my muse has a first name, it's c-h-e-s-t-e-r

How mad are you going to be if this turns into a bl*g entirely about Chester?


Vermont in March: The snow has melted to reveal dead grass and frozen mud; a bounty of dog poop and cigarette butts; cardboard, beer cans, and Sunday circulars that have blown out of recycling bins. My muse and I walk by the lake most days, where the ice has broken up and smashed into one corner of the bay. It's gorgeous and bitterly cold, which is what I aspire to be, as well. My muse aspires to pee on every single bush and tree lining the waterfront.

At the local neighborhood co-op, where my muse is not allowed to shop, the staff daily rearrange the same old local vegetables in an attempt to convince consumers that butternut squash is a novelty item. I buy cauliflower, watercress, and walnuts from distant lands and wonder what my muse is doing.

What my muse is doing:

At home I spend a couple of hours gazing at my muse as he sleeps. Then I cut the cauliflower into florets for roasting and wonder if there will ever be flowers here.


While my cauliflower roasts, I compose a poem called "Ode to a Sleeping Dog...Seriously, Chester, That's My Pillow. The One I Put My Head On at Night."

My muse cares not for roasted cauliflower.


I set it aside to cool for a few minutes and toast some walnuts and make the dressing, while my muse does yoga (Extended Dog Pose).


Seriously, how mad are you? My muse and I want to know.

He eats kibble, I partake of Roasted Cauliflower and Watercress Salad and pine for blossoming trees, an iceless lake and squashless grocery store, my muse running through fields of wildflowers, his ears flapping in the gentle breeze. I'm going to be waiting until June, because it turns out Vermont skips spring entirely and after an extended winter moves right into summer. Until then, Roasted Cauliflower and Watercress salad: The cauliflower, still warm, ever so slightly wilts the watercress. A slick gloss of sherry vinaigrette. Toasted walnuts. A little cheese.

My muse recommends the kibble.

Roasted Cauliflower and Watercress Salad

Adapted from my girl Melissa Clark at the New York Times

I've eaten this salad, and variations on it, many times over the past couple of months. As often as not I've used spinach instead of watercress—delicious. It's also good without the cheese if you're some vegan hippie type. You can refrigerate all the different parts in separate containers and then bring them to work and assemble a salad for lunch; your coworkers will be very impressed/think you're crazy into Tupperware (the salad won't be quite as good because the cauliflower isn't warm, but it's better than a Cup-O-Noodles from the vending machine).

1 head cauliflower, cut into bite-size florets

6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, separated

1½ teaspoons kosher salt, separated

¾ teaspoon pepper, separated

1 tablespoon sherry vinegar

2 bunches watercress, large stems removed

¼ pound Gruyère, diced or grated (about 1 cup)

2/3 cup toasted walnuts

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a bowl, toss together the cauliflower, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Spread the cauliflower on a baking sheet in a single layer. Roast, tossing occasionally, until tender and dark golden, ~30. Let cool for 10 minutes.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar with the remaining ½ teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon pepper, and then whisk in the remaining 4 tablespoons oil.

3. In a salad bowl, toss the watercress, cheese, nuts, and warm cauliflower. Pour the vinaigrette over the salad and toss until well combined.

to every thing there is a season

It snowed five gazillion more inches yesterday. Welcome to spring in Vermont.



How my dog spent the winter; I think he's tanorexic.

the yachtsman was *mortified*

baby, it's cold outside

I bought a new pair of pants. Fleece. According to the label they're "regular fit / low rise / straight leg," which somehow makes me feel like less of a sartorial loser. I mean, they may be fleece pants, but they're tailored.

And I was going to share with you a recipe for beans on toast, but that seems a little pathetic, even for a bl*g called Gruel for Dinner, even in the middle of December. I read about it in this cookbook, though, which makes me feel like less of a culinary loser. I mean, they may be beans on toast, but they were David Tanis' idea.

more crows, & why i love working from home

On our first evening walk after the end of daylight saving time:


I really wish you could see them. And hear them, too.

I also wish you something like this:

chester was all like, "seriously, fuck fall," and i was like, "yeah, totally. rain much?"

woman on the verge

All I do lately is proofread. That's not true: Sometimes I edit.

Look, it's Chester!


The yachtsman has been away for ten days, but now he's home and claims to be working on a Yachtsman Recommends. I am working on not having a nervous breakdown. Wish me luck!

guest post: lucky lady & m. labee

[This week's guest post is by my sister, Lucky Lady, who makes the prettiest aprons you'll ever cook in, and the lovely M. LaBee, who I plan to one day kidnap and imprison in my kitchen, where he will spend the rest of his life baking for my pleasure. Lucky Lady and M. LaBee have teamed up here to...oh, you'll see. I will hopefully be back later this week with another delicious cold soup to share with you, but if I don't have time to post, Team Zucchini on Top, as they're called, tell me there's plenty more where this came from. And thank god for that, because it apparently takes a village to write a bl*g.]

Homage to Peanut

As you may or may not know, we (M. LaBee and Lucky Lady) are the godparents (well, we may have decided we were the godparents, not told anyone, and had him baptized on our own time, but who’s counting?) of a little dog called Peanut (you may know him as Chester Arthur Miller). It also turns out we are a guest-bl*gging superteam heretofore known as “Zucchini on Top.” Being that we are superbl*ggers and Peanut’s godparents, we decided to do a guest post in the little man’s honor. We looked high and low and found this charming book,


which had the perfect recipe for our homage to Peanut. So the two of us trotted on down to the farmers market to shop. Most of the ingredients we needed for the PupCakes have a very short growing season, but we managed to find everything we needed:


We started by making the bodies of the PupCakes with a special cake recipe called Betty Crocker Super M@%#t (for those of you who don’t know, for M. Labee and Lucky Lady the word moist is a lot like the word bl*g for our bl*g mistress—disgusting) to which we added eggs, oil, and water. Then, being the hard workers that we are, we mixed the batter by hand instead of using the beaters.


Next we filled the PupCake pan with batter:


Once the PupCakes were safely nestled in the oven, M.LaBee decided he needed to eat the batter that was left in the bowl. “What are you crazy? Have you ever heard of a little thing called Salmonella?" Lucky Lady asked. Apparently the answer was no, because here is what happened next:


Halfway through the baking of the cupcakes, the professional baker on the team (M. LaBee) decided the PupCakes needed to be rotated (who does this?):


The PupCakes came out of the oven in a blaze of glory not unlike the blaze that the Down East Dilletante’s car went up in, except that they weren’t on fire at all, we just wanted to give DED a shout-out and let him know we were thinking of him and his burned-up car.


While the PupCakes were cooling we went about the business of coloring the dough for Peanut’s appendages. This was a long and arduous process that involved lots of Lucky Lady yelling at M. LaBee things like “Hold her down!” and “More! Faster, goddamn it!” and “You are going to have to shake it harder if you want anything to come out.” All of a sudden it seemed like we were making a weird porn instead of dough, but we are a team that really likes to give it all we’ve got:


Then there was the rolling and cutting of said dough:


The end result of the cut-out dough pieces was weird and even a little gross looking, but we promise, it all comes together:


Halfway through the baking of the appendage dough we realized we were out of peanut butter, which we needed for the frosting (Peanut’s coat). So, much to M. LaBee’s delight and Lucky Lady’s horror we had to make a trip to Mac’s Market. It should be said that the village where Lucky Lady lives was without a grocery store for a number of years. Shortly after LL and her mister moved to the village, Mac’s Market opened with the promise of providing groceries. It didn’t, they lied. Lucky Lady thinks it is basically an overgrown convenience store but M. LaBee disagrees and describes this horrible store as “Nirvana” and the “Lady Gaga of grocery stores.”

This is a picture of M.Labee driving Lucky Lady’s car and laughing maniacally about his Mac’s trip windfall:


A hardhat Lucky Lady forced M. Labee to wear in this photo as punishment for being so gleeful about said trip:


Once home again, we focused on the frosting: We had to mix peanut butter with vanilla frosting in order to get the proper shade for Peanut’s coat:


Then we frosted those bitches:


Now, I bet you’re wondering how that is going to become a PupCake. Well, frankly, so were we. A bit of panic ensued, there was some yelling and running around, followed by a dog escaping the house. Once we had the dog safely stowed we put the PupCakes on some white paper to get a clean slate to look at:


Then magically, this happened:


PupCakes! We love you, Peanut!

workin' hard or hardly workin'?

I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill, as God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.

apropos of nothing

What I'm trying to say is that I really will post a recipe one day soon. As God is my witness.

good things

1. Asparagus with walnut crema. Remember asparagus with walnut crema? I posted about it a year ago today, and after that went on to make it approximately twice a week until asparagus went out of season. If you came to my house for a meal last spring or early summer, you ate asparagus with walnut crema. And you liked it. Not just because I told you to, but because it's really, really good. It's my favorite aspragus dish, in fact, or perhaps asparagus is my favorite vehicle for walnut crema (which I've also eaten on toast, vegetables, and the end of my finger). Whatevs, just make some. This weekend, please.

2. Personal assistants.

I don't make him sit back there, he does it by choice, probably to avoid doing any work.

3. Husbands.

Mine cleaned the apartment last night while I went out for (a delicious) dinner with the lovely Li-Ry. If you had any idea how filthy our house was, you would be very, very impressed.

Happy weekend, bitches.

so far this morning

This would be snow.


These would be a gift I just received from a neighbor.


I will not be having gruel for breakfast.