Thursday, September 02, 2010
Perfect timing! My new Kona Mountain is here!
Posted at 2:45:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Wow, I just listened to LibriVox recording of The Yellow Face, read by Zachary Brewster-Geisz. It was so dramatic and moving, it bought tears to my eyes! Great story, and great reading, Zach.
Posted at 2:15:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Posted at 12:12:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
No more blueberries. I will miss you, perfect summer breakfast.
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Only one more serving of blueberries left, I finished off the dregs of my Kona Mountain Coffee beans today, and, at least according to Suder, tomorrow will be our last Corn Thursday of the year. Also, we had what will likely be our last Potatoes & Tomatoes until next July. Well, at least I ordered more Kona Mountain and it should arrive soon. And I'm pretty sure blueberries don't usually last this long.
Posted at 6:48:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I told Dean while we were eating supper that I really should make a Farmers' Market Season calendar for my Future Self of next year. It will list all my favorite markets, with their days and addresses, plus include recipes for things I love to make this time of year but might for get about, like Potatoes & Tomatoes, grilled peppers, clafoutis, and Aunt Sarah Cucumbers. I can put it in my farmers' market bag so I'll find it next year. I have most of those things online or on my computer, but what's to remind me about them? Plus all those pieces of info are handy to have printed out during the summer.
How about a month of days in the 70s, starting this weekend? Yeah! Good idea, huh?
Posted at 5:12:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I can't remember the last time I was this excited about a book. Such a great feeling. ♥ Thank you, Durham Public Library, for having it as a non-reference book!
Posted at 3:20:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Klekolo World Coffee barista, offhandedly, while finishing a drink for someone else: "Glass or paper?"
Posted at 1:58:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Laura: ?? (to be fair, I couldn't really understand what he was saying)
Barista: "Your Single Bohemian."
Me, smiling like mad: "Actually, I'd like it iced today, so, paper."
Yay, voting has closed in American Farmland Trust's "America's Favorite Farmers' Markets" contest and North End Farmers' Market in Middletown came in 3rd in Connecticut! Way to go! They were beat only by Coventry and New Haven. I'm extra-pleased because I'm the one who told the director about the contest so she could send in the information to get added to the running. :-)
Posted at 11:32:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
"Rabbit, rabbit." Just changed my smudge-of-the-month calendar to September, too!
Posted at 11:08:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Trader Joe's European Style French Vanilla Mint yogurt: interesting. Pretty good. Kind of refreshing. Not overly sweet. Good texture. Goes well with blueberries. Would make a decent cheater's raita, I bet. Would I buy it again? Yes, I think so.
Posted at 8:45:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Favorite yogurts right now: Redwood Hill Farm's Natural European-Style Goat Milk plain yogurt and Green Valley Organics plain yogurt. Green Valley's is pleasingly tart, and Redwood Hill's is just plain delicious and is so good over fresh blueberries +/- peaches and bananas. I love the goaty taste. Weirdly, I thought Redwood Hill's goat yogurt was a new discovery of mine, but actually I rhapsodized over it on ALB back in January, 2002! The former me had good taste. I wonder why I lost track of it and forgot all about it? Maybe Wild Oats stopped carrying it? Very mysterious.
Oh boy oh boy, The Colonial Burying Grounds of Eastern Connecticut and the Men Who Made Them by James A. Slater is ready for pickup! I ♥ interlibrary loans.
Posted at 6:36:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Posted at 1:12:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
I failed to mention that we went to Nan on Saturday and had a really nice hounding on my favorite path. It was the PERFECT temperature--low 70s with a clear blue sky. We hounded all the way to the end of the path but didn't walk on the beach because there were people on it and it looked too sunny. Instead, we stopped at this cute little store, at Dean's suggestion, and I went in (while Dean watched the hounds) and bought a grapefruit Spindrift Soda to try. We both really liked it! I think the New England Emporium should carry Spindrift. We had to take a weird route (PEAKE, V167) home because President Obama was visiting Martha's and there was a TFR. It was cool because we flew over Cape Cod instead, and all the lights down below were so clear and pretty. Nice nice trip, 100%ly.
Cat Stats: Total Distance - 19.38 miles; Average Speed - 9.6 mph; Max Speed - 20.1; Total Time: 2:00'58.
Also, I had a blank iced coffee with lunch (striper sandwich) at the Even Keel. And, it goes without saying, but The Juice Bar's mint chocolate chip ice cream in a waffle cone is the Best Cone Ever. Summer summer summer. Hm, "spindrift" means "windblown sea spray." I knew it was a seasidey word, but I did not know exactly what it meant. (I've only heard of it because of Lady Florence Craye!)
Monday, August 30, 2010
I got my Arbitron radio ratings diary in the mail today! I'm not supposed to tell anyone outside the household about it, so pretend I didn't mention that, okay? They also sent me two more crisp new $1 bills as incentive. I predict I will end up with $5 in total. It says a computer selects households to be in the survey by picking phone numbers at random, but I'm pretty sure Arbitron is actually a 50s/60s-style robot (Arbitron started in 1949, so this makes total sense). Doesn't it sound like a great name for a robot?? Arbitron. He's steel blue and talks in a cool robotic voice, of course.
Posted at 8:02:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
I made an espresso (in a cute little espresso cup) with my Aeropress and drank it blank! I also had a blank iced coffee today at the Coventry market. I made up a theory about why I am suddenly into drinking black coffee: I burned off all the taste receptors on my tongue when I ate all those peppers. Dean doesn't buy it, but it sounds plausible to me.
Posted at 8:30:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
The Coventry Farmers' Market is such an event. So many people! We didn't get as much stuff this time. And it was HOT. But I cooled off by drinking my iced blank coffee from Bean and Leaf and a really good strawberry ice cream from Savory Treats. Other stuff we got: Thai eggplant from Windham Gardens (they are green and round!), lemon cukes and baby leeks from Four Fields Farm, the very last of the Womanchego from Cato cheese (another lady wanted some and was really disappointed that there was none left!) plus some Vivace cheese, and a Christmas present (secret). Dean got a gigantic lemonade from the fresh lemonade squeezer stand and some muttar paneer from the Indian food stand.
Afterwards we went to TWO old Coventry burying grounds that are quite near the Nathan Hale homestead (site of the market): Holy Grove and Silver Street! It was really hot, but I looked at all the Head stones (I skipped all the non-Heads, except for a couple of Revolutionary War ones). Dean even looked at a bunch of them with me! I brought print-outs of the pages I photographed from the James Slater book (it's SO great!) for reference. Holy Grove is a nice size (not huge, but lots there) and Silver Street is really tiny, with only 20 stones. It's super-cute. The lighting at Holy Grove was great, except for one little part of the grounds that was next to the woods and was in shadow from the trees. Unfortunately, that's where Jonathan and John Loomis' ( = my fav carvers!) were buried, so I couldn't see their stones that well. Their stones were carved by Thatcher Lathrop, and are so inferior to their own work! They massively should've prepared their own stones ahead of time. The Silver Street burying ground was in shadow because the stones face east instead of west like at most cemeteries. I will have to go back in the morning (!) some time, because I really couldn't see the stones very well, even though it was clear there are some cool ones there. I didn't organize my photos yet, or my photos from the Glastonbury cemetery on Friday. But that's okay; there's no rush.
Oh no! We went to the WRONG Pepe's: Pepe's Restaurant vs. Pepe's Pizzeria Napoletana! No wonder it didn't seem right. Such FOOLS! We'll have to try the real Manchester Pepe's another time.
Posted at 3:55:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
[Edit: We found the real Manchester Pepe's on the way home (didn't get anything there since we were already full from the fraudulent Pepe's) and it looked tons better! We will have to return some other time if we go back to the Coventry Farmers' Market. We also stopped at a certain painting-related establishment at Evergreen Walk and Dean helped me pick out some dishes for a secret project! ♥]
We're trying a weird Pepe's (in Manchester, not New Haven!). So far, it's very UN-New Haven pizza-ish. There's way too many choices on the menu, for one thing!
Posted at 3:16:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
On the way here, we drove by Clocktower Mill and its surrounding area stomping grounds for a Part Two mini Nostalgia Tour. It's really fun going to the market and cemeteries and driving around with Dean on Sundays!
Saturday, August 28, 2010
I can't believe it--somehow I ran out of Kona Mountain without realizing it! The cupboard is bare!! Noooooo!
Posted at 11:47:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Aaagh, Dean took the Cambridge Face Memory Test and kept complaining the entire time about how hard it was and how he wanted it to be over, but he got 89% correct!!! I guess that proves I really am bad with faces and it wasn't just an impossible test. I wonder if I'd get better at recognizing faces if I studied a lot of gravestone heads???
Posted at 1:47:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Friday, August 27, 2010
I just took the Cambridge Face Memory Test and scored 64% correct. "The average person with normal face recognition was able to recognize about 80% of the faces. If you correctly identified less than 65% of the faces, this may indicate face recognition difficulties." Not too bad... I felt like I did well when there was just one face to memorize, but when there were six all at once I really had no idea and just guessed.
Posted at 10:10:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
The thing is, when there was just one face I really focused on it and concentrated to try to memorize it, since it was a test. I don't do that in real life. In real life when I look at someone I just blank out the face and forget it two seconds after I move my eyes away.
There's an Oliver Sacks article in the new issue of The New Yorker about people who are terrible at recognizing faces, like me! There's a name for it: prosopagnosia. And he confirms that it runs in families. (David has the same trouble I do.)
Posted at 9:50:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Here are the aforementioned strawberry husk tomato and okra (red, green and red & green striped!) pictures. I just love how autumnal the strawberry husk toms look. After you take off the papery sheath, you just pop them in your mouth and they are sweet and yummy and strawberry-ish tasting! They remind me of something from a farmers' market in Hawaii (Dean agrees). Also, here's another picture: how I got back from South Glastonbury today. The ferry!!! It was so so so nice out today, with an incredible blue sky. Just amazing. The ferry was super-speedy because when I arrived it was already loaded up with two cars, so I just drove right on and we took off. However, on the Rocky Hill side, there were about a MILLION cars lined up waiting to get back to Glastonbury! I couldn't count them because I was driving past, but there were a LOT. At least 15. They stretched all the way up into the road. I didn't know the ferry was so popular!
Posted at 6:12:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I had a totally great day today. First I went to the North End Farmers' Market in Middletown, but I hardly bought anything because things are starting to get a little bit fall-ish and there wasn't anything that inspiring... There were NO blueberries at the Chaplin stand! (I gave the vendor a big pile of pint-size berry boxes, though. I always save them up and give them to him because he seems to like them so much. I give half-pint boxes back to Suder.) I just bought a tomato and some cranberry beans (that vendor told me that's what those shell beans are called!) at the Cecarelli stand, which has a new guy manning it now because the former guy got a job. He told me his name, which was the same as the former guy's name, but I didn't write it down so I don't remember what it is. I also bought a scuffin from O'Rourke's, of course. I love seeing Tina every Friday! She's so happy and friendly. We commiserated about the coming of fall. After Klekolo, I returned Johnny Tremain at the library and while I was there I looked up some books about old cemeteries. They were all kept in the Middletown Room, which is a special locked reference room you need permission to access (while they hold your library card hostage). They had four great publications--one had info about the different cemeteries in Middletown and how to visit them (I took pictures of the pages about the ones that sounded good), and the other three were cool books about 18th century gravestones and their carvers and different cemeteries in Connecticut! It was a huge TEASE because I really wanted to take them home! Too much to read/remember when you can't take it out of the room! They had tons of great pictures of the different carvers' styles, and reviews of cemeteries, and everything. I took photos of some of the pages with information about cemeteries I want to visit, but no photos of the parts about the carvers and styles because there just was way too much!
After the library I drove via the Arrigoni Bridge to Draghi to get Butchie eggs and Draghi's blueberries, and as I was driving from there to the ferry I saw a sign (right near the road you take to get Rose's and the other berry picking farms) that said "Old South Cemetery - Established 1800." Screeeeeeech!!! There were quite a few head-era gravestones (I skipped all the less-old ones) and it was gorgeous weather for walking around looking at them, even though I was getting barked at by three dogs who lived next door to the cemetery. Leave me alone, dogs! I am not doing anything to bother you! Bark bark bark. It was really sunny, which was sort of good (I read at the library that sun is good for gravestone pics, but it's complicated...) because it was easier to see the carvings, but I had to be careful of shadows. Not bad, though...! The only bad thing other than the dogs barking their heads off was the shameful condition of the cemetery's American flag. It was appalling. I have never seen a flag in such poor condition (it was literally in tatters) and thought it was so disrespectful to all the Revolutionary War veterans buried there! Don't they know about flag etiquette?? :-( The heads weren't as creative/varietal as the ones at the Hale cemetery or my East Berlin one, but they were still pretty great and really interesting to look at. Then I took the ferry to Rocky! ♥
Posted at 12:21:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
I made a teacup of Kona Mountain decaf and drank it blank while doing the dishes! Am I suddenly developing a taste for black coffee?? Why??? (Note: I am now immediately playing the song "Black Coffee" and the entire album it lives on.) I also made a container of Aunt Sarah Danish Cucumbers out of the lemon cukes from the Hartford farmers' market, and they are so good! The skins are really thin, so you don't need to peel them, and they are nice and crisp and crunchy, with great flavor. Also, they are cute. I will definitely buy more if I see them. (I love LOVE the lemon cucumber portrait I took this afternoon. Such great color combos and textures! ♥ It needed a soft/rough background to offset the smooth cucumbers and plate, and what goes together better than pink and orange? So I posed them on my swimming towel.)
Here's my picture of the Aunt Sarah Cucumbers before I shook the container around to mix up the ingredients. I love the cute shape of the cut lemon cucumbers. I don't know the actual official recipe with measurements and stuff, so I just played it by ear, although I e-mailed my mom to ask her, so I will post it if she sends it. You can probably guess just by looking at the picture. The ingredients are sliced cucumbers, vinegar, water, sugar, salt (I used Hawaiian sea salt, which is why it's orange), pepper, and dill. Dill might not be in Aunt Sarah's real recipe, but it clearly should be and I have always put it in. I always used to be the one to mix up these cukes when I lived with my Gs, for some reason. I guess I just liked doing it.
Ooooh, "Black Coffee" finally came on. "Feeling low as the grounds." Nope! Aaaaak, good farmers' markets really make me HIGH. It's insane. I'm going to be in big trouble when autumn lands like an anvil on my head.
Anyway, I was supposed to be writing about the market. Wethersfield Farmers' Market = WOW! Who would have guessed that historic Old Wethersfield ("celebrating 375 years"!) and its incredible little market lurks just beyond crummy ol' Silas Deane Highway?! Well, I didn't, at least. Of course, thinking all of Wethersfield is like the Silas Deane Highway is kind of like thinking all of Berlin is like the Berlin Turnpike, but what do I know? In any case, it was pretty great. It doesn't start until 3, so I finished all my Thursday-ing first, then drove there, arriving around 4 o'clock. It was an event! Lots of people were arriving, by car and by bicycle. There's a parking lot at a historical building nearby (it's near the Joseph Webb, Silas Deane, and Isaac Stevens houses), so I found a spot and walked over to the market, which is on a shady lawn under a couple of huge old trees. There were about 20 vendors, with lots of variety! Here's another picture, showing more stuff that didn't fit in the first one. That cool copper dome with the chimney was a mobile brick oven pizza oven!
After I finished my shopping, I went back and wrote down all the stands in order: a) Brick oven pizza. b) Morning Glory homemade baked goods. I bought some incredibly delicious Dill Butter Rolls here, after I overheard the vendor telling another customer how amazing the rolls were when consumed with goat cheese and heirloom tomatoes. c) Spring Valley Farm, a very cool University of Connecticut student-run sustainable living and learning community. They had RED okra, green okra, and red and green striped okra! I remarked upon it, and the farmer (I think it was the horticulture student in the video), said he got the seeds from a seed saver who probably hadn't isolated properly, thus producing the stripers. They were surprised that I knew about okra, since it's not that common in New England, and I told them that my parents used to grow it and served it in a very slimy way that I had to hold my nose to get down. Accordingly, I did not buy any okra, although I did take a picture of it, and a picture of their fantastic hand-painted sign. Wow--a UConn thing I, as a UConn alumni, actually like! d) Another farm, located in Wethersfield, where I bought strawberry husk tomatoes. They are so cool and also highly tasty. Will post photos of the okra and s.h.t. tomorrow. e) A flower stand, f) Another farm, g) Sweet Pea Cheese, from North Granby. They had fresh goat and cow cheeses, as well as goat Greek yogurt and some other cool stuff. I bought Honey Divine Bovine soft (chevre-style) cow cheese to go with my rolls from the Morning Glory stand. f) Upcycled wool items (different than the one at the Whole Foods' market and Coventry). I love those upcycled felted wool stands, although I never buy anything at them. g) The Farm on Grindle Brook (soap and bath stuff). h) Another farm. i) Jams. j) Art. k) Salsa. l) Jams & syrups. m) Quiet Corner Coffee Roasters, from Ashford. n) Another farm. o) B'Udder Bar goat bath and body products. They were fancy. One even had kukui oil! p) An Italian ice stand. q) An information table that included Wethersfield Farmers' Market bottled sodas, in cool flavors like birch beer! I think that was everything, but it's possible I could have missed something inconspicuous. Best of all, no Rose's! Also, the weather was perfect. 100% perfect.
On the way home, I stopped at Suder's, since it's Corn Thursday (I went a cool way from Wethersfield that my Guy told me to take, which put me out on the corner of the Rocky SBUX road and the Suder Road), and got four ears of corn (Suder told me the corn will probably be all finished around Labor Day! Noooooo! And a whole field was wiped out by BIRDS. Evil.) (He also told me the reason the later corn is sweeter is that they are different varieties), three different roasting peppers, yummy peppers, and some pretty purple and green basil that looks like a bouquet. For dinner, we had a market FEAST: 1st course = Dill Butter Rolls with Honey Divine Bovine cheese, strawberry husk tomatoes, and sliced Japanese Black Trifle tomato. (Basil bouquet was in the center of the table and could also be pillaged as desired.) 2nd course = Two ears of super-sweet Suder corn each, with smoked black sea salt. 3rd course = Grilled peppers. I wrapped each one in aluminum foil after pouring in a couple of spoonfuls of breadcrumbs and some olive oil, then grilled them for a billion years. At least 20 minutes. They were perfect--cripsy and black on the bottom, tender and delicious on top. I mean, I even LIKED them! They were peppers, and I really liked them! The varieties were Diablo Sweet Roasting Peppers, Carmen Italian Sweet Peppers (our fav from the big pepper contest), and Giant Marconi Red Roasting Peppers. They were all in a row at Suder's and were all extremely similar looking. The first two were pretty much indistinguishable in taste, and the Giant Marconi was marginally inferior. OK, bed now. It's 3:04 AM. Strawberry husk tomato and okra pictures tomorrow. Middletown market tomorrow!
Thursday, August 26, 2010
!!! I was right near the Village Cemetery & Old Burying Ground and I didn't even know it!!! MUST GO BACK!!!!!
Posted at 8:31:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Dean sent me this article, which says, "Scorpacciata is a term that means consuming large amounts of a particular local ingredient while it's in season. It's a good way to eat." Yeah!!
Posted at 8:12:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I'm all wired from the Wethersfield Farmers' Market and our Market Feast dinner! Aaah! I feel like a '66 Bob! Sooooooooooo good. Must decompress before I can post.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
HEAT WAVE coming this weekend! Yaaaay!
Posted at 9:43:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I accidentally drank my whole Kimball Farm coffee without putting the cream in it! It had a top on, so I couldn't see the color.
Posted at 5:45:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Dean: "You ate a whole coffee, blank!"
Laura, writing it down: "Did you say, 'coffee blank,' or 'coffee, blank'?"
Dean: "I said 'coffee, black'!"
Ooops. I like "blank." It sounds like it was a coffee with no additions. I actually realized I was drinking it black after about 1/4 of the cup (when I noticed my creamers still sitting on the table), but kept doing it anyway since it tasted good, and I finished the whole thing. Bizarre! I always put cream in my coffee. Really nice Jaff IFR visit today. We emerged from the clouds and saw the runway at about a mile away. And, for the first time EVER, there was NO ONE in line at Kimball! Not in the lobster roll line or the ice cream line.
I'm wearing pants! Aaaah! But we're going to Jaff (IFR!) and I don't want to be cold.
Posted at 3:04:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I forgot to post my picture of me wearing the skirt. I took it in the fitting room at The Gag (I mean The Gap.) It looks shorter than I thought! I think it's because the fabric is heavier/stiffer, so it stands out straight to the sides instead of flowing/flopping down. Not that I measured the length. I just sort of made it the length that seemed to look good. I always have to play skirt lengths by eye, because it depends so much in the material how long the skirt wants to be. Anyway, the best part is, the fabric is cotton, but it's slightly stretchy in the horizontal direction and is impervious to wrinkles!
Posted at 12:28:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
The top I'm wearing in the picture is one I bought this summer at Uptown, but didn't wear until today (because it wasn't cold enough). It's super-lightweight cashmere and is really snuggly and comfortable. I like that red chair.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
I'm coooooooooooooooooooooooold!!! Remind me again why autumn is supposed to be a good thing?
Posted at 10:55:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Posted at 7:27:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I forgot to note that I made a triple-berry clafoutis last night. Blue, black, and rasp. It's Very Berry. I think I like single-berry clafoutis better, though.
I got a nice little black slip at The Gag [ha!! this typo is cracking me up, so I'm not fixing it] to go with my skirt (and other skirts) so I can wear tights with it (otherwise, since it's cotton, it would get stuck on the tights when I walk, and I hate that; plus, it's warmer!)
But, first, I went to the West End Farmers' Market in Hartford! Since Dean was working late today, I waited until the rain subsided to a drizzle, then drove over there from West Hartford. It was a little bit scary (Hartfordy) getting here, but not too bad thanks to my GPS! I forced it to take me there via Farmington Avenue near the W.H. Whole Foods, so I could understand it better. The market is at the United Methodist Church, on the corner of Farmington Ave and South Whitney Street. It was slightly smaller than the North End Market in Middletown, and the atmosphere wasn't as good, but it had some cool stuff. There wasn't any real music today, but I think there was supposed to be. Maybe the music person bailed because of the rain. Instead there was a blues singer-looking guy playing a CD that was hooked up to an amp. Rose's was there, of course, but I didn't buy anything from them just on a matter of principle.
Actually I bought everything from Four Fields Farm and Cato Corner Farm, a cheesemaker in Colchester. I was talking to the woman running the Cato Corner stand, and she asked me how I found out about the market, so I told her that I read about it on Four Fields Farm's website after I bought stuff from them at the Coventry Farmers' Market. It turned out that the woman manning the cheese stand (Hannah) and the Four Fields stand woman (Shannon) are actually partners! Hannah makes cheese at Cato's in the winter. Shannon remembered me from Coventry since I was asking lots of questions about the names of the varieties and writing stuff down on my Piece of Paper. Heh. Anyway, I bought two wedges of Cato cheese: Womanchego and Bloomsday. I like Womanchego best but both are delicious. And at Four Fields I got more magda squash, a beautiful bunch of beets, and lemon cucumbers. They are cucumbers but look like lemons! I will have to take a picture in the daylight tomorrow. According to Shannon, they are very popular on the West Coast but no one has heard of them here.
Finished the skirt! Fastest skirt ever, and I even finished all the edges.
Posted at 2:40:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I take it back about the Paul Reds. They're good, but nowhere near Honeycrisp good. None of the subsequent apples that I've bought have been crisp like that first one.
Posted at 12:40:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
It's cool and rainy again today. I think I need a pair of tights to go with my new skirt. :-(
I'm sewing another shirred skirt! It's actually technically finished already, but I want to add a pocket or pockets with the contrasting fabric. It's made out of this:
Posted at 1:52:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
And the contraster is matching fabric but pink/green. So far I trimmed the bottom with the pink, but it needs to be featured a little more than just that. I got a yard of the blue fabric in Nantucket with Dean, and found a fat quarter of its pal on Etsy.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Autumn preview time! (And this better be just a preview.)
Posted at 7:14:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I hope it's nicer out tomorrow, because I want to go to the West End Farmers' Market.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Posted at 5:40:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
[Edit: Forgot the Cat Stats again! Total Distance - 8.18 miles; Average Speed - 8.7 mph; Max Speed - Mx 25.0 mph; Total Time: 56'02]
Posted at 5:02:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Rainy Sunday. It's nice! Yesterday we hounded to Cooneymus. I didn't like the super-bumpy dirt road at the end and pushing my hound through sand! It was okay on the way back, though, because I pushed it on the little grassy part at the edge. Saw lots of neat dead stuff washed up on my Cooney wander: baby sharks (this one looks like a ghost! eeek!), skate, bird, fish, horseshoe crab & one sea star. And lots of lots of dead seaweed. (This pile was my favorite.) I also found a washed-up orange plastic rope from a ship and pulled out six strands, then braided them together to make a cord for my beater camera so I can wear it around my neck! It's really really skinny and lightweight but super-strong. It took a long time to braid (Dean held the end for me!), but it was nice sitting a few feet away from the waves, and it was all overcasty so it wasn't glarey at all.
Photo strip above = the wrap I always get at Froozie's (Pondsider, but not grilled) / my feet in my "Sandy Shoes" at Cooneymus / sign I saw while hounding by the quarry (?) and had to pull over to take a picture. :-)
Saturday, August 21, 2010
There's a new thing in the building across from Froozie's that goes out of business every year. (Kind of bizarre of them to open on the second-to-last week of August, after the place being vacant all summer...) This time it's an airbrushed temporary tattoo joint. It's super bustly on the Froozie porch (mainly caused by noisy National Hotel people around the corner) but we snagged our table on the end away from the other dudes. It's a beautiful clear calm day and the perfect temp!
Posted at 1:59:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Mississippi. TTS Disc 3 version! Love LOVE.
Posted at 4:?1:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I took a bath, and now the fingers of my right hand are ON FIRE!
Posted at 12:33:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
My fingers still hurt from cutting up those peppers bare-handed!
Posted at 10:50:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I am making another straw-rhu clafoutis, to use up the last of the tiny strawberries from the Coventry Farmers' Market. This time I used 3 egg whites and only 1 egg yolk, as an experiment.
[Edit: It was still wolf-worthy, but inferior to the normal 2 eggs. For some reason, it massively developed layers, with a distinct "crust" on the bottom (where all the heavier flour fell down), followed by a very eggwhitey section with the straw and rhu mixed in.]
Posted at 8:29:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Peppers from Cold Spring Brook Farm: El Hombre, Inferno, Hot Cherry, Cheyenne (Cayenne), Tormenta Jalapeño, Anaheim, Yummy, Carmen Italian, and Garden Salsa.
I cooked them all on the grill, each individually wrapped in aluminum foil. Then I took notes while Dean cut up the peppers and analyzed them, feeding me one bite of each. All quotes and opinions are by Dean unless otherwise noted. (He's a pepper fan and I'm not.)
Ratings, listed in order of preference:
1. Yummy Pepper - Sweet & yummy! (I agree, it was tasty.)
2. Carmen Italian Sweet Pepper - "This one's good." Tasty. Not hot.
3. (tie) Hot Cherry Pepper - Good, not hot. "I like the cherry pepper."
3. (tie) Garden Salsa Hot Pepper - Good flavor. Nice for eating because it's big. Laura: "I like this one."
4. Inferno Hot Pepper- "I like the Inferno." Good flavor, big, not too hot.
5. El Hombre Mild Long Hot - Just the right amount of hotness. Good flavor.
6. Cheyenne Hot Pepper - Jalapeño flavor, without the tormenting. Hot, but not too hot. "I like it." Laura: "I don't! It hurt my tongue!"
7. Anaheim 118 Mildly Hot - Not as hot or as tasty as El Hombre.
8. Tormenta Jalapeño - Good, jalapeño-ish, hot. Tasty though. Laura: "Yaaah!! Ahh! My tongue is ruined!" Much hotter than the others. Dean: "A little hot just for casual eating."
Dean seemed to like all of them, and there were almost no leftovers! He said I'm "officially in the good category" for trying all those peppers. I can't believe I did it, and even kind of liked some of them!
Momentus occasion! We got rid of all the catalogs in our giant and highly organized catalog file. We only kept six super-old ones, for nostalgic reasons. Catalogs are officially passé.
Posted at 1:25:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Suder's also had Paula Red apples today. I had never seen that variety before, and I'm not a super-big fan of most apples (except ♥honeycrisps♥, of course), but I bought ONE to try out. It was so good!!!!! Nice and crisp and tart. Honeycrisp-level good! I'm going to get more tomorrow.
Posted at 9:52:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I forgot I didn't post about making the mokes yet on ALB. Heh. I will do that after I take the pictures. (Too dark now; better lighting tomorrow.) Saw this at Big W today. Why???? Okay, the bat-themed York Peppermint Patties are pretty cool, but IT IS NOT TIME FOR HALLOWEEN CANDY! They also had about ten million packaged trick-or-treat minis on display. And ten million is not an exaggeration. Sick sick sick. On the other hand, I also saw this at Big W. I love them so much! If only it were vanilla soy, I would buy it just because of the packaging. And guess what Suder's had today?? Yummy Peppers! A huge bin of them! I bought about a pint and already chomped three of them raw.
Posted at 6:59:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I went on a bike ride before supper, and it was perfect out. Dare I say it, slightly crisp. The bike ride was insanely short, because it was actually not a real bike ride, but rather transportation to the cemetery! It was nice and overcast today and I kept thinking nonstop what a good day it would be to look at gravestones. (The lighting's not as good for photos if it's sunny.) I walked down and looked at the part of the cemetery that I didn't visit last Sunday, but it was kind of boring because that's where the more recent graves are, and their stones have much less character. There was actually a new grave that had just been dug, with plywood over the top and a truck parked nearby with its bed full of the missing soil. After I looked at the 20th/21st century section, I went back and looked at the 19th/18th century area again, and noticed a whole bunch of things that I didn't last time. There were some heads that I'd missed, and other interesting stuff. Haven't sorted through the photos yet. Lots of Savages (there are about three or four different Seth Savages!) and lots of Hubbards are buried there. (The nearby elementary school where we go to vote is Hubbard School.) I want to go back to the Ancient Burying Ground in Hartford some time. (I went there in 2003 and 2004, but just quickly both times, and without my camera. That was when I first found about about heads! I posted about it on ALB.) I also want to go to the Mansfield Center cemetery near Dean's old house. And others. But those are top of the list. :-) However, I am in no hurry. It will be fun randomly adding to my head knowledge when the right conditions strike.
Our mokes finally came!!!! They both look great! They look so different all glossy and bright! We like them!!! I'll post a picture soon.
Posted at 2:16:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Also, there are stones by Gershom Bartlett of Bolton! Here's an example of stones I'm pretty sure are each guy's work: Josiah Manning (or one of his two sons), Gershom Bartlett, and Jonathan Loomis.
Posted at 1:53:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Posted at 2:30:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
YUM!!! Strawberry-rhubarb clafoutis is the best clafoutis. Best best best.
I added 33 new images to my cemetery album on Facebook! (The new stuff starts with the Nathan Hale monument.) After organizing all those heads, I think I might be developing a new obsession. I'm starting to recognise the different carvers' styles and forming favs! I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of stones at the Nathan Hale Cemetery by Josiah Manning of Windham and Jonathan Loomis of Coventry (makes sense, as it's in Coventry). Oh yeah, and I found out those winged heads are called "soul effigies." Now I want to visit more cemeteries to see more heads and learn more about the carvers' styles!
Posted at 1:59:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Also: I am baking my straw-rhubarb clafoutis right now. I can't wait to SMELL it.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
We had the beets & beet greens from Crocker Farm (bought at the Coventry market) tonight for supper. Best. Beets. Ever. They were so sweet! Also, I made the lima beans I got as a freebie at North End. Not bad. Not yucky like frozen limas. Not as good as those pretty shell beans, though.
Posted at 6:30:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Dean thinks I should go to the West End Farmers' Market in Hartford. It's on Tuesday and Friday, from 4 to 7, on the corner of Farmington Ave and South Whitney Street at United Methodist Church. Four Fields Farm sells there. I just looked it up, and it's only 5 minutes from the West Hartford Whole Foods! And they have music.
Aaah! I saw these on a store shelf today and massively wanted to buy all of them, but we don't use this shape Kleenex box. Plus I don't believe in whatever anti-virus agent they contain, but, still. So great looking!!! I especially like the little slug guy.
Posted at 4:48:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Posted at 11:32:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Coventry Regional Farmers' Market notes (from Sunday):
Definitely the biggest and most crowded farmers' market we've ever been to! The parking area was giant and packed.
Eat-now food Dean got: Keifer's Italian ice (watermelon), chocolate chip cookie, veggie samosa (he snuck over and bought it while I was looking at heirloom tomatoes), sweet mint tea, and freshly-squeezed lemonade. I refused to eat any of his things (except the lemonade). He said I wasn't getting into the spirit of the market, so I tried to buy some eat-now stuff of my own.
Eat-now food I got: coarse salt pretzel and mint brownie. I was too busy writing things down on my Piece of Paper!
Non eat-now stuff we bought:
Magda (fat) and Zephyr (two-tone) heirloom squash and heirloom tomatoes, from Four Fields Farm in Granby. Tomatoes = Black Krim (green one at top), Zapotec, and Crnkovic Yugoslavian, plus a freebie Evergreen (pictured here with Red Rose from the Lyme market and Black Prince from Maggie's Farm, Lebanon). Four Fields Farm specializes in really unusual heirloom tomato breeds no one's ever heard of! I certainly haven't. I'd never seen any of their varieties elsewhere.
Beets and a huge bag of broccoli stalks, from Crocker Farm in Ashford. I also bought a jar of honey from a Storrs apiary (Alex Nishball's) at their stand, and returned later to get their last bundle of rhubarb after I found strawberries (!) to go with it.
Sour pickles and chipotle mustard in jars from Christine's Country Kitchen. They are really into getting people to return jars!
Tiny sweet strawberries from Easy Pickin's in Enfield. Strawberries in August!! How??? Not just strawberries, but the early kind of strawberries. I had some of my berry hairnets (saved from Chaplin Farm) in my bag, so I used them on the strawberries! Later I ate one strawberry to determine if I should go back and get more. I immediately did, and bought two more half pints. I put my two remaining berry hairnets on them at the table before I paid for them, and the vendor was really confused because he didn't recognize his own berries. Hee. Then I returned to Crocker for the rhubarb. It was only a small half-bundle and they gave it to me really cheap, but it'll be the perfect amount for a straw-rhubarb clafoutis!
Maggie's Farm, Lebanon (is this a Bob-loving farm??? I didn't ask) = the aforementioned Black Prince heirloom tomato and a bag of shiitake mushrooms (for the quiche Dean kept requesting).
Another farm (didn't write down name) = fingerling potatoes, basil, French butter lettuce (I heard the vendor telling another customer how great it was and then I wanted it too... I got the very last head, which was kind of buried under some other lettuce).
I think that's everything. Not sure. We were all weighed down with our bags! It was at the Nathan Hale Homestead, in a big open field. Kind of like the South Kona Green Market but BIGGER! There were even dudes with Colonial outfits on, crazy stilt-walking people, hula-hoopers, and a drummer guy with lots of different types of drums (but not as many drums as Nick in Freaks and Geeks). He did songs like "Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay" on his drums. I took some pictures, but it's kind of impossible to photograph a big farmers' market because it's so chaotic and there are so many random people walking everywhere. Mostly it looked like lots and lots of white-roofed tents with tables underneath and lots and lots and lots of people and dogs (on leashes) milling around. There were tons of non-produce things, too, like the upcycled felted wool lady was there, and different jewelry makers, soapers, homemade baby dresses, hemp stuff, a spinner, the Beltane cheese guy (we talked to him... he likes to talk!), a cow cheese guy, meat stands, and all kinds of different eat-nows, and... I don't know, just everything! This page has a list of the vendors.
Afterwards, we decided to go to the UConn Starbucks, and on the way we drove by the Nathan Hale Cemetery! I wanted to stop, so we did! So many cool HEADS!!! I walked around looking at the gravestones while Dean followed alongside in Lex, looking out the window at stuff I pointed out. There was a giant monument to Nathan Hale (America's first spy! that is very cool) but he isn't actually buried there because the British hanged him and he was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere on Manhattan island soon after his death. His body was never found. I took a million pictures of gravestones with heads on them. There were so many, and they were all different and all cool! I am still trying to sort though them... it's overwhelming! My favorite gravestone was Edward Crandall's. He died in 1788 and had the only brown head stone, with nice green lichen trim and a very nice head.
After the cemetery, we were driving along and saw a sign for Mansfield Middle School, and I suggested to Dean that we follow and check it out. It ended up turning into a huge nostalgia tour that was super fun! Since I pointed out that it was nearby, we visited Bicentennial Pond; then, after drinks at SBUX, Skora's, Phil's, and the UConn campus. I took pics of the former Honors House (ugh), the College of Agriculture, the Storrs Congregational Church, and the Chemistry building (pretty!). There was lots of construction going on and a bunch of the roads were blocked off. Then, of course, the sharp turnoff to Moulton Road. I knew when we were getting close to Grandma's old house, and told Dean to pull over. The barn looks pretty long in the tooth. I even took a picture of the huge glacial rock across the road from Grandma's. (Whenever we visited in the summer, I loved to climb on it. It was sort of a tradition.) Last site on tour: Kathy John's. It's still vacant! :-( Since we couldn't eat there, we had dinner at Rein's, then drove the rest of the way home, stopping at Bob's Farm Market on the Berlin Turnpike for eggs (I've always thought it was so weird to drive by a farm market on the Ber, but had never before stopped... they had Hosmer Mountain, and we bought two bottles!). Such a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon!
Nice nice day. Overcasty and drizzling rain on and off, but lovely. Finally, I feel well-rested. So very calm and relaxed. I drove to Draghi Farm (via the Arrigoni Bridge), then from there to Whole Foods, all without turning on my GPS, and I didn't get lost or even make any wrong turns! Amazing!
Posted at 6:40:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
We had Magda heirloom squash from the Coventry Farmers' Market for dinner tonight, and it was really good. And I bought Vermont Butter & Cheese Fromage Blanc at Whole Foods. I almost bought Quark, but then I decided on the Fromage Blanc instead. I will try Quark another time. Will write about the Coventry market later tonight, but I want to finish my book first.
!!!!!!!!!! Whole Foods has mangosteen! The forbidden fruit! If this was 2004-2006, I would have nearly fainted with excitement, then snatched one up with shaking hands. As it was, I just sort of stared in surprise, then took a picture. Of course, you'd never see mangosteen at Whole Foods back then, because it was illegal. I have to admit I didn't even know they were import-able now. (Did I?) Price: $39.99/lb, which is almost $10 each. Crazy!! They were $2 each from Ken Love's table at the Keauhou Farmers' Market.
Posted at 4:16:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I forgot to mention, I got raspberries at Ashlawn (from the same vendor who sold me the heirlooms) and they were so good. So so so so good.
Posted at 12:04:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Good grief, it's insane how behind I am on posting again. I didn't write about the Lyme Farmers' Market on Friday, Block Island on Saturday, or the big triple-header today: Coventry Farmers' Market, Nathan Hale cemetery, and big nostalgia tour! All I wrote about was quiche. Aaaaaaaah!!!! And I have about 200,000 photos. And I didn't even write about our anniversary yet! I am holding back on posting until I've filled some of this stuff in!!! [Edit. 2:28 AM: Okay, I wrote some. Friday + Saturday. Will add photos from Block Island, plus report about today, tomorrow. Must go to bed now.] [P.S. Today was so fuuuuuuuuun!] [Edit, 12:53 PM: Okay, I added the Block photos. Posting this now. Will write about yesterday soon!]
Posted at 12:39:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Posted at 12:11:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
I made a quiche! Dean kept requesting one (made with Yummy Peppers and mushrooms), so I found a recipe online and adapted it. I mixed together 3 eggs, 3/4 c. Bisquick, and 1 1/2 c. milk, then poured that over broccoli and Shiitake mushrooms (both from the Coventry Farmers' Market), Yummy Peppers, and cottage cheese. I didn't have any normal cheese around, so I just used whatever was left of the cottage cheese. Oh, and I cooked all the veggies first (peppers and mushrooms on top of stove; broc in the microwave). Then I baked it in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. It came out perfect, and was really light and fluffy, not as heavy and filling as a normal quiche. The Bisquick sort of formed a bottom, but there's no rich shell like in most quiches. It was highly yummy. I don't like cooked peppers, so I left the peppers out of my section. Quiches are pretty similar to clafoutis!
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Dean: "We're going to get lots of squashes. Dozens and dozens of squashes."
Posted at 11:45:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Me: "What are we going to do with all those squashes?"
Dean: "Eat them. And squash them. Mostly eat them."
I got up early, and we're going to the Coventry Regional Farmers' Market! The cheese guy on Friday in Lyme told me it's huge and they have everything.
Posted at 11:02:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
