Photo Friday

To apply for a Model Mayhem account....

Photo Friday

Scanning old shots...

Thought this one (without the label, of course), might make a great candidate for metallic paper. It's my current passion for printing....

The plan for it is:

- Sage Bread
- Quinoa with rosemary roasted Japanese eggplant and carrots (with basil)
- Organic Free Range Roasted Chicken with fresh oregano, parsley, and chives.
- Apples slices for dessert

Which still leaves the green onion and bulb onion for another day!

This is my Poppop, my father's father, and me in 1965. I adored my grandfather. Truly adored him. His name was Guiseppe. But, everyone called him Joe.

Last year I wrote a piece on my other blog about picking hyacinths and lilac with him behind my grandparent's house. I planted hyacinths in my garden this year in his honor. The smell of the two flowers always brings me back to his twinkling blue eyes and gentle voice. I wrote also about our ritual when he would get home from work, him leaning on the enormous ping-pong table and me sitting cross-legged on it. He would read the paper and tell me the news or read me the funnies. I will say it again, I adored him. The white shirt he's wearing in this long lost slide my father scanned and sent to me today reminds me, though, of his barbershop.

Family lore has it that he came to America to be ordained, but while chaperoning a CYO dance he fell for my grandmother. The Church's lost, our gain. But, it wasn't until I was in jr.highschool doing a report on our family tree and he wrote me a letter with family history that I suddenly realized English wasn't his first language. He wrote in broken English. But, he spoke it perfectly. I couldn't reconcile that.... Which brings me to his barbershop. Tailor's ran in his family, but once he tossed the frock away, he apparently apprenticed at a barbershop near the courthouse. He knew lawyers would get their hair cut there and he wanted to learn how to speak proper English. Who better to learn from than the highly educated? And so he did.

Eventually he owned his own barbershop on a busy street with cracked sidewalks. I don't recall what it was called. Certainly not Joe's Barbershop, although I wish it had been. My brother has one of the wonderful old, antique chairs and my father still has the really old school barber sign. You know the ones: red and white that actually spiraled up and down. (Boy that would look good in a loft, maybe, *wink, wink*).

But, I have his small secretaries desk. It sat in the back, in a strangely dark corner given the entire front of the shop was glass. He paid his bills from it, had his phone on it, but above all had pictures of his family on it. When my apartment roof caught on fire once, I carried that desk outside with the family photos... that was all I cared to save. (Luckily the firemen came and I carried it right back up!)

He was a proud and hard worker. He told me that I carried his name and so I must always do things that honored it. I see how he is looking at me in that photo and the feeling has been mutual. I have photos of my father looking at his grandchildren with the same adoration. How lucky they are to have another Poppop of equal stature standing with them. I am so heartily sad that he won't look at a child of mine like that. But, my siblings and I were so blessed to have Poppop C. for ourselves. He was with us just long enough to see me off on my first weekend of college. My other grandfather told me he knew he was hanging on through his illness that long to see his oldest grandchild make it there. And I did. And we spoke that weekend. And I know he was proud of me.

My only bad memory? I cried when he gave me boy haircuts, but I miss him so much still, that maybe I would let him give me one more.

Hot Stuff

Imagination

I imagine this will probably be the most perfect radish I will ever grow.

Limiting?
Defeating?
Triumphant?
Not imagining at all?

Summertime By The Sea

The Squeeze launched off the season with his Collective opening the summer music program for Shoreline Village. They played upbeat jazz standards while the sun set and the folks enjoyed a beautiful summer evening with a glass of wine, an ice cream cone, or a stroll around the harbor boardwalk.

Strawberries, Ginger, and Rhubarb, Oh My!

Spring is fully sprung and after seeing (and buying) the beautiful strawberries at the Farmer's Market yesterday, a hankering for Strawberry-Rhubarb pie overtook me. I didn't see any rhubarb at the market since it doesn't grow well in this climate. I'll test it myself since I planted two roots a month or so ago. Nothing has popped up, but I keep telling myself this winter when it's colder I'll see it thrive. Hmmm. Anyway, since I can't grow it in my own garden, off to Whole Foods I went and came back with some beautiful, slender, ruby red rhubarb.

Then came the dilemma. I'm not a baker. I can't bake. I've tried to bake. There is really no nice way to say this other than I truly suck at baking. So, that narrowed down my baking choice to a crumble...which is usually how my pie crusts turn out anyway. And yet, I wanted a bottom crust...all that strawberry/rhubarb juicy goodness laying on top of a sweet crust to make sure nothing gets lost on the plate. Yep, a traditional crumble wouldn't do. Now, if it wasn't Mother's Day, I would have called Mrs. S. for her recipe. She's (a) family (friend) and I remember her beautiful strawberry-rhubarbs from my childhood which always showed up in the summer for the pool parties, inevitably arriving in her gigantic wicker basket covered with a gingham cloth. I used to have a smaller version of that basket because I loved her entrances to the parties so much....

But, since it was Mother's Day and she's surrounded by a bevy of children and grandchildren today, I'm sure....the internet would have to do. After a lot of yummy recipes passing across my eyes, I settled on a bit of a combination of things. Its core recipe is from Ken Haefich's book PIE
which includes a "skillet crust". This is right up my alley. Basically it's melted butter with vanilla and then the flour and sugar is folded in until if forms a crumb-like crust that can be pressed into your pie plate. Just up my non-baker alley. From there it was adapted by Barbara Fisher on her site Tigers and Strawberries where she added lemon juice and lemon zest as well as ground ginger and cardamon.

I took it one step further and added a tiny bit more ground ginger in the skillet crust and candied ginger in the actual pie/crumble. The pie is decidedly more rhubarb that strawberry given its 2 to 1 ratio, but that's fine by me! It's cooling now and The Squeeze and I will have it after his Mother's Day gig at The Cat Man Blu, a new cajun restaurant that opened up in place of Casa Vino. We'll let you know how it is!

Green Long Beach

A break from NYC pictures because I've been too busy catching up at the office to actually even download them. And besides, you know how I feel about my garden and today was garden-liscious. Today in Long Beach was the first Green festival. It was being held in the Arts District Downtown and actually goes on until 10pm tonight. It seems like it was a great success. It coincided with the Saturday AD Farmers Market and the nighttime Second Saturday Art Walk, so there was a LOT going on including music all day, free yoga in the art park, free classes, tons of green companies showing their wares, activist groups sharing their visions, and naturally our little organic community garden was in full swing as a testament to it all. Green Long Beach







I spent most of the day in the Garden which was open to the public and which hosted the worm composting seminar (kind gross and yet so cool!). Time was spent with all the other gardeners watching people marvel at our little patch of heaven in the middle of the Arts District. The peach trees are heavy with fruit so they were giveaways along with extra seeds and seedlings each gardener contributed. We hope that everyone got inspired to grow something, even if it's in a pot on the windowsill. And a shoutout to Adriana from the blog/podcasts "Anarchy in the Garden" which I read religiously. I understand you were there seeking out information to start a community garden. Sorry I didn't know you were there and GOOD LUCK!