In which Deirdre returns to American Life... with a French Twist

I'm back!

To take a break from making my way slowly through six weeks' worth of back-log in 3 different inboxes, I took this morning to catch up on LMLD.

When I said I was going away for a French-immersion experience, I meant it! Except for two-ish very quick glances at facebook and a couple important business-related English emails, I truly did not read nor write in my native tongue while I was away.

Nor did I sing a single American song -- with the exceptions of the National Anthem on July 4th and one or two Jason Mraz songs hummed under my breath (and during the Jason Mraz, my host mother caught me red-handed: "Deirdre?! Is that English I hear??!" she said. In French. And she didn't say "Deirdre," she said "Madeleine," which was my alias during my stay. Asking the French to say "Deirdre" is like asking an American to say "Saucisses sèches sachant sécher sans s‘assécher").



There was also the rather large exception consisting in my 4-day trip to Ireland to meet up with my parents and Bridget there... but that doesn't count!

I didn't even look at RedSox.com!! Trust me, there is no way to look up baseball scores in French. I tried.

Anyway, suffice it to say, I have a lot to catch up on! And I missed LMLD! So I'm eager to chime in and be back in the midst of things here.

Line drying at last!

I'm checking in here with a cold, jet-lag, and a serious case of feeling like the high grass, weeds, laundry, and general post-vacation disorder are going to do me in.

I didn't tell you we were going anywhere, because here at chez Casa Maison LMLD we try to be aware that bad guys could stalk us and steal our very identities, not to mention our valuable thrifted spray-painted articles, while we are gone.

They would be sadly mistaken to try, because our house is actually like a kind of booby-trapped bunker run by special forces gurus, with high-powered automatic weaponry and attack dogs ready to rip you to pieces if you threaten us.

Temporary Living.2: Make-Do Decorating

You got a little taste of what our apartment in Oklahoma was like, and I can't stress this enough: it didn't have a whole lot to recommend itself, design-wise.

Or, as I (rather less cheerfully) more often put it, it was an ugly little apartment.

The walls were textured beige, the trim was fake-wood brown, and the floors were dirty-carpet gray. Basically, the overall impression was brown, brown, brown, with a side of dingy. It needed some help.

Enjoy your humble life.

I hope you feel encourage in your enjoyment of the humble things of life when you come here.

These things are accessible to all, not just the rich, not just the well educated. Actually, the rich sometimes miss out on these real pleasures of embracing simplicity and duty.

As women, we can scorn some of these things as "chores" that are beneath us, or we can see the beauty in them.

I thought that this enjoyment was expressed very well here:

Little Jenny Wren: Truth, Beauty, and Goodness

Thank you, Jenny, for a sweet post!

Temporary Living.1

Thanks to a permanent duty assignment quickly followed by a (long) temporary one, the Lt and I were in temporary housing from November through May, including several weeks on the road driving across the country (and halfway back again), a delayed honeymoon (not, mind you, that I'm complaining about that week!), a month in a hotel on a Marine base in southern California, a trip back to the East Coast for Christmas, and our last living situation but one, a furnished apartment in a little city next to an Army post in southwest Oklahoma.

(for those of you keeping track of this sort of thing, this means that we were in temporary quarters - "perched," as I like to call it - for seven months out of our first year of marriage!)

Now, to celebrate finally being settled (not just anywhere, either: we were assigned a beautiful house on base, five minutes from (and within view of!) the ocean!), I humbly present a look into some of my temporary homemaking strategies of the last few months.

I've learned that it doesn't take much in the way of things to make pretty much any place (yes, even a dingy hotel room) feel like home. Which is comforting, since while most families won't find themselves "perched" as long as we have, everyone needs a home, and I'm sure we're not the only ones who don't have all the things that we would like.

What's cookin' over here

It's been a little while (approximately 16 weeks, not that I'm counting...) since I've shown my face around here, and since Auntie Leila's been on a roll, I've managed not to feel too guilty about neglecting my share of LMLD (which, you may recall, is supposed to be a collaborative effort).

The thing is, I've been working on another project, one that's rather monopolized my energy over the last few months. However, I'm getting to the point where I can handle other things as well (the Lt. is happy to report I'm cooking dinner again, and even occasionally thinking about cleaning things!), so I'm optimistically declaring my return to the blog, hopefully to be followed by some regular posting in which I plan to contemplate our months of temporary living, our adventures setting up our new home in California, and of course, getting ready for the arrival of this little one in late December...

Aaawww....

Children love to play with packaging.

This week's link is to a post that Patricia Zapata, graphic designer, did to show off her kids' cute clever toys they made out of packaging.

{A Little Hut -- Patricia Zapata's children's recycled packaging toys.}

When I saw this, I thought about how much money is wasted on toys when children are just so happy with the simplest materials.

I know my own children would have loved these cardboard structures and would certainly have played with them for hours in this way and probably in other ways we can't imagine. Keep your eyes open for fun packaging materials for your children's play!

A slipcover for my handbag!

~Welcome visitors from Down to Earth! If you'd like to see more of the pantry/sewing room, go here!

Just a quick post before we head out for fiddle camp...

I wanted to show you a true hack. You're going to wonder what's wrong with me, but it's just this: I love the leather on this bag, and for that matter everything about it.

And it served me well for several years until the linen started to wear away.

I would buy a new one, but it seems like after a year of really cute bags, the fashion descended into a nightmare of buckles, chains, belts, zippers, and all manner of mettalica that does not appeal.

I shoved it into my stash box thinking I would reclaim the leather or at least the cool braided straps.

But no inspiration struck.


Then when my friend Nancy gave me some linen for another purpose, I did have a brainstorm!

Using Natasha's gift of beautiful silk ribbon (and asking the Chief to use his OCD skills to kindly polish it up for me), I just tried different things until I came up with this.

It's really stitch-witchery-ed and glue-gunned together. I plan on using it a bit until I see where it needs more, and truth to tell, I already, in these pictures, see where it needs more, so don't judge me!

Think of it as something you would covet at a small boutique and we'll be good ;)

If I were doing it again, now that I know what I wanted to do, I'd take different steps (maybe make the ruffle double-sided to avoid raw edges, but at first I thought I'd use the raw edges to effect), but I think this will give the couple of months of new life I need until fashions change back my way!

Salade Nicoise, a family favorite.

It is so very amazingly hot here -- but still no AC chez nous, so don't start snickering about how I wimped out in July, because I didn't, partially because I live in a reasonable state, weather-wise if not in any other way, and not always the weather, either, now that I remember back-to-back 50-year storms this spring, so never mind -- that we are back on the topic of easy cool summer meals!


I loved hearing from you all about the things you like to grill.

It inspired me!

And tomorrow I'm making barbecue pork sandwiches by putting a nice cheap piece of pork butt in the slow cooker while I'm out.

This salad is a favorite -- Will often requests it for his birthday dinner, which is in March (so that isn't very south-of-France-y, but he really likes it. Not that they don't have March in France {"Mars"} but, oh... never mind that either).

I like the flexibility of this dish. With the basics, you can veer off in a quite Mediterranean direction, or make it more of a potato and fish salad. However you do it, it's delicious.

Here you will find Julia Child's recipe. Now, notice I don't have hard-boiled eggs this time, but I do have corn. Why? Because this type of food should be made with what you have left over, not put together from scratch!

So if one night you have steak, potatoes, corn, and green beans (and remember to do some hb eggs), you can see how easily you could put together this salad!

I always have homemade vinaigrette of some kind lurking around, don't you? Please don't tell me you buy salad dressing!

Very few things have more weird ingredients, taste weird, and cost more, unit-wise, then boughten dressing. When you consider how easy it is to make any kind of dressing at all, you will be upset with yourself for every buying it. Not that I'm so great, but I haven't bought salad dressing for twenty-five years.

For this I like a mustard-y (use powdered dried, not your good Grey Poupon, it's not worth it for the most part, and powdered mustard has a lovely emulsifying quality), lemony dressing. Just add mustard and lemon to the recipe above!

As always, I like menus, so I'll tell you what I served it with. You might say it's a meal in one dish, and for a couple of adults, that's true. For meals with kids of various ages, I like to have side dishes regardless. In this case, I had grilled peppers and tomatoes from a kebab dinner a few days before, and of course some eggplant obsession, just a little!

When your fridge has a few dibs and dabs of leftovers, serve them up attractively, why not? When they were first served there was plenty.

I got those little blue dishes from a thrift store for this very purpose. They are small and cute, and children should learn to mentally divide up whatever is in the dish amongst the eaters. I can't abide a hog -- a person who, early on in the line, takes more than his share of the goodies! These weeknight suppers are the exact spot to learn to cleave to your allotment.

Not that those are things most kids like.

So if you didn't put corn in the salad, as I did, you might serve corn on the cob and fruit if you need to appeal to little picky eaters. And yes, this is how you get them to like good stuff...not by starving them out but by giving them a chance to try something new along with things they like. And, always, bread and butter.

We're still using our old thrifted picnic tables, and loving eating outside! The Chief made me the napkin holder long ago. I like to use cloth napkins but I'm happy for the paper ones occasionally.

The bread is my favorite rosemary-olive oil-raisin-honey bread*. As I've told you before, I make at least 3 large loaves of any bread recipe and try to put some in the freezer for just such a day when the oven just can't be turned on or extra guests arrive or you've been running around rather than baking.

 At first it seems like you can't get ahead on bread, but if you make extra each time you bake, you soon will have a freezer full of helpful loaves and rolls.

By the way, keep your eye out for large shallow serving plates.

There is something so much more attractive about a salad served in a shallow dish rather than a deep one. You can distribute the "goodies" better, rather than having them sink to the bottom. Once I visited friends who had a gigantic, nearly flat wooden salad bowl the size of a young tire, and oh, I coveted that! Someday maybe I'll find someone to make me one!


*Rosemary/olive oil/raisin/honey bread

1 1/2 cups warm water (110*)

1-2 tsp. yeast (depending on freshness, but not a whole packet, and you can use less if you are also using starter)

7-8 cups flour (whatever, I have no idea how much flour I use -- I fill the bowl on my 5 qt. mixer to 2 inches from the top)

2 tablespoons olive oil in 1 cup of warm water (potato water if you have any)

1 tablespoon salt (this is not a typo -- most people don't put in enough salt. I think I might actually use a little more than a tablespoon unless I cooked my potatoes in very salty water)

Starter if you have it (I use a poolish that I keep going -- I don't use it all in the dough, but add equal amounts of flour and water to a little bit I keep back -- I hope that makes sense to you because I don't know how else to say it)

1/4 cup honey

1 cup golden raisins (which I didn't have any of for the bread above, so I used regular old dark raisins)

1 tsp. dried crushed rosemary (yes, dried, which is just much nicer than fresh, there, I said it)

{For pictures of this process, see my spent grain post.}

In my kitchenaid mixer I put the water and the yeast and let things start to bubble a little. If I have starter, I put in 1/2 cup to a cup.

Then add the flour and salt.

Mixing slowly, add the cup of water with the oil, the honey, and the rosemary.

Then, while mixing, add a little more water, enough to keep the dough from getting hard bits, sprinkle in raisins, and continue adding water until a good dough forms. You don't want to put the raisins in too early or too late.

I'm sorry, this is how I make bread. I don't know how much water I add, partially because I've added a certain somewhat unknown amount of liquid in the starter and potato water, and partly because I hate measuring and I know what the dough should look like.

And what should it look like? It should look lumpy and a little looser than most recipes tell you, because the second mistake (after the lack of salt) home bakers make is to have a dough that is too stiff. That's because they are going to knead it by hand, and it's too hard to knead a soft dough, but a soft dough makes a better bread.

And a less-kneaded but longer- and cooler-risen dough makes a better bread!

So instead, once the flour is all mixed and you have something somewhat resembling what you consider dough but maybe a little gloopier, let it rest for at least 20 minutes.

Just walk away and do something else. You can cover with a wet towel if you like.

After 20 minutes, or 40 minutes, or whatever (you just don't want it crawling up your mixer top), give the mixer a few turns, and you will see the dough smooth out miraculously and the gluten strands form. Turn into a big oiled bowl, cover with the towel, and let rise slowly (not easy in this heat but I don't recommend bread baking when it's 100* anyway!).

Gently turn it on itself -- don't "punch down" and don't be rough, but do sort of massage it like it's the sweetest baby -- and let it rise again.

Form into at least 3 loaves (gently!), set the oven at 375*, and when it's risen for about 40 minutes, slash the loaves and bake for 40 minutes or until a meat thermometer registers 200* in the center of the loaf.

Let the loaves cool completely on a rack. Then dig into one and freeze the other two!

This bread is heavenly with butter and honey.

Nature table ideas.

For a while now I've been collecting links to posts on other people's blogs that just really hit the spot with me. I have been wondering what exactly to do with these -- to have a tab (when we get tabs) for links, or to post about them...

They're piling up, though, so I thought I'd start sharing them with you before there are so many I can't deal with them. I think I'll post one or two once a week for a while until the list gets more reasonable.

Click on the caption to go to the post.

{Nature table at The Crafty Crow, a Children's Craft Collective.}

I love the idea of a nature table. Children just naturally want to collect little things as they meander on their walks. Instead of wracking your brains for crafts to make these things into, just have a designated place to display them.

Doings at our house.

This post fulfills the claim made on the sidebar -- that we wanted a place to show each other our doings. We're now spreading apart and getting even further away. I don't even want to know if there is somewhere further than Hong Kong that Nick and Natasha could go to!

So pictures on the blog it is.

For several years now, among all the other projects, we've been working on the outside of the house, getting it painted.

Here's how our house looked four years ago, and pretty much the way it looked when we moved in, 11 years ago. (Well, no, the brush is worse, because we didn't really know that if you don't fight mightily against it, brush will take over. We were suburbanites. We knew very little, in fact.)

 {Before.}







Note the "real front" of the house, as we call it. It's there on the right. We never go there. (We just always use the door in the porch. Even when we have guests.)

You can't really see it because of the intense brush/vine/bramble thing going on in front of a positively gigantic row of Norway spruces. Those trees belong to our neighbors, so there is nothing we can do about them, nor could we afford to, I think, if they were ours.

All I can say is that if you have a nice little fir hedge, try to make sure it stays that way.

Gray...and you know how I feel about gray. If you're somewhat prone to melancholy and live somewhere that experiences an average of 90 sunny days a year, stay away from gray.

It's a mental health issue.

We started back here, below, because there was a lot of siding repair needed.

A couple of hard-working lads did their best. These two walls facing the deck are the equivalent of some houses' entire exterior.

Ah, a magic moment before the ice storm of 2008 that required a tree-felling that ruined the lawn, such as it was. In the very left of the picture you can see that we confined ourselves to these two sides.

The following year Will sacrificed some flesh (and many hours in the ER for shots) to a rabid bat to tackle the front, on which many of us also labored.

{You can read more about the rabid bat/red boom/blue boom/new wood stove phase of the renovations here.}

I did the porch. But not the front door. Maybe next month.

And then I was tired of painting, and really, just too old.

Last year we had a wedding (well, we had two weddings, but one here). There was no way that we could have done any exterior painting -- both because of all the other projects and the truly phenomenal amount of rain we had -- but we found a pro for the front hall who is reasonable and does wonderful repair work before he starts, which has always been my paralyzing worry when it comes to painters.

It's not like here, chez Lawler, you dip in your brush and go. There's rotten wood, broken plaster, leaks, caulking...

There is always so much prep work that you end up in rehab gridlock.

But Walter is amazing.

So this year we bit the bullet and hired him to finish up the eighty-twelve other sides of our house, including third-floor dormers.

The "real front" faces those trees and brush, remember? That means it's damp and dirty.

I couldn't imagine how we were going to rescue it.

 Someday we will repair the front bricks...but this is already much better!

Now we just had to confront the landscape! I think by now you see the slow and incremental nature of our approach. We try to do things ourselves until energy runs out. We do not achieve closure at any point...

It does seem that if we need professional help, the means (in other words, $$) do appear. But it's not a question of writing checks and getting everything perfect.

Right now we had to hack through the jungle, cut branches, and reclaim some land.

{Way before.}

{Just as the men began pulling out the brush and trees that had grown up there.}

Not done by a long shot (we need many loads of woodchips, and soon we will begin work getting that asphalt out from the front of the house), but, like Glencora Palliser, growing upwards toward the light! And air!

{On an amusing and slightly dismaying note, four friends have visited in broad daylight and didn't notice any change, despite driving up and even parking on that side. Not only did this work loom over our poor incompetent heads for a decade and cost us a bundle, but the day of hacking was one fraught with anxiety and mind-numbing noise.
Oh well.}