About a year ago, our friend Angelique had the Haverim over for a pot luck. Her husband Hugo was going to be grilling beef ribs, and while we sat around sipping wine or beer, she brought out some appetizers. There was a platter of chips and veggies and dip -- isn't there always? -- and a platter of sliced tomatoes with mozzarella cheese melted over it, topped with chopped basil. Scrumptious!
But then she brought out the dish that made me fall in love: small bread slices accompanied by a green pesto-looking sauce she called "chimichurri." I could not get enough of the parsley-garlic-olive oil mixture. It was heavenly.
I tried to get her to post her recipe on Facebook; I tried to replicate it from what she told me. However, it was only yesterday that I figured out how to make a comparable chimichurri.
After researching numerous recipes on the web, and remembering the taste of Angelique's version, I came up with this:
Chimichurri
8 cloves of garlic
1 cup packed flat-leaved parsley (cut off the stems)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil (and maybe a bit more, to suit your taste)
1 - 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
Chuck all of it into a food processor and let 'er rip for as long as it takes to make the stuff into a bright green slush.
Serve over meats, pasta, veggies, however you like. Especially offer it as a spread for fresh bread.
Variations include adding basil, or onion, or hot peppers, or cumin.
So very good, truly a work of art.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Poppies sketch
So, so very soon, the California poppies will be blooming.With the aforementioned watercolor brushes, and a few passes of colored pencil, I finished this little bit of play tonight.
I held the pens with their flexible, brush-like points and felt an unaccustomed sense of jealousy; I got watercolor pens for Christmas (and I am grateful and pleased with the gift) but Alex got a graphics tablet for her computer, and she has been arting up a storm with it.
I've borrowed it a couple times, and oh, the things one can do with that beast! The future is unclear ... I may be able to use it while she is at work, and we three will co-exist peacefully, or I will have to get my own.
In the mean time, my daily creation has been either for writing, or cooking, and I've been a negligent blogger about it. It's only with the last two days of amazingly clement weather that Lillian has been yipping at me to work in the studio so that she can safely play out in front of the house. I am the guard dog who watches over her with the garage door open. It is better light for the studio, after all.
Brush Strokes
Alex gifted me with some flexible-tip "watercolor" pens at Christmas, and I only just began to play with them.The black brush-strokes were first, then a few green. Then I thought of centaurea, and how much I liked them in my wildflower garden of 15 years past. I added blue.
The yellow bits were just for some color balance.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
2010
With the New Year, I have been aware of the need to create something every day, and make that a priority.
New Year's Day and yesterday, I worked on writing the next chapter of Transitions, a rather boring soap opera that follows the next stage of life at the Reich estate and Owen Reich-Ambris' transformation from kid to trying on his father's shoes as owner of the estate.
One of the things I've learned over the past traumatic two and some years is that while I do enjoy writing and need to write when I'm ill or emotionally hurt, what comes out of my keyboard is not quality work. No less than four novel-length writings are pretty much all dreck. I've been re-reading them lately and felt my face burn with embarrassment all the way through. I won't delete them, but it's very likely that I will re-write them, or at least gut the hell out of them and just pare them down to a couple short stories.
New Year's Day and yesterday, I worked on writing the next chapter of Transitions, a rather boring soap opera that follows the next stage of life at the Reich estate and Owen Reich-Ambris' transformation from kid to trying on his father's shoes as owner of the estate.
One of the things I've learned over the past traumatic two and some years is that while I do enjoy writing and need to write when I'm ill or emotionally hurt, what comes out of my keyboard is not quality work. No less than four novel-length writings are pretty much all dreck. I've been re-reading them lately and felt my face burn with embarrassment all the way through. I won't delete them, but it's very likely that I will re-write them, or at least gut the hell out of them and just pare them down to a couple short stories.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
The Cold Food Day
[This is a cross-post from my regular blog. Both need attention; but this entry is really about creating something new for me. Foods!]
This morning I woke up hungry, not having eaten supper the night before.
I thought of taters and eggs, which I had promised Alex I'd make before she and John had to go to the Bay Area. I thought of the soft and scrumptious loaf of Dutch crust French bread I bought at the store the other day. I thought of what to make for lunch with things on hand.
There was a container of egg whites, left over from making pumpkin custard the day before yesterday, so the taters and eggs made use of that. Delicious. Perfect. Hearty breakfast accompanied by tomato juice. Good start to a freezin' ass cold day.
Around 10 am, I opened the freezer to see what was available for lunch. I spotted a small container of onions and ground beef that I intended to make into some variant of minestrone -- but I knew Bernie wouldn't eat that as it would have too much tomato flavor to it. Aha! A bag of pre-cooked prawns (50 % off sale at the grocers one weekend) and a package of chopped broccoli. Got it, lunch is on the way!
The minestrone fixins I pulled out as well, just because I couldn't stop thinking about them.
Baby portobella mushrooms ... a package of them needed to be used up, so I cut each one into halves or quarters and tossed them into a frying pan with Saffola Margarine (good taste for sizzling) and cut up half a yellow onion into 3/4 inch chunks and began to cook them in extra virgin olive oil. The pot of white basmati rice began to cook.
Prawns thawed in a solution of sea salt and lemon juice and water; some of the mushrooms went into a pot with the minestrone stuff on a back burner, along with a hefty amount of "Italian Seasoning" by McCormick.
A can of chicken broth was mixed with 2 tablespoons of corn starch, some salt, and a heavy shaking of garlic powder, and added to the onion pieces when they were done, to slowly come to a boil. When the rice was nearly done, I put the frozen broccoli on to steam. A few minutes later, most of the mushrooms went into the thickening chicken broth, along with the cut up prawns. (Some of the mushrooms went into the minestrone pot.) When the broccoli was done, so was the rice, and with that, lunch was served. Delicious, nutritious, and satisfying.
The minestrone-to-be slowly thawed on its low setting, seemingly forgotten, but not.
I walked to the school to collect Lillian. We checked the mail, and then, ambling up the street came a man with his Great Dane bitch. She was beautiful, black with a white spot on her chest, and a hint of whitish toes. Maybe a third again bigger than our dog Sebastian, but looking like his auntie. Lil and I stopped to talk with the owner, who assured us that she didn't bite, and we petted the large, lovely lady, comparing her loopy ears to Sebastian's, and the breadth between her eyes, and the gentle eyes themselves. Yeah, I think Sebastian has some Great Dane in his ancestry.
Return to the minestrone variation. I dumped some leftover fried cabbage (don't knock it until you've tried it, cooked with onions in bacon fryings) into the pot, and a cup of tomato sauce. A little later, I tossed in about a quarter cup of nopalitos (cactus strips) and a handful of sliced black olives. I added more oregano, more garlic powder, and a cup of asparagus, cut into half-inch pieces. Dumping in maybe a cup to a cup and a half of Wolfgang Puck's beef broth (no MSG) and about the same amount of the water from the broccoli steaming, and a cup of pasta ...
When the pasta was done, I cut a couple pieces of the French bread, and slathered them with cream cheese. Serving the minestrone in a bowl, I sprinkled it with Parmesan cheese and ooohhh, perfect soup, perfect meal for a cold, cold winter evening.
This morning I woke up hungry, not having eaten supper the night before.
I thought of taters and eggs, which I had promised Alex I'd make before she and John had to go to the Bay Area. I thought of the soft and scrumptious loaf of Dutch crust French bread I bought at the store the other day. I thought of what to make for lunch with things on hand.
There was a container of egg whites, left over from making pumpkin custard the day before yesterday, so the taters and eggs made use of that. Delicious. Perfect. Hearty breakfast accompanied by tomato juice. Good start to a freezin' ass cold day.
Around 10 am, I opened the freezer to see what was available for lunch. I spotted a small container of onions and ground beef that I intended to make into some variant of minestrone -- but I knew Bernie wouldn't eat that as it would have too much tomato flavor to it. Aha! A bag of pre-cooked prawns (50 % off sale at the grocers one weekend) and a package of chopped broccoli. Got it, lunch is on the way!
The minestrone fixins I pulled out as well, just because I couldn't stop thinking about them.
Baby portobella mushrooms ... a package of them needed to be used up, so I cut each one into halves or quarters and tossed them into a frying pan with Saffola Margarine (good taste for sizzling) and cut up half a yellow onion into 3/4 inch chunks and began to cook them in extra virgin olive oil. The pot of white basmati rice began to cook.
Prawns thawed in a solution of sea salt and lemon juice and water; some of the mushrooms went into a pot with the minestrone stuff on a back burner, along with a hefty amount of "Italian Seasoning" by McCormick.
A can of chicken broth was mixed with 2 tablespoons of corn starch, some salt, and a heavy shaking of garlic powder, and added to the onion pieces when they were done, to slowly come to a boil. When the rice was nearly done, I put the frozen broccoli on to steam. A few minutes later, most of the mushrooms went into the thickening chicken broth, along with the cut up prawns. (Some of the mushrooms went into the minestrone pot.) When the broccoli was done, so was the rice, and with that, lunch was served. Delicious, nutritious, and satisfying.
The minestrone-to-be slowly thawed on its low setting, seemingly forgotten, but not.
I walked to the school to collect Lillian. We checked the mail, and then, ambling up the street came a man with his Great Dane bitch. She was beautiful, black with a white spot on her chest, and a hint of whitish toes. Maybe a third again bigger than our dog Sebastian, but looking like his auntie. Lil and I stopped to talk with the owner, who assured us that she didn't bite, and we petted the large, lovely lady, comparing her loopy ears to Sebastian's, and the breadth between her eyes, and the gentle eyes themselves. Yeah, I think Sebastian has some Great Dane in his ancestry.
Return to the minestrone variation. I dumped some leftover fried cabbage (don't knock it until you've tried it, cooked with onions in bacon fryings) into the pot, and a cup of tomato sauce. A little later, I tossed in about a quarter cup of nopalitos (cactus strips) and a handful of sliced black olives. I added more oregano, more garlic powder, and a cup of asparagus, cut into half-inch pieces. Dumping in maybe a cup to a cup and a half of Wolfgang Puck's beef broth (no MSG) and about the same amount of the water from the broccoli steaming, and a cup of pasta ...
When the pasta was done, I cut a couple pieces of the French bread, and slathered them with cream cheese. Serving the minestrone in a bowl, I sprinkled it with Parmesan cheese and ooohhh, perfect soup, perfect meal for a cold, cold winter evening.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Tough One
This one was hard on me, both in reading, formatting, and trying to find an image.Jim Wisneski's sensitive and tragic story, "A Pile of Dinners" is about an Alzheimer's victim and a family member who has had to live with the horrible changes that the disease causes.
I don't think I did the story justice, but my all-too-recent experience with my mother's decline into Alzheimers made it hard to work with.
Almost a Cover Image
Me, not keeping a clear line of communication open, and he, not keeping track of Upcoming Issues, well, Jonathan Scott and I did not know that I was cobbling up a cover image to go with his story, nor did we know in tandem that he already had a graphic to go with it."Ever So Slightly Mangled" is a fine representation of a storyteller's art.
I included my illustration in the later part of the text.
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