Henry's Table

I took these pictures of Henry last night. He has always preferred sitting on chairs, he takes the whole Cavalier King Charles thing very seriously. A year ago, I had to board all the dogs at a kennel and when I asked if they could put a chair in the kennel for Henry— they looked at me like I was crazy. He had to rough it with an elevated platform, they told me he handled his reduced circumstances admirably.

I bought him when he was a little over a year from a breeder in Southern Wisconsin, who would choose a 'dog of the day' and serve them breakfast and dinner at her table. He staked his claim at our dinner table from the beginning and we went along with it. Henry is a 'finished' champion show dog and expects treatment in line with his special status. Plus he knows how to roll his tongue— not sure if that contributed to his success in the show ring but it's a good party trick.

Sunday at Stockton

There is nothing like a Sunday spent on Lake Superior. It's quiet, beautiful and restorative. Well, as quiet as a boat full of Doughertys can be. We went to the north end of Stockton and spent the afternoon sitting on the rocks, watching the kids swim and jump off the boat. It was as good as a summer afternoon can get.

When we bought the boat nine years ago, Charlie was in diapers, Sadie was 4 years old and I was pregnant with Meg. Leaving the dock meant vigilant monitoring of the kids whereabouts and the constant zipping and unzipping of life jackets. On this trip,  I sat up in the flybridge with Ted on the way over, reading a magazine. Time moves fast and you have to be ready for the ride. While I miss having little people around, I really enjoyed chatting with Ted and the kids and getting caught up on my backlog of New Yorkers.

The kids love to jump off the top of the boat, that is Charlie in mid-air. I haven't taken the plunge yet, I am not fond of heights or jumping into thin air. I sat on shore and documented their amazing feats of bravery.

I grabbed some leftovers for lunch and made a salad on the way over. Grilled chicken thighs, spinach, red peppers and avocados with fresh lime juice and Tajin- delicious but the chips and Oreos were a bigger hit. That's the way it goes when your target lunch audience is 14 years old and younger. However, Zeus the dog, loved the salad.

As we headed home, I thought about all the miles we have traveled together— Isle Royale, the Slate Islands, Loon Harbor, Grand Marais, Thunder Bay and the Apostle Islands. What a gift to have memories of safe harbors, northern lights, wild blueberries, sandy beaches, thunder rocks and saunas as part of our family story. Moving to Bayfield has had it's ups and downs but I wouldn't change one single footstep of our journey. I know our kid's compasses will always point north to Bayfield and that makes me happy.

Spicy Grilled Chicken And Sassy Watermelon Salad

I sound like a broken record but I love Tajin Classico Seasoning and I am constantly thinking up new ways to use it. Granted, grilled chicken isn't terribly inventive but is definitely delicious. I prefer to grill chicken thighs, they have enough skin to get crispy and are less likely to dry out. I put the Tajin under the skin and sprinkled more on top of the chicken for good measure. Put the chicken, uncovered, in the refrigerator for 4 hours (the salt helps to dehydrate the skin and make it nice and crispy after it's grilled). I always grill my chicken skin side up first because the fat in the skin will render and baste the chicken. Cook for about 20 minutes in a 300 degree grill, flipping occasionally.

In the battle of the barbecue sauces, I am on the side with a BBQ glaze with lots of vinegar. A sweet and tangy caramelized glaze on spicy chicken thighs is a party in your mouth. Brush the glaze on the chicken about 5 minutes before you pull them off the grill, you want it to be caramelized but not burnt.

Spicy BBQ Glaze

1/3 cup packed brown sugar (light or dark) 4 tbsp ketchup 4 tbsp chili sauce 1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp cider vinegar 2 tsp Frank's Hot Sauce 2 tbsp Tajin Classico Seasoning 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Combine all ingredients in a medium-sized bowl and stir until thoroughly combined.

Watermelon and feta is a match made in heaven and it's even more heavenly when I use Sassy Nanny Buttin' Heads Feta. It has just enough salt to complement the summery sweet watermelon. Even Sadie, my pickiest eater, loves this salad.

Sassy Watermelon Salad

4 - 5 cups arugula 2 cups watermelon, rind removed and cubed 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced 1/3 cup cilantro, chopped 1 cup Sassy Nanny goat feta, crumbled

Dressing

1/4 cup orange juice, freshly squeezed 1/4 cup lime juice, freshly squeezed 2 tbsp shallots, minced 1 tbsp honey 1/2 cup olive oil 1 - 2 tsp Tajin Classico Seasoning

Mix all dressing ingredients in a bowl and stir until combined. Dress the assembled salad and dinner is served!

Jack's Big Birthday

Okay, I am a little behind in my bloggery— summer is a demanding taskmaster and leaves me little time for sitting at my computer. Jack's birthday was the end of June and it was a big one. He turned 18. He was born eleven days before our first anniversary and has literally been with us every step of the way over the past eighteen years. He was the first of so many things: grandchild, nephew and son. My youngest brother, Michael, started kindergarten as an uncle and his birth showed me the path I was meant to travel- motherhood. Those were sweet days, we were young, newly married and freshly minted parents. It is hard to believe he is getting ready to travel his own path now, independent of us.

We had a little 'surprise' get together for Jack at Bob and Kelly's shop and arrived home to find a plate of freshly made strawberry jam and biscuits from Julie. The amazing thing about that plate of biscuits (other than the fact that it was a lovely and thoughtful gesture from Julie) was that George didn't eat them. I am not sure what she said to him but it worked. She must have super hero dog training skills.

Lately, I can not get enough steamed edamame with olive oil, Maldon sea salt and chopped mint on them. It is the first completely healthy meal that I would (and do) choose to eat time and time again. We started with a huge bowl of them on the deck while I grilled the steaks. The dogs love the shells, they need to watch their waistlines as well.

Andy's had a whole beef rib roast on sale and I knew it would be a huge hit for dinner. There is definitely an art to cutting steaks from a whole rib roast and I don't have it. The steaks weren't totally mangled but they weren't pretty. If anyone noticed, they kept it to themselves. I cut a bunch of herbs from the garden, chopped garlic and mixed it all together with olive oil and sea salt. The steaks looked a little less mangled and a little more artisanal. The finished product was perfect— tender, medium rare and flavorful.

Jack was headed out with his friends and the cake portion of the evening was over before I knew it. Rest assured, he had a piece of pie (from the Candy Shoppe) on the 'You Are Special Today' plate— I just forgot to take his picture. I was distracted by this 6 foot 2 inch man who is getting ready to start a new chapter in his life and wondering where the years have gone. Talk about bittersweet— I am so proud of the man he has become but miss the little boy he was. The minute I held that ten pound baby in my arms, I fell head over heels in love. He was special from the beginning and has brought immense amounts of love, joy and pride into our lives. It's impossible to sum up what the past eighteen years have meant to me, suffice it to say, 'I love you right up to the moon- and back'.

Nicoise In A Jar On Long Island

The phone rang at 9 am and I knew it was Renee. We talk nearly every morning and our conversations always revolve around food—Good Thyme food, dinner food or food we want to eat. One of the remarkable things about our friendship is our penchant for cooking the same thing at the same time— we are definitely psychic food sisters.  She was watching the Today show and saw Martha Stewart making Nicoise Salad in Mason jars and thought it would be the perfect beach meal. Oddly enough, I dreamt about canned Italian tuna (I really love it) the night before she called. I knew we were on to something.

I always have Cento tuna in olive oil, kalamata olives, fingerling potatoes and eggs from Spirit Creek Farm on hand. I needed to pick up spinach, green beans and a few tomatoes— I was on a tight time schedule and needed to throw dinner together quickly. The boat was leaving the harbor at 5:30, sharp. Remember what I mentioned about salads in the Emmylou post? They are the only meal I can make and still be on time (relatively speaking). Dinner on Long Island was looking better and better by the minute. I made a simple vinaigrette, assembled the lovely little jars, loaded up a cooler and headed out to another beautiful summer night on the lake.

There were a ton of kids out there, from 6 to 17 years old. They herded up and swam, staged chicken fights and played on the beach— what an amazing childhood they will carry forward. It is almost unbelievable to me, the perfection of an evening on Long Island.  Regardless of my frame of mind when I am leaving the mainland, I always return refreshed and deeply grateful. What a gift to have a reset button that involves water, sand, good friends and food right outside my door.

Nicoise Salad In A Jar

Four 3.5 ounce cans of Cento tuna in olive oil 4 eggs, hard-boiled and sliced 2 tomatoes, chopped 8 - 12 fingerling potatoes, boiled 3/4 cup pitted kalamata olives 1 cup green beans, steamed until tender firm 1/4 cup salt cured capers, rinsed 2 cups spinach, washed and dried

Vinaigrette

2 tbsp shallot, finely minced 2 tbsp Dijon mustard 1/2 tsp salt (more to taste) 1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper 1/2 tsp fresh thyme 1/4 tsp fresh rosemary 1/2 tsp fresh chives 1/2 cup red wine vinegar 1 cup good olive oil

While the potatoes and green beans are still warm, toss them with olive oil, Maldon sea salt and preserved lemon (you can substitute lemon zest).

Combine all ingredients for vinaigrette, except for olive oil, in a blender or food processor until combined. Slowly add olive oil until the dressing is emulsified. Taste for salt and pepper and set aside.

Toss each salad ingredient with salad dressing (except spinach) and set aside. Don't use too much dressing, you want the salad components to be lightly dressed.

Layer the salad ingredients as follows: spinach, tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, eggs, spinach, tuna and olives in a Mason jar.

Summer, Meghan & A Lemonade Stand

Meg and Summer decided to have a lemonade stand outside of Kelly & Crew yesterday. I am not sure who hatched the plan but Kelly was on top of it— sandwich board, balloons and all. Meg was super excited to have the stand downtown. She had a lemonade stand at the end of our driveway a month ago and our neighbor, Martha, was her one and only customer. Going to Kelly's was the 'big time' as far as she was concerned.

The Candy Shoppe was the recipient of most of the proceeds, I think they each had two ice cream cones over the course of the afternoon. When I stopped by, there a sign on the table saying they were at the Candy Shoppe and would return soon. I heard them laughing a half a block a way, ice cream in hand and gigantic grins on their faces. They also raised 10.00 for the animal shelter— talk about two girls after my own heart.

The Land

I really don't know where to start this blog post, the Land and I have a checkered past. I grew up in Minneapolis and was absolutely, positively a city girl. The closest I got to the great outdoors was going to Lake Vermillion every summer and staying in a cabin with my family.We fished, swam and went to the dump at dusk to watch the bears. It all changed the year I turned thirteen. My parents bought 90 acres in Frederic Wisconsin and I had a fierce learning curve in outdoor survival skills (okay, maybe not survival skills but it seemed pretty intense to my thirteen year old self).

We have always referred to it as the 'Land', I honestly have no idea why we gave it such a nondescript title. For a long time, there was just a pole barn, an RV, a trampoline and 90 acres of farm fields and woods. The house is a relatively new addition, within the last 5 years or so, but we still call it the Land. My Mom would pack a picnic and my siblings in the station wagon and we would drive an hour and a half for lunch. Ironically, I have done the same thing with my kids—except we would drive four hours each way to spend a day and a half in Bayfield (I never had my act together enough to pack a lunch). As an adult and parent, I know what it feels like to want to get out of Dodge. As a kid, it seemed like a long way to go for lunch.

Even in the throes of teenaged angst, I enjoyed our afternoon outings. It was novel to be sitting in a field, listening to the cicadas, surrounded by tall grass and clover. I brought my friend, Lee, along for the ride one year and she sneezed the entire time. Evidently, she had horrid allergies and her adventure in rural Wisconsin exacerbated them. We still laugh about it and wonder if she ever went outside of city limits after her lunch with us. The Land holds many of our family stories— the time we found a fawn, the hawk dive bombing our dog, Murphy, deer hunting and alternative uses for mayo jars, well drilling and fracking, Red Freddie, bucket rides and Naturally Northern raspberries.

My Dad was a pharmaceutical salesman for many years and Southern California was part of his territory. He saw how large-scale raspberry farming was done out west, pesticides and all, and we never ate a commercially grown raspberry after that. After a tremendous amount of work and planning, he now has a thriving company, Naturally Northern, selling pesticide, herbicide and insecticide free raspberries in Minneapolis. He said when he first bought the Land, there were no birds or predatory insects because it was farmed commercially with all sorts of chemicals. He has not used anything except fertilizer for years and it shows— there are dragonflies and birds everywhere, wildflowers in the fields and the raspberry field is filled with bees.

Will and I took off on a photo safari the morning before we left. I had forgotten how beautiful it is up there. Walking through the woods, on paths I haven't step foot on for years, was a revelation. The seeds of my love for Lake Superior and Bayfield were sown amidst the moaning and groaning of my adolescence about having to go to the Land.  As an adult, I am grateful for the weekends spent in Frederic and not at Southdale with my friends or in my room wishing I could marry Simon Le Bon.

When Will and I returned, the girls and Nana were in the midst of a cookie baking adventure. Nana's cookies are legendary around our house and the girls love to help her. Sadie copied down a few recipes while the cookies were baking. She is following in her Nana's footsteps—she is a great baker.

I have been blessed to be part of a family who have always marched to the beat of their own drummer. It is a legacy that I want to pass on to my kids— have the courage to live your life with abandon and stay the course when the waters get rough. What more can you ask for?

I Wonder If Emmylou Likes Cobb Salad??

A long time ago, when I was in my early thirties, I bought a Lilith Fair CD and heard a duet with Sarah McLachan and Emmylou Harris. I was blown away by her voice. Now that I am decidedly in my forties, I still listen to Emmylou and was excited to see her at Chatauqua this summer. However, dinner before Big Top concerts always present a challenge for me— we have to be in the car on our way to the hill by 7:30ish. This is a problem for me, my meals like to hit the table about 8:30 or so. Salads are about the only thing I have a half a chance to get on the table before we have to leave.

The other Maven, Arthur Schwartz, has the original Cobb salad dressing recipe from the Brown Derby, along with the history of this illustrious salad, on his website. According to Arthur, Bob Cobb, the owner of the Brown Derby, was hungry late one night after service and went through his walk-in refrigerator looking for something to eat. The funny thing about a restaurant kitchen is there is very little to grab and eat late at night and the last thing anyone wants to do is turn on the oven or start a fire in the grill after everything is cleaned up. Another funny thing is that if you are in the kitchen looking for something to eat late at night, you are definitely not thinking about lettuce. I bet this is why the Cobb salad bears very little resemblance to a healthy and virtuous salad. Bob had been working all night and he wanted something that would stick to his bones. Adding bacon, cheese, avocado, hard-boiled eggs and potatoes to a pile of greens makes perfect sense to me.

I made two changes to Arthur's recipe— I substituted arugula for the watercress and chicory and I tossed the potatoes, while they were still warm, with olive oil, Maldon sea salt and chopped preserved lemons. Otherwise, I stuck to the recipe and it was perfect. I bet Emmylou would like my Cobb salad.

Emmylou was great—she has a magnificent soulful voice and is an amazing guitarist. I kept watching her hands, flying up and down her guitar, and thinking about all the life they have seen and the music they have made. Seems like a fairly innocent observation, right? Well, we had the opportunity to meet her after the show and I blurted out, 'I love your hands'. She looked at me like I was either nuts or had a hand fetish. I continued shoving my foot down my throat and mumbled something about her hands having beautiful life in them and that was that. She graciously agreed to take a picture with me and I decided to have a few rational and witty talking points next time I meet a musical legend.

Paella, Paella

It was an epic cooking class a few weeks ago— lots of women, lots of sparkling wine and lots of paella. Sue came all the way from Frederic with an outdoor paella cooker and an enormous pan with red handles. It was an impressive set-up, to say the least. I have made paella once and am a complete novice. Sue, on the other hand, is a pro and she showed us the ropes and made a beautiful pan of paella.

There was a lot of prep— slicing, chopping and dicing. We had plenty of hands and the work went quickly. There is a particular rice for paella, Bomba— it absorbs lots of liquid while remaining firm and doesn't turn to mush. I had a couple of bags left over from my initial, and not terribly successful, attempt at paella last winter and Sue put it to good use. We did a seafood paella with a little of chorizo from the Northern Smokehaus for good measure— absoloutely delicious.

I met Sue two or three years ago when her son and future daughter in law had their groom's dinner at Good Thyme. At the time, I never would have guessed she would someday be cooking paella in my front yard. It never ceases to amaze me how the dots in our lives eventually get connected.

While I would like to say I made a seafood stock from scratch, I would be lying like a rug. I did a little research and decided upon this seafood stock. It was perfect— briny and clean tasting.  In the chaos of the evening, I didn't write down the recipe Sue used but it was a basic paella recipe— mussels, clams, shrimp, assorted veggies, seafood stock and saffron.  If I had to guess, I would say it is pretty close to this recipe.

Rice, of any kind, has always presented a challenge for me— it is either too mushy or under done and hard as nails. I like paella because the caramelized and crusty rice on the bottom is not only cool but desirable. It even has a name, socarrat. Finally, my utter lack of rice making skills would not be a hindrance in the final product.

It was another joyful evening spent in the kitchen with friends.  The house reverberated with their voices and laughter for hours after they left. I like to think we are knitting the fabric of our community one meal at a time and I am grateful for each and every moment I get to share with these amazing women.

Garlic From The Market & Flowers From The Garden

In between washing the sheets, getting ready to cater two weddings, making a feeble attempt at cleaning the kitchen and mentally preparing myself to tend bar on a Saturday night— I had a little fun. Sadie and I went to the farmers market in Bayfield and there it was— heaps and piles of garlic. To say I have a thing for fresh garlic would be putting it mildly. I love, love, love fresh garlic and celebrate my love every chance I can when it is season. I practiced a little restraint yesterday and only bought a dozen or so cloves. Next weekend, I am going big— vampires beware.

My friend Jill, a self-professed Garlic Pig, loves garlic as well. She's a gardener extraordinaire and has a garden full of garlicky goodness. Scapes and cloves— the benefits of growing your own are endless. It was her birthday yesterday and I went to the garden to pick my first bouquet of the summer for her gift. I knew she didn't need garlic but flowers and wine seemed like a decent idea. I cut extra flowers and made a bouquet for myself to keep in the kitchen. As I walked in the house last night at 11 pm, tired and thankful to be home, there it was— flower love from my garden. I went to bed happy.

A Totem Pole Raising (or Re-Raising)

There was a minor set back when Ted was cutting down an old birch in the front yard. The totem pole was in the wrong place at the wrong time and the birch took it out. It spent a few months reclining in the yard, waiting for the day it would stand tall again. Being a lumberjack is hard work (at least that's Ted's story and he is sticking to it).

Ted called the man who put the pole up five years ago, I can't imagine how that phone call went. I doubt he has to re-raise many 20 foot totem poles. We bought it from Bill Vienneaux, a wood-carver in Washburn, and it's the only 20 foot totem pole he has made (so far). There were two spots open on the pole when we bought it and he carved the flying pig and the bear reading the book for us.

I remember the day it went up (the first time) in the summer of 2007. I had just finished putting in the flower garden, Guinness was at my side and Meghan was in Ted's arms. Time has flown by. We bought it as an homage to Ted's Dad. Frank passed away two weeks after we bought our house and he is buried in the Bayfield cemetery. We wanted to do something to honor the man we adored and missed terribly; I know he would have been pleased.

Frank and I had a lot in common: reading, love of food, the New Yorker and pigs. Maybe it was the Irish in us, pigs are considered good luck charms in Ireland. When Anne and Frank moved to Alabama, they asked what I would like from the cabin. I knew right away— the white pig, Horatio, that sat outside their door. It was fitting we put a pig with wings (and a smile on his face) on the totem pole.

I raised a glass to Frank after the totem pole was securely back in place. He saw the woman I was going to become before I even knew she existed. He gave me Anne Morrow Lindbergh's book, A Gift From The Sea, for Christmas when I was nineteen and just starting to find my way. I miss his unflagging love and loyalty, he was a helluva guy. The 2006 Coudoulet de Beascastel was the perfect wine to drink that afternoon— bittersweet cocoa, dried figs and black cherry. I was happy to see the totem pole upright but I was missing the man who inspired it.

Summer Strawberry, Chicken & Avocado Salad

Strawberry season in Bayfield is over but it was fun while it lasted. We ate strawberries all day long— smoothies, shortcakes, layered between angel food cake, on waffles and in salads. It was utter strawberry madness at the Dougherty's for two weeks in June. Bayfield is the perfect place to live if you like berries— strawberries, raspberries and blueberries are plentiful and my kids gobble them up with abandon.

Salads are a good idea when it is 150 degrees outside and you live in a 100-year-old home without air conditioning. Ted rounded up a couple window units a few weeks ago and now my dinner repertoire includes judicious use of the oven. However, when the house was a sauna, we ate a lot of salads and grilled outside.

Don't you love it when you go to the grocery store and find perfectly ripe avocados? This salad was the fortuitous result of ripe avocados from Andy's, a surplus of strawberries in the fridge and my new favorite spice, Tajin. My friend, Kathy, turned me onto Tajin (a lime and chile salt from Mexico) this spring. She used it in her jalapeño margarita (also known as the Kaboom Margarita at Good Thyme) and I was smitten at first taste. In homage to Kathy's margaritas, I marinated the chicken in tequila, lime and Tajin— it was a seriously good idea.

 Summer Salad with Strawberries, Chicken and Avocado

Marinade

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice

1/4 cup tequila

1/4 cup olive oil

4 garlic cloves, minced

4 tbsp Tajin Classico Seasoning

Salad

8 chicken thighs, skin on and bone in

2 avocados, sliced

2 cups strawberries, sliced

1/2 red onion, sliced

1/2 cup feta (can substitute quesco fresco), crumbled

6 cups romaine, chopped

Cilantro Lime Salad Dressing

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup cilantro, chopped

2 tsp Tajin Classico Seasoning

1/4 orange juice

1/2 cup lime juice, freshly squeezed

3/4 cup olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

Mix together all ingredients in the marinade, place in a non reactive bowl, add chicken and marinate, refrigerated, for 4 - 6 hours. Prepare the grill and remove the chicken breasts from the marinade. Grill the thighs skin-side down for about 5 minutes, until nicely browned. Turn the chicken and cook for another 10 minutes, until just cooked through. Remove from the grill to a plate. Cover tightly and allow to rest while you prepare the salad.

Place all salad dressing ingredients, except olive oil, in a food processor or blender and combine. Slowly add olive oil until the dressing is emulsified. Taste and add salt and pepper, if necessary.

After the chicken has rested, remove the meat from the bones and set aside. Place romaine, strawberries, avocado, chicken and feta in a large bowl, add salad dressing, toss to combine and serve.  

Tuesday's Dinner

A few weeks ago, I was in Hayward at the grocery store and saw a sign for snow crab clusters for 5.99 a pound. Crab is always a good place to start when you are wandering aimlessly through a grocery store looking for dinner ideas. I grabbed red potatoes, corn on the cob and headed back to Bayfield. I am still plowing through my preserved lemons and decided roasted potatoes with fresh herbs, Maldon sea salt and finely chopped preserved lemons would be a brilliant companion to crab legs on the grill.

I have a trick to make frozen crab legs taste a little less frozen— let them sit in cold water for 30 minutes or so (change the water 3 or 4 times). It allows the stale water that is in the shell to leave and fresh water to replace it (and provide the steam when you are cooking it). I lit the grill and cooked them for about 12 - 15 minutes over indirect heat. The grill was about 300 - 350 degrees, the crab legs were already cooked and I didn't want them to dry out. Clarified butter, lemon and a couple of crab crackers made for a satisfying dinner after spending the afternoon in the car.

Morning On The Beach

I woke up at 6:44 today. George sleeps on a chair in our bedroom and the minute I open my eyes, he is at my side and ready to start the day. Needless to say, we were all up at 6:45, how can I say no to a yellow lab with such an eager face? I found the leashes, George found his tennis ball and we headed to the beach. Gus took off after a butterfly, Seamus found a feather, George was in the water and Henry stayed at my side— a glorious way to spend Thursday morning.

This raven has become a touchstone for me— he reminds me to surrender, be grateful and remain open to unseen but deeply felt forces.

One of the gifts of an early morning walk on the beach is the artifacts left over from the previous day— sandcastles, stick structures and footprints in the sand.

To Be Of Use

I have an old wooden bowl I bought in Alabama a few years ago. It is beautiful and it sat on a shelf, looking beautiful. One night, a friend of mine suggested we put salad in it for dinner. I thought about it for a minute— what would happen if I filled it with salad greens and put it on the table? The bowl was put to use and looked right at home on the table, much more beautiful than sitting, empty, on the shelf.

Why was I reluctant to use the bowl? It was made years ago for the sole purpose of holding items and somewhere along the line, it moved from wooden bowl to antique. I was scared I would ruin it if I put salad greens in it, it was 'too special'. Ironically, the bowl looks better because of its use— the salad oil has moisturized the wood and it has a beautiful patina. Patina comes from use and that is truly beautiful.

To Be of Use 

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Marge Piercy

Crawfish Cakes For Sunday Brunch

I love Sunday brunch. I like to 'get a slow run at the day' (one of my Dad's favorite sayings) on Sunday and eating a meal at 9 am is taking things a little too quickly for my taste. I was in the throes of hollandaise withdrawal and knew that whatever I ate on Sunday needed to include that lovely sauce. I grabbed some frozen crawfish from the restaurant on Saturday night and went to bed with visions of hollandaise and crawfish cakes dancing in my head.

I have tried (unsuccessfully) to make crab cakes in the past and I entered the kitchen on Sunday morning with some trepidation.  A recipe on epicurious.com for Baltimore crab cakes looked promising— the cakes sit in the fridge to set and you coat them in breadcrumbs before frying. In the past, the cakes always fell apart in the frying pan and I hoped this technique would be the ticket to a perfect Sunday brunch. It worked like a charm—  they held together beautifully and were perfectly golden brown and crunchy.

Crawfish Cakes

1/4 cup mayonnaise

2 scallions, thinly sliced

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 1/2 tablespoon Dijon mustard

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice plus wedges for garnish

1 1/2 teaspoons blackening seasoning (I use House Bayou Blackening Spice)

1 tbsp chili garlic sauce

1 pound lump crawfish meat, picked over

3 cups bread crumbs, divided

1 tbsp thinly sliced chives

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

4 tbsp vegetable oil

Preparation

Whisk first 7 ingredients in a medium bowl. Add crawfish; fold to blend. Stir in 1 1/2 cup breadcrumbs, chives, salt, and pepper. Divide into 6 equal portions. Form each into 1"-thick patties. Refrigerate for at least 10 minutes (I froze them for 20 minutes).

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Place remaining breadcrumbs on a plate. Coat cakes with breadcrumbs. Fry until golden brown and crisp, 3-4 minutes per side. Serve with lemon wedges.

My Garden In June

We put in a flower garden when we bought our house in 2007 and I had no idea what I was doing, planting or weeding. I was new to the gardening game and had a steep learning curve. I planted all sorts of things and hoped for the best. Not everything survived my Darwinian approach to gardening but what survived is thriving and gives me immeasurable joy.

May Sarton said, 'Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.' I get on my knees in the dirt, tend to my flowers and pull weeds while the dogs wait nearby. There is something so satisfying about pulling grass out of the garden and getting every inch of root out with it.

It's starting— the flowers are beginning to wake up and the garden is taking shape. Looking outside my window makes me smile.

The sound of visiting bees gives me joy; I like to think they love the garden as much as I do.

Pink and orange— one of my absolute favorite color combinations.

Guinness, our Newfie, was my faithful gardening companion. He would sit outside the garden and wait for me to finish my chores. Thankfully, Seamus picked up the torch after Guinness passed and now all the dogs hang out with me while I weed.

Charlie's Birthday Dinner

Charlie wanted grilled shrimp for his birthday. What a change from a couple of years ago when the request was corn dogs and potato chips. He is eleven now and has expanded his culinary horizons to include Thailand and Coney Island. I used a recipe from Fine Cooking and it has never failed me. I always cook the shrimp on separate skewers from the vegetables. The veggies take longer to cook and there is nothing worse than overdone shrimp— it's like chewing on an eraser. A little jasmine rice, grilled shrimp and vegetables and a chile lemongrass dipping sauce— an auspicious way to usher in Charlie's eleventh year.

Spicy Thai Shrimp Kebabs with Chile Lemongrass Dipping Sauce

Grilling Sauce

1 tbsp garlic, chopped

1 tbsp ginger, peeled  and chopped

1 tsp jalapeño, finely chopped

1 tbsp scallion greens, chopped

1 tsp kosher salt

1/4 cup peanut oil

Dipping Sauce

3 stalks lemongrass, ends trimmed, tough outer leaves removed nd tender white core finely chopped

3 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice

2 tbsp scallion whites, finely sliced

1 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp cilantro, finely chopped

1 tbsp basil, finely chopped

1.5 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp garlic, minced

1 tsp light brown sugar

2 tsp Sriracha chile sauce

3 tbsp water

Kebabs

1.5 pounds large shrimp

2 red peppers, seeded and sliced

2 red onions, sliced

1 package of mushrooms

Preparation

Combine all the grilling sauce ingredients in a food processor and process until combined, mixture will still be chunky.

In a small serving bowl, combine all the dipping sauce ingredients and stir well. Refrigerate until ready to use (can be made up to 6 hours in advance).

Toss the shrimp in the grilling sauce and let sit for 10 minutes. Thread the shrimp onto skewers (soaked in water) and reserve the dipping sauce. Toss the vegetables in olive oil, salt and pepper and thread onto skewers (soaked in water). Grill the vegetables over a medium hot charcoal fire and grill until done (8 - 10 minutes). About five minutes before the vegetables are done, place the shrimp on the grill, brush with the reserved grilling sauce and grill until done (about 2 minutes per side).

Serve with jasmine rice and dipping sauce.

Angel food cake with whipped cream and strawberries is a Carlin tradition and since strawberries were in full swing, Charlie decided it was the cake for his eleventh birthday. Again, I forgot birthday candles but Jack found a couple of little tapers we could light up. We decided two candles look like the number eleven, Charlie agreed.

I picked a 'theme song' for each pregnancy and Charlie's was Sweet Thing by Van Morrison and it suits him to a T. He was the happiest baby and is a joyful young man. It sounds trite but I seriously can not believe how fast he is growing up. In eleven short years, he has mastered cribbage and jumping off cliffs at Devil's Island, learned a tremendous amount about Greek mythology, has a wicked dry sense of humor, knows how to sail an Opti and is an empathetic and brave soul— we couldn't ask for more.

Fried Chicken On The Beach

I like most things Southern: grits, monogrammed stationery, bourbon, good manners and fried chicken. I bought Thomas Keller's cookbook, Ad Hoc, because I read quite a bit about his recipe for buttermilk fried chicken plus he owns the French Laundry....I had high hopes. It was good but not exactly the holy grail of fried poultry I was hoping for. The perfect fried chicken is moist with crispy skin and a golden brown crust. The Ad Hoc recipe called for brining the chicken overnight and then double dredging the chicken. It tasted fantastic but the skin was a far cry from crispy.

In the depth of winter, Bon Appetit delivered me from my fried chicken woes. The February issue featured a recipe billed as the 'only fried chicken recipe you will ever need'. Who am I to doubt the good folks at Bon Appetit? I hustled to the grocery store to buy a couple of chickens and see if I finally would achieve fried chicken nirvana. The BA recipe involves a dry rub, a single dredge in seasoned flour and a cast iron skillet— the skin was crispy, the meat was moist and I was satisfied.

After all this talk about the quest for the perfect fried chicken, I have to admit the first fried chicken I ever tasted was from Kentucky Fried Chicken. One evening when I was nine or ten, my Grandma Duffy came home with a red and white striped bucket of greasy goodness from KFC. My sister, Bridget, and I were excited to tuck into a dinner of chicken, wall paper paste consistency mashed potatoes and gravy until we took a look at the chicken. There were little feathers poking through the golden brown exterior (say what you want about KFC, they know how to get a crunchy crust on their chicken). We immediately renamed it Kentucky Fried Feathers and didn't eat it for years— I am not sure if Bridget ever ate it again. I still remember Grandma standing over the sink with a lit match burning off all the feathers on the raw chicken before she made us dinner— she was a marvelous woman.

I can't remember why I decided to re-visit fried chicken, after that traumatic experience with the fried feathers in my Grandma's den. As Minny, from the movie The Help, said, 'fried chicken just tend to make you feel better about life'. She was right, dropping a chicken thigh ensconced in buttermilk and seasoned flour in a skillet full of shimmering oil, feels like something special is going to happen. It isn't the easiest dinner to prepare. Frying chicken requires advance planning and time spent over a sizzling skillet— definitely not a 30 minute meal. Just like the sound of a champagne cork set aloft, a platter of fried chicken means I am headed to a party and it is going to be grand.

I had an idea about butter for the biscuits (you always need biscuits at a beach party with fried chicken) I was taking to the beach. God forbid we eat ordinary butter on an evening when Venus was transiting between the Sun and Earth. I placed a stick of room temperature butter in a mixing bowl and added some chopped rosemary and thyme, about 1/4 cup of maple syrup, a pinch of Maldon sea salt and cayenne, mixed it together and smeared it on a 'test' biscuit. It was delicious, sweet, hot and perfect for a picnic. I wish I wrote down the exact measurements but I was late (big surprise) and threw it together on the fly.

It was the first of the many dinners we will spend on the beach this summer and it was perfect. Perfect because the flies hadn't hatched yet, the kids were in the water, there were 2 platters of deviled eggs, we toasted Venus with Italian wine and there was fried chicken galore. Summer of 2012 is going to be glorious.

Trampled By Turtles At The Tent

Summer of 2012 is off to a spectacular start. We went to see Trampled By Turtles at Big Top Chautauqua and it was one of the best live shows I have ever seen. Our friends, Bob and Kelly, sponsored the show— we met the band and had front row seats. I was serious about the summer of 2012, it's poised for greatness. Bluegrass played under a tent at my favorite ski hill made for a night I won't soon forget.

There were a lot of people there, I think it was a record-breaking night. There were hula hooping girls, little kids and lots of happy people waiting for a brilliant show, inside and outside the tent. I doubt anyone left disappointed, Trampled By Turtles were fantastic. I like bluegrass and I really like bluegrass played by a bunch of talented men from Duluth.

I was so happy that Jack was there. In fact, he was the one who turned me onto Trampled By Turtles. One of the perks of having teenagers is their music knowledge, they play new music for us all the time. Thankfully, they have been raised on a steady diet of Crosby, Stills and Nash, Neil Young, Emmylou Harris, Dave Matthews and Cat Stevens.

Music frames a childhood. I remember listening to Cat Steven's, Tea For The Tillerman, when I was eight or nine in the family room while my Dad grilled steaks outside. I still can smell the smoke from the grill and feel the scratchy blueish green scalloped carpet every time I hear Hard Headed Woman. Jack will remember this night long after we are gone and that makes me happy.

When we met the band earlier in the evening a couple came up to Dave Simonett with a small box wrapped in gift wrap with his face and a red bow on it. It was their anniversary and either they met at a TBT concert or played one of their songs at the wedding (I wasn't listening that well, trying to balance picture-taking and beer drinking). It must be pretty humbling to realize the words and chords that lived in your head and were brought to life with a banjo, guitar or your voice have become touchstones for people you may never meet. There were moments during the concert where everyone was singing and dancing— a collective consciousness of pure joy. I could be wrong but I think the band felt it as well.

I don't play any musical instruments but if I did, it would be the violin. It is a seriously sexy instrument— all curves and beautiful details. It looks delicate but after watching Ryan Young play it, appearances are clearly deceiving. It is very sturdy and makes the most beguiling sounds. I am going to add violinist to the list of things I want to be when I grow up (or older, in my case).

We have spent many summer nights listening to music at Big Top with friends and family and the tent holds a special place in our family story. Jack said he has had an amazing childhood since we moved up here and one of the reasons was seeing Trampled By Turtles and Great Big Sea at the tent. Meghan and Charlie were in a few of the house shows last year, although they seemed to enjoy running around outside as much as being on stage. When we park our car in the gravel parking lot and see the striped canvas tent at the foot of the ski hill we were skiing on 4 months ago, I am awestruck by how blessed and lucky we are. Music is a gift and having a place in my backyard where I can share it with my kids is astounding.

In the song, Alone, the first verse is 'come in to this world alone and you go out of the world alone but in between there is you and me'. In between there are nights like last Friday— music, good friends, my first-born son and memories made under a canvas tent near the shores of Lake Superior. Absolutely brilliant.