Just Pictures

Two views of Lawrence Lake today. One is late afternoon and one is mid-morning. The morning one is the foggy one.

The two food ones: my favorite breakfast: poached egg on Ezekiel toast and hot chocolate with cinnamon marshmallows. (Mark's new marshmallow flavor at Whimsy and Spice.)

Oyster lessons

I took a great class many years ago about oysters because I am the world's biggest oyster fan. The class was less about recipes than it was about the illustrious oyster itself. I just found my notes and so am going to do a little 2-part series from said notes. The teacher, by the way, was Jon Rowley, and there's lots about him on the internet. From an article on him, there's this quote from Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast":

"As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans."

Here is part 1 of the series, ABOUT OYSTERS:

• More species are in the 30 mile radius around Olympia than anywhere else in the world.
• Kumamotos are called the "sweetheart of the half shells"
• The Pacific oyster came here (Olympia WA) from Japan in the twenties.
  
• oysters have a lot of minerals that are hard to find in other foods.
• in season the white part is full of glycogen.
• He recommends trying the Boy Scouts' oysters at Oyster Fest
• Oysters are best in late spring.
• In pioneer days, oysters were cheap and plentiful and were used wherever trains went. Old time cookbooks have lots of oyster recipes because they were so inexpensive (even cheaper than beef.)
• Wash down a raw oyster with a brisk, dry, clean-finishing white wine or a malty porter or stout. Take a bite of a crusty light rye bread to neutralize the taste buds and then onto the next oyster, Jon says.

Part 2 will have a couple of recipes from Jon. Fried oysters and barbecued oysters.

Homebody Beans

Michael just texted asking for this recipe. I bought this little paperback cookbook in 1968 with a resounding recommendation from a dental hygiene patient of mine. She had nine or more children and I asked her how the heck did she cook for all the brood??? She said this book was her lifesaver: The I Hate to Cook Book, by Peg Bracken. I have made quite a few things from here that were staples while my children grew up but have gotten away from this kind of cooking so the book stays buried between my fancier ones. When Michael asked for the recipe I happily dusted the little tome off and read recipes, reminiscing about the good old days.

This recipe, Homebody Beans, is fantastic and worth the 6 hours it takes to bake it. Great potluck fodder. Oh...I took it to a Sopchak potluck once, near Poughkeepsie NY, where we ended up on the back lawn, under the stars and hovering around a little campfire. After having feasted on beans, the usual effect taking place, plus the campfire, made us all think about the movie Blazing Saddles which has a famous campfire farting scene. We laughed til our sides ached, so this recipe will forever be etched in my brain alongside the Blazing Saddles movie.

HOMEBODY BEANS
2 one pound cans of kidney beans
3 big ripe tomatoes, sliced thickly
1/2 pound lean bacon
2 onions, sliced

In a casserole dish, alternate layers of the beans, tomatoes & onions til you run out.

Bake at 300 for 2 hours, uncovered

If beans on the side are getting overcooked, push them towards the center a little so they are mixed in with the other beans.

Cut bacon in half & lay half of the strips on top.

Put casserole back in the oven, uncovered, for another 2 hours. The bacon should be brown by now.

Remove from oven, punch bacon into the beans, lay the rest of the bacon on top again, & bake uncovered for another 2 hours.

That's it...

Thanksgiving memories

It's quiet. I have no cooking schedule to adhere to. In other words, I'm winding down after a quite busy week. I had lots of cooking to do so made an amazing schedule of what to do each day. I must say, it worked miracles at eliminating stress entirely. I absolutely had no stress over cooking at all. It all went at a nice pace with lots of time for Sudoku breaks, et al.

Thursday at Christy's we were 8 people: Christy and Ron, Ted and Vicky, Lara and Per-Olav, and Dan and me. We had a not elaborate meal that was delicious. A tasty moist turkey, fruit salad, artichoke stuffing, Seabreeze drinks, beer, mashed potatoes, gravy, and more. Every single thing was a taste delight. Oh, and my dessert offering was the Fish Market Apple Pie (a short buttery crisped-to-perfection crust, apples mixed with a sour cream sauce and a great crumb topping). I like that it was a small group so that we could have fun conversations. The 4 girls were at a table in one room and the boys in another room. We ended up sharing memories about family members who have gone on & it wasn't morbid at all. It was interesting, funny and bonding. (All the above pictures are from Christy's Thanksgiving...you can see that her new house is right on the water, Budd Inlet, and it's absolutely beautiful.)

Later on the same day we went to John and Jill's. Wow...lots of people, lots of food. I'm not sure I'll remember it all but here goes: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, sunchoke dip, salad with mint and oranges, stuffing, Jill's special cranberry sauce, pasta salad, pecan pie, raspberry pie and pumpkin bread pudding with caramel sauce. Lisa and Bob were there, Anne and Michael, Winn, Lara and Per-Olav, Sally and Tom. John and Jill of course, and Dan and me. Seems like there were more, but that's all I can remember right now.

My own mini-Thanksgiving was Friday for just Lara, Per, Dan and me. Roast chicken, stuffing with homemade thyme and olive oil croutons and cornbread, prunes, and cranberries, drippings of the chicken with its delicious mirepoix, Mark's maple roasted Brussels sprouts, cranberry pear relish, homemade horseradish, sweet potatoes mashed with ginger, coconut milk, flaked coconut and topped with fresh roasted macadamia nuts.

I always long for a Thanksgiving like the one in Yemen when we invited all the "strays," people who had no family there. It was such a pleasure to cook a big meal for lots of people I care about, and it wasn't a big deal that took a lot of energy. Those were the days. Childhood Thanksgivings remain a warm and pleasant memory as well, making this my favorite holiday of the year.

Now, what will I cook next year?

dessert sampler

The last night we were in Nova Scotia, Julie took us to the best restaurant of all, Rhubarb Bar and Grill near Peggy's Cove. This is the sampler dessert I had. The dinner was a tenderloin filet with a chunk of Stilton cheese on top and a sweet potato mash plus baby snow peas wrapped, in a bunch, with a special bacon. I also had the best wine I've ever had but found out it isn't sold outside of Halifax. It's just as well.

Whimsy and Spice Interview

As most of you know, my son and his wife have a terrific business selling his wonderful cookies, marshmallows and (my favorite) biscottis. And their sublime brownie...also my favorite. Oh and the hazelnut cookie sandwich with a zippy chocolate whiskey filling. Can I have that many favorites????

Anyway, back to business. Their business is called Whimsy and Spice. They sell in several places, including etsy. Their web site is whimsyandspice which will direct you to their blog. Go see, you'll get addicted.

Right now, though, the reason I'm bringing them up again is because I want you to read this great interview someone did with Jenna about how they started their business and some ideas of where they might be going next. Go to Gobbl to read it.

It's so fun watching their ideas come to fruition and to watch their business grow by leaps and bounds. Yes, I am a proud Mom. I know.

Smoothie Sunday

I try to have this smoothie a few times a week and thought I'd share the process with you.

Ingredients: soy milk, cranberry juice, green powder, vitamin C powder, soy powder, malted milk powder, banana, blueberries, freshly grated ginger, codonopsis and eleuthro powders, cinnamon, flax oil, ground flax seeds, and honey. A great herbalist in town specifically prescribed the codonopsis and eleuthro just for me, so it's not necessary for any/all smoothies. And I change fruits, etc. at will. It tastes so good and it's an efficient way to get a bunch of fruit servings all in one fell swoop.

If you have any smoothie ingredients you love and they're not listed above, feel free to post a comment about them.