Squirrely in Shirley

Last week was squirrel hunting season in Shirley, but these two fine specimens seemed to escape.


As you might remember, last Halloween we came home to find this October surprise!

As usual, I refused to take them in until several weeks later when Treat got under the house and into the heating duct.  I found him peering up at me through the bathroom heating grate.  Ann vowed to come Thanksgiving and help me get Trick and Treat to the shelter.   She arrived with kitten chow, matching bowls and spay and neuter money.   The rest, as they say, is history. 


So to Trick and Treat, the Halloweener Cats...

Happy Anniversary 

and to everyone else...

Happy Halloween 

Cocktails At The Burn Pit -- Rehoboth Beach

"Old Rehoboth Beach" by Paul McGehee

We ventured off to old Rehoboth, actually to new Rehoboth, where a friend has just completed building a house.  As you know, each new adventure requires a new cocktail.   After scouting the various liquor stores of Rehoboth and surrounding areas...(Hmmmm, that sounds like it might just be a great job ... a tour of the great liquor stores of Delaware...but I digress.)

What was I telling you, gentle readers...oh yes, we gathered up, in addition to the Dog Fish Punk Ale and a couple of cases of wine, a bottle of Square One Cucumber Vodka. 

We added a bottle of Thatcher's Elderflower Liqueur, which some drink snobs favor over the more sweetened St. Germain.

Cocktails ensued!

I Just Built a New House and I Need a Drink Cocktail

1 ounce Thatcher's Elderflower Liqueur
2 ounces Square One Cucumber Vodka
Lemonade

Pull a glass from the empty, glass front, cherry wood cabinets that you haven't had time to fill.

Fill the glass with ice which comes from the new refrigerator, equipped with an automatic ice-maker, that came with your new house.

Add the liqueur and the vodka acquired on the Lucindaville Tour of the Liquor Stores of Delaware.

Top off with your favorite brand of lemonade, housed in the new refrigerator. 

Stir with an ink pen or leftover chop stick, as the furnishings are sparse.

Sit down on the new sofa in front of the new fireplace and enjoy.

Nutshell Studies

One just never knows what people are doing out there!  Strange things happen behind closed doors, just ask Frances Glessner Lee.  Lee founded the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard in 1936.    Of course, Lee didn't actually go to Harvard.  In fact, being a woman, she was not allowed to go to college. Her wealthy father thought that schooling a girl would be a waste of money.

Yes, Virginia, a hundred years ago you were not worthy of an education.  So Lee did what women of that time did, she married and had a family and took an allowance from her father.   Lee divorced her husband, and raised her children.  In 1929, Lee lost her brother and over the course of the next few years  her mother, one daughter and finally her father died.  The family fortune was now in Lee's control.  She promptly donated most of her fortune to Harvard to pursue her passion for legal medicine.  She created a chair for her mentor, Dr. George Magrath, who had encouraged her.  Now in her mid fifties, Frances Lee was able to pursue the interest that had been denied her for so many years.

While Lee was "not busy" doing what she wanted to do, she acquired an unusual skill -- she began fashioning miniatures.  She spent two months creating a replica of the Chicago Symphony as a gift to her mother, a longtime supporter of the symphony.   She spent two years on an elaborate model of the Flonzaley Quartet, including tiny scores.

Little did she know her talent would be invaluable at the Department of Legal Medicine.  While police detectives were taught the skills of finding information, Lee realized that their lack of basic medical information greatly limited their skills.   Though Dr. Magrath died shortly after the creation of the department, Lee continued to work with and began building tiny studies she called Nutshells.  The Nutshells recreated crime scenes in graphic detail.  Lee used the rather unscientific approach of showing them to detectives to ascertain if they could find a cause of death from the miniatures.  Lee stated:

"The Nutshell Studies are not presented as crimes to be solved -- they are, rather, designed as exercises in observing and evaluating indirect evidence, especially that which may have medical importance."

Her seminars to law enforcement were wildly popular.  She often road around with officers on their calls and according to her son, she received stacks of Mother's Day cards from police officers she had worked with.   Her work as a precursor to modern forensic studies made her a leader in a field she most surely helped to create

In total, there are eighteen dioramas in the Nutshell collection.  Several years  after her death in 1967, the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard closed due to lack of funding.  The Nutshell Studies were moved to Medical Examiner's Office in Baltimore.

While this story is a fine one, a small historical footnote to law enforcement, it takes on another life.   While Corinne May Botz was researching a movie on grown-ups with doll houses, she was alerted to the Nutshell Collection.  So taken by the dioramas and Frances Lee, she photographed the collection and wrote a book about them.

Someone at CSI clearly read Botz's work.  For several season the CSI team tracked a killer known as The Miniature Killer, who sent detailed dioramas of her murder scenes, much like, oh heck, EXACTLY like Frances Lee's Nutshell Studies.

Frances Glessner Lee working on a doll/corpse

I always thought the story of Frances Lee would have made a better story, now it seems that HBO and Guillermo del Toro have optioned Botz's book.  In my imaginary movie of Frances Lee, I would cast Kathy Bates as Lee, but I am sure that in Hollywood they are floating around Lindsay Lohan! 

Cookbook Giveaway

At Cookbook Of The Day we are doing a cookbook giveaway.  We have two copies of Grain Mains to share with our lucky winners.  Thanks to Rodale.  Our review has all the proper disclaimers.   Head over to Cookbook Of The Day, comment and win!

What's Wrong With The Picture?

It seems that unbeknownst to me, one of the chickens has been sneaking in through the cat door and laying eggs in the cat napping chair.  I found out last week when I noticed the eggs.  Yesterday, when I was heading to the laundry room, I found Kitty Carlisle napping with an egg.  You will notice, as I took the picture, the claws started to come out.  I wasn't sure whether she had decided to hatch the egg or eat it later.  Either way, she did not me to have it.

Canning Jar Closet

 After nearly finding myself crippled from building these steel shelves in a way to small space, I was finally able to place the canning jars in their new home.

Needless to say, they are just a tad to get to.  Finding the right jar is a bit like playing one of those childhood games where one moves the squares around to make a picture.

But here they are in all their canning glory.  Now we just need a confiture closet for the filled jars!

Stone Fruit Salsa

 I am a pretty good cook, which is a good thing for the people I cook for.  The problem is, when I ask how a dish is I generally get the stock answer, "Everything you cook is good."   "It's a keeper."

This past weekend was a fall tailgate for the Alabama game, even though there was no tail and we gated in the den.  The main attraction was ribs.  I wanted to serve something to cut the fattiness of the ribs.  As it turns out, the rub was a bit on the spicy side, so something cooling was also in order.

There has been truly lovely fruit at the local big box store.   The trouble with lovely fruit at the local big box store is the fruit comes in big boxes.  There have been plums and apricots and those hybrid plumcot, Pluot, and Aprium varieties and some nice peaches, though they are not peaches from Chilton County, Alabama,  home of the worlds greatest peaches, but I digress....

Several times I have bought fruit and every time, I have ended up making jam, as I cannot eat all the big boxes before the fruit starts to get overripe.  Not that jars of pluotpriumcot jam is not delightful.

For my ribs, I thought it would be nice to make fruity salsa with my bounty.   It turned out to be a keeper and one of the few recipes that has garnered multiple requests and lingering reviews.

Stone Fruit Salsa

8 stone fruits (a combination of plums, apricots, peaches, plumcot, Pluot, and Aprium, even cherries would work), roughly chopped
1 small red onion, finely chopped
1 English  cucumber, chopped
Chopped cilantro or parsley
Salt to taste
1 lemon, juiced

Mix everything together in a bowl. Let sit at least one hour to marinate the flavors.

The lemon was an afterthought.  After I tasted the salsa I thought it needed just a touch of brightening.  I also thought a splash of a cider or fruity vinegar would add a nice touch.  If I was serving the salsa with a plain chicken or pork, I might as a finely chopped jalapeno, as there is no such thing as "too hot" for me.   I am sure I will keep tweaking this one.

Women Reading

 

 Children's Hour by William St. John Harper, 1886

Calling Me Home

I don't listen to a lot of Kathy Mattea, but she is from West Virginia.  Her new album is rooted in West Virginia, so we have been listening to it this weekend, and we have been loving it.  So if you like bluegrass with some country, or if your are from West Virgina or passing through, check it out.

Clearly, I Need To Get Out More...

Renoir found at West Virginia flea market likely to fetch $100,000 at auction.

So it would seem that two years ago, some woman stopped at a flea market in West Virginia and forked over $7 for a box of stuff because she like the plastic cow in the box. She though she could sell the leather doll and double her money.  The crappy painting she left in the box and stuffed it in the garage.   She was thinking the frame might be useful in a later project.  When she did ask someone about the frame, she got a bit of a surprise.  Go forth and shop!