Spam Comments

A couple of posts down from here, there is a comment from someone I don't know. Do not click on the link. I've received a comment like this before, which usually goes like this:

LOL, or Your site is great, or I like your blog.
Now go click on my irrelevant junk link here.

Like that. Ignore it. Don't give it any traffic from this site. I'll see if I can figure out how to delete it.

Thanks.

Double Your Giving Money

Environmental Working Group- the environmental advocate and watchdog that helped us add our names to the 30,000 gathered to support the Farm Bill, and operates Skin Deep, the consumer cosmetics safety reference site, is doubling any donation through December 15. They are also giving out a nifty reusable shopping bag full of cool green-friendly stuff with a $135 donation, which will become $270 with the program.

The Heifer Foundation - if you are thinking about giving to the Heifer Foundation this Christmas (A flock of ducks is still twenty bucks!) Fosters Wine Estates Americas, the company that Mike works for, is matching all employee donations, with no upper limit. Maybe your company does, too. Be sure to check it out. If you know an employee of any one of the many Fosters wineries, ask them about it. I would also be happy to collect any donations from anyone who does not know a Fosters employee, and have Mike donate them via the program. Maybe we can get all the way to an ark. That's two of everything, benefitting countless families all over the world, including the U.S.. Your gift could go twice as far.

Don't forget about Six Degrees. This site, started by, Kevin Bacon, is a hub for charity donations of all types. If you are so inclined, you can start your own "badge" and your friends, family, or anyone, can use it to donate to the charity of your choice. Or you can just donate to the charity of your choice on the site. I never played that strange trivia game "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" but apparently after K.B. got over the embarrassment of being sort of a has-been 80s star with a drinking game named after him, he decided to play on the notoriety to benefit worthy causes. And then his career reignited and he made some movies and now everything is ok again. See what positivity and good deeds can do for you?

Last but not least, don't forget to make donations to your local food bank, Red Cross, children's charity and/or Planned Parenthood. If you know any Republicans, be sure to donate to PP and NARAL in their name for a little extra holiday thrill. These are the services working day to day to make life better for people who need them, during fair weather as well as fires and floods.

The next time you go grocery shopping, buy two of every canned good you buy and put half in the food drive barrel on the way out. When you go Christmas shopping, if you see a tree hung with requests from needy children, grab one. Just one. You don't have to be a hero. One little thing, that you can spare, can make a big difference.

Pie Makin' Photos

Sorry for not posting these with the pie post. I had dough on my mousefinger.

Six Things That Will Make You Smarter

These brain exercises. Also, remembering smells and reading upside-down.

This website.

Learning to play one of these.

This pill.

These foods.

Or maybe these.

Pie Crust, Crabcakes, and Other Odds and Ends

The Very Best Pie Crust Recipe
(Courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa Landre)

Ingredients
2 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c cold unsalted butter, cubed
1/2 c Spectrum shortening
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 to 1 cup ice water

Tools
Food processor or pastry blender
Rolling pin

Method
Place flour, salt, sugar in a food processor, spin to combine. Distribute fats on top of flour, close processor, and pulse until it resembles coarse cornmeal.
Sprinkle about 1/4 c of the water on top of mixture. Pulse a few times to mix evenly, sprinkle a little more water, pulse again. What you are looking for is a mixture that will just hold together when squeezed. You don't need any more water than that.
Scoop out into a bowl or a floured work surface and press together into a ball. Flatten the ball into a disk, roll out.
I always roll and shape my crust, then chill it in the refrigerator while I'm making the filling. Easier to work with that way.

I find this easiest in a food processor, but it can also be done with a fork or pastry blender (that weird D-shaped thing in the back of your kitchen drawer with wires or blades and a handle).

I used this recipe for my second pumpkin pie on Sunday, and it was just perfect. Flaky, not tough, the right amount of brown.

Mike made the salmon version of the cakes below for lunch today, which we had with an iceberg wedge salad. A very nice lunch. When I see canned salmon in the pantry, all I can think of is an unsatisfactory sandwich experience. (I love tuna, but for various and sundry reasons, I don't buy it anymore.) So these delicious salmon cakes were a nice surprise. Crab season has been postponed in small pockets of the San Francisco Bay due to the oil spill, but the local supermarkets and fish markets have still had plenty. A couple of dollars a pound more expensive, as it is coming from Washington and the outer regions of the Bay, but it's there if you want it.

Crab cakes
(Courtesy of Susan Ridley)

Combine:
1 egg
2 tsp Worchestershire sauce
1/4 tsp dry mustard
2 Tblsp mayo
1 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp mustard
1 Tbsp melted butter (olive oil works fine)
1 tsp parsley flakes (totally optional)
1 tsp Old Bay seasoning
1/2 c bread crumbs (scant)

Allow bread crumbs to soak up the liquids.

Gently fold in 1 lb crab meat
(canned salmon tastes pretty good too)

Make into 6 patties
Pan fry approx 6 minutes each side on medium heat, or until brown and crisp.

Due to the dry weather, we have had an extended fall here in the Napa Valley. I can't even describe to you how beautiful it has been. This week it is just starting to get nice and crisp outside, but the vineyards are still in full golden color. They are so gold, and so orange, and so numerous that there have been days that I felt overwhelmed by all of the warm colors. Enough already! Can I just have a little bit of something else!? Then we had a sprinkle of rain, and we got a dash of bright green. Many of the fields are being plowed, so that adds a nice dollop of chocolate dirt brown, too. Ahhh. The guys are out doing "pre-prune" this week, so by the end of the week, all that pretty color will be on the ground.

Here is a nice fall soup recipe that I found on chowhound.com. We had this for lunch or dinner one of the days this week, and I had it again for lunch yesterday. The flavor really improved after a day or so. I added an extra sprinkle of salt to mine when I served it, as I found the parsnips to be a little sweet. Great flavor.

Parsnip and Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 medium leek, white and pale green parts only, halved lengthwise, rinsed, and thinly sliced
1 cup peeled, coarsely chopped parsnips (about 2 medium Parsnip:parsnips)
2 cups coarsely chopped cauliflower florets (about 1/2 of a small head)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 3/4 cups water (I used homemade chicken stock)

Method

1. Heat olive oil and butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat until foaming. Add leek and season well with salt and ground white pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until leek is softened but not completely cooked, about 3 minutes.
2. Add parsnips and stir to coat in oil. Cook for about 4 minutes, or until parsnips are softened but not completely tender. (Do not let the vegetables color.)
3. Add cauliflower, stir, and cook for about 1 minute. Add salt and water. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat to medium low, and cook until vegetables are completely tender, about 8 to 9 minutes.
4. Remove from heat and allow soup to cool slightly, about 10 minutes. Process soup in a blender until completely smooth. Return soup to the saucepan and place over medium-low heat. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.
   

The soup as made on chowhound (a great recipe resource, by the way) was served with fried beet chips, but I think it would be terrific with homemade bacon crisps on top. We had it with some warm, buttered, savory pumpkin bread. It needed the salt from the butter, but there was plenty of flavor besides that in the soup, which tastes creamy and hearty without cream. It was a nice break from all of the heavy eating. This recipe could serve as a master recipe for any pureed vegetable soup, from broccoli to pumpkin to butternut squash, cauliflower, potato, beet, you name it.

Speaking of pureed soups, I mentioned my stick blender. As I also mentioned, the whole messy idea of pouring hot soup into a blender and then back into a pot is just silly to me. Not to mention potentially dangerous. I have had a hand blender since the mid-1980s, when I actually used to demonstrate Braun products in department stores. They are also called immersion blenders, because when you are making soup, you can stick the blender right into it and puree to your desired thickness without moving the soup. Makes great smoothies for one, and cleans up with a quick rinse in the sink. As I mentioned, I've used mine for 20 years (yikes, I think that makes me really old). It does not, however, crush ice very well, so unless you already have a crushed ice dispenser to break down the chunks, I wouldn't recommend using it for margaritas.

This week, when I made the soup, I barely had time to finish cooking it before we had to go somewhere, so I threw the whole pot in the refrigerator on a hotpad and pureed it in the food processor the next day cold. If you are going to do that, I recommend spooning the vegetables in first, getting them good and pureed, then adding the liquid slowly. This would probably also work well when blending the hot soup with a blender.

Note: By the way, Robert Redford was right about the dishwashing detergent. It really is working well, with no residue. It's even getting chicken stock grease off the reusable plastic containers, which is pretty impressive.

That's it for now. More soon.

Thankful Fors

I've been thinking this week about what I'm thankful for. There are so many things, some trivial, some not so. I am thankful for my yoga teacher, Helen McGee, tonight, because my yoga practice last night reminded me that yoga, and life, are work juxtaposed with joy.

Sometimes I feel that because I have no children of my own, I have no joy, but there is so much joy interspersed throughout my life in small doses that I sometimes forget it. Joy does not come from other people, even children: it comes from inside. It is important to remember, when something is difficult or annoying, like &$@@%# chair pose, or revolved triangle, or whatever doesn't seem to be working any given week, that there is joy to be found not only in doing it, but in the fact that I can do it. Life is also work, and joy, in equal measure. Sometimes in yoga, and in work, I find myself striving so hard. To get, to be, to achieve the next thing, the next level. I have to remind myself to be joyful at that very second, relax for just a second the need to strive endlessly toward an ever-moving horizon.

I am grateful for my home, which is calm and warm and welcoming. I know that although I don't have a "home" to go home to for the holidays, where my husband Mike is will always be home. I will always have a home that feels like coming home with my friend Karen. I am grateful for being able to practice yoga, because I may not always be strong or able enough to do so. I am grateful for all of my little girls and boys, who allow me to share some of the overflowing love that I have for little people with them, and give some back, too. (Children, that is, not Little People.)



I am so grateful for my friendship with my grandparents. Maybe it wasn't the best thing that my parents had children so young, but it has given me the opportunity to come to know my grandparents as people and as friends. I feel very lucky to have had that chance. I'm thankful that I still have my parents, and I hope that we can find ways to understand each other better.

I am grateful for my friends, new and old. I have always been the sort of person who doesn't notice the passing of time with friends. I am happy to jump back in wherever we last left off.

I am grateful for my husband Mike. He is really a good man. Today, I listened to him talk to the one-millionth lost tourist, trying to find Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, who ended up here at Stags' Leap Winery. He was patient and good-humored and kind.

When I drive to the winery a couple of days each week, there is a house on a corner on the north-west side of Redwood Road. There is always a ladder leaning horizontally against the wall, and a small pickup truck in the driveway. In the house lives a grandfather, and probably a grandmother. On weekdays, the grandfather is outside in the front yard in the morning with a fat old, amiable chocolate labrador retriever and a toddler who looks to be just starting to really walk on his own.

When I see them outside in the yard, it makes me cry, and I don't know why. It makes my day when they are there as I speed by. I feel like I want them to be there forever, walking down the sidewalk along the edge of the lawn, or down the front path. Today, the baby boy was throwing an apple into the street. The dog was wagging his tail slowly. I've honked and waved at them before, but they don't get it. The grandfather just looks puzzled as he half-waves, trying to recognize the person in the car. I'm thankful for them, too.

I guess I've gotten to that point in my life where I start to cry at just about anything. I feel like I realize how precious things are, and it has turned me into a gooey human Cadbury egg, less the tooth-killing sweetness. There are tons of things that aren't perfect in my life, but at this moment, this 2007 day before Thanksgiving moment, I don't really care. Life is so short and so full of little treasures every day. There are so many other things I'm grateful for that I haven't listed. If you're one of them, I mean you, too. Remember the part about equal parts work and joy, and allow yourself the joy part, even if you're cleaning stalls and pitching hay.

I'm just glad to be here.

Pumpkin Soup Reminiscing

The first time I ever had pumpkin soup was on a prom date. I was a junior, and I was with my senior boyfriend, Steve Hilliker. Not only was Steve a senior, but he was on the swim team, ski club, speech team, and cute and nice, too. I was head over heels for him. He really was my first official love. He was a gentleman. It took me years before I learned to let someone be that nice to me and not get weirded out by it. We played video games at the arcade (Centipede and Galaga, anyone?) and made out like crazed weasels at every opportunity, until he graduated, got a scholarship to West Point and I felt dumped and deserted. (Selfish thinking there.) I am sure he is still a very nice guy. I still think about him, and his very nice family, and wonder what they are doing now, and where they are.

His family once invited me to go out to a special dinner with them. The restaurant was Le Bistro in Stockton (apparently still going strong). Le Bistro was so fancy that Modestans would drive all the way to Stockton to eat there. I had never been to anyplace so fancy. I studied up on Miss Manners, who said to use the silverware from the outside in, and not to order the cheapest or the most expensive dish, but to order something in the middle. I think. I was still petrified about going. My friend Susan Reilly, who had actually eaten there once before, briefed me on the menu: "Just order the pepper steak," she said. She loaned me a dress, too, a truly 80's masterpiece with vertical mint and white stripes, a little round white collar and a pink bow.

There were waiters in long white aprons and an actual wine list that was presented to the host. Big, leather-bound menus that completely hid the person reading them. I think I smiled at Steve from behind mine. I ordered the pepper steak. I used my silverware from the outside in. I think.

Thinking back on that life-changing meal, where I first learned that my table was my domain, I realize that it wasn't that night that I had the pumpkin soup. Or if it was, I don't specifically remember it that night. I just remember the pepper steak, which is damn good if you ever get to try it, and the total awkwardness of being at a fancy restaurant with your boyfriend and his worldly parents. For the prom, Steve took me back to Le Bistro. It was a very grown-up thing to do. I think the waiter might have recognized him and offered him the wine list just to make him feel mature, but he was too nice a guy to actually order from it. Or I made that up. I'm sorry to say that I don't remember the soup on that night either, but we had other things on our minds. Dancing.

So the following year, after Steve went away to college and I ruled the school (ha!), I took my new boyfriend to the prom. As adorable as he was, it wasn't a love thing. It was half rebound, half power trip, half infatuation. (Ok, so I did not major in math.) He was very, very cute, but he was also a freshman, and I was a senior. I was in charge. Of course, I took him to the "only" fine restaurant. I cringe to think of how we must have appeared and acted then, knowing now how much waiters at very nice restaurants adore prom nights.

We went with another couple. All three were younger than me, and not as well-versed in fine dining, compared to my TWO prior experiences. So many cringe-worthy memories are pelting me right now that I can barely keep up. Strawberries speared with too-long dragon lady red fingernails applied especially for prom night. Lots of "shushing" to my dining companions for being too silly. There's more, but it's too embarrassing to speak of.

And the pumpkin soup. The pumpkin soup that would begin an obsession. Creamy, pumpkin-y, strange and delicious. I must have at least ten pumpkin soup recipes in my big cookbook binder. Here is the one that I eventually made up myself. It varies in its incarnations, and I think the best one was one I emailed a couple of years ago and now can't find. Now's the time of year to use it. Football season. Homecoming. Think of boyfriends and chilly, foggy mornings, and fall leaves and sweaters.

Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients
2 cups pumpkin (canned or home-roasted and pureed, or butternut squash, or acorn squash)
1/2 onion finely diced
1 carrot, finely diced
(Carrot and onion are optional-- they give a fuller, sweeter flavor, but if you don't have a stick blender or a regular blender to use to puree the soup, and you don't want weird little bits to chew, you'll have to strain the soup after it cooks. I hate blending, and I hate straining, so I just leave the bits, or cook it long enough that they mush into the soup.)
Butter or olive oil
1 tsp salt
Pepper
3-4 fresh sage leaves, minced
3 cups liquid of your choice. More if you need to stretch it out. I like a mix of mostly chicken stock finished with heavy cream, rather than the other way around. I am sure that the soup at Le Bistro was mostly cream with a bit of pumpkin stirred in. You could use milk, or water and stock, or water and milk or basically whatever you have on hand. This soup is very loosely organized.

Method
Saute onion and carrot in butter or olive oil in a large saucepan until tender and slightly caramelized. Add sage, stir. You can add minced garlic, if you like.

Add pumpkin. Cook a little bit so that the pumpkin gets some caramelizing in, too.

Add stock.

(If desired, this is where you would puree with stick blender or blender. Don't forget to put the top on loosely if you use a blender.)

Return to pan. Heat to a simmer. Stir and season with salt and pepper to your liking. At the very end, lower the heat and stir in the heavy cream. Check the salt level.

Nice with a little spiral of creme fraiche and a whole sage leaf on top.

Ok, goodnight. I'm going to sleep. May visions of sugar-freshmen dance in your heads.

P.S. Canned pumpkin is really good for you and has only one ingredient.

Trivia: I once worked in a factory where I helped with training materials for jobs which included "Pumpkin Elevator Operator".

The Natural

I have learned from a reliable source that this is Robert Redford's favorite dishwashing soap.

Yes, it is true.

I don't know if you know this, but Mr. Redford lives at least part of the time around Calistoga, which is a little north of here. And apparently, he shops at a health food store I sometimes go to in St. Helena. After I selected this detergent, all by myself, the owner told me that he stocks it because Bob came in and asked him to. The owner said he told Bob he was concerned about wine glasses being sparkling, this being wine country and all. Bob sent down his assistant later that day with a freshly washed wine glass to show him (the health food store owner) how nicely they came out, even without rinse aid.

I don't actually know if anyone calls him Bob, but I didn't want to keep typing Robert Redford. Although that might mean that my blog comes up on searches for him. Which could be mildly interesting for fans, or just annoying.

Endorsed by eco-conscious wineglass-washing celebrities everywhere.

Thanksgiving Recipes

Thanksgiving has always been a strange time for me. Through the years, my family has come apart and come back together in different ways, then apart again. In the early days, we'd get together at Grandma's house in Fort Ord, and later in Lake Tahoe, where it was crisp and sometimes snowy, for a very traditional dinner. I still remember the time we all laughed along with "The Laughing Woodsman" as the music went back and forth between the stereo speakers behind the table. As in a lot of families, there was rivalry and squabbling, to which the children were mostly oblivious. There was always a slightly uncomfortable but jovial mix of clever sarcasm, good-natured fun-poking, and hurt feelings.

I have always loved to cook, and I dreamed of someday being the one to host the family, make beautiful, delicious food, and mend the things that were broken. Over the years, we've all gotten so far away, physically and in many cases, emotionally. My own house has always been too small to be the place to go. The older I've gotten, the more I've realized that the family I wanted to bring together doesn't really want to be together. Nobody wants to travel to or be trapped at anyone else's house. We've all found our own tribes, and it seems like everyone is happy to be where they are. Even my grandparents, who still live in Tahoe, seem content to be among their many friends at favorite restaurants and casinos for the holidays. I used to feel bad about the fact that they were "alone" and took it personally that they didn't want to try and recreate the old family holiday at their house or mine. I have realized that they have a whole world of people who care about them up there, and that is where they prefer to be. Who can blame them?

Maybe everyone had an ideal in their head, based on movies and television commercials where women in frilly aprons lift steamy pies from the oven, and golden turkeys bask in the glow of candles and familial smiles, and we just never were that. Or maybe it was just me. Seems like everyone got disappointed over the years and gave up. There was laughter, and funny things happened, like the time my Aunt Cathy said, "Gee, that's FART!" really loudly at the table when she meant to say "funny and smart." But there were fights, too.

The year my parents got divorced, my dad moved out, and my sister ran away. Obviously we weren't going to Grandma's that year. My mom and I were left to our own devices, so we made lasagna and watched a movie and had a very nice time. Very "you and me against the world"-- at least we had each other. And then after that, everyone had their own thing to do, including Mom, and that short-lived tradition was out the window.

For Mike and I, the holiday soon became a marathon of driving and eating, going from my dad and stepmom's house to his mom's house, and back to my mom's house--or the house where my mom was having dinner, back to my dad's house. At some point, my sister would show up at my dad's with her husband or boyfriend, her children and her migraine, having just run a similar race. Eventually, everyone just decided to do it his or her own way, and that was that. (40 years of family history in a very small nutshell.)

These days, Mike and I enjoy the calm of our house, the fact that no one has to drive anywhere, watch football or shout, and especially our tradition of dinner at Monty and Emilio's. Our gracious friends host a Thanksgiving that is warm, cozy and welcoming-- and delicious on top of that. Maybe we have a nice time because no one there is related. Maybe we just don't know each other well enough yet... Mike and I started going as "strays" a few years ago, but it has become what we like to do, and now it feels like family. I am already looking forward to the oyster dressing.

Mike and I still make up our own Thanksgiving dinner on another day of the week anyway so that I get a chance to cook and bake. It just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without pie for breakfast, leftover stuffing and turkey sandwiches. And it is absolutely required that I make a grand turkey pot pie, usually the Sunday after the holiday, with a big puffy crust and peas, carrots, potatoes and celery. Since this post has gotten so long, I'll post that recipe later on.

Here are my "It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without..." recipes:

Herb Bread Stuffing
1 Acme herb "slab" cut into medium cubes and toasted in the oven or dried
(this is a rosemary-herb "slipper" style bread, sort of like focaccia, without as much oil, very spongy and golden with a tender crust.)
3 ribs celery, chopped
1-2 onions, chopped
1 Fuji or Granny Smith Apple, chopped or diced
1/2 c dried cherries (optional)
2-4 cups chicken stock
Sage
Thyme
Salt and Pepper
Optional: 2 chicken-cherry or traditional sage pork sausages, de-skinned, browned and crumbled

Saute celery and onion (and sausage if desired) until soft and slightly golden. Add sage, thyme and apple. Deglaze pan with chicken stock, stir. Add cherries.
In a big bowl, mix bread, veggies and stock from pan. Keep adding extra chicken stock until very moist. The bread will soak up all of the stock. You can place the bowl in the refrigerator and turn the mix once or twice if you are making this in advance, or place in a sturdy zip-top bag. Just keep adding stock until the bread won't soak up any more. Depending on how fine you like your stuffing, you can mash it around with a fork or leave it more chunky.
Spread into a glass baking dish and bake until brown and crispy on top.

Creamed Onions
3-5 white onions (depending on how many people you are feeding)
butter/olive oil
heavy cream
salt
pepper
nutmeg

Cook onions over low heat in 1/2 butter 1/2 olive oil until quite golden and caramelized. Add cream, salt, pepper and a pinch of nutmeg. Allow to thicken, but not to boil. Slightly sweet, oniony and creamy, these are a great condiment for turkey.

Dinner Rolls
4+ C Flour
1 1/4 tsp yeast
1 C milk
1/3 c sugar
1/3 c butter
1 tsp salt
2 eggs

Mix 2 C flour + yeast
Melt butter with milk, sugar and salt in a small pan
Add to flour and yeat mixture
Stir in eggs
Mix in remaining flour until soft and sticky
Knead for at least 5 minutes
Rise 1 hour
Punch down
Rest 10 minutes
Shape
Rise 30 minutes
Bake 12-15 minutes- undercooked is better than overbaked
(I don't know which sort of a wash gives these rolls a shiny gloss, but you could use it if you like.)

Butter pie crust
1 c butter (try half butter and half Spectrum shortening)
2 c flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 c ice water
(The original recipe, from Cooking Light, calls for 1/4 cup sugar as well. I find that the pumpkin custard takes longer to bake than the fruit pies for which the crust was designed, and the sugar browns too much. Mom's crust was always a sturdy, straightforward Crisco, flour, salt and ice water.)

Mom's Famous (Secret) Pumpkin Pie
(Makes 2 pies)
2 crusts, rolled and chilled
1 Large can pumpkin (or equivalent amount home-roasted and pureed): Libby is best.
2 cans sweetened condensed (NOT evaporated) milk: Borden is best.
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp eac ginger and nutmeg
+/- 2 C HOT water

Mix and pour into crusts
Bake at 375 degrees 50-55 minutes until center ever so slightly wiggly

THE Cranberry Sauce
My favorite cranberry sauce is the recipe on the bag (courtesy of Ocean Spray):

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 12-ounce package fresh or frozen cranberries, rinsed and drained.

Combine water and sugar in a medium saucepan. Bring to boil; add cranberries, return to boil. Reduce heat and boil gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Cover and cool completely at room temperature. Refrigerate until serving time. Makes 2 1/4 cups.

If you are the sort that likes orange zest and stuff in yours, go for it.

Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
I'm noting these because they are essential to the holiday, but I'm not providing a recipe per se. Everyone makes theirs a little differently. I always leave the skin on the potatoes. I'm a skin-eating type of person. I wash everything (contrary to popular belief) but I peel nothing. Sometimes I use Yukon Golds, sometimes regular old brown russets. Never red potatoes. We also always use 1/2 butter and 1/2 olive oil, milk, soy milk or cream, plenty of pepper and a little salt. As for the gravy, just make sure you mix the flour well with the butter or turkey drippings to start, then add liquid a little at a time and whisk. Cold flour, dropped into liquid, will make those nasty lumps.

There's always a green vegetable, like green beans or broccoli, and maybe a salad, but who really cares? Nobody daydreams about green beans the weeks before the holiday, do they?

At Monty's, there are other traditions from his past, like oyster dressing and turnips. The relish plate was always an important feature at Grandma's. A crystal dish with baby corn, little pickles, red and white radishes, celery, and the all-important canned black olives. It is an obligatory part of Thanksgiving to stick olives on all of your fingers and eat them off one by one. When black olives no longer fit on your fingers, you are a grown-up, and you must host your own Thanksgiving dinner. Those are the rules. Grandma (who is an avid recipe collector) made a cranberry sauce at least one year with orange zest and ginger ale in it. Maybe even canned mandarins. It was a very fancy cranberry relish and everyone seemed to like it.

For me, I love to start first thing in the morning with the rolls, getting that warm yeasty smell all through the house, then put the pies in to bake while the rolls are rising so that they can cool and set before dinner. I love to take a walk or do something brisk that gets the circulation going in between cooking and eating, like raking leaves, so that I feel like I've done something physical during the day besides kneading bread.

Fall

If you can't tell how dark those apples are, they are so dark that someone saw them in my basket and said, "Wow, are those apples?" They are called Arkansas Blacks. They taste a little like a cross between a Granny Smith and a Red Delicious. I still prefer Fujis. But they were so beautiful I couldn't resist them.

A Birthday Card

This card is one of several by Cara Scissoria (Scissor-ee-uh? Scizz-or-eeya?) of Los Angeles. These cards crack me up.

The Silver Palette

Ok, I'm not going to explain or justify this. I was shopping for a pair of plain black dress pants when I came across this silver trench coat on the rack at Macy's. I brought it home, but the tags are still on it. Silver: lamé or just lame? Poll at right. Please vote.

Happy Landings

Ok, I finished "Floor Sample". Reading it felt like watching a video shot from first-person perspective of trying to land a parachute through lots and lots of trees for a very long time: harrowing, dangerous, and fast paced, but with a soft landing. At the end, she simply walked her dog. (Sorry if I spoiled that for you.) Her realizations, admissions, and finally, release from the compulsion that kept her madly moving house back and forth across the U.S., were like the puff of that parachute expanding as it brought her safely to the ground. And me with her.