Summer Picnic! — Cure for Winter Blues & and Blahs

I’m definitely tired of shovelling stuff that isn’t even snow, but some evil compound designed to pack 18 inches of snow into about 9 inches of Arctic Concrete, although I’m still fine with seeing snow and wearing sweaters.   But some of the rest of us here at Pergola House have the Winter Blues & Blahs.  So we had a Summer Picnic this week-end! Here is the invitation:

Love the kids stuffing their faces with fruit and bread!

In deference to aging knees I put the picnic table-cloth on the table rather than the floor.  I thought about using paper plates and cups, but decided to pretend we have a butler and use the Belleek, the Waterford, and the Edgeworth silver.

picnic cloth, flowers, china, silver

The starter was shrimp and corn chowder, riffing of a recipe by Clayton Bernard Jr.  Now I hate to disagree with Clayton, but honestly, if you use the food processor correctly, it’s just as smooth as using a blender.  The trick is to thoroughly puree the cooked corn (and couple of braised onion slices) in the processor without the liquid — the milk it was simmered in — before adding the liquid.  I also put a half-cup or so of corn kernels in along with the shrimp for sautéing  The other thing is that it reheats (in the microwave) perfectly well, and next time I’d do it all the day before.

The salad was a riff of  Jacques Pepin’s cabbage salad — made in smaller amounts in individual bowls.  It was pretty and crunchy, with anchovy goodness.

too pretty to eat?

The main course was a half a New York strip steak and Oven-Fried Chicken (corral and coop?), chicken being the oven-fried version of Frank McClelland’s fried chicken which starts with a fantastic buttermilk/citrus zest marinade, overnight.  I just don’t do Fried Chicken in all that oil. My amazing broiled potatoes and simple asparagus for veg.  Dessert was, well, fab.   Sections of blood orange drizzled with homemade ginger syrup, served in my grandmother’s antique sherbet glasses.  I had figured one orange per person, but could have easily eaten two all by myself.

unplanned, but I love how the dessert matches the flowers!

We turned the heat up enough to wear polo shirts and t-shirts and dresses and sandals, and the evening was a genuine mini-vacation.

 

My Assistant Herbalist…

studying the problem

A couple of nights before Thanksgiving, before we were to get a real hard freeze (parsley’s fine down to 25-30F) I got home after dark and it was cold and freezing rain. So instead of cutting the stems, I pulled the two big plants right out of the ground and plopped them in my big 13″diam. mixing bowl — which they
filled completely. They looked really pretty, and if I’d been hosting Thanksgiving I’d have used them as the basis for a centerpiece. I poured some water in and a couple days later started cutting and processing the
parsley — I chop the parsley in the food processor with olive-oil (and one batch with garlic as well) and freeze it in icecube trays and then decant the cubes into tupperware for future use.

Clearly the cat didn’t think I could manage this process on my own:

getting to the bottom of things

Hmmmm.....

anything else to worry about?

easy does it... there we go!

 

Decorating the Tree

Last night we in the Artist’s House decorated the Xmas tree.  Now, properly speaking, that should be done on the night of the Winter Solstice, but when people are around who want to do it and they won’t be around on the Solstice, well, ya go with the flow.

It’s a small, artificial tree installed at the end of the 11 1/2ft dining table.  The base is shrouded in white netting layered with white bee lights (fairy lights).  A few paper snowflakes lie on the netting.  The family of brass reindeer cluster in the snow.  They are actually African gazelles brought back from Kenya by an uncle in the 1960s, but they are our Christmas reindeer.

The tree is lit with white bee lights and vintage/antique ornaments from my mother’s family, some homemade ornaments, and a few modern ones.  The top is crowned with a hunting horn that Robin Hood blows on Midwinter Morn.

For anyone who wonders, the proper date for taking down the tree and other decorations is Epiphany.

Christmas Tree at Pergola House

close-up of reindeer/antelopes in the snow at the foot of the xmas tree

 

Valspar Paint, and Pine Panelling

Color, Color, Color.  I’m good at color.  So why did it take fifty-two, well, five or six, takes to find the right colour for the dining room???  I was using the nice oriental rug in front of the fireplace as the keynote for colors and was planning on using the same red that had graced the TV kennel where that rug had lived in my old house.  Pinned up sample and NOOOO — not right at all.

Dining Room before -- note the panelling

Sigh.  Went to Lowe’s and brought back a dozen or so paint chips in 3 different colour families: reds, peachys, and golds.  Stewed over them for several days.  Went back to Lowe’s and bought a half-dozen sample half-pints  — what a great idea, check out http://valsparatlowes.com/explore-colors/paint-samples.html.  One caveat — the samples come only in Satin sheen…

I painted the samples on sheets of insulation board  http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=104593-46086-414423&lpage=none   which I use for pinning up textile art in progress, and set them up and stewed over them!

I finally realised that the difficulty was that the pine panelling had an orange undertone that, subtle though it was, had to be taken into consideration, along with the rug.  So I turned to my extensive, some would say “excessive”, collection of textiles and started pinning them up.  After a few days I went back to Lowe’s and settled on Valspar “Upholstery Red”  (dumb name, in my humble opinion), a soft, warm, almost chalky red.

http://www.valsparatlowes.com/project-ideas/unexpected-color/Oatlands_Upholstery_Red_Color.html