Waiting for Mr. Wonderful...

Jackson is waiting for the return of Mr. Wonderful or the opossum.  Or whoever shows up first.

 

Zucchini, Again

It’s zucchini time (still!) and after having eaten it baked, steamed and fried this summer I found a new way to prepare it for these hot September evenings.  Slice the zucchini in thin strips and lay them in a bowl of salt.  The salt will pull the water from the zucchini making the strips thinner and more flavorful.  By not cooking it, the zucchini keeps its freshness and has a crispy al dente texture.  

We kept the Italian theme going and swapped ricotta for the goat cheese.  Delicious! I highly recommend trying it!

The original recipe came from the L.A. Times: http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-calcook-rec3-20120818,0,6325931.story

The photo is all mine.

Enjoy!

The Enemy… Returns

Today, beware the return of an old enemy. 

“Horoscopes are so dramatic and silly,” I said sipping my morning coffee as Jackson drank from his water bowl. 

Pushing the newspaper aside I opened my computer to this message: ‘You are not connected to the internet.’

“What’s going on?”

The cat shrugged and licked his butt.

Beware the return of an old enemy.  Darn that horoscope!

Indeed.  Double-checking my computer confirmed I wasn’t connected to the internet, which meant I was shut out of my Facebook feed, I was blocked from tweeting this news to my twitter followers and I was prohibited from watching the latest dancing cat videos on youtube.  My life had screeched to a halt.

I needed to fix this.  And I had to discover who my horoscope’s “returning enemy” was because the lack of an internet connection must be tied to this old enemy.  They happened on the same day, therefore they must be connected.  Hello—it was only logical.

“Hi, neighbor,” Harold said in the dark morning, poking his 86-year-old head over our shared fence.  His eyes peered into our kitchen through the open door.

“You’re an early riser, Harold.”  I looked at him closely, my eyes shrinking to a squint.  He was old but was he the enemy?

“I understand your internet is out—”

“How did you know?” I said suspicion rising in my voice.  Ah-ha!  Harold was the enemy!  I flicked on the porch lamp, which flooded his face with a jolt of light.  He blinked from the brightness.   “Harold, what did you do to the wires? ”

“Nothing.  I—I didn’t do nothing.”  He shook his head. 

“Then how did you know my internet was out?”

“Because, ‘cause mine is, too,” he stammered.

“Likely story,” I shook my head.  “I’m calling our service provider.”

“I already did.  They can’t come out until next week—”  

“Forget it.  I’ll handle this.”  I said reaching for my phone.  With the door closed, I considered the facts: Harold had thwarted me in the past but if he too lacked an internet connection, he couldn’t be the cause of my internet outage nor could he be “my returned enemy”.

I dialed Time-Warner and spent the next 40 minutes punching the keypad in response to the menu voice-prompts.  There is a special circle of hell reserved for voice-prompts and it’s located between Hoarders and Thieves because they hog up my time as they steal my patience.  Maybe voice-prompt menus were my returning enemy…  Although it didn’t explain how a voice prompt could disconnect my internet.  Horoscopes were mental puzzles!

When I finally got a live human, “Bob” told me, “there isn’t an outage problem in your area.”

“Then tell me why my neighbor and I don’t have an internet connection.”

“Coincidence?” Bob asked.  “Whatever?  We’ll have someone there in 6 days to check it out?”  Since Bob was asking me questions with his Valley Girl rising tone, I said “No”, which convinced him to send a technician to my house that day.

Ahhh, the benefits of dealing with people who ask questions?  Over those who make statements.

A smiling Rafael of Time-Warner arrived in his bucket truck and after climbing the pole determined that Harold and I were right.  We lacked an internet connection in our homes.  Perhaps Rafael was my returning enemy?  Impossible, I’d never met him before and besides, with his big, white smile, he couldn’t know the meaning of “enemy”. 

Instead Rafael found something—a part of the black Time-Warner cable had a hole in it.

“A squirrel chewed through it,” he said pointing to the now exposed, plastic white wire.

My old enemy had returned!  It was the squirrel, the one I had stopped from eating our apricots!  I considered the rodent’s cunningness.  He’d come back, weeks later, with a vendetta.

“Squirrels chewing though cables, that never happens,” I said.

“Oh, it happens all the time,” Rafael said replacing the cable.

“But this chew-through, it’s particularly bad,” I said peering around my yard for the varmint. 

“Nope, it’s just standard,” he smiled as I slumped.  He continued, “actually the unique thing about this chew-through is how small it is.  It knocked out connectivity to just two houses: yours and the neighbor’s.”

“It’s like the squirrel was getting revenge on me,” I said my eyes expanding, my breath coming fast.  “Like he wanted to get me back after I deprived him of my apricots!  But I showed him!  Yes, I did!”

“Uh, sure,” Rafael said leaping into his truck and racing off.

For having a brain the size of a walnut, this squirrel was a worthy foe.  It knew revenge was a dish best served cold.  Well, Ha! squirrel!  You couldn’t eat my apricots and you couldn’t keep me disconnected from watching cat videos.  I wiiin!

Squirrel 1; New House Girl 2

Even though the horoscope had been right about my day, I still thought horoscopes were overly dramatic and super silly.  Like, right?

Bird of Paradise

The Bird of Paradise plant spends most of the summer green but as the nights have gotten cooler, the orange blooms have popped out in full force.

I love the structure of this plant!

The Cat Gets an F

“Jackson is looking for a friend,” I said pointing to the cat seated before the French doors.

“Hmm,” Mr. Wonderful said.

“I bet he misses that opossum we had in the house.”

“Then he’s dumber than I thought.”

After Jackson narrowly escaped being sliced open by a wild opossum, he sank into a depression, which he coped with by sleeping a lot.  Instead of his daily rest of 22 hours, he was now sawing wood 24/7, which was 8 hours more than usual.  Give or take.

Through his depressed state I still fed Jackson, still cleaned his litter box, still played with him after work and yet… he barely noticed me.  Despite several months of living with us he remained aloof by refusing to let me pick him up, to cuddle him or to come when I called his name.  All of these facts just confirmed for me that our cat was indeed male.  Clearly some gender behaviors crossed species lines. 

However if he barely tolerated me he completely ignored my husband refusing to even purr for Mr. Wonderful.  Apparently there are some aspects—like my husband’s wonderfulness in handling a saw, drill and Phillip’s screwdriver—that didn’t translate across species lines. 

So Mr. Wonderful and I did the only thing we could—we left.  He took a business trip and I, gentle readers, went to the rodeo.  Yee-Ha!  We left Jackson and The House in the care of our houseguest and crossed our fingers. 

Matt, my cousin’s kid, was staying with us while looking for an L.A. place of his own and Jackson was looking for a friend.  It seemed like destiny that they should spend the weekend together.  Besides after caring for an unfriendly cat, we needed a break.

My sister joined me at the Reno, Nevada rodeo and what a treat!  Where else but Reno can you watch real cowboys rope calves in the shadow of glassy downtown skyscrapers?   Well you can in Denver, Houston, Tucson and just about everywhere else west of the Mississippi River.  But who’s counting?

The Reno rodeo was for "Californios" who are the original cowboys of the region encompassing California, Nevada, Utah and Fornios who actively worked on ranches herding and roping cattle.  Judging from the merchant booths some Californios also herded turquoise jewelry and roped freshly squeezed lemonade. 

The rodeo events included the jobs that cowboys do on the ranch like lassoing, roping and sitting on their horses looking handsome.  If I were judging that last event it would have been a tie among every Californio present.  No one looks more handsome on a horse than a real cowboy.  Although I’d never tell Mr. Wonderful that.

A definite highlight of our trip was seeing the one and only Buck Brannaman in person performing at the rodeo and strolling around the casino.  Buck is the original horse whisperer even working as a consultant on Robert Redford’s movie, "The Horse Whisperer".  He’s forged a career helping scared, emotionally damaged horses unfit to be ridden become calm, confident creatures eager to work with a rider.  They even made a documentary film about Buck and his horsework called "Buck".  In the movie something he said stuck with me: “Why let an animal live in fear?  Why not fix it?”

Watching Buck compete in the ring I noticed how the horse trusted him.  How they worked together as one, which made me think of… our cat.  In the family of emotions, fear and sadness are cousins.  Jackson was sad; sad from losing his original owner who’d found him as a days-old kitten and raised him; sad for having to leave her West Hollywood condo; sad for losing his other two cat pals.  Although Mr. Wonderful and I lived in a suburban house in the Valley where he was an only feline, I still wanted to provide a happy home to this kitty.  I wanted us to be friends

Maybe I could fix Jackson with some cat whispering?

After 48 hours of cowboys I returned to Los Angeles and The House.  Jackson greeted me at the front door.  He meowed—for more kibble.  I replenished his bowl.  He meowed—for attention.  I stroked his coat.  Then he walked around my legs circling them like a lasso before he stopped, setting his paw on top of my foot.  It was a very sweet thing to do—in any species—because it showed that Jackson was happy to see me.

“Finally,” I whispered to him.  “We’re friends!”

September Pool

It's after Labor Day but here in Los Angeles summer lingers until Halloween and if we're lucky, Christmas.  So I'm still wearing white, still barbecuing and still swimming in the pool.  I just have to push the bougainvillea blossoms out of the way.

I hope you're having a great weekend!

Opossum Invasion

“Nightfall is beautiful,” I said dipping my bare foot in the swimming pool.  “It means—”

“Work is over,” Mr. Wonderful said clinking his wine glass to mine. 

“Look at the moon.  Look at its reflection in the pool.”

“Look at the opossum.  Look at it enter our house!”

As my husband and I lollygagged in the backyard calmly gazing at our house with its open French doors, a wild opossum waddled past the new pool filter gate and right inside our living room.  Now don’t get me wrong: I pick up trash at the park, I feed the hummingbirds, I donate to the World Wildlife Foundation but I like nature where it belongs.  Wild and outside.  Having an opossum in my house was too much wild nature, way too up close and personal for me.

I slugged the wine—for courage—then raced inside after Mr. Wonderful.  The lights burned in the living room, the kitchen, the bedrooms.  The whole house was illuminated like a Christmas tree during an electrical storm, which dumbfounded me as to why a nocturnal animal would choose to enter a bright house in the first place.  Maybe the opossum was confused, sick or tired of wild nature. 

On the plus side, all the lights made it easy to find the wild, black and white critter hiding under a bookcase in the guest bedroom. 

“Get the cat,” Mr. Wonderful said pointing to the intruder.  “He needs to fight this opossum.”

Thinking our shy, pampered, indoor cat would volunteer to attack a wild opossum made me realize that Mr. Wonderful was confused, sick or hadn’t drunk enough wine. 

I handed Mr. Wonderful a broom then scanning the house found Jackson nibbling kibble from his food bowl.  Sensing the excitement Jackson sauntered through the dining room and kitchen and plopped down in the hallway well out of the path of the opossum. 

“Jackson wasn’t raised on the wild plains of the Serengeti but in a West Hollywood condo,” I said.  “The only thing he’s going to attack is his catnip toy.”

Taking matters into our own hands, I grabbed a foamcore board to block off the open doorways.  Mr. Wonderful used the broom to steer the opossum out from under the furniture and into the hallway, which was right where Jackson lay—like the Queen of Sheba.

Seeing Jackson’s ample black and white body blocking his path to the great outdoors, the opossum stopped in its tracks.  The cat tilted his head at the opossum, which was just half the feline’s size.  The opossum opened its mouth to hiss and our fearless cat… playfully rolled over exposing his belly to the stranger.  I gasped.  One swipe from the wild critter’s claws would split our cat’s belly in two.  

Realizing Jackson was as fierce as dental floss, the opossum scurried past him into the night. 

Quickly we closed every door—French, sliders and kitty.  Jackson looked through the glass pane and meowed for the mean opossum to return.  Yes, our cat was confused, sick and totally lacking in brain cells. 

Or was Jackson so hungry for the companionship of other animal friends that he missed the opossum? 

Labor Day

Today kicks off Labor Day weekend, which means I plan on doing absolutely nothing.  Except: swimming, cooking, eating, grilling, baking, eating, running, rehearsing a play and... eating.

This weekend is perfect for chicken grilled with our home grown tomatoes and thyme.

Happy Labor Day!

Losing Lavender

“Summertime,” I said reclining on the outdoor lounger.

“Hmm,” Mr. Wonderful said from his garden chair.

“Look at our geraniums, the bird of paradise, the rosemary—” 

“Hmm.”

“Everything’s gorgeous and blooming!”

“Not the dead lavender.”

“What?!”

I first experienced lavender traveling through the South of France with Mr. Wonderful.  Together we witnessed the endless fields blanketing the region in a purple haze and lending the air a sweetly clean fragrance.  It was there that we fell in love… with lavender.  For our honeymoon we returned to the South of France to confirm our love… for lavender.  After spending those blissful weeks together we knew it would be a lifetime love affair…with lavender.

Lucky for us Southern California’s climate was similar to that of the South of France, minus the French snobs.  Instead we had Hollywood OMG wanna-bes.  Life's full of trade-offs. 

Horticulturalists call our SoCal region “Lavender and Lazy”, which comes from their planting recommendations: 1) You plant lavender; 2) You do nothing to it ever again.  Lazy is me!  What a fun garden plan!  Vive la lavande!  After we bought The House I ripped out a whole garden bed and replanted it with lavender—an entire bed of only lavender.  Just sniffing the air transported me back to our honeymoon where we fell madly in love…with lavender. 

The plants grew in the spring and thrived until June, which is exactly when we added one more lavender plant to the bed.  That lone plant came from the nursery with some brown stems on it.  Mr. Wonderful said the brown would go away with some watering.  By August the brown stems had overtaken the entire loner plant, and spread to six others transforming them into tumbleweed skeletons.  Worst of all was that the brown was creeping toward our remaining 10 healthy plants.

OMG.  I needed a fix.  Fast. 

Online I found websites dedicated to the plant, like Lavenders-B-Us.com, which had an active community of lavender lovers who posted hourly updates about their purple plants with Instagram photos.  When I explained my dead situation and how it was spreading, the site’s posters all said the same thing, “You’re watering too much.”

“Impossible”, I said under my breath then read on—

“Maine summers are moist—”  Maine?!  I stopped in my tracks.  Maine’s rainy climate is ideal for growing rocks, in fact some of the finest rocks in North America are grown there.  But not lavender.  Scouring the website I noticed that everyone posting on Lavenders-B-Us resided along the Atlantic coast where a “Summer” in Maine was like the wettest winter in Southern California.  And a “Winter” in Maine was a dark, cold, frightful nightmare.  There’s a reason Stephen King lived and wrote in Maine and not sunny southern California. 

After another Google search I found a California gardener’s website specifically for southern California lavender.  In answer to my problem every gluten-free person posting on that site said the same thing, “You’re watering too little.” 

“Impossible,” I said biting into my gluten-free hummus pita-wrap sandwich. 

“Southern California summers are hot—”  I know but they are the same type of dry, hot summers that have been happening in the Mediterranean region for thousands of years.  Watering too little?  When was the last time anyone read a story of Zeus or Hercules where they watered their lavender?  How about in The Iliad or The Odyssey—neither one mentioned watering lavender because lavender was ideally suited to the bone dry, hot summers Italy, Greece and Turkey have known since before Zeus, Homer or Jesus ever picked up a garden trowel.

Besides Mr. Wonderful and I used a drip hose on the lavender.  They got the water they needed. 

No, another problem was afflicting my lavender and the answer originated with one root.  The loner plant we brought home from the nursery had been tainted with a virus condition called “Wilt”, which was described as a “rapid wilting, browning and dying to lavender plants during the month of August.”  The only method to deal with Wilt was to remove the infected plants, the soil surrounding them and burn them.

Who said planting lavender was lazy?  Or gardening was fun?

This week I put on my gloves, gripped the shovel and removed the (now) 12 infected plants plus the surrounding soil.  Without them my lavender garden resembled a scorched volcano site; not the frolicking grounds of Greek gods, mythological heroes or French snobs. 

What I would give to see a French snob in my garden!

Not all love stories end happily.  I fell in love with lavender and… it broke my heart.  OMG.

Friday Fun--Cat

Good thing we have a swimming pool otherwise Jackson would go thirsty.

 Have a great weekend!

Addiction--Home Improvement

“After work I’m going to The Home Depot,” Mr. Wonderful said as I debated which shoes to wear to work.

“Didn’t you go there yesterday?” I said.

“I need drill bits.”

“Didn’t you buy drill bits there.  Yesterday?”

“I need some for the kitchen.”

“Didn’t you buy drill bits there. Yesterday.  For the kitchen?”

“I need more!”

My fears were confirmed.  Mr. Wonderful had an addiction of Going to The Home Depot. 

Before we moved into The House; before we bought The House; before the doctor pulled him from his mother’s womb, Mr. Wonderful was going to The Home Depot.  And Lowe’s and the Do-It Center, Orchard Supply Hardware, Anawalt Lumber, Koontz Hardware and every Mom and Pop’s Super Duper Home Improvement store in town.  If the joint smelled of cut lumber and its male employees wore aprons, Mr. Wonderful was there roaming the aisles, looking at plumbing displays and examining wood grains with a microscope.

I wasn’t using the term lightly.  I knew how serious this was.  The dictionary stated: “Addiction (noun): having a practice that is habit-forming, which gives so much pleasure to the habit-former that he forgets his wife and dreams of wearing his own orange apron.”  

It was true.  Mr. Wonderful was going to the home improvement store after work, on his lunch break, on Friday nights and staying there 'til the wee hours in the morning.  In his mind why waste time going to a club, eating dinner out or watching a movie on NetFlix?  When all he wanted to do was go to the HD and weigh the value of plastic tubing over copper.

And just like that I became a proverbial home improvement widow.  Before the proverb became my reality, I had to address his addiction or lose my husband to drill bits.  I ran to my computer and typed in “Alcoholics Anonymous 12 steps”.  I adapted them to fit Mr. Wonderful’s situation, in advance I extend my apologies to AA.org.

1) Mr. Wonderful admits he is powerless going to home improvement stores and buying materials for new projects.

2) He has come to believe that his wife is right.  Again.  Like always.

3) He must follow his wife’s advice exactly as SHE WISHES HIM TO FOLLOW IT.

4) BEFORE going to any home improvement stores, he will look in his tool shed to see if he already owns 14 Phillips screwdrivers.

 

5) He will take his wife to dinner and a comedy show.

6) He will tell his wife what a great lady she is.  (I swear she’ll really like this).

7) He will humbly ask for her forgiveness by giving her jewelry.  Rings are nice but anything sparkly will get his point across and make her very happy.

8, 9, 10) Repeat Step 7. 

11) He won’t complain when she buys another pair of shoes.  (This step has nothing to do with his addiction but it would make her life much easier.)

12) Having had a spiritual awakening because of these steps, he will carry this 12-Step message to others similarly afflicted.  And he will thank his wife for being such a great gal.

That night while organizing my shoe closet I broached his home improvement addiction and how he had to stop spending money on these House projects. 

“My addiction isn’t any worse than your shoe shopping.”

“I wear all of my shoes.”

“And I use all of my tools.”

“When did you last use that Channellock Crescent Swing Wrench thingy?”

He grabbed a shoe from my closet.  “When did you last wear this pair of hot pink pumps?”

“Three years ago with that pink dress I have with the—”  He raised his hands.

“Okay,” he said scratching his head.  “I’ll stop going to home improvement stores and buying stuff if you stop buying shoes.”

I raised my hands, scratched my head and had a spiritual awakening in the form of my own 12^th Step:

12) I liked both our addictions just as they were.  And I’ll say “Thanks” to Mr. Wonderful for being such a great guy!  

Friday Fun

If there's something I've learned in my 29 years--give or take--on this planet, it's the importance of perspective.

What appears to be a huge, scary monster...

On closer inspection, is just a small Praying Mantis insect.  

Our yard is home to several of them.  I try not to bother them because they eat the pesky insects like crickets, moths and other... Praying Mantises.  They are big into population control.  After the triple-digit heat wave this week, my garden needs all the help it can get.

Happy weekend!

Lemon Pie--Photos

Baking is a process made of elements and formed with fire.  It’s an exact science that resembles a chemical experiment more than a Jackson Pollack painting.  Although if it were a work of art, it would be a glass vase forged in the heat—practical, three dimensional and beautiful.

Baking a lemon pie is like that.  Sort of.  Here’re some photos of the process.  First slice the lemons in half.

Grate the lemon peel and add it to the pie for added flavor.

Bake.

Ta-da!  Paris on a plate.

Just Desserts!

“Looks like you’re busy,” Mr. Wonderful said getting home late from work.

“I’m making dessert,” I said over the din of my blending Kitchen Aid mixer.

“That’s a good initiative.”

“It’s for tonight.”

“A very good initiative,” he smiled peering into the mixing bowl.

“I’m making lemon pie.”

“Uh, I’m not hungry.”

Our friendly neighbors, Charles and Stephen, had gifted us homegrown lemons from their mature Meyer lemon tree.  As the saying goes when life gives you two huge bags of lemons, you make lemonade; which I did for a week.  Twenty gallons of it.  I also squeezed quarter lemon wedges on all our dinner salmon, lunch mahi mahi and Pepperidge Farms’ Goldfish cracker snacks; I even made enough of my lemon shrimp pasta to feed an army of hungry animators.  And still I had lemons left over—a bag and a half.  So making lemon pie was next on the proverbial and actual plate.

“You’re making three pies?” Mr. Wonderful said. “That’s a waste of your dessert making time.” 

“Lemon pie makes me think of that Paris café with the amazing tarte au citron where I sat, ate and watched the Left Bank world go by.”

“Paris isn’t about lemons. It’s about chocolate.”

“My Paris is about lemons.”

“Let me know when you upgrade to chocolate,” he said grabbing a bar of 72% dark chocolate and promptly left the kitchen.

To be honest I knew Mr. Wonderful was… a chocoholic.  A day didn’t go by when he did not consume chocolate in some form—milk, dark or white.  Every morning he ate more Nutella than a family of 10, combined.  To make matters worse, he was a chocolate snob preferring Ghiradelli, Swiss and above all, Belgian chocolate.  Belgians were a modest people who had mastered the art of chocolate making.  In fact making and consuming high quality chocolate was the Belgians’ way of dealing with life’s joys and disappointments, which was a philosophy Mr. Wonderful thoroughly understood.  To him a dessert needed to contain chocolate or it wasn’t dessert.  It was a side dish.

Therefore I had to find someone else to share my lemon pies with.  With three pies cooling on the pie rack, I hurried outside just as Harold was hoisting the stars and stripes on the flagpole 

“Hello, Harold!  Thanks you for all your neighborly advice,” I said.

“What do you want now?” he said with caution.

“Nothing.  I just wanted to give you a pie… as a way to thank you for everything.”

“Uh-huh—”

“It’s a lemon pie—”

“Not for me.”

“Maybe your wife, Norma, wants a piece?  I made it myself.”

“From scratch?”

“Yes,” I smiled, “the crust and everything.”

“No can do,” he said turning back to his house.

To be fair I knew Harold didn’t have… a sweet tooth.  Maybe back in the day he did but since becoming an octogenarian he was too busy power walking, lifting weights and giving me grief to enjoy anything as sweet as dessert.  I had to admit that it bruised my feelings that neither my husband nor my neighbor wanted my pies because I had made them myself; rolled out the dough; creamed the butter, sugar and lemons; and baked them in my own oven.  The result was three beautiful pies.  And no one wanted any?  What happened to all the pie eaters of the world?  Where was Kobayashi, the World Champion Eater, when my baking ego needed him?

I had to find someone to give a lemon pie to.  Sufficiently cooled, I grabbed one and ducked across the street to Charles and Stephen’s.  As Charles pulled his new jeep into the driveway I jumped out from behind the fence with a pie in my hand.

“Ahh!” he screamed.  “You scared me.”

“I wanted to thank you for all the lemons you gave us.  So I made a pie of thanks,” I said with a grin.

“How nice,” Charles said regaining his composure.  “What kind of pie?”

“A lemon pie.  Made with your lemons.”

“I’m tired of eating our lemons.”

I felt the smile fade from my face.  He must have seen it fade too because he scratched his beard and relented. 

“I’m sick of lemons but Stephen still likes them.  I’ll take it for him.”

I recovered my smile, proudly handed him the pie and retreated to our side of the street.  For the next seven days I ate a huge amount of lemon pie all on my own.  With each delicious bite I imagined myself at that café in Paris listening to accordion music, drinking coffee and flirting with my imaginary waiter en francais.  I loved every moment of my lemon-flavored Paris.  Then and there I decided never again to make pie for anyone else but me. 

My French reverie was broken by the ringing doorbell.  I opened the door to find Charles and Stephen clutching my pie pan—clean and empty.  Their enthusiastic words spilled over each other.

“Thank you for the pie!  It was delicious—”

“I’d never eaten lemon pie before—I loved it!” 

“I bet you made the crust from scratch.  It was amazing!” 

“It was like being in Paris!”

“It was better than being in Paris!”

Indeed.  Sharing good food and good times with real neighbors topped flirting with imaginary French waiters any day.  Vivez tarte au citron!  Vivez les voisins!  Vivez my Valley neighborhood! 

Cats and Houseguests—Open Doors

“I need to do laundry,” said my cousin’s 23 year-old kid and our current houseguest.

“You can use our washer and dryer,” I said pouring dry kibble into the cat’s food bowl.

“I need the… stuff,” Matt said with a yawn.

“Detergent?  You can use ours.”

“And the white… things.”

“Bounce sheets?  You can use ours.”

“And the…”

“What else?”

“Can you just… wash it for me?”

I loved having guests visit because they brought a “thank you” bottle of wine, interesting travel stories and an offer to clean up the dishes after I cooked them a homemade dinner.  Or they used to bring these things.  Now they brought dirty laundry.

My cousin’s kid was staying with us while he looked for an apartment in Los Angeles. Before owning a home Mr. Wonderful and I had rented an apartment in L.A.  When we’d first moved to America’s second largest city, the rental unit market was as tight as my belt after the ice cream diet I tried for one month.  But still we’d found an apartment in just two days.  Now with the downturn in the economy, there were so many available rentals that landlords were selling them at lemonade stand prices.  “Two Bedroom, 2 Bath palatial apartment with pool for just 25 cents”.  So I thought: no problem, Matt will find an apartment fast.  A week, at the most.  

Silly me.

As the days blended into weeks Matt stayed in the spare bedroom where his dirty laundry pile grew to something that even he couldn’t ignore.  His choices were: go buy 150 more pairs of underwear at Target.  Or do laundry.  It took him another week to decide on the latter, which is when he asked me to do his laundry.  But I didn’t want to give this young man a fish, I wanted to teach him how to fish.  Or at least show him the difference between a colored load and whites. So I marched him out to the laundry room—located in our adjacent guesthouse—and taught him how to operate the machines.  Then Mr. wonderful and I left for work.

When I got home that night I noticed several things: Matt was wearing clean clothes, he had more black concert t-shirts than a Rolling Stone groupie, he was still camped out on the sofa, he was still surfing the internet and the backdoor was wide open.  What I didn’t notice was our cat.

“Where’s Jackson?” I said pulling vegetables out of the refrigerator.

“I don’t know,” Matt shrugged.  “Hey, what’re you making for dinner?”  I stopped while reaching for the carrots. 

“What matters is: where’s our cat?”

“Haven’t seen him since...  Hey, when did I move in here?”

I choked on my tongue.  Is that what he thinks?  He’s moved in with us?  I didn’t sign up for a third roommate.  And if that’s the case he should be paying room and board.  This new information was so shocking, so disturbing, so wrong but I couldn’t allot one single brain cell to consider it.  No, I needed all ten of my brain cells to find my cat.

I darted from room to room.  I looked under the sofas, under the beds, under the floorboards.  No Jackson.  I called his name.  I rushed outside.  I checked the pool for a drowned feline.  All I found in the pool was a beach ball Matt must have used hours earlier.

I sprinted to the guesthouse and noticed its doors were wide open.  Inside the laundry room door was wide open as were the doors to the washer and dryer.  Everything was o-p-e-n and e-m-p-t-y.  Jackson was nowhere to be found.

“Matt, Jackson must have gotten out because you didn’t close any of the doors when you finished with the laundry.”

“You didn’t tell me to close doors.”

What?!  It took all the power of my few brain cells not to yell: “It’s common sense to leave things how you found them!  Just close the doors!” 

Instead I shut my mouth and searched the front yard.  I met Mr. Wonderful in the driveway and together we looked under cars, up trees and asked with the neighbors.  No one had seen him.  Now in the pitch dark night, we wouldn’t be able to see him even if we tripped over him.  

Inside I made a vegetable stir fry but couldn’t eat it.  I felt too sick to my stomach.  Matt felt bad, too, but he still ate.

Oh, Jackson, our shy kitty cat had left us.  But why?  Why did he run away?  Didn’t he like living with us?  I felt like I’d let Jackson down by leaving the doors open and encouraging him to run away.  But on second thought maybe Jackson didn’t want to be with us and when he saw the open house doors he bolted because he wanted his freedom more than he wanted to be with us in our home.  Which made me feel even worse.  Not even a six year-old adopted cat wanted my love.

I crawled into bed sad and exhausted. 

The next day I threw myself into work.  I even logged overtime to occupy my brain with something besides not being wanted by a cat.  After 12 hours I plodded to my car and arrived home late.  Looking out into the backyard I saw Mr. Wonderful walking from the dark guesthouse toward the light of our living room.  In his arms I saw a black and white fur ball.  A very scared fur ball.

“Jackson!"  I shrieked frightening him even more.  “Where did you find him?”

“In the guesthouse’s bathtub.”  Mr. Wonderful said putting Jackson on the floor.  Jackson rubbed up against Mr. Wonderful’s leg then against mine.  He weaved himself in between the two of us, back and forth, forth and back.  Deep in his throat he even purred.  Wherever he’d gone, he didn’t like it.  He’d tried living on his own for 24 hours and he found that life was better with us; with people who loved him. 

Which is how it must have been for Matt, too.  He’d graduated from his Midwest college, left his parents, traveled cross country and before he finally moved on to live all on his own in the big city of Hollywood he wanted to linger a little longer with people who cared about him. 

That night I hugged Jackson, I hugged Mr. Wonderful and I even hugged Matt.  Then with everyone in our house who should have been there that night, we ate dinner.  Together.  And it was good.

Apricots: BEFORE, DURING and AFTER

The joy of edible gardening is watching your plants flower, fruit and grow.

The pain of edible gardening is watching your plants' fruit befall heat, drought, locusts, squirrels and a myriad of other Farmer Bob problems before the darn things are ripe enough to be picked and eaten.  Case in point, our Blenheim Apricot.

BEFORE:  Here is a photo of a blossom from our apricot tree.  The fruit will form around this delicate flower.

DURING SPRING: The fruit has formed and is small, green and hard but already at this size the fruit has its distinctive apricot cleavage line.

DURING SUMMER: The fruit plumps up and softens in June.

AFTER PICKING: And after spending a week in a brown paper bag, the fruit is ripe and orange-colored with a soft rose blush.

AFTER EATING: Homegrown Apricots = delicious joy!

Please try growing these at home.  The pain is--just barely--worth it!

Squirrel Hell

“What a great party,” I said restacking the outdoor chairs, a smile spreading over my lips.

“Yes,” Mr. Wonderful said reparking the grill beside the fence.

“The sun, the food, the friends; it was perfect.”

“Yes.”

“Nothing could remove this grin from my face.”

“A squirrel is eating our apricots.”

“What!”

                                         

Back in December we’d planted several fruit trees including a Blenheim apricot.  Because I’m an impatient orchardist, we’d bought trees that were already several years old so they would bear fruit for us this summer and I was looking forward to July/August because that’s when apricots ripen in our Valley.  We’d planted our apricot tree in the backyard to protect it from hungry people passing by.  We hadn’t thought about protecting it from hungry squirrels. 

But squirrels were so cute and fluffy with big brown eyes that made my heart melt.  They wouldn’t steal our almost-ripe fruit.  I followed Mr. Wonderful’s gaze and saw eight apricots on the ground chewed through to the pit.  From the teeth marks it was undoubtedly a squirrel’s work.  Mind you, not a famished one because the fruit was only half eaten.  Instead it was the work of a slacker squirrel too lazy to chew around the apricot’s central stone pit so it just tossed the half eaten fruit aside and plucked another almost-ripe piece and hit the repeat button again.  And again.  And again. 

Just then the squirrel appeared, leapt from the neighboring tree to our apricot, plucked another half-ripe fruit right before my eyes and starting chomping away.  This one squirrel would decimate our entire crop of edible fruit before it ripened in August.  I decided: this was war!

The first stop was the Ivory Tower professionals.  The University of California had an excellent website for in-state fruit growers which suggested several time-sensitive methods to deal with squirrels.  According to its pie chart May-August was the season of glorious summer for humans and primo poison time for ground squirrels.  U of C suggested poisons—from Anticoagulants to Zinc Phosphides—be put into a bait station and Voila!  Squirrels and problem gone.  The only hitch was we had a cat who was more curious than smart.  If I put squirrel poison in my garden, I couldn’t guarantee that Jackson wouldn’t be hurt, too.  I dumped the poison option; metaphorically speaking.

Outside I saw Harold, our 86 year-old neighbor with the sparkling blue eyes.  In all his years Harold must have used some method to deal with ground squirrels, even if it was during the nicey-nice Eisenhower Administration. 

“How good a shot are you?” he asked.

“I shot skeet... in college… once—”

“You’ll need a shotgun.  Believe me you hit ‘em with lead bullets, they’ll never come back,” he said with a chuckle, which made me rethink the niceness of the Eisenhower Administration. 

“I don’t know—” I said looking for the right word to extricate myself from the conversation.

“Oh, you kids don’t want to hurt the vermin.  Then use rubber bullets.  Just don’t shoot out my windows.”

I retreated to our property.  What was wrong with me?  I had started gardening to experience the joy of growing our own food and finding harmony with nature.  And now I was contemplating poisons and guns to wipe out the natural wildlife.  When did I become a cold-hearted killer?  Weren’t the squirrels here before my apricot tree?  Before the house?  Before me?  The problem wasn't with the squirrel, it was with me.

That was it!  I couldn’t remove the squirrel but I could remove the temptation.  A friend of mine volunteered for the local arboreal organization, Tree People, where she learned that apricots are one of the few fruits that can ripen off the tree. 

That night while the squirrels slept I dressed in camouflage and snuck out of the house.  On my way to the apricot tree I tripped over 10 more pieces of half-eaten fruits.  I controlled my anger—so as not to blow my cover—plucked all the remaining fruit from our tree and tiptoed back to the safety of my kitchen encampment.  I put all the half-ripened fruit into a brown paper bag, folded the flap down and left it on the countertop. 

A week later the fragrance of ripe apricots wafted toward me as I approached the brown bag.  Opening the bag was like magic—our half green-orange fruits had transformed into orange orbs with a faint rose blush.  They were the ideal picture of what the perfect apricot looked like.  For breakfast I cut one in half and shared it with Mr. Wonderful on the back patio.  The flavor was sweet, juicy and perfect.  It was the ideal taste of what the perfect apricot was. 

From the table outside I watched the squirrel leap onto our apricot tree looking for fruit.  He didn’t find anything except, on the ground, the pit of the delicious apricot we’d completely eaten.

Squirrel—0; New House Girl—1       

Barbecue Success!

What a perfect weekend for a barbecue.  Well, most weekends in Southern California are perfect for a barbecue and this was no exception. These were the ingredients:  


One Part Potato Salad.  I make my potato salad with a combination of olive oil and mayonnaise, which prevents the potatoes from being too heavy in your mouth.  Later they’ll still stick to my hips but I’ll swim them off...  Maybe.  Also I add cucumber and celery to give a crispy crunch to the salad so your palate remains curious.  Will this bite be crispy, crunchy or smooth...?

Plus One Part Veggie Skewers.  Hot off the grill.  I know the veggies are ready when the wooden skewers are burnt.  Not charred, just a little burnt.  

Plus One Part Apple Pie.  Homemade crust paired with home sliced apple wedges.  Because every pan I owned was full of chips, dip or salad, I made this crust—without a pan—just by forming a lazy circle with the dough, arranging the apple slices inside and baking it on a cookie sheet.  It was delicious.

Oh yeah, plus The Pool. 

Equals Success!

Barbecues and Watermelon

Summertime was made for barbecues.  Barbecues were made for desserts.  And dessert demands watermelon.

But not any old melon will do.  It has to be seedless--if you're a neat eater; or seeded--if you don't mind spitting in front of friends.  Most of all a melon has to have heart.

Our barbecue's dessert watermelon fit the bill.

Happy Barbecuing!

Tomato Salads!

Our vegetable garden is bursting with produce.  Every day the cherry tomato plants are giving us bowls full of red tomatoes.  Yesterday I made lettuce salads with mozzarella di Bufala cheese topped with our homegrown tomatoes and basil.  I could taste the sunshine in the tomatoes.

 

Today I'll make tomato, cucumber and feta salads for dinner.  

Tomorrow it'll be tomatoes topped with tomatoes and a side helping of tomatoes.

I love summer!

Kitchen Redo--Step 4 No Woman is an Island

“How’s that?” Mr. Wonderful said while on one bended knee.

“More,” I said standing over him.

"How about now?"

"Another 10 inches."

"I just gave you 14 inches.  Twice."

"Give me 20 more and we'll call it even.”

After weeks of plans, work and countless decisions on our kitchen remodel finally we’d reached question #1,367: Do we build an island?  Or not?  To help us decide Mr. Wonderful was on the kitchen floor with a roll of masking tape outlining the size of our potential island.  It was as if we were homicide detectives chalking out the lay of a dead body; except our taped outline didn’t have arms, legs or bloody gunshot wounds. 

Yet.

Currently our kitchen floor plan had all the cabinets lining the perimeter walls leaving the room’s center empty, making the space as warm and cozy as an Olympic ice skating rink.

I felt we should take advantage of the openness and break up the space with an island that could double as a work station, storage bin and home water cooler.  I could see it now: I’d slice dinner and store all my Tupperware in organized stacks while swapping gossip with Mr. Wonderful over a glass of rosso on our exotic kitchen island.  How romantic.

Meanwhile Mr. Wonderful wanted to keep the space as it was: big enough for an ice skater and her partner to do four triple axels—at the same time.  However by getting him to tape out the outline of a possible island meant that maybe, just maybe, I could sway his opinion.  My goal: to make the taped outline a three dimensional island.  My plan: A-ttaaack!

“Hello…?  Anyone home?” a cheery feminine voice wafted on the breeze before our blond, 50-something neighbor leapt into our kitchen. 

“Hi, Mary,” I said.  “Come in—”

“Already am!” she said with a smile so warm it could melt glaciers, which actually just might be the cause of global warming because she smiled a lot.  Every time I saw her, in fact.  I wondered if GreenPeace and the EPA knew about Mary’s grinning warmth?  I decided not to tell them because her smiles were too gracious to miss.

“You remember Mike,” she said pointing to the gray-haired man beside her.

We did.

“They’re redoing their kitchen,” she said to her husband.

We were.

“Mike’s the one to call for a remodel,” she said.   “He’s a contractor contactor and can organize your redo if you don’t want to.”

We wanted to and were currently doing it.

“He’s really busy but really good,” she added. 

At this point I realized neither Mr. Wonderful nor Mike nor I needed to be here.  Mary was running all sides of the conversation on her own.  Like a homicide detective on “Law & Order”, she had all the best—and worst—lines. 

“Thanks,” I said smiling at her.  “But we’ve got it covered.” 

“If I were doing this job,” Mike said, “I’d start by getting rid of this gunk,” and in one fell swoop he yanked our tape outline off the floor.

“My island!” I shrieked. 

“An island?  Here?” Mary said smiling.  “Don’t do it, you’ll just clutter up the room.”

“See?” Mr. Wonderful said raising an eyebrow at me.

I needed to tell them about my island envy.  How through my kitchen remodel research I’d discovered Americans spent six hours a day watching television and 39 hours of that day in the kitchen, which made for a long day.  I also learned that when a hostess was in her kitchen cooking, entertaining or burning the creme brulé her guests wanted to be three feet away from her—or less.  We were cook entertainers so I needed a place where the guests could congregate that was close to me but not in my hair.

Instead all I mustered was, “I want an island.” Before stamping my foot.

Mary tossed us a gorgeous smile then said, “Don’t put in an island, you’ll just clutter up the room,”  

What did she know about clutter?  Then she and Mike hurried out to drive their three kids to soccer, ballet and oboe practices. 

I saw her warning words seeping into Mr. Wonderful’s brain.  I needed to act fast.  I rushed out to the guesthouse, grabbed several boxes of books and returned to the kitchen where I stacked them 3½ feet tall and 2½ feet wide to mimic the size and height of an island.  Unlike the outline taped to the floor, now I could feel this island’s heft and space requirements.  This was the way to test drive an island!

Before I could show it to Mr. Wonderful I saw a bearded man through the window approaching our house.

“Hey, neighbors,” Charles said lugging two large shopping bags, “I brought you Meyer lemons.” Charles and his spouse, Stephen, lived across the street from us and their walled garden was as lush as Eden.  Boy, those guys knew fruit.  Their pomegranate trees were ripe with red globes, their grapefruits laden with fruit the size of volleyballs and their orange trees had more vitamin C than all of California and Florida—combined.  Now our neighbors wanted to share their citrus wealth with us.

“How beautiful!  Put them right here,” I said patting my makeshift island. 

“Let me move the junk,” Charles said grabbing all the boxes from my island and—before I knew it—lining them up against the wall.  He was so quick and efficient he put our professional movers to shame. 

“Charles,” I said, “that’s my kitchen island!”

“You’re putting an island here?” he said followed by a long whistle.  “I wouldn’t, you’ll just clutter up the room.”  Right then Mr. Wonderful entered the room.

“See?” Mr. Wonderful said raising both eyebrows at me. 

“You don’t need an island or its clutter,” Charles said.  I saw Mr. Wonderful nod his head in agreement.  I watched him dig in his “no island” heels.

My big island plans were faltering.  Before my romantic isle became deserted, I needed to make a bold move.  I raced to Ikea and bought a butcher’s bock table.  It had a solid wood top for chopping and two open shelves perfect for stacking Tupperware.  I unloaded it from the car and set it in the middle of our kitchen.  No more makeshift, fake islands.  I now had the next best thing to a built-in island: a real, three-dimensional table.

At least this time no one could mistake the table in the middle of our room for anything but an island.  I had to show it to Mr. Wonderful!  In the meantime I started dinner.  I opened the refrigerator door, which hit my island table.  I slid the table way from the frig but moving around the island I bumped into the built-in counter bruising my hip.  I washed the salad at the sink then carried the wet lettuce to the island—sloshing water across the floor as I went. Turning back to the stovetop I slipped on the lettuce water puddle and hit my funny bone.

“Whoa!  The island looks great,” Mr. Wonderful said upon entering. “I needed to see it.”

“I needed to, too.”

“You were right—”

“No, you were,” I said.  Our kitchen was large but putting an island in the middle of it would torpedo the spacious feeling and just clutter it up. 

Mr. Wonderful looked at me with raised eyebrows ready to scream bloody murder.  And he would have too if I hadn't said the magic words: “You were right.”  I repeated them. 

“Thank you,” he said.”

“Thank you,” I said hugging him.

We deserted our island, avoided the clutter and bypassed dead bodies.  Then we squeezed some lemonade.  It wasn't exotic or romantic but it sure was sweet.