Hawleyblog

Thanksgiving and the Day After and the Day After That 2011

Tony and I hosted Thanksgiving this year for the Gerbers and Tony's friend Rich, who ate with us last year, and his boyfriend, Vince. Tony took the lead on the turkey, and he made two different kinds of homemade cranberry sauce, one with onions and balsamic vinegar that I wasn't crazy about but Vince, Rich, and Mike really enjoyed and the other with Cointreau and Mathilde Framboise Liqueur that Matt and I thought was fantastic. (I wrote about Tony's and my visit to Astor Wines & Spirits, where we got the framboise liqueur, last weekend over at Queer New York.)

Tony also made three kinds of roasted nuts, including walnuts with maple syrup and almonds with cocoa, to serve as appetizers. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the third kind better than even the chocolaty ones: cashews with rosemary, which he made using an Ina Garten recipe that was inspired by a Union Square Cafe snack, only he used oil instead of butter. Tony bought a cute little dome-lidded tray the other day from Pier 1 to serve them in.

We did a whole turkey, and David was happy to get a leg to chew on. We Hawleys prefer white meat, so there's usually only turkey breast at our family gatherings.

Tony had gotten a Martha Stewart–branded fresh turkey, and it was quite good, even though the chunk of plastic that had been stuffed inside to help it retain its shape gave Tony fits when he tried to remove it. Tony shoved fresh herbs under the skin and, with a halved lemon, inside the cavity. And we put olive oil and salt and cracked pepper on the skin. 

Rich, who doesn't do much cooking, made stuffing using my sister's recipe, which was really awesome of him. Tony had wanted the Gerbers to have some of the foods they were used to having. Because they went to see the parade before coming here, we asked them to bring something easily transportable: wine. I liked both of the wines Tracey had picked out after having tried them at a wine tasting: a California pinot noir and a California blend of chenin blanc and viognier.

I contributed garlicky roasted cauliflower and romanesco and roasted butternut squash that the 'phews helped me spice up with ground pumpkin spices. I had made both of those dishes for M&M, with Mike's help, when they came to visit Tony and me two weekends ago; I'll write about that visit in my next post.

Tony's dessert was a big hit: dairyless but completely rich and satisfying chocolate mousse. He had made it for me before, and I would have sworn I'd blogged about it at some point but I couldn't find a mention of it when I searched just now. He gave an extra-big ramekin of it to chocoholic David, who made a game effort but couldn't polish it off.

My dessert didn't turn out so well. I made Pumpkin Spice Latte Ice Cream, but the contents of only one of my two ice cream makers solidified enough to bother with putting it in the freezer to completely harden. And that batch of the ice cream wasn't aerated enough to make the texture satisfying. But the flavor was quite good. I made another double batch of the base yesterday and am processing it in the ice cream makers now as I finish this post so I can take the ice cream to the Game Party this afternoon. It's turning out fine. I think part of the problem with my first attempt was that I had inadvertently left the freezer door open a bit when I removed the coffee beans I'd been storing in there, and so the chemical in the canisters I use in my ice cream makers wasn't supercold like it needed to be to do its magic. The base itself also probably wasn't cold enough. Because our fridge was so full, I relied on the air in our greenhouse to cool the base down after cooking it and it wasn't as thick as it usually is after chilling in the fridge for a few hours.

I was very pleased with the Pumpkin Spice Latte Syrup I created. I've been drinking it in my coffee with whole milk the past few days, and I think it's terrific. I'll add the recipe after some more photos and before the "day after" part of the post. I added a cup of the syrup to my regular coffee ice cream base (made using two cups of coffee beans and the usual three pints of half-and-half) to make the PSLIC base.

Tony, Rich, and Vince posing for me after dinner

The bird just before it went into the oven

And my favorite photo of the day: Tracey making gravy with a glass of red wine in her hand, with Tony at the sink behind her

Pumpkin Spice Latte Syrup

One 15-ounce can of organic pumpkin
Two canfuls (almost 4 cups) of water
1 cup brown sugar
6 whole cloves
7 allspice berries
One 2-inch piece of ginger, skinned and cut into coin-sized pieces
1 nutmeg, hit with a hammer
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons salt

Combine all of the ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Lower the temperature and simmer for a half hour, stirring occasionally. Allow to cool slightly, strain, and chill.

The amounts and types of spices could be tweaked, of course. Next time, I would use more allspice, ginger, and nutmeg and less cinnamon. I would ideally use a short stick of cinnamon, which was the only whole spice we didn't have on hand.

***

On Friday, Tony and I visited the Gerbers. It's become a tradition for me to go out there on Black Friday to help them decorate their Christmas tree. This year, they got a live one.

After Tracey, Mike, and Matt picked us up at the train station, we got lunch at Pizza Fusion, where Tracey got that big-ass salad back in March, before the boys' play.

At their home, before we went to pick out the tree, Mike, Matt, and I played Donkey Kong's Jungle, one of three board games based on the Mario Party video games that Mike had made up. It was a lot of fun. Mike said the most time-consuming part was making all of the game pieces, which can be used with all three of the boards.

I failed to get a picture of the tree after we'd decorated it. But I did get a picture of the guys posing with the wreaths Tracey bought at the same place where we got the tree, a nicely rounded fir.

We all had dinner at GAO Thai Kitchen in Ramsey. Tony enjoyed the chicken larb he got for his main course. And he enjoyed saying larb. I had the pleasingly hot-and-spicy Red Curry Chicken.

***

And speaking of pleasingly hot-and-spicy, Tony cooked a second turkey—one he'd bought frozen—last night that he had seasoned liberally with cajun spices. Man, was it ever good. Tony had intended to cook it on Wednesday evening so the Gerbers would have leftovers to take home with them on Thursday, but it wasn't thawed in time.

TITC Weekend 2011, Part III

On that Sunday morning, Dad drove up to the B&B where we were staying, and then we picked up Pat and her sister Maureen at Pat's apartment for the TITC house tour. Jean was illing and so had to stay home and miss the tour. She was really bummed about it. As I wrote in part I, it was my favorite year for the tour. But Dad didn't care for the houses that much, and since he and Jean tend to have similar opinions about them, I'm thinking it wouldn't have been one of her favorite tours.

Dad gave me a bag of wonderful things that Jean and he got for me when they stayed in Cape May for their anniversary—including a purty starfish soap dish and an adorable, metal bobble-headed basset—as well as some great pictures from the multimitzvah, only one of which I attempted to capture in this pretty weak photo.

The first house on the tour was Plum Brook Farm, which was on sale for $1.5 million. The brook ran behind the property, and the owners had created an area behind their pool where they could look out at the brook and into the woods. (Click on the photo to see it blown up—like Beyoncé's phone when that guy keeps calling her while she's at the club.) The inside of the home was quite nice too.

Headquarters Farm was the second house. It had been purchased by a guy from England who wanted to restore it so it would look much like it did when John Opdycke build it in 1758. There was a summer kitchen out back where a volunteer was making flatbread in a big open fireplace that we were able to try with a little honey butter on it. There were many sheep grazing here, including a male sheep named Duncan who responded to the sound of his name. The handsome older man who told us about the history of the house and outbuildings before we went inside was wearing his Navy uniform from when he was a young man, maybe because he knew he looked so handsome in it. :-) Dad correctly identified it as being the uniform worn by a hospital corpsman. He congratulated the guy on still being able to fit into it.

Opdycke Farm was a new home built across the street from Headquarters Farm that was owned by the same Englishman. An illustrator named Wendy Rasmussen lives there, and I loved her decorating taste. Here's a Hunterdon County Democrat article about Rasmussen and the tour. I bought a children's book called Police Cat from Rasmussen that she had drawn the illustrations for and asked her sign it for Zane's birthday. I was hoping Jen's parents, who go on the tour every year too, hadn't done the same thing, but Bob told me they did. Does anyone know a young reader named Zane who likes cats? *sigh*

The last house was Tony's and my favorite. It's owned by the couple who have the Zinc Home + Garden store in Lambertville that Tony and I had visited the day before and where I was tempted to buy a metal goat or pig. (Jean and Dad know my taste in metallic animals. :-) ) The home was a mix of modern and country items from different eras that could have been a crazy mishmash but inexplicably worked like a charm. Well, the explanation, no doubt, lies in the couple's talent for seeing how disparate elements (immense clock from a German clock tower, big hospital-type laundry cart used as a firewood-storage bin, ficuses whose pots are enclosed in large wooden crates, tall metal set of stairsteps used as storage for books and magazines) can work together to create something splendid. Unlike many homes with industrial touches that I've seen on the tour, this one seemed like you would be perfectly comfortable living there. I saw only one piece of furniture—a hard-looking chaise lounge—that didn't seem inviting, but—who knows?—maybe it would have felt great under my back if I'd been able to lie down on it.

We all had a lot of fun hanging out together. Maureen told us that the trial of her town's mayor on charges related to a hit-and-run car accident had been delayed because his lawyer was representing—so far, successfully—the model from New Brunswick who had been giving buttock-enhancing injections in her home. Ah, New Jersey.

Before we all went to dinner, Dad checked in at the Woolverton Inn, the fancy B&B in my pre–New York City town of Stockton where he and Jean had stayed last year. This year, he was in Newell's Library, which had a big wall of books and matryoshka dolls of Soviet and Russian leaders.

After dinner at Rick's, the gluten-free-friendly Italian restaurant in Lambertville where we ate last year, Dad dropped Pat and Maureen off back at Pat's place and took us to the bus stop in L'ville. It was another great Thanksgiving in the Country weekend.

And here are some more photos from the weekend, starting with a few of Tony:

Tony pretending to struggle through the cornstalks at the front gateway at the B&B ...

... and brushing himself off afterward.

Tony displaying his duck entree for the camera at Hamilton's Grill Room. Through the glass behind him, an interior wall of the Coryell Gallery is visible.

In this photo, you can see the main reason why our stay at this B&B wasn't as nice as the one from last year. This room had a whole lot of windows that would have made it delightful in the spring or summer but made it awfully cold the nights we were there. (It looked to have been outdoor space at one time that was converted into a guest room.) That was great for snuggling but made it difficult to get motivated to get out of bed in the morning. :-) To be fair, we didn't complain about the coldness to our hosts, and the price was cheaper than the other rooms at this inn that were still available when I made my reservation. So I'm not saying it was a lousy place, by any means—just that we liked last year's inn better. I found our co-owner/hostess Nadine to be very charming and warm. She grew up in Vineland, in the same New Jersey county where I was born and raised.

The view looking east from the bridge on New Hope's Main Street near the shuttered Bucks County Playhouse

Tony and Pat at The Blue Tortilla

Me squeezing the daylights out of Dan and Paul. Even though Paul and I hung out together for only a few hours, there was still a Country Song of the Weekend: Reba McEntire's "Why Haven't I Heard From You."

Duncan and his harem of woolly babes

Was someone trying to send Dad or me a message via the game table in the common living area of the Woolverton Inn? Eh, probably not.

Pat, me, Maureen, Dad ...

... and Tony at Rick's

TITC Weekend 2011, Part II

On that Saturday (which is now three Saturdays ago because I haven't had time to blog in a while), Tony and I walked around New Hope and Lambertville. We had lunch at Sprig & VIne, a fantastic vegetarian restaurant that Nadine, our B&B's co-owner and co-host, had mentioned to us at breakfast that morning. Tony and I got the exact same meal: Buttercup and Sweet Potato Puree as a soup starter and the Shredded Cabbages Salad as the main. My soup came with sage croutons and cinnamon oil; Tony's was croutonless. The soup and salad were both so delicious and clearly made from fresh ingredients.

I hope S&V sticks around for a long time. On this trip, I was faced with the closing of New Hope's Strawberry Jam, a favorite store of mine for many years. (The photo at left is significantly less annoying to the eyes and its message easier to read when you click on it.)

Farley's Bookshop is still open, even though Mr. Farley, Pat's longtime landlord, passed away at the end of September. I bought some cards there and some soap at a new-to–New Hope store called My My. (It used to be in Doylestown.)

We had planned to go to Tortuga's Cocina again, like we did last year, with Dan, Paul, and Pat. But once we saw that The Blue Tortilla, which is right on Main Street in New Hope, makes a big deal out of its gluten-free-friendliness on its signage, we asked Pat and the boys whether they'd mind going there instead.

We had a wonderful meal at TBT, including my great dessert: a brownie with cherry-chipotle whipped cream. The cherry taste came through really strongly with a hint of peppery heat at the end. *rubs belly*

Pat brought some birthday presents for me to dinner: Embraceable You: We're All Part of the Story, a book she copy-edited that consists of essays by people who "have all fallen in love with a town called New Hope, Pennsylvania," per the book's back-cover copy, and Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, by Gabrielle Hamilton, the daughter of Jim Hamilton, the man behind the restaurant where Tony and I had eaten the night before. In my birthday card, Pat wrote that the other part of my present is dinner at GH's East Village restaurant, Prune. Woot!

After we were finished eating, we went to The Raven, where we ran into Petey Wetey and had a good ol' time. Carl, Russ, and Rafael were supposed to have met us there, but they were no-shows. Carl called me Sunday morning to explain that they had gotten unexpected guests around 6 and were too tired to go out once the guests had left. The guys had had a rough time of it recently. The freaky early Northeast snowstorm had left Russ without power for about a week, and Carl had had a lot of tree limbs down at his place that he hired someone to take care of during the day on Saturday.

I had tried getting in touch with Carl the year before to see whether we might get together while Tony and I were in the area for TITC but to no avail. This year, my girl Pat got on the case and tracked down Carl's new mobile phone number through one of the galleries he deals with. When Carl and I spoke on Friday evening, he told me that he had had a dream about me: He was in heaven and saw me off in some side area having sex. Look at me go! Even in the afterlife, I'm gettin' some! :-)

Carl, especially, and Russell, too, are hoots. Carl told me that he and Russ always give my ex (the one I had the farm/B&B with) shit about being foolish for breaking up with me whenever they encounter him. :-) I hope Tony and I can hang out with Carl, Russ, and Rafael soon, either down that way or here in the city. Carl told me he turns 86 two days after Christmas. Mercy!

TITC Weekend 2011, Part I

Tony and I stayed at a B&B in New Hope this past weekend in anticipation of the Thanksgiving in the Country house tour on Sunday. The B&B wasn't as nice as the now-closed* one in Lambertville where we stayed last year, but I enjoyed the tour more this year than I ever had before. I thought every house was special in its own way, but the last one we saw blew Tony and me away.

We took a Trans-Bridge bus down to Pennsy after getting to the Port Authority Bus Terminal later than we'd wanted and buying tickets at the last minute. Next year, we're going to allow all kinds of extra time because I'm getting too old for this shit. It was my own fault we got a too-late-for-comfort start. In the cab on the way to the PABT, I discovered my phone wasn't in its case in my pocket. I realized immediately that I must have left it in the bathroom of our apartment. We had the cab driver turn around and take me back so I could grab my precious iPhone.

When we finally made it to the PABT, Tony got us a spot on the bus-passenger line while I waited in the ticket line. Inevitably, there's someone buying a ticket who's arguing about the price (the next line over) or has some other issue that makes the line grind to a hault (my line). I was too far back to know what the exact problem was, but it took waaay too long for this woman to complete her freaking transaction with the ticket agent at the window. Last year—or maybe it was earlier this year, when we took a bus to North Jersey for Hal and Stacy's wedding—a woman in my line argued with and swore at two different ticket agents about whether the place where she wanted to be let off was a legitimate stop.

After we checked in, Tony and I enjoyed some sunshine out on the balcony of our room. Then we went to the Naked in New Hope exhibit at Sidetracks Art Gallery. My friend Will Hübscher had three pieces in the show; I especially liked Together. I also enjoyed some cheeky artworks by McWillie Chambers—and I enjoy saying "McWillie." Yes, I do.

We also went to Gallery Piquel, where Tony was really taken in by the works of Judith Judy and Michael Curd. I enjoy looking at art with Tony. I don't always have the words to say what I like or don't like about something because I've never studied art or art history. He does. His father was a painter, and Tony dabbled in painting many years ago. The very knowledgeable and tasteful owner of the gallery really wanted to sell Tony something. But he didn't bite.

Tony posed for me in a parking lot right near the river with the bridge to Lambertville and that fair city in the background:

As we did last year, we ate dinner Friday evening at Hamilton's Grill Room in Lambertville. Tony had a very meaty meal: duck for an appetizer and the grilled lamb platter for his entree. Regarding the latter, he said, "I didn't need the bacon, but I'm glad it was there." He said the duck was the best he'd had in a while.

I really enjoyed my Radicchio, Pears and Walnuts Salad With Dijon Vinaigrette and the Seared Salmon Fillet With Pistachio Pesto, which came with rice and string beans.

Tony said he remembered that HGR was BYOB, but he didn't tell me that until after our waiter said there was no wine list when I asked him for one. Tony said he thought I must have known something he didn't. I didn't. I had totally forgotten that we'd bought a bottle of wine to take there last year. The waiter said bottles of wine were available at the Boat House, HGR's sister establishment within the Pork Yard. We both liked the red Burgundy I picked up there.

*The couple who ran the B&B had talked about it being time to move on and do something else for a change. The website is no longer active, but when I looked at it a little while back, IIRC, it said that they had closed down at the end of the year or the very beginning of this year.

A Rudy Post in Which Tony Saves Rudy's Life

Rudy has stil been going crazy for the rawhide. I had been giving him big straight or big corkscrew-shaped ones because, you know, he's a big guy. But I decided to switch to smaller ones because he always devours the piece of rawhide in one frenzied gnawing session that lasts maybe an hour and I figured a little rawhide going into his gut in a short amount of time is probably better than a lot of rawhide.

A couple of weeks ago, Tony gave Rudy a short corkscrew I'd bought him. Tony kept an eye on him and, after a while, noticed that Rudy seemed to be having difficulty. He had to reach into the boy's mouth and untwist the corkscrew from his throat. Yikes!

Rudy immediately wanted the rawhide back, of course. I threw out the remaining smaller rawhides he had left and have stuck with long sticks ever since.

***

On Monday morning, I took these photos of my two fellas in bed before I left for work:

***

Rudy's lump was indeed a lipoma. And I didn't mention in that post that he weighed in at 76.5 pounds. He's my lean mean basset machine. 

Halloween 2011

Tony and I had a great time at Mark M.'s second annual Halloween party on Saturday night. We won the award for cutest couple.* Suck on that, Heidi Klum and Seal! :-)

Tony went as Goldman Sachs (gold scrotums [man sacks] on a black T-shirt), and I went as a decoy collection from Project Runway. My costume was inspired by Tony's comment that if he were one of the designers asked to present during Fashion Week only because it would prevent everyone from knowing who the actual finalists were, he would send models down the runway dressed in duck decoys.

On Friday, a day off, I went to Mood to select fabric and pick up strips of Velcro to hold everything together. I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to make—only that I would incorporate one or more of the stuffed-and-sewn duck bookends an ex-girlfriend of my Dad's made for me about 20 years ago. I ended up making a toga-ish outfit out of green cotton fabric and a hat and concentric rings—meant to represent rings in a pond around the duck—out of a blue stretch fabric intended for use in bathing suits.

Tony had bought gold fabric glue and gold glitter, and I made the decoration on his T-shirt. He said it looked like WWW. I had purposely made little hairs on the two smaller ball sacks so they would look less like W's and more like hairy nut bags. I figured the bigger set of balls didn't need any hairs to prove its manliness.

Mark (who took both of the photos in this post in which both Tony and I appear) dressed up as Elton John, and his honey, José, was Elton John's baby. David Furnish would have been a hard look to make work.

Mark's sweet cat, Sam, looks demonic in this picture I took with a flash that turned his eyes green. My hat is visible on the chair. Mumfucker wouldn't stay on. I made two straps to hold it in place, but one of them kept snapping loose. Those are my Bean boots on the left side of the photo. They came in handy on the slushy and snowy walk to Mark's place—and they fit in with my duck decoy/hunting theme.

Here's a shot of Tony and I bookending Andy, who's dressed as "panned musicals." It was taken after I'd started carrying my hat and after my right nipple had tragically slipped out of my costume.

Here's a photo of Hanif and Mark H., who, btw, didn't win cutest couple :-) :

And here's Mark M.'s china cabinet with a collection of gorgeous pieces and part of the table where most of the food was served:

And finally, here's a closeup of some of the pieces, with some creepy rubber spiders:

*I also won for most inspired, and Tony won for most creative. Woot!

We Haven't Gotten Another Dog Yet, but We've Been Doing Some Other Pretty Cool Things, Part III

The day before, Tony and I had home-cooking-loving Game Party host Mark; his mother, Dorothy; and Jack over for dinner. Mark and his sweetie, Hanif, had just gotten back from a Canadian cruise with Dorothy and Mark's Aunt Faith. Hanif begged off dinner because he had to work early the next day, and Mark's aunt was going to come at one point but ended up visiting with a son who'd come down from Boston, Mark said.

To start off, I made the first in what's become a string of salads with fresh raspberries on top. The previous day at the farmers market, I'd gotten red and gold raspberries from Berried Treasures. I also diced some ripe bell peppers and sliced some radishes to sprinkle amongst the crisp and delicious varieties of lettuce. I don't think I used raspberry wine vinegar in the dressing, which would then have contained freshly squeezed lemon and lime juices, some oil, and shakes of salt and peper. In later variations of the salad, I added splashes of the vinegar, which, of course, contributed more raspberry flavor. Outstanding!

For the main course, I roasted Belle Rouge chicken breasts with garlic and tarragon and heated up some kabocha puree from squashes I'd roasted the day before that I spiced up with cinnamon and nutmeg. I also roasted some striped heirloom tomatoes that I drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and, toward the end of their cooking time, fresh basil. I took the photo right before I put them in the oven.

The chicken on my plate looks a tad bony to me from this angle, but it was really good. Dorothy said she thought it was going to be too much chicken for her but she cleaned her plate like everyone else. :-)

For dessert, I served both homemade Concord Grape Sorbet and my ice cream obsession for 2011, Kentucky Colonel Spearmint Stracciatella.

The day before, Tony and I had hired a car to take us and Rudy to a shelter in Brooklyn to check out some dogs, including the female named Scruffy I'd taken a shine to after seeing her on the shelter's website. She was definitely pregnant. And she wasn't too interested in us. Which is understandable. She had other stuff on her mind.

Rudy was so good at the shelter. I was afraid he would have flashbacks to his time at a different shelter in the same neighborhood, but he was totally calm and his usual sweet, happy-to-be-here self.

Tony got a bad vibe about the place. The young guy and gal running the shelter wouldn't allow us to see the area where the dogs were kept—they said it would be too chaotic—so they brought the dogs out to us one at a time. That was after they enclosed a feral cat that they said was a frequent visitor from across the street in a small room off the room where we were shown the dogs. That annoyed Tony. 

We met Reggie, who turned out to be a girl, Regina. The gal said she had forgotten whether the dog was male or female when she was adding him/her to the website. Regina was cute but sort of flighty.

We also met Beau, whose sister Belle had already been adopted. He was somewhat friendly toward us, but there wasn't a strong connection. And he was being treated for worms, which the guy told us after we'd taken him for a walk and he'd produced a really unhealthy looking poop.

We thought the guy and gal were well-meaning but are still probably trying to get settled into their relatively new space. Tony has no desire to go back there.

Nick ended up at a shelter in Lindenwold, New Jersey, which is quite a ways south, so I don't think we'll be able to get out to see him anytime soon. We've got several rather busy weeks ahead of us, so Tony is trying to convince me—and has, in fact, mostly succeeded in convincing me—to wait until after the new year to select a dog.

Here's a photo of Tony, Beau, and Rudy:

And here's a shot of Mark, Jack, and Dorothy in our greenhouse before dinner was served:

And here's a photo of another pretty raspberry-containing salad I made for myself during the weekend Mark from DC visited us:

This past Saturday was the first one at the Union Square Greenmarket that I couldn't get raspberries. They liked the weather we had up until then.