Conversation whilst packing

Mr. Boom and I took a little camping trip yesterday. Chirp-chirp is away at her cousins' house*, so we decided to make the most of the opportunity by sneaking in a little car-camping excursion.


Where to go, where to go? We made a deal. I'd pack, and Mr. Boom would pick the location.

I finished up at the office at 3:00, went home, and packed the car. I also made sure all the animals had food and water to last overnight, and that the gardens all had enough water to survive a day without our love and care. Or something like that.


Anyway, I threw our sleeping mats, sleeping bags, and pillows in the car. I put cereal, peanut-butter, bread, crackers, and marshmallows into a box. Into the cooler went several shots of espresso, milk, goat cheese, jar cheese, frozen steaks, garlic, and cottage cheese. I grabbed our camping kitchen box, the Coleman stove, and a lighter. Car packed--hooray!


When Mr. Boom walked in the door just after 4:00, I told him to pack his own bag and we could hit the road. He had a few questions...

Him (with a hand on the cookie jar): Did you pack cookies?
Me: No, but I did pack the cheese!

Him: Insect repellant?
Me: No, but I packed the field guides?


Him: Something to start a fire?
Me: No, but I did bring the backlog of newspapers.
Him: That's what I meant.



Amazingly, we had all we needed, and not too much more. Perfect getaway. Well, it would be perfect if we didn't have to work in the morning!

So where'd we go? Little Naches River for the night, Ohanapecosh the next day. Cayuse Pass, Chinook Pass, and lots of high mountain driving in between!

*She's spent a lot of time at her cousins' this summer. The girl is two weeks older than her, the boy is two years younger. They have a hot tub, a movie theater, their own private bit of forest, and a three minute drive to the mall. Home just can't compete.

Update

Okay, starting now…?

Funny how hard it is to just pick this blog-thang back up. Writing is a habit, I guess, and like any (good) habit not practiced, the ease with which it’s practiced can be totally lost. Engulfed. Desolately twinkling on the ocean floor.

I’ve fallen out of many good habits recently, and I’m sorry to say I can’t say the same about any of my bad habits. Why can’t those two be self-balancing? I’d like to complain to the management about that one. Someone should really write a letter. Of course, I could write the letter myself, except I’m out of practice, you see.

I think the dust has settled, finally, from the seemingly-endless turmoil I’ve been bashing my way through. This spring, we had five hens and four cats. Due to this death and that disappearance, we were down to one hen and two kitties. Hardest of all was the death of Cirrus, my big fat blue-eyed Siamese wonderboy of love. He was poisoned. Why??????? But now we have two new hens, and the missing kitty (Pablano) returned home after a week gone. He was in good health, but reeked of axle grease and garage. He didn’t stop meowing for days, and still wanders around crying at times. There’s lots more, of course, but stuff I can’t share (to protect the innocent, the not-so-innocent, and the just plain kooky elderly folks in my life).

Cherries.

We have tons and tons of cherries. I’ve frozen up five gallon bags full of cherries. My mother-in-law has picked cherries, my neighbor ahs picked cherries. The birds are eating the cherries. Still, you can’t even tell that a single cherry is missing from the ever-loving ever-fruitful tree. I don’t know what kind of cherries they are. They’re bright red—cherry red if I might say so—and sweet enough to eat off the tree, tart enough to cook with. Turns out it’s really easy to freeze cherries. Just pit the suckers, throw ‘em on a cookie sheet, and then roll the little fruit marbles into a bad after a night in the freezer.

I made a cherry clafouti with some of the crop. Clafoutis are so pretty, and spoken so well of—and of course they’re French—so how could it not be wonderful? It wasn’t. Bleh. I will NOT be posting that recipe!

I think I’m going to make wine with however many more I pick. Sweet cherry wine? Like the song? That should be good, right? There’s a joke in there about judging a book by a cover song, but it’s probably a really bad joke, so I’ll not look for it any further.

Josh Ritter. Oh, Josh Ritter.

Met him at his recent book reading, music playing, and book signing. Mr. Boom snapped a photo of Josh Ritter and me hugging. Dorkeist photo ever. I don’t care. Josh spoke a bit about the process of writing. He likened the first draft of a book to building a block of marble. Editing is the process of sculpting the statue out of the marble. I laughed when he said you edit and edit, sculpt and sculpt, and hope that at the end, when you whip off the sheet, you’ve got enough arms. I’m not putting quotes around that because I didn’t get it quite right. But you get the idea.

Okay, I’m saving the rest for another post. I can’t wait to tell you about the gardens, how well the trellises are working (I haven’t forgotten that I need to post the plans for them, Tanya!!), and a bee update.

All right. Off to work on reestablishing the good habits, and scaring some of the bad back into their corners,

Kat

June Daring Bakers: Baklava!

 

Mandatory blog-checking lines:  Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.

Another month went by?  Really? I guess from looking around the garden I should realize that time's been passing.  A lot has happened in the past month, the good and the bad, births and deaths, unions and breaks, and the three of us are just holding tight to one another and desperately hoping that the quantity of "things happen" will abate. 

But really, STARTING NOW, I'm back!  I really mean it this time!  I'm back!

Erica blew my mind totally out of the water this month with her Daring Bakers Challenge to us.  First I saw "baklava."  Cool!  I can do that!  Been doing that for years!  I get a break this month--woot! Then I saw "make your own phyllo."  Surely she jests?

Nope. 

So, this month I and my other Daring Baker cohorts learned the secrets to rolling out really thin pastry.  Really thin.  Thin enough to read a newspaper through.  Chirp-chirp ran to get a section of paper for that particular test.  Did she bring me a headline? 

Nope.

Tiny print.  However, with a bit of squinting and guesswork, we were indeed able to read the article in the paper.  I will admit to skipping the test on each and every subsequent layer of phyllo I rolled out.  But that first piece?  Oh yeah.  You could read through it.

The baklava was lots of fun.  So much so, that I made two batches.

The first batch was the traditional walnut and almond with honey syrup.  The honey, of course, came from our own little hive out back.  In fact, I was chickening out of the challenge, and mentioned this to the gals in the hive.  They retorted that if they could go through the effort of making honey, surely I could go through the effort of rolling out ridiculously thin pastry. Chagrined, I rose to the challenge.

The second batch was the result of a discussion with the bolting patch of spinach.  "Surely," the spinach plants as tall as my waist said," if we're able to devote the energy to this skyscraper (in spinach terms) height, you can devote the energy to roll out more of that ridiculously thin dough."  So, re-chagrined, I did.  Accompanying the spinach in the second batch, were some onions, pine nuts, and feta. 

Cheesy green baklava might now sound appetizing, but spanakopita does, right?  And, oh yeah baby, it was gooooood.

And see those flakes on the bottom of the pan? You can read through them. Oh yeah!

To learn to make phyllo yourself,  check out these great directions given to us by Erica.  Do it!