The New Year Lurches In Like A Zombie

Recovering from houseguests. Laundry. Leftovers. Lethargy. The 3 L's? After the laundry comes the ironing of napkins and pillowcases. Sheets can tend to themselves.

What is better than a meat pie? I had LOTS of leftover pork tenderloin. Cut it into bite-sized cubes, browned in butter with some scallions and garlic, sprinkled with flour and roast-beef seasoning (go figure) and added some stock mixed with a bit of white wine. Tossed in lots of chopped parsley and a couple big spoonsful of sour cream. Stir like crazy. Tossed in a bit of leftover rice since I had no potatoes, and a few cooked baby carrots and some frozen peas. Put a Pillsbury ready-made pie crust on top and cooked in a hot oven until the crust was brown.

We ate it last night and tonight. Yum!

Today was the day to exchange some presents at Macy's. I have to tell you that if everyone in the city and suburbs of Boston bought a bra and some panties at Macy's in South Shore Plaza, there would still be plenty for the people in Providence. Sheeesh! Never have I seen so much underwear, so many pj's. People, there are also a lot of really ugly clothes out there. Kohl's had some in the kids dept. and Macy's had some in the women's dept. Ugly. Ugly. Probably everyone could buy something ugly and the store would still have . . . well, you know.

We had a frugal lunch at Au Bon Pain. I noticed with sorrow that the tarragon chicken sandwich was not on the menu, nor was the Florentine tomato soup. Alas, alas. S.O. had broccoli cheddar soup and I scarfed down a spicy tuna sandwich. Lunch for two for $13.00 with lemonade is not bad. Some places a glass of wine would cost that much.

Hit the Body Shop for soap and foot cream and other sundries. The Body Shop rocks.

On the Scottish Highland Cattle front, the young black bull is gone, which must mean the freaked out pregnant cow is in residence. I fed them yesterday--three bags of fruit and veggie scraps. The grapefruit rinds from 4 people filled a whole bag.

I made apricot bars today. Hope they aren't overly sweet like the last batch. Current recipes can way overdo the sugar.

Promiscuous Mode received another rejection today. I am back in my drug lord's head, which is not a bad place to be as he daydreams of Cali and Cartagena.

Onward,



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Easy Party Menu

So, after four super-hectic days of NEIBA activities, we had a little dinner party last night. Normally I like to cook ahead for such events, but this was not an option.

We ate everything too fast for photos. Sorry about that.

Le Menu

Crackers with cream cheese and apricot pepper jelly
Hot Artichoke Dip

Pork Tenderloin with Smoked Paprika Rouille
Green Beans with Pancetta
Sweet Corn and Basmati Rice Salad

Italian Pastries

Below is a recipe for the salad, which is a great summer dish and note that it took the place of a salad AND a starch, hooray, hooray.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/SWEET-CORN-AND-BASMATI-RICE-SALAD-103494

I looked around the web for Hot Artichoke Dip recipes, and didn’t find mine.

1 cup mayo (can be low-fat but not non-fat)
1 lg. can artichoke hearts in water, drained well
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
¾ tsp. grated onion
Dash Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. Dijon mustard

In a food processor, mix all ingredients. Pour into buttered casserole or soufflé dish.
Bake at 350 for 20 minutes until puffy and light brown. Sprinkle with paprika. Serve with Triscuits, Wheat Thins or any other crackers.

Here is the recipe for the pork tenderloin. I believe I got it from Stephen Weber’s email, as in Weber kettle.

http://www.sportsline.com/mcc/blogs/entry/5887511/9823827

Now invite somebody you like to dinner.

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Pork Tenderloin with orange/onion salsa

The smoke alarm in our house erupts screaming just about every time I saute or bake at high temperature. Tonight was no exception. The cats hate it and hide. The fan over the stove is, shall we say, inadequate.

But the pork tenderloin, which cooks in a 500 degreen oven, was luscious, and the salsa gives it a big burst of flavor. We had rice and green beans which made a nice meal, and the pork is such good, lean protein that one feels virtuous. Some of these diet meals are quite edible.

I've been tweaking the opening pages of three different books, based on the course I'm taking on "beginnings." I have been doing everything wrong. I had the world's greatest opening line but it didn't fit into the book. Others are way too tepid.

I think I've fixed Promiscuous Mode and maybe even Festival Madness, and now I'm working on the California book, and I'm not unhappy with World of Mirrors, although it needs someone to love it. Well, someday.

Thisbe has ventured into the downstairs which is Annie's territory, and there will be a cat confrontation any moment.

I'm baking a lemon pound cake tomorrow for a get-together on Tuesday. If the cake is spectacular, I'll print the recipe. I've had it around for ages, but never made it, the fate of far too many recipes. If I cooked everything I clipped, we would both weigh 300 pounds.

More Jane Austen tonight. The lead character, Fanny, looked a little too modern for the role. But like all Jane Austen, tender and fun.

Onward,

Grrrapeshot

Least, least favorite thing

Computer problems. S.O. upgraded to Leopard Friday night and again, the wireless connection didn't work, so now we have wires strung thru the home office until Apple can get back with a fix. Had this problem before, and purchased a Westel wireless modem to solve the problem, instead of using Apple's wireless network, whose name eludes me now because I am still a PC person. These things (5 hours on the phone, digging up old records and passwords, tense staring at the screne) drive me batshit!

Maybe it was 20+ years in IT that did it. I was the problem-solver, the analyst, the go-to girl, but I almost always knew what I was doing and maybe it is having to rely on others who keep passing the buck to a more and more knowledgeable person. How did everything get so complicated?

End of rant.

Yesterday, in a moist 70 degree sunless day, I tackled the Bringing In of the Geraniums. Now there are five in pots waiting for a trip to the house before a possible frost this evening. The tuberous begonia has been fantastic this year--it's still fantastic. Rest of garden going downhill, except the sage. Picked all the tomatoes, and this p.m. I'll grab parseley, sage, thyme and oregano along with a little mint and the tiny cilantro plants that reseeded themselves.

We're celebrating the cool weather by grilling a pork tenderloin tonight. So many tempting recipes. Cooler weather causes an urge to cook hearty food. Gourmet has a turkey and dumplings recipe that looks exceedingly tasty. I dug out "Breast Budapest", a fantastic recipe from Purdue that came out about the same time as chicken cutlets. I mix parts sweet paprika, hot paprika, and smoked paprika to give the a really interesting reasonance to the flavoring. I use chicken tenders, and serve up noodles and a green veggie.

So: pet peeves, garden, cooking, what is left? How about those Red Sox? Man, they are killing my sleep patterns. Have you noticed how clean cut the Denver team looks and we have this sort of ragtag bunch of players who pound out the hits. And how about the rookies? This is a team you've got to love. So tonight may be the night, but I'd like the final game to be in Boston--the sox victory, of course.

A trip to the grocery is on the schedule, due to yesterday's computer problems, that sucked up time like a Hoover. Did you know that "hoover" is a verb now? Pretty cool. Off to Roche Brothers.

Go Sox!

Reading Proust

I feel asleep reading Proust last night, and woke up in the middle of the night with the book open and the light on. The thing about reading Proust is that you don't need to worry about a) too much excitement, keeping you awake, b) too much suspense, c) violence. Just beautiful sentences and descriptions.

I've been editing Festival Madness, because I thought I found some disjointed passages, but when I went back, I couldn't find them. The main character is in the process of putting all the clues together while dealing with her job, her colleague and her husband. Sometimes life itself is disjointed. Should fiction reflect? These are questions I can't find an answer to.

My small houseguest and I saw "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" in Mansfield this afternoon. The performance was truly delightful, and the cast, ages 10-13 was superb. We both enjoyed it a lot, a serendipitous find. If you're in the neighborhood, do go. Cheap tickets, too. Free cookies. Life is good. We've enjoyed Shreck III and Rattatouie.

Tonight it grilling weather, and we're doing a pork tenderloin on the grill along with summer squash and zucchini, and a risotto aux fines herbes (but not on the grill). Salad. Ice cream for dessert. Sounds good to me. French toast this a.m. My dad taught me to make French Toast and this is the secret: cream (or half and half) and a spoonful of sugar to make the toast brown nicely. I use half butter/half canola oil for frying, the yin and yang of fats.

While we're telling secrets, I put little quarter teaspoons of cream cheese into scrambled eggs to make them extra yummy. Also, not an original idea, but thanks to my old college friend Hester Finke Zimmerman for this idea. Cooks, like artists, pass on secrets to the next generation. When the time comes, I will tell our little guest about these secrets. I already told her about French Toast, but she is so young she'll need additional lessons. Today I told her about Mockingbirds, Cow Birds and how much fun it is to raise a baby robin. Nature lore is passed down the generations, too. At least I hope so. My mom lured fish worms to her garden with coffee grounds.

I told three secrets. How cool is that?

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