The happiness that comes with the harvest.

     Thanks to my friend Ann* and my husband’s panhandle relatives our kitchen is overflowing with produce.  Broccoli, tomatoes, turnips, sweet potatoes, squash (both winter and summer), cucumbers, new potatoes, dill, mint and bell peppers… it’s an embarrassment of riches!  So far I’ve used a little bit of the mint in my iced tea and I’ve got plans to make a loaf of Cheddar Dill Beer Bread but that hardly puts a dent in our crisper drawer. 

     Luckily for me, Kim Martin and Laurie Bostic at Barking Cat Farm have some great produce recipes on their website.  Turnips, butter, black pepper and honey?  Yes please!

     Now I just need a great recipe for some yellow squash because, truth be told, I don’t really like yellow squash.  Any ideas?

 

*(Although she is perfectly capable of growing fabulous vegetables, Ann didn’t actually grow any of the veggies in this picture, instead she introduced me to Jazbac Farm and their fledgling CSA.  Thanks Ann!)

My friend Kate.

This is my friend Kate.

I have known her forever.  Literally.  At least for her forever because I have known her since before she was even born.

Kate and I used to spend almost every day together back when I was her nanny.  She was the most beautiful, funny, stubborn, quirky, smart little tow-headed kid I had ever met.

Kate was always up for an adventure and ran all over DFW with me.  One of her favorite adventures was “Timmy Tuesday” at the old Gloria’s in Oak Cliff.  Tim and I would do her hair in all kinds of wacky ways and take her to eat black bean dip and cheese quesadillas.

Kate has grown up (even though we keep trying to make her stop) into a truly lovely young woman.  She is beautiful, feisty, opinionated, strong-willed, smart and ready to take on the world.  She still has a mop of blond hair, although it’s no longer quite ‘tow’, and  she still likes the black bean dip at Gloria’s.

Kate asked me to write a blog post about her (wait, who am I fooling… she demanded I write one…) so here you are, Kate.  Hope you like it.

xx00

All Girls Should Have a Poem, Richard Brautigan

For Valerie

All girls should have a poem

written for them even if

we have to turn this God-damn world

upside down to do it.

New Mexico March 16, 1969

A perfect pot of pasta.

A few weeks ago one of my best friends turned 49 (49!) and to celebrate she invited a wonderful group of friends and family to join her at her house for a festive birthday dinner.  It was a truly lovely evening.  The company was fabulous, the weather was perfect and the children were well-behaved (or, if they weren’t they were smart enough to be badly behaved out of earshot…).

At events like this I usually wind up in the kitchen helping whoever is doing the cooking and generally getting in the way.  At this party, I not only wound up helping, but I was put in charge of two seemingly simple, easy-peasy tasks… cook the pasta and bake the bread.  No problem!  I could handle both tasks blindfolded!!  But guess what?  I managed to screw up both of these assignments!! I was a little bit mortified, but luckily the drinks were flowing and the guests were kind and no one taunted me too much.

How, one might ask, do you screw up pasta?  Apparently if the water isn’t quite hot enough, the pot is a little too small and the pasta is two different varieties you wind up with a glob, a clump, a blob of sticky noodles.   Determined not to let a little bit of flour and water get the best of me, I decided to cook a big pot of pasta for dinner the next night.  This time, however, I did a little bit of research first.  Based on what I read, it seems that the following is the best way to cook a perfect pot of pasta:

 

1. Select the right size pot.  It needs to be large enough to let the pasta move freely as it boils. My box of spaghetti calls for a pot large enough to hold 4 quarts of water.
2. Add approximately 1 tablespoon of salt to the water.  (I think it was Ina Garten who said something to the effect that pasta tastes better in Italy because 1. You’re in Italy and 2. They use more salt.)
3. Don’t add oil to the water.  Oil will coat the pasta as it cooks which will keep the sauce from blanketing the pasta properly.
4. When the water has come to a rolling boil, add the pasta and stir immediately.
5. Set your timer for the recommended cooking time for your particular type of pasta (usually 7 – 11 minutes) and stir the pasta periodically as it cooks.
6. Before draining the pasta, reserve about one cup of the starchy, salty pasta water in case you want to thin your pasta sauce.
7. Drain your pasta in a colander (do not rinse unless you are going to use the pasta in a cold dish) and return it to the warm pot.
8. Toss pasta with your favorite sauce and cook together over a medium low heat for about two minutes.

That’s it.  It wasn’t hard at all, it just took a little bit more attention than I’d given it the night before.  I’ve now cooked pasta three times using this method and it has turned out perfectly each time.

Meanwhile… in a different part of the kitchen:

Charlotte whips up the peanut sauce for the pasta.  It was good, but not great.  We’re still looking for the perfect Thai style peanut sauce.  Any suggestions?

And Penelope serves slushies.  It’s her own personal recipe that she’d be happy to share it if you’d like.  (and yes, that is a dog bowl in the middle of our kitchen floor…)

Have a happy Thursday!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! *

Today, my friends, is a truly wonderful day… it’s national Butterscotch Brownie day! How are you planning to celebrate? Personally, I’m going to commemorate this day by whipping up a batch of Cleveland Avenue Blondies, one of my all-time favorite desserts.

Cleveland Avenue Blondies came into being back in 1985, when my friend Paige and I were in college, living in a little ramshackle shotgun duplex located at 827 N. Cleveland Avenue in Sherman, Texas. I don’t think Paige has every really gotten over that year and I think she’s still a little bitter because it was my brilliant idea to rent that hovel. The rent for our side of the duplex was a whopping $100 per month, not including utilities, and the duplex came “fully furnished”. Of course, “fully furnished” meant all the random things that the long line of student renters who came before us couldn’t be bothered to take with them when they moved on. The front door didn’t really lock or shut all that well, the foundation was shot so every room was crooked, there was a claw foot tub in the bathroom but no shower and the kitchen (which I think used to be the back porch) came complete with a family of mice. It was the kind of living situation that would make your mama cry.

All that being said, we did have some good times in that little clapboard death trap, we walked away with a bunch of great stories (some of which my husband incorporated into his play The Happy Couple) and it was in that weird, slanted kitchen that threated to fall off the house at any minute where I first began to cook. These blondies were in heavy rotation back then, as they are now, as we usually had all the ingredients on hand and they are fast and easy to put together.

If you decide to make a batch of Cleveland Avenue Blondies, let me know what you think!

 

Cleveland Avenue Blondies (adapted from Betty Crocker’s Cookbook)

• ¼ cup butter
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ¾ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup chopped nuts or chocolate chips (optional)

Heat oven to 350. Prepare an 8x8x2 pan by buttering or spraying with cooking spray (but really, don’t use cooking spray. It’s kind of gross…). Set pan aside.

In a medium, heavy bottomed saucepan, melt butter over low heat. Remove the pan from heat when the butter is completely melted. Mix in the brown sugar, egg and vanilla. Stir in the remaining ingredients and spread in the prepared pan.

Bake for approximately 25 minutes and cut into 2” squares while still warm.

 

* With many thanks to Lewis Carroll for the title of today’s post! You should read “Jabberwocky” while you’re eating your blondies.