Yesterday's visit with the son went ok. We do not have a close relationship, we are probably both to blame for that. Sometimes things just are as they are and this I have come to accept is one of those things. His life in general seems stable and I think content. That is good for a mother to know. 

I did not make soup as planned. I just didn't feel like it. Instead I made hot ham and havarti cheese on kaiser rolls with a green salad. That was a good choice, no real effort in that. I hadn't an idea for dinner so I took half of the sausage I planned to use for the soup and made a red sauce with it. I have begun to greatly appreciate made-in-advance meals. 

I don't think the younger generation eat much of this kind of food, the food I grew up with. I know Thai has been popular. I made a Thai curry a couple of years ago and it isn't too strong to say I hated it. I found I cannot stand coconut milk! We basically eat Americana and Italian American. I did learn technique in the French style by cooking my way, sort of, through Le Cordon Bleu at Home thirty-five years ago, but French cuisine has become too fussy for me now.

I made the soup I planned for yesterday as today's lunch. Much better to do when I wasn't feeling anxious. It's a nice sunny day, too bad it won't last long. The next four days are expected to be rain and then snow. Monday is my laundry day, but other than that I'm taking it easy. I suppose I should get back to it. If you read this, be well. Be content. Eat what makes you happy.

Peopling

I'm having company tomorrow over the lunch hour. It's been a long time since we've had anyone to our house and actually inside. We see a couple of neighbors now and then and Mark's cousin dropped off tax documents a few days ago, not the same as someone sitting down to your table. This is coming inside and having lunch! My son is bringing his tax information to his dad and will stay for lunch. We don't see him often and I'm not sure I remember how to behave around people anymore. I've always been a loner, but the last couple of years I've been downright reclusive. Son and his wife spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with her family and planned to come here on New Years Day. They both got Covid after the Christmas gathering so we didn't see them. This is a big event in an increasingly small world for me! It will be good for me to have some social interaction, I have become too much like the basset, when there are no demands on you, you don't make many demands on yourself. Of course anyone who knows them knows you'd better not demand anything of them! AAAROOO

I need to move some German Shepherd hair, make lunch and consider tomorrow's lunch. It will be soup because it's easy and he likes soup. Let us hope I haven't completely forgotten how to people.

Ciao

Random

 Actually I can do my Friday dance on Tuesday if I want. 

It is Friday, though. Boogie on.

 

I adore basset hounds. Stubborn, yeasty fleshy creatures they are. Beloved Howard died in 2017 then Old Man Murphy, aka Fast Footies, died in 2018. I didn't want anymore dogs, I came to a place where death of my animals became overwhelming. Horses, cats and my constant companions, the dogs who followed me everywhere. My work was at home so my dogs were with me all day every day. I also knew my mother would probably die before the younger of her two dogs and that would be my responsibility. She did die two years after Murphy and I brought Emma and Keetah home. Sweet old Emma  was with us for eight months and Keetah is still with us, making me deal with German Shepherd hair on a daily basis. Mark is happy to have a dog again and she is definitely his girl. See the straight line of muddy paw prints along the floor plank? Keetah never varies her step into the living room. She has a pattern for every move she makes. Just like Mark. The pine flooring shows the history of the many large dogs whose big feet crossed the planking. It's a history I have no intention of erasing.

Onto what makes me a cliche. Not an idiom, but a cliche. I used the fennel bulb for pizza the night before. I don't like to discard bits that are usable, so I used the stems of the fronds in a simple Farfelle with garlic, walnuts and Mascarpone. The fennel fronds make an excellent pesto. I typically use walnuts for fennel pesto. If you haven't done, try it.

I guess it's time for me to feign productivity. Mark still has his practice, although he has a reduced client load. Because of my physical condition he had to take on the task of the horses full time. No moss grows under his feet. Too much moss is growing under my butt, which is growing in its' own right. Time to move some German Shepherd hair around.

Ciao

Bread and Flower

Pizza Bread

Sometimes I do things just because. Last night was one of those times. I made enough dough for a large medium crust pizza, saw the cast iron skillet I had cleaned but not put away and thought it was a good idea to bake a pizza with this much dough in that pan instead of the steel. Pizza bread. Mark thought it was great, but he thinks everything is great. He is my cheerleader. Gotta love him.

What did come from it is I really liked the bread, so I've mixed another batch of the dough and will bake it as bread, a slightly thicker version of focaccia.

It's 36* F, windy and raining. This is the third day. Tomorrow won't be warm but the sun is supposed to shine. It will be welcome. I look forward to seeing these, perhaps my favorite flower in the gardens. I was asked recently if I hoard anything. Perhaps peonies. I have an abundance of them. And that's okay.

Life in my Lane

April in Minnesota is Winter Junior.

We moved from the cozy snug to the living room for a couple of nights, thinking it would be warm enough to open the huge hole in the roof, otherwise known as a flue. The bat cave, which goes by the name Fireplace requires a giant hole in the roof so as to not smoke us out. I like to use this one when I can because the living room is open to the kitchen so I can see the fire while I work. The thing is, Minnesota hasn't given up on winter yet so it's just a bad idea to light this thing. So, back to the snug where it's much more efficient. We are guaranteed cool evenings for awhile which will be perfect for using the bat cave, just not yet. Until then.....

Tuesday Afternoon, What Can I Say

 A Moment

Aging. Everything and one does it. We have aged wine, cheese. Aged beef, wood. These are things which become more valuable when aged. I am human. I am aged. There hovers a hint of irrelevance around the aged. An old horse hasn't any value. An old woman, unnoticed. Mindful of the time passed and the future smaller. Carrying the dutch oven became a weight lifting moment, it seems to have happened when I wasn't looking. I think we often go about our days not looking, they feel as if they will stretch on to infinity. Then one day, your back doesn't want to straighten. There's crepe paper skin on your hands. When did that happen? Then, then I think about the people who will never have to wonder where the crepe skin came from. Getting old is irreversible, so perhaps it's best not to look in the review mirror, whilst trying to shift into reverse. 

Put on the sunglasses, pull your cap down on your head and hit the gas. It's already been a bumpy ride, there's nothing to lose but time. 

It doesn't last long, but it occurs regularly. 

Spring in Minnesota

 The horses don't care, they have hay and one another. This-taken-from-a-distance-with-a-phone-camera blur of a photo is the geldings. There are seven of the old boys left. They are still very much geldings, meaning perpetual ten year old boys with four legs. If a horse is going to get into mischief it's more than likely to be a gelding. Big goofy fellas. We have a long history together, all but one was born here. The one not born on the farm came here 17 years ago. The economic crash of 2008 destroyed the horse market for years, so what was here ended up staying here. The youngest is 19, the oldest 27. Did you know long in the tooth started as a saying about aging based on horses? People would look in their mouths to determine age. Long toothed meant old. They and I are long of tooth. 

Totally not interesting but part of my life, which is what this is all about, Monday is laundry day. It's also a perfect day to make soup for lunch. I'm wanting chicken and dumplings, so that's what it will be. I hear the grandfather clock chiming 10:00, so I guess it's time to get the day started. Mark has been at it since 7:00, I'm a slacker. He doesn't mind that I am a slacker. 

And say Frieda what are you doin' here?

Sing us a song, you're the piano cat, sing us a song tonight. Well, we're all in the mood for a melody and you've got us feeling alright.

 

This blurry photo is me seven years ago, two years before I started the Great Health Decline. I realized anyone who may be reading this is likely someone new, as I abandoned this blog years ago. I wasn't writing here when I took this photo. I had a serious case of flu in 2017, then I had pneumonia and spent half of that year being sick. The end result is I haven't been well since. Covid has kept me housebound for the past year because of my tenuous health, although I spent most of 2020 at the house where I grew up, clearing it out after my mother died. Eight months of work, most of it by myself, until the last couple of months. I thought I'd give a little background as to why this has become a food blog. I've had little else for a year but cooking. I don't think I'm desperate enough to show dust on the furniture, at least not yet! I do have an appointment on the 18th for more tests trying to determine what is wrong with me. My husband likes to tell me it's my mother sticking pins in me. Sometimes I wonder, although it's along the line of longtime, ongoing trauma causing illness that I believe may be the pins. Minnesota will enter spring eventually and I'll get out and hopefully be able to garden. I have kept hope alive somehow, that I will get better. Perhaps I can have something other than food to write about.

So as to keep a theme going, I roasted a chicken a few nights ago, I had a breast left and used it with fennel, garlic, asparagus and tarragon with a little linguine. I couldn't eat it all so we had it and the rest of the Involtini for lunch. What Mark calls a potpurie. No, not a misspelling, that's what he calls it. 

The sun is shining and it's 48 degrees. Spring is trying. 

 

Molto Bene

Eggplant Involtini

 If someone sees this, do yourself a favor and make it. It's simple and can be made in advance. Something important to me as by evening my back has had it. It's as simple as baking thin eggplant strips brushed with a little oil, a parmesan and ricotta filling wrapped in those strips and baked in tomato sauce. I put a little pesto on the eggplant before wrapping the cheese. Delicious.

It's a chilly but sunny day, I've got chicken bones and aromatic & vegetable scraps simmering for stock, and a plan to use leftover chicken with fennel, asparagus and linguine for dinner. With the cost of groceries, save your bones and scraps in the freezer. It's extremely satisfying to make great food with things that are typically thrown out. I've turned into my grandma, bib apron and all.

Ciao