I got into work early this morning…like 25 minutes early! This is monumental for me considering I balance that scale out by arriving 25 minutes late most other mornings. I waltzed into the office waiting to see my boss’s eyeballs fall out and he isnt even here! and now it is my usual arrival time and he still isnt here…in fact no one is here. hmmm am i supposed to be somewhere for a meeting? damnit!
well since no one is here and it relatively quiet, i am going to write about a blog entery i read from my friend Sami this morning. She is a fabulous writer by the way and well worth a second cup of coffee in the morning.
She wrote about what makes her happy. Seriously how often does one sit down and write out a list of things that makes one happy?? Of course i immediately start singing the song from the Sounds of Music and have visions of that HUGE mushy bed Maria gets to sleep in and the big storm outside and all the big and little critters nestled under her covers while she sings of her favorite things…yeah, you know what i am talking about. how could i not do it too. What i think would be most fun is to do this once a year and see how many things change. i could make a whole list solely based on food too
my garden humming with fat bumble bees
Gladys jumping straight up to eat blueberries from my hand
going to bed on friday night and not setting the alarm
buying gossip magazines for a day by the pool
mr big snoring
the perfect bite
getting a free copy of the paper on my doorstep (especially on a sunday morning)
coffee with cream
a letter in the mail
gatherings with good friends
paying my bills and having money left over for a treat
a good haircut
planning a trip
live music
a clean house
planning how to spend my tax returns
catalogs
fall mornings
campfires
OK this list could go on and on and on! GEEZE Sami, how do you know when to stop???
I am signing out before i get caught up in a day of favorite things. oh, and it is now 9am and still no boss…you would think it was his birthday or something
Last night i had a couple of friends over for dinner. I knew everyone was feeling the pinch (literally) from lots of bbqs and potato salad this summer soi wanted to make something really good, using things i could from the garden and something healthy too.
The best part was when Shell brought over a huge bag of treats from her garden! I have Bok Choi, a squash, 2 huge onions, piles of fresh herbs, elephant garlic and purple garlic and a bag of lettuces. to that i added my grape tomatoes, lemon cukes and basil.
All of this made me think of those great services offered from local farms: pay a bit of money each month and get a pile of fresh produce. It makes cooking so much more fun when you are given the ingredients and then you have to make something with them! kind of like a Slow Food Iron Chef. Made me think i should start cooking like that to keep it new and interesting. Maybe i need to get in with some other gardeners and we can trade produce with each other.
OK back to my meal. This is what i made…so simple and painless and they LOVED it
Chicken breasts enough to feed the people who are eating (you are the best to decided this)
Your favorite olives chopped
Your Favorite Feta crumbled
Grape Tomatoes sliced
Bunch of fresh Basil chopped
I like to pound the chicken breasts so they are super thing and tender and cook them your favorite way. I did them in a skillet with a drizzle of oil
Then in a seperate bowl i mixed the crumbled feta, chopped basil, sliced tomatoes and olives and drizzled it with olive oil and cracked pepper.
after the chicken is done, dump the bowl of goodies over the top and serve. YUM!
We had this with a huge salad from the garden delights and a couple of bottles of wine.
I am so glad that there was no diagnosis for ADHD when i was a child. i am pretty sure my parents would have been forced to put me on some drug to “mellow” me out and make me concentrate better in school. Now i am an adult and still go 100 different directions at once but have done so happily, and relatively successfully, without psychotropic residual from a drug induced childhood.
That being said; in between sewing some oddly shaped cushion covers for my newly inherited patio set (thank you dear Hansons) out of hand dyed shower curtains…long story, I discovered this website(thank you dear Sami) this woman is amazing! She does it all and explains it with great pictures (see above) and to the point details as well. I am specifically interested in the Soap Making Page. I have done the thing where you buy the soap at a craft store and melt it and add colors and smells and maybe a bit of lavender stick it in a mold and voila! but i always felt like that was kind of lame and it never really smelled or felt right…it also turned into mush on the side of the sink. Now the real soap making business deals with toxic chemicals that can burn holes in your floor. Now we’re talking! I also found this webpage regarding goat’s milk soaps. SO FUN! I think this would be a great project to try outside in the open air, away from my floors and see if i have some grand christmas presents in the making
…So i have heard and read from every possible resource. I, being the happy owner of a dear little pug, refused to dress Mr Big up in anything. I hoped it would release me from the weirdos i had met with pugs in the past.
So while i was sitting in my car one warm saturday morning waiting on a friend, i noticed this little gem left in my car by my friend’s son and i was bored. I have to admit, the pug likes his costumes. He barely moved, fearing it would fall off….or he thought a huge bird had landed on his head and would eat his eyeballs if he moved. He was also hot and might not have noticed it was even there. Whatever the reason, i wont do it again so here you go
I have been waiting for this day for a year! Last year i missed the Portland Tour De Coop for reasons i cant even remember now but i vowed i would not miss it this time around. it was so great! I learned a lot about my own girls and what i should and should not stop worrying about.
there were coops of every shape and size and material. I was impressed at how inventive people were and how happy their girls were in any environment. i also realized that my ladies are pretty darn lucky!
here is what i learned
the girls LIKE dirty water and mud
They LIKE to eat things in the mud.
They DO NOT like to get wet and it is really bad for them.
For Melanie, who asked me about hens that roll over on their sides and dont move, i took this picture for you of a pullet. They LIKE to roll over on their sides and scare the crap out of us…it makes them happy.
kicking it sideways
I can start feeding them laying feed now and one lady told me her eggs were so hard they would roll off the hen house roof and hit the ground and bounce, not crack. Poster children for the strong bones calcium commercials i say!
They can live in some pretty nasty little coops and still lay eggs. Although i would never treat my girls with such disrespect.
my girls are pretty darn spoiled
We also went to the egg co-op out at Zenger Farm. It was really great and a gorgeous farm. They take really good care of their space out there.
the girls
They have lots of girls who are all the same breed. I had seen pictures of their coop before but in person it is really beautiful. The 8 nests were full of layers and each nest had at least 2 eggs in it from previous visits that morning.
Zenger Farm
The volunteers there also had lots fo experience with the ups and downs of chicken maintenance. I learned first had what to look for in a hen vent…i think it would be considered hen porn so i felt wrong taking pictures. sorry
When i recently returned from my trip, it took me awhile to readjust to the daily routines i had left behind. It seemed the typical pattern upon my return home always included some horrible cold or sinus infection that forced me to sleep and re-coop for at least a week. Well this time, i refused to get sick and took lots of bee propolis to help my immune system along. In exchange for good health, I became a complete hermit crab. I didn’t want to leave my house. I spent days basking in the sunshine in my jammies, rooting around in the garden in my jammies and poking around the house in you guessed it, my jammies. I would talk on the phone to all the people i love but dodged reasons to leave the comfort of my cocoon. Now dont get me wrong, i was really excited to see everyone and find out what everyone had been up to and tell travel stories and just enjoy my friends again. But not yet. It took me about 2 weeks to come out of my little pod and release myself upon the world again.
The weird thing is, I am not an anti-social person at all. I LOVE being with my friends as much as being home. But it was a little disarming to just not want to re-enter the world again. I would periodically think there was something wrong with me. I think the pets loved me being home after such a long absence but i was a little surprised at my complete lack of interest in “anything outside the green bean”. Hind-site being the greatest gift of all has now allowed me to appreciate my little retreat and I totally look forward to its return someday. I discovered it was all part of the process. I was being gentle with myself and my old routines. This had been something forced upon me by my traveling colds. So what broke me out?
Our local farmer’s market!
On my first Saturday morning home, it was a gorgeous out! The early hours (thanks to harriet) were crisp and sunny. I put on my white cotton sundress, a pair of cute flip flops and my Audrey Hepburn glasses and headed downtown to the farmer’s market. I had a total of $27 to spend and a hankering for fava beans. As soon as i turned the corner to the market, i giggled with glee. Our market was in full glory a good 30 minutes before the bell rang. I got myself a strong cup of coffee and began to wander through the stalls mentally checking off all the goodies I would pick up. I found my fava beans and apricots for $1 a lb! shallots and my favorite goat cheese covered in fresh chantrelles and garlic. YUM! (side note: this cheese with arugula and my walnut oil is all i need((ever))
After my purchases i used my last couple dollars to pick up a Pinestate buttermilk biscuit with fresh butter and whipped honey on top. I went to find a place to sit down and ended up front and center for the rogue river string band. They were just fantastic and it occurred to me that this is our music and it was good to be home! I really love Bluegrass and it makes me think of my roots and my family and all the pictures i have of them with mandolins and pianos and guitars and instruments i cant even identify anymore.
This day encompassed everything I love about living here in Oregon. I have such a pride for this place and the people who also call it home. Just like that, snap, i was back and wtih a huge grin on my face…and a lot of honey butter. I raced home to bake an apricot pie for the BBQ i would go to and cook up some fava beans. (recipe at the bottom if you want it)
Here are some pictures of the incredible markets i visited in France…no bluegrass though! too bad for them!
It just didnt dawn on me that I would see sunflowers in bloom, let alone be surrounded by them! i took about 200 sunflower pictures and 200 more of me with the sunflowers, none of which came out right. So i ended up cutting myself out of the one with me and the ground and pasted it into the sunflower one! You never would have even known if i hadnt told you.
As I was traveling through France I noticed how normal everything seemed to be. There were lots of families withthe car packed to the roof with”stuff” heading to the beach or the mountains for the weekend and normal people shopping for groceries and driving normal cars. We think of traveling abroad with such aww and excitement and then we go there and people are living their lives exactly how we live our lives here. It is such a wonderful revelation and brings the exotic that much closer to home!
Well then i went to San Tropez…the other aha! button went off, you know the one that goes Ohhhh, this is what they mean when they say ” they have money”. LORDY! Now i had visions of myself in the French Riviera. I envisioned white cotton girly skirts, cafes and large sunglasses. I could see myself pretending to be one of the local crowd, fresh from my yacht. I think when i started to snap photos in the parking lot and didnt close my jaw for the next 3 days, it was a dead bang give away that i was one of those ”others”. You know, the normal people i mentioned above.
I think the most difficult question asked for many was Should we take the yaught or the rolls down to Monaco tomorrow? And the appropriate answer was of course, Lets take the Helicoptor, weekend traffic will be a bear and i will never get this parking spot again.
The weather was perfect, the town was charming and I think there was really was money growing on the trees here but no one could tell me in English where those were exactly. After we left, we headed east along the coastline. The roads really are as windy as you imagine and the villas and private beach oasis are as surreal. We were driving way too fast to take any good pictures but at one point i took a couple of videos…turn off the sound, it is just loud and not very french sounding. i loved driving along the coast. I wish i could have ridden it on a bicycle to really feel it, but i would have also felt a car smack me off a cliff i am sure. Grace Kelly didnt die for nothing on those roads.
We went through several great towns, stopped and had lunch along the beach and drove through Cannes. It is way bigger then i imagined and i completely disagree with Rick Steves, I would like to do a lot more then eat an ice cream cone there. It was a beautiful town.
We stayed in the of Antibes. When you learn about all of the incredible writers and artists who lived here it is not hard to imagine why. I could have stayed and painted too!
This was the bay below our hotel in Antibes. We were on the Cap and removed from the bustle of the inner-city. I felt like i was back home on the Puget Sound…ok except for the color and temperature of the water and the 16th century villas perched above me on the cliffs, and the palm trees…maybe it was just the smell of the sea.
The following day, we ventured around a bit and walked along the sea wall in Antibes. It was gorgeous!
the town in the far distance is Nice
crazy kids!
I even found Victor Hugo’s head
We also drove up into the hills behind the coast and visited Foundation Marguarite et Aime Maeght. It was a converted home in St Paul that contained an enormous private collection of modern art pieces. There were beautiful Miro sculptures and my favorite, Chagall. I love Chagall and this just rocked my world. Wonder if it is for sale….hmm i need to marry wealthy
The food in this part of the country didnt really do anything for me. Apparently the seafood in the Mediterranean has been almost wiped out and now seafood is collected via farming or from the Atlantic Ocean. So i am not even sure how fresh it was. Case in Point, Tom got a pretty nasty bout of food poisoning (we think from some seafood) and instead of going out to eat an excessively overpriced and overrated meal, we stayed in so Peggy could keep an eye on her poor hubby. Thus, my last meal in France consisted of a cup of plain yogurt, half a powerbar, a cold bottle of water and a warm bottle of Muscato. I pouted for a few minutes about that and then i thought, good lord what a fabulous image. I had certainly gotten my fill of delectable over the past few days and i wasn’t suffering any and i should have been thanking my lucky stars i didnt eat the seafood! We will just call it hte kickstart to my post france diet.
My second France posting has to be dedicated to the beauty of the truffle.
Now many people look at this black creature like a lump of coal and after a whiff and a taste, they still look at it like a lump of coal. So what is it about the truffle that has some people paying for them out their children’s college fund? I think it is one of those madnesses that you either get or dont get. Either way is fine, and may be cheaper in the end. I, for better or worse and one of those people who gets it. Oh do i get it. I just look at that lumpy mass and get a twitch and a glimmer.
When i was in Provence, just outside the town of Orange, i had an incredible truffle experience. Truffle season is generally in the winter months so i had visions of lavender fields and sunflowers…not mushrooms. Our day began with a terrific thunder and lightening storm. My god-parents and i were preparing to begin a cooking class with our chef, Pierre. He was lovely and spoke no English. He would show us how to start a task, watch us as we tried to look as cool and then with a nod and grunt of approval, move on to the next task. It was a blast!
We started at 8 am and from the beginning he made sure our wine glasses were full from his own private reserve and he would randomly scamper back to the fridge to pull out an amazing treat like wild boar salami or fresh herloom tomatos on a slice of toast drizzled with fresh basil and walnut oil. His lovely wife Annie would pop in once in awhile to translate something or get his opinion on a detail and he would lovingly feed her a nibble. It was quite charming.
About an hour into the day, a cutie patootie little Frenchman came in with a paper bag. He was shy but had a sharp glimmer in his eye, and i thought Pierre would dance out of his skin. He opened the bag, stuffed his nose into it and his eyes roll all the way back into his head. With a dramatic sigh of delight, he dumped its contents out onto a plate and everyone just stopped and stared. Directly in front of me is a mound of the largest black truffles i have ever seen. Some girls would get this same delight over a bowl of diamonds…just give me the fungus.
I think we stood around oohing and ahhing over these babies for about 20 minutes. Finally Annie shuffles him off to the other room to pay him and we talked truffle. Apparently the guy who came in is a truffle hunter by trade and with his 2 truffle dogs, heads into the mountains each year for the goods. He then stores them in a cave until they are requested. I have always heard that they are more expensive then gold…literally. For the entire bag (and we are talking a very disconnected translation here) Chef Pierre paid 50e?? This guy rose in my books i’ll tell you that! When i politely (and barely innocently) asked where i could get such a fine truffle for such a fine price, i was given the typical french phhbbttt sound and a shrug of the shoulders. Oh well, i had to try right?
Fortunately for us, Chef Pierre was not stingy and he pulled out his beautiful mandolin and sliced off paper thin sheets of truffle which he placed on a toast drizzled with oil.
He also added them to the sauce on our first course and again that evening for dinner on a piece of fresh goat cheese.
