Tonight's weather forecast carries a frost warning for tomorrow morning. Lovely. So the (few unplanted) petunias will need to come in tonight - because they'll be needed to replace the ones I've already planted!, along with the tomatoes, peppers and herbs that the Boy Wonder and I (perhaps over-) enthusiastically purchased on Monday. All week I've been bemoaning the lack of time that prevented us from getting them in the ground but now, of course, our busyness is like a gift designed to keep us from wasting a not-insignificant sum in veggie starts. But then there are the seeds. The Boy wanted desparately to plant some melons and pumpkins and so we did, and now may end up having to reseed them. Of course, if it comes to that I'll probably reseed with out telling him. I'd hate to have him discover at such a tender age the frustration that gardening can bring no matter how much you love it.
The open house went well. We enjoyed meeting some new people and have time to visit with those neighbors we had already met and the kids behaved beautifully - so an all around successful afternoon by my count, despite the gloomy weather. I ended up making one extra dessert from a recipe given to me by my sister in law just the night before. I don't know where she found it, but it bears sharing here because it's not often that one encounters a cookie so easy to make and which offers such great results with so little effort. I don't know if there's an official name for these, so I'll just call them...
Nutella Crisps - Place about a teaspoon of Nutella in the center of a dumpling wrapper. Fold the wrapper corner-to-corner, forming a triangle and encasing the Nutella. Seal with water or beaten egg. When you've made as many of these as you want, heat about half an inch of veggie oil to the point when a small piece of wrapper sizzles right away when put in the pan. Then begin frying the triangles a few at a time, taking care to avoid crowding and turning each after 20-30 seconds so that each side becomes golden. When done, remove each crisp to a towel-covered plate to drain. When cooled completely, remove to another plate and cover. The crisps may be made a day ahead and reheated in a 250 degree oven. To serve, pile on a pretty plate and sift powdered sugar over all.
Although my sister thinks it a lie my only excuse for not being around lately is just that I've been, as they say, overcome by events. Getting ready for Easter, taking the kids to Buffalo, getting ready to host 25 people I've never met at an Open House (more on this to come) and thinking deep scientific thoughts (ditto) have all taken up a great deal of time. As has trying to locate the cord for our new-ish digital camera so that I may post pics of the canning equipment that I use in my kitchen. Frustrating, that last one.
This is my third night in a row being awake at 3:00 a.m. (actually, if we're keeping track - and I am - it's more like my eighth since Entropy Girl and I shared a bed in Buffalo and she is a relentless night waker; like mother, like daughter perhaps?). Last night it was the Boy Wonder who brought my snooze to an abrupt and unwelcome end:
Boy Wonder (moaning weekly): Mommmmmmmmeeeeee (pause) Mommmmmmmmmmeeeeee
Me (nearly falling out of bed in an attempt to move as fast as possible): What? Honey, what? Mommy's coming, sweetie....hi honey, what's up? Are you sick?
Boy Wonder: Can you tell Daddy I want him?
The conversation went downhill from there. But that was last night and this is tonight and I'm up now because his sister clearly thought I needed to update my blog and so sounded the alarm for me about an hour ago. She's thoughtful like that.
So on the Open House. Brainiac and I thought it would be a nice idea to have a little something for our townships Board of Supervisors, since they are technically our landlord. While we're at it, we thought, why not also the farm, historical and open space committees? Each of these groups were involved in lengthy and at times contentious discussions and operations regarding the house and we thought they'd all appreciate a chance to meet these mysterious people inhabiting the subject of so much emotional wrangling. Plus maybe get a bite to eat or something.
Why I thought it would be a good idea to do this three days after returning from nearly a week away would be a great subject for analysis. No time for such navel-gazing, though, with food to be prepared and a house to be cleaned. Last night before bed I made two warm dips - one for veggies, one for tortilla chips - and will also put out green and red salsas, a relish tray, bruschetta, drunken wieners*, brownies, and a variety of nuts and sweets. I've tried to avoid the fussy and last-minute because the whole point of the gathering is to meet people, not to avoid them by being holed up in the kitchen for the duration of their visit. As always, I'm worried about not having enough food.
Which brings me, sort of, to the pondering of great scientific questions. As I relate this, please remember that of my many charms and wonderful qualities, an adept scientific mind is not among them, and that any laughing and pointing should be done with as much care and love as possible. Agreed?
O.K., so I know that matter can be neither created nor destroyed. Got it. Stuff changes or not - dust to dust, making compost, landfills filled with diapers - but the matter never actually goes away. Check. But as I planted sixteen bean seeds the other day I wondered about the beans (hopefully) to come. Where is the matter than will make them up now? Does the seed create the plant and its produce from, well, just the matter within its tiny walls? So does that matter come from? Surely it's not all scrunched up within the seed? Do you see where I'm going with this? To the unclear and uninitiated (that is, me) it would seem that growing things does, in fact, require the creation of more matter. And yet...well, now I've got a headache again.
I asked Brainiac about this and in response he merely gazed at me the way one might a slightly annoying but mostly adorable child, kissed me tenderly on the forehead and said something that I can't even reproduce here because it made so little sense to me. Meanwhile, those bean seeds are being rained upon even as I type this so I hope that whatever they're going to do in the way of growing and giving us green beans they're getting to it.
This is my third night in a row being awake at 3:00 a.m. (actually, if we're keeping track - and I am - it's more like my eighth since Entropy Girl and I shared a bed in Buffalo and she is a relentless night waker; like mother, like daughter perhaps?). Last night it was the Boy Wonder who brought my snooze to an abrupt and unwelcome end:
Boy Wonder (moaning weekly): Mommmmmmmmeeeeee (pause) Mommmmmmmmmmeeeeee
Me (nearly falling out of bed in an attempt to move as fast as possible): What? Honey, what? Mommy's coming, sweetie....hi honey, what's up? Are you sick?
Boy Wonder: Can you tell Daddy I want him?
The conversation went downhill from there. But that was last night and this is tonight and I'm up now because his sister clearly thought I needed to update my blog and so sounded the alarm for me about an hour ago. She's thoughtful like that.
So on the Open House. Brainiac and I thought it would be a nice idea to have a little something for our townships Board of Supervisors, since they are technically our landlord. While we're at it, we thought, why not also the farm, historical and open space committees? Each of these groups were involved in lengthy and at times contentious discussions and operations regarding the house and we thought they'd all appreciate a chance to meet these mysterious people inhabiting the subject of so much emotional wrangling. Plus maybe get a bite to eat or something.
Why I thought it would be a good idea to do this three days after returning from nearly a week away would be a great subject for analysis. No time for such navel-gazing, though, with food to be prepared and a house to be cleaned. Last night before bed I made two warm dips - one for veggies, one for tortilla chips - and will also put out green and red salsas, a relish tray, bruschetta, drunken wieners*, brownies, and a variety of nuts and sweets. I've tried to avoid the fussy and last-minute because the whole point of the gathering is to meet people, not to avoid them by being holed up in the kitchen for the duration of their visit. As always, I'm worried about not having enough food.
Which brings me, sort of, to the pondering of great scientific questions. As I relate this, please remember that of my many charms and wonderful qualities, an adept scientific mind is not among them, and that any laughing and pointing should be done with as much care and love as possible. Agreed?
O.K., so I know that matter can be neither created nor destroyed. Got it. Stuff changes or not - dust to dust, making compost, landfills filled with diapers - but the matter never actually goes away. Check. But as I planted sixteen bean seeds the other day I wondered about the beans (hopefully) to come. Where is the matter than will make them up now? Does the seed create the plant and its produce from, well, just the matter within its tiny walls? So does that matter come from? Surely it's not all scrunched up within the seed? Do you see where I'm going with this? To the unclear and uninitiated (that is, me) it would seem that growing things does, in fact, require the creation of more matter. And yet...well, now I've got a headache again.
I asked Brainiac about this and in response he merely gazed at me the way one might a slightly annoying but mostly adorable child, kissed me tenderly on the forehead and said something that I can't even reproduce here because it made so little sense to me. Meanwhile, those bean seeds are being rained upon even as I type this so I hope that whatever they're going to do in the way of growing and giving us green beans they're getting to it.
* The drunken wieners. Yes. Well. A throwback to the 60s perhaps but one that people seem to love whenever I dust it off. I'm pretty sure that my brother-in-law (known Internetly as Paco) appreciates a batch, as does my dad and, well, really despite the somewhat laughable name the dish just goes over, you know? I can only take one or two, myself, but I've known people who will bogart and the entire bowl if you let them.
To taste for yourself the wonder of the drunken weiner, start with a package of those little cocktail smoky hot dog things. They come sort of shrink wrapped which I find odd but which I suppose is fitting somehow since they aren't really food, after all. Anyway, prepare the sauce by messing around with various amounts of grated yellow onion, ketchup, brown sugar and a bit of some kind of whiskey or bourbon - Jim Beam or the like. I never measure any of this, but rather just throw it all together and taste until I figure it'll be good. Throw the little dogs in the mix and pour it all into an oven-safe dish that you'll also use for serving and heat until the weiners are heated through and the sauce is bubbly. Serve with cocktail forks and the expectation of applause.
Snapshots from a random Thursday:
1) All the kids at this morning's toddler story time received a copy of Inside Mouse, Outside Mouse as part of Pennsylvania's One Book, Every Young Child program. Despite recent debunking of the theory that book ownership on the part of the very young results in increased literacy in later years (somewhat raining on the parade of organizations such as First Book) I am charmed by this and look forward to reading this very sweet story to my kids for years to come.
You know, taking a look just now at the First Book website I'm thinking that literacy isn't really the point. I admit I could be wrong about this, but this book lover is seeing something totally different than what some would have me believe. Does distributing books to at-risk and/or low-income children increase literacy rates? Does distributing books to at-risk and/or low-income children make economic sense? I won't pretend to know, but then I don't much care, either. I grew up with the gift of shelf after shelf of books in a family that consumes the written word at a furious pace. Why not share the love?
2) The farmer who leases the fields around our house is doing something today in the plowing/tilling/fertilizing department, giving our environment that "hey, we've live on a farm!" smell which is by turns romantic and nose-wrinkling. Kind of cool for this city-girl-at-heart.
3) I was just informed that there is a plot in the community garden available for me! Wait, let me add more exclamation points to that: !!!!!! Because I was late getting in contact with the gentleman who organizes the garden (turns out he lives next door-ish to us, but I didn't know that until last week) it appeared I'd have to be on the waiting list for next year.
In theory, I have a lot of space to garden outside the community garden's gates. In reality, though, there are many mature trees surrounding the house and I swear we live in the deer capital of Pennsylvania. We actually see more deer here than we did in rural Virginia, and that's saying something. So....yay! We'll have lettuce and radishes after all. Not to mention beans, squash and tomatoes. And right outside our front door, too.
4) You may have heard that April is Use What You Have Month. Although created by and intended for crafters, I think there are a lot of areas where I could stand to do a little more using what I have and a little less acquiring of more stuff with which to do nothing. In other words, I already own every shade of embroidery floss available. I think I should actually make something instead of buying more just to have. I also don't need: canning jars, cookbooks, writing paper, sealing wax, terra cotta flower pots, seeds, measuring cups, tea cups, little glass marbly things or food coloring pastes. I love these things, adore them even. I just don't need anymore and this month am resolved to use what I have.
1) All the kids at this morning's toddler story time received a copy of Inside Mouse, Outside Mouse as part of Pennsylvania's One Book, Every Young Child program. Despite recent debunking of the theory that book ownership on the part of the very young results in increased literacy in later years (somewhat raining on the parade of organizations such as First Book) I am charmed by this and look forward to reading this very sweet story to my kids for years to come.
You know, taking a look just now at the First Book website I'm thinking that literacy isn't really the point. I admit I could be wrong about this, but this book lover is seeing something totally different than what some would have me believe. Does distributing books to at-risk and/or low-income children increase literacy rates? Does distributing books to at-risk and/or low-income children make economic sense? I won't pretend to know, but then I don't much care, either. I grew up with the gift of shelf after shelf of books in a family that consumes the written word at a furious pace. Why not share the love?
2) The farmer who leases the fields around our house is doing something today in the plowing/tilling/fertilizing department, giving our environment that "hey, we've live on a farm!" smell which is by turns romantic and nose-wrinkling. Kind of cool for this city-girl-at-heart.
3) I was just informed that there is a plot in the community garden available for me! Wait, let me add more exclamation points to that: !!!!!! Because I was late getting in contact with the gentleman who organizes the garden (turns out he lives next door-ish to us, but I didn't know that until last week) it appeared I'd have to be on the waiting list for next year.
In theory, I have a lot of space to garden outside the community garden's gates. In reality, though, there are many mature trees surrounding the house and I swear we live in the deer capital of Pennsylvania. We actually see more deer here than we did in rural Virginia, and that's saying something. So....yay! We'll have lettuce and radishes after all. Not to mention beans, squash and tomatoes. And right outside our front door, too.
4) You may have heard that April is Use What You Have Month. Although created by and intended for crafters, I think there are a lot of areas where I could stand to do a little more using what I have and a little less acquiring of more stuff with which to do nothing. In other words, I already own every shade of embroidery floss available. I think I should actually make something instead of buying more just to have. I also don't need: canning jars, cookbooks, writing paper, sealing wax, terra cotta flower pots, seeds, measuring cups, tea cups, little glass marbly things or food coloring pastes. I love these things, adore them even. I just don't need anymore and this month am resolved to use what I have.
You know, I've got 37 years of daylight savings under my belt and you'd think I'd handle the whole thing with a little more grace. But no. I have been walloped and fricaseed, just like every year. Sigh.
Saturday night's dinner went very well. So well that we've already set a (more or less) firm date to do it again in June. The menu ended up slightly altered, largely because once we had enjoyed a few glasses of wine, played with the dog, ran the kids around outside and generally got back in the groove after several months of not seeing each other the actual food seemed somehow less important. There was no strawberry soup or sorbet after all, because one of the preschool moms suggested that those things sounded really gross and then I totally forgot to serve the bread. Other than that, I'm pleased and proud and had a lovely time. To cue up our departure, Entropy Girl threw up all over Braniac - overstimulated and overtired, not really sick - just after the Boy Wonder announced that "of all the kids, we're the only ones awake".
In short, a lovely evening.
Saturday night's dinner went very well. So well that we've already set a (more or less) firm date to do it again in June. The menu ended up slightly altered, largely because once we had enjoyed a few glasses of wine, played with the dog, ran the kids around outside and generally got back in the groove after several months of not seeing each other the actual food seemed somehow less important. There was no strawberry soup or sorbet after all, because one of the preschool moms suggested that those things sounded really gross and then I totally forgot to serve the bread. Other than that, I'm pleased and proud and had a lovely time. To cue up our departure, Entropy Girl threw up all over Braniac - overstimulated and overtired, not really sick - just after the Boy Wonder announced that "of all the kids, we're the only ones awake".
In short, a lovely evening.
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