A Month of Orange: Lobster Roll

OK, I'm cheating, but I had to show off my lunch from our trip last month.  I'm counting the toasted roll and fries as orange.  We took a Holland America cruise from Montreal, to Quebec, to Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, to Bar Harbor, and finished up in Boston.  It was great fun.  Beautiful scenery, light houses, flowers, history, the works.

When we tendered in to Bar Harbor, the day was not very nice.  It was cold and raining.  Luckily for us, we had spent a week in Acadia National Park about twenty years ago, and had wandered up and down touristy Bar Harbor then, when the weather was warm and sunny.  The weather being what it was this particular day, we ducked into one of the first restaurants we saw near the water, and I ordered this wonderful lobster roll with sweet potato fries and (to quote the young woman who served us) a "wicked hoppy" IPA.  When I took this photo I had already polished off a cup of clam chowder so delicious and filled with tender clams that I wanted to purr like a cat.

There is nothing more to say.  That lunch was just about perfect.

Capping Off Summer

 Dubuque Museum of Art - with huge statues to the left

Summer seems to be winding down here in southern Wisconsin.  The evenings are getting cooler, the nights filled with the sounds of crickets, the flowers looking tired and ragged.  My husband celebrated his birthday this week, and his desire was to take a multiple day bicycle ride home from the Mississippi River.  The weather forecast for the week looked good, so we drove west to Dubuque, and stayed over at the Hotel Julien Dubuque - very nice indeed.  Then he took his bicycle off the rack, hooked on the panniers, and left for a ride that included a side trip to the Quad Cities, a total of nearly 3oo miles by the time he returned home yesterday.

I had wanted to see the Dubuque Museum of Art, but it was closed on Monday when we arrived, so before I left Tuesday I waited around for it to open.  I wanted to see both their current exhibit of folk art, and their collection of Grant Wood art.  The museum opens at 10 o'clock, so I had time to sit in the park across the street and sketch the giant American Gothic figures that stand near the entrance.

My quick sketch of the statues - complete with a giant suitcase

The original Grant Wood painting, taken on a recent trip to the Chicago Art Institute

Before coming back home I drove north on the Iowa side of the Mississippi to McGregor, where I had made arrangements to be outfitted as a Victorian lady for a couple upcoming events with our historical society.  River Junction Trade Co. is a wonderful place, two stores, one for men and another for women.  It is filled with everything a historical society docent or re-enactor could need - hats, shoes, fans, dresses, undergarments, jewelry, anything.  I ended up with a walking skirt, mutton-sleeve shirtwaist, belt and cape.  I'm still considering what to do for a hat, but I had reached the full amount I had budgeted.

Mel helped me select clothing appropriate for a Victorian lady. My outfit is considerably less flashy than hers!

I had some time once I got home to read, water the garden, and take my annual trip to the Walworth County Fair.  It was hot, so I was not too surprised to find the midway uncrowded.  Or perhaps it was just because it was a weekday, and most adults were working.  Being retired, I not only got in for a reduced admission, but got to visit on a day the building were almost empty, and no lines at the stand with pork sandwiches, or cream puffs.  

It was crowded for the pig races, though.  These little porkers seem more than happy to scramble for the chance at an Oreo cookie.

I enjoy the fair, seeing the garden produce, the 4-H projects, the antiques.  I like wandering through the barns, seeing kids washing and brushing their cattle, feeding their chickens or rabbits, showing their goats or sheep.  But it always feels a little sad too, remembering how the fair was always a place to win ribbons, meet friends, ride the rides, mooch quarters off my dad or grandfather, who always seemed to be there too.  I did see one friend from school at the fair, but all in all, I felt a little like Rip Van Winkle, unrecognized in a familiar but changed place.

It's Fun to Cook, Circa 1959

 A couple years ago I posted a picture of me at a 4-H summer cooking class my neighbor held.  This was our Favorite Foods project guide, produced by the University of Wisconsin Extension Service in Madison.  I don't know what happened to my old copy.  I probably left it with my mother who probably eventually got sick of the food stained yellow booklet and threw it away.  But it's summer, and I got to remembering those cooking classes with my friends, and longed to find a copy.  I scored this one from an online auction site, and then the woman who was the Home Economics agent in Walworth County sent me a photocopy of hers, and so now I have two.

It's ironic that I was so nostalgic for this little booklet, since for the past twenty years or so I have turned over the kitchen to my husband.  He likes preparing food, hunting for recipes, and even shopping, all of which I find to be tremendous drains on time I would rather spend other ways.  I do like to bake occasionally, always have liked baking.  But in summer I get the evil eye from him when I fire up the oven and heat up the house, and neither one of us needs bakery laying around the house.

Still, reading over the booklet, I have the urge to make one of the recipes a week, including the cheese casserole recipe that our 4-H leader despised and skipped over every year. 

An anonymous reader of this blog asked for the muffin recipe, and now I have it.  The recipe looks quite plain, but I bet the muffins are good right out of the oven with a little jam. I remember having an awful time learning to mix them just enough, not too much.  My first ones were dense, heavy, and full of the dreaded tunnels. Eventually I learned to use a lighter touch.

Yummy Muffins

2 cups sifted flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
1/4 cup soft or melted fat

1.  Heat the oven.  Set the control for 400 degrees F.
2.  Grease muffin cups using a piece of waxed paper
3.  Sift together the measured flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a large bowl.  Make a well in the center.

4.  In a small mixing bowl beat the egg until it's foamy.  Add the milk and melted fat.
5.  Add the milk mixture all at once to the dry ingredients.
6.  Stir until the dry ingredients are moist but the mixture is still slightly lumpy.  It takes about 17 to 25 strokes.  Over-mixing will cause tunnels in the muffins and they will be heavy and tough.
7.  Fill the greased muffin cups 1/2 to 2/3 full.
8.  Put in preheated oven. Bake 15-20 minutes.

Variation: You may vary the muffins by adding one of these:
1. 1/2 cup chopped nuts
2.  3/4 cup fresh blueberries
3.  1/2 cup chopped cranberries
4.  3/4 cup cut-up dates

Good muffins are:

Light for their size
Golden brown
Slightly rounded on top - without knobs or peaks
Even in texture - without tunnels running from the botton crust to the top
Pleasing in flavor

Smokin'!

It's really really hot this week in southern Wisconsin.  Today it hit 100 degrees in Janesville, and it was not dry heat.  There's a burning ban in effect in most of the state, and lots of Independence Day fireworks displays have been delayed or canceled.  Not here though - I guess shooting pyrotechnics out over the Rock River is safe enough.

I'm not sure if the ban extends to outdoor grilling; I don't think folks would stand for that.  The heat got me thinking about this 1956 snapshot of Grandpa Tess, dressed up in his Fathers Day apron and cap, cooking burgers on a very low-tech grill. Genius at Work is what the get-up says.  I remember that they set up picnic tables in the garage, and we all settled in for burgers, chips, potato salad, and Cokes.

In the background our old green car is there, heating up in the sun. Nobody had air conditioning, and cars certainly did not have any way to cool down except by rolling down all the windows - by hand.  It made for some steamy vacations.

Immigrant Picnic
By Gregory Djanikian

It's the Fourth of July, the flags
are painting the town,
the plastic forks and knives
are laid out like a parade.

And I'm grilling, I've got my apron,
I've got potato salad, macaroni, relish,
I've got a hat shaped  
like the state of Pennsylvania.

I ask my father what's his pleasure
and he says, "Hot dog, medium rare,"
and then, "Hamburger, sure,  
what's the big difference,"  
as if he's really asking.

I put on hamburgers and hot dogs,  
slice up the sour pickles and Bermudas,
uncap the condiments. The paper napkins  
are fluttering away like lost messages.

"You're running around," my mother says,  
"like a chicken with its head loose."

"Ma," I say, "you mean cut off,
loose and cut off   being as far apart  
as, say, son and daughter."

She gives me a quizzical look as though  
I've been caught in some impropriety.
"I love you and your sister just the same," she says,
"Sure," my grandmother pipes in,
"you're both our children, so why worry?"

That's not the point I begin telling them,
and I'm comparing words to fish now,  
like the ones in the sea at Port Said,  
or like birds among the date palms by the Nile,
unrepentantly elusive, wild.  

"Sonia," my father says to my mother,
"what the hell is he talking about?"
"He's on a ball," my mother says.
                                                     
"That's roll!" I say, throwing up my hands,
"as in hot dog, hamburger, dinner roll...."

"And what about roll out the barrels?" my mother asks,
and my father claps his hands, "Why sure," he says,
"let's have some fun," and launches  
into a polka, twirling my mother  
around and around like the happiest top,  

and my uncle is shaking his head, saying
"You could grow nuts listening to us,"  

and I'm thinking of pistachios in the Sinai
burgeoning without end,  
pecans in the South, the jumbled
flavor of them suddenly in my mouth,
wordless, confusing,
crowding out everything else.

Brand New Pair of Roller Skates

Naw, this photo doesn't have a thing to do with roller skates.  This is me at the reception for a show called The Art of Cooking - Featuring the School of Eclectic Art, at Promega Corporation in Fitchburg.  The show runs through 7 September, and is worth a look.  I took my watercolor of two lemons on a Mexican Talavera bowl, and I have to say that it looks fine in the lobby of this gorgeous biotech building.  The reception was fun, exceptionally well attended, with lots of delicious food and drink and live music.  I felt just a bit fraudulent in that I avoid cooking at all costs, but since I enjoy painting food items I guess it is all good.

I haven't been doing much new painting lately, focusing my efforts instead on weekly figure drawing sessions at UW Whitewater.  The exception was this miniature, a 5x5 inch acrylic painting based on an old photograph of my mother posing in her clip on roller skates.  The faces in these wee paintings are about the size of the end of a pencil eraser, so they are not very detailed.  For me the interest in in her dress and Mary Jane shoes, and of course the clip on roller skates.  She told me once that she fell while skating and broke her wrist.  Her grandfather, Dr. Smith, was an orthopedic surgeon, so she received good care.  Several people have said to me that they remembered clip on roller skates,  and Mary Jane shoes, too.  One friend commented that the painting was evocative for her because the scene is so empty.  Back then most families had only one car, and the dad drove it to work.  So no cars on the street, and none blocking the sidewalk. 

Mom had lots of sidewalks on which to skate when she was a girl, but when I was that age we lived on the farm, with nothing but a long gravel driveway and lots of grass.  I suppose I could have skated up and down in the barn, but I never did.  Instead I would tighten the skates onto my shoes and skate back and forth on the cement back porch - not a very big space.  Needless to say, I never was very good at skating.  When I think back to those times mostly what I remember is the time when my  younger sister was holding the skates by their leather straps, twirling around.  She let go and one of the metal skates hit me above my left eye.  I have a lovely scar there to this day.

Random Thoughts

Life has been keeping me hopping lately.  We just returned from a week-long cruise to Alaska, and the weeks leading up to it and now trying to catch up have played havoc with my usual routine.  Before we left I tried frantically to get all my bedding plants in, the deck scrubbed and re-stained, and lose a few pounds.  I did get everything planted.  The deck is half done, and I lost four pounds - all of which magically reappeared after a week of cruise ship food and drink.  I didn't paint a thing in May.

The cruise was great fun, but I fretted about the cat, and worried that all the plants I put in would dry up and die.  I thought Alaska was beautiful, and I did some jaw-dropping and bug-eyed staring at humpback whales, rafts of sea otters and crowds of harbor seals.  It occurred to me that I probably couldn't live on Alaska's rainy coast without losing my mind.  It's too wet and cloudy, even though the mountains and glaciers are stunning.  It also occurred to me that people with expensive cameras and long lenses need to remember that the people with cheap cameras have just as much right to a clear shot as those with better equipment. More than once my view from a tour boat was totally blocked by a photographer with all sorts of fancy equipment in tow.

Maybe I'm just in a bleak mood because of the results of the Wisconsin recall election.  I promise, I'm not going there.

When we got home I had an email from a local berry farm that strawberries are in.  I had a bag of rhubarb from my friend Mary in the refrigerator, so today I made strawberry rhubarb pie.  This will not help with weight loss, but the time for fresh fruit is short, and missing it is worse than calories, I think.  I used a quarter cup of tapioca to thicken it, but the juices still bubbled over, as you can see here.  I'm looking forward to dessert tonight.

I decided that I had to get back into drawing and painting.  After a few weeks off, it's hard to start again, sort of like when I stop going to the gym.  Getting back into the routine requires some self discipline.  A note from the open studio group where I sometimes do figure drawing reminded me that it had been a while since I worked on a figure.  This started out as a watercolor, but is becoming a mixed media piece, because the paint is largely being covered over with pastels - a medium I rarely use.  I like it so far, though my husband's noncommittal "Uh huh" makes me think it needs work.  It's not finished - I'm just glad to get back to working on something.

Saturday Night Mussels and Turchese

My dear husband, Mr. Bike Man, made a great meal this evening.  He steamed a couple pounds of fresh mussels in garlic that had been sauteed in butter and olive oil, chicken broth and white wine for six minutes.  We lucked out; every single mussel opened.  The pretty concoction in the cherry bowl is turchese.  We first tasted this a moules frites night at the late great Le Chardonnay in Madison.  Lately the chef has been doing occasional moules frites evenings at the Icon, and we took the time to search out a recipe so we could eat the heavenly stuff at home. We had no  french fries, but substituted a deli salad, along with a bottle of white wine.

Turchese

3 large carrots
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 tsp. cumin
1 tablespoon tahini
1/2 teaspoon salt
pinch of cayenne
a dash of fresh lemon juice

Cut the carrots into big chunks, coat with a little olive oil, wrap in aluminum foil and either roast on the grill or bake at 375 degrees in the oven about 30 minutes, or until tender.  Mash the carrots with a fork, then add the rest of the ingredients, adjusting to taste. Garnish with chopped parsley.   Serve on good French or Italian bread.

Birthdays, Deathdays, and an Acrylic Pear

December 8th.  On this day in 1930 my mother was born. And thirty years ago today I had to pull over as I was driving to school because I had burst into tears on hearing that John Lennon had been shot.  In many ways today was a day that had me staring out the window to the snowy yard, reflecting on mortality, missing my mom, and missing John a little too.

So, I decided to go to the library to look for a little more jazz and electronic music for my painting play list on the iPod, and then actually sitting down to paint.  I've been playing around with acrylics, really playing, just doing little exercises from Robert Burridge's website, except that it didn't take long for me to start branching out from his examples.  I started playing down gel medium and pressing in plastic screening for texture, and also pasting down collaged elements, though they ended up disappearing under paint.  I was using only a triad of red, yellow and blue, plus some white, and trying to be sure to get a strong sense of light and shadow, and good contrast.  Finally I got out the oil pastels and adding that over the top of the acrylic.  I'm not sure how effective it is, but it sure is the cure for a mild case of the blues.

I did about a half dozen of these, and none looks just the same.  They're all 5x7 inches, which gave me a sense of being productive, if nothing else.  I love pears, and tend to think of them as food, rather than stand-ins for feminine shapes, cellos, or some such nonsense.  When I was in high school for several years one of Mom's school friends who taught in Oregon took to sending her a box of Harry and David pears every year. Mother didn't eat fruit, but I coveted those pears.  She'd give me the box and I'd hide the fruit in my closet, and eat pears, one a day, until they were gone.  Heaven.

Strawberry(s)

5x7 inches, watercolor in Moleskine notebook, painted for a challenge at Paint and Draw Together

How did being retired get so busy?  At least in arty things, I've been scrambling.  I entered a watercolor of a fish in a juried show at the Hardy Gallery in Door County, had to deliver it two hundred miles mile last Friday, and am waiting to hear if it gets to stay there longer or if I need to have my sister-in-law collect it for me.  I also have a couple plein aire paintings from 2008 at the Beloit Fine Arts Incubator, and had to frame one and get both delivered last Thursday.  There's a reception tonight that I'm not going to make.  A good friend had a reception for her solo show at the Monroe Art Center last night, so we drove out there.  There is a little commission I have started, and need to finish, but haven't mostly because the studio has been so darned hot.  The weather has cooled down some, so it's not so bad working up there today, hence this little watercolor for an online challenge.

The strawberry puts me in the mood to make strawberry rhubarb pie.  Sister-in-law gave me a pick pile of rhubarb stalks, and I made sauce, but still have some left.  It may be time to bake.

UPDATE - I was juried into the Hardy show!  Time for pie.  

Why Do I Keep Painting Food?

11x14 inches, oil on canvas board

Over the past couple years for some unknown reason my favorite paintings have been of food.  I've painted peppermint candies, lemons, cupcakes, and now these donuts.  I wonder if my subconscious is trying to tell me something.  But what?  I eat plenty, as shown by my current middle-aged stockiness.  Peasant woman.  This experiment in pastry painting was completed for an online challenge (Calypso Moon Artist Movement), as were all the other food painted already mentioned.  The little sprinkles just about drove me nuts, although I think they turned out OK.  I think the strongest part of the painting is the chocolate donut, which was the first one off the plate and into the mouth.  The weakest is the lacy-edged milk glass plate, though with that chocolate donut, my attitude is more or less, "who cares?"

I've been doing lots of online challenges lately, partially because I enjoy seeing how lots of other people respond to a prompt, partially because it motivates me to get going and paint, and partially because I wanted to write an article for a regional art magazine encouraging people to try online challenges.  The article is done and mailed out, so I may slack off for a bit.  Or maybe not...

Italian Feast, and a painting

11x14 inches, watercolor on Yupo

I started this watercolor on slick Yupo synthetic paper in January, then put it aside until now.  The reference photo was from Google Street View, and I was delighted as we were walking in Florence last week to realize that Street View had given me a general ideas of where all the things I wanted to see actually were, and that I recognized this view.  Based on that I was able to figure out how the shutters on the ochre colored houses work, and revise my use of color a little.  It's loose, but gives the idea of the narrow dark streets and how the sun hits the upper stories. The only thing missing is scooters, which were everywhere.

Last night Dick made us his Italian feast, with a bottle of chianti, an antipasto plate, and the bean/bread soup we enjoyed so much. This platter had provolone cheese, marinated mushrooms, kalamata  olives, cherry tomatoes, a roll of cheese and prosciutto, and capicola ham.  I had loved the appetizers we got with crispy bread and fresh cold meats, and this was pretty close.

I am not as big a fan of soup as many people I know, but this was good and filling.  We saw Rebollita soup on menus everywhere, and had a very satisfying and warming soup on a cold and rainy day in Siena.  I think a person can make his or her own recipe, since it's just a vegetable soup with white beans and stale bread.  In Tuscany I think they mostly use chopped kale, but Dick substituted some fresh spinach instead.  I asked for his recipe, and he fudged, saying what he wrote was sketchy, and it was.  Here's what he wrote:


Rebollita, Tuscan Bread Soup


onion and garlic (leeks)     carrots
white beans                      zucchini
chicken broth                    basil
kale or spinach                  a couple tablespoon tomato paste
celery                               salt and pepper
parsley                             olive oil




Saute the onion, garlic and leek in olive oil.  Cook everything else in the chicken broth.  Add some stale bread or croutons last. You can drizzle more olive oil on top, or add grated parmesan cheese if you want.


He never added leeks to this soup, and I know he used croutons for the bread.  I also know he made his own chicken broth, though I'm sure canned would do.  We never had cheese on the table in Italy, and rarely salt or pepper, though sometimes there was a bottle of olive oil. I think this is the sort of soup you make with what you have, and the more it simmers, the better.  I suspect today the reheated leftover soup will be even better.

Cold Morning, Warm Buns

Last night we wedged the backdoor shut so no frigid air would seep in, kept the cabinet doors open under the sink so the pipes wouldn't freeze, and brought the cat to bed for a little extra heat. We were lucky because our furnace never quit runningt. Quite a few people in town lost power yesterday when snow laden branches fell on power lines.

This morning it was below zero, and I decided to warm it up with a recipe clipped from the Janesville Gazette. This thing is a dieter's nightmare, but it sure smelled and tasted good this morning with snow blanketing the outside world.

Christmas Morning Cinnamon Rolls

recipe provided by Judy Stoney

12 cinnamon rolls, uncooked and frozen (I got mine at the U Bake store)

1 cup butter - yup, two whole sticks

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1 small box butterscotch pudding

1 small bag chopped pecans - optional but I love them

Directions: Place the frozen rolls in a 9x13 inch baking pan. Set aside.

In a saucepan, melt the butter, add the brown sugar and stir. Stir in the dry pudding mix. Stir in the pecans. Pour this mixture over the frozen rolls in the pan. Let the rolls sit on the counter overnight. I covered mine loosely with foil.

In the morning preheat the oven to 350 degree. Bake the rolls for 20 minutes. Let rest five minutes then tip out onto a platter. Or do what I did and leave them in the pan and dig them out with a spatula (one less thing to wash).

Happy eating!

Hungry? Got Cupcakes!

Sometimes other people's ideas just call out to me. This little watercolor in a notebook is a study for a larger painting I'm planning. The source photo comes from a blog called Different Strokes From Different Folks, so there will be lots of cupcake paintings around online. I suppose I could change this, make the paper liners different colors, add a patterned cloth, but I like the simplicity of this image. I also am grooving on the swirly frosting and the colored sprinkles.

http://differentstrokesfromdifferentfolks.blogspot.com/

More of Grandma Tess's Tape

Grandma as a young woman

Grandma's friend Agnes, in a stylish bathing suit, about 1915

At this point in the tape Grandma talks about her family coming to Milwaukee while her stepfather is doing medical training in Boston. My mother, Carol, asks a few questions about cooking and the Depression.

Milwaukee was another disappointment to me. We couldn’t find a place to stay, and we went to a cheap hotel and lived there for a little while, and read want ads. Finally decided that I would have to go and board and room to start high school. I went into high school at twelve years old. In order to do this I had to work for my board and room., and be away from my father and mother, and the baby, which was the big hurt. But we got together occasionally.

But life as a student, trying to go to school and still work, do the work at home, and being as lonely as I was and having only two dresses to my name. Nobody wore slacks in those days. That was entirely out of the question. You wore skirts and a blouse or a dress. And Mother gave me one of her old dark blue dresses, and I cut it off at the waist and made a skirt for myself, and wore it out to the prom with a pink blouse. It was very very sad. When I got to the prom I found out I was the only one that couldn’t have an evening dress on. I didn’t know they wore evening dresses to proms. I didn’t even know what proms were. Twelve years old and from the Hicksville, I think they thought I was. But my date was wonderful, and didn’t – never reproached me or anything. In fact he took me over and introduced me to his folks. He was a complete gentleman. So, that was my first humiliating experience at school. But I was to have a lot of them. Except of course when I was (unintelligible), when it was one big humiliation. Life was rough. And it was rough for many long years after that, but I won’t go into all those details. 

We’ll let the girls ask me some questions now, about the Depression, probably, and my marriage.

Carol: Well, Mother, ah, I don’t remember Grandma Smith as being that great of a cook, but you were always a very good cook. So, how young did you start your cooking?

I was eleven when I started cooking on the ranch. Um, I helped, oh earlier than that I started helping and learning. And I liked it, so I sort of took over, making the cakes and pastries and things while we were still on the farm. And I baked cakes then. We had thrashers - great crews of men, they came to thrash the wheat, sometimes as many as twenty men, and that was a lot of cooking. So I had plenty of experience. But I always liked to cook and I liked to experiment and do things . When I worked for my board and room I did a lot of cooking. And I always liked to try new recipes, and I did them.

Carol: What about during the Depression?

During the Depression it was very hard to cook because we didn’t have any money, and the foods that were had to be had, even though they were cheap, they were expensive to us.

But we skipped a lot of time here. I had to get married in the meantime. We got married during the Depression,. while we were still out on DeWitt’s cherry ranch Mother and I and DuRell, waiting for my stepfather to graduate. And he was going to school back East then at Boston. And he went to Brigham Young and he went to Massachusetts General, and all the big hospitals back there where he interned. And he had started out in Marquette in Milwaukee. So, while all this was going on we were hanging on, trying to get by ‘til he got though. In the meantime I had grown up. I was eighteen, and then I was into my twenties. By this time we were out at Troy, and Mother was still doing her practical nursing, and there were babies born here and there. I was taking care of DuRell, and doing babysitting for the neighbors.

Carol: Was that the first paying job you had? Baby sitting?

Yes, it was, if you don’t count working for my board and room, which was much harder than baby sitting. The first I got money for was babysitting, and I got only about fifty cents a night. That was top wages then. And the night meant sometimes you had to stay all night. If they didn’t have transportation home or whoever you were staying for didn’t want you to leave. So, you never knew of you were going to stay all night or not, when you left, which wasn’t very happy for Mother. We didn’t have a phone at first at the farm, but after the boys started calling, the neighbors got really tired of having me go back and forth to answer the phone, so eventually, even though we didn’t have very much money, we did put a phone in.

But we were expected to live on a very very small amount of money. And we had to stretch it. I remember one time I put my family on a very strict diet, because I was supposed to mange the finances, so I could buy a new bathing suit, and the bathing suit was five dollars. So for a week we lived on cabbages and boiled potatoes, and we used to go out and pick dandelions and wild asparagus, and all that stuff.

Carol: Is this when you were in Troy?

Yes, when we were in Troy. We boiled it up. But it tasted pretty good. We were always hungry then, and everything we had, whether it was expensive or not, tasted good. And I finally got my bathing suit, but they wouldn’t let me get any more clothes that way. They said I was taking it out on them, and it wasn’t fair.

June is Dairy Month

Adapted from a monotype I did a couple years ago of two Holstein cows.  I might like this version better than the original!

In Wisconsin June is always Dairy month.  It's a promotional tool for dairy farmers, but they don't call us cheeseheads for nothing.  Tomorrow Dick and I plan to attend the Rock County Dairy Breakfast (very local eating), and there are lots of other events going on in the area including Cows on the Concourse in Madison.  

Here are some favorites from 4-H days.

Don't Be Blue Cheese Ball

2 packages cream cheese

3/4 cup crumbled blue cheese

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Put the cheese in a mixing bowl and allow to come to room temperature.  Mix in the chopped onion and Worcestershire sauce at low speed, processing until smooth.  Cover and chill several hours, then shape into a ball and roll in chopped pecans.

Dreamy Milk Punch

1/2 gallon milk

1 quart Squirt or 50-50

1 1/2 quarts orange sherbet (or your favorite flavor)

1 small can frozen orange juice

Mix the sherbet into the milk, reserving some for putting on top.  Add the soda and orange juice about ten minutes before serving.  Makes about 32 cups.

Lots of Bran Muffins

1 15 oz. box bran cereal with raisins

3 cups sugar

5 cups flour

5 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons salt

4 eggs, beaten

1 quart buttermilk

1 cup cooking oil

Mix together the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  In another bowl whisk together the eggs, milk and oil.  Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid mixture.  Stir until combined; do not over mix.  Spoon into prepared muffin tins.  Bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes.  This makes about six dozen, but don't panic - they freeze well.  Or just keep the batter in the refrigerator and bake the muffins fresh as you need them.  The batter keeps several weeks.

Farmers Market Fare: Baked Asparagus

Happy first day of June!

We finally made it to Janesville Farmers Market on Saturday. 

 http://janesvillefarmersmarket.com/index.html The market began its fifth year two weeks ago, and is gradually becoming more and more popular, a place to shop and to meet people.  It isn't as large or elaborate as the Madison market, but it is within walking distance for us, and isn't mobbed. The market features a combination of fresh produce like asparagus, rhubarb, greens, radishes and green onions, and items like honey, cheese, and organic beef.  You can also find bedding plants and a few craft items or hand made soap.  Skelleys stand didn't have fresh strawberries yet (maybe in two weeks when days warm up), but they did have their homemade doughnuts, just the thing to go with a hot cup of java from the Farmers Market coffee cart.  

Dick's Roasted Asparagus

one fresh bunch asparagus

olive oil

salt

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  Wash the asparagus, then put into a baking sheet in a single layer.  Drizzle with olive oil.  Season with a little salt.  Bake ten minutes.  The asparagus should be bright green, and tender crisp.

Thinking about asparagus got me remembering about ours on the farm.  It grew wild along the fence line next to our quarter mile long gravel driveway, and it was always a race between us and my Grandpa Pierce, who lived in a new ranch house up near the road, to see who'd get out first to cut it.  Spoils to the winner.

Watercress Soup

Natureland County Park, near Whitewater, Wisconsin

My husband gathers watercress from the spring fed stream

After cleaning the watercress, he adds it to potato soup, and blends it for a St. Patrick's Day treat.

It has been ages since we had such a warm and sunny day on March 17th. Today the sun shone and the temperature was in the upper 60s, a day when the snow is retreating fast, and the ground is soft and wet. In the early 1970s, when we were undergraduates at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, there was a day like this, a day to shed jackets and get outside. My then boyfriend and I cut classes and took off to a county park I knew well from 4-H activities - there may have been green beer that day as well (though not at the park). In 1975 we were married there under the trees, near the springs and lake. Today the water was running freely and there were bright green clumps of watercress for the taking.

He says he doesn't have a recipe for the soup, but here is how he says to make it.

Potato Watercress Soup

a cup or so of fresh cleaned watercress, chopped

2 Tablespoons butter

2 Tablespoons flour

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 or two cloves of fresh garlic, minced

a can of chicken broth

a can of cream of potato soup, plus a can of milk

Saute the onion and garlic in butter or olive oil, then set aside. Mix together the butter and flour and make a roux, then stir in the chicken broth and the sauted garlic and onion. Cook until it starts to thicken. Stir in a can of condensed cream of potato soup and a can of milk, and at the end add the watercress. In small batches, whirl the soup in a blender until smooth, then return to the pan and heat through.

He says you can adjust it any way you like, with more or less chicken broth or milk. You probably could just make the cream of potato soup and then add the watercress, but I doubt it would taste as fresh and good as this soup tasted to me.

Oh My Darling, Clementines!

8x10 inches, monotype with added colored pencil

This month's Virtual Sketch Date (see the side link) challenge is a photograph of a peeled clementine.  It looked so delicious I had to remind myself there are still oranges and grapefruit left from the case of fruit we bought from the FFA at Christmas.  I like trying these challenges different ways.  The top picture is my first try, a monotype.  These are great fun to do.  I coat an acrylic plate with a base medium, then use Createx water based paints to paint directly on the prepared plate.  Then I take a dampened sheet of Masa (rice) paper, and lay it on the plate, and use my hand and an old wooden door knob to apply pressure.  Then I lift the image, and dry it between sheets of newsprint.  I liked the result well enough, but then felt compelled to go back into the picture with colored pencils. I discovered I darkened one are too much, and so then I went back in with a little bit of acrylic paint to fix it.  My morning project ended up taking most of the day.

8x10 inches, paper collage with added watercolor

Here is my second version of the clementine.  This one was done very differently.  The image is made of cut and torn paper, adhered with acrylic gel medium.  It's a messy process.  My work table and floor was full of paper snips, and my hands are still peeling adhesive.  Then I tried something I had never done before.  Once the paper was all applied and the image coated with gel medium, I went back in with some light watercolor washes to add a little delicate color to the top of the fruit, and around the shadows on the counter.  I was afraid; I didn't want to spoil what was already done, but was pleased with the effect and plan to try more collages that incorporate either watercolor or acrylic paint.

I'd still like to try a painting of the clementine on Yupo, a synthetic paper I've been playing with this month.  The rich colors might work out well on that surface.  We shall see if that actually happens.  I'm curious what readers of this blog think about the two approaches, which one appeals to you more.  Do some of you like to approach a subject in more than one medium?  I'd love to hear from you.

Notes from a Birthday

Last summer when we attended a college roommate reunion in Colorado, our friend Linda made the group a specialty from the 1970s, a Harvey Wallbanger cake. For the uninitiated, a Harvey Wallbanger was a sweet cocktail made from Galliano and orange juice. The cake won't make you tipsy, but it does have a nice orange flavor. I decided to make one for myself for my birthday. The recipe follows.

December 29th was one of the first mild December days and evenings, so I talked my husband into going out to Rotary Gardens for their annual holiday event. The visitor center featured around two dozen beautiful handmade quilts, and a huge train set. This year there was a circus train, and a model circus, honoring Wisconsin's role in circus history. The little children and the big ones too were fascinated.

The gardens themselves were lit with thousands of lights, and visitors could walk along the paths to see the snowy fairyland volunteers had created. Apart from the usual forms like this cactus, there were white lights arching over luminaria lit paths, and a tableau across the pond, that was reflected in the water. All in all, it made for a festive birthday.
Harvey Wallbanger Bundt Cake

1 box orange cake mix (if you can't find orange, substitute a yellow mix)
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/4 cup Galliano
1/4 cup vodka
1 3 oz. package vanilla instant pudding mix
3/4 cup orange juice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Generous grease and flour a bundt pan.

In a large bowl whisk together the cake and pudding mix, then set aside. In a medium bowl whisk together the oil, eggs, Galliano and vodka, and orange juice. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix at medium speed three minutes, until smooth.

Bake the cake 45 to 50 minutes, or until a skewker inserted comes out clean. Cool in the pan ten minutes, then tip out onto a serving plate. Glaze while still warm. It makes a nice moist cake that is even better with a bit of whipped cream.

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon orange juice
1 tablespoon Galliano
1 teaspoon vodka
Mix together until smooth, then drizzle over the warm cake. It works well to spoon the glaze into a plastic sandwich bag, then cut off the tip and squeeze.

Grasmere Gingerbread, my version

Grasmere Gingerbread (shortbread)

Both my husband and I were English majors in college, so it's not altogether surprising we often took trips to the UK. I had a London pen pal, from 1961 until her death in 2004, so that was another reason to visit. At any rate, one trip in the 1980s was a hiking trip in the Lake District, including a stay in Grasmere, where Wordsworth lived. That little town is famous for its gingerbread, which is nothing like any gingerbread found here in Wisconsin. The actual recipe is a secret, though many folks have tried to duplicate it. Seems to me I remember the original had some preserved ginger. Their version is closer to shortbread, thin, buttery and crisp, than the more cake-like American version. I did my best to convert a British recipe to American ingredients and measurements and came up with this.

Grasmere Gingerbread
2 cups flour (can be part oatmeal that has been whirled in a blender until fine)
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 teaspoons ground ginger (I added a little grated fresh ginger)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 sticks butter

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees, and grease a 9X13 inch baking pan

Combine the dry ingredients. Cut in the cold butter and rub with your fingers until it resembles fine meal. Press into the prepared baking pan. It will be crumbly. Bake for 35 minutes.

Once it is on a wire rack, let it sit a couple minutes, then cut into squares. Let it cool completely in the pan, then remove the gingerbread squares and store in a tin.

If anyone in the UK has a better version, I'd love to hear about it. If you try it, I'd like to know what you think.