He's plotting travel again...

The Chief has been on the phone with one of his Reserve buddies starting to plan another reunion of their unit.  This time they're looking to hold it somewhere in New York City.  The Chief's buddy mentioned that the Marine Memorial Club has reciprocal arrangements with 3 or 4 nice clubs in Manhattan and Brooklyn.  That got the Chief to wondering what other clubs the MMC had reciprocity with.  Let's see - not just US clubs, but clubs in Canada, France, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Belgium... He's already starting to plan our next trip. :D

My inner reference librarian is at it again

I sometimes joke that I must've been a reference librarian in a previous life because I'm always happy to help people research things, or to share my own notes on this or that topic with someone else.  This weekend I had a chance to prove that to myself yet again.

First a theater friend commented that her little one might have a gluten allergy.  I sent her a few links to gluten-free resources (which I'd started compiling a coupla years ago for my sister when one of her kids needed to go GF) and offered to share some of the xanthan gum I bought over the weekend for future GF baking.

Then a neighbor told us she'd been diagnosed as diabetic and asked for recipes.  I not only sent her some of the recipes I've found online but found a few discounted diabetic cookbooks which I ordered for her.

Got a question? Need some information?  Just ask! :D

Squash update

A month or two ago I planted some seeds from the last butternut squash I cooked, crossing my fingers that they'd sprout.  Not only did they sprout, but they're doing so well in the relatively small space I have for them that I'm going to have to thin my 8 plants down to 3 or 4.  I may hunt up a large pot or two for the culls; we'll see.

Speaking of squash, there was a gentleman behind me in line at the commissary on Friday who was buying a whole crate of butternut squash!  He told me he liked to roast it.  When I asked if he'd tried squash soup, he said he'd only had it from cartons, so I gave him a very quick rundown of how to make squash soup from scratch (the cashier was finishing ringing up my groceries).  I wonder if he'll try making it?

All in a good cause

A company I've done lots of Gilbert & Sullivan with is hosting a G&S Sing-Out over Labor Day weekend, during which we'll sing through all the music (no dialogue) of 12 of the 13 surviving shows, with piano accompaniment.  (The company will be presenting a concert version, with orchestra, of Utopia, Ltd .)  Yesterday was the committee meeting that's always the longest - assigning roles to people who'd requested them.  Lots and lots of moving parts to this piece of the process:

• We had over 130 people sign up and request at least one role (most requested several, chiefly to indicate everything they'd be willing to sing, not because they expected to get lotsa roles);
• Where possible, we try to give people one of their top 3 choices, where they stated a preference;
• If we know the people involved, we try to match voice sizes when casting people to sing duets together;
• we try to give at least a comprimario role to people who requested a role and are trying to break out of the chorus;
• we try to make sure everyone got something;
• We try not to give anyone more than their fair share;
• We don't want to set anyone up for failure (giving someone a part too big for their stamina at the end of the weekend marathon, or too high/low for their range, etc.).

Fairness is one of the hardest things to achieve.  Tenors get more roles, simply because there are fewer tenors requesting roles.  We weren't able to give principal roles to all the women because there were a lot more women, and fewer women's roles.  Good thing Grand Duke has 4 female comprimario roles, and we doubled up on bridesmaids in Trial by Jury.  

Committee members were offered first pick of roles, but we limited ourselves to something we wouldn't be likely to be cast as.  I chose Phoebe (Yeomen of the Guard), since I'm too old to play her on stage.  However, I ended up ceding Phoebe to someone who, I was told, was an excellent singer but who had nothing when we finished. The other committee members were funny; "Are you sure you don't mind?"  I didn't want to be greedy, and I'd've felt bad if the other woman got nothing at all.  Instead, I'll now be singing Angela (Patience), with a side of Baroness (Grand Duke).  And of course I can sing all the choruses I can stand; I'm OK with that. :)

At it again

The group I've done most of my G&S with is doing a "sing-out" over Labor Day weekend, when we'll sing all the music from all 13 of the surviving G&S shows.  12 of these will be done by all registered comers, with conductor and piano accompaniment.  The host company, however, will be presenting a concert version of "Utopia, Ltd", with full orchestra.  Auditions are coming up Friday and Saturday.  I managed to get one of the first slots Friday night - the "get it over quickly" slot.  Competition for the role I'm interested in will be fierce, but I'm not gonna take chorus without at least *trying* for something bigger.  If nothing else, it'll be a good warm-up for auditions for fall shows.  Wish me luck!

Perfect!

The Chief and I headed out to the cabin Friday.  I had to come back yesterday and almost decided to stay home; I am SO glad I didn't!  When I woke up yesterday morning and wandered into the great room, my eyes still half shut, I turned to the window wall.  The view immediately opened my eyes fully - the sun was streaming in through nothing but trees, their dewy leaves sparkling in the sunlight.  The trees always look best at that time of day, when the sun is still low enough to be shining through as much as on them, but yesterday morning the trees were fairly glowing!  The temperature was very comfortable, the humidity too low to be worth mentioning - the kind of day that makes you rejoice in God's creation.

That sort of morning not only makes you glad to be alive, but makes you feel more alive.  That must be the origin of the exclamation "Great day in the morning!"

A surprise hit

Again tonight, the dinner menu includes green beans from the farmer's market, cooked in sauteed onions & garlic.  Prepping the beans made me think of the last time I served these - out at the cabin, when we had some friends joining us for dinner.  (Went with the "drunken chicken".)  I was surprised at the way our guests raved about the beans.  The woman next door wanted to know exactly how I'd fixed them, as it was the first time she'd seen her husband and son eat fresh veggies willingly, not just out of politeness.  "Um, easy - sautee some onions & garlic in a little olive oil, add the beans, let 'em cook for half an hour or so, until the beans are no longer crunchy."  You can add any seasonings you like, or other vegetables; it's one of those recipes it's easy to improvise with.

I don't usually choose bread pudding

The Chief and I went for a seafood buffet for dinner tonight. The tomato-crab bisque was wonderful, and of course the rest of the seafood offerings were pretty impressive too. The dessert selections weren't quite as good - I'm not a fan of crumb pie crusts - but I decided to try the warm pineapple-chocolate bread pudding, with a bit of hot chocolate sauce ladled on top. Oh wow - worth EVERY calorie! Bread pudding is not usually something I'm all that interested in, but this was outstanding!

George has lots of company today

We were driving past Mt. Vernon and spotted THIRTY-TWO tour buses parked all in a row! Figuring 80 people per bus, that's a LOT of visitors! I sure hope George and Martha can handle those crowds.

Feeling sorry for Frankenstein's monster

I had to get an EMG last week, which involved getting a slew of leads stuck to my skin so the doc could test my "circuitry" (he even described himself as an electrician for the process). It was not exactly a fun time, though my fingers didn't do any lasting damage to the exam table. As I was lying there getting zapped, I found myself thinking of Frankenstein's monster. If the creature was subjected to far higher voltages than I was enduring, well, no wonder he came to life roaring!

Drunken chicken

Also known as "beer can chicken", in which you stand a chicken over a 3/4-full can of beer and grill or bake it. The Chief and I tried this for the first time over the weekend. It took a bit longer than we'd expected, but the results were WELL worth the wait - even the breast meat was very moist and juicy. We went with a mesquite marinade mix and added mesquite chips to the charcoal. Can't wait to experiment with other marinades or spice rubs.

I've also learned that a mesquite-grilled chicken carcass makes for some rather funky-smelling but very tasty chicken soup.

"I don't want minions; I want accomplices"

I rather like this view of auditions from the director's side of the table.

Nice little nap

I rarely nap - kinda frowned on at work, and by the time I get home, there's no time. Today, though, I came home with a migraine. I'd taken some medication for it, but it hadn't reLly kicked in yet, so I lay down for a bit when I got home. Boy, was that the right thing to do! When I got up, not only was the migraine gone but I actually felt rested. (A "migraine nap" usually just chases the migraine without actually being restful.). Here's hoping I'm able to sleep tonight...

Guinness bread

Made a second batch of Guinness bread tonight.  BOY, does the house smell fantastic!  I find I love making soda breads - you get that fantastic baking-bread aroma without the hours a yeast bread requires.

Last time I made a free-form loaf; this time I used a loaf pan.  We'll find out tomorrow at breakfast whether it affects the taste, or merely the shape of the final product.

Spending the weekend in the garden (or trying to)

The Chief and I spent most of the weekend in the yard.  He spent yesterday afternoon making a bit more progress in the shed, while I hit the nursery and came home with a coupla trays of bedding plants and a head full of ideas.

It seems the seed impatiens that have been the mainstay of the bed by the front door are victims of a downy mildew.  Apparently this nasty little bug is airborne and can spread for miles; worse, it can last in the soil for 5 years!  The nursery staffer who told me about it said that's why they wouldn't be carrying seed impatiens.  The good news, however, is that new guinea impatiens isn't bothered by this plague, so we can still have vivid color in our shady spots.  I'm also trying begonias for the first time.

The Chief and I are also trying something else new - roses.  We bought 2 climbers for the north side of the house.  Since a few nearby trees have been trimmed a LOT over the years, between storms and arborists, I think we'll get enough light that they'll do OK. The Chief put in a little arbor on that side of the house a few years ago, so this afternoon we planted on rose on either side.  He let me pick the colors.  The nursery didn't offer a lot of color choices in climbers, but I decided to get 2 different roses.  Valentine's Day promises a profusion of small, vivid-red flowers, while Purple Splash should have larger, very fragrant flowers.  We also have a bracket on the arbor for a hummingbird feeder - with any luck, we'll get more hummingbirds this summer, attracted by the roses.

What else are we growing?  The "impatiens bed" is getting one new guinea impatiens, some begonias, and a low, foliage plant called hypoestes.  It'll be interesting to see how they do.  It may be too sunny for them until the trees leaf out; I hope they don't get sunburned.

The planters for the deck railing are getting a geranium, 2 white cosmos flowers, lobelia, a couple of really lovely coleus varieties (colei?) - finger paint and kiwi fern - some miniature sweet william ("wee willie") and a superbell variety called "lemon slice".  I'm looking forward to seeing how those look once they get established.  I had bought a spreading torinia but decided the planters would be too crowded, so the torinia is now nestled between a couple of azaleas, where it should get enough shade to protect it.

I was delighted to see that one of the 2 peonies we planted last year and which didn't do well at all is coming back this year.  We've got our fingers crossed that it'll actually manage to bloom this year.

Also back for a return engagement:  my oregano (its 3rd summer, so I'm starting to believe it'll be a true perennial), rosemary, spearmint, and parsley.  The spearmint & rosemary spent the winter in planters under the deck, where we secured them before Hurricane Sandy last fall.  The spearmint survived despite a few inches of standing water in the pot - that's some hardy stuff!  The rosemary turned dark reddish when the weather got cold, but it's starting to look a bit greener now and is getting new foliage.

I bought another basil and a thyme plant today.  Those will go into one or two planters; haven't decided yet.  I want to give the basil plenty of room to spread, so maybe I'll put the thyme in the other end of the rectangular planter the rosemary is in.

The windowboxes on the shed will get begonias, a new guinea impatiens, a dahlia and a spreading torinia.  I may let the Chief plant those himself so he can have the fun of playing in the dirt too.

Missing Mom

This is the time of year I used to call Mom most often, with updates on the latest signs of spring in the neighborhood - first the early bulbs, then the bradford pears, forsythia, etc.  And of course telling her about my latest purchases for the garden - which flowers I was planting where, how they were doing.

This year's purchases include the "obligatory" red flowers - a geranium for one of the railing planters and a new guinea impatiens as one of the flowers for the front bed (which is getting an assortment this year).

Finally playing in the dirt

Yesterday it was finally mild enough that the Chief and I could go out and play in the dirt.  We dug up the patch where I tried to grow squash last year, sifting through the dirt to look for and remove squash borer grubs.  I've got some seeds saved from a butternut squash that I'm trying to start indoors.  If they germinate, they'll go into that patch. Now that I have a better idea of what to look for, I'm hoping the squash borers will leave my plants alone this year.

We also did some cleaning up - raking up leaves, cutting back ivy & vinca, doing a good bit of weeding.  I also planted one little phlox plant in the bed next to the driveway.  I hope the ice plant doesn't crowd it out.

The Chief has some anemone (bulbs? corms?) that he bought a couple of years ago.  We'll finally get those babies into the ground sometime this week and hope they grow.

I've had a pretty high mortality rate among my bulbs.  I don't know if something ate them or they died of thirst, but we plan to buy a big batch this fall and hope they come up next spring.

Soup, soup and more soup

I've made quite a lot of soup over the past couple of weeks - 2 batches of pea soup for the Chief, 1 batch of an "Italian-inspired" veggie soup into which I like to dump a bag or 2 of frozen salad shrimp, and a couple of batches of the veggie-beef soup that's oh, so good made w/ oxtails instead of stew beef.  This time, because I didn't have any of the cabbage the recipe calls for, I substituted a bag of frozen chopped spinach.  I've been making this soup and improvising on it for years & years; I can't believe I never thought to dump spinach in it until now.  You can't really taste it, but I rather like seeing all those bits of spinach swimming around in it.  (I'm a spinach fan; what can I say?)

Oh, and I can't forget the awesome batch of pumpkin soup I threw together a couple of weeks ago for an ailing neighbor, and just "happened" to make so much that there was plenty for me, too.  (The Chief isn't a fan so I had it all to myself.)  It was definitely one of my better batches; not only was it nice & thick, but the last-minute decision to throw in 1 tsp of cumin was a very good one.

Still to be made: my nephew's boeuf bourguignon, now that I have a dutch oven to make it in.

Happy birthday, Pride & Prejudice!

I first discovered Pride & Prejudice on a high school summer reading list and have revisited it repeatedly.  I've read the other extant Austen novels, of course, but P&P remains my favorite, with Emma in second place.  I've read several of the take-offs (the novels about other characters, about Elizabeth & Darcy's children, etc.) and while I don't consider myself a full-fledged "Janehead" or "Janeite", I have been enjoying the articles about Jane & her works.  Here's a good one:  http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article12211202.aspx

*When* is that audition?

I just realized tonight that one audition is next week, not 2 weeks away as I'd thought.  Less time than I thought I had to learn this new piece; I need to get busy!