I Made A Party

Yesterday we celebrated Durwood's birthday so I spent the early part of the day baking an Orange Carrot Cake, going out for a bag of Sunny Hill Farms sweet corn, and making a small tidy around here.  He requested Beef Stroganoff for his birthday supper so I dug out the old orange Betty Crocker cookbook to find the recipe I used the first time I made that for his birthday dinner.  (I'm sure that's how I reeled him in, "the way to a man's heart..." as they say.)  I bought all the ingredients on Friday so while the corn cooked in the microwave (I'll tell you about the little corn cooking method DS taught us later) I made the Stroganoff.  It's not something you can make ahead but happily it's only about half an hour from start to finish.  I didn't take a picture of it, there just wasn't a moment between finish and serve, but here's the cake.  That, too, is an old recipe I got at Red Owl about 40 years ago and it's a real keeper.  There's a can of mandarin oranges and an orange's worth of zest in it so it's really moist and flavorful, and then who doesn't love cream cheese frosting.

It's a rainy day today.  I keep hearing loud crashing sounds far away and think "the dumpsters at the Plaza are being emptied" but I think it might be thunder.  It sure looks like it could thunderstorm but so far only a few drops are dimpling the birdbath.

 
I went out to survey the crops this morning and found a handful of cherry tomatoes ripe for the picking and our first spaghetti squash is stuck in the fencing.  I tried to ease it out but no luck.  I guess I'll cut the stem and let it shrink and die--or I could leave it alone and see what happens.  I suspect that the wire will cut through the skin of the squash and cut it in half.  That better not be the only flower that makes a squash, that's all I have to say.













Didn't knit a stitch yesterday so I have nothing new to show you in that area, but I did try the Spiced Plum tea.  It tastes good and is such a pretty color.

August 10--Harris Welles, Hands/Spinning Globe.  She reached out and set the globe spinning.  Liza watched it, thinking she'd spun it backwards so that the time would be running backwards too.  For a heartbeat she imagined people staggering as the rotation of the Earth reversed.  The mental image made her think of old black and white sci-fi movies with improbable storylines and rudimentary special effects.  Do children study globes anymore, she wondered, or do they learn everything on computers?  It seems like such a sterile way to learn, far removed from the dirt and sweat of real life.  Oh, now she was sounding old.  The next thing she knew she'd be starting most sentences with , "In my day..." causing everyone in earshot to roll their eyes.  "What are you smiling about?" Riley asked.  "Just enjoying the beautiful globe you brought home," she said.  He went back to reading the paper, she sat down and picked up her knitting.

Ooh, it's getting noticeably darker.  I think there's a storm rolling in.  Goodie.  Time to shower and all that jazz.  Payday today.  Oh, yeah, it's raining alright, nice straight down rain.  Way to ramp up the humidity but we need the rain.
--Barbara