“All By Myself” Remix: Food Edition (feat. hotdogs)

Dear Zoe,
So, here’s the thing: since Thursday I have been home by myself for what has been the start of a two week stint of solitude during which I ought to be packing up my house in preparation to move. So far, pitifully little packing has progressed leaving, as you might suppose, plenty of time for this sometimes food blogger to make trips to the grocery store or the farmer’s market (hello spring!) for prime ingredients to transmogrify into magnificent, single-portion meals. But yeah…no.
Rather, for the past four days, I have been taking time out from reading online news blogs and playing the same songs over and over on my guitar, to fix myself this lunch.

I am no longer in denial about the inevitable transition to winter.

Dear Emma,

I love picturing you out at Mary and Steve’s farm, horse-sitting. Despite the raucous cat-dog-puppy fight that I overheard, it sounded so peaceful – a warm end-of-summer-sun shining down over the fields and horses, turning everything golden. I miss home.   Zoe

Being from Iowa, I like to talk about the weather. Honestly, I don’t think it’s as dull as it sounds, (Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C, I rest my case).  But the past month, in Washington, DC the weather has been DULL. Day after day of gray compounded by an unrelenting drizzle of cool rain, and no spark of sunshine as a quick break.  September had no wild and windy thunderstorms, no cold snap, or heat wave, just weird mix of humid warm air, cool rain, and gray, gray, gray.

Gray, Gray, Gray

Breaking the Rules

Dear Zoe,

I recently revisited my childhood home, and spent a moment soaking in the memories still lingering in a room at the bottom of the creaky basement stairs.  It was the room that held all our families dearest treasures: shelves lined with jewel-toned jars of tomatoes, peaches, applesauce, pickles, and jams.  My mother laughs to think that what to her was a matter of making ends meet could now be one of my favorite hobbies.  Even just thinking back to last summer–you and I up to our elbows in an ice-bath full of cucumber slices–fills me with joy.  Here’s to the yearly ritual of putting up treasures!

-Emma

When people find out I’m into home canning, they often look at me with awe: “Wow!  I wish I could do that…”  And then I say “Uh, duh–you can!”  I am not a woman of perfection.  So frankly, I’m irritated by the bureaucratic institution of home canning perpetuated by the USDA.  They produce publications titled “So Easy to Preserve”, and then fill it with scary don’ts.  DON’T REUSE YOUR LIDS OR YOU AND EVERYONE YOU LOVE WILL CONTRACT BOTULISM!!!!!

The Feng Shui of Baking a Cake

Dear Zoe,

You remember that look you gave me over skype the other day, when I told you I was learning about feng shui?  Well, get over yourself.  And just to annoy you further, here is a post about a cake I made, analyzed using feng shui principles.

xoxo, The Dark Turtle (Emma)

Ok, this post isn’t really about feng shui.  But it is about the color red, and I will mention that I mad this cake in the part of my kitchen that represents fame & reputation, which is associated with this very color.  I’d like to think that making this cake was a chi cure for my aspirations as of late, but that has yet to be proven successful.

Seeing red.