Adventures in Email

I've had a few email jawdroppers in the last few weeks that deserve sharing.

I belong to a professional listserv that can be a bit nuts at times. There is a viciousness lying just beneath the surface of the group that crops up far more often than it should. There have been monster "discussions" over everything from slander to whether men should speak up or not. A whole day can be blown by one careless grammatical error as every freelancer with too much time on her hands feels the need to pile on with commentary.

At some point recently a member "had to share this horrible story" about a dog that was used in an "art" (yes, scare quotes from me, it won't happen again) exhibition in Spain. There was condemnation of the artist who plucked the starving dog from the streets and put it in a gallery. You can read about it here and here. 

So naturally the listserv devolved into chaos. Of course everyone thought it was a horrible story - one poster pointed people to Snopes to read some clarity about the facts. The poster was attacked by the woman (it's a women's group in name, I'm not making a statement here) who had posted the original story. She took a huge leap in logic to assume that the Snopes poster was somehow endorsing the behavior that she found so repugnant. She then said there were obviously no Jews there because if there were even one they never would have allowed it to happen and then she said the Snopes poster should be sent to a concentration camp. Obviously, um, deranged thinking.

Part II

We have the cutest little family listserv. It sprung up almost a year ago and most of the conversation has been about family stories. We've been compiling the mini histories and piecing together parts of our family history not everyone knew. It's kind of cool. Many months ago part of the New York delegation said they assumed it'd be best to stay away from politics as a subject - really just as an aside, but it stuck and almost nothing has been said about the election or political matters.

That was, until this week. You're going to have to read the next post for that though.

Cherry Pie Oh My

Beautiful farm stand cherries must be consumed. Eggy sampled one and said they were a little tart so pie sounded perfect. In a rare fit of post dinner baking I searched for a simple recipe and found this one on Recipezaar. It was perfect, but I had a secret ingredient in mind.

Since our dinner at La Brasserie Americaine in Kilmarnock I've been yearning to replicate their cherries in Armagnac. Last weekend I got the goods - thanks to a city trip from mom. I knew the cherries were approaching use or lose status very quickly. 

I mixed the cherries, sugar, flour and Armagnac together and simmered them on the stove until the sugar melted.

I preheated the oven to 350 degrees and spooned the filling into a 9 inch crust I'd put in an 8 inch pan. What can I say, I like crusty pie. The recipe calls for a high temp and then a reduction midway through cooking. I assumed this had to do with melting the filling and since I did that on the stove I just baked at 350 for 55 minutes. My crust did crack a little - I hadn't brushed it with milk and sugar as the author suggested, but just gave it a hint of authenticity.

If I'd had more cherries I suppose there would have been a nice fat layer of cherries. I never considered myself a cherry pie person because most cherry pies are a gelatinous mess of sickeningly sweet and tart canned badness. But now that I've made my own cherry pie I can see another in my future. And it will make our domestic Twin Peaks re-enactments so much more authentic.

Arborian Enemy #1

BeforeAfter

I have no idea what you are talking about. Looks exactly the same to me, no valuable carbon dioxide processing resources missing whatsoever. None.

I'd Rather be at Sisson's

This is where I get to tell you about a little piece of Heaven we get to visit most Fridays from about now through October or so. It's a little farm stand near Montross, Virginia that sells locally grown (and I suspect a couple of things from out of state) produce. It is home to the single best tomatoes I've ever had. And the corn? Can we just talk about how unreal corn is when grown and consumed within a day and 30 miles of its harvest?

Not only does reaching Sisson's signal we're getting very close to the river house each weekend, it gives us the chance to stock up on good - sometimes great - mostly local produce. These were the hugest leeks (labeled onions which I guess technically they are but still it tells you about Sisson's) I'd ever seen.

Disasters of the Culinary Kind

Not everything chez magniferous comes out of the oven as it should. What could be simpler than a batch of Toll House chocolate chip cookies? The recipe calls for 2 1/4 cups of flour. I had a 1/4 cup measure in hand and thought and acted upon the notion that equals 5 of the 1/4 cup measures. These pools of sweet albeit crispy chocolate chip failure are the result of one cup too little flour in my cookies. People have always thought I was about a cup shy of a batch anyway.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

It's entirely possible Dorie Greenspan's Lemon Poppy Seed muffins are from Heaven. I was inspired to make them after reading Eat Me, Delicious' post about them.

The Quartermaine Boathouse

Down at the river there's a controversy about boathouses. Some people love 'em. Some people hate 'em. I actually think they are kind of cool and look way nicer than half the crap people put on their properties anyway. But I may be sort of... pre-disposed.

See when I was growing up, the Quartermaine boat house on General Hospital was just about the most happenin' place in town. If you were an ingenue and you and your boyfriend were to find yourselves in the boat house on a hot summer afternoon, well, hang on to your feathered hair sister because things were about to get mighty soapy.

So although my ingenue days are waning, okay, over, I still think Steve Holt might be hanging out in that boat house hoping Celia Quartermaine will show up there after a swim.

UberLocavore

Tonight we had greens from next door - Eggy's first yield and tomatoes from Super Sisson's farm stand. Mmmmm.

First Tomatoes

The first tomato of the season that actually smells like a tomato when sliced. 

Pretty Day Cherries

Heavenly cherries from Sisson's farm stand purchased just a little bit ago on our way to the river for the long, beautiful holiday weekend.

Moblogging Apple Love

My computer keyboard key came off this morning. I made an appt at the genius bar and now they are replacing my keyboard while I wait. I have to pay but it's still a billion times better than anywhere else!

How Do You Spell Defeat?

Sometime in the last month we started experiencing wild dips in our DSL connectivity at our house in the city. A neighbor posted on the listserv that he'd been hacked. So naturally we were sure we were next.

After a couple long nights of rebooting everything in the house I decided to change our network password. Maybe our old one was begging to be hacked. Maybe it wasn't, but I thought it was a good idea. Of course that also meant changing the passwords on our computers and our Tivos so that they could communicate with the network.

Then today, working at home, preparing for a meeting tomorrow, I tried to print out the meeting notes. Um, no, you forgot something - changing the password on the wireless print server. (We're about to take a deep plunge into my shallow knowledge of all things technical so hang on to your bits.)

The wireless print server is a mystical thing. It can make my computer way out here in the living room get the printer in the bedroom to print just about anything I can imagine with NO WIRES! Yippee!

When it works.

Setting up a router is a brain bending enough experience. If you've ever done it you know what I mean and you should stop nodding your head that hard or you're going to get whiplash. If you have not set up a router before I want you to find your spouse, parent, IT guy, librarian, or other technical support and plant a big wet kiss on them. Maybe hit them with a Benjamin or two while you're at it because they effing deserve it.

Setting up a router involves a lot of passwords. It involves logging into a device on your network. Possible connection of cables. Likely conversations with people in India who happen to be named "Stephen". And after you do everything they say, it will not work. You will have to keep doing the exact same thing over and over again - typically turning on and off many devices in a sequence determined by astrologers. And then one day it just works! And it is a magical happy time. Everything just does what it is supposed to do.

Until it doesn't again. Only by now it has been months since you even thought about having a router/wireless print server/nervous breakdown. The paperwork has somehow gone to many different locations around the house. All the passwords you carefully documented while working with Stephen in Mombai months ago are now a big mosh of userids and passwords which could either get the router working or a trip to Calgary through Expedia.

So that's where I am, in the land of technological defeat. Sure, I can write to you, but printing 20 feet away is just out of the question. I am going to have to get up. and walk. my ass. to the printer. and plug something in. to print.

It's probably going to come out on stone tablets, it's so effing prehistoric.

Hush Little Blogger

Magniferous was uncharacteristically quiet this week, it wasn't really out of extraordinary busy-ness or laziness or disinterest. I may have taken frugality all the way to the written word.

This week I went grocery shopping one time and we ate out zero times until today. This is no small feat chez nous. It required a bit of resourcefulness, I'd get an idea for a meal and then realize we didn't have a key ingredient, but instead of springing out to get it - which was just too objectionable with our Spring of Interminable Rain - I'd just do some crazy thing our grandparents did during The War and "make do".

Our make do dinners made us quite happy I think. Black beans and bananas was a surprise hit and I'm sure I'll be making it again. We both really like good fried plantains, but as I've mentioned, good plantains are a little hard to come by in my kitchen. I knew black beans and rice was on the menu for this week, but couldn't decide on a fruity accent. The black beans were just rinsed and simmered with a bit of water and cumin. I usually toss a little salsa in them toward the end. Basmati rice came out of the rice cooker like magic. The bananas were sliced on the bias to give them the "I want to be a plantain" look, dredged in flour and salt, and then, I must confess, pan fried in butter. Yum. Because I worship at the alter of crunchiness and because the theme of the week was "use it up before it goes bad" I also fried a couple of flour tortillas. Jac and I had slightly different final interpretations of the dish. My lousy shot first, then his slightly better composed dish and photo.

Moblogging

Loves yielding to people who don't have the right of way to get an
extra red light in her day.

Moblogging Friday Night Out

See the way that kid has his head thrown back? You have to do that to
get the really huge sustained wailing going on, especially when you
have been at it for quite a while like he has.

Adventures in Man Logic

Wife: When I cleaned out the pantry today I noticed you have a collection of nut containers with six nuts in them, what's with that?

Husband: What are you talking about?

(Gesturing to collection of nut containers - dry roasted peanuts (approx. 6), smoked almonds (approx 4), 1/3 bag of opened in shell peanuts, 5/6 bag of opened in shell peanuts, cashew tin (approx 9), 1/2 bag of pistachios from the millenium party.)

Wife: Um, like the dry roasted peanuts.

Husband: What are you talking about?

>

Wife notices dry roasted peanut container gone, remaining collection very much alive.

See I can tell you this and you can laugh at me, but your husband just did the same thing, or something very similar, or when you get married he will do the very same type of thing, and if he is, God rest his soul, no longer with us, it's probably because you made him throw out his orphan legume collection. And if you will mate with a woman then kneel down right now and thank your lucky stars that as long as she was born after the Depression she will not horde nut orphans. And if you happen to be a man reading this I bet you have a craving for salty nuts and have no idea why.

A Series of Unfashionable Events

Curse my slooow draw on the iphone camera because only moments ago the front of this unfortunate fashion choice was fully visible. There are at least six reasons this just never should have happened - age, weight, relative breast orientation and composition, current fashion trends and of course the location (Old Town Alexandria) and the weather 75 degrees. It ain't 98 in Tallahassee honey.

Breaking a 20 Year Streak

From about 1985 to 1988 I had no red meat whatsoever. Then I made a new friend and her family invited me to dinner and her parents served meat loaf. I was horrified, how could I pretend to eat something that would so clearly be seen on my plate. Fortunately, they did have a dog. He got more meatloaf than I did and my red meat avoidance stint lasted again until 1997 when I went to a work dinner and found myself seated at a table full of cattle rancher members of the organization that employed me. The vegetarian entree that had been ordered for me showed up as prime rib medium rare. Fortunately we had been supplied with large cloth napkins and I was old enough to drink.

Years later red meat has made a tepid return to my life in very select forms and under very select circumstances. Meatloaf is not one of those circumstances. I told Jac I was planning to make him turkey meatloaf and I got a perplexing look instead of the dance of joy I'd been expecting. Wasn't it my wifely duty to ply him with homey dinners? Sure, but he worried if turkey meat loaf could live up to its name. Fortunately, with Ina Garten's recipe on my side there was nothing to worry about.

Elle Kasey and The Last Crepe-ade

Much has been written about the plight of the first crepe. Everyone knows the first crepe will be a flop and become the cook's sample. But after turning out pan after pan of perfect crepes one last crepe waits to make its debut - the Last Crepe.

Last Crepes are unpredictable, they could end up too think as you attempt to drizzle every last milligram of batter onto the pan. But more often than not, I find myself with an oddball misshapen crepe wannabe that can't even coat the pan. I treat this Last Crepe with the utmost respect. It's got the same stuff as all the others, and this one's going to be mine, all mine. I cook it just as delicately as all the others as I scan the room looking for the perfect orphan crepe no muss topping. A dash of confectioner's sugar and a quickly sliced strawberry are just the trick. The Last Crepe slides from the pan onto the plate and envelopes the fruit and sugar. Folded anywhichway into a pocket, the Last Crepe gets its curtain call. These people will never know what they are missing.

Burma: One Million Homeless

In addition to the horrendous loss of life in Burma following the devastating cyclone, there are now one million homeless people. Life in Burma is bad enough when you have a roof over your head, much less when you do not. I secretly hope that this ability to provide foreign aid and this upheaval may lead to some sort of movement toward freedom for Burma. But whether it does or not, here's where you can learn about providing relief to the victims of the cyclone.

How to help the cyclone victims.

And no, we're not effing calling it Myanmar. The people didn't change the name, the junta did.

Keep It Under Your Lid

At some time in the past, ice cream was developed as a decadent treat. For generations the emergence of frosty treats signaled long hot summer days and nights. Everything anyone could ever think of was mixed into the cream. It was served both with cake and as cake. Even plain vanilla got its due as gourmet formulations did battle for the premium pint. Ice cream went green and great with a couple New Englanders who even decided to give it away every year. 

And then, in 2008, a mysterious pint showed its label on store shelves. Haagen-Dazs Reserve Fleur de Sel Caramel.

And after that, there was no other ice cream. 

Well, maybe a few others, but this ice cream inspired a treasure hunt through well-appointed and slated for demolition grocery stores throughout the lands of Northern Virginia. Where Harris Teeter eluded, Giant provided. But only one pint could be found. Seriously, can you order this stuff online?

Old Favorite Done Right

Yesterday before we left the country I whipped up a batch of pizza dough in the magic mixing machine (mmmm Cuisinart). It waited in the fridge for a little inspiration and I found it today in the on-going saga of "use it all up before it expires" wartime poverty rationing that's been going on in our house of late. Well, not actually, but there is a concerted effort to get us down to say, four grocery trips a week.

First I cooked chopped chicken with Mesquite seasoning and caramelized some onions in another pan. The open bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's bbq sauce made a perfect base. I baked the crust at 425 degrees, flipping it to get top and bottom par baked. Then I topped it with the onions, chicken, mozzarella and white cheddar cheese. Delicious.

Saturday Night Supper: Chicken with Cheese Crepes

My aunt and uncle were in the country yesterday house hunting. We got the opportunity to make dinner for my parents and my aunt and uncle. I pulled up one of my aunt's old recipes, ham and cheese crepes, and decided to make chicken and cheese crepes.

To begin you make a bechamel sauce. Sauces are funny because when you start you think there's a huge "U R Doin' It Wrong" sign, but in the end, it's just decadence in a spoon.

You also make a heap o' crepes. I actually had to go back and make a second batch of batter because the first batter didn't produce 20 crepes. 

Finally, you assemble chicken, cheeses, the bechamel sauce and roll everything up into pretty little crepes. Cover everything with more sauce and cheese and then bake. Seriously, heaven in a dish.

We served the crepes with roasted asparagus and brussels sprouts.(How many days can I go without brussels sprouts?) I made a carrot citrus salad with bing cherries to start. We were to have strawberries fresh from yesterday's farmer's market but the party moved back to mom's house and we never got around to the berries. 

Dogs at the Market

We made it to the Irvington Farmer's Market today and got the most spectacular strawberries and asparagus, but more on those later. First, there were dogs. Oh so many dogs! Lexi and Kirby stopped traffic as we were asked whether they were the same kind, where we'd managed to get a wheaten, and if if was okay to take a picture. Ask? Heck, I was the pet paparazzo of the market. Why is it so great to come to the country on weekends if we're going to go to farmer's markets just like we do in the city? I think the answer's clear. Arlington "No Dogs Allowed", Irvington "Woof!".