Last weekend when I was in Madison, my girlfriend and I got a huge cinnamon roll to take back to her place to share. She cut it in half and put each half on a plate. Admittedly I don’t think I’ve ever cut a cinnamon roll in half – I’m not much on sharing when it comes to cinnamon rolls. But since we’d already shared a big doughnut at the market, I was acquiescent.
When I looked at my half, I saw Stonehenge. Well, not exactly Stonehenge as it looks now, but the stones that make up the henge. I mentioned it to my friend, who said she could “kind of” see it. She thought it looked more like Legos. Since I’m the traveler and she’s the grandmother, I suppose that makes sense. We see the world through our own filters.
The peach man arrived in town last week. He is also the cherry man, and comes to town a couple of times a week in the summer selling Washington and Montana cherries and Washington peaches in the mall parking lot. His wares are hard to resist, and we bought a crate of lovely organic Washington peaches from him. We can’t find Washington peaches in the stores here.
Our vegetable garden is starting to produce a lot now, and we are scrambling to use up all that we harvest, either by eating now or freezing. Buying a crate of peaches was rather impulsive. The peaches ripened fast, so this weekend we had an additional scramble to use them up. I used 9 pounds in peach pie filling, which I froze. Husband looked up beet and peach salads. He has yet to make one, but the recipe he chose has champagne in it. I found a peach and pasta salad with arugula and goat cheese. I also made a peach quick bread. There is no rest for us in late July.
What do you find hard to resist buying?What is your favorite peach recipe? Made any impulse purchases lately?
You all know I am not a big sports fan. In fact, I think I’ve probably only been to 10 baseball games in my life. Maybe 15. I do enjoy the games when I’m there, but like Monday night, I come away with more questions than answers.
Why so many huddles? Visiting team did this six times. Six!
Why don’t the outfielders get to huddle? Don’t they feel left out?
Why is Hansel Robles called Caballo Blanco?
How many times can you actually hit a foul before you’re out? Seems like way more for some than others.
What’s with all the fidgeting on the pitcher’s mound and on the plate?
Why don’t relief pitchers get much of a chance? Four relief pitchers for home team, each only pitched 1 inning each. Visiting team sent in one relief – but at least he didn’t mess around on the pitcher’s mound and just threw the ball!
Why do much spitting?
Why do they need to replace the bases halfway through the game?
If the game is tied at the bottom of the 9th and the bases are full when you come to bat, why do you keep swinging? Why not just hunker down and let the pitcher walk you? Especially if you’re not all that tall?
Why do people go wild when they see themselves on the big screen?
Why, after paying so much to get in and then paying a boatload more for food, drink and merchandise galore, do so many people depart before the game is over?
Obviously none of these are burning, social-issue kinds of questions (well, maybe the spitting), but clearly not everything makes sense to me. However, questions aside YA and I had a great time even when it went into overtime.
I’ve known about the Hopkins Raspberry Festival for years but have never attended. Usually when I think about it, it’s already happened or I have something else scheduled. This year Chris mentioned it the day before and I realized that this was the year.Having never been, I wasn’t sure what to expect. We headed for the Mainstreet Marketplace – booths, vendors, food! Part of Main Street is the parade route, so we passed a lot of saved spots as well as a lot of showy cars. It was definitely a convertible kind of day and I wondered if some of those cars would be in the parade later in the day.
We expected to see a lot of raspberry-themed booths and food options; in this we were surprised. Except for the Festival Committee doing small raspberries sundaes for $1 donation (which were quite yummy), we didn’t see any other raspberry stuff. Even in the Farmer’s Market side street, none of the vendors had raspberries for sale. A friend told me that there aren’t as many raspberry farms around Hopkins these days, property being snapped up for housing and shopping. I don’t know if this is true or not.
What we didn’t expect was how many dogs attended the Festival. Everywhere we turned, there were dogs. Big, small, on leashes, in baby strollers. YA and I are not capable of passing up a dog, so we met and talked with quite a few owners. One dog was wearing an “adopt me” vest and two other dogs were being fostered. One of my favorites was the Golden Retriever at the Airport Dog booth. If you’ve ever encountered “relaxation” dogs at the airport, dogs who are just there so you can pet them and de-stress a bit, this is one of those dogs. He was big and fluffy and so friendly. When I commented to the owner that YA might want to take him home with us, she replied that he would probably like that as well.
So lots of dogs, no raspberries. We had a good time anyway and we have a few of our first round of raspberries left in the fridge.
Let’s talk dogs. Favorites? Stories? (Apologies to the cat people today.)
I feel like a horse that has been let out of the barn after a long winter.
I had my first dinner party last night. Not really a dinner party but my bff and her husband came over to grill. (The small gathering that YA let me hold for her MBA graduation didn’t count as a real party since she placed so many restrictions on me.) For this dinner, all the stops were let out; even by my standards, I got a little carried away.
You’re asking – how could she get carried away with grilling? We had decided on Boca Burgers and corn. Then YA said she didn’t really like Boca Burgers, could I get her Grillers (another veggie burger)? And could we please have potato salad and coleslaw. Then at the last minute I decided I really wanted veggie brats. My girlfriend showed up with bread salad. As we sat down for dinner, this is what else we had on the table:
To say this was on the table is a little misleading. We actually pulled up the garden table for some of the overflow. We had dessert as well: blender lemon pie with blueberry compote and whipped cream.
It was wonderful but as we were cleaning up, we had A LOT of leftovers. I just couldn’t help myself – after 18 months of only cooking for YA and myself, I just couldn’t stop. I had actually thought about sauerkraut and Mexican corn as well, but ran out of time. And we had initially thought we would have chips and salsa as an appetizer, but as I was chopping and prepping I realized we didn’t need to fill up on chips before dinner with everything I was preparing. Just as well, as everybody was stuffed by the end of the evening!
It’s Wednesday. This means that somewhere between 6:30 – 7 a.m., I will be standing at the counter of Sun Street Breads – a bakery about 8 blocks from my house. I won’t actually be ordering because the guy who waits on folks in the morning (David) starts my order as soon as he sees me.
Sun Street Breads is a little bakery/restaurant that’s been open ten years and I discovered it right away. They do artisan breads, a few very nice pastries and cookies; they also do soups, sandwiches and one night a week, they stay open a little later for pizza. Then about six years ago they started making glazed raised doughnuts. But only on Wednesdays. And only their initial batch. Once they run out, they are out. If you don’t get there before 9 a.m., you might not get one. I’m not sure how you make the best raised glazed doughnut on the planet, but they have clearly figured it out.
Back to Wednesdays. One raised glazed and one raspberry cream scone (also excellent). And don’t judge – two cans of Diet Coke. Sometimes I can’t wait and I eat the doughnut in the car. If I have a little more willpower, I drive straight home and eat there.
So now you know my dirty little Wednesday secret.
Do you have a habit that you just don’t want to give up?
Main character: Relatively intelligent woman with cooking skills
Location: A kitchen loaded with pots, pans, utensils and cooking toys
Weapon: Kitchen Pro 2000
Plot: The main character, despite being careful, always manages to cut herself when using her mandoline. The latest attack by the mandoline occurred not when she is actually using it but as she is moving back to the sink to wash a dish.
Mystery: Why does the mandoline have it out for her?
I’m not going to bore you with my love of lists – this has been catalogued many times on the Trail.
As I was straightening up in the breakfast room after my return from St. Louis, I found a folded piece of paper on the table. Having been burned more than once by tossing out something that is needed, I opened it up to see what it was. I found a list of various foods sorted by whether they were to be picked up at Target or Trader Joe’s.
It took me a minute to realize that this was not a list I had put together (although it could have been) but something that YA had done in my absence. And not just a list jotted down on a post-it note, but clearly a computerized list. With a title! I’ll admit I got a little teary.
Do you have a trait that you’d like to pass on – either to offspring or acquaintance?
I have spoken critically in this forum about my mother’s cooking. She was a typical 1950s Midwestern housewife cook, and I fear that isn’t a flattering standard. Unlike my classmates at college, many of whom grumbled bitterly about the food service, I thought I’d never eaten so well. But my mother took desserts seriously. I can forgive her those Jello desserts she served so often, for her cakes and pies were tasty. Relative to other areas of cooking, she did desserts well.
Her social world was centered on bridge clubs. The hostess of a bridge club meeting was expected to serve a dessert so special that club members would be talking about it for days. At one bridge club meeting, Mom’s chocolate devil’s food cake was a huge hit. Someone called out, “Charmion, this cake is wonderful! You have to share your recipe!” Mom didn’t have the nerve to admit that the cake began life as a Duncan Hines box mix. Her embarrassment doomed her to spend many hours one week researching library books for made-from-scratch chocolate cake recipes. She had to find a recipe that was both tasty and credible as the source of the cake she had served.
Each member of my family had a strong dessert preference. Dad thought nothing on earth could be better than apple pie. My mother loved her Graham Cracker Pie, a simple dish made from Eagle Brand Condensed Cream mixed with eggs and lemon, served in a crust that was smooshed graham crackers. My sister came to favor French silk chocolate pie. On my birthdays I always requested a white angle food cake that was heavily frosted with chocolate-flavored whipped cream.
When I tried to teach myself to cook I thought the logical thing would be to collect recipes. When a recipe appealed to me, I’d type it out and add it to my personal recipe book, kept on my computer’s hard drive. I see now that I collected about a hundred dessert recipes, of which I only ever used two. I’m actually not much of a dessert person. The really big sections of my cookbook are salads, chicken and soup dishes. My erstwife was a fine cook, but she too cared more about main dishes than desserts, so I failed to learn how to make good desserts from her.
While I’ve mostly ignored desserts most of my adult life, now and then something catches my fancy. When my erstwife and I traveled in the UK, we discovered a tiny London cafe that served crème brûlée, and I was totally smitten. Still am. I once won a writing contest whose reward was a free trip to the Florida Keys to flyfish for tarpon. While I never caught a tarpon, I sure made a pig of myself with Key Lime Pie, something I’d never encountered before. The dessert I’d now request on my birthday would be pecan pie served with a generous scoop of cinnamon ice cream.
What’s your favorite dessert? Which desserts do you remember most fondly? Do you have a recipe to share?
Last week of June – The crops are looking better. Still need some rain, (all day rain on Saturday only gave us about 1/4 of an inch), so better than nothing, but keep it coming. I say that carefully.
Corn is finally tall enough and filling in enough I can’t see all the bald spots.
Soybeans are looking good and starting to get bushy and fill in.
Oats is all headed out – looks pretty good, looks like there will be a lot of grain out there. Knock on wood.
I changed some field boundaries this spring, so I’ve got one corn field that used to be two separate fields. This particular corn field was corn last year on half of it, and the other half was soybeans last year. (Normally crop rotation: soybeans last year means corn this year. Corn becomes oats, oats becomes soybeans. That helps with weeds, soil pests, and erosion.) But what’s really interesting is the corn on corn looks better and is taller than the corn on soybeans. And the only difference is the corn field was plowed up last fall, and the soybean field wasn’t. Is it soil compaction? Root structure? I will dig some up and investigate the roots. It’s very interesting; I need to ask more questions about why this looks so different.
I dug these up when the corn was about a month old. Notice the seed still down in the roots. And the other seed that just never sprouted. That was our spring.
Been fixing stuff. Picked up parts. A bunch for the corn planter (new fertilizer disks and bearings) and some belts for the lawn mower, a new mower bearing, and other odds and ends. The lift bracket on the corn planter, the thing that actually raises and lowers the planter, was just wore out.
Replaced the pin and bracket, added some weld to the hole in the cylinder end so it’s more ‘round’ again. Then I ran into something and broke a big chunk out of the lawn mower hood so had to buy a new hood. I told Kelly I could just take the hood off and we could go ‘red-neck’. (And I did for a day while working on other parts) A friend put it best when he said, ‘You go redneck and pretty soon you’re judging yourself’. Yep. Good point. No trip for parts is complete without a stop at DQ.
Then the electric clutch that starts the mower wore out so replaced that. I’m also trying to get an older mower running again to use for around trees and to mow in the random areas. I’m mowing more area than I used too; behind barns, up in a grove, all in an effort to keep the weeds down.
I mentioned the barn swallows that have two nests by our front door. Here’s the kids’ double nest.
The parents’ condo is on the left side of the door. The kids took flight the day after this was taken.
My chicks are out in the world now. Of the 45 chicks we received on April 14, a few died as chicks and we let 36 out into the open. So far so good out in the world.
I’ve ordered 30 ducklings of mixed breeds. Be here July 27. I really do enjoy having the ducks around, but my goodness are they messy for the first month or so. Water and muck everywhere. I have a bulk bin down by the barn where I store cracked shell corn for the chickens and ducks. I toss some on the ground and I have some in feeders. They prefer it off the ground, I think. Course that also attracts squirrels, rabbits, birds, and, in winter, the deer and turkeys.
When I was milking cows I had protein supplement stored in this bin. It feeds from an auger into a box inside the feedroom and I fill buckets from that box. It holds maybe a week’s worth of corn in the box. A few weeks ago, when it was so hot, I just got corn from the box and I didn’t run the auger at all. Never really thought about it. And then when I did turn on the auger, no corn came out. Well, sometimes that happens as the bin gets low; cracked corn doesn’t always ‘flow’ very well and sometimes I get a hollow spot. I climb up on top and I have a long stick that I use to knock the corn loose. (I do not get inside).
And what came out was this brown, liquid, sludge! Ewww! I don’t know what that was!! EEEEWWWWW!! It was really gross. There was a fair amount of it, like maybe a couple gallons. Here’s what I think happen: Sometimes when I get corn delivered, the previous load may have had liquid molasses added to the feed. I used to do that when I had calf feed made. And I’m wondering if maybe there was some of that old feed / old molasses down in the bottom, and it go so hot, the molasses all melted and sank to the bottom. Could that be a thing?? Because I’ve never seen it happen before and this stuff didn’t stink like anything rotten… Once that slug was out, it was back to corn and it hasn’t been a problem since. But I run the auger every few days too, now.
Weird.
Wild black raspberries are out; they’re early this year. But just as yummy especially early morning when they’re still cool.
A former college student has been coming out to help on the farm lately. I enjoy the company and It helps me focus and get some jobs done. He’s also applied for a new job and the hours won’t be compatible to here. Such is life.
Got some big summer plans? Making any progress on them?
Trail Baboon 