Road Trip to Summer Camp in Vermont

Last week I took Fat Rabbit to overnight camp in Vermont. We decided to road-trip it since United no longer runs non-stop flights to Manchester, NH or Burlington, VT. Thank you, United.

It had all the ingredients of a successful road trip:

• Music

Playlists Prepared for us by Amnon*

 

 

• Fun and Charming Travel Companion 

 Fat Rabbit with Duffel

• Beautiful Scenery

 

 

 

 

• A good dinner in a never-before explored small town (in the Finger Lakes wine country)

Rheinblick Restaurant in Canandauiga, New York. Authentic German cuisine and real München Beer in beer stein. Potato pancakes and spaetzele,  felt like I was back in Deutschland.

• A cozy bed and breakfast off the road somewhere to break up the journey.

Chalet of Canandauiga

Fat Rabbit Collapses in our cozy room under the rafters after a long day of driving

 

• Good Breakfast to Fuel the Driver

 

Three Course Breakfast prepared by our hosts Margaret and Pattie -baklava first course, baked scrambled eggs over spinach second course, and pictured here the cherry mascarpone whole grain french toast, along with morningstar honey glazed veggie patty with sweet potato salsa.

•  A Happy and Safe Arrival!

 560 miles later

Have a great summer, Fat Rabbit!

The Sunday Times

For our 25th Wedding Anniversary last summer, we were burnt out on extreme celebration since we had both marked our 50th birthdays the prior year with all the proper trips, parties and hullabaloo.

I remembered that one of our early "imaginings" of married life was to read the Sunday New York Times together on Sunday mornings over a leisurely brunch.  Perhaps a nap. Then finish the Times and have dinner. All the while commenting to each other over the articles as we hand sections back and forth having intelligent, witty, knowledgeable adult conversation.

Enter three kids (one at a time) and 21+ years of parenthood. Sunday school, soccer games, swim meets, music lessons...I scarcely need elaborate, it is such a well documented life path. Needless to say there were no leisurely Sundays. Last August our youngest's bat mitzvah was fast approaching and Sunday school would soon go the way of diapers and car seats. I decided to commemorate our 25th Wedding Anniversary with a return to the New York Times Dream. 

Well almost a year over I can say we have not yet had the Sunday New York Times experience but we have made several enjoyable attempts at it and at the very least Irad always has something to read on the airplane!

Last Sunday I decided to see it was possible for me to read the NYTimes cover to cover. I got through several sections in the morning.

A break to go visit my parents, run some errands  and back for some more reading.

 A young recruit joined my ranks.

AND... I did not get through the whole paper. However, I did pass on interesting articles to all my kids, find myself recounting to my husband the story of the eagle chick dying on a webcam, and got a call from a distraught 15 year old while I was in Vermont this week telling me he stayed up too late because he couldn't put down the front page article about the fireman I left for him, and could I give him articles every week? My daughter read with great interest the travel section article by a woman taking her bookworm daughter to London. We realized we had missed several interesting spots on our own trip to London this past spring break, but then again, I am not a travel writer for the NY Times!

So like all good dreams, this one needs a little reinterpreting. I guess we won't be having slow and dreamy Sunday mornings yet, but I CAN curate the paper now for a household of lively and curious young people...

And I WILL be buying the Mercedes S55 so lovingly and irresistibly described on the last page of the Sports Section...(Right!)

Summer Lunch

Simple vegetable lunch, 15-20 minutes to prep and cook:

Steamed (in the microwave) asparagus laid over a bed of salad (lettuce, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, red pepper, cabbage shreds, and toasted pumpkin seeds tossed lightly in lemon juice and olive oil and some kosher salt)

Quick sauté in olive oil of corn cut off the cob, sliced mushrooms, sliced red peppers, salt and red pepper flakes.

Set up the sauté first, then as it cooks, prep the salad and steam the asparagus, while occasionally stirring the sauté. The corn dish is unbelievably tasty.

The remainder of the asparagus bunch was left out on a plate in the center of the kitchen butcher block and was completely scarfed up by 3 15-yr-old boys as a snack.

A Day at Coventry

No, not the English Village in the County of West Midlands, but our very own Coventry Village in Cleveland, OH. Coventry is the Haight Ashbury of Cleveland, the Greenwich Village of the Burbs. The still thriving Record Revolution is where I bought ALL my records as a teen-ager. At least it was—and the imprint is still there. Part of the fun.

I had to take my car in for service yesterday and I brought Fat Rabbit along since she is on summer vacation and in need of entertainment until she takes off for overnight camp next week. I thought we could leave the car and walk down to the nearby Coventry Road for breakfast and coffee.

Little did I know they would keep my car for over four hours, so we wound up doing a major tour of Coventry Village, which, as it turns out was no problem. Here was our itinerary, stop by stop:

1. The Inn on Coventry

Around since 1981 and probably with the very same waitresses, the Inn on Coventry is a breakfast/lunch staple. We had the Meatless Eggs Sausalito (veggie eggs benedict using artichoke hearts and mushrooms-yum) and their famous Lemon Ricotta Pancakes, which are unbelievably good. Decent coffee, warm and quirky service and great food. Car still not ready so...

 2. Big Fun

 "A cornucopia of delights, a cathedral of counter-culture, a warehouse of nerdabilia and nostalgia."
We were looking for a diablo yoyo for my 15 year old, who has set juggling and yoyo tricks as one of his (many) summer goals. We struck out, but it is a great place for all sorts of bizarre toys. We did find a package of Star Trek Card Bubblegum Trading Cards. I bet that is some dried out bubble gum! Problem with the airconditioning in the car so....

3.  Macs Backs-Books Bookstore

Around as long as I can remember, and conveniently adjacent to the ever popular Tommy's Restaurant (which we didn't get to this day) for browsing while waiting for a table. Reading is our shared favorite hobby, so, of course we stopped by Macs Backs to support-the-indie-bookstore where ever we go. Proprietor Suzanne DeGaetano was on hand to make some fabulous book recommendations for my daughter, and even managed to enroll her in a teen girls book club. Can't wait for first meeting this fall! Agh, rust on the carburetor...

4.  Passport to Peru

Did anybody say Hippies? Passport to Peru sells incense, Indian dresses, Birkenstocks and Naot footwear. Been around since my childhood in the 70's. You get the idea. However, the clothing is really fabulous and well priced and we did find the perfect sun-dress for Fat Rabbit which she has been wearing all day. Recommendation to rotate the tires...

5. Phoenix Coffee

New location on corner of Hampshire and nice vibe. Good coffee, excellent pastries and free wifi. Coffee shop. But wait...leak in the car's air conditioning still not found, injecting dye...

6. Blush Boutique

Not really much of a clothes shopper, but a few weeks ago they had a sale rack of really cute and inexpensive retro dresses by Combat outside so we peeked in. Very cute and different fashions, Espe and Vfish, including some great shoes. If that is your thing it is worth knowing about...Is the car ready yet?

7. Attenson's Antique Store

Did I mention that it was 92 degrees outside and very humid. We did a quick peek into the (air-conditioned) Antique Store. Almost bought a "cool belt" (that was what the label said) and a cute demitasse for Fat Rabbit. Looked at some cut crystal tumblers for my non-existent crystal collection.

8. Picadilly Artisan Frozen Yogurt

My favorite frozen dessert place.

First of all, it is all organic and has vegan selections, so everyone in the family can indulge.

Second, the decor and design is fabulous, utilizing reclaimed materials from crates, the old Grog Shop Door as a counter top (another Coventry historical site), and large industrial whisks as light fixtures. Works from Cleveland Institute of Art (my son's college) are on the walls.

Third, it is delicious, with all the mix-ins, bells and whistles. And great music.

Wait, a missed call from 20 minutes ago that the car is ready! And we didn't even make it to Tommy's for dinner...

The Pie at the End of the Book

 

Today Fat Rabbit finished The Lord of the Rings. She reminded me that when her brother (at a much younger age,) finished each volume of Harry Potter, I would bake him a pie, as per our agreement.

Fat Rabbit reads a book a day, so I never felt she needed any incentive program. She correctly pointed out the injustice of this. Today, to celebrate return to the Shire, her big brother Amnon baked a meringue pie with her.

Happy Pie, Fat Rabbit!

Brocolli Cornmeal Fritters

I was avoiding the fairly empty refrigerator before dinner and thinking about how much I didn't want to go shopping. In my usual head-on approach to any task,  I was sneaking a read on my ipad Kindle app when a pop-up notification appeared telling me the July issue of BHG was on my iPad. In some fit of domesticity I ordered an electronic subscription several months ago and had kind of forgotten about it. I went straight to the recipe index and noticed a whole section on broccoli. Hmm, thought I, I have broccoli in the fridge...

A few tweaks of the recipe to "veganize" it for Irad (whole wheat flour, flax seed in place of eggs, rice milk in place of milk), and voilà!

Broccoli Cornmeal Fritter

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup corn meal

2 tablespoons baking powder

1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

1 and 1/2 cups of rice milk

2 tablespoons ground flax seed

One head of finely chopped broccoli, softened by steaming or in microwave for 2 minutes

Mix dry ingredients together. Fold in the rice milk quickly along with the broccoli. 

Form the fritters into patties, and fry lightly in pan. Serve immediately with a light salad.

Optional: top with crème fraîche (for the non-vegan) and sprigs of fresh thyme

This recipe and others can be found on my vegan blog.

Father's Day

Today we had a Father's Day Brunch for my Dad.

Sunlight speckled table, all three children along with husband Irad, and my mother. My father's phone buzzing as my four siblings called in one by one.

How lucky my children are to have all four grandparents a part of their lives, and how lucky I am to have wonderfully supportive parents, who always want to be with us!

My Dad is a big part of our lives because he is ALWAYS happy to drive my kids around. He always drove all five of us around, too—we are talking about a great deal of driving—a little sideline to his successful career as a physician. I still remember back in the day when patients would send gifts home with him! He finally retired at age 78-yrs-old.

My parents have enabled so much of my own career-travel by staying with my kids, and assisting with driving and baby-sitting (especially when kids were young) to help us fill in some of the blanks that Irad's intense travel schedule created.

The food at brunch wasn't bad either:
Fresh-brewed cardamom coffee,
Home-made Belgian Waffles with mixed berries, syrup and whipped cream,
Fresh bagels (arrived still hot) with cream cheese, butter and lemon jelly
Kale, mushroom and onion frittata
Irad's Home-made Hummus (click here for recipe) with Crudités

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

Flowers, Flowers, Everywhere

I am a fresh flower fan. In May Sarton's journals, she devotes pages to describing the various daily flowers she picks and arranges. The way the sun illuminating a petal of deep color can lift her mood. She writes, "When I am alone the flowers are really seen; I can pay attention the tthem. They are felt as presences. Without them I would die. Why do I say that? Partly because they change before my eyes. They live and die in a few days; they keep me closely in touch with process, with growth, and also with dying. I am floated on their moments." (Journal of a Solitude.) Without flowers, her house is desolate. They mark the seasons, they literally get her out of bed in the morning.

I think about May Sarton when I do my weekly bouquets for my house. Because of like-minded flower fiends, I feel that the time and attention I spend on flowers is not frivolous or wasteful, but puts me in touch with the cycles of life all around and within us. It changes the house from a collection of inanimate objects to a living mural of change. Children do that as well, of course!

This spring I have had different flowers to put together for each weekend, starting with the daffodils and paper whites and moving through branches of the various flowering ornamental trees on my property. Today I took a basket and did a wide ranging collection:

 

Overflowing basket on the patio-rhododendrum, irises, peonies, wigelia, and hydrangea

Straight into the sink—it is good to recut the stems while they are submerged so they suck up water without air bubbles. Also nice to refresh everybody after the shock of cutting

The really fun part for me is laying them out and waiting for them to "speak to me" —to tell me which shaped vase and which companion flowers to group them with.

 

Distribute throughout the house, and enjoy!

Rhododendrum, willow branches and wigelia

Peonies and Iris

Even wildflowers and weeds have their place with the last of the fragrant lilacs....

Food Truck Summer: Chef the Movie Followed by Live Tasting

  from IMDb.com

Irad and I went to see Chef a few nights ago and had a really good time. I went to see the movie because I had heard an intriguing piece about it on npr. No saving-humanity-from-aliens or impassioned-testimony-to-the-power-of-social justice, or excruciatingly-beautiful-portrayal-of-love-and-betrayal, or, or, or...it was just about a guy and a truck.

A guy and a truck who is reunited with his passion, and along the way repairs his relationship with his ex-wife and child. A lot of food porn, good tunes and feel-good.

Great cast with hilarious cameos by Dustin Hoffman and Robert Downey, Jr.,The beautiful Scarlett Johansson has a great supporting role and Sofia Vergar is gorgeous and wonderful as Chef's wife. I particularly enjoyed his two sous chefs—John Leguizamo and Bobby Cannavale.

Just to give fair coverage, my sister whose opinion I always respect, HATED this movie and found it trite and cliche. She even sent me a review to support her viewpoint, written by some guy named Scrooge, or something...  So clearly not for everyone. Or you have to be in the right mood.

I am so unaccustomed to a feel-good movie. I kept waiting for there to be some eruption of violence or for the kid to get dangerous burns from the fryer in the truck while the parents rediscover their connection to each other while huddling together in the emergency room.  But the movie never went there.  Nothing but a good story—guy hits rock bottom, guy climbs back out— and some fun. I had many laugh-out-loud moments! Social Media also plays a role bringing in some topical relevance. And it made me want to go out and find the first food truck.....

[cue Food Truck, stage left]

Coincidentally, this week we had a Food Truck Monday at a local outdoor mall. I went with Amnon and we enjoyed experiencing the food-truck-craze live and off the screen. Very clever initiative to create a bit of hipster vibe out in the burbs. Within 20 minutes of kick-off,  Legacy Village went from ghost town to mob scene. We sampled the goods at several trucks, including some really horrible sushi-as-junk-food from the Sushi Mobile (hate to pan anyone publicly but sushi-ritos? really?)  Our favorite was Zydeco Bistro Food Truck. Interesting and varied menu organized around a New Orleans theme, cooked while you wait, replete with awesome hush puppies!

from Zydecobistrollc.com

 I felt like I was in the movies...well, almost.

Summer Reading: Found My Detective Thrillers

 I find that I like certain kinds of books for certain activities: For plane rides and quick bites of a book while sitting in my backyard I really enjoy a good detective novel. I tried a few different authors over the past few months and after a couple of books decided no more. But I think I may have found my summer romance - the thriller series that will get me from plane to beach to sitting around swim meets: Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole Detective Novels.  I've read the first two and I'm in.

In The Bat: The First Inspector Harry Hole Novel (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original)we meet Harry. A former alcoholic, hard bitten and pain-driven by a bad past, Harry is sent to Australia to investigate the death of a fellow Norwegian. There he bonds with new police partners, uncovers that the killing is part of a hitherto undiagnosed serial killer's spree, falls in love, falls off the wagon and goes through a lot of hell. The ending is worthy of Hollywood's best stunt men and special effects.







In Cockroaches: The Second Inspector Harry Hole Novel (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original) Harry is mostly recovering from the events of the former novel when he is once again sent abroad to investigate the death of a Norwegian overseas—this time the American Ambassador to Thailand. Whereas in the first novel we get a foreigner's experience of the exotica of Australia, in this novel we get an equally interesting entree into the twisty truths of Bangkok. It would seem that exotic locale are a perk of the series! Not a serial killer this time, so that is not necessarily the ongoing theme of the series, but a equally convoluted set of murders. Harry kind of falls in love, and climbs back on the wagon. A sub-theme of the books is clearly addiction, and it is handled with an insider's perspicacity. The ending is also a direct call to Hollywood to start lining up the stunt men. But despite Harry's best efforts he leaves Bangkok equally wounded by the events that transpire during the novel—how much can one guy take? I guess I'll have to go on with the series to find out!

Baking at Home: Cowboy Cookies and Luscious Lemon Cake

Part of our home culture revolves around baking. This goes back to baking with my sisters growing up. It was a great way to procrastinate doing homework. We often felt we liked the batter better so once we made Toll House Cookies and decided not to bake them, just leave the bowl of batter in the fridge. We were never able to finish it and eventually threw it out—so now I understand that "tasting" the batter is completely legal and there will always be something left.

My oldest is a master baker. I mean that quite seriously. At 12 yrs. old he wanted to be a pastry chef and would concoct amazing confections for us: Dobisch Torte, Cinammon Buns, Apple Pie, Lemon Merinque Pie, German Chocolate Cake.

The other day he graced us with Vegan Cowboy Cookies, from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar: 100 Dairy-Free Recipes for Everyone's Favorite Treats


As usual he made them with incredible care

 and they came out perfectly! These cookies have completely supplanted Toll House Cookies in my heart, by the way - richer, denser, more texture and variety in the mouth feel. Cowboy Cookies are the Toll House's older, more sophisticated big brother.

For more pictures of Amnon's fabulous vegan cookie skills, check out the article on my vegan cooking blog: http://tofucrossing.com/2011/01/11/an-ode-to-vegan-cookies/



Lately Fat Rabbit is going through her coming-of-age baking explorations. She has been very interested in an old cookbook I have from my grandmother, the old Better Homes cookbook with the red plaid cover which still exists as Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book 15th Edition: Gifts from the Kitchen (Better Homes and Gardens Plaid). This weekend she perused it for the perfect cake and chose the Luscious Lemon Cake recipe

And then she chose this frosting recipe.

The results were pretty delicious. But what I was most proud of was our own adaptation. The top layer stuck to the bottom of the pan (couldn't find second layer cake pan!) and so the icing got all tracked with crumbs—we decided to garnish with candied lemon circles to cover the damage, and working out of my head we figured out how to do this: Slice lemons, lay them in a pan, cover with water and sugar, and bring to a boil. We boiled the sugar water and lemons for about half an hour and then removed a set of delicious lemon circles.

As we worked on decorating the cake, and then on tasting it, we forgot about the lemonized sugar water in the pan. It was fun to discover it had turned into a delicious bitter lemon jam, with a lovely clear golden color, which we then ate on toast, and packaged the rest in an airtight container.

The final results: the cake and the lemon jelly