Fordham Miller Fare

thanksgiving question

i know there probably aren't many of you out there reading this anymore, but for those that remain, and that can successfully make a pie crust from scratch, answer me this:  why do i always need more (much more) than the called for amount of water to make the dough come together.

i made an apple pie this thanksgiving, but because i was not in my own kitchen, and did not haul my food processor from home, i had to resort to the truly by hand method for crust making.  usually i use the food processor, fitted with the sharp blade, to cut in the butter AND incorporate the liquid.  i never had really successful pie crusts until i tried this method.  i know that the secret to a crust that isn't tough is to handle the dough as little as possible, use very cold butter and water, and let the dough set up in the fridge for a few hours before rolling it out.  but when i add liquid to the flour/butter mixture, it always takes WAY more than is called for.  so this time, without my trusty cuisinart to rely on, i had to mix in that water by hand, a tablespoon at a time, as the recipe directed me to, and i ended up with a pie dough that was less than ideal.  but even with the cuisinart, i always have to add lots more water to get the dough to form a mass.  any ideas, ye cooks out there?

we had some surpise snow in lake placid on friday.  i kept checking the weather via the internet, and the forecast just got worse and worse and worse.  from snow...then to wintry mix...into sleet/rain...into just plain rain.  but the altitude and that artic blast must have done something, because on friday morning, we not only awoke to snow, but it snowed pretty much all day.  we spent a little bit of time walking around town with our friends jimmy and rhonda, and their two boys, who had arrived mid-day thursday.  then in the afternoon, while rhonda cooked a fabulous turkey pot pie (with, i have to say, a fantastic crust courtesy of their CSA farm store), jimmy and i took the kids to the adjacent golf course for some sledding.  it was a little dicey, as the sledding hill led pretty much straight into the road, save for a few trees that were just as menacing.  and the ground beneath the snow was the icy build up that had been coming down the two previous days.  but it was great to be sledding so early in the season, and about halfway into our adventure, the snow started coming down in earnest, and we had a view of the mountains and that quiet blanket of sound that comes when the snow falls, and it was really just ideal.

in sickness and in health

happy thanksgiving.  we are in lake placid, new york, reliving a family tradition of ours: the vacation illness.

   

thinking back, it probably all started in the summer of 1995 when bill and i (newly minted as a 'we') travelled from the east coast back to madison, wi.  we stayed over with some friends of bill's in ithaca, ny, one of whom had just whethered a stomach bug.  sure enough, 2 hours into our drive to madison, bill came down with it.  i'll spare you the gorey details.  we made it just shy of ann arbor, michigan, where we pulled into a super 8 motel and called it a day.

   

of course, kids only added to the likelihood that a vacation would involve a trip to the local hospital.  so in welfleet, july 2005, we were in town for about 4 hours before bill and maddy headed to the hyannis ER.  diagnosis: scratched cornea.  camping in vermont, august 2004, 4 hours in, morgan came down with sore throat and fever of 101.  after two hours in burlington's fletcher allen medical center, the doctor agreed it was likely strep, although morgan refused to open his mouth for a throat culture.  turns out: hand, foot and mouth (which is NOT to be confused with hoof and mouth disease).  we spent the night at my dad's house in hineburg, thankfully avoiding a whopper of a thunderstorm.

   

but bill and i have had our share of ER visits as well.

   

when i was seven months pregnant with madeleine, i threw out my back.  the pain was so severe that it radiated across my abdomen, and as we were on vacation in the relative sticks of upstate new york, i thought a visit to the local glens falls ER, where their labor and delivery department has the unfortunate name of 'the snuggery', was in order.  several thousand hours and 4 surgery sodas (so as to induce fetal activity at 2 a.m.) later, after determining that all was well in utero, i left with a prescription for codeine, realizing quite quickly why people might find it addictive.  after taking the appropriate dose, i didn't so much feel as SEE the pain disappear, like a heinous pirate ship slowly sailing away over the horizon.  someday soon i will tell you my latest, and perhaps last, experience with the opiate family.  but not today...

   

okay, trip to austin texas, january 2001, first morning there, bill pulled down a metal vertical blind on his wrist.  this one was pretty severe - bill suffered some permanent nerve damage, although the damage was sensory, not muscular, thank goodness (but still no picnic).  it meant he was wrapped up in bandages our entire trip, and had neurosurgery (neurosurgery for goodness sakes!) upon our return to new england.  yipes.

   

narragansett, ri, july 2003.  stomach flu.   another trip to austin, february 2007.  strep AND croup (three doctors visits in three separate cities).  and now, lake placid.  stomach flu again.  oh, that and the fact that we are on 'lice watch II - 2007.'

   

so there is a big pavlovian reaction to the beginning of a vacation, pretty much wherever we go.  if we are settled in, if things look like they are smooth sailing for the next several days, our spines tingle in anticipation of the calls to the 'triage nurse,' the search for the local medical facility, the hopes and dreams temporarily shoved aside for the more immediate matter at hand.   

   

today, madeleine is feeling better, and eating progressively more complicated solid food.  the heads are, by my best estimation, lice free.  and we are settling into some quiet family time, the kind of which we rarely have at home.  the weather, it's kinda schmutzy, but the town is pretty and devoid of throngs of tourists, the christmas lights are up, and overall, it's kinda cozy.  so far, so good...

summer highlights

the first in several mini-installments to let you know where i was all summer.

we went to the poconos in july (bill's family clan trip), the highlight of which had to be the drive from rickets glenn state park (where darn it, the 19-waterfall family friendly hike had been washed out by the early summer monsoon that struck the mid-atlantic) back to locust lake, pa.  halfway home, we passed through berwick, pa, a rather stable looking town with tidy houses and an intact downtown.  i wondered aloud where the money was coming from to keep this little place afloat, when we crossed over a river and saw the GIGANTIC cooling towers of what i later found out was the susquehanna nuclear power plant.  it was a beautiful clear blue day, and as we drove the towers stayed on the horizon, at one point providing backdrop for a very lovely landscape:  red barn, shoulder high corn, blue sky, and nuclear fission.

also enjoyed during our week:  a canoe trip on the delaware river, bumper cars (not the mean feel-like-you've-been-in-a-real-collision kind, but these gas powered and very bumperious types, see photo right), and a pitcher of the new york times summer cocktail recipe winner, the cuke.

when you can't post...

...make a photo album!

where have i been?

boston, maryland, back to boston, and the cape.

sorry for the absence, and only a moment to write.  there's been a lot going on around here.  morgan had his wonderful 5th birthday in early june.  we had a family gathering and cake.  bill's parents came to stay for a week, because shortly after morgan's birthday maddy had eye muscle surgery (for misasligned eyes, also known as strabismus) at children's hospital in boston.  we managed to do the outpatient surgery in one day, and two days after my return i headed down to maryland for four days. 

my trip to maryland was to help out one of my parents.  i've never really posted anything in detail about my immediate family of origin, and it doesn't feel right to be too specific here.  but i can say that in a general sense this parent of mine is having some health issues, and needed some support on the homefront, so off i went.  then back here for a couple of school picnic's for madeleine, then back to boston for madeleine's follow-up visit (a good outcome), then a trip to the cape to watch some whales. 

we've been practising an every-other-year-no-birthday-party rule (odd years are off, even years are on), where on the off years we do something exciting as a family instead of having a party.  a painting of a whale made me think to ask morgan if he'd like to go whale watching, and he was very game for the idea, so that's what we did.

i'll try to blog more in a day or two, including uploading photos into flicker, to give you more of the details on all this stuff.  but i knew if i didn't write something right now, it would all slip away and it would be more weeks before you heard from me again.