Big Day

Today was our big day!!!  The newspaper sent a columnist out to do a story on our home!  I don't know what could be more gratifying.  Or more work!  I swear, we have moved every piece of furniture around, cleaned under each of them, run up and down stairs looking for likely relics and still wound up with an empty bookcase!  We set up the living room in the winter configuration, with a table near the wood stove for  warm dinners.  Tired of decluttering the table all the time, we put a bookcase at the end of the couch to hold all the stuff that we fidget with while watching TV.
 

 At the last minute, yesterday, I made some necessary bread and then some sweet rolls to offer with tea.  We enjoyed her visit very much and it was fun to expound on our philosophy and our stuff for a couple of hours.

We went to great trouble to get in this new-to-the-house barrister bookcase and then didn't fill it.  I am looking forward to seeing some of Bill's miniatures in it soon.  Notice the knock-your-eye-out vintage tablecloth from the forties.  There's a touch of that salmon color in the window shades.

I am afraid I didn't follow my last weekend's menus at all.  Saturday night we were both tired and grumpy after prolonged house cleaning and I attempted a nap at 5:30 in the evening.  I wasn't much interested in fixing supper, I can tell you.  The phone rang.  I didn't answer it.  It rang again and this time I grumpily got up and answered and our friend Janet said "Can you come to a gourmet dinner, right now"?  What?  Where?  Well . . .I guess . . .. .so. . . So we changed out of our dirty clothes and went and what a dinner it was!  I forget how many courses there were, all seafood:  crab cakes, clam chowder, smoked salmon and the main entree, delicous baked fish, with carrot cake for dessert!  Oh yes and somewhere in there was shrimp salad.  We were hours eating that lovely meal.  And then they were bringing out take-away containers, so we brought some home  too.
Sunday night I made some rissoto and got the ingredients wrong and made about a half a gallon of it.  Guess we'll be having it again.  I laid the pieces of fish on the hot rice, vegetables alongside and fresh brown bread, cream cheese and smoked salmon open-faced sandwiches.  It was just as good the second time!
Tonight I'm making hot brown sandwiches, with chicken slices on the bread, hot Mornay sauce, bacon and tomato on top.  Steamed broccoli and applesauce for dessert.
Tuesday:  Baked potatoes with cheese sauced broccoli, sliced tomatoes, home-made bread and butter and applesauce
Wednesday:  Hamburgers, baked beans, sliced tomatoes, applesauce
Thursday:  Pizza
Friday:  Pork tenderloins, rissotto, mixed stirfry vegetables, brownies
Saturday, Cream of potato soup, chicken and cheese sandwiches, brownies.

September is the harvest season

These vegetables cost me $5 at a roadside stand: 4 giant tomatoes (each one weighs about 12 ounces), 3 red peppers, 3 zucchini, and 5 baby pumpkins!  I love this season.  We stopped at the orchard below Bedford and bought a peck of apples too.  I had a new recipe for "Paper Bag Apple Pie".  But it called for boiled cider.  So Eliyah and I stopped at the store and bought some apple juice and I boiled it down to a thick syrup in a crock pot.  We made the pie the next day and Eliyah and his mother took some home. It was very good but rather a lot of trouble.  The topping was streusel rather than strips of pie crust.  The paper bag we baked it in became very browned and smelled of burning paper!          

In this lovely weather, I like to hang out the laundry.  The whites I hang in the sun on my umbrella line which I installed in the back yard myself 10 years ago, using a bag of cement that can be mixed right in the hole to set the pipe in.  In the winter the whole top portion can be brought in, folded and stored in the garage.  A good thing to do because now-a-days a sooty coating appears on the rope that comes off on your whites and has to be scrubbed off very vigorously because it doesn't come out of the clothes at all. I don't remember that from all the clothes lines in my childhood!  The darks I put on a folding rack on the front porch.  They don't need any sunlight to fade them.  I like the smell of outdoors and the faint stiffness in the fabric. Too, sunlight is the best disinfectant of all and completely non-toxic.

Here are the menus for the week:

Sunday:  Boneless pork chops, dressing, sliced tomatoes, corn, the last of the pie

Monday:  Pasta with red sauce, tossed salad, dark chocolate

Tuesday:  Hot dogs, cottage fried potatoes, steamed broccoli, dark chocolate

Wednesday:  French bread pizza, ice cream

Thursday:  Hamburgers, garlicky broiled potato wedges, sliced tomatoes, last of the ice cream

Friday, Chili, cheese sandwiches, tomato slices, if there are any more, canned peaches

Saturday:  Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, Home canned green beans, canned peaches

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Is it Fall yet?