White Rabbits, Figgy demerara snacking cake, or something

Saturday was about enjoying slices of the chicken, really one of the best I've had, tender, and the flavor of the herbs just right, with shells tossed with my mayo, broccoli bits and capers.

Then I made a figgy demerara snacking cake, Melissa Clark, NYT. Except I used plums, natural cane sugar and extra vanilla because I didn't have brandy, or figs or demerera sugar. The sugar is sprinkled on top as well as mixed in the batter. 

I love this recipe, which makes quite a few pieces, the cake part rich with butter especially if you use lovely Irish butter which I did, then the plums just a bit tart and juicy. 

Here's the cast of characters, the plums prepped a couple of days ago, when I felt like it.  I used part white, part chickpea flour. 

Here it's going into a 400°f oven for about 40 minutes. 

It's a sort of sheet cake, which I slice with a pizza cutter, approx one plum quarter per piece.

I completely forgot to take pictures of the baked result, but a couple of pieces with a pot of tea went over so well. 

I've put a box of them in the freezer in case Handsome Son visits this week. He's working the holiday, as usual, but it's time and a half $$ Sunday and Monday, nice boost. His day off is midweek.

Then a neighbor came over to give me more dill, she's got a glut, and I gave her sage and thyme. We talked hearing aids and she's decided since I'm doing well, she'll go to my doctor and try to get my audiologist, nice Dr Han.

Her situation is different,  since cancer treatment caused her hearing loss, but the result is the same. She was impressed at the almost invisibility of the aids. I'm mainly happy they don't fight with my glasses!

Maybe Gary will also get around to it. He did get them made, but never went to pick them up! Men seem to be much more reluctant to use them than women, for some reason.

Anyway up to now they're going smoothly, and there's a significant drop in tinnnitus when I wear them. Right now I'm listening to crickets cricketing away. I thought we hadn't any this year. 

Turns out I wasn't hearing them, peaceful summer evening sound. At first I even thought it was tinnitus, until I realized how it varied. Oh, kerrrickets.

And now lookit, suddenly it's September. With Edith Holden showing it to us. That's a European goldfinch. 

And a favorite poem

Happy day everyone, I hope your crickets are the good kind, not the being ignored variety.

Lammas, white rabbits and Yorkshire Day

 White rabbits! It's Lammas, the quarter day halfway between some celestial thing and another, celebrating the wheat harvest, for making bread -- loafmas.  Full moon, too. It's also Yorkshire Day. Deliciously cool. So this long-transplanted Yorkshirewoman celebrated with a toasted walnut muffin and a pot of strong tea for breakfast.

This is the Yorkshire Tea Terrier from a hilarious ad showing him speeding around the Dales bringing tiny (he's little) drinks of tea to thirsty hikers, the Yorkshire answer to the St. Bernard with his cask of brandy in the Swiss Alps.

and here's  Italian basil rooting in water after only a couple of days, high hopes for this

Yesterday cooled off enough, down to the 80sf, so I used the last of the chicken which had sustained me through the heatwave, in a cream of chicken soup, Thai basil for extra flavoring. 

I had a bowl of this with pita bread toasted with cheddar cheese inserted, while I watched an evening of Suits, which was excellent, planning on evenings doing this. I have the first two seasons in hand. Also more c of c soup.

And I was thinking about the upcoming rug, measured what I need, wondered in passing if I could employ bamboo garden canes to construct a temporary loom, couldn't find them. Then I remembered Gary borrowed them to prop up his young corn being flattened by wind and rain, so they're somewhere in here

 So I'll probably use a large frame from one of my stitched wall hangings, about right for the small rug I have in mind.

Yesterday I had things go right, thought I'd mention that because it does happen. The two seasons of Suits both came into together the library for pick up, and the new ATM card actually worked first time, to my amazement. Not only that, but you can now choose the denomination of cash, not just the inevitable and often useless $20, nobody could make change!

Also the slow readers at the credit card company are veering into comic relief territory. Yesterday, after my bank cleared replacement payment, they responded to my days ago message about how they hadn't yet processed the replacement. 

Except they hadn't grasped anything, and explained that the payment had been refused, account closed. That was the initial one, dolts! I responded tersely pointing this out, refraining from name calling though,  and explaining they'd accepted and processed the replacement, so all was settled. I'm looking forward with some glee to their further take on this. I could go on, it's a bit like teasing telemarketers.

Happy day, everyone, celebrate everything! Why not. And the wheat fields symbolized in Ukraine's flag are timely.

Paris, life offering lemons, White rabbits

White rabbits, for July 1st, also Happy Canada Day

 Edith Holden's tribute to July

And a special day for Lucia and her fans

I may reread her in tribute. 

Then life, well Misfits,  literally gave me, well sold me,  lemons, so beautiful I had to take pictures. 

I zested two of them then pitted and sliced them for the freezer. The other two will keep on the counter where I can enjoy seeing them 

Speaking of famous people and streets, more or less, this suddenly showed up on my timeline

This is the street I lived on when I worked in a Paris family as an au pair. I was there in the late 50s.

See the very top floor, under the roof? My private room was a tiny place up there with a marvelous view, much better than my employers ' affluent apartment several floors lower.  The attic floor was the servants quarters when the boulevard was built, dating back to live-in help. Also suitable for starving artists.

Right across the street lived Francoise Sagan, of "Bonjour Tristesse" fame, very young, newly affluent,  and my employer used to grumble at how badly she treated her wildly expensive cars. I used to wonder if a little bit of envy got in there.

Fast forward to now, and this morning I started weaving skirt panel four, 

so happy to be making again. I tried a bit of knitting yesterday, 

and found my neck wasn't quite ready, but getting there.

 Happy day everyone, when life brings lemons, we can try looking for the workarounds. Sometimes there's a workaround.

June's over, Pride isn't.

 

Warping, White rabbits and Flaming June

 White rabbits, June is here

And Pride Month, ally signing in here

Yesterday's warping done, hoping I did the right number of warp strands this time 

Today I'll start threading the heddle

And fast food from leftovers

 Curried cod and broccoli, bound with an egg, in pita bread.  I bless the day I discovered wholewheat pita pockets.

Later today Misfits box arrives, but they were out of onions. Onions. Unheard of shortage.  Now I'm wondering how to manage. I may have to, horror, shop locally in person.  I've got used to the universe putting my groceries on my step now. 

Happy day everyone,  I hope you 'know your onions.  Also that the puzzle answer is

OBNOXIOUS 

We had a lot of fun with the clues to this one.

Billy the Pup wishes us all a good day 

White rabbits, May Day, Beltane, Spaghetti!

Greetings on all fronts. Continuing with the Pitman shorthand theme

It's also the Feast of St Joseph the Worker. I wonder if carpenters used shorthand.

And it's Beltane, between the spring and summer equinoxes, so here's some art

In France you rush out in search of Lily of the valley

In England you get out your Edith Holden

And at home, since May has set in with ferocity, the record rainfall now an icy wind, you stay home and warm and determine finally to read those classics. Or maybe find a shortcut

And Chez Boud, a pot of spaghetti was about right for lunch

Happy day everyone, enjoy whichever version you like. 

White rabbits and swifts

 Happy April

As Chaucer more or less put it;

When that Aprille with his shoures sweet

The droghte of March hath perc'd to the root

As seen here today

Too warm to sleep, so up early, and embarking on breakfast of pita bread filled with havarti cheese and spinach.

I'm rereading Laurie Colwin

And since she's a bit more meat-heavy than I, scrolling by,  but she reminded me about making yogurt, which I used to do all the time. 

Nowadays when I think about it I usually don't have a starter in the house. But right now I have some great Misfits yogurt for starter, and she reminded me of the proportions of starter to milk. 

I also found a mason jar to use, so today I'm all set to make a batch and see how it goes. It will be a bit cheaper than buying but will, even better, save bringing in yet  another plastic container each week.

Yesterday's knitting group was a small one, and our leader brought this in for me to use

 It's a swift, a piece of knitting equipment which helps you turn skeins of yarn into balls of yarn, like this

It beats using a chair back, if you don't have a handy relative to hold the yarn while you wind it. And, as you see, I was down near the end of the current ball.

We were discussing brain fog, mine, and how viruses can cause it, also Lyme disease and other infections. 

Ed note: I edited here to make it clear that Lyme is not a virus. Living almost at ground zero for it, I could hardly fail to know that, but blogista Cathy pointed out my wording wasn't clear. I was just generalizing about ailments that can cause brain fog. Thank you Cathy, and back to the narrative..

 One of the group said well, it took me a year to really recover from the aftereffects of Lyme disease.  And some people, she added darkly, never recover from brain fog. A bit discouraging! She's not known for her tact..

Last evening I made vegetable stock

Which included the peel from a recent batch of ginger, very interesting smells in the house. Later today I'll use it for barley and sausage soup. Stormy weather forecast, so a big pot of soup will be handy.

Happy day everyone, I expect you all played nicely together to solve the word puzzle: 

ORCHESTRA!

Enjoy your day, my usual daily text to Handsome Son.

White rabbits, Happy Imbolc, and St Brigid's Day, and Schubert

 All kinds of things to celebrate today.

We woke to the first snow in over 300 days

Gone in an hour, but the raised light level was a good start.

The days are stretching, the light getting stronger.  Imbolc celebrates the upcoming arrival of growth and spring flowering.

And here's Edith Holden's February entry.

And yesterday was Schubert's birthday. He didn't have many, poor duck, but what he achieved in his life of composition! 

Here's one of the great reasons to be on Twitter, a cellist with his dog,  playing Schubert's Serenade outside his cottage in Western Ireland. Happy birthday, Franz

Check out the melody on YouTube if you're not familiar with it. Or if you are.

Happy day everyone, however you celebrate. Life's a banquet!