HMOKeefe

Rain on Roses

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

Well, the vinca is doing great!

Well, it’s no Gardenpalooza – more like Gardenpifflefizzle, but it feels good. I finally got Quality Time in the garden this weekend. Quality Time being less than an accurate description. More later.

After having disappeared for so long, it’s a bit difficult to try and figure out where to begin.

In January, HMOKeefe decided to finally consolidate zip codes and he began the process of early retirement. He has some health issues related to a bone marrow transplant for leukemia (CML, to be exact) and the preparation for the move was, um, involved.

The man really does deserve a closet, but what am I going to do with all this stuff?

Besides trying to find a closet for him to put his togs in, I have been busier than a one-armed paper hanger on a unicycle in a tornado at my job. Frequently during the past few months, I have muttered, declared and yelled, “Hell’s bells, we don’t have to schedule everything for the same time. There are 12 months in the year.

He still doesn’t have a closet.

[Speaking of tornados, boy, do I have a story.]

HMOKeefe has been ensconced in Chez Barn for a little more than a week. Well, sort of.  Following the VERY EVENTFUL move from Massachusetts to West Virginia, I contracted a nasty something that turned into viral pneumonia. At present, I am quarantined and he is staying with my folks. Is it a big ol’ goofy world or what?

I'm sick.

My doctor tut-tutted and reminded me that if I don’t slow myself down, my body will do it for me. And then she prescribed prednisone which winds me up like caffeine-laced cocaine. I’m supposed to be resting, sucking on one of my two inhalers (yes, two!) and drinking lots of fluids.

I still feel like the nasty crud at the bottom of the garbage can, but I’m strangely energized. I’ve restored some order to the house, processed a few loads of laundry, unpacked suitcases from the Massachusetts sojourn as well as those used for attendance at a conference last week.

[Oh, yes, I bring HMOKeefe to West Virginia and then abandon him. And then I arrive home with news that I’m contagious with a nasty and he’s got to go stay elsewhere due to the immune suppressants he takes. He had viral pneumonia years and years and years ago. It took little to persuade him to go stay with people he doesn’t know that well.]

And as if restoring order to the abode wasn’t enough, I summoned the wherewithal to finally mow the backyard.

The harsh winter, rainy spring and summer heat has not been kind.

I’ve been so flipping busy and it’s rained every weekend for months, I couldn’t get the lawn mowed. Folks tell me it’s been kind of dry the past couple of weeks, but my yard still squelches when I walk on it. Nonetheless, enough is enough. I tackled the (small) yard with a temperamental lawn mower yesterday. While hacking through the jungle that arose with the wild, wet spring, I hacked, coughed, sneezed and gagged – sometimes all at once.  Viral pneumonia, even tempered with prednisone, is no fun.

Today, I weeded, cleaned up debris and finished chopping up last fall’s leaves with mower.  [I was busy last fall, too.]

The one rose bloom I got to see. Is that pitiful or what?

The garden is in a sad state. We had a late freeze that seriously damaged some of the newer perennials. Then we had nonstop rain. And then we had sudden deluges punctuated with high heat that effectively boiled a bunch of stuff. The stuff that did well – some of the roses, the wisteria, the peonies, the mock orange and the vinca all decided to bloom and blow while I was conducting a move worthy of a David Lynch film.

I feel cheated. But I also feel as if my equanimity is returning. Mucking about in dirt is a very effective antidepressant for me. And gardens do provide immediate gratification at times. After a harsh winter and soggy spring, the before and after of a couple days of prednisone driven frenzy is a sight to behold.

The hostas are happy. But they're always happy.

If you don’t look too close.

The garden is in a state and I’ll be the rest of the season nurturing and repairing damage.  There’s nothing left to bloom, except maybe the peony.  It’s a new one and I can’t tell if it’s bloomed or not.  The buds don’t quite look like buds and might be what’s left after a bloom.  I can’t quite figure it out.

Anyway, I need annuals.  Lots of annuals. Petunias.  Impatiens.  Shasta Daisies.  Morning Glory.  Moonflowers. And some creeping juniper to replace that which died.  And Boston ferns to hang by the door.   Chocolate mint to grace the table.  So much to do. But, damn, it’s good to be back in the garden..

Blogging, too, is an emotional balm for me.  Damn, it’s good to be back.

Rain on Roses

[Did I mention the laptop hard drive crashed spectacularly and I’ve been without the little darling for nearly 4 weeks?  HMOKeefe put in a new hard drive.  I finished loading software and copying backup files and things are almost normal.  Since I don’t have a picture of this spring’s roses, I’m using an older one for my desktop.  Rain on roses seemed a fitting metaphor for the past few months.]

12-Step Program for Refrigerator Magnetaholics?

/ wvfurandroot / 5 Comments

I have a thing for refrigerator magnets. I realize it’s hokey, bourgeois, tacky and a sign of feeble intelligence. But I love them. They make me smile and, sometimes, guffaw. My penchant for excess is clearly apparent by simply looking at my refrigerator. [I was sorely disappointed to learn my dishwasher door was not metal. That’s probably a good thing as I tend to dribble coffee down the door.]

I don’t even pretend they’re utilitarian. I don’t use them to hold notes, children’s artwork, grocery lists, or medical appointment cards. They are there because I like them. Although when Chef Boy ‘R Mine was little, I had alphabet magnets near the bottom so he could play with them. The magnetic poetry is not on the fridge because I like to sprawl on the couch with the nifty magnetic board and compose my pearls of verse.

Some magnets I bought as souvenirs and others were gifts. Some my son made and some were made by friends. Many were given to me by HMOKeefe. Some I bought just because I liked them or they spoke to my heart.

When I painted the kitchen several years back I packed them away. For reasons I don’t understand and certainly can’t explain, they’ve languished in the closet all this time. During the holiday housecleaning frenzy it occurred to me while cleaning the surface of the refrigerator that I ought to perambulate my lazy butt over to the closet, fish them out and put them back on the fridge. And so I did.

I feel like I’ve reunited with old friends.

Among the puppies, quotes, Wizard of Oz characters, tropical fish and goofy photos are the Unemployed Philosopher Guild’s magnetic finger puppets. If you’ve never seen these things you really must meander over to their website. My favorite is Freud and his accompanying couch. But then again I’m uncommonly fond of Frieda Kahlo. Not to mention Schrödinger’s cat and Pavlov’s dog.

My magnets are not confined to the refrigerator. I also have them on my filing cabinet at work. I haven’t added to that display for a few years now. It’s time to remedy that.

As for alternate locations at home, for years, I’ve been trying to find the right sized piece of sheet metal without grooves to cover one side of my antique filing cabinet so the finger puppets can go live there. I’ve explored the possibility of magnetic paint, but I’m not convinced it will hold the heavier magnets and, besides, we all know how I hate painting. [And if you don’t, please understand that I would rather clean the cat box with my tongue than paint. While cleaning the cat box in that manner is never necessary, painting is and the bitching and moaning that occurs is legendary in its intensity.]

I really do have to get the puppets out of the kitchen to protect them from grease and the occasional flying food spatters. And the cat. She likes to pull them off and play kitty soccer with them. I’m a little tired of finding Dorothy Parker under the church pew though I think if she were still alive she would have something really funny to say about lying under a church pew.

Somewhere I have a package of 50 magnets the size of business cards with adhesive on one side. Their reason for being is to turn business cards into fridge magnets. When I bought them I did so because I figured making my own magnets would be a big bunch of fun. I’m going to throw in the towel and just go buy some more. [Lost Things drive me crazy. It doesn’t matter if I want them or not, their status as Lost is a challenge that makes me feel like a failure when frenzied looking is of no avail.]

Frankly, I think we all have some silly thing we collect not because we need them, but because they make us happy. My shoe collection is another, but that deserves a post of its own as do the reading glasses and watches (all of which need new batteries). And of course there are the cow and barn images.

I have a friend who has a display of antique toasters – at least a hundred of them – that are stacked two and three high on the top of his kitchen cabinets. I have an uncle who collects clocks. Every wall in his house is covered in clocks. I believe they number in the hundreds. My brother and his wife have every movie released on video tape or DVD in the last 20 years. My father acquires old computers he works feverishly on to get them running. He does nothing with his successes as most of them are such old technology they are useless. My mother is into glass birds and painted birdhouses – both collections are getting completely out of hand. [I am so dreading dealing with my parents’ house when the time comes – they’re getting close to needing intervention for hoarding.]

So, what is your silly thing? And how to you justify it?

Brand new favorite winter comfort food (Italian style)

/ wvfurandroot / 6 Comments

I love these things beyond reason.

Tonight was HMOKeefe’s last night here. We’ve done absolutely nothing and both of us seemed to enjoy that. Lots of sleep (no! really!) and lots of down time. I also, saints preserve us, cleaned out most of my kitchen cupboards. [I’ve only been trying to get around to this for several years – why I picked this week is a mystery.]

My DSL has been down. In fact it’s still down. If you’re reading this, I’ve actually managed to upload it via dialup – or it’s several days after the fact.

For his week here, we’ve mostly just been noshing on this and that – cheese, fruit, bread, Christmas cookies, etc. Tonight, I prepared a recipe I ran across quite by accident a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t even looking for a recipe – I think I was looking for a blueray player.

Anyway, the recipe was for a soft polenta mounded on a plate with a deep well to hold a tomato sauce. I thought it sounded awfully yummy. I showed it to Chef Boy ‘R Mine and he made some suggestions to improve the flavors and textures. [I say frequently that I taught him everything he knows – he’s a damn fine chef!]

I made some more changes. The end result doesn’t bear much resemblance to the original recipe.

Winter Salad

While my son was growing up, I prided myself on the fact that we had dinner at the table nearly every night. Recent research suggests this is one of the most important things you can do to raise well-adjusted kids and strengthen family bonds. My son is fabulous, but my marriage ended a few years ago. After cooking daily for nearly 30 years, I was tired of it. And summoning the energy to cook for one was too much to expect. Besides, not having to cook has been an illicit pleasure. My diet’s gone to hell, but I’ve wallowed in the freedom to feast on Cheez-Its for dinner.

While I was never keen on fixing Tuesday’s meatloaf or Thursday’s tuna casserole, I did enjoy real cooking. Usually on Saturday or Sunday, I’d pull out recipes I’d gathered from here and there – or go web surfing and find something I’d never tried before. Many were good, some were awful, others were fantastic. Very few achieved fantastic the first try.

I’d decided to make the polenta thing while HMOKeefe was here.

I’ve been pretty scatterbrained lately. While I’m pretty sure I bought portabella mushrooms, fresh garlic, and scallions – they were nowhere to be found. I flat out forgot the wedge of parmesan. At 5:30 I did the 50 yard dash to my little local grocery store and procured a 5-cheese mix of Italian cheese, canned portabellas, ground garlic and heavy whipping cream. For the life of me, I have no idea why I thought I needed whipping cream. It’s in the freezer.

Not an auspicious start.

Mmmmmmmmmm

Nonetheless, I soaked 1.5 cups of stoneground yellow cornmeal in 2 cups of chicken broth. I brought another 2 cups of chicken broth to a boil, mixed in the cornmeal mixture, tossed in some sea salt, white pepper and garlic and brought it to a boil. I then turned the heat down to nearly nonexistent, stirred frequently and began the sauce while the polenta cooked the required 40 minutes.

I formed ground Italian sausage into small balls, browned them, dumped in crushed tomatoes, basil, onion, the sub-par garlic, crushed red pepper and heaps of oregano. (I love oregano.) I set the sauce to simmer.

I dragged out romaine lettuce, red grapes, red onion, oranges, black olives and pumpernickel croutons. It became a salad dressed with an excellent, but bottled Caesar. (Radishes would have added a lot to it.)

I boiled some rigatoni in case the polenta was a disaster.

I checked the sauce, added more oregano and tossed in canned chunked portabella ‘shrooms and black olives. I found one of the microwave steam bag thingies of whole green beans in the freezer and set them to nuking.

I cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

I took out the loaf of Tuscan flatbread the fine bakers at Kroger made, sliced it, heated it and drizzled it with a really kick-ass peppery olive oil my son gave to me a year or so ago. (I tend to save the really good stuff.)

I dumped some water into the polenta as it looked too thick, stirred in a cup of the 5-cheese blend and mounded it on the plates making a neat well for the sauce. I ladled the sauce – so chunky it was more of a ragout bordering on a ratatouille – and decided next time eggplant was going to be necessary.

I put rigatoni on the plates and dressed it with olive oil and more of the cheese. I fished green beans out of the bag with salad tongs and put them on the plate. I arranged the bread on the plate. HMOKeefe opened a nice Malbec and we sat down to eat.

Oh my.

We even had flowers on the table.

I am never ever pleased with something the first go-around. Considering I used nasty cheese, gross mushrooms and <gasp> dried garlic, I’m astonished. This was one fine plate of food. The addition of eggplant and the use of fresh ingredients are things I’d change.  Those changes would take fabulous food and catapult it into the realm of foodgasm.

The textures were beautiful. It was a lovely stick-to-your-ribs heap of comfort food for a cold winter’s night. The Malbec was stout enough to stand up to the strong flavors and what’s not to like about sneaking red grapes and oranges into a salad?

A lovely, lovely meal I’ll be making again.

HMOKeefe has retired for the night (I wore him out), I’m finishing the Malbec and wishing my camera did a better job photographing food. I’m going to attempt to post this, but I’m expecting a big bunch of cursing at Frontier as I try to coax dialup to upload. We’ll see.

Happy New Year, y’all. Eat well, love well, and other good wishes to you for this brand new year.

[Woo Hoo!  2011 is looking good!  Dialup was a whole lot easier than I had even hoped for!  It’s a good day to be me!]