Here's the first pea harvest. I know, try to contain yourself at the sight of such abundant bounty. Still, good things come in small packages, and there is nothing like picking them off the vine, pulling the string, splitting the pod, and scraping it along your bottom teeth to pop the peas in your mouth. That is how you do it, right?
Moving along. Here was some yumminess: Quinoa Patties as found on Stacey Snacks. I'd had my eye on these and over the weekend I cooked up about 4 cups of quinoa and just had it keeping in the fridge. Monday night I was late in the city, so I texted the URL to Jeeps...oddly, just as he was peering in the fridge and wondering what to do with the quart-sized Chinese food container filled with quinoa. They were made and waiting when I got off the train and they were dynamite. We had them with just steamed broccoli; Stacey shows them with a dollop of guacamole, and in another post she has them on a bed of greens with, hello, a sunnyside egg on top.
Speaking of eggs, it has been beastly hot the past two days, with more beastliness to come. But is it hot enough outside to fry an egg? My neighbor Elizabeth does not suffer clichés gladly, and demanded proof over hyperbole. The results are in, and yes, it was that hot:
[Editor's note - Naive ninny that I am, I really did think Elizabeth had conducted said experiment but later she confessed to a Google image and then passed along an article about how, in theory, it is not possible to fry an egg on the sidewalk because it does not reach the temperature required to denature and coagulate the egg whites. I called her a fraud and told her that to salvage her street cred, she should crack an egg on the hood of her car. Stay tuned]
Oh, here's a treat. Last year we went to friends in Westport for Memorial Day, and one of the appetizers they served was goat cheese in apricots with hazelnuts. We went crazy over these and let me be perfectly frank: goat cheese and I have a contentious relationship. For years I wanted to like it, I felt it was something I really should like, but whenever I had it...I just didn't like it. But I kept on and each time I didn't like it a little less. And then with the apricots in Westport...maybe it was the type of goat cheese or the company it was keeping, but I think I ate half the platter and Francesca and I fought for the last one.
So this was my lunch on Tuesday. I went the extra step and drizzled some honey over them, and then a pinch of sea salt. And they were so good, I made like another four and ate those too.
Tuesday night I went back to dance class. I have not been in....many years. My mother is guest teaching at my friend Jen's dance studio, 5-6-7-8 Dance Arts, for the month of June. So I went and I took Pandagirl, and I wasn't prepared for how emotional I'd feel at one, being back in class; and two, being in class with Panda. And my mother. We weren't halfway through the first plié combination when I was getting teary. And now I have this amazing picture of three generations at the barre:
Also taking class was Jen and Anne Marie, both of whom were my mother's students as well. Being with them in class was like traveling back in time. It felt so familiar...and yet it was different. You could just see in our carriages that we remembered all the training, but so much unneeded luggage of youth has been left behind and to hell with perfection - now is the time to just dance. It was also humorous how many times we each had to break and turn our knees in to relieve our howling joints, or massage a cramp out of our arch. My body felt okay that night, but by Wednesday afternoon my calves and hips were filing for divorce.
Last, a preview of my next "Reads" post. It's easy to say that a book is one of your favorites so I just want you to get an idea of what neighborhood of favorite I mean when I talk about In this House of Brede:
It is a book very beloved to me.