Weekend in the Adirondacks

We needed to leave town last weekend to give our then-prospective innkeeper a chance to try out the job (we've since finalized the arrangement), so we packed the kids up after school on Friday and headed for the Adirondacks.

We stayed in a cabin at a KOA campground near Lake Placid. Saturday we walked through High Falls Gorge and then spent a couple of hours at the WILD Center. I was lured there by the promise of otters, one of my favorite animals to watch. They were entertaining as always, but the surprise star of the trip was this creature:



They brought her out so she could eat her lunch in front of an audience. Did you know that porcupines eat corn on the cob the way people do? She held it in her hands, ate across one row, turned the cob, ate across one row, and so forth. Her method of rifling through the contents of her bowl looking for something tasty also looked very human.

Sunday morning we went hiking at Ausable Chasm. LW still has a way to go before he's a great hiker, but we are hoping to give him more practice once we are not living at the inn.

Four Sunday Soups

The last two weeks of March, I made Mama Veli's Pozole soup and Black Bean Soup with a Hint of Orange.

Michael loves pozole, so he was happy to see this on the menu. I'm pretty sure this was the first time I'd cooked with fresh tomatillos. The soup was more involved than some, but the end result was tasty (five thumbs up) and I plan on making it again next year.

Black Bean Soup with a Hint of Orange was tasty, but the hint of orange was so hinty I couldn't taste it. And since that was the main difference between this soup and the black bean soup I've had for years, I don't know if I'll make it again, despite its five thumbs up. I did gain a recipe from this week, however. The Red, Yellow, and Orange Pepper Salad with Tequila-Lime Dressing was delicious.

We skipped soup for the month of April, since I was either cooking for just EM and I or in Costa Rica. Now we are into spring soups.

Last week's soup was Spring Risotto Soup, a mound of risotto covered with chicken broth containing mushrooms, snap peas, and green onions. I love risotto and I thought this soup was fantastic, the perfect comfort food when a spring cold comes knocking. (Side note: the Kindle is great for reading while you are stirring, stirring, stirring.) EM and IM also loved it. NB and Michael, however, gave it a sideways thumb. I told Michael I love it enough that I plan on making it next year anyway.

Today's soup was Dreamy Creamy Artichoke Soup, served with Watercress Salad with Red Onion and Chopped Egg Vinaigrette. Michael this is a yummy simple soup--just leeks, butter, frozen artichoke hearts, chicken stock, cream and Parmesan. Only three of us ate it (NB and IM were full of pizza from a birthday party) but we all liked it. The salad was good too, although I couldn't find watercress and substituted mixed spring greens instead. I need to find a watercress source soon, because watercress soup is coming up in June.

Costa Rica: A Very Tardy Trip Recap

Random impressions
* There are a ton of dogs and cats roaming the streets of Puerto Viejo. Anywhere you go, you have an instant pet (or two or three) following you around. Restaurants are no exception; at one point Michael and I had a cat sitting in the extra seat at the table, a dog resting his head on Michael's lap, and another dog who patiently sat by our table with hopeful eyes and a wagging tail for the entire dinner.

* Although the roads were much better than we saw on our last trip, by the end of the month we were dodging potholes in a road Michael had seen paved during his first week there.

* I lack the appropriate spatial awareness for driving in Puerto Viejo. Cars, trucks, bikes, scooters, pedestrians, horses, and the dogs and cats mentioned above all make use of the roads, which narrow to one lane for every bridge. Michael adapted just fine to the crazy passing and dodging; I closed my eyes.

* There is a limit to my feminism. When this showed up in our bedroom, I told Michael if the bug wasn't out of there by bedtime I was finding somewhere else to sleep:



I wasn't too found of this, either:



* If your private Spanish teacher is a good-looking, younger surfer, it's really great when you can shrug and say to your husband, "Well, you arranged the lessons."

* Land crabs are hard to dodge while driving. It's not until you are almost on top of them that you realize the rocks in the road are moving.

* It's nice of the aviary to ask us to stay three feet away from the birds, but someone should explain that to the birds.

* And the corollary: It's a little unnerving to be buzzed by toucans. Those beaks look wicked sharp when zooming toward your head.




* Although I am generally in favor of preserving wildlife, I don't quite see the need for the eyelash pit viper breeding program at the local animal rescue center.

* Tree frogs are a lot less noticeable with their eyes closed.

* It is possible to eat well in Costa Rica. The Caribbean had great seafood, including the best fish tacos I've ever eaten. And EM and I became quite attached to the bananas cooked with honey we encountered in the San Jose area.

* Three-toed sloths are even cuter than two-toed sloths.

* I suppose if I lived in Costa Rica, I too would become totally blase about howler monkeys in the trees on the edge of the beach. Eventually.

* Song is not the right word for the sound a toucan makes. You know those wooden friction sticks your music teacher let you play with in elementary school? That's what a toucan sounds like.

Bonus Soup!

I realized this week, that I had more soups left in the Winter section than I had Sundays left in March. So I counted the soups. Despite the subtitle A Year's Worth of Mouthwatering, Easy-to-Make Recipes, there are 60 soups in the book, 15 for each season.

Deciding that if I can't make them all, I want to choose which ones I skip, I started thumbing through the book. And that's when I discovered a St. Patrick's Day soup (at the end of the Spring section, which is wrong by any measure).

So on Thursday I made Corned Beef and Cabbage Soup--"Under Cover" (in ramekins with puffed-pastry crust). It was easy to make during my lunch hour (it needs to be refrigerated for an hour) and is easily the most tasty corned-beef dish I've eaten.

Five thumbs up.

Sunday Soup 10 and 11

Okra and I seem destined never to meet. One of the stories from the early days of my parents' marriage that entered our family lore (along with The Crazy Landlady and the Columbus Day Storm and Make Sure You Take Your Checkbook to the Grocery Store) is The Time Mom Made Okra.

Canned okra was on sale, you see, and they were trying to be frugal. Both of them agreed that the results were awful, and as a result, Mom never again served okra. Considering she used to feed us liver and onions and daily doses of cod liver oil, I think that's saying something. I grew up convinced that okra was the worst food in the world. Or at least America.

So when I looked at Soup 10 (Gulf Coast Shrimp Gumbo) and realized it had okra in it, I was dubious. Still, I promised to work my way through the cookbook, so off I went to get okra.

As it turns out, that's not an easy thing to do around here. I checked the produce and frozen food sections of both grocery stores, and neither had okra. I had suspected it might be difficult to find, so I had researched substitutions ahead of time, and purchased some asparagus. Not being able to find the andouille sausage, since I'd seen some last month, was unexpected. Pulling out my trusty cell phone (90% of all my cell phone calls are made from a store to home), I called Michael and asked him to google substitutions.

So, I can't actually tell you how Gulf Coast Shrimp Gumbo tastes. Apparently, a soup can't even be called gumbo if there isn't okra. However, Gulf Coast Shrimp Soup with Asparagus and Chorizo Sausage got five thumbs up.

Okra eluded me again.

Today I made Fennel X Two Soup with Vegetable Pitas with Goat Cheese and Fresh Herbs.

The soup is six cups of chopped fennel, one potato, two onions and some chicken broth, simmered, pureed, and mixed with cream that has been infused with tarragon and crushed fennel seed. Very tasty.

The goat cheese, fresh basil, and kalamata olives made the vegetable pitas especially yummy, although I think next time I'll reduce the salt slightly. Again, five thumbs up for both soup and sandwich, although NB notes that the pita is a bit messy to eat.

February's Reading

Wedding Season--This book delivered what I've come to expect from Katie Fforde: rural English setting, a protagonist focused on a traditionally feminine trade, some romance. I preferred other books by this author, but I'm not sure if that's because I'm tired of the pattern or the quality slipped.

Operation Mincemeat--I really enjoyed this account of trickery during World War II. It tells the story of a successful scheme to convince the Nazis that the Allies were not going to attack Sicily from North Africa. The British fooled the Nazis by placing fake documents on a dead body off the coast of Spain.

In this book I (briefly) met the inspiration for Q of James Bond fame (did you know Ian Flemming was in British intelligence during WWII?):

[Charles] Fraser-Smith [of "Q"-Branch] possessed a wildly ingenious but supremely practical mind. He invented garlic-flavored chocolate to be consumed by agents parachuting into France in order that their breath should smell appropriately Gallic as soon as they landed; he made shoelaces containing a vicious steel garrote; he created a compass hidden in a button that unscrewed clockwise, based on the impeccable theory that the "unswerving logic of the German mind" would never guess that something might unscrew the wrong way. 112, 114

I found the conclusion stirring:

But [wars] are also won by feats of imagination. Amateur, unpublished novelists, the framers of Operation Mincemeat, dreamed up the most unlikely concatenation of events, rendered them believable, and sent them off to war, changing reality through lateral thinking and proving that it is possible to win a battle fought in the mind, from behind a desk, and from beyond the grave. Operation Mincemeat was pure make-believe, and it made Hitler believe something that changed the course of history. 295-296

I definitely recommend this book. There are fascinating bits all the way through.

Water Witches--My Pilates teacher passed this to me. It's a novel about dousers and the ski industry in Vermont. I found it an enjoyable but unmemorable read.

The Imperfectionists--I read this one for book group. Every chapter is told from the perspective of a different person affiliated with an international English-language newspaper. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my favorite chapter was one about the corrections editor. He rants about the use "literally" and his chapter is one of the happiest.

* literally: This word should be deleted. All too often, actions described as "literally" did not happen at all. As in, "He literally jumped out of his skin." No, he did not. Though if he literally had, I'd suggest raising the element and proposing the piece for page one. Inserting "literally" willy-nilly reinforces the notion that breathless nitwits lurk within this newsroom. Eliminate on sight--the usage, not the nitwits. The nitwits are to be captured and placed in the cages I have set up in the subbasement. See also: Excessive Dashes; Exclamation Points; and Nitwits. 84-85

Room--The best book of the year so far, and I'll be surprised if it doesn't end up in the top five come New Year's Eve. Like The Poisonwood Bible, this book gave me a new view on life and parenting that will return to mind again and again in the years ahead. I almost didn't read it because the subject matter seemed so disturbing, but I'm very glad I did. Haunting, horrible, and hopeful.

Town Meeting Day

Today was Town Meeting Day, when voters across the state meet to approve budgets and pass resolutions. I love it.

Our local Fourth of July celebration is more Guy Fawkes than God Bless America, so Town Meeting Day is our greatest group demonstration of commitment to democracy. Some things (the inter-town high school budget and election of officials) are done by ballot in the voting booth, but the issues? The issues we hash out in open debate and voice vote ("all in favor say 'Aye!").

You need a thick skin to serve on a town board. Every town has a crank or two, and Town Meeting Day gives them access to an open mike. And then there are the non-crank but very blunt native New Englanders. ("George, what the hell are you talking about? Just quit the stories and tell us what you want.") Any line in the budget is up for critique, and people in the audience are routinely called on to dredge up the history of certain issues or subcommittee reports.

Today's meeting was relatively free of drama. The two issues I thought would be most controversial going in (the elementary school budget and a large paving project) both passed with nary a nay vote. The cemetery was a sneaker issue, generating far more debate than I expected. And there was one laughable moment, when a woman insisted we should ask nearby towns to help us fund the paving project, since they used the road too.

Due to a computer crisis and orthodontist appointment, I wasn't able to stay for the potluck lunch or the final resolutions (mostly housecleaning), but all in all it was a good day for democracy.

Here's to government of the people, by the people, for the people.