(Not) just desserts

I had some tart pie cherries and their juice left over from making a clafoutis this weekend, so I decided to make cherry ice cream. Besides being spectacularly pink, it is perhaps the best ice cream yet. Here's what you do. But first, a caveat:

I get my cherries fresh from a fruit farm and freeze them in pie-sized amounts (5 cups of cherries to 1 cup of sugar). The sugar helps them keep their bright-red color and their fresh texture while they're in the deep freeze. So the "juice" that comes with my cherries is actually more of a light syrup. If you use canned pie cherries, you'll want to add a little bit of sugar.

CHERRY ICE CREAM
2/3 c. sweetened condensed milk
1 c. sweetened pie cherry juice
1/2 c. pie cherries, chopped
1 tsp. fresh lemon juice
1 c. heavy cream

Whisk together the condensed milk, cherry juice, cherries, and lemon juice. Freeze in a shallow container until the outermost half-inch of the mixture is frozen.
Whip the cream until it holds soft peaks. Scrape the frozen parts away from the edges of the cherry mixture, then carefully fold in the cream, retaining as much fluffiness as possible, until the mixture is no longer streaky.
Continue to freeze until firm. While it is freezing, take it out every hour or so and carefully fold the frozen edges toward the middle. The goal is to break up the ice crystals but, again, retain the fluffiness.

*****

Now, I should hasten to add that we do eat healthy entrees and don't subsist wholly on ice cream. I made a perfectly good quasi-Indian meal today! I keep trying to make myself into Iron Chef Indian, and someday I swear I'll get there. It definitely comes a lot more naturally to me than it used to. Once upon a time I used to go out for Indian food, but now that I live in a place with exactly zero Punjabi-run* restaurants, I have been forced to take matters into my own hands. I think it's for the best.**

The veg was something called "Carrots with Fresh Spinach Ribbons" from Neelam Batra's 1,000 Indian Recipes. It was really interesting and different; it called for whole cumin seeds that were toasted in oil, which gave the whole dish a nice nutty flavor.

We had some leftover unsauced tubini pasta, so for the main dish, I immediately thought of something called Keema Macaroni that Bakerina reprinted on her blog many months ago. I had tried and liked her version, but I craved a soupier sauce. Plus, in my mind, keema = lamb. So I took Neelam Batra's recipe for Moist Ground Lamb Pilaf, cut down the yogurt a bit, left out the almond slivers, and substituted pasta for the steamed basmati rice. Perfection! Bakerina, you are an inspiration as usual. I never would have thought of doing such a "fusion-y" thing as putting pasta in Indian food if it weren't for you, but it works big time.

And now I am approaching another writing deadline, but I refuse to think about it. My brain is focused on vegetable gardening, laundry, and the imminent American Idol results show***.

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* Northern Indian is my hands-down favorite unless the chef is really out of this world. There's a vegetarian south Indian restaurant in Athens and it's not bad, but it doesn't scratch that itch.

** I can still utterly destroy an Indian restaurant's lunch buffet, though. "Destroy the Buffet" was a phrase coined by an ex-co-worker to describe his lunchtime activities at India Palace, and I think it fits. The image we're going for is sort of like Godzilla in Tokyo.

*** Addendum: I was wrong about the results. Unfortunately, that horrible Anthony kid is still on the show, and we've lost Nikko Smith just when I was really beginning to enjoy his voice and arrangements. Miraculously, baby-mama-beating Scott Savol hangs by a thread.

A few short commentaries

1. April in Georgia means a thick coating of chartreuse dust--otherwise known as pollen--on every horizontal surface. It's on the car, the front porch, you. People who think they don't have allergies are suddenly forced to admit that, yes, come to think of it, they do feel a little itchy and congested. It's kind of cool-looking, though.

2. The wisteria is blooming. Invasive or not, it looks gorgeous when it takes over a woods.

3. The thing about losing all the weight you ever wanted to lose--living the dream, so to speak--is that if your competitive nature is one of the things that helped you lose the weight in the first place, you're suddenly left in a tricky spot, motivationally speaking. Now there's no more woo-hooing "I LOST A POUND!" While your friend or mate who hasn't reached his/her goal is still cheering incremental victories, the best you can do* is say, "Hey, look, I still weigh the same!" Which in reality is even more challenging and cheer-worthy, but it's hard to feel that way. And then if you gain a pound, even though it's almost certainly a normal water fluctuation, suddenly you wonder if you're screwing up and if this one pound is a harbinger of thirty more. "Oh, God, I'm doing something wrong," you fret. "Is this how it all ends?" It turns out that the hardest thing on earth is to achieve stability and just RELAX AND ENJOY IT.

*Barring an Olsen-twin-style corporeal disappearing act, which is not only potentially deadly but disgusting to look at. I like to have a little "back" on me, y'know?

4. This week was a gimme for Constantine on American Idol. The theme was show tunes, and he's an experienced musical actor. So while almost all the other contestants floundered through boring renditions of boring songs, he got the ladies all hot and bothered with a sexy, tuxedoed version of "My Funny Valentine." Our prediction is that we lose pernicious little Anthony Federov this week, because surely his performance of "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" was not what Rogers & Hammerstein had in mind. Ugh--I wanted to punch out my eardrums with an ice pick.

Farm facts

1. People in the U.S. spend only about 10 percent of their disposable income on food. That's lower than any other country in the world.

2. For every $1 spent on groceries in this country, only 19 cents goes back to the farm.

I don't want to get all John Mellencamp about this, but obviously it is wrong on so many levels! How is it that so many of the most essential jobs pay the worst? But there are a couple of things we can do, off the top of my head:

1. Join a CSA (community-supported agriculture) program. You give a farmer--usually an organic one--a chunk of money up front before the yearly planting starts, which keeps them from having to take out a loan at interest. Then, every week, you get a share of everything that grows. Often the farm will have recipes and food tastings and value-added products, too. It's one of the best and most fascinating ways to become connected to your food. Props to Red Cardinal Farm in Minnesota for teaching me to love edamame, garlic scapes, and lacinato kale.

2. Buy at the farmer's market, direct from the source. If you don't know what something is, ask.

3. Buy local produce on those rare occasions when you see it at the grocery store.

4. When you shop at the grocery store, buy more "whole" foods as opposed to prepared ones. Stick to the outer aisles and tread not in the center ones full of boxes and packets.

Anyone have any more ideas?

Bleah

Steer clear if you know what's good for you; I've got my period. The Midol has kind of kicked in, but I still feel pretty lackluster and it's not worth testing my temper.

Stereotypically enough, I can't seem to keep away from the leftover chocolate brownie pie today. It's a good thing yesterday's dinner guests (our beloved J. and F.) helped us polish off the ice cream already, or I'd have a spoon in that, too.

But I also have a new passion with much better vitamin content: Today I tried celeriac (a.k.a. celery root) for the first time ever. I followed a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe and made it into a gratin with light cream, garlic, and red pepper flakes. I love it, I love it, I love it. Did I mention I love it? It's the best root vegetable ever. Such depth of flavor. I'm going to want it all the time now.

Let's see, what else? Oh, yeah. I'm on a deadline. I really ought to get back to work, but nothing sounds less appealing right now.

Cold feet, literally

I had a great night at J.'s place. She didn't have to work, so she had a few of the girls over. There was lots of wine drinking, lots of talking, lots of laughs, a little Belgian chocolate, and some teeny strawberry and brie tarts of G.'s that were really awesome.

But I had the worst drive home. First I stopped at the grocery store (where I bought the last $10 goose in Athens, thankyouverymuch) and while I was in the produce section picking out portobello mushrooms, I started to have an unusually bad Raynaud's attack. I watched as the first two fingers of my right hand turned white and dead-looking. It hurt. I swore, flapped my arms like a moron, and breathed hot air on my fingers to no avail.

The fingers stayed fishy and numb the whole way through the grocery store. I didn't figure they'd improve. If there's one thing I've learned in five years of dealing with this condition, it's that I lose my ability to regulate my body heat when I'm overtired. And guess what? It was super late and I was exhausted. I just needed to get home and go to bed.

By the time I made it through the excruciating, pointless self-checkout (is it really a self-checkout if the clerk has to override the machine twelve times?), four toes were numb as well. Two of them were the toes that have been frostbitten again and again because of the Raynaud Syndrome. Not good.

I got in the car, started the engine, cranked up the heat in the footwell, then sped away. A few miles later, near the edge of town, I noticed that the gas gauge was dangerously low--like, way below "E." It has a habit of dropping off like that; first you think you're fine and you have a quarter-tank, and next thing you know you're running on fumes. I started looking for a gas station, and lo and behold, none were open because it was 3:30 in the morning...or was it 4:30 in the morning because of Daylight Savings? I kept thinking that the next station would be open, but again and again I was dismayed to find them closed.

Here's where it gets scary: The last 18 minutes of my drive home is through really, really rural territory with absolutely no gas stations. And I don't carry a cell phone, because they don't work out in the country. Still, at this point I had no choice but to forge onward.

It was a windy, chilly night. I envisioned having to walk for miles to find a telephone, alone and scared, with my extremities beginning to blister.

It was the longest 18 miles I have ever driven.

But obviously, since I'm here writing this, I made it. I guess that's kind of anticlimactic, but it doesn't feel that way. I'm still so wired that I haven't gone to bed, even though it's almost 6 am. On the bright side, I got all the dishes washed. The dishwater was nice and warm, and I have feeling in my hands again.

I'll be sleeping in my wool socks tonight.

Vanilla with toasted almonds

Because nobody makes homemade ice cream just once.

New adventures in thriftiness

You'd never know I was a vegetarian for half my life.

Here's how the chain of events goes: I am thawing the $10 goose for the weekend. I plan to roast the breast, and then I will bake a delicious terrine with the neck and giblets. But I remember that due to the relative youth and smallness of American geese, I came up a little short on pieces-parts last time I made that terrine. So I think, all right, what can I do to pad this thing out a little, other than adding extra sausage and breadcrumbs?

I go to the grocery store. I wander past the meat counter and spot what may be my favorite food label ever:

HORMEL CHICKEN GIZZARDS AND HEARTS
mostly gizzards

(Which maybe works as a metaphor for life, if you ask some people. But I digress.)

Aha! I purchase a package.

At home, I separate out all the hearts (there are actually at least ten or fifteen of them, despite the small print) and put them in a baggie in the fridge to use later in the terrine. They'll be a welcome addition to the goose parts. Then I put the gizzards in a pot with onions, garlic, carrots, celery leaves, parsley, peppercorns, tarragon, etc., cover it all with water, and simmer. An hour or two later, I strain it and I have a lovely chicken stock, which I freeze for a future soup.

I have just tossed a boiled gizzard to each of the awaiting dogs when, out of curiosity, I google "chicken gizzard recipe" and find out that people really do eat these things. Huh. I thought they were dog treats. I shrug, then clean the mushy stock vegetables off the gizzards, chop them roughly, and stick them in the fridge.

Today at lunch I saute the gizzards in butter with some onion, mushrooms, black pepper, and a dash of sherry. I serve them for lunch alongside scrambled eggs. And you know what? The texture is oddly clamlike and chewy, but they're quite good.

When life hands you "mostly gizzards"...

Oh, dear

This isn't going to do Scott Savol any good at all in the Top 9.

The perfect brunch

Five eggy, tender crepes, hot and crisp-edged from the pan.
A jar of apricot preserves.
A banana, sliced.
A jar of Nutella.
Hot coffee with milk.

Decorate and eat in this order:

Banana/Nutella
Apricot
Banana/Nutella
Apricot
Banana/Nutella

Nothing further.

The Church of Dog

When the s.o. builds a doghouse, he builds it for keeps. My favorite part is the ventilation slats in the eaves; for those keeping track, they represent incarnation #3 of the leftover shutters on our property.

Note to self

I'm blogging yesterday's rib marinade and sauce just so I don't forget how to do it next time (I made it up on the fly). But if anyone else wants to try it, here's how: Marinate the ribs for a couple of hours, add the sauce, flash in a hot oven for half an hour, then reduce to 225 or 250 F and go "slow and low," turning and basting occasionally for several hours until all the sauce has glommed onto the ribs and the meat is fork-tender.

MARINADE
2 Tbs. Dijon mustard
3 Tbs. red wine vinegar
1 Tbs. honey
1 tsp. sriracha chili sauce
freshly ground black pepper

SAUCE
2 or 3 chipotle peppers with adobo sauce, chopped (about 1/3 small can)
8-oz. can tomato sauce
half an onion, chopped
2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced
half a stick of cinnamon

So now that I have a record of that, on to more pressing matters: American Idol! I thought Constantine did especially well yesterday--he moved me, to be honest, and I think the judges felt the same way--and that Vonzell was fabulous and Nadia redeemed herself. Meanwhile, Scott, Anwar, Jessica, and Anthony should watch their backs tonight.

Breakfast from a packet

Now that I have made my feelings known about prepackaged foods, I suppose I ought to confess the one major exception to the rule: breakfast cereal. I guess it's my upbringing: My grandfather, now very elderly, was the head cereal chemist for Quaker Oats*. So I grew up eating a lot of Life and instant oatmeal. To me it's extreme comfort food, even though I know perfectly well how to make oatmeal from rolled oats (and sometimes do exactly that).

Sure, sometimes I'll get up and eat a little serving of yogurt and some fruit. Sometimes I'll boil a couple of eggs and make toast. Sometimes I'll even embark on something more ambitious, like a batch of muffins or a plate of huevos rancheros. But on those mornings when the coffee cannot possibly be ready soon enough, it's commercial cereal** for me.

Lately I have been experimenting with "add-ins" to my instant oatmeal. Not long ago, I discovered that if you dice up an apple and throw it in the microwave for a couple of minutes with dry Maple & Brown Sugar oatmeal and a little more than the usual amount of water, it creates a delicious melange of oaty baked apple. It's also very filling. It's a rare and beautiful thing when such a small, simple breakfast can hold me until lunchtime.

This morning I branched out. I used the Apples & Cinnamon flavor and threw in three prunes, snipped in half. Sure enough, they rehydrated nicely and filled the oatmeal with raisiny goodness.

Now what, I wonder, will I do with the Cinnamon & Spice flavor?

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* He tried out several prototypes of Cap'n Crunch on my dad and my uncles, and interestingly, none of the ones they liked were chosen as the final product. I was never allowed to eat Cap'n Crunch for breakfast, ever. My grandfather had a deep-seated objection to the stuff.

** By the way, here's an interesting factoid about my mother. For years, she has had a bowl of Wheaties with skim milk for breakfast every day. She just...likes it. I find this a bit odd, since I crave variety, but I must admit it's a good cereal.

Food fashion

You know those lists that Vogue-type magazines print, telling you what foods are "in" this year? The ones that declare that, for example, balsamic vinegar is Out, thanks to ever so many Dreadul Imitations and Salad Saturations Ad Nauseam, and that this year everyone will be singing the praises of hominy? Well, I'm not much of a follower. This is not the Year of Infused Sake for me (although if you pour me a shot, I'll be glad to drink it), and I couldn't care less what chefs in Manhattan are purchasing for their overpriced restaurants.

I do, however, go through periods of heavy consumption of particular foods because I can't seem to get enough of them. (I think everybody does this. The year the first Bruegger's Bagel Bakery came to North Canton, Ohio, my stepdad ate his weight in cinnamon-raisin bagels, and as a onetime employee of that company, I can't say I blame him.) Here's what's big for me this spring:

1. Fennel - Hit the charts last fall and hasn't let up, not even a little bit.

2. Canned tuna fillet packed in olive oil - Because it's a whole different thing from chunk tuna in water, and it makes a salad a meal. Also, fresh tuna is pretty patchy around here and I've been disappointed too many times. This never disappoints.

3. Escarole - I didn't even know what it was before a couple of months ago. Now I must have it.

4. Broccolini - Steamed and dipped in rarebit sauce.

5. French pastries - Especially eggy, fruity ones. As if you didn't know that already.

6. Nuts - Almonds, pecans, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pistachios. I have gotten in the habit of putting nuts in my salads, baking them on fish, and integrating them into entrees and desserts. Not only do I enjoy the taste and texture, but I feel healthier for it. Also, this is the year we switched from regular peanut butter to the natural kind that doesn't have emulsifiers or added sugar. The s.o. refers to it as "peanut butter you can sip" and never wants to go back.

7. Kashi "Strawberry Fields" cereal - Best. Cereal. Ever.

8. Poached or medium-boiled eggs - A really nice change of pace from fried or scrambled ones.

9. Spring greens - I have been craving sorrel, watercress, baby arugula, mini lettuces, etc., probably because this is the time of year for them and I get excited about things like that.

10. Friendly-farmed meats - Not only the humanely raised chicken, beef, pork, and buffalo sold by Maverick Ranch, Spring Mountain Farms, et. al., but also meat from animals that refuse to thrive in tiny cages and pens, such as sheep and geese. They are more expensive, but sometimes I luck out and get a good deal.

What are you into lately?

The day after

I generally have leftovers for lunch. That's fine with me; if I like something well enough to eat it once, I usually want to have it again. Leftovers are a natural byproduct of an unstoppable desire to cook. There will always be more than two sane people should eat at one sitting.

Sometimes the postmortem on the food is glowing (i.e., "Damn, but I make good Chicken Marsala--even if it is just a recipe I clipped out of Real Simple, and even if I did nearly flame my eyebrows off while I was making it"). Other times, not so much. The cream custard I loved yesterday now seems way too over-the-top and heavy. Big surprise, there, since it is more than half cream.

So since I'm planning a French dinner today (cabbage soup plus a quiche made with Swiss cheese and one giant priapistic stalk of asparagus), I figured out a way to recast yesterday's hefty dessert. I baked a very airy, fluffy orange spongecake (the one in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1) that I glazed with apricot preserves (shades of yesterday's apricots) and filled with a healthy dollop of the orange- and nutmeg-scented custard.

Tangentially, I am kind of surprised that, to my knowledge, none of the low-carb fadsters have illuminated the difference between most American cakes and a certain type of French gateau. (Does anyone know how to make an "a" with a circumflex on an American Mac keyboard?) Sure, we have spongecake in our baking tradition, but do you know anyone who makes it? There's practically nothing in it but egg. It has more in common with a clafoutis or a crepe than it does with our usual birthday or wedding cake.

Save this post. Later I will be credited with igniting the Atkins gateau craze.

"Mornin', Sam." "Oh, good morning, Ralph."

The chimney swifts are back. The bats appear to be gone. They work the same territory in opposite shifts. I wonder if the former drove off the latter, or if we had already evicted all the bats before the swifts showed up?

I love the chimney swifts. Just thinking about them gives me warm fuzzies.

The bats can stay, too, just not in the house.

For your arteries' pleasure

Here's a really delightful recipe I came up with today. It's a substantial reworking of something I found in a Cookshelf book. The original had some serious editing problems (not uncommon in that series, unfortunately, because the recipes are otherwise very nice) that resulted in impossible caramelizations, noxious amounts of nutmeg (2 tsp.!), etc. There was also an apparently intentional garnish that, in the photo, looked like mouse droppings. So here is my much-changed version. There is, happily, nothing rodent-like about it.

ITALIAN CREAM CUSTARDS
Makes 5 1/2-cup servings

1 1/4 c. whipping cream
3/4 c. skim milk
3 Tbs. to 1/4 c. sugar, to taste
zest of 1/2 orange, minced
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground Ceylon cinnamon
1/2 tsp. good honey (orange blossom honey is a nice touch)
3 large eggs, beaten
2 dried apricots

Place the cream, milk, and sugar in a large saucepan and slowly bring to a boil, whisking often. Reduce to a simmer and add orange zest, nutmeg, cinnamon, and honey. Continue to simmer a few minutes more.
Add some of the hot cream mixture to the eggs and whisk briskly. Add the eggs to the cream mixture and whisk well. Cook over medium-low heat, whisking often, until the mixture thickens.
Pour into custard cups. Chill at least two hours.
While the custards are chilling, place the apricots in a Pyrex cup and cover with water. Heat in the microwave for 2 minutes. Let stand at room temperature to completely cool and rehydrate the apricots.
When ready to serve, drain and mince the apricots. Spoon a little minced apricot onto the center of each custard.

(Served with: Chicken Marsala, spaghetti tossed with roasted red pepper and anchovy sauce, and steamed broccoli.)

Turning the corner

Last night was magical. The moon was so full and bright that it was like daylight outside when I took the dogs for their last walk of the night. An airplane, lights blipping, traced a long vapor trail between the moon and Saturn. The air was warm and moist. A whippoorwill called out.

Today is the very first day (Florida trip included) that I have worn shorts and a tank top this year. 79 and sunny, light breeze. The pear tree next to the house is starting to bloom now, and I saw a few violets in the lawn--the pale-purple kind with dark "whiskers."

It's supposed to rain for a couple of days starting tomorrow, so I'm out there planting the hot-weather crops in the garden. Squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, tomatilloes, and also peppers and okra if I have the time and energy.

I love this time of year. I can see all the work and weeds and bugs and sweltering weather in the future, but it's not quite real yet. Right now it's just a fantasyland where everything is full of potential.

P.S. Gracie has learned to sit! By the time she is adopted, she will be a real treasure.

Jackpot!

I just got a ten-pound young goose for $10 at the eastside Kroger in Athens. I think it was a mistake on their part, since the geese weren't even on sale, and by all rights it should have cost at least three times that amount.

I love it when people hire the incompetent. "$35? That can't be right. I'll fix it so it's the same price as the chicken."

TMI, I'm sure

I am pretty sure I think about food too much. I read cookbooks for pleasure on a daily basis. I dream about food. I linger in grocery stores.

Probably the scariest part, for the outside observer, is that I track everything I eat every day on Fitday. Some people think it's psycho of me to do it, but there's a good reason. You see, I have an eating disorder. I was a full-blown compulsive eater for years, with all the scary behaviors that conjures up (bingeing in secret, skipping lunch every day out of guilt but then devouring half the pantry when I got home, etc.). Counseling didn't help. Diets didn't help. The only thing that helped, in the end, was to be conscious of what I was doing--to bring it out into a realm where I could look at it and analyze it.

It turned out my big problem was portion control. I don't have that mechanism you're supposed to have where, when you have had enough to eat, the meter registers "full" and you stop eating. So if I don't measure and tabulate everything, I tend to eat like a 16-year-old boy, which is to say a LOT. And I never stop.

(My grandmother once complained to me that she's always ravenously hungry, no matter what she eats. A light went on in my head. Isn't genetics fascinating?)

Once my best friend in high school said I ate as though my food was going to get up and run away from me.

So now I keep track of everything. And yes, I think about food more often than is probably healthy. I don't think I will ever evolve to the point where I don't fantasize about it constantly. But then again, as long as I measure and keep track, I can eat whatever foods I want and my weight stays where I want it. It makes me happy. So sue me.

For me, it has been about learning to eat a single square of chocolate rather than an entire Ritter Sport bar.

It has been a matter of redefining pasta in a two-ounce portion. It has been learning to eat only one piece of lasagna rather than half the pan--and then freezing the rest so I can't pick at it mindlessly.

It has been about splitting gigantic restaurant meals or hunks of coffeecake in two, and then saving half for another meal.

I don't just watch calories; I watch my nutrient intake. It's a great reminder for me to have some fresh greens or to munch on an apple instead of, say, raiding the breadbox for leftover coffeecake. I think I enjoy my food more in the long run when I get a lot of healthy variety. I love vegetables, fruits, legumes. I love it all.

Diet programs like the Zone and South Beach and Atkins and Jenny Craig are--please forgive the vulgarity--total horseshit. Even if they work (which is debatable), there is something fundamentally wrong about denying yourself the things you love. It is wrong to have to eat unsatisfying, tasteless, low-fat versions of full-flavored real foods. And most sinister of all is the idea of eating nutrition bars and drinking foul chemical shakes in the name of losing weight. My feeling is, I can only eat a certain number of calories in a given day. Why would I want to waste even a single one on something substandard? There are hundreds of recipes I'm dying to try. It's everything I can do to fit in all the real food I want. I have no room for fakes.

Everybody needs a hobby, I guess. This is mine. I don't eat imitations because I am too busy trying to find or make the real thing. I don't eat Nutrigrain bars; I eat apple crisp. I don't eat Twinkies; I eat sponge cake. I don't eat Quarter Pounders; I eat buffalo burgers on crusty bread.

I tend to get a little dogmatic when I talk about food, so please forgive me. I'm sure it's like listening to a Trekkie talk about why (in their humble opinion) Klingon is an especially expressive language.

But I really do feel that way (about the food, not the Klingon).

Idolatry

Tonight's American Idol results show has been postponed until tomorrow, and last night's performances are being replayed for our voting pleasure because human error invalidated last night's votes. What-ever. So I guess I'm going to take this opportunity to express my opinions on the top 11.

(1) Anthony Federov. I hate this little prick. He has a soulless choirboy voice and a prepubescent prettyboy appearance, both of which would be forgivable except that he also has the worst musical taste of all time. His song choices have ranged from Foreigner to George Michael. I wish we could get rid of him ASAP, but I am pretty sure all of America's 10- to 13-year-old girls are voting for him.

(2) Carrie Underwood. She's a squeaky-clean, pretty girl from a farm in Oklahoma. She has a lovely country-style voice. I find her a little bland, and I don't hear any evidence that she knows anything about music history, but I think she has a decent chance of winning.

(3) Scott Savol. When I first saw him, I wondered if he was, y'know, all there. He's a bona fide weirdo and he comes across pretty badly onscreen whenever he's not singing. Looks like Bubba Sparxxx but he has gorgeous soul pipes. I like him. Don't think he'll win, but I could be wrong.

(4) Bo Bice. Stunning. A sexy Southern man with a great, versatile rock 'n' roll voice. He took a big risk by singing Jim Croce this week...zzzzzzz. But I love him all the same. In a perfect world, he would win.

(5) Nikko Smith. Eh. He doesn't make much of an impression on me. He was already eliminated once but got reinstated when Mario left for personal reasons. I suspect he'll leave again soon, but who knows? The judges were complimentary this week, so he could sneak through.

(6) Vonzell Solomon. She has a great disco diva voice, but she occasionally has trouble controlling her pitch. She was great this week and the judges hyped her a lot. I like her pretty well and I hope she doesn't have to go back to being a U.S. Mail carrier.

(7) Constantine Maroulis. Hot! He was looking weak for a while, but he has shown more resilience than anyone expected. This week he rocked the audience with--wait for it--The Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You." It was weird, it was theatrical, it was gutsy, and I think it worked. He isn't the best singer in the group, but he does have the best stage presence. And did I mention he's tasty?

(8) Nadia Turner. She was a favorite of mine until this week, when she did a horrific rendition of "Time After Time" in a ridiculous fauxhawk. She even forgot the words, twice. It was just stupid, and now that I think of it, it's not the first time she's made a bad song choice. She deserves to get cut.

(9) Mikalah Gordon. Have you ever noticed that when people are called "irrepressible," they are usually the people you would like to repress the most? That's how I feel about this overplucked Streisand-loving teenager. I should cut her some slack because she's young and immature, but still she annoys me. Puh-lease, send her home before she says "FABULOUS!" again.

(10) Anwar Robinson. Great singer, questionable style (he seems to think he's Wyclef Jean). He was amateurish and boring this week, but he hit his final "wow" note as usual, and that may pull him through.

(11) Jessica Sierra. She has an excellent voice, but she just doesn't look like a star to me. I gather she barely squeaked by last week. I think it's because she's a little unmemorable. Too bad, because she does have talent.

Like magic

One of the benefits of being a lazy, non-detail-oriented gardener is that sometimes my plants go to seed or are unwittingly buried in compost at the end of the season. That's how I got a little crop of carrots this spring; they were the ones that had been forgotten under the weeds last year and had wintered over.

Today I was cleaning up some beds and installing new weed-blocking fabric (a new experiment, this--the very concept of not having weeds everywhere) when I found something that looked familiar. It was mache! There were several clumps of it. The very plant that had failed me so disappointingly last year was volunteering this spring. And it was pretty large, too, since it had gotten started early before the hot weather came.

I also noticed a couple of dandelionish plants nearby that turned out to be arugula, big enough to harvest and eat. This isn't as big of a deal--I have an entire bed of thriving arugula nearby, which will be edible-sized within a week or so--but it's satisfying nonetheless. Gardeners of the world, plant arugula! It is the most enthusiastic seedling around. It'll outcompete any weed Mother Nature throws at it.

I noted with satisfaction that my beets--notoriously tricky in this climate--have sprouted and are doing pretty well. I can take full credit for this, since I had the presence of mind to plant them in February (they're another plant that likes cool weather).

The turnips are preparing for their yearly onslaught abundance. Nothing can stop a turnip.

There are a couple of cute little pea plants, but most will have to be reseeded because they got drowned by a storm just after planting and started to rot.

All in all, very successful so far.

Further developments

The lawn is unkempt with wild onion.
The first white irises have popped open.
The honeysuckle is leafing out.
The Bradford pears are a riot of white petals--but not yet the real pear tree beside the house, which blooms a little later.
And in the asparagus bed, one pioneering spear has poked up through the mulch.

Because one cannot live by ice cream alone

We are exhausted. We've been making a wire-fence pen and a very swanky doghouse for Gracie (after we find her a permanent home, the pen and house will be used to put up any dog that needs to be fostered; I suspect we will take them with us when we move). That has meant a lot of digging on my part--eight two-foot-deep holes in stiff silt and clay--and a trip to Home Depot for a lot of bulky materials. And for the s.o., it has meant a lot of hammering and sawing of wood, and a lot of tamping of dirt with a heavy sledge.

Also, the other day at dusk, the s.o. was outside using the table saw for an unrelated project when he started noticing small swooping creatures launching themselves from the eaves of the house. It turns out that what we had thought was a nest of peeping baby birds in the wall was actually a massive colony of bats. "Well, that explains why we don't have a mosquito problem," the s.o. observed. Bats are useful and good creatures, certainly. But the thing is, we can't sit idly and let our walls fill with guano (there's a lovely image). So the s.o. is spending a lot of time on the extension ladder, sealing chinks in the siding (the trick is to try to do it while the bats are outside), and meanwhile he has built a largeish bat house from plans he found on the internet. I think he is making some progress on the bat-exclusion front, if displaced bats are any indication. A couple have blundered into the chimneys and down into the house, leading to a lot of barking, meowing, and shrieking on the part of the house's occupants.

Ah! The country life.

So in those moments when we are not playing with dogs, shoveling dirt, or chasing bats with brooms, we are hungry. Here's what we had for dinner today, which I thought turned out really well:

TURKEY GUMBO
2 turkey thighs, skinned, deboned, and halved
2 to 4 Tbs. flour
1 medium onion, chopped
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
14-oz. can diced tomatoes with juice
8-oz. can tomato sauce
3 c. fresh or frozen okra, chopped into bite-size pieces
1/2 c. chopped celery
1/2 c. fresh or frozen corn kernels
1/2 c. diced cooked ham
several sprigs fresh parsley, chopped
a bay leaf
3 c. water
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Dredge the turkey pieces in flour and fry them, with the onion, in the oil in a large pot. When the turkey is slightly browned, add the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Reach into the pot with two forks and pull the turkey into large shreds for easier eating.

Somebody stop me

We picked up a copy of The Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook at a thrift store while we were traveling, and I noticed it contains a bunch of ice cream recipes that don't require an ice cream freezer contraption. Well, let me tell you, there is no way I'm going to read a recipe for Coffee Malted Ice Cream without giving it a try.

Here's my adaptation. It's currently half frozen and is completely decadent-tasting. If the texture is anything even approaching proper ice cream when it's done, it'll be a runaway success.

COFFEE MALTED ICE CREAM
2/3 c. sweetened condensed milk
3 1/2 Tbs. malted milk powder
1/2 c. strong cold coffee
scrapings of half a bourbon vanilla bean
1/2 tsp. cognac
1 c. heavy cream, whipped until it holds stiff peaks

Mix everything but the cream together until smooth. Freeze in a shallow glass or plastic container until edges and bottom are frozen, then scrape into a bowl and beat until smooth but not melted. Carefully fold in the whipped cream, return to container, and freeze until firm. Stir a couple of times during the freezing process.

Florida photos...

...can be found here. If you open the first one up and then use the "next" button to view them, you'll see the captions and comments.

Moral: Ask Icelandic people what to do with fish

Alda's recipe for salmon (see her March 18 entry and its comments) is soooo good! The s.o. and I both think its marriage of spicy/cool/tangy/mild is awesome. I'll make it again, for sure.

It went really well with my beloved watercress salad. That's a nice bonus.

What do you get if you pour boiling water down a rabbit hole?*

Here's a little seasonal flavor for you--in my not-so-humble opinion, the very best hot cross buns recipe on earth. I came up with it by crossing a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe** with a Sunset magazine one, then adding a little bit of Florida inspiration in the form of orange flower water. If there is any smell headier and more magical than the scent of an orange grove, I don't know what it is. And orange flower water, though a pale imitation, helps me remember what it was like to stand in a grove and draw that sweet air into my lungs.

HOT CROSS BUNS
1/2 c. golden raisins
2 Tbs. brandy
125 ml cold skim milk
125 ml boiling water
pinch of sugar
1 1/2 packets yeast
500g all-purpose flour, divided into two bowls of 250g each
50g sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. powdered ginger
1 tsp. grated lemon zest
1 tsp. grated orange zest
50g melted butter
1 egg, lightly beaten and divided in half
1 Tbs. skim milk
a few drops orange flower water
3/4 c. powdered sugar

Soak the raisins in the brandy for 30 minutes or until all the liquor is absorbed.
Mix 125 ml of cold milk with the boiling water. The resulting liquid should be about 105 degrees F. Toss in the pinch of sugar and then mix in the yeast. Let the mixture sit until foamy. Add the activated yeasty liquid to one of the bowls of flour and mix well to get a sticky batter. Let rise, covered, in a warm place for 45 minutes or until doubled.
To the other bowl of flour, mix in the remaining sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, lemon and orange zests, and brandied raisins. Add this mix to the risen batter, along with the melted butter and half the beaten egg. Knead for a few minutes with floured hands. Cover the dough and let it rise for one hour in a warm place, until doubled.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Turn the risen dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently pull it into a log shape. Without kneading or punching down, cut the dough into 16 equal pieces. Gently shape each into a ball. Space them evenly on an oiled, floured baking sheet. Let rise 15 minutes, covered with a damp towel. Brush lightly with remaining egg and bake 15 minutes. Remove and let cool slightly.
Put the 1 Tbs. milk into a medium bowl and add just two or three drops of orange flower water. (Don't overdo it--a little goes a long way!) Gradually whisk in the powdered sugar until you have a thick icing. With a rubber spatula, transfer the icing into a plastic sandwich bag. Snip off the corner and pipe crosses onto the buns.
The buns are best when warm, but they'll keep for a couple of days.

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* Hot cross bunnies, of course. This is quite possibly the worst joke ever told, but it's the only one I can ever seem to remember.

** It's because of the HFW ancestry that some of the measurements are by weight and/or in metric measurements. I like the British weighing method better than cup measures anyway when it comes to baking, since it's more accurate.

Back

We have returned from Florida, happy and tired. I will post photos and details of our vacation soon. Right now I'm too scattered. But I can tell you it was about as close to perfect as a vacation could be. Muy bueno.

Taxi the cat spent the week patrolling the house and was visited twice by a friend of ours. You're a good egg, Jon--thank you. She was very glad to have your company. She is a little miffed at us, but she'll get over it.

Silver and Cairo spent the week at the Winterville location of Four Seasons Pet Resort. They were the new location's very first customers! They had a fun week at "camp" (lots of romping in the play area, ample Bil-Jac, etc.) and were sent home with Hawaiian-print bandanas around their neck. The manager of the kennel even took a photo of them for us and printed it out on a little postcard.

Gracie the new kid spent a week luxuriating at Athens Animal Hospital. She got all her shots and was dewormed (luckily, she was heartworm-negative, but she did have a pesky case of hookworm that needed attention). She gained a little weight and won everyone over with her friendly personality. When I picked her up, I took her directly to Pawtropolis to use the self-service dog wash. I managed to get rid of most of her hobo smell. You should have seen the dirty water that poured off of her. Who knew she had white feet? She looks so pretty now.

Special thanks go out to my veterinary-student friend Becky, who interned at Athens Animal Hospital and was able to give me good advice on what to do with a bedraggled wandering dog on a moment's notice! Becky, you rule.

The s.o. is building an outdoor run and doghouse for Gracie, since she's not too keen on other dogs.* I have already become very fond of her. She's such a playful, curious little monkey. Sweet as can be. When she rides in the car, she climbs up into the back window and makes all the other drivers crack up. If anyone knows of someone near us who'd be a good parent for her, please let me know.

Other than taking care of all these doggie details and catching up on my e-mail, the only thing I've done since we got home is cook an elaborate Indian meal. I did it because I was inspired by new purchases. We shopped at, like, a thousand thrift stores while we were traveling. At one of them the s.o. found a couple of those stainless-steel covered dishes that they serve entrees on at Indian restaurants. At another, he found a stainless steel three-cup condiment caddy. At yet another, he picked up two volumes of the Time-Life Books Foods of the World series: Chinese and Indian. They are copyrighted 1969, and they're fantastic--super authentic and informative, with as much cultural information as cooking instructions. So I took the Indian volume and set to work filling our new serving dishes. I made:

Roghan Josh (Curried Lamb)
Same ki Bhaji (Fried Fresh Green Beans with Coconut)
Puris (Deep-Fried Unleavened Whole-Wheat Bread)
Dhanya Chatni (Fresh Coriander Chutney)
Kela ka Rayta (Yogurt with Banana and Grated Coconut)

All of the recipes were spot-on. Delicious. I felt such a sense of accomplishment; I had been trying for quite some time to make a decent roghan josh, and this recipe--the simplest I've tried--was the best. Also, I had always assumed there was some trick to making puris, but there isn't. You roll them out and drop them in hot oil, and they puff up like balloons. Cool.

I think it's time to sit around and read some magazines. All that unpacking and dog-collecting has worn me out.

One more thing: DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT HAPPENED ON AMERICAN IDOL THIS WEEK?!

-----
* There was a snarling, lungeing incident when she encountered another dog at Pawtropolis, although I was able to contain her. Gracie trusts people, but seems to have a strong instinct to protect me against other dogs. We will try to socialize her, but I suspect she would probably do best in a situation where she would be an "only dog."

Gah!

OK, I lied again. One more post. Does anyone want a puppy?

A stray wandered up on our front porch. A 4- to 6-month-old female mutt who is definitely part pit bull (judging by her square head and small flop ears), maybe mixed with something small. SUPER friendly. Likes to give kisses and receive hugs. No aggression whatsoever. Strong guard dog instinct--barks at scary stuff. We have named her Gracie because we needed something to call her. It seemed right.

She is skinny but not emaciated. Her collar was too tight. She has the remains of a chewed-off lead on her collar.

As you know, we're trying oh-so-hard to leave for vacation. I called my friend who's a veterinary student, and she gave me the number of an animal hospital in Athens that can vaccinate and board on short notice. I'm calling first thing in the morning. And then we are outta here...and will deal with this when we get back!

In case anyone is wondering, we are fostering this dog, not adopting her. We don't want another dog, and indeed don't have the time for one. But we can't just cut her loose. She has proved already that she hasn't got the sense to stay out of the road. And if someone else around here found her, they might try to dogfight her, or worse. Gotta find her a real home where she'll be loved.

LATER. In a week.

Why does everything always have to happen when you're busiest????

One more before I go

This is what happened to the sweet potatoes and cauliflower (not the radicchio; it went into a salad, and there was an accident when the bottom of the salad dressing cruet blew out in mid-shake, but I think you can imagine the scene as well as I could describe it in words, so I'll leave it at that). It is delicious and we're freezing the rest of it so we can enjoy it again when we get home. Please forgive the lack of exact measurements and instructions; I did it by taste and added things as I thought of them. If you do this, you'll want to start by sauteing the onions in the oil, then throw in the sweet potato, garlic, and spices, and keep sauteing. Then add most of the rest of the ingredients, simmer until tender, and stir in the cilantro near the end.

AFRICAN-STYLE LEFTOVERS SOUP
1/2 c. chopped onion and/or shallot
1 Tbs. peanut oil
1 large sweet potato, peeled and chopped
a few cloves garlic, minced
ginger (fresh or powdered)
berbere*
peri peri**
cumin
a 14-oz. can of diced tomatoes, with juice
half a head of cauliflower, in florets
a couple handfuls of shredded cabbage
a handful of unsalted roasted peanuts, chopped
a teaspoon or two of peanut butter
salt and pepper to taste
a little water if needed
1/4 c. chopped cilantro

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* I was going to call this a West African soup, which it more or less resembled, what with the peanuts and sweet potatoes and all. But then I went and threw an Ethiopian spice mixture into it and mangled my geography. Ah, well.

** And then I threw in a South African red pepper powder to further confound matters.

The bikini is in the bag

There is no milk in the house. We're leaving on our trip to Florida tomorrow morning, and we are trying to "run down" the food in the fridge.

This morning: Oatmeal with brown sugar and diced apple. Coffee with no milk. Things are getting lean and hungry around here. I usually have about a quarter-cup of skim milk in each of my two cups of coffee (not that I'm a creature of habit or anything), and I miss it a lot. Not enough to use powdered milk or to open a whole can of evaporated/condensed milk, though.

Last night I made EmptyTheFridge Lo Mein. Leftover chicken, tofu, the last green and white onions, the last half of a bunch of cilantro, the dregs of a bag of frozen peas, the remainder of an already-opened can of commercial chicken broth. By the time I piled all the leftovers into it, it was huge, so now we have leftovers of lo mein. Oops.

For tonight's dinner, I get to figure out what to do with two sweet potatoes, a carton of yogurt, and half a head of radicchio. (?!)

I don't expect to be blogging much, if at all, for the next week. We intend to find a library at some point and check in, but by then I will probably have 30,000 e-mails to deal with, and no doubt all of them will be RED HOT EMERGENCIES. So it's safe to assume you won't see much of me until the 17th or 18th.

We will be spending a couple of days in Kissimmee/Orlando, then moving to a beachfront campsite in St. Pete for the remainder of the week. There will be jai alai, manatees, museums, botanical gardens, sponge divers, thrift shopping, kitsch, seafood, Cuban food, Greek food, and of course a lot of spring training baseball. I'll post some photos when I get back.

Mistake? Or good fortune?

I accidentally bought white chocolate Toblerone today. The bars were 79 cents each and they were sitting on the checkout counter at Big Lots, and I grabbed three of them without looking too closely because I loooooove Toblerone.

When I got home with the groceries and looked closer, I was terribly disappointed because I don't like white chocolate. I dislike it to the point where I don't even want a hint of it in a cheesecake or a cookie. I've always seen it as pointless--chocolate without the chocolate. Give me my cocoa!

But then I broke off a little "mountain peak" from the bar and ate it. And you know what? If all white chocolate tasted like that, I wouldn't think so poorly of it. In fact, I might even like it a lot.

Let us raise a glass in honor of Swiss chocolatiers.

But let us not become hasty. If I am eating dinner at your restaurant and the waiter tells me the house dessert specialty is Raspberry White Chocolate Decadence Cake, I still won't order it, because most white chocolate is not worth the energy it takes to break off a chunk. White chocolate as a "fancy" extra in a dessert? That's hack.

I did it

I finished the living room ceiling! Woo! And now my neck hurts too much to look up at it. I think it's probably very pretty.

Fruits of my labors, part deux

The consensus here is that the bramley burnt creams from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's The River Cottage Year are one of the best desserts ever to grace the earth. Of course, since I have no access to bramley apples here in the U.S., mine were macintosh burnt creams. I don't think much was lost in translation.

Let me try to describe the concept. You cook up a batch of homemade applesauce, keeping it nice and tart. You chill a layer of the applesauce in ovenproof ramekins. Then you whip some cream--unsweetened--and chill a layer of whipped cream on top of the applesauce. Then you sprinkle a layer of brown sugar over the whipped cream and put the cold ramekins under the broiler just long enough to caramelize the sugar, yet keep everything else cold. Chill once more, then crack the burnt sugar with your spoon and dig in. Stunning. I made a half recipe (three ramekins) for three people, but we all wish I'd made more.

Lately I've been really loving desserts that are heavy on fruit, eggs, nuts, etc. Wholesome, bright tastes, with less fat and flour than I've baked with in the past. I've been making these cookies from Jacques Pépin's Simple and Healthy Cooking that have nothing but ground pecans, powdered sugar, and egg white in them. I have nicknamed them pecanaretti. They're wafer-thin and crispy and toffeelike, and when they're crumbled they make a perfect topping for, say, key lime pie-flavored yogurt, or zabaglione.

Bring me your tired, your poor, your sweet-toothed...

Clever, clever s.o.

Like our new entertainment center? It's a 1920s electric stove that came with the house. We don't have the money to restore it right now, but we are managing to put it to good use nevertheless.

And look where the components go!

Janus-faced

Good Jamie:
While moving furniture and DIY supplies upstairs so that the s.o. could install baseboards, I found a partial can of semigloss paint in the living room/dining room trim color, which means I probably don't have to buy more paint for the living room ceiling after all. This means a potential savings of $25 (expensive, I know...it's Ralph Lauren paint) and a trip to Athens.

Bad Jamie:
Casting health concerns aside, I made batter-fried pollack, homemade onion rings, and baby broccoli with rarebit dip for dinner. Mmm...so greasy and fried...

Fruits of my labors

Julia Child was known for drinking wine while she cooked. Perhaps that's why she was in the habit of leaving things in the oven for about five minutes too long. Take a look at Julia Child & Company, which shows photos of actual food cooked on her show, and you'll see that most of her pastries are a little scorched.

With this in mind, I would like to amend the recipe for clafoutis that appears in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1. A clafoutis should remain in the oven for 55 minutes, not an hour.

Anyhow, I don't mind that my plum clafoutis turned out just a tad too brown. Redolent of cognac, bubbling with purple juice, eggy and slightly sweet...oh my, it takes all my strength to keep from eating the entire thing.

Busy bees

After I've been working on a particularly grubby and grueling DIY project, there's no feeling in the world like stepping into the shower and getting really clean. I deploy the sweetly-scented personal-care equivalent of 80 grit sandpaper. It's so wonderful to scrub off all the teeny paint chips and cobwebs and dirt, and to emerge smelling like mangoes or papayas or coconut.

All of that is a lead-in to the fact that I started painting the living room ceiling today. Yes, I know you're supposed to work from top to bottom when you remodel a room. But we had to live somewhere, didn't we? We couldn't stay at the Suburban Lodge motel forever--not at $180 a week. So we finished the walls and moved on in.

So now I am moving furniture wherever practical, and throwing dropcloths over the rest. I'm scraping peeling paint where I find it, painting what I've scraped, and basically spending hours on a ladder with one arm over my head. Then there's a long, drawn-out cleanup where I vacuum everything and use the brush attachment to get flyaway dust out of the papasan cushion.

The room is starting to look a lot better--lighter and brighter! and with a ceiling that matches rather than clashing with the walls!--but I suspect it's going to take me a while to finish.

Outdoors the weather is gradually improving after the lapse earlier this week. The arugula, radishes, and turnips are starting to look like real plants. The sorrel is sending up new shoots. The s.o. has been outdoors whenever he can, using the table saw to rip baseboards for the upstairs (and to make a couple of replacement boards for the exterior, with the goal of keeping a noisy squirrel out of our attic).

Suddenly it's afternoon, and I haven't even had my lunch!

AI results postmortem

I'll keep this brief for readers who couldn't care less. Heh.

Constantine survived despite what I thought was a really lame performance. I'll start rooting for him (as a number TWO favorite) again if he doesn't suck next Monday.

Aloha didn't make it...proving once again that the only thing more deadly than a terrible performance is a workmanlike but forgettable one, especially if you have to sing first. Really a pity. I did like her.

Have towel, will travel

Can't wait for this! Best casting ever. It looks so good. My only regret is that my dad (who introduced me to Douglas Adams' work and had a very similar sense of humor) isn't still around to see it with us.

One fish, two fish, bread fish, Hugh fish

The title is a reference to dinner, of course. I made the Foil-Baked Trout with Granary Bread Croutons from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's The River Cottage Year cookbook. I did it completely "by the book," even to the point of following his suggestion to serve the fish with wilted spinach and new potatoes. Excellent.

Today it snowed. Let me say that again: It snowed. I was out running errands and I kept seeing these little flakes flying around. Because I am a northerner, my Spidey sense said "snow," but somehow I couldn't quite believe it. Sure, it was wool-sweater weather, but snow? The wind was howling, but snow?! We don't DO snow here. Maybe there was a fire somewhere and this flurrying stuff was ash.

It was snow. A piece of it fluttered onto my windshield and melted. Ash doesn't do that.

As soon as I saw that melting flake, I started cussing. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK! I did not move to Georgia so that I could run my errands in the snow. On the bright side, the snow didn't stick around here (although it did in the northern mountains). On the not-so-bright side, a hard freeze is forecast for tonight. I am not impressed.

Snowflakes aren't the only things I've been seeing out of the corner of my eye. Lately I've noticed a lot of signs.

Outside a church: JESUS LOVES YOU MORE THAN ANYONE. (Do they mean "Jesus loves you more than he loves anyone else," or "Jesus loves you more than anyone else does"? It's kind of important to know which one. I favor "A.")

On a marquee in front of the Hardee's: MONSTER THINKBURGER. (Think twice about eating it.)

On a signboard with letters dropping off, in front of a gas station in Union Point: WIN 20 GALLONS OF GA. (I already carry 20 gallons of Georgia with me at all times. I think I always will.)

Change of heart

I'm over Constantine Maroulis.

There's a lot of stunning talent on American Idol this year, and he's just not performing at a high enough level to be a contender.

Meanwhile, Bo Bice is kicking everyone's ass. Chills, I tell you, he's giving me chills.

Might as well make a Top 5 prediction:

Bo Bice
Nadia Turner
Carrie Underwood
Mario Vazquez
Aloha Mischeaux

And the best quick bread goes to...

We were eating our pre-Oscars dinner last night when our guest offhandedly mentioned that if he had leftover ham, he'd have ham on biscuits the next morning at brunch. The s.o. and I exchanged meaningful glances.

"Thanks," the s.o. said to him, smiling.

The idea percolated in my head later that evening as we were eating zabaglione and engaging in a Marsala-fueled critique of the nominees' and presenters' clothing, acting skills, speeches, etc. The boys tore into the ham again during the wee hours, but they still left plenty for biscuits, and for a bevy of split-pea soups and the like in the future.

I make great biscuits. I came by it honestly--I had to work at it. There was a time when my biscuits sucked and weren't worth eating. But over time I've learned that biscuit dough is a little like pie dough. There is a certain very specific way it has to be handled, and if you do exactly that, you'll have excellent results every time.

My biscuits are squarish, which the s.o. jokingly says is "wrong, just wrong." There's a reason for it, though, which is that I don't own a good round biscuit cutter. Contrary to popular opinion, you cannot simply stamp out biscuits with an upended drinking glass; the dull edge will crimp down the sides of the biscuits and they'll end up flat. Your biscuit cutter must be knife-sharp so it frees up the layers, and that's why I use one of those big rectangular kitchen scrapers with a sharpened edge to cut mine.

My biscuits are also half whole-wheat flour, which I suppose is wrong in some people's view, too. I certainly wouldn't make strawberry-shortcake biscuits that way. But I like my regular breakfast biscuits to have some nutritional value to them. And I promise you they are just as delicious and fluffy as white biscuits.

Although we do live near Athens, Ga., my biscuits are not made from the Grit's famous whole-wheat biscuit recipe. The recipe they printed in their cookbook is either missing some crucial secret ingredient or is too persnickety to be executed successfully by most mortals. Even at the restaurant, the biscuits are only really transcendent when a guy named Chuck is in the kitchen. He has the touch.

So here's how to do it. And in case you were wondering, we decided that the worst gown of the night was Hilary Swank's Guy Laroche, which looked like a choir robe held tight to the front of her neck by rubber bands. (It was almost as bad as Diane Kruger's Marchesa horror from the Golden Globes.) On the other hand, we thought Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet looked especially nice.

BISCUITS
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. all-purpose flour, plus a little extra for the countertop
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
6 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 c. buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl and, with a pastry blender or two knives, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Pour in the buttermilk and stir with a fork just until the batter pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
Flour the counter lightly with all-purpose flour. Flour your hands. Lift out the wad of dough and, without messing with it too much, pat it into a squarish shape about an inch thick. Pick up the end of the square that's closest to you and fold it to the top. Pat it to flatten it slightly, then turn the resulting rectangle 90 degrees and fold it over exactly once more. (If you know how to make croissants, you'll recognize this as being a similar technique, although much simplified; you're doing this to align the butter into layers.)
Now pat and adjust the dough into a neat rectangle about 3/4 inch thick. Again, don't mess with it too much. The less you work it, the better.
Cut the dough into 12 or 16 biscuits. If you are using a scraper to cut them, feel free to razor off the sloppy edges so your biscuits will be more aesthetically pleasing.
Place the biscuits close to each other, but not touching, on a nonstick baking sheet. Bake 15 minutes, or until golden-brown on top and just cooked through. Remove from the baking sheet immediately so they don't overbake.

Recommendation

If you're older than 25 or so (or even if you're not, really), you might want to give this internet radio station a listen. A lot of it is great, and a lot of it is pretty obscure. (For example, I had forgotten that groups such as Fun Boy Three even existed.)

Exotic canned good makes good

The one thing that is most noticeably American about my kitchen is the sheer amount of food in it. I love to grocery shop (it's not a chore for me; it's something I look forward to), and if I see an unusual ingredient I'm fond of, I have a compulsion to buy it right away, whether I need it or not.

This occasionally leads to flabby vegetables that have to be thrown out or made into stock, but more often it leads to adventuresome cooking and eating when I ponder, "Okay, what the hell can I do with this?"

Thus it came to be that there was a tin of guava paste in the pantry that had been there for kind of a long time and really, really needed to be used up. I have been known to make Cuban-style pastries with guava paste, but I haven't done it in a long time and couldn't foresee doing it. So I decided to serve a few little cubes of guava paste with the cheese/fruit course of tonight's dinner. And in the meantime I invented this, which I think is the absolute most delicious smoothie of all time:

GUAVA-BANANA SMOOTHIE
1 frozen banana, broken into small chunks
1/2 c. nonfat plain yogurt
2 Tbs. guava paste

Put all the ingredients in a blender and pulse until smooth. Makes 1 smoothie.

A foolproof way to tell you're still asleep and dreaming

Someone informs you that Apple has released a new color of iPod, called "Liver Fantasy."

What the hell?

Dinner recipe

Well, this made me feel better!

ITALIAN SAUSAGE AND BEAN STEW
3 Italian sausages (we use the lower-fat turkey kind)
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium green bell pepper, sliced thin
14-oz. can diced tomatoes, with liquid
14-oz. can Great Northern or cannelini beans, partly drained
1/4 tsp. fennel seed, chopped
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 to 2 tsp. red wine vinegar, to taste

Preheat the broiler. Prick the sausages with a fork and place them on a foil-lined broiler pan. Broil, turning once, until sausages are well browned and cooked through. Cut each sausage into about four pieces. Set aside.
Heat the olive oil in a large skillet and add the onion, garlic, and green pepper. Saute until crisp-tender, about 5 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and their juice to the pan. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until liquid is somewhat reduced.
Stir in the remaining ingredients, including the sausages. Bring back to a quick simmer, stirring, then slap a lid on the skillet and reduce the heat to low. The dish is done when the flavors are combined and the vegetables are soft.

Dept. of self-sabotage

Sometimes it is so frustrating not to have the eyes and nose of a dog.

Silver and I are walking at the edge of the woods. She pokes around in the pine straw at a leisurely pace, and I have to keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn't find a pile of deer shit and eat it.* The dog across the street starts barking, but I don't pay it any mind because that dog is very bored, what with being tied out all the time, and it barks at a lot of things.

Suddenly Silver tenses up and stares fixedly into our side woods. I stare in the same direction, but I don't see anything. I walk with her to the top of a little hill, hoping (by following the arc of her gaze) to triangulate exactly where the object of interest is. Still nothing. I squint. Dammit, I have 20/10 vision with my contact lenses in, but I can only see tree trunks and privet.

Silver stares as only a border collie can stare. "Wuh," she says quietly--that noise dogs make when they're fixing to bark but haven't quite committed to it yet.

"What is it, girl?" I ask, and then I roll my eyes at my own stupidity. This is not Lassie. I shrug and lead Silv back up to the house.

I haven't been too bright today, all in all. I started out feeling great but then acted contrary for no reason when the s.o. and I were at the thrift store. I kept at it until I succeeded in ruining our fun. Everything he found, I'd say that we couldn't afford it without going to an ATM, or that we didn't need it. And then of course the whole way home, I kept bringing it up and self-flagellating and continuing to dampen the mood. Lovely.

So rather than subjecting anyone to a continuation of the eternal "I suck" litany, I present you with the farm report:

Arugula - Up in great quantities - woo hoo!
Lettuce - Just barely up.
Peas - have so far failed to thrive since sprouting, and I am beginning to wonder if they are rotting in situ because of the soggy soil.

Eh.

-----
*Notice I didn't say anything about wishing for a dog's sense of taste. This past Christmas I got my dad's onetime girlfriend a recipe notebook with cartoon dog chefs on it. To me it was funny, because dogs really, really don't care what they eat. And yet for some reason I am still flattered when our dogs beg for, say, my Chinese sesame cabbage. "They like it!" I exclaim.

Oh yeah...

Tonight:
A navarin of lamb from Jacques Pépin's Simple and Healthy Cooking, which I always involuntarily pronounce "Sample and Hell-tee Cookeeng," and you probably would, too, if you had spent as much time as I have watching Jacques' show on PBS. I love Jacques Pépin. Not only is he a font of knowledge, but he's goofy and smiley. I think of him as the French Fred Flintstone.

His navarin--at least his lowfat one--is a little odd in that it doesn't have turnips in it, which I thought was a requirement. But I secretly don't like turnips all that much (I grow them for their delicious greens, and for their self-esteem value--i.e., they grow like scary radioactive weeds, so by virtue of their inevitable success they make you feel like a Real Gardener), so no complaints here. Two thumbs way up.

Friday has suddenly taken on a cheerier and more leisurely character because a key interviewee for my article has been sick and hasn't called me back. The editor has given me additional time to interview him and then finish writing. Cue music from Ferris Bueller's Day Off...

Gosh, that sounded irresponsible. Joking! Joking!

February was never like this

Spring has sprung. The early flowers are up all along the rural highway. There is one place in a town called Maxeys*, about 10 miles north of here, where there's an old pink dogtrot house with a little woods next to it. The woods are full of naturalized daffodils. It reminds me of a field of tall yellow daffodils at my grandparents' place when I was a kid.

Also in Maxeys, the farmer(s) at Green Acres Farms have freshly manured the fields. I keep forgetting to put the car fan on "RECIRC" when I drive through there, but it's not so bad, really.

I was worried that the torrential rains had washed away all my seeds, but today I found that my radishes had survived and sprouted. You know how you look and look in the dirt and can't see a thing, and then you see one sprout and all of the sudden they're everywhere you look?

Today was so lovely (70 and sunny again) that I went out in short sleeves for the first time this year. I drove into Athens and ran errands:

New battery for the Accord - check!
Deposit check at ATM - check!
Craft store - check!
Big Lots - check!
Wine store - check!
Bakery - check!
Real grocery where they can identify the produce - check!

At the grocery they had watercress. Watercress! Good, fresh watercress, too, not the flattened, yellow watercress you see sometimes that already smells like decay. I've been waiting months for it to appear. I grabbed it and a head of butter lettuce so I could make my favorite salad of all time.

The s.o. is as enamored of the watercress salad as I am. We both take seconds--so what if we spoil our dinner! I see this as one of many signs of our compatibility. Let's put it this way: Once upon a time when I was married to my ex, I took that same salad to an Easter brunch with his family and every one of them turned their noses up at it. Great people, but no taste. That was the brunch where I was introduced to the Swedish-American dish known as "sandwich loaf." It's Wonderbread with the crusts cut off, layered with ham salad, egg salad, etc., and then "frosted" with mayonnaise so it resembles a cake. Gak! Please let me never see such a thing again.

Spring also brings American Idol. Seacrest...in! The house! Tonight was the results show from the first week of voting. Super emotional. I'd say the viewers pretty much voted off the right people, with the possible exception of Sarah Mather, who simply sang the wrong song for her talents (Earth to Sarah: If you are a delicate Victorian beauty, do not choose a song that requires raunchy soul).

I still have high hopes for my boy Constantine, although earlier this week he was so nervous that he kept lapsing into Tourette's-style grimaces and winces**. He's gotten over it now--he's all smiles and smoulders. Something very beneficial has happened along the way: The producers have drummed up a faux rivalry between him and the other "29-year-old rocker guy," the also-excellent Bo Bice. Psychologically, that's cool, because the little girls will pick a favorite and vote for him. I think it will benefit both.

I should finish painting the pantry, but no, I'm lolling around, paging through my new Sunset and Vogue magazines. The s.o. is listing eBay items, as he does. We are both looking forward to morning, too. Don't think I would have visited the bakery without getting a breakfast pastry. The s.o. is lucky--Big City Bread cuts its raspberry coffeecake into pieces that are too big for any sane person to eat alone, so I share mine with him.

-----
* Supposedly the only town in Georgia with a possessive name, except that it's not a possessive anymore because they dropped the apostrophe. I hate to be a grammar nitpicker, but...no, wait, I don't hate to be a grammar nitpicker. That's how I am, dammit.

** It reminded me of the first chapter of Infinite Jest, it was that painful. I can't believe I just wrote that in a footnote.

Fish tale

I'm hesitant to blog this, because non-foodies are going to think that this blog has suddenly become All Food All The Time. It won't stay that way, I promise. Surely my life is fascinating in myriad other ways. Um, or not. But I like to pretend it is sometimes. Anyhow...

Recently we bought a couple of tins of smoked shellfish--one of mussels, one of oysters. They were on sale for 99 cents each, probably because no one was buying them. My thought was, well, shoot, there's got to be a recipe for this stuff out there somewhere.

There was.

A half recipe, made with neufchatel instead of cream cheese, then spread on little toast pieces and baked with cherry tomato halves on top, made a wickedly good appetizer.

Then I cooked a couple of whole catfish according to the "Gary Fooks' Chinese Sea Bass" recipe in The River Cottage Cookbook. It was weird how little they tasted like catfish. They had no muddy aftertaste (or, as the s.o. joked, "none of that characteristic PCB flavor"). It was either the ginger that was tucked inside the body cavity during the steaming, or maybe fish farming has finally succeeded in breeding the river out of the river cat. (Not sure that's a desirable thing.)

Anyway, thumbs up to Hugh F.-W., and/or to his friend Gary. The fish was served covered in oyster sauce and fresh herbs. My mother called just at the moment when I was pouring a drizzle of smoking-hot peanut oil over the entire dish to sizzle it. I let the phone ring. I really wanted to talk to my mother, and I knew it was her (not because I was expecting her call, but because I somehow always know when it's her), but the fish wouldn't wait.

She called back after dinner. (I knew she'd do that, too.) She and my stepdad had spent the holiday weekend in Philadelphia and New York City and were driving back to Ohio. I was pretty jealous until I remembered that I'd been in Savannah last week, which is almost as good. Almost.*

They also went hunting for pheasants somewhere out in the country, and came back with a coolerful of them. Mom's a crack shot. She's so petite** that I can't figure out how she withstands the recoil. I chalk it up as one of the great mysteries of life.

TV: All of the Ohio news tonight is food-related. In an Akron pizzeria, a guy was beaten severely because someone cut in front of him in line and then overheard him complaining about it on his cell phone. Elsewhere, in a school cafeteria, "a baked potato became a dangerous weapon." Welcome to my home state. You live it, you love it. Reach for my dinner and you'll draw back a nub! (I guess now I know where I got it from.)

-----
* It's amazing what a large gap there is sometimes between "almost" and "totally."

** She wears size extra-small hip waders when she goes fly fishing. I didn't inherit her build. I didn't inherit her aim, either, if my tentative experiments with pellet guns and tin cans are any indication. I sucked at Girl Scout archery, too.

The many lives of a potage parmentier

What a lovely day in central Georgia. We were promised 70 degrees and raining, but it seems yesterday's violent thunderstorms (complete with two sessions of marble-sized hail) drained the reserves, because what we have today is 70 degrees and sunny. I would be outside all day, but I have a lot of interviews to do for the article I'll be turning in on Friday. So I'm stuck (most of the time, anyway) to my desk.

The s.o. is watching Dania Jai Alai on his computer, and I can hear a soft "whack-pock-squeak-pock" coming from the speakers, interrupted every so often with the announcer talking about trifectas, superfectas, etc. Our vacation in Florida can't come soon enough.

Those of you who frequent my other blog, Manor Menu, may have seen that I have decided to move the food-related content over here. My reasoning is that food is a massive part of my life--the one thing dearest to my heart, probably, other than family and dogs--and that it seems awkward and pointless to sequester it the way I have been. It made sense at first, when Manor Menu was an unadorned record of everydamnthing I ate, but now that I am more selective and I chat about the food, it's silly.

("C'mon, three! Let's go, three!" the s.o. is cheering.)

Also, lately it's become increasingly difficult to know where to write about events. For example, the zucchini incident would have been just as appropriate over yonder as it was here. And I have even omitted talking about things because I wasn't sure where to put them. This week I devoured John and Karen Hess's The Taste of America on the recommendation of the lovely Bakerina, and it was (if you will forgive the expression) a lot of food for thought. It mourns the fact that most Americans have forgotten what real food tastes like--a point that was proven many times over by the unknowing cashier at Ingles. That's been on my mind a lot.

I have also been reading Mireille Guiliano's bestseller French Women Don't Get Fat, and while it didn't tell me much that I didn't already know, it was a charming read that reinforced all the things I've been doing right lately and gave me inspiration to continue on. I highly recommend it. Her main thesis is the opposite of what most diet books preach: Instead of limiting your foods to a certain few bingeables, you should explore as many tastes as possible and revel in little teeny bites of exciting, perfect, decadent food. Eating half a rotisserie chicken for lunch every day (which, I am informed, a publisher of mine does in order to stay Atkins-appropriate) is a sure way to sabotage your appreciation of food and make things worse in the long run.

She's nuts about nuts, this Mireille person, and she spends a lot of time talking about freshness and quality. Stale, borderline-rancid airplane peanuts aren't worth eating, in her opinion; freshly shelled Oregon hazelnuts are another matter completely.

That's why even though the grocery store staff are incompetant, my visit the other day did give me a ray of hope. I was just leaving the produce department when I saw a thirty-something mother with her daughter. The little girl had picked up a plastic bag of pecans and was asking her mother, "Mama, do you like nuts?"

"When they're straight off the tree, yes, I do!" said the mother, smiling and gently putting the package back on the shelf.

A person who knows fresh from packaged! A person who would give the Hesses and La Femme Guiliano a reason to smile. She doesn't prefer the facsimile to the real thing.

So before the title of this post becomes completely irrelevant, I'd better at least mention the leek and potato soup I made yesterday. No use talking about where I got the recipe, since Deborah Madison and Julia Child agree on almost every detail. You take a couple pounds of peeled potatoes and a couple pounds of trimmed, sliced leeks, and you simmer them until they are soft. Then you puree the whole mess, season it, and drizzle in a little cream.

Mine wasn't exactly like that, though, since I had boiled down the carcass of a Psycho Chicken the night before. I had all this delicious broth, and a bunch of little chicken pieces-parts. So I strained out the bits of meat, set them aside, and used the broth to simmer the vegetables in. Then, after the pureeing, I stirred the chicken bits back in. It was awesome.

As soon as the s.o. and I got up today, we knew that it was the perfect day for a brunch on the back porch. The soup would figure centrally in it--that was all we knew.

I needed to cut down the old winter sorrel out in the herb garden in order to encourage the new leaves to grow, so I took Julia Child's advice and stirred in a bit of julienned sorrel as I heated the soup up. Anyone who's not into sorrel yet, get online and buy some seeds at whatever seed place you prefer. It's stupid-easy to grow, and it's perennial. My favorite herb/vegetable of all time, or at least a close competitor.

Meanwhile, I laid out some thick-cut bacon in a jelly-roll pan and stuck it in the oven at 350 degrees. The s.o. and I like bacon. He especially is passionate about it. You know the dog-treat commercial where the dog sees only bacon, no matter what Rorschach blot he's shown? I think he feels a little like that.

I brought some water to a very low boil and poached two eggs. I floated one in each bowl of soup. Meanwhile, I toasted two slices of crusty bread.

I don't think I even need to say how good it all was. There's still more soup. I wonder what form it will take on tomorrow...

Damn, now I have to get back to work. I have a long, handwritten fax about a challenging marine canvas project that I need to decipher before...um, seven minutes from now.

By request

Not the best photo, but here you can see Cairo making use of his new dog stairs. The s.o. used scrap materials from around the house--complete with old paint, etc.--to build the stairs.

We intend to paint the wainscoting a greenish color and stain the risers, but at the moment I can't bear to take the stairs away for a day to do it!

Woo hoo!

My peas are sprouting!

I am appalled

About a week ago I went to the grocery store and purchased, among other things, a smallish bunch of cilantro. I was standing in the checkout line, absentmindedly watching the prices tally up on the register display, when I noticed that the checkout girl had keyed in my cilantro as asparagus. I pointed the error out, and the girl asked me, "Well, what is it, then?"

I was a little shocked that she didn't recognize the cilantro. I would give her a break if I thought it was an herb solely used by snobby foodies like me. But there are a lot of Mexican-Americans in our area. Surely they buy cilantro every day. I wonder if their receipts tell a different story.

Anyhow, it didn't matter in the long run. In fact, we benefitted. After we got home, I found that in the confusion, the cashier had forgotten to ring up our bottle of red wine. Free wine!

So today I went back to the store for some more provisions. Squashes were on sale, so I bought both yellow crooknecks and zucchini. Lo and behold, the cashier was befuddled by the zucchini. I saw her furrowing her brow and tracing her finger up and down the produce code sheet.

The bag boy noticed, too. He assumed an air of superiority. "Know what that is?" he asked her.

"No, what?"

"Okra!" he announced proudly.

WHA-A-A-A-AT?

Am I to understand that here, in the heart of soul food country, twenty-somethings are unable to recognize okra unless it has previously been chopped, breaded, deep-fried, and frozen for their convenience?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Even though fresh potatoes are one of the cheapest foods available, I have noticed that the meat-n-three across the street uses canned ones. All of their vegetables are canned.

We are so screwed.

The misidentification of my zucchini left me breathless. All I could do was stammer, "No, it's not!" The checkout girl and the bag boy looked at me expectantly, having no alternate theories.

I recommend a mandatory Produce Quiz Bowl weekly for all Ingles employees.

But in the end, what would probably work best is what I said on my way out the door. "Y'all need to eat more fresh vegetables."

A mighty fine day

Yes, I got my books from Amazon. At last. I bet the mail carrier isn't used to being greeted with "Oh, thank God!"

But the real reasons today is a mighty fine day are threefold. The first is that today we ate vegetables from our garden. How is this possible, you ask? Well, carrots are biennial, and I found several stragglers underground when I turned over the soil for a bed of radishes. There were about two handfuls of stunted little carrots (the soil there was, admittedly, too clayey for them to reach their potential, which is why I'm moving them to a loamier part of the garden this season). I scrubbed them, threw them in the food processor with a cored Rome apple, and stirred the resulting shreds together with golden raisins, plain yogurt, a bit of Miracle Whip, and a dash of lemon juice. Voila! Carrot-apple-raisin slaw.

The second reason is that I was gardening in the first place. Planted today:

another variety of lettuce
sugar snap peas
beets
turnips
kale
spinach
radishes

So naturally I am feeling rather accomplished, and quite sore, especially in my lower back.

My final reason for regarding today as extra special is that the s.o. built a little set of stairs for Cairo to climb onto the bed with. Our sweet three-legged Cairo can't make it on his own, but he desperately wants to. So we decided to give him a leg up (so to speak). He took to it pretty quickly and is rather proud of himself. The stairs are not only useful, but they are gorgeous--sturdy wooden steps with wainscoting on the sides and heart-pine risers. Just one of the many reasons why I love the s.o. so very much.

What have they done with my Amazon package?!

USPS Shipment Details
Your item was accepted at 12:14 pm on February 10, 2005 in LEXINGTON, KY 40511. Information, if available, is updated every evening. Please check again later.

Tired but happy

I spent Monday and Tuesday at a conference in Savannah. The way I see it nowadays, if you're living in the south, Savannah is probably the place to do it. It's such a European-style city with all its cobblestone streets and tree-lined squares. It's old and beautiful and haunting, like New Orleans without so much touristiness and crime. Wrought iron railings, stone statues, cafes, seafood. How can you go wrong?

I attended a lot of conference sessions, but I also walked through the city streets for hours. I found the Goodwill to end all Goodwills, and I shopped till I dropped. I got some Vietnamese food. I ate a few fried oysters and some peel-n-eat shrimp. I came home and tallied all my calories and was appalled, because I was actually being rather careful but it didn't seem to help at all. Still, it was worth it, every minute.

Now, having put out most of the administrative fires that were waiting on my desk (aren't they always?), I am getting back to normal life. It was sunny and 55 today, so I turned over the soil in several of the garden beds. The s.o. cut a couple of poles and helped me install the pea trellis. I raked one bed smooth and planted lettuce and arugula. Sure, we're moving, but when? There's probably lots of time to harvest spring vegetables. And if not, then some buyer gets really lucky.

I saw my first lizard of the season today. I was walking Silver at the edge of the woods and spotted a little Carolina anole scampering up a tree. He had turned himself a lovely pale shade of grey-brown to match the tree bark.

The weather report calls for more of the same weather: Coldish at night, sunny and 50s in the day. I hope to see some lettuces soon, and to have time to plant radishes, peas, spinach, etc.

Happy Pre-Valentine's Day

Normally, being a freelance writer is about as flexible as jobs get. But tomorrow morning I happen to be driving to Savannah for a conference. That means I'll be missing Valentine's Day with the s.o. Since we knew in advance it would be happening that way, we went out to dinner tonight.

The Chinese/Japanese restaurant down by the lake is really better than an Asian restaurant in rural Georgia has any right to be. We started out with an Alaska roll. Then we worked our way through the best pu pu platter we've ever had*, which came with a teeny little flaming hibachi that I was afraid I'd catch myself on fire on. Then we split a seafood entree, which was full of big sea scallops and broccoli and shrimp and crab and asparagus. Then we each ate a piece of eel sashimi. The waiter brought out orange slices and almond cookies for dessert.

It was delicious. Romantic, too, even when the waiter walked around to all the "Happy Valentine's Day" mylar balloons and pushed the buttons that made their little electronic innards sing love songs.

This is what Valentine's Day should be like. No overpriced gifts, no false expectations, no hype. Just two people who love each other spending a little quality time in each other's presence.

-----
* Yes, better than the one we had at the Mai Kai during last year's Spring Training vacation. That's really saying something.

It's that time again

My early pick for this season's American Idol: New Yorker Constantine Maroulis. I like his odds because he's totally comfortable in his own skin and onstage. He has an extensive background in theater (e.g., leading roles in national productions of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Rent) and is the singer in a rock band. His voice is warm and he has a great range.

Oh, and I think I forgot to mention: He's so impossibly hot that his mere existence drives me insane. (Oops, did I type that out loud?)

Chirrup, chirrup

Thanks to heavy rains this week, which have caused soggy patches everywhere...

Thanks to 60-degree weather today...

THE FROGS ARE AWAKE!

*smile*

Strange

Did you know that the first track of Hank Williams Jr.'s infamous Family Tradition album is "To Love Somebody"?

For some reason, that completely blew our minds.

Is this the version Slobberbone were covering? I should ask them.

So sue me

Okay. So I know that the choice of Paul McCartney as the entertainment for the Superbowl halftime show was prompted by the worst possible motivations. The promoters wanted someone safe as milk, who wouldn't show a nipple or say a bad word. They wanted someone who was the opposite of edgy.

But I still loved it. The part of me that adores pyrotechnics thrilled to the sight of fireworks set off in time with "Live and Let Die." The emotional sucker in me teared up to the starry, feel-good rendition of "Hey Jude." And dang it all, Paul can still really put on a show after all these years.

*hmph*

There goes any street cred I might ever have aspired to have.

Pursuant to previous things

1. I am still sick, sort of. I thought I was getting better, but then I relapsed. But I figure as long as I'm not coughing up anything gross-looking, I'm okay, right? Mainly I just have a runny nose and still can't sleep without decongestants.

2. The productivity tools appear to actually be helping me. I've been getting tons done, both on my job and on the house, and haven't neglected the reading of my usual blogs or the perusal of my usual TV shows, either. *grin* It feels nice--and extremely unusual, I might add--to be ahead of the game on all my writing assignments. I really need to cultivate this.

3. My diet is going really well. I'm eating as close to perfectly, nutritionally speaking, as I ever have in my life. (Props to Fitday, which helps me remember to eat that extra piece of fruit or that much-needed serving of legumes instead of, say, even more chocolate than I already usually eat.) I am within half a pound of my goal weight and appear to be plateauing there, which is absolutely fine with me.

4. [Boys, tune out now while you have a chance! This is something you will probably wish you hadn't read if you read it.] I have had my period forever. Absolutely forever. Like, a month. I normally have some, er, patchiness, because I have a Copper-T IUD (ladies, e-mail me offblog if you are curious about what this is like...doctors in the U.S. are reluctant to recommend them because of the Dalkon Shield ugliness a few decades ago, but they are very safe now and I think they are a much better option than taking gratuitous hormones every day). But I always have a definable period and a definable not-period. Not so this month. It's as though someone took my regular period and stretched it out over 30 days. Both the s.o. and I are rather disgruntled about this. No PMS, though, at least. Always look on the sunny side.

5. I got F. to work for me again this week, and I am going to visit the bar owner in a few days and quit the bartending job altogether. I'm tired of my sleep schedule being thrown off so much. I worry about the drive home--so late at night, and with me in such a groggy state. And I guess I've gotten to the point where, if I'm gonna go downtown, I want to be free to goof around and go wherever I like. I have enjoyed bartending, and I'm really glad I picked up the skills. I've made wonderful friends. But I think it's time to start hanging out with them on a purely non-work basis. I need to devote my work energy to writing and editing.

Awesome

Check out these brilliant anti-procrastination tactics!

I've already set my home page to this. It amuses me.

The fine art of small talk

Me to the woman behind the counter at the meat-n-three: "Don't know why we keep getting this nasty grim weather."

The woman behind the counter at the meat-n-three to me: "Well, it's winter."

Okay, what I meant was...

Exercise in futility

I was irked. It was January 31, 2005, the arbitrary end date of my lose-ten-pounds diet. Had I reached my goal? There was no way to know.

My scale had stopped working. Several days before, it had started working only intermittently. Now I couldn't get any reading at all. It read "Lo" when I stepped on it, which I assumed meant the "lifetime battery" was low. Fuming, I got on the phone, dialed the number on the back of the scale, and pushed ones and twos until I got a person on the other end.

"Taylor Scales customer service. How may I help you?"

I cleared my throat. "Um, yes," I began. "I purchased a Taylor digital scale with a lifetime lithium battery about a year and a half ago."

"Yes," the woman replied, not encouragingly.

"Well," I continued, "the battery is dead. The screen reads 'Lo' when I step on it."

"The battery has a shelf life of one to two years," she said.

"But on the scale and the package it came in, it clearly says it's a lifetime battery," I protested.

"The battery has a shelf life of one to two years," she repeated.

"Apparently you didn't expect me to live very long?" I sputtered.

Silence. Then more silence.

I stammered, "Okay. Let's assume that a lifetime is one to two years. My problem is, the store where I bought the scale doesn't carry replacement batteries, because the batteries are supposed to be lifetime batteries."

"Any Radio Shack," the woman stated flatly.

"Is there anything you can do about the fact that my lifetime battery has expired in less than two years?"

"The battery has a shelf life of one to two years."

"But is there anything you can do..."

"Any Radio Shack."

*sigh*

I went to Radio Shack. Tomorrow I'll weigh myself and I'll see how I did.