The day after

A mother-daughter picture I treasure: Megan and me at the stock show. Courtesy of Jordan who then tried to turn around a take a picture of herself with us. It didn't work.
The Houston Alters pulled out of the driveway at eight this morning--I barely made it up to say goodbye. Austin contingent was gone by ten, and Jamie and his girls left about eleven, after he helped me clean up the playroom. Jordan and Christian came for lunch, collected Jacob, and were gone. Tonight, the house is quiet, three loads of laundry done, most folded, one bed re-made, dishwasher run, house pretty much back to normal. I am lonely but my dog and cat are grateful to have the house back--the cat particularly hates those intruders and hasn't been eating all weekend.
This morning when I went to fix breakfast I discovered I didn't have as many eggs as I thought. I asked Megan, and she said, "Your son." I wondered why Jamie was hosing down the whole front yard last night--apparently he instigated an egg fight with the grandchildren. I was obliviously sitting on the front porch with a glass of wine, visiting with the adult children (except Jamie, which goes without saying) and Sue, my former neighbor. Talk about oblivious! I told Maddie this morning that the first day after she was born I was holding her on a couch in the hospital room and Jamie was jumping up and down on the couch, calling to her. All I could say was, "Darlin', it's going to be this way the rest of your life." And it is--Jamie and his girls have such a bond and such a good time together. But then, so do all my kids and their children. I am truly blessed with family, and I'm feeling it more than ever tonight. My consolation: they'll all be back in two weeks for a party for their cousin who is deploying to Iraq. Hate the reason, celebrate the getting-together with extended family.
Colin says my blog is obsessed with food, but I pointed out it has three subjects and one is cooking. So here goes: This morning I didn't need the eggs because the dish I made was so filling: soft polenta with corn (I overcooked it and it wasn't as soft as I wished--also I should have made it with chicken broth instead of water, and I forgot in my haste to salt and pepper it). Top individual servings with chorizo (removed from casings, sauteed and then topped with cherry tomatoes until they release their juices--smash a few with a fork and cook it to make a sauce). Then top each serving with a mixture of feta and chopped cilantro. Really good, though the chorizo was a bit spicy for me. This evening I used the feta/cilanto mix to top a hamburger. So good.
So tonight I'm back at it--reading a manuscript for the Guppies critiquing partners program. Under that, a coordinator matches manuscripts and asks the authors if they're interested. I was, so I'm reading one about a designer/single mother in a small town outside Dallas, and I sent the author No Neighborhood for Old Women. I'm really having fun doing this, and I like the mystery.
Arctic temperatures in the teens (is this Omaha?), freezing drizzle, even snow are forecast this week. Ah, North Texas. Yesterday it was close to 80 and we were soooo hot in the sun at the stock show. I plan to get supplies tomorrow so I can spend Tuesday indoors, cooking. I'll be so glad when March comes. Good news is that I hve flowers--my orchid and my Christmas cactus are blooming. Pictures to come.

A Nice, Long Weekend

A nice long weekend. I've been realizing lately that somehow when I worry about being faced with an empty weekend with no plans, things start to come up. I also think I'm beginning to be better about relaxing and going with the flow. Of courses this weekend, I've been proofing pages, which has kept me busy. Found some real errors in a couple of recipes, so am going back over it again, although I'm not quite through the first round.
Yesterday Texas showed its variable weather sides. What had been sunny and in the low 80s on Friday turned bitterly cold and windy Saturday, never out of the thirties. I went to two grocery stores and the hardware and came in and holed up for the day. Today it still qualifies as quite cool but its sunny and a definite improvement.
I spent part of the weekend feeding Christian. Jordan had made plans contingent on his working, and yet he didn't get a shift, so he came and had supper with me--with due warning in the morning so I could fix something he likes. We had chopped sirloin (with a sauce of red wine, beef broth and goat cheese) and salad, with a baked potato for him. We also had a long visit, a tad too much wine, and a thoroughly pleasant evening--I'd lit a fire in the fireplace and served dinner in the dining room instead of the family room since we didn't have to watch Jacob. I sent him home with a bag full of the ingredients for brunch today--and woke up this morning worrying about whether they had unpacked the bag and refrigerated as necessary. They did but confessed they forgot about it in the car until they began discussing what I was going to fix them for brunch today and Christian suddenly bolted for the car.
I fixed a new dish and altered it (no pun) to get around the tomatoes called for in the original recipe but one of the items on Christian's "do not eat" list.
I put three-and-a-quarter cups or water, a cup of corn meal, and a thawed 12 oz. pkg. of corn in a 9x13 dish, stirred it thoroughly, and baked it at 425 for 30 minutes (it came out soft polenta, but might have hardened if we'd let it cool completely). While it baked Jordan chopped a half cup cilantro, crumbled almost two cups of feta, and mixed them. I slit the casings on three bacon-and-onion sausages from Central Market's extensive lineup of homemade sausage--really debated over what flavor--and browned the meat in a skillet, breaking clumps with a wooden spon as it cooked. When it was no longer pink (a point about which Jordan is fanatical) I added some chicken broth and white wine (I had sent what I call a "travel" bottle of chardonnay, one of those little one-serving deals like you get on airplanes, and Jordan chilled it thinking I intended to drink it with brunch; I told her 11 a.m. was a bit early). When the polenta was done, we let it cool a bit, then topped it as evenly as possible with the broken up sausage meat and the feta/cilantro mixture. It was really really good. We had mini-blueberry muffins with it and needed no eggs. Jacob, who loves blueberries, thought there was something "yucky" in the muffins.
Tonight I'm fixing myself a dish that calls for an eggplant salad (made and in the refrigerator) with tuna in olive oil, grape tomatoes and mint. Sounds weird, I know, but then I'm the one who had a bit of egg salad on smoked salmon this morning before I went to brunch--I can't wait until 11 a.m. to eat. And I still have half of my sirloin patty waiting for me--maybe lunch tomorrow.
Someone left a comment on my last blog about whether or not I, as a small press director and owner of a Kindle, think digital reading machines are responsible for a downturn in publishing. Certainly there has been a downturn--a recent AAUP survey revealed something like 6-9% over the first six months of 2008, and that was before things began to go really bad. TCU Press isn't thriving like it did last year, although our sales are respectable. But, no, I don't think it's digital reading devices--someone still has to write the books and someone else publish them (I'm not sure but I don't think you can simply post your own book on Kindle). The thing that worries me about e-publishing is that it is often unvetted. TCU Press manuscripts go through two readers and then scrutiny (and I do mean scrutiny) by an editorial board. Some of the stories and books you see in the web have been read by no one but the author. Yet others come from reputable publishers who have chosen to print in newly developing forms, including e-books and Print to Order or Print on Demand. I think pubishing is changing at a rate that's almost scary, just because technology is changing that fast--but I believe there will always be hard copy books. People like to feel, hold, smell and read a real book--in spite of my Kindle, I'm doing that now, one called The Hearse You Came In On by Tim Cockey. It's a used book I got for a song at Booked for Murder in Houston, but the title sounded familiar and I thought I'd explore it. Nope, I think publishing is alive and well, maybe even a little bit "more well" than much of the economy, because one of the things I keep hearing is that in tough times, when they can't afford other entertainment, people stay home and read books.
My daughter, Megan, got a Kindle for Christmas and reports she loves it. She's rereading Pillars of the Earth and says the Kindle is so much easier to read than the big thick book. I find I like it because if I'm out of reading material, I can order a new book with a click and have it in minutes. My friend Mary Lu also got a Kindle for Christmas, and I'll have to ask how she's doing with it. Megan and Mary Lu both read in bed at night, something I simply can't do, so it may be especially great there.