That’s how wet it’s been. Everything is growing something. Especially things that don’t normally grow things. Please dear sun, come out soon and dry everything. Thank you.
On my picnic table.
Darn good dinner.
I have been on quite the Mediterranean kick lately. We spent all summer eating bruschetta and antipasti and I’m definitely not quite ready to give those flavors up. I just didn’t feel like cooking last night, but I had an eggplant that needed to go and I wanted to cook it up in a tasty recipe Pat brought home a few weeks ago. It wasn’t quite a meal, so I needed something to round it out. And so, I immediately thought of pasta and wanted to incorporate my new current favorite things: marinated artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, black olives, (sun)dried tomatoes and some roasted garlic I had on hand.
I threw all that in a pan, slightly chopped, and heated them up. I should add here the tomatoes were ones I dried last week, that I poured some really nice olive oil on and stuck in the fridge for safe keeping. (Thanks Leni for the idea!)
I let it all get warm and starting to bubble from the assorted juices and olive oil, then added some heavy cream and chopped parsley and just heated it through.
When in doubt, add cream.
I then tossed it with some pasta. So good.
It was the perfect pairing with the eggplant.
Pat brought this recipe home from Nancy Ross Hugo. We actually tried it out with friends a few weeks ago when he got it and couldn’t wait to try it out, but this was the first time I’d made it. The original recipe doesn’t call for breadcrumbs, but the friends we shared this with have dairy allergies, so we subbed breadcrumbs for Parmesan. So good. I had a hunk of rosemary-black olive bread to use up, so I turned that into breadcrumbs and threw that on top. Totally kick-ass.
My version of Nancy Ross Hugo’s Eggplant recipe:
Slice eggplant lengthwise and place on greased cookie sheet
Coat in:
Mayonnaise
Salt
Pepper (Lemon)
Parmesan Cheese
(Breadcrumbs)
Bake at 450 for 12 minutes.
Good with steak, antipasti pasta or whatever you can come up with.
We were going to give it two years.
Fourteen years ago this week, we moved here to Charlottesville, sight unseen. We had spent the better part of that year looking for jobs outside of Birmingham, AL, where we’d been living since we’d graduated from Auburn. We had turned down jobs in locations like Hilton Head and New Orleans. We were newly engaged and looking to start a life somewhere other than where we were. It didn’t matter which one of us got a job that moved us out, as long one of us did. We figured we’d make it work once we got to where we were going. Pat had gotten an interview with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and then a second one. We really thought that if he got an offer from them, it would be for their Pennsylvania canoe rig, based out of Harrisburg, near the town I grew up in, good old York, PA. I wasn’t wild about moving back there, but, I knew this was a job he was quite interested in. When they called and offered him a job that Monday night about 6 pm, they needed an answer by 8 pm. Could he start in less than a week? It was in Charlottesville, VA, a place we had never heard of. So, we looked it up on a map. Called a friend who had gone to college outside of Richmond, who told us, oh yeah, it’s cool, you should move there.
So, with that recommendation, we did just that. It was hands down, the biggest snap decision we’ve ever made. (Although making on an offer on this house is a close second.) I’m pretty sure most of our friends had no idea we’d been looking to move and most of them were shocked to hear that Pat was up and gone in less than a week, without saying goodbye to everyone. I followed a few weeks later, having gotten a bunch of our friends (and future groomsmen) to help pack up the U-Haul full of our things. When I pulled into town at 3 am, it was the first time I had laid eyes on the place. We agreed, we’d try it for 2 years, and if we didn’t like it, we’d move on.
That was 14 years ago.
I have to admit, I didn’t like Charlottesville at first. I had a hard time finding a job to suit my Interior Design degree from Auburn, in a town full of architects with University of Virginia degrees. My first job here was doing billing for the University Hospital, in the old Sears building on Main Street, in row after row of cubicles. I started as a temp and ended up being hired as a regular, with benefits and mandatory overtime that paid time and a half. Pat’s job had him out of town quite a bit – our first winter here, he had a plethora of trainings and internships and conferences and was gone, 5 out of 6 weeks straight. Our first house was a dump, in a neighborhood that was even worse, because most of the good rentals had been scooped up by the end of September.
Eventually though, we found a really sweet apartment down by the river in Woolen Mills, that we found by just driving around one day and stopping at a for rent sign. We ended up with good neighbors – one of whom mentioned the architecture firm she worked for was looking for help and I might be a good fit. People I’d met working at the University told me to wait until summer, that summer was a great time to live in Charlottesville and if I still didn’t like it by the next September, then there would be no selling me on C-ville.
By the end of our trial two year period, we had bought a house, I had a job in my field and life was good. Summer, among other things, had definitely helped sell me on Charlottesville.
12 years after buying that house, we’re still in it We’ve put an addition on the house, we cleaned up the yard (which was totally overgrown), built a garden and a playhouse in the backyard. We’ve realized that this really is a small town and everyone knows each other 6 different ways. We’ll be at the grocery store and a shopowner from the downtown mall will come up and say hello and tell Edie how tall she’s gotten and when they walk away, she never fails to ask, “Who is that and why do they know my name?” Sweetie, that man owns the ice cream shop and let your mother run a tab for my chocolate banana milkshakes when I was pregnant with you. Last fall we joked that our soccer team was “Six Degrees of the Calverts”, because on that team were families we had played with before, families we knew from working together before we had kids, families we knew from when I worked at the wine bar, families from preschool playgroups, families from school…..somehow we knew everyone on that team previously.
This is the longest I have lived anywhere. I like that Edie has only known living in this house and has had some of the same friends since before time began. There are things we swore we would never, ever do, like take our kid trick or treating on The Lawn at UVa, that we ended up doing anyway, because, oh yeah, once we had a kid, we realized how awesome it was for little kids. Once Edie was old enough to go to a few neighbor’s houses, we stopped going to The Lawn – several thousand preschoolers on sugar can get ugly pretty quick. There are some things we really won’t do – like Foxfields. I’ve always said there’s a fine line between a toddler on a sugar meltdown and a bad drunk – it can go either way and end in tears at any time. But with a toddler, you can pick up them and carry them away. Not so much with a drunk college kid, so no, you will never see me at Foxfields. Ever.
We’ve seen alot of changes in our time here. Some good, some bad. I miss the old amphitheater at the end of the downtown mall. Sure, I love the good shows I’ve seen at the new Pavilion, but Fridays after Five haven’t been the same in years. In fact, I don’t think we even went to one Fridays this year. I think we went to just one last year. We used to never miss those. And honestly? They were what helped sell me on this town. That and happy hour at Miller’s. This past summer we finally decided to stop going there on Date Night. They reworked their beer list, and yes, while it might seem better, they no longer have our favorites on there. We’ve changed too. We moved here, still technically single, and have become a family here. Our little May get-together has become a bash of legendary proportions (or so we’ve heard). We’ve gone from being the newlyweds that just moved into the house on the corner to being the family that organizes the neighborhood Halloween party at the park. On one hand, I can’t believe we’re still here. On the other, I sort of knew when I pulled into the first parking lot I saw, which turned out to be Durty Nelly’s that night 14 years ago, that we were home.
Sweater Progress!
Last seen here, was the start of Pat’s sweater. After many a soccer practice, knitting night and roadtrips, I’ve made some progress! Even started a sleeve! See for yourself:
Growth.
For some time now, I have been working to undo some of my worst traits, at the very least, be more aware of them and the damage they do and maybe even try to avoid giving into them. I realize that I make assumptions, sometimes based on nothing but the negative voices in my head, I take things personally (and the most ridiculous things too), which then feeds into my urge to make everything about me, I tend to react immediately to something, generally based on my assumptions, and then there is my need to be right and have the last word. Fun stuff, yes? Especially when you combine them all together and throw in my quick temper. They all seem to be hard wired into me, many of them are the results of my family dynamic that I have been trying to shed most of my adult life, but even more so the last two years. I’m tired of these things interfering in my relationships. Most of all, I want my child to be more in control of her emotional well being. Just because I wasn’t raised with the tools for this doesn’t mean she has to be. And if I expect her to be able to do this, I need to set the example. I need to know the tools to teach her, yes? So I’ve spent a good bit of time in therapy, I’ve read a good bit about the lasting effects of my parents behaviors and issues, and I’ve realized quite a bit about myself. Over time, I’ve found myself making progress here and there, but I’ve also found myself slipping. I’ve learned to take it easy on myself when I slip, while I am always pleasantly self satisfied when I discover myself making progress.
Last week, I had evidence of that progress all over the place. There were a few things that popped up and I found myself being able to work through them in ways I had never been able to before. I was impressed with myself, and felt like I had made real progress. One day in particular seemed to be one reward after another for learning to stop, wait for more information before responding and not making it all about me. When I went to bed that night, I felt like I had really grown as a person, in big ways that day.
This weekend, I saw a headline Huffington Post’s food page that just grabbed my attention, “Are you preventing your own happiness?”. Why, yes, I know I do, and I am in the process of working quite hard to stop doing just that. How does that relate to food I wondered? Well, it was this article about Paula Deen, and how she had gotten her start and her philosophy on life, which, stunningly enough, is similar to where I find myself these days. Although quite happily married, I decided a few months ago I wanted to do something that made me happy and contributed to our family income while I was doing it. When I wrote about starting up Dinnaah, Lesa commented that Paula Deen got her start that way. I have never been a Paula Deen fan, despite our shared love of things like butter, cream, bacon and fat. I don’t even remember why I don’t like her, it had something to do with what I felt was a grave misuse of mayonnaise and grilled asparagus. I have to admit, I wasn’t entirely flattered by the comment, I think I would have liked it more if it had been someone I admire a bit more, but I did like knowing that someone wildly successful started out the same way I am attempting to do. And in reading that article on Saturday, I realized that I was having another little lesson in throwing out my assumptions. Yet another experience in growth.
A few months ago, right after I was laid off and considering starting up something on my own, Clarabelle called and wanted to offer me some unsolicited advice on the whole thing. She had just launched her own business and wanted to talk nuts and bolts about what it was going to take. Over the years, I couldn’t help but notice that when she shows up and offers advice, it’s always right on and exactly what I need. She is definitely one of the people I feel the universe has dropped into my life on purpose. While we have had our ups and downs over the years, she still pops up in my life in very good, unexpected ways. That chat that day was epically wonderful for me and our friendship. For the first time probably ever, I really opened up to her, on a number of topics, and I felt we had reached a new level in our friendship. I was touched, and still am, that she reached out the way she did. When she called Saturday morning, I had been sitting there thinking about her when the phone rang and before I even looked at the caller ID, I knew it was her. For how better to cap a week of growth than a good chat with her? Not that I mentioned any of this- most of the situations I found myself in this week where I noticed the growth aren’t really worth recounting here. But, I felt I had made serious progress on myself and I was proud. And she was calling to tell me she was proud of me for just jumping in, for she knew I had to get over myself too.
The universe moves in mysterious ways. Sometimes I think it bonks me over the head to get it’s point across, even when I feel I’m listening. I’ve come a long way. In forcing myself out of old, destructive habits, I find myself doing things that are good for myself – like exercising more, eating better, drinking less, rather than sitting and stewing. This growth thing is good for me on so many levels. After going so long feeling like I couldn’t shake some of these traits, it was fantastic to discover I could indeed shake them. The best part of all may have been that I started the week off with this overwhelming feeling of anxiety that really tried it’s best to throw me. In the past, I might have given in. Instead, I recognized it for what it was, and worked to not let it get the best of me. I don’t know that I fully succeeded, but in looking back over the last week and seeing where I started and where I ended, there was a marked difference. It was growth.
Happy Mid-September
Have you read my wine column this month?
While you’re at it, you should peruse the entire issue of In The Kitchen.
Something new.
Finding myself with a glut of fresh veggies, most of which are not very pretty thanks to all the rain around here lately, and having found myself down to my last canning jars, I decided it was time to try something new.
Given the fact that two bathing suits have been hanging out to dry for over a week quite unsuccessfully, thanks to what seems to be a daily downpour here, not to mention the fondness our squirrels have shown towards tomatoes, I decided to forgo the idea of drying tomatoes out in the sun and went for the oven method instead.
While I had the oven on, I threw in some Thai Cayenne peppers a friend gave me and dried them out as well. I read you can hang them up and they’ll dry out in your kitchen over time, but the oven was on, and well, I’m not a patient person.
It took most of the afternoon and evening yesterday, with the oven on at the lowest temperature (still quicker than any other method). I dried out a cookie sheet worth of cherry and roma tomatoes, as well as a decent amount of peppers. The smell was amazing and when I tasted the tomatoes, they were like candy. Yum. Much better than any other dried tomato I’ve ever had. Why have I not tried this before?
Tomato Soup
I find motherhood often makes me a better person, whether I want to be or not. Take for instance, tomato soup. Despite my fondness of tomatoes, tomato soup has always turned me off. One day however, in being presented with a bowl of homemade tomato soup in front of Edie, I realized I needed to at least try it. You know that whole thing about telling kids they have to at least try it to be polite and to see if they like it. Ahem. Turns out I liked it after all. (I chalk up my former distaste of it to my complete & total distaste of all canned soups). I got the recipe and have made it a few times since.
Last week, the squirrels finally left me some decent sized (non-grape) tomatoes to pick. Thanks to the 6 inches or so of rain we got last week, all the tomatoes were split and needed to be used asap. Looking for something quick and easy and different, tomato soup it was. It was just the thing for a chilly, rainy day.
Tomato Soup
In olive oil or butter, saute minced garlic and chopped onion. Add chopped tomatoes, salt, pepper and tarragon. Cook until tomatoes fall apart. Puree soup and add cream and/or milk until you achieve the consistency you desire. I like to add a little bit of cream cheese too, for extra creaminess. Serve.
I’m still not ready to let go of summer.
Really summer? This is how you want to end it? We’ve had such a lovely run and now you go and end it like this? So uncool. Frankly, I’m a little bitter with you right now. This is so not a good break up.
It’s done nothing but rain since our return from our labor day weekend trip to Annapolis. It’s been cold and rainy and at one point yesterday, Pat said it felt like winter. Nothing gets in the way of your denial that summer is coming to an end like having to break out your jeans and long sleeve tshirts and cardigans that have been stashed away all summer. I even thought about breaking out my wool socks yesterday, because my toes were so cold. The horrors.
Sigh. At least we had one last lovely weekend by the water.
And with Girl Scouts, PTO and my other little side project gearing up, I will certainly be busy, so it’s not like I have lots of time to sit by the pool these days anyway. Despite my last few posts about all the changes going on currently in my life, things are going pretty smoothly. Thanks to all of you for all the support you’ve given me. It really does help inspire me, which is part of the reason why I started this little blog – hoping to nuture that inspiration. I always hate to see summer fade and this year is a bit worse than usual, no doubt because of everything else going on. Although the return of college football has helped smooth things over….
Jumping In.
So, a while back, a friend suggested that I just start cooking dinner for my friends on a daily basis. Tell them what’s for dinner, a price and then tell them what time it will be ready to come pick up. Cook like I cook for my family. And that this could be, should be, my job.
I didn’t pay it much attention, but then when I got laid off last May, I thought about it some. I kicked around a few ideas as to what to do with myself, other than work for someone else for a living, and this one kept rising to the top as the most well, everything, with feasible at the top of the list of pros. So I spent some time this summer talking about it, reading about it, from a slew of incredible food blogs getting ideas about food to books on starting my own business, my own home based business, my own catering business and writing a business plan, among others, but really haven’t been quite sure exactly where to start.
I’ve talked to just about every chef I know about this. A few told me to just start cooking and figure it out from there. I really wanted to have a set, written business plan, I wanted to be organized and thoughtful about this, but after debating this fly by the seat of my pants approach, which, honestly, is how I seem to end up doing everything I do most of the time anyway, I decided to just do it. Really, just jumping in and seeing what it took, at least once, might really be more helpful. Yes? I have an outline in my head. I have a vision. I know I have to start from somewhere….. but in the process of that, I find myself getting caught up in the minutia, I find myself getting overwhelmed and stalling out. And a number of thoughtful people told me to just jump in and do it. People whom I thought might know what they are talking about.
So, yesterday, I had my first test run. I emailed some of the people I’ve babbled to about this over the summer with a dish (black bean/spinach/goat cheese enchiladas), a price and a pick up time. RSVP please. I had 6 families sign up. I had a few others interested but either missed the RSVP cut off time or weren’t sure about goat cheese. (Something I learned – to note when I’m willing to make a substitution for something like goat cheese.)
I spent my day cooking and figuring out some of the how. Which at times was work, but at times, wasn’t. I don’t measure things when I cook – I eyeball it. To take that method of cooking and make it not only precise, but to quintuple it was a challenge. I did okay. I got some things wrong, but nothing too major, nothing I couldn’t fix. I got a feel for what my kitchen and equipment could handle. There’s alot of math involved and I’ve always said I hate when math is on the quiz for the day. So many details to figure out. I’m not sure what my next step is. Keep going, of course.
I met with someone from the local chapter of SCORE today. I set this appointment up a few weeks ago, as a self imposed deadline to do something on my big idea. I had grand plans of having a fully written business plan by now, instead, I’m just trying to figure out what else I need to do, besides keep cooking. There’s a whole legal, business side to this that I need to get a handle on. And while he did help with that, he also gave me the same advice I’m getting from a few different corners – just cook. Start small and just take it from there. Figure out my plan, but right now, it’s okay to just put one foot in front of the other and see where the path leads me.
After spending the summer brainstorming a name with everyone we saw, Virginia came up with one a few weeks ago. Dinnaah. Dinn-aah, as I’m calling it. Once I had that, I felt much better about moving on. I’m going to cook as if I’m cooking for my family, so it’s local, seasonal and mostly vegetarian, with any meat that we do serve being local and humanely raised. I might even include some of my own produce – yesterday’s dish helped with the avalanche of peppers I have going on. I’m going to keep it small and try out different recipes and see what works, what doesn’t. I think I’ll need another stock pot and maybe a back up fridge. Yesterday’s first run was met with much applause and praise. Thanks Robyn, for the huge shout out on Facebook that started a little buzz this morning. I definitely feel like I’m moving in the right direction. There are going to be mistakes, but that’s life. I want to find a way to make money and have it be something I enjoy. This just feels right, no matter how much I get lost in the details. So, I’m just going to cook.
Yesterday I got a good feel for how things could work in my kitchen. I definitely need to take some time and get myself organized around here, so it will be a slow start at first. I’ll probably only do dinner one or two nights next week. And I need to figure out our Wednesdays, because I somehow have lined up the most inefficient schedule imaginable for a certain someone and will need to figure out how to juggle that along with serving dinner to not just my family, but others. But, hopefully, by the end of September, I can be be serving dinner at least 3 nights a week. That’s a good goal, yes?
Chicken Wire & Paper Flowers 