My Life in Dog Years - part 4

TJ

This is a tough one. I guess that's why it took me so long to continue this little series. About 6 months after Obi moved on to doggy heaven Frank and I decided that we needed another little being around the house and since we hadn't gotten or fill of Chows, cause we're clearly masochists, we decided to get another one. This time we signed up with an organization we found in the paper called "The Chow Welfare League" which was a Chow rescue organization. We filled out an application and they did an extensive background check on us to see if we would qualify as adoptive parents. We did. Then they would call us every time they rescued a Chow who they thought we would be interested in. We had a few wish list items of our own so the first few times we declined. Then one day the woman called and said they had a seven month old they had rescued along with his sister from a high kill shelter and he was a "kissy poo". We had wanted a puppy but since they were hard to come by and this guy was under a year old and the foster home was about ten minutes from our house we decided to go take a look. Love at first sight.

We took him home. He was terrified. Sat up against the back seat of the car with a look of complete terror on his face. When we came into the house he sat up against the back door with that same look the entire rest of the day. His story was this; he belonged to a couple who were Chow breeders, they had divorced with the husband keeping the business, the wife had kept two pups, TJ (pretentiously spelled Tee Ja) and his sister, the woman was diagnosed with inoperable cancer and her sister had taken the pups promising to keep them and proceeded to immediately put them in a shelter. They had been there for two weeks when they were rescued. Quite the start of a life. No wonder he was scared. Since he had been in a shelter he had lost some of his housebreaking so Frank went out to get a crate for training, it was the size of a house and we built it in our bedroom, 2 months later we finally dismantled it since I was sick of looking at it. He never really needed it as a training crate but it was his little house. TJ was the complete opposite of Obi, he was a baby, needy, clingy, afraid of everything, ate anything you gave him except lasagna, always wanting to please, and the best thing of all...he thought the sun rose and set with me. He followed me around everywhere, my little furry shadow. Sat by my feet, laid by my side of the bed, stood there staring at me as I left for work every morning and waited by the door as I opened it on my way in. Now you see why this one is so tough? He loved to sit in the flower beds, I guess because it was cool, all that fur you know.

Hated going for walks, would look at you as if saying what is this all about. He was perfectly happy to be in his backyard doing absolutely nothing other than looking incredibly gorgeous.

As he got older, he developed some arthritis which was pretty much under control with medication. One day I came home from work and he hadn't made it to the door yet and just stood there staring at me panting ferociously, he could barely move. We rushed him to the doggy hospital and they told us his stomach had flipped and his windpipe was strangling him, this is not uncommon in barrel chested dogs, he needed immediate surgery to reverse it and staple it back. He spent a week at the hospital and we visited every day. He healed quickly but his arthritis was getting worse. He found it hard to go up the stairs but it was worse coming down and he would cry sometimes just looking down. Frank would carry him up so he could sleep next to me and then carry him down. Eventually he understood and gave in and wouldn't even try to climb the stairs. Sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night and start whimpering, I would come down and lay on the rug next to him until he fell asleep and sometimes fell asleep myself staying with him the rest of the night,

then one day it was time. The hardest decision I've ever had to make. He was 14, which is very old for a Chow but not old enough for me. It was Christmas Day. My heart broke in a million pieces.

A Spring in my step

Well after much anticipation and false starts I do believe Spring has finally arrived. A tad late I would say but here nonetheless. The crab apples are showing the threat of blooms

which thrills me no end. Even though one of them seems to have a bit of fire blight, quite a bit actually so I'm afraid it may have to go. Part of it still has these though

which makes me rethink the "has to go" comment. I believe this is the third Spring I've had this conversation with myself. I grow attached to my trees, hard to let them go

we'll see, the replacement possibilities are endless. Lilacs are starting to show also

which means that soon their heady scent will be filling the house. The dogwood and wisteria are showing sings of life and the hostas, daylillies and peonies are all pushing through the ground in that amazing way they do. The hydrangeas are quickly filling up with leaves as are the astilbes and the roses. The Lilly of the valley is ready to burst it's little white blooms and the azaleas are suddenly looking very colorful. The temperature was exactly where it was supposed to be this weekend with a clear blue cloudless sky and Spring had finally, if tardily arrived.

So we cleaned the yard, and cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned, and weeded, and weeded, and weeded, and trimmed and cut back and pulled out, and raked, and raked, and raked, and raked, and played with Max

who was ecstatic to be outside most of the day. And then we collapsed. And after a while we came in and made a nice lovely Spring dinner which recipe I stole from Jane, OK I didn't steal it; I made a comment on her post about it that I was going to come back and steal it, but Jane being Jane not two minutes later sent an email with the recipe which she had invented. So here is my version of

Jane's Spring Spinach Lasagna. (Jane adds zucchini, which I didn't), adapted by me.

Serves 4

1 10 oz. bag of frozen chopped Spinach, thawed and the water squeezed out.
olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2-3 garlic cloves minced
salt and pepper, to taste
grated nutmeg, to taste
one cup of basil pesto
1/2 to 3/4 lb. borgata sliced
1/2 to 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups of bechamel sauce (recipe below)
6 oz. of lasagna noodles

Preheat oven to 350F. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook according to package directions.

Saute the onion in olive oil slowly until translucent, add garlic and saute for about two more minutes. Add spinach, stirring constantly to break it up, add salt, pepper and grated nutmeg. Cook until warmed through.

Drain the pasta. Place one layer of overlapping pasta at the bottom of the baking dish. Spread 1/3 of the spinach mixture over the pasta, place slices of borgata over the spinach mixture then spread a couple of tablespoons of pesto over that. Cover with some of the bechamel sauce, sprinkle Parmesan cheese over, then start again with a layer of pasta repeating two more times. Cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake for about 25 minutes, remove the foil and cook an additional 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit about ten minutes before digging in.

Bechamel Sauce

Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan over medium heat, careful not to brown. When melted add two tablespoons of flour and whisk in until incorporated. Slowly add to cups of milk and continue whisking until thickened. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve and enjoy a bit of Spring.

Spring (finally) flowers in the house

For years whenever anyone would ask which was my favorite flower I would always say without any hesitation, the tulip. I don't know if it was because I was always awestruck by those beautiful pictures of fields filled with tulips as far as the horizon, usually taken in Holland ---so I suspect cute wooden shoes may have had something to do with that also. Maybe it was because I grew up in Miami, and although you can grow lots of beautiful flowers there you can't grow tulips in that sandy soil. Maybe it was because they are short lived. Or maybe it was just because they are so dang pretty. These days if I were asked the same question I'm not so sure I would answer the same way.  All the years I've been gardening I've discovered, and continue to discover, so many beautiful flowers that the tulip has become a little pedestrian. Or has it?

I think the first thing I planted in my current garden were tulip bulbs. Red ones. In the front yard underneath the pegee hydrangea and the crepe myrtle. I didn't plant enough though, I want it to be a mini field. Every year I say I will fill the area with tulip bulbs in the Fall, and every year I don't. By the time the Fall comes around I'm a bit gardened out. Maybe this will be the year. I.say.again.....

In the meantime though I'll bring some inside for Jane's Flowers in The House invitation and see if we can start this week on a positive note.

Soul Food

This late coming Winter seems to have no intention of leaving. Here it is April 3rd and the temperatures are in the high 30s with blustery winds. This past weekend we had a hint of Spring in the air, I think it was Saturday. I've forgotten about it and how it felt since it was just a blip in the radar. I'm itching to go outside and start working on the yard, cleaning up, trimming, cutting branches back, planning new plantings...all that fun stuff. But when the wind is blowing right through you it's kind of unpleasant. Not even Max wants to be out there

he'll settle for the sun spot, wherever he can find it. Me, I just spend all the time in the kitchen which frankly is not such a bad thing. I've always had this thought in my head "too many recipes, too little time". I have loads of cookbooks, I used to have a lot more but started to run out of room for them so several times I've purged them and donated those that I really don't use. I've also reached a point where I don't buy one unless it's something so special that I must have it, which thankfully isn't very often. Because in addition to my loads of cookbooks, I subscribe to two food magazines, rip out recipes from The New York Times and then of course there's the Internet, a bottomless pit of recipes for just about everything imaginable. So it always boggles my mind when I stand there struggling to decide what I'm going to cook with whatever ingredient I've chosen for a particular meal. I'll go through cookbooks, saved recipes, saved magazines, search online and then...nothing. Then I'll reach for what I've decided is my favorite cookbook: The New American Kitchen by Michael McLaughlin.

Truth is there's nothing new about it. It was published in 1990, which is probably when I bought it yet every time I pick it up I find something new and interesting in it, and timely. And in addition it has recipes that I love so much that I can make over and over and over again. All the chapters have full menus for each meal which makes it even more fun if you decide to make the whole meal, or just one dish as I decided to make this weekend with my big hunk of pork shoulder. I have all kinds of notes and this particular recipe says, this is amazing, and it is.

Pork Ragout with Sweet Peppers, Anchovies and Olives, adapted from
The New American Kitchen

Serves 8

5 lbs. of boneless pork shoulder, trimmed and cut into 2 inch cubes
1/4 cup of olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
4 cups of chopped yellow onion
6 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
2 tsp dried oregano, crumbled
2 tsp dried basil, crumbled
2 tsp dried thyme, crumbled
2 bay leaved
1/3 cup of lour
2 1/2 cups canned chicken broth or homemade stock
1/ 1/2 cups dry white wine
3/4 cup fresh orange juice
12 oil-packed anchovy fillets, minced
3 large sweet peppers (1 red, 1 green, 1 yellow) cored and quartered
1 cup medium black olives
1/2 cup finely chopped Italian parsley

Preheat Oven to 350f.

Pat the pork dry. In a 5 quart, flameproof casserole over medium-high heat warm 2 tbsp of the oil. Add 1/4 of the pork and cook turning until well browned, season with salt & pepper. Using a slotted spoon transfer to a bowl. Continue with the remainder of the pork  until all is browned, adding more oil as needed.

Do not clean the pan. Add 3 tbsp of oil and set over medium heat. Stir in the onion, garlic, oregano, basil, thyme, bay leaves. Cover and cook, stirring until tender, about 15 min. Uncover, stir in the flour and cook about 5 min. Stir in the chicken broth, wine, orange juice, anchovies, and browned pork with accumulated juices. Bring the ragout to a boil, cover and bake 45 minutes, Stir the ragout, uncover and bake another 45 to 50 minutes or until the pork is tender.

In a medium sized skillet over high heat warm the remaining olive oil. Add the peppers and cook, tossing and stirring until lightly browned, about 5 minutes.

Adjust the seasoning. Stir the browned peppers, olives and the parsley into the ragout and simmer another one or 2 minutes. Serve immediately.

over rice.

and say "Wow, this is amazing!"

Missing

Wondering where she's been, are you? Well I'm not

Truth is she's running around like a chicken with her head cut off, whatever that means. Runs out in the morning carrying a little bag with her lunch, comes back in the afternoon, comes to check on me

and usually finds me like this. Kisses the top of my head, runs back downstairs, starts to take out pots and pans and such...frankly too much noise so I stay where I am

until the aromas start to come up, so then I run down

to see what's going on...or should I say, what's cooking (learning human speak) and try to see what I can get with this look

which doesn't work as well as it used to because I wind up getting this

but sometimes I can sneak something when she's not looking

which isn't very often cause she guards it like a hawk, whatever that means, then he comes home

which makes me...and her...very happy. She runs around making sure he gets fed with the yummy smelling stuff. Then washes the dishes and cooks some more for the little bags they both take with them every morning and lies on my bed

yes this one, staring at a book until she conks out at which time I have to go to this bed

until we start all over again. Am I missing her, what do you think?

Besides, isn't this blog, whatever that means, all about me?

Reading rooms

I'm in a reading rut. Don't know why or how it happened but there it is. Maybe it's the choices I'm making, I seem to pick up a book and regardless of the subject or writing style or story line I can't find the interest. Sometimes I plod on and finish it, others I just put it down and back on the shelf which is something I hate to do. Maybe it has to do with the change in life style. All those years I commuted into New York and rode the train and subway this is where I would read, sometimes I would almost forget to get off I was so engrossed. Now I drive to work. Not a good idea to read while driving despite all the texting idiots I see around me...maybe because of all the texting idiots I see around me. I hope this passes soon since reading has always been such a passion of mine. Our parents taught us how to read before we were even in school, which meant that I could read at the ripe old age of three

even though in this photo I'm five.

When I was a child our house had a library. It was a room at the bottom of a winding staircase with a small courtyard in front of it towards the back of the house. That part of the house was enclosed in glass so the courtyard had all forms of tropical foliage and the light just filled the space. The library's door however was always closed. You walked into a very cool room with dark wood paneling and surrounded with dark wood built in bookcases filled to capacity. There was a dark wooden desk with a swivel leather chair and brown leather sofas. It would seem out of place in a tropical setting where all was terrazzo floors, bamboo furniture and block glass but it was my favorite room in the house. When I was four years old I had my hair cut; it went from shoulder length to short, probably like the photo above. I remember looking in the mirror and hating it. I hated it so much I wanted to hide from the world. My family looked for me all day long, finally for the third time that day my father walked into the library and had the wherewithal to look behind the door he had just opened and find a whimpering child with an ugly haircut taking refuge in her favorite room of the house. I have always wanted that room so I somehow tried to recreate it. We decided one of our spare rooms would be a library so we painted it chocolate brown and brought in bookcases

and some leather furniture

and lots of books. Not identical but it works.

You'd think I'd be so inspired. Right Max?

Maybe I'll get a bad haircut and hide in there all day!

That should do it.
Suggestions are welcome.

Winter blahs

February does it every time. By the time we get past the mid point I'm all wintered out, regardless of the fact that Winter hasn't made much of a showing in the last couple of years but nevertheless that's how it goes. The gray ashen pallor that is my complexion at this time of year doesn't help either and neither does the fact that my blondish goldy hair (ahem) somehow manages to stay a shade of plain mousy brown no matter how many times I visit the hairdresser. So just picture this vision that greets me every morning, gray face topped by a mousy brown head of hair. Blah is right! It really shouldn't be this way, after all February starts out by being Frank's birthday, then it's my brother's birthday as well as a couple of friends... and St. Valentine's Day! Wow, this is even more depressing, this month can make one broke. And then this year to make matters even worse, that little bug that has been going around and around and around finally landed on me. It's not "the flu", or I'm sure I would have felt much worse but I wake up with a splitting headache and arms and legs that ache every inch inside and out. So I stayed home and in bed. Luckily I wasn't alone.

Which makes me feel a little bit warmer

and a little bit better. And after a little rest I can go downstairs and make some soup which, let's face it, is the best remedy.

This one's lentil because I always have some and it's easy.

Saute a sliced onion, peeled and sliced carrot and celery in a little bit of duck fat

add two cups of lentils, picked over

cover with about 5 cups of chicken broth, add salt and pepper and herbs de Provence to taste, bring to a boil and simmer for about 25 minutes until lentils are tender

Process in a food processor or pass through a food mill until smooth. Serve hot.

Feel better. Pinch your cheeks like Scarlet O'Hara and go snuggle with the baby.

I think I found the cure.