I Dreamed of This When I Was A Kid

Two things you don't know about me: 1)When I was 9, I was obsessed with dinosaurs. 2) If my 41-year-old self had met my 9-year-old self, I would have killed my 9-year-old self for saying "neato-bosso!" five hundred million times in the dinosaur skeleton and diorama section at the Natural History Museum of Colorado. I dreamed of someday making a dinosaur that could walk realistically. Check this out.

Also check out the movie Fast, Cheap and Out of Control. Only part of it is about robotics, but the other parts are about animal training, topiary and naked mole rats. If my immediate family had their own special crest, it would have a naked mole rat on it. Last year for Christmas, I made everyone this coffee mug:

Why? Because my family watched a lot of PBS-- every nature show there was. One night, as we all occupied our customary positions, Dad at number one left on the green plaid couch, Mom at number two right on the couch, and my sister and I each on a pillow or a blanket on the floor, this show came on, and they started describing these animals that were so strange, so insect-like and disgusting, that the whole family started to laugh. Together. Which was not something that happened a lot. NMRs look like hot dogs that have been microwaved too long, except they have legs, and teeth outside their mouths, and whiskers. Like a bad cross between a Mexican Hairless dog and a hamster. Chew on that for a minute, and then go read the full description of their weird habits. Or get the movie and check it out.

Don't Drink and Blog

It's Saturday night, and I'm having a fantastic time. There is an event onsite at the property, and Mike is occupied driving around in a golf cart, turning lights on and off, and otherwise lending a genial hand. He's a good guy. He might be bombing in at any moment.

As for me, I came home from work, opened a bottle of wine, made myself a nice big salad with some veggie box greens and tomatoes (from Cabo, not from veggie box yet) and some cold cuts, and sat down in a lounger outside to listen to the jazz music from the event and read some magazines. I read almost all of Blueprint, which is unfortunately a Martha Stewart publication, but which was intriguing just the same. "Not your mother's Martha Stewart" I think they put it in one ad. Fresher, more modern, less stately and perfect than Martha.

This is my ideal evening. I left all of the shades open until it was completely dark, the TV is not on, Norah Jones is playing softly in the background. As soon as it got too dark to see the mosquitos before they saw me, I came inside, gave the dog a tennis ball to chew on, and continued reading. I just finished Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert, which I loved, so I bought two more of her books and may dig into one of them tonight. (PS- If Mike ever left me, this is what I would do every night, after I finished crying my eyes out for a thousand years.)I realize I have been lax in my blogging. I am a little stressed out about an upcoming deadline, which makes me feel like if I am at the computer, I should be WORKING, dammit. But the solution will present itself shortly, and I will be finished and on my way to Hawai'i soon. Yeah, that's right, I am going on vacation for a week. Try not to miss me.

Here is one of the things I meant to put up this week while my nose was getting grindstone rash:
Strawberries, and how I keep them fresh. This seems to work for me, though I have never seen it advised anywhere. Strawberries seem to deteriorate quickly in the refrigerator, drying out and losing their pleasant firmness. Fruit without its firmness is unappealing, unless it is a fig, in which case, figs with stretch marks and a little give are the sweetest (I so hope that women are more like figs than strawberries.) I rinse the strawberries (organic please-- strawberries are the most contaminated when pesticides are involved) place a paper towel on the lid, and then flip the whole thing over in the fridge. This seems to keep the strawberries hydrated, instead of turning gray and shriveled, but lets them drain so they don't sit in water and mold. Like I said, most written material advises against washing any berry before storage, but this works for me for the several days that it seems to take me to eat a container of berries.

If your lettuce or spinach gets wilty, don't throw it out, just put it in a large bowl with cold water until it is crisp and vibrant again, roll it in paper towels and put it back in the veggie drawer. Same with herbs. Rinsed and rolled in paper towels (recycled of course) they'll last nicely for at least a week. Even rubbery carrots and celery will perk up with a little water.

A few shots you missed this week:




Fava beans, asparagus and ham pasta, flowers, butterflies, the flowers Mike got me for doing all of the things I do (get your mind out of the gutter, he was talking about taxes and finances and keeping this ship afloat, and maybe some other stuff) and my gardening project, a big pot for the front porch, with a red-0range "dragon lady" cross vine, bacopa (yes, I know this will be scalded by the sun) and some scotch moss for that hit of lime green. I really like the way it turned out, and even better, the lawn sprinklers hit it in the morning so I don't have to water it every day. So far. But it isn't 100 degrees yet, so that could change.

My friend Randy, in the Marshall Islands, sent me an email briefly describing a bizarre but beautiful moment he witnessed in the hall at school (The College of the Marshall Islands).

This is what he wrote: "I was walking through a crowded walkway the other day (crowded because it was between classes) and was a few feet behind a young man. Approaching from the other direction was a young woman. As she walked by, without stopping or saying a word, she placed a half-eaten piece of cake in the young man's hand. He, without stopping or saying a word, put the whole half-eaten piece of cake in his mouth and kept walking. It was just really cool and elegant."

This is what I wrote:

He called her on her cell phone.
She took a bite of cake,
wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand
and flipped open the phone.
"Mouf?" she said.
"Hi, it's me. I'll see you in the hall between classes."
"Meff." she said.
"And you'll give me your answer then, right?"
"Yeff." she said, licking the crumbs from her lips, "I will."
As she approached him on the covered walkway,
her hips carved out a slalom course in the air.
Her hair was long and heavy and shiny black.
As he approached, her heart stirred, but her face was serene.
She placed the half-eaten piece of cake in his hand as she passed without stopping.
He put the whole piece in his mouth without thinking twice.
Walking on, her smile was wide like the seam on a bean.
His grin was broad and full of cake.

(I added a word, Randy, if you are reading this, I hope you don't mind me sharing all of this.) Randy and I had a poetry class together about a million years ago at Stanislaus State University, and he is very good at sending me what our instructor called "triggers" or things that you use as starting points for a piece of poetry. I used to write a lot, but I haven't lately.

Ok, so that's my week in a coconut shell. Aloha.

The Nice Family Tour

For Christmas, I gave my mom tickets to a couple of shows at the Napa Valley Opera House. Last night was the first one. We went to see Arlo Guthrie and the Guthrie Family Legacy Tour. Mom has seen Arlo several times, including once at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz with my dad, which means that it was at least 20 years ago, if not 40. Anyway, this is her cup of tea, but I didn't know much about him beside's "Alice's Restaurant". His dad, Woody, wrote "This Land is Your Land" and about 1700 other songs. This portion of the Guthrie Family Legacy Tour included Arlo, his son Abe and daughter Saralee, her husband, and a fantastic steel guitar/mandolin player. Arlo's granddaughter, Olivia, joined them on stage for a couple of songs. She's four.

We had a really great time. One thing that struck me was how nice this family seems to be. Nice to the core. I'm sure that they have their faults and their fights, but they seemed so kind to and appreciative of each other and open to good. Gentle. Arlo bought the church building that used to be the place where Alice, of Restaurant fame, lived, and turned it into a community arts center. There was a nurturing air to the way they performed, the way they had passed down the musical gift through four generations. They are a family of storytellers and singers and musicians. Maybe it was the spotlights, but they seemed positively beatific. If that means saintly.

I enjoyed the music, and the talking, and was glad for the visit with Mom. I had gotten her the tickets (the other set is for the Moscow Cats Theatre in a month) to make sure that we had an excuse to visit this year. We have had whole summers go by without seeing each other, and after her quadruple bypass last summer, I don't want that to ever happen again. My mother lives in the same town as my sister, who is a single mother (except that she uses my mother as a second parent) and her four children. She still works full time, leads her own church, and participates in a poetry group, so I see her very little. I'm looking forward to the next show, and might even add in another one later in the summer.

One Simple Thing

One thing at a time. (One bag at a time.) If you don't already bring your own bags to the grocery store (and to IKEA now, too!) now is the time to start. I know, I know, it's hard to remember to bring the bag in, and sometimes you feel like a big nerd, but the tide is turning on this one, and soon the people who don't bring their own bags to the store will be the big nerds. Grocery stores should be selling reusable bags like crazy-- they've been giving something away for free for years that they now can get people to pay for-- where's the downside in that? There was a great quote in the Seattle newspaper about this, that basically "paper or plastic" will become a quaint phrase from the past, like "smoking or non-smoking". I like the sound of that.

I did a little research online and did find some bags that are not only made of recycled materials but are fully recyclable themselves, thus eliminating the environmental hazards associated with the production of the bag itself. (Their site is not very good.) These "corn plastic" bags are new and will be available in May. I have requested information from the company and might try to purchase a quantity. Let me know if you are interested in getting a few.

If you've been avoiding getting reusable bags because they are so ugly and style-less, you have no more excuses. Etsy offers a huge range of cute shopping totes made by artists. The one above is cute, washable and even better, it's made from reclaimed vintage fabric. These cooooool bags, and these (the orange photo at top) are made from recycled rice bags in southeast Asia, and sales benefit an organization that helps children who have been victims of the brothel trade there. You can't get much more pc than that, unless you want to drive your solar-powered car there to pick the bag up yourself and track your progress on a website that solicits per mile donations to eliminate waste-producing shrimp farms.

I realize that I may be preaching to the converted here. You probably already take your own bags to the store. What about buying one at the store for the person behind you in line? What about giving them as gifts?

If you are a take-out coffee drinker and a dog-walker, and you just can't do without those little plastic bags, save your used, rinsed paper coffee cups with lids and use those instead. They scoop nicer and look less like, well, bags of poop. Just don't forget what you are carrying.

How About Something Light?

I love this stuff! Mike and I have now tried all of the Maya Kaimal sauces we could find: Tikka Masala, Vindaloo, Korma, Coconut Curry and Tamarind Curry. We both agree that Korma, which has yogurt in it, with a little sriracha heat added, is the best, but Vindaloo is our second favorite. They are all good. Cut up chicken or vegetables (potatoes, cauliflower, chickpeas, zucchini, fennel, onions, to name a few good ones) brown (if chicken), add sauce and simmer. Serve with rice. If you're working your way through a veggie box, add a salad or some steamed bok choy...or broccoli...or peas.

Whew. It feels nice to put all that weight down for a minute.

Note on the post from two days ago: this month's National Geographic has a cover article on the ocean crisis, with pictures that illustrate the extent of the damage caused by some types of fishing. Here are some resources:
Monterey Bay Aquarium Consumer Education and Action Programs
Cousteau Society
Oceana-Stop Dirty Fishing
World Wildlife Federation
Save Our Seas

Turtles Guns Rings

"he got down on his knees in the crowded lobby of the Guggenheim Museum. And I am now wearing the ring his grandfather gave to his grandmother"

This was the sweetest, most beautiful thing to read. It happened to someone I think is an absolutely wonderful person, someone who is close to my age and has not been married before. A neat, cute, creative person with a great big heart. Not everybody hopes for this, but to me, (I am being distracted by a disc in my cd drive sounding like an aging tractor going up a hill. It is disconcerting. I should fix it.) to me, this is the sweetest thing in the world. I hope she doesn't mind me making something so sweet and personal so public. I needed something nice today, and I thought I might not be the only one.

A touching finale to an emotionally fraught 24 hours. Last night, we watched another of the Planet Earth series. I am disappointed by this series. I find Sigourney Weaver too detached and serious a narrator. The images are definitely stirring, but the mood is somber and foreboding when it should be joyful and full of wonder. It seems a little bit empty, too focused on the images to worry about substance, unless it is depressing substance. In the first installment, penguins were murdered by seals, baby penguins died of starvation, and polar bears drowned and died. It left me weeping. I hoped for better in the next few episodes. Things were looking up, but there still seemed to be an excess focus on dead baby animals. The arctic fox was forgiven for trying to steal all the baby goslings at once (and killing most of them in the process) because of the fact that she had her own starving babies to feed. I don't know if I'll continue to watch these, though the images are magnificent. It seems as though they tried so hard to get some things on film that they felt they had to show it all, no matter how brutal. Last night, a bunch of wild chimpanzees killed and ate another chimpanzee. What happened to the happy, MutualOvOmaha (that's how it sounded to me) endings of my youth? Has reality TV toughened people to these things and influenced nature television? Have I just been too sheltered?

Later in the evening, we watched what appeared at first to be an "old school" nature program, about a thirty-year-old Loggerhead turtle that travels from Mexico to the islands of its birth to lay its eggs. Things started out well, with a kind-voiced narrator, and manufactured scenes of the turtle doing happy turtle things. But on the way, bad things started to happen to other turtles, mainly green turtles, which are less rare.

I have been in the water with turtles. I was somewhat enthralled, somewhat reluctant to go near, because I didn't want to disturb them. They have a sad expression, as though they are wise and incapable of ever frolicking. Slightly disapproving of our very presence. Turtles, unlike dolphins, do not smile. To know that if they are big, they are very, very old, and that this might be the end of their existence, is heavy stuff. Turtles need protecting.

So this is where it all started to pile up on me. If a turtle is eaten by a shark (which it was) I can deal with it. Sharks and turtles coexist, sharks gotta eat, and sometimes a turtle is the unfortunate meal. What I cannot abide is fishing boats going out to catch tuna with nets or long lines (don't let anyone tell you that line-caught tuna is ok) and catching beautiful 8-foot manta rays and 75-year-old turtles AND NOT CHECKING THEIR LINES UNTIL THESE MOTHERFUCKING BEAUTIFUL CREATURES ARE DEAD AND JUST THROWING THEM AWAY. I cannot abide the waste of lives. Have you ever heard of "bycatch"? That is the acceptable term for the MILLIONS OF TONS of animals, like baby octopus, fish, and turtles, that are swept up in shrimp nets and not thrown back until it's too late and they are dead. The "acceptable" quantity of bycatch per ton of shrimp is like 4/1. Don't get me started there. (I think I already am.)

When I was somewhere at or under 8 years old, my class went on a field trip to the Humane Society. In one sense, it was a good idea, because kindness to animals has been important to me my entire life. I don't even kill spiders. In another, it was not a good idea. There was a donation box there which had pictures of animals which had been treated cruelly. Puppies and kittens and horses with gruesome gashes and misshapen limbs. I came home, wrote a note to my family about how horrible it all was, and crawled to the bottom of a sleeping bag, where I hoped to suffocate and die. Eventually I came out, but the way I felt that day is a lot like the way I feel today. It is all so enormous, so widespread and seemingly unstoppable, the killing of beauty, and one person is so small. Is it within our powers, within our lives, to stop at least some of it?

I eat meat. I can deal with the fact that we raise some animals and kill them for food. Thank god I don't have to do it myself. I can handle Peruvians skewering soft, furry guinea pigs and even Chinese people eating dogs. What I can't handle is cruelty and waste. By the end of the turtle show, I was weeping. If fishing for tuna necessarily kills beautiful turtles and rays, if humans can't think of any more improved methods in their big human brains for doing this, then I don't need to eat tuna. Ever. It's just not necessary. Actually, on that sleeping bag day when I was 8, I also gave up veal, and I never ate it again except by accident.

So on top of this today, all those young people were killed in Virginia. Not exactly on topic, but adding to the weight on my shoulders. Fingers were pointed about ways they could have handled it differently. Angry, sad people pointing fingers because that is what angry sad people do. Try to think of reasons why it happened, who should be blamed, because it shouldn't have happened at all, but it did. There is a well of sadness, and bucket after bucket is being brought up as people find out who the victims are.

It's all too much for one person, too overwhelming. There are so many beautiful, precious things in the world worth treasuring and taking care of. Including people, the people we love. I'm looking at their faces above my computer right now, a collection of the people I love and who love me. I'm hoping to find a way to do my part for the animals for whom I feel this heavy compassion. Sometimes the only thing to do is be tender to those closest to you when the world gets heavy like this. Tomorrow I can find a way to contribute to the turtles, or the rays (who is helping the RAYS?!) but right now I think I'll go curl up next to my husband and just be sweet to him for a little while.

Happy, Happy Dog

WOOF.

WOOF!

SMILE

Amusement

I love the Babelfish translator. If you are typing an email to someone in France, and you simply want to check to make sure your French grammar means what you think, you can translate it here. If you want to get the gist of a website you can't read in Dutch, ditto. But it is also good for general amusement. I find that the funniest phrases result from repeated translation back and forth between two languages, especially if Japanese is included, but any language will do.

English sentence
Grand compromises are composed of small seemingly meaningless decisions which accumulate over time.

Translated into French
Des compromis grands se composent de petites décisions apparemment sans signification qui accumulent le temps fini.

From French to German
Große Kompromisse setzen sich aus kleinen Entscheidungen offensichtlich ohne Bedeutung zusammen, die die beendete Zeit anhäufen.

Back to English
Large compromises consist of small decisions obviously without meaning, which accumulate the terminated time.

Then into Korean (why not?)
종결한 시간을 축적하는 작은 결정이 의미없이 큰 타협에 의하여 명백하게 이루어져 있는다.

Back to English to check the weirdness level
It accumulates the hour when it concludes small decision meaning by a without big compromise being clear, it is become accomplished.

Into Russian for a final twist
Оно аккумулирует час когда оно заключает малую смысль решения а без большого компромисса ясно, его о accomplished.

And the result
It accumulates hour when it it concludes small smysl' (?) of the solution and without a large compromise clearly, of it about accomplished.

My thoughts exactly.

My friend Edna and I used to weep with laughter when we received mangled emails from foreign correspondents we were sure were using this method. Just translate something back and forth in English and Japanese, and it will explain everything.

If you think this sort of thing is funny, try Engrish.com or Darren Barefoot's Hall of Weirdness. I guarantee you will find something that will make you laugh without making any sound. The captions are especially clever and funny on the DB site.

PS- Tamara Trivia: As a bridesmaid in my friend Karen's wedding, I had the privelege of walking with the inventor of the Klingon language. A UCLA linguist, he had developed the Klingon grammar for the Star Trek movie series. I think. As a stand-in for the bride's brother, he gave the toast in Klingon. For my part, I made sure that there were plenty of tribbles throughout the wedding festivities. I'm not kidding.

Don't Know Much About

Isn't it a little early for this?

I know enough to know that I don't know enough about politics. I do know that our increasingly disappointing, conservative-elected president was also voted the guy that most voters "would like to have a beer with". Look where that got us. I wish those people had just taken him out for a beer instead of voting for him. I guess most people (or at least 49%) thought somehow that George Bush was a nice guy, from a good family, who had some down-home rhetoric that sounded comforting and familiar.

At least both of the current candidates have demonstrated that they can spell their own names. They were both elected to the senate. They are not stupid. But the election is a year and a half away, and already we've got a three-ring media popularity contest. Is the most popular president necessarily the best president? Is the best fundraiser necessarily the best president? Is it a race to see who can publicize their fundraising efforts and how they publicize them? One of Obama's cap feathers is the fact that a large percentage of his campaign funding is coming from donors of $100 or less. A grass-roots effort. Seems to mean something, but does it? The fact that I know that at all is testament to the speed and skill with which this information is disseminated. Obama and Clinton have both written books about themselves, so that people can get to know them before they have to vote in a year and a half. But does a best-seller make the best candidate? I guess it would be nice to have a president who was capable of writing a book, or at least reading a book. Maybe I should read their books and decide which one I like better.

Admirably, the two candidates are both U.S. senators. I'd be pissed if one of them was my senator. Obama on a diplomatic mission to Africa? What does that have to do with Illinois? What is he doing for his constituents? Hillary up past her bedtime on school nights attending countless fundraising events? How can either of them focus on the job they have to do the next day? I suppose I have a pretty low standard for multitasking at the moment. I spend most mornings blogging in my bathrobe. But I don't see how they can prioritize the job to which they were elected if their focus is pounding the pavement en route to a much grander brass ring on the carousel that is still 18 months away.

(By the way, does anyone remember the brass ring on the carousel? I do. I rode on the carousel in Santa Cruz many years ago, and they still had them. I could never get it, but my dad had one. Knowing my dad, I'll bet he still has it. It was cool.)

Ultimately, the party will have to choose just one candidate. Neither wants to be vice president. If Obamans and Clintonites are different people, will the party's voters be able to come together sufficiently to support one candidate against a republican candidate? I don't mean the party members, I mean us, the people. If we like one, can we sufficiently support the other if that is who we are offered? Does the strength of two powerful candidates weaken the support of a single candidate?

Then there is the elephant in the donkey's room: a woman, or a black man, will run against a white man for the presidency of the United States. I would love to see either be the first to win. I think it's about time. But there are people who don't think that way, and will scapegoat either of them. Whoever brings the troops home from Bush's war for his daddy's oil will look like a hero, unless they inherit something worse. I think Hillary could kick a little ass. She seems to be a suave politician. Of course, I've only seen her on The Daily Show. Then again, she's a woman who stayed with a man who had an affair with a chubby intern in the oval office. Should that matter? Should private lives be so publicly judged? If she was my friend, I'd have a hard time respecting that decision, though I suppose it's better than a high-visibility divorce for one's image. I'm still mad at Bill myself. He was the last president about whom I was honestly hopeful, and he betrayed me too. And he is going to be the chief source of advice for our presidential hopeful Hillary. Still, it's so much better than what we've got now.

Ok, so I've gotten off the track. But when asked which candidate I prefer, if I roll my eyes, now you know why. I just don't want to get burned again.

Can somebody please prioritize Global Warming? Al Gore for President. But only if he starts driving a biodiesel car.

More Photos

It's funny that there is a starkness to all of the pictures I just put up. It just happens that all of this is white or pale. It's also sort of a gray, overcast looking day, in contrast to the bright sun of last week, with all of the colors and flowers, so it's sort of appropriate.

Did you miss me?

Five days seems like so long. I lost some motivation last week, but it could have been that it was a much-needed break. But I am at least three pubs behind on reviews, and I've been thinking a lot, so something's bound to come of it soon.

Here are some of the pictures I've taken this week:

The Downward Trend Continues

On the positive side, I washed the car, the dog, the kitchen blinds, the windows, the laundry and the dog beds. Cleaned the office, took out the recycling and the garbage twice each. And washed all the dishes from making the giant gummy orbital twinkie that I could have called an angel food cake, had the stars aligned properly.

I might have been underzealous in incorporating the flour-sugar mixture, rather than underbaking the cake. It was one of those two things that got me last time, but I'm not sure which. I will master this cake, I will master this cake, I will master this cake.

In other news of today, Mike picked a medium-sized rattlesnake with a very big rattle out of the bushes, saving a tour group at the winery from certain death.

On one of my brief breaks from frantic housecleaning, I shopped for skateboard shoes online. Please vote for your favorite: The white and green ones or the olive and yellow ones. I need these because I was wearing running shoes when I bit it on the carveboard, and I would like to avoid that in the future. Skater shoes are made for gripping just enough, and allowing maneuverability as well. I think the white ones would be better with shorts, but the olive ones would look better with pants. I'm torn. I would like to take my board out just once before we go to Hawaii.

The Agony of Defeat

Ok, so I'm not the domestic goddess I pretend to be. Wasn't I smug??

Remember my angel food cakes one and two? Well, I thought I had mastered AFCs. Today's cake, of which I was so proud, the steps of which I documented thoroughly (to be posted later), down to the separating of the eggs and the sifting and folding of the flour, has sunk. Bastard.

The skewer came out clean as a whistle when I tested it. The skewer lied.

I was sitting at the dining room table, making out a shopping list to enable me to attack the never-before-attempted coconut cake for Easter, when I heard a rustling sound from the kitchen. The AFC was surreptitiously lowering itself to the parchment paper on which it rested. (As if I wouldn't notice.) The cake pedestal, freshly washed, was at the ready nearby. The cake was fifteen minutes early for its one-hour waiting period. As I lifted it, I could smell the too-eggy rawness, and I knew what I would find.

So, the last time I went through this, based on uncooked cake number one, I left the second cake in the oven another fifteen or more minutes after I was sure it was done based on the skewer test, and it came out perfectly. I checked my oven today to make sure it was not running cool, as I was worried about that the last time, but it was right on target.

When you lose, don't lose the lesson: better slightly overdone than slightly under in the case of the AFC. Test it, then give it additional time to set.

I am not going to try to make another cake today. I put the cake back in the oven (what else could I do?) to try to at least cook the rest. I don't think it will puff back up, but at least it will be done and not mushy. Hopefully I won't have to throw it out. I now have 36 egg yolks in the freezer if anyone has a good recipe for...something with a hell of a lot of egg yolks in it.

The Way We Were

Mike and Tam, Late 1980s

This was actually about a year before we met. I don't know if you can tell in this picture, but Mike has his head shaved around the bottom, all the way up to the long blond part. When we met, my hair was longer than his, but not by much. I look like I need Botox already. I think it was actually a bright day and I had to close my eyes and look into the sun and then open them just as he was about to take the picture. (Madonna-esque photo taken by my friend Rossen Townsend.)

Today

Today is a busy, busy day. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays I work at home. For various reasons, most of my clients are temporarily at bay this week, so I decided to get some household things done. It's not even noon and I've walked the dog, roasted the last of the winter kabocha and butternut squashes (some of these will be cubed for an Indian dish tonight, and the rest will be pureed for custards and pies in the fall), baked an angel food cake, documented in photos and movies said angel food cake, cleaned and reorganized the pantry, the fridge, and the brew-house aka spare bathroom... and pre-soaked and washed my garden/market basket which had gotten moldy hanging outside.

Next, I must make myself some lunch, take the cake out of the oven, clean and line the lazy susan cupboard, remove the light covers in the kitchen and clean them (how DO the bugs get in there?) then I'll work my way down the hall to the linen closet and the office. I may mass produce some burritos or bake a quiche. Gotta use up some tortillas and some veggie-box produce.

I am in need of one of those graduated organizers so that I can keep my current project folders in view. Still end up with odds and ends of things I can't throw away but don't know quite what to do with. After the office is clean, I may go to the gym. That would probably be best for me. But I'm tempted to go to Target or Staples instead to get one of those organizer things.

Today was just a day to deal with all of those little things that bug me during the rest of the week. How many times do I look at those light covers and think that I ought to clean them, and then I don't? How many times do I shove the clean sheets into any available odd-shaped crevice in the linen closet, but I don't straighten it? How many times have I looked at those squashes sitting on the back porch and thought a)those contribute to the overall junky look, and b) if I don't cook them, they are going to rot. And so on.

Here's another example: I keep cutting boards on top of my refrigerator, between the food processor and the mixer. The liquor bottles used to be up there, too, which was a) unnecessarily cluttered, and b) a recipe for potential disaster if a light cutting board was removed, causing a heavy cutting board to fall over and hit the food processor bowl, which in turn could knock over one or more bottles of booze. (This was the use-periodically booze, like Grand Marnier, Fernet, Bacardi. The gin is safely in the freezer at all times.) I can't tell you how many times I put up with that juggling act. I found a home for the bottles in another cupboard, and yesterday, I bought myself an inexpensive set of bookends at IKEA. Now my cutting boards are secure. Aaaah. Order calms.
And the bell just rang to go check the angel food cake...

Self portrait in angel food cake pan.

Look No Further

This makes the very best caesar salad dressing. It is the very same recipe, albeit on a smaller scale, that I once made in a 5 gallon quantity for Tra Vigne restaurant while training in the kitchen. This version comes from the Tra Vigne cookbook. This is soooo good on sweet, cold Romaine lettuce on a warm afternoon, but tasty on iceberg or other lettuces as well. (Sorry, Jen!)

Ingredients:
1 T champagne vinegar
2 T lemon juice (fresh if you've got it)
1 1/2 tsp minced garlic (I use 2 cloves)
1 egg yolk
1 T Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce
6 anchovy fillets (trust me, put them in)
pinch freshly ground pepper
approx 1/2 to 1 c olive oil or canola oil
2 T parmesan cheese, grated

Materials:
Food processor

Method:
Mince garlic with processor
Add remaining ingredients except oil and parmesan
Process well, until relatively smooth
While the processor is still running, add oil in a slow drizzle until dressing is soupy-- you may not need all of it. The original recipe calls for 1 c, but I find that excessive.
Check balance of flavors. When the balance is right, the lemon juice and vinegar should still be tangy and on the edge of dominating.
Add parmesan and process again until incorporated.
Serve on romaine with more parmesan and fresh cracked pepper. For lunch sometimes, I just pull off the baby romaine leaves and dip them in this. Dipping seems to be a theme lately...

Note from the cookbook about raw egg: "If you are concerned about raw eggs, use a pasteurized egg product or an egg substitute such as Egg Beaters." Or, leave it out. The egg stabilizes the emulsion, but the mustard will help with that as well. Just be sure to drizzle the oil in a slow stream until the emulsion is somewhat thickened.

Time for a Little Color