What a glorious day! I awoke before dawn and watched the Sun come up. It was actually cool outside. Today is Saturday, my favorite day. Channel two has a ton of cooking shows on during the day and at night the show "New Tricks". The heat has ameliorated and it is time to get back into the kitchen. I did the monthly grocery shopping yesterday and was surprised that the cost of the groceries was so little. The larder is stocked for another month. I am going to try a vegetable gratin. I have zucchini and summer squash and onions and tomatoes and Gruyere. I will probably roast a chicken as the market had them for sixty-nine cents a pound ans I purchased four whole chickens. There is chicken stock in the future! I went for a walk this morning along the Blackstone Canal. The canal is solidly covered with a green mattress of algae. It was depressing. The water must be full of fertilizer from upstream. We live on this planet and there is no where else for us to go. We sleep here, we eat here, and we raise our children here. How has humanity lost the wisdom that even a bird brain has? A bird doesn't soil its own nest. Still, it is a glorious day. It reminds me of a simple painting that the love of my life once made on a board. It was full of color and the caption read "This is the day that the Lord has made.". God don't make no junk when it comes to worlds but he is a little slack with clay. Scalloped potatoes would maybe be nice with the chicken.
I didn't make it to New Tricks. I went to bed early. My stomach was full of the vegetable gratin. It was wonderful, probably the best thing that I have ever made. It takes quite a while for the vegetables to give off their water but after they do it doesn't take long to cook. I made a huge pan of it and ate it all myself. It was all that I ate yesterday. That stuff has found a permanent place on the menu. I will have to go to the grocery store and get more zucchini and summer squash. It is so good to have tomatoes again, even if they are cooked. The store had tomatoes on the vine and they are supposed to be alright. It makes sense to me that if the stem is still attached there is no way for bacteria to get into the tomato. Still, I washed them in three parts water and one part white vinegar. I do that with all produce and fruits the moment that I get back from the store. They are rinsed and dried afterward. They seem to last a lot longer that way. I gave up washing them in water and bleach as the bleach still leaves an after taste. I am probably carrying things too far but I have had food poisoning three times. Each time was the result of eating out. I no longer eat out. I have no control over what happens in a commercial kitchen but I do have in my own kitchen. I still wash the dishes in bleach and the floor. I use two gallons of bleach a month, one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom. It is something I grew up with, a Swedish thing, and it is comforting to me. To some people the smell of roast beef and apple pie reminds them of home. To me it is the smell of bleach. I am going to try the scalloped potatoes today and if they come out as well as the vegetables did, I may consider going vegetarian. I hope my brother doesn't find out. Paul won't eat anything that didn't have parents. It is rainy and cool, a perfect day for cooking. I may go out and get some white wine. It makes the chicken gravy much better and also the cook. Cooking with wine is so satisfying. A small portion goes into the food and then you sit and wait for the food to be done. Just you and a lonely bottle of wine. Let Nature take its course!
Your blog setup confuses me, I went back and forth a bunch of times to figure out why I couldn't post a comment on the first post, but I'm not that bright. I'm sorry I didn't call today, Happy Happy Happy Father's Day, I love you and am sorry that I am such a jerk. I could rattle off a bunch of excuses but the main one is, I got busy doing crap in the houses and forgot until 12:30am that it was Father's Day because we had it last night, in which case I should have called last night.....
Thank you for all you have put up with, from me. Thank you for changing my diapers, and listening to me whine, and helping me learn to walk. Thank you for every obscure thought you ever planted in my head. Thank you for pointing out the different types of columns in Boston architecture, and for showing me the Dorothea Dix fountain, and giggling. Thank you for telling me about Rachel Carson, and for providing me with a home that was "green" before it's time. Thank you for telling me that you were proud of me, when, at the time, my mind twisted trying to think of why you might be. Thank you for being flagrantly, unabashedly yourself, in every situation,and making me realize how ridiculous the whole "impressing people" charade was. You gave me confidence to question idiots at my kids' public school, no matter how well dressed they were, or how lengthy their titles. To wear holey jeans and comfortable shoes and silly hats. To save money and drive a less than sexy car. Thanks for teaching me how to drive. How to appreciate a sunset. Point out a hawk on the highway. How to be a parent.
For giving me the gift of a family, a background, where, no matter how much of a screwup I am ,"home is where you go and they have to take you"(I don't mean I am coming there, we're all fine).
Thanks for striking a wonderful bargain with me, to go back to school in exchange for getting Bruno. Thanks for not writing me off, for not deciding that I would never amount to anything.(Umm, I haven't, but I have beautiful children...). Thank you for loving me, Daddy. Thank you for basically paying child support for my kids after I married and divorced someone you were sure was a poufda, and helping us survive. Thank you. I hope I can make everything up to you someday.
Thanks for sending Mike "The Hobbit". For thinking that all of your kids were brilliant, even when SOME of us did very non-brilliant things. Thank you for your patience. For giving us Donna. For fixing my car 9 million times. For taking care of my dogs. I could go on and on all night, but won't. You see, I finally get it, now that I have my own kids. I get everything that went on in our family. I want to take them up to the top of a mountain somewhere, and live like Grizzly Adams(minus the bears).
Thanks for driving me to work in Taunton from Plymouth so I could give them appropriate notice, and still come home. Thanks for doing that whole erosion project with Ericka. For knowing at least a little bit about how to do almost everything, and not being condescending about it. I hope that I can do the same for my kids- I'll do the best I can.
And I find, like you always said, that I do, with my own kids, almost exactly what my parents did with me. I love you.
3 comments:
What a glorious day! I awoke before dawn and watched the Sun come up. It was actually cool outside.
Today is Saturday, my favorite day. Channel two has a ton of cooking shows on during the day and at night the show "New Tricks".
The heat has ameliorated and it is time to get back into the kitchen. I did the monthly grocery shopping yesterday and was surprised that the cost of the groceries was so little. The larder is stocked for another month.
I am going to try a vegetable gratin. I have zucchini and summer squash and onions and tomatoes and Gruyere. I will probably roast a chicken as the market had them for sixty-nine cents a pound ans I purchased four whole chickens. There is chicken stock in the future!
I went for a walk this morning along the Blackstone Canal. The canal is solidly covered with a green mattress of algae. It was depressing. The water must be full of fertilizer from upstream. We live on this planet and there is no where else for us to go. We sleep here, we eat here, and we raise our children here. How has humanity lost the wisdom that even a bird brain has? A bird doesn't soil its own nest.
Still, it is a glorious day. It reminds me of a simple painting that the love of my life once made on a board. It was full of color and the caption read "This is the day that the Lord has made.". God don't make no junk when it comes to worlds but he is a little slack with clay.
Scalloped potatoes would maybe be nice with the chicken.
I didn't make it to New Tricks. I went to bed early. My stomach was full of the vegetable gratin. It was wonderful, probably the best thing that I have ever made. It takes quite a while for the vegetables to give off their water but after they do it doesn't take long to cook. I made a huge pan of it and ate it all myself. It was all that I ate yesterday. That stuff has found a permanent place on the menu. I will have to go to the grocery store and get more zucchini and summer squash. It is so good to have tomatoes again, even if they are cooked. The store had tomatoes on the vine and they are supposed to be alright. It makes sense to me that if the stem is still attached there is no way for bacteria to get into the tomato. Still, I washed them in three parts water and one part white vinegar. I do that with all produce and fruits the moment that I get back from the store. They are rinsed and dried afterward. They seem to last a lot longer that way. I gave up washing them in water and bleach as the bleach still leaves an after taste. I am probably carrying things too far but I have had food poisoning three times. Each time was the result of eating out. I no longer eat out. I have no control over what happens in a commercial kitchen but I do have in my own kitchen. I still wash the dishes in bleach and the floor. I use two gallons of bleach a month, one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom. It is something I grew up with, a Swedish thing, and it is comforting to me. To some people the smell of roast beef and apple pie reminds them of home. To me it is the smell of bleach.
I am going to try the scalloped potatoes today and if they come out as well as the vegetables did, I may consider going vegetarian. I hope my brother doesn't find out. Paul won't eat anything that didn't have parents.
It is rainy and cool, a perfect day for cooking. I may go out and get some white wine. It makes the chicken gravy much better and also the cook. Cooking with wine is so satisfying. A small portion goes into the food and then you sit and wait for the food to be done. Just you and a lonely bottle of wine. Let Nature take its course!
Your blog setup confuses me, I went back and forth a bunch of times to figure out why I couldn't post a comment on the first post, but I'm not that bright. I'm sorry I didn't call today, Happy Happy Happy Father's Day, I love you and am sorry that I am such a jerk. I could rattle off a bunch of excuses but the main one is, I got busy doing crap in the houses and forgot until 12:30am that it was Father's Day because we had it last night, in which case I should have called last night.....
Thank you for all you have put up with, from me. Thank you for changing my diapers, and listening to me whine, and helping me learn to walk. Thank you for every obscure thought you ever planted in my head. Thank you for pointing out the different types of columns in Boston architecture, and for showing me the Dorothea Dix fountain, and giggling. Thank you for telling me about Rachel Carson, and for providing me with a home that was "green" before it's time. Thank you for telling me that you were proud of me, when, at the time, my mind twisted trying to think of why you might be. Thank you for being flagrantly, unabashedly yourself, in every situation,and making me realize how ridiculous the whole "impressing people" charade was. You gave me confidence to question idiots at my kids' public school, no matter how well dressed they were, or how lengthy their titles. To wear holey jeans and comfortable shoes and silly hats. To save money and drive a less than sexy car. Thanks for teaching me how to drive. How to appreciate a sunset. Point out a hawk on the highway. How to be a parent.
For giving me the gift of a family, a background, where, no matter how much of a screwup I am ,"home is where you go and they have to take you"(I don't mean I am coming there, we're all fine).
Thanks for striking a wonderful bargain with me, to go back to school in exchange for getting Bruno. Thanks for not writing me off, for not deciding that I would never amount to anything.(Umm, I haven't, but I have beautiful children...). Thank you for loving me, Daddy. Thank you for basically paying child support for my kids after I married and divorced someone you were sure was a poufda, and helping us survive. Thank you. I hope I can make everything up to you someday.
Thanks for sending Mike "The Hobbit". For thinking that all of your kids were brilliant, even when SOME of us did very non-brilliant things. Thank you for your patience. For giving us Donna. For fixing my car 9 million times. For taking care of my dogs. I could go on and on all night, but won't. You see, I finally get it, now that I have my own kids. I get everything that went on in our family. I want to take them up to the top of a mountain somewhere, and live like Grizzly Adams(minus the bears).
Thanks for driving me to work in Taunton from Plymouth so I could give them appropriate notice, and still come home. Thanks for doing that whole erosion project with Ericka. For knowing at least a little bit about how to do almost everything, and not being condescending about it. I hope that I can do the same for my kids- I'll do the best I can.
And I find, like you always said, that I do, with my own kids, almost exactly what my parents did with me. I love you.
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