Chutney, Anyone?

We haven't had a storm like this weekend's one in over a year. I could tell by the way the cats freaked out.

It was a pretty good one, too. Came up out of the Gulf with howling winds, lashing rains whipping horizontally off the roof, lightning flashing all around and thunder rattling the windows. The kids didn't know what to make of it. They'd never experienced anything close to it in their short lives and sat in the middle of the living room shivering and crying softly. I tried to cuddle them but it didn't seem to help. They couldn't make up their minds if they wanted to be held or left alone.

Their mom, on the other hand, new exactly how she wanted to deal with it, although I didn't figure that out until after the storm was pretty well over. When it had died down to a mere downpour, I went into the kitchen and, while I was chopping tomatoes, the pantry door opened. There was Jasmine. When the storm started she'd managed to open the door, climb inside the pantry and close it behind her. She rode it out in the dark, but at least she was in a confined, dry place which made her happy. If we ever do get flooded out and have to evacuate, at least I'll know where to look for her.

Our low spot out back flooded as per usual but drained away again almost immediately. The only real down side to the storm (aside from a few broken branches in the street) was that it knocked down over two dozen mangoes--none of them anywhere near ripe, yet.

I collected them all once the rain tapered off to a drizzle and they're on the kitchen counter but I doubt more than half a dozen will ripen enough to be salvaged. Fortunately, there are still about twice as many still on the tree.

In the meantime, I'm off to find recipes for unripe Alice mangoes.

Making the Best of a Windy Situation

Even though Sandy missed us by about two hundred miles, it's big enough that the backside winds have been blowing steadily for the past four days. And, while they're from the north and dry thus giving us high clear skies and temperate days, they're also strong enough to prevent my brother from putting out any more inflatable Hallowe'en decorations or blowing up the ones that are already on the lawn.

Neighbor Dan has been unable to raise his legions either and his have been staked out since the first of the month which means the grass all around them is now almost two feet tall and what's under them is probably dead.

My brother has been receiving more Hallowe'en stuff than I knew about. There are now four life-size ethereal figures looming around the living room. Three females and one male, all close to six feet tall, with livid hands and faces and draped in linen and gauze. They can't go outside, either, until the calm returns.




We did get to make use of one of his new purchases: a skull shaped (two halves, front and back) cake pan. He brought it out last night and we made up a double batch of pound cake* batter because the skull cavities looked a lot larger than they turned out to be so, after baking, we ended up excising a lot more of the material between the two halves than we had intended in order to get them to fit together properly the result being we have most of a pound cake, in two pieces, left over which is

actually a nice problem to have.

While the width of the skull cake is almost right, especially given the extremely pronounced zygomatics, the parietal is truncated giving it something of a bullet shape when viewed from the side. It remains, nevertheless, delicious.

My brother found some black food coloring when he went out late last night for additional baking supplies, so I am leaving the skull decorating to him.

* Is a double batch of pound cake a kilo cake? Sorry.

Living in the Moment, Extreme Edition

We had a Merry Christmas.

It being Sunday, I fixed French toast for Mom and myself. We then waited until my brother arose (normally not before noon because of his work but this time because he was up late wrapping presents) before opening the gifts.

Mom was confused over who gave what to whom and who received what from whom. Since she does not go out shopping any more, her gifts to us were bought by us (me for my brother, him for me) with her money. It's not easy trying to explain on-line shopping and express shipping to an Alzheimer's afflicted 91+ year-old. She kept insisting there were three small presents still to give and rearranging three sheets of writing paper on her table until my brother got out her checkbook and let her sign three $20 checks to each of her sons (my brother, myself and the middle one who will be down to visit this week with his kids). Then she was happy.

For dinner that evening, we had a delicious medium rare standing rib roast with Yorkshire pudding, garlic laced mashed potatoes, pickled mushrooms and summer squash sauteed with onions and grape tomatoes. And a bottle of 16-year-old Merlot found in the back of the cupboard (surprisingly still good despite the cork breaking when I attempted to open it). We topped it all off with apple pie and vanilla ice cream.

Mom's ice cream was melting while she ate the pie so I reminded her that the point was to eat them together which she did. When she was done we asked her if she wanted more and she said, "Just some ice cream," so I brought her seconds. When that was gone we asked if she'd had enough now to which she replied "Oh, yes! A prodigious plenty!"

We laughed. "Well, no wonder," my brother said. "You had two desserts!"

"No! When did that happen?"

"Just now. You had pie and ice cream and then more ice cream."

"What pie? I didn't have any pie. You boys are pulling my ear!"

We described in loving detail how we had offered her apple pie for dessert, which she accepted, and then the option of either whipped cream or ice cream (ice cream), and then the overkill of whipped cream on her ice cream on her pie (declined). She remained incredulous.

In the time it took to eat the second helping of ice cream, she had forgotten the first completely.

Real Convenience Food

One of the major advantages to living in South Florida is that, when you discover Thanksgiving morning there is no orange juice in the refrigerator for your orange juice and brown sugar glazed sweet potato recipe, you can just go outside to the orange tree, pick a big ripe one and juice it on the spot (using a 3+ lb. solid steel 1940s era tabletop hand juicer).

Turned out perfect.

Too Late For This Year

I was just listening to my local NPR station. They're doing a program on local Thanksgiving recipes.

Apparently, it's necessary to capture your Thanksgiving 'possum at least a month in advance so you can cage it and feed it nothing but sweet potatoes as a way of improving the flavor. "Like feeding acorns to a wood duck," according to one of the show's hosts.

Seriously, who knew?