first of the season.

Today we took advantage of a warm(ish), if blustery, day and walked up to Carl's for a #2 (warm ham & American on a soft bun with tomato and shredded lettuce). There is always an extra slice of cheese for the dog on a lunch date at Carl's. Always.

today.

In case you haven't checked your datebook, today is a national holiday called Be Kind to Bryn Day. I get the day off to recognize this special day. In fact, I'm the ONLY one who gets the day off—or who participates, observes or celebrates this day. Which is just as I want it.

I'm taking the day as a respite from a crummy stretch at work. Today is as much about what I'm not doing as what I am. I am not: taking the reins of a heinous project not of my own making, dealing with nasty customer comments as a result of said project, being frustrated by a general lack of respect, and enduring countless little workplace annoyances like microwaves and toilets that don't work properly.

I am: Sitting at Coffee Emporium with an exceptionally good latte, treating myself to a facial, bracing myself for a kickass workout at noon, anticipating a good lunch (more on that in a moment), looking forward to a haircut and planning to enjoy a walk with my boys and a good dinner. Hooray.

So, lunch: From 101Cookbooks, my fave food blog, a salad of spinach, white beans, toasted walnuts, goat cheese, drizzled with good olive oil and sprinkled with a generous touch of coarse salt and ground pepper. Yum.

eat your greens.

On Mark Bittman's new blog on the NYTimes website, which I'm liking (sorry, Bill -- I know you think he's a dunce), he posted a recipe for a simple vinaigrette. It's OK, but I'm not fond of raw shallot in dressing, especially because I tend to make it in a decent quantity and keep it in the fridge for a week or so (at which point the shallot gets too sharp and overpowering). I like this instead, my own variation on a Martha Stewart recipe that I make almost exclusively:

3 T dijon
1 T honey
1/4 cup champagne vinegar
1/4 to 1/3 cup of good olive oil
S+P

I dump it all into an old jam jar with a lid, then shake it all up (really shake it). The oil emulsifies just as if I'd taken the time to whisk it carefully. Come spring when the herb bed wakes up, I'll add some chives, parsley and tarragon -- or, even better, just snip the herbs right into the salad bowl along with the greens.

At Findlay Market last weekend, we came across a local grower who's doing hydroponic lettuce this winter -- she had a huge table of small bushel baskets filled with butterhead and red oakleaf lettuce. Delish.

It really made me (even more!) itchy to plant my vegetable garden. I took graph paper, pencil and my garden-plotting template and, with my Cook's Garden catalog for reference, sketched out how the veggie bed will come together. Here's what's to come:

Tomatoes -- one plant in each of the 4 corners
Zucchini and cucumbers -- on the short sides of the bed, trailing up on the same support system that will manage the tomatoes. I hadn't considered growing them vertically, and was pleased to come across that handy solution.
Lettuce -- four varieties, to be planted in succession during spring, early summer and fall
Beans -- the haricot vert style Triumphe de Farcy that I love, plus a new yellow filet bean that'll be fun to try
Bell peppers -- two red ones
Carrots -- a lovely mix called "Kaleidoscope" that has red, yellow, orange and red ones

Currently, my kitchen windowsill holds a pot of 5 or 6 fragile basil plants, which I'm carefully nursing along in hopes that I can transplant them back into the herb garden in May. I plucked the tiny seedlings out of the ground after last summer's basil had withered from cold; it had gone to seed, and as I was digging up the dead plants I spied these little guys and decided to tuck them into a pot with a bit of mulch on top, to see if they'd grow inside. Basil is just about as grumpy as I am to be locked up indoors during these cold, short days of winter. I keep talking to it, telling it that the days are getting a bit longer and that soon I might even be able to leave it outdoors on the driveway on a sunny afternoon. I think we've come to some kind of understanding that we'll both hold on fast, in hopes of warmer days to come.

a recent find.

Rob had the idea to find a cool vintage poster for above the mantel. A trip to the Jack Wood Gallery here in town turned up this lovely route map for Air France, created by Lucien Boucher in 1962. The printing is really gorgeous, with some gold metallic ink among the many colors. I love how the white circle in the upper middle of the image (the north pole, I suppose) just grabs your eye. It's due to arrive within the next week or so.

food fit for the weather.

[A rare double-post day]

OK, so here's the backstory: We invited Mom, Bill, Grandma and Hans for a Christmas visit, the centerpiece of which was to be a leisurely, multi-course dinner. I was just thrilled at the thought of having my loved-ones at our dinner table, so I started menu-planning early. Because Bill had prepared a killer beef tenderloin at Mom's over Thanksgiving weekend, I wanted to do something different.

Cue MarthaStewart.com, where I found a recipe for a roasted pork shoulder. We ordered one from Eckerlin, picked it up a few days before Christmas and ...

When we got it home, Rob realized the thing was less than $2 a pound. Hm. He looked at me and said, "I don't want to freak you out, but ... how confident are we in this recipe?" Learning that the cut was cheap, and deciding that it didn't even look like what was pictured in the recipe, I answered, "Not very." So we went to the grocery and picked up a lovely pork tenderloin roast, and the meal was terrific.

Which left us with a 4 pound pork shoulder in the freezer.

Fast forward to today: At Bill's instruction, we rubbed the thing with a mix of coriander, cumin, paprika and S&P, browned it, and then slow-cooked it in the Dutch oven under a mess of pureed roasted peppers, garlic, onion, tomato and jalapeno. It smells amazing.

That, a good red wine and the Packers game are our evening plans.

a sip of scotch.

After more than a month (during which time, I kept thinking of posts I wanted to write, about our fantastic Christmas Day and day-after meals and that kind of thing), here we go.

Dad called late in the day yesterday to let us know that Granddad had passed away. He went to sleep and just didn't wake up. Which is how you want to go, I suppose. Grandmother passed earlier this summer and it seems that Granddad, for all the fractiousness in their decades-long relationship, was lost without her. He was 90. My most recent visit with him was when Dad and I spent several days in L.A. about 3 years ago; I felt sad that we didn't see more of G&G, but distance made that difficult. And really, I wanted to preserve my impressions of them—Granddad in particular—as vibrant, lively people. I always thought he was neat. I can trace my love of boats and the water directly through Dad to him, much as I can trace my green thumb straight to Grandma. I will forever associate Brach's butterscotch candies with him, and I think we have him to thank for exposing me to the concept of happy hour—I remember peanuts and, for the grownups, cocktails or cold beers around 5:00 on the boat trips we took with him. I took a certain amount of pride growing up that my grandfather spent his early retirement years in Florida windsurfing with men half his age. He notoriously broke his ankle—shattered it, actually—while skateboarding downhill on our street, a ride that ended in a collision with a mailbox.

I have very fond memories of my grandparents individually; as a couple, their bickering could make them difficult to be around. They were both hugely present in my childhood; we'd often have dinner at their home before they moved to Florida during my teen years, and I spent summer Saturdays with Grandmother, who was a costumed interpreter at Conner Prairie (I loved my little pioneer girl dress). After they moved south, we spent spring breaks with them, and they'd make too-long visits in the summer. And then, as they got too old and infirm to live on their own in Florida, they went to California—and we became less a part of each others' lives. Still, I know they're both important parts of my make-up. I'll sip a Scotch to their memories.

doofus brother.

I'm not sure, but I pretty much think that brothers are doofuses (doofi?), generally. Mine is, anyway. And I mean that with all due loving kindness, 'cause I really do think he's neat. Anyhoo, he just launched a blog.

reality show.

Oh sure, there's plenty to beef about: Stupid corporate projects that I'm required to execute but have no control over. People who walk yappy, out-of-control dogs on retractable leashes. Not being able to get a parking spot at the gym. Cellphones, generally. That kind of thing.

And then there are real problems. Like raising a family alone and struggling to buy a home. Or living in a barely intact house (if you can call it that) with untold amounts of trash, graffiti and stray dogs in the neighborhood. Our third annual Habitat for Humanity building weekend brought that home in spades.

There were about 80 of us building (thanks to Uncle Dave) in three groups; in two days, we went from concrete slab to framed walls to under roof and clad in siding. For a desk jockey who spends five days a week tied to a mouse and keyboard, the act of doing work -- real work, physical, tire-you-out-at-the-end-of the day work, work that actually amounts to something more than a few checked-off to-do items -- was incredibly satisfying. The to-be homeowner joined our group and hammered away, probably thrilled to be contributing to her own future. Wow.

The always-upbeat Heather Peterson once again organized the outing, and managed once again to feed us in quantity and quality. What a tremendous thing to be part of, and at just the right time of year.

'tis autumn.

Ahhh, the luxuries of a fall Sunday afternoon: a not-too-cold day (though the sun has disappeared behind an overcast sky), a fire in the fire pit outside, tired legs after a 90-minute walk through Ault Park with the boy, Rob with a late-season round of golf under his belt, the Bengals (losing, sadly) on the radio. I made a hearty seasonal salad today: Farro with Roasted Butternut Squash, courtesy of one of my fave food blogs, 101Cookbooks.com. Yum.

because it works, that's why.

Why does The Dog beg?

Because it works, that's why.

I've been more generous than usual with the snacks these past 24 hours, perhaps making up for my absence for the past week (and Rob's currently gone -- hi to Tokyo, B!). But Wrigley's making out like gangbusters.

We took a lengthy walk tonight, and The Boy was full of pep and energy -- he practically ran ahead of me the whole way. I think he must like this cooler weather. He's in great shape. We scored lots of scratches and loves from a poll worker outside Knox Presbyterian (Wrigley voted for all Dog Party candidates).

There's something nice about the sound of dog feet trotting through crunchy leaves on a cool fall night. My new BFF Debbie Millman says that dog feet smell like Fritos. She should know; she has eight of them in her apartment (dog feet, not dogs). I have to agree with her on that one. I like dog feet. Weird, I know.