chitown2beantown

Lately...

I've planted some seeds in pots and have delighted when they miraculously sprouted a week later.

I've stalked birds on the balcony with my puppy.
 

I've learned how to fly fish with my aunt, and even caught a few.

I've hung out with my cousin-in-law and her sweet old lady pooch. I hope I get this many years with my pup and that she mellows into such a lovely lu.

I've taken a nap on a quilt in a park by the Chesapeake Bay while my family played bocce ball.

I've visited our nation's capital on Memorial Day and had a picnic on the grass under the Washington monument.

I've come home to baby arugula that's starting to look edible.

I've bought the first-of-the-season local produce and tasted the first summer strawberries.

I've been knitting again, roasting asparagus, reading fiction, laughing with friends over mojitos and cookies, and dreaming up plans and projects. Like dresses, mini-albums, an etsy shop full of minialbums, sushi parties and even a road trip to Charlotte with a friend who is moving away from Boston.

I've also discovered reblogging and have started a tumblr called wandercraft. I'm using it as an inspiration wall - a place to better understand what I respond to. Apparently I like browns, blues, greens, and dots of bright color against crisp white backgrounds.

Basically, for the last few days I've had a lot more free time. I'm looking forward to a wonderful summer filled with travel, fresh food, crafts, family and friends.

Golden Weekend

Two scenes from our weekend.

Saturday was the last of our 10-day dog sitting job. Here's Harry, possibly the world's largest 9 month old Golden Retriever puppy. Constant puppy energy in a big body.

We enjoyed our time with the big lug, but all good things must come to an end and we were happy to return him to his owners so we could get our living room and bedroom back. All he wanted to do was play with Kaia until late into the night or vie for our undying attention which inevitably resulted in him covering Matt or me with slobber. Even Kaia had her fill of old Harry boy at times, and retreated to her crate for some alone time.

He's a sweet and faithful boy though. I now know why people love Goldens. And why I don't. I prefer my dogs relatively aloof and free of drool.

With temps in the 80s, we previewed what summer will be like. I got to break out the flip-flops and iced tea container. I think this iced tea might be our summer drink of choice.

 

Green Tea Sun Tea

Ingredients

8 Bags of Green Tea (I used the organic store brand)

Gallon of Water

Glass Tea Container or an X-Large Jar

Sun

Directions

Fill gallon-sized glass jar with cold water. Tie 8 tea bags together. Screw on lid so the tea bags hang in the jar and are submerged in water. Place on a deck, porch, or patio in the sun for at least several hours. Maybe all day if you are out enjoying the sunny warm weather.

If you like sweet tea, add sugar, honey, or agave syrup. Maybe throw in a lemon slice. Add ice and drink up!

Scenes from the weekend

Thanks to my friend Lindsay, who turned me on to this recipe for freshly baked bread in 5 minutes a day published on Mother Earth News, I've been back on a bread baking kick. For this recipe, you stir up dough for several loaves and keep it in the fridge until needed. Needed, not kneaded. The recipe requires none of that heavy labor, nor constant monitoring of short and long rises.

We've had a couple weeks of bread thanks to that recipe. This Friday night I decided I just wanted a loaf for the weekend. Rather than mix up a whole batch, I turned again to the other ubiquitous no knead recipe from the New York Times. I've tried the recipe once in the past and was pleased, but thought it could be a little better. This time, I took the advice of Cook's Illustrated, and added a short burst of kneading and a few dashes of beer.

Instead of new yeast, I also added a chunk of that Mother News dough to act as a starter.

It worked out beautifully.

Saturday when I was baking up the bread, I was in the kitchen bemoaning the fact that our apartment has terrible light. My bread pictures were lousy and blurry. In frustration, I went to find that old cheapy Canon 1.8 50mm lens. I rarely use it because I love my zoom and wide angle lens so much. Plus, the focus ring bothers me.

But, just a few shots convinced me that it's time to give this lightweight lens another chance.

There were still a lot of blurry shots, partly because of the cheap focus ring, but mostly because I still haven't bought new glasses since the husky mutt ate my last pair. Nonetheless, WOW. I love you sweet narrow depth of field. I need to take pictures like this more often.

If I do say so myself.

Valentine's sushi lovin' at home

Sorry for my relatively long absence. I've been working way too much lately. But, this long weekend I took off. I didn't do a lick of work for three days and it was magnificent. I hope you got a little time off too. I'm going to share some photos from each day. One post at a time.

Day One

Saturday was, of course, Valentine's Day. Not a big holiday in my book. But, we had reason to celebrate this year because Matt was home with me, rather than on the road as in years past.

On a whim, I decided to make him sushi for dinner, since it's his favorite. I've never made sushi before. I've planned to. I'd even bought a sushi mat (which we seem to have lost in summer pack/unpack episode). 

I looked up a how-to website and gave it a go.

For a first-timer, I was overly ambitious. But it was Valentine's Day, so it seemed like a good time to go overboard.

We made California rolls (crab, cucumber, carrot, avocado), Philadelphia rolls (smoked salmon, cream cheese, cucumber), and green bean tempura rolls. It was probably too many fixings to deal with for a first try, but it all worked out and we had a fun time. I cut up all the stuff, then fried up green beans, sweet potato, and shrimp in tempura batter. 

Meanwhile, Matt rolled up the maki. Without a sushi mat!

And they turned out lovely.

We agreed our suski (I mean sushi! - I've typed suski like 5 times, which must be the Pole in me coming out!) was almost as good as restaurant sushi. Definitely better than grocery store sushi. 

We ate it all, except for a few of those huge, overstuffed rolls on the plate. We learned that the key to one bite maki is to go easy on the rice.

Maybe next time we'll actually try some raw fish. I felt a little pretentious asking the fishmonger if they had sushi grade salmon or tuna. And I was afraid of sticker shock. But now that we know we can make sushi...

If you are feeling ambitious yourself, the one big tip I can offer you is to start the rice a couple hours before you want to roll the sushi, so it has time to cool. But don't put it in the fridge. Apparently, that's a sushi no-no. Matt's would be to line your suski mat with plastic wrap. That is, if you have and can find your sushi mat.

Lastly, The Pioneer Woman as a two pictorials on how to make sushi (california rolls and others). Why a cattleman's wife in Oklahoma has the most vibrantly photographed how-to of sushi-in-the-making on the internet, I really don't know. But, it's worth checking out.

Our first week of December with nature photos

It's finals week peeps, and I shouldn't even be posting at all. But, I guess I can't help it. Procrastinating that is.

I've been doing a lot of baking and cooking right before bed. Sustanence is important during hard times. These wild blueberry muffins were delish and helped me through mornings all week. The first night I wanted to take a shot at baking these, I realized I was too tired to make the crumble topping, and if I was too tired to toss some butter, oats, flour and sugar together, I was best off just going to bed. Turns out the crumple topping was key. The recipe came from a grocery store flyer, so if you want the recipe, leave me a note and I'll email it to you sometime next week.

By far the big excitement of the week was getting "the hottest tickets in town" to go see a premiere of Nothing But the Truth, with a post-movie Q&A with Alan Alda. And his co-star, Kate Beckinsale, who I didn't recognize on the posters until I read that she was in Serendipity. She was lovely by the way. But, the fact that we were so over the moon excited to see Alan Alda in person is further evidence that we are getting old! I'm pretty sure all the people there under 25 were there for Kate. Little known fact about us is that M.A.S.H. is our favorite re-run as of late, mostly thanks to Matt but I like it too. Some days it feels like it's all we watch anymore. Fuddy duddys.

I confess to being a true Alan Alda fan because I have even bought and read one of his books and I've watched my share of his program on PBS. Wednesday night he was as entertaining and as insightful in person as I expected. He actually said something that made me remember why I'm even bothering with this PhD business - that unchecked power in the hands of government can do a lot of harm so someone - he was referring to the press - needs to keep watch. Such reminders are important during finals week. Anyway, the movie was very good so go see it! They are both on Oscar short lists.

{Photo credit to Matt, editing by moi}

In other exciting news, it's been cold here, so we've been doing a lot of snuggling in sweatshirts and under blankets, with the dog when we can convince her. Cuteness.

Early this morning, Kaia got me out of bed just in time to get outside for the very first snowflakes of the season. I know they have been getting snow in the Midwest and even some of the Northeast for awhile now, but today was our first day of snow in Boston. We got a lovely, mild dusting.

We came back inside, and after some more snuggling and snoozing on the living room floor. I got up and tried to make apple pancakes when I should have been working on a paper.

Not sure what the problem was since I followed the recipe, but they were gooey inside. All 4 rounds. We dusted them with powdered sugar and ate around the edges. And of course, our bad dog jumped up when I wasn't looking and snatched a hot one for herself.

I'll be gone from here for a week, maybe two, as I finish finals and we head to Austin to visit my new niece. I'll be back with crafts and Christmas celebrations. Have a great mid-December y'all!

socks and salsa

This week I finished a knitted object! This is monumental. Hasn't happened in a long time.

These spa socks were a gift to Matt's mom last Christmas. I had one sock almost done as gifts were exchanged last December. It took me the last 8 months to finish the pair. I also gifted a pair to my sister-in-law in the form of a skein of purple Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton. Maybe I have a shot at getting that skein knitted up to so I can gift them in the form of socks this Christmas.

Another accomplishment for the week -- Last night, a full week after buying 5 lbs. of tomatillos I finally hunkered down for a few hours to can some salsa. Consider this a pictorial, not a tutorial. I'm a novice at canning and strongly suggest you read up about it before trying as there is a risk of food borne illness.

I didn't discover tomatillos until I started going the farmer's market route more often. Salsa made with them is my favorite. Last year I made tomatillo salsa with grilled pineapple. Yum.

This recipe came from the New Mexico State University agriculture and home ec department. I figured the southwest source was my best bet for a salsa recipe.

I felt like a witch stirring this pot, what with our recent trip to Salem and with Halloween coming up...bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.

My in-laws picked me up some canning salt as I wasn't sure I could find any here. Always can find the canning supplies in the Midwest.

I strongly recommend not doing what I did above - which is to put an old (clean) t-shirt in the bottom of the canning pot. I don't have a canning rack. I've bought two when I've run across them at home stores and both times they were too big. I seem to have a small canning pot. And I keep forgetting to order a rack online. Last year I used cheesecloth on the bottom of the pot to stabilize the jars. It sort so worked but was less than ideal. The t-shirt didn't work. Eventually I took it out when the boiling water dislodged the t-shirt and knocked over two jars.

But, in the end, I think I succeeded. There is too much head space in a couple of the jars. Does anyone know if this poses a problem?

I was hoping for 5 pints but ended up with 4. Was it worth the effort? Well, I don't think I'll eat more salsa than this over the winter so the amount is probably spot on. It is a lot of effort. Freezing is easier, but it's nice to be able to put these on the shelf.

Oh, and as a side note, I whipped up some fresh tomatillo salsa as well. Just before I started canning, I checked out Smitten Kitchen, and what do you know, she had a recipe for acorn squash quesadillas and tomatillo salsa. Last night my friend came over for a little scrapbooking and we swooned over this. SO good. I made the salsa with cilantro and lime instead of all spice, and left out the poblanos because I didn't have any. I'm sure it would be great either way. But seriously, roast up some acorn squash, mix with onions, jalapeno and garlic, and stick it in your quesadillas. Again, so good.

I've got a head cold and was thinking chicken soup for dinner, but now I think I have to have these quesadillas again. :) 

living in the past?

Decided to spend some time changing up the bloggity-blog instead of uploading photos this evening. Now that Matt has a his own blog I figure I can girlie up this one even more.

I want to change the name of this thing since it seems really out-dated. We moved here over 4 years ago. But, so far I'm not having any strokes of genius. I also have a pipe dream of opening an Etsy shop, which would also need a name. And it'd be nice if the two aligned. But I'm not there yet.

So randomness about this week:

I got my typewriter fixed at the typewriter repair shop in town. Yep, our gritty historic town is complete with a typewriter technician who is still in business. His father opened the shop seventy-six years ago. The typewriter man told me the typewriter business is slowing. You don't say! I asked him if he did any internet business. He said, "I don't know a thing about computers and I don't want to!!!" Clearly the man doesn't like change. I am grateful, because he wound me my very own typewriter ribbon.

As the conversation progressed, the typewriter man asked me if I went to the local high school. I had to tell him that no, I was thirty! Sadly, this is the SECOND time this has happened in the last two weeks. I was ordering a sandwich at a deli the other week and the woman asked if I wanted coleslaw or pasta salad. The sandwich was for my picky husband, so I said neither. And she turned to the other woman in line and said, "Oh, to be sixteen!"

People always say I should be glad that I look younger than I am. A few years, yes. Being mistaken for a high schooler when I'm well into adulthood, not that awesome.

It's worth noting that as I was leaving the typewriter store, a man across the street on his smoke break from the Mexican restaurant said, "Is that a typewriter!?!?" The comment was followed by a fit of laughter.

In other news, I've done some new culinary stuff this week. I made some refrigerator pickles for one. I'll add a picture tomorrow.

Also, my mother-in-law brought me some rhubarb. I've never baked with it, so I dug up a rhubarb coffee cake recipe from my favorite food blog. That was breakfast for half the week. Now I'm back to the more sensible Kashi. I also made roast pork for the first ime. Smothered it with chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper and laid it in the slow cooker on top of two coarsely chopped onions and 10 cloves of garlic. We went off to Salem for the day, and when we got home I couldn't resist whipping myself up a Cuban sandwich. Never had one, but had to have it. Those refrigerator pickles needed to shine. Yum. If the real deal is half as good as what I cobbled together, I think I found a new favorite sandwich.

I have 5 pounds of tomatillos in the fridge waiting to be made into salsa. Thought I'd get to it today, but we spent a drizzly day down the Cape at a flea market and an antique store. And yesterday we were in Salem amongst the Halloween tourists.

Canning after a day of touristing is a bit much, you don't say? But I did make some pesto this week and froze some in an ice cube tray for the winter. Tonight, we had pesto linguine with chicken. I've been trying to make a little more effort at food preservation as of late since the winter is coming. Matt laughs at me when I saw that.

Probably for the same reason the guy laughed when he asked me if I was carrying a typewriter.

the week I turned 30

Monday

I went to work, then took some self-portraits on my last day as a 20-something, while I waited for my parents to arrive from Michigan.

The evening started out our 4-day Democratic National Convention watching marathon. Tonight was Ted Kennedy and Michelle Obama. As we were glued to MSNBC, I remembered how much watching the nightly news was a part of our family routine when I was growing up. We didn't sit around and debate the issues, but we watched it, often together over dinner.

Tuesday

I hung out around the house with my parents, hemming and hawing about where I wanted to go eat dinner. After too much searching, I settled on Henrietta's Table near Harvard Square which uses a lot of local produce. I ordered the duck. Birthdays are good opportunities to try new things.Turns out, my folks had never been to Harvard Square, so it was a good pick.

We came home, had a little dessert and watched more of the convention.

Wednesday

We were going to go to Martha's Vineyard, but we decided to postpone. So, we worked some more on unpacking and I got some work work done. My mom, quite the productive one, finished organizing my kitchen. I helped, but the credit goes to her. My dad hung shelves and pictures. The heightened level of organization around here is possibly the best birthday gift I could have gotten.

In the afternoon, we introduced my folks to the world of Ikea. We all restrained ourselves, and only bought a few things. While there, I took a new picture for Matt's Facebook account. Get it?

In the evening, we took the dog to the big dog park by the water, and then we made prosciutto pizzas for dinner. And you guessed it, watched more of the convention.

Thursday

I started my last year of classes. Unless the school addict in me goes for an associates degree in art or something. ;) In the morning my dad dropped me off at the T, as I've decided I can't face sitting in traffic for an hour every morning. Spending more time in a crowded train is somehow less stressful. Classes are going to be better, since we get to choose them this year, and it was great seeing people again after the summer break. A friend and I had a lovely lunch on the lawn.

In the evening, Matt played hockey and was asked to join a hockey team for the winter. Free for goalies. It's been over 5 years since he had the time to join a league. Hockey makes him happy. While he played, my parents and I went to eat up at a restaurant that overlooks the Boston skyline.

For my dad and me -- burgers, beers -- and for my mom, finally some good clam chowder. Have you seen or read Gone Baby Gone? That creepy scene in the quarry at night? This restaurant is up the hill from there, and not too far from where we live.

We made it home in time for Obama's speech. I have a clear memory of driving down Lake Shore Drive in Chicago after we first moved there and seeing Obama signs for the US Senate campaign along the way. I thought a guy with that name is not going to get elected. This was 2002. I'm glad I was wrong.

Friday

We went to Martha's Vineyard for the day, just barely dropping off the dog at Doggieritaville in time, and just barely making the ferry. We rode the bus around the island with hour-long visits at each destination. It was a full day. We withstood the 2-hour round trip bus ride to see the Aquinnah Cliffs. They are beautiful, but much smaller in person than expected (at least for someone raised near Sleeping Bear Dunes). All you can do is stand by a fence and peer over at them. So after 2 minutes of looking, we found a picnic bench and ate our lunch. We were entertained by two skunks taunting the tourists.

Then we boarded the bus for the hour-long trip to Vineyard Haven. It took 4 years, but we finally took my mom could see the Black Dog Tavern. It's been on her to-do-list.

It was a good day.

Saturday

We ate deluxe omelets for breakfast, deluxe quesadillas for lunch, did some more unpacking, ran some errands, my mom repaired the three holes our little monster chewed in her beautiful quilt, I took a hike with my dad in the Blue Hills, we had pasta with fresh tomato and basil for dinner, and we finished up with caramelized local peaches, Vermont blueberries, and vanilla ice cream.

Recipe: Caramelized peaches (or nectarines)

Adapted from: Fresh Choices by David Joachim and Rochelle Davis

Start a saute pan over medium low heat and melt 2 tablespoons of butter. Not margarine, people, this requires butter. Cut a ripe peach in half longways, removing the pit. Dip the cut side of the peach in white sugar. Place the peach halves in the saute pan, and do not move them at all until the syrup that forms around the peaches starts to turn a light caramel brown. The sugar syrup should bubble for awhile. Watch it so it doesn't burn, but if things are taking too long, you can bump up the heat very slowly. Serve over vanilla ice cream, with blueberries if available, and eat before it melts!   

A sweet ending to a lovely birthday week with my parents.

Sunday

My parents left at 5:30am. We slept in. Today we are dog sitting this guy -- Russo, aka Rooster.

Our living room has been transformed into a wrestling pit. Which is perfect, because I can just sit here on the couch and recover.

Just making it up as I go along

I'm trying to not be in denial that it's already the middle of July. So much to do before I got back to school in late August. Especially now that we have to move out of our apartment completely for two weeks because our unit is being renovated! We spent the last couple weeks immersed in serious dilemma over whether to find a new apartment in another part of the Boston area, even though apartment prices are even higher in other areas of metro Boston, or whether to put up a fight so that our unit's renovation could be moved up to mid-August instead of right as I'm starting my semester.

If we'd gotten this news before we got puppy girl, we probably would have left. That dog park has become indispensable though. The night we decided to stay here and won our renovation schedule battle, a bunch of us dog park people took a big field trip out to Stoddard's. Despite the incredible hassle, it's worth staying for the little community that we have here. It's not the right time to start over. And, could there be a lovelier place to take your dog to burn off some energy? Hard to leave that behind.

Still, we have to move all of our stuff out, and live somewhere else for two weeks, then move everything back in. Slight inconvenience. We're trying to look at it as the opportunity for the ultimate spring cleaning. We've become selling things on Craig's list, yet we feel we've just begun. The free time I planned to have this summer that isn't being spent on the puppy, will now be spent going through all of my worldy possessions, deciding what's worth keeping. And also, getting around to those pesky little to-do items I've been putting off for no good reason.

One of those tasks was sending an artist trading card back to Kristina Contes. A few months ago she send me this:

It's a little bit of scrapbooking prettiness adhered to an old playing card. She designed the scrapbook paper herself and I think you can buy her stuff at SIStv.

Three months later, I'm finally reciprocating. I don't know why I've put this off so long. Silly really, as it took all of 20 minutes and I enjoyed throwing something together. Here is my first artist trading card, ready to go in the mail tomorrow morning. I did not design that scrapbook paper myself. That would have been impressive.

And since it's Sunday, here is my One Local Summer meal for the week. Pizza again? Yes, pizza is a staple around here. This Friday I sent Matt to the farmer's market. He picked up some really good Italian sausage from Stillman's booth. He also stopped by Schoolhouse Pizza to get some handmade mozzarella. The owner sells his own mozzarella for $2 a ball. Love that man, even though I've never met him. The dough came from Portland, Maine, a bit outside of the 100 mile radius, but not bad.

I pulled the last of the pesto I froze last summer. Part of our mission to empty the freezer asap. Then, I had some green beans still hanging in the fridge from Ward's Berry Farm, so I thought what the heck. Pesto pizza with Italian sausage and green beans was created. Maybe I'm the only person to ever create such a thing. 

Sounds weird. Heck, it is weird. But the pizza was tasty, and I'd make it again.

Part of moving will also mean letting some things go this summer. I never did make it back to pick strawberries. But, with what we're headed for, I don't think a freezer full of strawberry jam and local strawberries would have worked out anyway. Luckily, we'll be back in our apartment in time for blueberry season. Last fall, I went through the frozen blueberries so fast that it'll be a blessing to have an empty freezer ready just in time!

One Local Summer: Week Five

After a day of errands, we got to sit outside and enjoy a nice dinner tonight. I finally got ahold of some local chicken at Owen's Poultry Farm in Needham. The farm raises turkeys, and they source chicken from another local farmer.

So tonight we had a little barbecue outside for dinner, of grilled chicken breast accompanied by ancho mole made by the Food Project youth. We also had a simple salad of lettuce, baby carrots, and spring onions grown by Ward's Berry Farm. I whipped up a homemade vinaigrette with herb vinegar, also made by the Food Project youth, olive oil, a little Boston honey, and some herbs from my balcony garden.

Even though I made it to the berry farm Thursday afternoon, I left with a bag of vegetables and no strawberries. They changed their system this year, so it was either bring your own bucket (which I left at home) or prepay for a small cardboard box. Since it was a blazing hot 90 degrees, I decided to wait a couple more days. So while I crossed buying locally grown poultry off my to-do list last week, a big accomplishment in my local eating adventure, picking strawberries and making jam is still to be done this week. Hopefully I'm not too late!