the thing with the secret ingredient is ......

.....................

the secret ingredient determines whether we will watch Iron Chef or not

Skaterina sez she knows she is changing...

....................

she know longer cares what the secret ingredient is

Red Soup, Green Soup

we love tomato soup / we love campbells tomato soup / with a can of milk added to it

Caterina sed we have to eat up last year's crop of canned tomatoes

she made a soup that was just like cambells before you add the milk / you know, kind of thick and gorpy ?

we humored her and ate some *thinned* with milk / snore

next day she thinned the tomato gorp with some homemade beef broth and coconut milk !

wow

seasoned with Fire Salt and Black Pepper / cheddar biscuit on the side

what no croutons ?

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

now we are having Green Soup

Caterina chopped some onion some celery some greenparts of scallions and some garlic in the food processor / limped them in butter/olive oil / added a big bunch of spring spinach that had been de-stemmed and run though the processor

add jellied beef broth and simmer until barely done / cool enough to put some but not all in the blender

Miss Tickle picks fresh parsley and cilantro / chopps it up / and it goes into the soup pot

this is a very green soup / warm it up and serve with a handfull of Mexican fresca cheese cubes

divinely green with bits of spring leafiness / chunk of focaccia slathered with unsalted butter

did i mention the Fire Salt ? yummy hot

Baked Pancake

we had the baked pancake featured the other day in the New York Times for breakie today :

it is fun and easy to make :

preheat oven to 425'

lightly beat an egg, add 1/4 cup flour and 1/4 cup milk, a dash of salt and a grating of nutmeg

heat an iron frying pan with a heat proof handle with several tablespoons of butter until the butter is melted but not brown / for the amt of ingredients above use a medium size pan

pour the batter into the hot butter and immediately put the pan into the oven

bake for 15 minutes until puffed up and golden

drizzle with lemon juice and confectioners sugar and serve with fruits or jam

but we didnt do that / we steamed a little spinach in butter and chopped up some Mexican Fresca cheese into cubes / put the spinach and cheese on the pancake and back in the over for a few minutes

this was yummy

next time we will put roasted tomato/garlic jam on it

what ernest sed and what carsten did

;;;;;;;;;;;;""""""""""""?????????????^^^^^^^^^^^^^^$$$$$$$$$$%%%%%%%%%%%%

ernest hemingway said Stop when you know what you are going to do next

what carsten did is he wrote a new email for each topic on the thread of the email list we were on

in 1997

spring soup and tomatoes ......... 2007

Skaterina sez she wont grow any tomatoes this year bc we still have too many jars that we canned last fall

she likes to have one canning be eaten up by beginning of new season

just the way she is

she learned herself how to can tomatoes / tomatoes are a big deal / an obssession asitwere

Sooooo , , , , Caterina begins to make every meal with tomatoes from the shelf of 2006 canned tomatoes

she is making a spring soup called Add A Tomato

as we eat the soup she adds another jar of tomatoes

&&&&&&& , , , we will never run out of this soup

here's how :

in food processor rough chop some carrots onions celery garlic / add some sprigs of freshherbs from the window sill over the sink

chop in processor some leftover potatoes (cooked) and a box of white mushrooms

saute in olive oil and butter in a heavy soup pot

add fat pint of rich jellied beef broth and a small jar of lambriblet jelly

simmer a while and then find a pkg of amaranth grains in the ice box / add a good handful to the

soup / simmer for 30 minutes when the amaranth will be done

serve with squirts of fresh lemon juice and seasonings of your choice / salt pepper / et cetera / whatever you like : coriander cardomon cinnamon cayenne or not

after each serving/eating add a jar of tomatoes to the pot / like leftover tomato jam and a small jar of golden tomatoes (the ones shaped like giant strawberries)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

meanwhile Mrs Foley orders six tomato seedlings from where usually get them / six not twelve / whew and now we know how not to have them come too soon

two new varieties we have not had before : Black Krim and Prudens' Purple

that romantic duo : Big Beef and Juliette

and two new cherry tomato varieties we have not had before : Tomatoberry and Sugary snap


@@@@@@@@@ miss tickle will be in charge of being in charge

it took me so long to sign in i forgot what i

ghjkl

was gonna say

shake my head

,/./k/.l'k;l.'k

i shake my head so much i will get parkinsons disease

mrs foley said

see, get the symptom before you get the disease

no title

/Q/Q/Q/Q/Q/Q/

qwerty

i remember you talking about the other keyboard
last year but this child
who writes
won spelling bees
grew up to be a high school student who won writing prizes
learned to type at secretary school
lrnd shthnd
not that one
she learned Gregg which had lots of curli
q's
used this keyboard since
knee high
and is not an old dog anyway
and doesnt want to learn any

new tricks

leastways not on a typewriter
which will become obsolete when the two reams
of paper inherited from past participles
are

Gone

Wall Art

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,..,.,.,..,.,
7777777777777

from the kitchen

Happy Trail Spider Works and Bubble Preserve

chapter two

Dont Ask Questions
Ask Answers

Feng Shui

,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.


"The Chinese phrase 'First, luck; second, destiny; third, Feng Shui; fourth, virtues; fifth, education"

is worth repeating, as it shows that to some extent our fortunes and personalities are out of our

hands."

to be continued
but never misconstrued

I Skate

acres of shine
glossy glassy
slick icy sizzzle

wild ice

ups n downs

here comes the six pounds back on the belly

with every wee dram of port / heh

with every cup of tea honeyed and creamed

with every toasted square of focaccia slathered with butter

with every handful of dark chocolate, sugared ginger cubes, roasted peanuts

yeah, babe

on the upswing is oh we do so love starting over and over and over again

thank you, Miss Robey

o

ooooooooooooo

Miss Robey was our homeroom and english teacher when skaterina was a sophomore in high school

that would be 1947-48

she had a wondrously huge nose
a commanding nose
a nose like nose other nose
and she was er um truly homely

but not ugly / there is a difference / dont ask / dont tell

a memorable nose and a memorable teacher / she loved her subject / she relished her subject / when she told about shilish marner (Silas Marner) she kinda slurped through the silas part in juicy kind of way / we all came to appreciate silas marner

she assigned book reports and made us do them / smile

this is what i really thank her for / the book reports / having to get up in front of the class and risk making a fool of yourself / sheesh / it just had to be done

else how wd we get out of ourselves ?

?

what mrs foley ate today

espresso with hot milk
rice edamame corn with maple syrup bacon bits and splashes of thick cream and butter
a grain and seed breakie, that

chocolateorange bread with whipped cream

this is the cream diet

roast beef hash with Fancy Ketchup

not done yet / the day is young

Rudolph and Frosty

these fatuous tunes have been planted in my brain pan

when i was a kid Christmas music was Silent Night / O Come All Ye Faithful / Hark the Herald Angels Sing

oh where are they now ?

not in the shifty markup

Passport Picture

we decided we were having a good hair day so we went to the post office to have our picture taken for our new passport

we were wrong about the hair

and then when La Senora della Vanita looked at our pictures she pointed to our rosy cheeks

hmmmm ? she murmured

have you been drinking wee drams of port in the afternoon ?

oh no we said

our cheeks are rosy from walking in the sunshine on the desert

that's our story and we are sticking to it

we are reeling . . . . .

. . . . . .

from all the turning points and tipping points we are experiencing lately

we dont know which end is up

we run around in circles so we dont careen off the walls

worst of all we cant find the exit

surely an escapade is in the offing

now ? yes, NOW

being lazy today

so lazy i cannot describe thanksgiving again so this is what i wrote to the NewsBlog

i was prepared to give thanks that i was not cooking anything at all for the dinner bc my grandson and his girlfriend and friends from back east were putting on the ritz / they had two turkeys one for her to roast and one for him to deep fry / the guests cranked out a phalanx of pies / but somehow the gf's turkey ended up in my oven and so i made the gravy too / for which i was thankful after all / that all of them pitched in was wonderful and heartwarming / but of course, as Jane Smiley wrote on huffington post there is always someone who cries over the food / in my case it was the sheer volume of food that i fear will go to waste / whilst cleaning up i heard my daughter saying Save the Bones, Save the Bones / why, whatever for / oh we make broth and so on

it was a nice day / ironically we have a spare turkey here at my daughter's house / she lives next door to me / as luck wd have it the NYT showed how to make a turkey confit with thighs, wings, legs, garlic, herbs, salt and two quarts of olive oil

i have never made a confit before so that is how i will spend the day

btw, as i wrote on the foodblog about mash taters with cream cheese the grandkid did 'em up to our highest standard of mash taters / yay
Katherine Hunter | 11.24.06 - 9:27 am | #

Miss Tickle is making us lose our killer belly fat

she says to keep our heart drumming along nicely it is essential to dump the killer belly fat

she makes Caterina, our Cugina della Cucina, promise to stop doubling the amount of butter in every recipe

Caterina has to make a lot of stuff with fiber like Humdingers, her tasty fiber cookies

and we have to eat hot cereal with hemp seed meal thrown in

and cut down on godblossom as it makes us indiscriminately munch

like, you know, the blind munchies

pasta only every ten days

mezzo porzione / that's half a portion of pasta

we feel better already