Onion Bouquet

Double entendre intended: When I walk near the onion patch, the sweet, snarky smell of the onions wafts up from the dirt, and the beautiful white flowering tops on long stalks are so pretty, I almost want to get married again.
Cranky, would you marry me if I was holding an onion bouquet?
If not, just hold out a little while longer; the orange tree is almost in bloom. Much nicer aroma, and such pretty blossoms.

Hell Eve

This is yesterday evening's sunset.
Considering that the weather forecasters were predicting the Hottest Day Ever for today, I thought I'd grab a picture of the Beginning of the End.
Except End Times didn't come. Sure, it's hot outside now (mid-90s, and that's warm for May), but it's manageable. We even had lunch outdoors, on the patio under the shade of the canopy (my favorite place for al fresco dining). A little breeze picks up now and then. We're hydrating with flavored waters (more on that later). The meal was light, cool and fresh.
Nothing about today seems nearly as hellish as last night's sunset.
Ooh, but last night... I think I even saw the devil last night!
Click on the pic, and look down at the lower right...
Aw. That's just a sliver of my across-the-street neighbor's TV.
Isn't it?

I'm Cranky and I Eat

Yeah, I should change the name of this blog.
Cranky has been doing all the cooking lately, even if some of the food we're enjoying hasn't exactly been cooked.
This morning he served little bowls of yogurt cheese with sliced strawberries, sprinkled with balsamic vinegar and a crack of black pepper.
That just made us hungry for lunch, though, so now he's in the kitchen faking his way through some ma po tofu. I love that guy. I sit here noodling on the keyboard, and he's in the kitchen noodling with a sharp knife. (A lot better than knifing with a sharp noodle; believe me, I've tried.)
All his culinary contributions have gone to his head. Now he's art directing the food pictures I take. Where I would ordinarily get in real close and abstract-y, depth of field problems and all, he'd prefer to see representational photos of his dishes. You know, normal focus. Recognizable items. The old fart. But I play along. Pull back, get the long shot. (I've offered to let him take the pictures himself, but so far, I'm Still Mad and I Take the Pictures. His way, sometimes.)
The other day Cranky whipped up a faux salade Niçoise. Keeping in mind that tomatoes aren't in season yet, and that asparagus will be gone from the markets in a couple of weeks, he created a charming and unbelievably tasty version... his way.

PS: I took a bunch of pictures. Here's the one I would have published, but, see, Cranky is in charge. Hm. Maybe he does have better taste than I do.

Thank God the Primaries Are Over

They're NOT??
Nrrrghh... rrnnngh... arrrrggnnhhh.
Must remain calm.
Nice, soothing dish of strawberries and yogurt.
Cancel newspaper subscriptions.
Weed garden, yes.
Sanity trickles back.

Haiku! (Gesundheit.)

Spell Check, You Crazy Bastard!

You've seen this New Yorker cartoon, right?
Well, doesn't matter anyway.
The point is, if you don't know what you're doing, you probably shouldn't be doing it.
Some dear heart typed up the promotional copy on this discount postcard we received in the mail. When he or she ran the prose through the non-Italian-speaking spell checker, things got a little bit confussily. But our dear heart didn't know, and pressed "OK" on the re-spell button.
Ah.
I'm just being fussy.

My Work Is Nearly Finished!

My diabolical plan is succeeding.
Cranky is becoming a great cook, and all I had to do was be brave and let him fool around in the kitchen.
It was funny, actually, the number of times he popped out and asked me, ensconced in my easy chair with a New Yorker magazine, whether, what, and how he should be doing this or that.
"Oh," I purred. "However it seems right. That would probably do."
I felt brave, letting him be brave.
Yesterday's lunch was a deep, rich French onion soup. There are plenty of recipes for onion soup, so he just familiarized himself with one, and let 'er rip.
We had all the ingredients on hand (mostly local) and they really wanted to be cooked and et. The best part was the homegrown spring onions, unbelievably moist and tender and sweet; some cooking recalculation was required to cope with their baby-soft texture, and Cranky did fine.
Oh, but he was a hopping fool. Skittering out of the kitchen, asking my advice, coping with my utter detachment.
His best move was deciding not to cover the soup bowls with bread and mounds of cheese, which just seals the broth in a rubbery, broiled sarcophagus, making the soup too hot to eat. Instead, he toasted some bread, melted a little cheese over it, and laid the cheesy (but not-too-cheesy) toast into the bowls.
And later, he brought me some chocolate for dessert.
World domination, I tell you.
Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

Shirr? Sure.

The last time I shirred eggs — it's a funny old term for baking eggs in a ramekin, or more Frenchily, en cocotte — I was in a sixth-grade homemaking class. I don't think any of us 11-year-old girls appreciated the technique. I still prefer my eggs scrambled.
But there we were, learning the art of the fusty old shirred egg. I can't remember how they tasted, although they were probably bland; I think the only other ingredients we added were cream, salt and pepper. I definitely recall that they were cooked in those horrifically retro Pyrex custard cups.
In other words, the recipe didn't much stick in my brain. I never tried it again.
Until the other day. It was a perfect storm, if I may be allowed the painful cliché. I had some ingredients that irresistibly added up to fishing boat, George Clooney, rough ocean, bad movie... And, voilà: Oeufs a la Andrea Gail.
I mean, seriously, not a success. But I had no choice. I had to go down with the ship.
Too bad. Because look at this photo. It is beautiful!
Just so you know, then. I lined the buttered ramekin with a slice of lovely, smoky, moist ham. Topped that with cut-up spears of strapping spring asparagus, partially precooked in butter. Cracked a couple of super-fresh free-range eggs over it all. Salt, pepper. Oven.
Doesn't that sound perfect? (Psst: Cookiecrumb, check the weather report! Storm!)
I looked up shirred eggs in Joy of Cooking, and was warned that the eggs would retain heat, and therefore keep cooking, after they came out of the oven. No problem; do I look like a perfect idiot?
I kept checking the eggs, peering through the glass window of the oven door and recoiling at the sight of the translucent, slimy, squiggly egg whites. Those guys weren't done yet, no sir.
Well.
Minutes passed, probably more than the 10 or so that had been recommended.
Still, the whites looked gooey.
But finally, I had to get them out of there.
Oh, man, they looked good. Tumescent, vivid egg yolks. Slightly singed ham. Asparagus done just right. And those egg whites; they still had a gelatinous sheen, but it was time to eat.
Which was when the fork bounced off the yolks.
Well, not "bounced," exactly, but they were shirred, fer sher. Overcooked. En beaucoup cocotte. A little much-ish.
I think this recipe would have been improved by dousing the eggs in the ramekins with a little cream before they went into the oven, and surely by removing them before the credits rolled.
But.
Nah.