Books and Dinner and Weather and TV

What we talk about and what we consume. And a catch up kind of a post, because we left off like 10 days ago.

I just finished this book called The Farmer’s Wife, by Helen Rebanks. I put it on hold at the library because I heard Rebanks and Scott Simon and Nick Offerman talking about the book on NPR back in the fall.

I liked the book but I feel a little funny about it. It’s all in praise of the hidden work that women do to keep things running, cooking and cleaning and childcare. But she’s still irritated when the gravel salesman who spots her in the driveway asks for her husband to make his sales pitch. And even though the author is about 22 23 years younger than me, some of her trajectory is similar to mine – went to art college, ended up earning a living by cooking and baking. While her husband was at Oxford she started baking to supply the cafe where she was waitressing and ended up being able to quit waitressing and just bake. I envied that. And speaking of her husband, he happens to be an award winning author himself, who also writes about farming life in England. And they’re pals with Nick Offerman. Makes one wonder if she would’ve gotten published without the connections. And on Goodreads, they do. I should’ve probably taken pictures of some of the baking recipes when I had the book checked out. But maybe I don’t need the recipes. Rebanks and my ideas about nutrition are a bit different. They eat a lot of meat, but of course they are raising it.

The book has a pretty cover and when I had it sitting on my dresser, this song by Kristin Lems (that I first heard performed by the Irish Brigade, remember them?) always went through my head.

We extended our valentine’s day a full week out to February 21st and went to a dinner cooked by Francesco Mangano, the chef from Osteria Papavero out at Seven Acre Dairy, an old creamery that’s been converted to a dining and tourist destination. With an inn. I should have taken a picture of the menu, or written about it sooner, because I’m forgetting exactly what all the course were. We started with a plate of little fishes with I think a celeriac puree. Then there was a croquette, with microgreens – made out of cheese, I think. Then a filled pasta in brodo, filled, I think, with squash, followed by duck and lentils, and the best, butterscotch budino. I did take a few of those badly-lit in a restaurant pics, and in the pictures you can see the glass of Pinot Grigio I had with the pasta and the dessert wine I had with the budino. I started with their version of a Manhattan and it was pretty strong, so no wonder I can’t completely remember all the dishes. Although it is unlike me – I usually take pride in always remembering what we ate.

The next day I went to volunteer at the library and someone had donated a book of photographs by Peter Simon that has a picture of John & Al’s dad’s first wife in it, that appeared in Rolling Stone, which was a big deal back then.

Friday was an easier day. For starters Mark and I walked to Ancora for coffee, then I stopped at Penzey’s for a few things, like smoked paprika for paella, more on that in a minute. And bagels.

Last fall I tried out an apple cake recipe from Smitten Kitchen that I didn’t like very much. I dunno, maybe I didn’t have good enough apples. And I even bought the recommended pan, a non stick tube pan.

Deb Perelman’s picture of the pan, with the six apples called for in the cake.

I also have two old aluminum tube pans that I only use for angel food cake. I always thought a non stick tube pan would not work for angel food cake because the cake would either not rise or slide out. Since I had a little time on my hands Friday and a bunch of egg whites in the freezer that I thawed out, I tried my favorite chocolate angel food cake recipe in the non stick pan. And it worked. So I Goodwilled the other two pans.

Friday I made a batch of my cornmeal blueberry muffins, gluten free – just replaced the regular flour with gluten free baking mix, since after all there’s not that much flour.

Saturday was paella night. Steve, Emma’s dad, gave me a jar of saffron for Christmas so of course we had to have them over for paella, and we also got our band back together – the group of retired librarians & archivists that we hang out with. I got out the paella pan I bought for Mark in the ’90s or early aughts, scrubbed off the rust, and made chicken and shrimp paella in that pan, and sausage and scallop paella in one of my big deep nonstick skillets. And a greens gratin with the very hot Cabot habenero cheddar, that I succumbed to as a Costco purchase, as a side. I actually wanted pepper jack and saw this cheese and bought it. It has to be combined with other cheeses to even be edible. Very few pictures. I made pumpkin flan – that I think might actually get added to the Thanksgiving canon of desserts – and put out the chocolate angel food cake even though it was not the best. The cocoa hadn’t really dissolved and it was just kind of shaggy. And a big bowl of stabilized whipped cream, my new fave from Black Forest Cake. With chopped candied ginger and chocolate pearls for toppings, I thought ginger for flan and pearls for cake, but choose your own adventure.

On TV we’ve been watching The New Look, Christian Dior and Coco Chanel during World War II. It contrasts their wartime lives, Dior who worked for a larger house, Lucien Lelong, that took commissions from Nazis, vs. Chanel who closed her smaller business but had some more, ahem, personal relationships with Nazis. You’re not really sure which one of them is coping better or worse; like the book, more culture I feel a little funny about. Although I know that sounds naive. Dior was gay, he had to keep that hidden from the Nazis or they’d kill him. And Chanel seems to have been trying to help both sides in her own way. I suppose I should be applauding the creators for making a show with complicated characters. And, PS speaking of complicated, just read this NYT article talking about much the TV show got wrong about Chanel, or more like simplified actually.   

We’ve been having crazy temperature swings, 60 degrees in a day. My knee is telling me when the weather changes. I think Monday was the day the cats all woke up wild & restless – light early and they could hear birdies outside.

Finally Wednesday we were back to our normal schedule and Jasper came here for our regular granny day care day. We baked in the morning and he napped and then we went to the library in the afternoon and watched TV when we got back.

Of course Thursday leap day was the thing. My oven gave me lots of pics of animals leaping, frogs, puppies, and kittens.

Friday we went to Chicago for the symphony. We had breakfast at Goddess & the Baker, always just OK. I had to eat an awful lot of arugula salad to get to my avocado toast, but we hadn’t had much salad at home the last couple days before so I guess it was all good.

 

Not to mention today’s bad news, headlines like Trump more popular than Biden, Iris Apfel died, legislation in Georgia to sever ties with the ALA. Jeez.

I have been doing a little retirement cleaning out – I did my closet Tuesday afternoon, and then on Wednesday Jasper and I drove through at Goodwill and dropped off a big bag of old clothes and shoes, and an ancient humidifier in its own box, plus some backpacks I never used much and some random stuff from the back of my closet like a kind of organizer thing that you can use to expand the number of places where you can hang your clothes. Next, drawers.

I’m starting to get the clothes cleaned out but I have been finding myself double ordering food stuff I don’t need. Like the half bag of semolina flour I found after I ordered a new bag. Hence the semolina muffins. I also made stuffed pasta on Thursday, with homemade pasta. It was OK. I probably should’ve cranked it a little thinner in the pasta machine.

Pretty soon I’m going to have to get the tax stuff together, but for now, it’s Saturday. We had cottage pie – like shepherd’s pie but with beef instead of lamb – for dinner. I’m going to have a drink and watch TV.