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joan’s tomato soup. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

and this week will drop down into the 20s and 30s. i suppose it is time to turn on the heat.

it’s also time for us to start breaking out all our favorite recipes for soups and stews, slow cooker or stockpot or tagine meals. time to try some new ones.

we’ve made joan’s tomato soup several times now. we make special trips to tenuta’s, an italian grocery in town for specific tomatoes. simple, healthy ingredients, it is nourishing and wildly comforting. with a baguette on the side – or a grilled wisconsin-5-year-cheddar cheese sandwich – it speaks to the need for reassurance and warmth.

we were in costco when we stumbled upon san marzano tomatoes – in a 106 ounce can. such a deal – a third of the cost had we bought 28 ounce cans – we didn’t pass it up. instead, we will make a giant vat of tomato soup, sharing some with 20 and freezing some – sans the fresh basil. since this week will really drop in temperature, i’ll put it on the calendar.

we are starting to pull out warmer vests, more clothes, our 32 degree baselayers, socks and – drumroll – our favorite furry boots. i can’t quite wear the furry boots until the first of november merely two days away, but all the other layers already apply. we are solidly in fall. the weather app doesn’t show any temp above 45, save for three days – anomalies – in the 50s. and we’ll see if those stick.

i suppose it’s time to put away the jean shorts and the capris, the tank tops and the flipflops. it’s time to pull out the 180° earmuffs and david’s favorite hat and have gloves at-the-ready. there’s no going back.

i guess maybe i’ll put on the flannel sheets.

and maybe i’ll switch on the heat. we’ll see.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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sip and feast wisdom. [merely-a-thought monday]

of course i loved them right away. they are from long island. i’m from long island. it’s simple. my people!

we have watched – many – sipandfeast youtube videos. jim and tara have brilliantly put together a life all about cooking. splendid cooking. legacy and contemporary recipes. italian-american and, as they say, new york-inspired food. now, what’s not to love about new york-inspired food?!! they make me long to be back there.

i was perusing instagram the other evening and there they were…making cocktails. because the drinks looked both lovely and refreshing on a hot summer’s night – and because they each had a sprig of mint in them – i watched. of cawwwwse!

the camera panned to tara, as she was garnishing the drinks. mint in her hand, she slapped it gently against the glass saying, “give those mint leaves a little bit of a whack to release their oil” and then added it to the drinks. simple, practical wisdom.

all of life fell into place.

just a few days earlier in the week – during dinner on our deck with 20 – i had added mint from our potting stand to our ice waters. i was curious that i didn’t really taste the mint, though there was a considerable sized leaf in my glass.

but…i hadn’t whacked it.

now i understand.

funny how that just seems to apply to – well – everything.

a little gentle whack.

sometimes, it just propels us forward a tiny bit. sometimes, it stops the whirling thoughts tornado-ing in our minds. sometimes, it nudges the spinning plates – all spread out on the horizon plane – and lines them up so that we can get to them one by one, lined up instead of spread out. sometimes it unlodges the thought bubble, bursting it into a shower of incandescent, bright creating. sometimes, it infuses a little courage, a little bravery, a little chutzpah.

and sometimes it simply releases the oil.

tara and jim!! sip and feast!! thank you!!

*****

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the gov-of-georgia and plant-based foods. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

i woke up thinking i could have done a better speech. one does not run for the governor-of-georgia without a good speech. but the constituents at the rally seemed to appreciate it anyway, so i shrugged and promised myself to write a better narrative the next time. “they need to know the intentions i have for the office,” i told d, after sipping a few sips of coffee. he stared at me, likely envisioning what a move to the georgian governor’s mansion might look like, or, maybe what it would be like to be first-husband-of-the-gov.

alas, though it sure looked real for a while, things were not as they seemed and the details all started fading away the more coffee i sipped.

we are eating many plant-based foods these days. admittedly, not every day, but often. we looked back a few weeks and there were only three or four evenings our dinner was not plant-based. as we take this path, we’ll see if it’s entirely to the vegetarian-way-of-life. in the meanwhile, we are on a big learning curve. we have punctuated our veggie soup and plant-based sausage veggie hash and impossible burgers and red pesto pasta with a chicken soup here, one ribeye-split there. it is truly amazing what you can purchase now’days when you are trying to eat significantly less meat. you CAN buy anything that looks like something.

we bought the impossible burgers with some doubt. we’ve eaten black bean burgers for years – which taste like black beans and spices – so we figured that these burgers would also taste like something else other than a burger-burger. i wondered how plants-as-a-burger would taste grilled and salt-and-peppered. i had some trepidation. plus, the whole30 had encouraged us away from processed foods.

we were astounded upon first bite. we know these are not whole foods. there is a list of ingredients, some of which are those things difficult to pronounce, but all the ingredients are “derived from plants”. the beyond-meat sweet italian sausage in our veggie hash was pretty amazing, with seemingly a few less hard-to-pronounce ingredients.

i don’t know where this is all headed. we are experimenting with our diet and recipes and we are trying to be environmentally and animal conscious. we do know we love vegetables and fruits and can figure out ways to be more responsible to our world and all its inhabitants. more conscious consumerism.

if you have any recipes to share – or gubernatorial speech thoughts – please don’t hesitate to jot them to us. we’d love to hear from you.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY


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“bacon-wrapped pears” [merely-a-thought monday]

baconwrapped pears

the pressure.  gee-willikers!  you simply cannot browse through any social media platform without seeing family’s and friends’ beautifully-prepared foods or rustic breads fresh out of the oven, off the grill, sizzling on the griddle, staged and plated for photos.

the pressure.  my first question is always one about wondering how, in the middle of this socially-distanced-stay-at-home-pandemic, all-these-people have all-those-ingredients in their homes at-the-ready.  we must be pretty basic shoppers; our larders are not filled with the likes of these ingredients.  we plan ahead; like you, we are shopping very rarely, limiting our exposure.  we miss our peeps at festival; we used to see them almost daily, as we would cruise about town to get fresh fruits and veggies.

the pressure.  neither of us wanted to go out to the store the other day.  we had chicken out to prepare, but, low on or depleted of fresh vegetables and potatoes, a side dish escaped us.  we did, however, have a multitude of pears, because you can’t purchase a normal amount of pears at costco; instead, it is assumed you have an army of pear-eaters and you will all devour them before the dreaded brown spots form on the outside of its smooth green-pear-skin.

the pressure.  what to do with pears, other than just, say, slice and eat them.  we googled.  every pear recipe has goat cheese in it, for good reason.  i love goat cheese and wish we could eat goat cheese, but a dairy free diet precludes that.  so we had to move on.

knowing that you must be sitting on the edge of your seat as you (maybe) read this, i’ll tell you what happened:  we looked in the freezer to see what else was there.  bacon!  now, i really love bacon.  i probably shouldn’t, but i do.  thinking we were being brilliant, we googled what you could make with pears and bacon.  those of you out there in perfect cooking/baking/inspired feasting social media land will say ‘no duh’ when i tell you we found -drumroll, please- bacon-wrapped pears!  simple!  you slice a pear into quarters and wrap bacon around the slices.  place in 400 degree oven and bake.  that’s it!  they were freaking amazing!

the pressure.  so then the pressure was to NOT post this pear-bacon-pairing-extravaganza on social media.  we sent a picture to a couple friends who knew of our facebook-meal-snack-drink ogling and we sent a picture to The Girl and The Boy.

our friends responded enthusiastically but our more recipe-savvy children did not.  i suppose they just thought to themselves:  yup.  pears.  bacon.  pears + bacon = bacon-wrapped pears.  yup.  the pressure.

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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what’s for dinner? [flawed cartoon wednesday]

archaeologistfordinner jpegBIG copy

recently, while perusing facebook (which i actually don’t do all that often) i came across a post by My Boy.  he had made homemade ravioli for dinner.  wait!  what??  homemade ravioli???  now, this requires making pasta from scratch as well as stuffing it with a delicious tuscan sausage mix.  just sayin!  this is the same person who, long ago now, used to be able to live on honey buns and swedish fish.  he has amazed me time and again with his creative cooking and the photographs he has sent of yummy meals.  one day he grilled shrimp out on his deck for dan and me and d.  just as thoughtful as the birthday he made me mac and cheese after a long evening i had spent volunteering, but, i have to admit, much tastier.

the first time My Girl made us dinner we had gnocchi and an excellent sausage sauce.  i hadn’t had gnocchi in years – since i had it with the hot chics in montana – and her recipe immediately made it onto our ‘what-should-we-have-for-dinner’ list of possibilities.

these are the same two human beings who would ask, ” what’s for dinner?”  now i find myself asking them.  funny how cooking creativity blossoms in each next generation.

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what?  archaeologist for dinner again???  ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood