Frying pan, fire, and the smell of sulfur from a freshly-lit match

Do you ever feel like life is a constant merry-go-round of frying pan and fire? This is where I am now—and the most shameful part of it is that I’m the one holding the match. I don’t know how much of this ennui corresponds to run-of-the-mill seasonal stuff (as I am wont to experience) or to my recent visit to Texas (which is also par for the course for me), but I certainly feel stuck, restrained, and uncomfortable, like I’m wearing a too-tight jacket or a poorly-fitting bra. Or maybe that whole Mercury-in-retrograde situation just hit me particularly hard.

Anyway, the penultimate box arrived shortly before my departure for the Lone Star State and I scrambled to tend to everything before I left. What I did was quite uninspired (see previous paragraph on ennui).

The box contained:

Kale, watercress, thyme, acorn squash, red potatoes, shitake mushrooms, various-hued carrots, and a cracked watermelon.

And here’s what I did:

I confit-ed the mushrooms in olive oil with shallot and thyme (a la Mrs. Wheelbarrow). These little nuggets will enhance an omelet, a pizza, or some risotto in the future.

Shitake mushroom confit.

I roasted the squash and combined it with crisp apple, spicy radish, and crunchy pecans in a salad. I’m ashamed I didn’t have any lovely bleu cheese to add, as that would have improved this salad immensely.

Salad of roasted acorn squash, shaved apple and radish, greens, and toasted pecans.

Some of the potatoes and the orange carrots went into individually-sized chicken pot pies that I stowed in the freezer. I believe the Unit ate all of these while I was in Texas.

Chicken pot pie.

The yellow carrots became a lovely soup, to which I added only one tiny piece of crispy bacon. The wheat and oat bread I nabbed from Smitten Kitchen. It’s a chewy, yummy, dead easy-to-make loaf. I highly recommend it.

Golden carrot soup, with homemade wheat/oat bread and a crispy slice of bacon.

I steamed the kale and watercress and then froze the leaves in ice cube trays for future use in smoothies.

Steamed kale and watercress, frozen into cubes.

The watermelon, sadly, lacked flavor (maybe it escaped through the crack?), so I cubed the flesh and froze it. Maybe sorbet or granita in the future?

So: only one more box, and already I regret that I didn’t exhibit more ambition with this fine produce. Frying pan, fire, and the smell of sulfur from a freshly-lit match.

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Moment of cuteness: While in Texas, I got the opportunity to meet my new grand-niece, Harper. Harper is the latest in a long line of completely adorable spawn of my nieces and nephews. For a cranky, barren-wombed old lady like myself, it is a comfort to me to know that my family keeps cranking out legit good-looking kids. It also confirms that my decision not to muck up that gene pool was a good one.

Harper Halliday

This precious little peanut made me think of the song “Harper Lee” by the Irish band Little Green Cars. The song is subversive, yet sweet; moody, yet melodic; a wry meditation on To Kill a Mockingbird. LGC’s duo, Stevie Appleby and Faye O’ Rourke, constantly charm, snatching rotten darkness from its lowest point and giving it a triumphant new slant, somewhat in the way a cute baby can turn a gloomy cynic into a pile of mush for a moment or two.

Enjoy the fall, y’all!