Hello! Belated Thanksgiving greetings to my fellow celebrants. The above photo is not our Thanksgiving feast, but very delicious nonetheless: roasted red pepper and tomato soup, velvety grits, and paprika laced Oregon shrimp. It’s an easy ensemble, coming together so very quickly.
With COVID cases skyrocketing with a ruthless efficiency, we’ve been staying home even more and daydreaming about favorite restaurants and times when so many weren’t on the brink of closure. It’s just so horrible. How I wish for a magic wand to make this nightmare end.
But the vaccines are coming! Praying they will be equally ruthless in their efficiency so people can get out of food lines and back to their lives. A-M-E-N!
My favorite cutie pies waiting on me…
Menu for days and our Thanksgiving in a nutshell. We ate early and quite well, finished a puzzle of the good ole USA, and watched Tootsie, which, after seeing it in the theater when it came out (I was ELEVEN), was a bit new and fun and a marvelous nod to feminism. A great way to round out another perfect Colleen and Greg day!
My good-ness, the color this fall, a veritable cornucopia nearly everywhere the eye sets its gaze on the horizon. The simple pleasures of life, peeps.
Months and months after this blasted virus turned our lives asunder, I am finally feeling a semblance of order and calm while out in the world. I wear my mask (though not on walks – sorry, not sorry) and keep my distance and focus on the positive – people helping, people voting (how long the drop off line at the library!), bluebird skies and puppy dog sighs.
We’ve been remembering to play games (Lords of Waterdeep, canasta, Seasons!) and assemble puzzles (national parks, wonders of the world!), rather than flopping zombie-like on the sofa for television. Not that doesn’t have its perks. I LOVE Grand Designs, Jonathan and Drew, and movies galore! I’ve made a bit of jewelry (photos soon), too.
And, of course, cooking, turning out one bit of yum after another. It’s our life in a nutshell. Small but beautiful.
As is my wont when visiting my parents (last weekend – and my cousins and aunt, too!), I take pictures of pictures – mostly times long past. These are my Great-Grandparents Tillie and Howard. I love her closed eye smile, a rare moment of pure joy.
Bake early and often, peeps!
I give all credit for my love of music to my dad. He can keep the beer, however.
My cousin Angela and Grandpa Marv. She’s in her late 30s now!
My Grandma Frances, Dad, and Mom in 1972.
With my adorable cousins Stephanie and Allison, probably 1980. I am wearing one of my favorite shirts, ever!! It was so soft and had super tiny red stripes.
And to up the vintage vibe, I’ve got 1970s era Fleetwood Mac blasting on the hi-fi. Warm Ways, indeed.
We grow quite a bit of mint and forget to use it more often than not. In a mint-lucid moment, I grabbed a bunch, whirred it in the Vitamix with lime and sugar syrup before topping it off with fizzy water. The color was a delightful almost neon, and the flavor equally electric. I am so parched looking at it that I think I’m going to beg off writing this post for a few to make another. You won’t know the difference, and summer couldn’t really ask for a better drink.
Well before the pandemic had us mostly confined, Greg and I found ourselves spending more and more time at home, thinking about moving to the country, as our need for space, starry skies, and silence grew more important. Interaction with other people, for in-theater movies, sporting events, art galleries and museums, and dining out became less and less so. And so, depsite the horrors and losses of this dreaded disease, we feel grateful to know that our isolation is neither a punishment nor a burden.
Additionally, and I sometimes feel snobby for saying so, but I like my food best. At the times when I crave something special, something I don’t feel like cooking, or when I simply need a break from the kitchen, and we go out or order in, I am often disappointed, and Greg whispers, “Yours is better.” So we are pinching the necessary pennies and hoping to have our own slice of quiet country life, hopefully sooner than later.
When we lived in Portland, our dear neighbor Pat went through the trauma of breast cancer. It was an awful and stressful time for her, and just about the only way we could help out was to make food. Her favorites were my lasagna (at least at the beginning, before she was terribly sick) and these ginger muffins. While rooting through recipes on the hunt for something else, I stumbled upon it, entitled, without an ounce of creativity, “Pat’s Cancer Muffins.” I don’t remember if they were a riff off someone else’s idea or my own fabrication. They don’t look like much but were as tasty as I remembered. Maybe you’ll like them, too.
3 oz piece unpeeled
ginger root
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons lemon
zest
8 tablespoons
unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking
soda
Cut ginger into large chunks. Process into tiny pieces. Alternatively, use a microplane to shred it or mince it by hand. Put the ginger and 1/4 cup sugar in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until the sugar is melted. Set aside to cool.
Add zest to ginger
mixture.
Beat the butter with remaining sugar until smooth. Add the eggs, beat well. Add the buttermilk, beat until blended. Add the flour, salt, and baking soda, and beat until smooth. Add the ginger mixture, beat until well blended. Spoon batter into prepared muffin tin (I prefer to grease the tin rather than use papers for a crispy texture). Bake for 18-20 minutes at 375, or until a tester comes out clean. Serve warm.
Variation:
4 tablespoons butter
& 4 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup buttermilk &
1/2 cup orange juice
zest of one orange
Grandma’s rose bush made a heap of beautiful hips! I made delicious jelly!
The rim of Palmer Park between the trees. We walk here at least once a week, in most weather — Juniper hates the rain.
I FINALLY remembered to take a picture – Michael, Mary, & Greg Jesus & Juniper under foot!
When Greg and I first moved to Portland (1998!), and Hawthorne only had a handful of restaurants where we would actually eat, Bread & Ink was among our favorite places, one of those we enjoyed on a leisurely walk. A saunter of about two miles each way, depending upon which view or which house or which garden I felt like seeing that day – Greg never really cared. Their food, up until we left in 2014, was very 90s and always good. Fun cocktails, excellent coffee, nice servers. My favorite had a tattoo of a sparrow on her forearm, after the bible verse, she said, and to this heathen, non bible reader, a bit of new information, and a lovely revelation (Psalm 84:3).
But the reason for my choosing to go was always the Cassata. I remember reading the description the first time: ricotta, candied orange, & chocolate filling, chocolate frosting, and thinking, hmmmm. Could be alright. It really, really was. And so it became my dessert there, one that was not always on the menu, which was always a major disappointment, of course.
I hadn’t had any since leaving Portland (almost six years now – GOSH), and it, like every memory, came bubbling to the surface, out of the blue, and I had to have it. We were hosting Michael and Mary, and I fashioned our menu around it. Problem was, I needed to find a recipe. Type cassata into ye ole search engine and a couple rise to the top, neither of which is the cake I want. Add chocolate, and bingo, at least closer. I ended up making a 1-2-3-4 yellow cake, read through some cannoli filling recipes and got a feel for what I wanted to accomplish, then candied orange peels and made a dark leaning fudgy frosting. It gave me so many problems, but after literally jumping up and down in rage and frustration, it finally adhered to the cake. It wasn’t much to look at before slicing but made up for it, in spades, once it hit the tongue.
I also made a tomato tart, two kinds of crackers, a cheese spread, apricot mostarda, and blueberry gooseberry (home grown!) preserves. Then, for dinner, because this was a marathon, grilled rosemary chicken, grilled asparagus, a salad entirely grown by farmer Greg (two varieties of lettuce, carrot, onion, radish!!).
Of course we put together a puzzle, as we always do, talked and talked, and talked some more, and walked the dogs. The best of times among the best of friends – twenty-six years strong.
