cookies and cellars

It's almost time to start up the home-based cookie factory for the summer. I made some macaroons tonight for a customer/friend I met at craft fairs last fall. We're trading a bunch of macaroons for her and her booth buddy plus the recipe (its from a book, really) in exchange for some cash and a recipe for her white chocolate fudge with dried cranberries. I am looking forward to trying that recipe.

Meanwhile, I have a couple dozen leftover macaroons sitting here calling my name. Either that or I have to put them away in a container, and that sounds like work after a long day. Bleah. It might be easier to just eat them.

Today was hot and muggy and the bugs are starting to come out. We're cleaning out a cellar for a woman here on the island, and it is hot, dirty, sweaty, heavy work. I am trying to find a home for a big old metal teacher's desk. The thing must weigh a ton, and it's got to come up out of that cellar through the bulkhead. Ugh. Today we tried it with a hand truck rolling up some planks laid over the stairs, but that didn't work. Tomorrow, I think I may try thumping it up one step at a time and see how that goes. There is no room to get a vehicle into position to tie a rope around it and haul it up that way. We'll have to see how it goes. Perhaps a lever of some kind could lift it where it needs to go. I have to say, this is way better than building another screen porch. The worst I have to come up with is how to get a heavy thing up and out, not how to weave shingles or flashing or hang doors or whatever. This is much, much easier on the brain. Tougher on the back, but easier on the gray matter.

I think some people don't understand how I can welcome the brawn-over-brains work like this sometimes. I used to work on an assembly line in a factory, and there is a real rhythm that I can get into doing mindless work. There is a simplicity to it that reminds me that some things do not need to be figured out, they just need to be shoveled. I pick up a load of stuff, carry it to its new place and go back for anther. It can almost approach a zen-like state if I let it. Lift, walk, place, walk, lift, walk place.... I can unplug my brain, let it float and keep on keepin' on. Before I know it, things are looking really good and I cam feeling good about ow much has been accomplished. It is sort of like mowing the grass or shoveling the driveway. There's nothing to do for it really but pick up the shovel and get started. With this cellar, there is nothing to do but pick up the first pile of boxes and get started. I'll post pictures tomorrow when we finish up.

Mission Accomplished!

Uf-da.

The Screen Porch is DONE. The cottage it is attached to is not square, level, plumb or straight, so the pressure was not high for my portion, but it did not make it any easier to erect. The roof shingles were old and rotted in some places, so putting the flashing in was a challenge, but with enough caulk and spit, I think it will keep mother nature from getting in. Through the roof anyway. Through the screens, there isn't much I can do about that.

It will be good to spend a couple days just doing physical work that does not involve quite so much heavy thinking and figuring out. I am cleaning out a basement this week, and it will be a nice change. Yes, the work will be heavier than what I have been doing, but it will tax my brain less, and after creating the porch from scratch with no plans but an idea in my head, this will be nice.

There is talk of a Ferron concert in Bar Harbor next week. I think we might go to it. I think it might be required as a lesbian to go. I have seen Melissa Etheridge (several times) Melissa Ferrick (once) and the usual assortment of angry lesbians with guitars, plus Christine Lavin, Cheryl Wheeler and a bunch of other folkies, but somehow I have never seen Ferron. Or Ani DeFranco. Probably have to do that before I die. I saw Joan Armatrading once. Good God. That was amazing. Abso-fucking-lutely amazing. And then there was Joan Baez, the Indigo Girls (who opened for Joan) Tracy Chapman, Dar Williams (who also opened for Joan) and a bunch of others through the years.

It's been a while since I have been to a concert. Perhaps we should go just for that reason alone. Besides, it might be fun.

Not much to talk about today. Somehow that feels good. I shall save the heavy thinking for later. For now, I simply have to take out the trash.

Lemon Pie

Aha! The Lemon Pie recipe came from a story about the Shakers on the National Public Radio site. Here is the official version:

Shaker Lemon Pie

At the restored Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill in central Kentucky, chef Tony Adams prepares original foods such as this Shaker lemon pie for visitors. "You've got to watch it, take care of it, pamper it," he says. "You can taste the difference." If you're looking for a sweet gooey dessert, this isn't it. Rather, this pie is quite tart and very lemony. Lemons were one of the few foods Shakers bought from the outside world, though there is some evidence lemons were grown indoors in some communities.

Makes 1 pie

2 large lemons

4 large eggs, well beaten

2 cups sugar

Slice lemons as thin as paper, rind and all. Combine with sugar and mix well. Let stand at least 2 hours, preferably overnight, blending occasionally.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Add beaten eggs to lemon mixture and mix well. Turn into 9- inch pie shell (recipe below), arranging lemon slices evenly. Cover with top crust. Cut several slits near center.

Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 375 and bake for about 20 minutes or until knife inserted near edge of pie comes out clean.

Cool before serving.

Pie Crust

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons shortening

2 tablespoons cold water

Mix flour and salt. Cut shortening into flour until it forms very small balls. Sprinkle in water, 1 tablespoon at a time, while mixing lightly with a fork, until the flour is moistened. Mix it into a ball that cleans the bowl.

Divide in half. Roll each out onto floured board. Makes top and bottom crust.

Sunday afternoon

So I saw this recipe the other day, and it looked interesting. Lemon pie.

Not lemon meringue pie, which is wicked complicated; but lemon pie. I think it was in the Portland Press Herald. It was in a story about the Shakers, a marvelously simple community of brilliant engineers. But more on that later. This is about pie.

Seems that lemons were one of a very short list of things that the Shakers actually purchased from outside. Everything else they grew or made themselves.

But this recipe. Oh, man.

Not sweet like the old meringue version, not puckery like rhubarb, but somewhere delightfully in-between.

And the recipe? Shaker simple, baby.

Lemon Pie

Take two large lemons and slice them super thin, SKINS ON!!! pick out the seeds. Put the slices in a bowl with two cups of sugar and mix them around (gently - don't smash the slices). Leave them for a couple of hours, more is better. I sliced in the morning, then baked at night. Stir them around every so often.

Make a regular two-crust pie crust. For god's sake, don't buy one - for this recipe it would be blasphemy.

Beat the hell out of four large eggs. (I whizzed them in the magic bullet.) Mix them in with the lemons and sugar, then put into the pie shell. Make sure the slices lay as flat as you can or it will get weird. Put on the top crust, seal it up and slice a few vent holes in the middle.

Bake at 450 for 15 minutes, then turn the oven back to 375 and bake for about 20 more minutes. You can stick a knife in to check it - when it comes out clean, it's done.

Let it cool before you serve or it'll be soup. We stuck ours in the fridge overnight.

The rinds on the lemon slices get candied after all that time in the sugar and the eggs give it just enough body to be short of custard, but creamier than a gelatin. It is utterly divine.

'tis a gift to be simple.

Sunday morning

It's a lazy kind of day. Wet and cold outside, too wet to work. I have to go see my recovery mentor later this morning, but before I do that I have some cinnamon rolls to eat with my gal. I woke up early, and accepted it. I welcomed the quiet time to get my head together before the day begins in earnest. Since I was up, I made some sweet bread and turned it into cinnamon rolls. Laura is up now, the dog is walked and we will sit down to the shared table.

As it is in our world, the table is cluttered with fish hooks, bobbers, doggie treats, laptops and recipes for other things.

Live TV at its cheesiest

I love the public television auction.

We found it on tv tonight by accident, just flipping through. I love the volunteers. I love that many of them go directly from work to the studio, only grabbing a drive-through meal on the way. They show up in jeans and t-shirts, tired and a little rumpled, but they're ready to be cheerful and answer phones. They're willing to stand awkwardly next to the auction item in the studio to "liven up" an otherwise lifeless image of a garden trellis. Or a crate of jam jars packed in pine shavings.

I love especially the volunteers who read the descriptions of the items being auctioned. I love the people from the city trying to pronounce "Mooselookmeguntic" or some other such name with noble Native roots. I love the people who are transplants, who love Maine so very much, but who have no idea where things are or what might attract someone to a motel in Lincoln in October (think foliage and/or bow, then black powder season).

I love the locals who know to pronounce Dougherty "Dorrity" and Michaud as "Mee-sho." I love the real locals who say Auguster and Wataville and Loyston (Lewiston).

I love that artisans can donate stuff with thousand-dollar price tags and bring in a couple hundred bucks for public broadcasting, but the coupons and certificates to Houle's Plumbing and Pat's Pizza regularly go for their face value. I love also that places from Fort Kent to Kittery and from Owl's Head to Umbagog (pronounced Um-BAY-gog) donate things and they get all get bids.

I don't usually bid on things on the auction. I am too frugal (broke) for many of the items, most of which fall into my definition of luxury or convenience items. I've got a truck to get fixed up before I go bidding on something frivolous, however yummy it sounds. Once I did get a certificate for 18 holes of golf for two, plus cart, from the Bangor Municipal golf course for fifty bucks. I had never played there before, so it was kind of fun. I remember standing on the fairway as a big military plane took off from the nearby international airport. It was so huge and so low in the sky I felt like I could hold up my four iron and scrape its belly as it went over. I watched its shadow, outlined sharply in the very green grass, pass over the rolling fairway and sand traps and then disappear out of sight. It was a moment to feel very small indeed.

I did not work today on that porch. I awoke this morning sore and tired and more sore and more tired. It was cold and damp outside, and warm and snuggly inside, so I stayed. It does not look much better tomorrow weather-wise, but at least I'll have have a day of rest behind me so I can get back to work. Until then, though, I will continue to rest with enthusiasm. I have a pie in the oven and my flannel pajamas on. I shall rest until I must work.

Slacker

I have a new sympathy for friends who blog. I used to pester with demands for new posts. Give me something interesting! Give me something entertaining! Write!

Uf-da.

No more.

I have had a long-ish, kind of miserable week working on this project, but it is almost done. Which is good, because so am I. I am so tired and so sore and so exhausted I cannot describe it. I have learned a valuable lesson about my own physical abilities and just how many little steps are involved with building something of this size and scale. Good grief.

Here is a picture of what I've got so far, plus the supervisor on site. I'll write more when this job is finished. I think Laura and I might try to go fishing in the morning... wouldn't that be delicious!