recipes
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Heirloom Mashed Potatoes
I have asked daughter Shelley to make the mashed potato casserole for Thanksgiving. Her response was: “You want me to make your mashed potato casserole?” Um…yeah. My hip hurts, and I dread the thought of standing at the sink peeling ten pounds of potatoes and then standing at the counter mashing them. And for those Continue reading
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Friday Night at the Hunting Lodge
I must begin by saying that we do not run a hunting lodge, bed-and-breakfast, boarding house, retreat center, target practice range, catering service, or wedding reception venue. It just feels that way. If we really were doing all those things I would not have to limp into work everyday and deal with sleepy teenagers who are completely Continue reading
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What do you do with pumpkin seeds?
Here’s the dilemma du jour. Do you have to soak pumpkin seeds before roasting them? I have toasted them straight from the pumpkin with resulting tough, chewy seeds. Daughter Shelley, culinary queen in her own right, has either soaked them overnight or boiled them in salt water, both yielding excellent results. Friday night she was Continue reading
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Butternut Squash Soup
“The sun’ll come out…next Thursday.” That was the weatherman’s snide remark on the radio the other morning as my windshield wipers swished away. (And the song from the musical Annie is still stuck in my head.) By Saturday I am finally able to sit out on the café porch, surrounded by deep green leaves backlit by patches of chartreuse Continue reading
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Gouttières and Dutch boys’ suits
This is transition week. Next Monday teachers report back to work. This is the week I’m torn by what to do. Do I sit and relax? Do I frantically finish summer projects? Do I “set my face toward Jerusalem” and dig into school work? All of the above? None of the above? (None of the Continue reading
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Peach Jammin’ 2011
I will not buy peaches in a grocery store. I don’t care if they do say “locally grown.” Shipping to a store still means a lag time from orchard to kitchen, and in order not to have gloppy bruised peaches, the fruit must be picked on the early side. Peaches picked too soon never ripen properly. So instead Continue reading
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Beets
Some of my most vivid childhood memories involve foods. Ok, duh. A child spends a larger percentage of his life eating than an adult. Take little Mini-Mo, for example. At two months, he has a very small repertoire of things to dream about: eating, eliminating what he eats, smiling at Mommy and Daddy, playing with his Continue reading
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Wild Violets
We don’t have a lawn. We have non-wooded areas that get mowed. Occasionally those areas are supplemented with grass seed, and the grass learns to live in cooperation with all the other ground covers already occupying the yard. Right now the yard is sprinkled with delicate little violets, as are my flower beds and the vegetable garden, Continue reading
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Sloppy Joe
Did we jinx the Ravens by serving Sloppy Joe’s at our play-off party? Or was it because I did not buy that Flaco red wine that I saw at Calvert? (I didn’t buy it because it wasn’t spelled Flacco and because it said it was a good sangria red. Well, that told me that I Continue reading
Slightly Off the Grid 