Friday, July 30, 2010
Dean: "Can you keep an eye on that guy for me?"
Posted at 7:22:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Me: "Where? Oh! Sure. ...He's going up. ...He's doing a loop de loop!"
Craaaaazy! At first I thought he was just ascending and his plane had a lot of pickup (like the Bluesmobile) and then he went upside down!! :-)
"I've got six on each arm, and two more around my feet!" (I haven't posted that in a while. Totally digging The Band today. Lots of "fool" songs, and Richard.) I'm in an insanely good mood. I keep smiling for no reason, helping people out, giving people compliments. At the farmers' market this morning, a little girl doing the NEAT Program had dropped her pint of blackberries on the sidewalk and the container opened and a whole bunch of them fell out, and she was standing there not knowing what to do with a huge "oh no! tragic!" look on her face, so I said, "Oh, they're all right if you just rinse them off before you eat them" and bent down and helped her gather them all back up. They weren't smashed or anything. She looked so relieved and said "Thank you!" after they were all back in the container. :-) Also, The Band band was at the market again today! But that was a coincidence, because I started listening to my LIAD CD in the car before that, totally by accident, because it was in the #2 slot and I took out the CD in the #1 slot when I tested out a CD to give Susie yesterday. I had no idea LIAD was even in there. I haven't played it in ages.
Posted at 4:33:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I almost forgot about the market this morning because I was thinking about getting ready for New York, but Dean reminded me. It's a good thing he did, because it was great! I got tiny marble-sized fingerling potatoes (red and white, hand picked by me), Violet Queen cauliflower, and 2 different types of skinny purple snakey eggplant (one solid, one striped), all from George Hall's Ogre Farm. The Violet Queen cauliflower is really weird looking; I hope I have time to take a picture. [Edit: I did, but I don't have time to post it (assuming it turned out okay) until I get back from New York.] It sort of looks awful, but maybe it's one of those "the uglier the yummier" things. It's quite bizarre--more like a bouquet of flowers than a head of cauliflower.
I also got three soaps from the Whey Better soap lady, because I really liked the bar I bought two weeks ago (even though it's not as good as CT S&C). One is a gift, because it has a great name. :) I think my O'Rourke's stand pals were sort of watching me with fond amusement at the next table because I was looking at the soaps in huge detail, picking up a million different bars to smell them and taking forever to carefully choose which ones to get. Very Laura. Oh yeah, and I actually bought something from O'Rourke's table today! I got a pistachio "scuffin" (a tiny scone/muffin) to bring with me to Klekolo and eat alongside my coffee. Tina told me again how much she loved my lobster roll photo (I posted it to their Wall on Facebook) and I told them I had lunch at O'Rourke's yesterday with my friend.
Before having my scuffin and Single Bohemian at Klekolo, I took so long arranging them on the table that a random guy commented, "It's almost like a religious ritual." Ha!! Me: "Not a religious ritual--I just want to photograph them!" The scuffin and coffee were great together. :) Speaking of rituals, when I was ordering my drink, I told the barista (the one with ten thousand weird piercings) that coming there after the market appears to be my new ritual. Him, a couple minutes later after finishing making the cappuccino: "Did you say there was a farmers' market??" Me: "Yeah, every Friday morning on Main Street in front of It's Only Natural Market. It's really cool--they have music and everything!" Him: "I'll have to check it out!" I hope he does.
As I was leaving Middletown, I saw the O'Rourke's guy walking down the sidewalk to O'Rourke's (it was around 2 o'clock, so the market was just over) and I honked my horn at him and waved. Ha! I saw him turning his head but I'm not sure if he recognized me or waved back because he was behind me by then. But he probably did, since I parked my car right in front of the market and he saw me snailishly transferring all my produce to my softsided cooler in the trunk to keep it cold. :)
Future food, if all goes well. Ken asked me to save the seeds from a mini-Profit melon and send them to him ("These look really good -- I never buy melon here unless I want to play softball!"), so this morning when I cut my remaining melon for breakfast, I did.
Posted at 10:19:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I have never done this before, and it's actually pretty exciting. I was really careful to scoop out every seed; instead of something to throw down the garbage disposal, they suddenly seemed precious and full of potential. When I was rinsing them off and picking out the slimy bits and trying to spread them out in a single layer to dry, I kept thinking about how cool and amazing it would be if they actually grew in Hawaii and turned into melons that other people could eat and enjoy.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
I forgot to mention, I stopped at John's for a bang trim from Michelle on Tuesday and she was finishing up her previous client so I had to wait a little while, and while I was waiting I was talking to John about Suder's (he thinks he told me about it a couple of years ago, but actually I knew about it before that) and how great their tomatoes are, and he asked me how I fix my tomatoes. I said I usually just eat them straight, or in a green salad, or with basil and mozzarella (or cottage cheese!). Then he told me what he does with them: potatoes and tomatoes. You cut up potatoes, cook them, cool them, peel them, and mix them with cut up tomatoes, olive oil, and salt, and maybe a little black pepper. (He stressed that the pepper was optional, but the salt was so obvious it was barely worth mentioning.) So that night I made potatoes and tomatoes using a nice ripe Suder tomato and the cute little fingerlings that we bought at the Block Island farmers' market. Some of them were so tiny, they were marble-sized! I cut up the bigger ones so they'd cook evenly, and did not peel them. I also threw in half a leftover avocado I had in the refrigerator, and tossed in a bunch of this great sea salt Susie gave me. When Dean saw the dish he was kind of what-the-hecked and thought he wouldn't like it (just a big pile of cold potatoes and tomatoes!) but when he tried it he agreed that it was really good! Just something about the flavors of the potatoes and tomatoes goes together really well. You have to eat both in each bite. I knew a recipe from John would have to be good!
Posted at 7:33:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I had lunch with Susie at O'Rourke's today! I got a maaaaaa burger and she had a BLT, but it included no mayonnaise. We both thought that was just wrong. Fortunately, they gave her some on the side when she asked. It was hot there. O'Rourke's really needs to get some fans. It was still tasty and fun, though! She said the first time we went to O'Rourke's together I ordered two huge things (pancakes and something else) (I think it might have been a lamb burger) and the server didn't think I could possibly eat all that and was totally astonished when I did. I don't remember this at all, but it sounds like something I'd do.
Posted at 7:01:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
After lunch, she took me to this cool Italian ice place that's right near the ION exit if you make a really sharp right turn instead of going straight. I've driven by it a million times but never noticed it before. It's called Vecchitto's and they've been in business 1930. They're only open from Memorial Day to Labor Day, 12:30 to 9:30 pm (wow, those are my kind of hours!). It was really cool and looked like it hadn't changed in forever. I loved all the old-timey freezers. The counter guy was super nice and friendly, and we each got a lemon Italian ice because that's the classic flavor. It was so good! I'd never had a real Italian ice before, just those ones you can buy in the freezer at a convenience store or grocery store a few times, and it was nothing like that. Those are all hard and frozen, but this had an amazing soft consistency. It was really great! I will have to take Dean there some time. There was a Vecchitto's truck parked in back that said their website is http://www.vecchittos.com/ but that seems to be a dead link, unless it's just not working today. They have a facebook group page that gives the same link.
For supper, we had four ears of corn (two each) from Suder's and they were SO GOOD. Aaaaah! I forgot that it gets even better later in the summer. The corn we've been eating for the past few weeks has been great, but this was incredible. Suder's corn is the best. It was so delicious and tender and crispy...
I also got two Inferno Peppers for Dean because this old lady at Suder's was telling me how great they are, and I asked her about it and she told me ALL about how to cook them and everything! She kept rhapsodizing about how delicious they are (she eats them with tomatoes and eggplant on rye bread!). She told me to leave the seeds inside because that's what makes them hot, and bake them in the oven but watch out because your whole kitchen gets overcome by pepper fumes. Instead I made them on the grill. I cut around the seedy part and pulled it out with a toothpick, then put in olive oil and breadcrumbs (Dean's suggestion) and stuck the seedy part back in like a plug, then wrapped them up in aluminum foil and grilled them for about 15 minutes. I tried to turn the packet over halfway through but tons of FLAMES shot up out of the grill from the drippy-down juices!!!! It was very exciting! Afterwards I realized that clearly that's why they're called Inferno Peppers! Anyway, Dean really liked them. He made me try a tiny piece and it was pretty tasty (I am NOT a pepper fan) and not ridiculously hot, but definitely hotter than something I'd eat. I suggested that I should buy one of every kind of pepper Suder carries (they have a LOT of different kinds of peppers...) and do a big contest where I write down the names on the foil and grill them all up at the same time and Dean can rate them, sort of like the salt-tasting we did when June visited. That sounds super fun! We will have to do it next week. He made me agree to try a tiny bite of each one, though. :-(
When you want to iron, it's a lot more effective if you plug in the iron and not the electric pencil sharpener. Why do they both have identical looking black cords??
Posted at 12:06:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Plain goat (Redwood Hill Farm) on blueberries (with or without other fruit) is really good. The flavor of goat yogurt goes even better with blueberries than regular ol' cow does! Also, check out the super-cute personal-sized Profit melon I got at Suder's! I ate it for breakfast, just like Jim Profit. Well, not just like, but I did eat it for breakfast.
Posted at 10:27:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Wow--I can't believe it! I'm finally caught up on ALB again, thanks to early-birding. GOOD. It's really annoying constantly lagging behind by several days. I'm sorry ALB's quality is sort of slipping. It's hard to write true anti-linear spontaneous type posts when just editing a big html file (and trying to patch together scraps from e-mails I send myself). I don't know why the interface makes a difference, but it does.
Posted at 9:56:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
It's easier to wake up (not get up, but be awake once you do) early when it's not all dark and rainy out...
Posted at 8:35:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
I have now listened to "Deep Blue Sea" 48 times. I like to play it multiple times before I go to sleep. It has a little way to go, but I predict it will enter my "Top 25 Most Played" list in iTunes soon.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Cut and folded/ironed some straps. Oh, and in less than a week I have listened to "Deep Blue Sea" 40 times.
Posted at 12:37:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Early To Rise-ing is pretty great when it comes to doing lots of stuff during the day (and being nice and leisurely about it!) but very un-great when it comes to being too tiiiiiiiired at night to work on stuff.
Posted at 11:12:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I started a new bag! It's a very special bag, for farmers' markets. I am too tired to write about it or work on it anymore tonight, though. Will report in detail later. Also: Savers is great.
The Salt Exchange posted on FB tonight, "The 10 most-used herbs and spices in restaurants according to Datassential Menu Trends Direct: 10. Salt; 9. Black Pepper; 8. Oregano; 7. Parsley; 6. Dill; 5. Rosemary; 4. Cilantro; 3. Ginger; 2. Basil; and the number one spice used in restaurants is [insert drum roll and rim shot here] GARLIC"
...and I commented, "WHAT?? Why isn't SALT #1? I think the order should be (based purely on my own personal preference, mind you): 1. Salt!!! 2. Dill 3. Rosemary 4. Cilantro 5. Parsley 6. Basil 7. Ginger 8. Black Pepper 9. Oregano 10. GARLIC. Restaurants use TOO MUCH onion and garlic! Good thing The Salt Exchange has its priorities straight. ;-)"
Sitting in my car at Draghi Farm listening to a AM 1150 special on farmers' markets. Izzi Greenberg, the North End Farmers' Market director, is on! (I knew to tune in because she posted about it on FB.) The CT Grown guy [Rick Macsuga from the Department of Agriculture] said this year is an extra-good one. Everything is early, we've had some good rains, and pretty much no tomato blight. Strawberries, raspberries and blueberries all at the same time! Ha, Izzi and the host are talking about how cool pattypan squash are! :-) Great special... It's really long, and all about the North End market! Get food to people in Middletown. Dif vendors every week keeps people coming back. I had no idea it would be an entire half hour segment!
Posted at 12:50:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Another totally pathetic farmers' market (Middletown South Green)--only 3 vendors: Gotta's Farm, Linda's Sweet Memories Bakery, and Killam & Bassette Farmstead. I bought a few things just out of a sense of duty. Pretty location, at least, and it's soooo nice out. I'm taking a walk up Main Street to Klekolo for an iced Single Bohemian!
Posted at 11:40:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
We ate our first Suder tomatoes tonight. They tasted the way tomatoes should taste. Also, double-fold bias tape is amazing.
Posted at 12:01:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Monday, July 26, 2010
We lost our power again, at about 8:30 this morning! It's totally wacky, because all the neighboring roads have theirs. Fortunately, I am practicing getting up early this week (so I'll be all acclimated for NYC with Antonina this weekend), so I'd gone to bed early, and all the UPSes beeping were a good alarm to help me wake up before my real alarm (set for 9:00) rang. I'm all nice and alert and don't feel 1,000 miles behind at all.
Posted at 12:52:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I'm writing this on my Netbook using the free Wi-Fi in my ORIGINAL Starbucks--the Manchester one! It looks a lot different than when I used to come here 10 years ago. The barista even made me a good tall dry for-here cappuccino. He said cappuccinos are more fun to make than iced drinks because they actually require some concentration and there are things that can go wrong. I agreed and said that I'd had plenty of cappuccinos that had gone wrong, and he pointed out that I order a very "subjective" drink. True. He did a good job, though.
Before I came here I went over to Evergreen Walk, and there's a new ceramic painting place there! V. cool, since I actually searched to see if there are any in CT and found none. Maybe I will go there some time and make another This of some variety! I think it would be a really cool gift for my Gs. I also went to Anthropologie (of course), and they had a whole bunch of new versions (different solid colors and a new print) of my Speckled Ink dress, but they are all inferior to mine! I can't wait to wear mine in New York.
Sunday, July 25 2010
Friday = North End Farmers' Market in the rain, then Susie's in the rain. Candyland with Alex. :) We were planning to go to the Lyme Farmers' Market at Ashlawn Farm, but it was too rainy, so I just went to her house anyway and hung out. Nice way to spend a rainy Friday!
Posted at 9:50:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Saturday = early o'clock rise for Nantucket Farmers' and Artisans' Market! We thinking of going to Block Island for a hounding/beaching on the way back, but when Dean was about to load the hounds into Lex, he discovered that mine had a flat tire. We planned to leave by 9:00, and he thought he could change it in time, so I said OK, but if it got to be 9:00 and it wasn't done yet, that would be the cut-off point. However when I was helping him change it (by holding my bike up/steady while he did the other stuff), I kept getting all dizzy and practically passing out! It was totally weird. I guess it was a little hot/stuffy in the garage, but not really to a noticeable degree, and I don't normally get all dizzy for no reason. I had to keep stopping and sitting down on the steps so I wouldn't faint. It got to be 9:00 and we didn't have the tire back on (it's complicated on our folding bikes), so we stopped and left the hounds at home. In the car on the way to the airport, I told Dean the flat tire must've been a Sign that we weren't supposed to take the hounds and go to Block, and when we didn't heed the Sign and tried to fix it, me getting all dizzy was a further Sign. Clearly! In keeping with my theory, it turned out to be a good thing we didn't bring the hounds, because when we were on Nantucket a big storm system came in on the radar and it would have ruined our beaching/hounding if we had been on Block. As it was, we just had a fun and leisurely wander around the town in Nantucket, something we normally never do because we have the hounds with us. I got some great echinoderm fabric at the Fabric and Design Shoppe (not the real name), and a fantastic ALB-colored neoprene Palma/camera case at another store. It was only $15, not $300 like most things in Nantucket stores. :) It was a nice temp for walking, but would have been too hot for hounding on Block. All the Nantucket people (taxi driver, etc.) kept commenting about how hot it was, but it was very refreshing compared to home.
After lunch at The Even Keel and ice cream (later) at The Juice Bar, we flew home using a circuitous route along the edge of the huge super-tall storm clouds. I took a picture of a smaller one that showed its anvil shape! (Anvil = classic thunderstorm cloud configuration.) Oh yeah, the Farmers' and Artisans' Market itself was interesting, but it was mostly artisans, with only three or four farmers out of the 35 stands. The only thing we bought was yellow squash! They had good appropriate old-timey music (fiddle!) and cool signs at either end of the blocked-off road. Looked good with the cobblestones and brick. :-)
The best thing we went to, though, since we had tons of time, was the cute little Maria Mitchell Association Aquarium. It was sort of like the nature center at Hammonassett Beach State Park. I asked the entrance room lady a zillion questions about the small clutter of beach findings on a shelf (a whale vertebrae, a baleen plate, a skate case in a jar with two tiny just-hatched skates, a weird egg case from a different kind of whelk, etc.) before we even went into the real nature center part! I'm good at talking to people at little marine nature centers, because I know a little bit about those things and am curious to know more, so I can ask intelligent questions. She was impressed by my observation that the baleen plate was sort of like fingernail material.
The actual aquarium part was pretty small, with only a touch tank and two little rooms with tanks containing locally-collected marine life, including Carribean-area fish species that had gotten off-course and come all the way up to Nantucket. We recognized most of them from diving. The coolest part was the Lion's Mane jelly, and I had a big conversation about it with a very knowledgeable boy who was helping out at the museum. I asked him tons of questions! The touch tank had non-dried out whelk egg cases, snails, hermit crabs and steamer clam guys with big sticky-out necks. Dean kept picking up hermit crabs that were grabbing onto snails that were grabbing onto sticky-out neck clams! :-)
