The Saturday House

 

My chocolate stash
uncovered when I  cleaned the junk drawer

That’s my name for the guest house/cabana that is being built directly behind my cottage. It seems to me the workmen only appear at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday. By nine, they are gone for the day, and weekdays I really see any sign of activity. I know the owners are frustrated by the delay—they’ve explained it’s the supply chain—but I am frustrated by the timing. Fortunately, I can joke about it, because I am not sleep deprived, and by seven in the morning I’m just dozing and waiting for Sophie to come scratch at the side of my bed. Last week they installed the equipment necessary for a pool—large, complicated pipes, lots of them, and big objects that I have no idea how to identify—all smack outside my bathroom window. Jordan has a solution: we’re going to buy one of those panels of fake ivy you can clip to a fence. Real ivy won’t grow there—there is struggling honeysuckle right now, which tells you something. Honeysuckle rarely struggles unless it doesn’t get enough water, which is the case with this. But our water pressure is low, so I can’t see extending the sprinkler system, which would be expensive.

I keep referring people to the O. Henry story, “The Last Leaf” in which a young girl is dying a lingering death from pneumonia. She stares at the tree outside her window and declares she will die when the last leaf falls. An artist neighbor paints a leaf on the brick wall, The young woman recovers her will to live, but the artist, old and infirm, dies of pneumonia. Well, I don’t anticipate dying any time soon, but I wouldn’t mind a few leaves painted on that brick wall—above the pool equipment, of course.

I followed through and cleaned my junk drawer today and have now decided to open a candy-bar store. In all that junk I found an amazing number and variety of chocolate bars. Once when I said I wasn’t really addicted to chocolate, Colin went to that drawer, pulled out all the chocolate bars and fanned them to amuse whoever was with us. Remember “The Days of Wine and Roses”? I have always with trepidation remembered what Jack Lemmon said—he could have predicted that Lee Remick’s character would become an alcoholic, because if you can become addicted to one thing, you can become addicted to another. From chocolate to wine, a path too easy.

Enough of that. This was a satisfying day. I finished reading a good book today—Bitterroot Lake, by Alicia Beckman. It’s a braided story with deaths from the past woven into the mystery of today. Set in a Montana lake resort town, it involves family history, friendship, heritage, a new widow, estranged sisters—and so much more. It will draw you in. I gave it five stars.

This morning I experimented in the kitchen—nothing unusual about that. This time I made a batch of polenta with chicken broth, spinach, herbs, corn kernels, green onions, and cheese. It’s destined to be a one-dish supper and meant to have wells dug into it into which you break eggs. Then you bake until the eggs are the desired degree of done—like shakshuka but with polenta instead of tomato sauce. Jaimie Smith, a neighbor, is coming to eat with me and bringing a green salad. I’ll see how she feels about eggs. I’m okay with or without.

We decided on eggs, but it took forever for them to bake, and we finally turned on the broiler. I think that was a mistake. Jaimie said her egg was fine, but mine, runny underneath, had a hard crust on the top. What was fun about the whole thing was that Jaimie got as involved in the cooking as I did—we both watched those eggs all the time. This time it wasn’t the watched pot that never boils, it was the watched egg that never cooks. I loved the polenta but could do without the egg. And I don’t think I followed the recipe precisely. Maybe I’ll write about that later.

Jaimie brought a wonderful salad with strawberries and goat cheese and browned almonds (I passed on those) and a raspberry vinaigrette dressing. So good. I served mini-ice cream sandwiches for dessert. We were well fed and had a good visit.

Settling down with a good book for the evening. What book? I don’t know. I have an array to choose from.