WOW! Dinner fabulous despite hitting wall- go Em-i-lis

Ok people, I feel like I rose to my best cheffy self tonight. I was so tired but so determined to have my steak dinner. Tom usually grills our filets, but we ran out of propane last night, so I decided to pan sauté them. Good decision. I seasoned them generously with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, heated 1T butter on med-high, seared the filets for 2 minutes on each side, and added some cognac with 1 minute to go. Then I finished them in a 400° oven for me) 10 minutes, T) 8 minutes. My sour cherry-rhubarb chutney was divine alongside them, as were the freaky good fresh corn, canteloupe (worth the damn $6 I accidentally paid for it), pluot and coriander-cilantro flatbreads (I froze the extras I'd made last time and fried them tonight; this was a humongous time-saver and did not affect the flavor negatively at all!). We also opened the Carpe Diem 2007 Pinot Noir which was so good with all this. So, see attached for pictorial evidence. The first photo is my seasonal compost salad from lunch. And now, I bid you adieu.

Have hit a wall

Have mercy, people. What kind of type-A overachiever am I? Since noon, I have made stewed prunes, canned 5 jars of cherry-cardamom jam and 5 of sour cherry-rhubarb chutney, made the boys’ dinner and have started ours. While I enjoyed the stewing and canning processes and, in the meantime, successfully rid myself of all but about a cup of cherries, I am now completely wiped and the old migraine is fully back. If you do not have migraines, feel lucky. They are really awful. Meds don’t work for mine because they’re hormonal -another drop in the lucky gal bucket- so I just soldier through. Tonight I’m calling in vinous reinforcements which hopefully will help rather than harm. I’m not usually such a canning freak but a) I did buy all this stuff and commit to it because b) I’m a vendor at a local Arts Market in September so figured I better start well ahead of time so I actually have goods to sell.

The spider on my porch, jerk driver

Peeps, there is a spider on my front porch who’s built a web triangulating among the laurel and both my flower pots. One of those pots has herbs in it, and I’ve tried to get what I need as gingerly as possible for several weeks now. The spider used to do this jerky jaw motion at me, like he was going to spit. I’m sure I’m anthropomorphizing the dickens out of this spider, but I feel like we’re in some sort of relationship now. Anyway, on Saturday when I was planting away my sadness, I unhooked his web from my two pots because I really wanted to trim one and repot the other. I figured this would be the end of Mr. Spider, but damn if he didn’t just rebuild his entire web orb by day’s end. I just went out to water the pots, and he didn’t jerk his jaw at me anymore. A detente with the arachnid? Now, on to the dumb dumb jerky driver I encountered this morning while driving Jack to camp. Both boys were in the car, and I’m always more careful when they are, especially when I didn’t get to finish my quad latte before we left. I need every bit, friends. Anyway, this a-hole in a silver, MD-plate SUV was up my butt for about a mile; every time he tried to pass me, he was thwarted, so when I saw him start to gesticulate angrily, I wasn’t real surprised. I was, however, peeved. I mean, unless you are bleeding profusely or your wife is having a baby in the car or something along those lines of severity, calm the eff down and back off of my tail. He finally did manage to speed past me, and do you know where I saw him head? To the damn Giant (supermarket). Really? You’re in that much of a hurry to get to the Giant? Calm down, sir.