Vincitori e Perdenti

Vincitori

For Pasqua (Easter) I decided to make a coconut cake. I had a recipe from my grandmother, but I was not pleased with it. My results did not turn out like Grandma's: Grandma's cake = rich and moist, tastes like coconut; my coconut cake = sawdust, tastes like sawdust.

I Googled "Italian Coconut Cake, even though coconut is not indigenous to Italy. After all, coconuts could have been carried to Italy by swallows (African or European) gripping them by the husks.

My Google results took me to a web site called New Italian Recipes (hey!), to a recipe with a warning label: "Let's don't kid ourselves, this coconut cake recipe is decadent." Just what I was looking for.

The recipe calls for all kinds of cooking that involves whole-fat dairy products, sugar, eggs, and coconut. I baked the cakes, and made the syrup, the filling, and the icing, and assembled all into a teetery, slippery, sticky tower of coconutty goodness. The results were fantastic. The only thing I might do differently next time--and I can't wait to try this again--is add a liqueur to the syrup and soak the cake in it instead of just drizzle. Otherwise, it was Perfetto!


Perdenti
I roasted a leg of lamb last year, and what with the coconut cake and all, decided to go easy on myself this year, so I bought a spiral sliced Holiday Ham. A brilliant move on my part! Not so brilliant were the biscuits I made to go with the ham.


I used to be a very good biscuit maker having descended on both sides of the family from accomplished biscuit makers. However, at some point between the cake (above) and the biscuits, I forgot that the flour was not self-rising. I peeked in the oven a couple of times to check on my biscuit progress: they were baking and browning, but they were not rising. Hmmmm...I-wonder-why-oh-yeah-now-I-remember. The result there was more of a Passover biscuit, a couple of days too late. Mom to the rescue--she picked up some brown-and-serve rolls on the way over, and all was not lost.

I decided to save the Passover biscuits for the birds, and a couple of days later I entertained myself by hurling them (now like clay pigeons) into the woods. Once again, I didn't really think things through. Matt, the border collie, fetched every single biscuit back into the house. Fortunately they were too hard for him to eat, so as he would try to slink past me, hiding a biscuit the size and density of a saucer in his mouth, I would engage in a little tug of war and retrieve it from his snarling jaws.

On a happy note, I did make a more successful batch of biscuits on Sunday. "Light" and "fluffy" did not really come to mind, but they did rise, and the family did eat them. I think I will go back to self-rising flour.

I Gave to the IRS

Pretty much says it all. :)

Bluebirds of Happiness?

This lovely couple showed up on the back porch at Villa Pellegrini. I tried several times to get a picture of them, but every time they showed up, and I ran for the camera, they would see me through the window and fly away.

Then Mrs. Bluebird took a notion that she wanted to nest inside Villa Pellegrini. Her determination reminded me of Mrs. Bird in P.D. Eastman's The Best Nest. Not to mention the way she wagged her husband around making unreasonable demands.

She flew repeatedly at the window and pretty much stopped paying attention to me on the other side. At first I worried about her crashing into the glass over and over. We have had several birds meet their maker against the windows, leaving bird smudges on their way to the ground.

Then she just got annoying. She made her way all they way around the house, trying window after window and enlisting Mr. Bird in her quest. They have come back each day this week and spend several hours--generally from sunup to around 10 or 11am taking turns crashing into the windows, looking for a way in and completely undeterred by repeated failure.

So should I take it as a compliment that these symbols of happiness want in my house, or is it some kind of strange omen?

What do they have on their web site?

I took this pic through the car window in the rain. I was so amused by their domain name and the proud display of it.

Welcome to the FC. Now go home!

The All You Can Eat seafood buffet at the Oakland (Tennessee, that is) Exxon is something of an early bird special, but really, can you beat the value? I'm not sure if this is a weekly event or sort of a one-time deal, but I was delighted to get this flyer. It gives "Filler'up" a whole new meaning. I dearly love the FC!

In spite of the current economic down-turn and the obvious effects it has had on the local housing market, it is inevitable that urban sprawl will continue as people discover the wide open spaces and beauty that Fayette County has to offer (not to mention the at-least-for-now lower taxes). Heck, that's how we wound up here. Part of me wants to tout the pleasures of living here, and part of me wants to say, "Nah, it's not so great, so stay in Memphis."

When Worlds Collide in the FC

We were out on a Sunday drive exploring the FC, and found this gem. Single-wide meets country cottage. It's hard to decide which came first. The cottage appears to be years--decades even--younger than the trailer, but then it also looks to have been cut out in such a way to allow passage for the trailer.

"Honey, you know how you've always wanted to add on to the house?"

You Get Your Hair Done WHERE??

POS? Oh Portrait of Styles. Right. Of course. Just checking.

Fence Wars, or Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

I have no idea when the fence war started, or why, but for the last two years that we have been driving past it, it has been stalled at this point. You get an idea of what has transpired. Something happened and one neighbor put up a fence. The other neighbor was not to be outdone, and put up a taller fence. You might think the tall fence is winning, because it is taller. However, on the tall fence side, what the white fence neighbor can't see, is a mess of an unfinished project: scaffolding, fencing, sand, a cement mixer litter the driveway. I imagine that Mrs. Tall Fence has given up nagging Mr. Tall Fence to either finish the fence or take it down and clean it up. Mr. Tall Fence sulks on the couch every weekend, hiding in the glow of ESPN, secretly sorry he started the infernal project in the first place. He's still angry about whatever set off the fence war. He knows he was in the right, so why should he exert himself with this unfinished job while Mr. White Fence smugly reaps the benefits of his (Mr. Tall Fence's) labor to erect the partition? What is without a doubt, is that both agree that Fences make the best neighbors.

Mending Wall
Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

The Importance of Good Marketing

Avvertimento!

Safety tip: If you purchase protective gloves, it is important to remove the SECURITY DEVICE that tethers them closely together before wearing. Failure to do so could lead to a frivilous law suit. Carry on!