Call me crazy...

...but I really want this little table.

I know.

It's silly and wouldn't go with anything and would cause very nice people that don't deserve the shock to swoon in horror....

I'd love to walk into a room and see those pointy feet sticking out, all whimsical and uncaring of what anyone thought of them, save delight!

It's a terrible picture, taken with my phone camera in Philipsburg in an odd little shop...as most shops in Philipsburg, MT tend to be.  I almost need to go back and get it....

Premiere Bookclub of 2011!

Bookclub was at my house last night! 
It has been a LONG summer, with very few opportunities to get together, so we were all a little giddy just to see one another. 

Celestia drove all the way from Bigfork, MT to co-host with me and it was the most laid-back "get ready for Bookclub" day I've ever had....we'd swab a little, talk a lot, feed people, repeat.  All the girls started showing up before the men and children had been evicted, so for a few minutes it was not only giddy, it was downright wild.  Maggie was torn between trying to stay at bookclub with The Ladies or going fishing with The Men.  Child of my heart, she went fishing, so the house remained child-free, which was the o-riginal plan. 

Were you wondering about the menu? Mmmhmmm....there are those who think we get together merely to eat and cackle, that the book is a mere front for a hen party.  Well, here's the deal:  when a reading group is made up of the best cooks in the county, it's hard NOT to focus on eating!  And because I know Sara H. is gnashing her teeth, wanting me to get to the food part (she'd fit right in and I hope someday she comes for bookclub) here's the menu:

Chocolate martinis and strawberry daiquiris by Marisa.
(I couldn't imagine chocolate martinis, either, but they really are quite tasty.  Sort of like grown up chocolate milk, without all that pesky dairy...)

Zucchini and olive flatbread appetizers by Traci.
(Recipe to follow...and yes! zucchini!)

Israeli cucumber salad by Celestia.
(It was so clean and summery!  I had some for breakfast this morning...perfect.)

French bread with cheese, garlic, sun-dried tomatos by Anne and Nancy.
(I do love sun-dried tomatos and cheese...on ANYTHING.  This was wonderful.)

Chicken Tikka Masala on cous cous by me.
(Recipe at the end of the post...it will read like I made it up after the chocolate martinis, but it's really and truly the recipe and it really and truly is good!)

TWO...no, wait...THREE desserts!
Chocolate whipped cream torte-y and/or brownies by Heather (who was not in attendance but sent dessert anyway, bless her heart) and cream puffs filled with whipped cream, topped with fresh strawberries by Traci. 
(It is our belief that a bookclub can never have too many desserts.  We simply cannot choose, either, so we eat all of them in the spirit of equality.)

(We read The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain...if anyone is interested. In fact, most of us are STILL reading it. We discovered at last night's bookclub that it's really much better when read aloud!)

And the pictures!

Martinis in the making....

Anne is smiling because, well, they ARE good!

Grilling the chicken for the tikka masala was a LOT more tolerable with the chocolate martini.

Here's the flatbread, fresh from the oven....mmmm!

Testing 1-2-3....

YES!  We have a winner!  And it was, too.  Almost just stopped right there, with the meal...

The bread was still in the broiler, so that's why the empty spot on the plate.  As a rule, we don't allow empty spots on plates at bookclub.  Those cucumbers were the perfect balance to the spicy tikka masala.

Bon appetit!

Oh, that's right...we DID read a book.  Clara and Marisa had the ebooks; interesting, because Clara had read 39% of the book and Marisa had e-notes.  The rest of us had turned down corners, sticky notes and had no idea what percent of the book we'd read....if any.  (I wish to point out to Anonymous who wanted the skinny lens and nose reduction in the First Day of School post, that those were applied here.  You're welcome!)

I don't know if you can tell, but this is: big layer of real whipped cream, small layer of chocolate wafers, repeat.  Pair it with really rich, black coffee...bliss.

See the cream puffs in the center of the table?  Just in case we didn't get enough cream in the other dessert, we had those to graze on, too.  I didn't even realize the brownies were on the counter until everyone was packing up to go!

Traci, in English teacher mode, with rapt students!

 Isn't she cute? (She's gonna kill me for the thumbs up picture, so here's a little different angle, in apology.)

Anne's mother in law, Nancy, who lives in Great Britain joins us about once a year for bookclub.

It turns out, her bookclub in England doesn't discuss things like bear grease, sidling, hairy underarms or anything interesting like that at all!  Apparently, they really do examine things like plot, characters, point of view and other literary things. 

She also says they've never worn pajamas or tiaras to her bookclub meetings.

The dear woman appeared to have survived OUR meeting with little or no apparent post traumatic stress disorder, but that could've been because of the chocolate martinis...

(A side note, here....Nan has GREAT shoes.  And she's going to France next week. *sniff*)

Anne and Clara, listening to an anecdote that most surely involved....

...cats hanging on the window screen?

....bears?

....two chocolate martinis on an empty stomach?

My charming boy....

Well, it WAS a bookclub.  Read to me, please!

And the recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala!

It looks weird.

It IS weird, in a really delectable way.

Try it...really....and you won't be sorry!

Ingredients

1 cup yogurt
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
4 teaspoons salt, or to taste

6 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
6 long skewers

1 tablespoon butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons paprika
3 teaspoons salt, or to taste
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

1.In a large bowl, combine yogurt, lemon juice, 2 teaspoons cumin, cinnamon, cayenne, black pepper, ginger, and 4 teaspoons salt. Stir in chicken, cover, and refrigerate for 1 hour or longer.

2.Preheat a grill for high heat.

3.Lightly oil the grill grate. Thread chicken onto skewers, and discard marinade. Grill until juices run clear, about 5 minutes on each side.

4.Melt butter in a large heavy skillet over medium heat. Saute garlic and jalapeno for 1 minute. Season with 2 teaspoons cumin, paprika, and 3 teaspoons salt. Stir in tomato sauce and cream. Simmer on low heat until sauce thickens, about 20 minutes. Add grilled chicken, and simmer for 10 minutes. Transfer to a serving platter, and garnish with fresh cilantro.

Fishing

...is not the same as catching.

The thing is, there's no such thing as bad fishing.  There's fishing where you catch nothing....that's bad catching.  There's fishing when the conditions are miserable and when the company is intolerable, but the simple act of fishing, itself, is never bad.  

We went fishing, last night, in a little prairie puddle-pond that might've had fish.  We'll never know, because we didn't catch any.  We DID, however, meet thousands of frogs and toads....

She's got quite a cast....

I love the smile on her face!

Angus is very serious about fishing.  He doesn't smile.

This is nothing to be silly about, you know.

Looking for the good spot...

Hundreds of thousands of frogs and toads...the bullfrogs were so interesting to me, with their long, strange faces.

This is my favorite picture!  PopPops and Angus, fishing away...

If you're squeamish, don't look!  Maggie caught a frog, and I had to take it off the hook....it was awful. 

One more shot and then we're going home to Grandma, peaches and ice cream.

My daughter....so independent and beautiful!  This picture takes my breath away, because it captures her little seven year old essence with the princess hat and grubby shorts, little strong body.

I caught a dragon fly

or perhaps, it caught me.

Sun going down on the prairie....

Better luck next time, with the catching, but one can hardly get luckier than this, with the fishing!

My favorite book, when I was little-little, was Dr. Suess' ABCs...
I'm sure every mother and K-2 teacher reading this can close their eyes and say with me:

Big A, little a
What begins with A?
Aunt Annie's alligator;
A-a-A

My favorite letter, my mother tells me, was G...goat, girl, goo-goo goggles; G-g-G.  I liked the goggles on the girl!  Strange, because I had glasses when I was 3 and hated them....

Anyway,
I was out taking cow/flower/kid pictures a couple weeks ago and found an A in the yard.  Just hanging out at the swingset, waiting for someone to notice...so I took its picture, just to make it happy.  Then a B showed up, although he was a little more reticent to make himself known.  But C...she pushed her way boldly into my frame and I couldn't ignore her.  I found a couple more letters, but I'm not happy with them.  I'm still looking.  G is very elusive...

(There are Chicka-chicka-boom-boom fans here, too....I'll meet YOU at the top of the coconut tree!)

To be continued...

Guns Up!

College football is back, and we are happy!!!

Okay, I am happy and the others are merely mildly tolerant...

by the end of the season, the kids are more into the games and Angus love to holler "Go Red Raiders!"

And EVERY football team wearing red...49ers, Cardinals...every one of 'em is Our Red Raiders, according to him.

"There's Our Red Raiders, Mom!"

"No, baby...those are the 49ers, playing like third graders in a midnight flag football game with no headlamps.  Cheer anyway!"

Maggie is wearing a shirt that my friend Elise (who is a Hawkeye fan) found in a thrift store and delivered to us.  She asked if we had taken one there, thinking she was maybe buying it back for us, but I told her that we never get rid of TTU gear.  She thought as much, since her family never disposes of Hawkeye gear, either.  That COULD be the lucky shirt, you know...

Besides watching Texas Tech, I also keep up with the Gators because of Patricia, the Hawkeyes because of Elise, the dreaded-and-greatly-despise-ed Longhorns because of Traci (that's true friendship, there), TCU because of Gus Glasscock, and the MSU Bobcats because that's what Eastern Montana ag people do; since all their neighbors and the kids they babysat and their cousins and their dogs went there or are currently attending. I try not to pay any attention to Notre Dame, even though it's my brother-in-law's big team, but they occasionally make the radar.

So, now you know what I'll be doing with my Saturday afternoons/evenings from now until sometime after Thanksgiving....

By the way, (and I'm being very restrained, in holding back this information until the very end of the post when it should've been the headline)  TTU won their first game, at home, against Texas State...50-10!  We may have already found the lucky shirt/nail polish combo for the season....here's hoping!

Melange

Melange (pronounced m-lazh) is a French word that basically means "all sorts of different things altogether".  Sort of like a junk drawer of ideas when you find it at the Chronicles....lots of little thoughts that can't stand alone as a post, but that I want to share with you.

First, the depressing news about my garden. (Let's just get the bad stuff over with, shall we?)
We have had grasshoppers in plague levels. 

Here's my little tomato/flower/cucumber planters in a "before" picture:

Plant lovers, cover your eyes....it's brutal....

And "after":

 Same bed, one week later....those WERE marigolds in front, remember?

Enough about the hoppers.

On to another depressing topic...

:)

I turn forty this year.

There, I said it.

Whew!

And I had tossed around the idea of running a K race...any K; 5K, 10K, 1K.  It just seemed so...I don't know....standard and typical of someone turning forty.  We can't have that, now, can we?

Anyway, I get this magazine called Runner's World, which is full of people who take their running VERY seriously.  So seriously, in fact, that I can't believe I didn't have to have an interview and an approval before subscribing.  Really.

Yesterday, I was looking through all the races that are being held around the nation and overseas, and found THE race for me.  It's a half-marathon, which is incredibly intimidating (the "m" word...) and I'd have to be able to run it in just under 4 hours, even more intimidating.  I'm slow, folks.  But I think I can get faster for this one.

It's the Diva's Half-Marathon, and there's going to be one in Vail, CO next September.  It's my race.  Listen to the little write-up:

"Runners get the royal treatment-just after mile 12, they recieve a feather boa and tiara; at the finish line, "hunky" firemen hand them a glass of bubbly and a rose."

AND

"It is not just about the run but the whole weekend experience. All our events will host a 2 day Health & Fitness Boutique, a Girls' 5K (open to all ages and genders), a Diva Lounge and more. Some of our races will also host yoga sessions by the beach, Diva Pub Crawls after the race, spa specials, winery visits and more. Each city gives the race its own special flavor for a wonderful weekend with the girls or with family where mom, sister or daughter are stars."

I looked at the website and one can even personalize the running bib!

I think I'd better start working NOW. 

But doesn't that sound like a good first race?

Next topic of discussion:

And this is completely silly, but I've been thinking of it for the last couple of days...

Excluding major appliances (even the Kitchenaid mixer), what 5 tools could you not live without in your kitchen?

It's harder than you think, narrowing it down to 5!

I came up with:

1. My little plastic scraper thingee from Pampered Chef...it scrapes flour off the counter, impossibly stuck food off pans...everything.
2. Wooden spatulas made by one of our hunters.  They are invaluable AND beautiful, made of different woods.
3. That in-between sized knife that is bigger than a paring knife but smaller than a big carving knife. 
4. A really old grater that grates really finely...perfect for lemon zest or cheese or carrots.
5. I don't know if this is a tool, but I have this big kettle that I use for everything...pasta, meats, soups, candy.  There's nothing it doesn't work for.  AND it has a clear glass lid, so I can see what's going on all the time without removing it!

What's on your list?

One more thing: fantasy football. 

I have a draft tomorrow and I have no idea what to do.  One of my high school classmates put together a league, just for fun and so that we could all reconnect, and I let myself be talked into joining.  It's not like I don't get deeply engrossed in the season, anyway...become fiercely competetive over events I have no control over.....re-play games in my head as I drive....wear the same "lucky" shirt every Sunday for 20 weeks.  Now I have a new reason to watch! And my team's name is Hail Mary, which is appropriate on so many levels...

But I'm absolutely lost as to how to do this draft thing.

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

I have my list of players, and perhaps I'm a little too ambitious for the first time out.  See what you think of my first round picks, made a week ago and now may have to be revised:

QB- Michael Vick (He's everyone's 1st round draft pick, I'm guessing; so predictable.)

WR- Terrell Owens (I wanted Crabtree, but his health is iffy...darn it!)

RB- Frank Gore (And I KNOW he's a 49er and they're miserable this year...again....still...but I like the guy.)

TE- Vernon Davis (Although, maybe I should look at Marcedes Lewis....input?)

I don't even know how many rounds I need to prepare for!

Blessedly, I'll end the melange there.

Happy Saturday!

Through the Window Friday

Or, in this case, from the porch step through the garden shed door....

Here's a photo story taken yesterday when I got a holler that "Lily's in the garden shed!"

No.

No way.

Um...yes way.

She found where the calf crumbles are stored and when Wayland left the door open to get something else for the shed, she just helped herself.

This is her SECOND break-in of the day, so I grabbed the camera and documented the caper.

Busted!

The best part of the pictures is Willie, standing as the look-out....

And technically, she isn't really IN the shed, if she's just on her knees "looking", right?

"I told her not to do it, Mom!! She's in big trouble, right?"

Not that she cares...

You'll notice the "Good Calf" is gone, now that the law showed up...

Out, out, out,  Naughty Calf!

She's trying to sweet talk him into leaving the door open and turning a blind eye.  And who could resist a sweet, naughty calf face like that?

It didn't work.  And now, as you can plainly see, she's calling him all sorts of names as he walks away.  I won't repeat them here, because this is a family blog.  (You'll note Good Calf on the other side of the fence, saying "I TOLD you so....")  He was called a couple names, too.

The Innocents Abroad

I know...
It's feast or famine with the Chronicles, as of late.
Well, feast with me, now, then!

My bookclub is reading The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain this summer.  Who would CHOOSE such a book? 

That would be me.

And I love it!

I'm sure everyone else is either making elaborate excuses this week as to why they haven't read it in three months, or vainly struggling to find one section that they can underline and comment on, without actually having to finish the book.  It's not an easy read, but I found it fascinating to see Europe and the Holy Lands through the eyes and wit of Mr. Twain.  I wanted to share an excerpt with you about France...

Ah, the grisettes! I had almost forgotten.  They are another romantic fraud.  They were (if you let the books of travel tell it,) always so beautiful- so neat and trim, so graceful- so naive and trusting- so gentle, so winning- so faithful to their shop duties, so irresistible to buyers in their prattling importunity- so devoted to their poverty-stricken students of the Latin Quarter- so light hearted and happy on their Sunday picnics in the suburbs- and oh, so charmingly, so delightfully immoral!

Stuff!  For three or four days I was constantly saying:
"Quick, Ferguson! Is that a grisette?"
And he always said, "No".

He comprehended, at last, that I wanted to see a grisette.  Then he showed me dozens of them.  They were like nearly all the Frenchwomen I ever saw- homely.  They had large hands, large feet, large mouths; they had pug noses as a general thing and mustaches that not even good breeding could overlook; they combed their hair straight back without parting; they were ill-shaped, they were not winning, they were not graceful; I knew by their looks that they ate garlic and onions; and lastly and finally, to my thinking it would be base flattery to call them immoral.

...I will conclude this chapter with a remark that I am sincerely proud to be able to make- and glad, as well, that my comrades codially endorse it, to wit: by far the handsomest women we have seen in France were born and reared in America.

I read that twice, laughing at his disappointed description...what a let-down for the poor fellow!

Word-y Wednesday

Other blogs have Wordless Wednesday.
Mine tend to be Word-y.

BUT....I'm trying very hard to become a self-contained, quietly restrained, organized, rule-follower this year. 

QUIT LAUGHING!
Everybody has a dream...

These pictures are from our family vacation taken a week and a half ago, and I'm NOT going to caption them.  I'm going to let them speak for themselves. Step One in Reformation 2011....