Newark, feeding Newark

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strawberry shortcake for supper!

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Following a tradition from my mom's family, we had strawberry shortcake for supper last night.  With ice cream.  Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......................

We have begun to have milk delivered to the house, just like olden times. (They will also bring butter, and ice cream!)  It's the same dairy we've been buying milk (and butter) from at the grocery store for years and years.  We'd thought about home delivery before, but what if we weren't home to take it in.....

Now that we're home all the time, we're availing ourselves of this amazing service, which spares us at least a couple of grocery trips each month.  We don't need butter yet, but will order it when needed.

Did I mention our dairy makes the very best vanilla ice cream EVER?   :-)


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it's ok to eat take-out

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Here's an article from NPR discussing the UNlikeliness of catching a corona virus from take-out food.

Support local restaurants.  Eat take-out.  :-)


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potatoes, carrots, rosemary

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Potatoes, carrots, and rosemary, with a little olive oil, in the electric skillet.  Mmmmmmmmm.

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apple pie

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A somewhat messy but delicious piece of rustic apple pie from Zingerman's Bakehouse.  Mmmmmmmmmm.....

The pink color comes from the Paula Red apples they use, which are not peeled.

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pumpkin custard for breakfast

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Pumpkin custard, baked in a ceramic container designed to resemble pie crust.

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Lunch Room

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The other night we had supper at the Lunch Room.

We didn't have dessert.  I'm not a fan of frosting, nor of artificial coloring.  But I thought this was amusing.

The witch stack.  :-)

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January 1, 2019

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Finally back in the correct year, after more than 5 weeks!  Yay.



My better half bought himself a new toy.

The thing that stirs up the dough in this bread machine stays in the bread until you remove it.  This is what the bottom of a loaf looks like, after baking.

Looks like bread, smells like bread, tastes like bread.  Victory is declared!

Here's a public service announcement.  Did you know that the ends of boxes of stuff like aluminum foil, and waxed paper, and plastic wrap, might have perforations for little tab thingies that you push into the box, to keep the rolls from falling out as you pull on the foil/paper/plastic?

I didn't, until someone told me in December 2018.

Some of them do.  Here's an example.  This is aluminum foil..... 

I pushed in that half-circle, which left the half-circle tab inside the box, and inside the roll holding the aluminum foil. 

Who knew.  (See those faint white words at the bottom, telling you about the tab?  I never saw those, until I knew to look for them....)



I pick up trash when I walk.  You can't see most of it, but there was a LOT of styrofoam in this trash.  It seemed that someone had left some largeish styrofoam item where it could be run over.  There were many, many, many bits of whatever it was.  Sigh.

The odd thing in this assortment is the yellow wrapper.  That is a pasta wrapper from Martelli, which makes pasta on top of a hill in Tuscany.  I have been there.  I have watched Martelli making pasta, from inside the place where it's made.  (I hesitate to call it a factory -- there are machines mixing the dough,and pressing it out through the dies, but most of the process is hand done.)

This is really good pasta.  Maybe THE best.  (I'm told that when other pasta manufacturers in Italy are asked "If you couldn't eat your own pasta, whose would you eat?," the answer is "Martelli"....)

Trash from really good products is much less likely to be on the ground than trash from, say, fast-food restaurants.  So I was surprised to find this.  Both because of the rarity, and because of the quality. 

There is almost always more trash on the ground after trash day.  Especially on windy days.  I'm going to guess that a windy trash day is why this was on the ground...............



This, too, was on the ground, just a couple of doors down the hill from our house. 

My eye was caught by the pieces of cable, which I thought (before I picked them up) were pieces of nylon rope.  Nope.  These are metal.  As I picked them up, I noticed the rest of this stuff.  What are the odds this has nothing to do with repairs to whatever was broken when our power went out?

Closeup of the plastic bag -- this looks like heavy-duty electrical stuff to me.

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December 10, 2018

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Still eating homegrown tomatoes, one by one.....  They have a bit of tomato taste, and they continue to ripen, even at this extremely late date.

We went to the Kellogg Eye Center to order new glasses for my better half.

There is a lot of art on display, including this excellent woven/folded sculpture.

The coating on the lenses of the old glasses is starting to come off, leaving much-less-clear areas.  It will be good when the new ones arrive.

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December 9, 2018

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December 9 was the coldest day of this season, so far (as I write on 12/30/18).

Frost on the windows.

About as far south as the sunrise gets, in these parts.

Beautiful and delicious apple from the farmers' market.  Shop local.  Eat local.

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December 8, 2018

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Farmers' market.  Brussels sprouts, decorative kale, onions, and sweet potatoes in the upper right corner.

Apples and pears.

Wreaths.

Squashes.

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Happy Holidays

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Cinnamon pecan sweet rolls. 

After rising in the fridge overnight.

 After baking.

After flipping over so the pecans are on top.

And, without nuts for those who prefer them that way. 

May everyone embrace traditions that suit them, while being sensitive to the needs and wants of others. 

May everyone have good things to eat, and congenial others to enjoy them with. 

May we all ramp up our making-the-world-better game just a little bit. 

Together we make all the difference. ✨💕✨

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November 23, 2018

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Lettuce from Green Things Farm, purchased at the farmers' market on Nov. 18.  So beautiful.

These may be the last local greens for this season........

Walking.  We spotted a lot of painted stones in one yard.

Nature's painted stone -- this is a big paving stone in someone's front walk.

Same stone as the previous, with the color saturation boosted.  I would hang this on the wall.....

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November 17, 2018

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Lovely lettuce at the farmers' market.

Kale bouquets.

Brussels sprouts and squashes.

Three kinds of beans, pumpkin seeds, garlic, sweet potatoes, squash.

Japanese maple.

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sourdough library

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November 1, 2018

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We went to the Westgate branch of the library, and then went to Star's Cafe for supper.

We love their fatoush (salad).  The greens are always fresh and dark, and I really like the salad dressing (thinking the pink stuff in the dressing is sumac, but not sure).  I really like their falafel, too.   The sandwich comes with pickle.  Mmmmmmmmm.  The guys who are always there doing the work are nice.  Good food, nice guys, eat local, shop local.  Win/win/win/win.

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October 31, 2018

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The world's largest bran flake?

Tulip tree and burning bush.

I can't get used to having all of this amazingness just sitting on the ground to be walked on.

Looking up........

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October 27, 2018

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Beto and Mike disappeared from the list of campaigns on PostcardsToVoters.

Stacey in Georgia re-appeared, with a school board candidate.  (Odd to get a candidate that far down-ballot, I thought.  I do not know how PostcardsToVoters chooses which candidates to write for.......)

Ok, now we're back to Stacey and Sarah.

Looking out the window on a rainy fall day.  The burning bush was really this red.  !!!

The first batch of cardstock postcards I made got their "thank you star" printed on them individually, because that's how I printed the post-office postcards, and I didn't rethink it.

My perspicacious better half suggested I print before cutting.

Um.  Yeah.  Er.  Yep, I can DO THAT!  (Thank you, dear.  :-)  )

Because every vote DOES matter!

We went to the farmers' market on the 27th, as we almost always do.  That was the last day to buy a wide selection of peppers (frost had done in the plants).  Time for this year's last batch of lecsó from local peppers.  

 Lecsó (pronounced leh-cho) is Hungarian pepper stew.  It is mostly peppers, with some onion, and some tomatoes, and, most importantly after the peppers, smoked paprika.  This ingredient is key -- some stuff that is sold as smoked paprika is just bitter red powder.  You need the good stuff, which has a lovely smoky taste.  (It doesn't have to be Hungarian.  The first we had was Spanish, with religious imagery on the can.)

This is an easy-peasy dish.  Lots of chopping, a bit of onion-softening, some simmering, some taste tests to see if it needs more salt or more smoked paprika, and that's it.  I like to put chunks of good break in the bottom of my dish, and then add the lecsó.  Mmmmmmmmmm...........................

This is red, green, yellow, and orange bell peppers, some long skinny (sweet) peppers in yellow and red, some little "sweeties" peppers, and a poblano.  The poblano was somewhat hot.  I like there to be just a little kick of hotness in this dish.

It freezes well.  We usually make enough at once to eat supper that day, supper again in a few days, with one supper's worth going into the freezer for the dead of winter, when all of this color is extra welcome.


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