10.27.09
Remains of the day, remains of the garden
Yesterday evening, I took the camera out to the backyard to try to capture the strange and beautiful pearlescent light that’s been hovering lately. While my eyes saw things as bathed with silvery light, it was just too dark for shooting without a tripod. These couple of shots are the least blurry of the bunch–the first is looking over the backyard to the west, and the second is of my asparagus berries. Pretty, huh?
I’m just waiting for the first killing frost–so far, the nasturtiums and the artichoke act like it’s still high summer, but wowsa–is it ever cold this morning! 36 degrees while I stood out with the kiddos for their morning bus a few minutes ago.
As we trudged up the hill toward the east, A. said, “Look at the fogwork! It’s beautiful.” The clouds were cresting and curling in that same amazing light as our teeth chattered and we kissed goodbye for the day.
10.23.09
What to do on a rainy night
Make brandied pear sauce:
approximately 8 pounds of ripe Bosc pears
2 oz brandy
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground cardamom
2 oz lemon juice
Peel and core pears. Put pears, brandy, cinnamon, and cardamom in a heavy stockpot and simmer until pears are soft. Add lemon juice. Pour into blender and puree, then pour back into stockpot to reduce for about 30 minutes. When it’s lovely and viscous, ladle it into containers (I’m going to freeze these jelly jars–which you can do if the jars are straight-sided).
With a scoop of vanilla ice cream, I bet this tastes like pear gelato. I’ll soon find out!
10.17.09
The Oikos, post 1
Hestia’s at her mirror here. Changes within the household abound, and this week posed a particular challenge.
S.’s been sick for more than a week beginning last Friday, the kind of sickness that recedes and leaves a bouncing, happy girl one hour and rears up to leave a languishing, glassy-eyed and coughing wreck the next hour. B. and I were able to share care-taking responsibilities for Friday-Sunday. Monday I stayed with her, Tuesday B. took off of work to be with her, Wednesday she came with me to Seattle (picking K. up from the airport, etc.), and then by Thursday she was feeling fine but hanging onto a cough. So I didn’t send her to school, but took her with me to UW. We loaded her up with cough drops and a thick scarf and she didn’t cough once on the bus. She read and did schoolwork while I was in class, and felt mighty grown-up.
I have a feeling that the question of what one does with quasi-sick kids will rear its head again.
The dinner routine has settled into much the same pattern as last week:
Mon: I man the panini press
Tues: leftover soup from B’s Sunday Soup pot
Wed: crockpot dinner
Thurs: hodge podge or another crockpot
Fri: pizza and salad
This Friday, we ordered take-out pizza from a new place here on Bainbridge, Modern Pie. We got ham and pineapple with black olives (not by a long shot the most interesting toppings they offer). It tasted like our homemade pizza crusts (I couldn’t tell that their pizza had been baked in a brick oven)–which is to say, good, but a bit heavy. They use a raw tomato sauce that’s really different and excellent (the fontina sticks tasted a bit like bruschetta).
Because of this week’s particular demands (including me being in Seattle all day Tues, Wed, and Thurs), the old homestead is in sad shape and the weekend has never felt so welcome. Saturday cleaning, here we come!
10.16.09
The Grapes of Ash
It’s pretty easy, though time-consuming, to make grape juice with a steam-juicer.
1. Wash grapes and load into steamer compartment
2. Fill bottom pan with 3 quarts water and steam grapes for 1 hour
3. Meanwhile, sterilize jars and lids, then fill and seal. No need to process further. Feel very gratified when you hear the little pop of those jars sealing themselves.
4. Major cleanup of various purple ponds and puddles, and of course the little sticky, staining grape juice spots that had an itch to travel and see the world beyond your workspace.
10.08.09
Of Mountains and Molehills
Now that I’m climbing some metaphorical mountains in my life, it turns out that the mundane details also rise up into greater relief. Perfect fodder for blogging, right? 
Stuff like dinner has to be thought out and planned for in advance, and I’m interested in seeing how our diet changes as I’m away from home more. I’m also interested in how the housework tedium gets allocated, and how much of it the kids (11, 9, 5) can take on.
But for now, just a quick post documenting this week’s dinner menu and responsible parties.
Monday: panini night (kids eat before B. and I do because he works late Mondays)–I manned the panini press.
Tues: crockpot spaghetti sauce (I put it together before heading to Seattle for the day). B. cooked the pasta and garlic bread when he came home.
Wednesday: chili (leftover from a big Sunday pot of chili–thanks for the Sunday soup idea, Adam Gopnik!) and homemade applesauce. That one was kinda everyone heating up as much as they wanted.
Thursday: crockpot Thai coconut curry (I just put it together, never having done it in the crockpot before. We’ll hope for the best.)
1 can light coconut milk
some water
some brown rice
2 tsp red curry paste
2 tsp condensed chicken stock
carrots
potatoes (lots of those baby ones from the garden)
green beans
peas
Friday: pizza and salad night. B. makes the pizzas, I make the salad.
10.01.09
They don’t call history his story for nothing
S., trying to choose a historical figure to depict for a school project, and frustrated by the ideas K. and I have been pitching to her:
“I don’t want to dress up as a boy and I don’t want to be a dead wife!”
09.14.09
Look what my tree gave me
The pride and joy of our crop this year: a picture-perfect Comice pear.
09.13.09
Autumn vignette
Making applesauce on a Sunday afternoon with my husband, multi-tasking and teaching my daughter to use the hand-cranked food mill while crisping up some corn tortilla strips for tortilla soup, I find that olive oil has a surprisingly low flash point. Clap on the lid, out goes the smoking pan, with screams of horror and glee behind me. Open all the doors and windows. Abandon applesauce, abandon dinner.
Retreat, retreat!
Why did I just feel compelled to smell my arm? Varnished smoked arm hair.
08.05.09
Around the August garden
Some pretty stuff to look at and some pretty good eats:
This last one’s a peacock orchid, one of the new summer bulbs I tried out, and it’s a beaut!
Here’s our newest addition, a white wisteria. The idea is to train it to grow along the back of the deck close to the outdoor dining area, aka the walkout. I’m expecting curtains and fountains of fragrance come spring. Maybe a sash and a burble this first year.
I am so delighted with the haricot vert, Ed Hume’s French baby bush beans. They’ve been prolific and really good in Gujarati green beans, our favorite way to eat them.
And the bright lights chard has been a pot of old faithful for weeks now, putting me off lettuce growing probably forever.
Last year’s nasturtiums self-seeded themselves right under A’s pea trellis. Just as his sugar snap peas were giving up the ghost, the bright nasturtiums climbed up to take charge. Sweet vigorous things. Did you know that nasturtium literally mean “nose-twister” and they’re also a brassica (like broccoli)? Hmm, those two facts are related, methinks.
07.25.09
The inner life of the middle child
S. made this lovely sign for her bedroom door during quiet time yesterday:
Rules
1. Knock first
2. Clean People Only
3. No Wineing
4. No Screaming
5. No Yelling
6. No Hitting
7. No Begging
I think it’s safe to say that rules 3 through 7 were inspired by the little brother, and 2 applies to both her siblings (notorious muddle-makers both). This sign is leaps and bounds more friendly than past signs she’s made, but still gets her point across: her bedroom is inviolable space. We recently re-decorated it, and she takes great pleasure in keeping it tidy and nice.
Yesterday afternoon, S. took the dolls out for a tea party on the lawn, and when I swung by to say my hellos to the dollies, this was the scene:
I got a rare flash of the personalities S. sees/imbues these dolls with:
The first two dolls on the left, Emily and Kirsten, are fast friends, leaning back a bit after overindulging on cream puffs. Kate, the incorrigible dreamer, is lying back watching the clouds. China doll is sensitive and secretly quite playful, taking any chance she can get to spend time with her best friend, Redhead, who is the life of the party.
