It won’t come as any surprise to most of you – my regular readers – that the last 5+ months have been very hard for me. Losing my husband has been and still is just devastating. We had a wonderful, loving partnership and marriage for over 31 years. The first 3 months after his death are kind of a blur. There was SO much to do. So much paperwork I needed to prepare for the trust attorney (and still is ongoing each month until the estate files a final tax return early next year). For a long time I had trouble concentrating on anything, and until my doctor gave me a prescription, I was hardly sleeping, which left me struggling each day, when I’d had but 4-5 hours of sleep the night before. That’s improved with meds, but I can’t take those forever. I’ve tried to not take them and I just wake up 6-8 times a night and in the morning I’m not rested and not altogether here. I miss my husband so very much. He was my partner, my best friend, my helpmate in everything. We shared so much together. The silence in my (our) house was deafening at first. That part is better now, thankfully.

Cooking was the last thing on my mind in those first few months, and to tell you the honest truth, it still isn’t very important in my daily grand scheme. When Dave was alive, I cooked for him. He was – as I tell people – my greatest fan. He was my fan club at the dinner table. He loved whatever I prepared. He selected wine to go with the dinner and occasionally I’d have some. About 10 years or so ago I kind of suddenly lost my appetite for wine. I still drink it very occasionally – and usually only if it’s a good bottle and it’s red. I’ve never had more than a glass of wine, hardly. Maybe a glass of champagne and then a very small glass of red with dinner. That was/is a lot for me. I have a huge wine cellar full of wine – probably 400-500 bottles. I can’t sell it because it’s health has been compromised twice in recent months when the A/C quit and the temperature in the cellar hovered at about 76-80° for days and days waiting to be repaired. That can be a death knell for wine. Several bottles I’ve opened, or guests have opened, have been bad and we’ve had to pour them out.

I’ve still done some cooking here and there. Not every day. I meet friends for lunch frequently, and often I have left overs to take home. Some nights I simply have no will to cook. I’ll make myself a scrambled egg, or I’ve even eaten cold cereal, though that was only once. I’ve cooked when I’ve had houseguests, but my heart isn’t in it. What I crave is comfort food or my old favorites, recipes I’ve posted here before. Or I go to a local Mexican place to have a taco. Or I pick up something at Trader Joe’s or Costco and eat on it all week. I still enjoy eating. I just don’t enjoy making it.

The house has required a lot of care – numerous projects have needed doing. I now have a regular electrician who identified a couple of very dangerous issues with the wiring for the big pool and the jacuzzi. About $2,000 each to replace and get them working safely. I now have a handyman who is working on a long laundry list of things for me, and I’ll be having him come now and then to help with other things. The junk in the garage is daunting. It’s not stuffed full by any means – there is room for 3 cars – but the built-in cupboards are full of things I know little about – tools, equipment from or for the boat, and boxes and bags of bolts, screws, pieces of plastic pipe, wires, etc. All things that need going through and disposing of, or giving away. My cousin Gary is going to help me with that, I think.

I haven’t even been able to face doing anything with Dave’s clothes. Sometimes I still go in there, to his walk-in closet, hunting for his scent, but I can’t find it. I have no will to sort and go through it. Not yet anyway. Our/his sailboat has not sold, and it sits at our yacht club, costing me about $500/month just to float at the dock. So far it hasn’t needed repairs, but then it’s not being used.

My outdoor kitchen is done, and I do hope I’ll have ongoing interest in entertaining. Right now it’s almost overwhelming thinking about it – to invite people over and to prepare a big meal without Dave’s help with planning, doing the grocery shopping (remember? he loved to buy all the food), getting the patio all slicked up and with him at the kitchen sink washing all the piles of dirty dishes I make when I cook, drying them and putting them all away. I owe dinners, or thank-you’s, to many couples who have invited me to dinner at their home, or done something special for me. I’ve written over 200 thank you notes – oh my – was that ever a big job. I just finished that a few days ago. Somebody told me there is a 6-month window to do the thank-you notes. I got it done under the wire.

All this to say that in a few weeks I think I’m going to stop blogging. It’s been 7 years. It’s just too big of a burden for me now. The blog will still be here for awhile – how long, I don’t know. And maybe once in awhile if I cook and make something really wonderful, I will put up a post about it. Maybe I’ll tell you about a movie or a book. I just need a rest. And maybe a permanent rest from blogging. The writing of my posts is fun – that’s what I enjoy the most. It’s therapeutic for me, I think. But for now, cooking isn’t, and that’s what this blog is all about.

The other thing is that my readership has gone down. WAY down. I don’t know why. Maybe because I’ve written more posts about my grieving, although I’ve really done very few. Google’s search engine doesn’t work the way it used to, either. So when someone searches for something – a recipe – my blog doesn’t come up hardly at all. I have about 400-500 readers. And that’s nothing to sneeze at, but it’s not very good in blogging circles. I’ve appreciated all of you – especially those of you who write me notes or post comments. You’re my blog fans. Thank you for being there. Thank you for giving me words of encouragement which I’ve desperately needed, especially in these last difficult 5 months.

My life is really about the same as far as my activities – I do meet friends for lunch frequently. I’m still in 3 book clubs. I’m in a women’s bible study group that meets weekly and takes several hours of homework each week. I’m continuing the bible study group Dave and I started in 2013 as we read through the entire bible in a year. Our small group is going to begin meeting again in about a week. I’m also going to return to singing in our church choir. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a big choir (about 120 voices at the moment) and our choral director has a PhD in choral directing. She’s extremely good at what she does, but being in the choir at our church is a big responsibility – a promise to her of our attendance and attention – and rarely does she select easy music to sing. Each week we have several hours of rehearsal and singing in two services on Sundays. Then there are weekend retreats (one coming up very soon) to get a jump start on singing in the fall months. A couple times a year we have an all-day workday, it’s called. And twice a year there’s a big choir performance of one or several pieces of classical music. C-o-m-m-i-t-m-e-n-t.

Being busy is good for me. I need to keep busy or I fall into a deep emotional valley. It’s a sad place and not easy to climb out of, I’ve found. I trust in God, though, and my continuing prayer, when I’m having a tough day is “lift me up, Lord.” Usually he answers. I’m so grateful for my Christian friends, local and far away. They’ve buoyed my spirits when they flag.

Who knows, maybe in another 6 months I will decide I want to blog again. I don’t know. I just feel that I don’t want to blog right now. I need a rest from it. I hope you’ve enjoyed my writing, and mostly my recipes. If you have recipes you want to download, start thinking about doing it. I’m sure I’ll leave the blog up and available for another year. It does cost money to keep a blog running like mine – under $200 a year, approximately.

If you want to email me privately, it’s ctndt (at) cox.net

Carolyn

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You know what “maque choux” is?  Kinda sounds like a sneeze, but no, that’s a French phrase that’s actually Cajun and Native American. Pronounced it’s “mackeh-choo,” sort of. Corn isn’t part of either word. Wikipedia doesn’t exactly define the French words, so I had to go look it up just cuz I’m curious. More literally translated it means “messy pairing,” but in common parlance it’s that corn mixture above. In the American South “everybody” knows what macque-choux means. Phillis Carey made hers with bacon and some heavy cream. I don’t know that those things are traditional. But hey, it absolutely works here and it’s SO good.

In the cooking class, Phillis prepared this with top sirloin steak. Not my most favorite cut. She mentioned that you could use ribeye or even flank steak (I’d marinate the flank a bit in something to tenderize it first – not anything very highly seasoned – then still use the Cajun rub on it too). But with a tender ribeye – oh yes, that’s what I’d use. If you decide to use top sirloin, do cut the slices thinly.

You can barely see that there’s a tiny bit of cream in the corn relish. Mostly I think the cream got boiled down, or maybe my serving just didn’t get all that much. But in any case, the maque-choux is just the best part of this dish. It’s made with fresh corn (if at all possible), bacon, onion, garlic, red bells, green onions and cream. Quite simple. And you can make it the day before if that helps you with timing.

The steaks must be at least 1 1/4 inches thick. That’s imperative for making this dish work. The rub on the steak was also really easy. Below is a recipe for making it, but you can also just buy it. I think Paul Prudhomme makes one, but Phillis recommended the one by Spice Hunter if you can find it at your local store. If you make up a small batch from the recipe, make double, but just use it within a month or two as it doesn’t keep all that long. Be sure to blot the steak well with paper towels before you start. Phillis talked to us about seasoning the steak – usually I would oil the meat then sprinkle on the seasonings. She said no, that’s the wrong way to do it – pat the spices on first, THEN gently spread on the oil. She says the seasonings stick better that way. Who knew?

The steaks are grilled – use whatever method you prefer – allowed to rest for 5 minutes then served with the macque-choux spooned over the center or at one end (i.e., don’t cover the steak with the corn). Phillis also said this dish is just fabulous served ON a bed of mashed potatoes. Hmmm. That sounds really good and I may do it that way next time.

What’s GOOD: the relish is the best part. Get fresh corn if possible, but frozen will work. The corn relish elevates this dish to something very special. The Cajun rub was also very good – I’d use that again on chicken perhaps.
What’s NOT: nothing at all – it’s a fabulous dish.

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Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click on link to open recipe in MC)

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Previously, I’ve posted a recipe for Mexican Street Corn, but oh gosh, this version is so much better. I really didn’t know how to make it prior to my other attempt at it – just got suggestions from the waitress at a restaurant and glanced at a few recipes online. But this, oh, I’ll be making it several times this summer. Just be sure to have Cotija cheese on hand, cilantro and limes.

Making this dish is actually very simple. You can make up the spice/herb mixture ahead of time (except for adding the cilantro). You can crumble up the Cotija ahead of time and have it chilling in the refrigerator in the pan you’ll use to roll the corn on it. Husk the corn and have that all ready to go too. Fire up the grill and slow-grill the corn. You DO want grill marks (see the photo) but you don’t want to burn it. Don’t put anything on the corn – just grill it, rotating it several times over the course of 15-20 minutes or so. Do watch it carefully.

If you search recipes on the internet for Mexican Street Corn, you’ll find several, but none that do all of the things Phillis Carey did with it in the corn-themed cooking class I went to recently. And Phillis absolutely NAILED it with flavor. Not only the spice mixture (cumin, oregano, garlic) but doing it in the order she did – grill first, lightly film the corn with mayo (so everything after that will stick to it), sprinkle on the spices and cilantro, then roll the corn in Cotija cheese. Serve and pause as you listen for all the “mmmm’s.” Fabulous. Of all the recipes in this particular cooking class, I think this one was the best, by far.

What’s GOOD: all the flavors in combo with the corn. The cheese, the spices, and of course, the delicious sweet corn. This recipe is a winner. Make it, okay?

What’s NOT: not a single thing except that if you’re making this with a dinner and having to do it all, you’ll want to have everything else about your dinner all ready, because you do need to stand over the corn and watch it and turn it, but then, you’ll need to assemble it while it’s still pretty hot.

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Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click on link to open recipe in MC)

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Have you ever been to this Smithsonian? The picture shows the atrium of the American Art Museum (also the Portrait Gallery). On the left is a fascinating pool of water, yet you can step right on/in it and you’re just standing on more of the floor. Little tiny jets push water up and over 3 such pools in the atrium. I may have been more intrigued with that than I was with everything in the museum itself.

This museum happened to be across the street from the hotel where we stayed on our second part of our D.C. trip. We were there for 3 nights and 2 days. Sabrina had almost back-to-back interviews with people, so I found some things to do that didn’t tax my foot too much. After walking around in this museum from top to bottom (3 floors, I think it was) I just happened to spot the water out in the atrium, through a window and went to investigate. I sat out in this atrium for about an hour reading my Kindle, basking in the cool air and listening to the tiny trickle of water. Children could play in

the water, they could run up and down the pools, shoes on or off. Each pool of water had but about 1/4 inch of water in it. Interesting feat of engineering.

We weren’t able to get into the Willard Hotel on our 2nd trip to D.C. as there was a huge international conference in town, so we stayed a few blocks away at a Kimpton. I was unimpressed. It must have once been an office building (old) as the hallways were about 10-feet wide. And the bathrooms were  kind of add-ins to the rooms.

One of the days Sabrina asked if we could eat at a “Shake Shack.” I’d never heard of them. Although, as we walked by it the first day, there were probably 40 people in line outside the place. Really, I thought? The next day we were having a late lunch and the line was way down to do-able. I ordered a burger with bacon. Sabrina wanted to order a shake, and thought she had, but they gave her chocolate ice cream. She wasn’t about to wait in line again, so we shared that. The burger was good, I must admit. Exceptional? Well, I’m not a connoisseur, so I’m not sure. It was tasty, though.

Our last night we went to a fantastic restaurant – Zaytinya. It’s Greek, Turkish and Lebanese, and they serve everything tapas style. We went with Powell’s best friend Doug (the one who works for the Consumer Electronics Institute), his wife (the one who works for Homeland Security – I made sure to sit next to her so I could ask her lots of questions about her job – most of which she couldn’t answer), and their son. They frequent this restaurant, so we just let her order for all of us. It was amazing food. If I ever go back to D.C. this will be the first stop for dinner. It’s just a block from the museum above, which was across the street from our hotel, so it was really close and easy.

I can’t begin to tell you what we had – the only thing I really remember was a teeny, tiny little lamb-filled pasta – each little orb was about the size of a pencil eraser. Tender? Oh my yes. Full of flavor too. It’s not on the menu, but regulars know to ask. Everything we ate was terrific.

The next morning was our journey home: we got up at 4:15 am in order to leave the hotel at 4:45 to get to the Baltimore Airport in time for a 6:45 takeoff. We flew to San Francisco (remember, Powell upgraded all of us to first class, yippee!), then to Orange County. Arrived about 1pm west coast time. That evening we all went out to dinner with the extended family (Sabrina’s mom drove up to pick her up) and we talked and talked about the trip. It was great. All of it. Thanks to Powell who arranged it all. I was so glad to be home. My own bed felt wonderful. A few days after we got home I saw a podiatrist who gave me a shot of cortisone in my heel. It’s better. Not exactly fine – far from it – but at least I can go grocery shopping or take some similar kinds of walks each day and not end up in pain by afternoon. I’m taking Aleve every day and that helps too. My physical therapist tells me it could be as long as 10 months for it to heal. The dr. took x-rays and said it’s likely a torn plantar fascia or a very badly stretched one. No broken bones. I didn’t think so.

And since I haven’t talked about my grief process lately, I’ll just add that since I came home from this last trip, I’ve felt better. I’m more comfortable in my single-self. In my empty bed. In my quiet house. I don’t have to have music or the TV on anymore to feel okay. I’m still very, VERY busy, which is a good thing. The 5-month anniversary of Dave’s death was last week, and I just kept busy that day and tried not to think about it. I did talk to Dave’s ashes, in the box in the bedroom – I held the box and shed a few tears, but afterwards I was okay. I’m finally getting a better handle on all the records the attorney needs and am able to get them done (monthly) without too much difficulty now. Now that Quicken and I have come to an understanding.

My outdoor kitchen is still waiting for a couple of things to get finished, but it’s been too darned hot to entertain out there anyway. I am going to have a small get-together with a group of my girlfriends – most of them know one another. That’s in a couple of weeks. I’m going to make things that are already on my blog, but I’ll tell you about it when it happens. My sweet friend Nina, who has done my pedicures for years, is going to come and help me. She likes to cook and offered to come. That way I won’t over-tax my foot and she’ll do some serving and clean-up for me. I’ve never had anyone do that except at a couple of really important events years and years ago. Without Dave to help me do some of the set-up and dishes, cleaning the patio, setting tables, etc., entertaining a big group is overwhelming to me right now. So I’ll see how this works out!

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Mostly I’m wishing fall was in the air. But it’s not, and won’t be for a long time in this land of sunshine. So the only thing I can do is start to bake a very typical fall bread. I made this traditional muffin recipe into mini-muffins (max two bites per) and this recipe makes 24 of the cute little things. And yes, they’re delicious.

My Scrabble group was due at my house last week and the hostess usually bakes something. Sometimes we’re overly busy and we might buy something, but usually there’s some kind of bread or muffin served when we Scrabble. I bought a Granny Smith apple, cut the recipe (that made 12 regular sized muffins) in half (I gave away all but one or two of of the 24 the recipe made), added some chopped raisins and walnuts and they came together in a jiffy.

Starting with a recipe from King Arthur Flour, I decided to not use whole wheat flour (I wanted a tender muffin), so I adapted their recipe a bit. The raisins and walnuts were my addition to the recipe, but the basic baking chemistry was all kudos to the King Arthur baking folks at Baking Banter. I didn’t have buttermilk on hand, but I did have Greek yogurt (which was an acceptable substitution in the original recipe). I think their recipe was hand mixed. I used my Kitchen Aid instead. Just don’t over-mix, that’s all. The pan you see in the picture is one of King Arthur’s – they’re bright aluminum looking, but they have some kind of Teflon surface because these muffins slipped out like greased lightning with no pre-greasing. Note that only about a rounded tablespoon of batter went into each muffin cup.

There’s a close-up of the batter. You can see the corrugated style of the pan. Makes for very easy cleanup, I’ll tell you for sure. If you don’t own any of these, I’d highly recommend you add a few to your Christmas wish list.

A little bit of brown sugar is sprinkled on top just before baking. I don’t know that I’d bother with that the next time – some of the brown sugar spilled out onto the muffin pan surface once the muffins began to rise in the baking process. But no big deal – none of it stuck to the pan.

What’s GOOD: the best part is the tenderness (from the yogurt/acidic dairy). This recipes requires just one apple – a good thing. I liked the raisins in it and the walnuts (neither were in the original recipe – I just added them for texture). This was quick to mix up and bake. Delicious when they were still warm and still really good at room temp. When I served them I heated them up just briefly in a low oven.

What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of. These are really tasty. And easy.

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Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click on link to open recipe in MC)

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The view from our 30th floor room and aerie at the Intercontinental near Times Square. To have this clear view, this clear shot, all the way to the Hudson, well, wow is all I can say. One evening while Powell & Sabrina went out walking,  I turned off all the lights in the room and just sat and watched the activity. Couldn’t hear any of the street noise as the windows didn’t open, but I enjoyed just looking at that vista. (And I must admit that I shed a tear that my darling DH wasn’t there beside me.) Powell upgraded the room for us, which was very nice of him to do! I paid for Sabrina’s and my trip, food, hotels, etc., and her mom and dad chipped in some money as well.

Before I do anything else, I need to explain why we took this trip. It wasn’t just a tourist thing with my granddaughter. Powell, my son, Sabrina’s uncle, works in finance, mostly with bonds and audits, and he travels to NYC and DC for a week of meetings every couple of weeks. One family get-together a few months ago, Sabrina asked him “so, uncle, what IS it you do on these trips?” He explained in some detail and then said “want to go with me sometime?” She said YES and I piped up with “I’ll go along as chaperone.” A trip was born.

At first Powell thought he’d just have Sabrina shadow him as he did his work, where he went, sitting in on meetings here and there, but I think he realized that wasn’t going to work. She’d be bored to tears part of the time, and for many of his meetings it wouldn’t be appropriate for her to be there. So, Powell decided to set up short meetings with people he knows in all walks of business. The purpose was twofold: (1) just the process of an “interview” or a “meeting” would be good experience for Sabrina; and (2) she would be exposed to a lot of different professions out there in the big world of business. She says she wants to be a large animal veterinarian, but I think Powell hoped he’d sway her to consider some other professions. She met with two people who work in Powell’s office in New York, one a young woman doing an internship, I think. The other a counterpart of Powell’s. She met with one of Powell’s customers, a woman attorney who has a 12-year old daughter and was just tickled pink to spend half an hour with Powell’s niece, talking careers. One other person is a DC lobbyist (in the water conservation area), one works for a senator, another is a higher-up with the Consumer Electronics Institute; his wife works for Homeland Security (I wished I could have been a little gnat sitting on Sabrina’s shoulder when she had that short tour and meeting).

At each and every interview (Sabrina did 8 altogether) she had to do a little presentation. The homework, most of which she did at home before the trip, was to research each person, find out where they grew up, where they went to school, what their degree(s) were in, what kind of jobs they’ve held, then she had to come up with 3 questions (unique to all 8 people) about them. So, for instance (and I’m totally making up this one), she would ask “so you did your undergrad at Columbia and got a degree in Math, but then you did your MBA at Yale in Economics. How or why did you transition into politics after you graduated?” She impressed all of them with what she’d done (almost all the background info was online – I think Facebook had a major presence in her homework – but the questions were really interesting) and all of the people were happy to talk about themselves and their career paths. She had to wear appropriate business clothes, which was a challenge. She didn’t have a suit, but did wear a black blazer over her very cute business-like knit dresses she and her mom picked out.

So, on her 2nd day of interviews she met a woman at Dean & DeLuca, the food store and restaurant (bakery?) near Times Square. Her uncle gave her instructions – after your meeting with this person, order two of these doughnuts and take them back to the hotel and give one to Grandma. She did exactly that. The photo at left shows two of them stuck together. You might not think these are anything special. You’d be dead wrong. Below you can see the munched-on version: coconut cream filled double glazed raised doughnut. OMGosh. If you are ever in NYC and want a decadent treat, have one of these. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Now, I do like raised doughnuts over cake type, and I didn’t know that I liked coconut cream so much, but I DO! Whether these are available at all of their stores, I don’t know. This thing was incredible.

Sabrina had several things she really, really really wanted to do in NYC. First on the list was a stop at Tiffany’s. She’s not a jewelry person particularly, but she wanted to get something that said she’d “been there,” so on our last afternoon we took the subway (middle of the day, so she was willing to go!) and walked a few blocks of 5th Avenue. She bought a lovely necklace and ring by Paloma Picasso. She got advanced birthday and Christmas money gifts from several family members so she could do that, and Grandma chipped in just a little bit extra. And she wanted her picture taken in front of Tiffany’s. Ticked that one off the list. She also wanted to see Times Square at night (Powell ticked that one) and to walk in Central Park. Well, we had a difficult time with that one, although she and I walked on the outside of the park for a few blocks going to Tiffany’s. I told her she could go walk a bit in the park and I’d park myself on a bench, but she didn’t want to go alone, I guess, and my foot was giving me lots of difficulty that day. But her uncle did walk her a bit into the park one evening, as I mentioned, but only about 100 feet. She wanted some New York pizza, so on one of the days we stopped into a proto-typical NY pizzeria – you wound through a line to get to the 4-5 pizzas they had on offer and you ordered one or two slices. They had a few other Italian specialties (spaghetti and meatballs) but we just got pizza and a soft drink. It wasn’t spectacular, but at least she had some there and could tick that one off her list too. We ticked them all, thank goodness.

Our last night in NYC we went out to dinner. Powell had asked me many months ago if there was any special place I’ve really wanted to go. Immediately, I said Gramercy Tavern. The picture at left is the little foyer area. In years past I’d tried to make reservations there, to no avail. They’re always booked. The travel agency Powell uses was finally able to get us a table, and yes, it was a very special dinner. They only do prix fixe meals, ranging from the vegetarian options at $70+ pp to $109 for the full enchilada. We did the full enchilada. It was glorious. We had several different kinds of meat and lots of vegetables, sides, an amuse bouche as well, a palate cleanser, and then a table laden with desserts, most of which we couldn’t finish so took them back to the hotel. Sabrina and I munched on those for some of the next day. The dinner was Powell’s treat to us/me. Thank you, Powell!

There we are at the table. I think this was before we’d really hardly started eating dinner – we were about to dig into the amuse bouche, I believe. I lost track of all the courses we ate. I know we had lobster and duck as separate items. All of it was outstanding. Did I tell you that we had a celebrity sighting while we were there? My son recognized Tory Burch. I know her lines of clothing, handbags, etc. but I’d not have known her face at all. I never did ask Powell how he knew what she looked like. She was seated at a table about 10-12 feet away with a group of very well-dressed women. That was kind of fun!

This cute little thing was sitting on the podium at the front of the restaurant. It’s a little 6-pot “thing” that would hold little flowers in clay pots. In this case there were little glasses in each slot and they were filled with herbs and flowers. It was just so cute and fragrant!

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Oh my goodness, you must, you absolutely must go see this movie. This is the one with Helen Mirren and some relative unknowns and it’s about this funny comedic Indian family who cook, and have emigrated from India, moved to London, but didn’t like the cold, rainy weather. So the whole family (papa, and his 3 adult children) go off in a ramshackle mini-van to France. Papa has decided they need to go south, and he has moments when he’s (supposedly) trying to communicate with his deceased wife – is this place right, here? or here? Go further? Anyway, they end up deciding on the cutest little town in Provence and they open up an Indian restaurant right across the street from a Michelin 1-star restaurant. Mayhem ensues. My hat is off to the writers of this screenplay. Go prepared to laugh!

I don’t want to tell you any more about it. Except that there are no swear words. There is no sex, although there is a little bit of romance and it’s ever-so cute. I may even go see it again. It’s adorable. GO SEE IT! And I’m craving Indian food!

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I should have re-arranged the salad (aka bread) so you could see the lovely mound of heirloom tomatoes in the bottom of the bowl. You can see the bread (toasted croutons, actually), the basil, red onions, corn and fresh mozzarella cheese. Oh, and the little tiny drizzle of extra-good EVOO.

This recipe came from a contributor (Georgia Pellegrini) on The Pioneer Woman’s website. It’s not on Ree’s own blog, but the recipe section of her website where people all over contribute their own recipes. There’s a huge treasure-trove of recipes there if you haven’t ever looked. Anyway, this has been in my to-try file for awhile. I adore panzanella salad (the Italian bread salad with tomatoes, garlic and basil) and with good tomatoes starting to be available, they’re so perfect for this kind of salad. And although this bears a great resemblance to a panzanella, this isn’t the same thing. I also took some liberties with the salad – I was serving it to 4 girlfriends for lunch – as an entrée – and I wanted it to have a bit more substance, so I added in the fresh corn and fresh mozzie.

What makes this salad different is the making of “tomato water.” I know, sounds weird. Into a blender you put 3-4 tomatoes (heirlooms or extra ripe and tasty red ones, juicy ones), a bunch of basil, a bunch of cilantro, half of a red onion, sliced thin, garlic and some white wine vinegar. This gets blended up into a sludge. It seems like a waste – I know, I know – but trust me on this. The end result is worth it. It may seem like you’re throwing away a good bunch of tomatoes. The picture at left is what the sludge looks like. It’s draining in a strainer lined with cheesecloth. In the photo it looks just awful, I know, but I used some green zebra tomatoes and yellow ones, and only one red tomato, so of course it’s going to look green and muddy. If you want it to be clear and bright, maybe with a slight pink tinge, use all red tomatoes. I saved the sludge – don’t know for what yet – maybe soup? Gazpacho?

Now, after half an hour of draining, you end up with about a cup of tomato water. Here’s a photo of what that looked like. Not very pretty either.

BUT, it’s really tasty stuff. Trust me on this one. I took a tiny teaspoon of it – so I’d know what it tasted like – and was very pleasantly surprised at how flavorful it was. It’s not like tomato juice at all. Each person got about 1/4 cup in the bowl. Then you start adding all the other ingredients, with the croutons added last, along with a few pretty basil leaves. I think I probably used too many croutons, so you can vary how many based on your family’s likes/dislikes.

When you bake the bread croutons – do try to leave them so they’re slightly soft in the center – I followed the recipe and the croutons were rock hard, so each of us had to mush the bread around into the tomato water at the bottom of the bowl to soften it some. But then, that’s the whole idea anyway. I could have tossed it all together, but it wouldn’t have looked quite so pretty.

What’s GOOD: well, I love panzanella, so I knew it was a sure-fire thing I’d like this. My friend Joan said she liked the freshness of it and that it was extra healthy. The tiny drizzle of EVOO on top was the only fat – although you do use some to brush on the croutons too. Still not much. I think my recipe program says there are 9 grams of fat in the salad. I think the extra work of making the tomato water was well worth it.

What’s NOT: maybe just the time spent making the tomato water. A bit of a nuisance, but it adds a lot on the flavor scale. Otherwise, it’s something you could make any evening for a quick meal. I had my granddaughter and her cousin work on pushing the sludge through the cheesecloth – it takes awhile to drain otherwise.

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This is the front of the Red Rooster in Harlem. When we had dinner there, it was nearly dark. I didn’t even think of trying to take a photo, but it looked just like the above photo which comes from Marcus Samuelsson’s website.

My granddaughter is 16. Very poised. Athletic. Pretty. Thoughtful. A terrific student. A good conversationalist. An ideal roommate in my book! We had so much fun on this trip. After spending 3 nights in D.C. we took the train up to New York City. We checked into our hotel (more on that in my next post) in the Theater District. Sabrina could hardly wait to get out on the streets. She wanted to actually see Times Square. It was just a few blocks away. She might have been a teeny bit disappointed in it by daylight. The crowds were horrendous everywhere. The next evening Powell took her on about a 5-mile walk and she got to see just a tiny bit of Central Park (Powell would only walk about 100 feet into a well-lit area), blocks and blocks of the shops on 5th Avenue, and then ended up in Times Square. At that point I think she felt she’d “been to NYC.”

Anyway, we did some window shopping our first afternoon, then returned to the hotel to change clothes and off we went to dinner. If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you may remember awhile back I did a review of Marcus Samuelsson’s book Yes, Chef: A Memoir. If you’re at all interested in reading more about it, go to my blog post I wrote in 2012.

Chef Marcus Samuelsson has made a huge name for himself. Born in Ethiopia, he was orphaned at a young age and adopted by a Swedish family, so really, his first language is Swedish. He went to culinary school in Europe, did his stages a couple of places, then aimed for New York. He worked for some years at Aquavit, the very highly acclaimed Swedish restaurant in NYC. I think he produced a cookbook for them as well. Then he began to be noticed, and somehow got himself onto the Food Network and the rest is history, as the saying goes. He’s written 3-4 cookbooks in the last few years (obviously he has help with that) and opened several restaurants around the U.S.  The Red Rooster was first. And what order the rest of them came, I don’t know, but he has one at Lincoln Center in NYC, another at JFK airport, 3 restaurants in Sweden, AND I was blown away – how did this happen – he’s opened a restaurant here in my neck of the woods in California – a place called Marc Burger (both here in Costa Mesa, CA and Chicago). If you want to take a look at all of his restaurants, there’s a list and links on his website. This local one is located inside the Home Store at Macy’s Department Store. Who knew? I sure didn’t. I’m going to have to check it out really soon! Obviously they only serve burgers.

So, a couple of weeks before the trip I went online and made a reservation for the Red Rooster. Since it’s located in Harlem, I decided we should go early, so I had no difficulty booking a table at 5:30. Sabrina and I took the subway – her first adventure on the underground transportation system. Let me just say for the record – she didn’t like it. Not any of it. On one of our subway trips we had to change to another line at Union Station, so we actually exited out of the subway (meaning we had to pay again to go back to the subways) just so she could see the big, monstrous main hall at Union Station. She thought that was ever so cool.

Anyway, we navigated ourselves north to Harlem. Once we exited at our stop, and emerged into the streets, there was the Red Rooster about 100 feet away. So very easy. During dinner Sabrina said, “uhm, Grandma, could we, pretty please, take a taxi back to the hotel after dinner?” I said sure – $50 later. But oh well, if it made her happy! It did.

Now, down to dinner. Red Rooster has an all-Southern (American) menu, and Sabrina and I had such fun choosing. We both had a drink – mine with alcohol (that I didn’t like – it had some kind of bitters in it and it was very bitter, too bitter) but Sabrina had some kind of fancy non-alcoholic one they concocted for her. She loved hers. Here are the photos from our evening at Red Rooster. Sabrina ordered mac ‘n cheese with bacon and greens (absolutely fabulous – I had 2 bites – rich, but smooth and a great combo of cheeses). I ordered shrimp and grits, one of my favorites and this one was every bit as good as my own recipe, which you can read here on my blog.

For dessert we ordered a cobbler – I think it was peaches, served with vanilla ice cream, a side of whipped cream and a berry coulis to pour over the top. Oh my goodness, was that ever delicious. We ate every bite, I think, with me scraping the side of the gratin dish.

In doing the research for this post, I went to amazon and discovered that Marcus is just about to publish his latest cookbook, Marcus Off Duty: The Recipes I Cook at Home. It’s out in October. I ordered 2 – one for me and one for Sabrina. She likes to cook, so maybe it’ll be her first cookbook that’s truly her own. Marcus has written several cookbooks – just search his name on amazon and you’ll find them all. Now, my next thing is to go to the MarcBurger that’s right here in my area. I can’t quite visualize a restaurant in the middle of a department store kitchenware area. I’ll let you know . . .

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This may be one of the most well known parts of Julia’s kitchen – just part of the pegboards that Julia’s husband Paul made for her. Soon after moving into the house in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Paul put up the pegboard on a couple of blank walls so she could see and easily access all of her precious Dehillerin copper pots. Each pot had a circle drawn around (see left side, middle where there is a pot missing). Paul designed her Cambridge kitchen.

Julia donated her intact Cambridge kitchen to the Smithsonian when she moved to California. I can hardly picture Julia being without her copper pots, but I believe she moved into an assisted living house so most likely she didn’t cook anymore. What a treasure the Smithsonian now owns! The exhibit is in the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian, and it was one of the busiest exhibits I saw there.

Julia had family money, as I recall reading from one of her biographies. If you’d like to read my review of Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child, go to my blog post about it that I did in 2013.  So to have moved to Paris back in the 50s, to buy all those copper pots would have been a huge expense (and I mean HUGE). She didn’t buy them all at once, but over the years they lived there and only when she realized she actually needed that particular pot or pan. My recollection is that she used her family money to buy most of her copper pots.

Surely there are plenty of bloggers out there who have featured photos of Julia’s kitchen, but I found it so fun to look all around and wanted to share my take on it. Culinary history was made there. Some of her TV series (the later ones) were filmed there in her Cambridge kitchen. I wished I could have actually walked inside the kitchen – but you can view it from all 4 walls through windows. It tickled me to see the oilcloth tablecloth on the kitchen table. I couldn’t quite make out the brand of coffee pot – but it was an ordinary coffee pot. Of course, Julia didn’t live in Cambridge past the early 90’s, I think, so it would be a 80s style coffee pot. I loved the dish drainer. Hardly anyone uses those anymore. And notice the KitchenAid cobalt blue mixer.

And I thought the braided bread basket in the center of the table was so 80s. Any of you make one of those? I did – you made bread dough, (see photo at right from www.artisanbreadinfive.com)  – made braids or just strips, and wove them around an upside down ovenproof bowl. You let it rise, then you baked it – a long time – until it was very “set,” then you let it dry and sprayed it with acrylic spray and it became the bowl you served bread in, with a pretty cloth napkin in the middle of it. And you were very careful using it because it would break easily.

At left is Julia’s cookbook collection. I don’t know whether it contains all of her cookbooks she ever owned. I sort of doubt it. There were 2 Joy of Cooking books there. But also on the top shelf were most of Julia’s own published cookbooks. And then, the Cambridge phone book. And I think the bottom shelves were her boxes of her tv shows on tape or DVD.

Above also is the Legion of Honor medal Julia received in 2000. The placque said : “Julia Child was awarded the Legion d’honneur, France’s highest honor, for introducing Americans to French cuisine and cookery through her books and television shows.” It’s on loan to the Smithsonian from Julia’s family.

At the end of every program Julia filmed (I think) she said to the camera, “Bon Appetit,” with a bit of a French accent. That photo at right is SO Julia. She had such a joy of life.

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