Eat The Blog: June 2022

I love the absurdity of wearing a shirt (thanks, Shifty Thrifting!) that reads, "Big Beef."

a). I've been a vegetarian since 1983

b). Nebraska is known as "The Beef State" (also the Cornhusker state, but that's not funny)

c). I am not large and muscular ("beefy")

d) the obvious sexual connotation

e) I am absolutely ready to complain, disagree, argue, or "have a beef" when the occasion warrants. I once had an emotional meltdown trying to slice a roast and yelled something to the effect of, "It isn't a fucking Arby's (fast food chain) sandwich!" That came to be known as "The Beef with the Beef."

It is the perfect shirt. I love it.

I wore it with this vintage, home sewn skort (the shorts underneath were a good effort, but wouldn't have got full marks from my home ec. teacher). They're good enough though, and I love the barkcloth fabric.

The neighbour's daylilies bloomed. They also appear to have a tree growing out of them on the left. I'll take care of it for them-they're not garden people and the plants were all there long before them. I've been watering the plants, though lately that hasn't been necessary as we've had torrential rain. And we're still technically in a drought. This has been such a strange spring. A week ago I was wearing sweaters and coats. Now we're in a heatwave with dangerously high temperatures where they're warning people to stay home. They won't of course, because this week is the College World Series that takes place every year in Omaha. You can read about it at the link. It is a BIG deal for Omaha, and it brings in quite a lot of money for the city through tourism, but I do worry for the players as well as the fans. The weather looks terrifying for the next ten days at least. Years of living in the country where it was a long drive buy groceries, etc. taught me to go out in the early morning, or late at night. We had two rather broken down old cars that ran okay, but the air didn't work and not all the windows would roll down-not the sort of thing to drive around in during the heat of the day. So we didn't. Dan always loved going out at night in early summer, and would look out for fireflies as we drove the county road. Me? Oh, I was looking for deer. They're worse in the autumn, but I've had near-misses with them in summer as well. Rural road? Assume deer.

Deer? That's nothing. I see a snake!

Oh, well that's alright. More Snek than Snake really. That rhinestone head gives it away.

The rayon, made in India dress is late 80s/early 90s. I had quite a few of these back then.

Nah, I don't know why I'm making that face either. Also, terrible light for the photos.

The Yugoslavian shoes have come out for the season.

And the raffia bag

The brooch has a hook to wear it as a pendant, though I never do. It was my mother's, but I don't remember her ever wearing it. She didn't like brooches.

Cool label. Very 80s.

The cherry vinegar has been pasteurized and preserved.

It grew two vinegar mothers this year. That's OK. You can have two mothers, no matter what the conservatives say. Happy Pride!

I have it stored in a jar topped up with vinegar . I'm going to try feeding it, and see if I can make a red wine vinegar from Port. It might be too much, but it might also be great. It doesn't take much feeding to find out.

Same recipe I always use from the Ball Blue Book. You know a recipe is good when the page is full of stains. I doubled it this year. I wouldn't risk doubling a jam recipe as they're somewhat exact, but vinegar is fine.

The evil bastards that cut my thumb last week. I'm healed fine, but you can be sure I was careful. Half of the lids didn't seal (something that almost never happens so I am tossing the reminder of these lids away. It isn't worth my time (and safety). The un-sealed jars are living in my fridge as I didn't have the energy to re-process it. I go through vinegar quickly though, especially in the heat when I'm making salads and pickled things.

I love green. Because I love green, I had several jackets available to match the green dress I thrifted. They all worked too, but I went with this shorter one.

A new pair of enamel earrings to join my collection of summer accessories. I didn't get a very good photo of the little Swarovski crystal frog. Next time.

The back of the dress has a cutaway. I don't feel strongly about it? I don't think it adds much, but the dress does have a nice overall movement to it. It is Jessica Simpson. I think these sold in mid-range department stores. I paid something like two dollars for it, so really I can't complain. And that green is gorgeous.

The dress moves better than I do.

I'm really not moving so well at the moment, but I'm too stubborn to rest. Most people feel bad and ease-up. I'm not most people, so I go scrub the floors or something that didn't really need doing . I'm too old to change. And now the house has had a good, thorough cleaning. Dan will be coming home this weekend, and I've redecorated his room for him. I ordered some vintage Belgian travel posters for him, but they haven't arrived. I also made a few copied from online images from Expo 58. They're not perfect as I'm not an artist (and it doesn't help that half my body is numb and I keep dropping the markers) but hopefully that will add to the charm of it. I also put up maps and a row of wall clocks labelled for cities around the world. I really hope he likes it. I'll take photos once it is completely finished. I've missed him this week-how on earth will I manage him leaving home?

He's insisting on isolating for a full week because he was unmasked for meals, sleeping in a room with roommates, etc. France has had really high Covid rates lately as well. I would be OK with him just wearing a mask around the house, but if he wants to do a full isolation, I'll let him. I guess he just doesn't want to kill his parents.

Here's one of the posters. As stated, I'm not an artist and I drew these free hand.

I bought new markers at the art store for the project and half of them were dried out. I'll be taking those back for a refund. I was surprised as that's never happened to me at that store. I guess everything's gone downhill in the couple of years I was mostly at home.

UPDATE:

Dan's home, exhausted but he had a fantastic time. They got caught in a bit of a heatwave in Provence, but it wasn't anything the kids weren't used to in Nebraska.

A bit more of the room re-do in progress...

I saw a meme version of this and decided to make one for Dan. He loved it.

Until I found this vintage scarf I had no idea we had a Naval Station in Newfoundland.

Sure, I could have bought stencils.

Anyway, he's happy and it was nice to come home to a clean room. I even washed the curtains..

Now that he's home, I made the yearly chocolate raspberry half-birthday cake.

some years I put raspberries on top as well, but they were a little too expensive for that splurge this year. I used frozen berries and jam inside the cake. Here's a picture form several years ago...

I guess the pandemic ended the tradition of blowing out candles on a birthday cake. Just as well, really.

Every year I add notes. I adapted it dairy free, but not sugar free. Mr. ETB isn't much of a cake person. The leftovers will be wrapped in individual servings and frozen so Dan can have cake all summer. I used the leftover ganache icing to make raspberry truffles. Nothing was wasted. There's a whopping 20 ounces of good, bittersweet chocolate in there.

Used the vintage cake stand.

I bought the cookbook at a Friends of the Library book sale. It is a fantastic cookbook, and I've had great success adapting the recipes to be dairy free, sugar free, nut free (back when that was an issue) etc. The recipes are easy to follow and have clear directions. I've never had a recipe from this cookbook fail, and I've probably made about 3/4 of what's in the book (minus the decorations).

I knew we were due for heat so I baked the layers, and froze them last week before the heat took hold. I've been using the slow cooker for meals and probably will be until this breaks (if it ever does). Salads are staples this time of year along with things like eggs that can be cooked quickly in a pan. Our air conditioner compressor busted on Saturday, but with good timing and luck we had a call in and a handyman at the door within an hour. A few minutes on the roof, and all was well again. We know how fortunate we are. I did bring out the giant fan I bought over 30 years ago when I lived in Boston without an air conditioner. It is powerful, and can circulate air through the house when tilted flat and placed near our open stairway. I don't use it much as it is quite loud, and we have very thin walls here, but every so often when it is warranted, I'm glad I never got rid of it. It was an expensive thing back then, when heavy duty fans were still made in the US. It was used much more when we lived on the farm.

Heatwave fashion. I really did go out like this. Something about wearing all white makes me look like I should be driving an ice cream truck. Do they even still have ice cream trucks?