Warm Olives and Goat Cheese

Tonight I had a culinary revelation with the modest olive, despite the fact that I found myself in Roots Restaurant, wearing my muddy garden rain jacket instead of my nice coat.  Oops.  I stood there standing like Zinnia (Xena) the Garden Warrior.  My Pirate told me that I looked beautiful, mud spatters and all.  Have I mentioned how much I love this man?

I ordered the white bean with ham soup and the goat cheese and olive plate.  And the goat cheese and olive plate arrived warm.  The cheese was oozy and unctuous and the olives were mild with subtle nuances.  Even My Pirate kept pilfering the olives and this man HATES olives.  I admit that I looked a little smug when he admitted that he liked those olives. 

So, the next time I snack on olives, I’m going to warm them.  And share them with My Pirate.  Aren’t simple culinary tweaks fabulous? 

Rescheduling Christmas

This morning, My Pirate made me the very best pancakes that I’ve ever eaten in my life.  They were fluffy and lacy and crispy on the edges and smelled like vanilla and butter.  I’ve made the recipe for these pancakes for the past 15 years, but today they were magnifique. Context with food is everything.

Grief is a strange companion that visits in waves.  One minute I’m dancing in the kitchen to Video Killed the Radio Star while doing the dishes and the next I’m crying. My dogs are looking concerned and they are completely sick of 80’s music.  

This past Monday, the day before Christmas, I woke up at 4 am and started crying over all the good memories that I shared with my Grandpa.  A montage of our time together set to him singing You Are My Sunshine.  He was my favorite person in the world until I turned 19 when Grandpa’s spat with my Mom over her driving caused a two-year rift of silence.  He simply wouldn’t talk to me until my Mom fixed things with him.  But prior to that, I saw him almost every single day of my life. 

To cheer me up, My Pirate took me out for breakfast at 5 in the morning.  And we started off a wonderful day together.  We picked up the final ingredients for our Christmas dinner, pre ordered our Christmas day tickets to see Les Miserables at Cinetopia, and then we went to see the movie The Life of Pi in 3D, a fantastic movie, and bumped into Colleen, a fellow band booster, in the theater. If you haven’t visited her blog yet, you really need to check it out.

Once we were home, we started making the beef stock for the French Onion Soup and Thomas Keller’s Braised Oxtail and Mushroom Tartine.  And while the beef stock burbled on the stove top, I began projectile vomiting.  I clung to the toilet seat puking and cursing over the timing.  Not now.  Not Christmas Eve.

So, My Pirate rescheduled Christmas.  I’m pounding Gatorade and smiling towards a Christmas Day spent with my two guys when I’m feeling better.  It’s nice to know that Christmas can come more than once a year. 

P.S.  I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas.  And if you didn’t, go ahead and reschedule a new one. 

Pancakes
From Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer

Preheat electric griddle to 375 degrees with a slick coating of vegetable oil on it.

Whisk together dry ingredients in one bowl:

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons sugar—I use vanilla sugar

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

Whisk the wet ingredients together:

1 ½ cups milk—I use whole milk

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

2 large eggs

½ teaspoon vanilla

Gently combine the wet and dry ingredients together with a whisk until it barely combines.  At this point you can fold in fun ingredients like blueberries or bacon, but I never do.

Spoon batter onto the griddle.  Cook on one side until some bubbles pop open and then flip.  Cook until the underside is lightly browned and then serve.

Update:  Colleen's blog is called Colleen's Kitchen.  Just follow the link to discover her healthy gourmet recipes that she created to help herself lose over 100 pounds!  She's an inspiration.    

Merry Christmas

We wish you a magical holiday filled with light, laughter, and love.  Merry Christmas!

Peace on earth will come to stay, When we live Christmas every day.”

                                                     ― Helen Steiner Rice

(For a little touch of Christmas humor scroll down.)






(Keep going.)

Last Christmas, The Assistant wouldn't butt out from our pictures.  Merry Christmas!

Remembering My Grandpa

For ten years, I have grieved the estrangement of my family.  I have sifted back through the memories and tried to find some fragment that would offer a solution.  Unsuccessfully.  And so I have continued to move forward but tied to the hope that one day a resolution would be found.  That is, until Thursday.

I received a Christmas card from my Mom.  When I slid out the green gilded card decorated with wreaths and with the word JOY pressed in gold, I held my breath.  Hoping.  And when I opened it, scribbled inside was the announcement that my Grandpa had died.  On May 2^nd. 

Grandpa taught me how to pull an onion, peel it, and eat it like an apple while standing ankle deep in the vegetable garden.  We would make ketchup and mustard sandwiches and giggle.  I’d hold nuts and bolts in my outstretched palm while he worked in his metal shop and then we’d sip a beer on the patio afterwards.  His out of the beer can and mine in a shot glass.  In short, I adored him.

But then I grew up.  And I saw a man. A man I loved, but didn’t agree with. And when I finally gathered up my courage and spoke up for myself and told the truth about my Dad and his parents abusing me, I was cast out of the family.  Cast out until I apologized for lying because things like that don’t happen in our family.  But it happened.  It’s real.  And now, I’m free from carrying the burden of a secret that was devouring me. 

This was an expensive choice that has cost me the love of those relatives that I adored most: my grandfather and brother.  But I was freed to be an imperfect me.

So, I will continue to move through this grief. And the day that my Grandpa died, I worked in my community garden plot and made a batch of peanut butter cookies. I’d like to think that as his spirit lifted up, he glanced down, and winked at me in approval.

Remember to Smile

The Assistant is sporting her Corona beer smile.

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.

                                                                                                              ~ Joseph Addison