For the last two months Josh has been back in his culinary groove. He even took our chef’s knives to be sharpened (and I was so excited about this development that I embarrassed myself exclaiming over the fine hone in the hardware store – but seriously, I’d been using a paring knife for everything for six months after I took a chunk out of my palm with a dull blade. Once again being able to cut into tomatoes like they’re butter is BRILLIANT).
(those jars on the right are waiting to be sanitized for marmalade. And we find it difficult to recycle the lovely wine bottles we collect. Josh has been known to pick up a bottle that’s been empty for three years and sigh fondly and say “Remember this tempranillo? Best one I ever had.”)
We’ve had scads of marvelous meals – chops and roasts, soups and stews, and I am getting pretty used to him greeting me every morning by asking “Do you want an omelet?”. However, none of my pants fit, so I’ve taken over the job of doling out my own portions on my plate. Otherwise, he gives me enough food for a 180-lb. man, and I don’t hesitate to eat all of it because he’s damned good at this cooking business.
There’s been a storm every weekend for a month, and in between the skies have been leaden and morose, so we’ve been making ourselves leave the house whenever we see a scrap of sun. This is Josh eating waffle fries at the restaurant he calls “Waffle”. We like to watch the ducks from the window while we stuff our faces. I figure we’re practicing for retirement. I got a strawberry soda the last time we were there and they served it to me with sliced strawberries on top and it made me happier than a four-year-old.
Almost as happy as I was the day our sharp knives came back home with us.
(Very fancy papertowels as napkins. We look for every opportunity to use our sushi plates from Studio Yria on Paros. Not that Josh will eat sushi. Though strangely his objection is to the sticky rice and seaweed, not the fish)
I haven’t been posting any pics at Flickr for awhile, though I still use my camera and my phone to document a lot of my days, so this post was intended to clear out the last few photos I’d taken. Tonight Josh is roasting us a chicken and making Greek salad with the incredible sheep’s milk feta we picked up yesterday. Normally I wouldn’t use the qualifier “sheep’s milk” because feta is supposed to be made with that, right? Yeah, well, not here in the states, so finding a slightly more authentic feta is a complete treat.
A snapshot of our newsprint-papered walls, my easel, and a small glimpse at some of the stacks of books laying around. We are in desperate need of bookshelves, and there’s four huge boxes left in the blue room still waiting to be unpacked.
I have been busy with Utopian.net and with writing, and the seedlings I wintersowed a month ago are peeking up – beans, peas, radishes and an assortment of greens. Yesterday Josh suggested I plant dandelions to make xorta with, and I was able to smugly reply – “Already did.”
But the weather has been gloomy and the seedlings look a little worse for wear, what with the freezing and thawing and so on. Our lavendar bushes are ragged and dead, I hope they come back in alright shape.
Thus endeth the litany of my recent days and how they were spent. Growing, cooking, creating, devouring, all the things that make me human.