Block Island Redux

Last time we were on Block Island, it was way off season. When we recently returned, the island was quiet and calm; many of the restaurants and bars were closing up shop after the weekend (and were consequently running out of strange things, like sour cream and salad dressing!).

But we were there for a big wedding with two of the most loving families who brought such warmth to the festivities. An example: at the end of the reception, the bride's brother and brother-in-law sang an amazing version of this Boss classic with new lyrics that were completely personalized for the happy couple (the bride is a HUGE Bruce fan). Each time the chorus came, all 200 guests sang along. It probably sounds cheesy, but it was pure wedding magic.

I remember feeling like it was a bright, sunny day on their wedding, but looking back at these photos, I realize it was a bit overcast. All the love in the air was giving me rose colored glasses!

Enjoy the Remainder

I have almost no patience for people who complain of busyness, but lo, I have been too busy lately. This is mostly a result of traveling lots and lots (for wonderful occasions - we've spent many weekends away this fall for weddings, plus some great family visits squeezed in) but with class and work and our house, I'm more than ready to tone it down a bit.

Thankfully, we'll mostly be home through Thanksgiving. Things are being kept afloat at work, but lots of good stuff - the fun stuff - of daily life has dropped away. Our contractors are actually finishing up today (!!!) with phase one of our house projects, so we have lots of painting and cleaning in our future. But I also want to get back to having people over for dinner, buying flowers, stopping at the farmers market, making soup, playing golf, watching Drop Dead Diva - you know, the really important stuff.

I snapped this picture when Peter and I went golfing on Columbus Day. This fall has been absolute perfection in Boston (and you know I'm an autumn hater), so I want to enjoy the remainder as much as possible.

Cheers to the rest of October, and to finding room for all the good stuff.

Polenta and Peas with Pork Sausage

Do you sometimes wish you could hear what everyone's planning to make for dinner that night around 3:30 p.m.? That's when I get a twitchy feeling, trying to weigh what I'm in the mood for against what I actually have in the house. This dinner sharing fantasy involves a Twitter hashtag, maybe with a quick link to a recipe. Reminders about all those good dinners you sometimes forget about - pasta with cauliflower and breadcrumbs, scalloped potatoes and ham, tacos with black beans and kale. Wouldn't that be great?

Anyways, I'm giving you a loose recipe below, but you could certainly come up with something good based on the title alone. I've had this in my "to make" cue for more than six months, and I finally got around to creating a lazy weeknight version of it. To adapt it for a much speedier cooking time, you obviously need to skip the homemade sausage. I used a few sweet Italian sausages that I just removed from their casing.

I made real polenta - as opposed to instant, which would certainly speed this up further - but I always use the oven baked method. To do that, you combine 1 cup cornmeal with 4 cups of water, plus a big pinch of salt. Sometimes I add dried rosemary if I'm feeling fancy/have some on hand. Bake that at 325 for an hour, topping it with a few pats of butter at the end. Very creamy, very easy polenta every time, without the arm workout.

Polenta and Peas with Pork Sausage
Adapted from Food52

You will need: 

Polenta (see above)
3-4 sweet Italian sausages, casing removed
1 medium yellow onion, small dice
2 carrots, small dice
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 cups chicken stock, or water
1 1/2 cups frozen peas
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
Chopped parsley

Get your polenta going right away (if not using instant) because that takes about an hour. About 40 minutes into cooking the polenta, heat a cast iron skillet to medium and add a glug of olive oil. Brown the sausage pieces then remove from pan. Turn down the heat slightly then add the onions, garlic, and carrots and gently cook until soft. Pour in the wine and then add the stock or water once the wine has reduced by half. Add the sausage and peas to the pan, and heat until the peas are cooked. Grate in the Parmesan cheese, and serve over polenta. Sprinkle parsley on top.

More Children's Lit Favorites

  

  

  

  

I may complain a bit about the workload in my class, but I am LOVING the books we've read so far. This list tends toward the dark and serious - even brave - end of the children's literature spectrum (with the exception of Building Our House, which is pure sweetness and delight).

I hadn't read any of these as a child, so I came at them with only my adult perspective, of course, but to me it seems that these titles require a lot of trust in child readers to handle the "big" stuff of life - poverty, racism, abuse, violence, death, heartache (I'm probably not doing a great job convincing any of you to pick these up!). But these intense topics are handled with such sensitivity and grace, and leave room for so much discussion and dialogue. Tricky issues without answers in many ways, making them brave books for readers of every age.

Itching to make something cute

I'm sure my color ideas will change and evolve over time, but I've been sort of paralyzed to do anything until I felt like I had some kind of "master plan" in terms of paint colors for the house. I mean, to be clear, that's not the only thing stopping me from painting - five of the six spaces above are still covered in paneling, or don't actually have walls up at all. Ha!

But, I've been itching to make something, anything, in my house look cute for now, and the only thing that I can really dive into is my half bath on the first floor. I thought I might want to do some kind of stripe (like this), but I felt like I couldn't commit until I had a general idea of what would be going on around it. The back porch is behind it, which will be white with hopefully the glacier blue on the ceiling. Then the kitchen is on the other side, and I think that could end up being glacier white, too, for the near-term at least. So a cute khaki and white striped bath in the middle would be fun, right?!

Peter's away this weekend for a bachelor party on the Cape (I'm jealous). I have two papers to write, but maybe I'll feel ambitious enough to start this little project. Or just buy a cute hand towel at Home Goods for the bathroom and watch the rest of Drop Dead Diva season three - we shall see.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

P.S. My parent's beloved condo in the Berkshires was listed for sale this week! They found a house that they might want to buy instead, hence the listing. If you know anyone looking for a great spot up there, feel free to email me for more details!

Weekend at Basin Harbor

 

We spent the weekend at the beautiful Basin Harbor Club for our friends' wedding. We've been to Vermont a bunch, but never here. It's almost a Dirty Dancing style resort where everything you could want or need is all on the property - a lake, lawn games out the wazoo, a bar, a restaurant, darling little cabins, and colorful Adirondack chairs around every bend. (I really want some colorful Adirondack chairs now.)

We had the bestest time with our friends there - a few who we haven't seen since we lived in D.C. almost seven years ago! Too long. We made up for lost time by pretending that we're all still 22 :)

All Golden and Sunny

We are going to Burlington, VT this weekend to celebrate our friends' wedding. I hope it looks just like this, all golden and sunny. I've been reading oodles of critical theory for class, so I brought nothing but magazines to catch up on for the entire weekend. This Old House, Real Simple, and New Yorker,  I'm coming for you.

Guess what, today marks four weeks since we've been living in our house! It feels much longer than that, though - I guess because so much is happening there. I love coming home every night during the week to see what's been done that day, but kind of hate being surrounded by everything gross on the weekends. Thank goodness we have lots of weddings coming up this fall to escape to :)

Hope you have a fantastic weekend with apple cider and magazines and colorful leaves!

The wall came a tumblin' down!

Yay, the wall with the horrible sliding glass door came down this week! I am THRILLED. The living room doubled in size, and there's so much more light now. Our beam is in place, and the ceiling got all the framing up. And, our new coat closet was framed out, too!

I realized all these updates kind of look the same. I'm mostly (selfishly) posting them here so we can have a record of this process. This week the electrician and the dry wall guys are coming over. Eeks!

Big E Recap

Peter and I met my family at the Big E Saturday afternoon, and we stayed into the night, looking at baby chicks hatching and riding the Ferris wheel. It was perfection.

We did a great job trying all kinds of new stuff this year, including:

• "Irish" nachos, which were thick cut chips with nacho cheese, cheddar, sour cream, chopped corned beef and diced red onion
• Chips with cheddar horseradish dip
• A mixed basket of fried seafood
• Crab cakes
• Pork chop sandwiches with sauerkraut
• Fried Camembert cheese
• Famous Big E cream puff

Are you going?! There's still one week left for you to enjoy New England's bounty :)

Minuteman National Historic Park

I started my next graduate class two weeks ago, and it is kicking my butt so far! It's on critical theory (not my fave, so far at least). After hours of reading and paper writing last weekend, we went to Minuteman National Park in Concord for a bit of a break in the great outdoors.

It was lovely! There's a great walking path that you can hop onto at all different spots around town. Along the walk there are a bunch of old houses that you can pop into (for free!). The one below was open when we got there so we took a peek inside. The guide told us that it was inhabited full time until the 1960s - can you even imagine?!

Happy weekend, everyone! We're heading to the Big E tomorrow with my family for eat-your-face-off-fest 2013 and I am MOST excited about it. Hope there's something fun in store for you, too!