25 and Counting

You get this picture today because it's Tim's and my 25th (yep, count'em) wedding anniversary, and depending on how you see things, this path can be a symbol of how far we've come together, or how far we will yet go. Anyway you look at it, I'm grateful, and joyful I might add, that we're still walking.

The Food Sox Connection

I am a Food Network fanatic. Actually, I’m better then I used to be back in the days when TV chefs weren’t mega stars and focused on teaching you to cook. Then, I watched fascinated, as Bobby Flay, Tyler Florence and Mario Batali demonstrated techniques and recipes to their audience. I even rode Emeril’s bandwagon until over-exposure made him tiresome. This channel so captivated me that years ago, unaware that shooting pains foreshadowed emergency surgery, I spent an entire Saturday on the couch, unable to eat but immersed, watching show after show.

Over the years the network has evolved into competitive prime time episodes like “Next Food Network Star,” and “Iron Chef.” These contests don’t compel me to watch as those early programs did, yet, when nothing else distracts me, I click them on, knowing that at any moment I can turn the TV off without worrying about missing the next installment. After all, I can search recipes on-line.

In the same manner my passion for cooking shows has evolved, so has my husband’s love for baseball. Having spent formative years in New Jersey worshiping the Mets, memorizing stats he can still quote for Bud Harrelson, Tom Seaver, and Tommie Agee, he’s now lived in Massachusetts long enough to support our home town team. (Though not in 1986—imagine living through that married to a Mets fan.) Most nights now though, if he has nothing pressing to do, he’ll click through the channels to the Sox. If it’s close he’ll watch; if it’s a blow out, he moves on.

So while our viewing habits are alike, the subject matter couldn’t be further apart and we struggle to find a middle ground. Like everyone who grew up in Red Sox Nation, I call myself a fan, but my interest doesn’t heat up until the end of the season; and though my husband enjoys what I cook, he has no desire to watch with me as I learn how.

As a result, here’s how things go at our house. If there’s a game on, I sit on the couch reading a book with, as my mother used to say, “one ear open.” When the announcer gets excited or my husband yells: “Yes!” I ask him what’s up. If, David Ortiz just hit a home run that puts the Sox ahead, I put the book down for a while. If Jacoby Ellsbury hits a double in a game we are clearly winning, I smile and keep reading. Similarly, if a cooking show is on, my husband grabs a magazine and sits down. When I mutter to the TV, “You’re kidding, right?” he’ll ask me what it’s about, and good sport that he is, doesn’t roll his eyes when I explain that someone just decided that shaved chocolate would taste good on lettuce. If they’re cooking with squash though, he usually leaves the room.

There are ways however, in which we come together. Play-off time for instance--when I put the book aside and focus, or with our teenage daughter, who hated baseball until she turned 10, and then became a fan. Possibly this had to do with winning the Word Series, but whatever the reason, now, if the Sox are on when she enters the room, she’s glued. She checks the newspaper for scores over a bowl of cereal and asks “What is going on here?” when for example; in the weeks after the All Star Break the Red Sox are stinking up the joint.

But she will also stop and watch when “Ace of Cakes” is on, commenting, “I love this show” or ask me what Giada is making on a Saturday afternoon. In this regard, both my husband and I have a committed partner with whom to experience our enthusiasms, which means that food and baseball become fodder for discussion over family dinners. Over supper, they update me on recent trades, and my daughter and I tell my husband that it was Melissa who won the final of the “Next Food Network Star.” We bond as a couple via this child whose tastes in entertainment are more complex then either of her individual parents.

Here though, is where my husband and I play on the same team. We were both disappointed when our daughter chose not to play softball, but agree that when she makes my aunt’s oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, she scores an out of the ballpark grand slam. Oh yes, and in our mutual sighs of relief that Food Network finales occur in July and not in October.

The Week In Review

No words of my wisdom gained--a peaceful picture instead.



Webb Memorial State Park

Ugh

Yesterday's post...

I wonder if by some super-secret X-ray means, my daughter’s oral surgeon knew my history of wisdom teeth extraction. Did someone whisper a heads up to him about the drill breaking in my mouth, the roots rapping themselves around a nerve causing damage that still exists today--the incision in my gum that bled all day, resulting in extra, non-Novocain stitches twelve hours after surgery--the world that spun and weaved and disappeared in a faint that required an extra hour’s observation before I could go home?

He must, somehow, have known all that when he sat across a mahogany desk from my daughter and me five weeks ago, laughing and teasing our girl about boyfriends, while drawing diagrams explaining the ease of the surgery these days. In his winsome, salesman voice, he persuaded us that the procedure would be quicker--not even an hour, the incisions smaller, the swelling less, the chance of infection or complication minimal--all this added to the bonus that our girl only had three of the offending molars to be removed. No kidding, we left the office smiling that day. “Piece of cake” we laughed to each other high-fiving. It is a wonder sometimes, how at my age I can still be so naive.

Here is what that charming, 6’7,” white-coated doctor did not mention. That I would deliver a rosy cheeked, smiling teen to the office first thing, and within an hour feel my stomach plummet as the nurse guided me to a hollow eyed, crooked faced girl who couldn’t talk because of the bloody gauze stuffed into her mouth. He failed to reveal the chance that I would drive that woozy child home hiccupping all the way--advanced notice that the anesthesia had disagreed with her and that she would vomit repeatedly for hours, unable to swallow pain medication for the oozing holes in her jaw. He didn’t talk about the shadows under her grey eyes, the tears that pooled after the last bout facing the toilet, or the hurt that would stab at her like daggers until the afternoon when she finally held the pain pills down.

He did not share that I would sit with her on the floor of our yellow-tiled 1950’s bathroom, reminded of how many times before I have held her hair back as she’s leaned over, or squinted at the gray stripe in the tile while dispensing midnight doses of antibiotics for ear infections, strep throat, bronchitis. That today, like so many of those other times, I would long to snatch the pain from her and swallow it, but instead, could only support her as she leaned her head into me, rubbing her back because that’s all there was to do other than to pray, “Please God, make her feel better.”

It was only a matter of hours, and she’s peacefully sleeping right now. Before she relaxed though, I saw an echo in her eyes of a tiny, jovial infant who’d never before felt pain. A baby who stared at me in wounded disbelief after I’d allowed the doctor to fill a needle and administer her first set of shots.

The Glass Half Full

This week, I guess it’s a food blog because the positive side of unemployment is that I got out there all summer and watered and fertilized and now I’m in tomato heaven. I know, by next week it could be tomato hell. In the meantime, try these two recipes:

Tomato Sandwich with Basil Mayo*

1/3 cup fresh basil leaves
1/2 cup purchased mayonnaise
1 clove garlic
1 tsp lemon juice
One tomato sliced warm from the vine
Two slices of rustic wheat bread

Chop garlic in a food processor. Add basil and pulse until finely chopped. Add mayonnaise and lemon juice and pulse to combine. Spread some of the mayo on each slice of whole wheat bread, top one piece of bread with the fresh sliced tomatoes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste, top with remaining piece of bread. Inhale.

* The leftover basil mayo may be used to brighten up any sandwich. We’ve used it on turkey and ham sandwiches, but my favorite, so far, is above.

I'm trying to make do with what we have and other than for milk, cut down on the extraneous trips to the grocery store during the week. So I was working from the cupboard, the refrigerator and thank goodness the backyard here. Last night, we were going out, I needed an easy supper, and Sunday’s lemon roast chicken that we had eaten in some variation three days in a row was not going to cut it. In the old days (aka when I had a job), I would have run out to pick up something quick to eat. As we know though, that’s not a wallet friendly option. This was.

Greek Style Pasta

1 Tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic minced
2 Tbsp chopped red onion
1 cup cherry tomatoes sliced into halves or quarters, depending on size
3/4 cup chicken broth
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
2 Tbsp chopped fresh oregano (divided)
1/4 cup crumbled Feta Cheese
1/2 cup pitted Kalamata Olives sliced in half
8 oz dried linguine
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts (optional)**

Cook linguine in boiling salted water until al dente. While the pasta is cooking, heat the olive oil in a saute pan on medium heat until hot. Add onions and saute for one minute. Add garlic and saute until onions are tender. Add cherry tomatoes and chicken broth and simmer until broth is reduced by about half (about seven minutes). Add red wine vinegar and one tablespoon of the oregano and simmer two more minutes. Add cooked linguine, Feta Cheese, remaining tablespoon of oregano and Kalamata Olives to sauce in the pan and toss until all liquid is absorbed. Sprinkle with pine nuts if using. Season to taste with salt (very little, olives are salty) and pepper and serve immediately.

** Pine nuts are optional because I forgot to add them. If you make this and include them, let me know me know how it tastes. We were fine without.

Pointing Out

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to live in a lighthouse? I’ve pondered that thought since discovering The Word from Old Scituate Light, a blog about a family who moved into the keeper’s cottage at the lighthouse one town over. I can hear the young daughter chatting away with a friend. “Where do you live?” “Oh, down at the point.” “Which house?” “The one at the end; you know, the one with the tower attached?” I imagine her response to an English composition assignment: "What makes you special?" as something like, “I may be an regular kid, but there aren't too many people who live in a house like mine.”



Other than a power walk past it with a friend this summer, I hadn’t visited the lighthouse or the jetty lately. So yesterday, after lunch at our one of our favorite home cooking spots, in acknowledgement of the last day before school begins, my daughter and I drove the winding lane around the harbor to the lighthouse. Years ago my husband and I actually climbed the stone tower itself during an open house. Recalling that, I pictured iron steps leading up to a little girl’s circular bedroom, which of course is not the case; the house is attached to the tower, not a part of it.

Respectfully keeping my distance—the cottage is a home after all—imagination was the only thing traveling beyond the “Private Driveway” signs where orange kayaks and a white compact car resided. Finished in weathered grey shingles, bordered by a rock-lined garden blooming with fall mums, the keeper’s cottage stands New England stark and plain. Without the white tower stuck to its side, it would resemble a modest home like any other. Only to the left the teal blue Atlantic somersaults, and out front and to the right, granite jetties point like fingers to the channels and moorings of Scituate Harbor.

Wandering the public area, ankles giving as I picked my way over the sloping sea rock lawn, I mulled what it would be like to wake at dawn, surrounded by water on three sides as the fiery sun heaves itself over the horizon shelf, or, during the adventure of a fierce Nor’easter. I can hear the wind moaning and whistling around corners, the clank of the halyard on the flag pole out back barely audible over the crash of water hitting the jetty. We’ve visited the lighthouse after storms, when rocks and seaweed litter the parking lot behind it. The jetty and tower likely protect the keeper's quarters from the open sea, but there’d be little sleep during the relentless tossing and turning of an angry winter night.

Storms are only part of the story though. Someday, the little girl that lives in the house will be my age. Perhaps she’ll live in Iowa, or Kansas, surrounded by children who have never seen the ocean. Taking a deep breath, she’ll describe the rumble of lobster boats departing at sunup and the shriek of seagulls hanging suspended as they beat their wings against a strong east wind. Closing her eyes, once again she'll listen to rocks that clatter and tumble as the green sea recedes and have to yell to be understood over the boom of the waves. Her nose will wrinkle at the briny smell of seaweed at low tide, strong enough to taste. She'll witness the color of the sun, setting pink below the blackened outlines of the town across the harbor--the utter darkness at night as she peers out to the sea.


Lighthouses obviously mean a lot to me. What living circumstances inspire you?

Worth the Wait

Each spring, when I optimistically plant tomatoes into faux ceramic pots on my shady patio, I picture the ripe fruits chopped up for a salsa. If you have never tried fresh salsa, let me assure you that the taste is so far and beyond anything you can find jarred on the shelf that it well worth a little extra effort.

With my salsa in mind, I plant cilantro in a window box attached to the green railing around our cellar hole, though each year it grows too rapidly and droops well past the bolting stage by the time one tomato ripens. No worries. It’s worth the mouthful of flavor I get when I pluck a leaf and give it a chew, and a few chopped blossoms tossed into to a marinade for pork or fish always add to the party. This May, I went all out and planted jalapenos beside the tomatoes in the pots. As expected at this point, the cilantro looks like yellow straw hanging down from the window box but the tomatoes and jalapenos grew right up together. A quick trip to the grocery store for some fresh cilantro yesterday and we were good to go.


Fresh Tomato Salsa with Homemade Lime Tortilla Chips
No additives, no preservatives. Just yum.

Salsa

Pick all the ripe cherry tomatoes you can find off the vine (2 cups)*
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
2 Tbsp red onion minced
1 clove garlic minced
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
2 Tbsp fresh lime juice
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
Salt
Pepper
*Alternatively, use three or four medium (fist sized) tomatoes of your choice, seeded and chopped.

Using a serrated knife cut the tomatoes in half or in quarters depending on size. Mix with the six following ingredients. Add salt and pepper to taste. For extra spicy salsa, leave the seeds in the pepper. This recipe makes a pretty soupy salsa. For a drier salsa, let it sit for about a half an hour at room temperature for the flavors to meld, then pour salsa into strainer to release the juice before returning to your serving dish. Hmmm, I never thought of this before. Next time I might preserve the liquid and mix it with olive oil for a Mexican salad dressing.

Chips

Three small (8 inch) whole wheat tortillas
Cooking spray (or olive oil)
2 Tbsp lime juice
Kosher Salt

Preheat oven to 425.
Cut each tortilla into eight wedges and place on cookie sheet. Spray each wedge lightly with cooking spray (or sprinkle with olive oil). Brush lime juice onto each wedge and sprinkle with kosher salt. Bake in the center of the oven for five minutes watching closely until the edges start to brown and chips are crispy. Serve with salsa.