deer oh deer

So! I know to many of you (namely all my neigh­bors), a deer is not a notable occur­rence in your back­yard. But we are still excited! Espe­cially on a thank­lessly rainy, yet not even emergency-quality rainy day. We woke up and felt point­less, even to the point of doing an unnec­es­sary load of laun­dry (you know what I’m say­ing: “at least I have LAUN­DRY going!”), when we spot­ted this lovely lady in our yard. “DEER DEER DEER” was all I could say, so Avery came run­ning and we fol­lowed her out, across the road to Anne’s gar­den. Need­less to say, when Avery saw this pho­to­graph she said firmly, “Do not even THINK of crop­ping out any of that gor­geous foliage!” Thus spake the city child, to whom any leaves are good. Fair enough. It was mag­i­cal to see her. I men­tioned her to the UPS guy and he nod­ded sagely. “Have you seen her babies? Full of them white spots they keep for a while.”

So it was one of those days. We’re actu­ally savor­ing today and tomor­row being some­what… bored, because life is about to heat up, and I don’t mean tem­per­a­ture. The rain today kept us from our pool life, and I man­aged a good por­tion of “Gen­eral Hos­pi­tal,” plus we were des­per­ate enough to go to a mall in Water­bury and buy jeans and tank tops for Avery’s school year, plus new white t-shirts for me (the sta­ple of my wardrobe, rain or shine, cold or hot). I was happy to call it a day at 6 p.m. or so and start cooking.

I have alighted upon the per­fect salmon. I would like to say I grilled it on our grill, but I ran out of propane and for­got to get another can­is­ter, so frankly I heated up a skil­let really really hot and did it there. A mix­ture of Pen­zeys Fox Point Sea­son­ing (I promise you I’m buy­ing a dozen bot­tles the next time I’m at the shop, I hope on Sun­day), olive oil, lemon juice and gar­lic salt. Smear it over the flesh side of the salmon fil­lets and let sit for a half hour or so. Then get your skil­let really REALLY hot and cook it on first the skin side for about 8 min­utes then turn it to the flesh side just for a bit, to cook the sur­face. GORGEOUS.

And I have nar­rowed down the per­fect bean salad, from my last three or so attempts. All four beans: lit­tle white, lit­tle red, kid­ney and edamame (soy). Then sugar snap peas, sliced lit­tle, red onion diced, red pep­per sliced thin, and LOTS of corn, NOT cooked first. Seri­ously, raw. A nice lemony horse­rad­ishy dress­ing, DONE. You’ll love it.

And say you planned to make mashed pota­toes to go with your salmon but you both felt too full as you cooked? Set them aside for the next day and make:

Per­fect Break­fast Home Fries
(serves 4)

4 Yukon Gold pota­toes, peeled and boiled
1 tbsp but­ter
dash each: paprika, gar­lic salt, dried pars­ley, oregano, what­ever you like!

Cut the cold pota­toes into wedges. Heat the but­ter till smok­ing and throw in the pota­toes. Sprin­kle with all the herbs and toss till crispy and browned. Per­fect with a fried egg, or Avery would tell you, with a blue­berry pancake.

*******************

Yes­ter­day we cleaned our­selves up and went to lunch at our neigh­bors’ house: Farmer Rol­lie and his wife Judy and their sons Rol­lie, Jr., Chris and Todd, plus their helper farmer Eric, although Todd was miss­ing, hay­ing in the field beyond. First off, the pur­pose of our visit: to help Judy plan the “Eng­lish tea” wed­ding shower she’s giv­ing for Rol­lie, Jr.‘s fiance Trish in August. Avery was brought on board as the offi­cial con­sul­tant: what sort of sand­wiches, what sorts of bread, what cakes, what tea, what dishes. We solemnly reported what we knew, but I must report that the fin­ished plans have a decid­edly Judy­ish feel: iced tea! Fruit punch and NO Pimms! With a cham­pagne punch she felt we needed a fruit one with­out alco­hol, fair enough. A Vic­to­ria sponge was floated, but met with less enthu­si­asm than the Eton Mess I have promised to bring. Please, Lord, let there be ready-made meringues in South­bury, Con­necti­cut. I could never make them, I’m sure. Plus hav­ing Amer­i­can rather than Eng­lish straw­ber­ries will lessen the qual­ity, but what can we do?

After our con­sul­ta­tions, Judy pro­duced a chicken salad with dried cran­ber­ries (sorry, anti-fruit and meat John, it was lovely), and a quiche topped with sliv­ered almonds and chopped chives. So light and deli­cious, with a puff-pastry crust. But I must say: the piece de resis­tance was… Rollie’s home-smoked, home-caught smoked blue­fish. The day he came to fix (bless his adorable heart) my dri­ve­way, and stopped to have a bite of break­fast, he told me the story of his Fourth of July fish­ing expe­di­tion. “The fel­lows wanted me to spend the night at the cabin, but I like to sleep in my own bed. I told ‘em, no, I’ll be along ear­lier than you’ll be ready, and sure enough, I was up at 5, read the paper, drank my cof­fee, and went along to the cabin before they were even up!” They all went out together in a cou­ple of lit­tle boats (I wish I could remem­ber where, but because I didn’t know the name it didn’t stick with me) and what with all the rain, the fish were jumpin’. “We went out along that reef, you know the one [never mind that of course I didn’t], and boy, were those fish alive. We went deep a cou­ple times and then they were big­ger. But half the time we fished with just the flies, no worms or any­thing. You never saw any­thing like it. A bucket full of blue­fish, all we’re allowed, before you knew it.”

“BLUE­FISH?” I nearly screamed. “I trav­elled all the way up from Tribeca to 72nd Street at least twice a year, just to go to Zabar’s and get smoked blue­fish, and half the time they’d be OUT,” and Rol­lie just looked at me with smug sat­is­fac­tion. “We had more than we could smoke,” he gloated. “Stop, stop,” I said finally.

But at Judy’s lunch table, along­side the chicken salad and quiche, was a lovely plate of smoked blue­fish! Rol­lie smiled rogu­ishly. “Thought you’d enjoy that. Did you hear,” he said to Judy, “she likes smoked blue­fish.” I am hop­ing SIN­CERELY that the next time he goes fish­ing he either invites me or gives me some. “Now, I know you’re no morn­ing gal,” he teased me, so I jumped in. “But I’d get up at sun­rise OR BEFORE to catch some blue­fish if you’d let me smoke it with you.”

He truly thinks I’d like to con­vert an old refrig­er­a­tor into a smoker. This pre­sumes that I have an old refrig­er­a­tor at my dis­posal (a com­mon occur­rence at Rollie’s premises), which as it hap­pens I don’t, but if I did, I’d be more than happy to con­vert it to a fish-smoker. Lus­cious, sim­ply lus­cious, even with Ritz crack­ers, when what it cries out for is a crusty baguette and some d’Affinois cheese to go with it, if you want to go all big-city and frou-frou. I LOVE smoked bluefish.

Is there any­thing nicer than a nap? I feel deca­dent if I nap on my own bed, but the guest bed, with its quilted barn-red bed­spread and fluffy feather pil­lows, is def­i­nitely a pos­si­bil­ity. It was very cozy to hear Avery bounc­ing on the tram­po­line as I drifted off… wak­ing up in time for our ten­nis les­son! I am lov­ing our ten­nis lessons and only wish we had them more often. But we can’t afford any more indul­gence of our lack of skill than once a week! Val watched ball after ball sail over the chain-link fence. “One, two, three strikes we start push-ups!” The lux­ury of the green­ery, men golf­ing nearby, the ambi­ence of the elderly-people’s hotel ten­nis court set­ting, the blue sky slowly set­tling into cloudy sug­ges­tion of a rain­storm… so evoca­tive of Amer­i­can summer.

So we’ve been liv­ing not Thoreau’s “lives of quiet des­per­a­tion,” but rather lives of… just plain quiet! Lovely to wake up when we wish and have blue­berry pan­cakes and rasp­ber­ries for break­fast (actu­ally, I make this but I myself have become devoted to V8 and yogurt, and mostly look at the berries to see if it’s time to give them to the ground­hog). We visit the library almost every day, and spend lots of time look­ing up from our read­ing to see if any live­stock is around. Did I tell you about the day I heard honk­ing and looked up to see a wild turkey pur­sued by a red fox? Crazy.

It’s inde­scrib­ably cozy to know that Anne and Baby Katie are across the road, and we spend a lot of time walk­ing across with dishes of a new bean salad to share, or a chicken dish I know is good, and hear­ing about Katie’s activ­i­ties. So much nice than so many sum­mers when only Fri­days brought the lights across the road. Dave has had to go into the city to teach, but I make sure to light the can­dles in the win­dows so he knows we’re here, when he pulls up in the dri­ve­way across the road.

Tonight John is on his way back to Lon­don from Qatar, sleep­ing, one hopes, that seven-hour jour­ney to bring him back to just a shower at home and another work­ing day. Good­ness, he will have sto­ries to tell once he is at Red Gate Farm with us, hav­ing done noth­ing more inter­est­ing than rid the laun­dry room of spi­der webs on a given Wednes­day! Tonight there was a bit of excite­ment, though, as I was cook­ing din­ner: we heard the roar of a piece of machin­ery in the back meadow and there was the lit­tle fam­ily from up the road: Mark on his John Deere what­ever machine, his wife Con­nie who stud­ies bats and trains res­cue dogs, and their lit­tle 3-year-old girl Tay­lor. “At last!” I thought. “Some­one to take the rest of the exper­i­men­tal bean salad!” so I ran across the lawn and heard all about their tri­als and tribu­la­tions dur­ing the black­out (no, they did NOT have a gen­er­a­tor, as I assumed they would). Nice neigh­bors, and look­ing for­ward to pas­tur­ing the horses out back there when the final fenc­ing bits come through.

Well, you’re up to date. The humid­ity con­tin­ues, so I have put on the AC cau­tiously, after turn­ing EVERY­THING else off! Per­haps tomor­row will be a pool day… enjoy this July evening, everyone.