What I Left Behind

It is 9^of.
The snow in the firs out my daughter's window looks like Vermont.
The snow crunches underfoot.
I haven't heard that in decades.
--ml
tag: snowscapes

Rain Is Not Just Liquid Sunshine

Sometimes it gets chilly enough around here to transform the whole scene. Here's one of our apple trees:


Here's the poor little brown Washington birds trying to get a bite.


Amazing what happens when you get all those light beams bouncing from grey cloud to white ground and back again!
--ml
tag: Snowscapes

Friday Cat Blogging (Not)

The simonized in the snow.

--ml
tag: Friday cat Blogging

Out Of The Ether

Tiscali UK Ltd asks "Why do sailors wear bell bottoms?"

hmmm ...
Among the answers I know is that, after it became common for sailors to change their clothes (at all, at all), they sailed in ships that were likely to be:

• attacked at any time; or
• were likely to catch a fire

Fireman will tell you that sleeping in fire retardant pants is not pleasant. Yet, getting into one's clobber quickly is very important when the station house bell is ringing.
More so for sailors when a sudden attack lit the companionway to the magazine. Worse, when the oil bunkers caught afire, instant action was required.
For the watch on deck this is not a problem. They are dressed and ready to go.
Since it became acceptable-- and possible -- to sleep in something other then one's workaday clothes, the off watch was in a quandary.
Comfort called for divestment. Readiness called for assumables and shoon. That is: sleep comfortable and be ready to die putting on your clothes; or sleep in your boots and be ready to go without your pants; OR jump out of your hammock in your boots into your pants that get wider toward the bottom to go over your clodhoppers.

If that is too techno-babble an answer how about this:
The girls love a handsome sailor in bell bottoms.

For this reason the US Navy decided to retire bell bottoms as part of the uniform at the height of the winding down of the US-Vietnam conflict when capitalist fashion designers declared the bell bottom IN.

--ml
tags: Design, Bell Bottoms, USN

Moderation, Me Dears

Moderation is all in all.
So be moderate in all things ...
Especially moderation.

--ml
tags: Feast of Holidays, Thanksgiving, aphorisms

Parent Seminar

Wil at WWdN in Exile reports:

Ryan pointed to V for Vendetta, which was on top. "I've been thinking about it, and I think the book is better than the movie," he said.

"It usually is," I said.

"They should have kept in a lot of stuff that they cut, and they sort of changed the entire meaning of the story with the screenplay." He said.

If films were all maxi series and books were all short stories the problem might be less so.
Except:
When I read I see in my head what no director, no camera man, no set (costume, makeup, sound, color) designer ever thought of.
Certainly no producer, not even New Line, would ever approve the cost of bringing that vision to the screen / stage / speaker / museum.
Even if one did, you would accuse it of not being what I saw in my head, let alone what you saw in your own.
If an apple is wanted talk about which apple.
Do not quibble about the mikan.
--ml
tags: Design, adaptation

Thanksgiving: prayer?

Every one of us is in a muddle.
Many of us are in a muddle because of our assumptions.
Many assumptions have some basis in what we agree is reality.
All else follows?

95% of the universe is not just unknown to science...
BUT
Is currently unknowable.

We're working on that.

Still, be thankful that we can.
--ml
tag: Thanksgiving, Feast of Holidays

Thanksgiving III

Or:

Survive the Process

This is part af a multi post about Thanksgiving:
I
II
III
Breakfast
Lunch
Seattle Brown Out Turkey
Tukey Timing Redux
Sides
Afters

You want philosophy? Read my maugerings beginning with Time's Just No Thing and et seq. here and here. Besides wasting your time (possibly pleasurably), these will fortify your comprehension of the ancient new Hassidic-Zen concept that there is time to do what is important to you. Maybe not what you want to do, but what you must do and what is important to you. If that is cooking a feast, so what's the problem? Otherwise you have to choose among the myriad invitations pressed upon you by a breathless public, or wheedle your spouse into watching the game at the brew pub -- she'll love the wide screen and full theatre sound system.

Practically speaking, to those who remain ...

To build your feast without causing your day runner to scream tilt! or your temper to fray way past anybody's enjoyment, you need not to mourn but to organize.
First, observe that a feast need not be many complex dishes. An agglomeration of simple dishes will do the job, provided each is very good or better. By that I mean making from scratch whenever possible.
The big handle on cooking is the difference between preparation and cooking. Cooking is passive for the cook. Prep is active. What can be done ahead? All the cutting? How many steps can you do in the days before the event? What can you start while the first dish cooks? Without getting too far ahead of yourself?
A quarter hour spent planning your menu will go a long long way to de-frazzling the chef.
Here's the plan of battle I drew up for one year:

Tuesday, AM: Shop
Tuesday, PM: Make lime sherbet, cranberry sauce
Tuesday, Eve: Start knot rolls
Wednesday, AM: Finish knot rolls, make pie crust, roast nuts
Wednesday, PM: Assemble rice ring and stuffing up to baking, make pumpkin pie filling
Wednesday, Eve: Turkey into oven for overnight baking.
Thursday, AM: Breakfast, soup, salad and relish for lunch
Thursday, PM: Vegetables, warm stuffing. rice ring and so forth, make gravy, relish tray etc.

This works if you happen to have the days off before Thursday.
Without that luxury you have to do something more like this:

Saturday: Shop
Sunday: Sherbet, cranberry sauce, nuts and pie pastry.
Monday, Eve: Make pie filling,
Tuesday Eve: make rice ring and stuffing.
Wednesday Eve: Start knot rolls overnight. Turkey.
Thursday, AM: Breakfast, bake rolls, make soup, salad for lunch.
Thursday, PM: Vegetables, pies, warm it up, gravy and serve.

The point of the feast is to be mindful of the good in our lives. Good food is surely one of these. It's preparation, if fun, will make it so.
--ml

tags: Feast of Holidays, Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Afters

This is part af a multi post about Thanksgiving:
I
II
III
Breakfast
Lunch
Seattle Brown Out Turkey
Tukey Timing Redux
Sides
Afters

Dorothy used the Nonesuch condensed mincemeat by Borden and reconstituted it with a teaspoon from a small flask of Christian Brothers Brandy which appeared to me to last all through my childhood until as a teen I finished the half bottle mixed with various fruit juices. I survived. Not only the drink but also the pies and with an intact liking for mincemeat. Yes, I am aware that this places me in a minority. Again. But I do.
I have tried several recipes for Mincemeat, including ones that do include meat. The one I return to since I first acquired the recipe a quarter century ago is in "Great Britsh Cooking: A Well Kept Secret" by Jane Garmey (Random House 1981) It is readily available still in paperback from the usual suspects. In my experience it has only excellent recipes. Naturally I make changes, many of which are reflected below. I don't peel my apples, she does. I use ginger root instead of powder. She calls for brandy which I replaced with a dark rum which I preferred. That of late has been too hard on my blood sugar so I am trying a single malt Scot's whiskey (which does not bother my glucose). Ordinarily I consider that too good to be wasted by admixtures of any description. But what the hell. If you make it, do make enough to keep for next year. Already good, it will be much improved.

Mincemeat

1 cup beef suet, shredded
1/2 cup fruit mix
1 cup golden raisins
1 cup currants
1 cup Thompson raisins
1 wineglass dark rum
3 medium green apples, diced
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/2 cup marmalade
1/4 tsp nutmeg, grated
3/4 cup almonds, chopped
1 slice ginger root, smashed
1 cup brown sugar

Mix all in a large bowl.
Cover with a cloth and
leave in a cool place overnight.
Next day Mix thoroughly
pack in sterile jars and
seal in hot water bath
for 5 minutes (sea level)
Make at least 3 weeks
ahead of time.
Keep it for a year for the best flavor.

Pastry is the reaction of flour and fat to heat. Gluten is a valuable ingredient in flour if you are making bread. Well developed gluten encloses gases released by the yeast as bread rises. Without the gluten the dough would pass the gases, so to speak, and collapse. But in pastry well developed gluten makes the crust as tough as shoe leather. Work quickly and lightly when mixing and rolling pastry. Roll the dough in one direction only to give the gluten as small a work out as possible. Use pastry flour or flour that is low in gluten (a soft wheat, not a hard wheat) and free of the most glutenous parts of the wheat grain. Keep making it and before very long you will receive accolades for your pies. Here's my current implementation. It freezes well for other times of the year. The lard does make a difference to the flakiness of the crust, while butter provides flavor. There are many other fats that work as any basic cookbook will show.

Pie Pastry
Yield: 3 Pies
-ml- Lard to make it flaky,
Butter to make it tasty.

1/2 cup lard
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
2 tbl ice water, approx.
21/2 cups flour

Cut lard and butter into flour and salt
until the texture of coarse meal.
Add just enough ice water to
gather the pastry in a ball. Chill.
Cut in thirds.
Roll one third out for each crust.
Prick all over the bottom
for a crisp pastry.
This makes pastry for
a one crust pumpkin
and a two crust mince.

Dorothy would say "All our pies are pumpkin" in that particular way that people use to signal they are quoting. I remain ignorant of the source to this day. So all my pies are not pumpkin. Neither were Dorothy's.

The special features of this recipe is the flavor given by the molasses and the coarse, slightly lumpy texture of the filling. If you insist you can use pumpkin instead of another squash.
But why would you do that when the sweet flavor of a delacottia is available?
Del once had a pumpkin that was a runner-up for the largest pumpkin category at the county fair. It was on the porch in good time for Halloween with a scary face carved in the street side. But Del couldn't see wasting all that pumpkin. He cut a slab of about a half square foot out of the back and boiled it up for dinner. That squash lasted he and the large family he was sharing the house with for pies and vegetables all winter long. It wasn't until February that blue fuzzies appeared on the pumpkin meat because the temperature warmed up.

Pumpkin Pie Filling

Yield: 6 Servings

1 squash
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbl molasses
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp ginger 1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
Cook butternut, acorn, or other squash.
Preheat oven to 400°f.

Place 1½ cups squash, in chunks, in a bowl.
Add remaining ingredients and mix.
Keep texture coarse. Pour into single crust.
Bake 40 minutes

--ml
tags: Feast of Holidays, Thanksgiving, Afters

Thanksgiving Sides

This is part af a multi post about Thanksgiving:
I
II
III
Breakfast
Lunch
Seattle Brown Out Turkey
Tukey Timing Redux
Sides
Afters

Here we have a plethora of sides among which you may pick and choose as pleases you and yours.

Brussels Sprouts With Chestnuts
2 cups Brussels sprouts
1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup chestnuts
2 tbl butter
Steam sprouts. Blanch and shell chestnuts. Sauté in sugar and butter. Mix.

It may be that Dorothy's straight forward presentation had a lot to do with my early rejection of turnips.

Dorothy's Turnips
Peel and dice a cup of turnips. Cover with water. Salt and bring to a boil. Simmer 'til done. Add salt, pepper and butter and serve. Treat rutabagas the same way.

As I said, Dorothy liked turnips and rutabagas.
One of my versions:

Turnip Yer Nose
3 lbs turnips
3 tbl cilantro
3 cloves garlic
3 tbl rice vinegar
1 tbl sesame oil
1 tbl sugar
1 tbl sesame seeds
2 tbl Canadian bacon
Peel and dice turnips. Simmer 'til just cooked. Drain.
Mix remaining ingredients. Add to turnips and toss to coat.
Var: use fresh tarragon instead of cilantro and omit garlic.

Another possibility:

Baked Turnips And Cream
(with apologies to whoever I stole this from and forgot to note down.)
½ cup cubed bacon
6 medium turnips, peeled and sliced 1/8 inch
3 leeks (white portion only) cleaned and sliced
3 cups whipping cream
3 tbl Dijon mustard
2 tsp nutmeg
salt & pepper
Fry bacon until almost crisp; drain. Layer raw turnips with bacon and leaks in baking pan. Combine whipping cream, Dijon mustard and nutmeg in a small bowl; season to taste with salt and pepper. Pour over turnips. Bake at 350º for 1 to 1 ½ hours or until tender. Serves 6 to 8.

Here is this year's new addition which probably has appeared at many other tables unbeknownst to me.

Crustless Leak Quiche
2 tbl ham cubed
3 or 4 leaks, cleaned and sliced.
1 lb Gruyeres cheese cubed.
1 cup whipping cream
3 eggs
nutmeg
celery seed
cayenne pepper
salt and pepper.
Butter a baking dish and fill with the first three ingredients.
Whisk remaining ingredients in a bowl and pour over leaks.
Bake in 350º f. for ½ hour or until done.

This is straight off the Ocean Spray package:

Cranberry Sauce
1 cup water
1 bag (12 oz) cranberries
1 cup Sugar
Rinse and pick over cranberries.
In a saucepan bring sugar and water to a boil.
Add cranberries and return to boil. Stir.
Reduce heat to a slow boil for 10 minutes. Stir. Cool and refrigerate.

Ann does this which we very much prefer:

Cranberry Chutney
Gourmet Magazine Nov 2000
Makes about 2 cups
5 shallots (6 oz) coarsely chopped
1½ tbl vegetable oil
12 oz cranberries
2/3 cup sugar
¼ cup cider vinegar
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp minced peeled fresh ginger
½ tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper
Cook shallots in oil in a 3 qt heavy saucepan over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until softened. Stir in remaining ingredients. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until berries pop, about 10 to 12 minutes, then cool.
Note: may be made 1 wk ahead and chilled, covered

Ann comments: It keeps for quite awhile in fridge, though is so good it can be eaten by the spoonful from the jar and thus doesn't stay around long.

Now for the carbs. Hooray!

Potatoes With A Butter Mine
-ml (Stolen from Phyllis)
8 medium red potatoes, peeled
6 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
3/4 cup butter
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/2 cup milk
salt & pepper
Cook potatoes. Drain. Reserve water. Add ¼ cup butter, ½ cup milk, garlic, cayenne, salt & pepper. Whip in electric mixer until smooth. Add reserved potato water if needed. Put in serving bowl. Push remaining stick of butter into the middle. Mold potatoes to hide the butter.

Melissa prefers Yukon golds. Oh well. Works.

Rice Ring
-ml- From Phyllis who used all wild rice. I sometimes mix wild and pearl (short grain.) Long grain also works.
Wild rice calls for simmering about 40 minutes to cook. 1 cup of rice to 3 cups of water. Or use dilute (1 can stock to 2 cans water) chicken stock. A rice cooker, which is my preferred method for cooking long and short grain rice, doesn't do it. Shitakes are wonderful in this. Any mushroom you like would be.
2 cups rice
21/4 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup butter
6 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
2 medium onions
8 oz brown mushrooms, sliced
salt & pepper
Cook rice in stock. Add ¼ stick butter. Set aside. Sauté garlic, onions and mushrooms in remaining butter. Add to rice. mix. Pour into a buttered mold or covered casserole. Bake in 350°f. oven for 30 minutes (or more) Unmold onto platter to serve.

Onion & Sage Stuffing
-ml- loosely based on Dorothy
1 loaf bread
1/4 lb butter, melted
2 tsp celery seed
3 medium onions, chopped
1 celery with leaves
1 tbl thyme, fresh chopped
2 tbl sage, fresh chopped
pepper
1 can (10.5 oz) chicken stock
2 cans (10.5 oz) water
Leave the bread out for a day or two to dry out. Dice into ½" cubes. Place in a large bowl with the rest of the ingredients. Mix Thoroughly. Pour into 2 buttered casseroles. Cover (with foil if no lid.) Bake in 325°f. (or more whatever °) for a minimum of 30 minutes. After that hold at the cook's pleasure.
-n.b. Stuffing in the bird's cavity spends too long at the proper temperature to grow unwelcome critters.

Turkey Stuffing
-ml- experiment #1 of 11/98. If you make bread often this may interest you.
¹/₃ cup water, lukewarm
1 tsp salt
1½ tbl yeast
½ cup butter
2 tbl honey
1 cup celery with leaves, chopped
1 cup regular rolled oatmeal
2 cups onion, chopped
4 cups bread flour
1 can (10.5 oz) chicken stock
1 can (10.5 oz) water
2 tbl olive oil
2 tbl sage
1 tbl thyme
¼ tsp cayenne
1 tbl celery seed
Three or four days ahead:
Proof yeast in lukewarm water and honey.
In a bowl combine yeast with oatmeal, oil, sage, thyme, salt and 2 cups flour. Mix. Add rest of flour. Knead. Rise. Form into a long loaf. Rise.
Preheat oven to 400°f. Bake loaf 25 to 30 minutes. Spritz well to make heat moist.
Let loaf dry at room temperature until ready to make dressing.
Cut bread into ¾" cubes.
Sauté onions and celery in butter until translucent.
Mix with bread. Add stock and water. Season with pepper and cayenne.
Pour into 2 buttered casserole and cover.
Bake above 325°f. for at least 30 minutes.
- n.b.: Heating stuffing in the bird's cavity makes a very good growing media for nasty critters because it takes so long to get the stuffing above 120°f. This method reduces the chance of ruining a fine holiday.

So that does it for side recipes. What about the main event: the turkey? Oh that's here and here.
And then there are afters.
--ml
tags: Feast of Holidays, Thanksgiving, side dishes