ADD ANOTHER YEAR

<<Featured Image: I decided to bake myself a birthday cake. Chocolate cake with a Nutella buttercream icing. It hit the spot.>>

BIRTHDAY TIME

This past week was that time of year again where I advance the number on my age. So far this year, all of my family has had to celebrate their birthdays in Covid quarantine. I wonder how many more birthdays we will have to celebrate like this? I’m pretty sure everyone with a birthday for the rest of the year will be doing the same thing.

WHAT CAN BEAT CAKE & ICE CREAM?

In years past, we had been going to Leavenworth, WA, for a three-day weekend on my birthday. However, Linda and I were at home celebrating this year. So the day before my birthday, I baked myself a birthday cake. I hadn’t baked a layer cake in many years, so I don’t think the contestants on the Great British Baking Show have anything to worry about from me. But it tasted delicious, and was an easy way to add a bit of excitement to the festivities.

Since one of my favorite things is cooking (and eating), this birthday was kitchen/food-themed, as most of mine are. I got some handy little gadgets for the kitchen and grill, but one present from my sister and her partner stood out most because it was something I had wanted for a long time.

MY FAVORITE CHEF’S COOKBOOK

This special gift is a cookbook by my absolute number one favorite chef, Vivian Howard. She is from Eastern North Carolina, about two and a half hours north of where I used to live in Lumberton. I went to college just a few miles away from Kinston, where her restaurant is located. I actually did my student teaching in that same town, so I know what the area is like. In case you haven’t heard of Chef Vivian or seen the PBS series “A Chef’s Life,” (<<link) here’s a little background. She grew up in the small community of Deep Run, and longed to escape the country for the big city while she was growing up. Eventually she made it to New York City, where she met her husband while they were working at the same restaurant. Her parents, still living back in Deep Run, offered to open a restaurant for them in Kinston if they would move back home and run it. And so the upscale restaurant Chef & the Farmer (<<link) was opened.

Chef Vivian specializes in highlighting dishes created with local ingredients indigenous to the area of Eastern North Carolina. This means lots of butterbeans, peas, leafy greens, barbecue and other dishes of “porky goodness,” cornbread and biscuits, and all kinds of locally-grown vegetables and farm-raised animals.

Her cookbook is a delight to read as it is a fusion between a memoir and a cookbook. The pictures are gorgeous and will make you drool all over the pages if you aren’t careful. I have already picked out a few recipes that I want to try at some point. My only problem, being here in the Pacific Northwest, is going to be with obtaining the proper ingredients. Since it is summer and there are more choices available around here now than in the winter, I might be able to improvise if I can’t find the exact ingredient. I would love to give this cookbook the “Julie & Julia” treatment by cooking my way through it recipe-by-recipe, but I am afraid I don’t have that kind of dedication. Whatever happens, I am thoroughly enjoying reading this book, and I will report in the future on any recipes that I do actually end up making.

As a special treat to myself, since it was my birthday after all, I grilled myself a nice big ribeye steak for supper that night. The tiny little sausage on the grill in the picture below was Linda’s, as she is not fond of steak. Rounding out the meal were some grilled turnips for me and a grilled bell pepper for Linda. Alongside we had a salad using our lettuce & kale from the greens bed.

A SPECIAL TREAT

IF YOU’VE NEVER TRIED GRILLED TURNIPS, YOU NEED TO DO IT!

HOME GROWN LETTUCE

GARDEN UPDATE

It is now July and I am still waiting for the really hot weather to arrive. We did have a few days of very warm temperatures, and one even made it all the way up to 98 degrees…and then two days later our high was 72 degrees. So the vegetable garden is somewhat confused right now. Things are growing slowly and I am so impatient for them to just jump up! We’ve had quite a bit of wind lately, which doesn’t help things much because it dries everything out. Something is still chewing the crap out of my zucchini plants and cucumbers, but luckily a few are making a little bit of headway.

I SUSPECT EARWIGS AND/OR SLUGS OF MUNCHING ON THIS ZUCCHINI

THE N.C. YELLOW SQUASH (LEFT) AND MY BEST-LOOKING ZUCCHINI (RIGHT)

The only thing that is showing any ripeness out in the garden is one lone cherry tomato. I wait impatiently every summer to see some color out in the garden, and every year I imagine that it is taking longer. But when I check back on my garden journals, I find that it is usually about the same time each year. I think as I grow older, I grow more impatient. And I guess I should be very grateful that I am able to grow what I can during the summer. Especially this summer.

AT LONG LAST, A CHERRY TOMATO TURNING RED (LEFT), AND AN EARLY-GIRL TOMATO GETTING BIGGER (RIGHT)

PARTING SHOT

Summer Girl has had a busy week. Twice this past week she has come running up towards the back porch with a snake in her mouth. I was able to intercept her before she got to the porch. After she dropped the snake, I scooped him up with some old BBQ tongs and threw him over the fence. She did not seem to be too happy about me getting rid of her new plaything. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of the snake but it looked like the same one each time, a small garden snake. Now she is busy resting on her laurels as a snake-catcher.

OUR FEARLESS HUNTER

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