Sidney has a Boyfriend

Recently this young male cat has been passing by our yard and hanging out a little bit. I think Sidney likes him since she likes to sit nearby him, whereas Harley just hisses if he comes close. I took this picture this morning. He also meows like crazy, more like calls and stuff rather than being sad and meowing. It seems he just has a lot to say. I am thinking of calling him Yappy. He won't let me pet him though, still too skittish for that. Last night we made a new dish, one with rigatoni noodles and chickpeas, savoy cabbage, red onion, shiitake mushrooms and pecorino romano cheese. Another winner since Andrew went back for seconds. Today the work day is almost over and I'll be working outside in the yard soon. Andrew said he would be stopping by the sailboat after work so I guess I will be meeting him for dinner at home around 7.

Pudgie's New Home

The sailboat is now on Lake Keowee. The moving and launching on Saturday all went very well and we have no complaints. I think we made a smart move by hiring Big Water to do the move for us. It would have been a little complicated for us otherwise since we are inexperienced. After the boat was in the water, the Big Water guys took off and now the boat was in our hands. We had to tension the standing rigging (got some great advice on that from 2 guys on the boat next to us), and attach the boom, mainsail, anchor and solar panel. Sunday we went shopping for some new dock lines, fender lines and other miscellaneous stuff. Andrew spotted a nice pair of sailing shoes for me so we got them. It is very important to Andrew that I have hi-tech non marking sailing shoes. I bought another book on knots. This one had sections on whipping and splicing lines using a needle and thread. I did my first two whips last evening and they turned out pretty good. The first on a fender line and the second on a new dock line. The whip on the end of a line prevents the line from unravelling. Most people these days just use a bic lighter to heat up the ends and melt the strands together. But the traditional way uses whips and it does look much nicer and has a much nicer feel since you don't feel that hard lump of melted fiber at the end of the line. We will have to see how my whips hold up to use and the weather.

Pizza

Well I was wondering if we could go a week without pizza but it seems the answer is no. Thursday after work we spent talking on the deck and the time just flew by, so it was pizza to the rescue rather than having to go inside and cook. The weather has been perfect lately - sunny, mid 70's and no humidity. But I do have to coat myself in Off now since the mosquitos are biting. I found a tick on myself yesterday for the first time. Luckily it was still walking around and hadn't yet dug in for a meal. I captured it alive in a glass so I could determine was it was. Luckily it was a wood tick (aka dog tick) and is not the type to carry Lyme disease. But I don't think I got bit anyways. Friday night we made another dish from the Union Square Cafe cookbook, "Penne with Asparagus and Red Peppers". I had to roast 4 peppers and then peel and chop them. Previously I have roasted peppers in the oven for 1 hour. This time I tried roasting over the open flame of the gas stove, which was a much quicker method, but still just as messy peeling off the blackened skins. The end result though is a nice sweet pepper so I guess the effort is worth it. The dish turned out great and we had leftovers for lunch yesterday. Below are a couple of more plants that have started to bloom. On the left is some Veronica (aka Red Fox Speedwell), a nice spiky pink flower. On the right is Achillea 'Richard Nelson' which I've planted in front of the electrical box in the front yard. It's doing great in that harsh dry spot.

Garden Happenings

Some more photos of things blooming in the garden this week. The purple/blue clematis is 'General Sikorski'. The lily is 'Vivaldi'. The peony is 'Sarah Bernhardt'. I also made a movie showing the spring garden as seen walking down the brick path. Enjoy!

More New Dishes

Two new dishes from the Union Square Cafe cookbook that were both keepers. Both are considered appetizers but we are eating them as double servings for main courses, or supplementing with a bit of bread. The first dish is "Pappardelle of Zucchini", which is a pasta dish without the pasta. The finely sliced zucchini acts as the pasta. I don't have a mandoline so we tried using the food processor to finely slice the zucchini lengthwise but it didn't do any better job than I could have done by hand. I used some of my homemade tomato sauce that I always have on hand (frozen in cup sized bags in the freezer). The dish turned out simple and delicious. I am starting to understand what the chefs mean when they say "It's all about a few, well chosen, simple and fresh ingredients." The second was much more hearty ("rustic" was the word used in the recipe): "Braised Escarole and White Beans with Tomatoes, Mushrooms and Pecorino". Neither of us knew what escarole was but we found it at the Bloom grocery store. It is a type of bitter tasting (when raw) lettuce. I thought it was strange that we were going to be cooking lettuce, but after looking on the internet I learned that Italians braise escarole all the time. The first part of this recipe required making a homemade tomato sauce using just raw tomatoes that are chopped and cooked down for 15 minutes, and then passed through a food mill to extract the tomato puree. What a hassle. I don't have a food mill so I used a plastic strainer and pushed the tomatoes through it using the back of a plastic soup ladle, holding back the skins and the seeds. It took quite a while but the results were worth it. Way better than canned sauce. To this we added fresh basil, rosemary, onion and garlic, and the tomato sauce was complete. In the end it was a very nice sauce, very different from my normal recipe (the one that I freeze all the time). We had a few Italian Peroni beers, and Andrew liked the meal so much that he ate all of tonights servings (it was supposed to be a 2 day meal).

Union Square Cafe

Awhile ago I bought the Union Square Cafe cookbook. It contains all the best recipes from the famous New York restaurant. This week we are having meals exclusively from the book so it is like we are spending a week eating out in New York. Last night I made the "Fried Calamari with Spicy Anchovy Mayonnaise". It is the most popular appetizer on their menu. This was the first time I've ever made home made mayonnaise and it turned out very good. The food processor makes it very easy to blend the oil and egg into a creamy sauce (thanks Dad for buying us the food processor!). The calamari turned out excellent. The secret ingredient in the coating along with the traditional flour is graham cracker crumbs. You don't taste them in the end and I would never have guessed they are present, but the fried coating has just a little bit of sweetness which contrasts perfectly with the spicy and salty mayo. Delicious!

Garden Review

I will need to cut down all the branches of the hydrangeas since that late frost zapped the buds. This means no beautiful blue hydrangea pompom flowers this year. I noticed that the crepe myrtle trees are making a comeback. Their spring flush of new leaves got zapped, but they are all now putting out a second flush and so hopefully we will still get some flowers this summer but I would guess it will just be a little later than normal.
On the other hand, some plants are doing just great. The white clematis is blooming its head off right now, clearly the flower buds were not bothered by the late freeze. My shrubs and purple verbena by the mailbox are doing just fine. I spread out some new mulch around the plants up there and now need to get some more to finish it all off. I still have a lot of planting to do in that front yard area. I'm figuring on planting some trees and more shrubs since they take up a lot of space and are very low maintenance (apart from watering that is).
The pink dianthus 'microchip' is blooming very pretty right now. It is a rather ratty looking plant for me all year except for the few weeks that it blooms. So I am on the verge of yanking it all out but when I see it bloom like this I think, well maybe one more year. I also noticed that I've got 2 holly volunteer plants coming up so I might transplant those and wait 10 years for the free shrubs. That seems like a long time but I've already been in this yard for 9 years now and the time seems to fly by.
Andrew made it home safe late Friday night from San Jose. Yesterday we went to the Keowee Sailing Club to see our new slip spot. The first picture is the view out to the lake from our slip, and the second picture is of our slip, so you can see how we will be backing out and then turning to the right to make our way out into the lake. Then we went to Big Water Marina to arrange transport of the sailboat. We took down the mainsail and the boom, removed the anchor and solar panel to get the boat prepped. We are scheduled for moving the weekend of the 19th so if all goes well the next time we sail it will be in a new lake for us. While we were working on the boat, a family of Canada geese came by. The adults were opening their mouths like they were begging for food so I guess lots of people must be feeding them. The 5 baby chicks were so cute with their little peeping noises. I didn't realize the babies were so yellow in color - I guess that helps them blend in. A pair of ducks came over to see us too. Today it is a very windy day. We had excellent rains yesterday and so after grocery shopping today I'll be going outside to weed in the damp ground. It is cooler today, around 72 degrees, but they are predicting by Thursday we will back to 87 degrees. Hot tamales!!