Another Attempt at Gardening

Terry and I have not had great luck with our attempts at vegetable gardening. We like to blame it on the deer who are brazen enough to come up on our back patio and nibble at even the tiniest sprout of a cherry tomato plant in a soup can. But we haven’t really done much better with the houseplants in our garden room and so far the deer have not managed to flip the door latch on the sliding door.

But that won’t keep us from trying again this year. Terry has planted shrub beans (we love green beans) and onions. And, of course the spring gardening articles continue to inspire me. Unfortunately, my aspirations exceed my “naturnal inclinations”. (like maternal, but related to things in the natural world)

Still, a recent article in the Temple Daily Telegram (Life Section May 16, 2010) makes me want to keep trying. “Growing food in pots can be easier than planting” has a certain appeal to me, but there’s no rational reason why it should. After all, my recent exploits with all sorts of plants in pots has net rather dismal outcomes. I used to be good at this sort of thing. A plucked coleus leaf would spring from a plastic cup under my care. Vines would trail along dividing walls and a beloved  dracena once sprouted three stalks, grew to the ceiling and then turned a right angle and grew another four inches before flowering. These brief moments of horticultural grandeur keep me plugging away. I had it once; it can’t be that far gone.

Besides, the article quotes a woman who says, “It’s so easy to put a tomato into a pot. It almost grows itself.” Surely I can grow something that grows itself.

So I’ll follow the instructions in the paper and experiment bringing together food and flowers as the article urges. I’ll try that “eye catching” combination of cucumbers, coleus and begonias. Having a rosemary that has overtaken my front garden – my one success – I’m less certain that I’ll try potted rosemary surrounded by lettuce, I like the sound of viola delicately tucked among some long-legged broccoli plants and spinach growing alongside mounded chrysanthemums. But it all sounds so easy that I can’t help but be suspicious.

If I can at least pull of the potted lemon tree featured in the article, none of the rest will matter. I’ll just make lemonade and enjoy a gardening-free afternoon.

Love and Septic Tanks

@360love announced that they would post your Valentine Tweets today and tomorrow. So here’s what I had to say first thing this morning.

I guess it wasn’t romantic enough because it’s not showing up on their web site. According to my calculations, my tweet should be appearing right about here in between @RichardAZ and @bobgarrett.

Now I realize that my tweet may not have seemed romantic. Even my friend Harris once asked if I had gotten married or hired a handyman!

But wait until you hear the whole story – all of the stuff that doesn’t fit in 140 characters.

Terry insisted on digging down to the septic tank clean out to save us the $50 per hour to have Yount Sewer do it. After digging four holes through rock, clay and roots yesterday, he called Yount who assured him that they could find it and would give us a break if Terry wanted to help dig.

Well, two more holes later this morning and still no sign of the cleanout. Terry sent them on their way, called the Health Department to secure a map of the location of the tank and discovered that it was not at all in the place any of them had expected.

But even that was not enough to actually get to the clean-out so the sewer company suggested we rent a back hoe.

A back hoe!!!

Instead, my dear husband (wanting to save me money) drove to Temple to get a metal detector that would register when he hovered over the re bar reinforcement in the lid frame and clean out handle.

My dad offered to share the cost since he was due so my dear husband took it to my parents and dug up their septic tank before returning to the field of holes in our own backyard.

Finally 10 hours after he began digging, the two cleanouts are liberated. Now we wait until we can get back on the septic service dude’s calendar.

Terry is beat.

And he’s tired.

And he needs food, and love, and a funny movie.

Perhaps even a massage.

And I’ll tend to him as he tended to our home today.

Of all of the symbols of Valentine’s Day – flowers, candy, fancy dinners and champagne – the most un-Valentine’s-Day-like thing would have to be sewage.

But I look at this hand-dug hole in my backyard …

…and I think about the the aching back that did what needed to be done and the blisters that will surely be tender tomorrow.

Our love began with a flurry of romantic rendezvous in Chicago and New York. The grandeur of the opera palaces and the intimacy of romantic dinners were intoxicating. And I treasure those memories of a whirlwind romance that played out at a dizzying speed in dazzling environments.

But what I believe in my heart, is that sometimes love is most fully expressed when elusive septic tanks are conquered.

This is how I know that our love is as tough and rock solid as the Central Texas clay and bedrock in our backyard.

And now, my husband needs me. Or at least I owe him my attention.

Fixing up the house (Up on the Roof!)

It has been amazing to watch Terry work around the house here. He’s an artist.

It was just about this time of year last year when he asked me to marry him. It was so romantic – under the Christmas tree at Lincoln Center after the opera. But I didn’t say “yes” until after he came to visit me for two weeks and co-hosted a party between Christmas and New Years. One morning sitting in the garden room, he looked up at the ceiling that was leaking and said, “This has a 1 12 pitch and should be at least a 4 12. I’m going to fix that for you.”

I joke that I fell in love with him at that very moment, but that’s not true because:

1. I was already in love with him
2. well, like I said, I was already in love with him, but that morning stands out because it was the first time I realized that I was falling in love with him over and over again at unexpected moments for seemingly insignificant things.

Less than one year later, he is making good on his promise and is working his tush off rewiring, adding (it seems like miles of) propane tubing for two fireplaces, plotting the wiring for a drop down TV screen in the kitchen, add wiring for three mood lights, installing registers and tubes that are used for heating and air-conditioning.

So I share excerpts fo an e-mail exchange I enjoyed with a good soul

On Dec 8, 2008, at 12:27 PM, Harris J. Sokoloff wrote:

almost forgot two things: the second much more important than the first:

1. Take a look at the first item on http://www.gse.upenn.edu/commentary

2. How the heck are you? How’s married life?

To which I responded

Married life is wonderful!!! I am so sickeningly in love.

Hubby has removed roof over garden room and is installing heat, air, and propane so I can have fire places in living room and garden room. Will be posting video and photos on our blog later today. Been way behind on writing! http://www.viewsonmariage.wordpress.com

On Dec 8, 2008, at 12:34 PM, Harris J. Sokoloff wrote:

Taylor,

I wish for you what I have with Michele and what we work on: continued love and affection and support…..

But tell me, did you get married or hire an handy man?

Now here’s the meat of what I want serve. Here’s an explanation of why I so quickly framed my love for him in terms of his handiness with our roof:

Ah, he is a handyman, but the real reason for that story is to illustrate how hard he works to make things extra special for me. (some of the other special things he does for me, I keep private!) Also, I’ve just been marveling at his knowledge and ability as I’ve watched him do this work. Before we were married, I struggled with the decision to marry someone who is flat broke and not college-educated. But he constantly amazes me and I fall in love with him more and more every day. I’ve come to appreciate that he’s one of the smartest people I know. He’s started his own custom home repair and renovation business and every time we are at a social function in town, his clients introduce him as THE guy to call for anything you need done. I’m very proud of his talents and how much everyone in this town has embraced him.

But I so adore Harris and his lovely wife Michele that I also wanted to acknowledge how a small example from their marriage was a lesson I follow in my relationship with Terry. (My parents are at the top of the list of relationships I want to emulate!) So I continued:

You and Michele HAVE been one of our guides. Very early in our marriage, I told Terry about the time we went out to dinner with another couple. I remember how cranky the other wife was and how lovely Michele was even when you were kicking yourself for parking in the expensive garage. She just smiled sweetly and said, “well, what’s done is done. We’ll know better next time.” I use those lines a lot and it’s made my life so much more pleasant. In fact we had to use lines very much like those about a month ago when someone broke into Terry’s truck, stole his tools, found the key to the shop I bought for him and stole everything in the shop. It set us back a few days replacing everything, but my homeowner’s insurance took very good care of us so no financial hits. Terry was great through the whole thing – “It’s just stuff; as long as we still have each other…” He’s got the best attitude – even though he’s still paying $20,000 a year for a money pit (his house in Michigan) that was the only thing he got out of his divorce. (I, on the other hand have my bouts of anger at his ex!)

Terry is doing this work because it is his way of showing me how much he loves me and because we are building a home together. I feel so lucky.

We Twitter

I just re-read a twitter exchange Terry (@tacrain57 for you twitterers) and I shared last April before he moved here and we got married.

from @taylorwill: Lesson for the day: Boiling eggs do not like to be ignored and will let you know by exploding all over your kitchen. Guess what I’m doing

and also from @taylorwill: I don’t just have egg on my face, its on my floor, my ceiling, my fridge, my stove, my microwave, my cabinets, my table, my light fixtures

from @tacrain57: I guess after I get to Texas, I may need to take over part of the kitchen duties. I think I can still boil an egg. LOL Sorry honey.

After a day of cooking pounds and pounds of pumpkin with you, honey, may I suggest that we share kitchen duties. I had a ball with you today.

(But I won’t complain if you make the bacon and eggs tomorrow morning and bring me my NY Times and coffee in bed!)

It’s Soup Weather

One of my favorite events of the year here in Salado is the Empty Bowl Project. Local potters and the high school art class, donate bowls and local restaurants donate soup. For $12 you get a bowl and unlimited soup and you support that Salado Family Relief. I’m a regular so I’ve accumulated quite a few handsome bowls.

This year I got to enjoy the Empty Bowl Soup Lunch with Terry! In addition to the two bowls we got with our soup, Terry bought two more bowls to make it an even four.

There are two different styles, but they are close enough that it looks like a complete set. Eleven local restaurants contributed soup. The organizers only bring out four options at a time so we sampled Chicken, Chicken and Dumplings, Bean (mostly lentils) and Tortilla. My favorite was the Tortilla – my first choice. BUT…I hate to say anything negative about the event. BUT…after tasting our third type of soup, I asked Terry if he like any of the offerings better than my soup and we agreed that our home-made soups are the BEST. (He’s no dummy. He knows exactly how to answer those kind of questions. You know what I’m talking about. The “Does this outfit make my butt look big?” kind of questions. Or worse yet, “Which outfit makes me look thinnest?”)

So our soup tasting venture plus the cold weather we’re finally enjoying was enough to inspire us to come home and make up a big batch of soup out of the huge pumpkin that Terry got from “the compost dude”. I don’t know his name, but the Waste Management Committee that Terry is serving on brought him in to teach a compost clinic last week and Terry came home with this huge – well I thought it was a pumpkin, but now that we’ve cut, steamed, pureed and tasted it, I’m not so sure. It tastes more like a squash, but it was big, round, and orange and white variegated. Of course I neglected to get a picture of it before we hacked it apart and cooked up six batches. We pureed five quart jars worth and used six cups (or 3 lbs.) for the Amazon Bean Soup recipe we like so much.

This isn’t an original recipe. My niece copied it for me from a magazine several years ago and I just got around to making it. The first time I used fresh spinach, but this time I cheated and used frozen. At $3 per bag for fresh spinach for 8 oz. I just couldn’t bring myself to fork over the $6. (We’re in a rural area so our choices were limited.) Still, it’s a passable soup and we have plenty to enjoy for the upcoming cold spell. With Thanksgiving coming up this week, we’ll soon be posting a Smoked Turkey and Dumplings recipe!

Amazon Bean Soup with Squash and Spinach

1 Tablespoon butter
4 Cloves garlic, minced (as a rule of thumb, I tend to double the amount of garlic!)
2 carrots, chopped
1 Medium onion, chopped
6 Cups reduced sodium chicken broth
3 pounds buttercup squash (or whatever mystery “pumpkiny, squashy” fall melon you have lying around), peeled and diced (about 6 cups)
1 plum tomato
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper (I use the Chipotle peppers I used to buy at Sam’s Club that Terry bought in bulk when we discovered that Shilling was discontinuing it. I also use WAY more than 1/4 teaspoon. Who are these whimps?)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 15-ounce pinto or other brown beans, rinsed
10 ounces spinach, stemmed & coarsely chopped
1 lime, cut into wedges

Melt butter in a Dutch oven over medium – high heat. Add garlic, carrots and onion and cook, stirring occasionally until the vegetables are tender and lightly browned, 5-7 minutes. Add broth, and scrape up any browned bits with a wooden spoon. Add squash, tomato, crushed red pepper, salt & pepper & bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until the squash is very soft and almost breaking apart, about 20 minutes.

Transfer 3 cups of the soup into a blender and puree until smooth (use caution when pureeing hot liquids.) Return the pureed soup to the pot. Stir in beans and spinach & cook over med. heat until the beans are heated through and spinach is wilted, about 5 minutes.
Serve with lime wedges or pour into warmed canning jars. Screw on the tops and wait for the lids to pop!
Make 8 servings, 1 1/2 cups each, about 231 calories.

Ten Good Things about Having a Garage Sale

I know that some people who have garage sales make money. I don’t think that will be the case for me. BUT, all is not lost. I’m learning that there are upsides to having a garage sale. So here are my top ten.

Number 10

If you throw the garage sale with friends and family, you get a chance to visit with each other when it’s slow. My grandparents used to visit with their friends all of the time, but we rarely just sit and chew the fat. If we get together, we have to plan something or go somewhere or make it an event, like dinner. They didn’t feel so inclined. They just sat with each other – sometimes for long stretches without even saying anything. We’ve lost the ability to just sit with each other.

Number 9

You get reacquainted with old treasures you’d long forgotten you had. It’s a trip down memory lane. Just don’t go too far down that path. It makes it too hard to let go of those “treasures” that are really just junk.

Number 8

Speaking of getting reacquainted with old treasures – garage sales are a good chance to catch up with neighbors you haven’t seen in a long time. (Why is that? They only live two doors down, for crying out loud!) Alas, I was saddened to learn that my neighbor Tony had a heart attack last month and died in the shower leaving behind a seven year old son. Only 32 years old when he died. We really should revisit my number 10!

Number 7

You are so bone tired after it that you fall into your husband’s arms and sleep like a … well, babies don’t usually sleep through the night nor do old people. What IS the best metaphor for “sleep like Rip Van Winkle”? oh wait, maybe that’s it! “You sleep like Rip Van Winkle!”

Number 6

Walking into an air-conditioned house feels like heaven.

Number 5

After a while, you just quit worrying about trying to stay dry and you just let the sweat drip off of you like it’s a badge of heroism

Number 4

It’s a great excuse to avoid doing something you don’t want to do – like mediating an online drama involving competing values about what an upcoming meeting should be and mopping the kitchen floor. FYI, “being recently married” presents a similar opportunity, but we’re on the cusp of our 12-week anniversary so “oops, too busy, we’re newlyweds” doesn’t quite pack the same punch it did in the early weeks.

Number 3

You can have lots of fun giving away cheap sunglasses to little kids.

Number 2

It’s the easiest way to lose 100 pounds. (I’m so glad to have my kitchen table back so I can load it down with last Sunday’s NY Times like it’s supposed to be!)

And the Number 1 Good Thing about Having a Garage Sale

I don’t feel guilty eating a big bowl of low-fat chocolate ice cream topped with toasted almonds because

1. I’ll burn it off with all of the loading, unloading, lifting and carrying,
2. it’s hotter than Hades out here, and
3. I DESERVE IT!

breakfast outside

this should become a weekend tradition!

Our Wordle

our word cloud

I just generated a word cloud of this blog using wordle and was surprised to see the number of food references! It seems really odd to see husband and rotisserie positioned as though they go together!

husband rotisserie?

By the way, I don’t see “wife” on there at all. hmmm, guess we know who’s doing all of the writing!

Our First Rotisserie

Man, we’ve had some good eating lately and tonight was just another example. Lucky me. I married a rotisserie!

Terry loves rotisserie chicken, but hates the fatty things you get at the supermarket so he bought his own rotisserie. I’ve been dying to try it out even though it meant I had to drag a bunch of garage sale items onto the driveway to get to it on the bottom shelf in the garage. No pics, but here’s the recipe:

Apricot-Orange Glazed Game Hens (except that I used a chicken and peach preserves!)

Whole chicken

3 Tablespoons of Orange Juice

3 Tablespoons Soy Sauce (I use low sodium)

1/2 C Peach Preserves

Stir preserves, oragne juice and soy sauce. Reserve half to warm and serve with chicken. Wach and dry the chicken inside and out. Season inside cavity with salt and pepper (we didn’t do this, we just poured a bunch of sauce inside.) Brush chicken with sauce Cook in rotisserie for 45-55 minutes or until temperature reaches 180 degrees. Serve with warmed reserve sauce.

Terry got a large bag of squash so here’s what I did with them.

Squash with apples and onions

Saute 1/2 of large onion and dried thyme in butter until translucent. Add thinly sliced Granny Smith Apple (I used 1/2 of a very large one and saute a few minutes. Add 2-4 (depending on size) yellow squash thinly sliced. Saute for a bit, then add chicken stock and a splash of white cooking wine. I wanted it to be soupy so I used 1 Cup of chicken stock. I also put plain yogurt on lots of things I topped it with dollop of yogurt.

Serve with a crispy, slightly fruity white wine. It’s been so hot lately that I’m drinking Chenin Blanc and I haven’t done that in years. If this keeps up, I may break out a Riesling or a Fume.

Outstanding Two Week Anniversary Dinner

To celebrate our two week anniversary, I grilled up a special meal of Jamaican Jerk Pork Tenderloin, Mexican Grilled Corn on the Cobb, and Fire-Roasted Tomatoes with a cheap Chardonnay.

Here are the recipes:

Jamaican Jerk Pork Tenderloin

Pork Tenderloin (about 1.5 – 2 Pounds Total)
2 T Chopped Fresh Cilantro
1/4 C Dark Rum (I used light because it is all I had)
2 Tablespoon Fresh Lime Juice
2 Tablespoon Olive Oil
2 Tablespoon Light Brown Sugar
1 Cup Soy Sauce (I used 3/4 Soy and 1/4 C Bragg’s Liquid Amino)
1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2 Teaspoon Cayenne
1/4 Teaspoon Ground Allspice
1/4 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1/4 Teaspoon Salt

Combine all ingredients except the pork in a flat baking dish. Reserve 1/3 of the marinade and keep it separate. Trim all fat and skin from pork tenderloins (this is Terry’s job) and place them in them in the marinade. Turn to coat well. Cover and marinate for 15 to 30 minutes at room temperature. (we’re newlyweds so the pork marinated much longer than the suggested time frame.)

Place pork on 3rd burner of grill (this is specific to our grill and this menu) with first two burners set to medium and 3rd burner at low. I used the first burner to roast red peppers (they were on sale for .99 each) for a tomorrow’s lunch: Roasted Red Pepper, Roast Beef, Smoked Gouda Cheese Sandwich on mini wheat buns with Chipotle mustard. (Check back tomorrow for the recipe!)

Let pork cook using Indirect Grilling method for about 30 minutes. After the peppers were charred, I put the corn on the cob on the 1st medium flame and the cherry tomatoes in a bar-b-que pan in the 2nd medium flame.

Turn the pork loin four times while flame is on medium to sear in flavor, then reduce flame to low and turn occasionally, marinating frequently. The reserved marinade is supposed to be heated and poured over the finished product, but this was unnecessary because we let the pork marinate longer than the recipe instructed and found it needed nothing more.

So here’s how we prepared the fresh sweet corn on the cob.

We shucked and washed it, sprayed it down with PAM Olive Oil and laid it on that hot grill.

But once it was cooked, we had a few surprise ingredients to throw in. Here’s the recipe for twelve ears. I improvised for two by mixing the ingredients in proportion, but I didn’t reduce the recipe by that much and was glad that I had lots of the seasoning to share with the grilled cherry tomatoes I threw in at the last minute:

Tex-Mex Corn on the Cob
12 ears of corn on the cob
3 Tablespoons minced fresh cilantro
1-1/2 teaspoons chili powder
1-1/2 teaspoons grated lime peel
3/4 teaspoon salt (BTW, I rarely add salt when instructed and never miss it.)
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder (I’m sorry, but if it ain’t real garlic, I don’t use it. I skipped this ingredient!)
Refrigerated butter-flavored spray (I’m the grill queen so “refrigerated butter-flavored” sounds whimpy to me. I used Spray Oil specially formulated for grills.)

Place ears on medium heat until kernels bubble, pop or crinkle and show a tinge of black from the grill. (I made that up based on personal preference.) Stomp the other ingredients together in a mill or with a whisk. Grill corn then slather with mix. Use leftovers on anything else waiting to be grilled – like cherry tomatoes.

We both agreed it was one of our best meals, but we did have one minor disagreement you can help resolve. Which of the following pictures reflects correct table-setting etiquette?

Picture A

Picture B

Our table-setting disagreement didn’t spoil our two-week anniversary, but we do have a lot riding on the bet over who is correct.