I have struggled, and I am struggling, but I am also finding joy, I am laughing more than crying, I am squeezing my babies, I am snuggling (struggling?) with my husband.
There's this,
it's unprecedented, and its nothing new,
we have never done this,
but humans have.
I want to write a canto, about how being at home is a burden
I want to write an ode, about how being at home is a joy
Today is today, is today, is today,
where do we go from here
when the front porch is our finish line?
Let's go make some bread.
Cheddar Ham Biscuits
2 C AP Flour
1 Tbs baking powder
1 tsp season salt
1/2 tsp bay seasoning
1 stick cold butter cut into 1/4" chunks + 1/2 stick room temp butter
1/2 c buttermilk
1 egg
1 c shredded cheddar
4 slices of ham stacked and cut into 1/4 in squares
preheat oven to 425
whisk flour, powder, salt and seasoning in the bowl of a stand mixer, then using paddle attachment beat butters into flour mixture, add ham and cheddar mix until everything is coated, whisk egg into your buttermilk, add to mixer, mix on low pulsing until ingredients are combined.
dump out onto a floured surface fold onto itself 4-6 times, pat into an even thickness and cut into 8-12 biscuits (up to you how big you want them) bake 12-18 minutes until risen and golden
serve hot or warm. can be frozen and reheated in 400 degree oven.
Once again i am jumping in to the second in a series of events without talking about the first, well, i dont know what to say really besides get used to it!
Every once in a while i organize a ladies afternoon salon, sometimes its painting, drawing, decoupage, matchbooks... well that's all i got so far but soon im going to break into the museum and draw bones!
anyway... we convene about 2 and work until 4 or 5 in the afternoon and there are of course noshy bits so heres what we ate one time!
champagne cocktails (champagne, bitters laced sugar cube, orange peel, aperol... definitely yum!) fresh pea soup with creme fraiche, soft dinner rolls with thickly sliced ham, watercress tossed with a lemon vinaigrette, and sauce richard, served with potato chips.
One of my favorite throw together recipes is "Chinese" style ribs with rice and sauteed cabbage... now im not sure if you've noticed at this point or not but i wouldnt say that i follow recipes? yeah, no i wouldnt say that i do that... so needless to say the "chinese" style pork ribs are never the same twice but they are always lipsmacking so here's the gist
"Chinese" Style Pork Ribs
Pork Ribs, i don't care what kind you use, country, spare, baby whatever, im sure you could use this basic sauce for any type of pork, i have even used tenderloin...
Hoisin Sauce
Apricot Preserves (or not, depending on how sweet you want it or if you have jam... you could use marmalade or plum jelly, or even apple butter if you are not bothered by cinnamon in savory dishes, which i am i HATE it...)
Soy Sauce (or tamari, or low sodium soy, or whatever umami salty sauce you like)
chili garlic paste (if it has a green lid then it will work for this)
sesame oil (this is like 1 or 2 drops for the whole batch, the barest hint is what we are going for here)
k, mix an appropriate amount of each item to satisfy your taste for the night in a large bowl or ziplock bag, toss pork in sauce, marinate about an hour?
bake/roast/broil meat on racks set in a foil wrapped baking sheet at 425 for 15 minutes, reduce heat to 375 cook till finished (times will vary greatly depending on the cut of meat you are using) while meat is cooking prepare your rice and sautee your cabbage, i like to burn the shit out of my cabbage but cook to how you like it.
do you want to know the secret to meatloaf? Ketchup in the meat mix,... Boom, thats literally it. of course there are the following key points, sauteed onions, eggs, milk soaked bread chunks, pork/beef mixture... but really for me it all comes down to a sufficient amount of ketchup in the mix, no recipe becuase its my secret but this is what we ate on december 11, 2011
Meatloaf, glazed carrots, "cooked" potatoes, so good on a cold winter night
This week feels like it will never end, which is sad since i don't work that many hours a week and i am working the weekend shift this week... so this week will literally not end until next week. oh well.
Tonight the darling husband and i had his buddies over for dinner, first one then two (as will happen). i threw together a quick greek inspired meal. We had grilled chicken thighs, grilled baguette, mash potatoes ala skordalia, and a tossed salad with red and green leaf lettuce, carrots, red onion, balsamic beets, and a bleu cheese balsamic viniagarete. yum, i meant to take pictures but well it was too tasty looking and honestly i just forgot! oh well, next time gadget!
Chicken Thighs (serves 4-6)
Thyme, Oregano and chives from the garden
organic lemon peel and juice
olive oil
two garlic cloves
12 chicken thighs trimmed
Mash potatoes ala skordalia (4-6)
two russets cubed, boiled with onion flakes, garlic powder, salt
two Tbs butter
1/4 c. reserved potato water
juice of 1 1/2 lemon
two garlic cloves minced fine
1 Tbs olive oil
If you don't laugh and cry just a little when you read this clipping, well then you are nothing like me!
From “Naturalized Birds of the World” by Sir Christopher Lever, 1987 ed (Not the compromised later edition, some editor must have told him that his prose was overwrought, i just don't think they understood his comic genius, hats off to you Sir Lever), p11-12
Ostrich—
The first pair of ostriches despatched to Australia (Victoria) from Paris in 1862 as the intended founder-stock of an aigrette or osprey farm died on the voyage. A second consignment of four that followed in 1869 was more successful; the birds were safely landed at Melbourne, from where they were transferred by their importer, Mr (later Sir) Samuel Wilson, a noted Australian pastoralist, to his estate at Longerenong in the Wimmera district. Here, in the following year, one of the hens laid and hatched 12 or 13 eggs, 11 of the chicks being reared successfully.
The next season, however, was exceptionally wet, and only seven young were hatched, all of which soon died. The hens showed no discretion over their choice of nesting sites, often laying on the bare soil which flodded easily after heavy rain, causing the eggs to become addled and the brooding bird to develop rheumatism. Before long one of the cocks became extremely ill-tempered; one man had his trousers torn from the waist to the shin by a single kick, and although he was unhurt others were less fortunate. Wilson claimed to have seen a wooden fence-rail snapped in two by the kick of an angry Ostrich.
These vicissitudes, combined with a climate that was clearly too wet and predation of the young by native marsupial cats (Dasyurus spp.), forced Wilson in 1874 to send his surviving stock inland to a station owned by C.M. and S.H. Officer at Murray Downs near Swan Hill on the north bank of the Murray River in New South Wales. The Journey was made during some of the heaviest rainstorms recorded in Victoria, causing the ox-carts to become bogged in the mud, as a result of which several of the birds died.
Soon after the arrival of the survivors at Murray Downs one of the Officers’ stockmen carelessly left a yard gate open, through which a hen escaped and broke her neck by running into a wire fence. One of the two remaining hens laid and single egg and then died, leaving the Officers with a total stock of three cocks and a hen. This nucleus they attempted to augment by ordering further birds from the Cape of Good Hope, but these failed to materialize. Instead, they acquired from the Cape an incubator (for which they paid the then not inconsiderable sum of £100), in which two clutches of eggs laid by the surviving hen were successfully hatched; initially the chicks did well, but later contracted South African disease, the first symptoms of which are similar to those of ‘staggers’ in domestic farm stock, followed by an inability to remain standing unless in constant movement; as a result, the unfortunate birds soon succumbed to exhaustion and starvation.
The next three clutches were more successful, the four healthy offspring from the first being ready to breed in 1878. To prevent attacks by the cocks and predation by Wedge-tailed Eagles (Aquila audax), a keeper was appointed to guard the young birds; however, Lord Casey, who in 1877 had been appointed Governor-General of Australia, recorded that many Ostrich eggs at Murray Downs were broken by stones dropped on them by Black-breasted Buzzards (Hamirostra melansoternon)- a mode of attack that the buzzards also practised on the eggs of Emus (Dromaius novaehollandiae).
The Officers’ Ostriches, in addition to grazing the lush Murray Downs pastures, were fed on chopped lucerne, sorghum maize, bonemeal and gravel. Their plumes, marketed in London, were said to be superior in quality to those produced in South Africa.
When Suetonius Officer died in 1882 the population had increased to over a hundred, in the following year, C.M. Officer sold the Murray Downs station and transferred part of the stock to a smaller property a few kilometres south at Kerang in Victoria, and part ot another of his estates, the Kallara Station, on the Darling River. The stock at Kerang eventually increased to 120, but although at Kallara the older birds flourished their young were all poisoned by the mineral salts in the station’s artesian wells.
