Category Archives: food and cooking

Summer ought to be warm.

family, food and cooking, grandchildren, , ,

Daughter Kate and her family are visiting me for a while, so I’ve been occupied with them and not thinking about my blog. But today they are visiting friends in another city, and I walked around the garden where a pollinator party is ongoing….

This time it was a Cabbage White butterfly that got my attention, in the midst of bees who were also enjoying the lavender.

All the nectar-drinking creatures seem to be luxuriating in the heat; when they luxuriate it means they are all limbered up and move more easily, and faster. At least, that’s how it seems to  me. I feel that way, except for the faster part.

Kabocha squash growing bigger…

Many of the calendulas are spent, but this one just opened:

Before my family arrived, I tried a new zucchini bread recipe to have ready for them. I used this one from the New York Times Cooking site, but cut the sugar by half, and doubled the lemon zest: Olive Oil Zucchini Bread. (If you use this link you can access the recipe, that I am “giving” you.) It’s quite delicious. Unfortunately, I had to buy the zucchinis for it! I guess I didn’t sow my seeds in a good place, as the plants are not growing. I will have to wait longer to have a satisfying summer squash harvest. It’s been years since I’ve been satisfied that way.

I had a longing to make real strawberry shortcake, using the shortcake recipe from my oldest edition of the Joy of Cooking. We ate it for Rigo’s belated seventh birthday party. That recipe called for a little butter, plus “milk or cream.” Note to self: Don’t use all cream! Everyone loved it, but it was super rich.

We are all about soccer this week, as my dear people brought me their zeal for the sport and for the World Cup happening right now. I’ve watched two games with them already, and expect to see two more, including the final game this weekend. My children all played on recreational soccer teams as youths and I do love watching. These professionals are incredible athletes, and I am constantly amazed. Kate’s family have just moved from Argentina, and are excited that Argentina is still in the playoffs. When Raj and Rigo built a Lego street scene, it included a soccer field with a game and spectators. Go, Argentines!

What I drank in Paris.

food and cooking, travel, , ,

I thought it would be fun to join Deb at Readerbuzz and others for “Paris in July,” hosted by Emma of Words and Peace. “The aim of the month is to celebrate our French experiences through reading, watching, listening, observing, cooking, and eating all things French.”

My entire experience of Paris happened unexpectedly in high school, after I had spent a summer in Turkey as an exchange student. Our return to the States was going to be by ship, as had been our trip out, across the Atlantic; this final crossing would be westward, from Rotterdam to New York. But when we left our host families’ homes scattered all over Turkey and gathered in Istanbul, we learned that plans had changed. We were going to fly home instead, by way of Paris, where we would lay over five nights at a school that was unoccupied during the summer.

No one would be supervising us! But we would be provided with beds and breakfast. I don’t remember other meals being served, and I have no memory either of what else I ate for five days; no croissants, I’m certain of that — only those simple foods we were served in the mornings, at long tables in the dining hall: café au lait and plain bread. Was there butter for the bread? Possibly, but it wouldn’t have been necessary. I thought the naked slices of baguettes perfect, and made a special place of reverence in my mind for wide bowls of café au lait, the most elegant breakfast imaginable – five whole mornings of it, très, très bon. 

It has been impossible to find online a picture that comes close to resembling the manner in which this drink was served to us. The bowl was larger and wider than most pictures I can find, but Coffee Geek, in the course of telling us how to make a modern version of the drink, explains how the current bowl style does come in different sizes. I imagine the ones used in that Paris school were an institutional white. As to size, these that Wayfair suggests for the French breakfast look about right to me. If you add a cup of coffee to a cup of milk, your bowl needs to hold at least 16 oz.

French was at the time my favorite subject in school, and when I went off to college, I started out as a French major. In both settings our lessons involved memorized conversations on topics taken from the life of a typical student in France, and here I was in a French school building, having a small bit of like experience; I had learned back in French class about the beverage so I didn’t find it odd.

I enjoyed the forced visit to France and being able to use some of my language skills, which were much stronger than what I’d recently learned of Turkish. We had no guides, no adult even suggesting what we should do or see. My friends and I wandered around and rode the Metro, but the Louvre was closed for some reason; I bought postcards at a bookstall in Montmartre.

What a strange experience it all seems from this vantage point. If we had been given a chance to prepare, what might we have done with five days in Paris? Maybe nothing that different. I’ve never returned to Paris, but I always remember fondly that brief encounter, and drinking  café au lait in its native land.

Peaceful breath and perfect pie.

books, food and cooking, pie, poetry

LEMON PIE

I struggled ten or fifteen years
To make good lemon pie.
The crust was thin, the paste was thick,
And the meringue was dry.

The crust was thick, the filling thin,
The top was limp and flat!
I thought, I’ve met my Waterloo–
I’ll never master that!

But I toiled on while bitter tears
Fell often on my board.
And now I’ll draw a peaceful breath–
I’ve reaped a rich reward.

I heard the village gossip say,
Today as I passed by:
“I never liked her, but she makes
A perfect lemon pie.”

-Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

I made a lemon meringue pie only once, and wrote about it here: Pie Amusement

You might think from the way I talked about pies ten years ago that I would have made dozens more by now, at least one a month, right? I have not. But, maybe I will this week — haha! I truly have been wanting to bake some kind of dessert so that I can call — or more likely, text — the neighbors and ask them for dessert on one of these long evenings. For me, baking a pie is a monumental event, and I don’t know if I can change my perspective at this stage of life.

This poem is from the poetry collection Songs of a Housewife, but you might be more familiar with the poet as the author of The Yearling. If you’d like to read more about the housewife-poet Rawlings, Sandy’s Chatter featured a post about her some time back, and shared another poem, “Prize Jelly.”

Showing the good side of my lemon meringue pie.

 

Grandchildren enjoy gnomes and goats.

art, books, food and cooking, grandchildren, , , , ,

A couple of grandchildren, Ivy and Jamie, were with me for ten days, which we all agreed felt luxurious. We walked a lot! To the grocery store twice, to the bridge over the creek almost every evening, to the fairy houses and to the library more than once.

We made four visits to two library branches in the first five days, during which the children stocked up on their favorite authors and titles that are not available in their more rural area of northern California. Armloads were brought into the house to read in bed early and late, and at various other times throughout the day. Space Boy graphic novels, The Ranger’s Apprentice series, Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales, and a Godzilla encyclopedia were among the stacks.

We also read together: from The Little Bookroom by Eleanor Farjeon — it seems we always must do that one; Malcolm Guite’s new Galahad and the Grail; and we listened to all of Johnny Tremain while doing jigzaw puzzles or riding in the car.

I have to say a little about Galahad, which I had been waiting to read until I had someone to read with, as it’s a long poem best read aloud. The children were happy to join me; they are very familiar with the Arthur stories and liked hearing this telling of it. Here’s one random stave’s opening page:

It is gorgeous to look at, to feel, and to hear. It is bound in such a way that when I laid it down face up for a few minutes,  the pages were relaxed and I didn’t lose my place. We read three or four staves, which was a good start for me. I will continue to read aloud now, though no one but me will listen.

One day the children and I got an informal tour of a farm animal sanctuary that a friend of mine operates. The guide had to leave us alone in the “Kiddergarten” for a while, which was the highlight of our visit there. The kids were darling and so friendly. That day was a joy for every one of us.

Another day we drove out to the coast and soaked up the sun for several hours.  We brought home quite a bit of sand, and some of this bright green kelp, which I washed six times and then cooked into soup.

Both of the children slurped that up eagerly, and I finished the last of it today.

I wanted to check out the stretch along the creek where we discovered installations of fairy houses, gnomes and mushrooms several years ago, and to see if anything had survived the intervening winter storms and high water. So we took the bike path farther than usual, and found one of my near neighbors whom I never see, adding a few new items that very minute.

After the neighbor departed, Ivy found a place she could get across the creek to do various repair work and rearranging of gnomes and houses that had fallen over. Most of the fairies were pretty weather worn, but several new and bright mushrooms and gnomes had been added to the landscape.

Ivy was frustrated by not being able to do more. We tried to imagine how some of the fairies had been hung high above the creek; a ladder must have been involved, and dedicated, visionary artists. I wished for some pruning shears to open up the space for better viewing, and Ivy resolved to make a sign for the area; she accomplished that last night after sawing an old board from the garage to size. Today we went back and she very cleverly hung the sign.

It reads, “Welcome to the Fairie Village of Feather Tree.” Feather Tree refers to a couple of trees nearby into whose bark dozens of bird feathers had been inserted, which I failed to take a picture of.

When we got home I looked for my own garden gnome and found him in the playhouse. He is also weatherbeaten and faded, so Ivy took him home to give him a fresh coat of paint.

Yesterday was our last full day together. Jamie was already at his other grandma’s house, when Ivy and I decided to make cookies. We baked and assembled the Lemon-Poppyseed Sandwich Cookies I have made at Christmastime more than once. With two of us working at it, they were so easy. We finished just after dinnertime and took plates of them next door and across the street to four of my neighbors.

It has been a great week! I kept thinking I would post about our doings midway, but evidently there was not enough mental focus for that. Now the house is back to normal, with only one person reading early and late. I’ll be re-grouping and organizing my mental resources, and getting ready for the next visit from family, in only about three weeks. The summer has surely begun on a note of happiness.