Family, Food and The Gruffalo

Does this photo of our granddaughters that their father took while they were visiting us last weekend not personify the last lazy days of summer?

I am in love with it and with the two models and was beyond excited to learn they were coming to visit Mimi and PawPaw.

I remembered their dad, our son, once saying that he liked New York cheesecake so I baked my second one of the summer from Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires, a book my friend Melanie of Comfy House sent me, knowing I was a Reichl fan.

This time I remembered to wrap the springform pan in heavy foil and avoided butter dripping all over my new oven. What a mess that was!

Here's a recipe link for it.

BreeBree kept checking on me while I was cooking.

I marinated chicken the day before our company was due, using another favorite recipe from Reichl, this time from her My Kitchen Year, Food Cart Curry Chicken, recipe here...

I also made a 1940s recipe Cucumber Aspic, but knowing how the majority of you feel about aspics I'll skip a pic of that dish.

The next day RH and I went into our usual time to clean up, company's coming mode and then I set the table...

and went out to the garden to clip some blooms for the table.

Soon it was time to cook our simple supper. I love Reichl's chicken curry recipe because it only takes a few minutes to sauté the chicken and only 20 minutes for a pot of rice cooked in chicken broth.

One of the best sights in the world is these two girls hopping out of the car for a visit. 

Our beautiful daughter-in-law is hidden behind my flower arrangement...

And for pity's sake, remind me to remind RH not to take pictures of company at table from this angle. Or to at least put the lid down on the toilet in the bathroom first! Wouldn't you think that he'd have learned his lesson, Poppy, Tammy and Doreen, after leaving the seat up a couple of weeks ago? That cost us two trips to the chiropractor after I fell in it in the middle of the night. 

I am very glad that RH doesn't have a blog himself, right? Payback time would surely come!

But since this is my blog, here's a shot of the dreaded aspic, after all. 

And since this is Ratting on RH Day, let me 'splain why my New York Cheesecake looks so pitiful.

When you're running a knife around the rim of your cheesecake before releasing the springform latch and your husband insists on helping, be sure he knows you don't want it pried out of the ring, just loosened.

Oh, I would so get it if he were a blogger.

However, his son, and mine, took the pictures of this cheesecake. Does he ever know how to make a messy cheesecake look beautiful, or what?

Now's when I have to highly recommend a children's short movie for you--and I'm not a cartoon-type fan at all but our granddaughters wanted to watch it and who am I to argue with that. Are any of you familiar with...

The Gruffalo

Charming movie! I've watched it twice by myself on Netflix since the girls went home.

All too soon it was our last day and a beautiful morning in the garden after breakfast.

Believe it or not, I took these two shots with my phone but how could they help but be good, with my two beautiful models? 

Who knew that grasshoppers liked potato chips?

Ah, the last lazy days of summer, they can't be beat, can they?

So you don't like aspic, dear readers? 

How do you feel about New York Cheesecake?

Not like that either? 

Then how about joining the Gruffalo for a meal of:

Roasted Fox

Scrambled Snake

Owl Ice Cream

Just watch out for the poisonous wart on the end of his nose!

Want to join me for a dish of Gruffalo Crumble?

MFK Fisher's Gazpacho Salad

If it's still in the 90s in the daytime and 70s at night, it's still Summer and it's hot, I don't care how many Autumn pictures I see on Pinterest.

It's still aspic weather in the South and will be in my house as long as the hot weather lasts, although I've been known to serve tomato aspic on Christmas Eve.

I did one post on it at my other blog back in June but MFK Fisher helped me take my recipe to a whole new level when I made her Gazpacho Salad this week. 

It turns out that hers was just a fancier name for it and I guess that gazpacho salad does sound more gourmet than tomato aspic.

The recipe for the basic tomato aspic is back on my blog post here but I updated it with Fisher's recipe in Joan Reardon's delightful book on her called M. F. K. Fisher among the Pots and Pans.

I added 1 cup of beef consommé, 1 red sweet bell pepper diced, 1 sweet red onion, chopped, and 1 cucumber peeled and diced. And I added a couple of chopped jalapeños from my garden. All of these chopped vegetables were so good in the salad!

And I added a cup of chili sauce, something I saw somewhere, can't remember where, and thought would be good and was it ever! Extra spiciness!

I didn't make her dressing of 1 clove garlic mashed into 1/2 cup olive oil with salt and pepper because we love my own dressing of mayo with a little olive oil, lemon juice and snipped basil so much.

I know from emails on my other post that very few of you like aspics. But I stand with Julia Reed (I love her column in Garden & Gun) when she wrote in her cookbook Ham Biscuits, Hostess Gowns, and Other Southern Specialties that we congeal everything in the South. 

Her mother once "had a four-day house party during which she served an almost exclusively gelatin-based menu...crabmeat mousse, a strawberry mousse, two kinds of tomato aspic, and a charlotte russe."

I would have been a happy member of that house party! 

Now I can just bet that no one is going to try the Gazpacho Salad recipe and I'll put money on not one of you trying the entree of our meal. But you might just like my dessert recipe, so stay with me, please.

Are you asking what in tarnation is that ugly entree? I never said I was a food stylist but believe it or not this was good.

On a slice of pumpernickel for each of us I spread avocado mashed with a little lemon juice, next I put on some good wild caught canned sardines, next went thin slices of cucumber with black pepper and a squirt of lemon juice and then I topped it off with jalapeño slices. 

And there was our dinner. I know that Poppy loves sardines, although hers are fresh caught ones from Crete. Anyone else out there like these protein packed little fish that have the same omega 3 that salmon does?

Enough of that, let's have dessert! What about pecan pie? 

That purple is just a sprig of Joe Pye Weed hanging over the pie from a vase on the table. 

Have you ever tried an Authentic Pecan Pie? One without nasty corn syrup in it? 

I've had this recipe for years and the clipping said it was by a Carolina cook. "And don't ever use corn syrup! That ruins the consistency. Authentic pecan pie is jelly-like, translucent with sparkle. Just start with a pound of brown sugar, then add three eggs, about two eggshells of milk, a big splash of vanilla, some salt, and a lot of pecans."

I baked it at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes.

Easiest pecan pie ever and you wouldn't believe the good flavor. I have several recipes for pecan pie but RH says this is his favorite. I only had a small piece of the pie and left the rest for RH, and he took a slice to Zack.

Besides, my favorite dessert is another serving of aspic. And I'll take fish and seafood any day for my protein rather than poultry or beef or pork. 

Maybe, just maybe, I've been influenced by MFK Fisher's thoughts in Serve It Forth.

For many old people, eating is the only pleasure left...And between gobbling down an indistinguishable mess of heavy meat and bread, or savouring a delicate broiled trout or an aspic full of subtle vegetable flavours, how few of us would choose the distressful insomnia that follows the first for the light easy rest of the second?

Okay, I really don't think of myself as old yet but I'm already finding that I sleep better after a supper of vegetable stuffed aspic and fish or seafood than red meat. Wild caught Alaskan salmon is usually my choice but I think that Rainbow or brook trout is my very favorite fish and I have an excellent recipe from Judith Jones for that. 

I wonder if RH would agree to trout and pecan pie for Thanksgiving Dinner? 

Oh, and thank you so much for ideas for using the copper gutter in the garden! I think that RH is now thinking about making it into a water fountain if he can find a pretty basin for the water to fall into.

Remembering Mr. Bradbury

Born August 22, 1920

In my later years, I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I've worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating.

Ray Bradbury

Bradbury Speaks

Old, Found, and Recycled in the Garden

Except for plants, pea gravel and sand, and the stepping stones, everything in our new garden is either old stuff, found stuff, or recycled stuff.

Even most of the plants were on sale as RH has an eagle eye for bargains. The Tennessee Crab Orchard flagstones were costly, our major purchase last summer and saved for this project.

I love this found lantern, one of two in our garden, this one is just hung from a metal plant holder. I guess we need battery candles for it but those haven't been found yet.

There were two of these hanging in the little barn when we moved here.

I was so happy when RH got them down and cleaned them up for the garden, one by the cupola weather vane that was recycled from a job at one of the major country music stars' house years ago...

and one lantern hanging in a sweet gum tree in the shady sitting area of the garden.

The white drain thingy was a discard at a job too and found its way home to me because every chain link fence needs jewelry.

But did you notice the rooster that sits back there, ready to crow?

In 1977 my husband drove to Chicago for a van load of cast stone fountains and garden pieces for his and his brother's garden center that they had bought from my father when he and my mother moved to Florida.

And when we moved back to Tennessee from Florida last year, his brother still had some pieces at his house and shared them with us, including the pineapple that sits by our front porch and almost all the clay pots in our garden, Italian pots and left over from the old garden center days. They were much needed as we had left all our pots at the old house in Nashville. 

I looked up the company in Chicago where RH bought our rooster over 40 years ago and found that they're still in business there, the Henri Studio, begun in the early 1960s by Eneri Prosperi who emigrated from Tuscany and became the world's leading name in cast stone fountains.

Here's a link to the business for anyone in the Chicago area.

And here's a picture I got from their website of the very same rooster that they still sell today, Rooster Provence in Trevia Greystone.

I love seeing our rooster sitting back in the garden on his perch topped with a travertine tile that we brought back from Florida.

When we sit there as the sun goes down, we're careful not to disturb him and he promised never to wake us up at dawn. 

Now I have a favor to ask you, well, two favors, please!

1. Can you give us some ideas for another found object that we'd like to use somewhere outside? A friend who has done the metal work for us for years had a beautiful sample 1/2 round copper gutter that he no longer displayed at his business and gave to RH. We'll take free copper anytime!

There's not only this large piece but an extension for the pipe and an elbow piece, all gorgeous heavy copper. What in the world can we do with it?

Any ideas? 

We did make use of the two beautiful copper brackets that came with it, using them not only to decorate the kitchen porch entrance but to give me something firm to hold on to while going up and down the steps.

And that blue will be painted either white or green when the kitchen porch is dressed up with an overhead pergola some day, I hope.

2. Most of you know about our son Zack and daughter-in-law Courtney now owning our old farmhouse and you saw pictures of their wedding there last September. But you may not know that Courtney has started an event venue business right there at the old farm.

And she has an Instagram page all about it!

If you enjoy Instagram, would you please visit her so you can see the charming pictures she takes? You might even spot one of me dancing with a handsome young man at their wedding!

Remember to watch for familiar sights from our days at what we called Valley View but that is now The Farmhouse, and her business Nashville Forest Farm.

Many of the pictures are of events held there and some of their own beautiful wedding, but there are plenty that show what a fabulous job she has done of imprinting her own unique young style in a home and garden that they love as much as we did, Courtney maybe even more than we did because she loves all things garden and farm. I expect that someday there will be a barnyard of animals who call her Mom.

Here's another link to her Instagram page...

And a link to the story that Nashville Bride Guide featured, with an event that was held there...


Thank you so much, dear friends, for your help!

And I finally managed to fix my blog so that your comments are sent to my email, which will make it so much easier to communicate with you. I even think I managed to fix a little problem that a few of you said prevented you from being able to leave comments. I hope so!

Happy gardening, everyone. We're still in the good ole summertime!

Anniversary Thoughts

Happy Anniversary, Mama!

And to Daddy, in heaven!

Even though they eventually settled in Nashville after World War II, Mama and Daddy weren't really big fans of hillbilly music, as country music was called then.

Mainly, they were products of the Big Band era. Glen Miller and Tommy Dorsey were to them as Elvis and the Beatles were to RH and me as young marrieds.

Mama knew the words to all the big band songs and sang them as she worked about the house in our new two bedroom, one bath home we moved to when I was four, not long before my little sister Deb was born.

I remember being in my pajamas one night staying up later than Deb, a baby in her crib. It was before we got our first television set but the radio was on, the one Mama listened to Stella Dallas and other soaps while ironing.

Music was playing, what I now know was swing music, and Mama and Daddy were dancing, to what I now know was the Jitterbug.

Mama was in a housedress and Daddy in casual slacks and a short sleeve button down shirt that he changed into from his suit after work each day.

Both were in their sock feet and they were having the best time dancing while I watched from the sofa. Daddy wasn't throwing Mama over his shoulder or anything fancy like that but darn if they weren't pretty good, I realize now. 

Mama's shoulder length black hair was bouncing and Daddy had his tongue stuck out through the corner of his mouth like he always did when he was concentrating.

When I remember this night of dancing, I realize that they were still in their early 20s and young, oh so young. 

And fun, lots of fun. This photograph taken while Mama and I were with him in Arcadia, Florida for his Primary Flying gives a hint to that.

We three are on the left, with their friends on the right, Air Force buddies and Christmas card friends all their lives.

I have so many wonderful memories of my childhood but this one, the night that my parents danced in the living room, is tops.

It was a grand night and I was their audience, at least until I was tucked into bed.

Happy Anniversary, Mama and Daddy!

P.S. Since Christine asked in the comments about that being wigs on our heads in the photograph or not, I thought I'd better clarify that it was Spanish moss from the live oak trees. Evidently it was abundant around the Homestead, Florida area where Daddy was stationed, but let's just hope there weren't bugs in it!

Minding Monday

Did my Parts 1-4 wear you out? I don't blame you if they did, they pretty much wrung me out too.

Or was the past week a hard one for you? Did you laugh and cry, wash dishes and get them dirty again, weed the garden and they're back again, did you get your feelings hurt and/or hurt someone else's feelings, vow to get to bed early and then not be able to sleep until dawn? 

Did you forget to pay a bill on time, forget to hang your favorite shirt up to air dry and into the dryer it went, forget to get a prescription filled, forget to turn the sprinkler off?

Do you feel fragmented and flustered? Or do you feel like everything is in control and you're patting yourself on the back? Beware of that one, my friend!

Okay, my words need to end because not only did I have too many pictures in my previous posts, Part 1-4, I had far too many words also. 

Here's my gift to you, words I've turned to for years--except when I didn't. They're not Scripture, you can't beat that, but they help me as I'm contemplating Monday morning and the week that lies ahead. I hope they'll help you.

People with great projects afoot habitually look further and more clearly into the future than people who are mired in day-to-day concerns....They do not easily grow sad or old; they are seldom intimidated by the alarms and confusions of the present because they have something greater of their own, some sense of their large and coherent motion in time, to compare the present with.

Robert Grudin

Time and the Art of Living

Do you have a great project afoot?

Part 4, Home Hill

What is it that makes one place more than another home to one?...I think it is compatibility.

Elizabeth Goudge,

from The Scent of Water

Have you ever fought for something really hard, trying to force open a door that stayed closed in your life, and then finally surrendered to it, accepting it only to find that the door soon opened with the slightest touch?

 [Home Hill]

That is what happened to me in my desire to come home to Tennessee.

[Our front porch, neglected so far but lots of potential,

gets the afternoon sun full force in summer.]

On September 7, 2016 while living in Florida I wrote in my journal, "Four of the loneliest months of my life...RH will pick me up this afternoon for a 3 o'clock appointment with our new dermatologist to see if this growth on my nose, near where the other cancer was, is malignant or not."

["Our" pond, actually our neighbor's but

he told us we were welcome to share it.]

That night I wrote that the doctor cut out from my nose what she said was a subcutaneous horn, most likely, from what she'd seen before, a malignant squamous cell one. 

[The view of the pond from our kitchen sink

entertains us daily. We've seen Canada geese

goslings born, mallard duck families,

a Great Blue Herron, large turtles.]

In three weeks I was to go back and discuss treatment after they received the pathologist report. 

[View from our kitchen window last spring.

The only thing there was a tree and a few things

previous homeowners had planted.

RH put a bird feeder by a pipe that stuck up from the

old well and some sunflowers sprouted.

We sat out in the grass last year and dreamed of having

a patio that I could sit on and watch our dogs play, a patio that

could be done inexpensively.]

I googled treatment and found that radiation or chemo usually followed this kind of cancer. I wrote: "Life on hold. Is this why we moved? For me to die in the sunshine state?"

[View from my kitchen sink now,

after all of RH's hard work.]

One week later I received a surprise call from the doctor's office. The pathologist report was back and showed that the growth was benign.

[Phase I: Now we have a beautiful patio in the shade,

done very inexpensively.

RH painted a garden table we've had for 40 years

and 4 chairs we've had for about 20 years

3 different shades of pretty green--

an idea I got from blog friend Tara Dillard.

Coffee in the morning and wine in the

evening taste better here than inside.]

I hugged Otis and Milo, crying and laughing, and called RH and then called or texted or emailed family and friends to tell them that prayers had been answered. 

[Free concrete tiles for the patio!

A customer at our family roofing and siding company

wanted these tiles removed from his roof that another company had

recently installed, to be replaced with the steel metal

shingles that we specialize in.

And he wanted us to get rid of them.

Recycling at its best and we love all the colors and striations in them.]

I thanked God for this answered prayer and vowed to accept where I was and be grateful for my life there in Florida.

[Phase II: An old cupola came to our garden for

a focal point instead of to the dump.

It covers the ugly pipe to the well.

RH and a son--our dear landlord--built a firm base for it

and laid out a small bed on each side for

perennials and herbs.]

Two weeks went by and I refused to let a single negative thought about Florida into my mind.

But on an October day that felt like July, RH came home from work and was very quiet. We sat outside on the back porch after supper and he told me that he missed living in Nashville.

He missed working with our sons there in the family business of 30 years. 

He asked me if I would still want to move back?

Would I? Is the pope Catholic?

[Phase III: The sand bed is ready to be tiled the same as the

small patio. RH is waiting for cooler weather for this 

large one, most of it in the sun.

Meanwhile the birds take sand baths in it,

something that is very cute to see.

BreeBree and James Mason are pursuing the pesky chipmunks.]

It took a village to move us back to Tennessee, just as it had moving us to Florida, and that village was family.

[The listing photo for the galley kitchen.]

It was a physical and financial drain on so many and I will always be grateful for the sacrifices our family made to help us come home. 

[It was obvious that the previous owners didn't do much cooking.

We do a lot of cooking, rarely eat out, and so we replaced the

refrigerator and range, and turned a coat closet into a pantry,

freeing up valuable kitchen cabinet space.]

You'll be glad to know that I won't write here any of the three months of my journal entries documenting each day that passed as we waited while our youngest son and daughter-in-law drove several times to Nashville looking for a house to buy for us and then went through the hours of paperwork required and inspection and finally the closing.

Yes, that's right, we have the sweetest

landlords ever!

[RH and his brother built the open shelving I wanted,

making all the corbels themselves, and the pretty rod and hooks

hold all our All-Clad and iron skillets,

freeing up even more kitchen cabinet space.]

Another son flew down to help load trucks and drive us back, and our daughter and son-in-law in Florida took time away from their jobs to drive vehicles also, then flying back home. 

[RH and I have learned to work very efficiently together in a

galley kitchen, even with two dachshunds under our feet.]

Meantime, work was being done on the house before we returned, a new dishwasher installed, a safer path for me to walk on outside and the bathtub being converted to a low step in, all for my safety.

[If you want to know what accessories I love,

then this sweet old picture and frame from Goodwill

should give you a clue.]

And the third son, our firstborn, brought his wife and sister-in-law here the day before we moved and spent a whole day cleaning the house from top to bottom.

Best family ever, right?

[My bedroom; the biggest project in here was tearing down a bad ceiling

and installing bead board. New ceiling moulding and a paint job.]

When we drove up the driveway to Home Hill in January, 2017 on one of the coldest days of the year, the yard and roof dusted with snow, I knew this 1935 farmhouse was home.

[My bedroom is not large but it is room enough

for me and two dachshunds and my reading chair.]

I was home. Otis and Milo were home. 

I was in love with a house again.

RH, not so much, not at first.

[RH's bedroom. The knotty pine walls and ceiling in here 

made all his western things look better than ever before.]

He was exhausted and he was cold and he wondered how we'd ever get by with one bathroom.

[My writing room. BreeBree is in there guarding it and

heaven help anyone who tries to come in except for her mommy

and James Mason. 11 pounds of dachshund can be ferocious.]

We sat down the night that all the family left, in the large room that was paneled in the beautiful wood boards that pre-dated the 1950s pine paneling in the Pickwick pattern that was in his bedroom and my writing room.

[The listing photo for the large room that much of our living is done in.

It was slightly underwhelming with its furniture lined up around the walls.

But I studied it for two months and knew exactly how it would work.]

No lamps were unpacked, no pictures, no mirrors, no books.

We were surrounded by cardboard boxes.

[Remember when I asked your help in naming this room?

Well, it became the dinning room, the breakfast room,

and the sitting room, depending on which part we were in.

The harvest table, with both leaves in, seats 10 comfortably,

12 in a pinch. All we have to do is pull it out from the sofa back.

The breakfast table is over by the red curtains.]

I told him, "Give me a month. I promise you that in a month you'll think it's pretty and cozy...

[This red leather Ethan Allen sofa that we ordered 14 years ago

will last us our lifetime. We love it as much now as we did when

it was brand new. 

The black and white ticking Ralph Lauren pillows are 14 years old too.

I simply turned them inside out to hide the ruffles when we moved here

because this is not a froufrou house.

The blue and green 100% wool hooked rug was $19.99 at Goodwill and I stood guard

over it until RH arrived to put it in our basket. It suits the house

better than the braided rugs I first thought the house would need.]

Let me get our things unpacked and lamps around and curtains and mirrors hung, I told him, and you will love it...

[Mirrors helped tremendously, 2 large ones, 1 medium one and 2 small ones.

All in one large room.

A storm door installed both here and in the kitchen let in even more light.]

I promise you," I said.

Guess what? Now we both love this house!

And we hope you like it too.

Most of you know that we lost our dear dachshunds Milo and Otis to leptospirosis last fall. We thought we'd never recover from losing them. And we didn't. But we went on to adopt BreeBree and James Mason and discovered once again that we are dachshund people. 

A house is just not a home to us without a dachshund or two in it. 

I know that many of you understand that. And I think that those of you who have visited here since our days at Valley View and saw the old 1920 farmhouse we lived in there can easily understand why I felt like I was coming home when we moved into this old cottage on a hill that at one time was the only house around for miles.

It was a little unappreciated by the previous owners, I thought, but had so much potential. Now when I walk around and see all that we have done in the house and RH outside in the 2 1/2 acres, I wish they could see it, see what a little loving and care did for their old house. 

And I know that the very first owners, the farmer and his wife that built this sweet cottage back in 1935, would be pleased to see that it was still being loved today.

She had loved it at first sight; and now, as it companioned her day by day, she made her impress on it as it made its mark on her. She fitted into it as a body slips into a new and shapely garment made to measure, and went on her way warmed and protected and subtly changed. For it altered her, as a garment can alter personality, giving fresh confidence.

Elizabeth Goudge in 1939's story of a woman
and her house,

The Middle Window