annie blog

Well, another week, y’all.

Time speeds up every day, it seems.  I saw an interview with Maggie Smith (of Downton and Harry Potter and too many other films to mention) who is now 78.  She was asked about getting older and said, “The trouble with getting older is that you eat breakfast every half hour.”  I agree, though my life isn’t moving at quite that rate, yet.  It does seem like, every time I turn around, it ‘s the weekend.

Oh well.

Speaking of the passage of time, this week, this boy turned another year older.

He asked for pie instead of cake.  I made two sour cream apple pies.  Somehow, we still had leftover pie today.  So, that is what some people around here ate for breakfast.  I wish that I had the camera ready when I asked them if they wanted pie for breakfast.  I didn’t know that such enthusiasm existed before 7 o’clock in the morning.  Now I know better and I also know how to achieve it — pie.  When you think about it, pie is the solution for many things.  So, Friday morning lethargy, CURED!!

Also, I want to let y’all know that World Cafe of NPR is giving away 20 mp3s of live performances from the World Cafe stage.  You might want to check it out.  There are lots of good performances — the only thing is that you have to listen and download now, because, come March, they will no longer be available.

Happy Friday, y’all!

This is not a music blog, but I keep hearing good stuff, y’all.

With this band, all I’ve heard so far seems kind of like the Civil Wars and, also, sort of like Glen Hansard.

I’m telling you, any band that can be thus described must be worth a listen.

Here they are doing You Never Need Nobody.

The Lone Bellow, y’all.  Check them out.

I rarely stay awake for SNL.  But, yesterday I accidently took a nap earlier in the evening….so I was awake to watch the show.

Fortuitous — because the Alabama Shakes were there.  And they took it out and chopped it up, y’all.

Very nicely done.

I hope that y’all have had a great Sunday!

This is the salad that I promised, like, two weeks ago.  I’m sorry to be so tardy.

It is scrumptious.  In fact, the other day, I was serving it to Jon for lunch and he said, “I’m eating the best salad ever today.”  When I said that he’d probably get something better if, I don’t know, Thomas Keller or someone like that was cooking, he said, “No, I don’t think so.”

This proves two things:  1)  My husband is partial to me and complimentary, too.  2)  This is a pretty awesome salad.

I got the idea for this salad from the book, Salad for Dinner, by Jeanne Kelley.  If you have the chance, I urge you to take a look at her cookbook.  Every recipe I’ve tried from it so far has been stellar.  Truly.

The following salad was taken from there with some substitutions.  First off, dates are used as the fruit in the original recipe.  I like dates but didn’t want to use them so I substituted dried cranberries.  The recipe also calls for pears.  I used apple, instead.  Also, I used pecans instead of walnuts.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup farro, prepared according to package instructions

1/3 cup dried cranberries

1 cored and sliced apple (fuji, gala, pink lady…they’d all be great)

2 strips bacon, cooked until crispy and drippings saved

1/3 cup toasted pecan halves

shaved parmesan to taste

mixed salad greens (4-5 cups?  I never measure)

Balsamic Vinaigrette (2 Tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar, 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 t. salt, freshly ground pepper)

Method:

Cook the bacon and save the drippings.  Prepare the farro according to package directions.  Then, pour about 1-2 tablespoons of the bacon drippings over the cooked farro and stir it over medium heat until it looks slightly toasted.  Let it cool a bit as you prepare the rest of the salad.  I make my own salad dressing by taste, and I usually do it in the bowl that I’ll be mixing the salad in because I typically use as few dishes as possible.  It is a hold over from living without a dishwasher.  Anyway, on top of the dressing, add the lettuce, the apple, the pecans and the cranberries.  Toss to coat.  Add the farro and toss some more.  Divide between the plates (serves about 2 dinner-sized salads…about 4 big side salads) and top with the bacon and shaved parmesan.

Extra stuff:  I sometimes make this with thinly sliced red onion or shallot.  Also, you can include a pressed garlic clove in the vinaigrette, if you want.  I usually don’t do either of the above when I’m making the salad for lunch.  Additionally, you can use the same skillet to make the bacon and toast the farro. If you’re feeling indulgent and want big bacon flavor, you can up the amount of bacon to 2 slices per person and toast the pecans in the extra bacon grease.  Really, really tasty!

So good!  I’m going to go make it for lunch right now.

Happy Friday, y’all!!

I’m a fan of songwriting like this.  Big time.

He reminds me of great songwriters like Iris Dement and Randy Newman and John Prine and Townes Van Zandt. He’s from the home town of Woody Guthrie, too.

Anyway, here is one of my favorites, Nowhere to Be Found.

You can hear it as it is on his album, here.  Also, the lyrics are there, too.

Here’s another, Daydreamer.

His album, From the Ground Up, came out in May.

2012 was a fine year for music.

Happy Friday, y’all, and happy weekend, too.

I don’t know if we’ve met.

I’m Annie, and I used to write on this blog.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Just to catch up…..

I hope that y’all are having a good January and that you are not about to float away, as we here in Mississippi are.  Sometimes, I wonder if the rain will ever stop.  I know it will, but when, well, that’s the question.  My boys are hoping for snow….I think that hope will go unfulfilled.  But, I told them to hope, anyway.

Speaking of the boys, they are doing really well.  They had a great Christmas and New Year this year.  It was different for us, since we live so much closer to our families now.  It was so nice to see everyone and to get a chance to be home some, as well.

Speaking of Christmas, over the break, Charlie got a snake as a present.  (Yikes, y’all!)   He is a beautiful orange snake and his name is Robert.  So,  if we’re counting,  that’s 5 human males, a bird (male), a dog (male) and a male reptile…and me.  Someone is outnumbered.

Speaking of the outnumbered someone, I just got my hair cut.  Actually, it has been a couple of weeks.  But, the gal cut it dry (as they should do for curly hair) and I ended up with getting more off than I was planning.  It was a great thing, though, because I like it.  And, doing my hair is even easier than before — which was already like falling off a log.  Since it is already a lot shorter, I was thinking of getting it even a little shorter and doing a bob like Michelle Dockery.  What do you think?  I’m thinking, yes.  But we’ll see.  All I know is that I need to get it done B.T.J.C. (Before The Jowls Cometh).  Because, yes, they cometh (eventually, someday), and I don’t know how they’d look with a bob.

Speaking of Michelle Dockery, what do y’all think of the new season of Downton Abbey? I don’t know, yet.  I have high hopes that the writers will manage to keep a handle on the whole story.  It just seems to get sort of unwieldy,  I think.  But, they can do it, I know.  Creative people.

Speaking of creative people, I live with several.  For instance, my youngest son comes up with something new every day.  Yesterday, he got in the car after school telling me about a movie that he was going to make called Pirates Of the Classroom.  I don’t recall all of the details, but I know that it featured aliens.  He also got into the thought of having a marble tournament over the past weekend.  He handled all of it — from building the ring, to finding and naming all of the marbles…my favorite name of the bunch was Fandango.

So, that’s a little catchup ramble on what’s been going on.

Tomorrow I’ll be back with a recipe for Spinach Salad with Farro, Bacon and Pecans.  So, please come back for that.

Y’all have a good Wednesday!

I hope that y’all had a lovely and wonderful and delightful and yummy Christmas!

We did.

Tomorrow, we celebrate some more with family.

I just love that phrase, “tomorrow, we celebrate some more”.

All of our tomorrows are a celebration, of sorts, of course, but I think that ours tomorrow might involve shrimp and grits and pomegranate margaritas.  So, that’s something to look forward to, for sure.

I saw something today that put a big smile on my face.  I smiled at lots of things, of course, but this one I can share with you.

It is a story about a shop in Augusta, one that employs adults with disabilities.  One of the shop’s nonverbal workers was shown how to make snowflakes out of the material that they use to re-cane chairs.  He has been making them ever since.  Each one unique.  You just have to see them!

How beautiful, y’all!

It says in the article that the motto of the shop mentioned, the Augusta Training Shop, is :

Live Life According to Your Gifts, Rather Than According to Your Limitations.

Something to consider, right?

Happy New Year, y’all!  May you have a safe and jolly celebration!!!

I hope that y’all have a wonderful, blessed Christmas with your family and friends!

Here’s a poem that you might like.  The House of Christmas, by G.K. Chesterton.

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honor and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam,
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost – how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.

This world is wild as an old wives’ tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

Also found in Anne Thaxter Eaton, ed., Welcome Christmas! A Garland Of Poems. New York: The Viking Press, 1955.

My neighbors have a exquisite, thoughtfully decorated Christmas tree.

They have a very frou frou wreath on their front door….with tulle and sparkles and tinsel and I don’t know what else.

On their flag pole, they have a huge, black skull and crossbones flag.

One of these things is not like the others.

I do not understand.

That is all, y’all.

Happy 12/12/12!!