Easter for the nonbelievers

We didn’t really celebrate Passover this year, either. I was mostly thinking Easter would be a good catch up, relaxation kind of day. On Friday, John let me know that he and Megan were coming, arriving Saturday afternoon. Their plan was to go to watch Wrestlemania at their friend Matt’s house, really his mom’s house where he’s relocated since he’s kind of between L.A. and Madison at the moment, trying to get his Smashburger business going. Originally I was going to babysit Jasper Saturday night, but Emma decided not to go to Matt’s since she was kind of sick. Jasper’s passed around a bad cold, and I got it too. Also originally John & Megan were going to go watch the 2nd night of wrestling at Al’s but eventually decided (and I encouraged them) to just go to Al & Emma’s and visit for a bit and see Jasper and then start their drive back to Chicago earlier. And they could watch Wrestlemania at home.

Anyways, Saturday morning I went and volunteered at the Farmers Market info booth. Meanwhile, bike guy Ian’s employee Kelly set up a bike tune up pop-up in our driveway. After the market, I came home and said hi to Kelly, and came in and warmed up, and then biked to Metcalfe’s for the non-farmer’s market stuff, although they were out of a few things, like Mark’s yogurt, and I forgot to get some Calabrian chile peppers recommended by Hailee Catalano, whose book just came in the mail. Anyways I got back just as John and Megan arrived. Megan brought her bike up to get tuned and Kelly did it for free since it’s a single speed. And he was going to tune up my Liv as a favor for the space. While all that was going on, we went for a walk to Alimentari, the Italian deli by A Pig in a Fur Coat, that’s moved over here to the west side. They didn’t have jarred Calabrian chiles, but they had a few in the deli case that I bought to chop up in Hailee’s onion-tomato spread. 

And some Manchego cheese to put in the leek green mac & cheese I was planning to make, though I didn’t use all Manchego like the recipe says; I used some cheddar too. I also used all milk, no half and half, and I cooked the leek tops till they were really really soft. I mean, I was going to make it anyways, even if I went to Al & Emma’s to be the baby sitter, because I thought John & Megan could take some home. It’s a recipe I’ve been wanting to try for awhile and I had the leek tops. And I’m glad I finally tried it becuase it was good. As it turned out, since I wasn’t the baby sitter, Mark and I ate it for dinner with a salad, and then it was a good thing there was some left for John & Megan to eat when they got back from Matt’s since there hadn’t been any vegetarian options in the pizza selections Matt got.

Easter morning I tried to sleep in, but just couldn’t. Maybe because the cold was really starting to hit me. I got up and made coffee and went back to bed with a cup to listen to the NPR puzzle. Then I got up and biked to the west side Willy Street, and got yogurts and the chiles and some strawberries and some bananas. And the honey cough syrup that I like, that I’d longed for in the night. There were some little girls with their dad selecting pickles while I was selecting the chiles and we discussed why there was no dill in the dill pickles before they went back to charging their carts around the (mostly empty) store.

The cold air made my chest hurt on the ride but later when it settled in to rain all day I was glad I got out before it started.

For brunch we had egg sangwiches with optional mushrooms and sauteed spinach and cheese and the onion-tomato spread, on choice of focaccia or sourdough. And fruit salad, and I browned what was left of Nigella’s brown butter colcannon I had made a few days before (with cabbage instead of kale), kind of a messy potato cake, for on the side. No pics of any of that.

Later, I made chocolate dipped peanut butter eggs, that came out a little messy. But they were done in time for the kids to take a few over to Al & Emma’s for Jasper.

Jasper did more Easter-y things with Emma’s side of the family.

Still later, I tried to adapt Bronwen Wyatt’s burnt caramel marble bundt cake recipe that I am learning about in her fun zoom cake class, and it fell. I added pumpkin puree and probably should have reduced the cream a bit more and maybe reduced the butter, too.

We ate the cake for our Sunday snack while we watched Call the Midwife. And then The Last of Us, which kind of floored us, since we never played the game and only sorta knew what was coming, though Mark applauded their Game of Thrones ability to kill off a character. Ooops spoiler if you haven’t watched season 2, episode 2 as yet. I think when I try the cake again, I might omit the chocolate and make a cinnamon swirl. I did use a trick I learned from Bronwen, dusting the greased cake pan with sugar instead of flour, and it did have a wonderful crust the first day. And the second day too but I think it’s melted by now, day three Tuesday. Nope – I just tried a piece and it’s still crunchy. Not as crunchy as Sunday but still.

Going back in time to the last Friday, we went to Chicago to hear the Chicago Symphony play Mahler’s 7th, with guest conductor Jaap van Sweden. I guess it was kind of a preview before they go to the Mahler Festival in Amsterdam. We ate at the Sterling Food Hall, the new name for the departed Revival Food Hall. The space is still as nice, but I did have a little buyer’s remorse on my sandwich choice, a grilled cheese with pickles from Danke, a vendor that was in the old place as well. It was perfectly adequate but nothing special. Mark said his ham sandwich was the same. Should’ve gotten Dosa or a focaccia sandwich from Seedos, the bakery – those sandwiches sure looked good when I bought a chocolate chip cookie there to follow up our merely adequate sandwiches. Mark wanted to go to the food hall by Staypineapple on Washington, Urbanspace, or maybe it’s now the Washington Food Hall. There’s a sandwich place there called all too well, and we liked their sandwiches, but I wanted to go to Sterling because it’s a nicer place to sit. And also because the all too well sandwiches are so big we’d have to split one, and while sandwiches with ingredients like fig jam or hot honey mayo appeal to me, Mark not so much. Though maybe I coulda talked him into the oh yeah!

Going back to speaking of Tuesday, I decided to take a sick day to try to get over the cold. I was in pajamas until almost 11:00 and haven’t left the house.

I made the buckwheat date muffins I make every year with the leftover charoset. I ate one while it was still a little warm.

I am going to get out now to go to a 50th birthday. I made a cake, a little like Max’s cake, same white cake, but whipped cream frosting. A different version of stabilized whipped cream with cream cheese rather than cooked flour or cornstarch and water, or ricotta.

And we’ll end with a random cat + human selfie.