Thoughtful Memorial Day, first strawberry, the Calgary marathon, food capers

 Yesterday strawberries were in at the farm

And I took the first bite of the year. I learned this pleasure, like a lot of other pleasures, from Handsome Partner. He loved strawberries, and made a ritual of the pure enjoyment of that first bite each year.

His birthday was in June, so I made him strawberry shortcake each year.  We remember him on his birthday rather than the day he died, since that was on Handsome Son's birthday in August.

This morning's breakfast was pita bread stuffed with fruit as it often is. Today it's strawberries. Everything in season.

And since recent storms flattened the flowers, including the sage blossoms, I brought them in as edible cut flowers.

They'll go in the freezer once they fade, for future cooking.

Speaking of which, there's a current exhibit of paintings from the 18th century Mughal era in India, where smells and touch and taste are all part of the experience. 

It's curated by a perfumer, currently involved in creating edible perfume,  and an art curator.

Here, in the last picture, the narcissus, symbolic of desire and the evocation of scent, is in action.

Those paintings are so much more life-filled than I realized, full of sensuous experience.

Crashing back to my kitchen, I used up most of the mushroom mixture I'd made for ravioli, and the roasted vegetables you saw a while back, only I filled the last of the frozen pasty dough with them, along with hot sausage.

And made artisan all looking big pasties.

Then, since the mixtures were now thawed, I needed to use the rest of them up. 

So here goes red and brown lentil and pasta soup, using the rest of the roasted vegetables and the mushroom mix, plus that tomato water I saved from earlier. I knew those pulse foods would come in handy. Sooner than I expected.

But, best for last, my honorary grandie ran the Calgary marathon yesterday, raising a ton of money for cancer research, and a personal best! She sent me a Garmin link to follow her progress in real time

The link came complete with stats including heart rate, and like a true grandma, I checked that hers was raised but not too high!

A big yell of excitement here when she achieved her goal, well, a couple of goals. In recent years she's run marathons and shorter races, getting huge fun out of what seems to me like the impossible! 

Celebrate life with us, while remembering today the people who died in war and who enable us to celebrate life.

Thoughtful and grateful day, along with grieving. The shakuhachi effect.

Fast food for the week

I keep wearing my new jacket, today with the tee I embroidered with a flower for some reason, probably to cover something. I like it a lot

Anyway, with a Simon Brett mystery audiobook going in the background, I made the makings of vegetable pasties for the freezer.

Simple dough, whole wheat and white flour, hot water, olive oil, stir, knead, leave to rest 

covered with a plastic bag.

Then with my handy bench scraper, which does a lot of jobs, cut it into six equal pieces.

I like rolling dough. This kind needs a floured surface, not to avoid sticking, oil pastry doesn't, but to get traction! Otherwise it slides all over. 

Six big thin circles, more or less, will make a crisp pasty but strong enough to hold the filling.

And here they're on parchment paper, ready to fold over, so there's one per level,  to slide on a tray and freeze

Meanwhile I'd been roasting vegetables.

Onions, brussel sprouts, cauliflower greens.  (the leaves), leeks, doused with Worcestershire sauce, bit of salt, bit of Old Bay seasoning, olive oil.  Hot oven for about 30 minutes.

And here corralled onto a freezer safe container.

So I have the makings of six pasties, maybe a couple of them for Handsome Son. Possibly with hot sausage. Or chicken. Bit of ham.  We'll see. 

Two items waiting at the library now, the DVD of Howard's End, I'll let you know how it goes, and No one is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood. She's winning all before her, so I  would like to see why. Steve, are you familiar with her?

Happy day everyone. Fight on. 

Ukraine won Eurovision! I wouldn't put it past Zelenskyy to show up,  with an apron over his fighting gear, and sweep the Great British Bake Off any time now. Ukraine's unstoppable. As I think Putin is finding.

Quiet day for the Fourth

 Today was about gardening until I got too tired, clearing dead foliage, generally cleaning up and returning the debris to the earth among the trees where it's good for the ground. It does look much better.

Lavender's fading now but will bloom again at least once. Last year three periods of bloom. And the daisies are coming along.

The thyme is blossoming now, lovely tiny flowers

 

Stella d'Oro daylilies in full swing. They're all over this development, from my stealth gardening, planting them around the dumpster areas, and giving divisions to neighbors. 

There's a healthy stand of them, and pachysandra, in the median strip of a highway in Trenton, from bags of divisions  which I gave a teacher working on the environment with her high schoolers. That was a very happy Freecycle a few years ago.

Here are the beginnings of the white chrysanthemums, just budding up, and next door is packed with bloom, some from seeds I'd collected on the sidewalk down the street, and gave him because I had no space!

After this strenuous time, not as energetic these days,  l retreated to rest (!) by making pasties from scratch. Yes, funny way to rest, I know.

Ready to steam spinach, microwave yellow potatoes, saute mushrooms and scallions and grate parmesan, for stuffing pasties using a different dough.

Bolted whole wheat and regular wholewheat

olive oil, hot water, not milk.

Stuffing under way, then mixed with an egg, the cheese, pinch of baharat, and spiced ground salt. Of course!

The dough was drier than with milk, easy to roll and manage and fill

And here's lunch,  decorated with Thai basil, which is now growing fast out there, and some Bad Food chips there.  

I think next time for the dough I'll do half water half milk, because it was just a bit sort of floury, though good. Adding milk with water will give a nice texture to work and to eat. At least that's the plan. Enough stuffing for  about six pasties in all.  

Glass of sun tea, with lemon slice.

This is pretty labor intensive foodbst the outset, but it's so good and it makes a lot. Then for several days meais are pretty fast. Dough's ready in the freezer, filling's in the fridge. Just bake.

While I'm getting all up there about my kitchen prowess, such as it is, I should show you a couple of tools.

Here's my coffee maker. Very technically advanced

Piece of ancient linen, ancient filter. I simmer coffee grounds in milk and water, just bring to a boil, then pass once through the strainer lined with the linen, into the cup. Done. Excellent coffee. Strong not bitter, snarling with caffeine as I like it. 

And my grinder cost me $10 about forty years ago literally. 

And already, already, the blades have lost their end bits, from dealing with tough chickpeas, and the lid has seen better days. But the motor still runs fine.  Two speeds -- off, or running like it's trying to get away, hold on there.

And there's a fun preschool activity yet to do, matching the lids and containers from yesterday's spiceapalooza.

I'll save that for tomorrow. Can't handle any more excitement today.

Pocket coda, friendship coda with cicadas, chai coda, pasty coda

The coda on friendship: I did reference human friendship and everybody politely stayed within the frame of reference. But my friends include animals and plants. 

Two of these converged yesterday when the five year old grandchild visiting next door came to show me her new friends, cicadas in a jar. Just caught for a while to see them up close. 

She took one out to introduce me, and it gave a rattly squeak. I said he's talking to you. She: Yeah, when I pinch his butt he does that. Me: Do you think he's saying  ouch? She: Ohh. Maybe. Me: I like him. She: Yeah. Im putting him in the tree now. And off she went,  mission accomplished.

I doubt if I will live to experience another 17 year cicada season. So this was a great moment of friendship across race and species and age, all at once.

On to less weighty subjects.

More on the endless world of pockets, with another Pro Tip from Polly Pockets here. 

Here's another beloved linen shirt, altered to suit. Roll sleeves, cuffs long gone into some art or something, tail shortened to my liking. It already has a pocket but things can fall out if you bend to see stuff out walking. So it does need help.

As you see, the tail, complete with one button and button hole, still available. Which gave me a cool idea.

Before the cool idea, see that little pink item. It's a Tiny Pocket, a finger in the eye of manufacturers who love them. It's going on the chest opposite the side of the Useful Pocket on the pink shirt. More than one way to achieve balance. Small can weigh large. And a couple of square inches of linen can be a political statement.

And the cool idea is: these two cut out pocket bits, where the shirt tail curve is the pocket top, very well finished already, the front side finished, too, and only the hem and underarm side need my finishing. 

Tune in here for Simple Stuff I Can Do to Get Pockets and Smash the  Patriarchy.

This will happen tomorrow in daylight. 

Meanwhile another version of pasties, this time they probably have a name I don't know, and if you do, please say.

Granny Smiths, with nutmeg, cinnamon, golden raisins, small amount of sugar, usual tortilla dough except bolted flour. 

The flour is very delicate in this recipe, probably needs regular wholewheat combined. That's why it looks a bit lacy. I mean artisanal.

They were very good though, plenty more to come, and triggered another Clever Tip for Cooks Running to Catch up with the Big Kids. 

I finally got around to finding a little shaker for the confectioners sugar, see here. Filled it before I could say I was too tired, and there it is.  This has taken years to accomplish.

When I was first learning American labeling, a friend who cooks and bakes like a pro, gave me a handwritten itrecipe for her lemon bars, which I've since made many times for appreciative audiences. 

I noted the abbreviation she used for the sugar and asked her "what's this ten times sugar?" Such a look of compassion she gave me, never forgotten. 

And now it's short stories and chai.

That's another of those trap words like tea. 

If a Brit invites  you to tea, you're not going to get a cup of hot water with a teabag in it.  You've been invited to a meal, all baked from scratch. At my house, anyway,  including the bread in the little sandwiches, and the jam, a couple of kinds of cake, maybe a savory, and a fresh pot of tea, choice of lemon or milk. Nice cups. Napkins. Clean tablecloth.

When an Indian offers you chai you get this recipe I made, made slowly and with care, with milk. 

Yet chai just means tea. And you can get spice mixes called chai which are lovely, but not the classic Indian recipe.  It all depends on context.

I blame the English for all this confusion. For everything, really.

Latest dispatch from the chai front and other reports as they break

I tried the chai last evening, as a replacement for my golden milk, and it went pretty well. The mix is a bit heavy on pepper for my taste, but it's a great improvement to hold down the sweetening. Just enough sugar to oppose the spices is fine for me. 

You use just a couple of teaspoons of the spice mix, simmer several minutes in a milk and water mix, strain and drink.

I might start trying out my own mixes. There's no ingredient list with this mix, but I identified cloves, cardamom, fennel seed, coriander seed,  caraway seeds, nutmeg, ginger and the base black tea, very finely ground tea though, not the big leaves. All of which I have.

And I found out how to dry the mix after use, by accident. I'd emptied the strainer back into the pan, thought it was switched off. Well, it was on the lowest setting. Good thing I went in there later, before the pan burned through. 

So I now have a little collection of dried spices which might work nicely the next time I make crackers. They still have flavor but it's muted, after what it's been through.

Today was a pasty day, mushrooms, hot sausage, onions. This is enough for two filings. 

And it was a day for while I'm at it cooking, meaning the oven will be at 400°f for the pasty baking, so I may as well roast a head of garlic while I'm at it.  Pasties need about 20 minutes, garlic nearer an hour.

So the garlic, muffled in foil, drizzled with olive oil, then completely enclosed, set into its own pan, went in while the dough was resting.

Today's dough, it's different every time, was lovely to handle, velvety, not sticky, just a treat. I rested it only 20 minutes, not the official hour, but I wasn't making tortillas, so I think that counts. And I pretty much guessed the quantities. 

I remembered at the last minute that I needed Parmesan cheese. And that it was solidly frozen. So I thought arghgh, then, wait, I bet my microplane will work for this. I mainly use it for zesting. And it did work lovely.

Then when I was cleaning up afterwards, I noticed on the blade guard

Now, no fair expecting me to read it. I was just feeling so smart for having this cool idea.

Anyway, a nice lunch happened, despite the cook.

Here's the garlic nicely roasted to where you can scoop it out to spread. The spoonful shows you. This will go into a jar for all kinds of uses, including garlic bread.

And the pasty was pretty good. Dressed up with a sprig of sage. See the blossoms? Like snapdragons. Also known as antirrhinums. 

The rhin bit tells you noses are involved, and it turns out this muzzle shaped flower head is named from its resemblance to a calf's nose! It's a brilliant piece of engineering.

That front petal bit serves to stop too small insects from pollinating it. They have to be big enough to push past it, so the designated bees get in and wannabes don't.

I saw this in action when I picked it, a couple of tiny insects trying  unsuccessfully to get in, and sort of wandering around looking for another door, I suppose. 

It occurs to me, a bit slow on the uptake, that cooking and inventing in the kitchen has taken the place for me, of making and exhibiting art.

It's an art form, as one of my art teachers pointed out to me reproachfully, when she found a few years ago I wasn't much into food, at least talking about it. 

It's art and invention and skills and technique and realizing connections you hadn't before. Just like studio art. And letting things happen and experimenting and listening to your materials. And rarely following instructions.

I'm finding that when I would go into the studio in the past is when I go into the kitchen now, with much the same attitude. Just a general idea, which will become a meal on a plate.

 Sharing with Handsome Son and neighbors is the new version of the art opening. 

Cool.