One of Mark’s sayings but seems to be the story of my life now. Or else some other truism about how activity, even reduced activity, like that of say a retiree, will grow to fill all available space. Either way, it’s been almost two weeks since I’ve written (blaming on busyness) and I feel there’s much catching up to do.
It’s our first day at TIFF, a 3-movie day, and I am off to brave the streets of Toronto on my trusty Giant to get to the first one. I thought it would be safer to bring the Giant to the big city, rather than my branny new bike. Details at 11:00 (or so, I think).
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We started off with coffee from Black Bear, a place we used to frequent when we were staying right next door in 2019. Then we got a few groceries at Loblaws and egg sandwiches at a hole on the wall joint called egg club that really has the take out thing down – limited menu, all sandwiches on Japanese milk bread, compact packaging. But it all tasted good, too. I think Egg Club “sauce” is Kewpie mayo with Siracha & parsely. Our AirBNB has a deck where we ate.
Our first movie was North Star, Kristin Scott Thomas’ directorial debut, a bit schmaltzy and based on her own life history. Very pretty and successful people in the very pretty English countryside, with not very serious problems that they were all super dramatic about. The Guardian said, “ho-hum”. Scarlett Johansson did a much better Britsih accent than I thought she would, and Mark thought she was just not quite believable as a Brit.
Then, Gonzo Girl, based on a novel/fictionalized memoir by Cheryl Della Pietra, who was Hunter Thompson’s personal assistant for about 5 months in 1992. Willem Dafoe (fellow ’55 baby, born in Appelton WI) was a good Walker Reade (a.k.a. Hunter), and Camila Morone, who we last saw in Daisy Jones & the Six, was also good as the assistant. With this one after the Six, she does seem to be stuck playing long-suffering roles in quasi-bio pics from boomers’ bad old druggy days.
Last of the day was Dicks, the Musical. I had seen the description and when Mark was buying tickets he was trying really hard to get it, and I wasn’t quite sure I supported the notion, but it was hilarious – the movie started as a comedy routine by Aaron Jackson & Josh Sharp, and they attracted Larry Charles, who directed Borat, and turned it into a musical with Nathan Lane, Megan Mullally, Megan Thee Stallion, a cameo from Nick Offerman, and Bowen Yang as God. It was silly and stupid and funny in all the ways a musical should be. Aaron Jackson & Josh Sharp were there to intro the film, which started life as a “half-hour musical comedy routine in a Gristede’s grocery store”.
I think Friday was the night we split a carton of Ben & Jerry’s when we got back from the movie.
The two weeks before we left featured a lot of tomatoes and corn and Jasper – I did childcare three Fridays in a row, in addition to my regular Tuesdays, while Emma’s parents are in Italy and daycare was closed for an end of summer break. I helped out selling DCFM cookbooks, and picked tomatoes out at Tipi, and processed them at home, and got corn in my CSA box and brought home big bags of it from the Market. There were also food pantry shifts and UW Library Friends selecting books for the book sale shifts in there. I think I just have to do this in pictures; here goes:
I adapted a Nigel Slater recipe for roasted tomatoes atop beans with more tomatoes in the sauce, and quite proud of it. Here’s the recipe.
I served the beans with this yeasted corn bread from 101 Cookbooks. I tweaked the recipe a bit based on time and circumstance: I made a sponge with all of the water and yeast, and let that rise for about an hour until nice and bubbly. Then I added the remaining flour, and cornmeal, oil, honey, and corn. I omitted the chives, and also used a combination of white and whole wheat flour, instead of the white whole wheat suggested. Finally, instead of doing a rise at the ball of dough phase I shaped my rolls and let those rise for about another hour, and baked them. Heidi suggests baking the rolls in muffin tins which would be pretty if you have fluted ones, as shown in the top picture – I baked my rolls in 2 cake pans, and got 16 as promised in the recipe.
In the recipe, Heidi said she’d like to try freezing the unbaked dough; I did not test that but I cool-rised the back pan in the fridge overnight. There was no real difference between it and the other pan – the top is simply darker because I left it in the oven too long!
Speaking of tomatoes I processed the tomatoes I picked out at Tipi over Labor Day weekend. Some blanched & either left whole or diced and some roasted & puréed. I ran out of plastic containers for the roasted purée so I put it in wide mouth canning jars. And I also read a Bon Appetit article about should you re-use plastic containers, especially reused ones, and the answer is probably no, but I’m not going to replace all my old yogurt buckets and new deli containers with glass right now, particularly not the 2 for $17 ones the article helpfully recommends.
Tomatoes chunked up for purée
Roasted & cooling before going in the food processor
Puréed
It kind of got to be crunch time the Wednesday right before we left for Toronto. I wrote CSA recipes in the AM, and while I was writing, I roasted the two big yellow tomatoes from Tracey that Javier brought over, along with a handful of sungolds we had and the last 3-4 garlic cloves, and when they cooled pureed them with the two remaining whole roasted red slicers from the beans. The tomatoes arrived at about 8:00AM and by 1:00 they were in the freezer. I had made Dorla’s annual birthday pie Tuesday night (after we had the roast tomatoes atop beans & tomatoes for dinner) and I biked the pie over to her place. We had leftovers for dinner as part of the pre-trip cleaning out the fridge process. Then I still had to pack and process corn and update the kitty instructions and take out the trash, and … and … and … nights like that when I am stressed and working hard in the kitchen, I always think of the Fountains of Wayne song, “when it’s late and it’s hot and an hour in the shower is the best that you got“.
Two more of Tracey’s giant yellow tomatoes
That I chunked up for roasted sauce since they came over on Weds. AM and no time to eat fresh
And Jasper: the messy face and bath pics are Emma’s, and I took the playing on the rug one last Tuesday. Al & Emma & Jasper came for brunch on Labor Day itself, and Emma took the pic of me and Jasper at the dining table.
“laughing, in the sun” David Crosby
And two more at TIFF pics, lunch, or maybe better to call it 2nd breakfasts on Friday, and coffee brewed at the AirBNB on Saturday, by heating water in the Keurig and running it into my clever coffee dripper, which I brought. We bought ground coffee at Black Bear Friday.
And another first day of TIFF meal – Le Chevre bagel at Nu Bugel – not sure what I did with my camera to make it so skinny
