Monthly Archives: October 2011

I purchased some quinces (yes that’s the plural…seems like it should be quince) last week at the farmer’s market. I love how historical and evocative they seem, and also how fragrant! Wow, do they smell good. Of course, I had no idea what to do with them. I couldn’t afford to buy enough for paste or preserves. So I ended up making this quince biscuit pie. It was absolutely delicious. I wasn’t sure what to expect of a quince, (admittedly having never had one before…what a sheltered life!!) It was sort of like a floral-y apple pear peach combo.  yum. Must investigate quince trees. We may need a wee quince orchard. ;)
This site has some interesting historical info on the quince, as well as tons of other interesting food history. You can take courses on recreating historic recipes, and there’s a great gallery. Dang. Makes my biscuit pie look sad and indeed humble.

This year’s birthday trip took us upstate to Olana where I’ve wanted to go for quite sometime. It was a beautiful day! Unfortunately, I missed half the tour, since I got a bit lightheaded for some reason and had to duck out. But on the way home we had a celebrity sighting on the street of a tiny little town. Liv Tyler! It’s always fun to spot a celeb, but to be in the middle of nowhere; what are the odds? Then, much to my delight, Jay got me a dulcimer! He has tried to no avail to get me to be more musical (mostly by trying to convince me I should break out my clarinet from 8th grade, so we can team up and pay Klezmer tunes, him on fiddle, me on clarinet…definitely not into brushing up on my clarinet skills) And he got me an Autoharp a few years ago, that is gathering dust. But I love the ducimer, and I’ve learned 3 songs so far, and am not ready to throw the thing across the room.
When I’m a pro (ha!) maybe I can get one with charming little hearts or scrollies. Maybe secretly that’s why I love it so much. I picture myself sitting under a tree, wearing a dress ala Jean Ritchie with my folksy hearty dulcimer.

Check out Clara’s first needle felted doll! I think she’s pretty cute, although I’m a bit biased.

Note – I definitely don’t condone setting your 5 year old loose with felting needles.  Clara did this with the utmost caution and under careful adult supervision.

well, perhaps it’s a sign that after months without a peep from me, I finally sit down to blog, compose my little post, and when I go to publish it, it vanishes!! So, I’ll try again! ;)
I thought that it was high time that I checked in. The summer whizzed by, in its usual fashion. We managed to have a lovely time, before it was cut short by rain, and more rain and yet more rain. We had a few perfect river days, a trip to the beach, a 5th birthday, lots of time visiting with family and friends; we even managed to squeeze in a solo overnight trip. And now it’s that delicious time of year…autumn! And with that little zing in the air, I decided that maybe I should drop by and say hello again. Fall always makes me feel more cozy, nesty, bloggy.

Todays lunch was grass soup (and a fried egg), artfully prepared and splendidly presented by Clara, who had the day off from Kindergarten.

We made some leaf garlands…

We even managed to get some garden time in, harvesting kale and swiss chard (there’s still quite alot out there!) and freezing it. I pickled the chard stems, hmmm…interesting! And behold…we have carrots!! Every year we try carrots to no avail. They’re usually scary little deformed nubs, but this year, we had success! These are some fancy red variety of which I can’t recall the name.

exciting!