Christmas Day is done, and it was good

 Our rather haphazard potluck worked again.

Two kinds of cheese, bread sticks, then ham, mushrooms, sugar snap peas, roasted sweet potato, baked sweet potato, with Colman's English mustard on the ham. Ginger ale and lime ginger cordial.

Then after an interval, German cookies, chocolate snowmen, eggnog, big pot of tea.

We divided the leftovers and after Handsome Son left, I fell into  a deep sleep, woke thinking it was Christmas morning (!) 

Our talk as always was lovely, about food and dog shows, politics, primaries, walking backwards, his memories of the Delaware Crossing on Christmas Days in childhood, local parks, food bank donations, self checkout, steamed clams, oysters,  Howard Johnson's, and more. 

Lovely day and it's almost over. Now to crochet. With a wonderful rendition of Vivaldi's Winter on period instruments, lovely sound. 

I do like early music played on early instruments, more than the piercing silvery sound of modern ones designed to fill a concert hall with sound. Vivaldi was composing for much smaller groups of musicians  in smaller places.

Happy day everyone, with your crochet equivalent.

Fall may be here

Today 

Yesterday was another cool day Sunday, with the Japanese maple showing signs of coloring, and a squirrel noshing wildly on it, swinging about. 

Flowers still appearing. I've been getting a lot of pleasure out of this little wild corner, with stray flowers showing up 

And just look at the beautiful structure of that bud. I've come to appreciate zinnias much more since I've been growing them.

Still bringing in a few flowers, soon I'll stop picking, in the hope they'll go to seed and reseed themselves 

Lunch was holiday fare, slices of chicken breast with roast potatoes, dash of red chili oil, dessert a piece of plummy snacking cake, fresh plums and chocolate chips.

I noticed when I came downstairs that Gary must have been here 

It's twofold: he gives me a chance at using his glass jars before recycling, and he's strongly hinting it's a long time since I made jam and he'd like some...

Today's matinee was a luscious production of Emma with excellent acting, beautiful sets, costumes, scenery, on Freevee.

The picture is dorky, but the movie is worth seeing.

Happy day, everyone, find an old movie, preferably period, with all the sets and costumes. Some of Emma's coats, pleated, kick opening, were great sewing and construction. They were worth the price of admission alone. Bill Nighy as Mr Woodhouse, had the best threads evah!

These images were fun to create, many layers, saves, 3D effects, gridding.

Maggie Rudy salutes fall with woolly bears

On other sites I'm careful to use alt text when I post images, for the benefit of  vision impaired people who need to use readers. 

It just occurred to me that I need to ask if anyone reading here would appreciate that, too. Let me know and I'll do it. I don't have the alt text function, but I can add a description to each image. 

  

After the rain, the bites

A couple of brief trips out to see the flowers between rainstorms, yielded 

Thyme really thriving with heat

Next to it the potatoes coming along 

And the really successful recovery of the curry leaf plant, which had dropped all its branches and I thought it was done for.

Then suddenly it put out new growth and now I have pretty much a new plant. Since I use these leaves in cooking a lot, it's great to have them doing well. This pot comes in and becomes a houseplant in winter.

And finally the zinnias and giant marigolds are getting under way. They were just foliage for ages, but after all, there will be flowers.

Also the mosquito population was late this year and is now all set to devour whatever human is available.  As I can attest.

Since the campaign season is in full swing, and we'll soon know who's the VP pick, here's a handy chart for people in red states who may run into voting obstacles. You need to check the number for your state for accuracy, just in case. Bookmark this if it's useful. 

I'm looking at a new recipe from Yeung Man Cooking, involving chickpeas and rice, mushrooms, tofu and other items. I've added miso tofu and soy sauce, also oyster mushrooms, to my Misfits order this week. 

And I need to make red chili oil. New adventure.  I'll use the long red pepper I got a while back. They're spice (Latin piper), like white or black pepper, not the vegetable type peppers you grow.  English is confusing on this point.

Will's approach seems laborious and complex, many stages, but it's really only about half an hour in real time prep.  And I've had great results every time.  He's plant based, maybe vegan, I don't know the fine points, but he just presents great food without preaching. Quite a relief from vegans who can't stop going on about it.  

People do tend to get evangelistic about food. And a bit specialized. I remember with glee the American friend who told me the local restaurant where I'd had great Indian food wasn't authentic. Unaware that the cooks were Indian and I'd been introduced to it by Indian friends who said it was very much Indian home cooking, not Western restaurant Indian! 

And don't get me started on Chinese restaurant food, tailored to Western tastes, and when you go with Chinese friends, they order real Chinese food,  nothing from the menu!  To each their own, eat what you like, but let's not get all dogmatic about it.  Knowledgeable is good, I love to learn from people who know, but that's not the same as presenting as an arbiter of what's authentic. 

Off my soapbox for a moment, you'll be glad to hear, here's some visual relief

On Olympic news, in case you hadn't seen this yet, just FYI 

Transgender is fine. Using the word  as a slur to damage a great athlete? Not fine. 

The original boxer who brought the storm about has also apologized and said she was hasty, just seeing her Olympic dream go away in a few seconds in the ring with a better athlete, and hugely regretted her words.  

And on a happier note 🎶

Happy birthday to e!! And many many more! Stay safe from Debby, the storm, not Debbie the great Dem candidate

Food and winnowing and breaking news

 On Saturday, I improved my surroundings by winnowing paperwork. At first I thought I'd do files but realized the thing that was annoying me was the overstuffed binder of recipes. It was so full I had trouble finding what I wanted, so that's the sort of task that rewards effort.

Packed with handwritten scraps, pieces from newspapers and old cookbooks, and a metric ton of recipes from my cookbook book club.

 

I took out and reorganized, found some good ideas I'd forgotten, and recycled a lot of pages I'll never use, or tried and didn't need to make again.

The winnowings. Now I have a useful binder and won't be annoyed ahead of searching for a recipe again.

After all this big talk about fancy recipes, I ended up making 

Plums and custard. No need for any directions, it makes itself. The coloring comes from turmeric, great spice, because I don't like food coloring in those little containers.

While I was on a roll I made mayo. Then boiled a couple of eggs, for egg salad. I fancied it up a bit this time, with minced red onion, scallions and fresh chives.

So Sunday lunch looked like this 

Out early Sunday I found a an actual flower, finally 

There are buds all over the zinnias now, so soon there's going to be picking.

Meanwhile out front the pickings though slim, are good. The little blue wildflower, can't remember the name, has started rooting itself in the water.

I finally got around to repotting the ponytail palm, three big ones crowded in one pot. Hot work, I ended up sawing them apart. 

One broke off so the root is in a pot outside and I've set the foliage up in water and we'll see.

The other two are now in a pot each, rather inexpertly done, but it was hot on the deck and it was the best I could do. I'm hoping they'll thrive. Nobody will disturb them, so they have a chance to get settled. At least that's the plan.

And Sunday I texted a message of support to Joe and Kamala. Anyone can 

I have among my phone contacts Joe Biden, White House!!

Ed update: since I wrote this, Biden has left the ticket and endorsed Harris. I texted to say thank you for everything and I'll support the blue ticket. Go Kamala!  Rollercoaster day.

GO KAMALA!   She's already got the endorsements of two presidents, the ufw, many state parties, and she's starting to amass delegates. And massive fund raising via Act Blue in just the few hours since Biden's heroic announcement. She'll have a rough time with media, so smart people are continuing to be very selective in where they get news. Not the mass media.

Happy day everyone, anyway, oh and it was cool enough to get to the mailbox and I found my very useful Senior Freeze, property tax refund, waiting. It's now deposited, thank you, Mr NJ Treasurer.

This freeze on raises in property tax, my housecleaners and good neighbors all keep me going in my home, yay them.

    GO KAMALA! 

Yesterday, weather, food, today onward

 The weather yesterday, after high heat and dewpoint 78, went like this

And here's how it arrived

The white areas are rain too heavy to see through. Thunder, lightning.

Just as well Handsome Son had decided not to go to the shore anyway.

Later he came over with a large sausage and pepperoni pizza from the local cook while you wait store, with soda. I decided to avoid all opportunities for work, and we used paper plates, paper napkins ( white, with linen napkins blue, placemats, red)

And disposable bowls for the ice cream, white, strawberries, red, blueberries, blue dessert. There's a theme here. 

Handsome S had plenty of everything, but a token strawberry and no blueberries, well, I offered. It all went well, and he left with a couple of leftover slices, leaving one for my breakfast today.

 After bfast I  did a bit of weaving

altered the yellow skirt to fit better, then caught up on blog reading and wouldn't you know it, Magpie's Mumblings is at it again. 

There's a link today reminding me I can recycle the surplus newspaper Gary gave me for the skirt pattern, by pulping and making s bit of recycled paper. Soooo, here we are

Watch this space.

And  then I embarked on pockets for the independence skirt.

Left pocket in progress, right completed pocket.

In the middle of which Gary dashed in to borrow a spray bottle, something to do with his showerhead, I didn't get involved, just handed one over and let things work out. 

He also tells me those towelly things are decorative bath towels, so now I know. I thought decorative stopped at fingertip towels, the kind you dry your hands on your clothes rather than use them.

So we're here, reading another frothy, frilly hotweathery book

And here's a hotweathery puzzle. Or a wintry one if you're in the southern hemisphere.

Happy day, everyone, sometimes it's better to let things unfold, I tell myself. And one day I'll do that. I expect the weather report from Hell will be very chilly though.