Deb's Lunch … and dinner and breakfast too

It’s just sinking in about the Trayvon Martin verdicit. John’s photo from May, I think taken somewheres in Milwaukee. Usually stick to writing about food, but jeez …

I’ve been enjoying the long holiday weekend – I didn’t work at all on the 4th and only a couple of hours each Friday and Saturday and Sunday – tho I am not quite started on Sunday’s hours as yet <grin>.

Yesterday I tried out a recipe for a [vegan] roasted tomato sauce. I liked the method – chop everything up, drizzle on a little olive oil, and roast for an hour. Cool and purée. Worked a charm – I adapted the recipe a little bit, to fit around going to see World War Z – I roasted everything for almost an hour, then turned the oven off and left the pan in there until we got back, 2 1/2 hours later. Dumped the pan of veggies into the food processor with the almost wilted leaves of the first bunch of basil I’ve gotten in my CSA box so far. I used 5 slicing tomatoes, and 3 Romas, instead of the “10” called for, one jalapeño, and left out the “brown” onions (I assume meant what I’d call “purple” or maybe red, onion) because I didn’t have any.  I thought I might add some tomato paste or sugar – I like a sweet tomato sauce  – but this was, without the addition of sweeteners, and thick enough without the tomato paste. The recipe gives you the option of using zucchini or carrots along with the tomatoes, onions, and chile – I used zucchini, but I think carrot would make an even naturally sweeter sauce. I also peeled the garlic, so I wouldn’t have to squeeze the sticky paste out of the skins, and omitted Italian seasoning (ick).

I used the sauce for a very UN-vegan batch of manicotti – mascarpone & goat cheese stuffing, mozzarella on top. The pictures last night were poorly lit & depressing – I took some shots of the leftovers this a.m. to make up.

Manicotti with roasted vegetable sauce, and brat bun garlic toast

Extra roasted veg sauce – can’t decide if I should freeze it right away, and do something else with it – like zucchini parm …

Blueberry cornmeal muffins, with red papers. ha.

I think I might eat this one

So here’s the plan: Muffins & bananas for breakfast (any minute now).

Maybe a bike ride?

For dinner: Grilled shrimp & brats and that potluck broccoli salad with bacon (I am going to make my version with bacon, toasted almonds, raisins, shallots – and the mayo, vinegar, sugar dressing, yes, but way less sugar than the recipe says, and no cheese) and either a ramen & cabbage salad, or a soba noodle & peanut dressing salad. And strawberry shortcake.

The Shorewood Hills fireworks – probably bike over and watch from the Dept. of Transportation parking lot, like usual.

And I’ve got the last Grateful Dead show ever, July 9, 1995, playing in my iPod in the kitchen. I was not there – I was so fed up with the Dead at that point, Jerry was too drugged up, and the moments when you could be transported by the music during a show were too few, out weighed by the amount of discomfort, boredom, asshole deadheads standing next to you, and sour notes. My friends from Madison came down, two families (including a brother in law): 4 kids, 2 moms, 3 dads. I stayed home and  took care of the kids, with one of the dads, Ward’s brother, who we called Uncle John.

I promise pictures later.

This day last year, I was wandering around feeling like it was the end of the world, because of the drought. Everything was dry and crispy.

This year, I have a falling feeling, too, but for different reasons. The weather has been equally scarey – too wet instead of too dry, flooding, water in the basement …. But this year, by coincidence, Mark’s forced retirement and the end of my inherited TIAA-CREF annuity both happened on June 3oth. I thought I was going to have two more months – I was sure the annuity didn’t run out till August. So the big shock came Tuesday morning when I was still in Chicago and the regular-for-the-last-9-years deposit to my account did not appear. I’m worried about the money – I’m petrified about the money – my income is dropping precipitously, and so is Mark’s. Knowing I have less money makes seeing everything old and potentially falling apart and breaking in the house more worrisome. Like the cracks in the kitchen floor, and the bare spots where John’s crutches suctioned up broken bits of tile last winter, and the water in the basement, and the walls that need paint, and don’t even get me started on the other house – especially because I really need it to stay valuable, so I can sell it and pay off the mortgage.

But what’s even harder is that it’s like losing my parents all over again. Sure, sure, I know I’m whining when I really have it good. I’m going from an upper middle class income to a just plain middle class one. I’m a spoiled Daddy’s little girl – I always had my dad to run to when there was any trouble or I needed money, and because he paid into his TIAA-CREF from 1957 – 1998, he left a huge inheritance and continued to help me from beyond the grave. But no more. I’m it now. I should feel lucky that I’ve made it to the great age of 57, almost 58, with so much parental support – but I just feel like the rug’s been yanked from under me – heck, more than the rug – the foundation.

So I’ve been feeling guilty about not taking more pictures, and not blogging more, here among the librarians in Darth Vader’s living room a.k.a. McCormick Place convention center. They’ve covered up the old ugly part pretty well with new buildings; it’s a four building complex now. But it’s still a big rambly damp cold place.

Old McCormick place

Front entrance “new” McCormick Pl

My excuse is that I haven’t eaten anything terrifically memorable, with one exception. Friday night, Joan and I had perfectly adequate Indian – garlic and plain naan, a pretty spicey yellow lentil dal, and chicken in a spinach sauce. I bought a bottle of Ghost Bike Pale Ale to drink with my food – that was pretty good.

Friday morning I bought a banana and a coffee at a temporary Starbucks at the convention center, and sat on a bench that was definitely designed to discourage loitering and sleeping – convex, humped up – so I kinda had to just perch on it.

Friday night we had dinner at the hotel – the Atwood Cafe – and the food was really good, just pricey – a touch over $100 including tax, tip and one glass of wine, for the two of us. The waitress did the thing of recommending the most expensive wine by the glass to go with my pork belly and squash. Friday dinner featured the exception dish – a mint & argula salad with champagne vinaigrette.

Arugula salad

Saturday night we had dinner at a place called Rivers, which was just OK, tho I peeked over when Mark signed his credit card receipt and it was a bit cheaper than the Atwood – maybe $11 -$12 – oh, right, the cost of that upsold glass of wine. I had a spinach salad and a beef teriyaki appetizer. Then I went for drinks with a bunch of librarians and data geeks – most of them had dinner, one guy had a slice of cheesecake – but regardless, the food at Miller’s Pub looked kind of better than Rivers.

Today, Sunday we cabbed to the convention center for the OCLC breakfast – I just had coffee. Like other events in this place, the breakfast was sort of shoehorned sideways into an odd shaped room. When I got there, the coffee has just run out in one of the dispensers, so the wait staff was dumping the fuller one into the emptier one, rather than getting fresh, hot. At noon I got a Starbucks sweet roll and latte. With any luck, the next few things I get to eat will be better.

My niece, Amelia, known as Mimi, is 16 today. She is the most UN-sweet-16 girl you can imagine, so I was totally at a loss as to what to get for her. A shirt I sent her years ago that I thought was pretty hip – photo prints on a t-shirt – was deemed too girly, so I was thinking things like circle/slash sweet sixteen, or PINK – but down with pink kinda means something else … I thought maybe I could make a little vimeo, with lots of anti-sweet sixteen, anti-hello kitty, anti-cute girly things in it … but of course all those thoughts did not come to concreteness.

So instead here’s what I came up with – a blog post, with some photos of family memories. And I have some plans for additional gifts to come later in the summer, that involve sewing and money. So we’ll stretch it out a bit. For now, Happy Birthday, Mimi, with love from Aunt Deb.

For a couple of years, we always came to Seattle in August, for the week with my birthday, and to get John & Al back from their visit to their Dad in California. These are from summer 1998, the first time we came to visit at the house where you live now, on 30th Ave. My 43rd birthday, and even though he’s not in the pictures, the last time Opa was with us. We stayed at a hotel, right across from the Lake Union, not too far from the boat place where your mom & dad’s 25th anniversary party was last spring. You and your mom came to see us off our last morning – that’s what the picture with you in cow spot pants and your mom in striped pants are. We went to chamber music on Bainbridge island, and to some kind of butterfly show at the zoo, and goofed around a lot at your house. It was a good trip.