Under a Red Roof

Hail to the Garden!

April 13, 2009 in Gardening + Nature, Learning by Colleen | 2 comments

Meet Wilbur, another one of my gnome friends. He was hoping I would keep him company today as he trundled various twigs and bits of debris around the garden. We had no such luck, however. Every time I went to put my boots on, the rain would start, and sometimes, as in this case, the hail, too!

I tried three different times to no avail. I guess Mother Nature thought I’d be better off indoors today. It so happens she was right. I am happily typing away after a big basement clean-up. I put away the stray tools, cleaned up cat messes, filled three boxes with various bits and bobs for the Goodwill, and gathered a rather tall pile of all the remaining boxes that need to be cut and bound for the recycling bin. Then I swept, vacuumed, and smiled contentedly at a job well done.

I love a productive day…

Kenny!

March 5, 2009 in Learning, Quoting by Colleen | Permalink

So this bit of weirdness is a farewell. I have been instructed by my naturopath to give up sugar. Bye, bye VooDoo Doughnuts, cherry pie, chocolate cake, butterscotch pudding! Bye bye Junior Mints, Turkish delight, gummy bears! You were wonderful, and I loved you well.

I’ve stocked my pantry with dried fruit, and I’ve got these fine words to live by:

Badness you can get easily, in quantity: the road is smooth, and it lies close by. But in front of excellence the immortal gods have put sweat, and long and steep is the way to it, and rough at first. But when you come to the top, then it is easy, even though it is hard.

Hesiod, Works and Days

I CAN DO THIS!

Crazy Words and Bunco

March 2, 2009 in Cooking + Baking, Learning, Loving by Colleen | 3 comments

Okay, as someone who writes for a “living,” I feel like a total dork, but did you know that bimonthy can mean twice monthly OR every other month? What?! I’ve only used it to express twice monthly, but now, I will be extra careful to avoid any sort of confusion because there is a mighty big difference between twenty-four and six. Oy. I am just reeling. As someone with a deep appreciation for language and words, to say that I am disappointed to learn this is an understatement. What kind of nutter butter decided this?

Anyway, You’re probably wondering why this even matters. Well, I was starting to write a post about how I gather my friends up every other month for Bunco, but thought, surely there’s a word for that and did a little internet search. There you go. I’ve done the disappointing leg work for all of us.

As I was saying, I gather the lovely ladies to my house bimonthly, and we chat, roll the dice (most of the time), drink, eat, and are generally quite merry, often whooping and hollering with delight at our luck or lack of it. We are a wonderful group of beautiful, smart, funny, caring, and talented ladies. We love life, children (though I am the only one without any – they don’t hold it against me :), a good time, and a slice of cake.

About the cake, my dear friend Carolyn requested that I share the recipe from last Friday’s gathering. It is quite rich, a little slice going a long way, and delicious, too. I’m sorry I don’t have a picture of it, but we gobbled it up before I had the chance. Also, I have no photos of the lovely ladies themselves, well, save one, but I didn’t think Mara and Amber would want to be singled out like that, so, instead, I’ve got one of the table I set for the festivities. The tablecloth is the one I got from my adventure at The Bins, and the miniature daffodils are from our yard. I’ll get a picture of all of the ladies next time. I’m sure Greg won’t mind coming down in between whoops and hollers to capture our collective beauty for the ages and the blogosphere.

Anyway, the recipe is adapted from my very favorite dessert cookbook by the late Richard Sax, Classic Home Desserts:

Fabulous Flourless Chocolate Cake

Cake:

8 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

1 stick butter, cut into pieces, softened

6 large eggs: 2 whole, 4 divided

3/4 cup sugar

For flavor, pick one or two of the following:

2 tablespoons brandy or Grand Marnier

1 t cinnamon

Grated zest of one orange

Whipped Cream Topping:

1 1/2 cups heavy cream, well chilled

3 tablespoons powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

Cake:

Preheat the oven to 350. Line the bottom of an 8″ or 9″ spring form pan with a round of wax paper. Do not butter the pan. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or bowl set over hot water. Remove from heat and whisk in the butter until melted; set aside.

Whisk the two whole eggs and the four egg yolks with 1/2 cup of the the sugar, just until blended. Whisk in the warm chocolate mixture. Whisk in your optional flavoring – cinnamon, brandy, Grand Marnier, or orange zest. Carolyn, for Bunco, I used the cinnamon.

In another bowl, beat the four egg whites until foamy. Slowly add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and beat until the whites form soft mounds that hold their shape but are not stiff. Stir about 1/4 of the beaten whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten it; gently fold in the remaining whites, being careful not to deflate them. Pour the batter into the pan; smooth the top.

Bake until the top of the cake is puffed and cracked and the center is no longer wobbly; 35-45 minutes. It will still look pretty moist, so do not overbake.

Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack; the cake will look like a crater, complete with a sunken center and high sides. It ain’t pretty!

Whipped Cream Topping:

At serving time, whip the cream with powdered sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon. Fill the crater of the cake and serve. Also, be careful not to eat the wax paper you used to line the pan. It disguises itself rather well, but if you pay attention, it can be peeled away as you slice the cake. Enjoy!

Shake It Up

October 29, 2008 in Eating, Learning by Colleen | 2 comments

I went to my naturopath yesterday and got some rather exciting and disconcerting news. For those who know me, you probably are well acquainted with my tender tummy woes. I get sick pretty easily. The problem was trying to figure out exactly what was making it happen. It was like my body was always changing its mind. One day I’d get sick from wheat, but the next time I had it, I’d be fine. So I tended just to get sick a lot and suffer through the frustration of wondering why. Was it the wheat, oil, corn, oatmeal, potatoes, dairy?

Finally, I got a really good doctor (Petra Caruso), after trying out what seemed like a million. She prescribed the anti-inflammation diet for eight weeks without adequate results, so our next step was to have blood tests done for some definitive answers. As it turns out, surprise, surprise, I have food sensitivities, A LOT of them, and not to anything that my doctor previously expected, well, except dairy. So, for at least the next three months to a year, I will be eliminating anything that came up high on the test:

Dairy, except for goat milk. Um, no thanks.

Eggs

Peanuts, cashews, pistachios, hazelnuts, almonds

Lima beans

Flax seeds

Green Peppers (apparently my body only likes ripe ones)

Garlic (I know, weird and hard to get around)

The rest I have to rotate, because almost everything I eat gets my antibodies atwitter, and I do mean everything. The only foods that registered a zero were cocoa beans(!), raspberries, strawberries, apples, and apricots. Basically, with the rotation, if I eat it today, I cannot eat it again for another three days. The idea being that my body, with the help of some supplements, will heal itself, and one fine day I will be a normal person who doesn’t vomit all the time or have to think about every bite of food that enters her mouth.

I am also hoping that a side effect to all of this will be some weight loss. Though Amber and Becky will probably protest at this, I would like to look like Kelly Ripa (with my head) in the current issue of Shape magazine. She is my height and body type, so I think it is do-able. The scale at the community center currently has me at 122 pounds. That means I’ve got about ten pounds before I hit Ripaville. Why is it always ten?

As I went to sleep last night, I got to wondering, is this good luck, bad lucK? Because looking at all those results sure got my heart beating quickety-quick, and this rotation will be a pain in the arse – am I on day one or two? However, in the long run, I think it is good. I finally have solid answers and a greater understanding of this marvelous machine I call home. In time, and with proper care, she’ll be running like the oh-so-gorgeous 1969 Super Sport Camaro pictured above. Hear me roar!

Little Friends

October 13, 2008 in Giving, Learning, Watching by Colleen | 1 comment

When I was younger, I looked on in wild wonder at a certain breed of older ladies. While they looked normal – well groomed, no nervous tics to speak of – they had habits that set them apart from the crowd – kooky habits. Despite saying, “I will never ever be one of them,” I’ve somehow, over the past couple of years, turned into one and am now likely the focus of some other young person’s mocking. Though there are many facets to my kookiness, here is the most glaring example of my transformation: I feed animals.

To be fair, Gregory started it! Oh, listen to me, blaming it on him. Seriously, he did though. We were at the coast a few years ago and he saw some hummingbirds darting around a feeder. I was so tickled at his excitement, “Buddy, did you see that one? How about that one? They’re so neat!”, that I bought him a feeder. Placed just outside our kitchen window, we’ve had many a tiny visitor.

Then there were the Bushtits, literally the cutest birds, and aside from the hummingbird, the smallest in North America. They twitter around in flocks, and despite their rather drab color, they bring so much cheer, bobbing and darting through the trees. Anyway, I kept seeing them in our yard, and then I saw them en masse at a suet feeder at my neighbor’s house and, well, you can see the giant snowball forming, can’t you?

So, we started with one suet feeder outside the bedroom window, and got lots of traffic from the Bushtits, as well as Warblers, Flickers, Jays, Starlings, Chickadees, and Juncos. As you can imagine, I got excited about all these birds, and thought, well, wouldn’t it be neat if we could watch them in the dining room, too? Feeder count: three.

Then I noticed all the house finches on the wire and wondered why they weren’t gobbling up the goodies at the suet feeders. As I later learned, at the Backyard Bird Shop, they’re not big on suet, but boy do they love sunflower seeds. Feeder count: four. Additional birds: House Finches, Purple Finches, Song Sparrows, Pine Siskins, Golden Crowned Sparrows, Gold Finches, and Lesser Gold Finches.

At this point, I could see the kooky transformation happening in a big way, yet, rather than stop right there, I asked Laura (yeah, I’m on a first name basis with the bird shop manager) what kind of birds eat at the flat feeders they have in the shop. Well, gentle readers, a whole new crop that wasn’t visiting before, and since I had already crossed the threshold there was no going back. Feeder count: five. Additional birds: Black Headed Gros Beak and Evening Grosbeak, plus a Hawk (not sure what kind) that came to munch on these fellas (he missed – this time).

But, you may remember, I said animals. I feed animals. Well, as those in my situation already know, feeders don’t just attract birds, but squirrels, too. They are tenacious, I might add. So, as the package of squirrel food says, “Don’t fight ’em, feed ’em!” Feeder count: six. Kooky lady transformation: done and done!