just sickening, it clearly illustrates the level this country has sunk to when it comes to the value of courtesy, decency and human life.

What is wrong with people?

I witnessed this type of mob violence at an early age when I was a teenager working at K-mart. At that time, K-mart had blue light specials that ran for seven minutes each. The blue light box was on wheels, rolling from department to department. One of the store managers was pushing the blue light while another employee marked the merchandise, and a third employee (me) was assigned to assist the manager and the "tagger" keep things rolling smoothly by passing the tagged merchandise to the shoppers and warning shoppers that they must have the merchandise tagged with the special price or they would not receive the sale.

On this particular night, people were literally chasing the blue light from area to area. One shopper brazenly locked her fingers under one of the belt loops on the evening manager's pants (Angels Flight - they were practically sprayed on), which caused our very sassy manager to turn around and remark, "Lady, my ass is not up for grabs. Please let go." She complied, but she continued to follow closely and when the blue light arrived in the toy department, the employee began marking the dolls with the sale price and the ass-handling woman put herself in charge of handing dolls out to the right side of the crowd while I handed to the left side. She was handing them off to some other woman behind her, who was handing them back through the crowd. Everything was going fine, if maniacally, until the end of the doll supply was reached, and the tagger shouted, "last one!" Ms. Grab-ass tightly clutched the doll in her grip. Trouble was, the woman who was behind her hadn't kep a doll for herself and she was determined to have one. So she shouted at Ms. Grab-ass, "that one is MINE!" and attempted to snatch the doll from her. Ms. Grab-ass yanked back and beat the woman over the head with the doll, as she screamed that it was hers. Others began to try and take the doll from the woman.

I ran to the nearest phone to make an overhead page using the store code for all management to report to the area...which they did, and fortunately the fighting was quickly quelled. But the two women wound up in a police cruiser giving their reports to the officers, and all because they couldn't stand losing a good deal on the dolls, which were $3 off. The woman nearly put out the other woman's eye for three damned dollars. I never forgot that night. It demonstrated for me how stupid and pathetic people can be in the quest for themselves.

I have to praise the Wal-Mart trampling victim's father, who was incredibly composed and didn't rebuke. He stated that he could not speak against anyone, that it would not be appropriate. He praised his son as a kind young man, and I marveled at how he truly lived his beliefs by refusing to call for vengeance.

This brazen disregard for the welfare of others is becoming more and more prevalent, and it shows up everywhere, especially in traffic. People are too selfish to go around the block when they discover they're in the wrong lane, so they cut off a number of other drivers to crowd into a lane to make a turn. They value their own time more than everyone else's, so in a long line of traffic, they suddenly pull out of the line into heavy traffic, causing everyone else to stand on their brakes, while they run up the line and see if they can cut in fifteen cars ahead. They pull out into busy roadways from side streets and leave their front ends hanging out there so as to cause the oncoming traffic to have to swerve away, endangering others. It's really sickening.

Last week, I was in a Wal-Mart and was standing in the line for the self-serve checkouts. There's a single line that forms for all four registers so that the next person on line has the benefit of being able to go to whichever register clears next.

I had just progressed to the front of the line when a man brazenly walked by the entire line of waiting people, of which there were about seven of us, and walked up behind a man at one of the other self-serve checkouts, as if he would wait behind that man. I was just about to tell him where the line was when another register cleared, so I was directed to it by an employee who was watching the line rather irregularly. I went, but as I did, I motioned to the employee that Mr. Line-cutter had bypassed the line. The employee went over to the man and showed him the line, at which point the man in front of him finished and the line-cutter basically told the employee to kiss his ass and started to try to initiate his transaction. At this point, the next person waiting in line (who had been behind me) arrived at the scene and told the line-cutter to go to end of the line. This distraction gave the employee the break he needed, and he quickly touched the screen and did a transaction to close the register, forcing the line-cutter to leave the register. The fact that the line-cutter had the balls to wave his self-importance like a big flag to the rest of the people in the line really surprised and annoyed me. But I was glad the timing worked out as it did. I rarely shop Wal-Mart, and this type of activity is a very big part of the reason. It seems to be where this particular breed of person hangs out.

I don't know what the world is coming to, but this kind of activity almost makes me ashamed to live on Long Island tonight. This certainly has nothing to do with the spirit of Christmas or Chanukah or Kwanzaa or any other holiday. The evil that men do...

Time to make the candy

2008-11-22T22:04:00.003-05:00

Every year around this time, my candymaking goes into full swing. This year I got an early start because I wanted to have enough ready to take a box to Mario. We give Mario and his partner Jerry a box of goodies every year, and usually we see them at some point around the holidays. This year was a little early, though, since Mario was headlining at Caroline's last Sunday, so there was some scrambling to get stuff done. Thankfully, I had Jeff helping me last weekend or I would have never been ready.

At any rate, I had worked to get some stuff started before Byrne visited, about two weeks ago. I had made my hot peanut brittle, cashew brittle, caramel candy and about 6 lbs. of fudge. But that wasn't nearly enough variety. The following week, four batches of cookie dough: dark chocolate with peanut butter chips, chocolate chips and brickle; chocolate chip; gingered oatmeal raisin; and peanut butter. They all turned out nicely, but the oatmeal raisin dough turned out a little thinner than I like it, so the cookies really flatten out. But oh, do they taste spectacular. My massage therapist was sampling for me and said, "I don't even like raisins, and I love these! They're crazy good!" That made me happy.

So last week I was busy preparing for Sunday. I made up the centers for my cherry bon bons and coconut bon bons, and I also made some of my signature key lime pie chocolates in the new molds I bought this year. Those are about everyone's favorite, but they are incredibly time-consuming and labor-intensive.

I only dipped a small number of the bon bons since I was short on time; I'd do the rest of them later. The other problem was that I didn't have enough of my usual chocolate on hand to dip them. I typically only use two brands, Ghirardelli and Merckens. I used to get my Ghirardelli blocks from Trader Joe's but they quit carrying it about three weeks before I went into candymaking mode! And the only way I can get Merckens is by mail order, which takes about a week or so. So instead, I went to a local high-end market in search of some good block chocolate.

The chocolate I bought turned out to be a disaster. I went with a grade of fairly expensive Guyanese chocolate that I was told was very good. It was a bit too bitter, for starters, and it would not temper correctly, so it made grey streaky lines on everything I dipped, which made my blood boil. I had bought 6 lbs. of it, and I took four lbs. of it back, having wasted two lbs. trying to get the temper right.

I replaced it with Callebaut, whose white chocolate I had used with great success, but whose dark chocolate I had not tried. What a disaster. When I began to temper it, I quickly discovered that it didn't temper at the same heat that most chocolate did (89-91F), it tempered out at about 102. So the first tempering didn't work and I had to start over again...and the tempering takes about 45 minutes each time. What a pain in the butt. And its tempering "window" was also tight. It was 101-102F or nothing. The stuff got so thick when it got below 101 that you couldn't work with it.

All this time, I'm thinking, "I am so screwed on chocolate and I should have just ordered the mail order stuff and waited on it." But a couple of days ago, I happened to be running a quick errand in Wal-Mart and it caught my eye that the giant Hershey Bars were on sale for $1.25; dirt cheap! You should know that I despise Hershey's Milk Chocolate. It's about the rottenest tasting milk chocolate there is, and I won't eat it. But I do like Special Dark, and since dark chocolate is what I use to dip with, I picked up about 4 lbs of Special Dark bars and got out of there for about half of what I had paid for the Callebaut, and about a third of what I had paid for the Guyanese chocolate before that. And you know something? The candies I dipped in the Special Dark not only came out beautifully, they taste great. I'll not be bothering with the expensive stuff any more.

So today, I have dipped coconut bon bons and made another batch of hot peanut brittle. I get raves on the peanut brittle every year, and it's one of the things I run out of first, so I made extra this year. Well, the first batch had turned out just perfectly: you eat it and it has a great taste, and then you get a nice spicy burn right at the end. It's not blazing or anything, just nicely spicy. But today's batch was something else. The only difference between it and other batches was a single habanero pepper, but that one pepper was the difference between nice and naughty. Today's batch is hot enough that it will not appeal as widely as the mild stuff. It really kicks your ass. It'll have to be served with a warning.

Last night, we went into the city to see our friend Patrick in some off-off-off Broadway theatre, which was a lot of fun. This is one of the things I love about New York; there isn't just theatre on Broadway, it's everywhere, and there's enough variety to suit about any taste. The fun part was that Patrick had not only written his piece, he performed it, and it was so engaging. It was very evocative and it really made you think about the things you take for granted (but enjoy nevertheless) in everyday life. At least that's what it was for me. At any rate, when the performance was over, we went with the rest of the cast over to a pub/eatery and had some dinner and fun conversation with Patrick, and Kate, the woman who ran the lighting. It was a nice evening and a much-needed break.

Tonight, Jess is at a black-tie gala for his work and I am sitting here blogging, having finished with the candy for today. Tomorrow is another day, as Scarlett O'Hara said, and I hope to complete a lot more candy tomorrow. I still have peanut clusters, cashew clusters, some more key lime pie chocolates to make, and I still have some cherry bon bons to dip. I also have to bake the cookie dough I've got sitting the downstairs fridge.

Now THAT's a big surprise

2008-11-15T09:05:00.007-05:00

Yesterday, Jess sends me an e-mail message at work. Because they have had a rough couple of weeks, he had them organize a little party for Friday to lighten the mood. They responded with fun and games, one being Pin the Tail on the Donkey.

When it was Jess' turn, here was his result (his tail was #16):

He was so proud of his accomplishment that he sent me the foregoing cellphone photo of his work. Amazing, you say? Eh, not so much to me. I was NOT surprised that he could find ass blindfolded (not HIS ass, mind you, I mean ass in general). Those of you who know him well will know what I'm talking about.

Love you, honey!

America gets it right: President Barack Obama

2008-11-04T23:11:00.002-05:00

It's hard to express what I'm feeling right now, but elation would be a good word for it. America has gotten it right. Finally, a president we can be proud of after eight long years of total embarrassment to the U.S. and the world, and an economy in ruin, with a surplus turned into the largest deficit in history.

While I do remain concerned about president-elect Obama's foreign policies, I think his economic policies are exactly what this country needs, and I think that the world will have much more respect for the U.S. with Mr. Obama in the White House.

Good luck, Mr. President-elect. America needs you now. You are fortunate to have a Congress that can really help you accomplish the things you have promised. You have opportunities to change the country for the better with Supreme Court justice seats that will no doubt open during your term. It isn't going to be easy, but the opportunity is there. I hope you make the country proud.

And by the way, John McCain's very gracious concession speech surprised even me, who has been jaded by his absolute spitefulness during this campaign.

In a pickle

2008-10-26T16:12:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I'm working on an idea. It calls for pickled ginger, and so I wondered how much better and fresher it would taste if I pickled the ginger myself rather than buying it from the Asian supermarket.

It's quite easy to pickle ginger; you just need a mandoline to slice the ginger into paper-thin slices. Slice it up, salt it and let it set for half an hour or so, then drop it into a sterilized jar and cover in a boiling bath of rice vinegar mixed with sugar and let it set until cooled before covering and refrigerating. So as I was finishing up, I was directed by Jess that I needed to review the recipe because there was another instruction after cooling the ginger.

Here was the instruction that followed:
Taste piece of ginger and wretch uncontrollably. Try not to vomit from hideous flavor of ginger.

Did I mention that Jess hates ginger? He also doesn't like vinegar much, either. I'd say he wrote that last instruction in. He'd tell you that's a dirty lie.

Fresh? Not exactly.

2008-10-25T21:47:00.002-04:00

Michelle Ann and Anita are sure to love this one.

I make holiday candy every year, and I usually start around now, when the weather begins to turn cold enough that I can store the candy in the garage without worrying about the heat ruining it.

So I've already made a batch of cashew brittle, and this morning I was lining up my ingredients for a batch of hot pepper peanut brittle.

I pulled a bag of peanuts from the freezer and put them on the counter to thaw while I started boiling the sugar syrup.

At some point I glanced down at the package and was startled by what I read: EXP OCT 98.

So I am apparently a FIFO (first-in, first-out) kind of cook when it comes to ingredient accounting, which isn't good. Fortunately, I always check those freshness dates when I am baking.

So, from the expiration date, these nuts were purchased for the 1997 holiday season...my first holiday season living in New York. We were living in our little apartment in Roslyn. It's a big surprise to me that these peanuts traveled from the apartment to the old house and then to this house. Wow. Those nuts have seen so much since 1997.

By the way, nuts can be successfully kept in the freezer and stay fresh for up to 36 months. Eleven years is a little over the top, though.

Cape Cod weekend

2008-10-17T19:16:00.002-04:00

Ah, the enjoyment of a couple of days off.

We drove up to Cape Cod last Friday to spend the long holiday weekend there at the charming and cozy Whalewalk Inn, a lovely bed and breakfast located in Eastham. The grounds were beautiful, the room was lovely and the owners were very cordial. Our room, on the second floor of the rear house, was like a treehouse...the house was built into a rise so that the second floor was actually high above the ground, and our terrace looked out over a large, secluded clearing. It was so nice to step just outside the room onto the landing at the top of the stairs, where coffee was waiting each morning, and then slipping quietly back into the room and onto the terrace, where the slight chill in the air was just enough to wake you up without being bracing.

Our ulterior motive to be accomplished with this trip was meeting Greg, our blogging friend from The Midnight Garden, whom we decided was real, after all! Greg has recently moved into a new place and had done a nice job of decorating. His cat, Badum (or should I say, "ba-dum!"), was a charmer...he was really very un-catlike. Surprisingly, Greg's place was less than a quarter-mile down the same road our bed and breakfast was on! We had a nice bit of conversation before Jess drove the three of us to Hyannis to pick up another blogging friend, Patrick, from the bus terminal, and when we returned, it was time to make dinner...and drinks.

I had brought some of the chicken and noodles I had made and frozen a few weeks ago, along with a loaf of challah that I had baked and frozen a week or so earlier. That was Friday night's dinner. The chicken and noodles weren't thawed by the time we were ready to eat, so I had to finish thawing them in the pan as I heated them up, and the noodles promptly disintegrated from all the stirring. That was disappointing. So we wound up with very thick chicken soup. Oh, well. The challah wasn't as moist as I would have liked, having lost some moisture from freezing...but it was still good. I thought the blackberry cosmopolitans turned out great, though. Overall, I'd give the meal a B-, but the company was an A!

That was Friday night. Saturday, Greg had to work, so we had lunch together at this great little hometown place called Home Port. What a terrific place. Jess and I had clam chowder, fried clams, french fries and slaw. The chowder was quite good and the fries – oh, the fries! – were some of the best I had ever eaten. Really crispy, really brown and potato-y and just incredible. Then Greg was off to work while Patrick, Jess and I took a drive to Provincetown.

P'town was quite busy for it being so late in the year. I didn't mind it, but Jess was less than amused with the traffic and the crowds. I was on a mission to get a shirt and some fudge. Fortunately, many of the shirt shops were clearing out their 2008 inventories and had big discounts. I bought a nice t-shirt for 50% off, about $12. Jess also bought some great coffee mugs at a shop that was having a 70% off sale. I hit two different fudge shops on Commercial St, south of the pier, remembering that somewhere along Commercial, there was a shop that made really great fudge. Those two shops weren't it: their respective offerings looked totally unappetizing. In fact, there was a penuche product in one of the shops that literally looked liked someone threw up in the pan. But a little further up Commercial, we walked into Provincetown Fudge Factory and found the chocolate bliss I had been searching for. The peanut butter chocolate fudge was the best of the three we ordered (rocky road and chocolate coconut were the other two) and it was truly delicious. They ship anywhere. Yum.

Leaving P'town, we briefly stopped at a beach to snap a photo or two, then went back to Orleans for some dinner, which we had at a local seafood place. It was okay for me, but Patrick and Jess really enjoyed their dinners. After dinner, we went back to the B&B, had some more of those blackberry cosmos, and sat outside, enjoying the chill in the air and the stars in the sky.

Next day, I was on another mission for some chocolate, but not fudge. I had noticed an article in one of the magazines in the room about the large number of chocolatiers on the Cape, and one in particular had my attention. The Wellfleet Candy Company, located in South Wellfleet, about 9 miles north from Eastham, was everything the magazine promised and more. I was very excited when I called them to see if they were open that day: the owner herself answered and replied, "we're not only open, we're in production today, so it's a great day to visit!" That would be Jade Huber, a positively delightful person who was there in the kitchen working on a batch of turtles and was truly engaging as we discussed chocolate and candy theory and we sampled some of the things they were making as well as some of the truffles they had ready for sale. Trust me when I tell you that her truffles are magnificent, especially the oyster-shaped ones which are genuinely works of art. There was a peanut butter and jelly truffle that was excellent; a mint truffle that was bursting with the flavor of freshly pressed mint direct from the garden; the Elsa truffle, which was sinfully rich with a dark chocolate coating covering a dark chocolate center.

I bought three oysters and two regular truffles to take back to my employees at work, as well as a small box for Jess and me, and what a response I got from my employees as they sampled them! These are some of the most expensive chocolates you will eat, but worth it. If for nothing else than to see the beautifully, artfully designed oyster truffles, you must make a stop at Wellfleet Candy Company when you visit the Cape. Or order online, of course. And tell Jade I told you about her! Remember, people: Wellfleet Candy Company. Jade Huber. Fabulous.

We made a stop for lunch at Arnold's Restaurant. The fried clams and onion rings were so light they nearly floated off the table, and the clam chowder was wonderful. The lobster roll sandwich we ordered was okay, but I have had better, and for what they were charging, it should have been larger. The place was expensive for the type of restaurant it is. Overall, I'd say it was good, but not worth a long wait in line like we saw on Saturday afternoon and evening. The place is an order-at-the-counter, grab-a-table-and-sit-down affair, very low overhead, very loud. We were lucky enough to get a table outside and enjoy the sunshine and beautiful temperatures.

After an afternoon of candy shopping in Chatham and Dennisport I was unimpressed. I can make better candy at home than either of the shops those towns offered. We headed back to Orleans.

We met Greg after his short workday and drove into town for a wonderful dinner at Abba. It had been highly recommended by our innkeeper and she wasn't wrong. The food was very good: local foods with an asian influence, all delicious. Very much like what you'd expect in New York, and I don't offer that kind of praise lightly. Afterward, we went back to Greg's for some relaxation and conversation, and Greg brought out a blueberry peach pie he had ordered, which was a very nice cap to the delicious restaurant meal. Stuffed and tired, we headed back to the room for our last evening.

The next morning, we all went back to breakfast at Home Port. I can't say enough good things about the simplicity of good homestyle food, and they have it down. I had eggs with toast, canadian bacon and homefries. Terrific. If you want good homestyle food at good prices, this is where you want to go. Everything is delicious. Great call, Greg!

We drove back home with few traffic snarls (except the one where the nav system in my car pulled one of its famous Magellan moments and attempted to lead us in an out-of-the-way big circle. Fortunately, my bullshit meter was working well that day and I caught it before we went too far out of the way. I have advice for any of you buying a GPS. Don't buy Magellan! It SUCKS. Magellan is also the famous maker of NEVERLOST, or, as we like to call it, EVERLOST. Magellan sucks as a GPS. Never buy one. I should make sure that all search engines pick this up so that others are not led astray: Magellan GPS systems are the worst I've ever had experience with. The worst. Don't buy them.

But I don't want to end on a sour note. The little getaway was wonderful, and it was great to meet Greg and spend time with him and Patrick.

John McCain: Pompous Ass

2008-10-07T22:00:00.000-04:00

Watching the presidential debate, I am incredulous that John McCain just pointed to Barack Obama and referred to him as "that one." That one?! That what, Mr. McCain?! You are a patronizing, self-important bastard and extremely disingenuous. Color me infuriated.

Happy Challah days

2008-10-05T15:59:00.018-04:00

If you're familiar with Hebrew speech, you know that my title there is pronounced much like the greetings used in December, except with the "ch" being pronounced as a guttural "h" from the back of the throat.

And this being the week between the Jewish high holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, it's naturally time to make a challah or two, even if you're one of the goyim like me. Even though I'm not Jewish, Jess is, and it's nice to make a challah for the holidays. For me, it's a wonderful reminder of his mom and his Nana Nan, who were two great cooks, and the holidays were a time for feasting. Jess' mom made the best brisket and matzo ball soup, and Nana Nan was an expert at chopped liver. I never liked chopped liver until I had Nana's.

Lemme tell ya, I can kick some tokhes when it comes to bread, though, and challah is no exception.

Dodger likes anything going on in the kitchen. He's always ready to clean up.

Mandy sits outside the kitchen and watches...

...although once in a while, she comes in for a look.

The way I make challah is a process: you mix up the dough from flour, sugar, salt, lots of eggs, warm water and melted margarine.

Then the fun begins. You warm the oven, turn it off and put the dough in and let it rise for 30 minutes until it has doubled.

Take it out, punch it down, repeat with the oven rising for 20 minutes.

Take it out, punch it down, repeat with the oven rising for 15 more minutes. Take it out, punch it down (oy vey! Can we get on with it already?!)

The dough can be quite sticky. Jess' caption suggestion for this photo: "Achoo!"

Using only enough flour to make it workable, knead the dough by hand for 6 minutes. Remember to heat that oven back up to 180...you'll need it in a few minutes.

Then the dough is cut in half, and each half is cut into six pieces: three smaller, three larger. The three larger pieces are each rolled into ropes about 8 inches long, and the three smaller pieces are each rolled into ropes about 6 inches long.

Each set of three ropes is braided. The larger braid is placed on the pan and the smaller braid is placed atop the larger braid, centered side to side and end to end.

Then, when both loaves have been braided, you brush them twice with an egg wash for a gorgeous shellac-like finish when baked. Are we tired yet? Ah, finally, time to bake!

Time to bake, that's the easy part...you think? No, it is not; at least not for the recipe I use, which is from Joan Nathan, goddess of Jewish food. Baking is done is stages. You put the loaves into the 180-degree oven and let them set/rise for about 20 minutes. They get all nice and billowy, like bread clouds. Then you raise the oven temp to 200 degrees and bake them for 15 minutes. Then 275 degrees for 15 minutes. Are we finished yet? No. 375 degrees for 6 minutes, followed by convection baking at 375 for 6 minutes to put the final beautiful shade of brown on it.

I love making bread, but challah is probably one of the most tedious breads I make what with the multiple rises and punch-downs and the convoluted baking process. But it's the results that count: you're rewarded with two beautiful, moist, heavy loaves of the best challah you'll ever eat. Yum. This is what makes it worth it.

Bernice says, "L'Shanah Tovah...L'Chaim!" (Happy New Year...to life!)

Evil in a cup

2008-10-04T22:08:00.003-04:00

Okay, so I "Stumble-d Upon" this website where you are taught how to make chocolate cake in about five minutes. You read that right, five minutes.

I was skeptical, naturally.

I read a lot of the comments. Some for, some against. Obviously some commenters to the post haven't cooked much, based on what they said/did.

I made a few of my own changes, nothing substantial. I only used 1.5 tablespoons of oil because 3 tablespoons for that amount of batter is horrendous. I used a little more cocoa than called for. Next time I'd use at least a tablespoon of chocolate chips, maybe more. The "cake flour" called for is the self-rising kind. Don't make the mistake of using regular cake flour. Also, I used half brown sugar, half white sugar. I don't usually use all white sugar in a cake. I added a teaspoon of vanilla, and a pinch of salt for the correct flavoring. And be sure you use an oversized coffee mug, like a soup mug. It rises a lot.

A bit spongy, but pretty good, and I am sure it would be much better with the chocolate chips. We ate it with a little ice cream and it was nice. And at five minutes (actually more like seven) to make it from start to finish, it's hard to complain too much.

Don't make it too often: the way I made it (which was with less oil than called for) it was 614 calories. It would be even more using my suggestion of chocolate chips and if the full amount of oil called for was used (but it would be unnecessary). Actually, it makes enough cake for two, so you could call it 307 calories if you only ate half of it.

Good friends + good food = great weekend

2008-09-21T18:44:00.006-04:00

This weekend Jeff came out from the city to help me do some long-overdue closet cleaning. The walk-in closet on the main level was such a mess that I was ready to scream. For some months it has been to the point that I am embarrassed for anyone to see it. I was so glad for the weather to warm up this spring so that visitors wouldn't have to hand me coats to hang up in there...because it would always work out that someone would be ready to leave and I wouldn't be right on hand, so they'd venture in themselves to try and retrieve their coat. How mortifying. So with the season starting to edge toward cooler weather, I decided it had to be addressed. And no one is a better organizer than Jeff. Thank God he's willing to help me out when I get into this kind of bind!

At any rate, Friday night, Jeff came out on the train and we all enjoyed an appetizer of chips and homemade salsa, and a nice dinner of crab cakes and baked marinated salmon with some green beans and carrots. Jeff and I also enjoyed some wonderful pear martinis that Jeff shook up. Wow, were those good.

On Saturday, I made pancakes for breakfast. Then we spent a good part of the day cleaning the closet while Jess went to the Bronx to photograph a rugby game. For lunch, we hit Chipotle because we didn't want to mess with cooking lunch and dinner. We did some shopping for dinner while we were out, as well as picked up some things we needed from Home Depot.

By Saturday evening, we were done with the closet and it looked fantastic. The only thing left to do was clean up the closet inside the closet, which is our pantry. That has also been a wreck for a number of months. It tends to get that way when you keep buying goods to put in it but run out of room, so you stack them wherever they fit. That job I saved for today, since I knew I could knock it out in about an hour with the larger closet cleaned up.

So Saturday afternoon, having eaten our lunch, we were working on shredding old documents and going through boxes. I threw a chicken on the stove to boil (salted water, 1 tsp. sugar, 3 ribs celery with leaves, 2 springs fresh rosemary, 10 peppercorns, two shakes of poultry seasoning, 1 medium onion, quartered, and two large carrots, cut in half lengthwise and then in half across). I have been craving homemade chicken and noodles for weeks (not soup - it's a thick dish of chicken with handmade noodles), and I had decided I would make those and a dish of puréed cauliflower "mashed potatoes"as a side. The cauliflower is a dish that Jess taught me to make a number of years ago, and it's really good. Once the chicken was finished cooking, I had a nice big pot of broth to work with. I drained off about 4 cups of it to cook the cauliflower in, and the rest would be used to cook the noodles for chicken and noodles. Jeff took the chicken off the bone while I made the noodles.

Throwing the finished noodles into the broth, they were boiled until they were almost done; then the chicken gets thrown back in and a flour slurry is used to thicken the broth to the desired consistency. When it's done, the chicken has fallen apart into thin shreds and the noodles are swimming in a delicious sauce.

Meanwhile, the cauliflower had finished cooking in the broth and was about ready to fall apart. Straining off the broth, the cauliflower went into the food processor and was puréed until very, very smooth...like potatoes, except the consistency is a bit thinner. The purée was emptied into a small casserole dish, adding about a tablespoon of fresh chives and a pinch of rosemary and baked for about 30 minutes at 350 (which removes more of the water and gets them to a nice consistency). Jeff was very surprised by it..."it really doesn't taste like cauliflower!" You can dress it up with some sour cream, which we did, but it really didn't need it. The broth (esp. homemade!) gives it a nice flavor and creaminess that doesn't require butter or milk. You would never imagine puréed cauliflower would be good, but you'd be wrong.

While we were working on dinner, Jeff got creative with the bartending. As we had cleaned out the closet, we had to organize my rather large stash of Monin syrups, which included cherry, caramel, Sangria, peach and a few others. Side note: Monin makes the absolute best syrups you will ever use, for coffee, drinks, or whatever you're making. Do visit their store.

So Jeff shook up some cherry cosmopolitans using the Monin cherry syrup and some of my new favorite vodka, Tito's, and they were just killer. If you like vodka (Michelle, are you listening?) you have to try Tito's. I am a Ketel One and Grey Goose fan and Tito's beats them both hands down. And it's less expensive. What could be better? Don't believe me? Read the rave review at LiquorSnob and you will understand why you must try it. I am fairly certain you won't spend the money for Ketel One or Grey Goose ever again. Oh, and by the way, for you real snobs, it beats Chopin and Belvedere, too. Tito's is definitely the best.

The meal was fabulous as were the drinks, and we all came away stuffed. Plus there were plenty of leftovers of the chicken and noodles. The three of us ate our fill, with about two servings each, and still I had three quarts left, which I froze for another day.

Today, I sent Jeff home with a gallon of frozen chicken broth and a pint of homemade salsa. It was the least I could do for all his help!

Cherry Cosmopolitan
2 parts vodka
1 part Triple Sec or Cointreau
3 parts cranberry juice
twist of lime juice
1 part Monin Cherry syrup

Pour all into martini shaker with crushed ice and shake vigorously. Strain into glasses. Drink responsibly and always have a designated non-drinking driver.

"Missed it by that much!"

2008-09-14T16:33:00.003-04:00

Earlier this year, in the spring, Jess and I were contemplating the purchase of a house on a relatively little-known area of Texas beachfront. It was one of those few "best kept secrets" in real estate, with homes very near the water still going for less than $100 grand. Hurricanes have come through in recent years past, and done some damage, but never much. The last hurricane to really cause significant damage to the intended purchase was Alicia in 1983. Alicia's rains and winds caused flooding in the neighborhood that did significant water damage to many houses in the small subdivision where our intended purchase is, but had only flooded the utility room on the lower floor with about 18 inches of water. These houses are all on stilts, and a few didn't survive that hurricane, toppling off their stilts. Our house choice was a little different from other houses in its subdivision: it has telephone poles for stilts, which make it pretty rock-solid, and it is the highest lot in the subdivision, making it the driest. In the hurricanes since Alicia, where other houses would get water damage, this house came out with nothing. Other houses would have glass or structural damage, this house would come away virtually unscathed.

We really liked this house. Close, long-term friends of ours from Houston have owned it for more than twenty-five years and we have visited it several times together. I have been there more than a dozen times over those years and spent a lot of great evenings there, walking on the beach after a great homemade dinner of fried shrimp that had been caught in the Gulf that morning, or ordering fried fish from the local take-out place that had the best cole slaw, onion rings and waffle fries, and enjoying them with a movie video. The house isn't fancy; in fact, it's pretty plain. Very beachy, minimalistic, with a nice big deck, 2 large bedrooms with a small bath and a great room that houses living, dining, and kitchen areas. And at the ground level, as I mentioned, a tiny utility room with a washer, dryer, and all the plumbing pipes in it. It isn't large, rather, it's cozy, and it's strictly a relaxation place. The third row of homes from the beach, you can easily see out to the water from the deck, and on highly windy days when the surf kicks up hard, you hear the water. But other than that, pretty quiet.

The community is a mix of retirees, people who make summer rentals, and a smattering of permanent residents. It's very friendly. There's a small grocery store, a video rental store, a few restaurants...all in all, a small town with not much to do, except to relax.

We really wanted to buy the house from our friends; it was going to be a nice setup, since we would have them maintain the care of the house during the year and use it as they wished, but we would own it. They needed to sell but didn't really want to since they had owned it for so long and had so many memories there. Our purchase of the house would allow them to use it as they always had except for those weekends when we would want to visit...and even then, they would have been asked to come out and spend the weekend with us while there.

During the preliminary negotiations to buy, an inspection revealed that there were a number of significant structural issues that would have to be fixed before the bank would loan us the money to purchase. The cost to fix the problems was going to add at least 30% of the purchase price to the cost of the house and that would just be more than we could afford to invest. We spent more than a few days discussing what to do. In the end, we had to call our friends and tell them them the news of the inspection and that we just couldn't buy it. It was heartbreaking.

Because of the structural issues with the house, it was now going to be a challenge for our friends to sell. They would probably have to fix a number of things before selling, and that would mean investing a significant sum of money that they didn't really have available to spend just to get the house up to the standard that would allow it to sell. We felt bad, but what could we do? We had made our best effort.

In the months since then, we've come to accept the fact that it wasn't to be and have been putting the money that we would have been spending on a second mortgage payment against the principal on the house we own now. It's been nice to see the mortgage balance dropping precipitously as we have been making a nice dent in it. If everything continues as it currently is, we will pay off the house in less than seven years from now. The good feelings about that have helped us cope with the disappointment of the deal falling through on the beach house.

Oh, I forgot to give you an important detail: the house is located on a narrow strip of land in the Gulf, south and east of Houston...just a few miles east of Galveston, to be exact. An area most likely unknown to you before this weekend, you might have heard of it now that the Bolivar Peninsula has flooded, with damage like this not seen in over 100 years. The entire Gulf coast community of Crystal Beach, which the house sits smack in the middle of, has virtually been leveled according to all reports. Videos from helicopter and jet flyovers are showing horrific damage. Though a few houses appear to be standing, most have been reduced to matchstick piles of wood in the seven miles of beachfront that the community covers. We have heard that most of the businesses in town were destroyed.

What a relief to have dodged that bullet. Had we lived in the area, as our friends do, it might have been easier to do all the things that must now be done in order to clean things up. There will be no way to know how the house fared for at least a week or more, but it's pretty evident that from the damage reports from within less than a mile of the house, that it will be a miracle if it is still standing, much less inhabitable. But for our friends, it might just be the break they need: a total loss would allow them to recover their money without having to invest additional funds to sell. While it will undoubtedly be a blow to them emotionally, the practical aspect has me thinking that it might be the biggest blessing in disguise ever for them. This puts me in a bizarre spot of hoping that the worst has happened. What a dilemma.

Drowning

2008-09-08T22:31:00.004-04:00

Last night, I boiled two chickens for making dinners later in the week. That made about 2 1/2 gallons of chicken broth, which I froze for later. But once I vacuum-bagged the stuff up and put it in the freezer downstairs, I discovered that I'm drowning in it. I cook chicken often enough that I have about 8 gallons frozen. Now I know that there are plenty of uses for broth, but really!

I'm thinking a big pot of chicken and homemade noodles would be good.

Salsa redux...

2008-09-05T23:55:00.003-04:00

So I made another big batch of salsa tonight, because I still had a boatload of tomatoes that were going to go bad unless they got used...quickly. I could have given them to people at work, but why, when I could spend hours slaving making salsa?

Why? Because there are now an additional 9 pints that we will be able to give away or use ourselves! And there is no salsa yummier than this. None.

Actually, I had to do it in two nights, because to do it all in a day is too much. So last night I cut up the tomatoes, the onions, the yellow bell peppers and the cilantro.

Tonight, I minced the seven cloves of garlic and three kinds of hot peppers (nine peppers in all), and added the salt, pepper, sugar, vinegar, lemon juice and cumin. It turned out very nicely, and the best part was that out of the canner, it took less than six minutes for the jars to seal. Excellent!

Tomato update

2008-09-01T09:45:00.000-04:00

I finished canning the salsa and now have 8 pints of it! I was very happy with how it came out; I adjusted my recipe slightly from last year and so it was a tiny bit hotter, had a better cilantro kick and just a slightly more vinegar taste, something that was missing last year.

This year, the salsa in its raw state before cooking for canning was terrific, but it had an almost ketchup-y taste to it (well, they are tomatoes). After cooking, some flavors intensified and the ketchup taste went away, thank heaven. It is so much better than anything in the store, and even better than last year's batch. After cooking, the minced garlic and the heat of the peppers were more pronounced, as was the vinegar and lemon juice. Overall, though, despite the work, it's quite satisfying to produce something in your kitchen like this that caps an entire season of work.

Here are some shots of the process. Sorry that I didn't get a shot of everything cut up. That has to be done in stages because there isn't enough room to get everything into one place and so I just didn't do it.

Start with a variety of ripened tomatoes.

Fresh peppers, onions and cilantro make for bright flavors.

Once all the ingredients are cut up, start the water boiling in the canning kettle.

You really can't can without all the proper tools. Besides the canning kettle and rack (pictured here on the left), you need a jar lifter and jar funnel to make filling the jars, placing them into the kettle and removing them much easier. They are a necessity, not an option. They are sold as a kit that Ball makes. If you decide to try this, you'll need to buy them.

Now you heat the salsa to the boiling point and continue boiling for 10 minutes.

It's all a dance, this. The jars have been in the dishwasher being sterilized, and they come out just in time (still hot) to be filled with the boiling salsa. Here they are, lined up and ready to go, with the funnel in the first jar.

The jars have the hot salsa ladled into them.

Jars are filled to 1/4 inch from the top.

When the funnel is removed, each jar rim has to be wiped down to remove all residue so that the seal will not be compromised.

The filled jars go into the rack...

...and the seal is placed, then secured with the jar ring.

The canning rack gets placed into the boiling water in the canner. The water must fully cover the jars by at least an inch (jars must remain completely submerged during processing). The lid is put on and the jars "process" for 20 minutes.

When the processing is finished, the jars are lifted from the boiling water and placed on a cooling rack.

As the jars cool, the vacuum seal is formed. You hear a "plink" noise when the seal has successfully formed on each jar, and the lid appears to be a bit concave. Only when the seal has been made is it safe to store the jars. Sealing lids may not be re-used from previously sealed jars, although rings may.

I thought you might want to see two of the larger tomatoes from this year's harvest. On the left, a Cherokee Purple; on the right, a Watermelon beefsteak. Cherokee Purples aren't so much purple as brown; they're odd-looking, but delicious.

And finally, the Watermelon beefsteak makes a really yummy BLT. No, that's not cheese, it's the tomato! And we didn't have lettuce today, so I had to settle for a BT.

By the way, stop over at Jess' blog for today's birthday party pictures!

Tomatoes

2008-08-30T16:52:00.001-04:00

This garden season was certainly a tomato season for me. I have never grown so many tomatoes. I didn't intend to grow so many, it just turned into that when so many of my seedlings sprouted. After nursing them along for weeks, I didn't have the heart to pull the smaller ones, and so all that sprouted were planted.

Not that some of the seedlings didn't die: I tried to get some of them into the ground in early May because they were getting too tall and leggy in the sunroom, but spring was very cold here and my "test cases" didn't survive.

There were also three varieties I wanted to try that I hadn't ordered seeds for: Brandywine, Cherokee Purple and Watermelon Beefsteak. I bought plants for each of those.

I tried staking most of them with these new spiral stakes that all the garden centers are carrying now. They didn't work. Maybe they'd work with tall flowers, like dahlias or irises, but they don't work for tomatoes. Especially not mine. I fertilize and I use growth spray, and most of my tomatoes were 7 feet tall. And because they were so tall, and heavy with fruit, they made the spiral stakes fall over...so never again with spiral stakes.

There's also a big difference with the amount of sunlight the plants get and the time of day they get it, so my ripening patterns have been erratic. Not having enough room to plant all the plants I had, I had to settle for some less-than-ideal locations. So I was impressed that the tomatoes the tomatoes in those locations even set fruit, let alone ripened!

I will say that this has been a quantum leap in learning about tomatoes this year. I used a foliar spray product called "Spray n Grow" heavily throughout the season and I think it really made a difference in the number of blossoms, the percentage of blossoms that set fruit, and the overall healthiness of the foliage. I also watered about once a week with "Neptune's Harvest" Fish & Seaweed fertilizer, which also seemed to do wonders with overall growth. My tomatoes have been huge, have set very well and, for the most part, have been delicious. A few weeks ago, when the telephone repairman was out to work on the phone lines, he commented that I really must know what I'm doing because he grows tomatoes and he's seen plenty of other people's tomatoes this season, but none like mine.

A few lessons I have learned: 1) I will not be planting ten plants ever again! Too much to maintain and too much to harvest (so far, I have harvested 17 lbs). 2) I will not plant Mortgage Lifter plants again - they came well-recommended by several people and they did produce very heavily, the best of all my plants, BUT the taste was bland, and many of them were mealy. 3) I will plant Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, and Big Beef next year. The Brandywines have terrific flavor. Not a great amount of fruit, but quality flavor. They are a large tomato, but not a beefsteak, so they have a lot of moisture and seeds. The Cherokee Purples were sweeter than most and tasted like an old-fashioned tomato. The Big Beefs were indeed big, very meaty and low moisture, making them perfect for bruschetta or pico de gallo...or salsa.

Cherokee Purple tomato.

The Watermelon Beefsteaks are unusual. They ripen into orange and red fruits with little stripes. Some are large, some are not. I am not sure that the striping constitutes a "watermelon", but that's how they are. I have yet to taste one. They are just now ripening.

Watrermelon beefsteak tomatoes.

The inside of a Watermelon beefsteak. Crazy, eh? Crazy delicious.

The short growing season is beginning to wane, however; with temps at night now dipping into the 60s, the plants will stop producing new fruit and stop ripening the fruits that are set. So I will have to think about whether or not I want to bother with green tomatoes. They are good for frying, for green tomato relish, or for green tomato pie. I don't know that I can be bothered with any of those. But hey, don't knock green tomato pie; my grandmother made them when I was a kid and they tasted like the best apple pies you could make. I miss my grandmother. She'd be 102 if she were still alive and she was a great cook. She didn't do anything fancy, ever. Just delicious, home-cooked food. She fried chicken better than anyone. She made chocolate meringue pies better than anyone. And her mashed potatoes and her sweet potatoes with apples and pears were to die for.

Lies...lies...you're breakin' my heart

2008-08-25T22:05:00.001-04:00

Those words from a Linda Ronstadt cover of an old Knickerbockers song keep running through my head.

Saturday morning, having read the blog post of a young man we've come to know over the past few months, something began gnawing at me. The post seemed a bit odd. There were things about it that seemed odd...but I went on to other things and kind of forgot about it.

We hosted a party Saturday afternoon, so there was plenty of preparation to do for that, which kept my mind off the blog post. Jeff took the train out from the city to help us get things ready. (What are best friends for? Thanks for all the wonderful help, Jeff!) Friday night, we cut up a large platter of veggies and I made some dip from scratch to go with them. Jess would be grilling burgers and dogs for our 10 or so guests. Friday night, Jeff and I had also worked on the base for our specialty drink for the party, pink lemonade martinis, as well as freezing 6 quarts of homemade vanilla bean ice cream. We already had some Cherry Pie ice cream in the freezer that I had made the week before, so we were set with that, and I had about a quart of chocolate chip cookie dough that I had made the week before that would be used to bake cookies during the party. And Saturday morning, I made a tomato, basil, and fresh mozzarella salad in a balsamic vinaigrette with tomatoes and basil that I had grown.

Some of the guests brought dishes as well, such as a cucumber salad, a lentil salad, a fresh fruit salad, and two kinds of cornbread, so we were set for food and then some. We had a really great time and the food was delicious. Jess did his usual fabulous job as the grillmaster. The cookies and ice cream were terrific. And everybody loved the drinks.

In the evening, when everyone had left, Jess, Jeff and I were relaxing and Jess mentioned that another friend of ours had registered a suspicion with him about the aforementioned young man's blog. Jess made a Google search related to the most recent post and found it to be lifted directly from another person's blog who lived in the UK. And so it began.

Over the next 30-40 minutes, we began Googling phrases from posts in the blog. I went back through some of the posts that I had remembered as having particular oddities or those that seemed to be not of the usual writing style of the young man in question. In almost every case, the posts that I had remembered as being odd were indeed showing up under other peoples' blogs with much earlier dates of posting.

Now some of his blog posts may indeed be really his work, but it is clear that a number of others aren't his, and it seems quite suspicious that within hours of Jess' posting about his findings that the blogger in question suddenly deleted his entire blog. At the least, he's been dishonest in posting material as his own that isn't his, and at most, he may not even exist...except in someone's mind. It's troubling to lose a friend this way. Even if he does exist, he has lost our trust, and that is the saddest thing of all to me. We thought that we were developing a nice friendship with a very bright and very mature young man who, sadly, turned out to be deceptive.

Interesting, too, since he had recently blogged about the fact that he was becoming much more discerning in his choice of friends because he was recognizing that there were those friends who would only hold him back. If only he had listened to his own advice. But there's reason to suspect that he didn't write those thoughts himself, instead stealing them from someone else's blog. It's sad.

So now we've been burned twice in as many months by persons pretending to be people they are not. There hasn't been any loss to us as the result of these acquaintances other than a loss of trust in people we meet via the blogosphere, but that's a very important loss. We have met a number of people through this wonderful medium, many of whom we have had the privilege of meeting in person; some we have visited with by phone and e-mail, but not in person yet as distance and schedules haven't permitted. Smaller still is the circle of friends whom we know only by e-mail and blog posts, and it's those relationships that this experience will touch the most, because it's those "unconfirmed" relationships that will now be most subject to suspicion...and it's not a good feeling.

As much as it's been an eye-opening experience, for me it's been a mind-closing one. I am the shyer of the two of us; Jess has always made friends more rapidly and in greater number than I, and many of our friendships made through blogging have been a result of Jess' efforts more than mine. This latest brush with the darker side of Internet interaction is causing me to question the wisdom of making friends through what I once considered the almost-ideal way to meet people. I've always thought that it's a great way to meet people with similar views since you learn about the person's likes, dislikes, triumphs and tragedies through a non-threatening medium that generally encourages the user to just put it all out there...and many of us do...because it's fun to find others who think like we do.

It also permits you to get a much more intimate understanding of the person in question in a shorter time than conventional means, and this is great because we're all pressed for time these days, and it's always good to have friends. Friendships don't come easily, but they seem to develop more rapidly through this interaction. So it sucks when something like this happens and ruins the karma.

It's all just a little more than unsettling.

Fortunately, there are friends who are very understanding, and one of them called us last night, having read Jess' blog post about the situation. He's a friend whom we met through blogging, and he's a rare find. He called to reassure us that he's not real (ha!) and then we proceeded to talk for an hour and a half on just about everything. We share so much in common with him that it's uncanny. Our friendship is illustrative of the good things that come out of blogging. You're awesome, Pete.

You may have noticed I put a playlist on the page here; it's probably not a good thing for those of you who read my blog at work (such as the aforementioned) so I imagine I will dispense of it rather quickly. I just thought it would be fun to throw a few songs out there that describe my mood right now, including the Knickerbockers song I referenced at the beginning of this post.

I scream

2008-08-14T22:55:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week, my new toy arrived: a 6 quart White Mountain electric ice cream freezer like the one my mom has had for 25 years.

I grew up on homemade ice cream, as I reflected on in a prior post, and I have missed it when we throw big events at the house. There's nothing like a freezer of homemade ice cream to top off a wonderful meal, or to serve as an accompaniment to a great cake, pie or cobbler. But I haven't felt like making the investment in dollars or space to buy one. Until now.

But I digress.

So, I broke down and bought the dopey thing, and it arrived Tuesday. Last night, I made up the custard and refrigerated it in anticipation of freezing it tonight: sugarless chocolate. Now, before you turn your nose up at sugarless, you need to taste my sugarless ice cream. It doesn't taste sugarless. It tastes terrific.

The freezing process was like meeting up with an old friend or riding a bicycle: you never really forget. I quickly developed the ice/rock salt strata in the bucket, started the motor and things were underway. Just as expected, in about 25 minutes, we had delicious homemade chocolate ice cream!

There's just one problem: we don't have room for this beast anywhere.

Why did I do this? Oh yeah, for the ice cream. Well, it is delicious. I am actually dying to make a favorite of my mom's, made with Butterfinger candy bars (definitely not sugarless), and a favorite of mine, which is Cherry Pie. But those will have to wait for another time. For now, though, we'll enjoy the chocolate.

Kansas in New York!

2008-08-14T22:49:00.003-04:00

You know those little oxymoronical, paradoxical phrases, like "Christmas in July"?

Today we had freaking Kansas in New York. And last Friday we had it, too. This is getting to be a scary freaking habit and I would like to lodge a major complaint to someone.

Last Friday, as I was coming home from work, I got on the parkway and it began to rain. It didn't start slowly and build, it began with giant drops that sounded like metal hitting the car and it just opened up in a torrent. Within seconds it was zero visibility and I felt like I had entered a weather wormhole. Lightning was everywhere around the car. In a three-mile stretch, there were fourteen strikes within very close proximity to the parkway...the crack of the thunder came almost instantly following the lightning. It was one of the most terrifying storms I have ever driven in, and being from Kansas, I have seen some really scary weather...really scary. Pea- to marble-sized hail fell for about four minutes. Now I know you Kansans and midwesterners are saying, "BFD. Marble-size hail for four minutes is nothing." Well, it's not nothing for Long Island. We don't have pea- to marble-sized hail. Hail, when we even have it, is usually tiny, like pebbles. We don't have cumulonimbus clouds here, but on Friday, we had a nasty, nasty one that was about 26,000 feet high and it moved across Long Island, over the sound and up through the Connecticut/New York border and even made it to Boston, and from a distance, it was even scarier - you could see the evil electrical giant coursing with all manner of horrible lightning. Hail and nasty tornado weather aren't supposed to be showing up here. Yet since I have lived here, we have had tornadoes on Long Island three times. I say Al Gore is right and the apocalypse is going to happen within our lifetime if we don't reverse global warming.

Fast forward to today when, on the way home, I noticed a very large severe storm in my rear view mirror as I headed east on the highway. Jess has called and said it had been in his area and it was horrible. It was heading south and slightly west at a very high rate of speed. I was glad I was going east, because it was a nasty shade of purple-black, and it was chock-full of lightning. But as I approached the supermarket where I needed to stop before going home, I saw an enormous cloud building to the north, almost boiling, and approaching the south shore at a scary pace. Lightning started cracking all around. I ran into the store, took 3 minutes to find what I needed, checked myself out, and ran to my car. Getting into the car, it was Friday deja vu - the big rain drops, the hard and rapid downpour with almost zero visibility, and lightning strikes like crazy. I had to take surface streets home since I was well away from the parkway, and that wasn't pretty. The downpour was causing flooding all along my route home. It was a nightmare. I was exhausted after the 15-minute drive home.

This crap ain't supposed to happen here.

And so it goes...

2008-08-12T21:08:00.000-04:00

I have been harvesting tomatoes for about three weeks now, and I have been a wee bit unhappy with what I've gotten.

For one thing, my Mortgage Lifter tomatoes, which I had tasted elsewhere and remembered as good, and had also had positive feedback on in a gardening forum I hang out in, have turned out to be not so great. They fruit heavily and large, but the texture isn't great and neither is the flavor. I was very religious with the lime this year since I had such a problem with blossom-end rot (BER) the last two years. This year, BER wasn't really a problem to speak of, only lost four tomatoes to it early on and on different plants, so not a big issue.

The Brandywine tomatoes are heavenly in taste and texture and I will definitely be trying them again next year. But even with 9 tomatoes on the vine, only one has ripened (about two weeks ago) and the rest remain green. I am tapping my foot. Those were about the best-tasting I have grown. But it's a common complaint among growers that the production is low.

The Brandy Boy tomatoes, which are a cross of Brandywine and Better Boy, produced fabulous-tasting fruit last year, but this year, nothing has ripened yet. About 10 fruits on the vines, and I am waiting....

The Cherokee Purples are also reputed to be crazy delicious, but at this rate, we may never know. It has about 10 tomatoes on it, but none seem to be ripening, and they grow like molasses.

The Watermelon Beefsteak plant is the most interesting. I got it last, so it was smallest, but it quickly grew to be one of the larger plants. It has about six tomatoes on it, but again, grows like molasses and none appear to be even close to ripening.

The Big Beef tomatoes are fairly good, but don't hold a candle to Brandywine. Large fruits are firm and don't release a huge amount of juice, so they work well for about anything from sandwiches to bruschetta. They are beginning to ripen about one per week. There are seven more on the vine. But based on the cool down in the weather, they probably won't all ripen before the season ends. Hmmm...fried green tomatoes. Or green tomato pie.

And speaking of bruschetta, this past weekend our friend Deirdre came to visit and I made bruschetta with the fresh tomatoes and fresh basil. It was killer delicious. A little too much so. I started by cutting up one 14" baguette. Then I asked Deirdre, "enough, or should I cut up the other loaf?" "Do it," she responded, "the one may not be enough." So I did. And we pigged. There was enough bread for 8 slices each. I couldn't eat my last slice because I was getting too full and needed to leave room for the wonderful shrimp scampi Jess was going to make and the delicious pan-seared scallops and corn on the cob that I was going to make. Oh, and dessert...I had bought a couple of slices of chocolate mousse cake from Cardinali Bakery in Syosset, which is without a doubt the best chocolate mousse cake on the Island or even in the city; and I also made my new favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe from the NY Times. Wonderful. But it was all too much food, and I went to bed bloated and with acid reflux. Oh, well. I went to bed happy!

Rationalization

2008-08-02T23:30:00.007-04:00

About 10 days ago, we had a BIG set of thunderstorms roll through. The power went out twice in the same day. Later that day, I came home to find the microwave and the oven time pads were blinking...so I reset them. Curiously, the microwave interior light was on and would not go off even when the door was opened and closed. You could enter time on the electronic pad and it would work. But the start key would not work. Neither could you use preprogrammed time-cook modes. I unplugged the thing and plugged it back in. I reset the breaker for that outlet. I opened and closed the door several times. Nothing worked.

Now, I have to be honest here: I have never liked this microwave ever since we bought it when we remodeled this house three years ago. It's a Sharp, and I bought it mainly because the price was really good and the Sharp that Jess' mom used to have was very good. I'm still not sure why I decided to go that route, though; we had a GE microwave at the other house and I loved it. We should have stuck with GE. The Sharp operates noisily, more noisily than the GE had. Its recirculation/exhaust fan blows very lightly on high, and on low, may as well not be on. If you are using the timer, you can't use the microwave, something that I absolutely abhor since I was used to the GE, which was smart enough to handle both tasks as once. And the work light on the Sharp was very dim and practically useless - something that has always maddened me because we didn't install another ceiling hi-hat over that area of the countertop because we knew we would have the work light from the microwave (because we were thinking it would be like the GE).

At any rate, I called Sharp the next day (Friday) to ask about the possibility of repair, knowing that I would not like what I heard. It would be at least $100 to replace the center of the touch pad, possibly $200 if the other component of the touch pad was fried. And the service call would be a minimum $75. So I was looking at at least $175, possibly $275, to fix this piece of junk microwave I didn't like. Nope. Not doing it. I unplugged the Sharp and I went shopping for a new GE.

By the time I bought the new GE, it was almost $600, what with the 5-year extended warranty, installation and takeaway, and a surge protector. I didn't have the $600 just lying around, but we needed the microwave. That was last Saturday.

So, today was installation day. About an hour before the installer showed up, I was playing around with Sharp. I had plugged it back in and was just goofing with it. The touch pad still didn't work, of course, and the light in the compartment just stayed on. I was annoyed with the Sharp for blowing out on something as simple as a thunderstorm that didn't harm any other appliance in the house, only that. I opened the door. I closed the door. I opened it again. I closed it again.

As I closed the door that last time, the light in the cooking compartment went out. And my heart skipped a beat.

I gingerly pressed the express cooking mode for a 1-minute cooktime.

You know how, when you have a computer problem and ask IT to come check it out and the damned thing won't repeat the problem for the tech, you feel like a complete idiot?

The oven started its cooking cycle.

SHIT.

It was working. The problem hadn't been the touch pad, it had been the door jamb. Apparently, the door wasn't making good contact with the unit so that's why the light was staying on and the Start key wouldn't work.

SHIT.

What to do? The thing worked for now, but we would have to have the door fixed at some point. I was happy to be getting back to a GE. I couldn't decide what to do...call the installation tech, cancel the appointment and return the new oven, or let them install it and beat myself up for being such an idiot?

Well, we have a new microwave this evening. I didn't tell the installer that the old one actually worked. I couldn't. We rationalized that the Sharp's door was eventually going to bite the dust, and since we didn't like it that much anyway, investing more money into it would be counterproductive. And waiting around for it to die was sure to mean that it would croak at the most inopportune moment possible. We have company every weekend in August except this one, and I can't be without the microwave. We limped through last weekend without it when we had just one guest, and it was so annoying.

So once it was installed, we tried it out. I knew the Sharp was louder than the GE, I had just forgotten how quiet the GE was. Ahhh...virtually silent operation! And the recirculation/exhaust fan is so powerful! I think it would suck the dust right off the countertop. I can use the timer and the microwave at the same time! Hooray. And the last little bonus is that because it's a GE, the color of the stainless steel and the design of the door's window matches the other kitchen appliances better than the Sharp's had.

And then we realized that when the installers had left with the box, they hadn't taken the instruction book out of it.
SHIT.

Overall, I'm very happy with the oven, though. Of course, I have to be; I spent almost $600 on the thing, I'd damned well better be! Honestly, it is a much better machine. Really! And I'm going to the store tomorrow to pick up the instruction book for it. And I'm not looking back.

At last!

2008-07-26T21:26:00.002-04:00

FINALLY, the big tomatoes are starting to ripen. It's about time, I have waited months for this!

This is the Brandywine tomato you saw in the prior post.

And this is a ripening Mortage Lifter.

A little garden chatter

2008-07-24T21:25:00.001-04:00

Sorry there's been no blogging lately. I've just not been up for it. But I'll do a little this evening.

The Brandywine tomatoes are finally getting big. Interestingly, they don't look as big in this picture as they really are. This one is about 4 inches across. This is a picture from about four days ago.

The Mortgage Lifter tomatoes are the most prolific. This is just one of the clusters of tomatoes on it. There are probably four other clusters like this, though not quite as big.

These are Big Beef tomatoes. There are about 10 of them on this plant of varying sizes, but six of them will ripen at about the same time (in about 7-10 days).

Here are my favorite pink glads (again). Some more glads are blooming on the shaded side of the house, and they are gorgeous - pure white with a whisper of lavender in the throat. No pics of those yet; they haven't bloomed enough yet. Maybe tomorrow.

These tiny clematis bloomed just recently. This is their first season, so they are miniature in size, but you can tell that in coming seasons, they will be beautiful. They are called "Double Blue" and the center is really huge.

Now for some photos by Jess. The Sweet 100 tomatoes are ripening. They come in clusters of 10 or more. This is just one of about 30 clusters on one plant.

See the ripening ones?

These are the Mortgage Lifter plants. About 7 feet tall.

Jess had me hold my hand up to the tomatoes so you can get an idea of how big they are.

Bernice strikes a pose by the cherry tomato plant, also about 7 ft. tall. Unfortunately, it keeps flopping over!

And our three children: from left, Bernice, Dodger, and Mandy.

In a jam

2008-07-06T22:40:00.007-04:00

I bought some peaches and apricots Saturday at the market. The peaches I wasn't so impressed with; even though they seemed pretty ripe, many of them actually were green with a few overripe spots.

The apricots weren't much better; I had to choose carefully at the store so that they wouldn't be rotten by today, but once again, I was fooled - they had some overripe spots, but overall, they weren't ripe. The quality of fruits and vegetables that aren't grown locally is a crapshoot, and usually, it takes almost a week (sometimes more) for them to ripen on the inside. But any overripe spots on the outside are moldy by that time. And I don't eat fruit with mold anywhere on it. So you have to choose carefully, and I was jonesing so badly for peaches and apricots that I didn't exercise my usual highly discriminating taste, instead opting for fruit that felt near-ripe. Bad call. But I still wound up with enough fruit for a pint jar of jam, so I made it up. The flavor was quite good - better than you'd buy in any store.

Let me just say that even though making a single pint of jam was a bit of a pain, making the single pint was a lot easier than making the sixteen pints I made a couple of weeks ago when we went strawberry picking. That was just crazy.

Here are the red astilbe that I bought at the half-price sale last week. I love them!

My beautiful Macarena gladiolas bloomed this week. They are a great deep shade of purple - this photo doesn't do them justice, really.

A nice accompaniment to the Macarena glads are these pink and white ones.

Here's a closer view.

These Gingerland caladium look great in the backyard.

These Florida Cardinal caladium were the perfect thing to complement the front walk to the house.

The tomatoes are coming along. These Mortgage Lifters have a few weeks to go before they are ripe, but the cherry tomatoes are ripening now and should be ready in a day or two.

These Big Beef tomatoes are looking nice, too.

He's alive!

2008-07-06T21:09:00.001-04:00

Today, I was busy planting some of the bargains I bought at the local garden center's 4th of July sale. Everything in the place was 50% off: plants, accessories, garden equipment, everything. I had to restrain myself, and still I spent too much.

At any rate, I was planting the beautiful fuschia-colored astilbe plants I had bought when I sensed that there was something creeping across the yard, very, very slowly. As I turned to look, he stopped for a second, looking me straight in the eye. And it was unmistakably Junior, our younger cat, whom we haven't seen in more than a month, about six feet from me. He has one blue eye and one green eye, so he's pretty unmistakable. I called him, but he turned and quickly trotted off (not surprisingly...he's a feral cat who is very skittish). He looked as though he hadn't been eating well, he was pretty thin. Hopefully he will come back around, but he might not...after all, his mom is under the house decomposing, which is probably why he ran away in the first place.

I put out some chow for him just in case he should decide to come back through. I hope so. But I do feel better knowing that he's still alive.

Moher driving - the long, long trip to Galway and back

2008-07-04T21:58:00.008-04:00

If you read Jess' blog (and I'm sure you do), you have already seen pictures of some of our Galway drive. These are some of the shots I took.

The drive was long and arduous. It was supposed to be about 3 hours, but it turned into almost 5, and lemme tell ya, it was very frustrating. The infrastructure of Ireland isn't well developed, so the roads in most places are not like our freeways. On the trip to Galway, we took a "motorway" a good distance. The maps were marked as though the motorway ran from Dublin all the way to Galway, but that's a wish, not reality. Because of construction, we were on the road, off the road, on the road... and when we were off the road it wasn't like it was so scenic that we would enjoy it, it was mainly open fields and rolling prairie. A few sheep and cattle and horses here and there. We were driving to Galway to sightsee, but there weren't that many sights to see as we found after we got there. On the way there, we stopped at a roadside cafe that is actually a chain in Ireland, called Mother Hubbard's. It was really a roadside place...dirt parking lot, hard green tile floor, heavy wooden chairs and tables...very spoartan. Mostly truck drivers, locals and a few sightseers. The coffee was so strong it could have stripped paint. We had to ask for more milk because we used the entire container between us on our first cup. At any rate, we had our first fish and chips of the trip here, and it was pretty good.

So we drove out from Galway a bit north to view the seashore and such, and there we had our first encounter with a real Irish road. One lane, enough room for one car, and very high growing grass (or the road was built into a rut so there were high sides) so that turns were completely blind...and there were many, many turns. It was very stressful, and what's more, being on the wrong side of the road didn't help. It's hard to get your spatial orientation for the left side of the car when you are driving it from the right side. Here's a view, though this wasn't very twisty. However, you can see that it has some blind hills in it, which are every bit as bad as the blind corners.

At one point, we were stuck behind this tractor for almost 20 minutes. The road was too narrow and too winding to safely get by:

Once we had explored north of Galway, we headed for the Cliffs of Moher. We were hoping for decent light that wasn't overpowering. Contrary to the look of the map, it was a loooooooooooooong drive. Lots of narrow little roads. The one thing I will say for all this driving is that the roads weren't busy at all anywhere, except in Dublin. Most roads we drove on in the countryside had very little traffic.

We arrived at the cliffs and it was heavily overcast. So much for good light. However, a friend of mine who went told me that it's always a complete crapshoot and that she knew a number of poeple who had gone and that the skies are almost always that way there. In fact, when she went, she didn't even get to see the cliffs because there was a thick fog covering the area. Now that would have made me mad, because that is no easy drive to get there. It was a long walk up the sides of the cliffs to see them. Here's how they looked:

Don't let the size of the daisies in the foreground throw you off. That's about a 300-foot drop from the top of the cliffs to the water.

And here's a view of the cliffs on the other side...

There were some moo-cows on the cliffs. We wondered how they were smart enough to stay away from the edge.

On the walk back, we saw this shop. Jess thought the name was quite funny, being a play on "Cliffs of Moher". It was closed, so we couldn't go in. I was crushed (not).

So, leaving the cliffs, we had been driving for a long time and we were starving. It was well past time to be eating. I had scoped out a restaurant I wanted to try in (relatively) nearby Lahinch called Barrtra. The guide book praised its seafood and its location, which had a view of the ocean. We went off in search of it. It was about 8:40 when we arrived. Thankfully, they were open.

The dining area was a lovely glassed-in sunroom. We took this shot at about 9:00. You will note that the sun has not gone down yet. All the pics we took here were taken without flash, just to impress upon you how much light there was so late in the day.

A breadbasket arrived. We dug in. There was some white and some country wheat. It was delicious.

It took no time to polish off this basket, so they brought us another.

We ordered from the prix fixe menu. My soup was a nettle-and-something soup. It was very green-tasting, and very bland. I didn't like it, even after I salted it and put butter in it. I traded with Jess, who ate it, but I felt bad that he had to eat it. He said he liked it. I wonder if he just did that to be nice.

I actually wasn't crazy about his soup (I forget what it was) but I ate it all because I was hungry! it was some type of chicken-y, broth-y thing. Again, low on taste.

Yes, keep that bread coming, please.

Jess' salad was mixed greens with smoked salmon and capers. It was pretty good. They had their presentation down on everything.

My salad was mixed greens with scallops and bacon, and a blue cheese vinaigrette. See that scallop on the right? It was raw. I bit into it and got a blast of ammonia taste which means it was bad, and it also wasn't cooked. I was polite and didn't send it back. I should have. Oh, but they knew how to dress the plate.

A gin and tonic sorbet was served in a martini glass between the salad and the meal as a palate cleanser. Even the industrial pine-powered taste of the gin couldn't cleanse the ammonia taste from the bad scallop. I wouldn't dream of using gin as a palate cleanser unless I were Joan Crawford. The taste is just wretchedly strong. They were all about the show.

They were out of the crab and shrimp dish I wanted as the entrée, so I requested the stuffed halibut. It was beautifully presented, but the beauty ended there. It was dry and bland.

Jess chose the fisherman's plate, which had a sampling of many things on it. He graded it as "okay, not terrific."

A statuary cat kept watch over the grounds. Here, kitty! Go catch something nicer for us to eat.

If only the entrées had been as good as the accompanying sides. These were scalloped potatoes. They were not fabulous, but very good.

These mashed potatoes, on the other hand, were fabulous. I am sure they were locally grown.

Ah yes, dessert. Jess had sticky toffee pudding with a sticky toffee ice cream. This was phenomenal. If only the meal would have been this fantastic.

I had chocolate cake that had a little peach fritter alongside. The fritter was better than the gooey, almost bitter chocolate cake. It had almost no sweetness. The ice cream, however, was wonderful.

The sugar in Ireland is usually served cubed. There's refined sugar (white) and raw sugar served in a cup together. We rarely found artificial sweeteners. It's as if they don't believe in them.

Time to leave. It's about 10:45 and the dining room here looks darker than it really was.

So we took this shot outside, to show you, that at ten minutes to 11:00, there was still some light in the sky! Sorry for the blurriness.

Yuck. It's almost 11:00 and we are on the west coast. We have to drive all the way back to the east coast. At night, no less. Double yuck. I am usually bad to fall asleep on any drive of more than 20 minutes, but I forced myself to stay awake for the three hour ride, for Jess' sake. I wouldn't have wanted to drive that at night. But he did a great job. We arrived back at the hotel after 2:00 a.m., exhausted. No more drives like that during the trip.

After the Gardens...

2008-07-04T14:30:00.001-04:00

Okay, enough flowers. After all that walking, we were hungry and we knew we'd need to eat...so we stopped in the Avoca store which was in the Powerscourt Mansion. Avoca has stores all over Ireland and they are known for their knitwear and souvenir items as well as food items. They are overrated. I didn't find anything there that I had to have. However, we did think some of the food items looked interesting. We picked up a loaf of Irish cheese soda bread, a tub of herb butter, a tub of smoked salmon and trout spread, and a jar of tartar sauce, which Jess thought looked good. We also picked up a couple of chocolate bars - one was an Irish Coffee Truffle, one was a Key Lime and Black Pepper bar.

We put the items in the trunk and headed back for the hotel.

On the way home, we passed the mall, where the Marks & Spencer was, and I asked Jess to drop me off so that I could run in and get some M&S food stuff (if you are ever in the UK or Ireland, you MUST go to Marks & Spencer and buy some food). It's a bit weird walking into a clothing store and seeing a supermarket in the back. But trust me, it's very good. At any rate, I picked up a package of Chocolate Rolls and a package of Chili Lime Chicken to go with our bread and salmon spread and other goodies.

The bread and spreads.

And the Chili Lime Chicken Mini-Fillets, Chocolate Mini-Rolls and sodas.

The spread. It was quite smoky and salty...and fishy.

The bread. While it was supposed to be cheese bread, it wasn't really that cheesy. But it was moist, cloud-like and unlike any soda bread I'd ever had before. Too bad the trout and salmon spread wasn't better, because it disgraced the bread. And can we talk about the herb butter? It was horrible. It tasted sour. We read the ingredients and found out why: lemon juice. Who puts lemon juice in butter? It curdles it! So the butter was useless, too. I was mad. I wanted something good on the bread! So I opened the M&S Chicken Mini Fillets. They were terrific, and I should have expected no less. Marks & Spencer saved the day.

Butler's Irish Chocolate bar. Like Avoca itself, overrated. American chocolates are much better than these, folks. The "truffle" center was almost dry in texture and fairly tasteless. When we were in Dublin the next day, we happened by a Butler's store, where they insisted on giving us a free sample - we chose Raspberry Truffle. It was as underwhelming as the Irish Coffee Truffle bar we had tried the day before. Don't waste your dollars.

I am all for trying the new and unusual, but this...this...thing was positively horrible. The key lime flavor was cardboard-tasting, and the bits of black pepper were off-putting. Red pepper would have been much better. This was just nasty.

Thankfully, I had the good sense to buy these babies while in M&S. We had them when we were in London, and it was love at first bite. Absolutely fabulous. Dessert was successful after all! These also come in mint, orange, and other fab flavors.

So, would you like to see the room? I took few shots. I didn't shoot the sitting area, where there was a table and another TV, so the room was bigger than it appears here. it was a lovely room (the hotel was new), but the bed was torture. Like sleeping on concrete. No, wait...concrete would have probably been more comfortable.

The tub. The tile job was very attractive.

Here's a close-up of the tile detail. The accent tile was a glass tile...really pretty.

Nice shower. I liked it, it had very nice pressure.

Okay, that's it for today. More tomorrow.

How are you liking Powerscourt Gardens?

2008-06-30T20:56:00.003-04:00

I hope you're really liking it, because you're going to see more of it today!

Pretty in pink.

The bees seemed to think these centaurea were candy.

Charming columbine.

This shot is another favorite. I loved the pairing of these colors! But I am a pushover for alstromeria (those are the freckled ones), I must admit.

Loved this too, but didn't know what it was. Just a beautiful deep black-purple center!

And now, we move into the rose garden. Some of the most amazing varieties of roses I have ever seen, and with scents so varied and heady...it was just terribly exciting.

This dazzler was one of the first to greet me.

I loved these yellow roses. The scent had hints of citrus, just incredible. And the color! It was practically fluorescent.

I loved them so much, I had to take another shot...

The beauty just didn't stop. Come hither, you beautiful thing.

I assure you that I have not messed with the color of this picture. The rose was white and the foliage was such a dark shade that it almost appeared to be black.

Like buttah, the creamy color of this beauty.

The flaming orange color of this one drew me in...

...but alas, our run for the roses was over, and it ended with this one.

And as we walked back to the mansion, the back door was beautifully done with roses as well. Click to enlarge and enjoy this more.

* * *

When we finished our tour, we went into the little cafe to pick something deadly for dessert. It was a chocolate cake-type thing covered with a layer of baked meringue, topped with a white chocolate mousse and drizzled with caramel. Sorry I didn't take a picture of it, because the taste was as luscious as the look of it.

And more Powerscourt Gardens...

2008-06-29T16:07:00.001-04:00

What is it with you, so surprised that I'm posting so regularly? :P I actually have something to talk about! Okay, so here we go. As usual, you can click on everything to get a larger version.

There was a beautiful walkway through a number of flower types. Let me say that it was full of bees and I am allergic to bee stings, so I was quite nervous. Quite nervous. And I had to pee, so that didn't help.

Not sure what these were, though they look a bit like dianthus. Greg, can you ID it?

Again, not sure what these were, but they were purple...so I had to photograph them, of course!

There were lovely peonies...

...and poppies. I love poppies. No opium jokes from the peanut gallery.

And more beautiful peonies...

...and then there was this stunner. Not yet fully bloomed, I still loved the way it looked. Not only beautiful, but the scent was incredible. This has to be my favorite flower shot ever (that I've taken myself).

The poppies were stunningly red-orange.

I loved these geraniums. Wonder why...?

The were lovely splashes of color everywhere.

More Powerscourt Gardens

2008-06-28T15:45:00.007-04:00

Here are some more shots from our visit to Powerscourt Gardens in Enniskerry.

Things were in bloom everywhere. The colors are a little subdued here, but I liked the lavender and the deep burgundy contrasts.

There were some lovely azaleas along the path.

Love the purple flowers.

This was a neat wall of moss and flowers that was photographed from above. Down on the walkway, the wall was about 18 feet tall.

Fuschia - it should be the Irish national flower. It was everywhere. Roadsides, front yards, used as natural fencing...I loved it.

Lovely little yellow flower along the walk.

Nice view from the walk.

A gorgeous red tree rhododendron. Too bad most of the azaleas and rhodies were finished blooming by the time we were there. They had a large variety. We nearly gave ourselves coronaries climbing up through the rhodie forest to get back up to the level of the gardens. The path was narrow and steep!

This stunning evergreen was along the path. It was gigantic, so I didn't photograph it top to bottom, but I absolutely loved the flat, graceful foliage and the beautiful way it caught light.

Here's a closer view.

And for Greg, a beautiful variety of foxglove I spotted along the walk. If you haven't visited Greg's blog, he's a serious gardener who puts me to shame. You must go.

Garden break

2008-06-28T15:06:00.005-04:00

Here are some recent garden shots. Now that we're home, we can see a big difference in the growth from week to week!

My pink astilbes have finally bloomed, and they are beautiful. Unfortunately, there was a group of these in complete shade where the plumes just died instead of blooming, But these are nice. There are two different varieties of pink. This is the lighter version, and it is so pretty - it's cotton candy pink.

And this is the more deeply-colored pink, and it's nice, too.

The hydrangea is showing its first blooms of the season, and the colors are mixed. I fertilized on either side of the bush and not in a ring, so as to produce two colors of bloom. So here, you see the purple...

...and here, you see the pink.

My heirloom Cherokee Purple tomato plant has grown to about 4 feet. When I bought it four weeks ago, it was only about 10 inches tall.

On the right is a cherry tomato I grew from seed. It's up to a little more than 6 feet. On the left is a Brandywine plant I picked up from the garden center a few weeks back.

This is a Brandy Boy tomato plant I grew from seed.

Here are two Mortgage Lifter plants I grew from seed. They're called that because the guy who developed them sold them at a roadside stand and used the extra cash to pay down his mortgage.

I've only shown you six of the ten plants I have going. I went a little nuts this year on tomatoes since I only got one large tomato off four plants last year. The cherry tomatoes produced well, but cherry tomatoes are only so useful...they certainly don't make a great BLT or tomato & mozzarella salad.

The grapes are getting bigger on the grapevines...

...and lovely pink lilies are in bloom.

Tiger lilies are in bloom also, but I didn't shoot those.

Revisiting the trip

2008-06-27T23:15:00.003-04:00

Okay, so I've finally got the pictures uploaded so I can show you the stuff that I took...and Jess took a few on my camera, too. I'm not nearly the photographer Jess is, so I didn't even do anything at the rugby pitch in the way of field action. I did, however, take a couple of shots on the field to show the rapidly changing weather and light wreaking havoc on everything. I hated the Irish weather. It was like Seattle on Prozac. Cold and wet one minute, warm the next, then windy and cold and overcast the next. You need Xanax just to control your weather anxiety.

When we arrived at the pitch, it was overcast, but barely warm enough not to need a jacket.

The clouds cleared a bit. It heated up.

And 15 minutes later, the clouds came in and the rain began...and it was cold.

And it stayed cold...from Saturday through Sunday. Sunday, in fact, was colder.

These shirts and sweats were for sale, at the most outrageous prices. The shirt on the left was €45 - about $71US. And the green one next to it, which I really liked, was €60 - almost $95US. And the sweat hoodie was €80. I couldn't believe it.

Leaving the games on Sunday, we had enough time to drive down to Enniskerry, to Powerscourt Gardens. It's a mansion that has a beautiful set of gardens and grounds to walk. It was the high point of the entire trip. This was the view of the back of the house...

...and this was the view of the front.

The view out the back door onto the terrace was splendid.

The steps down to the garden paths were interesting and artistic. Very much form over function...they weren't easy to walk!

The pond was lovely. The silver winged stallions were gorgeous.

The fountain, which was a kneeling Adonis holding something over his head...we couldn't really tell what.

There were water lilies in the pond among the grasses.

They were so gorgeous close-up that they almost looked unreal.

Okay, that's it for tonight. More later, and believe me, it will be worth the visit back!

Ireland, Day 7

2008-06-25T21:23:00.002-04:00

Well, Day 7 was a bit of a repeat of Day 6. Upon not having found the perfect piece of crystal at Waterford, we decided to set off for Tipperary Crystal, which is in County Tipperary, in the town of Carrick-on-Suir. Less than an hour's drive from Waterford, where we were the day before, I decided that we should take a different road to get there since we had already been on the other road the day before, and that road hadn't been all that terrific. We did take the other road...but construction on the motorway in Dublin took us on a detour and the waits were ridiculous. It took us about an hour just to get out of Dublin, which should have taken only 15-20 minutes.

Today's drive was to take us through Kilkenny and Cashel, where the Rock of Cashel, a very old castle, sits atop a very high hill in the center of town, and an abbey sits in a large field at the foot of the hill. I had heard that it was a nice sight to see, so we went. It was indeed beautiful. We took a few pictures and continued on.

Leaving there, we drove on to Carrick-on-Suir. We were expecting to see the crystal factory and take the tour, and as we drove through town, we completely missed the crystal store, tucked back into a little strip mall. But that wasn't really what we were after...we wanted to take the tour. But after a drive back into town and no factory, we were confused and agitated. The road markings were signature Irish: lousy. As we drove back out of town, I noticed the store in the little mall, and so we turned back around and decided to ask the people in the store where the factory was.

I went in, and asked one of the clerks, a goth-looking woman of about 25, where the factory was. With a bit of tourist comeuppance in her voice, she replied, "Oh, that's not been here for almost six years. It's moved to Northern Ireland." Thanks so much, fracking Frommer's useless travel guide that has been a piece of shit since the first day we opened it! By the way, don't ever buy a Frommer's guide. I certainly won't any longer. Arthur Frommer hasn't written these guides for years. That makes a BIG difference, because Arthur did his homework - it became painfully obvious to us that this woman hadn't. I especially loved one of the pages early on in the book suggesting that a great way to explore County Kerry was on horseback, and there was even a picture of a woman on horseback riding there. But reading the story, she writes that she didn't ride the area on horseback but thought it might be a great way to do it. Uh, yeah. For this particular guide, the writer couldn't even be bothered to get proper number addresses for many of the noted sites; there would only be a road listed. That doesn't help much when the road is long and winding. So, fellow travelers, forget about Frommer's guides. There are better options out there.

At any rate, we wound up buying a couple of very nice pieces, a vase and a wine decanter, which we were quite happy with. But Jess really wanted a piece of crystal with color, and as we explored another store in the same mall that had Waterford, we decided to go back over to the Waterford store in Waterford, since we had just enough time to get there before it closed, because they had some John Rocha pieces that were colored and we thought we had seen some red shot glasses there that we now thought might be nice. So we drove back over. Unfortunately, no red shot glasses, they were red wine goblets. They were nice but not over the top, so we didn't buy. There were several nice pieces there, but nothing we thought we HAD to have, given our limited space for such things, so we left there with nothing and headed back to Dublin.

Fortunately, it took us less time to get home than the day before, and we got back in time to hit the Chinese restaurant across the street from the hotel. We had seen it a couple of days before and noticed that the prices were reasonable, so we went. What we didn't know was that we were looking at a takeout menu, and that the takeout was cheaper than the eat-in food! We were a little surprised when the menus came and the prices were higher. By the time we left, we had spent over €80...over $130US...on Chinese food. It was good, but I've had Chinese that was a good or better for a lot less money. In Wichita, no less!

And so our Ireland trip had come to an end; we packed our bags for the trip home and went to bed.

Ireland, Day 6

2008-06-19T06:20:00.002-04:00

Rain, rain, rain. Rain all fracking day and night.

We drove to Waterford, it took almost four hours, and we didn't find a damned thing at the Waterford store that both of us really liked.

We drove back from Waterford and, starving, stopped at a little cafe called the Blackberry Cafe. They were preparing to close so they weren't serving food, only sweets. I had a piece of fabulous, heavy, buttery, lemony lemon pound cake, and Jess had a dry, practically tasteless brownie with so-so chocolate ice cream. We both ordered lattes, which were okay. We drove another three hours before getting back to the hotel, where we ordered dinner. Mine was Thai red curry with chicken, Jess' was a bland risotto with peas. I felt bad that Jess was striking out today, and the drive was horrendous. There were few things to see along the way today, and we couldn't take pictures if we wanted to because the rain was so hard.

Overall, Day 6 sucked.

Ireland, Day Five

2008-06-18T05:36:00.003-04:00

It was a short day. We left the hotel around 2:00 p.m. and drove into Dublin to explore the Blarney Woolen Mills store, where you can buy goods from the mill without having to drive all the way to County Cork. We also stopped in several shops that had Waterford Crystal (it's made in Ireland) but didn't find anything that we couldn't live without. It was funny: they had this very small display of crystal that was "Exclusive to Ireland" and I wish it had been outstanding, because I would have bought it. But it was nothing special...strange. Leaving the city, we drove south to County Wicklow, driving through Bray, Greystones, Wicklow, Arklow, and several other towns. Now this drive was more like the Ireland I've read about! Very pretty farmland, scenic towns and farms along the way, lovely beachfronts. Still, we have seen no thatched-roof cottages or encountered sheep or cows crossing the road. I was kind of looking forward to that. We stopped at a nice pub, the Breaches, and had a little bit to eat. We both hate beer, but Jess was willing to try a Guinness to say he had tried it. To his credit, he drank it all (except for one small sip I tried), but it was beer as far as I was concerned. It was much smoother and less bitter than beer I had tasted before, but in the end, it was beer. Not for me.

The drive was lovely today, and much more relaxing. We returned to the hotel around 9:45 and were asleep by midnight.

Ireland, Day Four

2008-06-17T17:07:00.003-04:00

I'm getting behind on my installments! We drove from the far east side of Ireland to the far west side on Monday (about 3 hours). We got most of the way there in two hours but the last 18 miles took an hour, off the motorway, in and out of roundabouts, with stop and go traffic in every little town. It was a bit nervewracking.

We explored Galway and a bit north of Galway into the Irish countryside before deciding there wasn't that much to see or do there. It was an exercise in nerve control: the roads in the country were hardly enough for one car, and several times we had other cars approach us and practically had to pull into the embankment. After we had our fill of countryside, we headed off down toward the Cliffs of Moher, which were supposed to be spectacular. That was a long and winding drive into the Irish countryside as well, and when we got there, we had to climb a long way up to get the pictures we wanted. But in the end, they were cliffs. The sea wasn't striking them in any dramatic fashion, the lighting was terrible because it was overcast, and all in all, it was just okay. I wasn't overwhelmed.

Leaving the cliffs, we were starving. We decided to go to a restaurant in Lahinch (luh-heenk) that was highly regarded by one of our books' writers. It wound up being about 20 minutes' drive even though it was only four miles. Another four miles of nerves. As we were about to pull up, I went for the book one last time to see how late they served, because everything in Ireland closes early! They served until 10, but only then did I notice their schedule of hours didn't include Mondays! Oh, hell!

Jess determined that we would check it out anyway, and when we did, sure enough, the lights were on and they were serving. Hooray! It was a tiny place, but the people were very nice and welcoming. (The Irish are very friendly!) The dining area was a glass sunroom that faced the ocean. It was a lovely setting (pictures when we return). They had a 45-euro prix fixe dinner, so we opted for that. The presentation of dishes was just beautiful...I only wish the taste of the food had matched the presentation and the view, for it would have been truly stunning.

We didn't finish dinner until 10:40, but it was still a bit light out. The sun doesn't set until very late here, and there is daylight until well after 10:00 p.m. It's pretty amazing. We have some pictures of the place as we were leaving, you'll see what I mean when I post them.

At any rate, because it was about the same distance to go back to Galway and take the highway back in, or go to Limerick and take the highway back in, I made the decision that we should go to Limerick since it would be taking a different way back, and we probably would not be back in this area of the country again during the trip. The roads on the map between Galway and Dublin, and Limerick and Dublin, appeared to be of the same type, so I figured the driving time would be similar as well. Um, right. While it was late, and there was far, far less traffic on the road than the road to Galway (and even that road didn't have very much traffic), there were stops in every town along the way for more than half the drive. We finally made it back to the hotel at about 2:00 a.m., exhausted and hurting from 16 hours of riding in the car. We would not be repeating that. We went to bed around 3:00 and didn't get up until 12:30.

Wow, those Irish really do like their vices

2008-06-17T13:05:00.003-04:00

Umm...I couldn't get a picture of this when we were in the car yesterday, but we drove past a building in downtown Dublin: Royal Liver Assurance. However, with all I've heard, seems like insuring Irish livers would be a losing business.

In a similar vein, the Bingham Cup tournament was sponsored by paddypower.com. Paddypower was the biggest sponsor there, and they had their name on everything...from the field end zones to the tents to all the shirts that were sold. The whole time we're there, I'm thinking "what's Paddypower?" As we were driving back to the hotel on Saturday after the day's matches, I noticed a storefront location for Paddypower. The business line? Bookmaker. Yes, that kind of bookmaker...not the publishing kind.

Ireland, Day Three

2008-06-15T16:43:00.003-04:00

We arose early today and went to breakfast, opting again for the overpriced hotel buffet simply because it was easy and available, but this would probably be the last morning we opted for that.

We got to the rugby pitch early, led by yet another route into town. Damn! We just can't seem to get the same route ever. And there's another problem...Dublin City University isn't shown on any map we have (most maps of Dublin are only the City Centre, with any outlying areas showing very little detail), and our hotel is located far enough outside Dublin that trying to pinpoint it on a map is very difficult, because most of the maps don't have that kind of detail that far out of the city). So we have two problems: neither the place we're coming from nor the place we're going to appear on printed maps, so we are forced to rely entirely on EverLost. That's lousy. So last night, I went to the hotel business center and went onto Google maps, entering the location of the hotel with the intention of printing out a map of the area so that we would at least have that. Guess what? The hotel printer was broken. Grrr. This morning, I talked to the front desk and they suggested I e-mail the document to them to print out, which I did, but it was so small that you still could not make out the detail! Totally insane.

Today, we were smarter with coats and such, and I brought my sweater along to wear over my shirt, and then the windbreaker over that, which worked nicely. Jess wore his leather jacket rather than leaving it in the car. We watched our team play the team that would become this year's tournament champions (and they were the champs of the last tournament, too). The opposing team played brutally and used guerilla tactics, blocking kicks at point-blank range using their entire bodies, faking passes, etc. And yet, our team, the Gotham Knights, did something that no other team in the tournament was able to do: they scored two tries against the Sydney Convicts, which ended in a score of 12-35. The highest any other team scored against them was 3, so Gotham kicked ass. Go Gotham! The tournament was a parade of hot men who were really into rugby, and the best part was that 95% of them were gay. The best thing about this tournament? Proof that gay men aren't sissies; I'd put Gotham or the Sydney Convicts up against a straight team any day. They are some serious ruggers.

It was a bittersweet end to the day, because our guys really wanted to win. They came in third, which, based on all the competition there, was highly admirable. There were very tough teams there, like the San Francisco Fog, King's Cross (London), and Cardiff (Wales). Our guys did a great job, though they were pretty dejected about coming in any less than first place.

After the game, we decided to head on out and get a little sightseeing in, since it was still early in the day. Heading back to the hotel briefly to freshen up, we left and headed south to Enniskerry to the Powerscourt Gardens. Wow. It was a spectacular place. Too bad we weren't here about two weeks earlier, when all the rhodies and azaleas would have been in bloom. There were plenty of other things in bloom, though, including peonies, poppies, foxglove, geraniums, iris, lavender, and about 25 different varieties of roses. And like the layout of the gardens (I'll post pics when we return), the roses were spectacular in form and fragrance. Now I want to plant some roses, though I know I will never get the types they had here...they smelled exquisite. Just wait until you see the pictures. Too bad I can't post in John Waters' Smell-o-Vision.

We had a nice dessert after the stroll of the gardens, which was a dense chocolate cake on the bottom, topped with a browned meringue, then topped with a white mousse and atop that, pieces of chocolate malted milk balls drizzled with a caramel glaze. Absolutely delicious. There was a store inside the house that the gardens sit behind. We bought some things there, including a couple of chocolate bars (one was an Irish Coffee truffle chocolate bar, the other was a Dark Chocolate and Key Lime with Black Pepper chocolate bar. We also bought a loaf of cheese Irish Soda Bread (which was absolutely divine and tasted nothing like the nasty breads I've been so unfortunate to eat in the U.S. that were represented as such...most by home cooks), a small tub of Irish herb butter, a small tub of trout and salmon spread and a jar of tartar sauce that looked to be quite good.

On the way home, we stopped by Marks & Spencer and picked up a package of Chili-Lime Chicken pieces and a package of chocolate cake rolls (yes, I know, I'm a pig...I'm on vacation, okay?!) to go along with our bread and spreads.

Once we got home and started sampling, it was quite amusing to find that the best items of the whole lot were the two Marks & Spencer items. They also happened to be the cheapest. Oh, well.

So now we're winding down and making blog posts. This was a nice day, all in all. Can't wait to get started tomorrow - we're considering Galway as our destination.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend!

Ireland, Day Two

2008-06-15T15:40:00.005-04:00

Okay, I missed posting yesterday which was Day Two, but I was too pooped to post, shall we say. I went to bed at 7:30 last night, that's how tired I was.

Yesterday was definitely better than Friday. Well, in most ways. We started with breakfast at Maya Che, which was a buffet affair. It wasn't a mesmerizing lot of choices, but fairly standard. It wasn't thrillingly fantastic, but it would do: a variety of cold cereals, including a nice fruit and nut muesli; scrambled eggs; sausage (not U.S. sausage!); black-and-white pudding, which was some sort of bread mixed with herbs, nuts and eggs and made into patties; bacon (which was like Canadian bacon); fried new potatoes; an assortment of breads, including croissants, danish and sweet fruit rolls, and and an assortment of juices, all accompanied by coffee that would strip the paint off a brand new car. We were a bit surprised to learn, after the fact, that this buffet would cost us €21 per person - more than $32US! It was not worth that! But everything here is far more expensive than even New York prices.

We headed out to the rugby pitch at 10 a.m., being guided by EverLost since we had no map. She took us into town a completely different way than she had led us out the day before, and that was a bit disconcerting. It's hard enough to get your bearings driving on the left side of the road, but when your stupid nav system decides that she's going to take you on a different scenic route each time you leave, that's just too much. At any rate, she took us down some narrow country road that was full of blind turns (because the farmland is divided by 5-foot-high rock walls). She tried to lead us down a road that led to a highway, but the entrance was closed (it looked as though it had never yet been opened--it seemed somewhat near completion, but wasn't finished). So we had to turn around and go back out. We thought she would try and lead us back to that road, but thank God she didn't...she changed her mind and eventually we got into town, in plenty of time for the first game. We even got a good spot to park (Jess pulled rank with his "I'm the team photographer for the Gotham Knights"--which he is--but we wondered if the parking attendant wouldn't tell us to leave. He gave us a little static, but less us park nonetheless.)

We were at the pitch most of the day. I was wearing jeans and a short-sleeved silk shirt, which, at the time we pulled into the lot, was fine. I took along my windbreaker, though, because I understood that the weather could change quickly, and this windbreaker can heat up like an oven since it is microfiber. So I was convinced that I had enough to cover me for the day, especially as warm as it was. That warmth lasted only about as long as the sunshine, about 10-15 minutes. Clouds blew in and that was the end of the warmth. It became chilly and breezy. Not so much that the windbreaker wasn't sufficient, but surprisingly near its limit. Fifteen minutes went by and I felt a drop or two of rain hit my face. I was worried.

The weather kept changing all day. Slighty warm. Slightly cold. Drizzly. Slightly windy. Out and out light rain. Even breezier. Colder. Damper. It finally became so cold that we had to leave before the day's games were up. It was too much for my windbreaker, and Jess was freezing, too--he had been only in short sleeves the entire day.

We left and went back to the hotel, by yet another way. This time, we were led through a large, large shopping mall complex that was packed on a Saturday afternoon. Because this area of outer Dublin is fairly lightly developed, the infrastructure has not been built to accommodate the horrendous volume of traffic it must carry, so it took us about 20 minutes just to get through that area. It's pretty amazing that the overall mileage to Dublin City University from our hotel is about 8 miles, but the drive took 45 minutes.

On the way back to the hotel, we noticed a Marks & Spencer store in the mall. Marks & Spencer!. Woo-hoo! We loved Marks & Spencer when we visited London two years ago. They have an absolutely fabulous food store in addition to their department store. (Bizarre, isn't it? A department store with a food store! But it is wonderful!) At any rate, we made a mental note of it, since it's only minutes from our hotel. We'd definitely be making a trip back, because we could make a cheap and delicious meal from M&S prepared foods.

We made it back to the hotel and decided to eat in the hotel's casual dining area, inappropriately named Hourglass. Ha. No one in this joint had an hourglass, to be sure. They were busy watching the soccer game in the lounge, and by they, I mean the entire waitstaff. We waited around for some ten minutes before a waiter wandered by and we caught his attention.

We ordered. Jess had fish and chips and I had a grilled chicken Caesar wrap. While Jess' meal was okay, and I mean just okay, my wrap was pathetic. It didn't even taste good. The fries were the best part of the meal. The meal took over an hour and a half. We left we decided that we had seen the last of Hourglass.

We went upstairs, watched a little TV, and I decided it was time to sleep.

Off we (don't) go

2008-06-13T18:50:00.003-04:00

One of the things that is highly frustrating about travel is delays. These days, you can practically count on them, and you consider yourself extremely lucky if you make it through a trip without them. But they become even more frustrating when they cause you to lose entire chunks of your trip.

Take this trip, for instance. We were scheduled to leave at 9:45 from JFK (which, in JFK time is really 10:45, because taxiing at JFK requires at least an hour: ("okay, ladies and gentlemen, we're number 402 in line for takeoff, so just relax and hold your bladders for the next two hours while we wait for our opportunity to take off.") However, when we got to the airport (at about 8:00), we were told that our flight had never left Dublin and, as a result, Aer Lingus had leased a plane from Omni Air International (never heard of them - oh, greeaaaaaaat) that would be taking off at a revised time of 1:15 a.m. 1:15 a.m.! So that would ruin our first day, because instead of arriving around 9:30 a.m., we would arrive at 1:00 p.m., which, after picking up luggage and the rental car, would cause us to miss the rugby matches our team was supposed to play that day. One day of the eight-day trip, totally blown to hell all because the airline didn't have its shit together. That pisses me off. What makes it even more inexcusable is that we made the reservations through a travel agent...American Express Travel...and they should have called us to let us know the flight was delayed and didn't. Had they done their job, because that's part of why you pay the travel agent, to tell you of things like this, we could have driven to Newark and caught a 9:30 flight that would have gotten us in on time. Boy, are Aer Lingus and AmEx ever going to get scathing letters from me.

We arrived, tired and wrung out from the 6-hour flight. We left the plane, collected our luggage without incident, and went to rent the car. When traveling abroad, consumer groups often don't recommend that you waive the auto damage insurance for the rental car and use your credit card's policy because there are often big problems associated with making a claim if it happens that you have damage or an accident. And you have to stick around until those matters are settled. So, you opt for the car co's insurance, which is ridiculously priced. In our case, it was an additional €400 for the week, about $600US. We were raped and robbed of a day's worth of vacation funds before we even left the airport.

Leaving the airport, we tried to find the rugby pitch. We got close, apparently, but the signage was so terrible that you couldn't find the location and we were tired and frustrated. We left, dejected, frustrated, and insulted. This wasn't a good start. At one point, we were so angered by it all that we considered going back to the airport, turning in the car and getting on the next plane back to New York. Oh, and by the way, we got NeverLost (or as we call it, EverLost) with the car and it's a damn good thing, or we certainly would have turned around and gone home. Most of the streets in Dublin aren't marked at intersections, making it practically impossible for visitors to navigate...maybe they like it that way.)

We left the college campus where the rubgy matches were being played and found a McDonald's...it had been many hours since we had eaten and we were almost hysterical over the fact that we couldn't find the rugby pitch. We ate, which helped a bit, but were surprised that the prices at the McDonald's were not comparable to New York prices...they were about a third higher! Ridiculous! And on top of that, you're paying with euros, so there's another 50% fee for US to euro conversion. So our little McDonald's lunch for two wound up costing €13,40...a little more than $20US. To eat at McDonald's!! That's rape.

Hunger abated, we set off to find the hotel. Entering the address into NeverLost was of no good; NeverLost didn't have the street as it was supplied by the hotel (it was supposed to be Church Road, not Church Street - idiots). So we thought we would try to call the hotel to get the street information. The international phone we rented kept giving us an out-of-service tone when we tried dialing. Pressure was building, and our patience was fast retreating. After several tries, we called Vodafone (the rental phone co) to see what was up. They called the number and said it was out of service. The young man I spoke with, hearing my desperation and frustration, was kind enough to do an internet search for the hotel and found that it had a different number than the one we had been given. We called and explained that we couldn't locate them because there was no Church Street in our guidance system. "Oh, that's R121, you have to look up R121." As if we would have known that?! "And what is the address on R121?" "It's just R121."

Well, after driving R121 for about twenty minutes back and forth, we stumbled onto Church Road, and in desperation we took it. Now what you have to understand is that Dublin is 1) driving on the wrong side of the road and (2) a city composed of one traffic circle "roundabout" after another. These add up to some very scary and frustrating driving. We finally saw the hotel ahead, but because there was no road signage telling us how to get there, we didn't see that we had to use a specific exit from the roundabout to get there, and wound up off on the wrong road. I was ready to boil. Of course, we could have easily turned around at any other point in the trip, but this road we were on didn't have a roundabout for several miles. The other roads we'd been on had them almost every quarter-mile. We were seething.

We finally found a roundabout and made it back to the hotel. We checked in and went up to the room. Fortunately, this is a brand new hotel and it's in the middle of nowhere...well, it looks as though the area is preparing for a boom, but right now, it's very sparse, and everything appears to be new. So it was super-quiet and the accommodations were very nice (pictures later). We were pleasantly surprised.

Exhausted and frustrated, we napped for about an hour and then decided to hit the hotel restaurant for dinner. I was none too sure about that proposition, but we were really unwilling to go driving around looking for places, so we basically decided we had no choice. I don't like "no choice".

But for a second time, we were pleasantly surprised. The restaurant, Maya Ché, was actually phenomenal. I wish I had had the clarity of mind to bring the camera (sorry, Anita!) and photoblog the food, because it was very nice, but I was just working on too little sleep and too much anxiety. We started with a spring roll of duck and something else and vegetables. It was heaven. The spicy soy-plum dipping sauce was had a bit of heat...the roll was super-crispy and delicious. For entreés, Jess had salmon and I had a green Thai curry with chicken over mixed rice. Jess' salmon was very nice and I thought my curry was about the best I have ever had..ever. It had a coconut milk base and was ever-so-slightly sweet, with just the right amount of heat. Scallions, red onions, bok choy, and an amazing blend of spices were mixed with a small amount of chicken in a velvety-textured sauce that made me wish for a spoon...because there wasn't quite enough rice to soak up all that lovely sauce that was left. I had a brownie with vanilla bean ice cream for dessert and Jess had an exotic white chocolate and lemongrass mousse with biscotti on the side. Both desserts were beyond amazing. And for coffee, we each had a Bailley's coffee, and they knew how to make it. The coffee was strong, as was the Bailley's, and it was just delicious. It was truly an outstanding meal that I will not soon forget. I must learn how to do that curry!!!

So now, having made it through the first day, it's time for bed after this long rant of a post. It's almost midnight Ireland time, and we are wiped. Stay tuned for more.

Roasted

2008-06-11T06:50:00.003-04:00

Once again, for the third fracking year in a row, our central air has broken down on the hottest days of the year thus far. Oh, yes, you read that right. Every year, when the hottest day approaches, our central AC has been reliably unreliable. The first year, it was the compressor. The second year, the coolant level got too low because a line leaked, and so the cooling coils froze up like Alaska in the winter; they couldn't service it until it thawed, which would take 5-7 hours. Because the service call was made at 4:00 p.m. on a Friday, and the place we were having it serviced by didn't work weekends, we were stuck all that weekend with no AC. Ridiculous. This year, when the hot weather approached, but hadn't quite gotten here, we noticed that the AC wasn't performing up to snuff and were happy that we caught it before four days of 90+ temps were to hit. Unfortunately, the new service co. didn't diagnose it correctly the first three times they came out (outdoor fan motor had gone bad), and so we roasted again this year with four days of 95 degrees or higher.

We are trying to prepare for our trip to Ireland Thursday, so this couldn't have come at a poorer time. Trying to arrange for a vacation at work is an exercise in frustration because you're trying to do twice the work before and after the vacation so that you can leave the place with at least some feeling of calm. But that isn't happening for me. With only 2-3 hours sleep each night during this fiasco, I am getting almost nothing done at work, and several things have come up requiring me to make doctors' appointments, so I am really screwed. When I come back, I'll have about two to three weeks of late nights trying to get back into the groove.

I will never buy another Amana anything. Yes, Amana. They suck. Amana=lemon! Amana=BAD.

Apparently, it was the heat

2008-06-08T11:44:00.003-04:00

With the heatwave, there are more blossoms opening on the mountain laurel (although not all on the same bunch), but something else happened between yesterday and today...a number of new little flower heads have formed (there were only about 6-8 on the whole plant until now). That's terrific, because it means that there will still be looms to enjoy when we get back from Ireland!

Meanwhile, I've got a number of lilies that are close to blooming, but we will most definitely miss those because they will bloom about two days into the trip.

My tomatoes certainly have enjoyed this little heatwave. They've grown about two to three inches in the past two days. The pansies, however, have not. They've revolted and have started to die. Oh, well. So much for spring, what there was of one. Seems like more and more often for us, spring is becoming less a season and more a mere line between winter and summer. I don't know if that's an argument for global warming, but it makes one think.

Throwback to the 80s

2008-06-07T23:50:00.001-04:00

Last Sunday, we attended the True Colors tour at Jones Beach. Normally, we aren't much for concerts, but this was an opportunity we picked up through LIGALY, an organization we support and with which we enjoy a terrific friendship. LIGALY had a pair of tickets up for auction that included a meet and greet with Cyndi Lauper. So we bid on the tickets and won...and so we went to the concert. Jess has a recap of the show on his blog, so I won't repeat it here, but it was interesting. I was just so impressed that the B-52s sounded like they did 20 years ago, and they delivered their show with as much energy as 20 years ago. I felt like I was watching an infomercial for an exercise regimen. And Cyndi delivered her tunes with the same power and energy she has always had. It was very impressive. The night was beautiful, too...a lovely 67 degrees at the beachfront theatre, with a very slight breeze, made it a fabulous evening for an outdoor show. This was my first show ever at Jones Beach, and I was very happy with it, with one exception: the bugs. Because we were on the waterfront, we not only had mosquitoes, we had biting flies and gnats and other pests. I don't know how many bugs I ate, but more than a couple, and they tasted bad. And I am still scratching the bites I got while there.

The special wristband we had to wear to get into the meet and greet. Oooh, exciting. Printed on Tyvek, it made your wrist sweaty because it isn't breathable.

One of the nicer shots of me ever taken, as we wait for the concert to start.

As you can see here, the evening was nice.

Carson Kressley hosted the affair, and he was pretty good. Carson's a nice guy, much like his Queer Eye persona. We met him last year at LIGALY's "On the Bay" event, and I actually got to talk with him for a few minutes at that event. He was quite genuine and friendly.

The Indigo Girls performed. Our friend James called them "The Angry Lesbians", which was about right. The lesbian on the left was really angry. Still, they sounded as good as ever.

The meet and greet with Cyndi was less than I expected: it lasted less than 30 seconds and was hardly more than "hi, how are you?", and positioning for our picture. Our group of 30 people was just one of several to be granted audience with Ms. Lauper. She was very nice, and I don't know what I was thinking that it would be anything more than that; after all, when we met Martha Wash of The Weather Girls a couple of years ago, it was basically the same thing: say your hellos, pose for the picture and get the hell out of the way. Still, we got a nice picture, and the concert was fun.

How does your garden grow?

2008-06-07T22:25:00.003-04:00

About six weeks ago, a pink mountain laurel I had purchased began leafing out with new green foliage. Since the usual order for most laurel is flowers first, then leaves, I was disappointed. I was figuring there would be no flowers this year, and for that, I was most unhappy. But below the new leaves, there were tiny, tiny clumps forming. I didn't notice them for at least week. But then I spied the tiny clumps, and over the next week, tiny pink tops formed on the clumps. These were to be my flowers! Hooray!

But oddly, over the next four weeks, the tiny buds grew verrrrrrrrrry slowly. I wondered what they were ever going to do. But you could definitely see the pink heads, and this past week, fueled by the warming trend, I suppose, the heads grew into these interesting little star-like structures. But I was expecting them to open. No sign of that. I guess that this is as far as the flowers go. But they look weird. I don't remember the picture on the tag (which I now can't find) looking like this, but I suppose I'll have to be happy with it. It has grown nicely since being planted, and has many new leaves, but there are only a few of these flower clusters on it (about 6, I think).

But today, I was out working the garden and what did I see? A flower on the mountain laurel! It was unusual and interesting. And the flower cluster will be beautiful when all of the buds bloom...that, I can't wait to see! But I fear that it won't be complete before we leave for Ireland this Thursday. Not fair!

Last week, I snapped a picture of my astilbes that I liked, but it was shot from a weird angle. Here, Jess shot a picture of what the bloom heads really look like...

And here is a close-up Jess shot of the pink astilbes that are preparing to bloom...can't wait for that. Hope it happens before we go away, but it's not looking too promising.

Jess is quite good at flower shots. Here's the flower of a clover plant he shot this morning.

And here's a close-up of the center of a pansy he shot.

It's a sickness

2008-05-31T23:50:00.000-04:00

I've become overly obsessed with gardening this year, even more so than usual. I won't tell you how much I've spent on plants and flowers for landscaping the yard, but suffice it to say that some people would spend less on a vacation than I've spent on gardening this year.

At any rate, today I planted 26 plants, in areas that weren't easy planting. I'm exhausted. But I am hoping it will be pay off nicely in a couple of months.

I am starting to see the results of the early spring plantings, but not all of them have been successful. My variegated polemonium all seem to be dying off, for no particular reason. The soil is kept moist, they are shaded most of the day, and they are fertilized regularly. Everything else seems to be doing well health-wise, but these aren't.

The vinca are growing at an incredibly slow pace. They have hardly grown at all since planting, but at least they're not dead.

I also have some purple dragon lamium ground cover that is growing very slowly, as are the White Christmas hosta. I am wondering if all this slow growth isn't the result of cold weather we've had this spring. Only last week did it warm up into the 70s. And it went pretty much from 50s to 70s. We didn't really have a spring.

I can't wait for June, when the strawberries will be in season. Jess will drive me out to the east end of the Island, where I'll pick about 16-20 quarts of strawberries and then we'll drive back home, where I will immediately set to work washing, slicing, and macerating the berries before making them into preserves and sealing them in jars. Some of the berries will be simply rinsed, dried, and frozen whole for use in ice cream and sauces during the rest of the year. Last year, I put up 12 quarts and just exhausted my supply a week ago...but I was very conservative with what I had canned, using as minimal an amount as possible. I gave several pints and half-pints of preserves to friends who visited, but not as many as I'd have liked to. So, this year, I think 16 quarts will be the minimum.

I am glad that I now only have one thing left to plant, some Japanese hakone forest grass. It's to be planted in the summer, so I have a bit of a break...for now.

It's really an obsession, all this. And I'm up at 10 to midnight on a Saturday, blogging about it. I've lost it.

Bloom time!

2008-05-31T16:56:00.004-04:00

Well, things are starting to take shape in the Jess and Bokey Gardens! Click on the photos to get an even nicer view.

The weigela is blooming. It's a little like a cross between a forsythia and an azalea; it grows like a forsythia, with long, gangly arms, but with flowers reminscent in color (but not in shape) of azalea. The foliage is green tinged with red. It's an interesting bush, that's for sure.

The wood hyacinths are beautiful, and they are in a particularly interesting location among the ivy...this ribbon of plants happens to be right along a line where the sunlight falls every morning. Jess' mom and dad had planted these. They have been here a long time. Since I shot this, they have gone out of bloom, but I wanted to show them to you anyway.

My HE Young clematis is blooming. It is just the most beautiful shade of pale purple, and if you've read my blog for long, you know I love purple. This is its second year, so it will be a year or two before it really takes off. I have five other clematis that are first-year plants, so it will be awhile before they bloom, and they won't
bloom much.

Here's a close-up of the flower.

The astilbes are blooming, too. I love astilbes, they have the most interesting-looking bloom heads on them. These are the white ones; I am waiting quite impatiently for the pink ones to start blooming.

Here's another shot of the astilbe.

Still haven't seen enough? Neither have I. Here's my brilliant pinkish-purple rhododendron in full bloom. By the way, this is not the PJM or Roseum Elegans type that everyone else seems to have. It's darker than those (even though it's hard to tell from this picture). People who see it are amazed at how purple it is. The flowers are starting to die off now, but...

...my Hachmann's Charmant rhododendron is finally blooming! I was beginning to think it was never going to! Isn't it just stunning?

Close-up of the flower cluster.

My iris are such a deep color of purple that they almost look black. The fragrance is wonderful, too. I dug a lot of these at the beginning of the season because they just took over the area where I planted them, and I wanted to plant some other things there.

I love pansies (no, the flowers!) and of course, have to have purple. Here are some of the ones I bought earlier this year. These are still in the flats, I didn't have room for them...but I couldn't bear to throw out the ones that I couldn't yet plant.

Here are some cineraria that I planted in a pot by the front stoop. I love these little blue-purple flowers. They won't be around much longer though...they only last about 10 weeks, and that's about how long I've had them.

I don't plant chives because they yield beautiful pinkish-purple flower heads...I plant them because they yield wonderful, delicate onion flavor to food dishes. But the flowers are a nice extra.

On a sad note, our more than 50 year-old silver maple has not been well for the last couple of seasons, and this will be its last. It has stood guard over the house for decades, but this year, its bark has become a sickly shade of grey and it has failed to leaf out like it is supposed to. When the seed pods formed on the branches this year, they didn't stay on the tree until they had dessicated, falling to the ground in rotation like tiny helicopter blades; instead they fell off the branches green, in huge clumps. And instead of leafing robustly as they usually do, the branches barely developed leaves at all. And the development of those leaves was so far behind that of the other maples that it was quite obvious that it was dying. Last year it had a very bad problem with fungus that the landscaper was concerned about. The mushroom-like fungus was growing all over the trunk and even when removed, redeveloped quickly. The carpenter ants attacked it early in the last season. There are many hollow spots in the trunks where the squirrels hang out, which give opportunities to carpenter ants and other pests to destroy the tree from the inside out. And recently, during a windstorm, a very large branch broke off, landing in the front yard near the dogwood. It has many large branches that hang over the house, and some of those have no leaves this year, meaning they are already dead. So we have called the town to request its removal. It was a very tough decision to make.

Next week, I'm hoping my pink mountain laurel will finally bloom. I can't wait to show you that one.

Patrick's coming!

2008-05-25T09:16:00.004-04:00

Our friend Patrick is coming out from the city today and so we'll be going out east to do a wine-tasting tour at some of our fabulous east-end vineyards (like Pindar as well as making a stop at Flo's Luncheonette in Blue Point.

Patrick and I share a love of all things purple, and so I am excited for him to see the yard in all its purpleness!

More later.

You bettah work!

2008-05-24T19:41:00.002-04:00

This week was a busy one, yard-wise. Now that the weather has decided to warm up (about damn time!) I needed to get my tomato seedlings into their outdoor homes. Based on how many I had to put out, and the fact that a bulb order I had placed earlier arrived this past Tuesday, I knew I would have too much to do come Saturday. And I was not about to work on Monday; that's my day off and I will relax and enjoy it! So I've been getting up early every morning this week and planting at least one or two tomato plants (I had 10 to plant) as well as some rosemary and basil seedlings. I had grown three varieties of tomatoes from seed: Sweet 100 (which is my favorite cherry tomato ever); Mortgage Lifter (heirloom - haven't ever tried it, have heard it was good) and Brandy Boy (a hybrid, and one of the best tomato varieties I have ever tasted - I got three good tomatoes off my Brandy Boy vines last year before a blight consumed my neighbor's vines and then spread to mine).

Fast forward to today; the dogs woke me early, and once I'm up, I'm up, so I got dressed and went to the nursery to look for a particular variety of tomato plant I wanted to try this year but forgot to order when I was ordering my other varieties. I didn't find it there, but I did find another heirloom variety I had wanted to try this year (Brandywine) so I went home and made breakfast. After breakfast, we jumped into the car and drove over to the park, where a group of Marines was flying big helicopters into the park and putting on a show. We walked around there a bit, admired a few hunky boys, walked to the park's 9/11 memorial and then on to the war memorial.

After that, we got in the car and headed off for a another nursery in search of the elusive heirloom tomato I was after (Cherokee Purple). After driving halfway across the county to two different nurseries, I found the plant and brought it home. So this afternoon, I was busy planting the two tomato plants I had purchased today and two-thirds of the bulbs that I received by mail order. I also finished fertilizing and covering my EarthBox containers, which hold six of the ten tomato plants and the basil, rosemary, and chives.

So I am pooped.

Truth be told, I really wanted to try a Bloody Butcher tomato plant but wasn't sure how good they were until I read the tomato forum at GardenWeb and found out that a lot of people really like it. Oh, well. Next year. By the way, if you're a garden nut like me, you really should visit GardenWeb...you can learn a lot from the forums there. I certainly have. They also have a great group of home forums. Check it out!

In other news, we got a new gas grill this week and I am very excited about it. What you must understand is that, for my entire life, I have been a charcoal grill guy. I turned my nose up at the prospect of owning a gas grill, which to me, wasn't a real grill at all. But I have been impressed with the improvements that have been made to these grills over the years and I do love the fact that you can be ready to cook in ten minutes, have a consistently searing hot fire every time, be able to monitor the heat so that you know exactly when it's right to add the food, not be at the mercy of the wind (hard to charcoal grill when there isn't any) and the weather (the taste of a charcoal grill becomes too strong when it's cool outside), and produce consistent results every time you grill. And now that I have used it, I definitely think it's far better suited for vegetable grilling than charcoal, since the vegetables really tend to take on the charcoal taste. We got a Blue Ember from Home Depot after doing a lot of research, and I think we really got the best grill value for the money. I'll have to post pictures later.

In other yard news, several things have come into bloom and I have been busy taking pictures, but it will take me awhile to organize them and write the post, so be patient. Ha. With my blog, you must always be patient. As you know from my writings here, I love purples and pinks, and so there is a lot of purple and pink in the yard. I will give you a sampling of all that in the pictures I post.

I do hope all my plants make it this year. I tried putting out two of my tomato seedlings about 4 weeks ago, but it was still too cold, and neither made it beyond the third day. I planted the tomatoes not only in containers but also in the ground in areas around the house (because we have so much shade, there are few opportune spots for tomatoes) and I am curious to see how they do in the different locations. I have always been impressed with the size of the plants and the yields from my EarthBoxes, but last year, my neighbor's plants in the ground seemed to do just as well as my EarthBox plants, so I thought I'd do some very unscientific research this year and see how they do. I love home-grown tomatoes anyway, and with 10 plants, I am sure to have more than enough tomatoes this year. I'm also trying a new fertilizer that my mom has used called Spray-n-Grow because I have been very impressed with what it has done for my houseplants. I'll let you know how it does. That will be another test. There are two tomato plants in each of the four boxes. I plan to spray one of the plants in each box with Spray-n-Grow and leave the other as it is and see how they differ.

"Why only two plants in each box?" you ask. Well, they grow so big and develop such massive root systems in the EarthBox that two is all a box can handle. Last year, my plants grew to 7 feet tall and three feet wide. They were like small trees. I was crushed when the blight from my neighbor's vines wiped mine out. It seemed to come out of nowhere. His plants were so lush and beautiful...and big. And the blight got them before he had a chance to harvest more than a handful. The thing that worries me this year is that he has put tomatoes out again - in the same spot as the last two years - and tomatoes demand that you not plant them in the same spot every year. With my containers, I switch out which boxes I plant tomatoes in each year so that this doesn't happen. Since I only had one box with tomatoes in it last year, and I have five boxes, I was able to plant four of the boxes this year. Next year, I'll be back to one box.

Okay, enough garden talk. I hope everyone enjoys the long weekend!

First taste of summer

2008-05-18T22:35:00.004-04:00

Even though summer is about a month off yet, we decided it was time for some summertime fun last night. We grilled steaks and burgers on the little Weber charcoal kettle for the last time before our new Blue Ember gas grill arrives (Tuesday). We had just enough charcoal to do it, and in fact, afterwards we decided that it would have been better if we had had just a little more...but hey, we were trying to finish off all the charcoal and we were successful. After dinner, I dug out our Cuisinart 1 quart ice cream maker which we had not used in many moons (literally, it's been more than a year) and dusted it off to make two batches of fresh strawberry ice cream. Now before you go scratching your head about why two overweight guys should eat ice cream, let me tell you that it was sugarless, low-carb ice cream. And before you turn up your nose at sugarless ice cream, you would have to have tasted my sugarless ice cream, because I guarantee you, you would have great difficulty in discerning that it is sugarless...even if you tell me that you hate artificial sweeteners.

The burgers were good, the steaks were better, and the ice cream was fabulous.

Nothing tastes like homemade ice cream. I grew up having it about once a month or more during the summer, because my mom's family was all about homemade ice cream. At that time, we had a hand-crank White Mountain freezer. I loved the ice cream, but I hated the process of making it. First, you mixed up your ingredients and put them into the ice cream can. Then you seated the wooden paddle into the can and put the can into the wooden bucket that held the can and the ice mix. The heavy metal lid was then put on the can. That wasn't always easy because the lid had a center hexagonal notch that had to be seated just perfectly in order for the crank to work.

The next step was the most important: getting the ice mix just right. You'd put a 3-inch layer of ice into the bucket, then a 1/2-inch layer of rock salt, and repeat this process until the ice was about 1 1/2 inches from the top of the can. You could either start cranking then or, as my uncle liked to do because he said it took less time to freeze, pour a small amount of cold water over the top of the ice mix and then start cranking.

One person was the designated cranker for the first 10-12 minutes, and another for the second 10-12 minutes, because that was about as long as your arm could stand to crank it, and you had to maintain a steady speed that was neither too fast nor too slow. Besides the designated cranker, there was a designated sitter. The sitter would use an old bedspread, folded over itself numerous times, and put it atop the crank apparatus and then sit on the crank apparatus so that it stayed still. As a kid, I thought that having a sitter was necessary for all freezers and thought it was pretty dopey engineering until I discovered as a teenager that it was actually our freezer that was the problem: the side latch that held the crank apparatus in place was broken on our freezer, so that's why someone had to sit on the apparatus. But I found this out only after asking my aunt why no one had to sit on her freezer. Sitting on the freezer wasn't only uncomfortable because you were sitting on unforgiving metal, it was also freezing cold. By the time 25 minutes was up, there'd be no feeling in your ass for a week. It was hard to tell whether this phenomenon was caused by the metal or the ice.

The ice cream freezer was a messy affair: as the ice melted from the reaction with the salt, the water level in the bucket would rise high enough that it would need to be released so that it didn't flood the bucket and make its way into the ice cream can. So there was a hole drilled into the side of the bucket which allowed runoff. Even so, you had to be careful that you didn't let any of the resulting brine get up around the lid, or you'd wind up with salty ice cream. You couldn't make your ice cream in the back yard, though, or else the brine would run into the grass and kill it. So you had to put the freezer into a large tub to catch the brine, or you'd have to freeze it in your driveway (in front of all your neighbors) so that the brine would run off into the street, where it would then confuse any number of free-range neighborhood pets that would mistake it for potable water, sending cats, dogs and squirrels running from the curb with their paws about their necks, gasping "water!"

My mom's family would get together on weekends and everyone would bring a 1-1.5 gallon ice-cream freezer filled with their particular favorite. My mother would routinely make chocolate or vanilla when I was a kid, and occasionally lemon or strawberry; but as I got older, she got more adventurous. One of the first non-standard flavors I remember her making was a banana ice cream that was so heavy and banana-y that it was sinful to eat; you couldn't eat more than about a half bowl of it. She liked that though, because it made it go farther. Then she really got into making candy bar and cookie ice creams like Butterfinger® ice cream, Milky Way® ice cream, and Oreo® (or in our case, Hydrox®, because Oreos were too expensive).

When the process was finished, you'd carefully pull the can from the freezer tub, open it up and remove the paddle to a platter, where multiple youngsters would lick the paddle like dogs, getting the rapidly-melting sugary, creamy goo all over their faces and clothes. I remember my cousin, who liked to drink the melted ice cream from the paddle platter, lifting the platter one time and over-compensating, at which point liquid ice cream spilled from the platter all over face, down her neck and into the front of her clothes. She ran away screaming and crying because she didn't want to be seen with the mess all over her. My uncle was minimizing it, saying, "what's a little spilled milk?" and another cousin, whom I loved because he was so mischievous, cracked that, "if her boobs were bigger, she could have avoided it running clear to her knees."

My mom is still widely known for her ice cream, and now one of her favorites to make is Cherry Pie, which is also outrageous...not for those who are on a diet...it has cherries, but it also has chunks of graham cracker crust that are added in during the last 5-10 minutes of the cycle.

The hand-crank freezer was retired when I was about 18 (that freezer was about 25 years old at the time) and my parents bought an electric-motor White Mountain freezer that my mom still uses today. It's more convenient than the manual crank version, but it's a lot noisier. You can't hold a conversation anywhere in her apartment while it's running unless you use a megaphone. Even my Cuisinart is noisy, but it's nothing compared to the White Mountain.

Sugarless Strawberry Ice Cream
Makes 2 qts

1 egg, separated
3/4 c. Equal Measure (NOT the paper packets!)
3/4 c. Splenda for Baking (NOT the paper packets!)
1 qt. fresh strawberries
1 tsp vanilla
1 pint heavy cream
1 pint whole milk

Separate eggs and beat white until it just holds peaks; gradually add the sweeteners while beating, continuing to beat for 1 minute. Beat in the egg yolk. Set aside briefly.

Place the strawberries and a little of the cream in blender and blend for 3 seconds. There will still be big chunks of berry; that's okay. Add to egg mixture along with remaining cream, milk, and vanilla. Stir well.

Place 1 quart of the mixture into Cuisinart freezer bowl and freeze for 25 minutes; transfer to bowls; pour remaining quart of mixture into freezer and freeze for 25 minutes.

Run that gauntlet!

2008-05-14T21:09:00.005-04:00

There's a narrow strip of sidewalk about 12 feet long that runs beside the west side of our house, which sits between two long flowerbeds. It's the only way from the back yard to the front yard. You go this way to do things like move the recyclables and yard waste to the curb, as well as just moving between back yard and front yard in general.

Enter our problem: two really stupid cats. You see, the oldest cat (who is at least 13 years old, probably older) is a little light in the head. Okay, a lot light in the head. In all her years, she's never learned to do her privy duties the way a cat should. Instead of digging out a spot for pooping, she gives the area one (or if she's really feeling energetic, two) light swipes of the paw (as if she's worried about getting the paw dirty or something) and proceeds to do the business. Instead of covering it when finished, she may decide to make a couple of lame paw swipes, or she may not. After all, she might get her paw dirty, and God forbid that should happen.

The guilty pair. Oh, you may think they may look pretty, but pretty is truly skin deep in this case.

She taught this latrine laziness to her offspring, our other cat, who is now about 6.

Between the two of them, they manage to hit a lot of the flower beds I work in, leaving me with dirty little surprises. Sometimes I see them, occasionally I don't. Thankfully, I work in gloves most of the time, but still - it's nasty when you come across one. Let's just say that these cats' bowels are about as good as their bathroom habits and leave it at that.

At any rate, I have tried many things to keep them out of certain areas. I've used pepper (which is only good until the next time the automatic sprinklers run), I've tried repellents (again, the sprinklers wash it off), and when I can catch them in the act (almost never), I have shooed them out of those beds, but to no avail.

They have managed to make a completely disgusting mess of the two flower beds on either side of that sidewalk I wrote of earlier. As a result, the smell is truly overwhelming as you make your run (and yes, you must run) along the side of the house to the front yard. On a hot summer's day, it's actually horrible.

I've decided to call this area Catshit Gauntlet. During the summer, I think I'll sell tickets to neighbors and let them attempt to make the run without throwing up. Whaddya think?

And these are the people who run the country...scary

2008-05-01T20:33:00.000-04:00

Today it was reported that Senator John Sununu recently made a statement that Iowa corn should be being diverted from ethanol to food. Hmmm...that's a very interesting proposal, John, but corn used for fuel production isn't the kind you'd eat. I'm not even an agro-scientist and I know that.

Sounds like pandering platitudes to me, all under the guise of being eco-friendly. Oh yes, because the Republicans are so well-known for their eco-friendliness. Not that it's not possible, it is...but this is really lame. This is the kind of horse hockey that politicians are so good at. Promoting "brilliant ideas" and wasting taxpayer money. It's enough to make you sick. How about trading those corn subsidies for exploring and producing clean, renewable energy, like solar, hydrofuels or other such sources so that we stop killing our planet?

A commercial, of sorts

2008-04-28T06:56:00.000-04:00

Okay, so you may have seen those ads for the FURminator, a shedding tool that is touted to work better than rakes, combs or grooming brushes. They are hideously expensive but guaranteed to perform.

After we bathe the dogs, there is always a two to three day period of massive shedding, which is probably stress as much as anything...the bath is a traumatizing experience for them, even when it goes well. You can just say "you want a bath?" to our dogs and the ears will go down and the dogs will slink away; one will even go upstairs and hide under the bed if you ask her. So we try not to use the "b" word around them.

At any rate, back to the shedding: it's a mess that begins in the shower when they are being bathed. They lose a ton of fur in there. Then they get dried off and leave a ton of fur on the floor, in the towel, and on the carpet. It's always a big mess.

So I bought a FURminator a few months ago. I tried it on the dogs just to see how it would do (I didn't do it after a bath, I just did it to try it). It worked pretty well; well enough that I didn't feel the urge to return it, at least.

Fast forward to this past Saturday, when Bernice had a bath. She shed a lot more than she usually does during the bath, which was impressive in and of itself. And Saturday night and Sunday morning, she was a walking explosion of fur. You could see it just hanging off her. So on Sunday, I took her outside with the FURminator and got to work. Thirty minutes later, the results were shocking.

The commercials weren't exaggerating. Jess and I took pictures, but it's hard to tell from the pictures just how much undercoat this thing took out. It was quite impressive. We could have made a coat for a medium-sized dog out of the fur that came off her! Meanwhile, the cats seemed to be amused by the process and came out to watch, which is unusual, because they usually hide under the house when the dogs are out.

Beginning the process. Note that the dog is thoroughly focused on the cats, who are just out of the picture.

More...

The finished furpile...

And as seen from a different angle. No angle was really good enough to dramatize this.

Is it just Long Island...

2008-04-27T14:30:00.002-04:00

...or does the produce everywhere suck right now?

We use a lot of fresh produce: bell peppers, lettuces, onions, cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, scallions, cilantro, carrots, cabbage, lemons and limes, among other things. Lately, not only has the price of everything skyrocketed, the quality has gone into the toilet!

At least that's how it is here. White onions are often either green or they're moldy. Bell peppers are mushy; carrots are rubbery. Cilantro is yellow and brown, instead of its usual deep green. You can't find a good looking lime to save yourself: the rinds are spotted and tough to the touch. Scallions are wilted and even slimy. Cabbage tastes bitter instead of sweet. And the zucchini looks as though it was rescued from a dumpster.

Okay, so city folks: you have the fresh produce markets on the corner all over the place; is the produce below par in the markets? And for those of you who aren't in New York, is the produce bad where you are? And is the price terrible? $2.29 for a head of iceberg lettuce is ridiculous!

Testify.

Planting mania(c)

2008-04-20T12:44:00.004-04:00

Yes, I haven't blogged in weeks, and now two entries in one day – I've been somewhat sidetracked with spring.

You see, when we moved into this house three years ago, I really wanted to spruce up the backyard. It was nice enough when we moved in, what with our having hired the landscaping people to come in and clean up what landscaping was already there and seed some new grass since there was very little there. The landscapers didn't add anything, mind you, they simply spruced up what was there. There were some very large ivy beds at the back and on the east side of the yard, which had some trees in them; the landscapers shaped and edged them. The bed on the east had two forsythia side by side, and a lilac tree, with a single stand of daffodils, a single stand of wood hyacinth, and a tiny smattering of vinca minor. They trimmed back the forsythia in that bed and that was about it.

The bed in the back had a number of trees along the fence line, a few forsythia branches, a couple of small sassafras, several stands of wood hyacinth and several stands of daffodils. That bed was only shaped and edged, no pruning.

That year, we planted a Kwanzan Cherry in the back bed. It's pretty, but it's still not filled all the way out. It needs a couple more years to be stunning. Last year, I was very disappointed with it because I thought it should have bloomed more profusely. After all, this was its second year in the ground. But it was a rather weak showing of blooms.

But I digress. The backyard has been something I have wanted dress up from the beginning and, two years ago, I set about creating a plan for a perennial shade garden. I had seen a number of such gardens described in plant catalogs and such, but most of them weren't appropriately designed to the size of my space or weren't completely pet-safe. I also prefer perennials with a longer bloom period than two weeks, and those aren't easy to find, especially in a shade plant. They didn't all have to be long bloomers, but I wanted at least a couple of items to be able to run through an entire season. I also wanted a variety of plants so that the are bloomed in stages; that would make it nice from spring to late summer.

This year, I finalized my garden drawings and was ready to start buying. I created an Excel spreadsheet to get an idea of the cost, since I knew it wasn't going to be cheap. It was more expensive than I had thought. What's worse, one of the large nurseries here had some of the plants I needed as already grown, which offers instant gratification when planted, and being somewhat impatient when I am working on projects such as these, I am all about instant gratification. Naturally, the already-grown plants are more expensive than the small ones or the bare-root catalog stock. But I would not be deterred from the task at hand. As you read in my last post, I began buying some things here and there. A little here, a little there, a little more here, a lot more there, and before I knew it, I had spent a small fortune. But it's mostly done, and I think it's going to look great. In just the last four days, I've planted more than forty items.

I may need more than one sitting to post all this; it feels like "The Twelve Days of Christmas": 15 small Purple Dragon lamium; 9 Illumination vinca; 5 Coral Bells Obsidian heuchera; 5 small Brise d'Anjou polemonium; 4 Bridal Veil white astilbe; 3 large Bressingham Purple polemonium; 3 large Purple Dragon lamium; 3 Pink Skyrocket tiarella; 2 small bleeding heart in red; 2 Visions in Pink astilbe; 1 large bleeding heart in red; 1 large bleeding heart in white; 1 columbine in pink; 1 double columbine in deep purple; 1 Silver Fire andromeda; 1 azalea in lavender; 1 Sappho rhododendron; 1 Hachmann's Charmant rhododendron; 1 male Japanese Skimmia; and 1 mountain laurel in pink. I still have to add a few plants later in the season that haven't yet arrived in the nurseries.

I also bought 6 clematis vines, which weren't for the shady area, to cover some fencing that desperately needs it.

So pictorially, here's how it's shaping up, and don't forget, we're dealing with shade here, so some of these pictures won't be the greatest (click on the picture for a larger version):

The back bed had a nice dramatic curved line to work with already, so I am emphasizing that. Here, just to the right of the pansy pot, you see a small, yellow variegated leaf polemonium Brise d'Anjou, and further up right, a large Bressingham Purple polemonium. These have fern-like foliage and the flowers have a very light and wonderful fragrance that doesn't carry...so you have to stop and bend over to smell them.

Here's a close-up of the beautiful blooms.

This is the pink columbine; the flowers are so intricate they almost seem unreal.

These are the double columbine. They are called double because they produce a flower with many more petals or stamens/anthers than the original type. I am not particularly crazy about the double columbines, but I really liked this color.

On the left, you see the white bleeding heat, with the pink columbine in the foreground.

Here's the red bleeding heart, which was placed by the Hachmann's Charmant rhodo.

I created a cluster of the tiarella and framed it with the obsidian heuchera. It's very pretty. The tiarella also have a very faint but lovely fragrance, and their variegated foliage is interesting.

See the little yellow leaves in the center of the photo? Those are the Illumination vinca. They will develop tiny purple flowers and will line the border of the back ivy bed.

This is also a vinca, but the traditional type, and these were already in the east bed, though only a few. The flowers you see here will be like the ones that will bloom on the variegated "Illumination" version. They bloom for weeks.

This is a Silver Fire andromeda. It flowers in spring like a regular andromeda (see below) but it has a variegated leaf instead of solid green. The bonus is that once the flowering stops and the new foliage begins to sprout, the new foliage starts as this gorgeous coral-red shade and matures into the white-lined green leaf. This one I put in the bed in the front of the house where we had a rhododendron that didn't survive a harsh winter from the year before last.

Here's what the flowers of a traditional andromeda (also known as Japanese mountain laurel) look like.

This is the azalea, which is also in the front of the house. It replaced a holly bush that didn't make it through that same harsh winter I mentioned before. It hasn't bloomed yet, but as you can see, it has loads of buds.

In the foreground, you see the Purple Dragon lamium, which is a ground cover. The leaves are almost silvery, with a dark green edge, and the bloom is a lovely shade of magenta-purple. to the right and above is the Sappho rhododendron. I am very unhappy that its first day in the ground, it was ambushed by fracking squirrels who ate most of its buds! And today I went out to find the rest of them gone. Arrgh!

This has nothing to do with the shade garden, it's just the blooms on my peach tree. Unfortunately, due to the way it was shaded last season by the forsythia, I only got six blooms on the peach tree this year! That is so disappointing. Given the track record of peaches making it from bloom all the way to production, I will only get about three peaches from the tree this season, and that's only if the squirrels leave them alone. This is the tree's third season and these will be the only peaches I will have had from the tree, ever (if they even produce). The first season, you pinch all the blooms to give the tree branch production, so no peaches. The second season, those fracking squirrels ate the peaches while they were still green.

This is one of the hosta beds next to the house. I didn't plant anything here, just wanted to show what it looks like. Jess' mom and dad had planted these beds, and they are just beautiful when they are at mid season.

The other hosta bed on the west side of the walk. This shot was taken two weeks ago...

...and this one was taken yesterday, after I had added the obsidian heuchera for accent. See how much they've grown?

Okay, that's it for now. More to come later.

Party time

2008-04-20T12:15:00.002-04:00

So a couple of weeks ago, we hosted a little party for the people in Jess' office. I was going to blog about it after my "Tired!" post but gardening kept getting in the way. So, I'll talk a little bit about it now.

We decided that we wouldn't do as much cooking for this event as we had for past events, and we narrowed it down to a few things I would make and then we would supplement that with frozen appetizers that could be heated and served on the spot. The Trivection oven makes that a snap, and cuts the baking time for most of those items to about 6-7 minutes (20 minutes in a conventional oven) so I just thought that would be perfect. I was so sure that this would be an easy party that I didn't hire a helper to heat and serve food and mix drinks so I could enjoy it.

At any rate, we decided the menu would consist of several appetizers, a 'mid-way' dish, and a dessert. Our appetizers were a made-from-scratch seven-layer dip; orange chicken; florentine and lorraine mini-quiches; chicken taquitos served with a sour cream and sweet corn relish dip; and chips with assorted salsas. Our mid-way dish was Penne Bolognese; and our dessert was a four layer chocolate cake, which you saw the construction of in the prior post.

I made up a gallon of hand-squeezed Margaritas to have on hand. Since I am also a good bartender, I usually custom-make other drinks for guests, but without having disposable barware on hand, we wound up with a ton of glasses to wash after the party. That was dopey. But I got rave reviews on my pear martinis and mojitos.

Jess did a major job of house cleaning while I was prepping food. Thank god, because that was a big job. Mail had to be sorted and tossed, carpets shampooed and vacuumed, floors vacuumed, bathrooms cleaned.

The seven-layer dip was quite a production. I don't like most recipes for seven-layer dips; people have produced so many shortcuts to the original idea that most aren't that great. I wanted mine to be hearty and taste very fresh, so I went the hard way. It would take more than two hours start to finish. But oh, my, was it good.

Making the guacamole (my favorite ingredient) took eight avocados, along with lime juice, onions, chopped garlic, scallions, cilantro, cumin, chili powder, jalapeno pepper, and salt. I usually add some diced tomato, but didn't since seven-layer dip has a layer of tomatoes and it would be redundant.

So here's the start of the dip:

I began making the guacamole. Eight avocados were cut up in the bowl and covered with lime juice, but not mashed. I like my guac chunky!

Adding the onions, garlic, chili powder and cumin...

...and finally, the jalapeno, cilantro, and salt and pepper to taste.

Okay, I only have so much time, so I'll cut to the chase and show the finished product. Layer 1 is refried black beans, to which I added chili powder, cumin, salt, and cilantro. Once they were delicious, they were spread on the bottom of the 9x13" pyrex. Layer two was one lb. ground beef which I seasoned with my from-scratch taco seasoning. Layer three was 1 lb. Kraft Mexican Four-Cheese blend with taco seasonings. Layer four was 24 ozs. of sour cream. Layer 5 was thinly sliced lettuce. Layer 6 was cherry tomatoes which had been sliced in half. I use cherry tomatoes or Campari® small tomatoes during when home-grown tomatoes aren't available. They come a lot closer to real tomato taste than the cardboard-flavored full-sized tomatoes. Layer 7 was 4 chopped scallions.

Here's the finished chocolate cake, which was sinfully rich. I cut it into 20 slices, that's how rich it was. I served it with ice cream, because to eat it on its own was just too much.

The food all turned out terrific, but man, oh, man, I will never have another party like that without help! I was so busy mixing drinks and coordinating the continuous supply of food that I didn't get too much time to enjoy the party. Fortunately, some people hung out in the kitchen and chatted with me so that I got to enjoy the company even if I couldn't join the party.

Pear Martini
3 parts Ketel One® vodka
2 parts Mathilde® Pear Liqueur
2 parts Hero® Pear Nectar
1 part pineapple juice

Fill shaker 1/3 way with crushed ice. Mix and pour ingredients over ice, cover and shake well. Pour into martini glasses and garnish with a mint spring, ripe pear slice, or fresh pineapple chunk.

(Hero brand pear nectar is the absolute best. Kern's will work, but you will need to use three parts, since it is much more diluted)

Guacamole
Serves 2-4

3 ripe avocadoes (no brown in inner flesh!)
3 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lime juice
2 Tbsp. finely diced white or red onion
1 Tbsp. cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 scallion, chopped, including green parts (don't use wilted parts)
1 large clove garlic, minced finely
1 jalapeno pepper, (remove ribs and seeds) diced finely
1 Campari® tomato, diced
1/4 c. chopped cilantro
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
Kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste

Make a lengthwise cut in each avocado, starting at the stem cap and going to the bottom of the fruit and up the back in the same way, ending at the stem cap. You will slice around the pit. Holding the avocado horizontally in one hand, gently twist the sliced avocado apart with the other hand. Carefully but firmly sink your knife into the pit and twist to remove. Make three diagonal cuts on each half, then make three diagonal cross-cuts. Use a serving spoon along the inside of the skin to scoop out the fruit, and you will have perfect chunks. Pour the lime juice over the chunks; sprinkle the cumin, chili powder and garlic powder evenly over the chunks and then add the remaining ingredients. Fold ingredients in gently with a spoon. Add salt and pepper to taste. It's now ready to serve, but you can use a fork to continue to blend if you like it smoother.

NOTE: The writer cannot be responsible for your cutlery prowess or the sharpness of your knives, both of which are highly important! You should only use this cutting method if you are a seasoned professional with a knife. I also never use garlic from a jar in guacamole - it's wrong! I add the powdered garlic to give it another layer of flavor.

Tired! (updated with photos)

2008-03-30T00:05:00.008-04:00

I think I worked a wee bit too much today. We're having company next weekend for an afternoon to evening party, and since it's now officially spring (but you'd never know it from the chilly weather), I figured I should get some things in the ground and in pots.

So I headed off to the local nursery for some pansies. I have six large pots in the backyard that run along the line of the landscaping that I put giant pansies in each year. So, I bought four flats of pansies while admiring the handsome young kids they hire there...I swear the person who does their hiring is either a gay man or a very choosy young woman, because their guys are always hot!

At any rate, no sooner had I got the pansies home and out of the car than my phone rang...it was another nursery I go to about seven miles away. They were calling to tell me that the rhododendrons that I had been waiting on for more than a year had arrived! I was thrilled.

So I hopped back in the car and made the drive to that nursery. When I got there, I chatted with the master gardener who is their buyer. He was telling all me about some other rhodies and azaleas that I should have when I picked up a delightful scent that was wafting through the place. "What's the great scent coming from?" I asked, and he pointed to a male Japanese Skimmia. It's an evergreen that grows best in shade, which is perfect since I am trying to put together a shade/woodland garden this year. So I picked up one of those and continued looking around. I should have gone to the register! I found a pink Mountain Laurel that I coincidentally had been admiring in a catalog...but the catalog plant would have been much smaller, so I picked that up as well. Oh, and I needed a couple of plants to go in the concrete pots, so I had to pick those up, too. No wonder there is always more month than money!

Here is what the pansies looked like in their respective pots. Further back and to the right, you can see the Japanese Skimmia if you look hard.

A view of a pansy pot from the top.

This is the Mountain Laurel. It hasn't bloomed yet, but there are plenty of little buds down there waiting to open in about three weeks.

So I brought it all home and planted the three large shrubs, the two plants for the entry, and the six large pots of pansies. Lotsa digging, lotsa planting. Later, I assembled and frosted the layer cake I had baked earlier this morning, which I will be freezing for next weekend's party. And I am officially wiped out.

This is the rhododendron I bought...lotsa buds will hopefully mean lotsa flowers!

The cats watched while I worked. The older cat (at left) slept through most of it, as she usually does. Note the younger cat's eyes are different colors. It's the only thing he has going for him; he's about as dumb as cats come.

And here is the cake I made for next weekend's party, in the midst of being frosted. The cake is fudgy chocolate and the frosting is chocolate with a touch of orange oil. It's quite wonderful. It went into the freezer and will come out Friday night.

Earth Hour

2008-03-30T00:05:00.005-04:00

Did you observe Earth Hour on Saturday evening at 8:00 p.m.? We did. We got a tip from our friend Alex several days ago that it was coming up, and we decided it was worth it.

The lights went out and the candles were lit. We passed the hour with a nice bath that was just the ticket for sore muscles from doing the gardening. We should all do Earth Hour more often and save the planet from itself.

New ride

2008-03-15T22:35:00.002-04:00

Well, I finally got the car I've been waiting years for. Today I traded in my 2002 Toyota Camry XLE for a Volvo S80. It not only rides beautifully, it handles better than anything I've ever driven; well, except Jess' S80. In fact, his S80 and my recent promotion are the principal reasons I decided to go car shopping.

Now, I didn't intend to buy the same car Jess had when I went to shop. I was actually looking at the C70 hardtop convertible, which would have been a totally guilty pleasure, and I was almost prepared to get it...almost. But then when the salesman began discussing all the incentives that were available on the S80, which is the top-of-the line Volvo sedan, and told me I could get it for $160 less per month than the C70 due to all those incentives, well, my practical side came around very quickly. I knew the S80 and knew I loved it. I had test-driven the C70 and had two complaints: 1) the ride was significantly stiffer than the S80's ride; and 2) I couldn't find the perfect sitting position in it. I tilted and telescoped the wheel, I adjusted the seat up, down, back and forward. No combination of seat and steering adjustment gave me a super-comfortable driving position. And I am not buying a car if that comfort's not just right. So I went for the S80...in Willow Green. And I'm very happy I did!

Well, slap my ass and call me Sheila

2008-03-10T22:17:00.002-04:00

Governor Eliot "Fucking Steamroller" Spitzer has shown us once again that he is such a class act. That the supposed paragon of ethical behavior is caught up in a prostitution scandal is really quite the paradox.

Eliot, you're just getting what you dished out. No doubt there are two people who are pissing themselves like nobody else over the whole situation: Joseph Bruno, the NY Senate majority leader, who has been Spitzer's arch-enemy from practically his first day in office; and Lt. Governor David Paterson, who stands to become the first African-American governor of New York. It'll be a good night's sleep for both of them.

Meanwhile, marriage equality is out the window for the short term, and that sucks.

When brilliant is not brilliant: Marion Cotillard

2008-03-07T22:03:00.000-05:00

Marion Cotillard gave a brilliant performance as Edith Piaf, the French singer who rose from the streets to become France's national treasure, in the film La Vie en Rose. But brilliant actress does not equal brilliant person. The recent revelation of her ignorant comments regarding the events of 9/11 and the 1969 walk on the moon being fabricated is enough to make my blood boil.

A visit from the city

2008-02-24T08:55:00.002-05:00

Blogging is such a great way to meet people. You get to know a person through their posts and comments and sometimes e-mails, and you learn things about them that they might not share if you were just to meet them on the street. We have met a number of friends through blogging who have become very good friends and whom we visit regularly or who visit us regularly. I can't begin to link and name them all here, for fear I'd leave someone out. Suffice it to say that we have met more than twenty people in our blogging circles, some as far away as Wyoming, and some as close as the city.

I have to give credit where credit is due: Jess is usually the one to orchestrate the meet-ups with other bloggers, he being the extrovert, me being the introvert. We'd have a lot fewer friends if it weren't for his work in developing friendships.

I am hoping that Patrick will be one of those people who becomes a close friend. We met him through the charming and deeply introspective Nicky, with whom we have struck up a long- distance friendship. Nicky hasn't visited us yet, but we're hoping that he will be able to visit someday. If you haven't read his blog, you really should. To endure the things he's been through and still be the wonderful, thoughtful soul that he is says a lot.

At any rate, Patrick came to visit us for the first time this past Monday afternoon, and it was a wonderful time. I won't go into too much detail about the visit, because I would rather you read his post describing it. It's so detailed that it's a nearly play-by-play run of the entire visit!

I will say that we had a wonderful time, and found Patrick to be the same delightful person that he is in his posts and comments: just a joy to visit with, and truly gracious.

One thing that I found particularly interesting about Patrick is that he comes from a Quaker background. It's uncommon to find Quakers; they tend to come from specific areas of the country. I know this because Wichita has a Quaker University, Friends University, and I received my associate's degree there (even though I am not Quaker) so I know about the Quaker faith (as well as the oatmeal). Patrick had actually visited Friends University years ago, so we had a fun point of common interest besides the more obvious commonalities.

At any rate, the company and conversation was wonderful, and we hope to repeat the experience again soon! And speaking of blogger visits, at some point, I have to get Anita and Sarah out here to spend a day in the kitchen!

Passing Strange - You must see it!

2008-02-20T22:17:00.007-05:00

Run, do not walk, to see this show at the Belasco Theatre on 44th. This is one of the best musicals made in the last twenty years. It's funny; it's gritty; it's poignant. And the writer and lyricist of the show, Stew (yes, he goes simply by Stew), who narrates and sings the tale, along with his musical collaborator Heidi Rodewald, has created a show that is engaging, brilliantly composed, and beautifully sung by a very talented cast, including the charming and impetuous Daniel Breaker, the beautiful De'adre Aziza, the lovely Eisa Davis, the intense Colman Domingo, the delicious and steely Chad Goodridge (for whom this was his Broadway debut), and the sultry and sizzling Rebecca Naomi Jones. This cast is backed up by a terrific band including Christian Cassan, Christian Gibbs, Jon Spurney, and the aforementioned Ms. Rodewald, and features terrific lighting design by Kevin Adams. The casting, by Jordan Thaler and Heidi Griffiths, is spot-on.

If you were a fan of Rent, you will love this show. It's a rock musical, and it's an experience. You're put in the middle of the action and Stew, the narrator, really brings the show to the audience and gets you into it. You will be mesmerized. Listen, I am not a rabid musical-goer; most musicals I really cannot be bothered with. I have seen a number of them and have liked very few. I can count the ones I have really loved on one hand: Dreamgirls; Cabaret; Rent; BKLYN; and Wicked. Oh, and Les Miserables. I guess that's more than one hand.

Coincidentally, Diana Ross, her daughter and some friends happened to be at Tuesday night's performance, and Ms. Ross was obviously enjoying it. Patrick went with us, and it was he who happened to notice her sitting just two rows back of us and across the aisle.

We hung around after the show and met a number of the cast members, who were genuinely friendly, and who were very excited about Miss Ross's visit backstage. But we were truly amazed by Stew, who is one of the most genuine and down-to-earth people you could ever hope to meet on the Great White Way. Embrace him, New York, and see his and Heidi's show! You will not be disappointed.

The show is in previews right now, and it opens February 28. I suggest you buy your tickets now because, if there is any justice on Broadway, this is going to be a blockbuster.