We got back from Canada on Monday night at about 7:30. It took me until 11:30 to get unpacked and get the furniture De-cat-haired and the countertops De-cat-footprinted.
On Tuesday I had hella catch up day at work – the usual, cleaning up email, etc. but I had to get slides ready so I could teach an online class at 7:30. I had a meeting at 12:30 to prepare for, too. And in between I had to go home and pick up cutting boards & crackers & green tomato relish, and bike to the book launch party for the 2014 Local Foods Journal – in the basement at Bunky’s – at which I was serving cheese – it’s the cheese edition.
Wednesday was not quite as hectic – the main thing I had to do was a guest lecture about archives in someone else’s class. I made a real dinner – pasta pesto. I found a small package of ground turkey in the freezer, and decided to make little meatballs to go with. They weren’t quite a good match to the pasta, spicing-wise – I used some pork sausage too, and lemon & nutmeg. On Thursday I reheated the meatballs in some tomato sauce and made them into meatball sandwiches with peppers and onions and pepper jack cheese. We ate them with the last of the Trader Joe’s frozen haricot vert that I inherited from Rachel, tossed with kind of a lot of butter and dried dill.
The key characteristic of Thursday was rain. I walked to work and it started coming down hard when I was just past halfway – at Charter St. I was wearing some leather sandals that I have not worn much this summer, that got soaked and gave me some pretty nasty blisters. It was pretty ok outside all day, while I was inside recording lectures, but at about 10 to 5:00, when I was just starting to think about how I was going to get home, it was getting darker & darker & the Hoofers get your boats off the lake siren went. I called Mark to come get me, and by the time he arrived it was raining so hard, I asked him to pull down to the parking exit under my building so I wouldn’t even have to cross the street to get to the car. Our AFS student called for a ride home while we were driving up Observatory hill – it was too much rain for her to walk the short distance from West HS to home. The basement wasn’t leaking when we first got home but when the rain stopped about 45 mins later, I discovered it pouring in when I went down to get the CSA flattened boxes to return, since I was going to pick up this week’s box by car. I shop vac’ed and put down towels and went to get the box, and made the meatball sandwiches and then we went to Stacked, the grand opening party for the new public library building. It was fun, had a good time, saw old friends, two of whom reminded me that Friday evening was the opening for the WI Triennial.
But I knew I’d probably miss it. Friday I stayed home to do a combination of work & making 200 mini-cream puffs for yet another food event for the Journal, in another basement, in the Steenbock library cookbook collection. The puffs were fun to make – tiny versions of the WI state fair ones. I just made the shells, and somebody else whipped the cream. I showed up with 3 trays of puffs, a knife to split them, a pastry bag to fill them, and a strainer and powdered sugar to top them. We had to wear gloves due to University food handling guidelines, and my gloved fingers were too goopy for taking pictures – but I know pictures were taken and I have requests out to get some. I got home from that one at about 7:15, and debated going to the Triennial opening, but opted to eat dinner – leftover meatballs and green beans – and I finally made it thru the last episode of Newsroom without falling asleep. Then I made a 100-sample batch (4X) of couscous-pine nut-feta salad, also from the Journal, for Food for Thought next morning.
The mini cream puff pix are here:
Got up on Saturday to see off our student, who had to be on the bus to a cross county meet near Milwaukee at 7:30 AM. I had some extra time before I had to mix the arugla into the salad and head for the Fest, so crashed on the sunroom couch. I wound up with the black kitty on my stomach, the white kitty on the window seat, and the fluffy one on the back of the couch. Kinda nervous-making but everyone played nice, pretty much.
The event I was working on was a grilled cheese cook-off between three chefs from local restaurants. The sandwich that won had blue cheese, peanut butter, ham, and was dipped in egg and sauteed like a Monte Cristo sandwich, and topped with fried apples. Inspired, for my lunch, I made a fried apple, white cheddar & arugula sandwich on an onion bagel with corn relish. I got to take home a pre-made pizza crust from the Salvatore’s Tomato Pies chef, and I made a roasted vegetable pizza for dinner. Mark and I went to see the closing night of the Madwoman of Chaillot, starring our friend Max. Afterwards, made a (probably bad) decision) to pump myself up with some sugar, and ate cinnamon grahams with Nutella and finished the box of Canadian honey nut Cheerios and did last week’s reading for the class I’m taking. Went up and watched the last 15-mins of Bill Hader’s last night on SNL, and went to bed. Slept straight thru to almost 6:00AM; I’m sure it’s just because I was dehydrated.
The plan for Sunday is to bake scones (using leftover cream puff cream) then bike to the Willy Street Fair parade. Spend the rest of the day working, on the classes I’m teaching and taking. Like I told Anna at work on Tuesday, after this week, I’ll feel OK by the time I head for the Fair.
Posted from my iPhone, at least partly, partly while still in bed next to Mark who, even before he retired, could sleep past 7:00AM – or at least stay in bed.
