Calamity Shazaam in the Kitchen

I bought a fancy new photo card thingymajig and now I can't get my food photos off the camera. And I am too tired to go root out the camera-to-computer cable. But I have been eating non-stop, so here is a list to keep you entertained while I go find that frickin' stupid cable. 1. June Jam - I typically will not take anything a defense attorney tries to give me because usually it involves work and something protracted and difficult. However, there is one who I like very much and her name is June and I know she is reading this blog and when she gives me something protracted and difficult, she makes up for it with jam. June and I talk about food - what we eat, what we make, the how's and the why's. So when she made jam, I gave her a couple of starter pointers and she in return gave me a jar of both her strawberry jam, and of her apricot jam. Both of which were gone almost immediately. The strawberry jam I ate on toast for three days straight and the apricot jam, which I go...

I am a pretty lackadaisical housekeeper at the best of times. Candlelight and wine definitely help to cover up the awkward bits. But you know you can't live with CHAOS ( c an't h ave a nyone o ver s yndrome) forever. You can I suppose, but then you start with one cat for company, and the next thing you know you have 87 cats and newspapers stacked to the ceiling. Oops! So I lugged all the mess into the basement, swept a little, stuck candles everywhere, and told everyone to BYOB and lots of it! Then I made a nice little late lunch/early dinner to celebrate Father's Day. And also that it is Dad's birthday, Mom & Dad's wedding anniversary, and the longest day of the year.... For the first time in a very long time I had a little tiny party and I didn't sweat it really. I did what I could do to tidy up everything and then I made a very easy meal. A friend had given me a gigantic slab of very expensive & delicious cheese that I could not otherwise afford on ...

As some of you might remember back in December I hosted a round of Operation Baking GALS. The fantastic members of Team Calamity Shazaam sent nearly two dozen boxes of cookies to SFC Kevin Dupont who was stationed over in Afghanistan. Even though the boxes arrived in time, Kevin had been out on a mission until January. However, according to Lisa (his wife) the cookies were mostly intact by the time he returned and were well enjoyed! Sometime at the end of February, beginning of March Lisa came by the office to say "Hi" and we were chatting about how she was relieved because she had finally heard from Kevin after not hearing from him for several weeks. She played a voicemail from him and we giggled like schoolgirls because it's love and it's goofy and it's a relief to hear from someone you love so much after not for so long. But war and things military being as they are, a few days later I got a call from Lisa's boss who told me that Kevin had sustained severe...

Ok you know what? After today, how about I not post about rhubarb again this season? Hmmm, I will see what I can do, but I am not making any promises. I made jam finally. And you know what is one of the most satisfying noises in jam making? The little pop-blurp when top seals properly and pops in. Right now I am listening to the sweetly weird symphony of pop-blurps. Alright. So when I make jam I kind of wing it. Well, frankly, when I cook I am pretty much winging it. The only part I actually follow exactly is the canning part because if you f*ck that sh*t up you can KILL people! Yipes! To be honest with all the rhubarb and strawberries I bought I've been eating it a little at a time, trying to prolong the deliciousness. Tonight I cooked some with a little brown sugar and rum - different and delicious! The other night was with a little mint - which was gross. But I really bought so much that jam seemed like a great way to cook up lots of it in a hurry before the deliciousness turn...

I doubt it. I just made it up. It is how I am now referring to my love of rhubarb that has now become a fever: rhubarbiola. It can only be cured by eating rhubarb until it is out of season. Or until your teeth fall out from the ill effects of oxalic acid. Anyway, as I mentioned, I brought back an armful of rhubarb from Vermont this weekend. I have had every intention of making rhubarb & strawberry tarts and rhubarb & strawberry jam, but the reality is that I have been making plain old rhubarb & strawberry cooked in a little sugar and vanilla and then eating it directly from the pan. Ahhhh, rhubarbiola! But today is THE day I make jam. Dammit! And first I had lunch with the Evil Twin because she is hands downs my most favorite person to spend time with ever in the world. Woot! Pictures and other stuff will be posted later.

It is a fact that whenever I have a day off and the Evil Twin and I get in a car together, we somehow end up driving around for f*cking hours and hours just messing about. It is hysterical. Today we started off planning to go to Friendly Toast in Cambridge, then ended up going to Sorella's in JP because we sort of thought we'd go visit Grandpapa in rehab. Yeah, I have a Grandpapa in rehab. Woot! But then the food at Sorella's took f-o-r-e-v-e-r to come out and by the time we were done we had to run off to an appointment ( the Evil Twin works for herself and her vacation requests are always denied. Bitch boss right? ) and then off again to another appointment. After which we stopped at the area big box so I could get some canning jars (rhubarb!!) and some jar lifters. The Evil Twin bought some yarn and a cap organizer. Oh and then we had to run back into town to drop some papers off at my Grandpapa's apartment. By that point I was like oh holy crap, get me the hells outt...

You know if we were all happy all the time, we wouldn't even know it. Which means that when I am happy, I am really grateful for it. Like today. I went to Vermont this weekend and brought back an absurd amount of rhubarb and strawberries. The warm, clear red scent of really ripe strawberries in my kitchen makes me nearly delirious with the joy of being alive in the same way that just bloomed lilacs do. Or the same way the woods smell make me happy, like spring water and leaves and dark damp earth and filtered sunlight. Happiness! The other thing I brought back from Vermont was our old kitchen table that had been stored up in the barn at the camp. And this has made me much happier than I would have thought. So as I mentioned in a previous post we all went through the cabin up in the woods to see if there was anything that we really really wanted. I took a million photos to send to other family members to see if there is anything they all want and then I realized that everything up t...