Two Retail Encounters

A petite Asian woman in a motorized scooter wheeled up to me in the wine department at TJ's and asked if I could help her. I thought she needed a bottle reached down from a shelf. But she wanted to know if I could recommend a wine to go with pasta – no, in a pasta dish she was making. “Does it call for a particular type of wine, a red... or a white?” No, she insisted, just a dry wine. “What's the recipe like? What else goes in the pasta?” Clams and linguine. Yay, bingo. “Usually,” I opined, that's made with white wine.” Oh, she added, and to drink with it, too. So we turned to the European whites and my eyes lit on a Muscadet, and that's what I recommended. I put a bottle in her basket, she thanked me and scooted off. A few minutes later the cheerful young employee who hangs out in the wine department asked me if I was finding everything I needed. "Yes, but," I joked, "I just did your job for you." Oh! she said, I saw that. I thought you were friends!

Same shopping trip, a little later, in the produce section at New Seasons. It's Wednesday, geezer 10% discount day, so the store is full of people even older than I am. As I'm reaching for the parsnips, a woman with an intent stare magnified by her glasses blurts out “Turnips. Know the best way to prepare them?” No, I do not. Tell me. “Raw.” You mean, like, grated? “No, just sliced. My kids, they used to eat them like potato chips.” She pauses. “Those grandkids, though? I can't even get them to touch 'em.”

My face in repose tends to go severe around the mouth. In photos I often look disapproving and unapproachable. It's called bitchy resting face, and it's a real Internet disorder. I've been reminding myself to smile more in public, at least relax those facial muscles. Apparently it's working. 

Chef Jerub Presents

I'm lucky, I know, to live with a guy who loves to cook. At least two of my friends have offered to take him off my hands, for that reason alone, should I ever get tired of him. As if.

The meal above was chicken breasts with a fig and balsamic vinegar sauce, potato casserole with caramelized onions, and asparagus with a honey-mustard yogurt-based sauce. The one just below was Goan-style shrimp curry on basmati rice with a roasted vegetable salad.


Another dinner, below, was all about orange. Salmon with varicolored cherry tomatoes, pureed sweet potatoes, and carrot salad. The avocado garnish makes it pop, don'tcha think?


At least somebody in this family is expressing his artistic side. I think all of my creative energy is going into gardening at this point, or thoughts of spring. I'll have more to say about that. But first, dessert:

Gifts

The girls next door believe in leprechauns. They showed us a tiny dwelling the other day that surely belonged to one. It looked like a bird house, but it was bright green (the same color as their garage door, oddly enough), and carpeted in rose petals. I'd move right in, if I were a leprechaun.

They also believe in magical fairy gifts. On more than one occasion, we've answered a knock at the door, realizing en route that it was best to rein in our distance vision and act surprised, and found a spray of flowers or a painted rock on our doormat. Most recently, it was a pair of stones, each wrapped in a leaf and tied with pink string, with a shell balanced on top. Later, a deconstructed coda: a rock in a leaf in a shell. Art is all about exploring your medium to the fullest.

Today's my birthday. It's an off year; I'm 61. Unlike most days, the friend calls outnumbered the telemarketers by about 8 to 3.

Jer and I acknowledged a while back that birthdates are arbitrary; we give each other gifts all year long. He cooked waffles from scratch last week, and chicken tagine served over bulgar with green beans almondine, and an incredible veggie dish consisting of shiitake mushrooms in a pinot noir sauce with asparagus and polenta. I'd requested salmon for my birthday dinner, and he made this amazing rendition with fresh basil, tomatoes and onions, cooked in foil on the grill. Sort of like a stone wrapped in a leaf, only much more succulent.

Net arts, Ne tarts, Knee tarts, Neat Arts... Netarts

Netarts (KNEE-tarts) is on the Oregon coast, just west of Tillamook. My art quilt group spent last weekend there on its annual retreat. We rented a couple of condos right on the ocean; the photo illustrates our not-too-shabby view. Both Gerrie and Terry blogged about our doings in great detail, thus saving me the effort, thank you very much. They both got amusing shots of moi, getting in touch with my internal Resourceful Pioneer Woman, the morning that the power went out. I've posted a mere three dozen or so beach-and-environs photos on my Flickr site.

One morning, we visited the Latimer Quilt and Textile Center. Both Terry (in red, next to me) and Gerrie (in blue, on the right) have pieces in the current show, It's Good to be Green. Here we are gathered around Terry's entry. I like the way her gardener-girl seems to be part of our group.

Of course we made more than one stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, as documented on those other blogs, for our traditional ice cream lunch and discount dairy product shopping. This stunning example of cheddar-craft stopped me in my tracks. Tillamook: No Country for Vegans.

Here's another work of art, the dinner Chef Jerub prepared the evening I got home: Chicken in puff pastry and asparagus with a creamy pesto sauce. Yum.

Paper cuts and final cuts

A couple of interesting exhibits at RAW (Reed Art Week), which ended Sunday. I went especially to see Nikki McClure's mind-boggling papercuts. I hadn't heard of her til I picked up a calendar last fall in the Contemporary Craft Museum gift shop. Now I'm totally smitten with her work.

In the room next door was an installation called The Last Supper Table. The artist, Julie Green, had illustrated Death Row inmates' last meal requests on blue-on-white ceramic plates, each stamped with their date of execution. Twelve plates (out of the 300 or so she's done) were set around a table with wood, institutional-style chairs, the kind you'd find in a 1940s prison visiting room. A card, propped like a placecard behind each plate, described the meal as requested.

I was fascinated by the individual selections. Some were quite specific: hot and spicy chicken breast, two slices of sausage pizza with extra cheese (why not?), a slice of German chocolate cake, French vanilla ice cream, and a Dr. Pepper. Or steak with A-1 sauce, jalapeno poppers with cream sauce, onion rings, and a salad with cherry tomatoes, ham chunks, shredded cheese, bacon bits, and blue cheese and ranch dressing. The unexpected combination of steak, asparagus, brussels sprouts, feta cheese, cake and watermelon. The sheer "bring it on"-ness of BBQ turkey legs and BBQ brisket, plus avocados and a bowl of cheddar cheese. Cheese cheese cheese cheese. Not too many vegans on Death Row.

No doubt planning your last meal gives you something to focus on and anticipate, besides the obvious. A couple of plates, much smaller than the others, expressed the desire for no final meal at all. If I were facing execution the next morning, I think that'd be my choice, too.

But I'm not sure; those onion rings sound pretty good.

Birds in the 'hood

I took advantage of my new camera's super zoom to catch these exotic creatures in their native habitat. Flamingos in Oregon; who knew? The vulture, I assume, is a leftover from Hallowe'en; if not, I wonder about the folks in that house.

Speaking of avian leftovers, Chef Jerub tried a new chicken recipe a couple of nights ago. It turned out to be an exciting evening at Casa Jereva. You stuff herbs under the skin and roast the bird at a very high temperature in a preheated pan. Our smoke alarms went crazy, the oven was coated with charred grease, and our enameled roasting pan will never be the same.

The recipe is an adaptation of a Zuni Cafe dish, and would be far less disruptive to prepare in a restaurant kitchen. If you'd like to trash your house, or perhaps have an industrial-strength exhaust fan in your kitchen, it was published in The Oregonian food section on October 9th, 2oo7 (the link will only work for six months from pub date) and in Judy Rodgers' Zuni Cafe Cookbook. We annotated the clipping with the appropriate warnings, and probably won't risk making it again, at least not in our house, which still smells like hot chicken fat. It was delicious, though. And heating up the leftovers won't be nearly as traumatic.

Wired

Our friends Jen and Drew were here last weekend. This is what it looks like when they, or some of our other WELL pals, visit.

Jen's daughter Laura is a Reedie, and had a major role in a theatrical experience, a senior thesis project involving the Cinderella story played out in the rave scene. Prince Charming was DJ Strange Boy, and there was a reason, pharmacologically speaking, why they stayed up way, way, way past midnight (in this household we call it "Pumpkin Time"). Parts of the production worked surprisingly well.

Speaking of wired, I've been remarkably industrious the last couple of days. Yesterday I scrubbed down the little deck off the kitchen, railings and floor. It made some difference, but a coat or two of paint would really help. This morning, I polished several pair of silver earrings, then brushed varnish on the badly-neglected kitchen picture-window-sill, lemon-oiled the table, and made a preliminary effort to clean the hardware on the Hoosier cabinet. Tomorrow, if I still feel like it, I'll wash down the wood and then apply some lemon oil. I've been a total slug about housecleaning all winter, but now I've got the bit between my teeth, as the expression goes.

Before I got heavily into the cleaning jag this morning, Jer and I walked to Sellwood to check out the Garden State food cart. Nice guy, tasty vittles. For various reasons he was out of the two items I really wanted to try, the arancine and the grilled chicken, but the chick pea/squash sandwich was tastier than it sounds. I'd call it not worth a detour in the Michelin sense, but worth keeping in mind if you're in the nabe and hungry.

Happy Meal

Chef Jerub takes his breakfast seriously. But how can you not smile at such a cheerful-looking meal?

Tripping out

A couple of people have asked, and I realized that I haven't blogged about our quick trip to Seattle last month to get a second opinion on Jerry's prostate treatment options. Basically, the doc we consulted there agreed with the conclusions we'd reached based on our own research and the advice of Jer's local practitioner. So it'll be several months of hormone treatment, which Jer just started, followed by brachytherapy, the implantation of radioactive seeds. As formidable as that sounds, it's an outpatient procedure that can readily be done here in Portland. That'll simplify our lives a bit. Side effects, immediate and long-term, are the big unknown, and freakier to contemplate than the procedure itself. We keep reminding ourselves that the outlook, given Jer's overall health and physical condition, is very good.

I was fantasizing about a stellar restaurant meal while we were in Seattle. I have fond memories, from many years ago, of Wild Ginger and the Dahlia Lounge. But, given Jer's need to prep for his exam, we settled for a simple but tasty stir-fry lunch at a hole-in-the-wall near our hotel, with leftovers and room service for dinner. My one touristic activity was taking in the dramatic new(ish) Rem Koolhaas-designed main library building. Very cool structure, inside and out. I wish I'd had time to take a guided tour.

My other January excursion was a weekend visit to the Bay Area. I had a use-it-or-lose-it freebie on Southwest, and could have gone someplace more exotic, but just wasn't up for the logistics of a more elaborate trip or, to be honest, the time away. It did my heart good to hang out with friends, and to reconnect with Berkeley, my other home town. I didn't take many photos there (I'm not a tourist in Berkeley), but here's what one pal ordered for breakfast that Sunday at the Sunny Side Cafe on Solano. If I recall correctly, this was eggs benedict between two slices of French toast, doused in Hollandaise. Of course the orange twist totally neutralizes the cholesterol.

Good food, good company, medical fu, and the storm of the century, again

After Thanksgiving, Jer and I hunkered down in an effort to focus on his prostate cancer diagnosis and the pros and cons of various treatment modalities. If there's such a thing as too much information (and I know from my past professional life that there can be), Planet PC and the dense atmosphere of contacts, articles, software tools and discussion forums that surrounds it is a fine example. Not that we're complaining. We're just beginning to thread our way through all this, and I'll keep you posted.

A couple of powerful storms -- wind, rain, enormous destruction out toward the coast and elsewhere in the state, though Portland was spared the worst -- gave us even more reason to hunker down. Monday we bore the brunt of it. That morning we walked down to Johnson Creek right around the time it hit flood stage. The water looked like chocolate milk in a blender. Forgot my camera; dang. I took this pic about 24 hours later, after the water had subsided several feet. It was still pretty impressive.

On a totally different subject, we had dinner last night at Toro Bravo with our friend Adele. Man, was that good. It's tapas, with small plates ranging from $2 to $8, and larger, meatier dishes in the $10 to $14 range, plus paella at $18 and fideos at $19. The catch, of course, is that the menu's structured to encourage you to order several dishes, not just an app and an entree. We definitely over-ordered but, even with cocktails, wine and dessert all around, our bill was commensurate with what you'd pay in a middlin' nice white tablecloth place like Lauro Kitchen, Fife or Castagna. Among the three of us, we ate marinated sheep's cheese with rose petal harissa and mint; fried anchovies with fennel and lemon; boar rillettes with orange marmalade and caramelized onions; griddled bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with almonds; chicken and pork croquettes with salsa verde & roja; lamb and fig stew with toasted couscous; and Moroccan marinated tuna with dried cherry and apricot couscous. For dessert we shared around molten chocolate cake, lemon curd crepes, and housemade almond ice cream with espresso. Must go back; there's so much more to try!

Lunch today was non-trivial, also. My fiber arts group STASH met at the Contemporary Craft Museum and then walked down to Park Kitchen for lunch. Mine was a radicchio salad with pomegranate seeds, butternut squash, and goat cheese. It was exactly what I wanted after several days of not enough green veggies -- although, come to think of it, nothing in my salad was actually green. Our waitperson literally bent over backwards to get a group shot.

Inertia is a powerful force in my life this time of year; all I want to do is stay inside and cocoon. So I took advantage of our scheduled outing to check out not only the exquisitely creepy Kurt Weiser ceramics at Contemporary Craft, which I've been wanting to see since the exhibit opened in October, but also the Chuck Close (I always want to say Glenn Close) show at "the" Portland Art Museum. I saw his paintings at MOMA in New York years ago. His work doesn't move me emotionally -- I'll never forget my friend Linda, who's a painter married to a painter, dragging Paula and me downstairs to the Cezanne exhibit that was on at the same time, saying "Here! Here's a painter!!" -- but the various print processes he's experimented with add layers of complexity and interest. To me Close is all about technique, but the obsessiveness with which he goes about exploring the possibilities is fascinating in itself.

After lunch I stopped in at Lumen Essence, next door to Park Kitchen, and got to schmooze with our friend Larry for a while. Then I sauntered up to Portland's so-called Fiber Arts District, half a dozen fabric, yarn and embellishment stores spread out along SW 11th in the vicinity of Taylor and Alder Sts., and bought a few inconsequential, mostly cat-themed, things along the way. I totally forgot to get my parking lot ticket validated anywhere, which was moderately annoying and something I'd rag on Jerry for neglecting to do. My bad.

Now I'm home with a cat on my lap. Often, this time of the evening, we can declare kitty bingo -- three in a row, not counting humans. (Thanks to Rubi for pointing out the phenomenon and the terminology to describe it.) While I was gone, Jerry vacuumed the rugs and cleaned the bathtub grout, in addition to putting together a turkey chili that's starting to emanate (is that a transitive verb?) good smells from the kitchen. Maybe I should leave the house more often. Nah.

Thanksgiving week

My brother Larry and his son Josh have been here since last weekend. My sister Karen visited from Wednesday til yesterday; she and her helper Daria -- Karen has Down syndrome -- stayed at a motel not far from the airport.

I'd count Thanksgiving a success. The extended time with the guys hasn't been nearly as stressful as we'd feared (having the run of the entire downstairs takes a lot of pressure off us old people on the main level). Daria, the "stranger" at our table, turns out to be an interesting young woman with a deceptively little-girl voice.

We definitely missed the Arcata clan; this is the first time in decades that we haven't celebrated Thanksgiving together. But the turkey, and dinner in general, was one of the best. I brined the bird (a 23-lb. Diestel turkey from New Seasons), did the standard gravy, and made two dressings from recipes that appeared side-by-side in The Oregonian a couple of weeks ago. One was fairly traditional, including a big handful of fresh herbs plus a few extras, like celeriac, that I happened to have around; the other was made with whole-grain bread and featured dried cranberries and toasted hazelnuts. Both are keepers. I also did red cabbage with apples. Jer made garlic mashed potatoes and the marshmallow-topped sweets that he insists are his birthright as a Southerner, plus Susan Stamberg's and now our traditional cranberry relish, which includes horseradish, sour cream, and a stint in the freezer before serving. He also tried a green bean recipe that turned out wonderfully, with shallots, orange zest, and pecans candied in maple syrup. I made Josh's favorite pie, pumpkin eggnog, and my favorite, pecan. Jer made everybody else's fave, bourbon black-bottom chiffon. Six people at the dinner table, and three pies. Sounds about right to me.

Sure, a certain amount of wear and tear goes with hosting Thanksgiving, but it's really nice (and getting nicer by the year) to be the ones who get to stay home. Speaking of which, earlier in the week, a couple of guys from the Urban Forestry department showed up with a woodchipper and made short work of the big branch that fell in last Monday's windstorm. The city actually took care of it; we were pleasantly amazed. One more thing to be thankful for.

Tart to Tart

Inspired by our backyard plum tree's bounty, I made this ginger frangipane tart as our contribution to dinner at Libbi and David's several days ago. It looks just like the picture in the Oregonian food section, and it tasted wonderful.

I had leftover puff pastry, so I adapted a recipe for a savory tomato tart that called for filo dough, and came up with this little number. Pretty darned tasty as well.

Plums and tomatoes; end of summer. Fall fell like a curtain last week.

Speaking of tarts, Portland Center Stage's production of Cabaret is not not not to be missed.

Playing Tourist

I found the Portland Walking Tours site back when I was in research mode, before we moved here, and filed it for future reference. It seemed like a fun way to get to know more about our new home town, and I envisioned taking time off from unpacking and organizing our nest (in retrospect, whom was I kidding?) to unwind with a tour now and then.

Finally, two years after settling in, we've done the Best of Portland tour, the Underground (a.k.a. Worst of Portland) tour and the Epicurean Excursion, all within the last month. I can recommend each one, and will regale you with random factoids about the city for as long as I can remember them. But the Epicurean was, by its nature, the most entertaining. They promised at least 30 different tastes along the way, and I believe we hit 40 easily, starting with tomato-orange soup at the Flying Elephants deli, and ending up with gelato, coffee and chocolate nano-truffles at Via Delizia in the Pearl. In between: three varieties of Bridgetown beer poured on site by the brewmaster, a selection of PaleyBars (tm) (100% natural energy bars in various flavors, formulated by one of Portland's top chefs, Vitaly Paley, which is a great name for an energy bar impressario), thinly sliced Walla Walla onions marinated in rice wine vinegar, plus three boutique mustards and a sip of pinot noir at In Good Taste; slices of baguette and levain with EVOO behind the scenes at Pearl Bakery, where I took these shots (note the rakish angle at which Damon, our guide, wears his hairnet), followed by tastes of croissant, gibassier (perhaps the revelation of the trip, a Provencal breakfast pastry flavored with anise and orange peel), and melt-in-mouth chocolate bouchon, oh my. (This is starting to sound like an infomercial, but nobody is paying me, I swear. Note lack of hyperlinks when I could easily have done so.)

So. After all that carbo-loading, we headed briefly in the direction of Zenlike simplicity with a stop at the Tea Zone. There we sampled three perfectly-brewed teas -- Dragon Pearl jasmine, an oolong, and a lychee-flavored black tea, accompanied by tiny hazelnut and lemon-flavored cookies. We leaped back on the carbo bandwagon at the Ecotrust building, with Hot Lips roasted garlic pizza and blueberry soda, and an apple taste-off, organic vs. not. Finally, we wound down with the aforementioned gelato (three flavors -- orange cream, almond and someberry) plus chocolate nibbles and an extremely welcome cup of coffee.

En route, I got to fill in more of my mental map of downtown, especially the Pearl. Amazing how much construction is happening in the area. I assumed this was yet another condo complex going up, but apparently it's going to be a humungous new Safeway.

Hmmm, unless I've forgotten a stop entirely, I get almost exactly 30 different tastes, depending on how you count. Well, it sure felt like 40.

Grizzly Man and Grisly Men

We went to OMSI to see Bodyworlds, the controversial exhibit of partially-dissected and "plastinated" bodies, the day after it opened. I thought it was beautifully done and emotionally affecting as well as educational. I hadn't known, for instance, that the left lung is considerably smaller than the right, with only two lobes. That's how they get the heart to fit in; duh.

There's nothing grisly, really, about these men (and a few women). But we'd seen Werner Herzog's bizarre and wonderful film Grizzly Man a couple of days before, and I couldn't resist the juxtaposition.

Now that Jer and I are both retired, several days can go by without any official obligations on the calendar. That makes the moderately "busy" times seem downright hectic by comparison. Here's some of what's been going on the last week and a half:

A Willamette River cruise on the sternwheeler Rose with Mike Houck, Bob Sallinger, a bunch of Portland Audubon members, plus some politicos and media people. Mike is co-author of Wild in the City and the go-to guy, locally, for urban ecology issues and the politics associated therewith. Bob is deeply involved in preserving the peregrine falcon population, especially the families that roost on and under the bridges of Portland. The focus of our trip was Ross Island, which may or may not become a city-managed park/wildlife preserve. We saw a bald eagle nesting, several ospreys, and two or three great blue heron nests, one with four young in it. It was a glorious day on the river, and a perfect way to celebrate Great Blue Heron Week (the heron is Portland's official city bird). Here's Mike doing, perhaps, his Great Blue Heron impression.

A Slow Food potluck in the wilds of North Portland. Once again, a location that looked remote and improbable on the map turned out to be a charming pocket o' Portland that we wouldn't have dreamed existed, less than 20 minutes away. About a dozen people attended, all smart, articulate, progressive, and passionate about food. One woman turned out to be an acquaintance from Sea Ranch whom -- this is going to sound so jet-setty -- we last ran into in Athens, at the Acropolis. (Coincidentally, our friends Rich and Dean, whom we were traveling with at the time, are visiting Portland now; we spent last evening with them.) We're going to try to do these potlucks monthly; everybody had such a good time. And of course all the food was delicious.

A walking tour of midcentury modern architecture, including buildings on the Reed campus and homes in the adjacent Reedwood neighborhood. The outing was one in a series of walks sponsored by the city transportation department; the idea is to get us out of our cars and onto our feet or bikes. It was semi-interesting, although many of the buildings struck me as undistinguished and occasionally even tacky. Gerrie and Steve, who live in their own mid-century modern, walked with us, and Gerrie did a great job with photos and descriptions of some of the better stuff.

The Northwest Quilters annual show downtown, near Portland State. I entered two older pieces, A Few New Sushi (Like, I Know Sushi) and Bamboo IV. I made Sushi for my California guild's challenge, "Something Fishy," several years ago. It also fit this year's challenge theme, "It's What's for Dinner," so I figured why not. Bamboo IV is the latest in a series inspired by the calligraphy of Toko Shinoda; I worked on it during a semester-long workshop with Jeannette Meyer, and it was juried into last year's OCAC student show.

The Columbia Stitchery Guild exhibit at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center. The show runs through next weekend. I'll refer you to Terry's and Gerrie's blogs for photos and more complete descriptions. Two of my pieces are on display. One, Occasional Sunbreaks, looks great. The other, Crop Circles, doesn't. It looked fine pinned to my design wall. But suspended from a hanging rod, the lovely hand-dyed wool sags where it's not heavily quilted, and the merciless overhead lighting emphasizes each bump and wrinkle. Oh well.

A house concert in NE featuring our friend Zoe Kaplan and three other talented young singer-songwriter-musicians. This is a monthly series that's been going on for several years. The ticket price ($25) includes an ample and well-prepared buffet dinner. We've been to several, but this was the first one that Libbi and David were able to attend; it was good to see them there, to hear Zoe perform again, and to meet some more nice people.

Dinner with our Sea Ranch friends Dean and Rich, and their Portland friends Juanita and Dale, who live just a few minutes from us. It turned into a small birthday celebration for Juanita; Dale's son Tony and his fiancee Amy showed up, as well as an old family friend. Everyone was delightful company, the food was terrific, and the conversation flowed like wine, which also flowed. We'd missed Rich and Dean a lot, and it was great to spend time with them and their old friends.

The next couple of weeks are also studded with events and obligations, including -- oh joy -- jury duty. Sometimes I worry about becoming one of those old ladies for whom postal delivery is the high point of the day: "Oh look, the mail's come!" But I don't think I'm at that point quite yet.

I might never eat again. Yeah, right.

This has been an eat-ier than usual time for me. I spent a few days at the beach last week, on retreat with some art quilt friends. I ate a substantial breakfast and dinner every day we were there. Three days out of four, I had two scoops of Tillamook ice cream -- at the creamery, which made it taste even better -- for lunch. I'd intended to stay off the scale til I'd gotten back into more normal eating for a few days, but curiosity and habit got the better of me. Gulp.

And yet, one more indulgence loomed: Last night was Taste of the Nation, a fundraiser for Share Our Strength, an organization that deals with ending childhood hunger in America. The ballroom and foyer at the Convention Center were filled with food and drink booths. We sampled dozens of fine wines and uncountable bites of unusual and delicious snacks prepared by top local restaurants. Many of the chefs were there, prepping and presenting. It was exactly the event that we'd hoped last summer's way-too-corporate Bite of Oregon would be. We justified the ticket price because it was a benefit, with most of the proceeds going to SOS. If it were simply a culinary pigout, I doubt we would have indulged.

The truth is that, even when we're eating "normally," we eat very well. Starting in late afternoon, Chef Jerub toils quietly and uncomplainingly in the kitchen, prepping culinary delights both casual and more refined. Here we have half a turkey burger garni, catfish with a cornmeal crust served with lentil stew and fruit salad on the side; salmon piccata with asparagus and a tart filled with layers of caramelized onions, sauteed spinach, and chevre; a spicy Thai shrimp and rice dish with a side of Israeli couscous pilaf (two intensely flavored dishes that played off each other nicely) and a simple green salad for relief. The motto around our table is "nobody eats like we do," and I'm convinced that that's true. It's our version of saying grace.

While I'm on the subject of food, here's a photo of a batch of rugulach that was my contribution to an Easter-Passover potluck, just because it looks so pretty. Ditto the festive-looking drinks, which are grasshoppers that Jer whipped up to celebrate St. Patrick's day. They're made with green creme de menthe, of course.

Starting tonight, we'll eat more sanely. This is not a sacrifice if you dine at Casa Jereva.

Why doesn't everybody eat bananas this way?

A couple of weeks ago, my husband, who doesn't even eat bananas in the rough, pointed out that, for those of us who do, it made more sense to peel them from the blossom end -- the one with the puckery rough brown spot on it -- rather than the stem. I often ignore his engineering-based observations since they have very little practical application to actual human behavior, but he claimed that monkeys do it this way. So I struggled hard to overcome years of ingrained banana-peeling habit and tried it his -- and the so-called lower primates' -- way.

Dang, my husband was right. Stop the presses.

For one thing, the stem provides a convenient handle, an elegant marriage of form and, once you look at it, function. (See Figure 1) In addition, the blossom-down method avoids the annoying banging against wrist and forearm of the hard, fibrous stem as it swings freely at the bottom of its section of peel. Aesthetically, it's far more pleasing, since you end up with three or four balanced and relatively symmetrical peel segments.

My life will never be the same.

Eating In

Oh, woe is me; dinner at home again.

Seriously, Chef Jerub is on a roll. The night before last, he made halibut piccata with oven-roasted potatoes and zucchini. It was superb; the fish was cooked perfectly, the veggies crisp yet tender on the inside.

Last night, it was a melange of chicken parts seasoned with honey, mustard and fresh thyme, and roasted with turnips, red onions and pears. I hated turnips as a kid because my dad did; now I think they're one of the most under-rated vegetables in the universe (along with Brussels sprouts). Jer used red Anjou pears instead of the Boscs that the recipe called for, and the color pushed a beautiful presentation into the "spectacular" zone. And we have leftovers to look forward to.

Speaking of leftovers, I've been working, the last week or so, on a quilt I began in a workshop several years ago. One of my New Year's not-quite resolutions was to finish or re-purpose my UFOs (un-finished objects, for the non-quilters among you, my vast readership). I have a bin full of quilt tops, fused appliques, giant acrylic-painted vegetables, and what-have-you, most of which I started in some class or other and then set aside, thinking, "well, now I know how to do that..."

At the time, this one felt quite daring because the colors -- rust, gold, burgundy, orange, brown, even pink -- were so far outside my blue-green comfort zone. Actually, now that I look at it, they complement last night's dinner beautifully. Here's what it looked like before I started quilting the hell out of it. I'll post some details when it's finished, which should be soon; it's ready for binding at this point.

Aside from dealing with my UFOs, I want to make more new art this year. Quilting for me is often more of a meditative than an experimental process, which is fine, but I need to give myself permission to play more. A few weeks ago, several fiber artist friends and colleagues put up photo-collages of their 2006 output. Ay yi yi. They accomplished more in one year than I've done in five. I realize it's not about quantity, creativity isn't a competitive sport, etc. etc. But still, it's only January; I can do more than four pieces this year.