Anyone have a good solutions? Anyone know a fab kitchen organizing person in the Chicago area who will come tell me how to fix it? (and how much does that cost? Oh wait, no budget. hmm. Anyone’s mother in the Chicago area good at this stuff?)

Sort of a galley like kitchen with about 5 ft between counters. Refrigerator right next to sink, small l-shaped bit of counter next to sink

Opposite side…but off a bit…1 ft counter, stove….3 ft counter. 2 drawers to the right of stove, one to left, none on other side. Cabinets start at my forehead height on both sides of the room.

Yeah…we are renting and of course, have a tight budget as well…so no grand solutions like tear it out and make it beautiful and functional.

108 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Superior Take the test!

Ok, so the quiz is heteronormative and I had to work around that a wee bit. Not as much as one might think.

Less than 24 hours until Blogher Conference 08 in San Francisco.

California Salad Cups

1 cup diced, membrane-free grapefruit sections
1 cup diced pineapple
1 cup diced, membrane-free orange sections
1 cup sliced banana
1/2 cup broken walnut meats
lettuce
1 pkg. (3 oz.) cream cheese
1 tbs. liquid honey
1 tbs. lemon juice
1/2 cup whipping cream
4 walnut meat halves

Combine grapefruit, pineapple, orange, and banana; drain. Add broken nut meats. Arrange lettuce on salad plates; fill with fruit mixture. Mash cream cheese; add honey and lemon juice. Whip cream slightly; add to cream cheese mixture. Mask fruit with cheese mixture. Garnish with nut meat halves. Serves 4.

The bruschetta with cheese had a lot of celery and walnuts, interesting in a retro sort of way. A second olive might have been nice since we shared the appetizer and there was only one. The portobello sandwich that Denise got was good, I think. The salad that came with the sandwiches, limp, unattractive and ignorable. Mexican hot coco really excellent.

Service slow, really slow for an empty restaurant, considering the order was a couple of sandwiches. Nearly impossible to get coffee refills, despite the fact that the waiter and the manager/owner/whatever had plenty of time to chit chat with the guy at the next table over.

Anyhow, we would maybe go back…the garden was lovely, even if we were freezing. The menu was interesting and reasonably priced. If the service was paced better and we were spared the self-important gentlemen, it would be a definite. Who needs a fresh salad?

Oh wait…here is a salad recipe…fresh and California for you to enjoy on your own pretty patio.

From the Pocket Cook Book by Elizabeth Woody, 1942.

California Salad

Serves 4

1 avocado
1 cup membrane-free grapefruit sections
6 ripe olives
Lemon Lime Dressing
Lettuce

Peel avocado; halve lengthwise. Remove seed; cut avocado in crosswise slices. Chop olives’ combine with avocado and grapefruit. Moisten with dressing. Serve on lettuce.

Lemon Lime Dressing
Makes 1 3/4 cups

4 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp lime juice
2 tbs. sugar
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup mayonnaise or salad dressing

Combine lemon and lime juices, mayonnaise or salad dressing and sugar. Whip cream slightly; fold in.

Like the California BBQ recipe that was much reviled by my children, these recipes are not obviously Californian. At least not to me…ok…maybe it is the almonds, prunes, and the oranges in this case. You have to love a recipe that thinks prunes are a good garnish! (For the record, I like prunes but pretty they usually are not.)

California Custard

Serves 4

1/4 cup sugar
2 tbs. cornstarch
few grains salt
1 egg
1 cup water
1 cup evaporated milk
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 oranges
8 pitted cooked prunes
shredded coconut

Mix sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Beat egg; add with water and milk. Cook over hot water, stirring constantly, until thick. Cool. Add almond extract. Pour into serving dish. Separate oranges into membrane-free sections; use as garnish with prunes and coconut.

I have a spool bed. It looks like this except…it is missing a spindle. It is missing a spindle because I wiggled it like a loose tooth until it broke when I was a child. We don’t currently use this bed. Most members of this family don’t see why anyone would use this headboard. It is scratched. It has paint flecks. It only fits a “3/4″ bed. But, it is the bed I spent most of my childhood in. It is the bed that I would lay down with my babies in at night. It has a story every time I look at it.

I have a rococo camel back couch. It is stripped down to duckcloth and a little padding. It needs to be reupholstered again. It lived in my mother’s living room my entire life before it came to live at my house. As a child, it was covered in blue velvet with buttons. It has a flower carving that attaches to the top of the sofa. I ran my fingers over it a million times, fidgeting as a child. I also polished it once a week. The right side of it, when you sit on it…that is where Santa left my presents each Christmas. It has lived in my garage, waiting for me to love it again.

There is a slab of marble from a table in my mother’s living room. The table that supported it broke at some point. The legs were spindly and not helped by being hit by vacuum cleaners, run under, over, and through by dogs, cats and yes, me. My mom put it on one of those plaster pedestals that some folks use for coffee tables or end tables when the legs to the table couldn’t be repaired.

There is a pair of chairs… a ladies and gentleman’s chair. They look rather like the ones in that picture. They were my great-grandmother’s. They came to my parent’s living room when she passed away. I sat in them many an hour talking with my parents, my friends, my mother’s friends. They have lived in my garage since the chairs moved here.

Then there are the empire mahogany pieces…two sideboards, a gentleman’s dresser, a dining room table. These also came to live with us after my great-grandmother passed away. One sideboard lives in the dining room with the table. One sideboard lives in the Florida room. The gentleman’s dresser lives in the Florida room. They have seen some random use.

There is a secretary…black painted wood. It is newer…though not “new.” It is also incredibly simple. Three drawers, the flip out desk, interesting cubbies where I found old receipts, love notes, etc. Above that are shelves with glass doors. “Lawyers shelves” my mother called them. I kept my Aunt Caroline’s dog collection in there.

I have a dresser. Flame wood veneer. Missing pieces of veneer. Huge mirror. Then the dark cherry four post bed. Cracked headboard, doesn’t fit any normal American mattress.

I have an armoire. Refinished in 100 degree heat with blood, sweat, chemical burns and tears by a daddy who loved me. Oak. Heavy as sin.

Then there are incidental pieces, a washstand, an oval side table. There are even two pieces I don’t love…my great grandmother’s dressing table, with the broken drawer, and the broken marble top. A yellow gentleman’s chair.

The problem is…we need to load a truck and move. My furniture is big.

In the meantime, the house is in turmoil. My internet got fried by a storm on Sunday. My cookbooks and recipe cards are packed. My cooking has been pathetic. So…wander around and enjoy some other great food bloggers. Try some of the ones in my This Blog is Excellent post.

I apologize and hope to be back and better REALLY SOON. Promise.

1 large box Strawberry Banana Jell-0 (or any red Jell-0…but I use the strawberry banana)
1 envelope Knox gelatin (optional)
1/2 cup red hots (You can use anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 cup)
2 cups boiling water
2 cups applesauce (in the recipe I scrawled in the back of my Cookbook for Boys and Girls it says 1 can which means I always say I need a can…even though canned applesauce no longer seems to exist)

Dissolve red hots in boiling water in a small saucepan on the stove. Mix the red jell-o powder and Knox in a bowl. When red hots are dissolved, pour into gelatins and stir until dissolved. Stir in applesauce. You will want to wait until the boiled water/Jell-o mixture cools a little before adding the applesauce or go back in and stir in about a 1/2 hour. Otherwise, the applesauce will settle and it won’t be as evenly distributed. Stick it in the fridge until it gels.

Note: The Knox isn’t necessary but you will want to add it if you like a firmer Jell-0 salad OR you want to do it in a mold that you turn it out and slice it.

The sweetest and yet saddest anxiety is her anxiety about cooking family favorites. She is a great cook. Invite her to any party where you need guacamole. She makes a fab chicken stir fry. She can make pancakes. Michelle even makes a good veggie lasagna. In any case she isn’t inexperienced in the kitchen. I am not worried she will starve to death through inability to cook.

I don’t know if she needs my meatball recipe. I think she is the one who sneaks them leftover and cold out of the fridge.

Note to Michelle: I have been using the frozen veggie meatballs for years to make these but since it is made with Lipton Onion Soup it isn’t technically vegetarian…since I believe there is some beef broth in it.

You can bake the meatballs in the oven or cook them on the stove top before adding sauce if you do not have or want to use a crock-pot.

I know she asked me at Easter how to make Eggs Benedict. sigh. I hope she is home with us wherever home might be for the Eggs Benedict holidays. Holidays on your own are a bittersweet mixture of “wow, I am grown up” and “I want my mommy(ies)”. They still are that way for me close to two decades after having my own household.

Child of my heart: The measurement for the milk is estimated. You may need to add a bit more milk SLOWLY if it is too thick towards the end of cooking. Watch out for boiling…the hot splats of sauce burn!

Leftover sauce works well for a lot of people on broccoli and on asparagus. You will need to add milk when reheating. Or you can put a dollop on an english muffin topped with Canadian bacon then stick it in the toaster oven or oven the next day.

For some reason…Michelle won’t want the Asparagus Jell-o or the Cheese Nip casserole recipes.

But…I think I need these Food Lover Temporary Tattoos from Archie McPhee. What do you think? Are you going? Which tatt is best for your style?

2 hard boiled eggs
1 raw egg
2 TBS melted butter
1/2 c hot water
crab meat
1/2 c bread crumbs
1/4 teasp dry mustard
2 TBS vinegar
salt and cayenne pepper to taste

Mix yolk of raw egg with yolks of boiled eggs. Add dry mustard, vinegar, melted butter, pepper and salt. Chop whites of hard boiled eggs, add crab meat and bread crumbs. Mix with dressing. Add beaten egg white and water. Place in shells or casserole. Cover with bread crumbs and dot with butter. Bake at 450. Mrs. E. C. Marshall- From the Alachua Hospital Auxiliary Cookbook, 1969.

3 17 oz cans apricots in syrup or 24 fresh apricots
1/2 cup seedless raisins
1/3 cup candied ginger
1/2 cup vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
3 whole cloves
1 whole allspice
1/3 stick cinnamon
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup toasted slivered almonds
salt

Drain canned apricots. (Or blanch apricots in 1 cup boiling water, then drain, peel and remove pits.) Dice apricots and set aside 1/3. Combine remaining 2/3 of apricots with raisins, ginger, vinegar, brown sugar, cloves, allspice, cinnamon and garlic in saucepan. Bring to boil, simmer 5 minutes. Puree reserved apricots and stir into mixture with almonds. Season to taste with salt. Makes about 3 1/2 cups.

From a newspaper clipping with no date…

1/2 pineapple peeled and cut up
1 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsps rum

Blend pineapple, coconut milk, sugar and rum in food processor or blender until smooth. Spoon over sherbet or ice cream. Makes about 2 3/4 cups.