A Place for Everything

You know how you have those little projects that just never seem to get done?  You do a little bit of work, forget about them, do a little more work, get busy doing something else, and before you know it at least three centuries have passed before you finally get around to getting the bloody thing finished?

I'm pretty sure this one got started  somewhere in 2009, but yesterday it was finally completed, thanks to Daniel, a spirit level, some screws, a drill, and - strangely enough - nary a swear word....

Ta Dah!!

We now have a place for our winter coats, hats, scarves, etc.  Chairs do actually work quite well as coat hangers, but then you have to move stuff before you sit down, and you're liable to find a gently fur shedding cat curled up against your coat which means it needs to be washed and that's a pain in the bum, and.... much better to have an actual coat rack, don't you think? 

And look at us, we got it installed just in time for spring.... when we won't need it.

Could It Be?.....

Hmmmm....


Looks like the daffodils are coming up....

And those would have to be buds on the apricot tree...

We've had sunshine, and it's far enough above freezing that I have the back door at the moment.

I can hear kids playing outside, there are birds chirping, my feet aren't cold for once, and my fingers are itching to get digging and planting.

Could it be that Spring is FINALLY on the way?

I certainly hope so.  It hasn't been a hard winter, but it's been a gloomy one - which is why you haven't heard much from me of late.  I am hopeful that this mild dose of spring fever will lead to warmer days...

And A Merry Christmas Was Had By All

At least I hope so - in spite of the heat on your side of the world.

Thank you very much for my family gift, Aileen.  What a lovely surprise and a treasure. Lots of lovely family memories there, and now I have absolutely no excuse for forgetting people's birthdays!  Apart from my malfunctioning middle-aged brain, that is...

Daniel and I had a nice quiet day.  We enjoyed it so much last year, we thought we'd try it again.  Although we did have a dinner guest this year.  Tanya, our friend Mark's wife, is a doctor and she was on call Christmas day, so we invited Mark over to have a meal with us, and then we sent him home with leftovers for Tanya.

As is so often the case with us, the focus was on the food.  If you haven't already heard, we managed to get our hands on a locally produced smoked ham for dinner.  It was almost, but not quite, as good as Mum's, but easily the best ham I've had in the US; tender and juicy and flavourful.  The supermarket ham here is injected with a solution of water and some sort of chemicals to keep it tender, but it seems to me that if you cook it carefully you don't need all that junk, plus which you get ham that actually has texture instead of being kind of mushy. We had the ham for mains, with steamed vegies and a potato casserole that was made with garlic, cheese and cream. Mmmmmmm!  Oh, there was mustard and homemade cranberry relish on the side.

We had an entree, too, but I got all carried away by the ham so I mentioned it first.  For entree, I made a salad.  Pay attention to this one, because it's absolutely scrumptious:  2 baby fennel bulbs (or one large, which is all we could get), two firm-but-ripe pears, some toasted walnuts (or pecans) and some chunks of parmesan cheese.  Slice the fennel and pear very thinly (I used a mandolin for the fennel and a very sharp knife for the pears) and dress it with a dressing made from two tablespoons good quality olive oil and one tablespoon lemon juice seasoned to taste.  Sprinkle with the nuts and cheese and some of the fennel fronds. Enjoy!  It was enough for four entree servings.  I think it would make a lovely lunch with a few slices of ham on the side.

Mark didn't stay for dessert, and since we were both full, I made it later in the evening.  I made an apple galette on puff pastry that looked a lot fancier than the effort it took would seem to warrant.  Daniel gave me some good quality heavy-gauge baking trays for Christmas (the ones we had were cheapy old non-stick ones and pretty much worn out) and a couple of SilPat sheets to go on them.  Don't know if you've heard of them, but they're a non-stick silicone liner you can put on baking trays so you a) don't have to grease the trays, and b) don't have to keep buying baking paper. They're a lot easier to clean, too. I got to use a tray and a liner for the dessert, and they worked a treat.  Nothing stuck and, more importantly, the pastry didn't burn in spite of being in a 220-degree oven. 

Oh, I almost forgot to mention breakfast.  I made some corn and ricotta hotcakes with cilantro in them, and served them with an egg, a couple of bits of bacon and a few prawns, some fresh chilli sliced thinly, and oyster sauce.  There was an awful lot of the hotcake mix, but it actually kept very well so I cooked up the rest of it for lunch today (with ham on the side, of course).

We're not too sure how Maggie spent Christmas.  She disappeared when Mark came over and we didn't see her until much later in the evening.  We suspect she was holed up somewhere drinking mousenog and nibbling on crispy squirrel bits.  Dobie decided that since I wasn't using my pillow, he would...

What can I say?  He doesn't suffer from a lack of entitlement...

So all in all it was a good day, and I hope yours were, too.  I haven't been up to much today - just pottering around and working on a baby blanket for a baby that's due any day now.

I have a week's holiday ahead of me, so I've lined up some good books and plan to do not too much until I go back to work.

Cheers!

Snow Day

It may seem a little odd, but while you're snoozing your way through the end of the first day of the Australian summer, I have been outside taking pictures of the snow we had last night. It isn't officially winter yet (Decenber 21st is the day, I think), but you can't tell the weather that.

 If I were Canadian or Russian, I would probably dismiss the seven inches (around 15 centimetres, I think) as not much, but we don't actually get a lot of snow in our valley.  Needless to say, the roads this morning are a snowy, slippery mess, so the university isn't opening until 11am.... wish I'd known that BEFORE I got out of bed. They have an automated phone system that dials everyone to let them know when there's an emergency or weather event, but I had to get out of bed to answer the phone, didn't I?

Daniel's on his way to work as I write this.  Fortunately we got some studded tyres for the Mazda over the weekend, so he should make it okay.  As you can see, the car had to be cleaned before he got underway, and the footpaths had to be shovelled off.

This is the yard next door to us.

And this is our street.

I wouldn't mind betting that more than a few people will be taking the day off work today so they can go skiing at Bogus Basin, which is the nearest ski slope to us.  This is perfect weather for snow bunnies.

It's supposed to rain later today as the weather warms up (to slightly above freezing), which will turn everything into a big slushy mess.  Can't say I mind that much - I LIKE snow.

Back in Boise

Well, I made it back to Boise more or less in one piece, although I think there are still pieces of me scattered over the Pacific somewhere.  Hopefully they'll find their way back to me soon.  I really would like the bit of my brain that helps me think clearly to return, but I suspect that may actually be lost to the wilderness of middle age...

I slept for THIRTEEN hours when I got back.  That must be a personal record!  Of course, I've had trouble sleeping since then, but I should be right by the end of the week.

Thank you all so much for such a lovely visit.  Not that I needed reminding, but it's nice to confirm that I have the best family ever.

The furry folk were surprisingly well-behaved.  There wasn't a single shredded plant to be found, in spite of the fact that Daniel was also out of town for three days.  Maggie didn't bite me once, and Dobie did not run away in fright when he saw me.  They just came and said hi, gave my luggage a thorough sniffing, and as soon as I sat down Maggie curled up on my lap. Now I feel bad for casting such horrible aspersions upon them.

Fall fell while I was away.  My garden is well and truly done for the year; all that remains is cleaning up and mulching my freeze-sensitive plants (like my rosemary that I'm not supposed to be able to overwinter). A couple of my carrots went to seed, which I'm quite happy about - they're an heirloom variety so I can grow more from the seeds I will hopefully get (they're not ripe yet).

Although we don't get much in the way of fall colours here, Daniel and I took a Sunday drive to see what was there to be seen.  Daniel took these two especially lovely photos at a little spot called Wild Rose Park:

So yes, life is pretty much back to normal already.... sigh.... At least I have my favourite American holiday to look forward to.  Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away, and Daniel's Mum is coming to visit, which should make it extra special.

Cheers!

Nooooooo!

Could this be all that remains of the Last PollyWaffle ever? 

Surely not? 

Something has gone horribly awry when the world is

PollyWaffle-less....

It Finally Happened...

Daniel turned 40....

We had a bit of a barbecue to celebrate, and also to give Daniel the chance to take The Great Barbecue Behemoth on its maiden voyage.  This is why I have dubbed it The Great Barbecue Behemoth:

You can use charcoal on the right-hand side and propane on the left-hand side.  Which makes it a lot easier to have a bit of a barbie on a weeknight when you don't have the time or inclination to build up a bed of charcoal.  We're thinking that if we put a motor on it, we could just drive it to assorted barbecue locations.

Daniel did the barbecuing, and The Behemoth had more than enough space to feed 29 people.  He grilled citrus marinated chicken breasts, chicken pieces, and what he called Big Ugly Pork Steaks... one of which was enough to feed two or three people.

Here's how we set up the back yard, on what turned out to be an absolutely perfect day for a birthday barbecue:

It was all done buffet-style, except for the nibblies.  I had dips, chips and salsa on the table, and our friend Starr ran the hot nibblies around to the guests.  I made pumpkin and feta tarts, sun dried tomato and basil tarts, and mini beef empanadas.

By the time the sun went down (which is getting earlier and earlier), it looked like this:

We also had green bean and feta salad (I've picked about 12 kilos of beans this year... it was a very, very good season, apparently), Daniel's totally wonderful potato salad, and a vinegar coleslaw that is more or less marinated in the dressing.

Of course there was cake:

And Daniel being Daniel, it had to be chocolate with chocolate and some extra chocolate cake.  I had planned, per the recipe, to make a ganache for the icing.  And per the recipe, I got some fancy chocolate chips to make it super scrumptious.  What a disaster that turned out to be!  And mere hours before the party, too! It was salty, and all around bloody awful.  Daniel said it tasted like Vegemite - which is fine if you're a jar of Vegemite, but totally unacceptable if you're supposed to be icing for a birthday cake.  Fortunately, I had enough ingredients on hand to make a (chocolate) butter cream icing and it turned out very well.  I went inside to get something, and when I got back the cake was gone!

I also made a pecan and honey slice, and some plain biscuits that I joined together with my (ahem) award-winning apricot conserve, and blueberry preserve.

Daniel had the idea to hang Chinese paper lanterns over the table, and we also got some mini ones that he hung along the garage.  It was a really nice idea - simple, but very festive.

We rented all the plates, tables, chairs, etc. And it turned out to be a good idea, too.  I just couldn't come at celebrating something as important as a fortieth with paper plates and plastic cutlery.

Things kicked off pretty early, so we were all done and pretty much cleaned up by about 11pm, which was nice.

Word has it that everyone enjoyed themselves, which is, after all, the point of a party.  And it was really nice to have such an eclectic bunch of people share the celebration. It was a lot of work, but I think it was worth it (now that I've recovered).  The only thing I would do differently next time is rope in more helpers and buy about two-thirds less wine and beer.  I think we have enough leftovers to last us until Daniel turns 80!

I am totally enamoured of the whole eating outside at a long table with tablecloths and proper plates.  I'd like to do it again before the winter pounces on us.

And, finally, here he is at the end of the party:  Dan, Dan the Birthday Man:

Cheers!