Dessert Party

Happy Valentine's Day - a day early. We are having our even-year-dessert party on Valentine's Day, celebrating love with much chocolate. And fruit, don't forget the fruit. Here is the list:

1. Chocolate espresso fudge cake
2. Chocolate chip peanut butter cake
3. Triple chocolate pumpkin pie
4. Chocolate pudding pie with whipped cream (aka fire)
5. Apple pie
6. Lemon bars
7. Large & luscious oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
8. Deep dark chocolate fudge cookies
9. Chocolate chip cookies
10. Fudgy brownies
11. Salted fudge brownies
12. Supernatural brownies
13. Fruit crisps
    Apple
    Cherry
    Cranberry
    Blueberry
14. Ice cream
    Stewart's
    Soy
15. Fruit - mixed

Our recipe sources:

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman (our new food bible)

Vegan Express by Nava Atlas (a local woman, she got a master's from SUNY New Paltz)

Death by Chocolate by Marcel Desaulniers (given to me by Candace Vancko after our first party in 2007)

Various things clipped from the New York Times and magazines, including the Thanksgiving issue of the Martha Stewart magazine, seen at TresOlay, my salon in New Paltz.

Our food sources:

Local as much as possible. Flour and oatmeal from Wild Hive (://www.wildhivefarm.com/), local and close. Ice cream from Stewart's (made near Albany). Eggs from Farm and Granary (farmandgranary@gmail.com), local and close. Organic chocolate. Unsalted butter made as close to the Hudson Valley as possible. Apples, blueberries and cherries frozen from the local harvest last fall.

Already stored in the garage: cookies and brownies. To come today: everything else.

Excess on the way!

The real new year...

The spring semester begins today, which means 2010 is really underway. For my readers in the higher education biz, happy new year!

Happy New Year

Well, 2010. It even resists the keystrokes. How often will we write 2009? Or 2020? Or 2001? What will we call it? Two Thousand and Ten? Twenty Ten? Two Thousand Ten? Ten? We'll have to wait and see, eh?

We celebrated the new year with friends and it was perfect. Dinner with Bud and Millie, with Paula's lasagna and Barbara's apple pie! Oh heavenly. The luxury of good friends. Barbara and Tom came over to our B&B in Frederick and we talked and exchanged gifts. Ken and I were sound asleep at the turn of the decade/year.

We then drove to Deb and Greg, having breakfast with them and Casey and a slew of her friends, who had had a New Year's sleep-over. Amid memories of Casey on the volleyball gym floor in Ann Arbor all those years ago, we toasted the new year and promised to see each other more often. I will see Deb and Greg later in January, so we're getting a good start on that resolution.

Then on to New York City, and a Broadway show and a movie. It was cold, but festive in the city. We oh-ed and awe-d at the tree in Rockefeller Center and watched the skaters in Bryant Park. We saw "In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play," which is about exactly what the title suggests. It was written by Sarah Ruhl, and was definitely from a woman's point of view. Movies today. Ken saw the Sherlock Holmes movie and I saw the Tom Ford movie, "A Single Man." Very painterly. We saw "Invictus" on Wednesday night, so that makes four movies so far this season. I have ambitions for more.

We came home from the city late this afternoon to a very cold house: the motor that moves hot water throughout the house was burned out. Let's hear it for small towns - the fix-it man was here within two hours and the hot water is circulating as I write.

A new year and a new decade - I hope for the best for all of us.

A New York Movie Day

When you live, as we do, 90 miles from the greatest city in the world, you discover its more obvious virtues first: restaurants, live theater, museums, shopping. Then the next layer reveals itself: movies, small neighborhoods, water, islands. Ken and I are big movie people and we regularly go into New York for movie days. As we have very different taste in movies, we often see different movies, so we work the logistics of four movies in one day. Staying overnight permits a fifth and sixth movie, but we do not do that very often anymore (cue the 90 miles). We went in last Saturday (12/19/09) with a plan for four movies: The Messenger and Brothers for me and Avatar and Nine for Ken. Ever the flexible pair, we ended up instead with Crazy Heart for me, Avatar for Ken and Up in the Air for us both.

When you see two movies in one day, which I love to do, and when the movies you see reflect your taste, then there are certain correspondences that reveal themselves in the time after the movies are over. The combination of the two movies influences your opinion. (As a side note, I wonder if movie critics see more than one movie a day. ) So Crazy Heart and Up in the Air are cooking in my head. They are very similar movies: sober and somber and redemptive. Or at least about redemption of men by women. What a surprise. Both men - Jeff Bridges and George Clooney (talk about your A list) - are isolated in a lonely world. Both meet women who save them and leave them. Both movies end with the men in better shape - although the Bad Blake character is in fantasy better shape. Ryan Bingham ends on a more ambivalent note.

Up in the Air reflects our time more accurately. Both main characters have no financial worries, but Ryan Bingham's job is to fire people. The progression of talking heads is heart breaking, all the more so because they are real people, who really got fired (in Detroit, natch). The snowy, but definitely not picturesque, landscape of the parts of the movie is bleak.

Jeff Bridge's portrayal of a bad boy country singer is without vanity. We see his broad belly and his slack chin. We also see the fantastic body of a much younger woman who falls into bed with him. We can gaze, apparently without harm, on the overweight body of a 60 year old man, but can see only leggy, slim young women. Most movies are made by men, after all. It's their fantasy.

I would recommend both movies, but do not go see Up in the Air expecting a comedy. It's witty and has amusing parts, but it is ultimately a reflection of where we are as 2009 morphs into 2010.

Christmas Letter (!)

Happy holidays to you all! Another Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Eid al-Adha - holidays at the start of winter, the darkest time of the year. 2009 has seemed to be a dark year in general (This damned recession! These damned wars!), so I am fervently hoping for a bright, kind 2010. It is amazing that the first decade of the 21st century will be in our rear view mirror.

Ken and I have had an active fall. Few people get to have not one but two vacation experiences that involved climbing 4' into a bed, but we did. Our train trip west for Matt's 40th birthday in September involved 3 nights on Amtrak, and a climb into a bunk that flops down from the wall. Our trip south to the Sajay, Midge and Jay's 38' catamaran, involved a climb into a bed with the night sky in our eyes. We are lucky indeed to have had these experiences. The British Virgin Islands are beautiful and I got to do one of my most favorite things: throwing myself into the beautiful waters of the Caribbean. Wowza! We have pictures of both trips to share, but will not do so without your request.

Ken has been away much of the fall at his client outside of Pittsburgh. I spent two weekends there with him, one in June and one in November, and have really acquired an affection for Pittsburgh. What a great city! Very walkable. Great food. Great shopping. The Strip District. The campuses. The neighborhoods. A wonderful tea shop. Fabulous - really - bakeries. In talking to the young people I am privileged to associate with, I am saying, 'consider Pittsburgh'. It seems to be in decent shape in terms of the economy, and housing is interesting and somewhat affordable. And Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh - very cool. He is just about done with this client, and hopefully, done for a while with being gone 5 days a week. Lonely for Jackie!

Other fall highlights:

• Labor Day on the Jersey shore - what a concept! A boardwalk. Surf Taco. Ocean. Beach.
• Walkway over the Hudson - totally amazing. http://walkway.org/ Check it out! You'll rush to visit us to walk it.
• The World Series!!!!! Yes, I've become a rabid Yankee fan and it is SOOOOOOO much fun to win. Go Yanks!
• College football on the east coast: we saw Army beat VMI and Columbia lose miserably to Harvard. Next, it's college hockey at the Military Academy at West Point.
• Theater: Metamorphoses and The Red Masquerade at SUNY New Paltz and A Little Night Music on Broadway. The latter, which actually opens today, will be a hit, I'm sure.
• Two concerts by the Community-College Chorale: Benjamin Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb, Verleih uns Frieden by Mendelssohn, opera choruses, including The Witches' Chorus from MacBeth by Verdi. I loved most of the music, especially the Britten. Singing is fabulous.
• Opera - I went to the Met for the first time and saw From the House of the Dead by Janecek. Amazing, powerful, awesome. I went on a Monday night. How lucky we are to live so close to such excellence!

So, lovely readers - I hope your holiday is the best!

Now, the end of summer!

Classes at SUNY New Paltz begin tomorrow; so ends the summer. The same sensation each year at this time: OMG, it's here and I'm not ready.

Our kitchen is done! The formerly honey-toned cupboards are now a creamy vanilla, with new pulls and hinges. I'm telling you - it looks good. We processed 19 pints of salsa yesterday in it, and it works as well. The stove fan is a revelation - clean, for one thing. Light is brighter; fan is quieter. Pictures to come.

Because memory fades, here is a list of what we did:

1. Moved all the furniture from the downstairs room into the garage.
2. Picked up the Pergo-like flooring, then flipped, gouged, pounded on the asphalt tile underneath.
3. Took out the old, paltry, puny closet, complete with the pathetic folding door. Jeez, what an excuse for a door.
4. Filled in cracks in the cement floor, then spread a product called Dry-Locks (or Dry Lox), which provides another barrier to water (hopefully).
5. Talked about and then bought the tile at the local big box store. I'm sorry about that, but this year price was a bigger consideration.
6. Laid the tile. What an innocent little phrase for such a big job. Ken did 75% of the work, but I did the other quarter and let me tell you, tile layers deserve the money they get.
7. Grouted the tile and did the other stuff you have to do to make the floor look good. That includes more hands and knees work to scrub the grout residue off. More fun.
8. Made a closet. Yes, fellow DYIers, that involves drywall and all the pleasant tasks that accompany.
9. Made a stairway. Ken took out the existing, ratty-looking stairs and replaced them with a slightly more gentler slope. He had never created a stairway before and I'm here to tell you that it works. Involved staining and polyurethaning.
10. Painted walls and ceiling.
11. Hung art and a new hook set/coat rack, inspired by a similar set in Midge and Jay's house on Ashley in Ann Arbor. Put in new switch plates.
12. Worked on two doors - moved the door from the upstairs bathroom to the new closet and installed a new door in the upstairs bathroom. That means our work touched all three floors of our little house. That also means more stain and polyurethane.
13. Shampooed the rug, bought on rock bottom clearance from ABC Carpets several years ago in one of my most enjoyable shopping experiences in New York.
14. Switched to the kitchen.
15. Dissembled the kitchen - all stuff on every flat surface in the room. Rendered the kitchen basically inoperable for 3-4 days.
16. Palm-sanded all the cupboard doors. Applied a product called Styx. Sanded. Palm-sanded all the cupboards themselves, in and out. Applied Styx.
17. Painted.
18. Sanded a little.
19. Painted again.
20. Remounted doors. New hinges. Again, two words but such a big difference. These 1959 cupboards were held together by copper, mottled external hinges that may have been attractive to some people at one time, but no more. The new hinges match the pulls we bought last year in a brushed nickel.
21. Put stuff back in cupboards.
22. Admired.

Last year, we had a 'staycation' and painted the upstairs rooms and the metal doors. This year, our projects were much more complex and demanding and instead of taking the front half of 4 pleasant days to complete, it took us many hours over a month. But now, both projects are 99.9% complete and we move on.

More salsa today and peaches to freeze.

Finally, Summer!

Summer has finally arrived in New Paltz. Since Friday, it has been sunny and warm and there is no rain in the forecast until Wednesday. The weather has been improving steadily for weeks now, and the rain and gloom is temporarily in our rear view mirror. Our garden may not recover, and tomatoes may be in short supply throughout the area, however. What we do have: jalapeno peppers, eggplant, cukes, onions, and now, red peppers. We have some tomatoes, but are concerned about blight. We'll see. Ken has hot packed 8 pints of pickles.

We had our work/play week off in honor of our 29th wedding anniversary. We worked HARD on Saturday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday; played on Sunday and left for New York City mid-morning on Thursday. The renovation and total transformation of our downstairs room is 99% complete. It is amazing. It has gone from dark and musty, to light and airy. The closet Ken built is the biggest in the house and gives us some wiggle storage room. No more crammed winter clothes. We are now 1/3-1/2 way into the kitchen cabinet painting project. We are going from 1950's era honey stain to a vanilla paint, plus a new stove exhaust fan. Next year, we plan to put in a new stove top, countertops and a sink. That will be our kitchen renovation on the 'cheap'.

For right now, the kitchen is laid out on the table and counters and in the living room, so it's off to the Bistro for breakfast and a full day of sanding and painting. We'll send pictures! More to come!