December festivities...

It's late December and Christmas is just around the corner, I finished my shopping, the presents are wrapped, now to watch many Christmas movies!


(Also, Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad!)

autumnal timeline of photographs starting with a pumpkin.

I realize with the business of life these days I haven't been my best blogger self. So, I've compiled several photographs of the past few months that haven't been posted, but have a place in this blog. 

It all starts with this lovely pumpkin that I found at the farmer's market:

Feasting for Dad's birthday—Happy Birthday, Dad!

The photo's a bit blurry, but the joy here is very clear.
Thanks Mary Jean for the photos!

Thanks for the beautiful engagement party, Mom & Dad!

baking the pumpkin.

Happy Thanksgiving!

more greens I harvested from my garden, I think I've even got some carrots now.

Okay, so I didn't get a good photo of just the two of you that night, but Happy Engagement Megs & Ben!

My pumpkin pie! I made the crust too, and aren't those cut-outs cute? 

chopping shitake mushrooms, parsley, and garlic for the red wine mushroom dish with quinoa.

Thanks to Blaine for sharing his deer meat with us. It was delicious!

When Ray returned from England I surprised him with tickets to see David Sedaris read
at the Garden District Book Shop, it was a good time indeed.

How's that? Much more to come! 

kale harvest!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I've much to be grateful for, and enjoyed spending time with family over a good meal. More to come..... I just need to finish up a few papers!

Blaine's show, The Whelming Part I, and his artist's talk with Ray.

Not too long ago, Blaine's show opened at the gallery; it's part one of a two—the second of which will open in January. It's an incredible show. Here are a few photos:

Shortly thereafter, Blaine and Ray decided to work on a discussion together about their work. It was a really wonderful way to spend the evening, and I look forward to doing more of these discussions at Coup d'Oeil Art Consortium. 

how the garden is growing...

bok choy

kale and butternut squash plant

carrot tops

Since my last garden post, I've acquired a few new plants from the farmer's market; carrots, bok choy, a lettuce green, and I'm hoping to plant one more in the little plot in the courtyard.

echinacea.

comebacks and cakelettes

It's been too long since my last post. 

So I made you some cakelettes:

Coming up, I'll show you how well the garden is doing! 

garden.

I've been wanting to do some gardening ever since we moved in— so I recently found time to tidy up a few soil beds in the courtyard for planting. A couple weeks ago I bought an echinacea plant at the market, and this weekend I bought a butternut squash plant and a kale plant. After some weeding and turning of the soil, I planted them in their new homes; I hope they do well! 

itty bitty echinacea sprout.

Sautéed Shrimp & Milkshakes for Labor Day

Over the Labor Day weekend, Tropical Storm Lee passed through the area, but its drizzling rain and mild winds offered a slower pace to life and were not threatening (and thank goodness!). I sautéed fresh, local shrimp in garlic and butter to eat with french bread. Afterwards we ventured to The Creole Creamery for a taste of something sweet. I tried a scoop of the Oatmeal Cookie ice cream and Ray had his favorite. . . a vanilla milkshake. 

"and the Earth begot..."

Michele Basta's show opened this weekend at Coup d'oeil, and the gallery looks so mythical now, come check it out! 

and so the ladies took a trip to the beach.

A much needed visit to Sandestin...

Sitting under the most yellow umbrella.

Megs looking beautiful and ready for the beach.

Isn't it lovely?

scenes from our apartment.

Things are coming along in our apartment, and while it isn't entirely polished, here are a few peeks. . . 

(still looking for the right lampshade...)

Isn't it nice to love the home you return to after a busy day?

summertime, summertime.

I know it's been a while since my last post, but we've been busier than usual with settling into our new place! I've been wanting to post photos of the apartment, but temporarily misplaced my camera, so I'll post this one and take more current ones to post later... it's looking much more like home! 

moving, moving, moving, moving...

We've moved! And now that things have taken a slower pace, I'm able to post! And I'll have some photos shortly. There seem to be so many boxes (now empty) that any photo might appear an abstraction of brown cardboard.  Through all this moving I've realized I have quite a collection of books, a heavy load of New Yorkers and National Geographics... I think those are good to keep, do you? and all of the old things I found, like newspaper cut-outs about gymnasts I admired, oh, and receipts from the 90's. It's strange the way we accumulate things. 

we're budding mycologists! kind of...

Meet our shitake mushroom log:

Ray gave me a mushroom log for my birthday! This photo above was taken after its initial soaking. Right after it arrived, we soaked it in ice-cold water for 24 hours. Because it's so warm here,  kept it in the fridge, with a few breaks for sunlight (which it needs, though very little). The log has been embedded with spores, and this initial soak shocks them into believing it is winter, so that when they are removed from the cold, they respond by fruiting for the warmer season. The log stands upright in a saucer and needs to be kept in a cool, shady and humid place-- something that simulates the forest floor. 

Here's what happened in week one:

After the last photo we harvested our fruit. We left a couple of the smaller ones on the log to see if they'll grow bigger, and we're wondering if we'll get more mushrooms by next weekend when the log needs to be soaked again. It's kind of amazing how quickly they grow! Here's where you can find one: http://shiitakemushroomlog.com/

madeleines!

I've always wanted to give madeleines a try... & while Ray and I were in England, I bought a couple from the French Market that visited town. And they were truly delightful, these little treats, plumply yellow and moist with a hint of lemon... So today I gave them a try. I used a recipe from the newspaper's food section, but this recipe from smittenkitchen looks perfect.

how do you like your shrimp?

Remember the jumbo shrimp I mentioned in the last post? 

We peeled them, but left the tails on, so we could stuff them with crab meat, like so:

Unfortunately I don't have a photo of them out of the oven, they were gobbled up!

local seafood + my birthday.

Birthdays feel like a personal new year, yeah, that sounds accurate. In this sense I feel I want to see how I've done with my new year's resolutions, or maybe make some new ones? 
Life as a quarter-centurian has been great so far. It was a very nice long weekend filled with a visit to the Farmer's Market (where we bought some beautiful fresh jumbo shrimp and squid), plenty of cooking, even yard work (our compost will be happy). 

I'd never cleaned squid before, so Mom showed me how it's done. Squid aren't a common catch, but sometimes a few will get in the net. Mom said growing up, her family used to save them until they had enough to cook. 

First, you cut off the tentacles. You need to cut out the beak in the center, then they're good to eat as is. Next you turn over the mantle, and slice it open. Things can get messy as you clean out the insides... sometimes the ink sac releases the dark ink, which I'm thinking now, we could have saved for squid ink pasta (I've never tried that before).
Once that's cleaned out, you remove the quill, the backbone of the squid; it's also called the feather, or the pen.  

a pile of quills and a few beaks. 

Then you remove the skin of the mantle. (We did this, however, I recently heard that you don't have to remove the speckled skin).

this is what the end-product looks like. 

I found a recipe in the Williams Sonoma cookbook for fried calamari and gave it a try, they turned out nicely! 


(next post... Jumbo Shrimp)

Atticus

I take Atticus with me to the gallery, and when it rains, she hides beneath my chair. 

Today she is a little zombie-like after a visit to the Vet.