November 17,2019

We are still in Maine.
Iowa sometimes seems far away.
It has been a good trip.
Our grandson is pretty wonderful.
He will only be this age once.

We return to Iowa tomorrow.
I will try to get the winter picture contest up and running in a few weeks.

We missed the bitterly cold weather in Iowa.
"Missed" might be the incorrect word.
Perhaps more accurately we did not experience the very cold weather from last week.

It is still cold here.
While in Maine I taught Christopher a new word.

Icicle.


The icicles grew and grew and then finally disappeared on Friday. That was about the best day. We enjoyed a sun filled day with temperatures in the 40's.
We went to a farm and then rode back to Portland on a train.
Christopher had been getting ready for the experience all week. He packed all of his train books into his backpack for the ride.














When you are away from home you do discover that
there are constants in our existence.

Cold weather is certainly one.
An early sunset is another.
It seems to get dark so early here.



While I am not sure that Maine is colder than Iowa they do take their cold more seriously.
Here was a display tree filled with this item.
Really?
I did not know of this product.

















Carving pumpkins is another thing that we can share.

Here is a pair we worked on this week.



The one on the left contains acorns adorned with glitter.
I am reminded of something from the Dr. Who shows.











I thought I might freeze the pumpkin with the acorns with glitter.
Putting the pumpkin on top of a hanging basket would look like a pumpkin in a nest.

All I did was create a perch for a squirrel feast.












Another constant was the Farmer's Market.
We went to the Portland market yesterday. It was still outside. It was 24 degrees.
The poor venders.
But they got points for effort.

A final constant was planting bulbs. Katie ordered many many bulbs. It takes a while to understand the limits of your own garden space. So we plants many many bulbs of all sizes. The we shipped some to Iowa, and to Maryland.
But it will be a good spring.
I am reminded that some daffodils here bloom in June.
June?

Julia's recipe

Red Lentil soup

Philip and I are visiting Katie and Elisabeth and our grandson Christopher in Portland, Maine. We have had several adventures, ranging from helping with a preschool applesauce making activity to riding the train from Freeport to Portland. Christopher is very interested in trains. And applesauce. Sometimes he helps with cooking supper, which is kind of messy but also rewarding. We made this soup for dinner one night. Katie says that the recipe is an adaptation of a recipe from an old issue of Bon Appetit magazine. It's good, and can be prepared by a person who is almost 3 years old, if somebody else chops the onion and grates the ginger and smushes the garlic and opens the cans.




Here are the ingredients, with a couple of pumpkin friends, about which more later.

For a very large batch of soup (about 10 pints!): 2-1/4 cups red lentils (no substitutions, please); 2-1/2 to 3 cups chopped onion; 2-3 tablespoons smushed garlic; 3 tablespoons grated ginger (use 1 tablespoon powdered if you don't have fresh); 2-3 tablespoons coconut oil (or regular oil); 3 tablespoons mild store-bought curry powder; 2 big (28 oz.) cans of diced tomatoes; 2 cans (14 oz.) coconut milk; 6 cups of water (we used 4 cups of chicken stock and 2 cups of water - all water is fine); 1 tablespoon kosher salt and about 1/2 teaspoon black pepper.

The long tall pumpkin got carved with 3 faces - a happy kitty, a sad kitty and the more traditional face. The other pumpkin was a product of two craft projects - Christopher and Elisabeth collected acorns and rolled them in glue and glitter, turning into sparkly acorns. Philip made indentations in the other pumpkin and adorned the pumpkin with sparkly acorns. Non-representational but still striking.




Here we are at the coconut oil plus onions stage. Katie and Christopher melted the coconut oil and then Katie added the onions. Christopher stirred.















Here is the same pot after the onions had softened and the ginger and garlic had been added. The onions took about 5 minutes to soften; the ginger and garlic cooked for less than a minute.











Next the coconut milk went in, followed (off camera) by the curry powder, salt, pepper, diced tomatoes, stock, water and lentils.
















This made for a very full pot, which simmered gently, with an occasional stir for about 25 minutes.  In the meantime, we made a small pan of cornbread and the cabbage/tomato and cumin side dish that we like (recipes for both appearing somewhere in this blog). Plus a nice green salad.









Here it is in the bowl - pretty, hearty, a little bit spicy and enjoyed by all.

The soup can easily be halved by using half of all of the ingredients listed at the beginning.

Some of our leftovers were frozen for days when people get home later than usual and want something to heat up in the microwave. Some were eaten for lunch the next day - all good.




Odds and ends
I suppose when a child gets to be 2 years old you might get used to that person saying "no."
But at this point, as Christopher approaches his third birthday in January, his most used word is "why."

I suppose as a society we could all use that word more often.
From the road
Philip and Julia