tomato sauce*

Remember this?


It was washed and cut up into this:



To be processed by this crew:


Who turned it into this:



Which after a while became 32 pints of homemade sauce (plus a lot of dirty pots).


That red has to be one of the greatest colors, ever.

*Sorry for the unoriginality of the title. I am pooped from all that sauce making, and I got nothin'.

this one's for laurie

I found the loveliest surprise when I went to the mailbox today: a handwritten note from my friend Laurie. It took me an (embarrassingly) long time to figure out why Laurie had sent me a note, when she usually just stops by for a cup of tea or calls on my cell when she has to chat. And then it hit me. She had actually read my blog (!) and noted my love of the handwritten missive (!!) and took it upon herself to make my day by writing me (!!!).

You gotta love a person that is so thoughtful like that.

So today's blog is dedicated to Laurie. She has been asking me and reminding me that she asked me for these recipes ever since she tasted them at our shearing day extravaganza this year, in early April. I have been horribly remiss, and I am suitably chastened by HER excellent follow through, when I didn't even ask for her to send me a letter!

So Laurie, this is for you. (For the rest of you reading this, these are both great brunch dishes. The best part about them is that you can make them the night before.)

Egg and Cheese Strata
2 tablespoons butter/marg
1/2 small loaf sliced white bread, cubed, with crusts cut off
8 oz shredded cheddar cheese
4 eggs
2 cups half-and-half or milk (I usually use skim)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried mustard
1 tablespoon chopped chives (optional)
1 medium tomato, chopped
1/4-1/2 lb bacon, cooked and chopped
Melt butter and spread evenly in heavy baking dish. Arrange half of bread cubes in dish. Sprinkle with half the cheese, half the tomatoes and half the bacon (plus chives if using). Add second half of bread cubes. Repeat layer, but start with bacon, then tomato, then top with cheese. Beat eggs, then beat in milk, salt, mustard and chives. Pour evenly over cheese. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Bake for 45-60 min at 375 degree oven until top is lightly browned and egg is "set" in center (shaking pan does not cause center to jiggle). Allow to stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Eggs a la 'Rents (my parents, that is)
Start by making a beef sauce. In a large frying pan, melt 1/4 cup butter. Add 1/2 lb shredded dried or smoked beef and 1/2 lb sliced fresh mushrooms. Saute until tender. Add 1/4 lb cooked chopped bacon, and sprinkle 1/2 cup flour over the mixture. Gradually stir in 4 C hot milk and cook until mixture is slightly thickened. Add pepper to taste and set aside.
In a separate (large!) bowl, beat 16 eggs, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 cup evaporated milk and 1/2 cup melted butter/margarine together. Scramble the egg mixture in a very large frying pan until the eggs are set but still very soft and moist. Butter an 11x13 inch casserole and, starting and ending with beef sauce, layer eggs and sauce (5 layers total).
Cover and bake at 275 degrees for 1.5 hours. Can be refrigerated overnight and baked the next day.

video frustrations

I think I finally might have managed to figure out this video embed thingee to show you the annoyingness wonder that is my kids playing Rock Band:



Secondo would like to point out, for the record, that Terzo's guitar was not plugged in.

over and under

That phrase says it all about the state of things around here: I am overwhelmed with work and responsibilities and I have been under the weather -- nothing serious, just enough to be annoying.

This blog was one of the more obvious casualties, but it is right up there with the out-of-sight victims, including "the pile of laundry in my basement" and "the weeds in my garden" and "the ickiness on my shower floor" and… well, you get the picture.

I am employing my time-honored system to overcome the more glaring and pressing issues: feudal labor.

In addition to the confessions about my laundry and garden and shower floor, I also feel compelled to confess that I do not pay my children an allowance.

I never have. And I don’t intend to start anytime soon, unless they threaten to out my petty, penny-pinching ways in front of all their friends.

You see, I have conditioned my children to ask for paying jobs around the house should they have some material itch that needs to be scratched. Don’t get me wrong; they do not get paid to do everyday chores. (That is why, for the most part, they avoid doing them.) But if I, or they, am in a bind, then the feudal labor system comes into play: I pay them a ridiculously low amount to do a job that, by all accounts, I should be doing myself.

Take that big project I was working on at the beginning of the summer. I paid the older two to watch their baby brother, and I paid the littlest one to be good and mind them. The catch was that they did not get paid if they were watching TV. (I knew from experience that I could do that myself, with far less financial consequence.) This led them to spend vast amounts of time outside, playing various games with each other in the fresh air, and I patted myself on the back for buying myself some peace and quiet while tricking encouraging them to spend time in the great outdoors enjoying each other’s company in relative harmony.

Mind you, it cost me plenty. They kept track of their time, and laboriously worked out their daily earnings, and eventually earned enough to buy Rock Band by the time I finished the project. (I deluded myself that I was also encouraging their math skills.) This was very fortuitous timing, as the steady tick-tick-tick of the pseudo-drum set would have driven me straight round the bend while I was working on that particular project.

(I tried to upload a very cute video of them playing Rock Band which -- at the same time of the cuteness -- demonstrated how annoying that tick-tick-tick is. But I cannot get YouTube to upload the video, and I am too tired to figure it out tonight. I will post it tomorrow if I get it worked out. Meanwhile, a picture of them playing will have to speak a thousand words instead. Terzo is playing the part of back-up dancer.)

Which brings me to today’s sisyphean task: picking the plum tomatoes.

As with the “no pay for sticking your little brother in front of the TV” rule, I have wised up a little in the chores-for-cash department. If I had offered to pay them a flat rate for picking the tomatoes, I would have ended up with twenty tomatoes and them swearing on my grave that the garden did not contain one more ripe tomato.

Instead, I offered to pay them per pound, which resulted in a little more dedication to the task. At this point, they are over sixty pounds and counting. They have picked five plants, with three to go. (I made them take the pictures of their progress, too. I drive a hard bargain.)

And I still managed to buy myself -- literally -- a little peace and quiet while they were outside this afternoon. Whatever the bill eventually comes to, it will be well worth the cash.

camp

We picked up the boys this morning from camp. After only getting a few short notes from each, I was very curious to see how they had held up for the week away. I know I would have been called if anything serious happened; I gave an involuntary shudder every time the phone rang last week.

We arrived to a camp without any kids present, but mounds of disheveled possessions heaped on the front porches of the cabins.


We sorted through the piles, looking for items that looked vaguely familiar.


We checked our kids out. When we gave their names, the woman in charge exclaimed, "OH! THOSE boys! They got more mail in one week than I get junk mail in a year!" So our campaign to inundate them with mail, which included their parents, brother and grandparents, had worked.


Then we waited by the lake. We heard the kids singing in cadence quite a while before we saw them. It sounded like they were marching two-by-two wearing fatigues, but instead they just ambled in singing something about Bazooka gum at the top of their lungs.


At the end of the closing ceremony, the counselors led them in one last song. ALL the kids, regardless of age and cool-factor, sang along and did the accompanying motions to the tale of "Princess Pat." Apparently, it is a crowd favorite.


And mine haven't stopped singing since they got home. Songs about a little red wagon, and a baby shark, and peanut butter reese's cup, most of which have to be properly sung by two or more people as there is an "echo". They have taught me a card game called "Egyptian Rat Screw" (I cannot figure out why it is called that) and Primo has been busy making friendship bracelets for all of us. Terzo got the first one, and he is already singing about the baby shark.


They have not stopped talking about every little detail of camp, and how wonderful it was, and how they cannot wait to go back next year. I asked both what camp had taught them. Primo, on the cusp of teenagerhood, waxed poetic about how campers were able to show their true inside selves, and do things without fear of people making fun of them. (Presumably, those things included singing songs, with accompanying motions, about someone named Princess Pat.) Secondo, grounded in boyhood, responded that he had learned a lot about shooting an arrow in his archery class.

I think the only reason they were ready to come home was their level of exhaustion. The strategy of camp was apparently to tire the kids out so they more or less collapsed with little fuss at the end of the day. If my two are any judge, the strategy worked perfectly. They even slept on the way home.

heaven on a bun

It's slightly labor-intensive, but well worth it.

Start off by canning a few sweet banana peppers, per this recipe (except substitute apple cider vinegar for half of the white vinegar). Your family will complain bitterly about the smell while the brine is cooking on the stovetop. Ignore them. (Also ignore the recipe's directive to wait two weeks for the peppers to finish. Who can wait two whole weeks?)


Pick a nice, sweet, juicy Jersey tomato. Out of your garden is nice, but there are plenty of farmstands with tomatoes around these days.


Slice a bun in half. Sprinkle one half with a little shredded mozzarella or cheddar cheese, and heat slightly in the microwave or toaster oven until the cheese just melts.


Layer one slice of tomato, a couple spoonfuls of pickled peppers, and then another slice of tomato on the bun.*


Sit quietly and savor the goodness. Subway, eat your heart out.

*Terzo's question while I was taking this picture: "MOMMY. Why are you taking a picture of your SANDWICH?"

snail mail

It's been a long time since I have awaited the mail with quite so much anticipation.

Remember when friends and family and lovers frequently chose that method to communicate? Some of you reading this might not even remember that. Getting a letter is such a wonderful experience, but one that becomes rarer and rarer. During high school, a friend (who lived a block away) and I used to conduct most of our conversations through the mail, just because, mostly just because it is such a special personal thrill to see mail addressed to you. Thanks to the wonders of the British Postal System, which used to deliver mail twice a day, our letters would flurry back and forth during particularly newsworthy times -- which for teenage girls, is pretty much all the time.

I have a friend who still sends me wonderful letters from time to time, handwritten, with all kinds of newspaper articles and photographs included. I wait to open them until I am sitting down, with a cup of tea at hand and a quiet moment to savor the contents. I appreciate her letters all the more as she is one of the last few to send them.

I am forced to join ranks with the legions of curmudgeons that decry the loss of the letter. I truly think our kids are worse off with the quick e-mail and IM and text messages in their place. They are missing that sweet experience of rambling on about nothing in particular, about creating quizzes and questions to be answered by return post, about stopping and then picking up again halfway through, about thinking about how to communicate just to that one person in particular, about revealing things about yourself that weren't possible face to face. I don't deny that other forms of communication have taken their place, but I don't think they are as rich and deep as the simple letter.

But enough of my waxing poetic about letters. The reason the mail is so special this week is that the older boys are away at a camp that bans all cell phones, computers, and other everyday communication devices. They don't even have access to a phone, except in case of emergency. The only communication available to them is the good ol' fashioned US postal service.

I optomistically sent them to camp with 4 self-addressed, stamped envelopes: two for their parents, and two for their little brother. I had already sent them letters prior to their stay to make sure they would receive something during the beginning of camp week. After they left, while doing our errands, Terzo would choose postcards at the post office, dictate his messages, and then stamp and post them right then and there. Every afternoon, Terzo and I sat down, chose our stationary for the day, and composed additional messages before carefully addressing them and sending them off.

And what have we received in return?

Secondo has been the most prolific: we have already gotten two notes from him, one to us and one to Terzo. (He is so unaccustomed to sending letters, however, that he failed to put an address, beyond Terzo's name, on the card; it found us because I had the foresight to put our home address as the return address.)

As for Primo: nothing, zip, nada. I have the feeling that we will get a short note next Tuesday, as he will remember on the last day of camp to send something off.

I can only hope that the joy of receiving all the mail sent to them -- from me, from LSH, from Terzo, from their grandparents -- will be as special as I remember it, and will stick with them beyond this quick week at camp. Who knows? Next year, I might get two letters in return, but I'm not holding my breath.