curry cravings

pear frangelico not-burning jam

I went to the grocery store tonight and they had a special on local pears. Oh, they looked scrumptious! I decided to make a batch of Charlie's favorite pear frangelico jam. Turns out my 15 pounds was enough to make two batches of jam and a yet-unfinished experimental batch of pear butter. That experiment is currently burbling in the crock pot and will do so for the next 12 hours or so. The jam was scary, since I'm coming off my unprecedented bad streak of TWO jams ruined in a row. Two luscious awesome jams burned and I haven't been able to figure out why.

cooling down

The first was my best-ever strawberry jam. I was so excited that I didn't even write about it. While at the duvall farmer's market with Kristie, I got several pints of possibly the most perfect perfumed hot summer strawberries ever. I labored over them in a painstaking three day maceration process, with gentle boilings, and sugar, and then lime zest, and more gentle boilings, and pectin development in the refrigerator. I even had a SPECIAL set of german jelly jars set aside for the occasion. They close with rubber rings and clips and are beautiful. The end result? Twelve jars of burnt jam in perfect german jars that I am having a hard time finding replacement rubber gaskets for. Those rubber rings? Only useable once, thank you.

would you just look at those perfect berries?

Then came the blackberry bay leaf. I wrote about it the other day but had not followed through with the crucial key step of *tasting* it first. I lovingly spooned some into my breakfast yogurt and when I ate it it was unmistakeably burned. Disgusting black caramel burnt sugar taste. And for each jam, I don't know why! I cooked to below the 221 degree jam set temperature, because each jam just wouldn't get above 218. Was it the natural sugar content? Was I lacking in super jam fairy dust? I will never know, but I do know that I ruined two awesome batches of jam with my bad luck.

The pear jam hopefully will redeem me.

aesthetically pleasing german jars, a thorn in my side

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So I know that if you crave red meat that means you need iron. And peaches can mean a deficiency of beta carotene. Chocolate = b vitamins. Grapes = you may be dehydrated. But curry? Ever since I tried some chicken curry sausages from Larry's Market (a local grocery store) I have been thinking about them. Tonight I managed to buy more and ate them for dinner like they were ambrosia. Oh, so tasty! I am already thinking of how this weekend I can talk Charlie into making me a red curry. He makes such good ones....

two new family members

My drink of choice: Wild Turkey Bourbon. So tasty, so very tasty with two sugar cubes a dash of bitters and a crushed mint leaf.



You know what I also like? Real Live Turkeys. A guy on Craigslist advertised turkey pairs for sale last week. I wasn't really interested in teenage turkeys, but I did email him to ask what his experiences have been with predators and how his large-ish turkeys dealt with it. He's never had a problem with raccoons, which was music to my ears. Also? He had tiny baby chicks, unadvertised. I drove up their today, through two hours of godawful traffic, and was rewarded by a happy flock of Bourbon Red turkeys and miscellaneous chickens. The big tom was funny, strutting around and constantly gob gob gobbling and making sure that we knew exactly how awesome he was. Are they tame? Well, the guy walked over and picked up the tom turkey and cradled him under his arm. All of the teenage flock were way more curious than they were aggressive or scared.

Sold! I brought home two turkey chicks. One is nine days old, the other around three. They have been sleeping nonstop ever since coming home, so the picture is not the most compelling. There is no way to tell if they are toms or hens for the next three months or so. We'll have to be creative with naming. They will be living in the kitchen until the end of September, I suspect. The three month old adolescents the guy had were at least two feet tall, so they get big fast!

the flock of rambunctious teenagers, with dad at one o'clock

I am excited to have friendly hand raised poultry again, and hope that these babies will have a long and happy life.

sweet sleeping babies!

kayaking musicals

And what a full weekend it was! On Saturday I went kayaking with some lovely ladies down on Lake Washington. I've never been to Magnuson Park, and could have spent an afternoon just walking around looking at the abandoned military base buildings. Seattle Raft and Kayak seemed like it was squatting in one of them----I'm sure it's all very official, but there is an overwhelming feeling that it's a ghost town in there. The bathroom for the shop was through a locked door, in a hallway next to big doors marked "Private, Goggles Must Be Worn" and had metal diamonds baked into the wavy glass windows. Very horror show, very oh-please-explore-me. If only I could have! Instead, the lake beckoned. The sun stayed behind clouds for the most part, but that was actually to my liking. Less crazy sunscreen slathering. Windy, too, which made for some energetic paddling. Happily I did not have a repeat of my Uncle Kai kayaking injury from several years ago.

Uncle Kai, I shake my fist at you and your crappy kayaks!

Then on Sunday I took Charlie out on a date to see Young Frankenstein. It is one of his most favorite movies ever, and you have to love a man who not only tolerates my love of Broadway musicals but also admits to liking them himself (he knows the words to The Music Man now!). It isn't often that Seattle is the ramping-up city to a broadway musical, but when it happens MAN do you realize the high caliber of Broadway talent! We sat in the 11th row and spent most of the time laughing uproariously at the unabashedly ribald lyrics and ogling the awesome special effects. I don't think I'm going to rush out and buy the soundtrack, but the entire "Another Roll in Ze Hay" act was really out of this world. I'm torn, because this video showcases the utter idiocy of local news (dig that Enormous Phallic Microphone! Thrill to the embarrassingly dumb constant tv references!) but it does show the most clips from the musical that I could find without outright pirating it. Plus you can hear Mel Brooks make an awesome Danny Kaye reference. Oh god, that enormous phallic microphone.


I might end up buying the soundtrack after all. I mean, there's yodeling in it! The more I write about it the more I remember how incredibly awesome it was. And I haven't even gotten into what is probably their biggest hitting number, the Putting On The Ritz montage where there everyone is wearing tuxes and dancing, and suddenly the theatre goes dark and the strobe lights WHAM every .5 seconds and you see dancers frozen in the air with their top hats and canes and WHAM another pose and then WHAM another and you try so damn hard not to blink because if you do you'll miss something.

It was a super good weekend. Did I mention that Charlie didn't go to work at all? Yay!

secret project: revealed!

on my trusty mannequin

Happy birthday to my mom! She opened her present this afternoon, which means I can finally show pictures of what I've been working on for quite some time. It all started with an issue of Threads Magazine and an article on making clothes from home decor fabrics. There was a jacket (Butterflies and Bees) in one of the pictures, and it just looked like mom. It is lucky I saw the jacket made up in that article, because I would NEVER have looked twice at the pattern. The art on it is horrible, and it calls for ugly shoulder pads, for heaven's sake. I stuck pretty closely to the pattern, but decided to leave the shoulders au natural, thank you very much.

The makeup of the jacket was rather easy actually. I did learn one neat tailoring trick on how to make a fabric-covered loop to use as a button hole.

On the birthday girl

It fits! I am breathing a huge sigh of relief.

Charlie has been home all weekend (!) and spent some time updating his computer. I am always impressed when he's sitting on the floor surrounded by a sea of bits and bobbles and knows exactly how to put it all together. He's playing BioShock, and the soothing sound of gunfire is coming from my left. That tells me all is well!

Sun's Tzu

The latest bit of hilarity from Charlie's soon-to-be-released game.

all the better to see you with

crazy eyes

Originally I was going to put this in as a quick "wow, look at my super dilated pupils from my eye appointment" picture. Now that I really look at it, I have insane eyeballs. This picture hasn't been altered in any way. It's strange enough to see myself without glasses on. My pupils really are freaky and not centered in my irises. And as much as I know I'm a bit wonk-eyed (my glasses prescription includes something called a prism lens, because my eyes don't focus well on their own and I see double) my eyes really do seem to be pointing in wildly disparate directions.

I visited my favorite optometrist yesterday to see about a new pair of glasses. It peeves me when I can't read street signs, and that usually means that I need a stronger prescription. Luckily the older I get the longer I go between visits....almost 4 years this time. In a rare display of continuity in my life, I've actually been going to this eye doctor for almost 8 years. My file has three different last names in it, let's put it that way. He was the first eye doctor that told me that I was really seeing double and actually went on to *fix* the problem, which will forever endear him to me. They don't even take our particular type of optical insurance and I don't care. He gives me 50% off the exam price and I pay it happily. The usual exam is an hour long, and he checks out everything you could ever think of in your eyeballs. His wife runs the non-doctor part of the business and she has fabulous taste in eyeglass frames.

Charlie and I went several weeks ago when I made the appointment to pick out a pair of new frames. I can't manage to pick them out on my own. Really. I quite literally cannot see myself when trying on glasses, and looking at yourself in a mirror from a whopping three inches away doesn't really give you a feel for a new set of frames. Between Charlie and my favorite frame woman, we picked out a set that are perfect. Now I just have to wait three weeks to have them made. That is the crummy part about having a superfreak prescription. It takes forever to get the lenses made.


Dinner tonight: yay for friends with chickens! Mona's flock is laying like gangbusters and she gave me an entire dozen eggs the other day. I made a tiny dent in it tonight by eating two of them, including one of the Very Special Blue Eggs. There is nothing quite so good as a home raised egg. Add it to some diced potatoes and chicken curry sausage from Larry's Market and it was very tasty. I was especially hungry after working all day, mowing the lawn, weeding for two hours, and re-baiting the trap. It's been moved down by the apple trees to attempt to lure evil raccoons. Humans will win!

Oh sure, I have friends who look good in clogs. With their little unicorn hooves instead of feet, they could make clown shoes look cute. They trip-trap down the street, tossing their hair and looking glamorous.

Luckily sometimes your unicorn-hoofed friends have the same foot problems that you do and they let you know that it's not just how the clogs look. It's how great it is to wear shoes that don't make your feet hurt. Dansko clogs have this funky sole that makes your foot rock when you walk, and an insole that gives better support than my prescription orthotics. I'm going to see a new orthopedic guy on Wednesday to see if there is a way to permanently fix my knobby feet and am hopeful that he'll have a better answer than the last doctor I went to ("here are orthotics k thx bye").



My feet are happy! My career as an assassin has been thoroughly destroyed, as I will never be able to sneak up on anyone while wearing them.

mutha uckers

You know what is genius about this? They are actually singing the censorship. No bleeps or sproinks or edits....they are just re pronouncing the words to make them censor-worthy. Add the fact that they are bouncing and looking tough while wearing bicycle helmets and it's enough to make me forget about the chicken carnage.



I don't exactly know what they are talking about doing to a mango, but it is cracking me up.

heart = hardened

bye, penelope

Well, at least Marge and Gladys knew how to fly. I went to go shut the girls up for the night and only the two of them were in the coop. Down in the yard, next to the apple trees was a pile of striped feathers. Whatever got the other girls obviously took Penelope too. I've had my trap out and baited ever since the first episode, and haven't caught anything. Obviously they have a taste for live chicken.

I'm not nearly as upset as the last time. Penelope never was very fond of me, and I quickly adopted a more practical view of fowl-husbandry after realizing I could lose them all at once. I'll just have to content myself with the memory of yesterday evening, when I sat on the stone steps and Penelope ate corn out of my hand and purred and was happy. I had her eggs for dinner tonight and they were tasty. Girl, you gave me a quiche and an egg sandwich and those will have to be the memories.

Definitely no more until the spring. I'm going to keep Gladys and Marge locked up in the coop for at least a week. They shouldn't mind. They are small and for them the coop is enormous. And there will, of course, be treats. I guess I have to break whatever sort of predator rounds this evil is running. Come spring hopefully the bastards will have been run over on the main road or forgotten that our house exists.

I was planning on writing a gushing post about my new orthopedic clogs (really!) but will have to save that for tomorrow.

Leggie Blonde

Leggie Blonde, by Flight of the Conchords



These men have created a work of genius. There is something infinitely pleasurable about musicians who are witty and clever but also have real talent. The last couple of seconds of the video are the best. They remind me of the better days of Tenacious D.

stomping grounds

So much of it was different, and so very much of it had stayed the same. I drove into the city with Mona tonight, to pick up a crib in Queen Anne. We took my car which was a good thing because without my gps I don't think we would have ever found the place. Something happens to residential streets in the city and they become completely inscrutable and impossible to navigate. That part was certainly the same.

I moved to Seattle in 1995 when I was another person. Moved into the city because that's what you do when you're a young couple and you don't have a car and you want to experience the fast paced city life. We lived in Queen Anne for two or three years (I can't remember exactly). I have to look at my resume to figure out when I moved. Most of those early years are completely fogged out of my memory. They were shitty years, quite frankly. Working at crappy jobs, grinding through the day to day to pay the bills and never quite doing it, married to a total creep and never happy.

I don't think about those years very often, but tonight it was so very strange. I was driving around on the tiny winding streets that I used to walk on day after day, past the grocery store where I could only buy what I could carry on the long walk home, the bar that my ex got thrown out of for brawling, the awesome independent used bookstore. A lot of it was the same. A lot of the town has gotten glamorous and condo-filled and hip. Familiar, though. There was another person still in my head, because suddenly the overlay of area knowledge was there and I could navigate. Strange feelings too, as if things suddenly smelled different and I was looking out of different eyes and had a list of things to worry about (bills, could I afford fruit, what was he going to make me do tonight) and there it was, the old me that I forgot was there.

And Mona said "go left, you can sneak over into the lane now!" and I did, and my gps told me to make the next right and I did and and I was totally confused and wasn't sure where I was. But my car reassured me we were on the right path, and we certainly were because minutes later we met a bulldog with a name that meant "awesome warrior" or something like that in Japanese and we got Mona's crib and then went and had sushi. Because my life now? It is different and it is awesome.

Tomorrow's bento highlight is the quiche I made with Penelope's eggs. It took five instead of three because they were small, but I followed Karen's most excellent horseradish and sour cream recipe and it was delicious. Then, a container full of halved supersweet tomatoes sprinkled with pepper and golden balsamic vinegar. For breakfast, yogurt. For an afternoon snack, carrots and three precious baybel cheese cubes. They are tiny but my latest obsession. They posses a sharp tangy flavor that makes your mouth hum.

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 1

pigeons

multi-tiered chickens

Sometimes I think that Marge and Gladys are pigeons. Yes, I know they're not. But they are so tiny! After studying Mona's banty Madam, I don't know if they are going to get any bigger. They still run around the back yard with Penelope, all helter skelter with their tail! feathers! pointing! straight! up!

The most entertaining aspect is their night roosting habit. When they first came home and there was a bit of a war going on in the coop, I strapped a stick up to the top-most level of the chicken coop. Penelope was being more than a little aggressive, and since the babies showed some flying skills I wanted to give them a retreat. Now they have made that stick their night roost. Penelope perches on the rung below them all by herself. I can almost hear her wheedling "c'mon, let me fit up there with you! I'm cool like you are!"

Sorry Penelope. You're a fat-bottomed girl and there's nothing that can be done about that. In the spring you'll have some standard-sized friends but for now your coop-mates are acrobats. At least they don't poop on your head while you sleep!

the girls (and boy) before, in a happy pile

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 1
Eggs used in a tasty quiche today: 5 (mmmm!)

blueberries

Blueberries are one of my favorite fruits. They are tasty and super versatile. Pancakes, jam, syrup, in salads, cereal, or yogurt, and they freeze beautifully. Charlie likes them with sour cream and brown sugar. When we moved into our house there were two mature bushes in the front yard. The pacific northwest is perfect blueberry growing weather. I added in six bushes early this spring and watched as the chickens stripped each one of tender new leaves. I put up a bird mesh fence around the little bushes (in this picture all you can see are the green metal posts---the mesh is almost invisible), and over the summer they regained enough leaves to survive. There won't be many berries from them this year but hopefully next year they will be more robust. The mature plants are a different story. They are loaded with berries. I picked three cups worth just the other night. Tasty!


A sneak preview of a work in progress....

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 1 (Penelope's eggs are getting bigger!)
Eggs laid in the coop Saturday: 1
Eggs laid in the coop Friday: 1

asdw space bar!

my left hand at work this afternoon

So I have this way that I hold my hand on the keyboard. Whenever I'm browsing idly, or at work just thinking, or when I take a pause from typing I have this *way.* My hand naturally comes to rest and it feels good, like I'm prepared for anything.

Prepared to run is what I am. I habitually return my left hand to rest on the keyboard in a very precise way. Pinky on shift, fourth finger A, middle S, pointer D, thumb on the space bar. My right hand rests on the mouse. I am ready for just about any game ever made for the computer.

And I am a dork. I can't help it! I've been playing games for so long that this particular configuration has surpassed the more domestic "asdf" right hand and "jkl;" right hand resting point. If you know how to type, you know what I mean by that. If you have ever played a game, you know how important it is to have your thumb on the space bar.

I wonder if anyone else has ever noticed.



Tonight's bento had a bit more thought than Tuesday's. I came home from work and spent a vigorous three hours cleaning the house from top to bottom. Oh yes, you could totally drop a piece of jammy buttered toast on the kitchen floor, pick it up, and scoop the jam back on top and then eat it. No cooties! You could also drop it on the bedroom rug, but no matter how clean that is there is still the fuzz factor.

After all that cleaning I made a bit of pasta and sauteed up one of mona's zuchinnis. For dinner, I added a bit of red sauce from a jar. I am not a fan of trying to get that distinctive red-sauce stain out of plastic, so I left the sauce off of my lunch portion. To balance out the lunch, some fresh carrots, seedless red grapes, and tomatoes separated by that oh-so-fun sushi grass. The red tomatoes are from the deck garden, and the orange are from the Duvall farmer's market. They are sweet as candy. On the side, plain yogurt plus a spoonful of homemade seedless raspberry jam (swoon!) for breakfast, and a container of peanuts for When Hunger Strikes at odd times.

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 1
Eggs laid in the coop Wednesday: 1

Urban logging

I was driving to work yesterday and noticed that half of one of our neighborhood streets was blocked off by a huge flatbed. Then I saw the Enormous Logs lying there. I've always got my camera within reach, so I managed to snap a few pictures through the windshield (apologies for the blurry-ness). I know that much of the woods around here are an illusion. Many a wooded copse is actually a plot of land that the owner just hasn't gotten around to building on. Our plot of land looks a lot bigger than it is, because the land directly next to us (behind the shed) is one of these "someday" lots. Our chatty neighbor keeps me updated on when she thinks the owner will start building, because she's known him for years. Our three acres should keep us private for the most part, but I know someday there's going to be someone closer to us than I want. I can only hope that they don't have chicken-chasing dogs.

As I was taking my logging pictures, the guys started looking at me and I realized that I looked like some sort of enviro-nazi, gliding down the street silently in my hybrid car with the strange chicken feathers hanging from the rearview mirror. Perhaps they thought I was documenting their Rape Of The Land so that I could come back later and protest? I admit that every time our Woodinville neighbors cut down a grove of trees I shed a little tear. Sometimes I even get a little angry, especially when one of my favorite forests was cut down about a month ago. One day it was a medieval shady druid grove, and the next the trees were magically gone and raw dirt surrounded the poured cement slabs for mega homes.

But I promise to limit myself to heavy leaflet campaigns. And if you get that joke, I applaud you.

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We had a family evening with great friends, something we haven't done with them in absolutely ages. Watched a boy smear beans all over his lap and crow with glee while stuffing a quesadilla fragment into his mouth. Charlie got bitten by mosquitoes while the boy ran around the backyard wielding a yellow shovel. We bought our tickets for Australia, and will be jetting off in mid-november for two weeks of excitement. After years of planning we're finally going!

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Tomorrow's bento: quick and dirty! Chili beans from a can, with corn. On the top level an amalgam of pickled asparagus, orange bell pepper, smoked cheddar cheese, and prunes. I love all of those items separately, but was kind of raiding the kitchen to figure out what to put in there. Perhaps I'll start eating at the right side and move to the left without mixing flavors.

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 1
Eggs laid in the coop Monday: 1
Eggs laid in the coop Sunday: 0
Eggs laid in the coop Saturday: 1
Eggs laid in the coop Friday: 1
How many days I have neglected this blog: obvious

Penelope's triumph

Hens have one behavior that entertains me to no end. Once they are of a laying age, some primal force within them makes them present themselves to a dominant creature. Usually that is a rooster, and the huddling squatting behavior is an invitation to mount. Ursula especially would hunker down just at the sound of my voice.

It's a marvelous opportunity to pet them. Your average chicken doesn't exactly relish a good rubbing, but the feathers are so soft! Smoothing them over and over is a lovely activity. And when she's down there on the ground submitting to you, that's the best time to sneak in a pet.

But the best part? The best part is the !Fluff! that comes when you stop petting. Suddenly the glazed eye look is gone and then hen whuffles out all of her feathers in one energetic puff ball and gives a vigorous shake. As if she had suddenly realized her behavior was that of a brazen hussy and her feathers needed smoothing. Then they wander off as if nothing had happened.

I knew Penelope was getting close to laying her first egg because she's just started the hunkering thing. And sure enough, when I closed up the coop for the night tonight I took a peek in the nestbox and there was a teeny tiny egg. First eggs are usually pretty small. They will increase over time until she's reached her full laying size in a few months or a year. Hers look like they are going to be a soft milky brown. No eating this one though---- each time a hen lays her first egg I poke holes in it with a pin and blow out the inside. I have a little chicken sculpture on top of my desk that has eggs from Ursula, Henrietta, and even one from Hildegarde (a hen I had many years ago).

But the next one....that's for eating!

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 1

Crabby

Some of the ladies, at the beginning of the class

A couple of Sundays ago I took a cooking class. Thank you to Charlie's parents, who were understanding when I disappeared for most of a day while they were visiting. And thank you to Charlie's employer, who sponsors semi-regular "wives event" activities. For a few hours, we are distracted from the fact that our husbands work ceaselessly. But I digress!

The class turned out to be incredibly helpful. The theme was dungeness crab and how to cook it. We'd spend all day cooking and end with a full meal prepared ourselves. The chef running my half of the class was George, a worldly travelled and classically french-trained chef, and he quite obviously had no idea how to relax and teach at the same time. He started out stiff as a board. I tried to be low-key with my enthusiasm, but when you are the only person who comes to the class with your *own apron* then you kind of stand out as a dork. I asked him a few questions, he kind of brushed me off. Irritated, I shucked crabs obediently and grumbled.

Then all of the ladies started drinking wine. And goofing off, and chatting, and doing all of the things that women do at these wife events. They had fun! It was then that I realized that George wasn't just stiff, he was crabby. Hardly anyone was paying any attention to him, and he was trying to teach a class. I really think he was used to being The Teacher, not an entertainer/cook/teacher to a group of women looking to have a good time. The (rather large) kitchen and open dining room area sounded like a raging cocktail party. Luckily he loosened up right around the time that I was flipping crepes. Suddenly he was a totally different guy, laughing and joking and flirting with all of the tipsy women. Later in the afternoon, he told me that he finally had figured out that it was mostly a social gathering, so he just changed his attitude and enjoyed himself and cooked.

The chef's secret: all restaurants get their crab from a can, unless you actually see the crab whole in front of you. And it tastes just as good!

And he taught me! I was on that man like a barnacle, and he streamed information about regional spice palates, how to match a fat with your locale, how to mince a shallot into nothingness, and that "yes, it's ok just leave that chowder with full cream in it at a rolling boil and it will reduce beautifully." I am a pretty aggressive stirrer of pots, so leaving something to just go was a bit alien. By this point, most of the women had moved into the dining room and it was just like having a dinner party at my house except I had chefs there. His assistant (who had been teaching the other half of the class in a separate kitchen) joined up and brought over the food they had made and we had the best time. Maggi and I helped them plate the entire meal. George pulled one awesome "I am the chef and I am working and you are working for me" moment where he forgot he was teaching and gave me a hard time about how I was doing a garnish on the soup. I laughed out loud and just told him to show me how to do it. And damned if I don't know how to do a PERFECT garnish to a crab chowder now.

George and I making some roux

I think I had two spoonfulls of soup and perhaps one crab cake while standing in the kitchen. I didn't even sit down at a table, and that was fine by me. Like most of my cooking, I didn't care about eating. I like the making far more. I was busy soaking up all of the little things you never learn from reading cookbooks. People probably thought I was being a little teacher's pet, but this was the first opportunity I've ever had to cook with a professional. I couldn't waste a moment!

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Chicken update: Marge and Gladys now have full run just like Penelope. I let them out in the morning, and at dusk they go back into the coop like obedient little girls. The three of them are still very skittish (Penelope because I think she's a bit traumatized, the babies because they don't know me) but hopefully that will mellow in time.