The Kittalog

You say tomato

2008-10-12T00:02:00.002-06:00

I say tomatoes.
I thought I'd better pick what was left of the ripening crop, then chickened out and brought them all in. They can ripen on the counter, most of 'em.

Meantime, who's got a good fried green tomato recipe?

I would've run to the store for cornmeal and buttermilk to cook them tonight, but a little more gentle arm-twisting pulled me out again.
The tomatoes can wait.

I'm working really hard today

2008-10-11T16:26:00.002-06:00

Got talked into going for mani-pedis instead of goofing off at home. Dang, it's cold out. And raining. But my nails look nice.

Last raspberries?

2008-10-11T10:37:00.000-06:00

Three months' worth isn't a bad crop (I picked the first ones July 16). It's supposed to snow and freeze today, so I expect this is the last batch I'll pick.

Though the canes are in a protected corner, so maybe I'll get a few more next week. Maybe.

I am not my mother's daughter

2008-10-11T00:02:00.000-06:00

At least when it comes to candy. If there's any at the office, I'll eat it, but at home I forget it's there. Whereas Mom has been known to mock-yell at me for not telling her about the M&Ms I'd bought for baking. If there's candy in the house, she can't resist it.

So I forgot about the giant bag of Halloween candy until today, when I craved a little sweetness after dinner. It's not lame little lollipops or miniature Tootsie Rolls, either. I buy the good stuff. Milky Way. Butterfinger. Snickers. And one of Mom's favorites, Three Musketeers. All stowed away in a high cabinet with the extra cleaning products and paper towels.

In fact, I bought this bag on Sept. 16, the day I wrote my letter to Costco. If you click on the link, you'll even see the candy there in my cart. (And no, Muriel Cooper of Costco Community Relations never answered my letter. I got no response at all.)

I really did buy the candy for Halloween. But one piece, or three, won't hurt. A gal needs dessert once in a while.

If the kids leave any, Mom, I'll save it for you.

Empty nest

2008-10-10T14:25:00.003-06:00

Now that it's cool enough to walk Sophie in daylight again, I am discovering neighborhood changes that happened in the last few months.

It took me a minute to realize that this empty lot used to hold a house I knew well. Do you recognize it?
Of course you don't. But maybe this picture will jog your memory (if you've been following my blog for a while):
I posted in March about the old man who lived there, whose death I only knew of when the house was being cleared. Cleared of everything that made it special. Or horrible, if you feel that way. I didn't, but I don't live next door.

Another empty lot, another promise of something to come. But what?

It won't be nearly as interesting, I'll hazard.

Every good dog ...

2008-10-10T00:03:00.000-06:00

... deserves a bone.
Sophie had just enough time for a quick gnaw before I left for work. She looks good, all clean, brushed out and fluffy. The groomer didn't clip her body, just face and feet, with a little tidying of ears and tail. She's building up a good winter coat to keep her old bones warm.

Cooking for Engineers

2008-10-09T11:52:00.004-06:00

For whatever reason, I dated engineers and computer science majors in college almost exclusively. Seriously, I can only think of one guy who wasn't a wonk. Me, I was a double major in French and Communications, but I was a geek, too. A geek from Milwaukee, though I tried to cultivate a Bohemian air.

Of course, dating engineers had one big advantage: I was using computers to write papers and socialize long before it became the norm, because the boyfriends showed me how. We're talking daisy wheel printers and 7-inch floppies here. Commodore SuperPets in the E-school lab. Chatting terminal-to-terminal and playing Adventure on the DEC-10.

Well, I'm still a geek, and it has stood me in good stead (witness my masterful bloggiing skillz. I haz 'em!).

So. You might guess that as a geek and a cook, I'm a fan of the Cooking for Engineers site, where Michael Chu breaks down recipes in all their technical glory, talking about variables and chemical reactions and other nuances of the science of cooking. (But we won't talk about my attempts to follow along with his mayonnaise recipe.)

I was excited to see he's hosting a contest of his own, sponsored by HP, to give a lucky winner a laptop computer. All you have to do is take a photo of food with "CookingForEngineers.com" somewhere in it.

So I just spent an inordinate amount of time setting up my shot. Took it and uploaded it, above. Then discovered I'd forgotten to put .com on the end, so I shot it again, below. Sadly, the light wasn't so good for the second one. But I'll give it a go. Cross your fingers for me!
P.S. Can you name all the edibles in this picture?

Nooooo! Don't make me go!

2008-10-09T08:26:00.002-06:00

It's Grooming Day and someone doesn't want to get out of the car.

(Photo from my cellphone.)

How random!

2008-10-09T01:54:00.007-06:00

If you say the word "random" enough, either out loud or in your head, it starts to sound strange and disassociate itself from the meaning. Actually, you can do this with just about any word. Word word word word word ... see? It's kind of funny, but disturbing at the same time. A little taste of aphasia, and how I hope I never suffer from that.

Anyhoo, it's time to announce the recipient of my little thank-you to my regular visitors.

I originally was going to cut up pieces of paper and stick 'em in a percolator. But as the numbers crept higher and higher, I grew disenchanted with that idea. My generosity doesn't extend to RSI.

Happily, Biggie at Lunchinabox.net directed me to Random.org, which will generate a random integer for you. Her Mr. Bento offering got 926 responses! She really is that popular (and deservedly so), even if you factor in the vultures.

Anyhoo, I came up with a total of 148 responses, after removing duplicates and anonymous responses that didn't include emails.

I asked Random.org to give me a random number between 1 and 148 and – ding! ding! ding! – the Crown of Caffeination goes to No. 12! And who might Commenter No. 12 be? Why, it's Claire Walter of Culinary Colorado. Congrats, Claire!

In your comment you expressed a fondness for medium roast, so that's what I'll send (but if you'd like dark or between roast I can do that instead). Email me with your addy and I'll dispatch it posthaste.

Thanks, everyone, for chiming in with your java jones. Who knew there were so many ways to enjoy a cuppajoe?

I want this truck

2008-10-08T12:45:00.008-06:00

1954 Ford F100 with 300,000 miles on it. Still with original owner. He paid $1,200 for it new.

(Posted from my cellphone.)

Irony

2008-10-07T13:24:00.000-06:00

Amidst the towering redwoods of Northern California are the even more massive trunks of bygone behemoths that fell or were logged.

There was also an ironic bit of litter:
A Natural American Spirit tobacco can, complete with smoking Indian.

We tossed it in the (car) trunk and recycled it.

Posole party

2008-10-07T08:42:00.001-06:00

This batch was not as stellar as I had hoped. I think I cooked it too long. But it's still reasonably tasty and will provide a few more work meals.

Frost warning

2008-10-06T23:35:00.005-06:00

My garden's all ready for Halloween: "Woooooooooo ... we are the ghosts of tomatoes unharvested ... wooooooo."
Though it's supposed to be unseasonably warm all week, tonight may dip close enough to freezing to pose a threat to all the tender vegetable plants still laden with ripening goodness. So out came the old sheets to keep the babies warm. (Yet another reason why you should never throw away old sheets.) I also covered the tomatillos, beans and peppers.
I harvested every tomato that had a hint of ripeness, just in case. That's the colander on the right. The ones on the left I picked a couple of days ago and need to seed and freeze.
Note the handy-dandy headlamp, which made the late-night harvest possible. If you don't have one of these, you should.

Cross your fingers, please, that the tomato vines don't become ghosts for real. At least not tonight.

Good evening

2008-10-06T11:14:00.001-06:00

Amy posted today that she is finally going to break down and get the iPhone she's been coveting. Which reminded me of the photos I took during a lovely evening with friends in California a couple of weeks ago.

They laughed at me for taking a picture of everyone playing with their iPhones. Supposedly you can wave one iPhone at another and they will "talk" to each other. Didn't work, though.

Or maybe it was just the wine talking.

We had ample doses of that, what with some bona fide oenophiles in the room. Dinner was delicious mussles with parmesan noodles, under the fabulous former street light chandelier (still awaiting proper wiring) that was found at the Alameda Antique Fair.

At long last I got to taste the homemade Porto de Primos bottled in 2004, a combination of petite syrah and a keg of 180-proof brandy. Not knowing you're supposed to add the brandy to the wine a little at a time, they poured it all in at once. A furious chemical reaction ensued and they feared for the worst, but given four years to settle down, it turned out quite fine.

A bottle came home in my checked bag. Thanks, TSA, for not pinching it. I would've gladly surrendered my steak knife, but don't take my wine!

Across the cosmos

2008-10-06T08:36:00.002-06:00

Here's what happens when you let your cosmos do whatever they want.
What they want is to take over the universe (hence their name), starting with your yard. This batch is easily eight feet tall and thinks it can cut off all escape by blocking the path between the house and the lilacs to the left.

"What path? I don't see any path," you say. Exactly.

Certainly the bees approve:
Happily, the plants are easy to uproot, so I was able to clear out a bunch. Next year I'll be more careful about thinning the seedlings that come up. I know there will be a lot. I resisted this year because "aw, they're so pretty," but we know where that leads.

Silly kitchen gadget No. 24

2008-10-06T06:06:00.001-06:00

For the lush who has everything, you might consider this "nostalgic" martini shaker. It says it's nostalgic right on the label.

But I'm more inclined to label it "notstalgic." Oh, for the good old days when nobody believed in exercise and even shaking up a bracing shot (or two) (or three) of Tanqueray with ice was too damn much work.

Yes, for only $60, you, too, can conjure up those boozy golden days with this fabulous counter-hogging gadget and never have to set your upper-arm fat a-jigglin' again.

Available in red or black.

It's easy being green: Swiss chard lasagna

2008-10-05T11:36:00.002-06:00

All I need is a tiara! But a "Plays in the Dirt" ballcap will do (thanks, Mom!).

This bounteous bouquet of Swiss chard was destined to be a lasagna experiment. I've made lasagna with chard before, but with just a thin layer of green, and I also had asparagus in there. This time, it's two super-thick layers of chard.
I assembled this fairly late last night, so the lighting sucks, but you get the picture.

A lasagna like this couldn't be easier to make. The most time-consuming part was tearing up the chard leaves and washing them (three batches in my jumbo salad spinner). I'll sautée the stems and cook them separately for a different meal.

I spread a thin layer of jarred sauce (Safeway brand vodka sauce) in the bottom of the pan and three noodles on top (no, I do not pre-boil them, and they're just regular noodles).

A few more dabs of sauce, and a crumbling of queso fresco. Thick layer of chard. More sauce. Repeat. I had to mash the whole thing down a bit to compress the layers. The top noodles are covered with sauce to their edges and the whole thing is covered with foil to sit in the fridge overnight. The noodles will soak up sauce, which obviates the need to pre-boil.

Total assembly time was about 15 minutes (including leaf-prep).

This morning, I cooked it covered at 350 for about 45 minutes, then took the foil off, sprinkled shredded mozzarella over and baked for another 10, then turned the broiler on for a minute to brown the cheese.

You can see it sank in the pan quite a bit. Just like spinach, chard loses a lot of volume as it cooks.

Et voilà!
This turned out spectacular. The sauce is quite tangy, and the chard still has a little texture and resistance between the soft noodles (the advantage of using the really big, stiff leaves). It still doesn't have quite the volume I was aiming for, so next time I will find an even deeper pan and double the chard layers. Lord knows, I've got the leaves!

Crucify this weed!

2008-10-05T00:26:00.000-06:00

Or, Know Thy Enemy: Tribulus terrestris, puncturevine, goat's head burr, devil's head burr, caltrop burr, Mexican sand burr.
This nasty piece of work has made an appearance out on my parkway at the corner. Even since I first spotted it earlier this summer, I've been checking the area every few days and pulling every seedling I could find. Inevitably a few escaped my notice and grew big enough to present a real danger.

This flower has closed up since I pulled it. I didn't take any photos in situ because when I see this weed, I have to pull it right then.
Those pretty little flowers become spiky fruits. Already they're painful to touch.
Once they've dried out, the fruits split into individual burrs with the distinctive shape that lends the plant some of its many names.
They're the devil, I tell you!

The seeds can remain viable for 5-7 years. That's why it's important to kill the plant as soon you recognize it. You may remember my original post about the caltrop, a medieval weapon (as well as an interesting nut). Reportedly the caltrop burr itself has been used as a weapon in Africa, its spines coated with poison and the burrs left where someone is likely to tread on them.

Since they're sharp enough to puncture a bike tire, you know they're a danger to anyone walking barefoot. When Sophie steps on one, she stops immediately and waits for me to remove it.

If you see this weed in your yard, pull it pronto!

Posole and a poser

2008-10-04T13:15:00.003-06:00

With cooler weather, my thoughts turn to hearty stews and soups. The smell of roasting chiles is in the air, and snow is falling on the mountains.

One of my favorite crockpot recipes is green chile or posole. Probably I break all sorts of rules in making either one. To me, the difference between them is simply the addition of hominy. Without it, I've got green chile, and with it, posole. Whatever. The results are tasty and you can call it whatever you want.

I take a hunk of pork, about 2 1/2 pounds' worth, and cut it into bite-sized pieces. Toss them with salt, pepper and a little flour, then brown them in batches, deglazing the pan each time with some water or broth. In the past I've minced onions, carrots, celery and garlic and sauteed those, but to save time I used Alecto's method of chopping/pureeing it all in the food processor and sauteeing the result until it's dry and browned a bit.

Throw everything in the crockpot with some vegetable broth and water, and minced, mild, Anaheims that have been skinned and seeded (they were already roasted). And a big can of rinsed hominy. Let it cook for a day or so. Maybe add some frozen hash-browns (the little-bitty chunky kind) or some frozen corn. (I didn't have any in the house, but maybe I'll stop at the grocery.)

Serve it with shredded cheese on top, if you like, and tortillas.

OK, that's not great recipe documentation, I know. I just make it up as I go along, every time. But you get the idea.

And now the poser. As in question, not fashion model or pretentious git. I've learned from my last coffee post that if you put a certain word in a post title to indicate that you are offering something for free, your post will get picked up by one of those aggregator sites that list all the sites with contests and offers, and you will be inundated by people who have no interest in your blog, just in the stuff that you are offering. They're not the "faithful readers" you wanted to reward (and specifically mentioned in your post). They toss in their comments and will likely never visit again, except to see if they've won.

So what do you do? Thanks to Sitemeter, you know exactly which commenters came from that aggregator. Do you include them in the random drawing or not?

Dinner at The Elm

2008-10-03T23:14:00.002-06:00

Met up with some friends at The Elm, on West Colfax at Elm Street (natch). I present my poorly lit pint of Guinness and roast beef sandwich. Not bad, but it was so loud in there (Red Sox game on) that I couldn't hear half of what anyone was saying. And I was tired. So I didn't stay long.

Into the aspens

2008-10-03T19:59:00.003-06:00

My little hike with Sophie didn't start out the way I planned. I slept late and had to run errands in the morning, so we didn't get up to the mountains until early afternoon. Even though I knew there was weather coming in.
Really, you ignore weather warnings at your peril here. At Echo Lake we got out of the car to the rumbling of thunder. Ten minutes later there was lightning and thunder right overhead. Then a torrent of hail. (If you click on the photo above, you can see it coming down more clearly.) We beat a hasty retreat.
Farther down the road it was wet and windy, but I figured if we got into the trees we'd be all right. I left a Burger King bag on my car seat to prove I wasn't a hippie and set off on the Devil's Gulch Trail. Mine was the only car parked there; it's not a well-advertised spot.
The trail is really a road, albeit a very steep and rocky one. I wouldn't dare try taking the Subaru up it. I only saw one guy in a pickup, hauling an ATV, and later two girls heading up as I came back down.
This is what I came to see:
Sophie has a taste for beauty, too. But just a little taste.
I set my camera on a rock to take this.
Though the road is initially quite steep and rocky, once you get near the top of the ridge it levels out and is easy walking.
That's Mount Evans in the distance.
Had I started earlier, I could have gone much farther, but I didn't want to drive back in the dark, and Sophie doesn't have quite the stamina she used to. But all in all it turned out to be a nice day.

To get to Devil's Gulch, take I-70 to Idaho Springs, and then the Mount Evans Road (Colorado 130). There's a hairpin-ish turn at Ponder Point, and Devil's Gulch is about a quarter-mile above that on the left. There's just a wide shoulder for parking.

Out for a little fall color

2008-10-03T16:59:00.001-06:00

Bird and cat, redux

2008-10-03T10:07:00.000-06:00

Last year I had a bird and cat post from California; a doomed baby mockingbird and the aged, talkative Cleo (who is now more aged and still talkative). On my most recent trip, I picked up another pair.
I snapped off one shot of this hummer at a feeder while I was hidden under a patio umbrella. I got lucky!

Not so lucky was Enver kitty, fated to be forever lusting after hummers from behind a screen, with never a chance to catch one. But he has no need to supplement his diet, happily.

Keeping mum

2008-10-03T01:03:00.000-06:00

I got this honkin' big mum a month or more ago at Costco. It was so cheery I couldn't resist.
But it was starting to fade a bit (forgetting to water it enough didn't help.) So I looked around to see where I might plant it.

Along the fence was a little bare, and there are drip outlets conveniently placed.
A few minutes with the post-hole digger (my favorite planting tool) was all it took.
That mum should be well-established by the time the cold weather comes and will be cheery again next fall!

Coffee giveaway!

2008-10-02T11:54:00.002-06:00

I've been thinking of doing a giveaway as a thank-you to you faithful readers who stop by and leave such nice comments, but I wasn't sure what would be best. I considered a bag of roasted chiles, but shipping them would be tricky. However, with yesterday's arrival of an embarrassment of riches, it struck me that a pound of delicious Community Coffee would be just the thing.

If you'd like to try this great coffee, just leave me a comment (first-time comments welcome, too!) and tell me how you like to prepare your morning cup. Next Thursday I'll take all the comments and throw them into a hat (or a coffee pot?) and pick a winner. The lucky one will have a choice of dark, medium or between roast.

Thanks again for visiting and sharing coffee with me in spirit. Now you can for real!