cynthia at the sandwich life Ernie, Food and Cooking, Gardening, General Life

Brandywine and other notes

Well after Owen descended into misery (103 fever and vomiting thank you very much) he seems to have made a remarkable recovery. Now I have my fingers crossed for the rest of us. In other important news however:

-last night we had our first tomato from the garden that was so good it made us moan. I’ve bought some from the farmer’s market and the store that looked good but this one was the kind that makes you remember why Guy Clark wrote a song about homegrown tomates. It was a huge pinkish red Brandywine and it was amazing. We literally stood there in the kitchen with tomato juice dripping all over us and moaning at how good it was.

-we made a good dinner for my birthday the other night. We had some wonderful fruit salsa kind of thing that someone had brought to our party (thank you Kim and Mike and I still have your plastic container I need to return). Since we didn’t start cooking until about 10:00 p.m. it had to be relatively simple so I made some couscous with garlic and chopped pecans (I need a little crunch in my couscous) then sauteed some shrimp with yet more garlic and some cumin seed, piled it on the couscous and topped it with the fruit salsa. I must say it was quite wonderful.

-I follwed the dinner with a coconut birthday cupcake. Months ago I had told Ernie I wanted a particular recipe out of one of my cookbooks for coconut cupcakes for my birthday. So on Sunday morning I trotted off to take my Dad to church and Ernie told me he was going to work out. Instead he raced to my parents, left the boys with my mom, went to the store, raced back home, made the cupcakes, put them in the oven, raced to the store to get my present, got back with three minutes left on the timer, frosted the cupcakes and then got back to my folks while I was doing their grocery shopping and he then proceeded to help me clean their refrigerator. Need I say more? I try not to boast too much about how wonderful my husband is but when he does sweet things like that ON TOP of all the other things he does I really can’t help it. I’ll stop now (oh and the cupcakes were wonderful even though no one else in the house will eat them as they have coconut….)

-through the magic of the internet someone I knew 20-odd years ago has been sending me mp3’s of Ernie’s band Milktoast from their eponymous debut on Valentine’s Day, 1981 at the downtown performing art center (long torn down). They’re fabulous and Ernie turns bright red when he listens to them!!!! I think that was Milktoast’s debut—we’d only been going out for about a month and he showed up at my dorm (!) carrying his bass and wearing his American Legion jacket and a pink shirt and gave me an antique heart shaped opal and pink tulips. I was obviously hooked….

Thoughts?

cynthia at the sandwich life Ernie, Food and Cooking, Gardening, General Life

Brandywine and other notes

Well after Owen descended into misery (103 fever and vomiting thank you very much) he seems to have made a remarkable recovery. Now I have my fingers crossed for the rest of us. In other important news however:

-last night we had our first tomato from the garden that was so good it made us moan. I’ve bought some from the farmer’s market and the store that looked good but this one was the kind that makes you remember why Guy Clark wrote a song about homegrown tomates. It was a huge pinkish red Brandywine and it was amazing. We literally stood there in the kitchen with tomato juice dripping all over us and moaning at how good it was.

-we made a good dinner for my birthday the other night. We had some wonderful fruit salsa kind of thing that someone had brought to our party (thank you Kim and Mike and I still have your plastic container I need to return). Since we didn’t start cooking until about 10:00 p.m. it had to be relatively simple so I made some couscous with garlic and chopped pecans (I need a little crunch in my couscous) then sauteed some shrimp with yet more garlic and some cumin seed, piled it on the couscous and topped it with the fruit salsa. I must say it was quite wonderful.

-I follwed the dinner with a coconut birthday cupcake. Months ago I had told Ernie I wanted a particular recipe out of one of my cookbooks for coconut cupcakes for my birthday. So on Sunday morning I trotted off to take my Dad to church and Ernie told me he was going to work out. Instead he raced to my parents, left the boys with my mom, went to the store, raced back home, made the cupcakes, put them in the oven, raced to the store to get my present, got back with three minutes left on the timer, frosted the cupcakes and then got back to my folks while I was doing their grocery shopping and he then proceeded to help me clean their refrigerator. Need I say more? I try not to boast too much about how wonderful my husband is but when he does sweet things like that ON TOP of all the other things he does I really can’t help it. I’ll stop now (oh and the cupcakes were wonderful even though no one else in the house will eat them as they have coconut….)

-through the magic of the internet someone I knew 20-odd years ago has been sending me mp3’s of Ernie’s band Milktoast from their eponymous debut on Valentine’s Day, 1981 at the downtown performing art center (long torn down). They’re fabulous and Ernie turns bright red when he listens to them!!!! I think that was Milktoast’s debut—we’d only been going out for about a month and he showed up at my dorm (!) carrying his bass and wearing his American Legion jacket and a pink shirt and gave me an antique heart shaped opal and pink tulips. I was obviously hooked….

Thoughts?