Category Archives: Cooking

Cooking

Cooking With Clay

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Winter                                            Waning Moon of the Winter Solstice

A long time ago I got a clay pot for cooking, a romertopf.  Over many years I used it at least every several weeks, then it went in the cupboard, not to come back into the kitchen.  Until today.  A free-range chicken, 40 of our garlic cloves, two of our onions and the last of our leeks went in with the last of our carrots and 7 small potatoes.  Cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes at 475, take the top off to let it brown and voila!  A tasty, moist chicken with sides already done.  Throw in a steam in the bag collection of green beans, a Kate made chicken gravy and we were ready for lunch.

My cooking tends to be like that, large amounts with leftovers, whether soup or chicken.

Cooking, Great Work, Politics

Politics and Juicy Lucys

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Winter Solstice                                                           Full Moon of the Winter Solstice

Matt’s juicy lucy’s are a gourmet treat to this Indiana boy.  There’s just something about hamburgers, a, and hamburgers with cheese, b, that makes me happy.

Justin Fay, the Sierra Club’s new lobbyist, and I met there to discuss the upcoming session of the Minnesota Legislature and how we might work our issues in this new political world.  Justin’s a pro and we share a similar pragmatic outlook toward politics and government, be mostly right and win, rather than 100% right and lose.  That means he’s a good pick for a lobbyist.

Lots of new twists to the political work this session, not the least among them, a friendly governor.  We don’t know how to work yet in a friendly governor, less friendly legislature setting, but we’ll learn.

While I waited for Justin, I looked at the bar and tried to figure out what made them popular places.  Yes, alcohol, I know, but beyond that.  Matt’s has a lowered, dark ceiling, dim lighting and food.  Women serve men.  Entertainment–TV and jukebox–are the primary non-food/booze elements.  It looks like a cave.  You come in, blinking from the bright snow and the darkness and warmth creates a sort of instant intimacy, a feeling of safety and camaraderie.

Mark Odegard’s introduction to his man-cave in his new place and Paul Strickland’s in his made me aware of the similarities between what many men value in decor and the inside of bars.  Pretty close.

Cooking, Great Work, Health, permaculture, Politics, Weather +Climate

Working At It

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Samhain                                                Waning Thanksgiving Moon

All day today at the Sierra Club finishing up the first round of interviews for the new policy position.  A bit much for me in terms of people interaction, though very interesting in terms of the people I met.

Afterward, I had to eat dinner in the city because we ended at 4:3o, the gut of rush hour.  I knew I needed a good hour and a half, so I chose the Red Stag, a full sit-down meal with dessert.  The Red Stag serves local beef, lamb, vegetables and I imagine, fish, though I don’t know that for sure.  The food is excellent.  I had the grilled lamb on chopped leeks with carrots and kale.  Following through on my decision to eat more vegetables and fruit, I have also chosen to eat only half of what I would have normally of the entree.  That means I have a small box of lamb and leeks with one whole carrot of the six on the plate in the fridge.

This time I made it up the driveway with no problem thanks to the quarry derived granite grit I put on the slope yesterday.  The night has turned colder, heading down perhaps below 10 degrees by tonight.  9 degrees Acuweather describes as extreme cold; 4 degrees, predicted for tomorrow night is extremely cold.  These folks are not from here.

Aging, Cooking, Family, Memories, Weather +Climate

Thanksgiving Eve

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Samhain                                                      Waning Thanksgiving Moon

Grocery shopping this morning, the day before Thanksgiving.  Like traveling by air on a holiday.  Like going to see the Tower of London in July.  Like shopping on Black Friday.  I went early though and it wasn’t too bad.  There was the man with one turkey in his cart, a shocked disorientation on his face, his white hair wild.  A woman with black flats, a wool skirt below the ankle and a helmet like cloth hat strapped under her chin.  A woman and her mother, mom in a white faux fur coat, shiny cloth pants and dangly ear-rings with zircon or diamond but I’d bet zircon.  The clerk from Nevis.  I had a farm near Nevis.  Oh, where?  On Spider Lake.  Oh, a friend of mine has a resort on Spider Lake.  Did you find everything you were looking for?

The message board had advertisements for guys offering snow plowing services.  I memorized a number, 227-9899, and called for a free estimate when I got home.

Sleepy now, Latin this afternoon and evening, Thanksgiving tomorrow.  A restaurant meal for us this year, Axel’s Wood Roast in St. Paul.  Annie’s coming up.

Art and Culture, Cooking, Friends, Weather +Climate

Cooking on A Snowy Day

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Samhain                                                                 Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

A nap, then, making more chicken pot pies.  I have the various skills down now, so I make it up.  This one has a leek, onion, garlic bottom with a layer of chicken topped with corn and peas, all drenched in thickened chicken stock made from Kate’s boiling the chickens.  40 minutes or so in the oven and we have  future lunches, dinners ready to freeze and one ready to eat.  A lot of standing, the only part about it I don’t like.  Otherwise the cooking is a creative act for me, one I enjoy.

I haven’t been outside today since I will neither shovel nor plow these thick snows, heart attack snow.  It’s just too clumsy and heavy.  Besides, the snow will melt before it is anything more than a nuisance.  Glad we live in the burbs where we have no sidewalk on days like this.

Looked over my plan for my Thaw tour and I plan to keep it the same.  I’m not sure what happened last Thursday.  Might have been first time through jitters or somehow the chemistry between me and the group didn’t click.  Something.  If it happens again, I’ll assume it’s something to do with the tour. Then I’ll look at change.  Of course, I’ll still be in the equation.  Wherever you go, there you are.

A friend is in this photograph in front of the Swedish Institute.  He’s on the left in the blue vest.  This is the Minnesota Santas group at their pre-season social event.  What would a five year old think?

Bees, Commentary on Religion, Cooking, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Garden, Sport

Grounded

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Lughnasa                               Waxing Back to School Moon

Finished digging the potatoes.  The crop seems smaller than last year’s, but I can’t tell for sure.  Still, we don’t eat potatoes often and we have enough to last us quite awhile.  Kate made an early autumn roast vegetable medley with onions, carrots, leaks, garlic, beets and one potato I pierced with the spading fork.  It was delicious.  So was the raspberry pie–of which we have two.  Our raspberry bushes have been exuberant.  We’ve still got leeks, greens, beets, carrots and squash in the ground.  Some of it will stay in the ground until the frost and freeze gets serious.  I made a mistake last year with the carrots and didn’t get them out before the ground froze.  They became organic matter for the soil.  We also left our entire potato crop out in our garage stair well.  When the temps dropped down, way down, the potatoes froze, then thawed.  Not good for potatoes.  We’re trying to not make those mistakes this year.  We’ll make new ones!

Working with Leslie today reminded me of the punch there is in ministry.  Yes, the institutional confines squeeze life out of faith, but the individuals, the people can put it back.  She asked me an interesting question.  We got to talking about Christianity and she wondered, “Do you miss it?”  I’m not sure anyone has asked just that question of me.  I don’t, not at a faith level.

I miss the thick web of relationships I once had there.  I miss the opportunity to do bible study.  That may sound strange, but higher criticism of the bible is a scholarly affair requiring history, language, knowledge of mythology and tradition, sensitivity to redactors (editors), an awareness of textual differences, as well as a knowledge of the bible as a whole.  I spent a lot of time learning biblical criticism and I enjoyed it.  Not much call for it in UU or humanist circles though.

By the time my nap finished it was too late to put the shims in the hives.  I hope there’s some clear, sunny time tomorrow.  Also need to put the feeder back on the package colony.

The Vikings.  Not sure.  Favre needs some better wide receivers, yes.  The defense played well.  Adrian Peterson did, too.  It felt as if we were outcoached the last two games.  Not sure about that, that’s a murky area to me, but something doesn’t feel quite right.

Bees, Cooking, Great Work, Politics

Busy, Busy

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Lughnasa                                  Waxing Back to School Moon

Whew.  The new queen came today in a perforated UPS box, complete with a court of five worker bees.  After spraying them with sugar water, I took them out to the honey queen-bee-mdhouse where I pushed in the cork at the end of her wooden home, inserted a marshmallow (tiny) into it firmly, then opened the divide, took off the honey filled top hive box and inserted the queen in the middle of the second box.  This is called a slow release.  The queen and her workers eat away the marshmallow from one side, workers in the hive from the other.  Over the time this process takes, so the theory goes, the new queen becomes less threatening to the workers, who then allow her to come out and become their new monarch.  If it doesn’t work, they kill her.  I won’t check for another week.

With the queen in her new castle (hopefully), the grocery store was next on my list since Kate has a cold and she likes my chicken noodle soup when she’s sick.  While I made the chicken noodle soup, I also cooked lunch.  After we ate lunch, Kate went back to rest and I went outside and picked yet another several cups of raspberries.  Our bushes have been prolific this year.  The chicken noodle soup had our carrots, onion and garlic.

When the raspberries were inside, I worked downstairs answering e-mails while I waited for the soup to finish cooking so I could add the egg noodles and the peas.  At the end of that.  Nap.

After the nap I had to sort out a vote on legislative priorities for the Sierra Club and respond to a few more e-mails.  This took me up to the time to leave for the Minnesota Hobby Bee Keepers Meeting at the University of Minnesota.  The man who runs nature’s nectary, Jim, was there with a refractometer to measure moisture levels in honey.  Our capped honey was 16.9%, a little thick and the uncapped honey was 18.3%.  Since honey is anything below 18.6%, both of our batches were fine.

Home again where Kate and I ate some soup, watched a little TV, put the dogs to bed and then headed there ourselves.

Cooking, Family

Chicken Leek Pie

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Lughnasa                                Waning Artemis Moon

The chicken leek pie has cooled down and sits in the refrigerator awaiting lunch tomorrow.  Using our own leeks, onions, carrots, parsley and thyme made the cooking fun and satisfying.

Kate’s first night back at work and she was the only physician scheduled.  Unusual.  She came home tired, but no more tired than I would have expected after major surgery and a two month lay off from the standing and walking she does at work.

Well, tomorrow will come soon.

Aging, Cooking, Dogs, Family, Health

Feeling Better. Me. Dwindling. Hilo.

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Lughnasa                                    Waxing Artemis Moon

Ah.  It seems the nasties have journeyed on to other warm bloody creatures, leaving me in peace for now.  I hope my body now recognizes and will fend off these creatures that live only to replicate and in so doing make us feel bad.  But they don’t care.

Groceries this morning.  Filled up the cart with fruit and vegetables and turkey burgers, soy milk and slim milk, Sharps and Diet Cherry Coke, a bit of feta cheese, some sliced turkey for the dogs, a few cheese curds, some peanut butter, oops, just realized I forgot the cereal, chicken breasts.  You know.  The stuff of daily eating.  It was church time while I shopped so I suppose we were all heathens in there, except for those righteous Catholics who went to Saturday night mass.  Grocery shopping has a soothing quality.  It combines shopping with a genuine need so the selection of items reflects not so much consumer driven behavior–though that does rear its head–as it does animal needs.

(The Mexicans do mercado better.)

Hilo has, as Kate says, the dwindles.  She’s becoming very thin and tentative.  We believe she’s lost the better part of her sight.  Last week she seemed frightened, wide-eyed and jittery; this week feels different.  Perhaps a resignation of sorts.  It’s sad to watch her fade away, but she still lives her life.  Napping with us this afternoon, going outside to wander around the yard.  Eating a bit now and then.  Live until you die.  That’s what I want for me and for her.

The sewing machine is on its movable platform, the wind-up reels for the cloth are in place, we attached a high-tech stitch regulator and a laser pointer to the apparatus that allows Kate to guide the needle.  Now it’s RTFM, a couple of extension cords and she’ll be ready to practice.  No more taking pieced work out for quilting, now it happens here, right in our lower level.

Bees, Cooking, Our Land and Home

Bee Diary Supplemental

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Summer                                     Full Grandchildren Moon

Kate’s made the woodenware for Artemis Hives.  Dave Schroeder suggested we mark each piece with the year made.  As we start eliminating frames and hive boxes on a five year cycle, we’ve got the record right on the box.  This year, with no marks, will be 2010.  Next year she’ll start marking them year by year.

Kate and I have been investigating honey extracting equipment.  It’s not cheap, but it’s not break the bank expensive either.  We have to have a certain level of equipment to lw-pwr-extractorget from honey supers to bottled honey, most of which will go in canning jars, but some will go in fancy jars as gifts or to sell at a farmer’s market.  This is the next to last phase of beekeeping and one still new to me.  The last phase of beekeeping comes after the honey extraction.  The colonies will need inspection for varroa mites and nosema before late fall.  Doing this stuff is also new to me, but I have to learn at some point.

(this is one unit we’re considering right now.)

We had a designer come out to discuss a water feature for our patio area.  He showed us some brochures, talked with us a bit and recommended a pondless solution.  Sounds great to me.  Once you’ve had a swimming pool, you know the hassle pond maintenance brings in its trail.  This one has a pump and running water filtered through sand and rock.  It’s not cheap, however, so we’ll have to decide.

Roasting a chicken.  Brenda Langton suggested some meat, chicken or lamb or turkey, made at the beginning of the week, serving as a meal entre, then as sandwich or salad fixings, finally boiled in a soup.  It’s a nice, straightforward way to plan a week, easy, too.