Let it wash over me

Summer is a time for lazy days, early walks and salad meals and grilling.  I have not been lazy.  I feel like a hummingbird going from one flower to the next knowing there is a frost coming and I may miss the good juice. I have been too busy. I have had 3 extra people living at my house last week, I taught art class and I have not had time to cook for me.  But summer starts today.  My husband and I are cooking real spring rolls and having a vietnamese feast.  I have never made them but when I eat them they make me happy.  Happy is what I want, I want to slow down and savor.  4th of july is almost here-  Summer is half over, as the teacher point of view.  But that means I just need to make the most of my slow time.  File this, organize this, do this.........sometimes my brain won't shut down.  I need to take a message from Buddha and meditate for a minute.  or take a message from my mother and "tomorrow is another day, Scarlett"  The pile will be there tomorrow1

Sour Chery Poundcake

My sister Amanda brought over some amazing, melt in your mouth, sour sweetness from a tree, sour cherry poundcake.  My husband ate most of it, but the bite I did get- I knew I had to recreate.  Kelly and I had picked cherries a year before and they had been sitting in our freezer.  We are in the cleanout your freezer for summer mode so we found them way in the back.  6 eggs, 3 sticks of butter, a brick of cream cheese and 31/2  cups of sugar later, we have pound cake.  The recipe says to bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes............It was hardly done at that amount of time- so keep it in for at least 10 more minutes.

Credit goes to NPR what to do with sour cherries........... Domonica Marchetti Big Night In: More Than 100 Wonderful Recipes for Feeding Family and Friends Italian Style (Chronicle Books 2008)

Sour Cherry Pound Cake
2 cups fresh sour cherries, pitted and halved
3 cups sugar, plus 1/2 cup for marinating cherries
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for pan
6 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
8 ounces mascarpone cheese or sour cream, at room temperature (I used 1 block of cream cheese)
Confectioners' sugar, for dusting
Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Lightly butter and flour a 10-inch Bundt or tube pan and set it aside.
In a small bowl, mix the cherries with 1/2 cup of the sugar. Let the mixture steep while you prepare the batter for the cake. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour and salt. Set aside. Put the butter in the bowl of a standing mixer and beat on medium speed to combine. Add the remaining 3 cups of sugar, a half-cup at a time, and beat at high speed until light and airy, 5 full minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Beat in the vanilla. Change the speed to medium and alternately add the flour and salt mixture and the mascarpone or sour cream, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Mix until incorporated. Drain the cherries, reserving the syrup that collects in the bowl. With a rubber or silicon spatula, fold the cherries into the batter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and shake lightly to even out the top. Bake until cake is golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the cake comes out clean, 1 hour 15 minutes.While the cake is baking, put the reserved cherry syrup in a small saucepan and boil for about 5 minutes, or until slightly thickened. Strain and reserve the liquid.- IMPORTANT.  When the cake is done, place the pan on a cooling rack and cool for 20 minutes. Remove the cake from the pan. While it is still warm, brush the top and sides with the warm cherry syrup. The cake will absorb the syrup. Let the cake cool to room temperature.
To serve, transfer the cake to a decorative platter or cake stand. Dust with confectioners' sugar.

Divine

The Big Snow!!

I did not know that snowblowers made my husband so happy.  He got a new one and he has done the whole driveway twice!  In some spots three times!  We may have gotten around 9-12 inches and it is not supposed to stop until tomorrow...........no more snowdays for us, though-  Parent-teacher conferences are tomorrow- can't miss those! Dogs are having fun!

I need cocoa!!!!

Snow days

~This week I have had three snow days! 3 whole days in row!!  Snow days are simple gifts of time.  To me they are a day that you don't have to do anything if you do not want to.  But of course, I vacuumed, I made bread, I made soup, I organized a drawer, I got to read a magazine, I even "surfed the internet". i took a shower in the middle of the day!  I had time to be bored.  When is a grown-up ever allowed to be bored.  The weather was so bad yesterday that Salina closed the Mall!
~I spent the afternoon with one of my bestest sisters, made breakfast for another.  Husband made the best fire last night and we watched tv together.  Snow days are selfish days, but we all need to put the brakes on occasionally...........Thanks Mother Nature!!!

Winter Walk

This morning I woke up and wanted to go on a winter walk with the dogs.  No wind, 3 layers of clothes and sleeping bag down coat to my ankles, I ran the dogs when the sun was coming up.  What was I thinking?  Mom says I officially do not have her DNA.  I must have mutated.  I just wanted to be out.  All my friends are training for a marathon so they talk about running.  So I thought I would think about running while I walk.  The brown grass was matted so it was easy to walk.  Hidden trash was visible now- Stella started to roll in what looked something like a meth lab so we turned another direction.  We are scheduled for snow tonight.  The world was so quiet, waiting for the storm.  I wanted to be out in the world before I nest and batten down for the snow...........pray for a snow day.

Start anew

After Christmas is the time when I want to take everything down off my shelves and put it away or sell it.  I also want to do that with my personal insides, too.  Winter cleaning  ............. Dusting...... scrubbing......... bleaching....  I seem to want to do that not only to my house but to myself.  Here is my 2011 list of things I want to do....I don't like the word resolutions...............

One coke a day

 start yoga again

become more organized

less TV

read more

listen, talk less

spend less, save more

take more pictures of my food

cook for friends I love

run the dogs

build stamina in my walking

less steriods

play/laugh with my husband

write more letters

ride a horse

buy a new car

Is this too much for 359 days?  If I am authentic and thoughtful~  If I plan out these things, do they become habit?

My beach book in November

I just reread To Kill a Mockingbird this week. I fell into the pages of my father's old book.  It smelled like smoke and must.........probably the reason I don't have a Kindle.  I read it in the voice of Scout.  It was one of those beach books that all you want to do is read.  Friday was a cold and rainy November day.  I wanted to call in literary sick so bad.  but I went to school.  I did have silent reading in my class so I could read a little to myself on Friday. I told the kids to find a book that is their good fit.  One that is so good you get a flashlight and read under the covers. I showed them my old book. I told them it is so fun to cry during a book.  It shows you are really into it.   Everybody deserves that.  I cried on my couch when Atticus told Scout " You never really understand a person.........Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." I want to put that on the front page of the paper.  If our congressmen did that.we would get so much more done!

 I read aloud to my dogs- they love Alabama accent.  I say to my little dog...hey Boo. i call my mother and have book club with her on the phone.  I want to talk about it.  I can't wait  to read it again next time.