{"id":1700,"date":"2010-09-05T14:23:11","date_gmt":"2010-09-05T19:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/?p=1700"},"modified":"2010-09-05T14:42:20","modified_gmt":"2010-09-05T19:42:20","slug":"aaaah-3-day-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/aaaah-3-day-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"Aaaah, 3-day weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s early afternoon on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend – meaning we still have another day off. I woke up at 6:30, (well, after waking at 2:00 and at 5:10 or so to feed the cats) and went back to sleep until 7:12, instead of lying awake worrying like I have the last few days. And delicious sleep it was, too. Heaven – Heaven, by Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rach and I went for a leisurely walk. I came back and baked a banana chocolate chip coffee cake. I’ve been getting kind of sick of banana bread, (while liking the Orangette recipe<\/a> I’ve using, leaving out the chocolate & ginger; last time I made it with walnuts & coconut. Seems like the bananas get overripe quick this summer) and this recipe sounded good. I finally had time to take a long shower and wash my hair – instead of the quick rinse, keep the hair dry kind of shower, while the cake was in the oven. And I did my poor woman’s pedicure: shave the legs, wash the feet with this mint & walnut shell exfoliating soap, clip the toenails, lotion. I was thinking about painting my toenails, too, and had let them get a little long, but clipping seemed the better choice.<\/p>\n

The banana cake was from an Epicurious recipe<\/a> – the kind where people were fighting bitterly; comments ranging from “our favorite cake” to “Yuck, waaay too sweet”. I did think it had a lot of sugar – 2\/3 cup brown in the topping, and 3\/4 cup white in the cake – I cut it to 1\/3 brown for the topping, and 1\/2 granulated in the cake itself. I used less chocolate chips too – and if I make it again, I am going use even less chocolate – to let the banana take over more.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I had time to go take pictures of this wild orange fungus growing on a hillside next to a street in the neighborhood – proof positive that Wisconsin has been a rain forest this summer. Earlier one of the farmers at the market, who had two small baskets of artichokes at his stand, said they’d been a crop failure this year. It’s been too hot and wet in Wisconsin for artichokes, which are thistles after all, used to growing on stony mountainsides in Italy.<\/p>\n

Now I am sitting at my computer listening to my cats snore behind me. This is probably the last post from the old iMac – another 3-day weekend task is to set up the new one, that’s sitting in the box a few feet away, and package up the old one to ship off to be recycled. Also, pesto-ify the 2 bunches of basil that are sitting in the basement fridge, roast peppers, and turn the bulghur wheat marinating in olive & lemon into tabouli<\/a>. If I don’t just curl up on the couch with cats myself, and my current library book<\/a>, which is getting interesting, BTW. But, hey 3-day weekend – I just might have time for all of that.
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