The Cookery - life’s ingredients

So how long should we keep the colored Easter eggs around and continue to eat them without worry of side effects?  I’m guessing they’re still perfect.  I promise that at least one will find its way to the table this evening.  But this has me wondering about boiled egg expiration.  If you’ve got the word on egg timing, please set me straight.

We had dinner hours ago but the place still smells like a galley of Swedish meatballs.  Shortly after eating dinner, our babysitter arrived and we dashed out of the house with a counter full of dirty Calphalon.  The meatballs?  Not bad, though I used a variation on the recipe I brought home from Sweden years ago.  I added a little dill to the mixture.  And we skipped the sauce.  Here’s to our Swedish friends, back in Sweden and around the globe.             

I can only eat so much bunny cake and work away at my desk without feeling just slightly puffy.  Immediate action calls for some quick cardio with a run along the Hudson.   

The kids decorated this handsome bunny today.  He’s creamy white with coconut texture  . . . just what we had in mind with cold milk.  Two layers=a face, ears and a bow tie. 

We’ve just returned from a two-day adventure and kicking the feet up sounds ideal but guess what?  The cookery is a mess.  The kids are almost asleep and we’re cleaning up our impromptu dinner and an evening egg-coloring fest.  If we don’t catch it now, we’ll face the music in the morning.  Pay now?  I choose now.

In living, cooking, writing . . . whatever the endeavor, why not reach for that reference?  When it comes to breakfast, I’m notorious for offering Wasa crispbread, cheese, yogurt and fresh fruit.  But my husband loves pancakes.  He just turned out his best batch ever with a “Griddle Cakes” recipe from our vintage Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book (1947) that was at the ready, sitting on our cookery bookshelf.  The secret ingredient:  two tablespoons melted bacon fat.        

Belief.”  And we know not what goes in the mincer of the innkeeper, Thénardier, in Les Misérables.  The innkeeper cooked the goose in more ways than one.  From Victor Hugo’s masterpiece came the musical Les Misérables, performed this past weekend by local high school students.  We checked out our next-door neighbor’s performance.  Great job, fair bishop!  On my bookshelf, an English translation of this piece of literature which was begun in 1845 and completed when Hugo was living in exile.   Victor Hugo, 1802-1885.     

Have you checked the figures lately?  Aside from the profile in the mirror, maybe the more urgent matter is the grocery bill.  The e-mail lands here in the cookery, The New York Times lands on my sidewalk but ends up here, and the snail mail gets opened and digested here.  Within 24 hours, I opened and reviewed a tempting credit card offer that promised “no worries,” and a newspaper article relative to the high costs of stocking the pantry.  No worries?  Maybe elsewhere.  Surging costs?  I wouldn’t exactly say “surging” at the moment but on the rise.  I’ve been watching the numbers close to home.  Worrying gets me nowhere.  But checking prices pays off.  Have you noticed an increase in your favorite foods?  Any worries?  

Please pass the artichoke.  Some days . . . I miss California.  Before the kids came along, my husband and I used  to share a meal of steamed artichoke with crusty bread and hot dripping butter.  In the ongoing commitment to slow our meals down with our children, we shared an artichoke last night.  Watsonville, welcome to New York.  Once we devoured the choke, we finished the artichoke-laced butter with grilled Naan.  Nothing wasted.      

This I Believe

I found my keyboard a little earlier than usual this morning.  When one of the young ones is under the weather, I’m up and on duty.  The little guy woke at 4:00 a.m. with a mild fever and cough.  He’s back to sleep now but I’ve started my day reading something to wake the senses . . . National Public Radio’s “This I Believe.”  Five random essays later:  welcome to Wednesday.  Browse or listen:   http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4538138