Monday Stuff On the Way to Other Stuff: Keep On Keeping On

     We're still getting heat during the day, but the nights bring a crispness in the air. Is Fall coming? You bet...and more rain than we've seen for a loooong time. In fact, Denver broke a 64-year-old record.

     I'm planting more greens, hoping that they'll grow during the cool weather. The grasshoppers that took out everything else may be getting fewer. Are the cooler temps killing them off -- or is it just my wishful thinking?

P.S. Does it ever snow in August in Colorado? I remember one August 1 snowstorm in the past. (My poor tomato plants.) Yes, it did snow on Pike's Peak this weekend. Other mountains are slated to get some, too. (Daughter #2 and Son #1, up in Nederland, tell me it's plenty cold there -- but no snow yet.)

     Hopefully it will take out even more grasshoppers. 

Go away!!

                

Meanwhile:

Things you should consider buying at a dollar store -- 21 of them. 

Octomom's youngest 8 children start the eighth grade!  (She has six more older kids, too. She's rarely in the news now, after cleaning up her act. Good for her. )

The Feds have raised interest rates again. Not much -- but it's the fourth time this year.

Wait a minute -- the migrants being bussed to other cities are generally GLAD to go??

The church that had its Covid fines dropped -- big-time. 

A Colorado person is caught on camera. Could this be the poacher who took a moose's life -- and left it to rot? If you live here, do you know this person?

A classic look back by yours truly at another hailstorm -- and it was bad. Worse than what we just went through. (And that was bad enough.)

Ten famous authors with failed books. This is actually quite encouraging to someone like me...one of my books was slow to sell at first. On the other hand, a very silly one (Hanky Panky) sold extremely well from the start!

J. K. Rowling states: “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all.”

She's right.

Barbara Brackman surprises, by remembering a block ID I'd mentioned a while back... thank you, Material Culture!

Salers cheese -- the first time in 2000 years that this cheese has not been produced. (Not enough grass for the cows, so not enough milk, French authorities explain.)

The book returned to a New York public library -- 75 years late. (Fortunately, the library system doesn't charge for overdue books anymore.)

Don't go to this oyster bar on the Greek island of Mykonos -- you'll get shafted, along with the oysters!

Updates to my 'small-minded' post, after I got a going-over on FB. NOTE: Don't read this if you're not politically-minded about the recent Mar-A-Lago raid. The whole mess is not pretty.  ( I don't mind taking heat for mistakes...but I draw the line at truthfulness, whether it's palatable or not. And this is one case of it, Gentle Readers.)

Dueling son and grandson, over Charles Manson's estate.  Or are they? (Didn't Manson have SOME DNA on record, so testing could answer this??)

A bunch of questions we should have known the answers to...including whether any of the Ancient Wonders of the World exist. (One does!)

Just two ingredients for peanut butter cookies?  Wow...

Cuban stew with black beans.  Yum.  (From Cooking on A Bootstrap)

A 'boring bookshelf' -- before and after. Beautiful!

Fifteen stories of time travel. Some of these are hard to explain, otherwise-- especially the Goddard and Moberly/Jourdain accounts.

A pre-Viking arrow found... in a Norwegian glacier!  Also...

Ten treasures hiding in plain sight.

Ten famous artists who died penniless.

Two sons lost -- after the funeral of his older brother, the younger rushes out into the street and is hit by a car. What a sad story.

Warren Buffett sells his holdings on four stocks. Is this important... or not?

This one's REALLY weird -- an Italian who taught himself to mummify body parts, organs, etc. so they resembled stone - yet were realistic. The scagliola tabletop shown in this link was made from preserved organs!

The Rosenbach Library just got a $250,000 grant to make its collections available to the public online. It's got some incredibly rare stuff, including the 1544 first book to be published in North America. Also  the Maurice Sendak collection:

"A little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it [Sendak wrote, after he published Where the Wild Things Are]. I loved it. I answer all my children's letters – sometimes very hastily – but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, 'Dear Jim: I loved your card.' Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said: 'Jim loved your card so much he ate it.' That to me was one of the highest compliments I've ever received. He didn't care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it."

The most expensive artifacts in the world -- as of 2022.

Have a good week.

This Just Seemed Fitting On A Sunday...

 

Now don't dawdle.

Fortunately, Catholics and non-Catholics can confess all day long today. (And any day, for that matter.) God won't mind.

Hang On... It's Friday!

 

Didn't You Ever Wonder This?

 

And there they are... from a Mykonos vase, 750-650 BC

Especially Today

 

(That's because we have an 11 a.m. meeting to be at in Denver -- and it's 1 a.m. right now. Ergh...)

Salads!!!

 Here's a repeat from a post I did years ago -- if your part of the world is hot hot hot (like ours, generally), these really come in handy. 

Hmmm....maybe a Nicoise salad for supper tonight!

Cool-And-Crunchy Salads

Opened the door this morning to let the dogs out, and realized -- the hanging baskets are all wilted.

So are the planters. It's really hot around here lately.

I don't feel too much like cooking, although now that the peaches are in, I'll whip out a dish now and then. And peach smoothies are wonderful! 

Time for a good, crisp salad. Sure, you can chop up the greens (or pull them apart, please - knives can cause marks), throw on some carrots and a boiled egg or two.

Or you can open a can of tuna, and make this French classic. This version's from Simply Recipes -- yum.  No fresh herbs or shallots? Dried ones will do this time, and chopped onion, instead. Skip the capers and anchovies, too, if they freak you out. The salad will still be delicious.

SALADE NICOISE    (fine -- Nicoise Salad, for you red-white-and-blue types out there)

Vinaigrette

• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 medium shallot, minced
• 1 Tbsp minced fresh thyme leaves
• 2 Tbsp minced fresh basil leaves
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh oregano leaves
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Salad

• 2 grilled or otherwise cooked tuna steaks* (8 oz each) or 2-3 cans of tuna
• 6 hard boiled eggs, peeled and either halved or quartered
• 10 small new red potatoes (each about 2 inches in diameter, about 1 1/4 pounds total), each potato scrubbed and quartered
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 medium heads Boston lettuce or butter lettuce, leaves washed, dried, and torn into bite-sized pieces
• 3 small ripe tomatoes, cored and cut into eighths
• 1 small red onion, sliced very thin
• 8 ounces green beans, stem ends trimmed and each bean halved crosswise
• 1/4 cup niçoise olives
• 2 Tbsp capers, rinsed and/or several anchovies (optional)

Directions

*Marinate tuna steaks in a little olive oil for an hour. Heat a large skillet on medium high heat, or place on a hot grill. Cook the steaks 2 to 3 minutes on each side until cooked through.
1 Whisk lemon juice, oil, shallot, thyme, basil, oregano, and mustard in medium bowl; season to taste with salt and pepper and set aside.
2 Bring potatoes and 4 quarts cold water to boil in a large pot. Add 1 tablespoon salt and cook until potatoes are tender, 5 to 8 minutes. Transfer potatoes to a medium bowl with a slotted spoon (do not discard boiling water). Toss warm potatoes with 1/4 cup vinaigrette; set aside.
3 While potatoes are cooking, toss lettuce with 1/4 cup vinaigrette in large bowl until coated. Arrange bed of lettuce on a serving platter (I used two serving platters, shown in the photos). Cut tuna into 1/2-inch thick slices, coat with vinaigrette. Mound tuna in center of lettuce. Toss tomatoes, red onion, 3 tablespoons vinaigrette, and salt and pepper to taste in bowl; arrange tomato-onion mixture on the lettuce bed. Arrange reserved potatoes in a mound at edge of lettuce bed.
4 Return water to boil; add 1 tablespoon salt and green beans. Cook until tender but crisp, 3 to 5 minutes. Drain beans, transfer to reserved ice water, and let stand until just cool, about 30 seconds; dry beans well. Toss beans, 3 tablespoons vinaigrette, and salt and pepper to taste; arrange in a mound at edge of lettuce bed.
5 Arrange hard boiled eggs, olives, and anchovies (if using) in mounds on the lettuce bed. Drizzle eggs with remaining 2 tablespoons dressing, sprinkle entire salad with capers (if using), and serve immediately. Serves 6.


Here's another international salad, Mani Scalco, an Italian dish that translates out as "blacksmith's salad." Hey, with that job, they get hot, hungry and tired. Serve your local workman this crunchy mix of celery, mushrooms and parmesan cheese, along with a frosty glass of iced tea. They'll perk up in no time.

MANI SCALCO    (recipe courtesy of Parmesan.com-- find it here.)

• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon minced shallot
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 pound fresh white mushrooms, cleaned
• 6 ounces celery hearts
• 2 teaspoons chopped parsley
• 2 teaspoons fresh mint, chopped
• 4 ounces Parmigiano Reggiano wedge
• 1 head romaine lettuce

---

Directions 

Prep Time - 30 min

1. Whisk together lemon juice, salt and mustard, until salt dissolves. Add oil in a very thin stream, whisking constantly. Stir in shallots and ground pepper.
2. Thinly slice mushrooms through the cap and stem and the celery on an angle. Combine mushrooms, celery, parsley and mint in a large bowl.
3. With a vegetable peeler, sliver ½ of the Parmigiano Reggiano over the top. (Can be made ahead to this point and chilled.)
4. Just before serving, place lettuce leaves on 6 plates. Toss salad with dressing and mound on each plate. Sliver remaining Parmigiano Reggiano over each plate before serving. Serves 6.

For supper tonight, I'm thinking about a recipe that showed up in Ellie Krieger's column, 'Cook Smart,' in USA Weekend. It's simple, yet sounds tasty. (See the full recipe here - plus more info on Ellie's cookbooks.)

SHRIMP, SNOW PEA AND RADISH SALAD WITH SESAME DRESSING

• 1¼ pound medium shrimp, shelled and deveined
• 4 cups snow peas (12 ounces)
• 6 radishes, thinly sliced into half moons (4 ounces)
• 4 scallions, thinly sliced
• 1/3 cup rice vinegar
• 1 Tb. canola oil
• 1 Tb. toasted sesame oil
• 1 Tb. grated fresh ginger
• ½ tsp. salt
• 2 Tbs. toasted sesame seeds
Bring a large saucepan of water, fitted with a steamer basket, to a boil. Put the snow peas into the steamer basket, cover and cook for 2 minutes. Transfer the snow peas into a bowl of ice water briefly to cool. Drain and pat dry.
Add the shrimp directly into the pot of boiling water. Return the water to a boil, cook the shrimp for 2 minutes, then drain. Plunge the shrimp into a bowl of ice water until cool, then drain and pat dry.
Slice each shrimp in half lengthwise to form 2 thin rounds. Cut the snow peas on a diagonal into ½-inch diamond shapes, discarding the end piece. In a large bowl, toss together the shrimp, snow peas, radishes and scallions.
In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, canola oil, sesame oil, ginger and salt.
Right before serving, pour the dressing over the salad, and toss to coat. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and toss until they are evenly distributed. Serves 4.

Salads are cool, healthy, and a great choice for a picnic, too.

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