rainy days and kittens

I have a new phi­los­o­phy… it’s not any one thing, or state of being, that makes me hap­py.  It’s con­trast!  And final­ly, after seem­ing­ly end­less sum­mer days of sun­shine, the skies heard the wish­es of my farmer friends and sent us two straight days of cool, sus­tain­ing rain.  Not the pound­ing, soak­ing kind that sends John up a lad­der to check on his beloved gut­ters.  No, this was the gen­tle, pat­ter­ing sort that comes with an unex­pect­ed autum­nal breeze, makes you reach for that cardi­gan you bought last month and NEV­ER real­ly thought you’d want to wear.

The rain came the week­end after our momen­tous vis­it to the sun­ny farmer’s mar­ket, and remem­ber my Gor­geous Peach Guy?  Well, he turned out to want… a kit­ten!  We came home in a fever of antic­i­pa­tion, and sure enough, the very next after­noon, up turned Jemi­ma, Gor­geous Peach Guy’s Gor­geous Girl­friend, all long tanned legs and shiny hair, ter­ri­bly young and beau­ti­ful, accom­pa­nied by her twin Jen­ny, who I think was meant to make the choice between the two kit­tens eas­i­er.  Not so much.

“Oh, Jemi­ma, how can you ever decide… [small moan escapes Jen­ny’s love­ly lips]… I don’t think I could…”

“Jen­ny, help me here!  Do I want the fuzzy one, or the sleek one?”

“Oh, the sleek one’s purring right here next to me, OH, lean­ing up against my leg…”

“JEN­NY!  Stop it [sim­i­lar moan of ecsta­sy}… the fuzzy one just climbed on my shoul­der, and now, it’s purring too.”

John just sat by them and offered moral sup­port for tak­ing both!  Here was his strat­e­gy for con­vinc­ing them that two kit­tens are bet­ter than one.

“Why don’t you take both, and then call us tomor­row and let us know which one you want to discard?”

“DIS­CARD!”

In the end, we could­n’t reach the shel­ter lady, who has to approve all paper­work for new adopt­ing fam­i­lies, so there could be no tak­ing of a kit­ten any­way.  But Jemi­ma actu­al­ly eeny-mee­ny-miny-mo’ed and said deter­mined­ly, “Right!  I’m tak­ing the hairy one.”  And in just such an anti­cli­mat­ic fash­ion, Jamie found her home.

And the very next day, I was sit­ting out here on my ter­race read­ing a detec­tive sto­ry in a desul­to­ry man­ner, when I heard Anne’s voice com­ing round the cor­ner of the house.  “Kris­ten, this is my car­pen­ter friend Matthew, and he wants… a kit­ten!”  We brought him inside and hand­ed him Jes­si­ca, and as you see, a fam­i­ly was born.

I nev­er saw any­one fall so instant­ly in love as Matthew and Jes­si­ca.  She fell asleep, total­ly relaxed and con­tent.  I asked, “What do you think?” and Matthew gazed at me in patent dis­be­lief.  “Of course I’m tak­ing her…”  I emailed him the paper­work from the shel­ter and lat­er that after­noon got a reply.  “I haven’t even known her that long, but it was so hard to dri­ve away and leave Jes­si­ca behind.”

How unut­ter­ably lucky we have been!  Gen­tle, needy Jes­samy will go to two sweet and gen­tle ladies, for whom she will very soon achieve the sta­tus of Kit­ten Princess, I am quite sure.  Rugged, dar­ing Jamie will go to two Gor­geous Young Farm­ers, and vie with them for the title of Pret­ti­est Per­son in the House.  And wily, ins­ta-purr Jes­si­ca will go to a bril­liant crafts­man and his wife who are count­ing the days till they can take her home.

Kudos to Avery who took three kit­tens, hid­ing in our laun­dry room, and spent about five days of her life doing noth­ing but sit­ting qui­et­ly and let­ting them emerge, then be pet­ted, then learn to accept being picked up inces­sant­ly and kissed all day long.  These kit­tens purr if you make eye con­tact with them.  I woke up yes­ter­day morn­ing to feel Jes­samy lick­ing my eye­lids!  Now, nat­u­ral­ly this is not to every­one’s lik­ing, but it was to mine.

It will be hard to see them go.

Anne called me to check how the vis­it from the Peach Girl had gone.  “They were in your dri­ve­way for a long time, so I assumed it went well?”  Avery, pass­ing me on the steps to go upstairs, kit­ten slung over her shoul­der, said, “I can’t believe you guys are talk­ing on the phone when she’s right across the street.”  “Oh yeah?” I coun­tered.  “How about your email­ing me when you’re in bed and I’m in the kitchen?”

With the kit­tens tak­en care of, and wak­ing to a rainy day, we went off to Water­bury for a movie, wav­ing good­bye to Kate in Anne’s arms, wet trees blow­ing her hair around.  What a beau­ti­ful sight, our lit­tle neigh­bor child tou­sled in the weath­er, leaves falling all around her.  Just love­ly.  One of those images of some­one that seems icon­ic.  That was Katie, right then, held tight by her dot­ing moth­er.  Lovely.

And the worst movie EVER!  Salt, with Angeli­na Jolie (which should have been my first clue).  I’m not a fan, and it’s not her bee-stung lips I object to, since my daugh­ter has very gor­geous lips as well.  No, it’s every­thing else about her.  True, she has sev­er­al facial expres­sions: seduc­tive (even when there is no rea­son­able seduc­ing going on), deter­mined (unbe­liev­ably chis­elled jaw­line set), and evil (lots of eye move­ments from right to left, as if she were watch­ing an invis­i­ble ten­nis match).  But it was the “script” that real­ly got us, and I apol­o­gize now to who­ev­er was sit­ting behind us as we snick­ered help­less­ly behind our hands.  “Con­verge on the crypt, peo­ple, repeat: con­verge on the crypt.”

Per­haps the most won­der­ful moment of the movie hap­pened when I was tak­ing a long, dragged-out bath­room break (won­der­ing how rea­son­ably long I could loi­ter out­side the the­ater with­out alarm­ing the man­age­ment).  I returned stealth­ily to my seat only to have Avery pull on my hand as I sat down.

“You missed it: she pulled off her face.”

“What?”

“She pulled off her face, and guess what?  She had fresh lip gloss on underneath.”

Leave it to Avery, my make­up-blog­ging daugh­ter, to notice this, pos­si­bly the LEAST unbe­liev­able thing in this film.  Argh.  Two hours of my life I will nev­er get back.  And they have left the nar­ra­tive door open for a SEQUEL.  John says it will be called “MSG.”

There could be only one anti­dote to this fias­co.  An evening in the kitchen.

Corned Beef Hash

(serves six, probably)

four good-sized Yukon Gold or red pota­toes, peeled

about 1 1/2 lbs left­over cooked brisket (mine was slow-grilled)

2 tbsps butter

1 Vidalia onion, minced

3 cloves gar­lic, minced

sea salt and fresh black pep­per, to taste

Put pota­toes on to boil, about 20 min­utes until eas­i­ly pierced by a fork.  Mean­while, cut left­over brisket into large chunks, then feed them into your food proces­sor and pulse gen­tly, till it is all hashed-up, but not so long that it becomes pasty. Chop boiled pota­toes to nice lit­tle dice.

Melt but­ter in a heavy skil­let, then add brisket and stir until any fat has become nice and hot. Throw in the pota­toes, onion and gar­lic and sea­son well.  Siz­zle over high heat for about 15–20 min­utes, stir­ring at first, but then in the last few min­utes, leav­ing the hash still, to achieve a crisp crust.

GOR­GEOUS.

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

I so impressed myself with this dish!  Let me tell you why I was so pleased.  I adore brisket, and have had many inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tions with cook­ing friends (Alyssa and Yaz espe­cial­ly come to mind) about the prop­er prepa­ra­tion of it.  My favorite has always been slow-cooked on the stove in a mix­ture of tomatos, molasses and beer, but on the day I want­ed to eat this brisket, it was HOT and my inter­est in turn­ing on the stove min­i­mal, espe­cial­ly for a slow-cooked any­thing.  Save that for a snowy New Year’s day any time.

So I looked up some recipes for slow-cook­ing brisket on the grill.  That seemed like an idea whose time had come, and John loves to grill.  So into a Ziplock bag went the brisket with a LOT of molasses, some soy sauce, lime zest and minced gar­lic.  And John grilled that puppy.

But guess what.  Nev­er add soy sauce or salt to brisket!  Not that I was able to taste it raw, but it must have been might­i­ly salt­ed in its prepa­ra­tion, because the fin­ished grilled prod­uct, while tasty, was almost ined­i­bly salty.  Of course, we man­aged to put away a fair bit of it, but only at the price of swill­ing down gal­lons of water afterward!

So there was the left­over half a brisket.  What was a girl to do.

The sec­ond rea­son I love this dish now will not sur­prise you.  You know how, all sum­mer, I’ve been find­ing that favorite dish­es you eat out are even BET­TER made at home.  And this just adds to the list (burg­ers, piz­za, fried shrimp all hav­ing suc­cumbed already).

And left­over corned beef hash, oh MY!  I say this recipe serves six, but I’m only guess­ing because one serv­ing made its way to Avery, tucked up in her cozy hide­away bed­room before din­ner, with my anx­ious ques­tion, “Is this all right?”  And after din­ner we were left with some quan­ti­ty which at BREAK­FAST next day, puts our local din­er out of busi­ness.  Sim­ply reheat it, shoved over to one half of that same skil­let, whilst fry­ing eggs in the oth­er half and toast­ing Eng­lish muffins off to one side.  HEAVEN.

The last item on my “I’ll nev­er eat out again if I can make this” list… hashed-brown pota­toes.  But I think that unlike the hash, the only thing that makes din­er pota­toes so spe­cial is BUT­TER.  CUPS of it.  And you know me, I love but­ter.  But I can’t in good con­science haul out a cup of the stuff to feed my fam­i­ly.  Not all at ONCE.

Oh, the deli­cious feel­ing of lux­u­ry that evening, pot of chick­en soup bub­bling away fra­grant­ly on the stove, know­ing that all the ingre­di­ents of my hash were chopped and ready to fry up.  I lay back on the liv­ing room sofa with a book, lis­ten­ing to rain, watch­ing trees blow, a rare moment of sit­ting still and just watch­ing the world around me, feel­ing lucky.

The sec­ond day of rain I spent run­ning errands with Avery (Amer­i­can school sup­plies! it does­n’t get any bet­ter than Ticon­dero­ga pen­cils, pink erasers and good old Elmer’s glue).  Liv­ing away makes you appre­ci­ate the strangest things, like strolling through the super­mar­ket park­ing lot under a threat­en­ing gray sum­mer sky, com­ing upon tanned, fit-look­ing Amer­i­can chil­dren in mini­vans with oth­er fam­i­lies stopped out­side them, elbows lean­ing out win­dows, exchang­ing com­ments on the first day of school.  “I got Mrs Schrage, who’d you get?  Oh, she’s nice!” while moth­ers gos­sip.  There is some­thing so cozy about moth­ers and chil­dren, pick­ing up the threads of autumn acquain­tance after a sum­mer of fun, dressed in good Amer­i­can clothes, espe­cial­ly Yan­kees t‑shirts.  I just love it, and I don’t think I’d have even noticed the lit­tle scene, if I had­n’t moved away.  “Are you in that new build­ing they built?  It has real­ly good lock­ers, I heard… Pom­per­aug High­’s hav­ing a car wash, if you want to come by… Try­outs for girls’ soft­ball are Sat­ur­day, are you gonna be there?”  Amer­i­can sum­mer, and kids safe and sound with their pret­ty, healthy moth­ers, head­ed into the gro­cery store to stock up on high fruc­tose corn syrup and con­densed cream of mush­room soup.

On the tail end of the storm came a din­ner of meat­balls in a rich toma­to sauce, with Jill and Joel, Jane and Molly.

All of us sat around the din­ing room table for the first time this sum­mer, the wind and spit­ting rain just com­ing through the maple trees too much to make eat­ing out­side pos­si­ble.  That is, except for John who always has to be dragged kick­ing and scream­ing to eat indoors.  Plus, eat­ing inside has an unex­pect­ed­ly unciv­i­liz­ing effect on him, and his behav­ior with his nieces, and he revs them up to a crazy lev­el of ener­gy and silli­ness.  Mol­ly in par­tic­u­lar.  Here is a typ­i­cal exchange, Mol­ly in her high chair, John sit­ting alongside.

[my sis­ter] “Mol­ly, show Uncle John how you open you mouth for a big bite of yogurt!”

[John] “Mol­ly, show your mom­my how you can say NO!”

It turns out she LOVES to say no!

Oh dear.  Come to think of it, he’s just as bad when we eat out at the pic­nic table, but at least there isn’t a low Fed­er­al ceil­ing to hold in Mol­ly’s shrieks of delight.

She is a per­fect angel.

And here’s an easy dessert: in your gro­cery store, can you buy ready-made crepes?  I can, and they con­tain almost noth­ing in the way of calo­ries, carbs, sug­ar, any­thing.  Which is more than I can say for the sub­stance mas­querad­ing as “whipped cream” in the yogurt sec­tion.  DO NOT buy this!  Just look at the label.  All you need is a con­tain­er of whip­ping cream, a hand beat­er or a Cuisi­nart, and a cou­ple of fla­vor­ings.  We real­ly like a bit of Demer­ara sug­ar (per­haps a table­spoon for enough cream for six peo­ple), and a bit of lemon zest, a bit of vanil­la extract.  But none of the scary stuff you can’t pro­nounce, in the can.  To be ban­ished firm­ly, along­side ready-made bread­crumbs and diced toma­toes.  Whizz up your left­over bread your­self, and dice those nice whole toma­toes.  What sort of bread and toma­toes do food com­pa­nies save for the stuff they’re plan­ning to pul­ver­ize for you?  It does­n’t bear think­ing about.

Serve those lit­tle crepes rolled up with cream and straw­ber­ries inside, and every­one is hap­py.  Except Jane, who prefers ice cream.  We can do that.

Once the sun reap­peared, albeit behind some clouds, John and I head­ed off across the road to pick up some of the old fire­wood that Anne has had piled up here and there in her mead­ow, for our Christ­mas hol­i­day to come.

I won­der how many calo­ries you burn load­ing and unload­ing logs?  The wood­shed is stocked now, which means the end of sum­mer is near…

Last­ly, did you all see that my bril­liant Blogi­dol Julian has giv­en me a sub­scrip­tion fea­ture!  Right at the top of the post, right hand side.  So you nev­er have to miss a post.  You know it’s what you’ve all been wish­ing for!  And that’s all from Red Gate Farm for now, the only house I know whose beloved con­tours have been immor­tal­ized in… a hand-knit­ted dish­tow­el. Now THAT’S friend­ship.  Thank you, Karen.