heylucy

hungry

I used to cook a lot. I tried out new recipes, I read my cookbooks, I watched cooking shows. But the last few years I've become complacent. I make the same things over and over, and while I make an excellent roast chicken, and a great pot of minestrone soup, it's a little boring. Lately I've renewed my interest in cooking. It started with the bento boxes, and coming up with tasty (and cute) food for lunch. And then while I was visiting my family, we picked, literally, pounds and pounds of cherries at my cousins house (okay, well my 5-year old niece picked a gigantic bowl full of cherries, I just grabbed a few off the trees and popped them into my mouth). What to do when you have a lot of cherries? Make a clafouti (or two), of course:

Clafouti is really sort of like a big puffy pancake. In fact, some people were putting syrup on it. I had made it around breakfast time, so I guess that's okay. I took another one over to my semi-crazy aunt's barbeque, and we ate it cold. The consensus was that clafouti is best eaten hot out of the oven, but it's not bad cold. 

I've been watching the occasional FoodTV show, and the Barefoot Contessa made a summer pudding recently. It looking so easy and delicious that I had to try it:

It was really easy, but I think there is way too much sugar in the recipe. It's really, really sweet. Also, Mr. Lucy, when he opened the refrigerator and saw it sitting there, was a little bit scared at first. He thought I'd brought home some sort of human organ. It is a little frightening, but I think the idea is good. I'm going to try it again with a lot less sugar, like maybe half the amount.

Of course it's been a few days since I've posted a bento box, so here is one from a few days ago:

Yum, Mexican food! Not very colorful, but very tasty! Black beans, rice with salsa, and whole wheat tortillas with grilled chicken, avocado and a little feta cheese inside. I brought a jar of salsa to eat with my burritos. I love salsa. This bento box is pretty big. It's about the size of a brick, and with this lunch inside, it weighed about as much too.

Coming soon: little tiny cupcakes!

work in progress

After my little freak-out on Friday (a little aside: my first thought, after hearing about the billowing clouds of smoke enveloping our property was, "But they're delivering the new washing machine on Thursday, where will we keep it if the house burns down?" I have my priorities, don't I?), I spent the weekend, quite literally, chilling out. The air conditioner was blasting all day and even into the night both days, and I didn't do much of anything. Once I knew we were probably safe and I would be able to drive home from work without worrying that I was going to encounter an inferno on the freeway, I decided a little relaxation was in order. So I stopped at the bookstore, where I browsed through cookbooks and magazines, eventually purchasing Julie & Julia. Then I stopped at a taco shop for Super Nachos, which have everything on them-beans, salsa, guacamole, sour cream, carne asada, and probably 3 other things I can't remember now. I virtuously told them to hold the nacho cheese, but go ahead and keep the regular cheese on there. My willpower is impressive, no?

Since I was lazy, I have no finished projects to share, so I took a picture of one of my current works-in-progress:

Mr. Lucy found this at the side of the road with a 'FREE' sign on it, and thoughtfully brought it home for me. I've cleaned off as much of the flaking white, er, grey paint and cobwebs as I can and I've begun painting it a pale, pale blue. I've made a cushion but still need to cover it. I think that with the addition of lots of pretty, squishy pillows it will be a nice place to sit on our porch. Currently I would call it shabby-shabby, but I'm hoping to change the balance to more of a shabby-chic. It might just work, don't you think?

whew!

Everything is fine, the fire is out although the air still smells pretty smoky. Kudos to the fire department who just attacked this fire and didn't let it get too out of control! They did an amazing job. We are pretty relieved here in they hey lucy house. Now I just have to put away all the stuff Mr. Lucy packed in his car.

fire 7_14_2006

fire 7_14_2006
Originally uploaded by heylucy.

The latest news says the fire is contained. Big sigh of relief. I'll still be watching the news to be sure I can make it home tonight.

shaking

I can barely type. I'm at work and Mr. Lucy just called from home. He has 15 minutes to gather whatever belongings he can grab and evacuate. There is a lot of smoke. There is a fire somewhere to the west, moving fast. There are planes dropping water. There are firetrucks on the road behind our house. Please don't let it burn down.

UPDATE: Watching the news here. Things seem a bit more optimistic, the Fire Department has been very aggressively fighting this fire, about 6 planes and 2 helicopters are dropping fire retardent. Evacuations are voluntary, so that is also a good sign. My stomach has un-clenched a tiny bit.

back

I think it's about time to get back into the routine of things. My sabbatical went way too fast, and I had a lot of fun, and there were some assorted smaller tragedies, I was lazy some days, productive on other days. I didn't spend much time on the computer, except to play, so I have lots of blog catching up to do. I don't have much time today, so this is just a quick little fly-by to mention that I am still alive, and plan on posting regularly again. The picture above is yesterday's lunch: hummus, couscous and lots of assorted vegetables as well as feta and olives. I also had a couple mini pitas. That's my second bento box. It's actually quite large, that was really a lot of food, but I did eat it over the course of the day.

So, hi! to everyone, thanks for still visiting even though there has been nothing but crickets chirping around here for the past 3 weeks.