snowangel

We had a typically Midwestern (perhaps, perhaps not) late-summer meal. We grilled some pork chops and threw some zucchini and red peppers on the grill, as well. Steamed some green beans. The latter three items were from my Farmer's Market bounty. The pork chops were wonderful. I got them at the Anoka Meat and Sausage Company, my new local meat market. I have had mostly good luck there, although I prefer the bacon at my former local meat market, Hackenmuellers. So, when Diana has an ortho appointment, I stop at Hack's (close to the ortho) and stock up. The Anoka joint has a larger selection of sausages than does Hack's, and regularly has a special on whole, untrimmed briskets for $1.99/lb. Whole, untrimmed briskets are hard to come by here, especially at that price (just ask Klink). Easter Sunday, I decided to host here. We had been in the new house 3 weeks. (This forced me to get my proverbial S--- together and get stuff unpacked; after 18 years and 3 kids in the former house, on Easter, I only had 12 unpacked boxes!) I got a ham from Anoka. It was possibly the best ham I had ever had. Perfectly smoked, and not nearly as salty as most I've had. So, I get what I can at the best place possible. Lately, I've been getting chickens through the Whole Foods Coop. Although they arrive frozen, they have been outstanding. Tasty, not nearly as fatty as what one gets at the supermarket. What's especially endearing is that some of them come bearing a label naming which 4-H kid grew the chicken for a project . Anyway, I digress. Everything tonight was wonderful. I love roasted red peppers. The green beans this summer, thanks in part, I'm sure, to the cool weather are still tender and fairly slim. One of the things I've noticed at the farmer's market is that the Hmong growers tend to pick their stuff earlier and smaller, which is fine with me. The kids want me to cut into that watermelon I have. Eaten on the deck. Geez, it's getting dark early! I long for those days in late June when sunset is after 9:00 pm!

Soba, one of the things that I don't really like is dessert. Living in the U. S., the occasional ice cream cone. The only things I really like for dessert are fruit or something custardy. Thai desserts, with a couple of exceptions, quite frankly, left me cold. I did like a bite of sticky rice with an entire mango. And, we used to get a wonderful custard (that was somewhat pumpinky -- is that a word? -- or squashy). Cooked and served in a mini-pumpkin that was, as I recall, green. The only other prepared "sweet treat" I enjoyed were fried bananas (they use different bananas there for that -- they are short and much sturdier) and kanom krok. Kanom krok are these little things, I'm not sure what they are made of, but they are custardy and cooked in a pan that looks like one of those Danish apple whatever-you-call-them pans that has the round indents. They were sold on the street. A little lady with a charcoal grill (in a cement thing with tin around it). They were really wonderful. What I've really missed is some of the fruit. Mangosteins. Rhambutan. All that stuff.

When we moved this past March, the purchase agreement gave us the right to go back and get some plants. Which we did. The rhubarb was one of them. I inherited the love of gardening from my paternal grandmother. When she died, I wanted two things only from her house. One was a rhubarb plant. One of the rhubarbs that had been a part of her life as long as she could remember. She got her first one from her MIL, who probably got it from a relative. It was not doing so well at our old house. I realize now that it just needed to be divided. It now looks wonderful. The exciting news here is that I have a couple of tomatoes (there are few, but there are at least some) are ripening: I originally planted 5 heirlooms, all different varieties. They were a gift, and the giver lost the tags for them. So, I have no idea what they are. BTW, one of the plants, by mid-august, had no fruits set, so I pulled it to save the nutrients in the soil. I think my Thai Basil looks wonderful. It is a beautiful plant. I intended to make curry (which I like with a lot of these leaves) last night, but had too much other food. Perhaps for lunch or dinner tomorrow night? Finally, one of the other of the multitudes of plants I took from our former house is not food related. I took a lot of perennials. This is one of my favorites. It is a clematis tangutica. It is laying on the ground because it has just been transplanted to its permanent home. I know, never transplant while blooming, but since it's a new wood bloomer, I knew if I cut it back, I would trick it into thinking that it was spring and I might be in for trouble. THe flowers on this particular plant are far less than remarkable, but the seed heads left behind when the flowers fade are quite something. Peter calls them Muppet heads. This thing actually self-seeds, and comes true to form. That bit of orange is my garden nippers, which I will go and retrieve now.

Yes, it is great. Every Thanksgiving Day, three college buddies (we've known each other since the late 70's) and I head up north to Blue Fin Bay. We stay in one of the condos (same one every year, at the end of one of the rows) and we always take a bottle of Shakers. This year we are taking two (we also take wine and all sorts of other spirits). Every evening, we head to the outdoor pool and whirlpool with glasses of Shaker's. OK, back to gardening. I'm putting up a trellis, but was hungry (again) so came in and had a few hunks of Eichten's aged gouda (which is not listed on their web site). I got it a couple of weeks ago at the St. Paul Farmer's Market. It is very yummy.

The Colorado peaches have been outstanding. So outstanding that I had three of them for lunch, along with a handful of granola. I've been busy gardening today, so didn't take the time for a sit-down lunch. I've not tried the Colorado melons; I'll have to look for them. With the Colorado peaches, at least here, they are fairly widely available, but only by the lug, not individually, so I've been splitting lugs of them with my folks or a friend. They don't last long around here. The kids adore them. Pretty soon, I will start getting really great local apples at the farmer's market. I think my favorite is the Haralson, both for eating and cooking. They are crisp and tart (I like my apples tart) and the texture is great for cooking. Another favorite is the Chestnut crab, but they are not widely available. A friend who has an apple orchard says that most people don't have very many of those trees, and eat them all themselves, so they never make to market. They are quite small -- maybe an 1-1/2" in diameter with an almost sour taste that turns sweeter as you chew them. I'll photo the kitchen tonight. It's much, much smaller than my previous kitchen, but I'm finding it much more effecient. I thought I'd miss all of the cabinets and cupboards I used to have, but I've got tons of storage space in the basement for all of those things that you use once or twice a year, and I have found that I no longer have to rummage through the rarely-used stuff for the essentials. Back to the garden. I'm going to trim the hell out of the tomato plants in the hopes that perhaps some will ripen. I noticed today that one is starting to turn pink!

I live a long way from Burnsville! I now live in Coon Rapids. The one I have just discovered is mentioned here. We used to live not far from Brookdale, and there are also a couple up there. I'm excited though, to get to Shuang Her later this month following our EG dim sum outing. That Nicollet Avenue area is packed with great places to eat and shop. If you are looking for Japanese or Koren ingredients, there's a good place on Snelling between Hamline U. and University called (as I recall) Kim's Oriental Market. Where in the Cities do you live?

With #2, it was all day sickness, throughout the pregnancy. Smells were the worst, as the other's have said. To this day, I cannot stand the smell of a cooking parsnip. I learned to eat what I felt like, and, to echo the sentiments of some of the others, tangy foods seemed to go well. I had a stretch were the only things I could tolerate were lime sherbet and grapefruit. I also learned to eat things that came back up easily (sorry about that). Tossed salad took on a new meaning! With the other two, it was much easier, but I didn't think it eased up until closer to 18-20 weeks into the pregnancy.

I had a piece of toast (again) for breakfast along with my coffee out on the deck. It is so quiet now that the kids are back in school (both inside and outside -- there are a lot of kids in our neighborhood) and as I sat there, I watched the pair of blue jays frolicking and caught sight of an oriel. The woodpecker (red headed one) was busy pecking away on the willow next door. I love eating out on the deck. We have a lot more birds in this neighborhood. Maybe not more birds, but a bigger variety, and almost no starlings. We often eat out on the deck, and this has been a good summer for that because outside of a few nights, the bugs (mainly mosquitoes) have not been bad this year. Time to vaccuum the sun room. Today, we finally get the furniture we ordered for this room on March 28. I hope I remember what it looks like!

I always eat something before I go to bed. So, just a little bit ago, I poured a generous shot of Shakers. While perusing what I wanted, I had a small handful of granola. I opted for that heel on the loaf of Acme bread. With a nice, thick slice of cold Hope butter (unsalted). I love cold butter on un-toasted bread. Then, there was that tomato, sitting on the counter, looking lonely, like it needed to be eaten. Sliced, with salt and pepper. I also found a lone hard boiled egg. Halved, s & p. Plus a peach that looked like it needed to be eaten. I love eating not long before I go to bed. Somewhere, sometime, I read this is not necessarily a good thing. It just seemed perverse to photo grazing in the kitchen after 11:30 pm. Probably time to brush the teeth and head to bed. Better wash that peach juice off my arms. The Colorado peaches from Grand Junction have been terrific. Interesting that they only sell them by the lug. The individual "by the pound peaches have been from Washington state and crappy. Now that the kids are back in school, there's no lolling in bed until 8:30 am... The coffee maker is full of water and the grinder full of beans. I never grind the night before.

My husband likes beef. A lot. So do I. So, that's not what I cook when he's gone (I'm never alone; we have three kids). So, when he's gone, we most often have breakfast for dinner -- bacon, eggs, waffles. However, I am often alone at home during the day. The kids at school. Husband at work. I tend to either larb something (especially if we have leftover meat; rare steak especially) or just forget to eat. I'm also pretty partial to the Mama brand of ramen noodles. Particularly the Kao Soi flavor (they taste nothing like real kao soi, but are darned good in a pinch doctored up with a mess of bird chilis and lime juice). Then, there's always toast. With butter. With liverwurst and mustard. With salami and mustard. Oh, and there's always salad. Add a hard boiled egg or part of a can of tuna (olive oil packed, naturally). Or, sliced tomatoes. Kind of depends on the season.

Hillvalley, do spend the time to go through the larb thread. It is good, and you you will get a good idea of what to expect. And, remember, you don't have to poach raw, chopped or ground meat. Leftover meat (rare steak or venison is my fav larb) larbs very well. Next time, cook an extra pork chop, but just make sure the extra is barely cooked! The kids have been making meal suggestions, but are too tired and overwhelmed by the new school year, in new schools, making new friends to help cook. But, they did a mighty fine job of making salsa, waffles, bacon ( ), and learning how to start the grill this summer -- at home and at the cabin. And, Diana wields the chef's knife just fine. All of this thinking has me hungry again, which is a good thing. I need to eat more. Toast? With butter? With liverwurst and mustard? Or, that Trotter's granola with half and half? I'm saving the leftover prik khing for my cousin. He is a sucker for leftovers, but only if they are really only spicy...I train my close family well.

Dinner tonight. It was great. I did make more larb; I had the right amount of extra pork. I used the long beans from the farmer's market in the prik khing. The thing I really hated was that I could not, for the life of me, find that beautiful Chinese broccoli in the fridge. The good news is that the fridge has been thoroughly cleaned; the bad news is that I did not find the stuff I was looking for. I'm sure it will turn up. Probably as a bag of wet stuff I can't recognize . For the prik khing, I used a little can of this This is a "dry" curry. Fry the curry paste in oil (I used whatever I had in the cupboard), then add ground pork, then the beans, then some chicken stock (water is recommended, but I prefer stock). It is traditionally made with long beans, but works with green beans. The disadvantage of long beans is that they can be difficult to come by, and they seem to have an extremely short shelf (fridge) life. Don't know why. The recipe on the can recommends adding shredded kaffir lime leaves (which I did) and chopped peanuts (which I didn't because I prefer it without). I got my kaffir lime leaves here A friend gave me this tree a year ago. It winters indoors, summers outdoors in my garden (but still in it's pot). It is doing fine. I leave it in the garden so it gets water whenever the garden is watered when it needs it. Cuts down on hauling a watering jug around. What looks like a weed growing in it is a volunteer petunia. I probably should pull it, but it looks sort of neat when it blooms (red). Dinner was yummy. To satisfy Heidi, who will not eat anything remotely spicy or green, I added some grated cheese to her rice and tucked a couple of chopped hard-cooked eggs inside. Paul and I drank beer, the kids limeade. Beer and Thai food go together really well, IMHO. A bit of background on the pork. There is a fairly new Asian market (largely Thai/Hmong) not too far from where I live. It is a very good market, with a huge selection of things imported, things fresh, things meat. It is entirely too clean. But, it is good. I stopped the other day and picked up some things. I can't for the life of me understand why stuff here that is available at the my local "regular" grocery is so much more expensive. Coconut milk, for example. $.79 for a 16 oz can vs. $1.89 for 14 oz. Go figure. Anyway, I wanted some ground pork, and was too lazy to do it myself. So, not seeing some, the man came over, and I asked for ground pork. His comment "so, missy, what you will be cooking?" I said larb. He proceeded to pull a hunk of pork out of the cooler and ground it perfectly. Right amount of fat, right consistency. Not too fine. Now, you ask, why do I say that this supermarket seems too clean? I take you back to the first time I ever had larb. It would have been fall of 1966. I was 9. We were in northern Thailand. The people we were with took us to a restaurant and we ordered larb. This restaurant sat on a corner, with two sides totally exposed. I'm sure there was a chicken or two, a dog, and some babies crawling or walking around. Our hosts ordered larb. The cook walked over to the "cooking" area, chopped a hunk of pork off of a side (or something big) that was hanging from the ceiling on a meat hook, proceeded to take a cleaver to it and the other things, and pretty soon we had larb. Raw pork larb, served with sticky rice (experiences like this probably contributed to my gastric health; I never, ever get sick to my stomach or have other such trouble). It was probably a more miraculous moment than that first taste of squid salad on my 9th birthday. It's these many stories I could tell -- the squid guay tio (sp?) early Sunday mornings before scuba diving trips. The hoping my folks would go out for dinner so we could eat ba mi off the cart that would ring it's bell outside of our house on Soi 13. The haunting the markets on Saturday mornings for kanom krok. My first taste of kao soi. These are the stuff that has made me appreciate the many tastes and textures that food involved.

Once the snow melted this spring, we were able to see the outside of our house. After we hooked up a chain to the back end of the Bronco (Ford, not equine), we yanked out the 40' of way overgrown arborvitae that were hiding our house. This revealed more "river rock" as "mulch" than one can imagine. I have spent a majority of the summer getting rid of the rock. It's everywhere. It's been an awful job. But, I am bound and determined to have a flower garden in the front (which is very uncommon in this suburban neighborhood). I got rid of the rock before we went to the cabin. So, after my trip to the lumberyard and making larb, I dug out the roots which were remaining and laid a line for edging. So, just what does this have to do with larb? I was really hot and sweaty, even on this cool (low 60's -- f) day. I came in, cracked an icy cold beer and almost finished the larb. I discovered long ago that really spicy food tastes especially good when one is really hot and sweaty. I even chopped up a couple more hot peppers and added it. So, why didn't I finish it? When I told Diana that I was going to larb for lunch, she made me PROMISE that I would save her some. And, some it is. About 2 bites. Better than nothing. Sweat and larb = happy!

The only two things I have not successfully larbed are hardcooked eggs (yolks got too mushy) and tofu (too soft). Although, if one deep-fried cubes of the latter, it would work well. Leftover meat larbs well. OK. I'll have to try larbing a venison sausage. I will report later this week. Oh. Forgot. Canned tuna does not larb well, either. It's a texture thing, once again.

Brooks, you most certainly did have a plan. To replace the dishwasher. To me, that's a plan. So what if it got a little more extensive. Thanks for the update. I'd miss my dishwasher, too. But, for some reason, I don't when I'm at the cabin. Maybe it's the view while doing dishes?

Back from the lumberyard with a powerful hunger. I had some liverwurst on toast with mustard while I made Larb! It is so good, and made me so hungry for Thai food that I think I'll make a chicken curry tonight (I have Thai eggplant). It's also a good vehicle for Thai basil, one of my favorites, and I have a nice plant in the garden. Think I'll make a prik khing with the long beans, and stirfry that Chinese broccoli I got at the farmer's market. I'm aiming to get back to the farmer's market on Friday morning. I've learned to practice some restraint or else a couple of weeks later I find something somewhere in the fridge that I forgot about. Thanks for the venison suggestions. Next deer, I'm taking charge, very precisely, what happens.

Good morning! The kids are gone, and I've had my cup of coffee and piece of toast. I have been spoiled on the bread front lately. My sister lives in Berkeley, just a few blocks from Acme, and on my folks last trip, they brought me a whole duffle bag full of double levain loaves, which I quartered and froze. I am rather dissatisfied with most of the bread I find in the Twin Cities, although French Meadow is pretty good. I find most of the bread I can get lacking in that crust I like, and the interior a little "wet." Those of you that are familiar with Acme know it's a tough act to follow. So, I do believe it's time I tried to perfect my bread-baking skills, so I will get another sourdoug starter going. My last starter was pitched my an over-zealous fridge cleaner when we moved. My sister gave me a copy of the Cheese Board Collective cookbook for my birthday, and I should explore that book. Shortly before I went to bed last night, I was hungry again, so I had a bowl of granola. I get it from a deli in St. Paul called Trotters. It is very yummy. Full of nut halves, not too sweet, and there is almost none of that "dust" at the bottom of the bag that so much granola has. I had it in a mug with half and half. The only way to eat granola, IMHO. This morning dawned cloudy and cold (45 degrees F). Although the season is changing, it is now brilliantly sunny and warming nicely. This is that strange season when I hate to let go of summer eating habits -- lots of great, local fresh produce, grilling, quick and easy stuff -- but as I lay in bed in the morning, reaching for an extra blanket, the lure of the braise or roast is strong. I'm off to the hardware store soon, and will pass a meat market, so I'll stop in and see what has our name on it for dinner. And, the thought of some smoked butt this week does sound good. Venison jerky. I love it, but all I have left is smoked and in casings. I'm thinking that I should be thinking about using some of them in soups. I recall seeing a photo (on the Dinner thread, if memory serves me right) of someone posting about using them with beans. I think the beans were white. Sounds like I'll need to do some experimenting. Anyone have any other ideas? And, I do know that if there is another deer in our future this fall, I will definitely find a different place for the butchering, and probably opt to just take all of the meat and go to one of my two favorite sausage/meat markets (Hackenmuellers in Robbinsdale or Nicollet Meat Market in Nicollet) if I want any sausages, brats or dogs.

I seem to be having trouble quoting. Could be my computer, which has had trouble lately. Never mind. Yes, the table is teak. When my folks purchased it from the Chinese couple, they offered it (albeit in 1974) for $25.00 (US). After my folks said "yes!" the sellers received several other offers for far more. In any case, the table is ours, and beautiful. We love it. Even more than the round table that sits in the basement that was our "family" table before we moved. That table that was Paul's grandparents (we also believe his great grandparents). The long beans will happen tomorrow, fairly early. I stepped on the scale today and need to eat more! The kids, exhausted from a first day at school, with new teachers, are all exhausted and in bed. Peter fell asleep 1/2 hour after getting home. Paul flopoled (has anyone else ever seen Good Neighbors) in bed at 6:45 pm and he shows no sign of stirring. First day of school successful for mom and kids. Long beans and larb tomorrow. I have a mess of beautiful chopped pork. I am hungry.

Hi, Susan: Hi have been following your hurricane blogs. I have a good friend who lives in Orlando, and have been hearin from her, as well as you, what to stock up on. THe one thing she won't go for is Spam. Ironically, when she was taking about this was the day after we'd been at the Great Minnesota State Fair. There was a trailer that was giving away samples of Spam. "grilled" they described it, on buns. You wouldn't beleive the number of buns, with one bite out of them, that were in the trash. Including those of all members of our family. But, having taken numerous scuba diving trips in Thailand when things were really primitive, I remember all to well canned "butter." You must be OK, if you are posting. We have blizzards. They aren't as frightening, for some reason. Cold, but not as scary. And, why are we so hungry when the weather gets bad?

This has been an interesting day to start blogging. We are all exhausted from our End of Summer Weekend at The Cabin. Add to that, it has been the first day of school. ALthough not food-related, neither Diana nor Peter could get to sleep before midnight last night (this was Diana's 3rd school in one year) and they were up before dawn. Regardless, the center of the hub for a family with kids (and probably those without kids) is the Dining Room Table. Ours is rather remarkable. From the side, it looks like this: Standing on one of the chairs, the top, which has a lazy susan in the middle: It's really a cool table. My folks bought it in 1974, while living in Thailand, from some friends who were from China. I have no idea about the prior history. It resided in my folks house for many, many years until they moved to a town house. Then, it went on loan (stewardship, with the promise of great meals and all the family stuff) to some friends. We finally managed to have a family member (me!) who had a dining room large enough for it. It is 5-1/2' in diameter. Please ignore the floor and walls. I have removed the wallpaper, revealing a nice, nasty instutional green. When we got rid of the pseudo leather, harvest gold countertops, the floor looked even worse, so that's a project for post blog. It came without chairs. So, one of my first tasks was to find chairs to go with it (Heidi's chair excluded). I found them. It was hard. The trend is for upholstered dining room chairs, which as a parent of a clumsy pubesent daughter, an 8-year old boy, and a disabled 10-year old, was not in the cards. I found the right chairs. Most people, who see the table for the first time, assume that the chairs are original. So, for dinner, an exhausted me, still unpacking from the cabin, enjoying my new-found freedom, fixed a very simple dinner. In addition to what's on my new (and oh, so wonderful granite countertops), there are sliced tomatoes. We are eating venison brats and dogs (adorned with a variety of mustards and kraut) and some sweet corn. Heidi's white bowl has some egg salad. She will not eat red food (no dogs for her!) and you can also see her glass of milk. So, my comments on dinner. THe tomatoes we've had this summer, for some reason or another (perhaps because we are still waiting for summer?) do not have the texture I want. The sweet corn. Divine. I purchased it this morning from the farmer's market. It was fromt he Lindstrom area. Sold to me by a young chap. When I inquired why he wasn't in school, he replied that this is part of his 4-H project. He was in the field, according to him, at 3:00 am this morning, miner's hat on, picking the corn. I've learned to buy corn at the farmer's market from people that only grow corn. It was sweet, crisp, without that starchiness that can come at the end of the season, and without that chlorophyll (sp?) taste that can mar the first corn of the season. I opted to eat nothing else but one bite of a texturally-marred tomato. I consumed 8 years on my own. Oh. I am mistaken. I had a bite of a venison dog. Now, to the dogs and brats. When Paul got his deer, he took it to a meat market. Research shows me that most of the processing places here have a minimum of 25 pounds per type of sausage product. He ordered 25 pounds each of brats, dogs and summer sausage. I quickly changed that to 25 pounds of summer sausage (it's gone) and the rest in roasts, steaks, chops. His dad opted to have his whole deer done in brats and hot dogs. And, we would do some exchanging. Since FIL is happier nuking a dog or brat or eating a slab of summer sausage, this is fine. Sum total. We traded some of the summer sausage (not nearly spiced as I would like) for a mess of brats/dogs. They are OK, not great. So, my freezer now contains about 20 pounds of this stuff. And, I have given a bunch of it away. This stuff I have is smoked, and not nearly fatty enough. I am a fat nut. Butter, bacon, chuck eyes, whatever. Seems to me that when you bite into a brat (or stab it with a fork) there should be a squirt of fat. No? So, just what do I do with this "bounty?" I need to empty the freezer in case there is another deer in our future this November. Help, please from some of you experts?

OK, Brooks. Lesson time. Yes, we will be back up. Trust me. I can't go without being up there in the woods when the leaves are down and we can see through the woods. Walking the road, shotguns in hand, looking for grouse. Perhaps fishing. If you don't take the dock out of the water, it freezes in, and there is a lot of "heave ho" as it unfreezes and re-freezes and just messes it up. Yes, we took it out. Unless someone else on our side of the lake is up there, there is only one pair of waders. Somehow, 46 degree (f) water is sure a lot warmer on a really sunny day, when the sun is high in the sky (much higher in the sky in mid-May than mid-October) and the promise of summer than when the light is low and the promise is for colder weather. Plus, there were are boatload of other adults and big kids to haul the wooden sections. And, with a big crew, all Paul and I have to do it get the 18' aluminum secions up to shore and they just feed them up. OK, just call me a wimp. Should have mentioned The Big Task we accomplished this weekend. Those of you that have read this thread may have noticed "no running water." That also translates to outhouse. The outhouse has been moved once, and is filling again. It had not ventilation, and me does think that if one wants to get some composting action going, it needs air. So we put some vents in around the bottom and also added a stack. Yikes. Even The Water Wimp had to swim after that task, but we also swear that when you are in the outhouse, it smells more like wood shavings now than The Other Smell. You know, one of those cordless drill, circular saw, jigsaw, and flashlight sets are a really good thing (I got it for Mother's Day two years ago). Did the trick. I never want to move an outhouse again in my life, and that memory is about 15 years dim.

No real culinary background to tell of, other than self-taught. Adventursome in the kitchen. If you don't try, it won't happen. But, there is one noteworthy piece. I grew up in Thailand, daughter of a Rockefeller Foundation agricultural economist. Got there in 1966, left to go to college in the U. S. in 1975. My first, most memorable meal of my life was the day after we arrived in Thailand. It would have been my 9th birthday, and someone hosted a welcome dinner. Thai food. The first thing I tasted was a squid salad. Squid. Lime juice. Cilantro. Minced shallots. And, lots of those little "bird" chilis. I never looked back. This from a midwestern girl (sort of) raised on cream-of-something-soup "noodle" casseroles. There is a bit more about me Course on Cooking for People with Disabilities And on my thread about The Cabin. I love larb. No more than at The Cabin. On the dock. On a warm day, in a bathing suit. In the water. A bowl with larb and lettuce on the dock. Dip and dip.

We have returned from our final trip of the summer. It was wonderful. Although many of our weekends up north have largely consisted of not great weather, this past long weekend, like my stay in July, was mostly great. Paul, the kids and I arrived on Thursday, shortly after noon. As I jumped out of the car to grab that first look at The Lake, this is what I saw The sun is much lower in the sky than it was in June or even late July. What you can't see in this photo is that the leaves are already starting to turn, and we noticed a daily change in the "leaf status" on the ash by the outhouse. We did also get glimpses of brilliantly red maples. The first night, we ate steak, had sweet corn, tomatoes and a salad (which you can't see). I often serve things, like the green beans (which I neglected to mention above) in the pan in which they were cooked. No running water, and me or the kids as a dishwasher will do that to you. Paul is strapping Heidi into her chair and cutting up her food. So, I'm a bum. It was the Last, Great Weekend of A Great Summer. I neglected to take any other food pictures. But, our breakfasts sustained all of us until mid-afternoon. Rashers of bacon, pounds of sausages, waffles, pancakes, and a crate of the most amazing peaches (from Colorado). The meals were mostly spectacular. We were joined very late on Friday by friends -- a couple and their two kids, and another friend with her two daughters and a friend. Plus a dog. Jake. He is quite something. A dog is a good thing to have at a cabin. He cleaned up the floor under Heidi's chair. He herded ducks. Even caught a few fish. Jake is a golden retriever. The only slightly disappointing main dish was a tenderloin brought by our friend. It was quite sinewey (sp?) and quite "liverey". I do believe that tenderloin is my least favorite cut of meat on the cow. But, the salad of fresh-from-the-farmer's-market spinach with blue cheese, walnuts, and raspberry vinarette made that meal. We roasted potatoes, cauliflower, onions, garlic. Ate beautiful green beans. Merely steamed, with a little bit of lemon and kosher salt, another night adorned only with Hope Butter. Oh, and there was a spectacular peach cobbler. I had thought about a pie, but really wanted to get in the water, which made crust too time-consuming. As I took the cobbler out of the oven, I looked out the cabin window, grabbed my camera and took a picture. It was so spectacular I needed to swim under it. The guitar and mandoline and games kept us warm at night. Our final meal was sandwiches and leftover raw veggies and cold Coke's on the deck. Then, I donned my bikini for one last time in 2004, Paul donned the waders (he remains a water wimp) and out the dock came. We had wonderful swims. The water was cold (low 60's under the surface), the air somedays warm, some days cool. But there is something about swimming or just being under that Big Sky that provides food for the soul. That stuff that will keep me going through the cold, dark winter. We will return this season. But, at that time, we will be in hunting, braising and inside stuff. Hopefully, there will be grouse this year. As Paul did the last once-over on the property and in the cabin (the kids were already in the car nodding off), he took this picture of Nancy and I. Sitting there, recalling the summer. Although we had hoped for a warmer summer, and more trips to the cabin, I will say what I say at the end of every season. It was the best summer of all. We are so unbelievably lucky.

Camera stuff successful. Here is a picture of the Mpls. Farmer's Market on a Monday through Thursday. The market is much sleeper these days. It gets busier on Fridays and even busier on Saturdays and Sundays. M-Th doesn't feature the meat, cheese, bakery items, crafts that appear on the weekends, but I like the fact that it is sleepier and less crowded. The selection of produce weekdays is every bit as good as on weekends. Some "purists" complain that the St. Paul Farmer's Market is better because they only permit selling items grown/produced within a 50-mile radius of the market. At the Mpls. market, one can not only get local produce, but the regular stuff you see at the grocery -- lemons, limes, bananas, grapes, etc. But, I think it's handy to have one-stop shopping. Here is the bounty: I'm not sure yet what I'll do with some of it, but that sweet corn is pegged for tonight, as are some of the tomatoes. I do believe that the long beans are destined for prik khing "curry" since I have ground pork, and I need something in the fridge that beckons because I am wont to forget about eating during the day, and I do need to watch my weight (as in keep it on). For lunch today, I ate about half of the yellow tomatoes. The taste is spot on, but the texture is lacking. We have had tasty tomatoes here this summer, but the cool days and cooler nights have made them slow to come and the texture just hasn't been right. I'm still waiting for those hard green things on my tomato plants to show a sign or turning anything but hard and green. The days are growing short and the nights increasingly cool, so it just may be time for green tomato relish. I will mull over what to fix for dinner while I do laundry. With the kids gone, I certainly feel way kicked back. I did not miss putting two meals on the table today.

Good morning. Those cheers you heard this morning were from me, as I put the last of the three kids on the bus. I have loved having them home all summer, but I really loved the peace and quiet when they left. I celebrated my first day of freedom with a trip to the Minneapolis Farmer's Market. Before we moved to our new home, I was only about 5 minutes away. Since it's now a 20-minute drive, I don't get there as often. I stopped by my formerly-local Kowalski's market on the way home to get some Hope Butter. I do miss the very close and easy (most often biking distance) to a wonderful local supermarket and lots of Asian markets, but I am adapting. For breakfast today, I had several cups of really strong coffee and an Old Gold. Oh, and I had 1/2 piece of toast. I'm not a big early morning eater, and have noticed that as I've aged, I do not want to eat anything sweet in the morning. In fact, my sweet tooth in general is not very strong, except for fruit. I tend to have my first real hunger of the day at about 11:00 am. My eating patterns during the day will be quite different than they were up until last week, when there were three kids who wanted breakfast and lunch, not the frequent "little" meals I gravitate toward when I am home alone. So, now, I will go and grab something to eat and attempt to fix whatever happened on the computer to my camera program when Paul installed a new operating system. Hopefully, it will be an easy process so I can post photos of the bounty I acquired this morning.