Aahh! It is suppertime & I still haven't done this! Shit!
Ok, here goes.
Last Friday was Junebug's school's Fall Ball and you know what that means: Halloween costumes. Meet a Spider Fairy (whatever the hell that is) and the Queen of Spain. Spooky!
Scary face or coughing? You decide, I can't remember.
Then, on Sunday en familia, we explored the lovely Cottonwood Farm where they have a corn maze, a straw bale maze, animals and crusty old farm equipment. But now Blogger won't upload any more photos, so I'm off the hook for that and back on the hook for supper. Damn!
Today's link: Nicole Kidman bares almost all. Why? Surely she knows about the existence of Go Fug Yourself. Doesn't she?
When you walk in through the front door, to your left you see that there are stairs leading down to the Family Room:
And to your right, stairs up to the Living Room:
Someday, these walls will be covered with pictures (still in boxes) and large furniture.
The downstairs has a powder room, but no powder:
Back upstairs we have a dining room which is really an extention of the Living Room. I know, it looks really dark. But I swear it isn't. The light coming in from the sliding glass doors is wonderful.
This is as tidy as it gets.
The big, steamy, Clive Owen shower.
Back in the hallway, you'll find the other bathroom, small but perfectly sufficient for 2 young kids and any guests. Beware the pocket door, my son, the latch that pretends to lock, but doesn't. Beware the curious girls and shun the frumious bandercat, who may wander in and attack the shower curtain. Which is gorgeous, btw.
See?:
Quite a lot of it. It snowed for about 4 hours. But, as the temperature never dipped below about 37 degrees, none of it stuck. The girls had fun playing in it, though. Here they are on our back deck.
It is hard to capture non-blurry snow when it is coming down this fast. So here is a shot through the sliding glass doors, with a lamp reflection. Some of these flakes were the size of half-dollars. Many, many more of them were quarter-sized. But in the photos they are just white streaks. I must say, Mr. Man and I thoroughly enjoyed sitting at the dining room table gazing through the glass at the lovely fat flakes blowing by. It was so very peaceful and relaxing.
We spent a large portion of the day making these:
This one is named Lily, after the Pink Martinis' song. Thanks for the cd, Sinda! We all love it.
This one is named Pinky, because she is a peachy-pink color. Also, she looks a little like Moominmama.
And my sweetie braved the weather to buy me four of these at the Cheese Importer down the road:
They are lovely for red wine. Or milk, or anything else. Thanks, miele!
Lookit! Chance of snow for Sunday!
Also, we finally found a school for L. Hooray! It is a co-op, it is bi-lingual, and she loves it.
I felt right at home there, too. I'm waiting for a call back to see if we can start right away.
Cross your fingers!
Sinda tagged me for this one. You are supposed to take each letter from your blogging name and give a little food fact to go with it. Here goes.
P is for Pear. You thought I would do Pie here, right? No, it must be pears because of one of my favorite meals:
a perfectly ripe (so plump! so juicy!) Comice pear, cored and sliced into about 6 or 8 slivers
a big room-temperature hunch of blue cheese (Stilton, Gorgonzola, or something else salty & a little crumbly. The saltiness is necessary to offset the sweetness of the pear & the troisieme ingredient in this menage).
a glass of lovely Port wine. Nothing too expensive or pretentious, because you are going to have pear juice running down your sleeve. Maybe a 20 year Warre's tawny or that 10 year Otima. Good stuff. And yes, it is a meal. Okay, have some bread with it if you want. But it better be good and crusty.
E is for Eggs because you can't make a cake, or pudding, or pancakes or much else without them. I so admire and envy Jennifer for her backyard chickens. The notion of walking just outside to pluck (steal, really) a warm egg from the bosom of downy feathers just so you can crack it over a hot pan for breakfast is so primal and alluring. Someday I will have my own hens.
another E is for Eggplant. Baked with Parmesan, or in Caponata, or in Ratatouille (even though, according to Wikipedia, the original dish from Nice did not contain eggplant) or just plain grilled with a little olive oil, I love eggplant. I still remember the first time I ever ate it. It was fried, and I ate it with ketchup*. Even then I recognized how perfectly the flavor of cooked tomatoes compliments Eggplant. Yum.
V is for the velvety texture I love in foods like Panna Cotta and Point Reyes blue cheese, smooth and silky tofu or squid.
I is for Italy, whose foods are my very most favorite. Just in case you haven't guessed.
S is for Soup, so endlessly warming, satisfying, nourishing. S is also for Nigel Slater. I wish he lived next door so we could eat coffee cake together and gossip.
H is for fresh Herbs which improve the flavor of most foods, and which I'm really missing since we moved. I'm so accustomed to just walking outside to snip some fresh Rosemary, Sage, Thyme, Oregano, or Basil in the summer. There is nothing to eat in this yard. Well, perhaps the mushrooms, but none of us are willing guinea pigs. I have recently started a very small herb garden in one pot for transporting in or out depending on the weather. It has a decent-sized sage plant (though not Bergarten Sage, which is my favorite), one tiny thyme plant and one tiny rosemary plant. I can safely harvest a bit of sage, but I don't dare take any from the others for fear of endangering their wee lives. So I just caress their leaves and smell my fingers.
I'm tagging Meno, Antonia & Meg. This is a fun one!
* I was about 12 y.o.
I went back to the Famous Leader quiz to see if I could improve my score, you know, to Einstein or Gandhi. Hey, I know I'm no Mother Theresa but I thought, maybe I could do a little better than fucking Hitler. So I opted for the full 45 question version, thinking that would provide a better-informed assessment, as the quiz-masters suggest. Guess what?
A bounty of apples from the Farmer's Market, mostly Jonagolds.
Yesterday they were transformed into this:
Crispiest, crunchiest crust ever. Was it because of the fancy butter from New Zealand which I bought at the Cheese Importers, only purchased because it was on clearance due to the fact that it had just expired? I don't know if the butter was the reason for the crunch. Perhaps we'll never know. The pie was so juicy I served it in a bowl. See the glisten?
Ode to Terry Gilliam
The 7 Days Flickr group has taken up more of my free time this week than I'd like to admit. It does explain my lack of posting this week. I've also noticed a significant decrease in frequency of posting on many of my favorite blogs, which made me think maybe nobody would even notice or care if I put anything up so why bother. Maybe blogging is dead and I'm just not on that listserve so I didn't get the message. Also, my internet connection has been a bit sporatic , so there's another excuse. Whatever, I'm back from Flickr/the dead to say Hi! How're all ya'll?
Last Sunday we went back to RMNP for the third weekend in a row. This marks the first trip there and back with no rain or hail, and no vomit. Yippee! This time we drove to the Fall River entrance gate, then drove up Old Fall River Road. We pulled off at the Endovalley Picnic Area (close to the Alluvial Fan) to have lunch. We saw several Black-Billed Magpies:
(teeny thumbnail image borrowed from google images)
Notice the bits of Fall color scattered around?
Sinda, this is the door to the deck, in the dining room. Jennifer, these are the party favor hats from Anna's birthday party. L. still talks about riding all of the ponies!
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