I heated up the leftover butternut squash soup for lunch yesterday, and I think it was even better warmed over. It was so good! It makes me a little sad to think that I have gone all these years without knowing that. I have talked in the past about my extreme aversion to cooked vegetables while I was growing up and for many years thereafter. The only vegetables we ate when I was a kid came in frozen cubes with Birdseye labels on the boxes. (The frozen spinach was the worst, if you want to know.) But I digress.
I asked for an immersion blender for Christmas, mainly so that I could make my own butternut squash soup. I had some this fall at Atwater's, a neat little bakery in downtown Catonsville that serves a lunch every day that consists of homemade soup, freshly baked bread, and dessert. The soup was a revelation to me! Simple and complex at the same time, I knew it was something I could add to my repertoire.
Accordingly, I got online and started looking for recipes. I don't even bother with the cookbooks I have collected anymore. It's all out there, man, on the interwebs. The recipe was as simple as I thought it might be, and after a couple of times making the soup, this is my version.
Butternut Squash Soup
1 large butternut squash, cut in half lengthwise, with seeds removed
1 large onion, peeled and halved
2 apples, peeled, halved, and cored
olive oil
salt
freshly-ground pepper
32 oz. chicken broth (homemade stock would be fantastic, if you have it)
½ cup milk
marsala (optional)
freshly-grated nutmeg
Preheat oven to 400°. Liberally oil a cookie sheet. (I like to cover the cookie sheet with aluminum foil first. It makes for an easier clean-up.) Drizzle olive oil on the cut side of the squash, then salt and pepper it. Place the two halves on the cookie sheet, cut side down. Place the onion and apple halves on the cookie sheet, drizzle oil on them, then salt and pepper. Place in oven, and roast until vegetables have carmelized, about 40 minutes. While vegetables are roasting, heat chicken broth in a six-quart pot.
Give apples and onions a rough chop, and place them in pot with chicken broth. Cut the squash into cubes while it is still in the shell, then use a large spoon to scrape the cubes into the broth. Simmer for about a half hour, or until everything is well-cooked and falling apart. Remove pot from heat, get out your immersion blender, and blend until soup is smooth and free of lumps.
Return to burner and simmer soup until it is hot. Taste soup and add salt and pepper as necessary. This is also the time to add milk. I like the creaminess the milk adds, but be careful not to add so much that the soup becomes too thin. This should be a thick, creamy soup. Add marsala to taste. Be sure to simmer until all alcohol is evaporated. Ladle soup into big bowls, grate nutmeg on top of each serving. Easy does it! This soup has a delicate flavor, and too much nutmeg can overpower it. Bon appétit! Hope you enjoy this as much as I do.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
the next best thing
Well, we didn't win the lottery, of course, but we got something almost as good in the mail last week - our royalty checks. Amazingly, Ben and I still get checks periodically for the book we wrote back in 2004. We get separate checks in separate envelopes for separate amounts. My check is always bigger - this time I got six cents more than Ben did (!) I love that.
We used to get checks every six months, then our publisher started asking us to allow the money to be direct deposited. We didn't want to do that, however, as I like getting checks in the mail. Ben agreed with me. The next thing they told us was that they wouldn't issue a check for less than a certain amount so they would hold the money for us until enough accrued. So, as I say, periodically we get checks in the mail, and last week was one of those days. It's always a nice surprise.
Coincidentally, Ben scanned our last few postcard purchases the other day, then I put them into the leather albums with our other cards. Of course I paged through the albums as I did this, and I don't want to get started (molars and bicuspids, you've no idea!) but we have such an amazing collection! I think Elyria today is a sad, little, run-down town, but our postcards made me yearn for the Elyria of yesteryear. Not the Elyria of a hundred years ago that our oldest cards portray, but the Elyria of fifty years ago when I was a child there. I guess one of the symptoms of getting older is longing for the days of one's youth, and my longing for the Elyria of my childhood grows stronger with each passing year. What a bustling little city it was!
After I slipped each card into its proper place in the album, I asked Ben how many Elyria postcards we have at this point. You may be staggered to know that we have 680 unique postcards of the little town of Elyria, Ohio. I know I was. And what I started thinking was that is more than enough for another book. We could do a whole chapter about the Elyria Block fire in 1909 or when the Washington Avenue bridge was washed away in the spring floods of 1913. Doesn't that sound fascinating?
I know you must be curious as to the size of our checks, and I must be honest and say that it was forty-three dollars and some change for each of us. What did I spend it on? I bought some yarn, of course.
We used to get checks every six months, then our publisher started asking us to allow the money to be direct deposited. We didn't want to do that, however, as I like getting checks in the mail. Ben agreed with me. The next thing they told us was that they wouldn't issue a check for less than a certain amount so they would hold the money for us until enough accrued. So, as I say, periodically we get checks in the mail, and last week was one of those days. It's always a nice surprise.
Coincidentally, Ben scanned our last few postcard purchases the other day, then I put them into the leather albums with our other cards. Of course I paged through the albums as I did this, and I don't want to get started (molars and bicuspids, you've no idea!) but we have such an amazing collection! I think Elyria today is a sad, little, run-down town, but our postcards made me yearn for the Elyria of yesteryear. Not the Elyria of a hundred years ago that our oldest cards portray, but the Elyria of fifty years ago when I was a child there. I guess one of the symptoms of getting older is longing for the days of one's youth, and my longing for the Elyria of my childhood grows stronger with each passing year. What a bustling little city it was!
After I slipped each card into its proper place in the album, I asked Ben how many Elyria postcards we have at this point. You may be staggered to know that we have 680 unique postcards of the little town of Elyria, Ohio. I know I was. And what I started thinking was that is more than enough for another book. We could do a whole chapter about the Elyria Block fire in 1909 or when the Washington Avenue bridge was washed away in the spring floods of 1913. Doesn't that sound fascinating?
I know you must be curious as to the size of our checks, and I must be honest and say that it was forty-three dollars and some change for each of us. What did I spend it on? I bought some yarn, of course.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Sunday drives ain't what they used to be
When I was a kid, we would go on Sunday drives once in a while. My dad would load us all up in the car, and we would head out. We weren't going anywhere in particular, which I believe is the idea behind a Sunday drive, but we would head towards Oberlin or Medina, or if we were very lucky, towards Vermilion and the lake. Sometimes we would get out of the car and walk around for a bit, perhaps stop at a drug store and have a coke, but more often we would not. We would drive until my dad had driven far enough, then we would turn around and drive home.
Yesterday the weather was beautiful - sunny and breezy with temps in the low 60s - so Ben and Julie and I went for a Sunday drive. Less than an hour after leaving our house, we were crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the Eastern Shore. It's going to take me a bit more time to get used to that. When we used to take the kids to Chincoteague in the summers, we had done A LOT of driving to get to that point. And, actually, we had quite a bit more driving to go, although we didn't seem to mind it as much once we had crossed that bridge.
Yesterday, though, we weren't going to the ocean. We were going to St. Michaels, a small tourist town on the Chesapeake Bay. Julie and I have gone there together for the past few Mother's Days - a day spent together is her gift to me - but Ben had never been there, and it was the perfect day for an outing. We thought to do some shopping, have lunch, then visit the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. We stopped at all our favorite little shops and had a tasty oyster lunch, but by the time we headed to the museum, it was too late to start a tour.
Undaunted, we headed on for another drive that Julie and I had promised ourselves year after year, but never taken. We drove to Tilghman Island. I could tell right away this part of our Sunday drive would be more to Ben's liking. This was the real Sunday drive. We drove past abandoned farms and derelict towns, finally reaching beautiful, unimpeded views of the Chesapeake Bay. We drove down a dirt road along the bay to the point where the mighty Choptank River empties into the bay. We drove as far as we could go, then turned around and drove back.
I know that sounds pretty much like any other Sunday drive, but this was definitely the only one I've ever taken that took me to the Eastern Shore and back before dark. I like it here.
Yesterday the weather was beautiful - sunny and breezy with temps in the low 60s - so Ben and Julie and I went for a Sunday drive. Less than an hour after leaving our house, we were crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the Eastern Shore. It's going to take me a bit more time to get used to that. When we used to take the kids to Chincoteague in the summers, we had done A LOT of driving to get to that point. And, actually, we had quite a bit more driving to go, although we didn't seem to mind it as much once we had crossed that bridge.
Yesterday, though, we weren't going to the ocean. We were going to St. Michaels, a small tourist town on the Chesapeake Bay. Julie and I have gone there together for the past few Mother's Days - a day spent together is her gift to me - but Ben had never been there, and it was the perfect day for an outing. We thought to do some shopping, have lunch, then visit the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. We stopped at all our favorite little shops and had a tasty oyster lunch, but by the time we headed to the museum, it was too late to start a tour.
Undaunted, we headed on for another drive that Julie and I had promised ourselves year after year, but never taken. We drove to Tilghman Island. I could tell right away this part of our Sunday drive would be more to Ben's liking. This was the real Sunday drive. We drove past abandoned farms and derelict towns, finally reaching beautiful, unimpeded views of the Chesapeake Bay. We drove down a dirt road along the bay to the point where the mighty Choptank River empties into the bay. We drove as far as we could go, then turned around and drove back.
I know that sounds pretty much like any other Sunday drive, but this was definitely the only one I've ever taken that took me to the Eastern Shore and back before dark. I like it here.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
musings on a March morning
To this girl, born and raised in the Midwest, it didn't seem like much of a winter at all, but I guess it's over. This was absolutely the first winter I can ever remember that I didn't have to shovel any snow. All the way back to when we used to try - without much success - to shovel snow off the top of the gravel driveway on West 6th Street. Not that I'm complaining, you understand. I don't love snow the way I did when I was younger. Kind of like Lucie, who hasn't springbokked through the snow in several years now, I would prefer not to.
So is it spring, then? Well, not yet, and I don't want to make the same mistake I made last year - my first spring in Maryland. When the temperature rose above 60° last February, I started wondering why there was nothing blooming anywhere in my neighborhood. Didn't people around here plant spring flowers? What was wrong with them? Did they hate spring? And, further, why weren't there any spring flowers poking up through the soil in my own yard? I now know the answer to that question - nothing was planted here. Nothing beyond the ugly, overgrown, foundation plants in front of the house, and a strange, mixed-color crepe myrtle growing too close to the driveway, anyway.
That will not be the case this year, however, thanks to the dozens of bulbs that Ben and Julie and I (but mostly Ben) planted last fall. Already two yellow crocuses have bloomed, and daffodils and tulips are coming, as well. These harbingers of spring are mighty welcome here, and we check their progress daily. We also check the progress of the small trees and shrubs we had planted at great expense last year. I really hope they have successfully over-wintered. There is almost nothing more depressing than a forlorn dead tree in the spring when everything else is blooming and growing.
But, in keeping with the stated purpose of this blog, we will assume that everything is doing just fine, and will come along when it is supposed to. I just have to learn when that is, exactly.
So is it spring, then? Well, not yet, and I don't want to make the same mistake I made last year - my first spring in Maryland. When the temperature rose above 60° last February, I started wondering why there was nothing blooming anywhere in my neighborhood. Didn't people around here plant spring flowers? What was wrong with them? Did they hate spring? And, further, why weren't there any spring flowers poking up through the soil in my own yard? I now know the answer to that question - nothing was planted here. Nothing beyond the ugly, overgrown, foundation plants in front of the house, and a strange, mixed-color crepe myrtle growing too close to the driveway, anyway.
That will not be the case this year, however, thanks to the dozens of bulbs that Ben and Julie and I (but mostly Ben) planted last fall. Already two yellow crocuses have bloomed, and daffodils and tulips are coming, as well. These harbingers of spring are mighty welcome here, and we check their progress daily. We also check the progress of the small trees and shrubs we had planted at great expense last year. I really hope they have successfully over-wintered. There is almost nothing more depressing than a forlorn dead tree in the spring when everything else is blooming and growing.
But, in keeping with the stated purpose of this blog, we will assume that everything is doing just fine, and will come along when it is supposed to. I just have to learn when that is, exactly.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
what more can I do?
We have always fed our dogs twice a day. Here is how I feed Rufus his breakfast every morning: Pour one half cup of dry dog food into his dish. Put the dish on the floor. Get out of his way. Oh, that it were that simple with Lucie.
I used to prepare Lucie's food right after I fed Rufus, which is to say before I ate my own breakfast. That meant that I was waiting and waiting and waiting for her to eat so that I could eat. Not a good scenario. The last couple of mornings I have eaten a leisurely breakfast while puzzling over my Sudoku, then gotten online for a bit before tackling the preparation of Lucie's food.
Lucie requires a 50/50 mix of her special dry dog food (for aging dogs) and her special canned food (for dogs with kidney problems). A squirt of salmon oil and a bit of water are added to this combination before it is microwaved for 15 seconds. If she deigns to eat her food, I then give her 0.25 ml of Benazepril by dropper. In addition, every other day she takes one Glycoflex© tablet and a quarter of a baby aspirin (chopped into pieces by guess who). She is also currently taking an antibiotic that she takes at the end of every month. She must take it twice a day with food for one week. And don't even get me started on the additional stuff she takes at the beginning of every month. Have you noticed that taking her meds is predicated on eating her food? So when she refuses to eat, like this morning - even after I added some spaghetti sauce which she usually loves, before microwaving - I really don't know what to do next.
Today I will cook some rice and add cut-up chicken to it in hopes that will tempt her into eating a bit. I don't know what else to do. If she doesn't eat she will surely die. Suggestions greatly appreciated.
I used to prepare Lucie's food right after I fed Rufus, which is to say before I ate my own breakfast. That meant that I was waiting and waiting and waiting for her to eat so that I could eat. Not a good scenario. The last couple of mornings I have eaten a leisurely breakfast while puzzling over my Sudoku, then gotten online for a bit before tackling the preparation of Lucie's food.
Lucie requires a 50/50 mix of her special dry dog food (for aging dogs) and her special canned food (for dogs with kidney problems). A squirt of salmon oil and a bit of water are added to this combination before it is microwaved for 15 seconds. If she deigns to eat her food, I then give her 0.25 ml of Benazepril by dropper. In addition, every other day she takes one Glycoflex© tablet and a quarter of a baby aspirin (chopped into pieces by guess who). She is also currently taking an antibiotic that she takes at the end of every month. She must take it twice a day with food for one week. And don't even get me started on the additional stuff she takes at the beginning of every month. Have you noticed that taking her meds is predicated on eating her food? So when she refuses to eat, like this morning - even after I added some spaghetti sauce which she usually loves, before microwaving - I really don't know what to do next.
Today I will cook some rice and add cut-up chicken to it in hopes that will tempt her into eating a bit. I don't know what else to do. If she doesn't eat she will surely die. Suggestions greatly appreciated.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Happy Leap Day!
I haven't much to say today, but I really couldn't pass up the opportunity to write a Leap Day post. It's not a day that means much to most of us, I know. Eleven leap days ago, I was in junior high, and it was a big deal to us then. We had somehow gotten the idea that February 29th was like Sadie Hawkins Day - a role reversal day when a girl could be so bold as to ask a guy to marry her. Quelle horreur! The Wikipedia entry for "leap day" does not make mention of this custom, so perhaps it was localized to Franklin Junior High School. I don't know. I do know that it was an exciting day for us. For us girls, anyway.
We bold girls roamed the halls asking all the guys we knew (and some we didn't) to marry us. I don't know for certain what the other girls did, but I made sure that my current crush was among those I asked. He said yes! As did all the others. I didn't marry any of them, of course. No one took such an absurb idea seriously. A girl could never ask a guy to marry her. Could she?
We bold girls roamed the halls asking all the guys we knew (and some we didn't) to marry us. I don't know for certain what the other girls did, but I made sure that my current crush was among those I asked. He said yes! As did all the others. I didn't marry any of them, of course. No one took such an absurb idea seriously. A girl could never ask a guy to marry her. Could she?
Thursday, February 16, 2012
time for an update?
So some time has passed since my last post, and some things have changed. It's a new year, for example, and that means I'm another year older, what with my birthday following so closely on the heels of New Year's Day. Happy Birthday to me.
The big news is that I found a job and quit that job, all in the space of these past few months. That one sentence can't even begin to encompass the range of emotions I went through in that brief time. Back in November I was wasting time online when I found out that a brand new yarn shop had recently opened quite close to where I live. I was so excited! I was at the shop the next day with my resumé and some samples of my work. I spoke with the shop manager, whom I liked right away, and within a few days, I was being interviewed by her and the shop owner. I was thrilled when they hired me on the spot, and I began working there almost immediately. Initially, I felt so at home there, and wanted to learn everything about the shop as quickly as possible.
The first sign of trouble was when the shop manager gave her two-weeks notice. I had so looked forward to working with her and knowing her better. But the good news for me was that the owner wanted me to step up and become one of three "team leads" in her stead. I was offered a raise and the chance to set my own schedule. It all seemed too good to be true - and you know what that usually means. The owner told me she had hired and promoted me for my experience, which made sense to me. I had worked in two other yarn shops, and knew alot about what worked - and didn't work - in that setting. I realized pretty quickly, however, that the ideas I suggested to her were not being implemented and were never going to be implemented. My "duties" were unclear to me, and over time I grew increasingly uneasy about meeting expectations of which I was not aware. I began to dread the shop owner's impromptu visits, and her many emails were always upsetting to me. Ben urged me not to read the late night emails I received from her before I went to bed as I got too upset to sleep after reading them. I kept telling myself, things will get better, things will get better.
I soldiered on, and worked hard, both at my job and at making friends among my co-workers, which was very important to me. I began to feel successful in both those areas, and that was, of course, when the hammer fell. The shop owner came in one night when I was working late, and asked me to stay after the shop closed. I had already worked an eight-hour plus day, but I sat down to talk with her. To listen to her, I should say, because that was when she unloaded on me. That was when I at last learned what her expectations of me had been. She criticized everything about me, even mimicking the way I spoke. At first, I tried to answer her criticisms, but it quickly became clear that she wasn't interested in a dialogue. So I listened until she finished and I left.
I drove home carefully that night, not letting my emotions make me careless. When I got home, I told Ben, "I think I may have to quit, " and I outlined what had happened that night. "Don't you ever go back there!" he told me. "That's it. You don't have to take that." Well, in fact, I did have to take it, but not for long. Since email seemed to be her communication of choice, after careful consideration I wrote her one the next morning, outlining my resignation. Then I went in to work. She came in later that day and asked me if I was sure about my decision. Oh yes, I assured her, and the sooner the better. She seemed surprised, which surprised me. What about me made her think she could talk to me the way she had and that I would just take it? I kept hearing Tweety Bird's voice in my head saying, "She don't know me very well, do she?" And she never will.
I feel very glad to be away from the oppressive shop owner, but sad to have left the friends I was making among the customers and my co-workers. I miss them. And I especially miss helping the enthusiastic new knitters who came into the shop looking for a familiar, friendly face and some encouraging help with their fledgling projects. I was good at that. I am good at that. That has not changed.
The big news is that I found a job and quit that job, all in the space of these past few months. That one sentence can't even begin to encompass the range of emotions I went through in that brief time. Back in November I was wasting time online when I found out that a brand new yarn shop had recently opened quite close to where I live. I was so excited! I was at the shop the next day with my resumé and some samples of my work. I spoke with the shop manager, whom I liked right away, and within a few days, I was being interviewed by her and the shop owner. I was thrilled when they hired me on the spot, and I began working there almost immediately. Initially, I felt so at home there, and wanted to learn everything about the shop as quickly as possible.
The first sign of trouble was when the shop manager gave her two-weeks notice. I had so looked forward to working with her and knowing her better. But the good news for me was that the owner wanted me to step up and become one of three "team leads" in her stead. I was offered a raise and the chance to set my own schedule. It all seemed too good to be true - and you know what that usually means. The owner told me she had hired and promoted me for my experience, which made sense to me. I had worked in two other yarn shops, and knew alot about what worked - and didn't work - in that setting. I realized pretty quickly, however, that the ideas I suggested to her were not being implemented and were never going to be implemented. My "duties" were unclear to me, and over time I grew increasingly uneasy about meeting expectations of which I was not aware. I began to dread the shop owner's impromptu visits, and her many emails were always upsetting to me. Ben urged me not to read the late night emails I received from her before I went to bed as I got too upset to sleep after reading them. I kept telling myself, things will get better, things will get better.
I soldiered on, and worked hard, both at my job and at making friends among my co-workers, which was very important to me. I began to feel successful in both those areas, and that was, of course, when the hammer fell. The shop owner came in one night when I was working late, and asked me to stay after the shop closed. I had already worked an eight-hour plus day, but I sat down to talk with her. To listen to her, I should say, because that was when she unloaded on me. That was when I at last learned what her expectations of me had been. She criticized everything about me, even mimicking the way I spoke. At first, I tried to answer her criticisms, but it quickly became clear that she wasn't interested in a dialogue. So I listened until she finished and I left.
I drove home carefully that night, not letting my emotions make me careless. When I got home, I told Ben, "I think I may have to quit, " and I outlined what had happened that night. "Don't you ever go back there!" he told me. "That's it. You don't have to take that." Well, in fact, I did have to take it, but not for long. Since email seemed to be her communication of choice, after careful consideration I wrote her one the next morning, outlining my resignation. Then I went in to work. She came in later that day and asked me if I was sure about my decision. Oh yes, I assured her, and the sooner the better. She seemed surprised, which surprised me. What about me made her think she could talk to me the way she had and that I would just take it? I kept hearing Tweety Bird's voice in my head saying, "She don't know me very well, do she?" And she never will.
I feel very glad to be away from the oppressive shop owner, but sad to have left the friends I was making among the customers and my co-workers. I miss them. And I especially miss helping the enthusiastic new knitters who came into the shop looking for a familiar, friendly face and some encouraging help with their fledgling projects. I was good at that. I am good at that. That has not changed.
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