Cooking . . . and cooking some more

I spent much of today on food--grocery store trip, then home to make a chicken loaf out of the hen I'd stewed last night. It's a retro dish, and my kids had mixed opinions about it (some declaring it "gelatinous") but it's a nice cold supper, with the purest chicken flavor I've ever tasted--I love it with mayonnaise, but tomorrow for company I may dress up the mayo with a bit of lemon and some basil (my basil plants are already huge this early in the season). Plus I'll use basil leaves to decorate the platter. It's simple, though time-consuming--boil a hen, let it cool, skin and bone, cut meat into chunks. The wonderful lady who gave me this recipe insisted you had to cut the meat into small pieces with scissors (she died several years ago in her 90s, so that tells you this is retro). I think she made her husband cut the chicken. I put it in the food processor and try not to overdo it. Dump the meat into a bowl and process one cylinder of saltines, adding them to the meat. Then the tricky part. The original recipe says to dampen mixture with just enough chicken broth to make it hold together. My mom found, and I did too, it fell apart when sliced. So we added two packets of gelatin, softened in broth, and then a bit more broth. You put it in a loaf pan, cover with wax paper, top with another loaf pan, and weigh it down with two cans of whatever out of your cabinet. Chill overnight. Next day, pray it slices well. After doing all that, my back hurt, and I quit for the afternoon.
But tonight I made salmon tartare--it's not really tartare, since it's made with smoked salmon. My neighbor Jay (the handsome one) took it to the barbecue last week at Jordan's, and it was delicious. I made half a batch but my garlic paste didn't work--roasted garlic was hard as nuts. And typical of me, I left out the jalopeno. Stuck that in the fridge and sauteed mushrooms, cherub tomatoes, scallions, and smoked salmon and then threw in two eggs to scramble and hold it all together. Wonderful supper.
Tomorrow I'll make a salad of roasted asparagus, tiny new potatoes, and tomatoes with a basil/lime dressing, but I have not made nor planned dessert for my company tomorrow (my successor at TCU Press, his wife, and a mutual friend). Tonight I went through my recipe file to find a recipe for banana ice cream to add as a comment to a blog, and I forgot how many wonderful dessert recipes I've cut out over the years. I'll have to do better next time. In looking I found a recipe for really easy and low cal chocolate cupcakes: 1 box chocolate cake mix, 1 can pure pumpkin, 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips. Mix and bake at 350 in cupcake tins for 18 minutes. Makes 18 cupcakes, and you can't taste the pumpkin--the cupcakes are dense and chocolatey and moist. If you're follow Weight Watchers, one cupcake is 2 points--can't beat that!
After all that cooking, I'm tired. Time to go read on the porch.

Weather, books, memoirs and food--and poison

When I set out for errands this morning, it was cloudy but fairly warm, delightful top-down day. So, I kept putting the top up and down--I don't leave it down for fear someone will steal my handicap tag, my booster seat, or my pretty felt flower. But it's so easy to put the top down and up, now that it's finally repaired, that I don't mind. But once I was safely home, about noon, the sky grew ominously dark and the wind picked up at a great rate. Greg was in the driveway, and I asked if we could switch places, since I wanted to get my car in the garage if it hailed. We did but then he went back to trimming bushes--I was terrified he would be electrocuted and relieved when he called it a day. It rained hard for a  long time, but then we had a sunny respite--the porch was too wet to sit on and the weather too cool. More rain about midnight and all weekend. There goes lunch on the patio at Joe T.'s, and Jordan's barbecue Sunday night is going to be indoors and crowded. But we'll manage.
One of my errands was to Barnes & Noble. I had a gift card with about $20 left on it, and I decided I would buy one signifcant book, not my usual mystery, that I wanted to read. I spent something like $43 and bought Pat Conroy's South of Broad (I've always enjoyed his books), It Is Well with My Soul: The Extraordinary Life of a 106-Year-Od Woman by Ella Mae Cheeks Johnson with Patricial Mulcahy--Johnson is the oldest living black graduate of Case Western Reserve University; I thought it appropriate because I'm teaching that class on memoir. The third book I bought, on impulse, was I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti. Okay, that's a case where the title got me, and I may yet regret buying another "young chick" memoir of loves and cooking, but I'll try it. I'm increasingly interested in memoir. I'm currently rereading a manuscript I acquired for the press some time ago--The Legacy of the Sacred Harp--a memoir through which Sacred Harp or shape-note singing forms the unifying thread. Fascinating. So I look forward to reading these three books, though first I must finish the mystery I'm in the mdst of. Despite my determination to write successful mysteries and the lessons I've earned from reading others, I do feel the need to read more broadly.
Tonight Elizabeth came for happy hour, so we could plan the next class meeting,which is this coming Thursday. It was my turn to make snacks, so I used those six big mushrooms I'd bought for Jordan that she never came to eat. Stuffed them with my mom's concoction--grated cheese, dry mustard, Worcestershire, and mayonnaise to bind. Because I'd made good pimiento cheese lately, I added a sprinkle of cayenne. It occurred to me this mixture (which Jordan loves) is a lot like pimiento cheese without the pimientos (which Jordan hates). You have to bake the mushrooms slowly; otherwise the cheese melts while the mushrooms are still raw.
We planned the class easily, since it's mostly class participation, but then we sat and visited and realized how much more we told each other, compared to what we wrote down. Idea for an exercise for a future class.
After Elizabeth left, I scrambled myself two eggs--I haven't done this in a long time--but I added chopped tomato, diced scallions, and cut up smoked salmon. So good. Now I'm wondering if I could put smoked salmon on my morning cottage cheese in the morning!
I talked to a friend the other night about cottage cheese. His baby is just beginning to eat table food, and I suggested cottage cheese; he and his wife both made horrible faces,but I said I had raised all my babies on it. Then I suggested scrambling eggs with cottage cheese instead of milk, and he, a gourmet cook, was interested. I don't know if he'll try it or not.
Meantime, I'm investigating ways to poison people. I called my brother last night to talk about digitalis and strychnine, until he finally said, "I don't know, Judith. I never poisoned anyone." Well, I need to find a way for a fictional character to die suddenly, no symptoms, from tasting food. I've been all over the internet, still working on it.