Back Stoop Redo

The issue has been forced, at least as far as I'm concerned. We do nothing around here until we're forced to do it. We're just damned lucky someone hasn't gotten seriously injured making their way to the back door, that someone most likely being me.

So without much enthusiasm I called the contractor. I was fully prepared to have him simply remove the stoop and the walk and leave it at that but he had wonderful ideas about restoring the stoop and using pavers for a new walk. We're figuring out the last details but it's going to happen next month. One little – or not-so-little – thing I can actually affect in the midst of unmanageable chaos. And a chance to play with one of my favorite things: graph paper!


The pavers:

Four in 2010

Slow Going

I don't know if I'm just less patient this year for some reason or if things got off to a fast, early start when the weather warmed sooner than usual and then everything slowed to a crawl when it cooled again. Even the tomato starts et al germinated quickly and then seemed to take forever to put out true leaves.

In the garden I still haven't set up for watering so things have been slow out there during the last few dry weeks. But this week we've been getting rain, lovely rain and things are growing again.

And I can finally do some easy weeding because of course the weeds managed just fine in the dry weather.

At Least Three

I'm not finding much to celebrate right now except for the reports of peregrine chicks hatching in Cleveland, Montreal and many other locations. Here in Syracuse I've spotted at least three and there may very well be a fourth tucked in there. In a few short weeks they'll be on the wing.

Back in Business

My first effort on the new stone was a loaf from a batch of no-knead dough made with half King Arthur organic bread flour and half Red Fife from Anson Mills. It could have baked another five minutes but it was still a treat.


Red Fife was North America’s preferred bread wheat in the 19th century, fathering many of our modern bread wheat varieties. It disappeared from production with the Great Depression and was re-introduced into Canada a little over decade ago, where it has slowly and steadily drawn an ardent cadre of artisan bakers in both countries. Cold-milled, this new crop hard red wheat produces 100% whole grain bread with profoundly herbaceous and nutty fresh wheat flavors, a moist, satisfying crumb, and a lovely crust with deep, toasty caramel notes. As a whole grain bread flour, Red Fife is unparalleled.

A New Stone

Late last summer when I tried to remove my old pizza stone from the oven, I ended up with half of it in each hand. Like so many things around here, it was old and getting a replacement turned into such a pain that I just gave up.

The hardest part was finding a stone that fit my shallow oven, one absolutely no deeper than 14 inches. The one I had is no longer made of course, but those I found that were the right size were reviewed with a lot of complaints about breakage in shipping or usage shortly after purchase.

Finally in my most recent effort I stumbled across Breadtopia and their endorsement of FibraMent baking stones. It was pretty much a done deal as soon as I read that FibraMent stones have a ten-year warranty and include a stone for home bakers in a size that fits my oven perfectly.

I only hope I didn't take too many years off my life during the preliminary oven drying of the stone when it off-gased some pretty strange odors.

A Good Year for the Ramps

Excellent ramps this year. They came on early like everything else and then the temps dropped to extend the season. We've had them with homemade spaghetti, mixed into cacio e pepe, in the traditional Appalacian taters n ramps and this weekend I'm going to try a Saveur recipe for Ramp and Buttermilk Biscuits with Cracked Coriander!

Zinio Rocks

I have fallen in love all over again with Saveur, the website and the magazine.

But this time I'm getting the magazine in the digital format and reading it offline with the Zinio reader. It's amazing. Fabulous resolution, easy to navigate and so damn easy to store.

Sittin'

I can identify with the ladies this week. The merry widow in Cleveland is only a few days ahead of Fancy this year and they've both been incubating for almost two weeks.

I'm also sittin'. I seem to have hit the trifecta. I'm experiencing a prolonged recovery from a difficult dental implant, wicked seasonal allergies and what is now clearly an upper respiratory infection. At least this morning I feel less stress because I'm not fighting any of it anymore.

It's also less stressful if I stay home alone and away from people. I am no longer able to be civil when people tell me how wonderful this unseasonably warm weather is. IT'S NOT!!!

Bargain Condimento

A few weeks ago when I went to Maines for the best price on my favorite utilitarian olive oil I checked out their vinegar inventory. There was simply no way I could pass up this jug of balsamic condimento for $12.99. As I checked out I thought the total was less than I'd expected but there have been additional price reductions at the register before and there was a line behind me so it wasn't until I'd lugged everything to the car that I checked the receipt and discovered the vinegar hadn't scanned. I hate to admit it but I did not go back in part because I didn't really expect the vinegar to be very good.

But it is. Very good. If I go back for another jug I will tell someone about the first. But who knows if they'll have it then. It's a 5 liter jug. I use 150ml for a batch of vinaigrette so that's 33 batches and I use only olive oils for the homegrown salad greens.

Some of which have been sown along with the fava beans, rapa and some radishes. I've been reluctant to plant salad greens this year with the memory of the mess the slugs made of last year's crop still painfully fresh. And the slugs are out there now just waiting for something to sprout.

fava Supersette
cime di rapa Centoventina, Novantina, Toscana
radish Easter Egg
lettuce Johnny's Wildfire Lettuce Mix

Mates for 2010

Brandywine
Black Krim
Pineapple (back by popular demand)
Carmello
Paragon Livingston (first time, a nod to my Ohio roots)
Jaune Flammé
Costoluto Fiorentino
San Marzano 3
Golden Mama
cherry tomato: Sugar Sweetie, Mirabell, Isis Candy,
Super Snow White, Green Grape, Chocolate Cherry
eggplant: Nadia, Beatrice, Rosa Bianca, Purple Rain
pepper: Islander, California Wonder

Alright then. After a very strange disorienting week, ending with record-breaking warm temps, I have the tomato-eggplant-pepper flat sown. But NO cardoons! I thought I still had seed. Shoot.

update: I knew I had some...
cardoon: Cordo Pieno Inerme

Shoulda

Guinness Cake

I am so bummed. Everyone in both dental offices made this implant business sound like a piece of cake, so to speak, but it's been 48 hours and I still feel like someone took a 2x4 to my jaw. Yesterday I made another Guinness cake (#3) and now I'm surviving on cake and Fage Total 0% to try to mitigate the effects the damned Clindamycin.

The cake I'm eating this week is the second stab at a recipe attributed to Green & Black's but like the first there's a dense layer at the bottom. I'm beginning to suspect the recipe was meant for a two layer cake instead of one but I'm done experimenting. For now.

Nigella Lawson's recipe, on the other hand, seems foolproof. I used Green & Black's Dutched cocoa but I think the next time I'll use Lindt & Sprügli's Ghiradelli or Hershey's Scharffen Berger for a darker, less reddish color and some additional bitterness.

Helleborus Niger

In this neck of the woods it's a treat to see Christmas roses during Lent and Lenten roses before May Day.

Smoked Cherries

This week I put a small stovetop smoker in my Amazon shopping cart. I'm hoping this obsession will pass before I actually order the damn thing but the fact that I went so far as to look for it is a testament to the amazing smoked cherries in a port wine sauce that Phoebe's serves with a seared duck breast on fried polenta accompanied by some lovely crimini mushrooms and their signature sprouts.

To further demonstrate how crazy I am about these cherries, this dish, on Tuesday I dined alone to have it for the second time before I saw "Lookingglass Alice", also alone.

Apparently I'm also currently preoccupied with Alice. Last Friday I did indeed go by myself to see the first showing of 3D "Alice in Wonderland" and enjoyed every minute of it.

Today @ 11:00

I have a very important date.

Our Turn 2010

Record snowfall yesterday. We got all of the 22.4 inches reported for our area. I shoveled the first half in two passes yesterday until The Mister came home and fired up the old Gravely for the first time this winter to deal with the end of the drive where the DOT plows push the snow. He's out there this morning while I cook oats and prepare to snowshoe out to the feeders.

More Arthur Miller

It wasn't really about Valentine's Day – it was about being offered a place to stay for a weekend in NYC – so we ended up spending the holiday seeing some very un-Valentine productions: another Arthur Miller play and "Carmen" at the Met.

I have mixed feelings about big-name film actors being used to drum up business for Broadway but there wasn't anything else we really wanted to see. As it turned out it was one of the best things we've ever seen onstage.

Reflection

My friend lives on what used to be open farmland, what is still wonderful bluebird habitat. She's taken a lot of good photos but this recent one is by far my favorite.

"Broken Embraces"

"Cruz's is a celluloid face in a digital world, and for Almodóvar,
there's nothing so fragile and enduring."
Stephanie Zacharek

Anyone who loves "Cinema Paradiso" should feel the same about "Broken Embraces" ("Los abrazos rotos").