Death by fruit, part 3; dinner; goodbye

You guys, I've started to resent the fruit. The blackberries, raspberries, purple plums, most yellow plums and the majority of peaches and tomatoes are successfully put away. It has been a damn marathon. Mostly fun, now less so. 

Today I made lightly spiced plum jam, froze an arseload of peaches and berries and made a peach-blackberry pie which is, admittedly, divine. The highlight was the off-the-hook fabulous tomato-saffron tomato sauce I put atop paccheri for dinner. Blissful. Every single bite.

peach and blackberry pie, pre-top crust

paccheri with tomato-saffron sauce

Because I am now retching on the couch whilst trying to block my ears from the Republican clown car "debate," I am going to go pack because I leave for Amherst, MA, first thing in the morning. 

Why am I going, you might wonder? I am heading to what promises to be an amazing writing retreat with the inestimable Jena Schwartz and six incredible women I've gotten to know by writing with her. We are heading there tomorrow, like bees to a hive, to connect, write and laugh for forty-eight glorious hours. I'm so lucky! 

I'm considering taking the weekend off from Em-i-lis so that I can leave my laptop at home and simply be present there. If I'm radio silent until Sunday night, that's why. 

Thank you to everyone who read my essay on Mamalode today and showered me with love and support about it. Love you back! And I'm so glad it resonated with you.

Comfort Friday

T gave me the best surprise this afternoon: though he has a cold, he took an early train, got home before pick-up, picked the boys up and took them to baseball practice. Aah! I finished my presentation for tomorrow, did a bunch of stuff for the kids school and made dinner for both the boys and us. So, so nice! I still needed to deal with my yellow Romas so made up another sauce and then decided to do a paccheri bake. As you might recall from trips to Italy and Italian markets in the States, I love paccheri and bring it home whenever I can. It is such a great pasta. I like that it's tubular but not ridged at all like penne or such; the smoothness of paccheri pleases me infinitely.

So I boiled some until al dente, tossed them with my golden sauce and the leftover ricotta I had in my fridge as well as some chopped basil from my deck plant and dumped them gently into my new baker (the one that matches the new platter; heh). Then I sprinkled some fresh breadcrumbs on top, grated a bunch of pecorino on top and baked for 12 minutes. It was lovely, like healthy mac-and-cheese.

Pleasing pasta, RomNO

I have been on a real tear to clean out the pantry lately so tonight we bid arrivederci to all available paccheri. Bye bye fat, tubular Italian yumminess. To top it, I used up the rest of our Cibola Farms sweet Italian sausage (seriously, head to some DC-area farmers market and visit Cibola Farms; wowzers!), the rest of my Tuscan kale, some mascarpone, Parm and red pepper flakes. This was not out of this world but it was good and was an easy, satisfying dinner.

You guys, is Romney pulling a Palin, by which I mean he's going down in flames and thusly avoiding the media at all costs? He cancelled his campaign event in Kettering, OH, by "suspending" it -John McCain redux anyone?- only to host another event in the same spot in Kettering, OH, during which he offered the Red Cross canned goods his campaign bought and which they (the Red Cross) don't want.

What is wrong with Donald Trump? Why is he orange? Why is his hair like it is? Why doesn't Melania do something about said hair? Why is he trying to pay off our President? And is he serious that he extended his offer because of Hurricane Sandy? Who keeps his/her passport application? Don't you have to surrender that when you apply?? Mother of god.

Go Chris Christie! NJ, I am so sorry.