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A Good Weekend

Not a bad weekend, all in all. There was a minimum of running around madly, and a good dose of leisure and relaxation. Another plus: I finally finished a project that I’ve been working on for a couple of months.

Actually, I’m a little surprised that I did finish it, given how many half-started projects I’ve had over the years. While my brain knows that working a little bit regularly can get a job done, eventually, my gut has never made that connection. So I get frustrated, or (more often) distracted by a shinier project and the old one is (temporarily, I tell myself) abandoned.

Here it is:A useful use of all those scraps of brightly colored artisanal paper that I’ve been hoarding all these years.

Saturday I went to a jewelry demonstration, which was fun. I didn’t buy anything, although there were a few pieces that I liked. The problem was, the math. The games are fun, the jewelry nice to look at and imagine buying, and the sales spiel not too intrusive. But during the part when the hostess says “if you sell $1000 dollars worth at your party, you earn $500”, I immediately think,

“they can make a profit if they sold the pieces at 50% off”

and when she adds all the other ways to get discounts and benefits … I’m left thinking that the pieces are almost certainly priced at least 300% cost. Not to mention the prices do not include shipping (likely high) or tax. So a piece that is already nudging past what I’m willing to pay at, say $30, would probably end up costing me about $40 – and the total cost to make it is probably at about $10-15 …

Which is why I’ll go to a demonstration, enjoy a demonstration, but never buy at a demonstration.I also spent some quality time this morning starting on the mighty, mighty Christmas card project, over some buttermilk pancakes and Sarah McLachlan. We’ll see how I do this year? Bets, anyone? ☺

A not so relaxing day

Today I was supposed to meet friends for brunch in Philly. Unfortunately, for the first time in 15 years, I locked myself out of the apartment. A call to my apartment management’s emergency number confirmed that a lock-out is not considered an emergency and they couldn’t help – I’d have to call a locksmith. (While my apartment management is great for repairs, etc. during the week, their absolute insistence on not working on the weekend is very irritating.) The police also could not help, and suggested that I either call a locksmith or the fire department (to break in).

I opted for the locksmith, and spent a not so lovely hour sitting on my front stoop staring at my psychotic pumpkin while I waited for the locksmith to arrive. (My apartment management also could not recommend a locksmith, so I was left with calling 411)

In the end, it took the fella about 3 minutes to pick my lock. And cost me $149. I’d opted for a locksmith, because I’d imagined it would be cheaper than the repairs necessary to fix a broken window. Next time, I’ll break a window. Actually, next time I’ll call a cab to take me to work to pick up a spare set of keys.

At which point, my friends had just received their food. I almost didn’t go in to join them. The only reason I did, was that I felt certain that I’d end up spending the day nursing my annoyance until it thoroughly ruined my day. Andrew very kindly went through the menu and found a selection of things he thought I’d like (good job Andrew!) and almost as soon as I sat down I was given:
Cafe Cuba Libre: Cuban coffee with steamed coconut milk.
Torta de Cangrejo Benedict :
Jumbo lump crabmeat and potato cakes, poached eggs, avocado mash. Tomato Hollandaise sauce.

Yum!

And because Mike is in Germany, emphatically not living it up, Kristin brought him in absentia:

Of course, we mean to taunt him with it.

Now, if my ipod will turn up, I’d be more relaxed. But I’ve looked for it everywhere and don’t have a good feeling about it. Fingers crossed.

Jack O'Lantern

Well, it’s that time of year again, and on Friday we had our annual Jack O’Lantern contest. As a member of the social committee, (hmmm. Brownbag committee, check; Sustainability Club, check; Social committee, check; Office Art committee, check – I seriously need to cut back on contributing) I felt obligated to participate.

And it’s not like the idea of carving a pumpkin is unappealing.

However, this year I was way busy at work, working long days and fighting off a migraine almost everyday this past week (unfortunately triggered partially by sleep disruption), my energy levels just were not where they should have been.

In fact, I should have given up on the idea of competing. But I’d already bought the pumpkin, so I stayed up late (see earlier note re; migraine triggers = STUPID) to do my part.

I’d also forgotten how long it takes just to gut the damn thing (and it was a big pumpkin), especially as I love to make pumpkin seeds later. So this year’s effort took about 1 ½ hours – 1 hour of which was spent gutting the monster and the last half hour was spent wishing it was done.

Not a magic formula for success and I won the booby prize for next-to-last.

Sigh. Next year I’ll try to remember to a) buy a pumpkin carving kit, and b) spread the job over two days.

Pumpkin Cake

Last year for Andrew’s Birthday, I’d wanted to make a chocolate-pumpkin cake that Mom had made for my birthday when I was in grade school and that I’d really loved. So I searched for a recipe for chocolate pumpkin cake – but being in a rush didn’t read through it all the way and it turned out to be a recipe for pumpkin cake with chocolate garnish.

Not bad, but not great and not at all what I had intended.

So this year I found an actual pumpkin-chocolate cake recipe and made a pumpkin cake (but overdid it a bit with the food coloring in the frosting, which scared people off ….)

Playing Catch-up

Oh my goodness, have I been delinquent about keeping up with this blog. My intentions are to get better – I’ve been taking photos and have ideas for posts, but they keep piling up in my to-be-written list … and then never get written. The more I have in my to-be-written list, the further behind I seem, and the less likely I am to just do it.

So today I’m going to clean house. There is no earthly reason I have to write every idea I have so I’m just going to clear the decks with some summaries:

1. I did finally make the egg-yolk ravioli. Thoughts: the homemade ricotta a definite improvement over store-bought, the brown butter and excellent accent, the yolk … didn’t add much
2. Early in the summer I bought sunflowers at the farmer’s market, after first assuring myself they would last and I could care for the cut blooms by talking with the booth manager. She said they would last a week. They lasted 4 days. They were beautiful, but I’m not buying any more.
3. I love peaches, but am very allergic to them raw. When it was peak peach season in New Jersey, I bought loads, grilled them (on my George Foreman, we’re not permitted “real” grills where I live) and froze some and put others in yoghurt.
4. On Saturday I went into Philly on a brilliant day – blue skies, puffy white clouds, clear air … the kind of day children draw in kindergarten but seldom occur in real life. So I took some lovely photos of the freshly painted Ben Franklin Bridge
5. In peak tomato season, I went hog-wild. I was disappointed by the tomatoes I bought at the Farmer’s Market, which were mealy and tasteless and, if anything, worse than those found in a winter supermarket. So I bought heirloom tomatoes from Whole Foods and gorged.
6. A co-worker had been swamped by the over-abundant generosity of his neighbor’s bounty and brought me a pile of excellent home-grown tomatoes, bell peppers, chili peppers, and bonnet-peppers. I made SPICY gazpacho. Yum!
7. I drove up to Rensselaer (yay RPI) but not to Troy, for a proposal site walk – at one of the New Jersey Turnpike rest stops, the women’s restroom was beautiful!
8. In late September I attended the National Geographic Traveler’s photography seminar, “Putting the WOW in Your Nature & Outdoor Photography” with Michael Melford and Eddie Soloway. It was fantastic and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Unfortunately, the Beineke library (which I’d remembered from when I was touring potential graduate programs) was closed ☹ 9. And last weekend I went to Trish and Chris’s wedding! Gorgeous weather and it was beautiful. Ate too much though.

Black Walnuts

“That Squirrel has a lime!”

Mom, Dad, and I are on the porch having lunch when I spy a squirrel bounding across the lawn with a green sphere in its mouth, obscuring my view of most of it’s head. A lime doesn’t make much sense, but I couldn’t imagine what else it could be.

Mom gets up to look, “That’s not a lime, that’s a walnut”

There’s a moment of silence. A walnut seems even less likely than a lime.

“Where would it get a walnut?”

“We have a black walnut tree” Mom points off to one side, high on the bank.

I have a hard time parsing the fact that I didn’t know that we had a walnut tree in the backyard of the house I grew up in. In fact, I still am struggling with the thought. Maybe Mom planted it after I went to college. Maybe.

Later, I go out and look. The trunk is a good eight inches across so it wasn’t planted terribly recently and perhaps it wasn’t mature enough to bear fruit when I lived here. Or I was just oblivious.

Mom tells me that they’d (her family) would gather up the walnuts, let the flesh dry out, crack them open, and her father would drive over them to crack them open. I’m fascinated.

Later, when we’re in the garage returning from a pleasant walk, I see two green spheres lying on a shelf next to two black and decrepit balls and I realize that Mom’s been sporadically gathering a few of these walnuts for years and I’d never thought to question the odd things she’d collect in the garage.

This was an obvious time to experiment. I open the dried black walnuts easily with a hammer and am disappointed to find them hollow and empty. One offers promise with black meat (see picture), which makes sense in my head as Mom said it was a Black walnut, but there is no meat inside. The green walnut offers real meat – and was harder to crack open than I’d imagined. Suddenly driving a car over it doesn’t seem to be as much overkill as I’d imagined.

In fact, according to Wikipedia, Mom’s account is half-right and half-wrong – but the opposite halves than I’d supposed. The husk is best removed when green and not dried, for the best flavor. But a common method for removing the husk is to roll the nut on a hard surface like a driveway – commercial huskers use a car tire rotating against a metal mesh.

I also learn, too late, that the juice from the husk is yellow brown at first and quickly oxidizes to a deep black green color and leave stains on hands and clothing. I now have literally, but not figuratively, green thumbs. And filthy looking thumbnails.

- Updated later –
We put 3 green walnuts in the drive before heading out to dinner (Kudos to me for hitting all three!). The results:
• One crushed, walnut and all
• One husk crushed, walnut shell intact and laying amongst the mush of husk like a yolk amidst white
• One husk crushed, walnut shell expelled like a spit watermelon seed, found feet away.
We’ll let the two recovered shells dry out and taste the walnut next month.