Marla in the Kitchen

ABBA, Dancing Queen

http://www.youtube.com/embed/xFrGuyw1V8s

In 1989, the Sweetie and I bought my Aunt Normie’s house on Vashon. The house sat back from the road on a high-bank waterfront with a view of Quartermaster Harbor, the Yacht Club, and Mt. Rainier. The decorating style was true to the 1970s and featured a small, separate kitchen, avocado green appliances, formica in the kitchen and bathrooms, oak everywhere, a spindled room divider, and gold, shag wall-to-wall carpet. I had loved the house for years and was thrilled with every detail…except for the gold shag wall-to-wall carpet. As soon as we had a little stash saved up, we tore out the gold shag and installed quieter, sage green plush. It never occurred to us to replace it with hard wood floors, that was a trend yet to come.

Our current house, built in 2016, is also true to the decorating styles of its decade: open concept, stainless steel appliances, subway-tile in the kitchen and bathrooms, and…beige, wall-to-wall, contractor-grade carpet. As soon as we had a little stash saved up, we replaced the wall-to-wall with hard surface flooring, it never occurred to us to replace it with better carpet.

As I stopped following decorating trends years ago, I thought I would check in with Mr. Google to see what’s in and what’s out. I’ve been out for so long that the cycle has started over again: floral wallpaper is in; mixing Gramma’s wicker, ruffles, and chintz with modern touches (called “grandmillennial style”) is in; tapestries are back (time to pull your mother’s William Morris out from under the bed); “whimsical” bathrooms are in; black and white is in but all white is out, barn doors are out, word art is over, the Italian villa kitchen look is passé (Oh no, what to do with all that gold-veined marble), your futon is no longer relevant, and that zebra rug in front of the futon…out it goes. Don’t know what world these people live in, but no one I know would toss a perfectly good zebra rug.

There is one “in” trend that I consistently support: “layering new and old”, although my decor tends more toward the layering of old and old. Our furniture is piecemeal: a cabinet given to us in 1983 by LA apartment neighbors, Bob’s grandpa’s buffet and dining room chairs, an oak table Beth used for years and returned with the broken extensions fixed by her father, a funky, green chest built by Irvine Allen, a leather couch bought during one of Ted’s Eugene visits, the black bedroom dresser—a gift from our 501 neighbor Anne’s sister, and the yellow table lamp, brought along from another life. Ginny has been a big factor in our decorating style, both inside and out. In 1979 she recovered a rocker I bought at Grannie’s, one year she made me the cutest ever bark cloth foot stool, and this year she donated a stunning red leather chair and red metal table for the office—also a Grannie’s find, recovered a beautiful side chair she found on the sidewalk, and…lugged the stump of my dreams up from the beach.

My new stump

New chair, old buffet, Grampa chairs, Beth’s table

Spiffy bird-watching footstool

Regardless of what the trends are, I will always love solid wood doors, hardwood floors, subway tiles, white kitchens, concrete counters and floors, glass brick walls, mosaic anything, rocking chairs, oriental rugs, stained glass windows, braided wool rugs, long dining room tables, kitchen slide-in booths, folding room dividers, and, last but not least, quilts everywhere.

A quilt for every nap.

Ginny’s work in progress.

Porcupine meatballs

Meatballs:

• 1 1/2 cups cooked, cooled, long grain rice
• 2 pounds 80/20 ground beef
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 medium onion, minced
• 1 Tbl minced garlic
• 1 tsp parsley
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1/2 tsp basil
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 3/4 tsp black pepper
• 2 slices of bread, torn
• 1/4 cup milk

Sauce:

• 1 23 ounce can condensed tomato soup
• 1 cup beef stock or water
• 8 ounces tomato paste
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp parsley
• 1/2 tsp basil
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

Instructions:

• Make the Sauce
• Preheat the oven to 350F.
• In a bowl, add all sauce ingredients and whisk to combine. Set aside.

Meatballs:

• In a small bowl add the bread and milk and gently press down. Allow to soak for 5 minutes.
• In a large bowl add the rest of the meatball ingredients. Add the panade mixture (milk and bread) to the bowl. Without overworking the mixture, gently mix just to combine. The mixture should be wet but hold a shape when you form it into a ball.
• Scoop enough meat mixture to form a 2” round ball. Wet your hands and shape. Damp hands are a trick to keeping the mixture from sticking to your hands.
• Place the meatballs in a 3-4 quart baking dish or 9×13” baking pan. They can touch. Repeat until all of the meatballs are shaped and in a pan. If necessary, use 2 pans if you do not have a large enough pan. Assemble and bake
• Pour the mixture over top of the meatballs. Cover the meatballs with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
• Remove the cover and bake for another 20-25 minutes or until the internal temperature reads 165F.

September of My Years, Frank Sinatra

“One day you turn around and it’s summer. Next day you turn around and it’s fall. And all the winters and the springs of a lifetime, whatever happened to them all?”

September’s slight melancholy inspires song writers: See You in September, September in the Rain, September Song, Try to Remember—all about lost love and remembering. I slip into a mood on the first whiff of autumn and stay there until my birthday. What happened to summer? How could it be Labor Day? Where have all the flowers gone? But we all know that once firecrackers light up skies on the Fourth of July and send the poor doggies onto your lap, the next time you turn around, it’s Fall.

Any gardener knows the end is near by looking out the window at the flowers, the zucchini, and the fruit trees. Dahlias scream out in reds, yellows, and peaches; those vulnerable hanging baskets whine for an everyday watering; any squash plant worth it’s salt has taken over the garden, hiding zucchini the size of seals beneath it’s broad leaves; if we’re lucky tomato vines hang heavy with red orbs; red chard challenges the cook to keep up with its output; and if it’s that every other year, Italian plum tree branches droop with juicy purple fruit and mean wasps.

As I rely on the kindness of friends and family for plums, Ginny again graciously offered her plum bounty for jam and chutney. The mornings warn of the coming change of seasons and when I got up today I felt that exact moment when I know for sure that summer is not going to last forever. It’s dark when I get up in the morning, the sun sets later every night, I saw my first fallen red leaf the other day, the grosbeaks are gone, the spiders are busy building webs, Chipper Jones, the chipmunk, cheeks bulging with bird feeder droppings, scurries back and forth hoarding for the lean season; and mournful geese, flying in neat, V-shape silhouettes, honk across the sky.

According to our TV Weather Blonde, September will be unusually warm, but we all know what’s coming.

Plum Streusel Tart (an old City Restaurant dessert— steppy, but worth the trouble).

Paté Sucre

8 Tbs. (1 stick unsalted butter), softened

1 cup + 6 Tbs. powdered sugar, sifted

1 egg

1 tsp. salt

1 3⁄4 cup flour

In an electric mixer, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and salt, and beat until combined. Add flour, all at once, and slowly mix until flour is evenly moistened. (Don’t mix until a ball forms around the beaters).

Transfer to a plastic bag and form dough into a 6” log. Seal bag, pressing out any air, and refrigerate at least 4 hours.

Divide log in half for one tart. To roll, soften dough by pressing it with your hands until soft and malleable. Form a 4” round disk. On a lightly floured board, roll from center out, lifting dough, turning slightly, to prevent sticking. Roll dough to 1/8 inch thickness.

Fold dough in half, and lift into tart pan. Unfold and press gently into bottom and up the sides. Chill 1⁄2 hour before baking.

Almond Cream

1⁄2 cup + 1 Tbs. granulated sugar

1 cup almonds (I’ve used both blanched and unblanched)

9 Tbs. unsalted butter

1 egg

1 egg yolk

1 tsp. vanilla

Process sugar and almonds in a food processor until fine. Add butter, one Tbs. at a time, pulsing after each addition until smooth. Add remaining ingredients and process until smooth. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Streusel

1⁄2 cup packed brown sugar

7 Tbs. unsalted butter, room temperature

1 tsp. cinnamon

1⁄4 tsp. salt

1 cup + 2 Tbs. flour

Cream together sugar and butter until smooth. Add cinnamon and salt and mix until blended. Add flour. Mix with your fingers just until crumbly.

To assemble tart

Roll Paté Sucre and use to line a 10” tart pan with removable bottom. Preheat oven to 350 ̊. Bake empty tart shell for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and spread almond cream in hot tart shell. Bake another 10 minutes. Remove from oven.

Cut 8-10 plums in half and remove pits. Arrange plums, cut side down, over baked almond cream; sprinkle with streusel and bake 20-30 minutes, until plums are soft and crust is golden brown.

Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. 

Plum Chutney 

10# Italian plums (preferably free from a friend) 

3 c. sugar (or part sugar, part Splenda) 

1 c. rice wine vinegar (cider vinegar works too but is stronger) 

1⁄2 c. fresh chopped ginger 

3 T. chopped garlic 

1 t. nutmeg 

1 T. cinnamon 

1 t. allspice 

1⁄2 t. salt 

1⁄4 t. cayenne pepper 

Combine all and cook two-three hours until thickened. The last hour is very tricky—I’ve ruined more than one pot by not minding the plums. Be sure to stir occasionally during the first two hours, and frequently (almost constantly) during the last hour. Process in a hot water bath for 25 minutes.

 Taken in our Eugene backyard 

My very own beets

When I was a kid, my summer backyard always included a vegetable garden. Daddy did the up-front work: the hoeing, planting, weeding, and harvesting; Muth dealt with the results: the washing, cooking, and canning. Not much was expected of us three girls. We sat in the garden among the August tomatoes, kitchen salt shaker in hand, rubbing off the dirt and eating the warm red globes out of hand, but didn’t contribute much to the garden’s success.

Thirty years later when we lived on Vashon, the Sweetie wrangled a big vegetable garden. He rototilled every September, mixing in fallen pears, oak leaves, sheep manure, and kelp, planted a winter cover crop, rototilled again in the spring, planted rows of beets, chard, carrots, green beans, lettuce, tomatillos, basil, zucchini, cucumber, and tomatoes; then usually went on the road to work, leaving the bounty of his labor to Muth and I. One summer when he was home on an extended break, there was such an abundance of beets that he canned fifteen quarts of pickled beets. One year, we turned our rare bumper crop of tomatoes into gleaming jars of spaghetti sauce.

If there is a downside to a successful garden, it shows up in too many baskets of tomatoes on the back porch, armfuls of beets heavy with dirt clods sitting on the kitchen counter, a sinkful of chard leaves, and an oh-no-not-another box of zucchini. Now, you can hardly say that my little chard/beet garden defines overabundance, but still… We have chard in some form every day just to keep up: sautéed greens, chard tart, chard/beet/feta pasta, beans & greens soup—we’ve had it all.

Chard, glorious chard

I mean, come on, this is one beautiful beet!

But abundance in a flower garden has no downside. The Sweetie has spent hours on our backyard slope raking, hoeing, adding top soil and compost to the rocks and bad dirt, and eventually sowing three pounds of wildflower seeds—then came the weeding and watering.

Our wildflower season started with drifts of small white flowers, soon little bluebells emerged, followed by splashes  of California poppies. Then came the batchelor buttons, pink and red poppies, and lavender snapdragon-like blooms. We’re now in the red, pink, and white cup-like extravaganza supported by cosmos and accented by black-eyed suzies.

Meanwhile in the raised planter, the nasturtiums have taken charge, those tall red-flowered somebodies tower over everyone, the huge variegated-leaf plant with pink carnation-like flowers threatens to explode, and overseeing his domaine—the purple morning glory, Granda Ott. All in all, our garden spot is certainly not restrained but it is entertaining.

Basil, who moped through May, June, and part of July, hit his stride and insists daily on pizza Margherita, caprese salad, or pesto.

Mophead hydrangea, a spoiled two-year old who is quickly outgrowing her pot, decided to wear pink this year.


Our neighbors’ garden is a glorious extension of abundance: wallflowers, lilies, crocosmia, yarrow, and fuchsia blooms that look just like sparklers.

Swiss chard/beet greens 

• A couple slices of bacon, cut into batons
• A lump of butter
• Half an onion, diced
• Minced garlic
• Chard/beet stems, diced
• If there are any small beets attached to the beet greens, scrub them, cut them into smaller pieces, and add them along with the onions, and chopped stems.
• About twice as much greens as you think 
• Sherry or red wine vinegar
• Olive oil
• Salt and black pepper 

Cram as many greens possible in a small microwaveable dish, sprinkle on some olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Microwave for 3 minutes. Strain, reserving liquid. 

Sauté bacon in butter until softened, add onion, garlic, chard/beet stems, and any beet pieces. Add a splash of water or reserved greens liquid. Sauté for five minutes or so until onions and stems are soft. Cook briskly at the end to reduce liquid. 

Coarse-chop cooked greens and add to onion/bacon/stem mixture. Simmer five minutes. 

In 1982, when the Sweetie and I moved from rainy-day Vashon to semi-arid Los Angeles, we were amazed by the abundance of green, manicured lawns in front yards and the popularity of full, azure-blue swimming pools in back yards. In Westside LA neighborhoods, the grass—a David Hockney still-life of wealth and status—looked like it had escaped from a well-tended golf course. The daily hiss and sprinkle of lawns started up early each morning, along with the aggressive spray of professional hosers cleaning the sidewalks on the UCLA campus near our apartment. Run-off cascaded over the concrete, along sidewalks, down gutters, into storm drains, and out to sea. Yards were green, pools were full—there seemed to be plenty of water.

We were surprised by this mindless waste. In most of Puget Sound, by the end of June the grass is brown, with yellow dandelions and their dark green leaves the only sign of life. But by the first of October, the dormant season is over and Fall rains bring back the green grass.

David Hockney, Montcalm Pool, Los Angeles, 1980

David Hockney, A  Lawn Being Sprinkled, 1967

Our four-year stint in San Diego found front yards sporting the same Hollywood green. In Eugene, Oregon, however, a green lawn was a sign of thoughtless indulgence and if a bike-riding, tree hugger caught you watering your lawn, you were likely to receive a scolding. In Portland, Oregon, old neighborhoods with charming bungalows, flaunt frowsy, weedy, dried-up lawns. In Tacoma, not known for its ecological drift, we scoffed at lawn sprinklers and wore our summer brown grass as a badge of honor.

We currently live in a green-grass-in-the-front-yard zone—not by our own plan or hard work. Community wisdom chooses green, trimmed front lawns kept tidy and manicured by mowers, blowers, weeders, and trimmers. Now, don’t get me wrong—I am pleased as punch to forego the grind of a weekly mow but given the option, I’d prefer Portland blowzy, frowsy or Vashon it’s-July-so-of-course-the-grass-is-brown landscape design.

Chile Verde With White Beans Serves 4

• 1 lb. tomatillos, husks removed, quartered
• 2 avocados, peeled and pitted
• 4 jalapeño chiles
• 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves
• 4 Tbsp. lime juice
• 2 Tbsp. white wine vinegar
• 4 cloves garlic, divided
• 2 Tbsp. sesame seeds, divided
• 3 Tbsp. plus 2 tsp. olive oil, divided
• Salt to taste
• 2 medium yellow onions, diced
• 1 Tbsp. dried Mexican oregano
• 1 tsp. cumin seeds
• 1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 lb. cooked cannellini beans (If using canned, rinse off canning liquid.)
• 2 cups water or vegetable stock
• Juice of 1 Lime 

In a blender, combine tomatillos, avocados, jalapeños, cilantro, lime juice, vinegar, 2 garlic cloves, 1 Tbsp. sesame seeds, 2 tsp. olive oil, and salt. Purée until smooth. 
 

In a heavy soup pot, heat 3 Tbsp. olive oil over medium heat. Slice remaining 2 garlic cloves in half, and cook for 1 minute. Add onions, Mexican oregano, cumin, red pepper flakes, and remaining 1 Tbsp. sesame seeds; cook until onions are translucent, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the tomatillo sauce, beans (if using canned beans, wait until the last 10 minutes of step 4 to add the beans; otherwise they will fall apart) and water or stock. Bring to a simmer and cook for for 30 minutes, stirring often. 

Stir in the lime juice just before serving.