Labor Day Weekend

Sunday, after church, we ate at an organic pizza restaurant called Lupi's Pizzeria in downtown Chattanooga. It's a funky restaurant with art for sale on the walls and eclectic music playing on the speakers. The pizza was delicious - the crust was perfect and the sauce was fantastic. We only had a cheese pizza, but next time I may add some veggies. There WILL be a next time. Finally good pizza.

Then we made our way over to the farmer's market. I've been to this particular market twice on visits with my sister and couldn't wait to bring my husband there, too. They have veggies for sale, but it's also a craft fair, and they sell cooked food, and there's a variety of live bands playing, too. I always come away from this event feeling inspired - either to cook, or to make something, or to perform. I'm so glad that we're living so close to it, I'm sure we'll go for the rest of the year every Sunday after church.

Well, of course I couldn't resist buying some veggies.



Baby yellow crook-necked squash, bell peppers in burgundy, orange and red, and a gorgeous eggplant.

On Monday, I packed all these veggies up, plus a lot of other little things, and carted them all up to my sister's place. We had a Labor Day Picnic. I think this is the first time our two families enjoyed a holiday together - even one so innocuous as Labor Day (innocuous for me and my husband, since we're unemployed). The crook-necks got cut in half, seasoned with olive oil and lemon pepper and grilled to perfection. The peppers were roasted. The eggplant was admired and almost became part of one of my sister's paintings. She made hamburgers from meat she ground herself, sesame marinated chicken, corn with basil butter (OMG) and we had a food orgy. I brought some mole verde I had also bought at the farmer's market, and it was scarfed up on chips. Some of it made it onto my sister's hamburger. I had a bacon cheeseburger with basil butter.
Are you drooling yet?

Then I got a call this morning saying I had left my camera at her house. Oh boy. 57 miles away. Not that it would have helped this post: I only took one picture. But subsequent posts are going to be a bit boring until I can figure this out.

All in all, despite the camera left behind, we had a great time. Thanks, Melody!

Saturday: Workday

I woke up yesterday morning to a painfully messy kitchen. I had stayed up late (10 pm) on Friday night watching Glee, which I loved BTW. I missed the first episode while I was in Singapore, and they ran a repeat of it, and I happened to catch it. Can't wait for the new season to start!

Anyway, so I knew I had to clean up the kitchen, but when my husband declared it a workday, I knew I was gonna finally get some other kitchen-related tasks finished, too.

After running the dishwasher with the previous day's dreck, I got to run it a second time with the "good" dinner plates that have been taking up floor space in a plastic bin. I washed all 936 pieces (it actually took a little over 2 loads) and found a place to put them in the cabinet - away from the dust.



This meant some minor rearranging, and I went around and around trying to decide what to move. Finally I came up with this solution:




This cart now houses, in addition to the Snapple, my two large Ikea jars of flour (whole and white) and a medium jar of sugar. There's some other baking-related items relocated to this piece of furniture, so it's thematic, mostly. Not counting the Snapple, of course.
That pretty piece of batiked fabric is an apron my friend Sharon Martin made me before she left Singapore 2 years ago. If you're out there, Sharon, Hi!




The pass-through had been an area for collecting stuff that didn't have any other home, making it impossible to use the toaster oven without causing a fire hazard, so I had more decisions to make before all that stuff got put somewhere and now we can use the toaster oven. The toaster oven which I think is too big, but now I guess I'll just try and live with it since it has such a nice home...I'm all indecision here. But at least the pass-through (misnamed, now) looks nice.


So I'm falling asleep Saturday night, and the thought comes to me that maybe I could allow myself to feel that this is home. It was a revelation. Of course, we wont be staying in this apartment very long (so she says) but the feeling of being home was surprising in that it has been absent for a while now. I'm not sure what it means, but I woke up this morning feeling happy.

Food!

Well, for dinner I made pasta with this complex sauce recipe I invented; you can find it here.

I took this picture after we had eaten.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any bell peppers for this recipe. My sister gave me some, but they had gotten fuzzy. So it wasn't as good as I usually make it. Also, I bought some mild Italian turkey sausage. Big mistake. I'm makin' my own from now on.

And then for dessert:

Nectarine Tart!

I adapted a very cute recipe I found here, making it smaller, basically since I only bought 3 nectarines. Dewishus!

Later, my daughter and the cockatiel gave us a duet.

And for breakfast?

Homemade blueberry waffles. My husband had them with apple butter, pears and syrup. Oh my.

Our Ikea Trip

Yesterday my hubby and I drove down to Atlanta to go to the Ikea I have visited twice with my sister. We got up early and, expecting the drive to take 2 hours, left at 7:30 so we could be there when the restaurant opens at 9:30 We love eating breakfast at Ikea. The trip only took 1 1/2 hours, tho! So we drove around Marietta for a bit; my husband lived there for a time before we met. He showed me the giant chicken at the KFC there and I took a picture on my phone. I don't know how to get those pictures onto the computer yet. But, luckily, a Google image search turned up this:




The beak opens and closes and the eyeballs rotate. Totally funny.

Some of the things we got there were:



New bedding! This pattern has a completely forgettable name - I don't speak Swedish! But I have loved it for a while. I was happy to note that the fabric is a bit softer and smoother than many of their duvet covers. Anyway, we love it.





And I got some of these tumblers. I left all my drinking glasses in Singapore, and altho I inherited some decent stemmed glasses, the bowl was just too small to have a big drink from. These are good for me because I am notoriously clumsly, and they are hard to break.




This was completely unnecessary. But it was ORANGE, and so my husband just put it on our cart. It was in the As-Is, and the stain is a bit wimpy. Methinks it will get painted, but probably not orange.

We got a bunch of other little things, not very interesting to post. And as we were checking out, I turned around and said to my husband, "I don't feel really good at all." It felt like flu, but today I feel pretty good, so maybe not. Then we just headed home and I went to bed. Today was a better day and now I am going to make some yummy food which I will blog about tomorrow.

Falafel

Do you know this food? I can't remember when I tried it for the first time, but it has been a staple in my family ever since. I have made it from mixes and from scratch, and have had pretty good luck both ways.

Anyway, I was talking to my sister on the phone last night while I was preparing this dinner, and she didn't remember what it was (having had it served to her by me a million years ago). So she requested I take pictures, which is why I have falafel to blog about.


For the uninitiated, falafel is ground chick peas (garbanzos) with cumin and parsley and salt and garlic, which is then formed into balls and deep fried. Really, what doesn't taste good deep fried?




The box that I used last night had two separate envelopes of mix in it, each envelope making approximately 12 one-inch balls. I used my small melon baller to measure it out and only got 10 balls, but that was plenty. Usually I use my 2 tablespoon measurer and make the balls larger.





I had called Melody to remind her that her new electric skillet is also good for deep frying, as it keeps the oil at a uniform temperature. I was anticipating having an ordeal with the deep frying as my new place has an electric stove, which was not a selling point for me, but it really went better than expected. In the past, I've had to struggle to keep the oil at the right temp, and the falafel mix has often just crumbled when I tried to fry it - not wet enough, I suspect. Or maybe it was that I was buying the mixes in Singapore, where they had probably sat on the shelf for years waiting for me to come along. Sucker that I am.



So they came out beautifully, and even tho there were only 10, I made some couscous to go with and we were fully satisfied.




Here's how I served them: I put them into a smallish flour tortilla - these reminded me of the wonderful pita breads I could buy in Singapore - nice and soft and not too chewy. Then I put cucumbers, tomatoes, ranch dressing, and for a bit of unconventionality, I added some rocket leaves. Yum!

But for the whole day previously, I was doing laundry, washing dishes, and working on this:




Since my husband and I are both unemployed for the time being, we thought it would be wise to only rent a 2 bedroom apartment. Which left us wondering what we were going to do with all my studio stuff, some of which had been in storage in Arizona for 4 years and only added to the bulk. Well, selling point number two for this apartment: a huge walk-in closet! That looked like the perfect solution, until we started piling our clothes, linens, tools, and other storage into it. However, I have reserved the last 1/3 of the closet for my sewing table. And I actually did some sewing in there yesterday. It's not too bad, but I need better lighting. Anyway, it's only temporary. Lord willing, we will find jobs, we will save some money, and we will be able to afford a new home sometime in the near future.
That's the plan, anyway.

In the meantime, I'll be in my little sanctuary.

Our New Home

Here's a picture of our balcony, which was a selling point for me, and our green bins, which will become planters after the winter. Actually, one of them already has some peppers and herbs growing in it. The peppers are doing great, but my basil has become a snack for something, maybe a squirrel.



The whole complex has sort of an alpine feel, with the tall tall pine trees and the architecture which is reminiscent of some kind of Swiss chalet. I think.




And this is what we're driving. After four years without a vehicle, it's been a bit of a challenge getting back behind the seat. But I think I've finally gotten the hang of it again.

And the last "New" thing I want to show you is:




This is Chloe, our beautiful female white-faced lutino cockatiel. She is by far the best bird we've ever had. She is so well-behaved and affectionate. And since she's a female, there's no rooster tendencies.

Life is good.

The Orange T State

A little backstory here: My husband's name is Terry, and if you know him at all, you know his favorite color is orange. Since we've been married, if there's any novel item that happens to be orange, we might have to buy it. Or at least comment on it.

So when I would visit my sister in her new home in Tennessee, I had this funny feeling that Tennessee might become home for us, too.

It's all the orange Ts.

We could really care less about football. Sorry Big Orange, but that's the truth. Instead, we prefer to interpret all the Orange T items as a big welcome from Tennessee to Terry and his family.