Montreal

Posted on September 17, 2015 | Leave a comment

Poutine. Thank you, Montreal! My mother was from there, as was her entire family.

She never made this dish for us. I read about it and didn’t think it would work. French fries with brown gravy and melted cheese curds. I never thought about it, never tried it.

Today I’m in a cheese state (I’m always in a state that makes and likes cheese) and I ordered 1/2 of a Poutine.

Can I tell you how delicious this is? I’m getting old and not even my Canadian cousins ever had me try this dish. Shame on all of us. I’ve missed out on this dish for so many years, it’s a disaster.

For a last meal, I would now like many things I’ll get to you in the future, but Montreal is on the list with poutine, and a smoked meat sandwich on rye with deli mustard. That’s only my Montreal list. More to come. Cheers to David Sax of Save The Deli! Dee

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Weddings

Posted on September 17, 2015 | Leave a comment

Fourteen years ago my now husband threw me into his family’s Thanksgiving pool for 12 hours and didn’t come and see me once. There were sixty people and I was bait.

Two ladies came up to me, M and S, and asked if I would go with my boyfriend (fiance but no-one knew because we had to meet all the parents) to a new city. I was wise enough to say, “that depends upon my last name.” I tried to keep my last name but gave in.

M’s eldest daughter is getting married. I remember teaching her and her cousin cooking classes when they were kids. First time we met, her cousin looked at my shoes and said “Nanny has shoes like that.” Sassy. K was shy and kind. I always thought she had big thoughts she didn’t share.

I’ve a beef with the future husband. Two, actually. There will still be 50-60 at Thanksgiving but he hasn’t run the gauntlet I did. Interviews with Nanny and my husband’s parents. And as a guy he’ll never have to make a pie or wash dishes. He’s immune because he’s a guy, so he gets to watch the Game. The Game, Aggies. Well, there’s a third. My husband’s cousins M and S put him down their laundry chute once. I think we have to rent out their old house for an hour and place the new husband down the chute. Come on, the gals who bake, cook, make 100 dishes for Thanksgiving then clear plates and do all the dishes then make you leftovers six hours later and do those dishes deserve something!

Sorry my little M. Bride to be, very soon. I wish you and your husband everything for a wonderful life. And we’ll try to be kind on Thanksgiving. In praise of marrige, its freedoms and restraints. Dee

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Chick Magnets

Posted on September 17, 2015 | 3 comments

Here is the tie my husband is forbidden from buying!

Cool tie my husband is not allowed to buy

Chick Magnet Tie

We have been very happy with all the ties we have bought from this company.

Discount code for 15% off sitewide: DEE15

Mr.Rishi who owns The Dark Knot has always been extremely helpful.

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The Dark Knot

Posted on September 17, 2015 | 2 comments

“Great ties!

Thank you for your email.  Yes, we could look into extra extra length ties next time.  Thank you for the suggestion.  Sam Hober does do 67 inch ties, but yes, they are custom and so would take a few weeks to be made and delivered, I believe.

For the Amagansett Chicks Tie, yes, please feel free to have your wife blog about it.  As soon as we get a couple of sales in from that, we will send you over a complimentary standard tie of your choice.  How does that sound?  We can offer her readers a 15% discount.  What is the name of her blog if you don’t mind me asking?

The Amagansett Chicks Tie is extremely popular, and is something the two of you could wear when on a date!  How does that sound?”

***

This is to great ties and tall guys.

We don’t date, Rishi, we’re married and watch movies on Netflx or Amazon! No bar-hopping, maybe a pizza once in a while. I cook better than any of the restaurants around here.

Note that this is not a monetized site but I needed to convey The Dark Knot owner’s complete email to you. If I want to dress up in a suit with a tie on a date with my husband (and dog, we’ll be on the patio for lunch if our town barks rather than bites about having a dog on a restaurant patio) we would definitely do versions of chick magnet. Then we’ll attract chickens to our balcony and eggs and poop all over the place and will be evicted. Isn’t that what the chick magnet tie envisioned? Just a joke, readers.

We’ve now bought three silk ties from this firm, two on order, and they offer sartorial advice so if you’ve a job interview, check it out. I just thought the chick magnet story was funny. Dee

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Old Friends

Posted on September 17, 2015 | Leave a comment

The week we got back from our elopement “honeymoon” I got a out of the blue call from an old friend. A really old friend, a grade school comrade.

Transporting back to one’s youth is interesting. At age ten, he knew I played violin and carved me a wooden violin as a holiday ornament to place on our tree. He was too shy to give it to me. Yes, he told me that 13 years ago.

Now, after many years from grade school, I had to tell him, who was getting a divorce, that I’d just married my husband the other day.

We have many shared interests and keep in touch, so do our parents in the community where we were raised. I have family there. Our parents know the same people even though they’re now semi-retired. It was a village, everyone knew each other.

Things keep coming back, good memories and friends who pop up out of nowhere. Then your families are connected and there’s no need for Facebook. That’s how it is, six a.m. September 17.

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Aunties L and J

Posted on September 17, 2015 | Leave a comment

Decades ago they kept the OED, the dictionary, in the powder room so when we kids went to the “loo” we had to open the book, find a new word, pronounce it and define it, then use it in a sentence.

I love them for that. It made me want to learn. Of course as a kid wanting to go outside and play, it was annoying at the time but it was a labor of love.

Perhaps I should rename this blog A Labor of Love because that is what I am. Of course someone will already have that moniker. I thank my Aunts for guiding me to knowledge, that eventually became wisdom. Cheers, Dee

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My Pot Roast

Posted on September 17, 2015 | Leave a comment

Yesterday I bought this 3″ thick gorgeous chuck steak. Salt and pepper, a large can of crushed tomatoes, one Vidalia onion, chopped. I covered it with foil and baked for 3 1/2 hours. It was served over egg noodles. Yum. I have more left for tomorrow for lunch.

Dinner will have to be vegetarian or light, like chicken. Why? Because Friday morning my butchers have a one-day sale on grass-fed beef. It comes in coarsely ground and they re-grind it to sell. I’ve pre-ordered four pounds of coarsely ground beef for my Texas Chili. I pride myself on grinding my own meat for chili but if my butchers say they’ll save me an hour on prep and washing my meat grinder I’ll trust them as they’ve served me well for years.

Fall has been in the air even though it’ll be warm today. A brief summer is not the time for stews, pot roasts or chili. Ah, what the heck. Chili and corn bread. Lime, cheese, onion toppings. Maybe a few guests. We’ll see.

I took Mom’s recipes to a new level and now they’re mine, pot roast, chicken saltimbocca (on the blog) and others. At the core is the 50’s use a can of this, a packet of that. I even took Lady Bird Johnson’s quintessential Pedernales chili recipe from 1962 where she fed JFK and 5,000 guests at their ranch outside of Austin TX and made it my own. I don’t buy chili powder. I buy from Penzey’s Spices, available online though I seem to always move to a neighborhood with a Penzey’s and Whole Foods within a mile radius. Imagine that! Ancho, chipotle, and others, plus cumin.

It’s a good chili. My Swedish neighbor taught me kottsbullar (Swedish meatballs) so I taught him Texas chili. All is right in the world. Enjoy the day. Dee

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Ties and Other

Posted on September 16, 2015 | Leave a comment

I found The Dark Knot for ties because they have pure silk extra-long ties. My husband is 6’4″ and needs a long tie. He’s worn business casual for years but will have to endure suit and tie for a while.

He has three ties that fit him and may be of this decade. The middle one is our “test tie” from The Dark Knot, Glastonbury Circles. But we needed some blues. Sadly, our wedding tie I bought him no longer works. I hope someone at St. Vincent de Paul can use it.

DSCF0070

Ties, that bind. Work, marriage, kids, dogs. We just ordered two more ties online.

Another he really wanted because he liked it so much. When we were selecting the final two I told him that it was a duckling and a magnet. Chick Magnet.  No-one could see it from across the room but it was designed for bar chatter and my husband does not drink. He hangs out at home and watches re-runs of Blue Bloods.

He was miffed that his wife advised him not to get a silk chick magnet tie. No, he’s not looking for another gal. He is a physicist and liked the bird and magnet. That is life as I know it, Dee

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Eel

Posted on September 16, 2015 | Leave a comment

Eww. Summer at the tip of Long Island with our long-gone friend Richard. I was in grade school. We went out into the back yard and saw these lovely swans, were ushered in immediately because apparently they’re quite mean.

Next morning Uncle Dick took us fishing. We only caught blowfish with worms that we threw back. I was seasick, of course. Uncle Dick pulled up lobster traps and he only got one thing, an eel.

I’d never seen one before. I watched him kill it by slamming it’s head on the concrete stoop. Then he placed it on the kitchen counter and made me touch it. The sliminess of its skin made my finger contract. Then the dead body started writhing around. I must have ran outside away from the swans to vomit.

No, I didn’t have eel that day. Well, one piece because I was forced to taste it. But I was a little kid and that killing was brutal and so was the creepy skin. It was a scary weekend with all the wildlife. I don’t remember what we wore but it was probably a blouse, skirt, lace anklets and Mary Janes.

A few years later we were in the driveway with yet another story, the rented RV. As we packed up to go the phone rang (pre-answering machine, much less cell phone) and Dad ran in to pick it up.

We were all in the driveway when Dad came out of the house in tears, saying that our Uncle Dick had died. Way too soon. Now I remember that trip as a joy and an adventure. He was a fisherman and probably fisher of men because he took on my dad. Cheers and best wishes, Dee

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Kitchen Semantics

Posted on September 10, 2015 | Leave a comment

In cooking schools and in life, in a kitchen one knows to say “behind” or “hot behind” to keep a fellow cook from getting hurt or ruining your sauce.

One person on a cooking show I saw recently yelled “MOVE!!!” That is the antithesis of “behind.”

Behind lets one’s colleagues, competitors in this case, know that you’re running behind them with a new ingredient and not to step back. “Move” is a hostile comment that will get you pummeled by your fellow cooks a block away until you agree to an attitude adjustment.

The French brigade is legendary and how many chefs (see Ratatouille, based on Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry restaurant) are in the kitchen. There are rules. If one is washing dishes and dreaming of being on the line, behavior matters. So do tattoos (I don’t have any) but that’s another issue.

No matter what your career path, respect your elders and co-workers and people who work for you. No-one can ever go wrong with that philosophy. Everyone has their own job to do. Now MOVE, people, I’m coming through! No, in Italian it is “permesso.” Would you permit me to pass? I like that language better than MOVE! Cheers, too quiet around here and awaiting husband at midnight. Dee and Zoe

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