Fresh Peach Ice Cream

Basically, except for my workout, all I have accomplished today is to make fresh peach ice cream and clean off my desk. Get web space for an organization. Answer questions. Clean up the kitchen. Get the ingredients out for potato pancakes. Make David Eyer's Hawaiian Pancake for breakfast, download a printer driver for my MAC that didn't work, decide on a new printer, clean the bathroom, medicate the cat, make a shopping list, send a bunch of emails. Figured out (I think) how to migrate from Money (love it!) to Quicken.

Even on a day when you do nothing, you do lots. Now I have missed my favorite food network programs, but I'm drinking good rum, and both cats are curled up and asleep lending an air of quietude to the home office.

Poor Annie seems to be wearing out. No energy. Sleeps all the time. Can barely jump on her chair. Very sad.

I haven't seen the new calf and her mother and suspect their owner has sold them back to where the mother came from. Major bummer. Iris and Maryann are hanging out and the third cow is in the herd but everyone else is gone, baby gone.

The people from the condo association showed up today and dug a trench through the back yard, trying to find out where the sprinkling sysem stopped working. Always something. Many reasons to drink rum.

The potato pancakes will be wonderful. I love potato pancakes. My recipe is from the Wall Street Journal. Go figure.

The market went up on this day or rain and unproductiveness. A productive day is when you write at least a few pages or do major edits. Not today. Not yet.

Tonight we will watch Oliver (1968) and that will be much fun. Good movie, good cast, good plot, good writer. Thank you Charles Dickens.

Amen

Has Suck It Up Become a Food Blog?

Fair Question. I haven't been writing about writing, because it's too friggin' depressing. But,
Bill Loehfelm won the Amazon (ABNA) novel contest and congratulations to him.
http://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Kills-Bill-Loehfelm/dp/0399155317
The competition for this award was keen, and I've only heard good things about Fresh-Kills, Bill's book. A masterly job.


Last night we had potato pancakes, and the small houseguest ate eight (count 'em) eight. She is a picky eater who doesn't like onion, but somehow these passed all the taste tests. I served them with bacon and sour cream (real) and a peach applesauce at $1.00 a jar from Ocean State Job Lot. We had a chocolat pudding made in the microwave that was ultra-chocolately and very tasty. Serve with lots of whipped cream.

At lunch today at the Museum of Science where we saw the IMAX (Grand Canyon) movie. This was a new one, not the old Grand Canyon. Very good. The museum is perfect for a curious eight year old and was an excellent choice.

Potato Salad Season

Ratatouille, Tomato Bread Salad, Insalata Capreses, and Potato Salad are all wonderful tastes of summer.

Cooking up a storm this week with the house guests. Catering to 3 people, one of whom is a super-picky vegetarian kid who doesn't like macaroni and cheese and spurns a lot of vegetables--a real challenge. I have basically given up pleasing everyone, but the adults were blown away by this potato salad:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/105282

I started making it years ago when we went to an annual house party in Easthampton. It never failed to please. Flavors are robust, so if Annie's macaroni and cheese is your idea of flavorful, go for something blander. Nothing against Annie, except that hers was most most tasteless, as in no taste, product I had ever eaten. Hold the cheese, hold the salt, hold the seasonings. Oh well, I guess that's why two year olds only eat plain plain plain. I say give them curry and salsa and Sichuan.

A new movie someone might consider is Toddlers on A Plane, sort of like Snakes on a Plane. They all scream and refuse to sit down and disrupt the safety instruction and pour their sippy cups down the flight attendants shirt fronts. I travelled with toddlers once, and they were taught how to behave.

The most amazing sight I ever saw was a woman alone boarding an overseas flight with four kids, a baby, a toddler and two older (9 - 13 year old) kids. Well, this will be fun, I thought, as they were sitting very close by. What happened was that the 13 year old took the baby, the nine (or thereabouts) took the toddler, and the mom read a magazine. It took a while to figure out that this was a military family, and the kids had always travelled, and the older ones took care of the younger ones. Not that Mom was uninvolved, but she had her leisure to read and there was not a single squawk, screech, or bawl all the way across the Atlantic. There was certainly no holding up of the aircraft's takeoff while the parents "tried to calm" the child. So not every toddler is a terror. I blame the parents for raising a little tyrant.

And it all started with potato salad. Now I am out into the garden to transplant some petunias who really don't like the shade and there is still a bare sunny spot in the garden.

Tonight we are eating potato pancakes (latkes)which everyone likes a lot. With bacon, sour cream and applesauce. Not exactly low cal. I'm making a cherry caflouti for dessert.

Last night we chowed down at Vinny T's in Dedham. Good food and lots of it at reasonable prices. We brought home about two meals worth. It's a good place to take kids, by the way. The salad with blue cheese, apples, walnuts and romaine got four stars in my book. Yum!

Onward with trowel and determination.

Grapeshot