Being the efficient person that I am, I have been packing up any nonessentials as I have had time to do. Husband mentioned Tuesday that he wanted Fettucine Alfredo for supper. We had cream and everything else for it except fettuccine, since I had packed up all the dry pasta weeks ago. We settled for some nice fresh fettuccine from the grocery store.
I love to make my own fresh pasta and I look forward to being able to make it more often after we move. I have made tortellini, homemade lasagna, ravioli, and taggliatelle. Spaghetti is hard to make with our crank pasta maker. Grandson says that buttered noodles, which includes actual noodles as well as any kind of pasta, are his favorite things to eat. When I was his age it was a treat to have Chef Boyardee canned spaghetti. I don’t think I had spaghetti out of a box until I was in college.
I was lucky to have as a landlady in Winnipeg a woman who had immigrated to Canada from Calabria, and she helped me choose a crank pasta maker from the local Italian grocery store and taught me how to use and care for it. I remember her husband, also from Calabria, lamenting how awful the spaghetti was at a spaghetti dinner sponsored by their very English Catholic church (They had left the Italian Catholic church in Winnipeg due to a conflict with the priest). The spaghetti was really gluey and overcooked.
What are your earliest memories of spaghetti? What are your favorite pasta dishes?
At the library last week I happened upon a little hardcover book called Pizzapedia by Dan Bransfield. It says on the inside flap that it’s a “biography of pizza”. I wouldn’t go quite that far but it is a charming piece filled with marvelous illustrations.
And some humor. I found this about ¾ of the way through, right after an illustration of a pizza-making robot and how it works:
Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Pizza Robotics
First Law. A pizza robot may not burn a pizza or, through inaction, allow a pizza to come to harm.
Second Law. A pizza robot must accept orders for pizzas except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Third Law. A pizza robot must protect its own recipes as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
If you’re not a Sci/Fi fan, here is a copy of Issac Asimov’s original Law of Robotics.
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
These laws were first introduced in Asimov’s 1942 short story “Runaround,” which is part of the collection I, Robot. They were designed to create a framework for ethical behavior in robots, ensuring that they prioritize human safety and obedience while also allowing for self-preservation.
I’m pretty sure that any pizza-making robots out in the world aren’t too worried about having to pledge allegiance to Issac Asimov, but the author made me laugh and that’s always helpful these days!
What is your favorite? Thin crust, thick-crust, stuffed crust, deep-dish? Square cut or triangles?
Sunday night I received a cryptic message from our daughter that said “Breaking News: I love sauerkraut”.
She had an out of town friend visiting a week or so ago, and the friend just whipped up some sauerkraut and left it to ferment. I like the taste but not the texture of sauerkraut, but I never had it homemade. Maybe it is crisper than the store bought variety. Husband sneaks a jar into the fridge every so often. I think that this is perhaps the only time Daughter may have eaten sauerkraut.
I stopped making pickles quite a while ago, since we always ended up with too many to eat in a year. My favorites now are cornichons from France. They come in a small jar so you aren’t left with too many. Husband occasionally teases about home brewing beer. He never has fermented anything on purpose. I wonder if Daughter’s discovery means she is going to start making her own kraut.
What are your favorite pickles? Ever done any fermentation?
I wrote on Wednesday about getting moose meat from our next door neighbor, a moose his brother-in-law had shot last year. The reason for the gift of moose was to make room in their freezer for the venison from a deer that Neighbor’s 12 year old daughter shot over the weekend.
Neighbor comes from an extended family for whom hunting is really important. Last Saturday he and his daughter drove to the sparsely inhabited grasslands south southwest of us, and she got her deer. It wasn’t a clean shot, and they had to chase it. It took a while for the deer to expire. They gutted it out, and loaded it in the truck. On the way back, the girl told her dad she didn’t want to go hunting anymore.
Neighbor spoke proudly of how courageous his daughter was for telling him how she felt about an activity so important in their family, and how he was supportive of her decision. He said they had great conversations on the way there and back about all sorts of things like boys, her plans for the future, etc. He is a good dad, an educator, who spent are least one summer in San Francicso coaching swimming for Stanford. His daughter is a lucky girl.
What family traditions have you kept or dropped? What qualities do you think make for a good father?
It’s the time of year that I start to think about hand pies. When I was a kid, Nonny would occasionally make an apple pie (no other kind that I can remember, just apple). Depending on how many scraps she had left over, she would make either cinnamon pinwheels or every now and then “mini pies” (what we called them). I didn’t realize until I was well into my adulthood that the rest of the world calls these hand pies. And they are my favorites!
In my early years of hand pies, I just cut out the hand pies using a knife – triangles, rectangles and even circles. Then several years ago I purchased a set of molds that make a rectangle shape, a “pie” shape and an apple shape. These aren’t actually any easier than just cutting the dough by hand, but they are a lot more fun.
In August I saw an ad online for a cat shape/dog shape set of molds from Sur La Table. They are incredibly cute but way too expensive for an addition to my kitchen equipment that can only be called whimsical. Now that we’re getting close to apple picking (or apple picking up, depending on my knees), I’m thinking about hand pies. So yesterday morning I looked up the cat/dog molds online to see if anyone sold them less expensively than Sur La Table. Nope.. didn’t find them. HOWEVER, thanks to my search, my online world has suddenly been flooded with ads for hand pie molds. There are a lot of different companies out there selling lots of designs.
I’m currently seriously eyeing a holiday set and have looked up some more filling recipes. The three top new contenders are Lemon Cream Cheese & Raspberry Jam, Walnut Cinnamon Sugar and Nutella Hazelnut. In an age of trying to rid myself of stuff, I’m thinking I need my head examined thinking I need more hand pie molds. We’ll see how long I last….
Kelly commented one day she didn’t know why the handle on the drawer holding the kitchen garbage can always had streaks of something on it. I knew immediately it was probably from the egg I crack every morning, but I didn’t offer that up at the time. She might read it here…
I was making daughters egg cup the other morning. The first egg cracked perfectly, opened perfectly, and I plopped the yoke right into the cup. Went to crack the second egg and the shell pretty much disintegrated, the contents splashed onto the counter and slid right off into the garbage. (Over that handle of course). At which point, as I flailed, I knocked the egg cup with the first egg onto the floor. The dogs were right there for clean up. With luck, Kelly won’t know about that either. Course it was kinda funny so I’ll probably tell her. … at some point…
A few weeks ago, I saw a postal truck dead on the side of the road. The next day I saw it being towed. A few days after that I saw another one being towed. Jeepers. Then there was the semi carrying mail that caught fire on Hwy 52 outside Rochester. I do have to say, mail service to our house seems to be getting better. We’re getting mail before noon, whereas it had been 7PM for a few years. And often now, they’ll bring the mail and a package right to the house. Those of you who’ve been to the farm know that’s not a light task; it’s a long drive out of the way to bring a parcel down to us.
And then just the other day I saw one of the new postal vehicles.
Uh… it’s…. something!
It’s called the ‘Next Generation Delivery Vehicle’. NGDV.
I did some internet searching on them. Here are various headlines and descriptions:
-U.S. POSTAL SERVICE’S UGLY DUCK MAIL TRUCK
-U.S. POSTAL SERVICE’S EV TRUCKS ARE STILL FUNNY-LOOKING, NOW HARDER TO KILL OFF
-The Postal Service’s new delivery vehicles aren’t going to win a beauty contest. They’re tall and ungainly. The windshields are vast. Their hoods resemble a duck bill. Their bumpers are enormous.
–The Oshkosh Next Generation Delivery Vehicles might look like background traffic in a Pixar film
-You can tell that [the designers] didn’t have appearance in mind
-SO MUCH FOR LOOKING COOL WHILE YOU DELIVER THE MAIL*
-It looks like a robot Beluga whale—built by the East German government.*
-Our Grumman mail trucks [The old trucks] look like they were supplied by the government of East Germany and they sound like the tortured exhalations of a hungover water buffalo—hhhhggggggggmmmmmggghhhh. Honey, the mail’s here.*
-Odd appearance aside, the first handful of Next Generation Delivery Vehicles … are getting rave reviews from letter carriers
–The side cargo door allows for direct delivery onto the curb
The drivers really like them. They have AC (Can you believe the old ones didn’t?), airbags, back up camera’s, a 360° camera, collision warning, and most importantly, the tall box allows drivers to walk through without ducking. The current vehicles, made by Grumman, came into service in 1987 and was scheduled for 25 years. They outlived that predicted life. But they are failing. And they seem to catch fire fairly often. Prior to that vehicle was the Jeep DJ-5. The USPS used them during the 1970’s and ‘80’s. I bought a used one from my friend Thom, and he had bought it used from someone else. It was dark green. I drove it for a few years in the mid 1980’s. It was standard left side drive, and I used it when I was a field reporter for the Department of Agriculture. With the sliding door, it was great for holding a measuring wheel out the door and driving around a field. It was just 2-wheel drive, so that wasn’t an option for every field, but it was still kinda cool looking (well, ‘Different’ anyway). Even with the bungee strap holding the back door shut (because if you went over a bump, the back door would pop open) and the steering was so loose you didn’t dare drive over about 55 MPH, but it was fun to drive. Thom had mounted a stereo between the seats, and bolted speakers to the back wall. The metal dash was pretty rudimentary.
Not my jeep, just a representative photo. I wonder why I never took a picture of mine?
Not too much happening around the farm. I did get the 630 carburetor back on and had it running! It’s quiet enough I could actually hear myself think! It’s not done, I have a few more things to replace. Saving up for the next ‘Old Tractor Part’s Order’.
I got a township call from a sheriff deputy about some junk that had been dumped. Turned out to be two large commercial pizza ovens. Those things are heavy! I called a couple neighbors to help load them. It was all we could do to just tip it up and tip it onto the trailer.
Pizza ovens on the trailer
The next day was a sectional couch and mattress to pick up. Just more ditch clean up. Part of the job for a township supervisor. The couch and mattress I haul to county recycling. We know them on a first name basis there. We’re regulars. The pizza ovens I added to my scrap metal trailer.
I finally hauled in the old tires I had cut off those wagons. Took them to a local auto shop and paid ___ for disposal.
Got half an inch of rain Thursday night. More predicted.
Here’s a picture of a chicken because the green shades look so pretty.
From a distance, they look black. But they have more colors than you’d think, and they are really pretty.
My summer Padawan has been out working on his car a few times. I helped him for an hour one night and rolling around underneath looking up, down, left, and right acerbated some vertigo I was beginning to get. The next day I sat very still. He’s learning a lot—I hope. He’s certainly at a disadvantage because he’s being self-taught, which is good, but it can be frustrating and it all takes longer. And he’s not quite in the right mindset for that. He’s eighteen so he knows everything already. And he gets frustrated easily with the car. I tried to tell him it’s all part of the job and if he’s gonna get frustrated, he’s in the wrong job. Monday he starts as an employee at a REAL job. A 7AM to 3PM job. We’ll see how that goes. Cross your fingers for him. I give him about a 35% chance of sticking with it. He just has no idea. And it’s going to take a few tries, and I suspect he’s gonna be one of those kids who must hit bottom to figure it out.
You’d think that with all the tomato dishes we’ve had in the last few weeks that I would not be craving yet another tomato recipe. The last couple of days I’ve been thinking about pizza – specifically Boludo’s, which we haven’t had in a while. But the combination of my knee (had therapy yesterday morning and was quite sore) and all the tomatoes on the counter and all the pesto in the fridge overtook my desire to order in.
Pizza dough with olive oil, pesto and thinly sliced Romas (and I did NOT cut myself on the mandolin!!!) with some assorted shredded cheeses I found in the cheese drawer. Topped with some salt and pepper and then some more shredded parmesan that I had leftover from lunch a few days ago. Turned out rather well, if I do say so myself.
Sure has been a good year for walnuts based on how many are falling onto our deck and deck table. We have to be careful walking out there or they will bonk us on the head. We have one Horse Chestnut tree back there, too. I planted it from a seed I picked up at our church when I was a kid. Mom says I dug it up every couple days to see if it was growing and it’s a wonder it ever grew. It has a lot of chestnuts on it this year. I like how smooth they are and the rich dark brown of the nuts. (I glued a bunch onto a chair to look like barnacles when we did ‘The Little Mermaid’ at the college).
The other day I picked up daughter and we went home. Two hours later I was going to take her back into town, so I didn’t want to get myself into too much trouble. Don’t get your clothes dirty, I told myself. I backed the hay rack into the shed in case it rained (which it didn’t) but If I had left it out, the 8 bales on it for the next PossAbilities hayride would have gotten rained on for sure.
And then I thought to myself, don’t go dig a hole for the new concrete because if it rains, you’ll have a hole full of water. And then I went and dug a hole. I didn’t mean to, I meant to just clean up the edges using the tractor loader but I kind of got carried away. I took the excavated dirt back behind the machine shed as I’m building up that area for the lean-to, which is next summer’s project. There was that tree branch hanging down in my way. Course it was coming from 20’ up in a box elder tree and the loader bucket only reaches up 18’. So, I pushed the whole tree over. That’s the thing about box elder trees, they don’t have much of a root to them, and when the ground is wet like this, it’s pretty easy to push one over. A smart person will pay attention to the top of the tree so it doesn’t fall back onto the tractor. I’m grateful I have a cab that is designed to protect the occupant, but I’ve broken a lot of headlights and mirrors pretending I’m in a bulldozer rather than a farm tractor. I pushed that tree over, which leaned onto another tree, so pushed that one over too. None of this was the reason I went outside, but I was in the tractor and didn’t get my clothes dirty.
The third group from PossAbilites had a much warmer day for a hayride. I took a longer route, up on the hills. One kid didn’t want to get out of the van, and that’s alright. A staff member stayed back with them.
Last Saturday we hosted a “Combo Welcome & Movie/Pizza on the Farm Night” for Kelly’s work people, the staff and trainee’s in the Pathology division. It rained during the day and it took some effort to get the bonfire started, and we decided to have the movie in the machine shed because it was darn chilly outside. It was a good group, they ate a lot of pizza and popcorn, and they made a good dent in the 8 gallon rootbeer keg. The movie was our favorite, ‘Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium’.
You know, back when daughter graduated from high school we got a rootbeer keg. That was the first time I ever tapped a keg. My brother isn’t sure how we’re related if I had never tapped a keg before. So now I’ve tapped 2 kegs! Both rootbeer. My brother says I’ll be ready for actual beer next.
At the college I’ve been working on shirt sleeves. Swapped sleeves from some shirts to other shirts, and shortened them enough they still qualify as sleeves to keep admin happy, but not long enough to bug me. And this summer my nephew-in-law Justin gave me a Hawaiian shirt, with the sleeves cut off, because he had described me as “flowery”. In a good way! It didn’t have a pocket, but he dug one of the sleeves out of the garbage, and I added a pocket. All told, I swapped 4 sets of shirt sleeves. I’m not very good at sewing. I can manage, but it isn’t pretty. Good thing the seams are inside.
Sewing is sort of like construction. Just with other tools. When I was a kid, mom would let me fill the bobbin. I always loved threading the machine, and the bobbin on the little spindle that would “pop” over when full fascinated me for whatever mysterious reason. I didn’t bother changing thread on these sleeves. I picked a purple thread that matched some of the sleeves, and a teal colored bobbin thread and I just used them for everything because I like the colors. I tried using pins but I struggled more than one would expect with pins. It made me think of the strawberry pin cushion mom had. I wondered if I should get a pin cushion for the costume room, as opposed to the box of pins in there now. A magnetic one? Do I think it really matters?? I thought about thimbles too, and playing with them. And I had happy memories of mom. You never know do you; you let your kid do something, and 50 years later they’re swapping shirt sleeves.
Every mechanic knows you don’t tighten up all the bolts until everything is assembled and yet here I was struggling with getting the bolts lined up on the manifold for the 630. And there’s three gaskets in the middle of all of this and they shift and move while trying to get it all in place. There are six bolts that attach the intake and exhaust manifold to the tractor, and four bolt that hold the intake to the exhaust. I tightened the four bolts first, which is why I couldn’t get the other six all in place. I messed with it for an hour trying this that and some other things. Finally realized I had tightened those bolts. I loosened them, got all six bolts in place, THEN tightened everything up. Just like a professional.
Yeah, I should have put gloves on. Usually I do, this time I got ahead of my self. Between the black gasket maker goop, and the silver ‘Never-seez’ I put on the bolts, it took a while to clean my hands when I was done. all that fussing and I never got grumpy or mad about it. And that’s interesting. I have such a pleasant time working in the shop. Course working on the 630, part of that is, as I told Kelly, when I was milking cows usually I was fixing something because it was broke and I needed it and I didn’t have time to be messing around. I just needed the darn thing fixed ASAP to get on with whatever. But this is sort of a ‘just because’ repair so there’s no pressure– other than my mechanic for the carburetor asking me if I have the tractor running yet, so now I feel like he’s judging me. Other than that, no pressure. And I like that.
SEWING BY HAND AND THIMBLES AND PIN CUSHIONS. WHAT ABOUT THEM? WHAT PIN CUSHION SHOULD I GET?
I know that I always say that YA and I don’t go to the fair for the food but it would be a lie if we didn’t enjoy the food part of each day. Here’s a lowdown on the 2025 fair foods for us:
Hot Siracha Funnel Cake Bites. This is not a new food but it is still the first thing that I get on the first day of the fair. It doesn’t hurt that the owners of the stall know me and have the bite dough ready for me; normally they don’t make the bite dough so early because most folks want sweet in the morning. Savory and just a bit hot with the siracha sauce.
Beignets. This was a new stall this year and they knocked it out of the park. The beignets were hot, fluffy, just the right amount of powdered sugar. They also had a lot of tea and coffee selections, although the beverages were on the pricey side.
Sweet Squeakers. As always, The Blue Barn knows what we like. This year’s new offering was cheese curds batter fried with lemon whipped cream and raspberry sauce. A perfect way to start Day Two. The pierogies and the French toast bites are still on the menu and we sampled them on Day Three and Four. Still yummy.
Filled Churro and Chimney Cake. I’m putting these together because they were actually similar and disappointing in the same way. Both were churro/doughnut dough caked and filled with stuff: the churro with Nutella and the chimney cake with ice cream and Nutella (although not much Nutella). Both suffered by being stuffed which decreased the crunch factor. Nutella and ice cream however were excellent.
Dessert Dog. This is the second year that the West End Creamery was disappointing. This new food was advertised as ice cream sandwiched between pieces of coffee cake, drizzled with strawberry/rhubarb sauce and on a stick. First off, the stick was a waste – you could NOT eat this off a stick – fork was required. The coffee cake was more like cookie dough but not that good. And the price was outrageous. Probably no West End Creamery for me next year.
Green Apple Sucker Ice Cream. YA had this and informed me immediately that I wouldn’t like it because it tasted exactly like those green apple caramel suckers. Which she adores and I do not. Five stars from YA.
Jumbo Tater Tots. We finally had these on our final day – YA had been dragging her feet for some reason. We got the cheese bomb version and they were exactly as expected – huge cheese filled tater tots. We had sour cream and chives on the side and they were delicious.
All the rest of our favorites were still great: roasted corn, Hawaiian shave ice, pickle pizza, cheese curds, potato cheddar crepe, blueberry pie and multiple applications of cookies. Can’t forget to mention my favorite mocktails from Summer Lakes. They have several varieties and I switch up but my favorite one is the Wedgehammer – orange juice, lemonade, lime juice, ginger and a slice of orange.
When I read through this, it sounds like all we do is eat, but remember all this is spread out over 5-6 days and for the most part we share everything. There were several new foods we didn’t get to – if they’re still around next year maybe we’ll get to them.
Anything you’ve been craving this week (food or otherwise)?
My bales look sorry this summer. Saggy and disintegrating looking. Ben explained to me how this can happen – kinda made sense.
But saggy and disintegrating doesn’t seem to be a problem for my veggies. We’re having a bumper crop of everything. Basil, chives, rosemary, cilantro, poblano peppers, hot macho peppers, mint and 4 kinds of tomatoes. Romas, some heirloom, sweet 100 cherry and in a summer surprise, I’ve actually gotten a couple of Santa tomatoes from the plant that I grew from a seed. I’m sure there’s more out there but I haven’t harvested for a couple of days.
Santa Tomatoes
I used up all the cilantro already. Four jars of pesto so far, an ice cube tray of chopped mint with lime juice, another ice cube tray of chopped basil with olive oil. Eight containers of tomato sauce. Gifts of tomatoes to neighbors and friends.
And lots and lots of tomato recipes. (This was all going on while I had a MASSIVE zucchini to deal with as well.) I’ve made my favorite pasta with cherry tomatoes a couple of times. Made tomato butter that was terrific on the zucchini corn bread. This weekend I’m making panzanella, tomato basil soup and some tomato rice. Probably time to consign some of the tomatoes to the freezer as well. Whole tomatoes right into freezer bags for use this winter.
Gosh – I feel like Renee and Chris with all this produce and cooking!
And some humor. I found this about ¾ of the way through, right after an illustration of a pizza-making robot and how it works:
Trail Baboon 