I even managed to pick a few thin stalks of asparagus that were growing in the garden, although looking at them in the colander they look like a very paltry crop indeed! (There’s more coming up these were just the ones that were long enough to pick.)

Our first Red House dinner (if you can even call it that) on a Friday night at 11 p.m. was an all-American cheeseburger (sliders to be exact). Since it was late and I was battling a cold and couldn’t really taste anything anyway, it just seemed to be the perfect and quick thing to cook on our new stove.

What I failed to realize when frying was that without cabinets or an exhaust fan, our newly painted white walls were going to be very quickly grease-speckled! Which led Lynn to rig up this fancy contractor bag “back-splash”  temporarily. (We’re not winning any design awards for this one, trust me.)

The other thing I failed to realize when we ordered the dishwasher, that without a countertop to hold the dishwasher in place (along with the brackets you have to attach to the countertop as well), you actually can’t use the dishwasher because it tips forward!

Consequently, while my intentions were good (no more hand washing dishes!), in reality I should have spent the money to get the rest of the cabinets and had a countertop done as well. Which means I have a basically useless appliance sitting around doing nothing which makes me a bit crazy.

The other thing that made me more than a bit crazy this weekend is that the town finally has a 24 hour supermarket. When I lived in Syracuse, New York, in the 1980’s, Price Chopper was the lower-end supermarket where one could indeed buy things for less. Seemingly this is not the same supermarket it once was. Pulling into the newly paved parking lot at 7 p.m. last night eager to see what the store carried, I walked around in disbelief at how expensive everything was. Apples for $3.99 a pound? Fiddlehead ferns for $5.99 a pound? Fancy cheese and not even great-looking meat at upwards of $7 and $15 a pound? It made me wonder who did the market demographics for this supermarket since I can’t imagine the people who live here wanting to spend that much money on food!

This made me realize that while I may have thought my days of lugging a cooler filled with food up here for the weekend were finally over, unfortunately, unless I want to spend a lot of money to buy mediocre stuff, they were absolutely not.

But let’s get back to the kitchen. We bought four of the upper kitchen cabinets first. Since this will be our second Ikea kitchen, Lynn has mastered the art of putting the cabinets together in record time and only occasionally has to look at those stupid little drawings with the fake Swedish names for reference.

Yes, we still have to figure out how to hang them up on the rails that were provided, put on the doors and buy the hardware, too. We figured if we did the upper cabinets first, we could then put the lower cabinets in (which we haven’t purchased yet.) So until the lower cabinets are in and countertop is on, we’re still going to be washing dishes by hand.

Like the food we’ve been lugging upstate, we also managed to find tile for the master bathroom. Little did I know tile could be so very heavy! Even with a mere six boxes of tile, they felt like 66 boxes of tile! We actually opened the boxes in the car and hand-carried them 3 pieces at a time and laid them out on the floor in the dining room.

Now that the weather has gotten warmer up here, we aren’t too keen on spending time inside the house when it’s just so beautiful outside so we’re torn with finishing the inside projects and working on the garden. While the daffodils have indeed come up, by next weekend I need to start planting my veggies and the garden desperately needs to be weeded, too.

On another note, we have a strange looking bird who has made a nest on one of the old columns that’s still attached to the house. Her nest is right by the kitchen door and I’m not sure what she’s sitting on but she’s been there for the entire weekend, sometimes with her mouth open sometimes with her mouth closed.

At first we thought she had died, frozen in that position because she just looked so strange. But then she started to turn around and at one point she even flew away and came back! I’d like to think that maybe she was like one of the San Juan Capistrano swallows who return mysteriously year after year, but this is the first time we’ve seen her. If, however, she returns next year at the same time, it will in fact be somewhat of a miracle. Kind of like how I’m hoping the Red House will somehow get done (without me going crazy in the process.)

1. Sleeping
2. Making ice cream with my new ice cream maker.
3. Sleeping some more.
4. Having a pitcher of Mojitos.
5. Grilling outside rather than trying to “cook” inside.
6. Sleeping.
7. Going to a lake (any lake).
8. Going to a winery (any winery).
9. Sleeping some more.
10. Weeding the garden.

This, however is what I did instead.  I spent a lot of time in a cold smelly basement trying to figure out with Lynn where exactly all the water was seeping in from.

See the weekend after we got our hot water back, we had a serious rain storm.  So severe in fact, that the water started pouring in from the walls like one of those crazy fountains you sometimes see in Italy (but minus the cute little angels or quirky gargoyles). The water simply shot forth from every nook and cranny, small fracture in the cement or hole in the foundation that wasn’t visible to even corrected eyesight.

Then there was the floor.  We saw water leaking not only from the walls but pouring in from the floor, too. We knew we were in big big trouble. As it kept raining, the water kept pouring in; I put on a pair of boots and grabbed a couple of buckets. Lynn grabbed a broom, and we tried to capture the water – first with the buckets, then with the broom pushing the water into the sump pump.  This took us nearly 2.5 hours when finally it stopped raining and the water stopped coming in.

The next morning we got up early (the day we were supposed to tackle #7 on my list (that would be going to a lake, any lake) and instead went to the big box hardware store to try and buy cement or something that we could use to shore up not only the walls but the foundation, too.  Problem was that the big box store RAN OUT OF ANYTHING that you could use to do such a task because apparently everyone else in the county I’m currently residing in had the same exact problem.

We got in the car and kept driving until we found a mom and pop store that had the last two buckets of “leak stopper” cement and a couple of brushes.  Oh yeah, we bought extra brushes, masks and a really big container of stuff you wipe on the walls after you’ve patched all the visible holes.

We also wanted to buy some work lights since we had none (which the big box store had) and sand bags (which they didn’t have.)  So, I ended up ordering the sandbags online and had them sent Fedex, then picked up some play sand that the big box store had in stock.

Meanwhile, it hadn’t rained in nearly 24 hours so we decided to try and do some patching. Let’s just say it was an experience, and when we were finished nearly 12 hours later, I SIMPLY TOOK OFF MY CLOTHES IN THE LIVING ROOM AND THREW THEM AWAY. This is what the basement (patched and supposedly waterproofed) then looked like.

Problem was the floor was still wet and actually with the mess we made trying to stop up all the holes and waterproof the walls, there was more paint on the floor than on the walls. This proved to be a good thing.  Why? Because suddenly we had a little river of paint that was running where it always collected (under the staircase) and hence, we were able to detect a few leaks in the corners that we had missed.

Even though the smell of all this surely cancer-causing stuff was making me sick, I was actually thinking about food.  What I had wanted to make (peas from the garden with gnocchi) was not to be because this little guy ate all my peas!

I still, however, had all the scapes I had cut from the garlic a few days prior, and decided to make a scape pesto.

Now, while the scape pesto looked gorgeous, when I tasted it, it was vile.  I mean, really garlicky and bitter.  I did something I never ever do.  I actually threw the entire batch out.  Yet, now that I’m looking at the consistency, kind of like the cement we had been using to patch the basement, I wondered if perhaps it could have been used for that instead!

I did, however, leave just a tiny smidgen of scape pesto on the food processor blade (to give it a slight garlic flavor), went out to the garden to pick some fresh basil, and made “real” pesto that I then tossed with some linguine instead.

And then I went to sleep! (At least I’m doing some of the things I wanted to do on my list!)

The next morning it was around 120 degrees, okay it was really 86 degrees, but the humidity was right up there and I was thinking if I had to do a still-life of what my summer should look like it would resemble this:

I wanted a pitcher of Mojitos, buffalo chicken wings, and crunchy celery sticks with blue cheese. And geez, yes, I was able to make all of these good things although I did substitute blue cheese for Roquefort since that’s what was on sale at the supermarket.

I also wanted ice cream.  Meaning I wanted to make my own.  See, we have a really great Goodwill store in the town next to ours (that’s the town with the only supermarket, too!) and the last time I was there I picked up not just an “ice cream maker” but a La Glaciere for a mere $4.50!

Yes, I did read the article that was floating around recently about how much the CEO of Goodwill makes (millions) versus how much he pays his disabled workers (22 cents an hour) but the fact is if I didn’t buy the La Glaciere someone else would have beaten me to it. So I did and I brought it home and washed it out and realized I had nothing to make ice cream with (ingredient-wise) but I did have store-bought vanilla ice cream, walnuts and a jar of hot fudge (hidden between the rum and the hot wing sauce in the picture.)

But first we had to make the sandbags. Now, if you’ll remember I paid extra to have them sent Fedex, so they would arrive in two days.  And while they did arrive in two days, in our town you have to go down to the post office to pick up any Fedex packages!  I didn’t ask why this was, I was just glad the post office was actually open, and that I was able to get my box of sandbags and take them home.  Once home we attempted to cut the bags of play sand open and dump them into the white bags.  Now play sand is for kids, right?  What would possess any manufacturer to put that much sand in a bag (50 lbs) so that mom or dad could easily break their backs trying to transform an old plastic tub or baby swimming pool into a sandlot for junior?  Really, I never knew these bags would be so frigging heavy!

Anyway, we managed to not spill half as much sand on the driveway as I thought we would, but poor Lynn, he’s a really strong guy but was just struggling with the weight of this sand.  We eventually filled all the bags and then had to carry them down into the basement.

Lynn managed to carry two at a time, I was struggling carrying one. We laid them flat, like sausages, trying to make a barrier in front of the furnace, hoping that if we get 3-4 inches or more of water in the basement again, at least the furnace will be protected.  I don’t know if this will work out not, but at this point I was running out of ideas and it was the only thing I could think of.

So back to the list.

#1,3,6,9 – We did sleep a lot. (Fitfully however, because of the day and night noise of all the county trucks going past our house carrying large loads of rocks that they were dumping in the creek north of us to try and stop the flow of water onto people’s properties.)

#4 – We did have a pitcher of Mojitos (and a couple of pitchers of vodka martinis (no vermouth!) too.

#5 – We did grill (mostly steak and the occasional hamburger).

# 7 – We did get to a lake (twice).

#10 – We did attempt to weed the garden but said screw it, there are too many weeds and it’s just too damn hot.

So, while I didn’t get to try out my new ice cream maker, I did learn how to make sandbags. And yes, gussied up store-bought ice cream with fresh strawberries, hot fudge sauce and walnuts was the perfect sweet ending to yet another Red House “adventure.”

When we arrived at the Red House, the rain stopped long enough for us to bring everything inside without getting soaking wet.  Our other activity that evening, unfortunately, before we could have a cocktail or even think about eating was to haul all the trash we had collected two weeks ago plus all of the recyclables (mostly beer and wine bottles!) we had collected from LAST summer to the curb.  Thing is at the Red House we have trash pick-up once a week — on Friday’s.  Since we usually arrive Friday night, we always miss trash pick-up and have to always take the garbage home.

Since most of the trash we had bagged consisted of debris from the house, many of the bags were simply too heavy to lift (for me at least), let alone carry down the very, very long driveway to the curb. That’s when Lynn and I decided we would put a big blue tarp in the back of the car, hoist the bags onto the tarp, and DRIVE down the driveway. It worked. However, spying on the garbage guys the next morning, they seemed a little perplexed by both the appearance of trash in front of a house that looked abandoned, coupled with the sheer weight of what we were ditching.

It rained all day Friday and Saturday, and part of  Sunday.  While this was supposed to be our planting weekend in addition to our finally sheet-rocking the upstairs bedrooms, the most I could do via planting was to layout all the little packets I wanted to put in the ground.

Now the only reason I even contemplated planting all these goodies from “scratch” or seed actually (which I had never done on Long Island) is because everything I planted last year from these same little packets grew!  I may have gone a bit overboard by the number of packets I purchased, but I figured what the hell, let me at least try.  But I’m not an idiot, I did have a back-up plan in case nothing grew and bought lettuce, two different kinds of tomato plants, basil, and marigolds (to keep the deer away), too.

The other good news about the property is we finally found someone to mow all four acres.  Our landscaper actually showed up to mow on Memorial Day and with two really big ride-own mowers and a helper, he did THE ENTIRE PROPERTY IN TWELVE MINUTES.  I felt so bad that Lynn used to spend hours, entire weekends actually, trying to mow the meadow on the Troy-Bilt.

One good thing about a rainy weekend (even a long holiday-one) is that you are forced to tackle projects you’ve been putting off.  This enabled us to start sheet-rocking one of the upstairs bedrooms.

We, however, got off to a bad start.  It seems we had forgotten how difficult it is to rock a ceiling. So even with me standing on a chair and Lynn standing on another chair, holding up a piece of rock by myself with Lynn trying to secure it to the ceiling with a power tool wasn’t working. Apparently, I was a lot stronger three years ago than I am now… But then we remembered the last time we rocked the living room ceiling, we had rented one of those sheet-rock “helpers.”

It’s basically a drywall lift that puts the piece exactly where you need it to be without killing yourself trying to do so. So we bagged the ceiling idea until we could rent one and Lynn focused on doing the walls instead.

Meanwhile the amount of weeds that were growing in the garden and around the house needed to be dealt with.  So despite the pouring rain, I went outside and pulled as many weeds as I could thinking at least once the rain stopped we would be able to till the soil and plant anew.

I hadn’t forgotten, however, in doing this project that Lynn, always the perfectionist, wanted to do the ENTIRE garden over again.  That meant before I could plant (provided of course, I got all the weeding done and it stopped raining), he wanted to put down new sheets of weed-blocker, plywood dividers, and bags and bags of small marble chips.

While he was doing this part, I decided I wanted to try and make pulled pork sandwiches that we could eat if we ever got back later that night to Long Island. I found a pork shoulder that was small enough to fit in the toaster oven, cooked it for about 5 hours at 275 degrees, and voila, it did turn out to be quite tasty!

I also picked some more asparagus from the garden that I discovered hiding underneath all the weeds! I can’t tell you how tickled I am to snip asparagus from my own garden. Lynn is tickled that they look like the “real” thing; I’m assuming he means the supermarket variety.

I also decided to take some photographs of the property.  I still love the color and look of the “barn” aka garage door, and hope even if we have to rebuild it someday that we can at least duplicate its rustic look.

My other culinary find this weekend was to see huge bags of fiddlehead ferns at the local farmer’s market.  I have to admit the first time I ate fiddlehead ferns was in Cape May, New Jersey, of all places. Since their season is so short and they have such a unique texture and earthiness, to me they’ve become that much more exotic (and thus a must for my table!)

Of course the weather finally cleared up just as we were about to leave the Red House. We had hoped to set up the deck furniture and have a meal or at least a glass of wine outside during our time there but it wasn’t to be. I thought about other Memorial days we had spent together, one in particular when we were living in a $375 a month rent-stabilized apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Since combined we made little more than that each month and thus had no extra cash for anything, we would often find ourselves many hot summer evenings on “tar beach,” aka the roof on the top of the apartment building. If we were “tanning,” we’d lie on a towel, if we were trying to be civilized, we actually sat on a couple of director chairs that we had bought at Conran’s back in the 80’s.

Originally the chairs had black canvas seats and backs but somewhere along the line I must have replaced them with what looks to be now like a light blue. There was one chair left and our son Nicholas wanted it for his up-and-coming photography and video studio. I took a picture of it before I sent it off to him. Who knows, maybe one day he’ll do a photo shoot at the Red House and bring it back…It’s got a lot of history you know.

Our bamboo though is growing back slowly and everything we planted in the fall seems to be making a very cautious beginning.

We have a few pieces of asparagus sticking up through the soil in the garden and I managed to snip off four stalks to eat.

Our strawberry patch will be awesome if everyone of those little white flowers I saw turns into a berry. The garlic, too, is slowly shooting up but even though I thought I planted enough garlic (75 cloves!), I don’t think I did and I may actually need to plant another batch. Oh yeah, we have a few daffodils and tulips, too.

We were going to concentrate on the garden this weekend, planting everything we want to grow over the summer. The garden desperately needed to be weeded plus we wanted to buy more rocks and lumber to better define the space. Since the weather was absolutely perfect (high 70’s who would have thought) there should have been no excuse not to do it. However, I got side tracked when I saw an ad on craigslist for church pews. Real ones. In the exact color I wanted.  For $50 each.

The plan is to eventually have a “Stube” in one corner of the kitchen. Basically for those unfamiliar with the German word, a “Stube” is simply a room, in this case one where I would like to have breakfast and maybe even lunch. I’m thinking in one corner of the kitchen is where I would like the “Stube” to be.

We still have to figure out what kind of table we want in the room but church pews as benches were exactly what we had in mind.  Problem was, even from the Red House, the pews were in a church over 3 hours away.

But first we had breakfast. The day before we found the first farmer’s market of the season setting up in town where we bought farm fresh eggs and ramps  Now if you’re not familiar with ramps they look like a scallion with a leaf on top.  Really! For 3 bucks this is what we got.

They have a slight garlic taste and if you saute the leaves, the possibilities of whipping up a really good stir fry are endless. I ended up throwing them into a batch of scrambled eggs (along with some pancetta, too) which resulted in eggs that were so yellow Lynn actually thought I had put curry in them!

After breakfast, we got in the car and headed north. It was a gorgeous, sunny blue sky kind of day but unfortunately there was no place to stop for lunch and I hadn’t thought to pack anything except a couple of bottles of water. We ended up having to make a pit-stop at a Mickey D’s, and about 3.5 hours after we left the Red House, (and only about 20 miles from the Canadian border), we arrived at the church.

Now even though we had been given the EXACT specifications of the width, length and height of the “short” pews over the phone and had even measured the trunk of our station wagon, we decided that one pew would definitely fit, but two might not.

Inside the church we met Pastor Rusty and his lovely daughter Olivia. They not only helped us carry out the pews to our car, but they also lent us tools to remove the racks that were attached to each pew back. (Did I not remind Lynn to at least put a screwdriver in the car because I figured we would need something? Yes, I did, but he didn’t remember.) Luckily, Rusty and Olivia were there to help us position the pews in the back of our car just right so that both pews did in fact fit!

And then we simply drove back! On the same road that took us there.  Round trip we drove over 300 miles that day to get them and yes, it was still that warm even at 7 o’clock at night.

When we got back to the Red House, we lifted the pews out of the car and stored them (temporarily) in the tv room next to our dining room table (still in the box) and the real Charles Eames chairs we’ve had for at least 20 years but have never used. (Because you have to wear padded underwear to sit on them, yeah, they are that uncomfortable.)

Even though it was time to think about dinner, I couldn’t help but wonder who would grab the rest of the pews we had seen in the church that day.  Whose houses or restaurants or perhaps even other places of worship would they end up in?

But let’s get back to dinner. We were out of propane so grilling wasn’t an option, I did have a couple of filet mignons in the fridge and since it was Cinco de Mayo, I thought why not slice up the steaks and stuff them in a flour tortilla!  Of course as I was trying to broil the steaks in the toaster oven (which didn’t work they just turned an icky grey color), I kept staring at the gas line we had installed three weeks ago wishing that 1) the kitchen was finished and 2) the kitchen had at least a stove that could have sizzled up these babies in no time.

I finished the steaks in a frying pan on the burner; we sliced them up, they were edible. I also made a salad I’ve been making frequently these days (courtesy of Jamie Oliver) by combining roasted carrots, lots of fresh parsley and slices of avocado and red onion topped with a zesty lemon dressing and cubes of Havarti cheese. Ok, so it’s not particularly low cal but it’s really really awesome!

Unfortunately, we didn’t get a lot done that weekend because of our little church pew excursion. Lynn did however manage to paint the door going down to the basement. I loved the way he covered the “port hole” windows in the door by putting paper plates on them! Really, I think this is such a funny look, I might actually insist the door stays that way.

And while we did manage to BUY ALL THE DOOR KNOBS WE NEED FOR EVERY SINGLE DOOR IN THE HOUSE, they, alas, are still sitting in a big pile as you walk into the house.

For those of you who don’t know what farm fresh eggs look like- they look like this – some are brown, some are beige and some are even tinged a bit green! Oh, yeah, they come in all different sizes, too – just like people. And that’s as philosophical as I’m going to get…today…

I said goodbye to 2012 realizing that there are quite a few dishes I never used to eat but do now (herring and sardines for example), things I shouldn’t be eating, but crave (chocolate, cheese, bread and pasta), and certain dishes I’d like to simply forget (dry chicken and grilled pizza).

Here though is my year end wrap up of what I think I liked the most.  Remember though, since I have no working kitchen, the following pictures show what I had to work with, namely my “stove,” my “dishwasher” and my “oven.”

2012 saw us eating: Fondue, Fried Green Tomatoes, Farmer’s Market Orange Beets with Jones Family Farm Goat Cheese, Peach Tart, Carbonara(!), Soft Shell Crab, Lobster Claws, Homemade Rosemary Bread, Crepes (both savory and sweet), Shrimp in Green Sauce, French Toast, Burrata, and lots and lots of tomatoes.

Reviewing this list, I realized we did eat chicken and duck and hamburgers and an occasional steak or two but they simply didn’t photograph well. The chicken often looked burnt and the hamburgers misshapen and greasy. This, I think, will please my vegetarian and vegan readers.

If you’re not hungry after looking at these photographs, you should be! Happy New Year!

Suddenly, however, trying to find a college that 1) interests her and 2) that we can manage with the help of lots of student loans has become nearly a full-time job for me.

While this article may not seem relative to post on the Red House site at all, in fact there are some instances when it actually is the perfect place to rant, I mean, talk about a college road trip. Why?  Because,

#1 Doing a college road trip involved being able to stay at the Red House (thus saving $ on a hotel room).

#2 One of the colleges (note the use of the word one, as in single, as in uno, as in the only one) was a mere 1.5 hours from the Red House.

Which is how at 6:30 a.m. on the Sunday morning before the Thanksgiving holiday, we found ourselves in the car and heading towards Rhode Island.  But first, we needed to stop at the local bagel store.  Unlike, one of my fellow bloggers (that would be you, Dad), who does not like to eat while driving, I’m quite happy with noshing as I drive.

It turns out that this would be quite a day for noshing, since after we finished our bagels, Rachel curled up in the back surrounded by enough pillows and blankets to keep her warm in sub-zero weather, and fell asleep. But when she woke up, she reached for a box of Ritz crackers and pretty much ate the whole thing herself!

Lots of snacks on this road trip!

Since we had left so friggin early in the morning, we got to college #1 (in Rhode Island) in under 3 hours.  We walked around campus and it was eerily quiet which led me to think the kids were already on Thanksgiving break.  This however was not the case since when we ventured into the student union, a friendly staff member told us that the kids simply like to “sleep in” on Sunday mornings.  Oh yeah, I had almost forgotten what that was like (at least to “sleep in” past nine anyway).

We continued on.  It was still early and we decided before we drove to see college #2 in Providence we would make a detour to Newport.  I love Newport! When the kids were little, Lynn and I would often visit the town when we needed a quick getaway.  Rachel had been to Newport before (we had taken her to see The Breakers) but alas, she didn’t remember it.

So although she was impressed with all the mansions she was seeing in Newport (Mom, why can’t we live in one of those?), she wasn’t too keen on getting out of the car.  I persuaded her it was a gorgeous day, let’s do the cliff walk.

The Cliff Walk in Newport

I even saw her sneak a picture or two of the ocean, so I knew even though she had complained, she thought it was pretty.

We kept driving. And got lost once we hit Providence.  Now, Lynn and I have been to Providence a couple of times, hitting a particularly good restaurant one afternoon, but this day it seemed we kept driving in circles and the town seemed kind of dead.  All three of us  wanted a cup of “chowda” and maybe a lobster roll if we were really lucky.  We were! We stumbled upon a bistro-type of place that made a decent New England clam chowder and did a Lobster Club sandwich with fries that was pretty darn good.

After lunch we visited college #2, were not terribly impressed, and got back in the car.  We had planned that night to stay at the Red House and once again, overestimated our driving time.  But I have to segue here just a bit. I know I’m probably the only mom ever to take a cooler filled with food on the college road trip circuit. (And I’m not talking about lunch!)  That’s because I had visions of us reaching the Red House after 10 p.m. (when nothing would be open). We, in fact, arrived shortly after 6 p.m.  That meant we had ample time to finish the few remaining Ritz crackers Rachel had not consumed in the car and a nice piece of Brie.

A Really Nice Brie

From the cooler I took out a couple of steaks I thought we could put on the grill, a tupperware container filled with roasted rosemary-flavored potatoes I had made the night before, and some lettuce for a salad.  The potatoes I was able to warm up in the wok, and the steaks we put on the grill.  What we didn’t realize is since we had been grilling all summer, our propane was seriously low  — so low in fact that we decided to only light one side of the grill, thinking we could conserve a little fuel that way.  It was too dark outside to see what we were doing anyway, so we just left the steaks on the grill until we were really hungry.  Let’s just say, they were done enough.

We ate, we drank and then it was not even 8:30 and there was nothing much to do.  Remember, at the Red House, we have no TV, no DVD player, and believe it or not, I had not brought my computer up with me. (A real vacation!) It was too early to go to sleep, and since Rachel had slept most of the time when we were driving anyway,  I figured she was good for another 6 or 7 hours! That’s when I was introduced to “Words With Friends” which is kind of like playing scrabble except you play it on your i-phone!  This lasted about an hour and as you can see from our scores, Rachel was very determined to beat me. Oh yeah, note the words “poor” which is what we will be after this college experience but hopefully not “poor” enough so we can still “eat”!

Our Only "Game"

Road Trip Day #2

For some reason, breakfast just tastes better at the Red House.  I made a huge ham and cheese omelet for the three of us to share, warmed up some mini bagels in the toaster oven, made a big pot of coffee, and it was a late enough breakfast to last us through a visit to college #3.

I absolutely have to mention that this is the outfit Rachel slept in at the Red House (this year’s Halloween costume) and wore to breakfast! “Mom, it’s warm and fuzzy,” is what she said to me.

Daughter as Power Ranger?

Obviously, we were having way too much fun here. Perhaps she should pursue acting? Why were we looking at colleges with Criminal Justice/Psychology programs anyway?

When we finally left the house a few hours later, I have to admit I cheated a little.  I really want her to go to college #3 (state school, lovely campus, nice town) so I took the scenic route.  That would be the one that goes past lots of pretty little lakes and charming towns filled with antique stores.  She slept the entire way.

We were early for our tour, drove around town, then walked around most of the campus ourselves.  We stopped to have a cup of coffee and split a piece of cake.  We finally had the tour (us and only one other family), and this campus was empty, too, not because the kids were sleeping, but in fact everyone had already gone home.

It was nearly 3 p.m. when we got back on the road when Rachel decided she was hungry (again) so we stopped at a Mickey D’s (don’t tell anyone!) and got fries and cheeseburgers for the road.

After our trip, I felt as turbulent as the waves I had seen on the cliff walk 24 hours prior.

Ocean View From The Cliffwalk

I was wondering how many more colleges we would be visiting in the next few weeks…and all the money we would need to come up with to make this happen for her. Because I’ve realized one really simple equation:

College = No Money for the Red House

But I’m good with that, who needs a kitchen anyway?

P.S. This week we found out Rachel was accepted to a college which was not one of the three we visited that weekend.  It is also the most expensive one.

P.S.S. Have I ever mentioned how very much I like my one burner?  I think so.

The "Flame" As We Know It

So, when Lynn comes up for the weekend and brings Nick with him, I surprise myself by not screaming “but I’m on vacation, I don’t want to cook,” and instead think, “Wow, what can I make?”

It’s sad but true.  Here I was a mere two weeks into my granola for breakfast, fruit for lunch, and salad for dinner routine and now I was happy I could do a modest family meal?  You betcha.

But this story needs to start the night before.  You see the previous night I started thinking about dessert (perhaps because of my modest calorie intake this week?), which is always a challenge with these two because Lynn doesn’t like dessert and Nick’s stomach usually can’t tolerate anything remotely dairy-like (i.e., good stuff like ice cream and whipped cream.)

Still.  I had a container of vanilla ice cream on hand and a box of chocolate chip cookies I had picked up and thought, wow, I could so do mini ice cream sandwiches! Except it was 76 degrees in the room and when I took the ice cream out of the freezer and held the container, it had kind of a squishy feel to it.  This meant I had to work quickly.

Too Hot to Make Ice Cream Sandwiches

I laid out the cookies on a piece of wax paper and put a tiny scoop of ice cream on what would be the bottom half. Don’t they look adorable?

Yummy Ice Cream Sandwiches (Next time do it in the winter)

I then put another cookie on top, lightly pressed them together, and tried to quickly wrap each one in wax paper and get it into the freezer.  In theory, this might have worked fine had the ice cream not melted nearly instantaneously between each cookie!  I mean was the room so hot that my cookies already had a “fresh out of the oven” temperature without that actually being the case?

Well, They Kind of Look Good

“Dessert” done, the next morning I woke up and realized I needed a plan. I’m one of those strange people that usually has to visit a supermarket (any old one will usually do) in order to get an idea for dinner.  That theory doesn’t work up at the Red House. I decided I’d simply have to make do with what I had in my fridge and freezer. Ok, so I did cheat a little because I was fairly well stocked and managed to pull out a big bag of red potatoes, a couple of red onions, some tiny grape tomatoes and a very lovely and surprisingly inexpensive pork loin I had picked up the last time I was in town.

And then I headed out to the garden.  No, I wasn’t skipping as I made my way there, but you know, it’s quite uplifting when I think that if I want a salad for dinner, I can wander into my garden and simply get some! So, after ripping off some of the green leaves, I looked around to see what else was ripe, namely basil and yellow squash and picked that, too.  I snipped some fresh tarragon and chives and brought everything inside.

Since I knew how long it would take to get water boiling on the side burner of the grill, I peeled the red potatoes and put them in a pan of water to let them do their thing.  I then decided to make a side dish of the squash, red onion, tomatoes and basil, so I cut everything up into funny little pieces and tossed it with some olive oil and decent red wine vinegar.

Perfect Summer Squash Salad

I washed the lettuce and plated it and looked at the pork roast.  Since I still had a couple of work-related projects I wanted to finish before the “boys” got there, I simply couldn’t fathom babysitting a pork loin on the grill for the few hours I had left to get everything done. So, I cheated again.  I put the pork loin on a metal pan and popped it in the toaster oven.  Surrounded as it was by small tomatoes and dusted with paprika, tarragon and salt and pepper, it turned out exactly the same way I make it at home.

Simple Pork Roast, Roasted Tomatoes

But that wasn’t the final version of the dish.  I actually had the chutzpah (yes!) to brush on some BBQ sauce and wrap the whole thing up in tinfoil and put it on the grill.  It gave the pork roast the appropriate smokey flavor I needed without me worrying about cooking it outside. Plus, I knew they liked BBQ so I thought I’d let them think this was the real deal.

By now the potatoes had cooked, I drained them, and mixed everything together with some mayonnaise and both fresh and dried tarragon. (Why not, I had both, why not use both!)

Red-Skinned Potato Salad

And last but not least, because they’re both men, and I knew would enjoy some bread to go with this “BBQ,” I wrapped up a hero roll (also known as a grinder in these parts of the woods) in some tinfoil, and made “garlic” bread.  Why the quotations around the word garlic? Because in our house even though we call any kind of bread that we slice and slather with a combination of butter and/or olive oil and a good shake of dried “Italian” herbs on top as garlic bread, we actually rarely put garlic in the loaf.

"Garlic" Bread

They eat almost everything and most importantly,  I welcome their company. The cookies?  Well, let’s just say it was a good idea at the time.

1.  We tore down a part of the house that had a kitchen and bathroom whose roof had collapsed and we started framing a new one.

2.  We put in a new furnace, but left the old one it its place.

3. We tore out two bedrooms that were basically useless and decided to make one big master bedroom suite.

4. We sheetrocked 5 rooms (partially).

5. And primed one staircase wall.

6. We redid the bathroom to make it ok for now.

7. And primed a small room which hopefully one day will house a piano.

8. We nearly finished painting the family room.

9. And for the first time ever will have a kitchen that has a fan and two overhead lights.

10. We learned how to mow the lawn on a ride-on lawnmower.

11. And how to do dishes by hand (again).

12. We learned that even if you have no heat in the house and sleep with your clothes on, you won’t freeze to death.

13. We learned that contrary to popular belief, if red wine is too cold, it’s bad stuff.

14. We learned not to be afraid of bugs that suddenly appear out of nowhere, of snakes that slither out of the garage, and chipmunks that like to sit in the middle of the driveway just as you want to start the car.

15. We learned that country life is slower.

16. And that you really don’t need a stove to put a meal on the table.

17. We learned to cherish the bounty of our summer garden.

18. And that if you take a 15 minute nap in the hammock even with all the work that needs to be done, it’s not the end of the world.

19. We learned that watching a movie at night on a laptop works just fine.

20. And that even if you have worked all day, hit traffic, and don’t get up to the Red House until after midnight and there’s five feet of snow in your driveway, you still have to shovel a path to the door or there’s no way in hell you are getting inside!

21. That sharing one bathroom, is ok, too.

22. We also learned that we shouldn’t be running to the window every time we see the Amish family driving down the road in their buggy as if they were some sort of exotic creature, or something.

23. We also learned that if we wanted any “fancy food” up at the Red House, we had to bring it with us.

24. And that because of technology we can never truly “escape.”

25. Most of all we learned we don’t fight up at the Red House. Ever. This last point is particularly nice since we’ll be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary in a few months.

On that somewhat positive note, it’s really kind of amazing everything we’ve learned to do in one year! Last year at the Red House, our 4th of July was kind of quiet.  We were probably in a state of shock about how much work we were facing. This year, we arrived a few days prior to the 4th, and were able to catch a glimpse of a small fireworks display in the distance, if we stood on our tippy toes and peered over the ever-growing bamboo forest.

To celebrate the 4th and how much we’ve accomplished (with lots more to go), I decided anyone can put a hot dog or a hamburger on the grill.  But since I always like to be a tad different, this is what we ate at the Red House on the 4th of July.

For breakfast, I made an omelet which stuck to the pan I was cooking it in because I simply couldn’t get the pan hot enough since I only had the side burner of the grill to use.  Working on the theory that if I covered the pan with a lid the eggs would “steam,” and thus, somehow warm the ingredients inside, I did just that. So while it may not have been the best omelet I ever made, it was decent enough.  Loaded with cheese, red onions, and even a jalapeno from the garden, the spicy factor started off the morning with a bit of a bang (sorry, couldn’t resist) in anticipation of the holiday.

Japalepeno, Red Onion and Cheese Omelet

After breakfast and running a few errands, Lynn came back to the house and started sanding the sheetrock in the living room.  Even though he hung a thick roll of plastic between the living room and dining room, it didn’t help much since dust was everywhere. Consequently, we spent much of the day coughing and rubbing our eyes from it and saying to each other, “this can’t be good.”

He kept working but I started to think about dinner. My original plan had been to make lamb burgers. But since ground lamb, which had once been fairly cheap had suddenly become trendy and thus overpriced, I picked up a package of chopped pork instead.  My idea? Pork burgers with gorgonzola on top.  I unwrapped the package, made lovely little patties by hand, and carefully crowned them with tiny balls of cheese, then put them on the grill. They cooked up fairly nicely (quickly, too), and I think they looked quite presentable on the plate!

Pork Burgers with Gorgonzola

I picked some fresh lettuce from the garden, made a simple salad, and also fried up some potatoes. Unfortunately, I started the potato portion of the meal during cocktail hour and actually forgot about them, so they well, got a bit dark. Luckily, Lynn likes anything that’s remotely spud-like and burnt to boot, so he was still pretty happy with this dish.

Burnt Potatoes

Finally, to end the holiday on a sweet note, I emptied an entire container of raspberries onto half a pint of vanilla ice cream into a single bowl, stuck in two spoons, and we ate the whole thing in about 10 seconds flat.

Happy 4th!

Fresh Raspberries and Vanilla Ice Cream

I can’t. My colander does many things. I use it as a bowl when I’m picking fresh produce from the garden, as a strainer to drain potatoes or pasta, and when I’m done prepping, to carry whatever fruit or vegetable peelings I’m left with out to the compost bin.  My other absolute must-haves when grilling and cooking outdoors are a few decent knifes, a cutting board, and pans that can double for many uses.

The Colander I Can't Live Without

The one thing we both agree on, however, is that while getting the food and prepping might be cumbersome when you’re camping outdoors, the real problem is when you are relying on a grill (or any kind of outdoor flame for that matter) to cook your food, it takes a really, really long time.

Consequently, if I add up the time spent trying to put breakfast, lunch and dinner on the table at the Red  House, you’ll understand why the renovation is taking so long. (Because I’m cooking, not hammering!)

Breakfast:

My husband never had a steak for breakfast in his life until he met my Dad and my brother.  The family ritual was to have steak and eggs on Christmas morning.  Maybe it was a guy thing, since I’ll take some smoked salmon and a hard boiled egg with a fruit salad chaser over a steak any day.  Up at the Red House, though, steak and eggs just sounded like a really good breakfast to have if you were facing a grueling day of sanding a wall or two followed by a few coats of primer.

Thing is the grill we have kind of slants to one side (even after moving it around to different parts of the driveway), and instead of fussing with it, we just lived with the fact that everything we put on the grill pan always slides to the left.  Now, perhaps in certain circles this might have some sort of political connotation — at the Red House it simply means we have to fix the driveway!

See how the steak and eggs just cozy up to one another?  I love it. And yes, they were tasty, too.

Real Steak and Eggs

Lunch:

Remember the scene in The Company Men where Kevin Costner tells Ben Affleck to pick up two pieces of sheetrock the next time he’s carrying something into the house they are renovating?  Well, that’s kind of how I’m feeling about this house renovation right now; we need to both work harder and faster. Consequently, I feel that if Lynn and I are both doing a fairly decent amount of physical labor (he more than me, I will confess), it at least justifies eating hearty meals.  Well, sort of.  This probably explains why my husband didn’t even blink when I suggested we have pasta with broccoli rabe followed by barbequed chicken AND country-style pork ribs for lunch.

However, to make the broccoli rabe, I needed to put up a pan of water on the grill’s side burner about an hour before I wanted to eat.  After about half an hour of waiting for the water to boil (it never did; there were simply a few bubbles and a lot of steam emitting from the pan), I simply threw the macaroni in and stirred it a couple of times.  But here’s the thing, pasta that sits in warm but not boiling water like this and desperately tries to get itself  “cooked,” has a slightly different, kind of gummy taste.

Brings New Meaning To Cooking Outdoors

When I figured it was done enough, I strained the pasta into my beloved colander, then sauteed the broccoli rabe with some olive oil and threw the pasta on top of it.  I had forgotten to buy garlic but did have some red pepper flakes and a chunk of real parmesan cheese to grate on top so it wasn’t a total disaster.

Elbow Macaroni with Broccoli Rabe

Chicken and Ribs

Any sane person eating this much food for lunch (with a couple of bottles of Canadian beer no less) should have taken a nap.  I went out to weed the garden and Lynn got on the Troy Bilt to mow the lawn!

Dinner:

Well, I confess, I did cheat a little since I brought our first course from downstate — lovely balls of burrata that I plated with some grape tomatoes (store-bought, sorry!) but with fresh basil from the garden.

I do need to segue just a tad here for two reasons.  #1 I love burrata and when I’m feeling particularly flush (which is hardly ever), I buy the real stuff that comes in little plastic bags and is flown in daily from Italy.  The key word in that sentence, so you have an idea how outrageously expensive authentic burrata is, is ‘flown.” (As in there are lots of darling little burratas flying first class on Alitalia.)  Better option: Trader Joe’s makes a decent product  for under $5 that I’ve become slightly addicted to.  #2 I love burrata so much that when I read Gabrielle Hamilton’s book, Blood, Bones & Butter, and she talks about digging spoons into a big platter of lovely rounds of burrata instead of a boring old wedding cake, I thought what a brilliant idea!

Lovely Burrata

Meanwhile, back on the range (literally),  I had a fire going under some lamb chops topped with fresh mint from the garden.  In fairness, it looked pretty as it was cooking, but imparted absolutely no mint flavor whatsoever, which was actually perfectly fine with me since I’m not a big mint fan anyway.

Lamb Chops with Fresh Mint from the Garden

Earlier in the day (when I was weeding the garden actually), I had picked some yellow squash to eat with the lamb chops as well as some lettuce.

Freshly Picked Squash

Amazing Lettuce

I felt lucky that I was able to put together a few side dishes courtesy of my new garden but it did make me pause and think about the Red House and what it was like as a working farm a hundred years ago.  What were the people who were living here cooking, growing, and ultimately eating?  I’d love to know.  One thing I’m absolutely positive about, even 150 years later, we were both washing dishes at the end of every meal the old fashioned way — by hand!

Old School Dishwashing

SCARY BASEMENT STAIRS

When we bought the house, we weren’t sure of the condition of the furnace.  That’s the deal with foreclosures; you may be paying close to nothing for a dwelling but once inside, you may find that in fact you just bought the structure and the property – there may be no heat or running water. We were lucky in that we are on a town water and sewer line and the water was just fine. (Exceptional really!)  This is also the first house we’ve lived in that had a hot water heater so there would always be an ample supply of hot water to shower in.  Heating this house however was a whole other issue.

OUR VERY FIRST HOT WATER HEATER

First of all, the house is not very well insulated coupled with the fact that most of the windows are broken.  The house has two separate thermostats and when we walked in the house Friday night, we immediately turned the thermostats up to 70 degrees then went downstairs to turn on the water.  Problem is while there are many radiators in the house, and large ones too boot, it takes a long time for those radiators to warm up.  And even when they do warm up, they never get really hot, just mildly warm.

ONE OF MANY OLD SCHOOL RADIATORS

That’s why whenever I know we are going up to the Red House on a Friday night and will be arriving late, I try to have a hot soup on hand as a first course that we can heat up.

I’ve also become dependent on my local Stewart’s since I’m a bit lazy in the morning preferring to have breakfast “fixings” on hand rather than have to first go out and get them in the morning.  I had heard over the summer that Stewart’s closes around 10 or 10:30 in the winter months but luckily when we drove up Friday night shortly after 10 p.m., it was in fact open until 11:30 every night.  Whew!  I stocked up on butter, rye bread (in name only, it wasn’t really rye bread it was just a shade darker than the white bread), orange juice, milk and eggs.

BREAKFAST!

After turning the heat and water on and unpacking the car, I warmed up the soup, cut up some leftover French bread to grill and thought about how to warm up the pork tenderloin I had cooked the night before.  I decided to cut the tenderloin into thick slices then put it in a large wok-like pan with some olive oil and a little white wine.  As it started to warm up, I also threw in the carrots and onions I had roasted and put some fresh cilantro on top of that.  Lid on the pan, we were able to have a vodka aperitif as it was warming.

DRINKS AT THE RED HOUSE

Biggest problem of the evening?  The bottle of red wine we opened was nearly too cold to drink.  I tried cupping the glass in my hands to warm it up but it didn’t help any.  We drank the cold wine anyway, ate quickly, washed the dishes and were thankful we had big heavy quilts to crawl under in the bedrooms upstairs.

Next morning was no different, the living room was pretty cold and when I put my hand up to the window, cold air was rushing in.  Perhaps that’s why the previous owners had put a strip of duct tape where the window meets the sill?

BROKEN WINDOWS

While I do miss not having a kitchen, I’ve decided that my first priority for the Red House is new windows followed by an energy efficient furnace.  Look at this thing, it’s really scary. It also makes a lot of noise and literally causes the dining room table to vibrate since it’s directly below where we eat.

OLD COAL FURNACE CONVERTED TO GAS

I do have lots of ideas though about transforming a scary basement into a usable one.  The basement has an old stone foundation that curves just so.  It will be a great place to store wine; wine that hopefully one day will always be at the proper temperature.

Cheers!

FUTURE WINE CELLAR?