It's Julia's Birthday

Julia Child was born in Pasadena, California, August 15, 1912.
 She would have been 104 years old today.

Sur La Table

I looked back at some of my posts about Julia.

I remembered I started my Julia craze after I read
Julie Powell's book (Julie and Julia, 365 Days, 524 Recipes, one Tiny Apartment)
about making each and every one of Julia's recipes
from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Then the movie came out (which I loved). 

I read more books about Julia and her life including Julia's Cats.

I think there are a few more Julia books in my stacks that I should read.

Amazingly enough, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
didn't become a best seller until after the movie came out...
48 years after the book was first published.
This article from the NYTimes is one of my favorites:

After 48 Years, Julia Child Has a Big Best Seller, Butter and All

I remember watching Julia on television. 

I wasn't much interested in the cooking.

I just thought she was a hoot!

Associated Press Photo

I couldn't let the day go by without wishing Julia

a very happy birthday.

Wishing YOU well and much joy!

Make It Pretty Monday

Mosaic Monday

Random Things

It's Random 5 Friday.

This and That time!

Can I hear a big YEEHAW?!!!

Looks like Spring has finally sprung.

More tulips for you.

This is a postcard of tulips at Tulip Town, Mount Vernon, Washington.

The photo for this postcard was taken by Jon Gnass and was published in

Tulips of the Northwest: A Postcard Book.

Many thanks to the lovely Beth for hosting Postcard Friendship Friday.

**

Several of you have asked about the EARTH PRAYERS book that has

been showing up in my photos.

I've had this little gem for over 20 years (copyright date of 1991 and its first printing).

It was edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon.

It contains 365 prayers, poems, and invocations for honoring the earth from authors like:

Walt Whitman, T.S. Eliot, Margaret Atwood, Robert Frost, Annie Besant, May Sarton,

Dylan Thomas, Starhawk, D.H. Lawrence, Thich Nhat Hanh, Black Elk --

you get the idea!

It is divided into sections: Ecology, a Sacred Place, Passion of the Earth, Healing the Whole,

The Elements, Blessing and Invocations, Praise and Thanksgiving, Benediction for the Animals,

Cycles of Life, The Daily Round, Meditations. 

There is a calendar at the back of the book with suggested readings.

Did you know that today is the birthday of John James Audubon?

"It is neither spring nor summer: it is Always,

With towhees, finches, chickadees, California

quail, wood doves.

With wrens, sparrows, juncos, cedar waxwings, 

flickers,

With Baltimore orioles, Michigan bobolinks,

And those birds forever dead,

The Passenger pigeon, the great auk, the

Carolina paraquet,

All birds remembered, O never forgotten!

All in my yard, of a perpetual Sunday,

All morning! All morning!"

~Theodore Roethke

***

Speaking of books -- do you like cookbooks?

Do you have a favorite?

I've been going through all my cookbooks.

Making a stack of those that I love and can't part with -- yet -- and all the others.

The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen: Classic Family Recipes for Celebration and Healing

by Grace Young is one of my favorites.

Lovely photos, great recipes and wonderful family stories.

I also have

Stir-Frying to The Sky's Edge: The Ultimate Guide To Mastery, With Authentic Recipes and Stories

by Grace Young.

Another winner!

****

Looks like our nice cool spring is over.

It is heating up and the humidity is rising. 

It can't be perfect all the time!

*****

Horticulture tour at the zoo tomorrow!

Wishing YOU well and much joy!

I Promised

I promised, a few posts back, to share my recipe for split pea soup and I'm going to do that. First, I'm going to share a link to one of my favorite blogs. I've mentioned Geninne's Art blog before. I love her birds. Her watercolors make me smile. She has done several videos showing her process and this is the last one where she adds the white ink. Talk about a steady hand. Check it out!


Here's the recipe for Split Pea Soup. It comes from my favorite cookbook: Campbell’s Great American Cookbook: A Culinary treasury of more than 500 best-loved recipes from Colonial times to the present. (Copyright 1984) You would think, because it was published by Campbell's soup that it would be recipe after recipe opening a soup can. Nope! It was Campbell's attempt to define American cooking. It really is a wonderful book and if you can find it, get it. It is, if nothing else, fun reading. I'm not sure why the soup was so good last time, except (forgive me my vegan/vegetarian friends), I used smoked ham hocks. OH MY! We are now looking forward to the weekend when it is supposed to get cool again (highs in the 70's instead of 90's) and another pot of split pea soup will be in order! Straight from the cookbook:

Old Fashioned Pea Soup

American Indians knew how to grow and dry beans, but Europeans brought peas and lentils to this country.Colonial pea soup had meat and vegetables added to it daily, changing its character from day to day. The “Pease Porridge” really might have been served hot, cold or “in the pot, nine days old.”

Begin: Day Ahead Makes 6 Servings

1 package (16 ounces) dry green or yellow peas
1 ham bone with meat
2 medium onions, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

1. Soak peas in 8 cups water overnight, drain.
2. About 2 hours before serving: in 5-quart Dutch oven over high heat, heat 6 cups water, peas and remaining ingredients to boiling. Reduce heat to low. Cover; simmer 1 1/2 hours or until peas are tender.
3. Remove bone; cool until easy to handle. Cut meat from bone; discard bone. Cut meat into bite-sized pieces; return to soup. Heat. Yields 8 cups.

SPLIT PEA SOUP: Prepare as above but substitute 1 package (16 ounces) dry green or yellow split peas for whole peas and add 1 cup chopped celery, 1 cup sliced carrots, 2 tablespoons chopped parsley, 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg and 1 bay leaf. Discard bay leaf before serving.

LENTIL SOUP: Prepare as above but substitute 1 package (16 ounces) dry lentil for peas, and do not soak lentils in water. Add 1 cup diced celery, 1 cup diced carrots; 1 large clove garlic, minced; 1/4 cup tomato paste, 2 tablespoons wine vinegar, 1 bay leaf and increase water to 7 cups. Discard bay leaf before serving.

TIP: Soak peas the quick way: Add peas to boiling water, allowing 4 cups water for each cup dry peas. Over high heat, heat to boiling, boil 2 minutes, Remove from heat. Cover, let stand 1 hour. Drain and prepare as above. (For some reason, I don't think my soup tastes as good when I take the shortcut. May just be my imagination!)

Remember This?

I asked if you knew what this funny looking, cucumber looking, thing was. My buddy Lori at Pretty Things was correct. It is a bitter melon. We have a neighbor who grows just about everything in his front yard. His back yard (and I'm using the term yard to describe an area that is less than a quarter of a postage stamp) is filled with huge pots filled with citrus trees, star fruit, bitter melon and whatever else he can throw in. He is always sharing his goodies with us. I think he enjoys seeing our faces when he brings something over we have never seen. He's also one of the reasons that I grow tomatoes on our balcony -- I'm willing to try growing almost anything almost anywhere!


Back to the bitter melon. This is what it looks like on the inside. You remove the seeds. Our neighbor uses it in a number of different ways. He makes a juice out of it with cucumbers and tomatoes. Stir fries. In our case, I decided to use it in a stir fry. We were both a little concerned about how bitter it would be, but this light green melon is supposed to be less bitter than the dark green or so I read in this wonderful cookbook.




Since I usually review a book around this time of the week, I decided to share with you one of my all time favorite cookbooks (and the only cookbook I had with a bitter melon recipe). The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen by Grace Young is more than a cookbook. Grace tells family stories all centered around food and the kitchen. It is a pure delight and one I recommend highly for those of you who enjoy a good story along with a few good recipes!



Here is the stir fry recipe with the bitter melon along with directions for preparing the melon. If you click on the photo, it should become bigger and easier to read.



We didn't find the melon to be overly bitter and it added a little zing to the various tastes. You can see I added a few ingredients. I had asparagus left over so I threw it in along with some onion. I added a little garlic to the marinade. It made a complete meal with rice and was very good.

There really is something to trying something new!

Have a special something day.

Joy to You!

Potpourri

I'm thinking that I should name Friday posts "potpourri". I seem to collect things during the week that I want to share and Friday would be a good time to do that.

Here's a quote I received from Big Happy Buddha in my email. Several of you are Pema Chodron fans (like me) and I thought you'd like it.

"When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space."

Nice, huh?



Look! I did a journal page that didn't come out all green and blue! Pink, red, coral and a little green.


I was going through my bin of collage elements that I've been collecting and these popped into my hands. They will go on the pink journal page ... who knows where. I'll journal on favorite things (food, cooking) and memories.

***

I finished A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg last night. Some of us grow up never knowing what we want to do with our lives. Some of us never find that certain something that makes our heart sing. Molly found her calling early and sings.

I've been following Molly, her writing, her recipes, her life with her love, Brandon for some time now. I must have read about her blog while searching out information about Seattle. After all, Seattle is where THE grandson is, so anything Seattle is important! What I found was a blog called Orangette and Molly. The first time I posted was this morning when I told her I had finished her book and loved every minute. Molly is a freelance food writer. She got there in a round about way (degrees in human biology, French and cultural anthropology) and that's part of the story in A Homemade Life. I don't want to give anything away, but you'll find the kitchen and food at the center of the action. And the recipes ... yum! Like Butternut Soup with Pear, Cider and Vanilla Bean, or Slow Roasted Tomatoes with Coriander and Slow Roasted Tomato Pesto. How about Cider Glazed Salmon or Scottish Scones with Lemon and Ginger? No? Well, let's try Tomato Soup with two Fennels, Sliced Spring Salad with Avocado and Feta or Custard-Filled Corn Bread. I found out that Molly and I both love tomato soup (soul food) and Brandon and Mr. Dragon both have a thing for maple syrup. Way to go, Molly!

And finally, the universe called this morning by email (Tut.com) with this:

Excuse me, Snap, but I don't think I noticed, "do a little dance," on your "to-do list."

You do plan to dance today, don't you?

Get down,

The Universe

I mean, it is 2009 and all, Snap, but you're still a supercoolhappylovething, and that comes with certain responsibilities.

Happy Friday everyone. I'm off to do a little dance.