An Evening at Sweetpea's (Sweet Pearockabilly), and I Got to Pet a Donkey!

No real cooking yesterday.  I marinated meat for fajitas, but Lou did all of the heavy lifting while trying to finish an awesome apron for Sweetpea - she was hosting a margarita-filled living room sale before she leaves for Vegas on Tuesday.  I took it to her house without pockets, but she loved it.  It's red with three inches of fringe - even the pockets are fringed!  When she gets back from VLV, it will be here for her. Along with another.

I traded her for a cute skirt that I brought, and a glam robe that she had.  Gorgeous.

Oh!  The donkey!  The church on my block had their Palm Sunday parade, filled with little kids and a live donkey!  Her name was Katy, she's 8 years old, and she let me scratch her behind the ears and kiss her forhead.  She was the sweetest donkey I've ever met.  And I'm from Texas, so I've met a lot of asses.

Shepherd's Pie is on the menu tonight, and I'll try to sneak in a few vegetables for my uncle, who doesn't like them.  Covert Cooking is one of my many talents.

-Z

Tell Me That You Did NOT Just Do That!

We woke up early, and beat the late-nighters to Luna Park to see the lovely Sweetpea (Sweet Pearockabilly on Facebook), the queen of Seattle's rockabilly scene.  She put us in her section, as always, and I promised her a few rockabilly aprons if she'd show them off and tell people where she got them.  She said yes!  Woohoo, my first endorsement deal!

After breakfast, we drove downtown to let Lou replace his brown Greek fisherman's cap, then dropped him off at the Center for Wooden Boats for a crew sail on the Betsey D, the boat he's helping restore.

So, I get a call that he has BOTH sets of keys to my car, which is sitting in our driveway, and was how I was going to pick him up after the sail.  Dumbass!  My uncle offered Mom and I the use of his car for the afternoon.  Very nice.  Still, I'm going to smack Lou when I see him.

Crisis averted, but that was still a dumbass move...

All Day It Has Rained...

Sorry, I had to steal that line from the title of my favorite poem, by Alun Lewis.

At my uncle's insistence, I used his car to go shopping today, since Lou had mine.  He's so sweet.  Or, maybe he just didn't want to hear my constant chatter.

I hit the farmers' stalls in Edmonds, and picked up a lot of our staple produce, like chayote, which we put in everything, tomato sauce, stir fry, or just slice it and eat it raw.  I picked up a variety of squashes from "the other siders," Western Washingtonians' name for people who live in the dry half of the state.  Generally, we only mix to exchange produce and black market grunge mix tapes.

They didn't have much in the way of live herb plants (I'm still growing my herb garden), but I got dill, fennel, and rosemary plants, and they had some excellent bundles of spearmint and huge basil!

I grabbed a big prickly pear cactus leaf, which I've no idea what to do with, but that's why we have the Internet.  I also got a few other vegetables that I'd never tried: rutabaga, two other root vegetables that I'd have to look at the receipt for, and parsnip.  Oh, yeah, something red and chubby that they called a garnet.  Squash of some sort?

Oh, and I FINALLY found the hard ginger candy that World Market stopped carrying last year.  Ginger is the best thing for nausea for me, and it happens far too often for me.  And, no, I'm not pregnant.

I think I'm doing individual beef & Guinness pies tomorrow, then Lou and I are hitting the Central Market on Saturday morning, so I need to come up with a menu plan.

I apologize for not posting more recipes - I've been a mad, sewing woman.  Who wants an apron?

Goodnight, all,
Zanne

My Scissor Hand Hurts...

I have, so far, put together nine aprons today, hunched over on the big ottoman in front of the TV.  Lou is sick, and pouty, so I escaped into a sea of pink cordouroy and linen covered in insects.  My cat's pretty damned happy, since he has a bed of fabric to curl up on.

Great, my other Maine Coon, Fat 'Bastien, just barfed, on my rug, of course, but nowhere near the fabric, or I'd have to kill him.  I'm still weighing the pros and cons of his death.  He's not sick, he's just fat, and he inhales his food, so it comes back up.  On my rug.

Without Lou here to be cranky, I should be able to put together quite a few more tomorrow.  I just want to sleep for a few hours first.  'Night, all.

Okay, Maybe Clonazepam and Cheap Red Wine Don't Mix as Well as I Thought

At least I didn't wake up with a hangover. I have this thing about feeling guilty when I drink, because my mother gives me THAT look that tells me she's wondering what's in my glass. Mom Guilt will always work on me, but she's not really that king of mom. She's my bud, who worries about me, and I'm totally okay with that.

So, I've already washed the dishes, cleared the kitchen table (where I sew), and made merengue cookies (flavored w/cranberry and mint bitters). Those just disappear in this house, and they are so easy with my new stand mixer (a 60s vintage Mixmaster - awesome!).

Dinner is looking like a veggie stew using low-sodium, free-range stock, some fresh vegetables (including that chayote!), and some of those dried vegetable chips that we got at Pike Place Market from Simply the Best . They told me that they're great instead of croutons, but she didn't know about soup, so I'll experiment. Maybe with Cuban-flavored orzo and greens. Ribbons of swiss chard, chopped baby spinach, tiny 'shrooms, and possibly either red or French green lentils.

I'll turn it into a recipe after I decide what to use. "It's how we do." Sorry, you can expect a lot more Smokin' Aces quotes. It really is our favorite go-to movie (Yes, even over The Lather Effect, Star Trek, and Transformers 2).

This weekend, I'm going to show Bev and Lou how to make kolaches, and I'll attempt to make pasta for the first time: acorn squash spinach ravioli. I've been dumbing down my cooking since my uncle got here, because he's a picky eater (reformed picky eater here). I can't do meat and potatoes every night - that is not how I lost over 100 pounds. We eat green things in this house, and he'll just have to deal. He's really nice, but picky eaters can't survive here. Unless Lou starts cooking again. *S*