Photo by Edie while at camp.
Our girl is home after three glorious weeks at camp.
Category: Uncategorized
In which I get a bushel of peaches.
A few of you who sat in my early canning classes this season were so knocked out by the sample of my pickled peaches that you had to go home, make them and blog about it. Which I think is actually way cool, but everyone along the way has mentioned how much work peaches are.
11 Questions.
The thing about blogging is wondering exactly what people want to read- for instance, I almost didn’t publish that last post on cantaloupe jam because I had this second thought after writing it that no one really cared two cents about cantaloupe jam. I was very pleasantly surprised to see that indeed some of you actually like hearing about cantaloupe jam. I always get a little thrill when I hear how much someone likes this blog – this whole thing started on a lark trying to keep a lost then found creative spark that is so much a part of me that I don’t ever want to lose it again. In a little internet game of tag you’re it, Meridith over at Counting Chickens gave me a little shout-out along with a list of questions that were optional for me to answer. And if you know me, you know that I bounce from subject to subject, so why should my blog be any different? This one is for you Meridith.
Jamming.
While I might be more known to pickle everything in sight, I do tend to make a batch of jam here & there upon occasion. Jam took me quite some time to really master – somehow I was able to teach others how to do it without ever actually being successful at it myself. I know, go figure. The people that live in my house, scarred by years of bad jam, prefer to not eat the jam I make. One of them requests I purchase large tubs of just plain, grape jelly that the act of making a pb& j doesn’t use half a jar. The other has decided she’s only going to eat Daniel’s jam and when I get sneaky and reuse his jars, keeping the label and filling it with my own, she knows.
Oh July.
It’s been a bit of a whirlwind around here lately – deadlines & cooking classes galore with last minute radio spots and packing up missthing for 3 weeks of camp all while playing single mom in the miserably muggy weather. Last Thursday, when you could see the air and it smelled like mildew outside and I couldn’t take it anymore, I got our wonderful neighbor Brian to come help me reinstall the not-finished-french doors between the dining room and sunroom so that I could shut the house up and keep the humidity levels sane. I can take the heat and even the humidity, but I can’t take the effect humidity has on the inside of my house. Living in Alabama for almost a decade, I never had central AC – all through college I lived in wonderful old houses that had lots of big trees & ceiling fans, very similar to what I live with now – and I learned to just deal with it. I also had a car that did not have air conditioning. Ever drive along the Gulf Coast Fourth of July without AC in the middle of the day? To this day, AC in a car is a wonderful, wonderful luxury.
So I’m quite used to dealing with heat & humidity. It seems that spending too much time inside in AC this time of year results in sinus infections for all of us – I woke up just this morning with that telltale pressure on the right side of my face. Thankfully, the weather is supposed to become far more pleasant later in the week, so hopefully we can open the house back up again.
Pat spent last week running the Middle James Expedition– while Edie & I held down the home front. Despite our house being the muggiest one around, her pals were in & out all week long. A huge thanks to Teresa, who had Edie over for a sleepover while I drove over to Harrisonburg and back for a canning demonstration at Friendly City Co-op. Thanks to everyone who came out to that – I had a great time and am looking forward to going back over for a pressure canning demo in a few weeks. Saturday morning after a quick phone appearance on WINA talking about the upcoming swap, I assisted with Erica’s Cooking with A Whole Chicken Class for Market Central,while running last minute errands and doing laundry in order to get up and drop Edie at camp Sunday morning.
After which, we stopped at the nearest open brewery and toasted our child-free status for the next three weeks.
I’ll miss not finding feet pictures on my camera the next three weeks, but I have plenty of adventures lined up to keep me occupied, starting with tonight’s canning class at PVCC, a fridge full of produce I need to deal with ASAP and the mailing of a care package of the things she forgot to pack. Like toothpaste.
In which Clara got on a boat.
Progress on the dining room was interrupted this weekend for a stop on the annual ‘summer by the water’ tour. This one was particularly glorious as it was a girls’ weekend with some of my college gals at Andrea’s St. Michael’s house. This is what Friday night looked like:
Wine & cheese and a sunset on the dock, just me & Andrea.
Breakfast was coffee & a big bowl of cherries while I sat outside reading.
It was one of those picture perfect June mornings – clear, just warm enough but not hot, with a gentle breeze to keep the bugs away. I had no cell reception, there’s no internet, no land line, no TV. Nothing to do but sit and read a book.
That was the sky. Divine, isn’t it?
After Andrea woke up, we puttered in the yard some – as she & her family are moving to San Francisco, this house is going on the market. After she met with the realtor and we filled in a hole left by the digging of the new well, Clara & Sheilah showed up. Which meant it was beer time.
On the dock again of course.
Because when you have access to something like that, I believe you take full advantage of it. Then again, we all know how obsessed I am with spending my summer by the water.
Eventually, it was decided we’d get cleaned up and head into town for something to eat. And that’s when the fun really began.
After wandering around the streets of St. Michael’s, we eventually made our way to the waterfront and found a place to eat. We had to wait at the bar for a table, which was fine with us. Us being us, we engaged everyone around us in conversation, including most of the staff. We were sitting by the door they use to go in & out of, as well as near the hostess station.
I have noted here before that as a group, we are loud and foul mouthed – Andrea & I especially. We call each other names – terms of endearment to each other, but we’ve realized others can be slightly offended at how we speak to each other.
Some might say we are badly behaved, but really, Andrea & I just don’t care. It’s the defining quality we share along with the ability to make the saltiest sailor blush with our language. If you knew us in college when we were practically inseparable, then the way we behave when we get together as forty-something soccer moms doesn’t phase you. It actually makes perfect sense, unless of course you thought certainly we’d have grown out of that by now.
We haven’t. In fact, it may have gotten worse.
When our table was ready, our bar tab was handed to us. We couldn’t help but notice the name the staff had put our tab under:
Which thrilled us to no end. Clearly, they got us. And appreciated us, as we had half the staff stopping to chat with us. A woman at the bar holding her crying toddler in one hand and a beverage in the other looked at us and sighed, “I’m having my girls weekend next weekend”.
I snapped this shot and posted it on facebook, tagging the girls at their request. We were all taken aback by the comments of friends who thought the staff should be fired – not at all. We were completely in on it. As someone who still works as a server, it’s always nice when you have a group or table that’s fun & easy, as I know we were. Well, other than the loudness factor. And the name calling. And the language. When we sat down at our table, there was a family with two small girls behind us that we tried out best to behave around, but well, they were at least quite understanding…
We discovered this little guy and he proceeded to hang out around us all night long. We took that as a good sign. We might be loud and obnoxious, but hey, we have good karma.
As we sat at dinner on the patio of the restuarant on the waterfront, Clara saw some boats for hire coming back into dock. “I want to get on a boat”. Bless Andrea’s heart, she whipped out her phone and made a few calls, trying to get Clara on a boat. Everything was booked, but we assured her, she’d get on a boat before she left.
And so, after dinner, we wandered around the marina. We came across a lively group sitting on their boat that we engaged in conversation. Next thing you know, they invited us to come aboard for a drink. Seeing this as how we were going to get Clara on a boat, I hopped aboard. When everyone else realized I wasn’t coming ashore until I finished my Coors Light, they all came aboard too.
The text I sent to my husband at about this point of the evening was “Made new friends. We’re on a boat. Not sure who’s boat, but we’re on a boat”.
His reply? “Woo-hoo! Glad you’re having fun!”
Love that man.
Meanwhile, Sheilah here was our sober driver and herder. She did it with much grace & style, as she has always done. Yes, that’s a bird on her shoulder, because when you storm a boat, isn’t there supposed to be a bird on someone’s shoulder?
We eventually made our way back to the house where the fun & games continued with late night swimming in the river, improvised ladders and glow in the dark jelly fish. As we drove home on Sunday, Andrea noted that every time we get together, we have some sort of adventure. Perhaps that is what binds us together after all these years. That and the name calling, the foul language and the fact that we just don’t give a shit what you think of us.
Progress.
So it turns out that the dining room is a major component of our every day life, in that it serves as an extension of my kitchen as well as a giant closet of sorts – it’s the place where we throw the mail, keep the vacumm cleaner, pool bag, canning jars, WINE, cloth shopping bags, garden & market baskets, any pots over 3 quarts (so my stock pot, at least one canning pot) – you know, things essential to everyday life. The table is the where I set things to cool, as to not further clutter the 2 square feet of counter space I have that seems to host various fermenting projects, empty jars, cookbooks in use, toaster oven, coffee pot, the usual kitchen stuff. So, having this hub packed up just pointed out exactly how much of a hub it is. Just the fact that we all walk through by habit and therefore have dragged the entire mess through the house says it all I think.
So far this week.
I bought beets at market last Saturday. I roasted them in a foil packet in just a wee bit of water at 375 for just over an hour. I let them cool, peeled them, tossed with with salad greens, goat’s milk feta cheese, salt & pepper, olive oil & red wine vinegar. We liked them. So much so I bought more beets at market this Saturday and when I suggested making that salad again today, Edie said okay. Which means she likes them I think. Dare I say we are starting to like beets? Continue reading
As local as it gets.
We have a cherry tree in our front yard. The neighborhood critters tend to get to it before we do, leaving us not more than a handful of cherries, at best.
This spring the tree was loaded. You could see it walking down the street. We had hope there would be enough for all of us. Tuesday I had a bite of a cherry, realized they were not quite ripe yet, and noticed the tree was still loaded – a good sign.
Friday morning, there was much activity at the tree. Every bird & squirrel within a 6 block radius was feasting. I ran out with my basket and picked everything within reach without a ladder. I noticed a good deal of the fruit had some sort of funk, which was a bummer and the remaining fruit wasn’t entirely ripe, but I was going to get a crop off that tree dammit.
Two pounds later, I did.
Since they were mostly underripe, I knew cooking them was the way to go. Having picked 8 pounds of strawberries later that day from our little garden patch, I thought about combining the two.
Yes, you read that right. EIGHT POUNDS of berries from our little strawberry patch in one day. Two pounds the day before that. It’s been a banner year for strawberries.
Where was I? Oh that’s right, cherries. First, I had to pit the cherries. I got this little pitter last summer at Bed, Bath & Beyond.
It pits four cherries at a time, popping the seeds out into a tray underneath. That’s practically doing it in bulk when you think about it AND it keeps clean up to a minimum. 
I love this thing. I strongly recommend it, especially if you are considering doing anything with cherries this summer.
After pitting the cherries, I chopped up an equal amount of strawberries, added sugar and let it macerate overnight. I found this great post on Northwest Edible Life on making pectin free jam without a recipe that I used as a guideline. Because my cherries were not fully ripe, I went with 1/2 cup sugar for each pound of fruit.
The resulting jam is sweeter than I expected it to be, with big chunks of fruit.
I packed it in 4 oz jars, trying to stretch out the yield as much as I could. The result? 8 lovely jars of what we are calling “Greenleaf Cherry Berry”. I’m beyond excited that we grew enough fruit to make jam with this year. Take that squirrels.
Spread on sourdough toast for breakfast, it’s quite lovely if I do say so myself.
Cherry Berry Jam
2 pounds cherries, pitted & chopped
2 pounds strawberries, chopped
Combine the fruit in a non-reactive bowl with 1-2 cups of sugar. Cover and refrigerate overnight (or longer). Simmer on stove top, stirring occasionally. As the fruit starts to fall apart, you can mash it if you’d like. Add 2 tablespoons lemon juice and cook until it is ‘set’. Pack into jars and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.
Yield – 4 pints.
Her mother’s daughter.
We went out of town for the latter part of Memorial Day weekend, to help the Smiley’s with their addition. Pat spent Sunday & Monday painting, Edie spent it playing with Abigail & Owen and I spent it snuggling baby Walker, cleaning Mollie’s kitchen, making strawberry jam and feeding everyone. Pretty much the same things we’d do here, only we were there. We got back late Monday night and all three of us just went straight to bed.
I worked Tuesday (teaching at The Happy Cook), Wednesday & Thursday (at l’etoile) evenings. Edie had been mentioning hosting a slumber party sometime, but given my schedule for the week, it didn’t really get discussed much. I just nodded every time it came up, while I was knee deep in other things – like making sure they had dinner prepped or Edie had a ride home from soccer practice – you know, those sorts of distracting mom things. Thursday night when I got home from work, there was an email from Clare’s mom asking if it was true we were having a party the next day – which is how I found out it was a go and Clare was on the invite list. Apparently Elodie was in charge of making invites but breaking her arm sort of interfered in that plan, so not everyone got a handwritten invite, which was the plan. Also in the plan was for everyone to come home with Edie from school. And that they were sleeping outside. It was requested I serve pizza for dinner, but breakfast was wide open.
Really, that’s all I knew of the plan. I was kept on a need-to-know basis, a quality Edie has been described by her friends as having. Which she comes by completely honestly. Ahem. So I couldn’t quibble with her in the least on this. In fact, while talking about it with Pat Thursday night, I admitted that I’ve done the exact same thing to her so many times over the years – springing an impromptu party – that I probably deserved it. Pat agreed, saying “We just need to make sure this does not become a habit”, but as the words were coming out of his mouth, I could tell, he knew we had no hope of that. In fact, everyone I’ve talked to about this has given me pretty much the same look. Uhm, hello? Last minute pinata?
The thing is, Edie is one of those people who like to have things planned. She likes to know ahead of time, like way ahead of time, what all the details are. Her favorite thing about school is structure -and she never misses an opportunity to tell us that it’s because we (me) fail to provide structure. I was raised by the seat of my pants – you’d go to sleep in your own bed, but you weren’t always guaranteed to wake up there. The adventures I had growing up would make Edie’s head spin. Most people, upon hearing the tales of my childhood, think I should write a book. They also wonder that I’m as stable as I am. No, really. My parents were the sort who thought it fun to break into their friend’s homes at 5 am and surprise them with breakfast. Deciding to go camping after dark and waking up at the business end of a shotgun after setting up camp overnight in a not-so-friendly stranger’s yard was also a regular occurrence. A few pieces of the puzzle just fell into place for some of you, didn’t it?
So this party and keeping us on a need-to-know-basis? Makes my heart swell. She’s learning to let go and roll with the punches, which is really sort of key in life I think.
And so, Friday afternoon when school dismissed, there was a roar heard coming down the street. The neighbor moving in across the street stood on her porch, listened, saw them headed down our front walk and ran in, slamming the door. They walked in, dumped their gear, creating a wall of little girl gear right there in the living room and proceeded to roam the neighborhood, walking over to McIntire Park to watch baseball before coming home to sit up most of the night chatting & giggling in a tent in our back yard.
I’m fairly sure a good time was had by all and I’m fairly sure they are planning on doing this sort of thing a few more times this summer. I made them pizza for dinner – even buying a pack of pepperoni per Edie’s instructions, which was applauded by my girl. I knocked it out of the park at breakfast with Julie’s Lemon Cheesecake Morning Buns – I cannot recommend this recipe enough. It’s easy peasy, yummy and all you have to do in the morning is throw them in the oven and whip up a very quick glaze. In fact, that breakfast alone may have sealed our summer party hosting fate, as I heard at least one girl saying if that’s how we ate around here, she definitely needed to come over more often.
Chicken Wire & Paper Flowers 