- homemade limeade, skimpy tank top, and dancing around to Harry Belafonte songs.

- fresh crisp sheets at the end of a long hot day.

- an evening at the movies, giggling as Ponyu runs across the waves.

- our dim little apartment, which stays somewhat cool even on a sweltering day.

- the little black sundress I bought at a salvage sale last year, and which I wear at least once a week in hot weather. That was six bucks well spent.

- noticing that this batch of homemade focaccia tastes, feels, and smells so amazingly much better than even the nicest store-bought bread. Well worth turning on the oven.

- tapenade.

- surprising The Fella, home from a late night at work, with a cold midnight supper.

- drawing a cool half-bath, gingerly climbing in, and then turning the faucet all the way over to COLD.

- Watching snowy-cold movies: Fargo, Cold Fever, The Shining.

But here’s where the complaining stops, for the moment at least.

Tonight, I’ll put on my comfiest, raggediest sweater and curl up with a book and a bowl of cream of tomato soup. Usually, July’s scorching heat means I can’t enjoy warm comfort foods. Mmm, tommmmmmatoes and cream.

Today, I got to wear boots! Honest-to-goodness boots, waterproof and warm and up to my knee! My back loves it when I wear boots, and normally by July, I’m resigned to less comfortable sandals.

Thunderstorms! We love thunderstorms.

It’s good weather for cooking, for breadbaking, for making six pounds of wedding cookies, for standing by the kitchen sink gazing dreamily out the window while washing up.

I resolved to stop romanticizing my sun-starved self as a puny tomato seedling struggling to grow without sun, and start thinking of myself as a hydroponic tomato sustained and nurtured by the life-giving water.

(We’ll see how long this lasts.)

This sliver of a season has always resonated more for me than the forced festivity of New Year’s Eve, that desperate exclamation point at the end of the winter holidays.

In fact, it feels like the beginning of a new year. And so I’m making my September Resolutions.

Carry the camera more. Some time ago, Elli sent me her carry-around camera. Though I love it, and though I’ve used it quite a bit, I haven’t developed the habit of carrying it around so I can snap anything that strikes my fancy. I’m still stuck in the 20th century mindset, where every shot costs an inch of film rather than a eensy sliver of memory.

Start uploading to Flickr. I have two photos. More would be better.

Write letters. Paper letters! Really!

This year, actually get the handmade Christmas presents made before December 20th.

Get fit. A bit. A bit fit. I’ve been vigilantly working my physical therapy routine, but I’m still too big for my britches, and that’s no good.

Spend less time online. (Sob. I know you’ll miss me.)

Get back into my breadbaking routine: twice a week every week.

Write more. I’m working on a cookbook, and I feel some other work burbling away in my brainpan, if only I would let it bubble out.

Throw a tea party, with fancy china cups and tiny teacakes and fruit and wafer-thin sandwiches. No, have one. It’s wafer-thin.

I’m also lucky that my momma taught me to cook whatever is on hand in the pantry, without going out in the driving rain to pick up groceries. That’s exactly what I did last night at her house; we had a comforting but tempting dinner cobbled together from whatever I found on the pantry shelves. Most of the recipes were experiments, and they turned out so well that I wanted to document them here, for future rainy nights*.

soup: cream of tomato with golden sherry
tartines: sun-dried tomato, sautéed mushrooms, black olives, herbed neufchatel, and parmesan on onion herb bread
oven-fries: potatoes and sweet potatoes
salad: mixed greens with chile-spiced almond slivers and balsamic vinaigrette

* The next of these future rainy nights was sooner than you think: D and I had the soup, sandwiches, and sweet potato fries for dinner the very next night. I had my camera (thanks, Elli!) along, and just plain forgot to take photos. Infuriating.

cream of tomato soup with golden sherry
This is more a loose set of instructions than a recipe. Don’t leave out the tiny bit of curry powder; combined with the sherry, it provides a rich fragrant background depth, but not a pronounced curry flavor. This looks dauntingly long and complicated, but is in fact a lazy affair; for the most part, you can dump the ingredients in the pan and wander away for as long as you like, stirring whenever you happen by.

1 tsp butter
1 tsp olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1 large garlic clove, gently whacked with the flat side of a chef’s knife (or under a can of tomatoes) to leave it whole but slightly crushed
1 15 oz. can of tomatoes, unsalted (whole or diced)
2 TBS tomato paste
1 TBS sugar
water, about 1 1/2 cups?
a generous splash of golden sherry (vermouth or white wine would do, too, though not so cozily)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 TBS butter
1 TBS olive oil
2 TBS flour
1 can (2 c.) evaporated milk (not sweetened condensed!) or 2 cups whole milk with a generous splash of half & half
kosher salt
1 bay leaf
pinch each of: curry powder, freshly ground nutmeg
several pinches each of: oregano, chili powder, freshly ground black pepper, fresh or dried parsley

In sieve, drain tomatoes; reserve juice. In a large, deep soup pot over medium-low heat, heat 1 tsp each butter and olive oil until butter foams slightly; add onions and whacked-up garlic clove, and sprinkle lightly with salt. Cook until onion is soft but not browned.

Add drained tomatoes, stir in tomato paste and sugar, and turn heat to medium-high. Cook, stirring as needed, until tomatoes are bubbly and thick. (If they brown a bit here and there, that’s good, too.) Pour in reserved tomato juice and remove from heat, stirring to loosen the fond from bottom of pan. (Letting the tomatoes bubble and brown a bit gives the soup depth and complexity, and is well worth the extra few minutes.)

Stir in 1 c. of cold water. Pour tomato mixture into blender and whirrrrrrrrr until the texture suits you. You might like it with toothsome bits of tomato; I like a rough purée, myself.

Return the empty pan to medium heat, add a drop or two of oil, and toss in the bay leaf, oregano, chili powder, pepper, and parsley. Cook for a few minutes, until fragrant, then add sherry and simmer several minutes more. Return tomatoes to pan and let simmer. (You may add more water if you like; the longer it simmers, the tastier this is, so thin as necessary.) Sprinkle with baking soda; this counteracts the acidity of the tomatoes and prevents curdling when the tomatoes and milk mix together. When you stir in the baking soda, the tomatoes will foam and froth, so don’t freak out.

Meanwhile, you’ve been preparing a cream sauce: melt 1 TBS each butter and oil in saucepan, then mix in flour. Cook until bubbly and golden. Stir in curry powder and nutmeg, then immediately whisk in milk; cook over low heat, stirring, until thick. If a skin develops, skim it off.

(At this stage, you can hold these as long as you like: keep them over very low heat, thinning with water as necessary, or cool them and reheat when ready to serve.)

Give the cream sauce one final whisk ’til it is smooth and frothy, then whisk into tomato mixture. If you mix gently, each serving will be delicately swirled with shades of red, cream, and rosy pink — blushing and glorious. For an easy and elegant garnish, drip two or three drops of cream sauce on each serving, and swirl through with the tip of a knife.

onion herb bread, adapted from Anna Thomas’ recipe in
The Vegetarian Epicure

1 c. milk (I usually use 1%, because that’s what I have on hand)
3 TBS half & half
1 medium onion, finely minced
4 tsp dried rosemary, crushed coarsely (or 2 tsp if ground with mortar & pestle)
2 tsp dried dill weed
2 TBS sugar
1 TBS kosher salt OR 2 tsp iodized salt
2 scant TBS yeast
1 c. warm water
pinch of sugar
5 c. sifted flour (white or whole wheat), approximately
1 1/2 TBS cool butter

In small saucepan, scald milk and half & half; remove and discard skin. Add onion and herbs to milk and allow to steep over low heat until fragrant. Remove from heat and stir in sugar and salt; let cool.

In large bowl, mix warm water, sugar, and yeast; allow yeast to bloom no more than four minutes. Add cooled milk mixture and 4 1/2 c. flour; stir vigorously several minutes. Cover and allow to sit ten minutes, which exploits the autolyse process.
Knead briefly, working in butter. (This dough requires only two or three minutes, not the long kneading of standard yeast doughs; the original recipe calls for no kneading at all.) Add more flour only if the dough releases liquid or sticks to your hands in clumps; this dough should be quite sticky. Cover and allow to rise ’til double in bulk; punch down and shape. Preheat oven to 350 F.

I like to make three or four small loaves in well-buttered stoneware casseroles. The greater surface area means more crusty deliciousness, and the smaller loaves bake through beautifully. Larger loaves sometimes rise poorly and suffer from a wet, dank interior crumb.

Allow loaves to rise 30 minutes or so. They will likely not double in bulk. Place in 350 oven and immediately crank the temp up to 400 F. This sudden boost in heat promotes oven spring, plumping up your loaves. After five minutes, turn back down to 350; bake 40 minutes or until golden and crusty. To test doneness, slip a loaf out of its pan and knock gently on the bottom. If it sounds hollow, the bread is done.

Brush with milk or butter for a soft crust; place on a rack and cover with a clean tea towel to cool. This bread will tear badly if it is cut when fresh and hot, but the maddening fragrance of onion and herb will cloud your judgment.

Excellent with chowder, chili, and a must for roast turkey or chicken, or spread with a thin slice of cheddar and toasted under the broiler for a midnight snack.

I used the onion herb bread to make tartines with sun-dried tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, herbed neufchatel, and Parmesan. Spread half-slices of bread with neufchatel (see recipe below), and top with sliced black olives and minced tomatoes. Scatter with grated Parmesan and bake at 350 until melted and bubbling. Serve hot.

herbed neufchatel
2 oz. (1/4 packet) neufchatel, room temperature
kosher salt
black pepper
chili powder
oregano
rosemary
a few gratings of lemon zest
2 tsp lemon juice

Mix together, adjusting seasoning to taste. This turned out quite lemony, but it was well-tempered by the unctuous sun-dried tomatoes and black olives and the rich, salty Parmesan.

oven fried potatoes and sweet potatoes
Potatoes, sweet potatoes
vegetable oil
kosher salt

Peel potatoes and sweet potatoes; slice into long thin strips. Drop into a bowl of cold water and toss. Soak at least one hour, changing water when it gets cloudy. This allows the starches to leach out, letting the potatoes cook up crispy instead of squishy.

Preheat oven to 425 F. Drain potatoes well, then dry in clean tea towel. Sprinkle clean dry cookie sheet liberally with kosher salt. Toss potatoes in dry bowl with oil (about 0.5 tsp for each large potato), and spread in single layer on salted cookie sheet, and sprinkle again with salt. Bake 20-25 minutes; turn fries over and return to oven until browned and cooked through. The cooking time depends, of course, in the thickness of your potato slices.

I sometimes sprinkle these with chili powder and black pepper, too. Yum.

Low lights
Undemanding, comfortable music
Schlumphy old clothes
A snowfall on the way
A simple and warming dinner
A dark and luscious treat

WG: [jauntily] “…so, you can expect to see some occasional light sprinkles, but nothing major, but this afternoon —” [head tilts, eyes glaze, and voice becomes low and melodic] “the sky will grow cloudy… and the sun will dim…” [shakes head almost imperceptibly; face clears and voice rises to normal] “and, eh, temps will drop, so keep an eye on those overnight temps!”

Thanks for the forecast, Homer.

Ah, that’s better. Also, here you go.

And then there’s this.
Oddly enough, it was one of a handful of English language books I just shipped to Elli.

(Common? I’ve only seen it five or six times in a lifetime of New England summers. One of those times, I was clonked on the head with a plummeting chunk of ice, and felt lucky to get away with only a goose-egg lump on my head, so I can wholeheartedly agree with his assessment of the suddenness and the danger.)

WeatherGuy concluded with the remark, “So, hail can be quite hazardous and can appear quite suddenly, giving you no warning or time to seek shelter, so, er, keep that in mind when you’re out enjoying yourself this summer.”

Therein is a perfectly good explanation for my absence from these pages. With three papers weighing heavily on me (one is due tomorrow, in point of fact) and thousands of pages to read, I thought the best time management plan was to bugger off for a few days of fun. My weekend included unplanned meetings with old friends, shopping, an afternoon at the museum, a trip to the bead and yarn shop, an evening in the pub with girlfriends, and a long late talk with the dear friend I stayed with.

I also paid a long overdue visit to my much-valued longtime barber; although I moved out of town several years ago, I manage to see her a few times a year, bringing her desperate cases of Hair By Misadventure. Once again, she has coifed me but good.

Maybe is the haircut, maybe is the new shoes*, or maybe is the delirium of academic panic, but I feel gooood. Dangerously, flirtatiously good. A change has definitely hit this small patch of New England: the wind is crisp and fragrant, birds are chirping, green shoots are transformed into great blooms of scent and florid color, bloggers are noticing that their male acquaintances smell really great: it must be spring.

*Expect more on the shoes later — so embarrassingly much more.