inspiration- Alaskan boat harbor

When we were kids, my Dad used to take my sisters and I on walks down to the boat harbor. My father was a crab fisherman (still is) and we loved to accompany him to "check on the boat". I am not sure what we were actually checking but my little girl imagination liked to think of it as tucking the boat in for the night. We would walk up and down the rows of boats, asking my Dad which boat belonged to whom and picking out our favorites. My Dad would tell us stories about some of the boats, how they got their names or who used to own them. The fishing boats seemed like such characters.

During a recent visit home, my Dad and I took an evening walk and strolled down to the boat harbor. I particularly noticed the colors, lines, patterns and textures. Some of the rope and net details remind me of crochet patterns. It was a quiet, peaceful summer evening and the smooth-as-glass water mirrored back the boat reflections beautifully. I thought I would share a few of my favorite images.

 

 

 

 

tomato tart

 When I think of summer, I think of tomatoes and my grandfathers greenhouse.

My grandfather was a phenomenal gardener. All summer long we ate radishes, swiss chard, and carrots. When my sisters and I would run along the rows my grandfather would remind us to take care not to step on the plants. I loved that my small feet were exactly the width of the walkways. They seemed to disappear between the foliage of the plants on either side.

On the far end of the garden was a large trellis where the sweet peas grew. My older sister loved the peas and we would help ourselves to what was on the trellis. She put such high value on this activity that each year I was supremely disappointed to realize that I still did not like peas. 

What I really remember from my grandfather was his greenhouse. It stood on the north east corner of the property and was separated from the house by row after row of his vegetable garden. Alaskan summers are not hot but they are full of light. The greenhouse was always warm, cozy. It smelled like soil, a fuzzy mineral smell. I used to love to go in there to see the first sprouts off the plants, watch the tiny shapes emerge. Mostly, I liked to go there because it was one of the places where I could be alone and I liked to sing to myself (I am pretty sure my older sister snuck in there to sing too.) With two sisters, it was hard to find a place at home to sing where I would not be overheard and feel self-conscious and embarrassed. I would sing songs from church, about God's great love, Jesus' sacrifice. To this day there is a little part of me that wonders if the tomatoes flourished because of all the songs and prayers.

When my grandfather passed away, my sisters and I sang the hymn "He Walks With Me" at the memorial service:

I come to the garden alone
while the dew is still on the roses
and the voice I hear, falling on my ear
the Son of God discloses

And he walks with me, and he talks with me
and he tells me I am his own;
and the joy we share as we tarry there,
no other has ever known

He speaks and the sound of his voice
is so sweet the birds hush their singing
and the melody that he gave to me
within my heart is ringing

And he walks with me, and he talks with me
and he tells me I am his own;
and the joy we share as we tarry there,
no other has ever known

I'd stay in the garden with Him
though the night around me be falling
but he bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling

And he walks with me, and he talks with me
and he tells me I am his own;
and the joy we share as we tarry there,
no other has ever known

This past summer, my husband and I planted our first tomato plants. We live in California now and do not have to build greenhouses. My husband did build two planter boxes and a friend gave us a couple gorgeous tomato plants. Despite my best efforts, the plants survived (sadly, I am known for my ability to kill plants.) The smell and texture of them brought me right back to my grandfathers greenhouse.

As we started to pick our tomatoes, my older sister called me up to ask if I had made tomato tart from Everyday Food magazine. She declared I just had to make it and that I would love it. She was right: the sweetness of the tomatoes with the savory leek filling and buttery crust. It is swoon worthy. 

The recipe calls for adding goat cheese at the end, but as you can see from the pictures, I omitted it. I like the simpleness of making it just about the tomatoes. I do not know if my grandfather would have ever eaten a tomato tart, but I think he would agree that nothing should get in the way of good tomatoes.

tomato tart

ingredients:
all purpose flour, for rolling
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
1 tablespoon sour cream
1 teaspoon grainy mustard
coarse salt and ground pepper
2 large leeks, white and light-green parts only
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
3/4 pound grape or cherry tomatoes, halved if large  
or plum or beefsteak tomatoes, sliced a 1/4 inch thick
or a combination of both
2 ounces goat cheese, crumbled (optional)
2 teaspoons fresh thyme or basil leaves

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out puff pastry to a 12-inch square; transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet.

2) In a small bowl, stir together sour cream and mustard and season with salt and pepper. Spread sour cream mixture evenly over pastry. Folder over 1/2 inch border on all sides and press edges to seal. Refrigerate 10 minutes.

3) Meanwhile, halve leeks lengthwise; rinse thoroughly, pat dry, and slice 1/4- inch thick. In a large skillet, melt butter over medium-high. Add leeks, season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring frequently, until soft, 3 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring frequently, until leeks are very soft, 5 minutes.

4) Arrange leeks evenly over sour cream mixture on pastry. Top with tomatoes and season with salt and pepper.

 5) Bake until pastry is golden brown and crisp, 25 minutes. Let cool slightly. (If using) top with goat cheese and herbs before cutting into squares. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Note: You can substitute caramelized onions for the leeks.

cucumber water

Note: I originally published this last August. This week, it has been so ridiculously hot, I felt it was appropriate to re-post. Maybe this will become an annual August beat-the-heat note? :)

I made this recently in the midst of an awful heat wave. Okay, so it was less of a heat wave and more of just what we call summer, but I do not think that makes me accept or love it any more. I felt a bit like those crazy sand people characters from Star Wars, only I was hiding in an air conditioned cave all day. I emerged in the morning and evening to water my garden. Every day, when I gave my tomato plants a good soaking, I'd wish them good luck and Godspeed.
When it is so hot, I crave simple, refreshing, pared down flavors. Enter cucumber water. It is delicate and lovely and seems somehow very refined. This also helps with the crankiness from the heat.
I first made this cucumber water for a trio of girlfriends, when we met together in my living room for a weekly writing club. They are all so clever and creative, I felt inspired to share something a little bit quirky and intriguing for a refreshment. It was very informal but wonderfully encouraging experience. We are now scattered all about the country and whenever I make this I think of those talented ladies and toast to them.

This idea is from Martha Stewart Living Magazine.

Cucumber Water

To flavor drinking water, add subtly aromatic slices of English cucumber (which are virtually seedless), instead of the usual lemon wedges. Float the thin rounds in a pitcher of chilled water. Garnish each glass with cucumber, too.

(even reading the recipe is somehow cooling, isn't it?)

Alaska, the beautiful

Friends, in a few days I will be in this lovely place. I am so excited I could scream! I hope to share a couple of notes while I am there.

jam thumbprint cookies

These little cookies would be perfect in a late summer picnic basket or first day of school lunch box.
Jeweled buttons of sweet jam (the ones pictured are raspberry and apricot) encased in hazelnut crusted shortbread.

The hazelnut is my addition. The recipe below calls for blanched almonds to be finely ground. I use hazelnuts. I wish I could say that they are used for some superior culinary purpose, but in truth, it was what I had available when I first went to make these cookies and it has stuck. Also, I achieve the "finely ground" texture of the hazelnuts by blitzing them in the food processor. The sound is similar to what I imagine it would be like if I put marbles in there. Somehow it is a very satisfying ruckus.

One of the things I love about this recipe is that the jam center actually does not bake in the oven. I have had versions of this cookie where the jam was baked in the oven and to me the resulting texture is too rubbery. If you have good friends who keep you in supply of homemade jams (my dear friend made the apricot jam pictured) this is a wonderful way to present it and celebrate the summer's bounty well into fall.

This recipe is from a fabulous special edition Martha Stewart Holiday Cookies issue from 2001. I have no qualms about referring to it all year long.

 

jam thumbprint cookies

1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon table salt
1/2 cup whole blanched almonds, finely ground (here's where I sub in the hazelnuts)
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
1/2 cup jam or preserves

1) Preheat oven to 325. Have ready two parchment-lined baking sheets.

2) In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together butter and 1/2 cup sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add egg yolk and vanilla; beat well. Whisk together flour and salt, and add to mixture, beating on low until combined.

3) Combine almonds with remaining 2 tablespoons sugar. Form dough into 1-inch balls, and dip in egg white, then in almond and sugar mixture. Make a deep indentation in the center of each ball with your finger or bottom of a thick wooden spoon. Transfer to a prepared baking sheet.

3) Bake for 10 minutes, remove from oven, and press down the centers again. Rotate sheets, and bake until golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes more. Remove from oven, and place on a wire rack to cool slightly. Fill centers with about 1 teaspoon of jam.

Note: Have a bowl of ice water ready. When reshaping the thumbprint after the cookie has baked for ten minutes, dip your finger in the ice water for several seconds and dry before reshaping; this will keep your finger cool.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

guitar love

Every once in a while, it feels good to fail. To be fully and completely "uncool." That's how I feel about learning to play guitar. It is always something I wanted to do but never really jumped on.

A few weeks ago my husband and I went to a large music store. He has played acoustic guitar forever and was looking into electric guitars. For some reason we stumbled into the acoustic guitar section- a separate wood paneled room. Inside we spoke in hushed tones and admired the honeyed hues of solid spruce tops and warm toned rosewood necks. It actually kinda smelled like a forest; pine and must.
My husband pulled a guitar off the wall and showed me how to play a G chord. I sat on a low wooden bench strumming my fingers and listening to the strings hum. We exchanged a few sentences about how maybe now was time for me to learn guitar. I have heard different guitar players (friends) talk about the process of picking a guitar and they describe it almost like falling in love: how the guitar really picks you and some connection that is made. My husband had handed me a couple of different guitars to play and I wasn't really sure what I was looking for but about 3 guitars in, it all changed for me. Literally, the second I dragged my fingers across the strings of a spruce topped Fender, my eyes welled up with tears. The hit of emotion shocked me. The tone of this guitar was somehow different. It seemed so full and round and sunny. I honestly did not really know what to think about stumbling into love with a guitar, but I knew I needed to pay attention.

The guitar came home with me. My husband saw the love all over me and graciously assented to making the days purchase about me and this new discovery. Once home, we sat down and he taught me a few more chords.

Here's the interesting thing: I am just awful at it. Sincerely, my fingers are clunky switching between chords and I, who always prided myself on musicality, cannot keep a beat with the strum to save my life. I love it. I love the solitude of it when I spend 15 minutes in the morning before work stumbling through Coldplays "Fix You" and I love it when my husband gets out his guitar, teaches me a chord progression, and we jam away. By jam, of course I mean he sounds great and I skip every second chord just to make to every third. But still, it is so much fun. It feels good to love a thing for love and not as a measure of my talent or skill. (Also, I mentioned to someone at work that I had learned to play "Fix You" and they said that was the first song their daughter learned to play on the guitar. Is that like a thing? Like, the first song everyone learns on the guitar is "Fix You"?)

I realized that for all I know about myself, I still can be surprised by the way in which something can capture me.

oversized chalkboard

I love home decor that plays with scale and size. When my husband and I were house hunting, one of the features of our town home that I fell in love with are the large walls and vaulted ceilings. The actual footprint of the rooms are not enormous, but the high ceilings provide, as Anne would say, "scope for imagination".

I have seen oversized bulletin boards and chalkboards in magazines and always admired them. They are that perfect marriage of functionality and style. When we moved into our home I promised myself that I would not be overwhelmed with the pressure to furnish and decorate all the rooms at once. I wanted to be able to live in the rooms a bit, see how the light moved through them.

Recently, I felt ready to tackle dining room. There is a doorway from the dining room into the kitchen. It is a narrow space and I knew that whatever would go on that wall would need to be non-obtrusive. My husband helped me pick up a 4ft by 8ft piece of plywood from Lowe's. It laid on my dining room table for a week as we took turns first putting down two coats of wall paint and then later 4 coats of chalkboard paint. I am absolutely thrilled with how it turned out!

We talked about building a border or frame around it by using crown molding or trim pieces. In the end, I opted against it because I did not want it to extend in the walking space at all. I put two widths of painters tape around the edge of the plywood and after the paint dried, it left a very sharp edge.

To help keep the minimalist look, my husband attached it to the wall with screws through the dark chalkboard painted corners. He then went back over and dabbed chalkboard paint directly on the screws so they really blend in. I am grateful he has the patience to get the details right. I get too excited at the end of projects and just want to finish them, then later regret not taking the time to polish things up properly.

This week I had dear friends over for dinner and it was fun to write out the menu in large font on the board. I anticipate also using it for favorite quotes, grocery lists, and messages to my love.