The Rains Came

Is anyone building an ark?  We in the Boston area are deluged with rain.  And more rain.  Not gentle spring rain but as we used to say out west, gully washers.  It is the monsoon season.  Whatchagonna do?  Still have to run errands and go grocery shopping.  For some reason I do not have a hooded waterproof windbreaker or any practical rain garment, so I just run in and out, getting wetter and wetter.  Today I forgot my baseball cap,  and really was drenched.

Of course, cold damp  weather calls for soup.  This week I made an interesting tortilla soup, pureed and thickened with (!) tortillas.   I  flavored it with the usual suspects and also a big dry ancho chilli pepper.  We grilled the tomatoes, onions and tortillas.  On Monday, before the monsoons.  You have to get outside while you can.

The crocus are damp and drooping.    Alas, alas.  One ray of sun would bring out the forsythia.   Wonder how the new garlic likes this. 

The soup was vegetarian, but I roasted a chicken breast and we sprinkled pieces of that along with fried tortilla strips and sour cream into the soup.  

Burglars Beware: Cat DNA lurks everywhere

Someone has finally come up with a good use for cat hair.  Our vacuum is full of it and all my dark clothes as well.  Rugs, furniture, it's cat hair uberalles.

Actually, Friday is cat blog day, but what the hell?  http://www.care2.com/greenliving/cats-help-solve-crimes.html

Spring Training

Another glorious day with warm temps and sun.  Now I have to dig my Japanese Gardening Pants out of summer storage and get to work. 

There is a whole forum devoted to these pants, which presumably are available again.  I wear mine mostly in spring or fall or for big dirty summer jobs.  Somehow, jeans just don't work as well.  Too tight, probably.  Anyway, I love these pants.  Read the forum at: 
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/accout/msg1011145230870.html

Raking, removing small branches, uncovering garden, replanting thyme, tossing what was left in place last fall, and cleaning pots. It could still snow, so don't uncover too much.  We in Boston still recall the April Fool Snow that dumped about two feet on us on the first of April.  God, it was a mess. 


So I will do cleanup, but still leave the leaves mulching the garden alone, although the temptation is there to go hog-wild.  The thistle seed needs attention.    Chives double their height daily.  I can't wait for the first delicious bites of herbs.  Yum!   Maybe not too early to put some parsley out.  

I was tempted by the seed sale at Ocean State Job  Lot this morning.   Significant Other cannot go into that store without picking up yet another can of white asparagus.  We probably have a lifetime supply.   It is fiendishly hard to find in Boston, owing to the lack of German settlers except in Walpole, where there are apparently  some.  

Tonight we're having swordfish in a lemon-pepper (real lemon and pepper) sauce, bok choy,  rice and  fresh strawberries.   Wish I had a bok choy recipe that wasn't Asian.  Maybe somewhere on the web. 


S.O. has fallen asleep in front of the baseball game.  He does his own spring training. 


Onward, 

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Has Spring Sprung?

Tomorrow is the first day of "official" spring.  Today the Spring Peepers began their shrill chorus in the slough behind the house, and some other frogs joined in.  Crocus is blooming, and I forced some forsythia.  Garlic and chives rising out of the earth.  A major cleanup lies ahead. 


The photo is across Central Park to the West from the Upper East Side (la di dah).  We witnessed the St. Patrick's Day parade and spent a day on Long Island visiting a sick friend.  Driving back into Manhattan, the view at night just couldn't be beat.  


Today, back in MA,  we grilled for the first time, a small chicken with garlic and lemon and thyme under the skin.  Very yummy with salad, boiled Yukon Gold (baby) potatoes and fresh organic carrots.  I am sorry to say we ate the whole chicken, but it was small and oh so tender and dark and yummy.  May grill again tomorrow.  


I am still doing some plotting and am rarin' to get going on my book again.  And more short stories.  And the garden.  And. . . and. . . 


The warm weather and especially the sunshine are energizing.  The cats stare out of the windows in wonderment.   Is it truly "kitty weather" again?  


So I started watching the "Breaking Bad" marathon tonight, but it is just too freaking scary.  Meth is the worst.  Jeez, how did we get from the light to the dark so quickly?  dunno. 


Reading Proust, there is never any of this angst.  


Onward, 


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Farmer's Cheese and Berry Tart

So I finally managed to take a photo before we ate the whole freakin' tart 

The crust and the filling are both made in the food processor.  Easy and elegant.  Isn't that what we all want in a dessert?  This is an old Gourmet Magazine recipe.  I clipped a million of them.  All good.   Thi was a simple one.  Hooray! 

Chili Today and Hot Tamale

Ye gods!  Somehow the winter went by without the making of chili.   Dunno what happened.  I had a pound and a half or so of lean unroasted beef in the freezer, cut off from a roast that we did in the oven.   Looked like just the thing for some chili.  Ground beef is fine, but chopped meat is even better.  I took off the fat and cut it into chunks about 1/2 inch wide.   Little cubes if you will.  I put one large dried guajillo pepper and three dried ancho peppers to soak in a hot bowl of water.  I get these peppers from Penzey's spices, and they have just the right combination of heat and complexity to make chili.  

I sauteed the beef quickly (3 batches) in some canola oil, and removed from it from the Dutch oven.  Next went in a little more oil and 2 onions, chopped, somewhere between fine and not fine.  Added three cloves of chopped garlic.  When the onions were tender and somewhat brown, I dumped the meat and all its juices back into the pan.  Added 1 14 oz can of tomatoes, chopped, 1 chopped red bell pepper, a bay leaf, a little cayenne, some cumin, salt, pepper, a bit of celery seed and the water I drained from the peppers.  You need about 3 cups of water. 

While that mixture was coming to a simmer, I removed the stems and most of the seeds (by no means all) from the reconstituted peppers.  Chopped them up  fairly fine, and added them to the pot.   Simmered the whole business for 2.5 hours, then added an undrained can of kidney beans and cooked for another half an hour.  

We ate it with real corn bread (more of that later), and a salad with oranges and pineapple on shredded lettuce with a light dressing of oil and light vinegar with some honey and poppy seeds.  Grated cheese and sour cream to put on the chili.  God, it was good.  Spicey, but you didn't need the box of tissues on the table, just handy.  For less heat decrease the cayenne and only use 2 anchos.   

 The cornbread is made in a cast iron skillet, and the ingredients are shortening (any old kind except margarine), buttermilk, a whole egg, and cornmeal (stone ground is best) with a bit of salt, baking soda and baking powder.  This recipe is remarkable for what it does NOT have.  No white sugar, no white or other flour.  It's what our ancestors made for years and years on a daily basis.  With fresh butter, it can't be beat.  Good with bean soup, too.  Good with most everything.  NO SUGAR.  That's for dessert. 

 The second day, the chili was milder, with a resonance that comes from good ingredients sitting together in harmony overnight.  The cornbread can be covered and put in the fridge for the next day, too   Just heat it up in the microwave. 

I think I could eat this at least once a week.  There is some slicing and chopping involved, along with the preparation of the peppers, but what an explosion of taste.    

The dried peppers keep in the fridge from one year to the next.  www.penzeys.com. 

Penzey's have the greatest spices, and a huge collection of chili powders and dried chilis.  Some great rubs, too, if you don't make your own.  I am very fond of Barbecue of the Americas.  Also some Asian blends like Singapore Seasoning.  

The chives and the garlic are peeking out of the ground along with the daffodils and tulips.  I brought in some branches of forsythia which I'm trying to "force."  Can spring really be around the corner?  Can't wait to start grilling again. 

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PEN and Stick Fly

Busy week, as always.  I put the finishing touches on my short story, and also gave a speech to my Toastmasters club about travelling on the cheap.   On Thursday we drove to Cambridge and Upstairs on the Square for a delightful PEN event with Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore discussing their novel, Blindspot, with much good talk about history, writing, Boston and other writerly stuff. We walked over to The Border Cafe afterward, and bulked up on Tex-Mex.  Yum!


Friday, we saw an absolutely fabulous play at the Huntington titled,Stick Fly.  Lydia Diamond is the playwright and she knows her stuff.  It's so wonderful to discover a new dramatist!  The cast was uniformly excellent and the theater, in the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion was intimate and friendly, with plenty of good places to nosh afterward in Boston's South End.  We lucked out and found on-street parking, a minor miracle.  When the cold and rain and snow disappeared, Bostonians came out in droves. 

We went for a walk and pizza at Patriot Place yesterday.  Big crowds.  Lots of people in the restaurants.  A good sign.  The meal at Tavolina was delish,  and we have a half pizza in the fridge for dinner tomorrow. We did Chinese New Year late, and have leftovers from that tonight.  I splurged on a fresh pineapple, and it is astounding how much pineapple two people can eat.  So sweet and juicy.    

I cut forsythia today in hopes of forcing some blooms.  Optimistic, yes?  Now, back to my novel or maybee another short story?  I have a whole series of animal stories to write.  A book?  So exciting to think of new projects.  To think of spring.  La-di-dah! 


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