Farmer's market

.... yum... (sourdough bread... in case you're wondering...)

I would love to show you how beautiful the farmer's market was today, but I didn't bring my camera ::::thud:::

We went after church. I watched Stanley play Stars and Stripes (both hands AND feet working on the organ, it's amazing...) and then my mother in law received (in her words, "last rites") the Sacrament of the Sick, because she is due to have surgery a week from tomorrow and she's very nervous about it.

SO, no camera. But sunshine, boats, (the farmer's market is on the waterfront) and great clam chowder. Sometimes it's good to put the camera down and just enjoy the day, I guess.

I like to photograph food on my new counters.. I work with the light I have usually, which isn't "Pro" I suppose. Maybe after the graduation party I will have time for more "serious" photography. Heh.

Mmmmm. Fourth of July parties require cherries. (Our family party is a day late because we* had to work at a Steamboat Festival yesterday.)

I'm now going to eat a slice of this lovely bread, and some tomatoes with a sprinkling of salt, pepper, sugar, fresh basil, and grated parmigiana cheese. Talk amongst yourselves.

* to be honest, I snuck out to see The Hangover and didn't go out until later.

The meaner streets of Pittsburgh

Food. Everywhere. Big hearty fries, and beer and wings, and pierogies, and.... well, this:

Let's break this picture* down so that you get the FULL story:

• Coldstone Creamery. http://www.coldstonecreamery.com/ Ice cream with candy and cookies and small baby feet and whatever else they can find in that irresistable vein, mixed in. And apparently they make cakes now... that fine print under the cake says, "Layers of moist devil's food cake & chocolate ice cream wrapped in a rich fudge ganache." That's pretty much evil. Your cheeks will plump up just reading that description, my friends.
  
• Curves! http://www.curves.com/ (Official voice: A Curves 30 minute fitness center is a woman’s gym that provides a total body workout. With both aerobic exercise for weight loss and strength training for toned muscles...etc) Curves is a gym that is targeted toward gym-a-phobic women who just want to get in better shape without Steroid Fabulous Guy sweating all over the equipment before they use it. So they have to walk by the Coldstone Creamery to get to the gym to try to get skinny. It's just mean.
  
• Hmm, maybe they can walk around the block the other way. Nope. Because on the far right there? That little sign, "Dozen" ? THAT'S A CUPCAKE STORE. No lie. http://www.dozencupcakes.com/ Game over.

Okay - be honest - how many of you were tempted to click on the ice cream link, or the cuppy-cakes, and not the gym? Don't lie, sitemeter will tell me EVERYTHING.

(By the way Suzy, we're going to Dozen next time I come down there. Seriously. Orange chocolate, carrot cake AND red velvet please!)

*Pardonnez-moi, the picture is crappy because I took it from the car window. While laughing.

Valentine's dinner

Well, my sister in law and I cooked last night. Or, all afternoon and half the evening, I guess you could say. We were shooting for 5:30 and we ate our entrees at 7:15... but we had a blast.

We had some cabernet that we used in the sauce for the hens, (meaning we had to TASTE IT before using it), some Merlot that I don't think I tried, but .... Greg Norman makes wines??? ... it was my sister in law's bottle... and later with dessert we had an ice wine that tasted like hard apple cider.

I made sourdough bread to go with the spinach salad.... which is rather ugly here but tasted wonderful with raspberry walnut vinaigrette.

We let everyone eat salad while the hens were getting to a temp that wouldn't kill us all... it took much longer than the recipe indicated it would. Perhaps because the little buggers were still a wee bit frozen. We didn't actually stuff the hens... part of our delay was thawing them in the microwave and we decided to sacrifice presentation for safety.

The stuffing was onion, celery, cornbread, sausage, shrimp, and some regular bread crumbs (which I think I made too soggy by adding too much chicken broth, but OH my gosh I could have just sat down with a fork and eaten a plate of stuffing and gone away happy). Whoever edited down the restaurant-quantity recipe for the magazine article we were following was NOT really concentrating... we had enough stuffing to fill a roaster pan that you would make your holiday turkey in. For 8 tiny little hens with a body cavity smaller than my tea mug.

Live and learn. It's in gladware now, and we will all eat more one or two days from now with new, decidedly less glamourous chicken. We saved the extra (red wine/ blackberry jam) glaze by freezing it in an ice cube tray, so we can pop one or two cubes out to make a boring dinner a bit less so. My brother in law helpfully compared the glaze to blood at every opportunity.

(We gave the kids just plain boneless chicken, with a pile of stuffing on the side, and they complained about ewwww, lemon juice on the beans. Tough crowd.)

And, you've seen the cupcakes, but here's one more.

You can see a few more photos on my flickr/feed if you're still hungry. Exciting things, like the cheeses we had (one was brie with apricot jam... but we didn't bake it... we have learned to focus on one or two dishes and not try to compete with a top chef finalist in making an over the top menu... ), the stuffing in preparation, and so on.... and the roses. What's valentine's day without overpriced roses ? (Mine, haha. I instituted a ban on $75 roses several years ago.) OK, now I am just being mean, because my sister in law has only been married a few years, and she loves her roses. I'm sorry.

We joked about having our own cooking show, but each episode would be more of a miniseries. (This would be why we serve so many snacks while our family patiently waits for the big entree. )

Well, I'm late for stuff so I've gotta get going.... will someone help with the dishes??