So Little Time

When I wrote the post title above, I really just intended to write about all of the things I am excited to do, to read, to see, to try, and how there never seems to be enough time to do them all. Then I thought of my grandma, who is back in the hospital today, and it seemed a little bit more weighty to contemplate, and those things to do lists awfully unimportant. Love your people. All of 'em, big and small.

Back in the Saddle Again

Thank you once again to everyone who has offered support, cooking help, cross-country emails and lots of positive thoughts.

Although each day has its ups and downs, Grandma and Grandpa are holding steady for now. She's even allowing kisses and hugs, and yesterday she told me that she finally got two good hours of sleep. Despite a rocky morning after, Grandpa was also able to catch up on a little shut-eye.

The last day I was there, I was talking with the caregiver about keeping Grandma happy and comfortable. I turned around to Grandma and said, "Grandma, are you happy?" and she said, "Oh, yeah, real happy!" Can't beat that.

Rosie the Riveter

First and most importantly, for those of you who have been worrying along with me, Grandma is not only still very much with us, she's doing absolutely great. I've been up in Tahoe with them both since Friday. She came home from the rehabilitation center on Saturday. She had a rough patch (putting it fairly mildly) and went back into the hospital, but yesterday and today she was again feisty and chatty. She asked for Grandpa to bring "some boxes of chocolate" for the nurses (which he did) and for a ride in the wheelchair (which she got). She ate her dinner last night "like an athlete" according to Grandpa.

When her doctor, who wasn't quite up to speed with her condition (and in my opinion, is not exactly an A student), came in to check on her, he said, "Rose, do you know who I am?" very slowly and loudly. Grandma looked at him, rolled her eyes at us and said, "Yes-- do you know who I am?" We cracked up. That's my Grandma! Those of you who know her, please do continue to send cards to her home address, as she is reading and saving every one.

Tomatoes

Two Quick Summer Recipes

Due to a host of circumstances, my posting has slipped a bit in the last two weeks. These past few days have been about getting things back in order around here, and yesterday afternoon I took a walk out to the big garden for the first time in weeks to see what was happening. I found myself in the midst of glorious summer. On top of the fragrant cantaloupe, fresh corn, skinny Japanese eggplant and tangy zebra and green grape tomatoes I found there, we also discovered a little nectarine tree in our backyard, laden with fruit. Here is what we made from the bounty:

Frozen Nectarine Margaritas
16 oz sliced fresh nectarines
2-3 shots tequila
Juice of 1/2 large lime or 1 small lime
1-2 tablespoons agave syrup, as needed, depending on sweetness of fruit
1 cup ice cubes
1/2- 1 cup water, if necessary to thin to drinking consistency

Blend until smooth, adding water to thin if necessary. To freeze nectarines, slice and arrange in a single layer on a parchment or plastic covered sheet pan. Freeze until solid. Store in zipper bags. Great in smoothies too. I keep these in the freezer throughout summer, adding new fruit as the supply is depleted. These are also good defrosted just a little bit for dessert, with ladyfingers and cream or by themselves. Frozen peaches and nectarines also work for pie and cobbler.


Gazpacho- basic recipe
4.5 lbs tomatoes
1 cup vodka (I'm assuming this is optional)
2 T lemon juice
1/2 T horseradish
1 T worcestershire
kosher salt to taste
1/2 to 1T tabasco (Can be added later to each serving)
1 gypsy pepper, diced
1 avocado, diced
fresh cilantro, basil, or parsley, chopped

Divide tomatoes in half. Roughly chop 1/2 and place in blender with ingredients up to kosher salt. Puree and strain. Dice the remaining tomatoes and gypsy pepper very small, and add to strained puree. Chill.

To serve, ladle into small bowls, making sure to get both soup and diced tomatoes, and add tabasco to taste. Top with avocado and fresh herbs. Creme fraiche would also be nice on top if you have it. I like this soup best topped with chilled crabmeat or shrimp. This time, I used the full tablespoon of tabasco in the whole batch of soup to be chilled. It was not too spicy for me, but I would have left it out if I had guests, because I think children would eat the soup without it. Too hot otherwise. Also substituted wasabe for horseradish. Either works.

Grandma

Thank you to those of you who have sent messages of support for my grandma. She is out of the hospital again and into a rehab facility after the latest stay in ICU, but she is definitely not out of the woods. It is a roller-coaster ride-- less for me than for my grandpa, who is still in Modesto with her. Your support has been so important to me. I hope you'll all continue to send good thoughts her way.

Before I Forget

I recently replaced my aging bathroom towels with these from Target. I had been looking and looking for just the right grassy green and couldn't find it in any catalog or store, not at Macy's, not even Garnet Hill or Pottery Barn. I came across these on the sale shelf at Target and bought one washcloth to take home, check the color, and run through the wash to see how it fared. The towels are surprisingly lush, fluffy and large. Besides the brights which are now on sale but may be in short supply (order them from Target.com if you can't find them locally), they also come in white and lovely sedate earth tones. I am so far very happy with the quality and feel. They feel much more expensive than they were.

The only drawback was that there were no matching bathmats. I like a washable towel-material bathmat, rather than one of those grungy, rubber-backed stringy things that always ends up permanently stained or stinky, so I guess the hunt is still on. Since hardly any of the furniture in the house we now live in belongs to us, when I buy things I'm furnishing the beach house in my mind. Instead of saying, "Will this match the sofa?" I think, "Will this match the off-white canvas Pottery Barn sofa with the striped rug under it?" or "Will this go with my orange and white paisley fluffy bed from Anthropologie?" Or my "retro-modern aqua naugahide (htfdy spell that?) settee?" Ok, not that extreme, but like that. And that is my way of explaining why I have grassy-lime towels even though my tile is beige and my bathroom floor is (ugh!) navajo red stone. You'll see.

Gone Fishing

A couple of Sundays ago, our friends invited us to spend the afternoon at Smith's Trout Farm. The sign in Alexander Valley is one we've passed many times, but it wasn't something we would ever have chosen to explore on our own. In fact, I would have said fishing was close to last on the list of things I like to spend time doing.

As it turns out, we had a pretty darn good time. Smith's Trout Farm is a quaint green oasis that probably hasn't changed much since it was founded in 1940. Little kids can still grab a willow dipper pole for no charge and pretend to fish or actually fish all day long. It's only open on Saturdays and Sundays. Fly-fishermen can practice, but the worm-and-bobber types are in the majority. Everybody catches something. No catch and release: you pay by the fish, and take what you catch, cleaned and iced for you on the spot. So, in addition to the cheeses and myriad snacks we brought, and the hot dogs on the grill for lunch, we had fresh-caught grilled trout. (You kill it; you eat it. Period.) Yes, they're farmed, and no, I don't think they are organic. The adults (ok, just me) seemed far more traumatized than the kids about the whole catching a fish and then killing it routine. Mike proved himself to be a quick and humane fish dispatcher.

I was taught to fish by my dad. After graduating from the plastic toy fishing set in the wading pool in my grandparents Aptos backyard, we were given little kid's poles, which were kept in a closet in the garage with the skis. Sitting by the side of the fishing pond, with a kid in my lap and a pole in my hand, showing her how to cast the line and reel it in slowly, and watch for other poles-- and hooks-- as she walked, I couldn't help but think of fishing in Alaska with my family. My grandparents lived there when I was in elementary school, and when I was 7, we went up for a visit. It is there that I discovered my love of all things shellfish, especially shrimp and crab--king crab and snow crab, with giant spiny legs as long as my arm, full of sweet meat. Now that I think about it, it was probably as much about getting to dip everything in melted butter as it was about the crab itself.

There is a picture somewhere of my sister and I, holding a string of a dozen or so trout, by the side of an Alaskan trout stream/pond. I don't remember being particularly traumatized by the killing of the trout, though I do remember trying to resuscitate some big, beautiful, silvery fish my dad brought home and put in the garage sink some time later. Dad hunted--birds, mainly-- and fished, so there was often something interesting to check out on the back porch or in the garage sink. The cats thought so, too. They demolished a pair of pheasants Dad had waiting on the steps, leaving a trail of beautiful multi-colored feathers, feet and beaks. Pulling the tendons of the severed feet would cause the feet to grip, providing an interesting if slightly gruesome early anatomy lesson.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the act of fishing. I don't know if I could cast a fly, though I think I could, but I can still throw a baited hook pretty darn well. And though I don't fish for fun as a rule, there was something not primal, but certainly fundamental about it. A generation taking long-standing survival skills from the generation before and handing them down to the next.

For Reference: Hughes email and Mac Mail fix

Because it took me so long to find out how to fix the outgoing mail server issue with hughes after the email "upgrade" (again), I thought I'd put the information out there for anyone else who is searching. Here's what fixed the hughes + mac mail receiving but not sending problem: go to Preferences, click on the account in question. Click the name of the smtp server for outgoing mail at the bottom, which will give you the drop-down menu. Go to Edit Server List. In that window, click on the server to edit, then go to the "advanced" tab. This will give you the boxes you need to fill in with your email address and password. Choose password authentication, and you should be done. By the way, after the all-day Madonna Covers Marathon on the hughesnet tech support line was over, I was able to reach someone fairly quickly and go through this. I did, however, still have to listen patiently while the person went through the script: Yes, ma'am. May I repeat to you that the problem you are having is with email receiving but not sending? Yes? Be assured that we are going to fix that problem, ma'am. Is your computer plugged in?

Stealth Toad

I was digging some holes for new plants in the narrow strip of backyard dirt that satisfies my urge to garden, when I came across a gopher hole. The gophers have created the equivalent of a small city under our back lawn. Compared to the way it looked when we moved in, it is a mess. My little garden strip is their supermarket. I have seen them drag whole basil plants into their lair, one at a time, leaving just the leaves hanging out of the entrance while they munched contentedly on the roots and stems. Most plants do not survive, but I've built up a repertoire of flowers there that are apparently not as tasty as basil.

So, thinking that I had located the back door to the pesky rodent's home, I gave the gopher hole a big chop with my shovel, and missed this toady little guy by a millimeter. I think I saw his skin move as the shovel passed over it, it was that close. Of course, I dropped to my knees, afraid that I'd chopped this poor toad, but he/she was still nestled in the dirt. I carefully slid the shovel about four inches under him and tried to pick up the whole clod with toad intact, eliciting a frightened squeak. Back down on my knees, I carefully dug Mr. Toad out and took another picture before he used my hand as the springboard onto the concrete, hopping away relatively unharmed.

More Leaping

Zucchini-Cheddar Breakfast Biscuits

Once again, from the Garden Fresh Vegetable Cookbook, by Andrea Chesman.

Zucchini-Cheddar Breakfast Biscuits
2 cups shredded zucchini
1 tsp salt
4 oz high-qualit bacon, preferably applewood smoked (I used diced Niman Ranch ham)
3 cups unbleached AP flour
1 T baking powder
2 tsp baking soda (I skipped, by accident)
1/2 tsp black pepper
4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut up
1 c grated cheddar
3/4 c buttermilk

Combine the zucchini and salt in a colander and set aside to drain for 30 minutes. Squeeze out any excess moisture (inside a towel or paper towel) and place in a small mixing bowl. You should have about 1/2 cup zucchini.

Cook the bacon until crisp, drain and chop.

Preheat oven to 400.

Sift dry ingredients. Cut the butter in until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Add the cheese, bacon and zucchini and toss with a fork to mix well. Stir in buttermilk to form a stiff dough.

Transfer to a lightly floured board and knead briefly until smooth. Pat out or roll out to 1 inch thick. Stamp with 3 inch round cutter and place on a baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Bake for 15 minutes, until golden. Serve hot out of the oven.

This time, I followed the recipe only vaguely. I was halfway through my regular biscuit recipe when I spied the remaining zucchini and remembered that I wanted to try this one, so practically everything is different. They still turned out tasty, and I will try the real recipe soon. I even skipped rolling these out and made drop biscuits instead. Good for breakfast, lunch, or savory snacks.

I really enjoy this cookbook, and it has become one of my standbys.

How to Exercise Your Dog on a Windy Day

Tamara's Perfect Smoothie

A few months ago, I was reading up on "The Zone" diet, and I thought it made some sense, but I wanted to try it out in a controlled way. Supposedly, it helps keep blood sugar in balance and keeps you feeling satisfied between meals. But the "blocks" were way too confusing, so I looked for the simplest possible explanation of the diet, and here it is: 1,2,3. By weight, the ratio of fat to protein to carbohydrates should be 1-fat, 2-protein, 3-carbohydrates. The carbohydrates should come from fruits, vegetables or whole grains as much as possible, to slow their absorption and add fiber. That's it. And according to the guy who devised it, it doesn't matter if you mess up at one meal, because as soon as you have a balanced one, you'll be back on track. That was a philosophy I could live with.

By adding up the exact numbers from the packages and a calorie-counting book, I came up with this smoothie that is a great start to my day. This is almost exactly 1,2,3. It does seem to keep me satisfied right up until lunch, with plenty of energy and alertness, and I feel like I'm putting healthy, real ingredients in my body. If I recall correctly, it is just about 400 calories too, so if you are trying to diet, it would be a far superior substance to put in your body than that nasty chemical Slimfast meal replacement stuff they sell.

Tamara's Perfect Smoothie
+-1 c plain soy milk
4 level tablespoons Nutiva hemp protein powder
1 1/2" slice silken tofu
1/2 small banana + 5 frozen strawberries
0r 1/3 cup frozen fruit, any kind

Blend together in a traditional blender or with stick blender. The frozen fruit is essential for that frosty smoothie texture. Blackberries are delicious, as are blueberries. I double up on the soy, but if you prefer to use a little dairy, non-fat milk and low-fat yogurt will do the trick just as well, just use more fruit or a dab of agave syrup, since the milk doesn't have the same carbohydrates as the soy, I think. Check that out for yourself, because I'm not sure. You can adjust the thickness to your taste-- this recipe makes a very thick smoothie.

Sorry, no photo. It's a little bit green, but still pretty tasty. If you don't have a lot of fiber in your diet, this provides a lot, so you might want to go easy on the hemp powder for the first couple of days.

July, July, July!

-What a beautiful month! Peaches from the orchard, nectarines from the veggie box. Plum jam from friends. Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes. The garden here on the property is always a few weeks behind those eager beavers out there in farming-land, so we’ll have our tomatoes and most of the squash in a week or so, through August and September. And boy, are we going to have a lot of them! Today would be a good day for me to go and take the tops off of all of the basil so I can help keep it bushy and make the summer’s first batch of pesto. But then I need to go and get all of the other things that go in it and actually go through with it, and I’m not sure that I’m feeling that ambitious today.

Since I’ve been a little behind in posting lately, I thought I’d catch you up. I’m really enjoying my photography class at the local community college. It is a for-credit class, an entire semester crammed into 7 weeks, so the pace is fast, and we have an assignment due every week. We’ve already had our mid-term, and there are only three weeks left. Here are a few of my photos from class, one from each assignment:






I am finding that I really love taking photos. I especially love learning about how to control my camera. Right now, I feel like I’m still at the wobbling-on training wheels stage, but it’s such a positive thing to walk around the world focused on spotting little bits of beauty. Light is always beautiful-- you just have to learn how to find it. It’s good for me. There are a lot of talented people in the class, and it’s helping me to learn to look at their work and figure out how they made it happen rather than feeling envious or defeated, which is an important lesson. I wish I could show you some of their great work, too. I’ll see if anyone in the class wants to start a flickr group, but again, I’m not sure how ambitious I’m feeling or if I want to get into another project. Given the fact that I am once again on hughesnet “fair access” probation (I can think of another word that starts with an f to describe it, but it isn’t nice) I am not going to be uploading anything to anywhere this week.

Besides work, which has been keeping me pretty busy, there’s the small fact that we decided to adopt the dog I mentioned a few posts ago. Yep, that’s right. A puppy. Tam and Mike have a puppy. In spite of the fact that I am now getting up at 5 am to make sure both the dogs are fed and exercised (together or sometimes separately) I am really enjoying her. Of course I love my old cranky dog, too. Always will. He’s my special buddy. But Pixie is such a snuggle-bunny that it’s nice to have her around. I didn't realize how much I needed her until I had her. We only thought of the name so that we could put it on her “Needs Home” poster and call her something at the vet’s besides “stray” but it stuck, and now it’s her name. She’s about 35 lbs now, at around 6 months, so it will be especially funny on her if she turns out to be a big burly girl. Admittedly, it is not the most imaginative name. And my family prides itself on imaginative naming. But Pixie it is.

The more I have her, the more I am glad we decided to stop looking for a home for her. A few months ago, a lady who was picking up some used barrels at the winery brought a puppy with her—one of nine in a litter her dog had that she was trying to find homes for—and one of the guys at work decided to keep it. He brought his dog, Honey, to work a few times and I just loved her. I gooed all over her. She brightened my day. Everyone was teasing me and calling me her mommy.

When I brought Pixie to work the first time and we were still looking for a home for her, Mike Hendry said “Tamara, I think you karmically ordered yourself up a dog—maybe you should keep her”. It’s true. I think I even said out loud then that I wished I could just take a puppy home and try it out, to see if it would work. And then it happened. There are lots of good reasons not to have another dog—we were hoping to be able to travel more in the future, they take up a lot of time, they need constant attention and training (she isn't officially housebroken yet), we weren’t sure how Tugboat would feel, etc., etc., but a good dog gives a lifetime of love, and she is a very good dog.

Today we are going to play with some children in the park. Yesterday we combined obedience training with errands and she went to the post office, the running store and PetsMart. She’s already doing most of the obedience commands. I’ll try to restrain myself from gushing about her overly much.

(Tangent warning!) Right now (almost 6am) there are a handful of tiny birds singing in the bushes outside my office window. They sound like water seeping into concrete. Have you ever put your head down on the side of the pool on a hot day and listened to the sound of the water dripping from your body and seeping into the tiny holes in the concrete? That rough, “no slip” concrete pool edging that grates the butt of your bathing suit to fuzzballs? I remember it very clearly from blistering days made into bliss by the existence of my little friend Rhonda’s swimming pool.

Which reminds me. I have heard recently that some family members get offended when I talk about Modesto like it’s a skin condition. I always had those old-time comedians in mind, the ones from New Jersey or Cleveland (why are those two places always the butt of jokes?) who wisecrack in that classic comedic Jersey-ish accent that their home town is a nice place to be from. Ordinarily I don't address off-line comments in the blog. It's not the venue for it. But I thought I should set the record straight.

I don’t hate Modesto. Au contraire, in the words of the fabulous Jane Smiley, I guiltily “harbor a fondness for the sins of my ignorant past”. Modesto is like an old boyfriend. I do remember quite fondly the good times we had together, but I know it’s not good for me anymore. I’ve grown, moved on. Modesto has grown and moved on, too, but not in a way I like to be around anymore. In spite of its symphonies, operas, restaurants and downtown renovation, it still likes country music, muscle cars and wine coolers. It might still have a mullet. We can’t hang out. (Ok, I’ll admit, I still turn my head and look when I hear the thick, throaty rumble of a V-8 engine.) But am I better than Modesto now? No, just different. It will always be part of me. From Roller King to McHenry Avenue, from Graceada Park to Putt Putt Golf, Water Wealth Contentment Health to TCBY, from Downey High, Downey High, Loyal (Royal?) Knights in Blue to the Hatchet Lady, Modesto will always be where I’m from.

A few nights ago, on one of the hundred-plus days here in the Napa Valley, I was driving home from class at twilight. The temperature had finally dropped. As I breathed in the fresh, barely cool air, I felt that familiar surge of freedom and relief that I used to feel driving the streets of Modesto on a summer night. I still love the nights on the longest days of summer, no matter where I am. Even when there was nothing to do and nowhere to go, it was great to drive at night in Modesto, down straight rural roads lined with row upon row of ambrosia-scented peach trees, out among the subdivisions, or under a full moon with the headlights off, way out in the country. After the languid oppression of the day, the night felt like another universe.

The other day, I read the phrase “a movie in the middle of the day”. It took me back to summers spent working at the Festival Cinemas as a teenager. Welcome to a Festival Enterprises Theater. Please, for the comfort and enjoyment of everyone, smoking is permitted in the outer lobby only. For the perfect gift anyone would enjoy, try a Festival Cinemas gift certificate. Perfect for birthdays, holidays, or whenever you need that certain gift for someone special. Now sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

Hot Modesto days were broken into bearable halves by the arctic cool of a dark and cavernous theater. (Four screens, baby, all the time.) If I wasn’t working, I could bring friends to see a movie. If I was working, I was inside in the air-conditioning all day. Granted, I was wearing pantyhose (horrors!), some kind of black, synthetic stretch pants, a butter-colored, grease-stained (butter flavoring with partially hydrogenated soybean oil and TBHQ as a preservative, according to the label) rayon blouse, but I was inside and cool. I don’t remember seeing anything that could qualify as art, and I saw the same parts of the good movies dozens of times on my break, but it was still fun to sit in the cave-like darkness with my diet-coke-and-root- beer and my cardboard box of employee popcorn. I knew all of the songs that ended all of the movies, from "B-B-B-Bad to the Bone" that ended a Stephen King flick (either Cujo or Christine) to the Ewok song "Yo-wah, eecha yo-o-o-wah...." from whichever Star Wars that was. I think Three—right? "Everybody cut, everybody cut- Footloose!" It wasn't such a bad way to spend the summer.

I guess when I realized Modesto was bad for me was the year I came back from living in Santa Cruz. The few years between coming back and when I met Mike were some of the worst I can remember. Santa Cruz was total liberation for me--one of the things that I realized when I got out of my home town was how profound an effect the monotonous weather had on my level of happiness. Dense pea-soup fog for at least three months of the year, followed by the baking heat of over-100 summers made me a not very nice person. I don't like the heat. I mean, I like it in short bursts, but not for weeks at a time. Part of what I like about Napa Valley is that it's a small valley, closer to the marine influence, and our weather, hot or cold, always seems to break in about a week. I need that. When I finally got out of town again and came here, the weather just suited me better.

So. I was trying to wrap this up, but I feel like I want to move on to other things. Hope you got enough stuff to think about. I've got a recipe post that I want to put up now.