A quiet Saturday night

I'm still behind in my work, so I spent the whole day working to get ready for my upcoming conferences. But in the evening, Andrew and I sat down and had dinner together, like we do almost every night. It wasn't anything particularly fancy - I thawed out some homemade tomato soup and made some grilled cheese sandwiches. We ate and listened to Prairie Home Companion, a radio show that's been on the air since I was a child. Since it's set in Minnesota, it connects me to my past, and I'm happy that Andrew enjoys listening to it, even though he didn't grow up with things like Jello salad, bachelor farmer uncles, and blizzards. While we were eating dinner, we watched the hungry geckos** who hang around our kitchen window at night to sup on all the insects attracted by the light of our dining room lamp.

It made me think about my life right now, and how I'm happy with a job I love, sharing a home with my husband. Ten years ago (more or less), I was working as a line cook in Albuquerque, living in a roach-filled apartment. I didn't have quiet Saturday nights, because I always worked weekends and evenings, although I did listen to Prairie Home Companion, because I use my cassette tape recorder to tape record it while I was away every week. I earned a bit above minimum wage, and I couldn't really figure out what to do next with my life. My life is so different, ten years later. And I wonder what my life will look like ten years from now.

** They're not actually geckos (they're anoles), but that's what many people call them here.

Most of the time I love living a tiny house (350 square feet, remember?) but this week is not one of those times. Andrew is repairing the head gaskets on his motorcycle. This is a big job, and requires many weekends and evenings of work. In the meantime, my living room and kitchen look like this:

The pictures are somewhat poor-quality phone pictures because another lingering annoyance in my life. My work computer (which is also my home computer) is on the fritz. The cursor moves around, on its own, opening folders and changing settings. I've had it in to two repair guys, and it has been diagnosed as (1) a malfunctioning trackpad, (2) a virus, and (3) "nothing is wrong". Diagnosis number (3) was the most recent, but, unfortunately, it is not true. My loaner computer can't process video and audio at all, but it's still nice to be able to do 80% of my work. And the loaner isn't playing nice with my camera, which is why I had to use the phone pictures tonight.

Time off

The semester starts tomorrow, and since I'm teaching this time around, I'm a little less sure of my time management skills. That is, I'm not quite sure how much time teaching will take, and thus how much will remain for research, cooking dinner, preparing for my upcoming conference, or learning my new voice parts for choir. As a result, I'm been preparing. Our clothes are clean, I'm only behind in one project at work, and I did a lot of pre-cooking for the next few weeks.

I also decided we need to prepare by having fun, so we went kayaking this weekend. My mother-in-law worried about about the danger in kayaking, but I think she's picturing people strapped tightly into narrow boats, shooting down rapids. We were in low-to-the ground plastic two-seated kayaks, gently paddling our way through mangrove forests in water that was four feet deep. Our friends, silhouetted picturesquely below, demonstrate the peacefulness of the activity.

The beauty of the double kayak is that (while I try to do my part) I generally find that my paddling partner is working harder than me, so I get to glide a bit more than I paddle.

Cold

I'm back in Miami, where we've been living through "cold" weather, which means that it's in the 60's (15-20C) during the day and 40-50F (4-10C) each night. For a northerner, of course, this is still laughably warm, and it's amusing to see everyone pile on their wool sweaters and hats. On the other hand, most of us don't have much warm clothing, and there's no heat in the buildings. It's kind of like when I was in Norway and they had a "heat wave" of 70 F (20C). If you don't get that kind of weather, then the houses and people there just aren't built for it.

In the meantime, I'm dealing with another kind of cold, the kind that lives in your sinuses until all you dream about is when you'll be able to take a deep breath of air through your nose again. Since I was sick over Christmas, I didn't do much cooking. But I did get out of bed to make dessert. While it's not very polished, you can still tell it's a hedgehog, right? It was made with a dark chocolate olive oil cake and Swiss buttercream frosting, so it tasted good, in any case.

Seven courses on St. Stephen's Day

We are spending this Christmas in Ohio. Our actual family celebration will be near New Year's, so my mother decided that a good way to fill the time was to host a large, formal dinner party, which I volunteered / was drafted to cook. My father (jokingly?) suggested that seven courses was the right number of courses, and my mother requested Italian. Thus, this menu:

The first course was apretivo: prosecco with Campari. The Italians must really like a bitter flavor, because I had to cut the Campari down to one quarter (2 teaspoons per glass of Prosecco) to make it palatable for us. The second course was antipasti, and I can especially recommend this marinated mushroom recipe. You can make it a day ahead, and then just throw it on a plate with some prosciutto, olives, and cheese and you're done.
Another recipe that will make it into my regular party food rotation, goat cheese ravioli with walnut and white wine sauce. We made the ravioli from scratch, which was an insane amount of work, but I think the walnut sauce would taste terrific on fettuccine, even if it was store bought.
The main course was a lamb, beef, and pork stew, served with potatoes and creamed spinach. It must have all been much loved, because no one remembered to take any pictures. The dessert course was panna cotta. I had no idea how easy it is to make panna cotta! (Um, if you're a vegetarian who's willing to work with gelatin, which I now am, because I have totally had it with little lumps of agar agar ruining all my mousses and tortes.) You're simply dissolving sugar and gelatin in a lot of heavy whipping cream. Chill, and you're done. No hot water bath (demanded by creme brulee) and no cooking over a double boiler (required by mousse). I served the panna cotta with strawberries tossed in sugar and a good balsamic vinegar.
To end, a fruit course followed by coffee. Here, a dapper guest enjoys the fruit salad, which was topped with Chambord.
Now we're off to visit friends in Pittsburgh for two days. Hopefully I'll accumulate even more pictures of food there for the blog.

The Mini

I had to fight long and hard to convince my husband to get a convertible. There are many good reasons not to have one (especially as your only car). They don't hold much cargo. They cost more than a regular car. Long trips are hell for passengers in the back seat. They're not so great in the winter. (That's what I'm told, anyway. How would I know? I live in Miami.)

But after six months of convertible ownership I can firmly state that it is terrific. Driving in a convertible has all the best parts of motorcycling (exposure to the sun and wind, easy parking) and none of the negatives (sweating in all that safety gear, keeping super alert for crazy drivers). Plus I can do my hair, something that's impossible when wearing a helmet to and from work.

Unfortunately for me, my husband gets to pick the next car, which will probably be chosen for its ability to haul a trailer. So this convertible is likely a brief interlude in a lifetime of station wagons.

Mandarinen Quarktorte

To distract you from aliens whom I may or may not resemble, let us return to the beloved topics of tortes. I wanted to bring an especially delicious cake to my work's end-of-the-semester party. (It was a potluck lunch before a meeting, which is pretty festive for academics.) This is the cake I chose, Mandarin Ricotta Cheese Torte. Officially, it's supposed to use quark, but this is hard to find in the U.S. and I didn't have time to be making dairy products from scratch, so I used a recommended substitution of Ricotta cheese mixed with yogurt.

Here was the result:

Let's see that from another angle:

Notice the excessive height? A height that one might even call precarious? Soon after, the cake slowly crumbled. I will make it again because it was delicious, but when I do I will most certainly use a pan with a larger area, because my structural integrity field was not up to the job.

Although my cake was not stylish, my new Tortenmesser is. It was an unexpected, perfectly selected, early Christmas gift from a torte-eating friend.

I shall treasure it for years to come. It will be useful for both cake serving and any pastry-related battles for which I should be armed. (Check out that blade!).

I've included the recipe (in English!) for anyone who wants it. From Marion's Cookbook.