Find the Castle!

Source: maybole.org via K. on Pinterest

I fell in love with this cute little castle in Maybole, Scotland. Then I took it a step further by visiting Maybole VIRTUALLY to poke around! It is perpetually spring there--frozen in April 2009 courtesy of Google Street View. My game is to play Find the Castle. It's easy.

1. Go to this page. http://www.maybole.org/guides/googlestreetview/index.htm

2. Use the directional cursors on your keyboard to navigate the town. If possible, just look at the Google Street View photos at the top of the screen, not the map below. (It seems possible to cheat.)

3. See how quickly you can find adorable Maybole Castle suddenly looming up in front of you! It is a very satisfying feeling.

After finding the castle, I tool around the Maybole streets and countryside. I found daffodils blooming on a roadside south of town. There's a cute little common by the railway station. It gets sunny on Drumellan Street, right by The Corner Pocket Snooker Hall. Just now I played again and, after finding the castle, I went down Kirkwynd and found an old ruined church just nestled among the blocks of flats. Oh Scotland!

Have you explored someplace with Google Street View, especially someplace you've never been? I want to go to Maybole now! (You can even get inside the Metropolitan Museum with Google Street View, I discovered.)

St. Valentine's lament

A long time ago there was a bookstore in our town called Collected Works. They had a great author program, and we saw people from local to national celebrities read there: Donald Hall, Colum McCann, Frances Moore Lappé, Verandah Porche, Wynn Cooper. The Colum McCann reading in particular was memorable because later that night I saw him stumbling into a bar declaiming Philip Larkin's "This Be the Verse." That's exactly what I thought published authors should be doing.

Anyway, at the height of their literary influence, Collected Works held a "Valentine's Poem" contest. I'm thinking for Valentine's Day 1996. I knew that I wanted to write a poem called "The Moon Over Birge Street," but the words didn't come to me until 2011. Collected Works was long gone, and I'd just heard a Gillian Welch interview on "Fresh Air." At that moment, my 1996 Valentine's Day poem finally coalesced in my mind. I like to sing it as a twangy folk number.

The Moon Over Birge Street

If I was pregnant when we parted
We would have a child
Two years of age
Four months five days
If I was pregnant when we parted
We would have a child by now.

He would not know you
And I wouldn't too
I don't know you now
Or I would know how
We could have parted
We could have parted at all.

And the moon over Birge Street
It just bears down
And the moon over Birge Street
In the slow frozen night
And the moon over Birge Street
It just bears down on me.

I heard she has given you
Two of your own
Two of your own
And one is two years old
Is it true she has given you
Two of your own by now.

Drinking in the kitchen
Smoking in the yard
Singing this song
It still seems hard
That we should be parted
That we should be parted at all.

And the moon over Birge Street
Bears down on me
And the moon over Birge Street
On Valentine's Day
And the moon over Birge Street
It just bears down on me.

Avocado toast and other simple breakfasts

When my brother-in-law J (who is the cooking part of Fresh from the Fridge) comes to visit, I know I'm going to try some new foods. Maybe I'll even be encouraged to eat fruit. That's cool, because he lives in California and brings exotic items like persimmons and kumquats and Reed avocados. This past holiday season one of the latter was perfectly ripe, and avocado toast was born late one post-Christmas evening. It's so darn good, it also works as a delicious breakfast. Feel like a nice greasy egg sandwich? Try avocado toast, man. I think it's even vegan!

Recipe: Slather ripe avocado on your favorite toasted bread. Drizzle with olive oil. Top with generous sprinkles of Magic Salt. (Magic salt was my DIY holiday gift. Basically it's the most delicious salt ever, made by blending salt, garlic and herbs in a food processor and letting the mixture dry out.)


While I'm at it, here's another simple breakfast I had back on Thanksgiving morning. Thinly sliced cucumber, thinly sliced daikon radish. Rye bread. Tea. Getting ready for a big day of eating ahead, this was light, cool, and crisp.



Simple breakfasts--what do you think?

Haggis Stew (Slow Cooker Lamb 'n Oats)

It has been years since I had haggis, "Great chieftain o' the puddin-race." It was in Scotland on my honeymoon--we had haggis several times and I thought it was great. I would like some right now.

With Robbie Burns Day in the recent past (January 25) and steel-cut oats in the cupboard, the least I could do was invent a slow-cooker recipe with haggis-y overtones. Mainly, it contains sheep bits and lots of oats. Note that steel-cut oats are key, with rolled oats this would just be mush.

Ingredients

• 1 cup steel-cut oats, soaked overnight in lots of water and then drained
• 2-3 carrots, diced
• 2 celery stalks, diced (include leaves if you like)
• 1 potato, diced
• 1 T olive oil
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1 lamb shoulder chop (cheaper than stew meat, just cut out the bone and cube)
• 1 small can chicken broth (or water, or lots of broth, or bouillon)
• 1 bay leaf
• pinch of rosemary, crushed
• salt & pepper to taste

Assembly

1. First, note this is a trick recipe where you have to do something at least 8 hours beforehand (soak the oats). If you do this the night before, you can assemble the stew in the morning and have it for dinner.
2. Place the vegetables (carrot, celery, potato) and drained oats in your slow cooker.
   
3. Sauté the onion on olive oil. When it becomes glassy, add the lamb cubes. Brown. Deglaze with the chicken stock (or water or whatever you're using). Add all to slow cooker.
4. Add bay leaf and rosemary. Make sure there is enough liquid to fully cover because the oats will expand quite a bit. That means add some extra stock/water if your deglazing liquid does not seem adequate.
   
5. Turn to low and cook for 8 hours. If possible, stir during the day and add more liquid if things look too gummy. You can add liquid even at the last minute to get it to the right texture to serve. Add salt & pepper.
   

Serve with a side of oatmeal! Just kidding. A beer would be nice though.

Clubs with Me as a Member

Clubs have the promise of consistency. You don't accomplish things just once, but regularly and with help and support (unless you're the only member...). However, I am also pretty fussy and impatient and do not usually do well with other people's agendas. That's why I like to start my own clubs. Here are some clubs I've founded or joined at the very beginning.

The ALS: Animal Lover's Society. I think I was the only member though I may have issued memberships to my parents. I was about 10. From what I recall, the club's main purpose was to cut out and keep pictures of animals from catalogs and flyers received in the mail. Also I did chores to raise money to send to various organizations such as the Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund. I liked to send $5 to $10 at a time, and would get my parents to write the checks.

AAE: Americans Against Executives. I founded this with my friend Annie when I was 15. Basically we didn't like corporations and chose to express it with our logo of a fellow in a trenchcoat and hat carrying a briefcase, with a big slash over him. We believed in the free distribution of capital and goods, or something like that. We'd been reading a lot of Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe at the time.

STOP: Save Trees or Perish. This had something to do with hiding in trees and then jumping out at people who might want to cut them down. They weren't even endangered Redwoods or clearcutting, just average trees around the neighborhood. I have since reversed some of my feelings on this--I think it's OK to remove some trees sometimes, especially if they're not well, or if they're IN MY WAY.

Plant Club: As a grownup, my friend Erica and I went on Field Guide expeditions to explore wild plants in our area. We had 2-3 meetings that involved lying in fields with our books, taking notes, and discussing things like Brassicas and sepals.

Sewing Club: This was probably my most successful club. My friend Traci and I met a fair number of times to do sewing projects. We alternated houses. We made diaper covers, boxer shorts, quilts, placemats, gifts, languishing projects that are still not finished... We managed to keep it up even after we had children, until she moved to the other end of the state. I miss you Traci!

Book Club: This seemed like a great idea--4 smart fun women get together every month to talk about books. Except we had very different ideas about what we wanted to read. I wanted best-sellers, the "popular" books I would never pick up otherwise. Others wanted to get some classics under their belts. As an English major I had zero interest in reading Dickens ever again. Actually I didn't want to read anything published before 1990.

Mix-Tape Club: Some clever people got together via email and organized a mix-tape exchange... except everything was on CD of course. We would choose a theme, then half of us would create CDs on that theme. The best thing to come out of it was the song "Beef & Broccoli" by Immortal Technique that showed up during our fruits & veggies round. (Thanks Chad!)

Running Club: Another great idea that was not exactly a failure! I and another mommy succeeded in getting up at 6 am and running 2 miles on several occasions! However, we were not able to keep this up for long.

Winter meadow

Source: angielewin.co.uk via K. on Pinterest

A few years ago, even though I had no money to spare at the time, I could not resist buying this Angie Lewin card because the design was so beautiful. I hung it at my desk and it made me happy.

Now that I'm trying out Pinterest, I'm discovering more and more Angie Lewin images, and also that I really love the look of dead Queen Anne's Lace, and dried up leathery milkweed, and prickly crunchy teasels, and tall faded meadow plants like that. At the same time, I've decided I would like to try to get back into rug hooking (I made 1.5 rugs in 2003 and then never picked it up again). Perfect rug subject: My own version of an Angie Lewin weed scene--dead weeds. I made a draft rug sketch and had a discussion about the whole idea with my daughter. Today, on a still-snowless clear blue January day, we decided to make a special expedition to find some of these beauties for ourselves, and maybe get some rug inspiration on the way. Here are some photos from our winter meadow research.

Stalks with round wasp galls might be a cool motif.

I'd love to have milkweed somehow coming right out of the rug.

Queen Anne's Lace, you gorgeous old thing

Some more old ladies in profile

Mullein stalks! Another interesting idea. They're like the saguaros of Vermont. Kind of.

Mullein close up. These must have been about 8 feet tall. Super fabulous.

Favorite Songs of 2011

Nuclear Seasons: Charli xcx

I haven't ranked these songs, but "Nuclear Seasons" is pretty far up there for me this year. British electro-pop sensation Charli xcx nails this one with a dark late 80s sound reminiscent of the days when good, strange music could only be found through someone who knew someone who was on college radio.

CharliXCX - Nuclear Seasons by charlixcx


Hey Sparrow: Peaking Lights

Slow and wispy, this is a little like "Heart & Soul" played on a kalimba--there's a nice plinky, repetitive thing going on. Breathy background music.

Hey Sparrow by Peaking Lights


Better Off Without You: Summer Camp

This song makes me laugh. It has the boppy throwback sound that seems to be going around (like the Dum dum girls). Also it's a breakup celebration song. I'm so happy you're gone! Stop calling! Tee hee.

Summer Camp - Better Off Without You by Webzine Obstacle


Thankless Thing: Wild Beasts

This is mostly on my list because I love Wild Beasts and their forays into the falsetto-sphere. This song is quite mellow for my taste, but also gorgeous and pretty irresistible. Find them on Facebook!

Wild Beasts - Thankless Thing by DominoRecordCo


Yellow Missing Signs: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

I posted about this on Facebook and it was pointed out to me that it seems to be about justice for serial murder victims. Which is not a bad thing, but I'd only been listening to the music, some excellent raw synth pop straight out of 1985.

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Yellow Missing Signs by Polyvinyl Records


100 Other Lovers: DeVotchKa

DeVotchKa have a lovely happy gypsy-ish sound. Apparently they came to fame on the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack. This song is quietly propulsive.

DeVotchKa - 100 Other Lovers by antirecords


Beat and the Pulse: Austra

Toronto's Katie Stelmanis seems just amazing. Super-talented, the unplugged piano sessions released in the fall prove she can make awesome electro-pop without even needing the electro. This song is another big 2011 favorite.

Austra - Beat And The Pulse by bluepumpkin aka antennica


Bunhill Fields: Amor de Dias

Bunhill Fields is a London cemetery for dissenters apparently. The song seems appropriately pensive and atmospheric, with the occasional sweeping cello and piano statement. It's lovely pop.

Amor De Días - "Bunhill Fields" by OctopusWindmill


Don't Stop: The Dodos

These two guys worked with Neko Case on their album, though this song is just them. And it's great! They have some interesting percussion things going on... drumsticks? Don't Stop has a lot of layers and noise and energy, appropriate for the name.

The Dodos 'Don't Stop' by Wichita Recordings


Let's Go: Mike & Cody

Every best-songs list has to have a big club banger, right? This song makes me want to jump up and down and drink gin & tonics made fluorescent by the club black lights. Let's Go!!

Let's Go! by mikeandcody

Christmas Playlist

Maybe I get kind of fanatical about Christmas music. I'll admit it. Growing up, our rule was that Christmas music could be played from after Thanksgiving dinner until the end of Christmas Day. Such a short window makes Christmas music extra special. Nowadays I impose this rule with gusto, listening almost exclusively to Christmas music all month long until other family members start making remarks. My favorites change with the years--here are some I'm enjoying now!

Corelli's Christmas concerto. It's only about 15 minutes long and instrumental, but sounds totally like Christmas to me. Just look for Corelli's Concerto Grosso in G minor Op. 6/8 on your average baroque mixtape.

Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols. I like the Robert Shaw Chamber Singers version found on their Angels on High CD. The rest of the CD is great too.



A Charlie Brown Christmas, Vince Guaraldi Trio. What a classic. This year I also bought the piano music to learn.



Klingende Weihnacht. My father spent time in Germany in the 60s and I think this record came out of that experience. It has been part of my Christmases as long as I can remember, and the sound of the little German children singing ROCKS my every December.



Noels Celtiques: Celtic Christmas Music from Brittany, Ensemble Choral du Bout du Monde. This album is so beautiful it sometimes makes me cry. The northern tippy-top part of France has Scottish connections, and they can be heard in these transfiguring songs that sometimes include bagpipes.



Christmas with the Rat Pack. Frank, Dean-o and Sammy take turns belting 'em out on this swinging collection.



Verve Presents: The Very Best of Christmas Jazz. John Coltrane Quartet, Bill Evans, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Horn, Dinah Washington... in a word: awesomesauce. Jimmy Smith's drawbar organ version of "Jingle Bells" is a total treat.



Christmas Album, Nat "King" Cole. This guy's voice is like buttah. A perennial favorite.



A Very Siúcra Christmas. This is a recent find at a used CD store, apparently from around 2002. A folky-Celtic trio, Siúcra is quickly growing on us as a new Christmas staple. There are some new Christmas songs I've never heard before, like the "Cherry Tree Carol" that makes new sense of the miracle plays I had to read in college. (Why DID the baby have cherries in his hand at the end of the play? This song answers the question.) The talented lead singer Beth Leachman got an adorable Vows wedding writeup in the NYT in 2009: click here to read.



Baroque Christmas Music. I found this at the library. The name about says it all. My cup of tea.



The Little Drummer Boy, by the Harry Simeone Chorale. Let me just say that "The Little Drummer Boy" is the most hideous Christmas song ever, in my opinion. However this gospel-like album of medleys (that sounds terrible, but it's good!) gets really rollicking in places!


Tell me what Christmas music you like! You don't even have to be Christian to have a favorite song or two. Heck, I'm some sort of witchy pagan sun-worshiper myself.

Holiday Crafts

I'm always trying to simplify Christmas, I don't know why. I should probably just accept its complexities! One great year was when my mom and I didn't get a tree, but strung lights on the coffee table and put our gifts beneath that. Craziness! These days, with children and an extended family, I'm still trying to make things easy yet special. Last year my equation was that each person would get: one homemade thing, one purchased thing (modestly priced), and food. I collected ideas from blogs and my ancient stash of abandoned projects. Here are a few examples of DIY gifts from last year. I've been waiting since then to share them!

Project: Stuffed Ornaments
Sometime in the early 80s someone gave me fabric that had Christmas toys printed on it. You were supposed to cut them out and sew them together with ribbon to make cute stuffed ornaments. Fast forward about 30 years to when I rediscovered this fabric with my sewing stuff. Santa brought two for each child--stuffed toys are excellent stocking stuffers!



Project: Boxer Shorts
Is it too much information to share that I make all of a certain person's underwear for him from a worn and loved Butterick boxers pattern? The best part about homemade boxers is the mad fabric choices that are possible. One year I made boxers with adorable otters on them floating in a sea of blue. Another time I made boxers sporting multicolored jalapeños. Here, please note one pair has an idyllic village pattern with little houses and copses scattered about.


Project: Painted Spoons
Design Mom inspired me to encourage our older child to make her own presents for family members. One of our first (hopefully of many) projects was to paint these spoons with spots and stripes. We left the stirring part of the spoon plain so nobody would have to eat paint. We also sealed the painted section with a coat of non-toxic clear stuff. (I will have to dig around to figure out what it was called...)


Project: Road Rug
I'm not sure if I like how this turned out. It is just some traffic fabric from the quilting store that I backed with plain blue cloth and sewed together. Cool, except with our hardwood floors it slides around and is really hard to play on. But it could be a good roll-up road to use outside or where there's carpeting.


Project: Porcelain Pens
I am most proud of this one. I got the basic idea from Design Mom, who explains how to make monogrammed mugs using porcelain markers from Michael's and plain white china from the thrift store. I made my own trip to Michael's and sure enough, found these neat markers that are like thin sharpies for ceramic. The best part is: everything is totally adjustable and erasable until it's how you want it, then you bake it briefly to set.

For this mug for Grandpa, we decided to add his grandchildren's hands as part of the design. First I traced the hands and cut them out.

I taped the hand stencils to the mug.

We traced around them with black porcelain pen.

Here's the basic tracing. I may have been the main handler of the porcelain pens up until this point.

Then I handed the pens over to Miss Monkey, who did her own decorating (with some help when requested).

All three grandparent gifts. If you like the ancient Greek egg-and-dart motif on the bottom of the slim vase, I take all the credit.

Project: Embroidered Tea Towel
This was also a satisfying project, many many years in the making. I got these tea towels to embroider when I was about 10, and did not finish them until my second maternity leave.

Project: Homebrew
I posted a photo essay about this early in the year -- great gift for some special uncles.


Project: Baked Goods
We packed up a bunch of lovingly recycled Christmas tins with a selection of holiday treats baked by 3 generations of ladies, me being the middle generation. (Thanks mom!) We made:

• lebkuchen
• fruitcake
• shortbread
• my signature oatmeal coconut chocolate chip cookie recipe
  

Thanks for reading! I have some more ideas for this year, though not being on maternity leave I will not be as prolific this time. What are your fave DIY gifts to make--or receive?

Butternut bake: Savory holiday side

This Butternut Cranberry Bake that I blogged about back in 2008 would be a great side dish for a family holiday meal. This recipe always reminds me of the K2 lunch spot in Kendall Square, Cambridge, which had a version in their salad bar circa Fall 2000. It was so yummy that I experimented at home until I figured out a pretty good replica. Here are some new things I've learned about this recipe.

The recipe is a simple affair of cutting up and rinsing a big handful of cranberries,
then sautéeing in a bunch of butter with half an onion or so.

One thing is that if you don't have brown sugar or brown rice syrup, maple syrup will also do very nicely. Just pour it on over the cubed squash before stirring in the sautéed onion mixture.

Arrange a small cubed butternut squash in a baking dish with some sprigs of thyme
and water that goes about halfway up the squash pieces.

Another thing is that very small children love this, but larger ones may not. Our kindergartner who hates "mixed up food" thought this was completely revolting. She does not care that it tastes like delicious squash candy!

Cover and bake for about 40 minutes, stirring halfway through.

The best brownie mix?

At my new job, unlike my old job, there is no coffee cart that comes by at 2:10 every afternoon to sell gigantic and perfect chocolate-chip cookies for 75¢. So I bring brownies to make up for it. Making brownies at home has turned out to be a cool mother-daughter activity on Sunday afternoons--it's not hard for a kindergartener to help crack an egg, measure and pour oil and water, stir it all together and scrape into a baking pan. Here are some tasting notes I scribbled on torn box-fronts in search of the perfect brownie mix.

Duncan Hines Chewy Fudge Brownies, 13x9 family size

Touted as "extra thick and fudgy!" these did not deliver.
"Not very chocolatey or chewy. Plain."

Ghirardelli Double Chocolate Brownie mix
Has "Chocolate chips in the mix." This was "very moist & fudgy.
Good. Maybe too moist--got clumpy."

Pillsbury Dark Chocolate 13x9 Family Size
"Dark color & moist texture, but not very chocolate-y tasting"

Betty Crocker Ultimate Fudge (8x8 only)
with "Hershey's Fudge Pouch & Melt Away Chips"
"Wow, very dense & moist & chocolate-y. Not cake-y. Almost like underdone but not--just moist!" It appears that I liked these, but they were actually so rich & sweet they became a chore to eat. They were still around the following week, and we took a break from brownie-baking for a few more weeks just to recover.

Ghirardelli Chocolate Supreme (8x8 only)
"Chocolate Syrup pouch included"
By this point I was wary of add-ins like a pouch or chips, but I think this mix is a winner! "Chewy, chocolate-y, but not too much of either. Could be the one?!"

Are you a brownie-holic? What's your favorite recipe? Do you believe in from-the-box, or insist on from-scratch? Any secrets? I have a friend who places walnut halves on top of the batter before baking for the total illusion of homemade. Yum.

Braised Turkey

Look at that gravy. It sparkles.

With the days getting darker (read this good post about it at Door Number 8), the evenings are getting really long. It seems natural to make the best of things by cooking up nice Sunday dinners. Here's another one where we actually invited guests over—first time in a long time! The main dish: braised turkey. This happened earlier in November, but since it's Turkey Day I'd like to share it now!

Personal trivia: I had never cooked my own turkey before this.
My whole life, female relatives have always done all turkey cooking.
For my first turkey dinner I even bought a roasting pan!

The idea of braising a turkey is from a Cook's Illustrated recipe that, for a CI recipe, was actually quite doable and simple. The basic premise is that you brine the turkey (of course! It's Cook's Illustrated!) and then chop it into 3 main pieces, then cook it in flavorful liquid for a couple of hours until it's completely moist and tender.

I like when there's a secret ingredient that makes a recipe go from pretty good to amazing, and this recipe definitely had one. Dried porcini mushrooms. $49 a pound. This selection cost less than $2 though.


These get mixed with a mirepoix on the bottom of the roasting pan, then the turkey is browned in a hot oven.

Here's the bird basted and ready for browning. One of my favorite parts was getting to butcher (as in "cut up") the turkey the night before--cutting off the wings, carefully carving off the drumsticks so I don't 1. miss the chef's oysters and 2. injure myself. I made a slow-cooker stock with the pieces I cut off, plus giblets. I used to love dissecting things in anatomy class. Sorry Alicia Silverstone.

After browning, the recipe says to add wine and chicken broth for the braising, cover, and turn the oven down for 2 hours.



Another fabulous part of this recipe was the amazing gravy. Here's where the power of the porcini really blossomed forth. It was savory, and because I bothered to strain it, also silken.

The braising liquid, strained and ready to gravy-fy.

The gravy hardly needed any salt either. (The turkey probably contributed enough, since I rubbed it with salt the night before in lieu of brining. Why? It was self-basting, and the recipe said that's what I should do.)

To serve I cut dark meat and breast meat onto a platter, and gave the drumsticks to the people who like that sort of thing. Since it was 2 weeks before Thanksgiving, I was trying to ignore the usual conventions, and served with roasted fingerling potatoes and buttered kale. No stuffing, no cranberry sauce. Our guests brought an amazing bread.


Do you always roast turkey, or have you tried other methods? I've heard of the mysterious deep-fried turkey, but I don't know anybody who's invested in the equipment. I'd eat it though!