GrongarBlog – Page 46

52 Weeks ~ My Lucky Something (11/52)

I don’t believe in luck.

Except when I do.

Most days, I believe you make your own luck. You get up early. You sit down with the checklist. You do the work.

You reap what you sow.

You get what you deserve.

Unless..

You read the newspapers and learn that a bomb hit a house in Afghanistan. A truck rolled over after skidding on black ice on a Midwestern highway. Your neighbor’s cleaning lady won the lottery.

You made it to the other side of this bright, shiny day, with all your loved ones still breathing, with your roof intact, with money in your bank account, and food in your belly. You held a warm hand in yours, heard your daughter laugh until she almost couldn’t breathe, saw two wood ducks in your apple tree.

You woke up this morning and put your feet on the cold floor, stood, and started another day.

What did I do to deserve that?

I hedge my bets. Pick up that found penny. Make a wish on a falling star. Say “Rabbit, Rabbit” on the first day of the month.

Let this be a lucky one.

52 Weeks ~ Looking Up (10/52)

Roasted asparagus and sage salad (or, Making our own spring green)

Two days ago, the temperature reached into the 60s and, though we’d been granted the easiest winter in memory, we somehow all felt that an early spring was due us.

Humans are like that.

What little snow we had from the single late-season storm a week ago was practically melted. Then it rained. Froze. Iced. Melted.

Yesterday, the sun beat down on bare fields and I searched the garden bed for signs of crocus shoots, knowing full well it’s much too early for such things in this part of New England, but with the snow gone, it was worth a try.

This morning, I opened the door to let the dog out and was greeted by an unexpected fresh six inches of powder and a brilliant, clear-blue sky.

I guess we have to wait just a little bit longer for the green.

In the meantime, the Let’s Lunchers have decided to take matters into their own hands, proclaiming “green” as this month’s theme.

What could be greener than a salad of asparagus sprinkled with magic, fried sage?

The ingredients are basic: a bunch or two of fresh asparagus, a simple lemony dressing, a handful of fried sage leaves, and shavings of your favorite hard grating cheese.

If you’re short on time, you can mix up the dressing (olive oil, zest and juice of one lemon, chopped sage leaves, salt and pepper) the day before you make the dish. And if you happen to have any leftover dressing, it’s great on other salads, or on a piece of crusty bread.

On the day you want to eat the salad, toss the asparagus with a little olive oil, salt, pepper, and chopped sage.

Roast it in a 450ºF oven for about 8 minutes, just until the asparagus is tender. Remove the asparagus from the oven and let the asparagus cool on the tray.
The asparagus comes out of the oven even greener than when it went in.

Shave a couple ounces of cheese with a vegetable peeler.

Next comes the magic.

Heat about a cup of vegetable oil to 330ºF, and drop the fresh sage leaves in. They’ll crackle and hiss. Remove them after just 10 seconds (before they brown) and let them drain on paper towels.

The fried leaves keep well for a few days in a sealed container, so you can make these ahead if you have the self control that I don’t possess. They are so light, crisp, and fragrant. I can eat them like sage-y potato chips.

Assemble the salad by placing the cooled asparagus on a platter, drizzling the dressing over it, and then sprinkling it with the shaved cheese and fried sage leaves.

In the time I took to write this post, the brilliant blue sky has filled with clouds and it looks like we could be in for some more snow. Winter is still with us, as it should be, in early March. But I’ve seen signs of green, and spring can’t be far off now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We got this recipe from the Herbfarm Cookbook. We don’t tinker with it much aside from scaling it up or down to accommodate the number of diners. It’s perfect just as is. If you don’t own the book, you can find the recipe here.

Guest Post: Stop Motion to Treadmills to Rube Goldberg

Hi All, It’s Hyla, and I’m here to show you a few of the very coolest music videos I know of. In order of 1 to 4, 1 being my favorite.

4. All right, let’s kick it off with number 4. I really love this video, just because it’s so fun to watch and look at the choreography. JUST THINK OF ALL THE TAKES!

3. Next, by Ok Go (again), “This Too Shall Pass”.

2. Off the Ok Go track, we’re on to Hesta Prynn with “Can We Go Wrong”. From this point on we have stop-motion.

1. FINALLY, MY FAVORITE MUSIC VIDEO: OREN LAVIE’S “HER MORNING ELEGANCE”!

Now you’ve seen my favorite four music videos. Come back soon!

-H

Wordless Wednesday ~ What the fortune cookies revealed to the goats and me

52 Weeks ~ Abstract (9/52)

When you mention goats to some people — mostly people who, in fact, have never met a goat — they imagine tin-can eating, straw-hat wearing, smelly, hooved creatures who trash gardens and will eat everything in sight.

They’re partly right.

No, they don’t eat tin cans or wear straw hats, but they will try to nibble that straw hat.

And they’d love to eat the garden if you’re silly enough to let the goats get into the garden.

And they do smell. They smell wonderful… like goat cheese. (Yeah, I know, but I tell you I’m not the only one who thinks so…).

Here’s something else they do: they browse. Expertly, beautifully, and thoroughly.

In late January, we finally got around to putting the Christmas tree (balsam, untreated) into the goat pen.

The goats started by nibbling off the tender ends of the branches, full of soft green needles. Then they started taking huge mouthfuls, snapping off pinkie-width branches.

In less than a week, most everything green was gone, and only the trunk and the thicker branches remained. The goats weren’t done yet, though.

We saw them standing around the carcass of the tree (which they had dragged from next to the fence, down the hill, nearer to the run-in stall where they nap their winter days away), as if considering the remaining possibilities.

Then they began to strip the bark with their little teeth. They shaved the tree clean. Every afternoon, when I went to feed them, I was greeted by smiling goats with sticky, blackened muzzles and lips. Pine sap residue, I assume. Like smeared paint or charcoal on an artist’s hands.

They went at that tree like a project. Like caprine sculptors, they started with one thing, and then chiseled away everything that wasn’t needed, and left the result in its smooth completeness for humans to appreciate.

Wordless Wednesday ~ Happy Gambol Day!

http://youtu.be/SJu_aWkFbB0

52 Weeks ~ Laughter (8/52)

A Girls’ Weekend in Boston is full of unexpected laughs:

:: The baker on the sign at Lyndell’s bakery is cheerful in spite of the dreary weather. He lures you in with his slightly crazed laugh. “Come in! Come in! There are cupcakes inside….!” You really dare not refuse. Unless you don’t want a cupcake. Now that’s a laugh.

:: Who knew that a placemat made such a lovely hat? Who knew that H’s mother could take an infocus picture when she was giggling so hard?

:: When you catch the Flamenco Mall Man dancing on film, he is not laughing. Oh no. He is a bit startled. But you are laughing as you run to the escalator, hoping he doesn’t chase you.

:: When a poodle licks the palm of your hand, for five minutes straight, you can’t help but laugh. And then everyone else in the house starts laughing. And the only one who isn’t laughing is the poodle, because he’s got an important job to do: lick lick lick lick.

:: Sure, we could have requested a sweet, serious quote like all the other families who placed a paver in memory or honor of their mothers on the Rose Kennedy Mother’s Walk, but that’s not how you raised us, Mom. Instead, we like to think about a family strolling down the path, reading the sweetly phrased pavers (“Our Cherished Mother”, “We’ll Never Forget You Mother”, “From Your Loving Children”), maybe feeling a bit melancholy, and then coming to this one, and cracking a smile. And when they do, they can thank you, Mom.