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Blackberry cobbler

On our five acres we have about 4.99 acres of blackberry bushes. They have quite simply taken over. When we leave the house we have to take a machete with us just to hack our way to the car.

Do you see my Honda under there?

So what to do with all those blackberries? I’m all for leaving them to the birds and squirrels to eat because those suckers have thorns and I’m pretty sure coyotes or tigers live in them but Rick was brave and picked a colander full.

And I made a cobbler. I used The Pioneer Woman’s recipe and it turned out okay. I think it needs a thickening agent of some kind. The juice was just a little bit thin. I also added about 1/8 cup of cinnamon sugar to the biscuit part only because it was sitting on the counter, left over from Snickerdoodle baking earlier in the day.

There’s nothing like 109 degree temperatures to bring out the baker in me. I think the cinnamon added a really nice flavor to it but you still need to add a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Since we are out looking for my Honda has anyone seen my stone garden bench?

Would you like to come up and see my etchings?

This is going to be the invisible project. It’s hard to get a good picture of etched glass. Especially with the contents of the glass jar being white, on a white table cloth. You might have to dig out your visualization skills for this post.

Years and years ago I bought these French canisters at Cost Plus before it became World Market. I used a black Sharpie pen and wrote Flour, Sugar or Bisquik (yes, with a typo) on each canister.

After seeing some Martha project where she was etching her signature M on anything that would sit still I decided to try my hand at it.

The font I used is Mamae que nos faz and, Lord help me, I really hope that doesn’t mean anything offensive in French….

I played around with font sizes until I found one that would fit and then I printed the words on some clear paper backed adhesive sheets I had left over from some other project. The glass etching cream people suggest using contact paper but I wanted to print, not trace the lettering. I’m thinking the contact paper would be easier to cut and would make better contact (!) with the glass but what I used worked pretty well.

The most tedious part is cutting out the stencil. You are just removing the black part and leaving the rest. Which means you have to be really careful about the middle of the A and the loopy bit of the G. I had to cut out the middle bits of the S twice because I goofed.

Sigh. Trying to photograph something clear on a clear background is like trying to photograph a figment of your imagination.

See that white jar in upper right hand corner? That is the etching medium. It’s by Armour Products and is called Armour Etch Glass Etching Cream. It cost about $11 for a three ounce jar which I think would do a lot of projects.

You can buy kits from Armour Products but I didn’t see anything in there, other than the etching cream, that I really needed. You can also buy pre-done stencils which would be fun for decorating glasses or doing a design on a mirror.

After doing the Flour and the Sugar I decided we didn’t use Bisquick all that often anymore and, besides, my fingers were going numb from clutching the X-acto so tightly.

I am off to use both the flour and sugar for a blackberry cobbler. Blackberries from our very own yard. How is THAT for local? I’ll post on it tomorrow.

Heat

Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez
Jose Macarena Hernandez
Abdon Felix

Our state is on fire. I don’t just mean that literally – although – literally it is. Not only are there a bobillion acres that have burned or are in the very business of burning right this second, but the heat is just oppressive. I whine and flop around, pulling my sweaty hair up off my neck whilst checking the thermostat and bumping up the AC another notch. A skunk has expired under our deck which just adds to the overall ambiance of the heat and smoke and unusual humidity. The lovely wafting breezes of a rotting animal right under the kitchen windows.

It looks like a foggy, winter morning until you open the door and feel the heat and smell the smoke. The sun is a strange orange ball in a darkened sky. The cat has taken to sleeping in the cool, porcelain bowl of the hall bathroom sink, for whatever slight relief it brings.

The names above are those of people that have died this Summer. In the heat. Not poor, shut-in elderly folks that we read about each and every year – with admonitions to check on our neighbors. Which we all should do. Not small children, left in a car while mommy runs in, for just a minute, to have a quick drink at a local bar. Good lord does anyone not know this is colossally stupid thing to do?

They are a 17 year old girl. A 64 year old man. A 42 year old father of three. Abdon spent his last day loading grapes onto a truck. Maria Isabel was pruning vines, without access to water or shade, when most girls her age should be picking out which bathing suit they are going to wear to the beach. The next butternut squash you eat may have been in the work calloused hands of Jose on his last day on this earth.

We are so very quick to point fingers at China, poisoning our dogs with tainted pet food or Kathy Lee Gifford for failing to notice that the clothes with her name on them are manufactured in foreign sweatshops by eight year olds. Yet we don’t give a second thought to who’s toil, who’s sweat has graced our evening meal.

This is not a political diatribe. I have no agenda. Or any answers. Not a single one. Just an overwhelming sense of grief that this can happen under our very noses. Who hasn’t left the television or radio on for a dog that is going to be left alone for the day. Or turned the air conditioning on when we run out to the store so the cat is comfy and the house nice and cool when we get home.

We are compassionate people. We want to do what’s right. We take our green approved grocery sacks with us when we do our shopping, we filter our tap water and refill our thermoses so as not to add more plastic water bottles to the landfill. For crying out loud if you walk down Main Street in Los Altos you will see every other store has a dish of water out for the canine pedestrians (quadrupedestrians?).

Yet our farm workers – IN THIS DAY AND AGE – don’t have ample water on a 110 degree day?

How can we know what grocery stores, what growers to buy from? What wine to drink. How can we send a message that this cannot and will not be tolerated?

I am totally enamored with local eating. Getting to know who grew my lunch. Yet I’m ashamed to say that I’m equally enamored with running into my local Uber-Mart to grab the makings for a dinner without a second thought of how or where it came from. I know for me personally I just need to slow down. Plan ahead. Be deliberate. Be considerate. But is that enough?

No one, no one, should die, trying to get my dinner on the table.

There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed. -Samuel Johnson (1709-1784

Mary’s tackle box

My dad has a storage area outside by the trash cans. A bank of cupboards that house ancient cans of house paint, a decrepit old ladder, and old gardening tools that haven’t been used in decades.

There’s a lot of rat poop in there too so no one wants to take on the job of cleaning it out. My youngest, Evan, is a bit braver and a lot more curious and he started poking around this weekend and tucked way in the back he spied an old, painted tackle box.

It was covered in grime so he carefully cleaned it off and when he opened it up instead of ancient tools or fishing gear, like he was expecting, it was filled with art supplies.

Art supplies that are in relatively good shape considering they’ve been tucked into an old cupboard for probably 25 years.

To give an idea how old the supplies are one of the tubes of oil paints had a price tag on it for $1.30. Just looking at comparable tubes now – they cost anywhere from $11 to $25 for the same color, same size tube.

The tackle box is what my artistically inclined sister Mary used to lug around with her paint smeared and ink stained hands. She is the only sister with any artistic talent. Oh the others are creative and very talented with their chosen mediums (fabric) but Mary was the only one that could actually draw and paint. Her ink drawings still hang at my Dad’s house.

When I was little I was always really intrigued by Mary’s art supplies. Probably because there were dire warnings if I was ever to even think of touching any it. When I was about four I did get into them and decided that the doorknobs and plumbing fixtures in the hall bathroom would be much enhanced if I painted them all cadmium yellow. I think I’m still grounded for that budding creative expression.

What is remarkable about this find is that my mother was not sentimental about hanging on to our childhood things. That she tucked this box into a cupboard is testament to Mary’s artistic talent. I’m sure she figured Mary would be needing it again.

Strawberry Shortcake

What is the quintessential 4th of July dessert to you? To me it’s strawberry shortcake. I know the shortcake differs from person to person but to me it has to be a slightly sweet biscuit. Sponge cake and pound cake can also be used but I think they are too sweet.

I found the perfect recipe for cream shortcake on Foodnetwork. Very simple, goes together in seconds and the dough is really easy to work with.

The strawberries I bought at a little stand a few blocks away. Trying to make up for the golden syrup that I had shipped over on a freighter. They were the best strawberries I have had this season. I guess the season is a little slow this year. We had a lot of rain early in the Spring which made the plants nice and big but it was too cool to set flowers so we are a month behind.

We had a great 4th of July dinner, eating outside under the stars. We had Susan Branch’s ribs (from her Heart of the Home cookbook), blue cheese potato salad, corn on the cob, sliced tomatoes and avocados and, of course, the strawberry shortcake. And about eight gallons of wine.

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