A sour day

Recently, David Liebovitz had a recipe which required preserved lemons as an ingredient. It looked really good and I wanted to try it. I asked Rebecca if she had any preserved lemons, but she was cagey in her reply. “You can get them at PFI,” she said. “Or you can make them.” “They are really expensive to buy and they take a month to make,” I whined. "And I only need one." “You need to use organic lemons,” she said, ignoring my hints. I knew she had some secreted in her stores. But she was firm. So we went shopping for the lemons and a suitable jar. It was all sort of expensive. Organic anything is expensive. There was just enough of everything – enough salt, enough lemons, and enough room in the jar exactly. I cut up the lemons, salted them generously, using the last grain of my Kosher salt, and squashed them into the jar. The next day, the lemon juice was rising, and the day after that, it had risen even more. I was watching the lemons’ progress with the tenderness of a gardener encouraging his lettuce shoots as they emerged from the earth in early spring. The third day, I came home from work, feeling tired and bedraggled, and went straight to my lemons to see how they were progressing. The jar was half empty! I was dumbfounded. What could have possibly happened to them? I asked Rachael if she knew, and of course she didn’t. I wondered if Maria or Margaret had eaten them. They are both such messy eaters that they always leave evidence of their food crimes, but there was no evidence. Maybe they dropped off the counter and someone threw them away. No signs of that either. Later, John the handyman came over and I asked him if he knew about my lemons. Well….. he thought they were destined for the compost and so he made himself some lemonade out of them. “What??!!” I screeched. “Those were semi-sacred lemons!” “Well, I guess that explains why they made such awful lemonade” Grrrrrrr!
So I started over again, with new expensive organic lemons and new inexpensive kosher salt. Now he knows not to touch them. Ever.

A fun movie evening

Another fun movie night. Ana and I watched “The Philadelphia Story,” which was very wonderful and very funny, and “The Graduate”, which was very odd. “The Graduate” is one of those films, which, even if one hasn’t seen, one feels that she has. So much has been written about it, and stills from are (or have been) so ubiquitous, that I had a very concrete idea of the entire film. Well, my idea was totally skewed. Somehow I thought that the Dustin Hoffman character was going to be a little more normal, and that the Mrs. Robinson character was going to be less of a monster. And I didn’t realize that it was going to be so funny. So despite me feeling that I had practically already seen it, it was a delightful surprise. I actually had seen “The Philadelphia Story,” but it was so long ago that all I remembered about it was that Cary Grant was suave, and that Jimmy Stewart got very drunk. So that was a delightful surprise as well.

Our dinner was sort of a surprise too. I prepared faro for the first time, and it turned out surprisingly soupy when I was expecting stewy. But no matter! I served it in bowls instead of on plates and it was yummy. I adapted (celery, carrots, and lots of mushrooms added) a recipe from my second favorite cooking blog (my top favorite is on my blog list to the right of this.) For dessert, I made cranberry frozen yogurt – also an adaptation from 101 Cookbooks. I used to put leftover cranberry sauce in plain yogurt for my work lunch, and it was very tasty. So I thought, why not make faux ice cream out of it. Here is my recipe:


Cranberry Sauce Frozen Yogurt

3 cups of full fat Greek yogurt,
¾ cup of sugar
½ cup of leftover cranberry sauce

Whirl all the ingredients in a blender, and then freeze them in your ice cream machine, according to its directions, whatever they may be. I use an old Donvier ice cream maker that Rebecca got at a thrift store, no doubt previously, someone’s unappreciated wedding present.
This is another slightly impressive dessert in minutes.

An entertaining day

The day before Thanksgiving I was changing the linen on my bed when suddenly the lights went out! I lit a candle and finished up. An hour or two later, there was a knock on the door. When I answered it, there was a man with a huge microphone and another man with a huge camera. They asked if they could interview me for a TV show about the blackout. I said “no,” and they asked why. I explained that I was shy and didn’t want to be on television. They were persistent, pretended I hadn’t objected, and interviewed me anyway. I said I didn’t want them to take my picture but they did that anyway as well. Margaret didn’t object at all to having her picture taken, so at first I hid behind her. Then I decided that I would appear even more foolish if I did that, so I gave in to the whole thing. I was hoping that I would wind up on the cutting room floor, and then thought no more about it. At Thanksgiving dinner, I did, however, tell the Aunties of my embarrassing experience, and that I felt like a real dodo. Rachael, who had been listening from her bedroom, piped in and said that I didn’t sound THAT dumb. Then today, another Auntie called Aunt Pauline to tell her I was on the telly, and Pauline called to tell me. So Rachael looked it up and here it is. You can see the adorable Margaret in action instead of just the usual photo. Fortunately, it is not too apparent that I have my pajamas on.

I was testing some facet of my camera and took this photo in my bed. Later, I realized that all my favorite time wasters are pictured – my book, my knitting, my crossword puzzle, and my computer peeking out of the corner. And a really close examination will surely reveal some Margaret hairs.

More Thanksgiving Day

This morning my friend Joanne asked me if had I a story about our Thanksgiving dinner on my blog. I said that I didn’t really, because it was all very civilized, and therefore not very interesting. Rebecca was working and two subsets were at in-laws' houses, so it was more subdued than usual. Everyone behaved nicely, and there was none of this. However, to compensate for lack of an amusing vignette, here are some pictures of my incredibly adorable family – at least in my opinion they are all incredibly adorable. And I am incredibly thankful to be part of such a circle .

A culinary day

About a thousand years ago, when I was a young bride and Rebecca was just a twinkle in her daddy’s eye, her daddy and I went window shopping at our favorite antique/junk shop - Hansen’s Bargain Barn. I admired this book, but it was way beyond our student budget. Later, I was thrilled to receive it as a Christmas gift. Given that the only other cookbook I had at the time was Betty Crocker, I used it often and made huge meals aimed at folks who had been out in the fields all day. Every dinner lasted us several days at least. Now, I don’t cook much from it, as it has become fragile, but it is one of my treasures. The one time it gets used every year is Cranberry Sauce Time. I will share the perfect, easy, and never failing recipe with you.

Cranberry Sauce

One quart of cranberries, two cupfuls of sugar, and a pint of water. Wash the cranberries, then put then on the fire with the water, but in a covered pan. Let them simmer until each cranberry bursts open; then remove the cover of the sauce-pan, add the sugar, and let them all boil for twenty minutes without the cover. The cranberries must never be stirred from the time they are placed on the fire. This is an unfailing recipe for a most delicious preparation of cranberries. Very fine with turkey and game.

Since I am a vegetarian, I put my cranberry sauce on the potatoes and corn. Yum! It's also very good on squash and mixed into plain yogurt.

Thanksgiving Day

What a better way to begin Thanksgiving Day than to thank God for all our multitudinous blessings. Every year the Schola sings at the Thanksgiving morning Mass, and for many, this is the favorite service of the year. It is so utterly voluntary – not a Sunday, not a Holy Day – just a wish to come together and give thanks for all He has given us. All happy music and happy thoughts about how blest we are with our friends, our family, our wonderful parish family. And there is usually a full house.
I am hoping that all of you have a lovely day with your loved ones, and that your loved ones all behave well at dinner

A Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to Dakki!!! Eighty-five going on forty!