tomatoes forever

Well, I wish you were going, too, Suze. We decided on this trip right after we committed ourselves to five days in Michigan, and I can't be gone any more in October. Let's try for January for the three of us.

Your retirement party plan is a good one. I hope that the other retiree agrees to it. One must do something. I didn't want a banquet, which is what most faculty have, so I had a cocktail party at the RF golf course. It was very nice. Mom and Dad were there, too.

Thanks for your baseball memories, Mom. I remember the Oaks and the Seals, of course. All that's left now is one bar on San Pablo in Emeryville, the Oaks something, I forget what. But it's clearly left over from when the stadium was down there.

My life continues to be dominated by vegetables. Even though I was determined to be done with tomatoes, I spent the day on Tuesday peeling, dicing, etc., to make six quarts of my concentrated tomato stuff. That took a good part of the day. Then yesterday I made it all into Mario's tomato sauce. That's pretty easy, but making it in quantity made me have to peel a lot of garlic, chop a lot of onions, and labor to extract enough thyme leaves to make half a cup of chopped thyme. That was a lot of work. Then we pulled the leeks, and I spent much of the afternoon cleaning and editing them. I'm almost done, will finish this morning. I'll have more than will fit in the downstairs fridge, though. Don't quite know what to do with the extras. Guess I'll put them in the root cellar until I have a chance to freeze or dry them. Last year I tried to sell some at the grocery store in SV. I gave them a dozen, they sold four, so I made two dollars (they sold them for $1 each, gave me half). Just before that, they'd sold some dill for me, and from that I made $6. Big profit from the garden. I should see if the Whole Earth in RF is interested in selling some.

When I came in the house, before I could cook dinner I had to cut up a sinkful of Romas and get them in the dryer, where they are right now. Nice smell in the house. Then I washed a pile of spinach (the fall crop is small, but nice, and I hope the rest holds in the garden until I get back), some of which we ate for dinner, along with buccatini with Mario's sauce & the last of the guanciale. Good.

One more day of this push. When I finish the leeks, I'll pull most of the carrots and get them cleaned up. They, too, go in the downstairs fridge. Cans of pop will have be moved out to make room for them. Also have to freeze the tomato sauce and make another apple galette.

Charlie has spent all this time sanding siding (Tuesday) and painting boards for trim. He's working towards finishing the outside of the garage, hurrah!

We finally saw the sun again yesterday, and it'll be sunny today. I've got laundry started, will hang it out.

As far as adventures in the fried chicken trade go, I did fry up four thighs last weekend, but they came out too greasy. I had them in the fridge up until the last minute, so I think they were too cold (I'm usually careful about that). I had to turn the heat way down to keep them from burning before they were cooked through, and they absorbed too much grease. I used butter and oil, and the butter wanted to burn; next time I'll try Crisco. I should also use cast iron, I guess. The Le Creuset's big advantage is the nice fond it makes in the bottom of the pan, good for sauces. But frying for that long overdoes the browning. Anyway, the fried chicken was not really a total success. My Sunday pot roast was good, but Mark Bittman wants too many onions to start with, and the gravy was too sweet. I also deglazed with wine, optional, an option I won't take again. All cooking can't be perfect.

I shall now begin my day.