Neighborly crocus!

I struggled with what to call this entry. It’s a mishmash of stuff really. I’m sure you are wondering how it all goes together. Truth is; it doesn’t!

Alex continues to improve daily. Tomorrow I don’t think I am even going to give him the same amount of pain medications.  Tonight I will start weaning him off and within a few days he will no longer need them. I don’t think he needs them now but I don’t want to stop him, shall we say, cold turkey.

I won’t be here tomorrow. I have to report to jury duty!*** Blech. I’ve never had to do this before and I am not looking forward to. Especially since I have to drive down to Paterson (not a pleasant place) to do it. I will no doubt spend the day in the selection room with a bunch of other potential jurors waiting around. I hope they see something in me that they don’t want in a juror and sent me packing. I am taking my iPad and a good book.

I am doubly not happy as the weather is truly glorious and will continue so during this week. Not a week I want to spend inside a stuffy courthouse!

Not in my yard but neighbor Luke’s. I love the striping.

My guest room do-over is now on hold until I know about this jury thing. Last week it was Alex; this week jury duty. Excuses, excuses. But really, I can’t move forward unless I am home. Very frustrating but I’m sure it will all sort itself out.

If you live in the U.S. and have been watching the news lately, you are familiar with the term “pink slime.” It’s a by-product of beef that has had the fat spun down out of it and ammonia added in to the whole (rather) digesting mix. This process is widely used (who knew?) in ground beef aka hamburger.

Now, I have to admit that one of my favorite meals is a really good hamburger. I might have to rethink that. When we make our trips back to Colorado/Wyoming for our cabin trips we are always struck by just how good the hamburger we buy at the grocery tastes. Like real beef.

With that in mind we set out to grind our own chuck yesterday. We bought a chuck roast at the Market Basket in Franklin Lakes (stomping grounds of the Real Housewives of New Jersey), unearthed the meat grinder and ground our own “hamburger.”

In the second photo please notice the dog (not in focus) in the background. You can just make out the blaze. It’s Alex.

The whole grinding process got attention. (Bella in front; Alex in back)

No pink slime here — guaranteed! The hamburgers were delicious! None of my photos came out and I think that was because I was so excited to eat it that I didn’t have the patience to get the shot right. You’ll just have to imagine in your mind’s eye how wonderful it looked and how good it tasted.

If you don’t hear from me for a few days you’ll know I’m being held captive at the Passaic County Courthouse!

***Actually as I am typing this entry I don’t know for certain that I will in fact have to report to Jury Duty tomorrow, but since my Juror number is 0004 I am guessing they won’t cut it off at Juror 0003. It’s a given I will have to show up.

The week in-between Christmas and New Year’s is always an odd one. Rick used to get the whole week off back when he worked for HP/Agilent but it was mostly because they were trying to be cheap and it was without pay. I always loved having him home, watching movies and playing video games that we’d gotten for Christmas. This week he is working but shorter days.

This week also, without fail, includes my birthday which was yesterday. Having a birthday at this time of year is not always easy or fun. Everything comes at once. But, after all these years I am used to it. I never get stinted for gifts on my birthday. My Mom made sure of that, and my dear husband is the same way. I got an iPad 2! I’ve had an iPad for about a year and a half now and just love it. I’ve been drooling over the “2” since they came out. It has features that the first one didn’t have. And just look at it’s super cute folding cover!

Also for my birthday my two neighbors pretty much kidnapped me and took me out to lunch. I didn’t even know where we were going! The restaurant was great and one I had never been to before. We sat and shared a glass of wine and all our food choices were excellent. On top of buying my lunch they also gave me gifts! What a treat! Part of my gift from neighbor Aileen was this sweet package of fresh eggs from her chickens. The blue-green ones are from her new araucana chickens that just started laying. Almost too pretty to eat!

It hardly seems possible that just one week ago I picked my sister and her hubby up at the train station. Time flies by, doesn’t it? We had a good Christmas. We ate and tried out some new and quite delicious recipes. We drank (but not too much). We played video games and my sister beat us all at bowling with a grand score of 195. We all enjoyed each other’s company.

Also in-between is our weather. Winter has yet to arrive in our part of the country. Just the other day we had nearly two inches of rain. Again. Enough with the rain! It hasn’t really been cold enough to freeze the ground either so everything comes up muddy. Today I think it’s supposed to struggle to get above freezing which will be a welcome change to our 40’s and 50’s. C’mon Mother Nature! I have a new coat that I’m dying to wear and it needs to be cold!

By the way, remember this fox? Neighbor Kim pointed out to me yesterday at lunch that she thinks it was not in fact a fox but a coyote. She said there was an article in the paper about how many coyotes were around now and how to identify them. The more I thought about it and the more I looked at the photos again, I realized she was right. It just might be a coyote. I’m just not used to seeing them around here although we did have one a a few years ago. To see it, follow this link.  Tell me what you think!

Anyway, no real news to impart here, just wanted to catch up.

On Wednesday Rick took some time off work and we drove in to the city a little earlier than our dinner reservation to view the tree in Rockefeller Plaza.

A few months back I had purchased vouchers on Rue NYC to the restaurant Butter. (Rue La La is an online discounted designer site. They recently added Rue NYC and about four times per week or so I get discounted offers to restaurants, spas, etc. in New York City.)
The executive chef at Butter is one that Rick and I both are acquainted with from both our private screening of Chopped being filmed, and from watching the Food Network: Alex Guarnaschelli.

The vouchers were for a prix-fixe three course menu with wine pairings:

Cured Wild Salmon, Meyer Lemon Confit, Red Thumb Potatoes and Caviar :
Foxglove Chardonnay, 2010

Dark Chocolate Cake, Creme Fraiche Ice Cream and Spiced Almond Brittle : Eilo Perrone Moscato D’Asti

I was so excited to tell you about the food that I am getting ahead of myself! First on to what we did before we ate.

We drove in to the city, leaving our house at around 2:30 p.m. The traffic was heavy and we finally arrived at the parking garage across the street from Butter at close to 4:00 p.m. We found the Subway and got on the B train uptown to Rockefeller Center, a ride of about 15 minutes. We walked out from all the subterranean shopping right next to the tree.

To us it looked smaller than the previous time we’ve seen it. It was very crowded in the plaza! Here are some scenes.

The ice skating rink (which had a line a mile long waiting to skate). Sorry for the blurry skaters but it’s hard taking photos at night when people are in motion.

A toy soldier.

Angels you have heard on high and the Rockefeller building.

Everyone was watching the ticking down of this clock projected on this building.

No one seemed to know what was going to happen. When time ran out a little movie began to play on the side of the building with bubbles floating up to pop against snowflakes. Okay, it was fun to watch but what was the point? We soon found out.

That building happened to be Saks Fifth Avenue and the little movie tied in with their window displays. A very odd little story played out window by window about different people and methods of making bubbles. The bubbles once made were routed up and out to the side of the building and let loose. Here are a few of the windows.

Not your normal Christmas fare! If we hadn’t walked over to look at the window displays the little movie would never had made any sense, or for that matter, the window displays would not have made sense either!

We then found our way back to our restaurant and arrived ahead of schedule. They were able to seat us anyway. The seating was intimate and by that I don’t mean we were off in a corner by ourselves. Other than the larger parties seated at booths around the sides of the dining room, most two person tables were placed within a few inches of each other. This led to interesting conversations with the people seated around us and also for delicate eavesdropping and observations.

The people across the way were doing a full tasting menu and were collecting glasses of wine quicker than they could drink them. There table was nothing but wine glasses! When their third course arrived and it was foie gras, I oohed and ahhhed. One man offered to trade me his foie gras for my steak. Who ever said New Yorkers were snobs?

The meal was delicious. Before our first course they brought out another course “compliments of the chef” that was a cream of butternut squash soup with a tiny bowl of popcorn on the side. I put some in as croutons, but the popcorn was better eaten on the side. It added a nice saltiness to the cream of the soup. Rick and I both decided to have the steak and I think we made a good choice. The steak was so huge I had to bring most of mine home. It was on a bed of braised baby carrots and what we think was bok choy. The steak had an almost-but-not-quite-burnt crust on it—delicious!! A glass of wine with each coarse was perfect and they matched the food well.

I asked our waiter if Chef Guarnaschelli was in the house and he said she was not. I wanted to know if the food we were eating had been overseen by her, but such was not the case that night. Probably off filming more Food Network segments!

We were home by 10:00 p.m. after a very enjoyable evening. Lucky girl, aren’t I to live so close to NYC?

I have more exciting events coming up that I can’t wait to share with you (one that requires me to go shopping for a “gown” for a black tie event in Beverly Hills!!) but that will have to wait until another day. Stay tuned ...

We did take Mia out for a ride yesterday after working in the yard blowing and picking up the final leaves. (And, duh, I didn’t take my camera so you will just have visualize this.)

It’s obvious that the weather is changing. Even though the thermometer read 60 degrees F, the sun was veiled by a thin layer of clouds making it feel not quite that warm. Plus, the smell of wood smoke from house chimneys as we drove along and the bare trees reminded us that it was not summer anymore. Even the very air itself feels different, expectant. Almost like at any moment it was thinking of switching the season over from autumn to winter.  I can’t fully describe it, but it’s there.

We passed a house we’ve gone by many a time on our route the back way to and from Warwick that has a large in-ground pool. Now they’ve converted their pool into a hockey ice rink!

Our main destination was the Warwick Valley Winery for lunch. I’ve mentioned before that we’ve eaten there many times over the summer. They have a wonderful café but it’s only open on the weekends. We ordered our lunch (grilled steak sandwich with truffle scented caramelized onions and gorgonzola cheese for Rick; duck confit sandwich for me with melted brie, cranberry chutney and arugula), bought and opened a bottle of wine to drink. I always want to order their mussels in white wine but the idea of duck confit had me at hello. Anything duck: foie gras, confit, just plain old duck ... Next time it will be the mussels!

We wanted to buy some apple cider from one of the local apple picking spots (of which there are four in Warwick alone), so that is where we headed next. We had heard that Och’s Orchard has “the best,” so that is where we went. I’m not sure that Mia has ever had her feet on a real dirt road before as we try to avoid them whenever we can, but this one was an exception. Up the hill with farm fields dotted with rolled up bales of hay we went. We even drove over some cow manure that had been spilled in the road. Really, Mia! With the trees laid bare of their leaves it was now possible to see the beautiful undulating layers of swells and hills. Such a beautifully situated farm and orchard!

When we got to the top of the dirt road we passed the farm house and barn where several cats lay sunning themselves. Freshly laundered sheets hung on the clothesline in the yard. We were wondering if we had just driven into someone’s private driveway when we rounded the corner and the farm store came into view. When we went inside all we could smell were apples and apple cider doughnuts! Intoxicating! Many different kinds of apples were for sale in wooden quart containers. Some were labeled as “home grown” and some just “local.” I picked some Jonamac that were home-grown and smelled delicious. I was tying to avoid the apple cider doughnuts but Rick found them and put a half dozen in a bag. sigh. They are a seasonal treat around here so why not enjoy them?

They had fresh pie fillings in a plastic tube made from their own fruits: blueberry, apricot, blackberry and more. They even had big cheese pumpkins (the kind used for cooking and baking) that we’ve been searching for this year and could not find for making our annual pumpkin soup, but these were too big to fit in the oven! They still had some vegetables for sale too—even brussels sprouts on the stalk.

I think we’ll be coming back here again. Maybe for the strawberry U-pick-yourself season? All in all, a pleasant lunch and outing with Mia.

This morning we did a little grocery shopping and then took the dogs to the dog park and let them run around like crazy. Alex decided that at the grand old age of 9 he was really meant to be an agility dog and went up the A-frame with very little coaxing. Several times! He even went through a tunnel. Go figure! Bella loves to chase any dog that runs and there were plenty of those today so she got the best workout of all of them. Hailey just trots around looking for people to scratch her butt. Then we came home to make lunch.

Today for lunch we drank these: Apple Cider Mimosas.

Half champagne (we used Prosecco) and half apple cider with an apple piece floating in it. Yummy!

I made these roasted pears which were basted with a honey mustard and olive oil sauce topped with melted brie and chopped pistachios. Also yummy!

Hope your weekend was a good one!

The other morning this was all that was left as color on our burning bush hedge. I think the colors have intensified with the frosts we’ve had the past week. It was grey outside so the leaves took on their own persona. Pretty.

Early morning shadows on the back deck.

Our weather station was not recording rainfall amounts anymore after more than 15 years of hard service. It drove us crazy not knowing how much rain we got this past week. So, for Christmas we bought a new one. It was supposed to be saved and wrapped and put under the tree but we just couldn’t stand it any longer. Rick got it installed yesterday. Here is Sam having fun with the box. Sam does love his boxes!

Our turkey came out looking and tasting wonderful! In fact, our whole meal was one of the better Thanksgiving feasts we’ve ever tasted.

Bella and Alex thought the turkey looked awfully good too! Mom, are we getting any?

Our weekend weather is supposed to be glorious—sunny and in the 60’s so we are thinking Ms. Mia is definitely going for a drive. It might be the last chance for weather this incredible. After that it can snow a little if it wants to get us all in the Christmas mood.

We still need to run Johnny over the yard one more time for a final leaf pick-up, then he can be switched out to the snowblower. Right now it’s hard to imagine!