The Raspberry Lady

I grew up in South Jersey, with many farms near by. We would often go to a market on the Ellisburg Circle that had "just picked" white corn, green beans and other farm fresh vegetables. But my fondest memories are of The Raspberry Lady, who would bring fresh fruit and vegetables door to door in a wooden crate that had a handle on it (probably home made). She would park her station wagon and walk up the path and I often answered the door (I'm thinking I was probably 7 or 8) and yell to my mom "the Raspberry Lady is here". Of all the things she would bring, raspberries were my favorite and were only available from her. Tart but sweet, a bit of texture - I just loved them. She also had corn, string beans, strawberries and other home grown food but we could often get them at the food stands. I'm sitting here typing eating raspberries on yogurt with a bit of granola. YUM - and the memories are there, in the back of my mind.

It's strange what we remember from childhood. A simple smell or taste can bring back a flood of memories. Thinking about food also reminds me of our back screened in porch. Just wide enough for a round card table with room for 4 chairs. As an only child, only three chairs were set out. We spent a lot of time on that back porch in the summer as we didn't have air conditioning when I was a child. Dinner would often be some meat (don't remember just what) and corn on the cob with either green beans, peas, or a salad of Jersey tomatoes. Those tomatoes were sooooo good! The tomatoes of today, even those from the farm, just don't taste like those large Beefsteak tomatoes that were red, juicy and didn't have that hard core in the middle. My mom would serve ice tea that she mixed with fruit juice. Any kind of juice she had - orange, apricot nectar, pineapple. This summer I'm again making that ice tea - a bit stronger than normal so that it still has a tea taste when I add the orange juice. Fresh mint (which I grow in containers on the deck) also taste great added to the tea. Thanks for the memories Raspberry Lady, thanks mom.

Tuesday

As Honey and I went out this morning for her morning constitutional, the temperature was 29. Gone are the warm days of March! This Sunday is Easter and we sure hope it warms up!

Last night we had The Chew's macaroni and cheese. This was from Michael Symon and the cheese was Goat Cheese. It looked good and I had goat cheese that needed to be used. B was OK with the idea. I cut the recipe in half for just the two of us. Cream, roasted chicken and goat cheese with rigatoni. Simple and very good! I'd do that again. Really enjoy watching The Chew.

Happy New Year

Here it is, a brand new year! And, New Years Day means the local diner is closed which means B doesn't get to purchase their Eggs Benedict, better known to us as a bennie. Lynn to the rescue.

I figured, how hard is it to make a bennie? Eggs, sauce, muffin and Canadian bacon. Of course, I've never poached an egg before but that makes this a good learning experience. I had all the ingredients having decided last week to do this. I don't normally have Canadian bacon so that was the only purchase needed. I did go on the Internet to find a recipe because I was not sure of the timing. I also tweaked it a bit. I have found that preparation of any recipe old or new is easier if you have ALL the needed ingredients ready to go. So, first I got the pans out and decided to use the induction hot plate for the cheese sauce as it immediately drops the temperature so much better than my electric stove. Muffins defrosted and in the toaster, bacon laid out in the pan, water with vinegar on for a simmer and eggs, milk, cheese, flour and mustard out with butter in the pan. Cracked the 4 eggs into 4 small saucers since from what I remember seeing on cooking demonstrations, you slide the eggs into the simmering water. All set to go....wait, the water doesn't look deep enough! So, I added some water and then, of course, had to wait for it to boil to be turned down to a simmer. As I waited, I made the cheese sauce and after tasting, added more cheese. That was turned to low as the water simmered I heated the bacon and slipped the eggs into the water. Now I expected this to look kinda icky and had seen chefs swirl the water to keep all the egg together. That didn't work. So I was seeing 4 globs of egg with all this white stuff floating around and was concerned most of the egg white was floating not staying with the yolk. Well, moved on to toasting the muffins, making sure the sauce was hot enough, and also the bacon. At 3 1/2 minutes I turned the eggs off and started dishing up. Using a strainer spoon, I scooped up the egg and YES, there was quite a bit of white. Plopped it on the muffin with ham and added the cheese sauce. Quite pretty and when the second plate was done, we ate. Naturally no pictures first time around. But it did look really nice. One egg was a bit runny the others were soft cooked. I'd cook them 3 minutes next time and try to take them out in the order I put them in - first in first out. I told B this didn't mean we would stop eating at the diner on Sundays! But, it was a fun learning experience and one I will repeat.
Hope your New Years is happy and healthy!

Rain and Ice Cream

When we got up this morning it was muggy but the sun was out. The forecast said rain in the afternoon and they were right!

After breakfast out, I had French toast, we came home and while I was busy, I think – what did I do? Well, I got a load of laundry done, washed the master bath floor and cleaned the shower, cleaned up around the house, emptied the dishwasher and made sure the kitchen was clean. I also read a book – now I mean I speed read it. I didn't like it and after the first chapter I just hit several pages every so often and in a rather short time, finished it. And having finished I'm glad I speed read it – dumb book. I also spent time with B as we put together the weekly email we send out to the members of the community we are in. And then it was 11 and then we looked at The View. We really do enjoy that. Then lunch and a trip to the library to prepare for the book sale tomorrow. Touched base with several people at the library and shelved books and cleaned up the area. When I came up (the book sale area is on the lower level) it was raining – HARD. So I decided not to go to the Farmers Market in town and went home. And it was almost 3 so that meant time to feed Honey. After doing some more stuff around the house, I read the mail and got ready for dinner. And here I am at 7:00.

Honey was funny today. She is not fond of the rain. She enjoyed playing in the snow but for some reason she does not like water. So, she needed to go out and the rain was really heavy. Thunder and such but that doesn't bother her – but she really didn't want to go out. However she clearly needed to go out... and so we attempted to entice her out and she looked at us like “you have to be kidding”. Well, during a lull in the rain, she did head out and yep, she really needed to!!! Then we all relaxed.

Tonight we are having ice cream for dessert. I ran out of ice cream several days ago and refuse to pay nearly $5 for a container of ice cream that at one time was half a gallon but is now less. I did make a blueberry coffee cake that was good but we both wanted ice cream. I remember home made ice cream when I was a kid. Mom would make the base cooking it on the stove. We would put it in the churner with ice and salt and crank away. The best part of it was when Daddy would remove the paddle which I got to lick. Soft serve on a paddle. Then it would go in the freezer to “cure” and later be eaten. Well, we don't make our own but we are partial to Turkey Hill. The local store had it on special this week (finally) and it was $2.00. So I got a vanilla bean and a mint chocolate chip. Then this morning we got 2 vanilla bean on the way home from breakfast. Guess what we are having for dessert??? YUM...