Snow Day Nostaglia & General Laziness.

Slightly cheating black & white post (whatever I make the rules here). 

I have a lot of paintings in progress but they are all wet (damn watercolors) & I just felt like writing. 

It's a snowy evening here in Greenfield following a snowy afternoon, & I left work around noon (I am terrified of driving in snow) just in time to see my husband for exactly one minute before he headed for work (he's a better driver than me, & works about 25 miles closer to our house).

I've been at home with the animals all day. Started paging through the old sketchbook. 

I have been changing things around here & drawing less out of my sketchbook & more on paper & shit. Like a real artist. But you'll see little pieces of randomness from sketchbook here & there for old times sake.

So here are some unpainted drawings from a Mini-Vaca taken on an extremely rainy weekend last June.

6.9&8.11: Two Cape Cod Sandwiches.

A post-driving curried chicken salad sandwich & a next afternoon linguica & mustard sandwich, grilled & eaten on the deck overlooking the pond. Then some insane encounters with huge snapping turtles ensued. Damn those things are weird & prehistoric & creepy. Try swimming with one. & huge. Did I mention huge?

6.9.11: BBQ Pork During A Late Spring Thunderstorm.

Another one of Mum's great dinners. Plus the sort of thunderstorm I'm really looking forward to as we approach the end of winter. We had some thunder & heavy rain last week & it reminded me how good that sort of weather is.

 6.10.11: Egg Salad Sandwiches & Vintage Dresses.

Typical Cape Cod Mini-Vaca Sort Of Day. Ate some tasty sandwiches, some chips, purchased one of my now all time favorite dresses at a thrift shop in Yarmouth, & saw some swans on a pond. There were dogs.

 6.10.2011: Cookout!

All Cape Cod trips should include some sort of cookout.

The next morning we ate this meal, in the pouring rain we collected buckets of seaweed for the garden, & then we drove home. 

 I'm fearing we won't have much Cape Cod Summer this year.
We really like our new house. We can grill in the yard here. We can hang out outside here. I can sit on top of the hill & enjoy the view of cornfields & the neighboring dairy farm, & draw & read there. We aren't stuck in town in Noho anymore.  We are making the kind of farming-style commitments that make travel complicated. I think we all need to recover from losing a major part of those summers.
That's all. Apologies for the lack of color. It's still snowing. I'll probably be back with more tomorrow.

Snowy October Driveway Breakfast Sandwiches.

I mentioned the Great New England Halloween Weekend Snowstorm/Power Outage.  Where we cooked lentil soup outside & ate it in the dark? Well, here's breakfast, i.e., another chance for me to mention the overwhelming life importance of a good breakfast sandwich.

10.30.2011: Weather Related Outdoor Breakfast. 

I can't say we suffered anything truly unpleasant at all, but it was the longest time I have been without power in my adult life (two days, I know, boo hoo) & I have lived through hurricanes in New Orleans. We never lose power in our current apartment for more than a few minutes, so when the lights went out of Saturday night it seemed so very temporary.
By Sunday morning, after having got ready for work at 6am by candle light, walked to downtown to get the car from the stupid snow emergency lot (curse this town & the asinine snow parking regulations-don't get me started) called my boss at home & work several times to see if we were open, driven to work when I got no response, then found out we were closed, then got back to a cold apartment with no stove...well Owen figuring out to to fry eggs & toast bagels over a propane burner in the driveway was pretty freaking cheering.
A good hot breakfast goes a long way. It certainly helped me appreciated the day off work (& the day post-storm was a gorgeous, gorgeous day) & not really care that we didn't have light (or heat, but hey, I dug out the wool blankets & wore several of Owen's flannel shirts at once).
& the dog enjoyed eating the snow after Owen rinsed out the frying pan. Good times were, as you can see, had by all.
Breakfast sandwiches. They rule. You know, several were eaten during the purchase of my car, present in the driveway during this escapade.
Now that's the circle of life, right there.

Butternut Squash #1: Stuffed, With (Homemade) Sausage & Wild Rice.

& now, back to the cooking! Sorry about all that whining the other day. I've pulled it together, i.e. the house isn't so bad, I did some laundry, I paid the bills, I had a lovely night of wine & food with a lovely friend, & I've actually done quite a bit of watercoloring at the kitchen table.
We bought a bushel of butternut squash for our wedding-you know, you are trying to feed a lot of people cheaply & you live in New England & it's fall, you end up with winter squash. Of course, because we have very helpful & food oriented families, we ended up with way too much food & didn't use the squash.
Forward to about a month after the wedding-we are kind of broke & Owen & I have been driving around with both our cars full of butternut squash for weeks. The only solution was The Great Butternut Squash Food Challenge Of 2011, where we made a new meal out of those pesky car squashes every night for roughly a week instead of buying new ingredients.

10.26.2011: Butternut Squash Week #1: 

Stuffed with our homemade spicy pork sausage, wild rice cooked in homemade duck stock, garden shallots, garlic, & rosemary, lots of butter, & raw milk Parmesan cheese.

This is one of my all-time classic recipes. That was another theme of The Butternut Squash Challenge, classic well loved recipes. Winter squash is really versatile, & lends itself to whatever you feel like cooking already. I invented this for a date, once upon a time ago, I made it at my birthday dinner party two years ago, & I made it for the lovely Melissa last night, because we STILL have stray squashes rolling around in our cars.

Obviously, this works with any squash, & I rather prefer acorns, delicata, or dumplings, but hey, the whole bushels of butternuts was cheaper & it's really pretty much the same.

Split squashes, roast with olive oil. Cook a basic wild rice blend, I like the Lundenberg Organic blend but a mix of short grain brown rice & wild works too, preferably in a poultry basic stock (I like duck stock). Meanwhile saute shallots, garlic, rosemary & herbs de provence in butter & white wine. Add sausage (for this we had some of our first ever batch of homemade sausage). Add rice & more stock. Simmer. Add to squash, cover with cheese, whatever you like, but I like parm or gruyere or swiss. Back in the oven, then eat! Fun times.

Yeah by the way, we have been making our own sausages, thanks to our wedding present Kitchen Aid stand mixer & wedding present meat grinding & sausage stuffing attachments. Just week Owen boned an entire turkey (turkeys are real cheap at Stop & Shop right now) & it became variously flavored turkey sausage. Being poor ain't so bad. 

AS long as you use what you have-i.e. turning cheap meat in awesome sausage & making stock from the bones. 

There you have it-Stuffed Squash, liz style. 

11.4.2011: dog & cat. 

Oh, & that's just a picture of my dog & cat.
For good measure.

These (Mildly) Difficult Modern Times.

It's been a rather exhausting couple of weeks here at EnD headquarters, i.e. a messy apartment in Northampton. Tons o' work stress, money stress, car stress etc. Blah. I've actually found myself absolutely too tired & cranky to even feel like cooking recently (very unlike me). I miss the garden. I hate when it gets dark at five. I'm sick of every single expense, like toilet paper & toothpaste,  for crying out loud, being a huge deal. I'm sick of not being allowed to get sick or miss any work for any reason because I earn our only income. I'm sick of doing all the cleaning because no one else cares. I don't want to get up at 6am while everyone is sleeping & still come home in the almost dark.
Whine whine whine. Not real problems, I know.
Still, sometimes I feel like maybe it would be cool to not be the one responsible for everyone's survival. I want to call out of work & go to the mall & buy fancy eyeshadow at Sephora & 20 cute dresses at Forever 21.
Sigh. Poor me, I know, I'm stupid. I have no real problems, &
I do have this.

11.4.2011: Dog Cat Husband.

So I guess that although we are pretty broke, my job is pushing me to the limit of reasonable tolerance right now, & the house is really dirty, I get to have this sweet family. & last night I made a really basic chicken & potato curry & felt a little more like myself. Cooking heals many wounds. Note to self: when depressed, purchase some inexpensive but still luxury cooking item (in this case, short grain brown rice & chicken thighs). Then cook dinner. Possibly listen to the Mountain Goats even though my husband hates them. Repeat.
I look forward to Thanksgiving. & I've seen some mad crazy gorgeous sunsets en route to work lately, so I guess that's also something.

Easter Wings (A Cape Cod Spring Holiday).

Happy Easter/Passover/Spring.

I am very fond of the Easter holiday, it is very aesthetically pleasing to me. Bunnies, Jesus, pastels, eggs, all very good. That said, this year I didn't really get it together to do anything about all that. No egg dying, I didn't wear a cute pink dress, & I haven't cooked rabbit since November. 

But we did have family, dogs, sticky wings, lots of good bread & butter, & a Cape Cod beach storm, aka an early Diamond family Easter.

4.23.2011: An Early Cape Cod Family Easter Dinner (With Dogs).

I had to work on Easter itself, & didn't really mind, since I very much appreciate all the ceremony & trappings of holidays, but also know that they don't really matter, in the sense that I can work all day on Easter in a pink dress then go & dig in the garden & enjoy that as holiday festivities (what I did last Easter). Plus I hate ham (is it the half-Jewish part of me?) Ham is great thinly sliced on a sandwich with the correct condiments, but an whole ham? One of the only, perhaps actually the only,  meat to which I say, yuck.

So the Diamond/Williams family (minus DR, who was missed but prefers not to travel, being a cat) packed up the car & drove to the family home on Cape Cod, stayed Friday night through Saturday night, & enjoyed the following pleasures: an early Easter dinner of Mum's sticky wings, roasted brussels sprouts, herbed mashed potatoes & French bread, an early Easter breakfast of cinnamon raisin bread & hard boiled eggs, both with the excellent bread from the French bakery in Wellfleet, collecting seaweed & shells on the beach in Harwich the pouring rain, Griswold cast-iron pan acquiring thrifting, Barb's Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookies, & most importantly (or maybe most adorably?) a meeting of the dogs, Walty our hound meets Mum & Barb's Jack Russell terrier/beagle/dauschound? mix (we don't know what she is, just like Walt, but she looks like a tiny yellow lab pretty much-just imagine a full-gown high energy 14 lb lab with a terrier brain & a tendency for snuggling & here's Sophie), an awesome recent addition to the family. Walt & Sophie ran on the beach, rough housed, chewed on each others toys, leap off furniture, begged for food, cuddled on couches, lay by the fire, & overall had a stunningly good time. Yay dogs!

We drove back to Noho late Saturday night. 

On actual Easter, I worked, & then in a light warm rain, Owen, Walt & I foraged for fiddleheads by the river in the early evening, came home, I talked to my grandparents on the phone, ate steak & mustard greens, appreciated being alive & all the good thing I have, watched tv in bed & fell asleep. Where was the Easter bunny? I do not know.

Blogging With The Windows Open, & Green Times Three.

We had our first 75+ day here in Western Massachusetts, & it was pretty sweet. There's is just something about being actually hot...outside in the early evening walking a hound dog beside a river with a breeze promising warm rain, wearing a t-shirt & a skirt, bare legs, bare arms (but cowboy boots of course). The water expectant with future swimming, the air carrying smells of grilled meat & green things growing. I can't help it, I love hot weather. Living in New Orleans totally ruined me, I like sweating. 

Having the windows open after all these months of winter is a joyful experience. I slept in bliss last night because there was a constant breeze through the open window. & tonight, sitting in the kitchen after having fed the animals, drawing at the kitchen table with a glass of chilled white wine, hearing the random music from the Community Music Center next door, various conversations on the street, smells, & the feel on my skin of that warm, soft breeze. I love air. The worst part of winter is all that time inside.

Oh & the lack of fresh food possibly grown or gathered by oneself! Hey fresh food, you are almost here! Ramps, lettuces, fiddleheads, morels, oh yes! 

& now it has begun to rain. Perfect. One of life's great pleasures=the sound & smell of warm rain with the windows open.

In a spring mood, although the garden is just beginning & the farmers markets haven't started & fiddleheads will be a while yet, I give you three green moments of early spring anticipation.

Green #1. Spring Sunday Dinner (we love Spring Dinners & Sunday Dinners!)(& dogs & cats): 

4.3.11: Cilantro/Almond Pesto with Hot Italian Sausage & Peperoncini over Pappardelle.

I really love Cilantro Pesto. Very spring tasting, even if it's too early to grow it yet. So what, at least the bundle I used cost a dollar at the Asian Market. But Cilantro Pesto, check it out, made just like any Pesto, use any nuts, any cheese, olive oil, garlic, salt & pepper, a bunch of cilantro, you're there. & like Arugula Pesto, this is a good one to make spicy & add peppers or hot sauce. I wouldn't make it for my Grampa though. 

Green #2: Recently buried in the back of the fridge I found several large Mason Jars of Spicy Green Tomato Pickles we pickled last fall at the end of our huge garden tomato crop. I guess they got forgotten back there in the fridge, but wow I just found them the other night & they are delicious.

We just mostly pickled them like they were cucumbers: sliced green (unripe green, not green heirloom) Mason Jar, allspice, mustard seed, garlic, coriander, cumin, whatever, salt, pepper & vinegar, & added some habaneros we also had in excess from the garden. These guys are really pretty great, also coming in handy for my new project, Bento Box Lunches For Work, inspired by this fabulous blog. (stay tuned).

September 2010-April 2011: Spicy Green Tomato Pickles From Last Year's Garden. 

& finally, Green #3: 

April 2011: A Sketch of Our Future 2011 Garden.

We have an additional plot there this year, so if all goes well, twice the food (If only we could somehow fit in chickens & a goat, maybe a sheep, maybe a cow, we could realize our dream of not buying food). We have tiny radishes, beets, & cabbages growing there. Chard & carrot seeds are planted (Bright Lights for the chard & Purple Haze & Atomic Red for the carrots). A gentle spring rain is falling on them right now. 

We will be eating radish & lettuce salads from the garden before we know it. & drawing them, & swimming. & sleeping with the windows open all the time. 

One For The Dog People: Introducing Walt. Plus Lentils & Cumin.

As I mentioned, a little more than a month or so, we added a new family member to the EnD household:

Walt the Hound, February 2011. 

Walt's feline sister, the country singing grey tiger cat DustyRose, has always been an important presence on this blog, as she is in my art, & my life. Walt is turning out to be an equally unique & fabulous animal, clearly the world's best dog to go with the world's best cat (or maybe I'm slightly biased? IDK, they are both seriously goodlooking & complete sweethearts).
Like DR, Walt turns out to be an excellent drawing companion,

Walt sleeping while I paint, 2.21.11

 & Walty, A Sleepy Hound With A Tennis Ball, 3.29.11

There is something about a pile of sleeping animals in sight while working that has because a required studio element for me, like my preferred sketchbook, Pilot V-5 pens, the right music (usually the Mountain Goats), & a glass of cheap white wine. To get real work done, I need my pets. They give good solid feedback. Or they love me unconditionally & are cute. Whichever.
 In a nod to remembering that this is supposed to be a food/art blog (whatever that means) & not a "my pets are cute" blog, a drawing of what the humans ate on Walty's first night as a resident of South Street (Walt ate dog food & bacon & Tator Tots, of course).

2.18.11: Lentils, Onions, & Broccoli, Over Potatoes Roasted in Olive Oil & Cumin (Walt's First Night). 

So yeah, we have a dog now, it's pretty great. We also have twice, maybe eventually three times the garden space as last year. & we just actually cleaned the apartment. Other than the generally wretched weather, Spring 2011 is shaped up pretty positive so far.
Yes, we love cats. But we also love dogs. Wait for the drawings from the dog park. & Walt sleeping at our garden plot, also good. We also also recently acquired four Koi, so maybe I'll draw the fish too. & the baby plants! The world is my drawing oyster. & hopefully soon we are on Cape Cod eating actual oysters!
Or maybe I'll actually cook something & draw that. You never know. Eating & Drawing & Gardening & Pets?

Hot Dogs & Hound Dogs.

Happy Spring!

A few random images, thoughts, meals, opinions, what have you. 

First, we fairly recently acquired a spectacularly great hound dog, Walt, a red-brown & white spotted coonhound/pointer mix. On Walt's first night here on South Street, we brillantly left a plate of Tator Tots & bacon on the counter, leftover from our nervous "are we getting a dog today?!" breakfast (we had him on hold over night at Dakin to decide. Of course we were getting him.) This moment will always be special to me, because he hadn't shown much post-shelter-experience personality yet, so Walty on his hind legs at the kitchen counter eating bacon & Tator Tots off a plate with huge enthusiasm & a giant grin, was kind of wonderful. A Limoges china plate, no less. Ah dogs. He's a food hound. Remind me to draw him with his face in a 5lb bag of sugar on the couch after being left alone for three minutes.

2.19.11: Walt's First Night. 

They were Price Rite generic Tator Tots, a brief new weakness of ours. But although the Tator Tots were trash food, Price Rite actually rules. Holier than thou co-op shoppers should really check out their produce section. Happily, we are getting really close to the season where we can grow all our own produce again, but the Chicopee Price Rite & their gorgeous & low priced jalapenos & ginger & chard has really helped me through this winter.

On that note, I have a confession. I really am kind of a food snob, in my own way. Let me explain. Although I have my weaknesses (you know, Price Rite generic Tator Tots or Cheeseburger flavored Doritos), I really am against processed food. It's not an indulgence or diet thing, not at all, because I cook everything in bacon grease or chicken fat, but I guess I just like to know my own indulgences, i. e. that chicken fat from the chicken I roasted the other night, not mystery ingredients. If I am going to eat a ton of fat, why not eat straight good slab bacon, not a McDonald's thing? I annoy the hell out of my dear partner, but I really don't like to eat fast food. I like to save money, but a fast food sandwich still costs more than the bacon scraps we sell at work, so whatever. 

However, one night last March, in the grips of New England March depression (when will the snow truly stop! Snow forecasted for this weekend!), like what's happening now, pretty much, my dear boyfriend did convince me to buy a package of hot dogs & we ate this for dinner.

3.11.2010: Hot Dogs, Mac N' Cheese, & Broccoli. 

At that point, we were still using up a case of free expired stupidly organic mac n' cheese any way we could (don't worry, we threw out the cheese packet, & made our own cream sauce. That's essential). But it was a glum March day & we were walking by the Mill River, & Owen said "Hot Dogs & Mac & Cheese for dinner!!!" & I agreed. That's love. 

I won on the broccoli though. Broccoli in a cream sauce. Always good. As good as hot dogs seemed to me when I was five? 

Ask Walt.