linoleum... the wonders of the past

 

In late nite TV ads this would be the fat and sweaty "before" picture. 

So there is this line, "Behold, the Underminer! I'm always beneath you, but nothing is beneath me!" what he didn't realize was that he was referencing the lovely former flooring (current below layers) of linoleum and beigey beige wall to wall carpet at the farm. (movie ref, oh come on, it is the internet, there is more than porn there, though not much, go look)

 

It looks like carpet, but it isn't

There is beneath me, mostly subfloor, crawlspace and mice skeletons, but that is another post (we hope will never, NEVER be posted, for that will be the 8th sign of the apocalypse, just after that Swedish guy plays checkers with death, you sunk my battleship).

Harley, though a bad girl, is still kinda a hotty.

(a cartoon, but still a hotty, and not in a Betty way)

so...

 

I was promised a treadmill on which to walk Astro.  

Cool flooring. Not sure where it came from, or why there is a different pattern in every room, though we could probably spin a reasonable story about that, given the fluid nature of the house's construction. Still, look at these amazing patterns! Argyle! Faux carpet! Meet George Jetson! And the very best, hidden under the bottom drawer of the built-in dresser...faux red velvet, befitting a retro piano lounge.

 

again, not carpet, but oooh...and aahh...

(oh, and this would be the hotty and smiley "after" picture)

Too soon, but...

But sometimes you just have to ride the chaos train and see where it takes you.

Five days after losing our beloved Odin, still stunned by grief, processing the violation of a home break in, and trying to impersonate functioning grown ups in our regular life, something fell in our laps.


This fiery bundle of something:

The Fairy Queen thought maybe the best way to work through some sorrow - the kind that sits like an anvil on your shoulders, making you slower and smaller as well as sadder - would be to tackle the wall of blackberries that have grown up between us and our neighbors (not evil neighbor, nice ones who just don't pay attention to their greenery). An hour later she was hot, bleeding, and even more sad.

Phrodaux led her to a garden chair and was patiently listening to the guest list of her pity party when the phone rang: Electric Hipster (his choice of name! really!) calling from L.A. to catch up. While the Fairy Queen listened to his plans to become a business mogul, Phrodaux took a call from his mom, but it might as well have been DESTINY calling.

The same breeder that Odin and his little brother Anubis (aka Nubie) came from.

Last puppy of the litter. Original family had a change of circumstance, couldn't take him after all. The Fairy Queen didn't even finish the phone call with our L.A. pal, just said YES to Phrodaux out of the corner of her mouth. Because sometimes the only thing that makes the despair demons run away is YES. Oddly enough, 16 years ago, Phrodaux got a similar call: They only have one left, a little boy (but we wanted a girl, we've always had girls in his family, but ok).

So, same breeder, same "last little boy." The gods, or maybe a small white god, named after the all father, one who had a son in a movie recently, rhymes with "Sore, god of Lunder," was saying "Get off your sorry asses, you need a small white chaos engine."

It's obviously too soon. We are still in mourning for Odin, who of course can never be replaced. At the same time, puppy energy is highly distracting; in fact it should be bottled and sold at 24-hour dispensaries for sad people.

So here he is, our new boy Marruni (an earthquake god), mostly known as Mo. He is apparently not afraid of anything. Certainly not hoses, or basketballs, or stairs, or grumpy big brothers.

Nubie is thinking this particular anti-sadness plan is not such a great idea.

 

But we think he'll get used to it. He used to be a little brother too.

Enough (warning, not a frivolous post)

Thursday, September 5, 2013
Phrodaux's great grandma had a saying: Enough is enough, and too much is shitty. Well, today, Phrodaux and the Fairy Queen have officially had TOO MUCH.

Item: Our beloved beastie, Odin, is near the end of his 16 year run. Yes, do the math. Dog years to people years. Our boy is 112 or something. He sleeps and pants and we make his legs move for him and he doesn't eat (not since last week's bacon fest followed by lunch meat day) but he shows his true uppity self every time we try to introduce a pain/anti-nausea/anti-inflammation pill into the equation. He fights like a crocodile and spits out the carefully crafted pill delivery systems we have constructed out of BRIE.

Item: The Fairy Queen has the interestingly intense job that kicks in when September starts. Again, do the math. Imagine a room full of eight-year-olds watching your every move. Try doing that while thinking about Item 1. Welcome to compartmentalization.

Item: Phrodaux came home at lunch today, tried to give Odin his mid-day pain pill, and could not find the pill. And could not find his fancy electronic device. And noticed that maybe the Fairy Queen had opened all the cupboards and closets, even the crafty drawer we go to maybe twice a year. No, she did not. Yes, evil, horrible, irredeemable, horrible, visiting their personal fucked up demons on innocent people DID. Someone(s) broke into our house today. They were IN OUR HOUSE. They touched our stuff. They stole our dying dog's pain pills. They went through the Fairy Queen's UNDERWEAR DRAWER. There is nothing very interesting in there; the dead give-away was the black bra hanging out of the drawer. She wears that underwired devil three times a year, tops. No way it's in action on a week day in early September.

Lovely Detective S spent a great deal of time here this afternoon. She was kind and patient and sympathetic. She listened, photographed, made lists, dusted for fingerprints - no luck, just lots of unwieldly black goop on our surfaces and her nice face. She let us know that there have been heroin-addicted squatters down the block. Nice to know, now.

Now, let's think about now. Our home has been violated. Unknown reprobates have touched (and taken) our stuff. Our windows are locked - is it enough? Honestly, enough is enough and too much is...

But wait. In the midst of possibly the worst run of days in our lives together, Phrodaux can still surprise me. We have a neighbor, a very terrible neighbor. If you know us, you know his sins. He is a bad, bad man. And yet, Phrodaux is a big enough person to go to bad man's door tonight and say: Hey. This happened. Lock your doors and windows. Be safe.

The Fairy Queen has cried a lot tonight. But she'll sleep, eventually, knowing that inches away sleeps the best person on earth.

________________________________________

Rest in Peace, Odin. October 14, 1997 - September 7, 2013

not minty fresh...

short post.

If Tom Waits and the spider god Anansi had a love child, that child, before being tucked in every nite, would brush its teeth with this.

It is also quite good to cook with if you happen not to be the love child of Tom Waits and the spider god Anansi.

(end of post.)

Sometimes it's all about the name...

Before you read further, well after a bit further, you should know what a chupacabra is, if not go ask your good friend google (and the NSA by proxy), we'll wait.

waiting...


So, many good stories begin with a simple message from the ether. This story also begins with a simple message, the two facts are not necessarily related.

I got a text from a friend (Destroyo, or Cuddles when he is in his mild mannered reporter persona).

"Phrodaux! There needs to be a dessert called Chupa Cobbler. Make it happen. The world is relying on you."

No sh!t, that was the message. Batman has his batsignal, Superman gave Jimmy his signal watch (in some places that means they are married now), and Catwoman has pissing on stuff. I have "There needs to be a dessert called Chupa Cobbler." The gears began turning, the Fairy Queen was alerted, we sprang into action.

{Sidebar 1 from Fairy Queen: NEVER idly dare Phrodaux to do something. He never ever ever walks away from a dare.}

Well, sprang like a week and a half later.

"it needs local fruit and biscuit topping!"

"it needs a Mexican spice/flavor palate!"

"it needs googly eyes!"

"it definitely needs TEETH!"

"you need to capitalize at the beginning of sentences!"

(That last one might have been added after the fact after the FQ saw me starting to write.)

So, Destroyo (Cuddles), M and "those from the north who know things of food and drink and have yet to let us know their code names" (who will be known as TFtNWKToFaDahYTLUKTCNs) were coming to the farm.

Food and drink.

and Chupa Cobbler...

...and more drink! 

In case any of you are brave enough to face your own personal Chupa Cobbler demons (come on, we dare you), here's the "recipe" (as it was kinda just "toss that in...what could possibly go wrong?").

Fruit:

• Peaches, blanched and skinned, then sliced, I think there were about six.

• A quart sized thing of cherries that I (Phrodaux) pitted by hand with a little knife, it was hard, I put love in them, but not in a icky way.

{Sidebar 2 from Fairy Queen: Is it too much to ask for any retail establishment in the vicinity of the farm to carry a cherry pitter??? Yes, apparently it is too much to ask.}

• Into the bowl of cherries (which life is, ooh, that was a bit icky) I put in a chopped up, seeded habanero pepper. They have a real nice spice, but even better a flowery/fruity flavor. They get a bad rap, but trust me I am "much better than Cats" (oh, go look it up already, it is a reference to TV it can't be that hard).

{Sidebar 3 from Fairy Queen: Unless you have hands of teflon/steel/scar tissue like Phrodaux, wear gloves when messing around with those habaneros. Please.}

• A pint or so of blackberries, picked while standing in our creek while dog beasts scarfed up the low-hanging ones.

And wait for it, wait... wait... almost... ("lady of spain" should be playing in the background as you wait, really)

• Raw corn taken in a brutish manner from the cob, or just cut off, your call, Mary. Sweet, and a bit of tooth, it is quite nice.

Mix those together, likely with nutmeg and cinnamon, some lemon zest, some lemon juice, some brown sugar.

That would be the fruit. You're halfway there.


Next comes the cobbler topping (use the voice used for monster truck rallies on Sunday when you say "COBBLER TOPPING!" with maybe a bit of echo "...ING...INg...Ing...ing":

Pretty much basic biscuit dough for any fruit cobbler, we used the one in Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

{Sidebar 4 from Fairy Queen: You should own this book, no matter what your eating designation (vegetarian, pescatarian, carnivore, weird phobic, etc.). It's the only cookbook we own two copies of, one for home, one for farm.}

BUT we added a little cornmeal (1/3 of the flour called for) AND a disk of Mexican chocolate, the kind you make really good Mexican hot chocolate out of, it is pretty much chocolate, sugar and cinnamon, oh and love, don't forget the love. The disk is ground up and added to the cobbler top before it is mixed together (too much mixing makes the love go away).

 (this is yummy, great for hot chocolate, but not for monkeys, NOT FOR MONKEYS!)

Mix gently and sparingly, but don't be creepy. Too much fondling and the topping will be tough. (trust me, blah, blah, blah, cats)

Dump the fruit mix in a lightly buttered dish (we use a corningware type thingy, roughly 10in, picture) then topping on top (where else would the topping go, jeeze). Put dish on a baking sheet to catch any fruit overflow.

(chupa cobbler goes here, the thing on the left, under the other thing)

Into the oven ~375f (despite the fact that all other good things in our life get cooked at 423f) until the top is done (a toothpick comes out clean and the filling is bubbly).

Then the most important part:

• Almond slivers for teethies
• Googly eyes.

The eyes came from "flying spaghetti monster cookies", which I saw on evilmadscientist

Empty gell caps used for making your own pills (really? making your own pills, who would do that? and even more important who would take one? oh, you have a headache? take one of these, I make them in my shed down by the old mill. They taste like burning, and love.")

 The consensus was "yummy". After a day or two, it still was yummy, but started to look rather disturbingly not dessert like. So eat quickly or don't worry about pretty.

(here is a picture of a cute dog for no apparent reason)

Sometimes it's about the name...Cuddles.

Farm

Do you have the list? The fantasy, it will never happen wish list for a little place in the country? A place to get away from regular life, relax, recharge, watch the weather, just be? Here was our list:

• No more than two hours from home (so we'll go)
• At least one hour from home (so we'll stay)
• Trees (hammock-worthy)
• Water (pond, lake, creek, river, whatever)
• House or not (we had plots and schemes to build a cabin, retrofit an Airstream, construct something from shipping containers).

Through a long and random chain of events, we now own the farm. Take a look.

Sometimes I think the huge oak trees that hold the hammocks would have been enough; we could have lived without everything else. But now we don't have to.

Has this ever happened to you? (Sledgehammer and waffles)

Imagine a tranquil Sunday morning. You sleep in, rise refreshed, and decide to make your lovely mate waffles for breakfast. You've just cooked the last waffle and are settling down in your cozy breakfast nook: waffle, berries, maple syrup, strong coffee.

Then suddenly, your lovely mate, the same one you made this breakfast for, leaves the table, goes to the garage, and returns with a sledgehammer. Without a word, he fires off 3 quick blows to the end of the counter top, sending shards of tile flying in all directions, including into your remaining waffle.

Has this ever happened to you? Well. If not, welcome to our world.

What, you might reasonably ask, could prompt this shocking act of kitchen violence? One word, my pretties, one word: tile.

Now, forget anything you might assume about the Fairy Queen in terms of physical grace. Name notwithstanding, she does NOT glide through the world on size 6 feet. Nope. She and her colossal clown feet and freakishly long arms stumble around, bumping into stuff, tripping over air, and dropping things. Dropping a lot of things. And tile, you see, tile is the enemy of the clumsy, the nemesis of the dexterity-challenged. When the Fairy Queen dropped things on the tile countertop (a lot), these things broke, every time.

And while I said the provocation to kitchen violence could be summed up in one word (tile), we might add a footnote in order to describe the tile: blue, colonial blue, or as our friend Ms. M put it, country with a K. Yuck.

But the thing is, if you live with something long enough, even if it's horrible, even if you hate it, you eventually stop seeing it and you never do anything about it. But if the corner of your counter top has been transformed, via sledgehammer, into an eyesore and a life-threatening menace (oh, what the Fairy Queen could do with that sharp, jagged corner...there are not enough Band-Aids in the cupboard), well then, you have to deal with it. You have to quit sneering at the available options (linoleum too boring, granite too fancy, etc.) and MAKE something. And when you decide to do that, all manner of interesting things happen.

For example:

• The first collaboration between Phrodaux and the Fairy Queen's dad, the Wood Master;
• The chance to save gorgeous wood from the landfill (the source wanted only certain length; scraps went into the dumpster);
• The subsequent inspiration to pair this luscious counter top of purple wood with scrap aluminum as a backsplash;
• A final product which is exactly what we wanted but couldn't find because duh, we had to make it.

So there it is, sweet peas. If your best beloved introduces a sledgehammer into your idyllic breakfast, it's not always a bad thing.

Smart Friends

We are lucky to have smart friends. Diva Bob knows who to call for tree problems. M and Destroyo know how to start businesses. And E, best pal and Fairy Queen soul sister for a quarter of a century now, knows this: when you go to an appointment, doctor, dentist, optometrist, manscaping waxer or whatever, BRING TREATS. I believe E books her doctor appointments at lunchtime and brings sandwiches for the office. I admire this behaviour, but had never followed suit, until this summer.

My motivations were many. For one thing, our house was overflowing with treats, a result of a berry picking and baking binge.

Raspberries, boysenberries (BIG ones!) and a few token blueberries for Phrodaux and dogs.

Berry scones, unintentionally pink.

Mixed berry hand pies, not gorgeous like the picture in Bon Appetit, but it was a hot day for pie dough.

But also, it was time for my annual eye doctor appointment, the only remotely medical experience I actually look forward to. I've been seeing Dr. Rock & Roll rarely but forever: once a year for more than 20 years. His kids are all grown up, his band disbanded, the office moved, but still, he and his lovely wife have shared their practice all this time. Once each summer, I sit in the big chair and we catch up amongst the eye charts and fancy equipment. This time, he calmly pointed out my bleeding head wound, which turned out to be raspberry juice above one eyebrow, the result of some last minute confectionery to add to my little basket of sweets.

Weird looking but good...melted bittersweet chocolate, toffee bits, and a berry.

When I first arrived for my appointment, the nice office ladies seemed taken aback by my "Hi, checking in, and I brought you some treats."

But as I sat reading magazines, I started to hear, "Look at that!" and "Did you really make these?" They gleefully announced the arrival of snacks to Dr. R&R but then tried to convince him that a) he might not like them and b) there might not be any left.

Overall, I felt like a rock star and they seemed surprised, pleased, and nourished. That, my pretties, is why we cook (well, not the rock star part) and why it's good to have smart friends. Thanks E.

Cocktails, part 1: The bastard series

Phrodaux and I have a couple of cocktail books; they are full of completely unappetizing recipes and pathetic names (really, would anyone ever order something called a Brain Tumor? Or a Cottage Cheese?).

Still, the books remind us of proportions for basic things (margaritas, cosmos) and give us a place to jot down our inventions. I say our, but I mean Phrodaux, the mad scientist among us. The creator of the Adios, Au Revoir, for goodness sake! And now, given that I've been picking berries and leaving little containers of berry pie filling in the fridge, there is the series of bastard drinks. Not my word, his. All his. It couldn't be the Berry Splendor or the Pretty in Pink, oh no. But try one. Trust us.

First, he made The Bastard.  Then the Gin Bastard. Finally, when made with Tequila, the Rat Bastard.

First you need to make a berry pie. Save a little pie filling (raspberries, marionberries, boysenberries, any combination, plus sugar and lemon juice to taste).

Second, grow some mint. Know that it will take over your garden. That's OK.

Finally, create your drink.

• Pick some mint and muddle it in a cocktail shaker
• Add a couple of tablespoons of berry pie filling
• Add a shot or two of booze (vodka, gin, or tequila)
• Add a little lemon or lime juice
• Taste your mixture; add simple syrup or Triple Sec if it's too tart
• Add ice cubes and shake shake shake until everything is mixed up and cold
• Strain into glassware of your choice, or just dump it in a glass with the ice cubes.

These are lurid pink and lovely to drink. Enjoy.

Overcoming fear...of puff pastry

The Fairy Queen never wanted to learn to cook. Why, she thought, full of teenage feminist fury, should some man expect her to make dinner every night?? So instead she learned to type (on a typewriter! Before white out!), thinking that if she could type, she would always be employable, and thus less likely to end up with that horrible man with his unreasonable dinner expectations.

And then she grew up. She was employable, and there were some nice men she dined with, but not one demanded regular home-cooked meals. Finally, when no one was looking and besides it was all her own idea, she thought she'd teach herself to cook, using Gourmet magazine. As newbies will, she skipped soup and rice and scrambled eggs and went straight for the hard stuff: pie, brioche, some insanely layered trifle thing her family fled from at the holidays. She once spent an entire Saturday collecting spices to make her own curry powder, ignoring the perfectly nice bottles of curry powder on the shelf, only to have the beau she was making curried vegetables for confess he'd be happier with a cheese sandwich (cold, not toasted, with plain yellow mustard).

And then she grew up some more and realized that just like many things, cooking took some practice. Soon she found that cooking and baking were pleasurable activities in and of themselves, that cookbooks were almost as good as novels, and that feeding people something nice that she'd made was one of the most satisfying things imaginable.

These days, she's a pretty good cook: bread, cake, soup, all manner of seafood and vegetable adventures, as Phrodaux is a pescatarian. But there was still one thing that seemed too daunting to contemplate: puff pastry. As soon as she encountered those words in a recipe, she turned the page and thought: too hard, too complicated, no way.

But then there was a Cooper encounter. Cooper Boone, of Cooper's Table and many other amazing endeavors. Seriously, check out this gorgeous site.  At a party much too fabulous for the likes of us, my assigned contribution was a fancy appetizer. I don't do fiddly bits very well, and when I heard there was puff pastry involved, I tried to appeal to Cooper's mercy. He was unmoved. In fact, he was stern: get with the program, girl (I may be paraphrasing here) and learn to love puff pastry!

As it turns out, I was busy doing other things at the very fancy party, but I did observe the construction of Puff Pastry Asparagus, spearheaded by a very lovely teenage girl who watches a lot of Food Network. I did get to apply the egg wash, though, and later, while bartending, I observed how people consumed vast quantities of these beauties in about 5 minutes.

So, upon my return to this coast and more normal life, I thought: Puff Pastry, bring it on. While perusing a paella cookbook on loan from Phrodaux's dad, I found a recipe for tuna empanadillas - baby empanadas. These are easy and amazing and make people swoon. They require exactly one box of Pepperidge Farm puff pastry sheets. They will not make you cry while you make them. And don't forget: everything is better with a cold PBR.