Twice, we had forgotten to get more sugar. I never run out of sugar: it’s just one of those things that’s always there.

Angel food cake time of year and–well that was brilliant. I’d already separated the dozen eggs. Hah, maybe I could…

Going next door to borrow a cup of sugar sounds so delightfully old-fashioned (and half-embarrassing to have to, just like way back when. But we don’t go shopping on the Sabbath, and that was something that was entirely understood back there back then. Maryland was the last state to let go of its Blue laws that enforced the religious concept of a day of rest on many commercial establishments–because Sunday isn’t every religion’s Sabbath. Nor is everybody religious. Equal protection under the law. No governmental establishment of religion. Totally reasonable to revoke. Done.)

The thought also always takes me straight back to–

–I don’t think I had ever actually attached the word “refugee” to her. She was just Vicky. But when your colonialist mom sews what she can of the family fortune inside the hem of her little girl’s dress right before they flee the country in order not to lose that one last bit of all that they had…

As a young woman, that little girl became a nanny to one of my dad’s artist clients, who brought her along with his family on a trip to the US. My mom was cooking dinner for twelve rather than eight and she found herself out of sugar. Knowing Mom, it was surely to bake fruit pies.

She asked Vicky to go next door to borrow a cup.

Vicky came back astonished: Madame! Your neighbors! They are Jewish!

Mom was astonished: Yes of course!   (??!)

We would never…!

I don’t know if she knew that the dad of her young charge had illustrated anti-Nazi material before France fell or that he was Jewish himself. Maybe even she was.

But what came out in their conversation was that America had been portrayed in her growing up as the most flamingly racist, bigoted country there is.

And here was an American woman astonished that anybody would be surprised at having a Jewish family next door. And not just next door. Why would anyone even think about it, people are people.

Too bad it was too early to know that the family that would later buy that house was headed by an African-American surgeon.

After making all the baking sounds in the kitchen this afternoon I said to Richard: You know how we kept forgetting to buy sugar?

The look of uh-oh on his face.

We have a melanger. The box of superfine at the back of the cabinet. We had enough.

—

(Edited to add, and the verdict is, with more than half the sugar being superfine that was the best angel food cake with the best crumb I have ever made, and I’ve made a lot of them. I wrote it down in my vintage 1952 Betty Crocker to make sure I do it that way again from here on out.)

The English Morello tree today: absolutely winter-bare on top, fully in bloom on bottom, gradually working its way up.

That is how I don’t have to do all the harvest work at once, but rather it’ll be one hour every morning picking and pitting and weighing and freezing. One morning per future sour cherry pie for two weeks; after that, I told Constance on Monday, I get tired of it and call friends to come pick the rest. She laughed.

Part of it though is that I want them to see that if it’s their favorite pie, too (and it usually is), if they have room to plant a bush they can grow their own pretty quickly.

So. I’d pulled the last bag out of the freezer to celebrate her. A ceramic pan for the crispiest crust.

Loaves and fishes, way in the back of the freezer where I’d checked three times I just found another bag.

You know that has got to be gone by the first of June to make room for the new. Such a problem. Not.

Curious.

Usually, say in an upscale restaurant or the like, when there’s no price shown you know they’re saying, This is for those who *sniff* can afford it. All others kindly step aside.

There was one sign: Limit 1, with an explanation for those living news-free that there’s a national shortage. (California’s been particularly hard hit.)

No price.

Well, when you need them you need them, as I put the egg carton in my cart. I couldn’t remember when I’d even seen them there this year.

After we got home I found the receipt because I really wanted to know. The surprise was not what I’d thought it was going to be.

$4.99? I haven’t seen that price in months! I told Richard. The cheap ones at Safeway were $8.99!

I guess that’s why Trader Joe’s didn’t post it: they didn’t want their cashiers to be put on the spot having to deal with people trying to hoard in spite of the posted limit.

Think we’ll ever go back to $2.79?

Although, when you put together the chicken coop, chicken food, egg retrieval, egg boxing, egg transporting, egg stocking, (egg breaking), egg checking-out-ing, any of those prices for something so useful in so many ways while offering protein to boot really is a bargain.

One birthday cake, coming up.

If only someone made a half-angel food cake pan.

Butter Chicken Naan Bites, said the box from Costco that we’d both thought, okay, we could try that.

So here it was, looking like a good thing for throwing a last-minute dinner together after a day of trying to get ready for a house guest. I considered the thing and the country whose cuisine it came from and thought of how we’d ordered Indian take-out and Himalayan the last two times we’d visited my mom. (Three?) It’s a favorite.

And said, Y’know. There are vegetarians.

And there are naanagenerians.

To which he responded with his favorite little head shake and grin: You’re very strange.

Our house guests last fall (hi, Amy!) left behind a jar of Skippy peanut butter that wouldn’t go in their carry-ons. Actually, it was labeled peanut spread: roasted peanuts, palm oil, and salt.

It had never been opened. There was a layer of oil at the top, just like the natural peanut butter it almost attained the definition of. It was time to figure out what to do with it. (And an excuse–I’d been craving a good cookie.)

I found this recipe, although it’s only partly what I did. I figured if the Washington Post was linking to it that’s a decent recommendation.

I used the peanut butter without stirring the oils in; some flowed to the bottom as I scooped, but I figured a cookie recipe with no other fat in it has to have what it can from what was there.

I started to type out all the other changes I made and thought, nah, just type the thing out.

So.

One cup old-fashioned rolled oats. In retrospect, quick-cooking would have done just fine.

1 tsp baking powder, not the specified baking soda which I really don’t care for at all

a pinch of salt that may have been as much as 1/2 tsp but probably not but definitely more than the 1/8th they said

2 large eggs, not quite straight out of the fridge but almost (such a rebel)

1 c natural peanut butter (well, it tried to be)

1 tsp vanilla. Given that the president just slapped his big tariffs even on an island inhabited only by penguins, can you imagine what replacing that bottle of the second most expensive spice in the world is going to cost? Two teaspoons for that much batter? Nah, one’s fine. It was.

Whisk eggs, add 2/3 c packed dark brown sugar from Trader Joe’s that may have been turbinado type, add peanut butter and vanilla and then the oats+baking powder.

I had a small handful of salted caramel chips and one of chocolate chips ready on a small plate and worked several of each into each cookie. Nowhere near the amount they called for, we’re old farts, we don’t need that much extra sugar.

They say refrigerate the dough so they won’t spread. Yeah, you do for normal chocolate chip cookies with flour and butter but I didn’t see the point with these, I just put them straight in at 350F for 14-15 minutes. They barely spread.

They were great. Seriously good. I have found my new go-to cookies.

I told Richard as we munched, Y’know, these are your daily oatmeal but with peanut butter and eggs and chips added. Extra protein.

So I guess the question in the morning is going to be, Crunch? Or slime?

—

(Ed. to add: they were very crunchy last night coming out of the oven. After a night of San Francisco fog and being left on the counter, they were not, they were a soft cookie. Use an airtight container if you want yours to stay crisp.)

(Photos coming.) We decided to make it one last day of yarn-shop hopping for the official Crawl. We might actually pull off a Bingo on our cards that they stamped each time we walked into a new one–and we did.

I packed the snacks. Nina drove. Again. Patterns and all that.

Having wished again and again during the afghan that I hadn’t used up all of this shade or that previously, I had my eye out for the ones I’d wanted to replace.

When we called it a day after Royal Bee, our husbands met up with us on the coast for dinner. They asked us, So: did you buy any yarn? with both of them cracking up, like, oh, no, they would never do such a thing in such a place.

My answer was, it averaged out to a skein per shop. It was fun to find colors I loved in the yarn I wanted–but the point was to spend time with Nina.

She laughed as she was nodding yes to that.

We were at Barbara’s Fishtrap. Nina and I had compared memories of Ivar’s in Seattle so I had to try a small bowl of the clam chowder to see if it was as good as theirs. The answer is, I’d have to try them side by side to tell because Barbara’s was very very very good, too, enough to make it all that I’d want to order the next time. It’s a tie. Best I’ve ever had, both of them.

There were surfers in the famous Mavericks surf whom we passed coming and going, there was the point of land stretching around the cove behind us (if you click on their link and scroll down, we were by that window in the center of the building), and at the top of that hill was a bulbous–

–I said, “Looks like a baby rattle.”

They did a double take at the water tower off in the distance and cracked up.

Edited to add: the note on the sign says, “If you are Grouchy, Sullen, Ornery, Moody, or Just Plain Mean, There is a $20 surcharge for having to put up with you.”

(I have no idea why it’s cropping this, click to see the whole thing. It’ll go sideways, though. Go figure.)

I wound up the last hank of Matisse Blue of that dye lot and then I’m out and we’re done. The seed stitch border will take a chunk of it.

I started a fish over here, some seaweed over there, and (where’s the purple. Found the purple) that should also start about there, and then those will probably be the last of the fish, unless (let’s see how much blue there is left at that point) I start one over there….

Three rows in, suddenly I felt like, nope. Put it all away. Picked up a hat and added a few more inches to it, wanting something where I didn’t have to plan and I didn’t have to envision and I didn’t have to make any decisions, just sit there and knit and think how someone was really going to like a gray hat after this was done and it will be fun to find out who and wouldn’t it be great to actually *finish* something.

I did not finish it.

And I baked snacks. Because tomorrow Nina and I are off doing the Bay Area Yarn Crawl thing again.

Nope, didn’t feel the quake, wouldn’t have known it had happened if I hadn’t glanced at a headline in my inbox just now. A 3.9 on the East Bay tonight is how we like them: for entertainment purposes only.

I was busy in the kitchen with fond memories of my in-laws visiting from Maryland thirty-odd years ago. I’d said to my MIL, Remember that Hot Milk Sponge Cake that you and my mom both used to make from the 1950s Betty Crocker cookbook (and that I’d found a pristine copy of at a garage sale my senior year of high school–score!)

Yeah?

Well, I substitute fresh-squeezed lemon juice for 2/3 of the milk.

Her next words were diplomatic but her face was in utter disbelief at such a use of such an expensive ingredient: Why would you do that?

I laughed and gestured: Because I have a tree!

And because it makes almost a lemon curd effect across the top by the next day, if the cake somehow lasts that long with kids in the house.

So. There’s that almond orange muffin recipe I experimented my way towards and that Nina thoroughly approved of during our yarn crawl last week. We are going again. There must be more snacks.

But my freezer is now empty of that puree and my mandarins need another month and it would be a crime to pick them too early.

The Meyer lemons, on the other hand…

But their piths are famously bitter. You boil seedless oranges for 20 minutes to make the orange puree (discard the water they’re boiled in) to get rid of any bitterness. Okay, I made it 25 min with the Meyers just to be sure. I drained them. I cut them open and spent awhile picking out every single seed.

My Cuisinart bowl being in the dishwasher, I threw them and the juice that had come out of them into the blender and let it run for awhile.

It came out the texture of the most fabulous lemon mousse you ever saw. I measured out 2/3 of a cup and then put the rest in silicone molds in the freezer for next time.

So here’s how I tweaked the recipe:

Lemon Almond muffins (gluten free, wheat free)

2 c. almond flour

1 tsp baking powder

about, ummm, that much salt, I dunno, half a teaspoon-ish?

a hair under 3/4 c sugar, which is a lot, but these are lemons we’re talking about. When I’m making this with oranges I use 1/3 to 1/2 c; my husband’s sweet tooth prefers the 1/2 c.

a generous 1/4 c melted butter, ie that’s what it was meant to be but it measured out closer to 1/3 and I’m okay with that and remind me not to grab the Costco butter that’s all one pound lumps next time

3 eggs (I know, living like kings here. Eggs!)

and the 2/3 c pureed boiled lemon into the mixer at the last.

12 muffins, 350F, 23 minutes in my oven. Will be on the pale side when the toothpick is clean. As always, almond flour muffins hold together better if you wait till they’re completely cool to eat. I use paper liners in the pan to counteract any early stick-and-crumble factor.

Definitely, definitely making these again.

Quinoa raspberry chocolate chunks. Justifiable chocolate with fruit and a side of protein on the go, right? What could it hurt? I thought a few days ago, looking at the Trader Joe’s bag trying to look healthy.

Buy it once out of curiosity. Take it to the Linger Longer church potluck, where other people can try it once too but not be committed to eating an entire half pound of the dried-seeds-in-your-teeth stuff in order to do so. Try not to let anyone see who dropped the package on the table but do keep it in the package so that when they see it in the store they’ll know exactly what that is.

Nobody came for that last little piece. As people tend to do at potlucks, saving some for whoever comes after them, y’know, being polite.

Even the little kids didn’t raid it.

I looked in there at the end and figured, hey. Good enough.

Plant a tree, bake a pie. (Some time may need to elapse in between.) English Morello tart cherry.

Happy Birthday to my youngest!

Me, walking almost in the door from Trader Joe’s: I found it!!

Him, meeting me at the door to open it for me (but that’s not where I was heading yet.) You found it!

Last Monday I did some grocery shopping. Wednesday something in the car seemed…off. I remembered a news story some years back of someone who bought a new car, had some raw chicken roll under a seat, didn’t use the car for two weeks and when they found it their insurance company paid for all kinds of remedies before giving up and totaling out the car. Brand new. Replaced. For a chicken.

Thursday I opened the hood and cleared out all kinds of stray leaves, trying to find just where this stupid dead mouse or whatever it was was. Friday I searched the inside of the car yet again. Saturday I gave my friend who’s blind in one eye–oh wait, I thought I wrote about that here, guess I didn’t–a ride home but first apologized that the car had this, uh, problem, and we’d been trying, and I was so sorry.

Well if you don’t find it come back to me and I’ll find it for you guys! he promised.

Sunday parking the car at church we hoped nobody could smell it from outside the car.

Monday we didn’t go anywhere probably because we really didn’t want to. We promised ourselves we would finally find it once the sun got low enough for me to help in the search again. We forgot. And then you don’t go looking for decaying squishy things in the dark, I mean…

He never was sure it smelled mousy, though. I wasn’t either but it was definitely dead.

The next thing I said to him this evening at that doorway was, Remember that bag of greens in cream and garlic sauce that fell out of the freezer in the garage and didn’t get found for two days?

Yeah?

I bought another to replace it so we could finally try that stuff once, at least. I only discovered where it landed because I had a bag break just now and the trajectories led me to this–where I know I looked again and again and again. But there it was. I found it!

Clearly we are not meant to touch that dish, he said as I held it at arm’s length heading towards the garbage bin past the gate, exit, stage right.

He didn’t have to add, So please don’t ever buy it again.

…I went to go title this “At least it didn’t explode” and suddenly…

I told Richard, “As far as I know”…

And put on a jacket, was glad to see it’s not raining yet, and opened the car just to be sure.

It is much, much, much, much better.

Old story, but… Our honeymoon, in a comic strip. For us it was marshmallows being toasted over a fire. Just one skunk at first–but it came up right between us and was brushing its tail against my new husband’s arm as it reached over the fire and settled our surprisingly emphatically held opinions over whether a fast burn-and-crisp-and-melt (me!) or a slow browning (him) was the proper way to campfire the thing.

His slightly browned one was it, thankyouverymuchdon’tmindifIdo.

While his face silently begged with everything that was in him at me not to laugh. Pleeeeeeeeeease?!!!

We left the bag on the picnic table as we edged away after it was done. It called its best buddies over and the four of them threw a party. They ate them raw. Heathens.

Good times.

There was a demo tonight to a large and eager group (oh yeah) of women at church tonight about how to make your own chocolate truffles. The guy had printed out the basics, which was very helpful for people like, y’know, me. We were handed one of his as we came in and after the lecture and demo made four of our own: squish it, work it, roll it, dip it, done.

My question, which I did not ask because I had no way to know if he’d already addressed it, was, how do you assume the cream in the ganache is safe when the truffles are left out at room temperature like he said they should be? He was adamant that they not go in the fridge.

From what I was able to find afterwards, the answer is, it has to be at least 50% chocolate, and more is better. Liqueurs help, too. (For those who eat such, I don’t.) It’s the amount of available water that is the problem.

I brought mine home to share in the morning, when the chocolate won’t keep me up all night but mostly because I thought that in all fairness the men should have been invited, too.

I’m living dangerously. Having never gotten sick from eating anyone’s truffles, I’m leaving them on the counter.

So far, anyway.

Update: and then, having written that, I went back to the guy’s instruction page and turned it over. Oh. There it says refrigerate leftover ganache and only roll and coat the truffles you’re going to eat that day.

Okay, then. Common sense and caution wins out after all. Mine went straight in the fridge.

Welllll, the package was pretty. The contents were in the what’s not to love department. So I bought it.

Fire-roasted root veggies (sweet potatoes/carrots/parsnips/onions) in a giant Costco freezer bag were a bit daunting after the fact. I knew the fiber content was beyond me as a colectomy patient, and yet there it was.

Unless…(she thought, staring at the bag a couple of weeks later.)

The Cuisinart. Not the blender, I didn’t want puree, although, close. Into the pot. Throw some Trader Joe’s frozen fire-roasted bell papers in the machine, just a couple of twirls of the blade. A little broth, a half hour simmer, let’s just see what we get….

Hey.

There was a whole lot more where those had come from.

The second time, I oven-roasted an entire Costco pack of cherry tomatoes for half an hour and then those I did puree and threw in the pot with the root veggies that were by then looking vaguely like sandpaper grit floating at the top. (The parsnips: like pimples just waiting to be popped. Hey, I’m trying to give you a visual, where are you going?!)

On an oh just try it, I added the leftover third of a cup or so of pumpkin puree in the fridge. And some sausage.

Half an hour more of simmering from there. You can’t quite make out the pumpkin specifically but it really added to it.

I’m writing this down so I remember what I did where I can find it and because I’m actually hoping now that they’re still selling those root veggie bags. There’s a potluck next week and that was really really good.

The only problem is, I am forever now going to think off it as parsnippimplepopper soup.

The dinner was light. Fruit is healthy. We could justify this.

A bag of frozen berries. A quarter cup of sugar, a spoonful of cornstarch, nine minutes covered in the microwave stir stir stir at the end.

And now for the ice cream.

We tried to wait till the fruit had cooled but given that I had an oven mitt on as I brought its stoneware bowl to the table I’d say we failed. I handed him the vanilla ice cream container; he’s better at getting it out when it’s frozen hard.

….Did I want more?

No no stop thanks that’s quite enough.

Then I looked at his bowl. All those three sections needed was a carrot nose and a scarf. “Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman” I started singing (I think I learned that song when I was three, and so did he) “once there was a snowman, tall tall tall! In the bowl he melted melted melted” (pouring hot berry mix over it) “in the bowl he melted small small small.”

A few minutes later…

There’s a little fruit left. Did you want it?

No, he grinned, the proportions were just right.