Full of fail.

That's the short short version of How My Trip To Florida Was.

Not a complete disaster, but I wouldn't call it a rousing success, either.

The whole flying routine, fine. Got through that on the way to Florida with no problem. Uneventful flights are good.

My parents bought a house in Florida, a foreclosure house. Sad for someone else, but a boon for them. The downside is that it has been empty for a year, is filthy dirty, has overgrown landscaping, and a myriad of problems that come with a house that has been empty for a while.

This was a working vacation for all of us; solve the problems with the house that could be solved in a few short days, celebrate my grandmother's 90th birthday, and then back to the grind.

Ha.

Ha. Ha.

Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Riiiight.

The universe had other plans.

The running around necessacary for the party was accomplished with no problems. Minor issues at the 'new' house, solved easily. Landscapers contracted, the gross kitchen scrubbed within an inch of its life, and the 90th birthday was lovely.

We got my grandmother a digital photo frame, which we loaded with family pictures from her wedding day up until last week. Don't tell me about being "too old" for technology; my 90 year old grandmother LOVES the digital frame, and can operate it with no problem.

My parents have a house they've been renting in Florida. We stayed there, as the new house has no furniture. The new house does, however, have electricity, running water, and air conditioning, a fact that will be relevant to the story later. The rental house is a furnished 3 bedroom affair, a nice place. They were unsure, when they initially retired, if they'd like the whole Florida vibe, so they rented in the begining.

We came back from Grandma's birthday party to find 4 inches of water through the entire rental house. Everywhere. We sloshed through the house, in complete disbelief. We were gone for 8 hours; a pipe in the laundry room burst, and we have no idea when that happened, but it leaked long enough for the entire house to fill with water.

Everything was drenched. Everything. My suitcase was on the floor, and every piece of clothing I brought with me was soaked. I brought a backpack with a knitting project, two novels, my iPod and various other things; it was sitting on the floor next to my suitcase. DH had piled his clothing on the bed before we left, and his bag was sitting on a chair. His things remained dry. The parents had both wet and dry things. Two garbage cans full of wet and dry things.

Casualties: my iPod, which is gutting; my passport (not so gutting, I hated the pic and am glad for an excuse to get a new one); and one of the two novels. The book is a bummer because it was a Swedish translation of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, hardback, that I bought in Malmö. Nearly impossible to replace on this side of the pond. It is really wet. Maybe a loss. Maybe not. I'm hoping not, but time will tell.

Not destroyed, but damaged: very expensive yarn; a blank book; clothes.

We carried furniture and clothes and stuff out of the house until midnight that night. Trucked several loads of stuff to the new house in the parent's Florida car, a 4-door sedan. That was fun. Got eaten alive by mosquitos. They don't grow mozzies big in Florida; they grow them MEAN. I have at least 15 bites, all of them very itchy.

We collapsed on to matteresses on the floor at the new house around 1:30 AM. The next day, my dad and DH did landscaping while my mother and I scrubbed inside some more. Our flight home to Ohio was due to leave Florida at about 7PM last night, and we were looking forward to getting out of the oppressive heat, home to our own bed.

Ha. Again.

Our flight didn't leave until almost 10 PM. We pulled in to our driveway at home at 2:30 AM.

Ow.

We don't every really grow up. I have proof.

Once upon a time, when I was a little girl, my mother purchased Tupperware Ice Tup molds. Like these.Except that ours were all white plastic.

My mum made ice pops (popsicle is a trademark of Good Humor, and I am not infringing copyrights, y'see) with Jell-o, Kool-Aide, and I don't know what else, and they were good. Really good.

A news item in last Sunday's paper suggested updating classic cocktails for summer by freezing them in ice-pop molds, and serving them as frozen-on-a-stick rather than blended in the blender with ice to make a slushie.

Excellent idea.

So I asked my mother: did she still have those ice-pop molds? Unfortunately, the answer was no. Bummer. But she did suggest that she had seen the molds at Target et cetera, in the store's patio furniture/summer celebration sections. Sweet, that shouldn't be so hard to track down, then.

I decided that the first experiment should be with my good for you protein smoothie, due entirely to my bad eating habits of late. The smoothie recipe is as follows:

1 c pureed strawberries
1 banana, cut into chunks
1/4 to 1/2 c organic lowfat vanilla yogurt (I am partial to this brand)
2-3 scoops whey protein, based on volume of smoothie; 1 scoop per 8 oz.

Blend all until desired consistency in blender.

I found some molds of my own at a local bargain outlet, intended, I think, as accessories to a smoothie-maker that has been discontinued by the manufacturer. Bonus for me, because I got 2 sets of 4 molds for $0.99. They are conjoined, so to get just one ice-pop out is a pain in the keister, but not an insurmountable problem.

Accordingly, I poured the smoothie recipe into the molds and waited 10+ hours. They're delish as a frozen treat, satisfying the sweet-tooth and making you feel full, thanks to the protein.

Amazon has a bunch of ice-pop molds for sale. IKEA also supposedly has some cool ones, but they're not for sale on-line, and the closest IKEA store to me is going through some huge re-vamp, or something, and they can't tell me for certain if they have any. With gas at $4 a gallon, I do not intend to take a random drive over an hour away just to see if maybe they have some.

But I want these from Amazon, because I think they're way cool.


Not that I need more plastic "stuff" in my life, but I do think that my annual summer party (which is coming soon!) needs the addition of alcoholic ice-pops. C'mon, who ISN'T going to think those are cool?

I am a grown up! I am! ! !

The question remains, can a Mojito Pop be made? Or a Southern Comfort Punch Pop? (I have to make those just because of the name alone, don't I? Say that 5 times fast...) I'd love to locate the recipe my mother used for the cherry pops she made using a powdered drink mix and an instant dessert. Or better yet, perhaps the powdered drink mix I'm currently a fan of, with vanilla vodka....oooooooo.

Sorry to leave you hanging on this one, but for now we'll let the question stand. Possible? Yup, I think so. Can we wait around long enough in this house for the alcohol-pops to freeze? Ummmm.....I'll get back to ya on that one.

Mise en Place

{French, for set in place. Used in American kitchens in reference to prep work for a recipe.}

I had a party the other night. I was doing prep for the things that could be done ahead of time, and thinking about taking pictures of all my little bowls set neatly in a row, but not in the proper order at all; dessert things next to the main course next to the aps. I was too busy to stop, find the camera, take the pictures, and scribble down a few notes as to what I wanted to say about each picture.

Part of my OCD manifestation is that I like organization. I like things set in rows, counted in even numbers, neatly laid out, color-coded if possible. While that is my preferred modus operandi, often in the lead-up to a party I don't have enough time to do this, or somehow the day of the event sneaks up on me without my awareness, and I'm left scrambling around willy-nilly at the last minute. Not this time; I had a menu set several days ahead of time, lists for everything. I laid out all of the things I needed, had notes.

A full dinner for 7, table set with my favorite dishes that are normally consigned to the 'look but don't touch' files. Wineglasses, silverware that is rarely used, wine bottles chilled in the fridge. I love all this stuff. I love pulling out all the stops, making things that are complicated, or full of unusual ingredients, things that wow my guests. I love cooking for people I like, having a houseful of friends.

We laughed so much that my face hurt.

Everyone left after 1 AM, and then the next day I hosted family for a big dinner. Yet again, a weekend ending with me needing major sleep.

Telepathic Communication

DH and I have been together for a long, long time. We met in 1994, in the springtime, and were dating within a month or so of meeting one another. We've been together ever since. For those with poor math skills, that's 13 years. We've been married for 7 of those years. I can't imagine my life without him.

I think that when you are close with someone for such a long time, you develop the ability to communicate wordlessly. It doesn't necessarily have to be a significant other; I can do this with my sisters and a few friends as well. A shared glance, a certain tilt to the head that indicates a question, or mutual eye-rolling that you both know the meaning behind.

We were at a wedding on Saturday night, a wedding where our connection to the bridal pair is tenuous at best. Neither of us really wanted to go, but duty and obligation compelled us. A quick aside; I looked fabulous in a BCBG Max Ariza dress, purchased a few years ago. It has an asymmetrical hemline, knee-length on one side and calf-length on the other, black, with a floral silver print, and it has only one shoulder. Stunning, yes, but also probably a bit out of date. Not that I care; as I said, I looked fab. My hair is shorter than ever, as I did a favor for the hairdresser last week and he cut and colored my hair for free. It has a few red streaks now, and he warmed the blonde to a slightly darker shade, the white blonde streaks covered until summer comes again.

Regardless, we had agreed prior to leaving for the wedding that we'd leave as soon as it was acceptably polite to do so, since we wouldn't know many people there. As he does from time to time at social events, DH disappeared and I was left to my own devices, so I headed to the dance floor to participate in the near-mandatory dancing of The Electric Slide (hate the song, love to dance, can't keep up with the steps, laugh my ass off at my clumsy self each time) and a few other songs.

DH hates to dance, but will usually dance one song with me provided it is a slow number and that he likes the song. I left the dance floor after they played "YMCA" and started playing something by Rascal Flatts that I didn't recognize, in search of both my husband and a drink. I found him talking to an old friend, and he raised his eyebrow and inclined his head in the direction of the dance floor, asking if I wanted to dance without saying a word. In answer, I put the heel of my right hand on my forehead, in a "I coulda had a V-8" gesture, meaning, "Duh, did you have to ask? Of course I want to dance." He grinned in acknowledgment and led the way to the dance floor.

Later, when things were winding down and we'd seen some people who were not 90 years old leaving, I mimed walking with my index and middle fingers, asking him if he was ready to leave. He nodded, and we sought out our hosts and thanked them for a lovely evening. On the way home, we shared a laugh over the attire of some of the guests that we'd both noticed but hadn't said anything aloud about at the time.

I think it takes a long shared history to be able to communicate this way. It always entertains me when it happens, making me wish that true telepathy were possible.

Going to the chapel

...and we're gonna get married, going to the chapel of love!

A friend got married this weekend. Watching several of my high school friends with their spouses, or significant others, or just standing around the bar talking at the reception made me feel both sad and content. Sad, because we are all getting older. Someone reading this who is in their 50s or so would be annoyed with me, because we're all 30-something these days, and that isn't OLD unless you're a teenager. Content, because it is nice to see folks who I thought would never, ever, ever grow up doing just that. Sort of like, "well, I don't have to worry about *you* anymore, because that's settled."

Weddings usually make me cry. I missed the church ceremony of this weekend's wedding, which I am sorry about, but not too sorry because I don't know if I could have handled it in my current mental state.

I asked so many people so many times, "How ARE you?" wanting, of course, not the social pat answer that we usually give, "I'm fine" but getting not much more than that most of the time. I haven't seen many of these people since the last big wedding, which was I think in 2002. When we, people in general, not just my group of friends, gather at social events like this, so often we strive to be positive and upbeat when talking with old friends about what's going on in our lives, even if things aren't fantastic.

I wrote a post over on MySpace that should have probably been posted here about the walk that we took down memory lane a few days before the wedding, the shared language we have of "do-you-remembers" and the common experiences of our school days. These are old friends, some of them from middle school days, almost all of them from the same high school I attended. Scattered, now, from Arizona to Oh-hia-ia, with jobs diverse as can be imagined. But yet, with the commonality that we have of our youthful days, I honestly don't need to ask how they're doing, I can tell from a look in their eyes, a certain tilt to their smiles, decoding with ease the unspoken message.

I was honest and truthful when people asked how I'm doing; actually, each time someone asked me, "How ARE you?" I responded by saying, "I'm unemployed! *laugh* But all right. How are you?"

We talked about plans and dreams, goals and aspirations, kids, (who has them, who doesn't) cars, mortgages, houses, careers. What astonishes me, over and over again is that we're ADULTS, really, we're the grown-ups. I don't think of myself as an adult. I don't think of most of them as adults either. In my mind's eye, everyone remains perpetually about 17. Seeing them in person, then, is always a shock, because hey! No on really IS 17 anymore. When did that happen? How do the years slip away from us? Why isn't there a "pause" button for life?

I bought a dress to wear just about an hour before I left for the event, a silly set of circumstances that would only happen to me. I didn't need a new dress, but tagged along with a couple of friends just for the heck of it. I tried on sundresses, things that reminded me of 50's style party dresses, (it is true, nothing ever really goes out of style) and things that didn't fit, or fit me badly. Coming out of a dressing room, I saw a stunning light blue gown made of floaty sort of material hanging at a cash register, and I asked the salesgirl if they were holding it for someone. "No," she said, "We were looking for another size at another store." So I picked it up and checked the size, and wonder of wonders, it might fit me. When I tried it on, it was perfect. Everything else I'd tried on had been about $40, but of course this one was over $90. And a color that I have nothing else that will match it, no shoes, no purse, no wrap in case it gets cold.

So I wandered to the shoe department, and found the perfect strappy sandals to go along with it. More than $100 later, I was ready to party! It looked fantastic, though. I'm vastly entertained that the shoes bear the label "Jessica Simpson."

It was a late night, and I've had a slow start to the day. But the house is clean, the sun is shining, and the day calls out to me. Tomorrow is the first official day of my unemployment, and I have it planned so that I'm not sitting at home moping. I'm toying with the idea of going to a spiritual retreat up in New York state for a few days, as I try to figure out what the hell I'm going to do with my life. Seems like a good idea to go and meditate and reflect and plan. For now, however, I'm off to enjoy the sun while it lasts.

Listening to: Mix of Swedish pop including Per Gessel, Lisa Nilsson, Marie Fredrickson.

Twilight

Growing up, L. M. Montgomery was one of my favorite authors. I read the Anne of Green Gables books over and over, and then, as now, I was astonished at her ability to describe things so fully that you could SEE them. You got such a sense of Victorian Canada from her books, transported to a time and place not my own, I felt as if I could have lived there. Her use of imagery is still unrivaled by many modern-day authors.

When I visited Prince Edward Island, where the books are set, in 2002, I had the sense of returning to a place that my very essence remembered, even though I'd never been there before. DH and I drove my car, from our home in Oh-hia-ia to PEI. We still own the car, and every time I wash it, even 5 years later, I still get island red dirt off of my blue car. So much of it caked the undercarriage that I'm fairly certain it'll never come completely off.

There are at least 7 books in the Anne series. In one of the last ones, "Anne of Windy Poplars" the title character, Anne, writes in a letter to her fiancee that she reads his letters at dusk, her favorite time of day. She likes the word "dusk" better than "twilight."

I so disagree. "Twilight" has so many possibilites, the fulfillment of the day's promises and yet hints of the night to come.

I live in a heavily wooded area. A major road runs behind my house, but in the summertime you would never know if it weren't for the noise of the traffic. You can not see the road at all, nor see flashes of the cars driving by in the daytime, sun winking off their shining exteriors. You don't even see their headlights when it is dark, so dense are the woods behind the house.

At twilight, the deep places in the woods hold shadows that are green rather than black, and look warm rather than foreboding. We have a small expanse of grass behind the house, but the rest of the property is in its natural state, with trees and all sorts of brush, honeysuckle vines growing over everything. The grass looks lush, emerald green at twilight, as if it is thick and luxurious. Any other time of day, it looks as it truly is, sparse and struggling to grow in the mostly shaded backyard.

When the honeysuckle blooms in early spring, the smell of the blossoms is intoxicating on the air. Bees are thick back there, gathering pollen. I'm allergic to bees, so I stay away until the blossoms wither and die.

Today, during the late afternoon and before the magic hour of twilight, I poked around back there, wondering, if there were any blackberry bushes. There are! And they are full of fat blackberries, still unripe, mostly red, but a few green ones too, meaning that I should be able to gather them in the coming days. Yum.

The twilight vanishes so quickly, swallowed up by the promise of night and the coming dark. One moment it is dusk, and in the next, dark. It is particularly at this time of year that I miss Sweden. I think about Sweden all the time, of course, but during the time around Midsummer, which was yesterday, the 23rd, I remember the sun rising at 2.30 in the morning, the complete lack of night that was amazing to experience. Twilight comes there, and never disappears. It just gets light again a few hours later. It is really neat, but it does make sleeping difficult. Of course, who wants to be sleeping when the light has returned, finally, after a long and dark winter? Almost no one! Parties last long into the twilight hours, making a late-day nap a necessity.

Our Midsummer party this year didn't go as late as a Swedish party might have, but still late enough that DH and I didn't get moving today until far later than our usual time. The result is that it is now what should be around bedtime for me, and I'm feeling like it is just time to get started. It is a good thing that the magic hour of twilight does not last as long here in Oh-hia-ia as it does in Sweden, or I might not get to sleep at all. There is something about the dark that eventually will force me to bed. But until then, I'm quite content to watch the shadows deepen, feel the temperature ease, and contemplate nothing much at all.

News, and Not News.

I've been out of the loop on the cycle of news since both sisters were home. No NPR listening, very little web-surfing over the past week. It was OK at first, being out of touch with current events, too much else going on to care, but then I got antsy about it. I had this weird feeling, itchy almost, that something was missing.

I'm still not caught up on national and international news, and it isn't likely that I will by the end of this week either. The level of personal angst has shot up sky-high since both sisters left. I was handed a particularly bad piece of personal news yesterday, something that I can't yet share with the internets, and I will spend quite a bit of time over the next week or so dealing with the fallout. Once it is complete, I may share the entire sordid story, or I may not, but I'm fairly certain that even though it was a huge body-blow initially, it is more of an opportunity than anything else. I'm fairly sure that my mental health will improve by leaps and bounds once I'm past the introductory shock.

In other news, if ya know me IRL, the party's this weekend. Midsommar, doncha know. This is a Swedish holiday that I started to celebrate here in America the year that J died, when I realized that life is short. We all say, "we should get together more often" or "I'll call you and we'll have lunch" and then we never do. So I began celebrating Midsommar because I damn well want to. It is one of my favorite holidays. There will be some traditional Swedish food, and I've encouraged guests that if they want to bring something, they should bring their own favorite ethnic dish. So I'm sure it will be a bevy of interesting things. We start at 7 on Saturday.

Listening to: Podrunner

The Full-Fat Version

My sisters being home means many things, not least of which is the chance for the three of us to catch up and be very silly together. We'll all be at my parent's place, with its lake and pool, plus all the water toys you could ever want. There's enough room for the whole fam there, and we have a great time. But it also means that there's lots and lots of good food around this weekend.

I made chocolate chip cookies on Wednesday night, not the usual hearty cookies that I'll make for DH and I with whole-wheat flour and all kinds of other things tossed in that make them more like trail mix. No, I made the two-sticks-of-butter that go straight to your thighs chocolate chip cookies. Not good for you. I can't resist the dough, but I'm better at resisting the baked cookies. Usually.

I also made lasagna. And when I tell you that I made lasagna, I mean all day in the kitchen and everything from scratch. I learned the recipe from a wise woman in Europe, and it is well worth the effort. Instead of using the ricotta cheese that you usually find in lasagna, this variation, probably northern-Italian influenced, uses a white sauce not unlike an Alfredo sauce for pasta. You can make this white sauce with skim milk and reduced fat cheese and margarine, but since I make it so rarely, why the heck would I do that? No, this was the hefty version.

It starts with a stick of butter, and a half cup of flour. You make a basic blonde roux, and then in a very long process, you add whole milk and cream, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, asiago cheese, Romano cheese, and fresh mozzarella cheese. This takes nearly an hour, and must be stirred constantly. Burn something in the bottom of the pan and you've got to start over, because you'll never get rid of that burnt taste, no matter how much doctoring you attempt. Add the cheese when the sauce is the wrong temperature and you're left with a stringy mess. Been there, done that, more than once.

It is, of course, a labor of love, I pull out the lasagna only for special occasions because of its pain-in-the-ass factor. But I won't eat more than a few bites of it myself, because it is much too high in fat to indulge in more than a wee bit.

Then there's the bratwurst that will be boiled in dark beer with sweet onions and garlic and whole black peppercorns, then tossed on the grill to sizzle. They're eaten with those onions removed from the beer bath and fried in butter. I can't resist one of those, some of the very very little red meat that I will eat.

Not to mention the potato chips that are not in MY house, ever, the scratch-made guacamole for the tortilla chips, the apple wood smoked bacon (um, bliss, I promise) and you've got a recipe for completely destroying the healthy eating that I've been doing for the past six months.

Fortunately, reason prevailed a tiny bit, and there are vegetable and fruit trays, I made my quinoa salad, which is really good for you. I brought boneless skinless chicken breasts to toss on the grill that are already in a tasty but not bad for you marinade, and I insisted on two cases of water to combat the temptation to drink soda and beer.

I don't know anything that will stop me from drinking mojitos, those will be around as well. And sangria. But we do usually wait until at least late afternoon....yeah, nothing I say here is going to help the impression you're getting right now, that we're all full-blown alkies. We're not, I promise.

I can work out at my parent's place, the community where they live has a nice exercise room. I'm not sure I'll take advantage of it, but I'm pretty sure that the potato chips I ate today while listening to babysis tell our dad stories of island life will end up coming back to haunt me unless I get on the elliptical and do my usual routine.

Middlesis gets here on Friday, and it looks like the three of us will have lots of time entirely to ourselves without anyone else around, and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that.

Listening to: Incubus, Light Grenades

Egad, has it been so long then?

Every day I come across things I want to write about. Things from commentary about a report from NPR to the strange leaf I saw to new music that The Summit shares with me to tangents that spring from a myriad of other bloggers like Scary's, Misty's, Zoe's, and Dooce's blogs, how what I read about makes me want to say something else. Unfortunately, I live in the real world, where I have a full time job, a home to care for, a daily commute to and from work (won't someone PLEASE invent a Thought-Writer so I can write blog entries in the car?) and a plethora of other things that I do each day. So it has been about 13 days since I posted anything new. Which is a bummer, because I love the writing process and I take incredibly silly pride in this project, wanting to share my wit and wisdom (or lack thereof) with the world.

So! What’s been happening? Well, I’m watching the Foley scandal unfold with barely suppressed glee. Heard Newt Gingrich on NPR on my way into work this morning talking about “liberals” forcing this into the news 5 weeks before the election, and Newt annoys me on so many levels, but honestly, Newt, could you not have complained without sounding like “Everyone’s out to get MEEEEEEE”? Barely suppressed glee, of course, because the Republicans could well end up losing some House or Senate seats over this whole mess, and that would be a SPLENDIFEROUS thing, people. Dan Savage has had some wonderful things to say about Foley, and you ought to check that out.

There’s Scary and Misty’s new project, Done a Poo which although tacky, gross, and possibly completely inappropriate is the funniest thing I’ve seen since the first time I caught “The Osbornes” on MTV. Maybe you have to be completely fucked up to appreciate it, but Misty’s photos of Dubya are priceless. (I think they’re both geniuses, myself.)

Then there is this lunatic, who thinks that the recent school shootings in America are due to (wait for it) THE HARRY POTTER BOOKS. Can you believe this? Ban HP, ladies and gents, and you’ll have the end of school shootings in the US. Right, cause we never had school shootings BEFORE Harry came along, and all the OTHER countries where Harry has been printed (notably ENGLAND) have sooooooo many school shootings due to the popularity of Harry Potter. To pull a quote from one of the HP books, “Load of old tosh.”

Which brings me to my Halloween costume. I love Halloween; it is possibly my favorite holiday. I have never stopped dressing up for Halloween. My sainted mother made many of my costumes growing up; a Native American Princess, a clown, a really cool pilgrim, and she helped me make over a costume purchased from the local theater’s production of Evita so I could go as a Flamenco dancer one year in my teens. I only stopped going Trick-or-Treating after my sophomore year of high school. In my defense, I do have a sister who is 9 years younger than me, and I took her with me. But I’ve been a witch for about the last 10 years, in the sense of the Wicked Witch of the West. And I’m tired of that witchy costume, so I’ve put together a fantastic HP-esqe costume. I’m a random Gryffindor student, not any one character in particular. At a local thrift store, I picked up a long sleeved white button-down shirt, a grey sweater vest, and a burgundy and white striped tie, which while not authentic WAS a dollar and fifty cents, so it will work just fine. From eBay I got two embroidered patches, one that says “Hogwarts” and one that says “Gryffindor” (no, I have not decided which patch will go where yet) and from Whimsic Alley, I got a FABULOUS cloak/robe/whatever you want to call it and a pin that says “Prefect”, because if I had been born a Brit or an Aussie, I would have been a prefect in school. I had to exchange the cloak for a smaller size (WHOPEEE, the extra-large was way too big) but the new smaller one will be here any day. And why, pray tell, am I gushing to the interweb about my Halloween costume? Of course, so that I can tell you that I’m throwing a Halloween party!!!

I’m getting a t-shirt for DH that says, “This is my fucking costume. You got a problem with it?” If you know him IRL then you will know that’s so perfect it isn’t even funny. We’re such opposites; I would dress up for a costume party any day of the year and he would do it on the 10th of never.

I haven’t determined the menu in its entirety yet, but I think I’m going to have candy, (can’t have a Halloween party without CANDY), pumpkin cookies, caramel apples with nuts, pumpkin mousse pie tarts (more about those in a minute), and I’m stymied about what else to have. Fall favorites round these parts tend to be apple dumplings (no, not for a party of 40+, I’m NOT making 40 apple dumplings), apple cider (yah, maybe, but only if I can find some way to booze it up, cause the cider I’m talking about is not hard cider, and my last party’s non-alcoholic punch was wasted on my boozy friends), pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pecan pie….and there’s nothing really of substance there. I would make some big pot of hot soup, but then there’s the problem of serving it in small quantities….

The pumpkin mousse pie tarts are something that I came up with all on my own, and I’m really excited to share this. In the interest of full disclosure, this is a recipe that started its life in my recipe book from a friend who had done Weight Watchers. But I don’t like the texture of the original recipe, and I messed with it until it became something not at all like the original. The recipe will make maybe 60 bite-sized tarts, or you could also put the filling into a 9 inch graham cracker crust and have a nice big pie instead. This tastes better and the texture is better too IF you make it a day ahead of time. Being low in sugar and low in fat, it is an excellent substitute for pumpkin pie, which is really actually quite bad for you.

Pumpkin Mousse Tarts

Ingredients
1 (3oz) box fat free sugar free pudding, vanilla
1 cup fat free milk
1 (8 oz) small tub fat free non-dairy whipped topping (such as Cool Whip)
1-1/2 cup pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling, just pureed pumpkin)
1 tsp pumpkin pie spices (or a like-sized combination of cinnamon, ginger, & allspice)
60 fillo dough shells (like these)

Equipment
1 LARGE bowl
whisk
icing decorating bag or a large zip top bag
star tip

To Make
Whisk the pudding into the milk in large bowl until it thickens. Add spices, then pumpkin and mix well. Gently fold in the whipped topping until well blended. Fridge overnight or at least 8 hours.

Place star tip on icing bag. Fill icing bag with mousse and pipe into fillo shells. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve. Could be garnished with a dollop more whipped topping, but I don’t usually bother.

Eat lots of them. They’re mostly fat free and mostly sugar free too.

What’s been going on in YOUR world?

Soundtrack: Jonny Lang’s new CD, Turn Around

Midsummer Pics

The party was wonderful. I wanted to post the pictures and the recipes from the Swedish food. The picture above is of K's hand holding one of my Darlencian Horses, a very typical Swedish symbol. There's 4 types of crispbread and a Swedish cheese on the platter.

Next, Choklad Bollar



I know it is bad form to compliment yourself, but damn, that's a cool picture that I took. Chocolate Balls are comfort food for Swedes. I first encountered them in Västerås, at language school. They were sold everywhere and I got them at cafes, convenience stores, wherever. The first time I ever tried to make them myself back here in the states, though, it was a complete disaster. They've got butter, oatmeal, sugar, and cocoa in them, and how hard can that be? You don't even bake them, for heaven's sake. My mistakes weren't just in the ratios of the ingredients, but in my methods, as well. The butter and sugar must be creamed for a very long time by hand, or done in the food processor, which is the definitely the easiest way. Then the oatmeal; this time, I used steel cut oats. That wasn't a mistake, exactly, but I won't do it next time. I will repeat what I did with the steel cut oats, though. I ground them in the coffee grinder until they were powder fine. That makes a big difference in the final texture, so I will keep on doing that, even with rolled oats.

1 stick of butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 2/3 cups oatmeal (DO NOT COOK THE OATMEAL!)
6 TBSP cocoa, unsweetened (I used Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa)
2 tsp vanilla sugar or 1 tsp vanilla extract
5-6 TBSP milk

In a food processor, grind the oatmeal into a fine powder. Remove the oats from the working bowl of the food processor and cream the butter and sugar in the food processor. Add the oats, cocoa and vanilla sugar and pulse until the mixture resembles gardening soil! Remove the mixture from the food processor and put into a large bowl. Add milk, one tablespoon at a time, and mix with your hands. After each addition of milk, check to see if the dough will hold together. When it does, you're ready to roll! I used a #60 ice cream scoop to make sure the balls were all roughly the same size. Roll the balls in coconut, cocoa powder, pearl sugar or nuts. Store in the fridge. You could substitute coffee for the milk, and have Mocha Balls. I don't know if rum or another booze would work, but it would be fun to try!

I doubled the recipe and ended up with 58 balls, and used only a couple of tablespoons of coconut. I had some trouble getting the coconut to stick to the chocolate balls, and I don't know why. The original recipe that I got off the web said to chill the balls first, then garnish. I didn't do that, I garnished them as I rolled them. But that seems counter-intuitive to me that the garnish would work better after they're chilled. I would think that they would accept a garnish better while warm.

Next is the dilled potatoes.

I love potatoes, and I love dill. There's no real "recipe" to this....
Boil 3 lbs "B" size potatoes and drain. Melt one stick of butter and add 3 tablespoons chopped dill. Allow the butter and the dill to hang out together for a while, like brewing a cup of tea! Toss the taters and the butter in a casserole dish and garnish with a blossom from the dill plants. Keep warm until serving time.


These are lingonberry pears, or lingonparon. You can find lingonberry jam if you hunt for it. Hell, my local grocer in Ohio carries it, so it can't be that hard. But check a local IKEA if your grocer doesn't. Anyway, I did these the cheating way by using canned pears. This means I didn't peel, core, or cut the pears. They are better when you use fresh pears, of course, but I was short on time. I bought pears that were in light syrup and rinsed them well to rid them of the syrup, although that doesn't get completely rid of it, it does decrease the sugar content a bit. Then I took the whole jar of lingonberry jam, added some water, lemon zest, a cinnamon stick and a few whole cloves, and boiled it for a few minutes. Add the pears and stew for a little while. Serve warm with vanilla sauce or sweetened whipped cream.

Add lots of friends, a bunch of alcohol, stir well and keep the stories going until at least 1 am. Repeat annually.
Cheers!

Midsommar fest var underbar

For the non-Swedish speaking population: the Midsummer party was wonderful. I took some pictures of the food and the friends and will post some of them soon. (I actually use a real film camera....so you will have to wait until they're developed!)

Getting ready for Midsummer

Midsommar afton, (Midsummer Eve) the date when Swedes celebrate Midsummer, is this Friday, June 23rd. I'm having a party to celebrate it on Saturday, since that works better into my life/schedule. Midsummer is one of Sweden's biggest holidays, perhaps only Christmas (also celebrated on the "Eve") is bigger. When I was an exchange student, we took folding chairs to the lake that lies near Kungsör and sat on the shore and watched the whole lack-of a sunset. While the picture below isn't EXACTLY where we were, it is close. Gives you an idea of what my environment there was like.




This is really hard to describe if you've never seen the phenomenon, so please forgive me while I explain some basic (very basic) planetary science. Here in Oh-hi-ia, the latitude lines that run through the state are numbered 40-41. Where I lived in Sweden, the latitude is 59.4167. The Artic Circle is at 66. Anchorage, Alaska is 61, so where I was in Sweden is pretty far north, y'all. And the axial tilt of the earth at that latitude is such that during Midsummer, the sun does not rise in the east and set in the west. It kind of makes a circle around the sky, dips down towards the horizon, and comes right back up. It is amazing, and I feel really lucky to have witnessed it. If you've ever heard someone talk about "The Midnight Sun", that's what it is!

Swedes generally gather at the lake or seashore, have family picnics, drink vodka, dress up in their national costumes and dance around the maypole for a midsummer celebration. It is a leftover from pagan rites, and the missionaries who converted the Vikings just folded it right into the Christian calendar, conveniently taking the birthday of John the Baptist, which falls on the summer solstice. Bonfires are also traditional, but my homeowner's association might frown on that, so we'll be skipping it here in Oh-hi-ia. I’m not erecting a maypole for the same reason, sorry.

It is difficult for me to find a comparable holiday in the American calendar, but if I was pushed, I'd have to say that it is a bit like the 4th of July. But Midsummer isn't a celebration of independence like the 4th. Swedes do have a national day, June 6th, I think. But not the same thing at all. And I don't remember fireworks on Midsummer, but there might have been.

Traditional Midsummer foods are sill (pickled herring) new potatoes with dill, strawberries and cream, always always knäckebröd (a crisp bread that looks like big crackers). Personally, I don't care for sill, so I didn't buy any. I did buy some Gravlax, though.

I'll be serving
Lingonberry Mousse
-Lingonberries taste like cranberries, but better. They're yummy.
Swedish Meatballs
-my DH informs me that I'm not allowed to have a Swedish-themed party without them.
Blueberry Soup
-Not a traditional Midsummer thing, but definitely Swedish. I like it; I'm encouraging everyone to give it a taste by serving it in shot glasses.
Bratwurst
-OK, not Swedish at all, but a summer thing for me personally. I boil the brats in beer with onions, garlic, and cracked black peppercorns. Then I grill the brats. I strain the onions out of the beer and fry the onions with a stick of butter. Serve brats with onions, with or without a bun. Gooooood.
Potatoes with Dill
-I'm hopeful that I'll be able to find some "new" potatoes, but it isn't likely.
Gravlax
-I only bought a really small amount of this b/c I think I might be the only person who will eat it. Smoked salmon, and it is yummy.
Knäckebröd
-of course. About 6 different kinds
Strawberries and Cream
-I'm thinking no explanation needed there.
Vanilla ice cream with Cloudberry Preserves
-Cloudberries look like little orange raspberries and are delish served warm over ice cream.

You're only invited if you know me IRL...but if you didn't get an Evite invitation and want one, let me know. Cheers!

More thoughts about the culture wars

How could I have forgotten MUSIC!! as an essential part of any culture? Food, too. The exchange program that I participated in 15 years ago (GAH, can it really have been that long?) had/has a strong emphasis on culture. But I couldn't sum up the Swedish culture in a few paragraphs any more easily than I could my own, unless I used some broad stereotypical generalizations. And I won't do that, because I hate it when someone does that to me.

If you know me IRL, then you've probably been invited to my Midsömmar party, (June 24th, 7 pm!!) and in the next few weeks as the party draws ever closer, I'll be doing bits about Midsummer and Swedish culture so that any newbies have some all-important backstory.

More Cheney and then I'll stop, I promise.

I caught just a few minutes on Saturday of Left, Right and Center on NPR as I was frantically running errands in very heavy traffic on the coldest day of the year (here, anyway) to date.

I had a party Saturday night, and typical of me, I left the grocery-storing and other errand running I needed to do until that day. But with my ridiculously busy week last week, I didn’t have a second to do it before then. And I was determined to have some friends over, adding to the stress level of a crazy week but that’s life sometimes. It certainly was something to look forward to all week when things were nuts.

My local NPR affiliate plays a very diverse set of programs on the weekends, and just when I think I’ve got the schedule down, they move it around. Left, Right, and Center used to be aired on Sunday afternoons, and Justice Talking was early early Sunday morning, so I was a bit kerflummoxed when I turned on the radio at 3 on Saturday afternoon and heard Arianna Huffington’s very distinctive voice. They were of course discussing the Cheney shooting and said some of the same things I did last week; great minds, eh? I know she’s a conservative, but she’s anti-Bush and I really like her. And then Justice Talking was on right after that, so confusion was had by all. I wish I’d been able to hear all of Justice Talking, they were talking about the process of Supreme Court nominations and I am a junkie of all things Supreme Court.

I made wonderful food for the party and my favorite thing was a very twisted and very loose interpretation of English trifle that I came up with all by myself, which made me happy. Trifle purists may be a trifle put out, (oh, I entertain myself!) as there was no liqueur, but I’m not a purist. I bought two angel food cakes, and cut them into roughly 1-inch cubes. I would normally have baked them myself, but two things prevented this. One, time limitations and two, when my diet started on January 2, my sister came and cleaned out my kitchen cabinets and she tossed everything I’m not allowed to be eating, which included every single cake mix I had. Anyway, I zested a lemon and a blood orange that I was using in another recipe, and sprinkled the zest over the cubes of angel food cake, with a little bit reserved for garnish. Then I sliced fresh strawberries very thinly and completely covered the angel food cake bits with lots of strawberries. Finally, I topped it with fat free cool whip, and selected a pretty and large strawberry, and fanned it out by leaving the top intact and slicing vertical slashes in the body of the berry. A sprinkle of the remaining zest, and presto, a lovely dessert. I really like the texture of angel food cake as is, with no tampering, but if I did feel inclined to tamper, I might sprinkle some wonderfully flavored liqueur such as Frangelico over the angel food bits. Which might mollify the purists somewhat. But soggy angel food cake is bad.

I finally got some longed-for winter weather. It was sooo cold on Saturday…the temp went down to around 4 degrees Fahrenheit, which would be roughly –16 in the much more sensible Celsius scale. Why, oh, why, can’t the US use the metric system??? It makes so much SENSE!! Seriously, live with it for a while (why yes, I am completely suggesting that you live somewhere other than the US) and you’ll see. It makes such sense because it is a base 10 system. In standard measurements, there’s no sense. 12 inches = 1 foot, 3 feet = 1 yard; then there’s 4 tablespoons to ¼ cup, 2 cups to a pint, and 4 quarts to a gallon. In the metric system, 10 millimeters = 1 centimeter, 1000 centimeters=1 meter, 1000 meters = 1 kilometer…and if I remember right, a liter of water equals 1 kilogram in weight. Really, though, that's a rant for another day. But it all just WORKS…sigh.

Gotta run, kiddos…