Tidbits

1. Thanks everyone so much for your thoughtful comments and for sharing your stories with me. It's hard to feel so violated in your own home.

2. The WINNER of one copy of The Green Beauty Guide is........

BOOKFOOL!

Congratulations! I'll be emailing you for your address. Thanks to everyone who entered. I appreciated your comments and have found that we all have many of same challenges when choosing green products.

3. Squash.

Squash is good food, and I'm pleased that my family is eating it (somewhat) happily.

First there was this fabulous squash and pasta recipe, then some divine squash soup with roasted garlic and herbs that I kept all for myself. Because no one else would eat it.

Here is my latest creation, a squash and rice casserole that I adapted from Deborah Madison's book, Vegetarian Suppers.



This was total comfort food. Sauteed leeks with garlic and herbs, combined with cooked brown rice, grated butternut squash and a medley of cheeses I found in the fridge. I topped each serving with toasted pine nuts, not part of the recipe but my child is a nut lover and I though it would make this more appealing. My nervous husband suggested we go out after he took one look at this, but after trying it reluctantly said "It's good. I like it. (insert big sigh here)"

Here's how it looked after we had our way with it:



Yum!

4. Book Review

I finished Sophie Hannah's novel Hurting Distance recently. It has a fascinating premise: Naomi is having an affair with a married man. He seems to have disappeared. But when Naomi goes to the police and they contact his wife, she insists he's not missing. Naomi lies to the police in order to get them to take her seriously but this dredges up her past which she is reluctant to discuss.

Sophie Hannah sure knows how to create an atmospheric page-turner. As a reader, I was so attuned to what people were saying, who they were saying it to, and if there could be a double meaning. After all, Hannah completely fooled me with her book Little Face. I was happily reading along, when a storyline emerged having to do with rape. Rape is never a happy or positive story, but the slant this author took was really offensive to me. I found the storyline to be extremely sick and disturbing. It just was not the story I was expecting, nor would ever expect to read to be quite honest. After it becomes obvious what has happened, the final confrontation I found to be very....bland.

I don't know if I'll read Hannah's books again. She certainly does come up with unique and interesting premises, but this book crossed the line for me. I'd love to hear from anyone who has read this book; I had a UK copy but it looks to have been just released in hardcover here.

Farmer's Market - Sunday October 29

This past Sunday was the official end of the 'Summer Market' for the Saint Paul Farmer's Market. After that, the 'Winter Market' begins on Saturdays. The market was vastly different than the last time I was there. Since we'd had our first frost all the summer vegetables were gone. There were probably only 15-20% of the number of usual vendors and the crowd was quite sparse, though it was only 8 am. It felt like I bought one of everything, knowing this might be the last time until Spring.



Look at all that goodness! Spinach, broccoli, onions, garlic, leeks, shallots, apples, cranberries, potatoes, raspberries, eggs, carrots, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, sage, baby gourds, buttercup squash, and that cauliflower - I wish you could see how gorgeous it is. How lucky we are to have so much good food here in Minnesota in October! But don't get too jealous - after the market it snowed most of the afternoon!

All this good food put me in the mood to cook.

I've made a wonderful roasted butternut squash and greens pasta dish from the How to Eat Supper book I posted about a while back. The ingredient list is a bit long, but this seriously took no time at all to put together.

The pasta recipe had half and half in it so I used the leftover to make a potato gratin according to Alice Waters' recipe in The Art of Simple Food.



She suggests the use of half and half as an option but mine separated in the oven, looking curdled but tasting fine. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Finally, I made Brussels Sprout hash with caramelized shallots from the November 2007 Bon Appetit magazine. Yum!

Farmer's Market - October 11

This was a lot heavier than it looks. I wasn't planning on buying much since we're going out of town later this week. This was the least crowded I've seen the market since early June. The regular market continues until the end of October, then the Saturday winter market begins. I've never been to the winter market but I plan to check it out. I understand there is meat, eggs, honey, breads - stuff like that.



What's new? Butternut squash - there's a great looking pasta and squash recipe I want to try from Lynne Rosetto Kasper's new book. This a great cookbook by the way, and would make a terrific gift. I'm a little wary of serving butternut as a main course. Afraid the natives will become restless and all that. I hope the sweetness of it will win my daughter over. There's some spinach and some ground pork there. I'm going to make a meatball soup with those, along with orzo and carrots based on a Nigel Slater meatball recipe and a soup recipe from Bon Appetit. By the time I'm done with it, it'll be a Tara original.

What else? I'm getting rather uncomfortable about the economic situation. I've heard of two co-workers whose husbands have lost their jobs....I'm pretty lucky to work in healthcare right now, but who knows what will happen. It makes me extra glad we've been eating less meat for many reasons, and now we have finances to think about. I make a great rice and black bean dinner from scratch, so I've got that to fall back on.

Farmer's Market - September 14

The farmer's market is much less crowded on Sunday, as I noticed yesterday. This is a great time of year, with Summer veggies still being available, and all of the Fall items becoming available. Newly available items that I bought include cauliflower, parsnips, brussels sprouts and honey. The girl has been asking for cauliflower cheese pie, so we'll be having that this week.

The thing I've bought every week since July and didn't buy today is corn. I'm a little tired of shucking it and pulling all those strings off of it. I am beyond impressed with people that do this in large quantities and can or freeze it.

Farmer's Market - Week 10

The Republicans tried to keep me away from my vegetables last week, so I hit another local market. I found some great stuff, including some amazing local blue cheese, but I didn't get a photo.




Every week I feel as though I couldn't possibly carry one more thing, but the next week I bring more home. Any ideas on what to do with 8 peppers? I'm not an eggplant lover, but I'm going to try some sort of roasted eggplant dip later this week. I made pesto yesterday, and right now I have a terrific corn dish in the oven which I'll share soon. What was available that I didn't buy? Melons, winter squash, huge bags of potatoes, apples, and brussels sprouts. I'm not ready for some of these yet; I'm sticking with summer veggies for now.

Come back tomorrow for another giveaway!

First Soup of the Season

I just noticed that I was nominated for for Best Cookbook Blog over at My Friend Amy's book blog awards. Wow! That is really lovely, thank you to those who nominated me. I was going to review The Likeness by Tana French today, and post this next week, but in honor of this nomination, and visitors who may be looking for a cooking blog, I will offer this instead.

Have I mentioned that it's freezing here? Yesterday the high here was 64 degrees, and since I had a refrigerator full of vegetables, and plans to return to the farmer's market 2 days later, I decided to make soup. I was inspired by all my vegetables, as well as the chapter on Soups I'd been reading in Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

If you want to be elegant you could call this soup Late Summer Vegetable Soup, or if you want to be more practical you could call it clean-out-the-refrigerator-soup.



First, I made a stock for this soup using Madison's instructions. I sauteed onion, carrot, garlic, the greens of leeks, and potato peelings in a bit of oil, then added water, bay leaf, salt, and peppercorns and simmered around 1/2 hour. Madison states that water is fine to use instead of stock but I just felt like trying this. The flavor was unexpectedly wonderful!

I then began the soup by sauteing onion, carrots, garlic, a poblano pepper (seeded) and leeks in butter and olive oil, then adding diced potatoes and zucchini. When everything was tender, I pureed a few cups of the soup to add body and added it back in along with some green beans. I was pretty impressed with the flavor of this soup. I didn't even add herbs because I was too lazy to go outside, so the only seasonings were salt and pepper. I think leeks add something really special to soups and other dishes and plan to use more of them in my cooking.

Heaven in a bowl..

I've been waiting 12 months for this...




Just add pasta.




Divine.


Halved cherry/grape/pear tomatoes, shallot, basil, salt, pepper, olive oil, balsamic, cheese (Parmesan or in this case I used Piave). Less than 15 minutes from putting the pot on to boil to the first bite.

My Roasted Tomato Sauce

I would say this is my famous tomato sauce, but it's so good I'm rather greedy with it and have a hard time sharing. This sauce is great to make when you have a lot of tomatoes since they DO NOT need to be peeled or seeded. You could make a smaller batch than seen here, as well.

Here is what you'll need:



Tomatoes, onions, carrots, garlic, basil, olive oil, salt, pepper, sugar, other herbs - I used thyme. Those peppers were for another recipe.

Wash and core tomatoes and roughly chop. Throw out the rotten bits. Peel and roughly chop carrots, onion, and garlic. Toss with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a bit of sugar. It will look like this:



Repeat.



Place in 450 degree oven and stir every half hour or so. You'll need to check more often on a smaller pan. It will become extremely juicy, then as it contines to cook the juices will evaporate leaving an amazing concentrated tomato taste. I added the thyme after about an hour and stirred the basil in just as this finished. The big pan cooked for close to 2 hours. Here is what it should look like:




Let cool, and then process in food processor. The result is very thick and has quite a bit of small carrot chunks. I'm sure if you processed it longer it would be less chunky, but I like it like this.




I freeze approximately 12 ounce portions in these zipper bags and then double bag them in gallon freezer bags. We ate our last 2007 serving last month and it still tasted great. I have 18 bags worth from this batch.



This took me around 5 hours from start to clean-up with lots of breaks since my back was killing me. I only serve this sauce with pasta and no other additions because I love it so much. It is extremely thick and needs to be diluted with some of the pasta water to thin it out. Let me know if you decide to try this!

Farmer's Market - Week 8

Here are the goods from this past Saturday. There is a little hand at the bottom of the shot trying to reach for that carrot shaped like a rabbits head. It didn't last two more minutes.



I have to admit that I came home that day quite disappointed. You see, I saw a huge box of Roma tomatoes that I wanted to buy to make my sauce with, but by the time I came back around to buy it - they were gone. The farmer said she had more at home which she would bring the next morning. I walked around and tried to buy tomatoes from some other farmers. No one would sell them to me in bulk - there are just not as many tomatoes this year and they can make more money selling in smaller quantities. I understand this.

I set my alarm so that I could arrive at the Market right before they opened at 8am Sunday morning. I even had a dream about the tomatoes - I didn't get them. I set out on my mission, parked my car with purpose, raced over to the already busy market, set eyes on the box of tomatoes that was for sale and handed over 25 dollars. Here is what I came home with on Sunday.



My roasted tomato sauce deserves its own post so I'll share that later.

Farmer's Market - Week 7

Here are the goods. There are heaps of corn, potatoes, and carrots behind the scenes. I could barely carry everything back to the car. There are other vegetables I'd like to try, but I seem to stick with favorites this time of year.

I'm getting a little nervous that there won't be any frozen tomato sauce this winter. I've barely seen any Roma tomatoes, and last year I used an entire crate. Oh, well. I'll just have to try new recipes, and there's always 2009.

What we found on the North Shore....food and books

We had a lovely time on our trip to the North Shore. We drove to Duluth, played at the wooden playground, saved a child who had wandered off from his daycare provider and was in a parking lot, walked on the lake walk, and enjoyed the rocky shore.

We then drove north, stopping at Gooseberry falls, and ending up on Lutsen mountain, where we stayed and again rode the alpine slide and gondola up to the top of the mountain. Great scenery, cooler weather, the sound of water, it was pretty relaxing despite a child with a listening problem. Here are some photos from last year.

Somewhat amazing to me, there are some really good restaurants up north. I've mentioned this in the past. We dined again at the Angry Trout - my husband had the fish and chips with the best.tarter.sauce.ever. Seriously. We had a very elegant meal at Chez Jude complete with a hushed dining room and edible flowers. We didn't even get to try all the restaurants I wanted to, which is really saying something for this village of 1400 people. There is even a fantastic natural foods co-op there, which naturally I toured. Yes, I am the sort of person that sees grocery stores as attractions in places I travel. I've toured others in Mexico, Paris, London, and Quebec.

Here are some treats we brought home, blueberry-sour cherry jam from The Pie Place (great breakfast), wild huckleberry jam, and some really nice looking peanut butter.



Here are some books we brought home. Yeah!



I bought these at Northern Lights Books in Duluth. I just love these tiny little shops, with each book there for a reason, each one handpicked by someone who loved it, and not just there because they sell well.

Keeping the House has a beautifully retro-looking cover which seems to fit well with the book description. Here is the description from Ellen Baker's website. Sounds charming, no? I can think of a few of my blogging friends who might like this one.

The other title I picked up will probably appeal to most of us booklovers, Novel Destinations, a travel guide to all places literary. I was a little disappointed that only one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's home made it into this guide, but I suppose they only had so much room.

How cute is this bookshop?



That's Lake Superior just past the shop. I think I wanted to go up to Grand Marais just to return to this bookshop. Don't tell my husband. But this place is perfectly adorable and charming. My daughter found a couple of books to read and a pretty window seat to read them in.



This is where I purchased Give Me the World by Leila Hadley. I feel as though I've seen this book before, but the description didn't seem familiar: a young woman bored with her life,leaves New York with her 6 year old son on a cargo ship headed for Hong Kong. She winds up traveling around the world. Oh, and this takes place in 1951. Wow! I'm really looking forward to this.

I picked up Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey at another bookshop in town. This speaks to my love of the pioneer story.

All in all, a nice time. I'd love to see what it's like up there in the winter...but that would really require some bravery. Perhaps someday. I'm not really the sort of person that goes on the same vacation every year, however this was our third time to travel to the North Shore. It won't be the last. There's something about it.

Farmer's Market - Week 6

Thanks for all the good wishes about our trip. I'll be posting a few pictures (and new books!) in the days to come.

Beautiful! Leeks, tomatoes, yellow squash, and cucumbers made their first appearance in my bag today. Would you believe the potatoes and all 3 yellow squash are gone already? I'll show you where soon. We also ate corn, lettuce, and carrots yesterday.


I was trying to restrain myself from buying more from the onion/garlic family....I wasn't planning on buying garlic at all but I couldn't resist this bunch of 5 heads for 5 dollars (expensive, I know) - but aren't they lovely? The garlic is not even cured yet...still moist and fresh.




Now if only the tomatoes in my garden would ripen, and the zucchini would grow more than 2 inches long....than we'd be set.

A Farmer Speaks

{This mama is working on getting her groove back. Being an introvert, I've gotten used to being by myself quite a bit, and so I'm just getting back into the old routine. It's good though, because I already feel closer to my girl than I have in a long time, just being at home with her, or the grocery store or with friends. It's that feeling you have at bedtime when you've been with someone all day and no matter how many struggles there were, you've made it through and it's time to snuggle. Our latest hurdle is that she broke out in that telltale fifth disease cheek rash yesterday, so we spent an hour at the doctor for a three minute appointment to get an all clear note (it's not contagious once you have the rash). I can see this is not the best thing to come down with in the summer because everyone can see it. She asked me what to say this morning if kids asked her about it. Poor kid. Well, on with the show.}



I'm not sure what made me pick up The Compassionate Carnivore by Catherine Friend. Well, that's not really true, I've been completely obsessed with food lately, and I've been reading vegetarian cookbooks like there's no tomorrow. This book has a unique point of view and that is because it's by a writer who also farms sheep. Not only that, but she farms sheep in southern Minnesota, and mentions farmers in the book whose products I buy both at the grocery store and at the farmer's market. Friend doesn't seem to take herself too seriously - this book definitely has a different tone from others I've read. She's learned about the various methods of farming, believes that compassionate, sustainable farming is best and that we owe it to ourselves and the earth and the animals to make wise choices about what we eat. We may not be able to do the right thing, or what we view as the perfect thing all the time - but do the best you can and set reachable goals. She seems to have an interesting view of vegetarianism - in that if everyone became vegetarian or vegan, there would really be no point in maintaining certain animal species - and that by becoming a compassionate carnivore and voting with your dollars, you really may be able to make a difference in farming practices.

Some of what Friend writes about, I already knew, but it's her take on things that kept this book interesting for me. It not often that you can read about what farmers think about raising their animals, how close they let themselves get, and what it's like to drive them to the slaughterhouse. I appreciated learning more about small, local slaughterhouse operations.

As for me, I'm still working on eating less meat. The last two nights I cooked from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone - well, I used her recipes as a template anyway. So we're doing it, and some nights it's better than others. It helps when dinner is followed by leftover birthday cake. But tonight, the girl has requested tacos, 'regular tacos!' so tacos she will get.

Farmer's Market Monday - Week 2

Here is the bounty from this week! I was hoping for peas and was happy to find sugar snaps and pea shoots - that leafy stuff in the middle. I sauteed some of the shoots last night with the blanched sugar snaps with red pepper and those green onions, and garlic. I overcooked it a bit. I'm going to try it raw in a salad with the spinach. There aren't any snow peas yet. Things are definitely coming in slower this year.



There are also 3 pounds of asparagus, spinach, radishes (I'm not a big fan, but they looked so pretty), bread from a local shop and meats. Okay, now you're thinking I'm a huge hypocrite by buying all this meat, but I did promise my very understanding husband veggie meals no more than 50% of the time and this will last for a while. And my daughter was telling me how yummy her sausage was last night. On the bright side, all the meat I purchased was grass fed, humanely raised with no hormones, antibiotics or animal proteins.

I think the weather around here has been making things harder for the farmers. Prices seem to be higher than they've been in the past and I hear people grumbling that things are 'expensive'. I don't see it that way, for a number of reasons, and I am happy to pay and be able to pay because I think it's worthwhile on many levels.

Did you notice the cool mesh bag my snap peas are in?



I bought it from Reusable Bags. They have loads of cool bags, bottles and other things that are helping me be green. They also have some canvas produce bags, but I was thinking I could use these mesh ones at the grocery store since they're see through. I also bought some safe(r) plastic water bottles to send for lunches to avoid juice boxes and some wraps to put sandwiches in.

What did you find in your market or garden this week?

Farmer's Market Monday - Week 1

I was a little premature when I added my Fresh From the Farmer's Market sign over on the right. You can get yours here at A Veggie Venture. I've been eagerly anticipating fresh Minnesota produce for a while now, say, since December. Unfortunately, our late arriving Spring means that the growing season will be shorter. For example, our Peonies that usually bloom by mid-May don't look like they're anywhere near opening. I'm lowering my expectations, but I'm still planting a garden this year. I'll be planting grape, cherry, and yellow pear tomatoes, along with a larger tomato plant a friend gave me, zucchini, basil, thyme, and chives. Yesterday was my first trip to the Saint Paul Farmer's Market in 2008. Here is what I brought home:



The veggies are still pretty sparse. Some farmers only had green onions to sell, or lettuce. There was also rhubarb-which I've never cooked with, radishes and spinach which had already sold out. I was pretty thrilled to get lots of asparagus. I'm going to roast some and make a terrific asparagus pasta dish later this week. I'll be looking forward to peas in the coming weeks.

Want to join me? I'd love to know if you picked up anything at your farmer's market this week. Let me know.

It must be that time of year

This is my first experience with the 'end of the school year' and it's a doozy. I can hardly keep track of everyplace we need to be let alone gather my thoughts and write an intelligent review of anything. I've watched my girl in 5 'performances' since last Thursday, not including t-ball or swimming, or the kindergarten art show or girl scouts...whew. So, since I haven't shown any book stacks in some time, I thought I'd share some recent acquisitions.

Lots of these books came from bookcloseouts. I was thrilled to find Dark Hearts of Chicago there - I'd read some great reviews of this a year or so ago and wouldn't you know it hasn't been published in the US. Similar story applies to A Hidden Life. The Louise Erdrich book was bought used since I enjoyed The Master Butcher's Singing Club so much.



The four books on the bottom of this stack were purchased at a book sale. I went to the same sale last year and had better luck. There were a lot of 'dealers' there - they had scanners and would scan the codes on the books to see if they matched what they were looking for. I found them irritating since they would block whole sections of shelves and the space was quite cramped. I was happy to snatch The Blood Doctor right out from under someones nose before he could scan it. Ha! This pile is heavy on suspense, including another mooched Barbara Vine and the Sophie Hannah book, an author I became aware of through other book bloggers and who is not published here as far as I can tell. Can you see that Agatha Christie? It's And Then There Were None - I've yet to read her but read a great review of this recently.


This third stack is quite a mishmash. Book Crush is Nancy Pearl's version of Book Lust for children and teens. I've found loads of great suggestions for my daughter and for friend's children as well. My daughter tends to go straight for the 'character' books (barbie, princesses, etc.) and I'm trying to steer her gently away. Karen wrote about Can Any Mother Help Me? some time ago and I've been waiting for the paperback to come out (bookdepository). The subject is fascinating - a group of women in England in the 1930's form a secret magazine which they write and pass around - and leave each other comments on! It sounds like blogging but without computers. Let's see, more nonfiction, A Fatal Waltz compliments of Harper Collins and finally a book I was excited to pick up this past weekend, The Minnesota Homegrown Cookbook. It's filled with stories of restaurants, farms, and recipes using local ingredients. So far, I'm the only owner of it on LibraryThing! I just realized I forgot to photograph another book which seems timely - The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly - which is set in Burma. I read about it on a blog, I think, but cannot remember where.


As I look over these books, I am again astounded by how many have been purchased as a direct result of book bloggers. I never would have known about many of these or thought I would have been interested them. I thank you, as always, for letting me be a part of this amazing community.

Hopefully, regular programming to return soon.

Hope

Thanks so very much to everyone for your kind and supportive words and positive thoughts. I cannot begin to express how much I appreciate it. Our hope now is that whoever these theives are have gotten what they wanted and are finished with us. Time will tell, but there are some online servies to help people protect themselves and we are taking advantage of that.



I've been reading Hope's Edge since early January. It's taken me much longer to read than books normally do, I suspect because it is so dense and there is so much information to take in. Hope's Edge was written by Frances Moore Lappe and her daughter Anna Lappe. Frances Moore Lappe is also the author of Diet for a Small Planet, a pro-vegetarian book written in the 70s.

In the past few years, I've felt as though I was educating myself about issues with our food supply. Michael Pollian's The Omnivore's Dilemma was my book-of-the-year for 2007. But reading Hope's Edge made me ashamed to realize that I hadn't really been thinking about the issue as globally as I should have. The issue in this book is hunger and what can be done about it. Lappe suggest five 'thought traps' that block us from solving this problem:

1. We need to produce more food - there is not enough.
2. Humans are selfish and competetive.
3. Leave it in the hands of experts.
4. We must dissect the problems and tackle them piece by piece.
5. The present system of global capitalism is the best we can do.

The Lappes set out to prove that things can be accomplished and they travel around the globe investigating people and organizations that are trying to make a real difference in people's lives. From Alice Waters' schoolyard garden in California to helping people homestead land in Brazil. To providing loans in Bangladesh to planting trees in Kenya. More countries, more ideas for solutions, finally ending in Madison, Wisconsin where the local, organic, sustainable movement is growing. Lappe admits that all of these solutions are not perfect. But these people and organizations are trying and that is what is important - versus not trying at all.

It's just maddening to read that we would have enough grain to feed the world if it weren't being fed to animals who shouldn't be eating it anyway. That grains grown around the world are exported to feed animals in developed countries while people go hungry. That the huge seed and pesticide companies like Monsanto go to places like small, remote, Indian villages and convince farmers to use their products for a nominal fee. Within a few years, the prices go up, the farmers cannot afford these products and their soil is destroyed by the pesticides so it's difficult and time-consuming to return to their previous 'organic' methods.

While I was reading this book an article appeared in my newspaper about Haitians eating cookies made of mud. People are so hungry and so poor they are eating dirt and feeding it to their children. It is so shameful that this occurs.

So what to do? I keep asking myself that. Obviously Lappe advocates a vegetarian diet. This book has a nice section full of recipes by well-known cookbook authors and chefs. I'll be honest - I don't really want to be a vegetarian - I want to eat meat sometimes and I can make good choices about where that comes from. My family does not want to be vegetarians either. We don't eat a lot of meat - generally only with dinner and not every day. I've been trying to challenge myself to consciously serve vegetarian meals more often - and not just pasta with sauce that shows up regularly anyway. Last week I prepared the mushroom stuffed portobellos with wild rice and cheese from Mollie Katzen's The Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live Without. It was good - but it took a little convincing for my daughter. I think it was a little bit too brown for her. So I'm trying on that front and collecting recipes to try.

The lights went out..

Our electricity went out early Saturday morning due to a storm and came back on around noon. It felt so strange around here, not in a bad way, just in a quiet way, and I think the break in my routine of checking email just pushed me away from the computer for the rest of the weekend. Which is not a bad thing - certainly I spend too much time on it, but I just wasn't interested. I think I'm back in form now, though, having spent my entire workday in front of one.

I've had the cooking bug lately and a few things have turned out well. I made what I consider 'my best mashed potatoes ever' - though my dear husband disagrees - he says his are better. Anyhow, I have heaps of shallots, so I sauteed them in butter and oil for a long time - they were practically crispy - then stirred them into yukon golds mashed with lots of milk - added salt, pepper, and some leftover chives. Oh, yum. My mashed potato hating child actually ate some. There are leftovers....I'm considering combining them with an egg and then dipping in flour then frying them up like potato pancakes to go with dinner tonight. These were served Saturday evening and Sunday brought more shallots. I sauteed them again, then added 2 cut up apples and sauteed those. I removed those from the pan, added pork chops seasoned with s/p and sage, removed those and deglazed with apple cider, apple cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, and maple syrup. I served the pork chops with rice to soak up all that lovely sauce and roasted brussels sprouts. I considered it a perfect fall meal......

I have finished a couple of books, but since I'm feeling long winded I'll only share one of them now.

Out of the Silence by Wendy James is an Australian book I picked up on bookcloseouts. I have some sort of fascination with what sort of books women are reading in other countries, so that is what drew me to this. This novel is based on a true story and is told from the perspective of two different characters. The first, Maggie Heffernan, was a country girl and a real person. The second is Elizabeth Hamilton, a fictional person that serves to offer a perspective on life for single women in Australia at the turn of the 20th century. Elizabeth has close ties to Vida Goldstein, a suffragist and her story collides with Maggie's due to a crime. I enjoyed this novel overall, though I found myself enjoying Maggie's part of the story more, and felt at times as I was just trying to get through Elizabeth's tale. The most interesting part for me was reading about women in Australia from 2 different walks of life, yet both desiring much the same thing.

Sister Carrie (Among other things)

Brrrrrr! It is cold here! My bedroom was 60 degrees this morning. I remember a few years back, perhaps the fall/winter of 2000 when I wore my winter coat from the end of September into June - I hope this year is not a repeat of that.

My daughter and I went to the farmer's market this morning. The overnight temperatures have gotten very close - but we haven't had our first frost yet, thus late summer vegetables are still available. Here are small bits of what we brought home.


I was so happy to see garlic today - the farmer who grows it has been out the last 2 times I've asked him. What was in that empty container? Late-season raspberries picked out by my daughter and eaten on the way home. I got four. She also picked out the Fall variety of honey (I preferred the Late Summer) and Red Currant Jelly (I tried to talk her into the Peach-Ginger Chutney) and a pumpkin so she can eat the seeds. I actually ran out of money since three of these items were quite costly. It's definitely more interesting to be there with her - and watch her interact with the vendors who are so wonderful to children. My cooking plans include Cauliflower-Cheese Pie (a request from my co-shopper), corn pudding, and a pasta dish I'll make with the roasted pumpkin.

I finished Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser yesterday. This was the second time I've read this book, the first being some years ago while I was living in Chicago. Sister Carrie tells the story of Carrie Meeber, an 18 year old arriving in Chicago in 1889 from a small town to live with her sister and sister's husband and find work. Carrie is immediately swept up in the excitement and romance of the big city, but soon finds that her life is not going to live up to her expectations. The only work she is able to find is mind and body numbing factory work. Carrie loses her job due to illness and not finding another quickly, thinks she will have to go back to her small town. Enter Mr. Drouet, who takes Carrie under his wing and she agrees to move in with him. Drouet introduces Carrie to a business acquaintance George Hurstwood who falls in love with Carrie, and makes some very poor decisions which lead him to tragedy. I remembered enjoying Sister Carrie the first time I read it, and was having trouble remembering why this time around. I know that I enjoyed the Chicago setting and being able to imagine where the action was taking place. Dreiser included quite a bit of moral discussion in the early part of the book, the amount of which decreases later on in the story when the plot takes over. I would say that I did enjoy this again and suspect that the fact that I read the first half of the book in short snippets late at night when I was tired decreased my interest in it. I found all the characters to be fairly unlikeable. Hurstwood is a weak and disgraced man. Carrie is the 'fallen woman', living with men she is not married to; I didn't really blame her as the alternative was not so desirable. Drouet seems like a nice enough fellow, but what sort of man expects a woman in live with him in 1889, unmarried (it comes up a few time why he has not married her).

I found the appendix in my copy to be of particular interest. It has to do with the multiple versions of Sister Carrie, particularly differences between the manuscript and the published text due to revisions. I found it quite interesting that Dreiser's wife made some of the revisions including the very last words of the novel which actually change the meaning of Dreiser's original words.

I don't think I'll ever read this novel again, but am glad I had the chance to revisit it.

Thoughts on a rainy Sunday afternoon

We are having unseasonably cool weather here in August with temperatures hovering around 60 degrees and the rain has been coming down for 2 days straight. We are having some leakage issues here....

I have been busy all weekend with company (the in-laws) and cooking almost 20 pounds of tomatoes. I bought an enormous box of Roma tomatoes yesterday at the farmer's market and most have been combined with heaps of carrots, onions, garlic, thyme, basil, olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted in the oven at 450 degrees. I then pureed them all into sauce. I still have my last batch to package for freezing, in all around 18-20 meals worth. I have also made ratatouille which will also be frozen. I still have a heap of tomatoes left over which will be turned into salsa and a wonderful Mexican rice dish later this week.

In bookish news, I have finished my second Adele Geras novel, Made in Heaven. I enjoyed this very much, though I think I enjoyed Facing the Light a bit more. Made in Heaven is the story of an engaged couple and the various situations that arise when the two families meet and begin planning the wedding. I did have my suspicions throughout the book about how it might end, and it turned out I was correct. I can only say how happy I am that I did not have such meddling families when I was planning my wedding. This is a big, cozy read and that was just what I was looking for when I picked it up.

Some bookish news in a different vein:

I went to see Becoming Jane last week with one of my coworkers, another Jane Austen fan. We did enjoy the film, an unpopular view, I know, she more than I. We went into the experience knowing that the movie does not have much to do with the real Jane Austen and found it entertaining, romantic, and bittersweet. There was quite a bit of dialogue and situations that came straight from Pride and Prejudice. I think it's actually pretty brave for movie makers to make a romantic film that does not end with the characters coming together in the end. There just cannot be a huge market for that sort of film.

In any case, I came home and picked up Claire Tomalin's Austen biography to read what she wrote about Thomas Lefroy. I really enjoyed this book some years ago - but if anyone knows of a more definitive or enjoyable biography of Austen I'd love to know about it. The film pushed me to finally order Jane Austen in Context which I've been reading about for weeks over at Of Books and Bicycles. Dorothy has written a few lovely posts about this book which have included all sorts of interesting tidbits from the book. I have also ordered Lesley Castle which Bookfool wrote such a lovely review of.

In other Austen news, apparently Masterpiece Theater will be having an Austen festival of sorts in 2008. I will be looking forward to that!