OH But I'm A Lucky Girl (And Sleepy From Travel)!

The copper gratin dish is from Adrian. Sometimes I hold it on my lap like a cat while I play video games.Everybody whose husbands are out of town for a week, raise your hand!  (Hey, Vee Bee Jay!)

One lovely thing about being a grownup (besides wine, the option of cake for breakfast, and makeouts) is Birthdaykkah—when your birthdayMy friend Brooke is about the kindest, most hilarious person you could ever hope to meet. AND she is willing to humor my yen for sketch-ass Indian buffet! sort of spreads out over a week or so.  My birthday was Monday, and I’m so smitten with everyone I know, I can’t even stand it.  I heard myself say, “OH but this is such a treat!” so many times, I grossed myself out.  Adrian has been out of town, wrangling shooting in the woods (boo!  For me, I mean), so I spent my Actual Birthday with my Actual Parents!

This involved flying.  Every time I fly, I find myself gazing out the window at the clouds down below, thinking, “Laura Ingalls Wilder would be VERY SURPRISED at this.”

Over the last week (being a time zone away from my beloved husband notwithstanding), I have been surprised and delighted and The first ascot ANYONE has made for me EVER!treated and ever, ever so grateful that somehow, magically, my life has become full of the MOST wonderful people.  (Which I do not say merely because they have plied me with gifts and filled me with delicious foods.  Srsly.)

I need to go put my head down.  (And unpack.  I can’t Look at me bake, while it's chilly and I'm unemployed!relax until I unpack.  Is it just me?)  My heart burbles OVER with joy and gratitude for all y’all…from Mom and Dad, without whom there would BE no birthday, never mind this trip; my beautiful and geniusy Small; my bonus family of fantastic in-laws; my faraway friend, Vee Bee Jay, who not only makes me a better person by her example, but liberally sprinkles my life with treats and joy; and Adrian, who comes home toMORrow!  Happy My Birthday to YOU!

"What's an Igbo Accent Like?" Wednesday!

Who doesn't love a good accent?  No one!  After reading a side box in the last ever 'Gourmet' about Smith Island Cake, and the fascinating brogue of the residents of Smith Island, I poked around and found:  The Speech Accent Archive!

You can browse, and search (by native language, city and country of birth, interactive clicky map...), and find people from all over the country and all over the planet and hear how they sound speaking English!  (Surely others were as geeked up in Linguistics as I was...right?  Anyone?)  I was a little disappointed by the regional American dialects (the example of Smith Island Brogue did not dazzle)...more entertainingly broad examples of New Mexico, Chicago, Baltimore accents can be found with random lunch stops.  But I never tire of Scottish accents, and if one was about to, say, spend some time in Ireland, one could study such an accent, and slip seamlessly into local society, for complex (possibly nefarious!) and clandestine reasons!  You know, if one wanted.

The post without photos or Imaginary Thanksgiving 2009

We've hosted Thanksgiving dinner for several years now, having over singles and couples who don't travel "home" for the holiday.  This year we'll be in Europe on the big day (I understand it's just another Thursday over there) and I was anxious about missing out on this annual food and friends fest.  With Noah leaving this Tuesday (!!!!tomorrow!!!!) and having not seen some dear friends for nearly a year (Michelle, Noah reminded me that you got snowed in here last January so it hasn't been quite a year), we decided to throw a "Very Imaginary Thanksgiving".  And in true Thanksgiving fashion, I didn't take a damn picture!

You'll have to use your imagination and picture this:  an amazing all New England cheese selection with round loaf of pain levain from Formaggio (compliments of faraway friend, H), nuts and honey from my most favorite preserves genius Bonnie's Jams, an asian pear chutney, spicy dill beans (part of the great canning adventure of 2009), Clinton's "cruel de eatay" (West Virginian for vegetable platter) and a lot of wine to start things out.

Despite food preparation beginning a whole day before I found myself still in the kitchen making dinner while folks snacked on all that cheese.  The turkey (loosely based on the 2008 Martha Stewart Living recipe) was ready but the glazed parsnips and carrots hadn't even made it into the saute pan.  And I realized that the oven had somehow been turned off while I was making baget croutons - why the hell aren't they getting brown???  Dinner was delayed an additional half hour due to this oven oversight.  (Ana Brett's voice repeated sut-nam in my head and I remembered to breathe.)

There were really only two "cook fails".  One was the forgotten pot of homegrown peas.  Noah and I had spent an entire day shelling those peas early in the summer and freezing them for this occasion.  I put them in a pot with some pearl onions and then became distracted by the root vegetables and the "never bubbling cauliflower" in the oven.  By the time I wondered what was on that far burner it was too late.  The peas were a grey green.  Result - a very mono-chromatic main course with the only non-beige color coming from the cranberry sauce and carrots.  The second fail was the cauliflower gratin.  I had made this dish only a week before with a head harvested right out of our garden.  It was delicious, crisp and cheesy.  Nothing like the cheesy cauliflower you get at a steak house.  But I was overly confident and didn't review the recipe.  The oven wasn't actually on.  So some steps were missed.  The gratin baked in a cooling oven and then browned at too high a temperature for much too long.  It tasted awful to Noah and I but the dinner guests didn't seem to mind.

The turkey was beautiful.  Brown and moist.  I attribute this to dry brining the bird for 48 hours.  And it was a local, humanely treated turkey.  (I'm sure that helps!)  Plus butter is amazing.  The bird was coated in a half stick of butter before it even got into the oven.  Every half hour it was basted with a melted butter bay leaf wine mixture and turned for even browning.  And just like every other Thanksgiving turkey, I didn't take a picture of it whilst saying, "this is a photo spread worthy turkey!"

Other observations:  the gravy was a bit salty.  The garlic mashed potatoes could have been warmer.  The butternut squash and apple soup a bit thick and room temp.  The arugula should have stayed in the fridge longer.  But the beets were perfectly dressed.  The plating of the soup in finger bowls was genius.  The pumpkin pie baked from a Hutchins Farm sugar pumpkin and a pate brisee that nearly made me cry was the best one I've ever made in my twenty years of baking pies (I started helping my dad, the resident baker, as a way of bonding after deciding I'd no longer be angry about moving to Iowa).  And just like every pumpkin pie that I've proclaimed was my best one yet, I have no photo to prove such things. 

Friends brought a pecan pie and a dutch apple from Wilson Farms that were delicious, too.  The sour dough rolls from When Pigs Fly Bakery that Susan and Sheriden brought were soft and just perfect after half an hour in the warm oven.  Mike picked up a great selection of wines, I drank most of a bottle of shiraz that was full-bodied and smooth.  And Noah kept people out of the kitchen as I finished dinner, swooping in to carve the turkey like he does every year, and serving the pie just like my dad.

While I have no pictures to share, I have a warm fuzzy feeling that will last for awhile.  I mean, there were conversations ranging from world wrestling entertainment to raising chickens and then actor's hazard pay and our love/hate relationship with pro-sports (or Noah's indifference).  I'm grateful for such diverse friends with diverse interests with no fear of sharing all that information.  And while H wasn't there, her cheese plate made a splash and great conversation.  (One of the cheeses, Constant Bliss, was named after a Revolutionary War scout who was killed while protecting the Bayley Hazens Military Road in Vermont in 1781!)  May you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving on the 26th, thanks to those that joined us for our imaginary one, and we'll do it again (perhaps on the actual date) in 2010.

November is V. Celebratory!

My five MOST favorite things in the WHOLE ENTIRE YEAR are all in November:  Thanksgiving (which we’ll talk about another time, I’m sure); Adrian’s birthday (as you’ll recall); my teeny nephew Owen was born (you remember—just last week!); my birthday (Monday!); and: our anniversary!  (Adrian’s and mine, I mean, not yours and mine, Vee Bee Jay…that’s what, January?  For blog-o-fantastico purposes?)(Sixth place is the chance to vote.  I love me some good votin’!)

Today is our fifth anniversary!  Five feels like a good, real number; an actual landmark on the way to…something.  (We did agree that we were in this for 68 years, after which point we could renegotiate our contracts.)  Traditionally, this is the year for wood gifts; silverware would be the modern gift option.  (Though there’s at least one site that recommends we celebrate five years with a cruise, which I’m ALL FOR, in case anyone was wondering.)  We will fete ourselves the way we do every year:  by drinking Gruet champagne out of our engraved silver Henry VIII toasting goblets (complete with crystal dangle)(they were a gift (from relations (in Texas))).

We do plan to use plenty of silverware Saturday night, when we celebrate with a blowout dinner at Michael Symon’s Roast—and for extra grownup fanciness, we’re staying downtown that night at the historic Book Cadillac Westin!   When it was built, it was the tallest hotel in the world!  You can ask for a personal historical tour!  Pool time, personal historical tour—OH I hope I don’t have to choose.  (AND they’re all green-tastic, AND our favorite restaurant in Detroit is downstairs (with our favorite waiter—hi, Brian!)…  Man, I LOVE traveling!)

Being married RULES!  GETTING married SUCKED!  (My new friend Teresa said, “I didn’t speak to my mother for two years after MY wedding.”  “Touche,” I said.)  The night before our anniversary, I always have a personal moment of silence, remembering our rehearsal dinner…one of my top three absolute worst nights of my entire life.  There is no faster way to get me to flee a room than for Adrian to tilt his chin down, look up at me through his long ruffly eyelashes, and ask me, “Heather Smith, will you marry me…ALL OVER AGAIN?”

These are some photos from our wedding, some of myThe original is in focus, and is lovely! My digital photo of a picture on a computer screen...eh. favorite parts—though while I was clever enough to pack our Henry VIII goblets and the DVD slideshow from our photographers (who were very MUCH a favorite part—happy birthday, Krista!!!), I am utterly unable to make any screen grabs from the DVD…so I took pictures of my computer screen with my digital camera.  I’m pretty sure this is the ghettoest thing I’ve done on this blog.  (I’m counting the time I covered a shoebox with pictures I cut out from Us Weekly.)

Our cake was red!  Like, red-red.  With a wee skeleton bride and groom on top!  My mother in law hand-painted a skazillion (by which I mean 85) champagne flutes with red, orange and gold flowers!  My friend Melanie made my earrings!  Adrian’s Aunt Maria brought my tangeriney shawl from Mexico!  My beautiful friend Jen wore a hat!  All our flowers were made from crepe paper!  You can’t tell from the pictures, but I walked in to the music from “True Romance” (and “Badlands”), and we walked out to “Ring of Fire” (which would have been impossible without my brother in law, who was just My Sister’s Boyfriend at the time, and who just came to be friendly and have some snacks, and who ended up helping immeasurably!)!  Looking through our photos, it’s amazing to see how many people have since gotten married (including my sister) or had babies (including my sister!)!

And at the end of the day, it was OVER, and we were MARRIED—which is my MOST favorite part!  Five down, sixty three to go!

Make it Wednesday!

While doing some research for a blog post on a Handmade Holiday I discovered Sew, Mama, Sew.  Which is a site I wasn't familiar with (strange given they sell great cottons) but I think I wouldn't necessarily stop by a site that I thought was talking to "Mama's".  Because I'm not a "mama" nor do I have plans on becoming one anytime soon despite my OB/GYN's prodding.  What I discovered was that you don't have to be a mama to enjoy this blog.  It is full of great crafting ideas and their shop is wicked awesome, too.  Not everything on the blog is targeted to the stitching crafter but much of it is.  Which is fine with me but maybe not so exciting for H.

My Wednesday Shout-Out is for their November Handmade Holidays (it's the third!).  This year they organized each day around a theme (pamper, play, etc.) and offer plenty of handmade ideas.  And if you don't have the time or energy to make it yourself, they also make suggestions for gifts handmade by someone else! 

Yay for supporting the handmade movement!  There are recipes, too.  And there are giveaway prizes each day!!!!  It's almost too much for one person to handle - hence, I'm sharing it with all of you!  So go and visit Sew, Mama, Sew for this year's suggestions as well as their archived suggestions from year one and two. 

BTW, can you believe it's November!?!?!?  I always think of my friend, Susanna, who has to finish all her holiday gifts by Thanksgiving and handmakes every single one.  I'm grateful I'm not her... though I think she is a craft-genius!