Each Thursday brings three new beautiful things from my life:
1. A few years back, I asked Gramma to write out some of her recipes for me as a Christmas present. She obliged, and I find that now that I don’t see her several times a week, I turn to it for inspiration on a regular basis. On Sunday, we went to dinner at Phillip’s house and I was asked to bring dessert. So I thumbed through Gramma’s cookbook once again, looking for a recipe that didn’t call for fruit (Susan doesn’t like fruit), and decided on cream puffs. Now, whenever Gramma made them, I was under the impression that she’d performed culinary magic. But the truth is that they’re very easy to make. She laughed when I called to tell her of my success and said they’re actually the easiest dessert to make. If you don’t believe me, check out the Washington Post‘s cream puff article, which, incidentally, appeared in yesterday’s paper. (Visit BugMeNot if you need a login.)
2. Rudi and I went out for a walk around sunset on Monday and as we surfaced from The Burrow, we noticed a bat flying around the neighborhood. He pursued his dinner for a while and then settled back near the neighbor’s fire escape. I don’t know if he was actually hanging from the fire escape or if there was a hole in the house where he was hanging, but he just disappeared. It was very cool in a Dracula kind of way…
3. When we lived in Middletown, our house was right across the street from the local pizza joint. We were regulars, calling up every Friday night (or any time we couldn’t resist the smell) to order dinner. And on nights when we were making pasta, it was simpler (and at $1.50 almost cheaper) to order garlic bread from them than it was to go to the store in pursuit of bread to make our own. (Plus, who can argue with garlic bread made by actual Italians?) Just after we moved away, the restaurant closed briefly and switched ownership. Apparently they couldn’t survive without us. (Or maybe they just chose not to…) But on Saturday, when I’d made some hummus and didn’t feel like making my own pitas, it was a nostalgic feeling to walk the two blocks over to Zorba’s and order some of their homemade pitta bread. $1.19 bought me three hot pitas. Yum!