Two Weeks Erased by Two Days

So that week off the grid really turned into two and (don't take this personally, dear readers) but I didn't really miss it. In fact there are a whole bunch of things I didn't miss while gone on vacation, including:

• 95 degree code orange (or red) days;
• taking 20 minutes to go five miles;
• too long work days (yes, already) trying to address the fact that we have more work to do than staff to handle it;
• standing in a Metro car (after said work day) with a bunch of other tired grumpy DC workers;
• stress (and, yes I know all the right things I am supposed to do to address it, but really I would just rather not have it);
• realizing that there are multiple trips coming up that will take me away from the family;
• mindless nonsense; and, of course,
• feeling guilty for having life dominated by work.

In fact, it has seemed to me that it took work a much shorter time to erase vacation than it did for vacation to take hold of my psyche--which then made me wonder what I did miss while on vacation. Certainly their were colleagues and friends it was good to see again. And it is always great to be in your own home, particularly one you have invested a lot of time and sweat in, but we always make a home where we are.

Ultimately the list is pretty short. Hmmmm . . . . .

A Week Blissfully Off the Grid

The house we are staying at on Lake Michigan is wonderful. The only thing that hasn't worked perfectly is the wireless connection. So the bad news is that The Artist and I have not been able to do our normal blogging. The good news is that we have had plenty of time to focus on these.

Today is the bittersweet final full day, so we might start a little back-posting over at the Brothers K, but more likely we will get back to perfecting beach life.

Let the Wild Rumpus Begin

Finally. Vacation has arrived. Okay, technically, I still need to do a few things, clean up the house a bit more for our wonderful house sitter, pack, yada, yada . . . but let us be clear. I do not have to commute in the August heat of DC anymore this year (well, one day but by then it will feel like September right?).

So to celebrate we have made a few modifications here. I jumped over to a new template with a bit more breathing room in it. I made a header change which includes a picture from vacation two years ago. You want to be there, don't you? I do. In fact I will be in just a couple days--ahhhh, the big lake.

So, blogging will be even slower than usual here for a while. There may be a picture or two, but any real blogging will be over at The Brothers K where The Artist and I usually listen to the waves in the cool morning hours while we upload photos from the previous day and record our thoughts on food, sand castles and the wave crashing rumpus from the previous day. Let us know if you want an invite to the family blog!

For now--hope all is well in your world. Breathing out . . . .

Friday Haiku for a Monday Night

The house sighs. Empty. Quiet.

Anticipation . . .

Boys yearn. Sun, waves--the lake calls.

The Mynabirds Sing Songs for the Summer

With all of the many releases this summer, I didn't see this one coming or know it would get so much of my attention, but as it turns out, The Mynabirds have given us a wonderful album for mid-and late-summer. I ran into this album, What We Lose in the Fire We Gain in the Flood , thanks to All Songs Considered who had Laura Burhenn and her band in for a Tiny Desk Concert. I wasn't sure that the album would turn out to be a keeper (it is), but I could tell instantly that I really liked Burhenn's voice and style.

The album, which you might guess just from the title (or the cover), is rooted in gospel and blues, but in that wonderful way that bleeds into country, R&B, Motown and even a little rock and roll. Now don't think it is all heavy--this is a pop album at its heart with Burhenn holding the various styles together with both her writing and her sultry alto voice which is a wonderfully muscular at times and gentle in other spots. As Pop Matters notes:

Binding together the disparate influences of slow-burning, hot-piping soul; swaying, sassy girl group pop; a gospel-tinged hymnal quality that lends her husky, smoke-burnished voice a ringing, striking command; and the sputtering, exhilarating abandon of garage rock, Burhenn creates a stylistically divergent yet singularly inspired sound that’s at once charmingly reverent and spiritedly self-supportive.

And let's say just a bit more about her voice. Neats and I sat around trying to figure out who she sounds like. This is difficult because she sounds like a lot of people on different songs. Ultimately we couldn't decide on any one singer, which seemed like a compliment in and of itself. But then I read the Pitchfork review and was pleased to read they had a list of comparisons as well.

The material recalls artists such as Dusty Springfield, Laura Nyro, and Linda Rondstadt, but the sound and style come closer to more recent touchstones-- Jenny Lewis' best moments on her own and with Rilo Kiley; Cat Power circa The Greatest and Jukebox; Fiona Apple's collaborations with Jon Brion.

And just to add one last quality that makes this a wonderful summer album is that it comes in at barely over a half an hour long--because really we don't want to get to serious now do we? But if this genre and female vocals are your thing, you should pick this one up as it is definitely worth a listen.

I intended to give you a couple samples to give you a taste, but alas had some probs with the mp3 rip and find myself here writing this post with only one song on my computer and with the actual disc in another state with my family (lucky them). So you are just going to have to do with just one which is a nice R&B piece and still gives you a sense of the album. I had hoped to follow that with the closing track "Good Heart" which is all country (and has the beauty of leading you back to the title track on the disc-replay-rollover). But do check this one out.

Numbers Don't Lie

Enjoy.

Garden-Centric Cooking

The little storm we weathered put a bit of a hold on this post, but not on the perpetual cooking based on what our garden produces. No, we continue to be grateful for what our garden produces while also feeling a bit subservient to the constant demand of veggies that need to be eaten--a perfectly acceptable set of conditions under which to exist. Of course, we have to listen to The Captain note (with a certain edge in his voice) that this is yet another meal with "only vegetables"!

Here is a brief inventory of what we have been eating over the last month (or you can just skip to the pictures and salivate over the bounty).

• Lettuce: It is actually a sad week here because we are eating the last of our lettuce--we haven't bought a leafy green since April and have been grateful for each and every bowl. We will see some this fall for the early picking as the cold melts away next spring.
• Chard and spinach: not only have we had lettuces, but also chard (although we need to rethink our planting scheme as we didn't get as much as we should have) and spinach. Let us take a minute on the spinach because this isn't your ordinary spinach. We planted red malabar spinach from Seed Savers which is a heat-loving climbing vine spinach (are you listening Utah peeps?). It is beautiful and tastes wonderful with small tender leaves at the tops of the vine as they climb and big tasty chard-like leaves as it matures. We will arrange differently next year, but as you can see in the pics below--it is quite beautiful. It was particularly good the night we had no power and I threw a sauté pan on the grill, fried up some bacon and shallots, added some peppers from the garden and then wilted the spinach in the mix--a nice side to the black olive past pork loin we grilled! Equally good is to just sauté it up with garlic and olive oil topped with a blanched yellow zucchini with fresh herbs. All kinds of body and taste here.
• Cucumbers: Did I mention that "powerless" grill meal? Key was the cucumber salad. See we have more Japanese cucumbers than you know what to do with. Neats made a chilled cucumber soup that was great (although a bit salty thanks to some intervention by the boys), but we kept adding cukes, different herbs and yogurt to it and it was a side that just kept on giving and giving.
• Eggplant: For instance, that cucumber mix was a wonderful side to the eggplant and chard curry--so yummy. I apologize for no pictures of that beautiful dish. Then there was the lasagna with eggplant layered into the middle of it.
• Peppers: those peppers I added to the grill menu--ours, thank you very much. And recently we picked a whole slew and stuffed them with a wonderful Mediterranean couscous that had black olives, pine nuts, garlic and herbs in it. More to come with the peppers.
• Beets: also a bit of a sad day as we are now out of our wonderful golden beets. We sliced them in salads, put the greens in home-made goat-cheese ravioli, roasted them and served them warm with the beet greens on the side with feta. Earlier next year for these guys.
• Carrots: We also have a good crop of carrots this year that are tasty as all get out--even if I think of them as a winter veggie. And as you can see, they are beautiful!
• Squash: Okay, we have been eating green and golden zucchini almost as much as cucumbers. There is the usual sauté, the cheesecake I noted earlier, bread and let us not forget the chocolate zucchini cake! The real hit has been zucchini fritters and recently I made panko/Parmesan crusted zucchini which is a healthier version of its fried cousins. All wonderful because of course the squash is just out of the garden.
• And lastly, but so not leastly, Tomatoes! Yes they are on and we have been slicing them left and right--they are so new we haven't even dare put herbs or cheese with them. We just keep eating them plain--maybe with a little salt. Oh glorious day.

Okay enough--here is a sampling of the veggies/dishes to give you an idea. I am off to slice me a tomato!