Category: Food & Drink

Dead Milk Walking

Cooking is part of our retirement lifestyle – more affordable and overall a healthier and tastier choice. We make some incredible food, but we’ve also experienced epic failures over the years. There might be one in the refrigerator now. I’ll make Dale taste it and see.

He’s used to it. You know when the date on the milk has expired, but you think it’s probably still good? And you don’t really want to be the one to find out? We call that Dead Milk Walking. Dale’s like the medieval taste tester who determines whether we live or die.

Today it isn’t milk. Although I did have two consecutive batches of yogurt fail. I seem to be on a roll. The culprit is chicken liver pâté I made yesterday for our New Year’s Eve spread at home. I have strong suspicions it will be awful. I don’t even want to taste it.

I gently suggested to Dale he ought to check it out first. I think he’ll do it. If he likes it, I’m in. But if he declares it inedible, the pâté is headed for the garbage disposal. I can live with the occasional cooking failure, but I hate wasting food. Chicken livers were cheap, but that would also be nearly a pound of butter down the drain.

For the record, I don’t like innards, including liver. The exception is pâté. Oh, and leberknödel, a liver dumpling we used to eat in Germany.  I tried to make them once, and they count as an epic failure. I have fond memories of kalbsleberwurst, a veal liver sausage we enjoyed in Germany – especially when spread on hearty German bread. That’s it. No hearts, no gizzards, no tripe, no kidneys.

The pâté was easy enough to make. I rinsed and patted dry the livers, and then cooked them in a pile of butter with shallots, parsley, fresh thyme. Ignited some brandy and added that. A bit of red wine. Simmered it for awhile and then let it cool to room temp. Poured it into the blender and slowly added chunks of butter. I divided it into three little tubs, thinking I would freeze two … if they should survive the taste test.

So, here we are. Decision time. The rest of our feast is store-bought for a change and includes smoked salmon, which we purchased at Whole Foods (Ducktrap Kendall Brook got good reviews). A wee bit of sustainable White Sturgeon caviar from Sterling, a runny brie and a good California Blanc de Blancs Champagne. We have some crackers, and we’ll probably buy a baguette today. I make thin buckwheat pancakes for the caviar.

There’s plenty to eat. We don’t really need the pâté. When I gathered the food up for the photo opportunity, it looked like one of those picture puzzles. Which one doesn’t belong? It smells OK, but it looks nasty.

Our ritual is to spread the treats out on the coffee table using fancy dishes and watch a movie. I haven’t seen midnight in years.

THIS JUST IN: Dale tasted the pâté and declared it excellent! Now that the coast was clear, I followed suit, and I agree — it’s actually delicious. Nice firm texture but still creamy. It should be good on the crackers with a little bite of cornichon on the side.

Happy New Year! May things never be worse than they are.

I still say happy holidays

The Happy Holidays backlash mystifies me. Not everybody celebrates Christmas. I’m not scared.

Complaints about being politically correct don’t hold with me. I believe most PC terms reflect how people want to be addressed or acknowledged. I don’t think of it as being PC to say Happy Hanukkah or Happy Solstice or Happy Kwanzaa or the all-encompassing … Happy Holidays.

If holiday greetings are about spreading love, why can’t we share our kindness and good cheer with people in a way that respects and welcomes their unique experiences? If I know you celebrate Christmas, then by all means, it’s Merry Christmas! But if I don’t know you or I’m aware you have different cultural traditions, I’m either going to acknowledge your celebration or go with Happy Holidays.

We celebrate Christmas at our house but more as a folk festival than anything else. We do not subscribe to religion but sometimes adopt features of the parts we like! And then we make new traditions.

Our Christmas Eve tradition for many years is Dale’s homemade pizza and a movie, preferably a comedy. I’m struggling to find a good one for this evening, so if anybody has ideas that can be streamed from Netflix or Amazon, please share!

Christmas morning we have coffee and open a few presents. We abandoned big loot years ago. Now it’s just one or two things for each other and what the sisters send. And something for the cat! My sister-in-law sent a wrapped gift for Riley, and he knows it’s his. He has been pawing and clawing and sniffing around since it arrived. Catnip, perhaps?

Then we eat leftover pizza and enjoy a cold beer. While the pizza/beer buzz wears off, we putz around and start Christmas dinner, which we typically eat around 5:30 or 6 p.m. We keep it simple. Roast beef, broccoli and mashed potatoes. Dessert varies. This year we are eating homemade plum pudding from last year’s Christmas dinner. It has been wrapped well in the fridge. I tasted it, and it’s still delicious. I’ll make new hard sauce to go with.

As a treat to myself, later this afternoon I will try out my new homemade cannabis bath salts. All my achy breaky parts are screaming this time of year, so I’m hoping for some soothing relief. It was so easy to make using Epsom salt, Himalayan pink salt, baking soda and cannabis-infused coconut oil. I can’t wait to give you a full report on the outcome.

Until then, Happy Holidays! And Merry Christmas!

Brined and spatchcocked

Yes, it’s Thanksgiving, and that’s a newspaper cooking in the oven. Well, drying out. We finally got rain, and a big fat newspaper plump with Black Friday ads arrived on our driveway this morning in a leaky plastic bag.

I used my blow dryer for one section, while Dale opted for the oven at 250 degrees. Dale, otherwise known as Mr. Wizard, says the ignition point of paper is 500 degrees, so we should all be safe. If you should get a wet newspaper, our test revealed the oven is faster.

Oh, and please do not put the newspaper in the microwave! Dale set fire to our microwave one year drying out a wet newspaper, and we believe it’s because there’s metal in the ink. At this point, I may as well tell you there’s a history of Dale and fire.

Dale believes the cat prefers his food at mouse temperature. Dale’s ritual is to take a shower at the end of the day and feed the cat afterward. There was a time when he would set the cooktop burner on low and heat the can for a few minutes just prior to his shower. He’d turn off the heat and then go take his shower while the cat waited impatiently meowing outside the shower door. Once dried and dressed, Dale would return to the kitchen accompanied by a hungry cat and received by perfect mouse-temperature cat food.

Except one time he forgot to turn off the burner. Nothing was on fire when he returned to the kitchen, but it set off the smoke alarm, and the odor of burnt cat food jumped the kitchen and spread viciously throughout the house. Dale opened the windows and turned all fans to high in a feeble attempt to air the place out.

Meanwhile, I’m coming home from work, and I pull into our street only to find a firetruck outside the house and the distinctive odor of burnt cat food oozing its way to the driveway. Fire fighters had arrived and started asking questions. Dale explained he burned the cat’s food heating it to mouse temperature. The fireman said, “Sir, do you mind if we take a look around?” As in, are you fucking nuts?

The house was declared not on fire, but since then, no actual burners are involved in the heating of cat food. He trained our new cat in the shower ritual, but now Dale removes the can from the fridge before taking his shower … just to take the chill off. At serving time, he adds a tablespoon of hot water, which makes for nice gravy anyway. The cat certainly seems to be happy.

Another problem solved.

It’s turkey day, and Dale is in charge of the bird. I don’t recall any fires involving turkey, although we have had incendiary discussions about the best way to cook it. He is a die-hard fan of brining, and this year I made the mistake of sending him a New York Times article about brining being out of fashion. And then just to rub salt in the wound, I told him about my friend, Carole, who spatchcocks her turkey.

Dale, aka Mr. Wizard, said spatchcocking is just a fancy word for butterflying, and there’s nothing new there (other than the possibility of it being golden brown, crispy and delicious). He doesn’t care. He already has a process. And he’s right – I love his brined turkey – but I am also open to new experiences and even mentioned Carole makes her stuffing in a bundt pan. She sent me a picture.

Mr. Wizard said it looked good, for dressing. He said it’s not stuffing if it isn’t stuffed inside the bird. Whatever. After 40 years, I’m used to this. I’ll be making an apple crostata for dessert, along with standard side dishes. I’ve made every kind of pie crust known to mankind over the years, and I’m going back to the first cookbook we ever owned, a recipe that uses Crisco – not butter.

Dale doesn’t challenge my dessert and side dish decisions, so I’ve backed off on the turkey. Besides, we sort of got a new experience at breakfast. Fresh newspaper, brined and spatchcocked.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My coconut year (and the results)

I’ve written about my love of coconut and have incorporated it into my diet – mostly in the form of unsweetened coconut and coconut oil in my homemade granola and Indian soups and stews with full-fat coconut milk. These foods have been a staple of my diet for about a year now.

Although I don’t have a scientific process for examining cause and effect, in that year my cholesterol went up where it should have gone down and down where it should have gone up. My doctor said if it were anyone else, she wouldn’t even comment.

But it is not anyone else, it’s me, and she knows I take this stuff seriously.  She gets that I’m annoyed. I explained the details of my coconut year, and she agreed cutting back would probably bring my numbers back to where I want them. I hadn’t realized coconut was so high in saturated fat. Like 85 percent! Yikes.

Because it would be too simple to blame it on the coconut, during that year I also stopped taking a daily fish oil supplement. That scoundrel Jane Brody of the New York Times reported there doesn’t seem to be evidence fish oil supplements do anything but generate expensive urine. I’m all about cheap pee, so I stopped taking the pills.

As soon as I got my metabolic panel results – back to fish oil for me. The doctor agreed it was a prudent move.

Yogurt is another possible culprit, although I suspect not. I make my own yogurt using whole milk and eat a serving with breakfast nearly every day. Although I haven’t gained weight, one could argue the fat contributes to my cholesterol. I’ve been eating whole milk cheese for years, and my cholesterol was fine.

Nothing I’ve read puts a target on whole milk yogurt. But just for the sport of it, I made a batch of 2 percent, and it’s delicious. The texture is the same although perhaps slightly tarter. I definitely liked the 2 percent better for raita – grated cucumbers in yogurt to accompany spicy curry. For the sake of science, I’ll keep making 2 percent.

She was pleased with my blood sugar, which has remained stable with no medication or treatment. I am pre-diabetic, a condition I attribute to my origins at the bottom of the gene pool. I mean, really? I did not know a thin, active person could be at risk, but there you have it. I’m careful about carbs and sugar, and it appears to be working.

The visit went well, although I had a long list of stuff to go over, and they said I only had a 20-minute appointment. I didn’t know there was such a thing. Apparently, you have to request 40 minutes, and I will do that next time. I admit to being a wee bit manipulative, but we got through my list.

I don’t like my oncologist, and I got a referral to a female oncologist who also specializes in genetic research. I had ovarian and breast cancer and am BRCA1-positive. The other oncologist, a man, was surprised I did not have reconstruction and seemed squeamish about looking at my flat chest. I’m hoping the female doctor will have a better grip on reality.

The other big issue was my vertigo. The doctor agreed vertigo sucks and is referring me to vestibular rehabilitation therapy – some sort of physical therapy for inner ear disorders. I’m looking forward to it!

As I was leaving, she said, “You aren’t exercising outside with this air quality are you?” We’ve experienced days of dreaded red status – unhealthy for anyone – as a result of the fires more than 100 miles away. I said I was planning to play golf the next day, and she said, “Please don’t. This is bad stuff. You work too hard to be healthy to let this get you.”

For once, I listened. I canceled my tee time and am not doing much of anything outside until the air quality improves. In the meantime, I’m not eliminating anything from my diet – including yummy coconut – but I am going to be more careful and lean Mediterranean.

I previously shared my recipe for coconut granola, which I still love, but I’m updating here with olive oil and seeds instead of coconut. I made it yesterday, and it’s delicious.

Donna’s Low-Sugar Granola 

1 ½ cups old-fashioned rolled oats

1 cup mixed raw seeds (hemp, sunflower, sesame, etc.)

1 cup mixed raw nuts, coarsely chopped (cashews, pecans, almonds, walnuts, etc.)

1 tablespoon brown sugar

¼ teaspoon sea salt

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1 egg white, lightly whisked

1/4 cup olive oil

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Line a ½ sheet pan with parchment.

Mix dry ingredients together and add liquids. Taste and add more salt if needed.

Spread mixture in the sheet pan and cook for 20 minutes – stir gently and turn pan half-way through cooking time. It should be golden brown but not too dark – it may need 3-5 minutes more cooking time. Let cool and store in airtight container.

Fragrance, taste and healing

Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley Bethesda again. That’s where my employer was headquartered, so we in the hinterlands often made the pilgrimage to Maryland for training, business meetings and other events.

In my dream, the weather turned bad, and everyone was holed up in the office. The big wheels were secluded in a conference room on the top floor, but I had superpowers and could hear their thoughts, which were actually quite simple.

Look at me. I’m a captain of industry. Riding out the storm at the office, my favorite place. I like it here. I feel comfortable here. I’m important.

In the dream, I could feel their pride coupled with a false sense of sacrifice. Like woe is me, such a burden, even though riding it out at the office with their comrades was exactly what they lived for.

Waking up, I felt grateful to be retired. Although I was ambitious and had a great career, every job disappointed me in the end. Dale and I were talking about winning the lottery, and I said, I don’t care. I mean, yes, more money would be great, but I have what I need. Life is good.

In choosing to jump ship, a lot of my decisions were driven by dinner (as they still are). I just couldn’t get excited about working longer and longer hours so I could come home to a bowl of cold cereal. My goal was to slow down, smell the roses, eat fabulous food and enjoy my time on the planet free from workplace drama.

Although I’m not one of those retire-at-35 people, retiring at 62 was a significant accomplishment. My life now is about reading, writing, playing outside and cooking. Outings with Dale to museums, wineries and such. The occasional road trip.

Today we’re hanging out inside. Smoke from the Northern California fires has blown our way, and unlike captains of industry, we are riding out the air quality at home, my favorite place, where fragrance, taste and healing are priorities.

Dale made a fresh batch of Mexican chorizo, which is a loose pork sausage, heavily spiced but not smoked. This morning for breakfast he browned some in a frying pan and then scrambled it with eggs. Homemade salsa verde to go with.

I started to defrost soup for lunch but then remembered an avocado on its last legs. I sliced it, garnished with fresh walnuts and drizzled a bit of olive oil on top. A sprinkle of sea salt and cracked black pepper. It was so simple and delicious.

Dinner is pan-seared scallops. Dale is in charge of the scallops, while I will cook sides of sautéed Swiss Chard and yellow rice. The rice is based on a Cuban recipe, but I’ve tweaked it a bit. Dale likes chard, but for some reason, he usually resists. I guess because it’s not a potato. But he knew I was pissed about cleaning the house this morning while he did pretty much nothing. All I had to say was how about chard, and he’s like, oh yum, OK!

Saffron, rich with fragrance and taste and revered for its healing powers, is one of the world’s most expensive spices at $3,000 to $9,000 per pound, but you’ll be spending between $5.00 and $7.00 per gram. A little goes a long way.

Instant Pot Yellow Rice

1 cup Basmati rice, rinsed

1 ½ cups chicken stock

A tablespoon or two of butter

A big pinch of saffron

A pinch of Kosher salt

Put everything in the Instant Pot, lock the lid and make sure the pressure valve is closed. Select the rice setting. It should take about 15 minutes. When the cooking is complete, let it sit until everything else is ready and then release the pressure.

Taking big bites

My last post was largely about food, and I bit off more than I can chew. I was loving the idea of going through old cookbooks and magazines and somehow reinventing recipes to share on the blog from time to time.

I started with an old Gourmet magazine, November 1990, and I was blown away by the complexity of the recipes and obscure ingredients. We make a few complicated dishes, but we’ve simplified our cooking and eating over the years. Back in the day, Dale and I used to joke about recipes that started with, “Have your fishmonger …”

The guy at Safeway is as close to a fishmonger as we ever got.

There’s a section of the magazine called, “You Asked for It.” People write in about some specific thing they ate in their travels, and could Gourmet possibly get the recipe? I read this one out loud to Dale:

At the wonderful Hotel Romazzino on Sardinia’s shimmering Costa Smeralda, we had a dish of baked noodles and lobster, covered with pastry, that was almost too good to believe. Was it a dream, Gourmet, or can the recipe be obtained?

We had a good laugh over that one.

Still, the same magazine features Pumpkin Cheesecake with Bourbon Sour Cream Topping, and I have actually made that. Twice! Thinking about making it this year for Thanksgiving.

I’m not dissing the magazine. It gave us many years of pleasure, and I’m still excited to dig in and rediscover nuggets from the past. It’s a good retirement hobby for me, but I doubt I’ll make enough changes to call them my own. I will be lucky to call them edible.

Have no fear. I’ll continue to write about food in some form or fashion because it’s practically all I think about, and it’s important to enjoying life, especially in retirement. But even if a fellow retiree is inclined to cook fancy food, I hardly think they will be stopping by to get tips from me. There are too many great resources already out there.

At first, I felt embarrassed to have presented this grand idea before thinking it through more carefully. But then I thought, that’s what Retirement Confidential is all about – sharing true stories about retirement ups and downs in real time.

My progress on getting over the need to accomplish something was also a wee bit overstated. I mean, it has been less than two weeks since I decided to focus on the little things that make me happy. Although cooking makes me happy, in hindsight, reinventing 40 years of recipes sounds a wee bit driven to me.

As for retirement pursuits, it’s kind of like being a kid trying all the sports until you find one you actually like and are good at. Sometimes you have to take big bites. Go ahead, do it!

Political Postscript

In other news, I’m pleased Democrats took the House. I’m fine with Republicans having a majority in the Senate. In my opinion, democracy is stronger when power is distributed. The stock market seemed to agree, and that’s usually a positive thing for retirees. Overall, I know there is more drama to come, but I feel more hopeful about the future of our country.

Representing team live-to-eat

It has only been a week since I wrote about the nagging feeling that I’m supposed to be accomplishing something in retirement. I vowed to do what feels good and see what happens. I think it’s working!

I made a list of my favorite things:

  • Reading
  • Writing
  • Golf
  • Walking
  • Cooking

I can sort of feel the drive slipping away and am grateful I have the option of retirement. Why not just focus on what makes me happy? Sure, there are work-related activities that give me pleasure and satisfaction, but I must say it feels pretty good to wake up and not worry about what I’m going to achieve in life. Such a heavy load.

My happy list includes cooking, because we love to eat, and we hate eating bad or mediocre food, and we hate spending money on bad or mediocre food. We are both excellent home cooks and have been obsessed with food since our first date. As I started to think more about the role of food in our lives, I added up the cookbooks and food-related publications we’ve collected over 40 years.

I counted 193 books, 14 years of Gourmet magazines, five notebooks of clipped recipes and stacks of miscellaneous publications, including Cook’s Illustrated and Chile Pepper magazines. The bookcase photographed above is just outside the kitchen, but there’s an annex in the guest bedroom upstairs. Oh, and we converted a downstairs bedroom into a walk-in pantry for a second refrigerator and cooking supplies. One of our neighbors said it looked like Williams Sonoma.

As I get older, I’m concerned about using the things we have or getting rid of them. My sister and I both started wearing old jewelry for no good reason other than you can’t take it with you. If you love it, use it, wear it. Same with good china, crystal, special serving pieces. Use them! I’m starting to feel the same way about all these recipes.

Although I love to read cookbooks just for sport, I know there’s a treasure trove of great recipes dating back to the 70s, 80s and 90s. I want to dust them off and see what has been hiding in plain sight. I believe I would find that fulfilling. We enjoy spicy food, so I’m pretty sure we’ll have to jazz up some of these recipes to suit our current tastes. It just sounds like fun to me.

I’ve been reading up on copyright and how to feature the books on my blog and publish recipes – no illusions about being a food blogger – but I definitely want to share the nuggets and write more about how food and cooking enhances retirement lifestyle. Even if you are among those who just view food as fuel, you have to eat. Eat well!

So, there you have it. I’ll continue to file these articles under Food & Drink until I come up with something better. Even that is progress for me – the old Donna would have waited until everything was perfect and perfectly packaged. I’m evolving! I even gave ugly (but delicious) cupcakes to my neighbor. I think about the tantrum I might have thrown 20 years ago over making ugly cupcakes and am grateful to say it’s easier being me these days.

Which team are you on? Eat-to-live or live-to-eat?

Creamy, cheesy, garlicky, potatoey

Dale and I both love to cook, and I looked forward to spending more time in the kitchen after I retired. I was surprised to learn Dale thought he owned the kitchen, so there was that. Our first argument 40 years ago was how to cut onions, so there’s baggage.

At first, we decided to work separately. His turn or my turn. We still do that a lot, but lately we’ve also been cooking together. Why, we even ask each other for advice and recommendations! Must be love.

For us, cooking at home has always been about eating well. In retirement, I discovered cooking is also therapeutic. There’s a lot of stressful shit going down out there, and I have found comfort in the kitchen. I plan to share more about our cooking adventures on the blog. Of course, me being me, I’d like to come up with some clever name for this section of Retirement Confidential, but for now I’ll just file it under Food & Drink. Eventually I’d like to redesign the blog so you can easily print recipes.

I thought I’d start with this week’s big find! First, you have to understand, grocery stores are very important to us. My retirement relocation spreadsheet included distance to Whole Foods for every location under consideration. We ended up 5.7 miles from the nearest Whole Foods and only 2.6 miles from a local store called Nugget. Nugget is a lot like Whole Foods, but we like it better.

The store features tasty looking recipes on slick cards at the checkout. We pick them up frequently, but never make any of the recipes. Until yesterday. We both saw this one and surrendered completely. It was so creamy and cheesy and garlicky and potatoey – I can’t say enough good things about it. The potatoes still had nice bite to them, and you could taste the Dijon throughout.

We ate it with grilled sausage and curly endive tossed with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Oh, and we ate leftovers for breakfast with a slice of bacon. I think it would make an excellent breakfast casserole for company.

Adapted from Nugget Markets

Red Potato Gratin with Gruyere & Fontina

1 ½ cups heavy cream

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon garlic, minced

Kosher or sea salt to taste

Cracked black pepper to taste

15-20 small to medium red potatoes, sliced wafer thin (leave the skins on)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cup Gruyere cheese, grated

1 cup Fontina cheese, grated

Preheat the oven to 400°F

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together heavy cream, Dijon mustard and garlic. Add salt and pepper. Place sliced potatoes in the cream mixture and set aside.

Rub olive oil on the sides and bottom of an 8 X 11 glass baking pan or an 11-inch gratin pan. Place potato slices in a single layer on the bottom of the pan, overlapping like shingles on a roof. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons each of the Fontina and Gruyere. Repeat this process until you have 3-4 layers of potatoes and cheese, reserving enough of the Gruyere to generously coat the top layer of potatoes. We used maybe two extra tablespoons of Gruyere. But we are cheese heads.

Pour the cream mixture over the top. Dale did this in advance and let it sit for an hour or so at room temperature. I think you could also make it well in advance and refrigerate until ready.

Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil, bake additional 20 minutes until the top is golden brown or until knife inserts easily into the middle to ensure potatoes are completely cooked.

Remove from heat and allow to cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting and serving.

Homemade granola for breakfast

In a previous post, I wrote by reducing sugar, eating more fruits and vegetables, eating oatmeal for breakfast several days a week and consuming beans or legumes daily, all the numbers in my lipid profile markedly improved, and my bad cholesterol dropped by 17 percent.

Although I love hot steel cut oatmeal for breakfast, I often prefer something cold to go with my delicious homemade yogurt. I’ve been making my own granola for awhile, but the recipe I used was heavy on sugar. Not that I didn’t love it, sugar and me go way back, but I started experimenting with low-sugar options. Heavy on nuts! I believe I’ve created a tasty compromise and thought I’d share.

A few words about the recipe:

  • I don’t use seasonings other than salt because I mix it with fresh fruit and prefer a blank canvas.
  • You could add dried fruit after the granola has cooled, but I find the fruit gets too dry and chewy.
  • This recipe doesn’t create big clumps.
  • For clumps, you’d probably need to add a bit more oil and avoid stirring it.
  • For breakfast, I top homemade yogurt with about 1/2 cup granola and fruit such as strawberries.
  • I love coconut. I can’t get enough coconut. If you don’t love coconut, this is not your granola!

Donna’s Low-Sugar Coconut Granola

1 ½ cups old-fashioned rolled oats

½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut

½ cup unsweetened coconut flakes/chips

½ cup raw cashews or nut of choice, coarsely chopped

½ cup raw pecans or nut of choice, coarsely chopped

1 tablespoon coconut sugar

¼ teaspoon sea salt

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1 egg white, lightly whisked

1/4 cup coconut oil

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Line a ½ sheet pan with parchment.

Mix dry ingredients together and add liquids. Taste and add more salt if needed.

Spread mixture in the sheet pan and cook for 20 minutes – stir gently and turn pan half-way through cooking time. It should be golden brown but not too dark – it may need 3-5 minutes more cooking time. Let cool and store in airtight container.

Wine and marshmallows

Yesterday we went to one of our local wineries, of which there are many. Normally known for being somewhat anti-social, Dale and I are members of two winery-based wine clubs. Membership is free, you get free tastings and are obligated to buy a few bottles now and then at a great discount. Dale and I joke we joined because well, we’re joiners.

The schedule said they were doing harvest tours, but the grapes aren’t ready yet, so we were forced at gunpoint to participate in our free tasting. It was just us and two 30-something winetenders (or whatever they are called). We got to talking about politics, and it was great to find resistance to the current regime among the young.

They said their friends are in agreement, so I just hope they all vote. The winetenders were a bit cautious at first and then perhaps surprised to find themselves talking to us oldsters about politics, but the conversation came to an abrupt end when another couple arrived. I get it – this is their livelihood.

The wine was delicious, and I felt grateful to live where we live. Napa and Sonoma are fabulous, but wines produced near us in California’s El Dorado and Amador Counties are an exceptional value. Lots of medium-bodied reds such as Zinfandel, Barbera and Syrah. Cabernet was the last of the tasting, and as always, we loved it the best, but we don’t buy it often because it seems to pair well with meat and not much else. Delicious on an empty stomach, though.

We do eat meat, but the lighter reds are more versatile. We’re going camping next week near Napa, and our favorite dinner on the first night is steak, so we will drag a Cab out for that. It’s funny – California doesn’t have any silly rules about alcohol in state parks. In the Carolinas and Texas, we had to hide it.  I even had fake soda can covers for beer.

Dale and I converted a downstairs bedroom into a walk-in pantry for all our cooking stuff and use the closet for wine storage. The closet isn’t temperature-controlled. Too spendy. We buy moderately priced wine with a plan to drink it before it goes bad.

I have this itch to organize the wine closet by type, so all the Cabs are together, all the Zins together, etc. I might do that today. I’m mad at golf and am not playing for a few days, so I may as well make good use of my time.

Tomorrow I head out for a little overnight road trip. I’m stopping in San Jose to visit a friend and her wife, who has cancer, so I’m bringing a gift of cannabis-infused coconut oil. As we were making plans, we were discussing the merits of coconut oil over balm, and it occurred to me the oil is both edible and topical, which makes for interesting applications, if you get my drift.

I will also be delivering homemade marshmallows, which are yummy, although I hardly make them anymore because I avoid sugary treats. However, let it be said marshmallow is my favorite food group, and marshmallow lovers are special people.

From San Jose, I head to Santa Cruz, where I’m meeting my younger soul sister, who just turned 40. She lives in Texas but is visiting her cousin in California, so we’re getting together on her last night, and then I will take her to the airport the next day. The airport is on the way home, anyway.

Oh, and my young friend also gets marshmallows! We are both marshmallow fanatics. #bornthisway

My retirement dreams do not include lots of travel, but I’m really looking forward to this short trip to see dear friends. Sometimes I wish we could create a retirement commune, where we could all grow old together. I’ll bring wine and marshmallows.