Little Country Churches

Holy Temple is on Meridian Road, just north of Beth Page Road. All around is beautiful country.

Country churches

This church is where Beth Page Road runs into Plantation. You can see the intersection, but you can't tell that Plantation is red dirt, except for the pavement in front of the church. This is about 2 miles from Meridian Road & more than 15 miles from Tallahassee. I drove north on Meridian because it is so gorgeous, arched with oaks, & turned on Beth Page when I saw the church sign. That's a dogwood flowering behind it.

Sunday Dinner

The only thing you could hear was mmm, this is good! This empty bowl of berries & couple of sweet biscuits is all that's left of last night's strawberry shortcake. The berries were from Plant City; I sliced & topped them with sugar early, because they weren't that great tasting to start. Mom always used plain biscuits; I add 1/4 C. sugar to the recipe & top them with those crunchy sugar crystals. The fresher you serve them, the better -- warm from oven if possible. Whipped cream, of course, organic heavy is best, with a little confectioner's sugar & good vanilla. Not too much! But that doesn't sound right, not with this easy, decadent dish...

Sweet Biscuits

1. Pulse in food processor 2 C. flour, 1 T. baking powder, 1 tsp. salt, 1/4 C. sugar, 6 T. unsalted butter. (If you cut the butter into little pieces & put in the freezer for 15 minutes before this step, it makes flakier biscuits.)
2. Quickly add 3/4 C. heavy cream.
3. Flatten into 6" disk, wrap, & chill a half hour or so.
4. Shape into whatever size you like. (You might prefer dainty biscuits.) Flatten a little. Sprinkle with big sugar. I use a parchment-covered cookie sheet.
5. Bake 375° until golden; 10-20 minutes. Keep your eye on it.

For dinner biscuits, you can leave out the sugar & add cheese, chives, or other herbs. Or not.

Little Country Churches

I like to find little country churches. This week I will show you a few. This is St. Matthews (sic) P.B. Church on Miller Landing Road north of Tallahassee at 10:15 this morning. It's near Phipps Park, where I run. Lake Jackson is down the hill behind the church; there is a vacant field across the street; & there are fine homes all around the hilly, wooded area.

Springtime Tallahassee

The Springtime Tallahassee parade is today, celebrating camellias, dogwood, azaleas & tiny green leaves all over town. This dogwood is from yesterday's walk with Susan at Phipps Park.

Quilt under wraps

Not that I haven't been sewing – just finished a surprise quilt & don't want to show it until May so it remains a surprise for the graduate, Gretchen, who loves green and pink ("No purple!" was her only request.)

As usual, Lent is almost over & I haven't suffered nearly as much as long ago, when we gave up candy for 6 weeks. This year I decided to notice when & if God would wink at me. Yesterday I soaked this can to remove the Bush's black beans label. It kind of gleamed at me. Divine, huh?

Also:

"Human imagination is not simply our means of reaching out to God but God's means of manifesting himself to us." I like to think imagination is a wink.

That's in Christian Wiman's, essay "God's Truth is Life" (p. 389, Pushcart Prize XXXIV, Bill Henderson, ed., Pushcart Press, New York, 2010). I'm surprised. When Wiman became editor of Poetry magazine I stopped subscribing. I took a dislike to the magazine. But I just Googled Wiman & discovered he's had a great turnaround. Read about it in The American Scholar.

This toaster hatched an egg

Clark has his own corner of the kitchen, because I don't want his gadgets messing with my "tools." This is his latest; it poaches an egg and toasts bread or English muffins at the same time. And guess what's in the green box? Bread, English muffins, salt & pepper, & butter in a covered glass dish. C. makes a great breakfast! And he was way ahead of the curve. Last week the NYTimes featured this item like it was new. Not in our kitchen!

Beauty and the Beets

Casseroles are there when you need them, like yesterday. So we had tuna & noodles, with beets & cucumbers. The tuna is from Epicurious. I consider the directions more suggestion than mandate. Add a handful of sharp cheddar, use any mushrooms you have, cut the fresh rosemary to 1 T. unless you love the domination. Also, salt everything as you proceed.

I no longer roast beets whole. It takes ages! Chop, boil, serve with sea salt. And I now cut cucumbers like they are in a Greek salad: peel the skin in strips, leaving about 1/3 of the skin on. Then quarter them lengthwise, seed & cut them in chunks. Serve with vinegar & salt, & maybe olive oil.

I'm paying more attention to veggies!

Sunday Dinner

Steph made squash soup for dinner last night. It's her mother's and grandmother's recipe – the best!

Steph's Squash Soup

1 box chicken broth

1 can vegetable broth

1 medium butternut squash (or pumpkin), chopped

8 ounces chopped carrots

thyme to taste

1 bunch scallions, chopped

Cook for 1 hour. After an hour add 2 potatoes, peeled & chopped. Simmer 1 hour more. Then mash the squash. (You can use an immersion blender, but your soup won't be as chunky as Steph's.) Finally, shred the meat of a roast chicken from the grocery & add that, along with salt to taste.

This makes a stew. For thinner soup, use more broth. Instead of the grocery chicken, you can add chicken drumsticks to the soup after the first hour of cooking. Or leave the chicken out & serve it as a side.

We had this with salad & apple crisp.

Bedroom window in Monticello (in North Florida it's sell-o, not chell-o.) home tour yesterday. This is my favorite image from the tour of modest front-porch houses to a huge, dim Victorian on a dirt road just a block from U.S. 90. There they requested we leave our shoes on the porch, or cover them up with blue paper cozies. Gorgeous reproduction wallpaper!

The kitchen looked a mess, so I decided to take a photo to show you I don't care much about cleaning. Then, in the camera viewfinder, it all looked beautiful. Here's the sink with Valentine orchid, blue bucket and mop, and some toasted pecans.

These chocolate macaroons are also beautiful! I think it's from Patricia Wells' A Food Lover's Guide to Paris.

Macarons Creoles

275° oven

1. Toast 1 C. almonds (I use blanched.) five minutes or until tasty. Cool 10 minutes. Grind. I use a Mouli mill, but food processor should work. I like the way they smell as I grind them by hand.

2. Melt 3 1/2 ounces bittersweet chocolate with 1 t. vanilla. Last time I used 70% Lindt and to tell the truth I think it was too chocolate-y. Experiment.

3. Mix 2 large egg whites (Don't whip them! I used to think it wasn't macaroons unless there were whipped egg whites.), almonds, 3/4 C. sugar at slow speed. Mix in chocolate.

4. Lightly butter parchment to cover cookie sheet.

5. Spoon 1 T. for each cookie. Flatten them slightly with a spoon.

6. Bake 15-18 min., until set, slightly firm, but not dry. Cool.

7. Melt 1 3/4 oz. chocolate. Add 2 T. heavy cream. Blend. Cool.

8. Make cookie sandwiches.

Here's a self-portrait I recently finished; she's looking at the world from her own angle. She's the size of a sheet of paper, made with cotton, lace, tulle, and a feather, appliqued and quilted by machine.