Mary's

I have been so excited about getting to share my TRUE LOVE with you all. It's a pumpkin patch. And it is run by the sweetest lady who ever walked the earth. Mary. It's a family effort. Mary's husband, the sweetest man who ever walked the earth and her children all work the farm. That's the farmhouse. Can you take it? It makes me so HAPPY to just see it every year. My friend, Julie and I used to sit in the car under the pear tree..yea, that's right...I said pear tree.... and we would like to guess what they were having for dinner in there. Meatloaf with gravy? Swiss steak and mashed potatoes? Roast chicken with stuffing? Spaghetti Bake with cheddar cheese on top? Is there a pot roast in the crock pot to have after a hard day in the pumpkin patch. Julie and I took a trip to New England a few years ago in October, and while we did visit alot of great pumpkin patches, Mary's ranks right up there in the top 3. We used to joke about it....3000 miles.....and Mary's...right in our own backyard.

Today my brother Mark and Julie and I rolled up the driveway, but we could see they were just setting up. All hard at work, decorating, stacking the pumpkins in neat rows.... so busy...working so hard...there is even a witches path with a cemetary, a corn maze and and animals to feed and pet.

They should be opening this weekend. Stay tuned.

See any Halloween?

Hint Hint...the light in the window is a witch.

Pizza and Syrah

We're LUCKY ! We live in the Paso Robles wine region and we have some beautiful wines here. It really starts to feel like fall when John and I open one of the big red wines. They taste and smell of autumn in the woods. All earthy and jammy and winey. We have been making homemade pizza for Monday Night Football for nearly 30 years.And now we have Sunday Night Football so our new pizza night is Sunday. Any excuse, really. I made the dough in the morning and let it sit on the drainboard all day. When I walked by I could just feel the yeast growing..and it smelled so yeasty and lusty. By evening we opened our wine and rolled out the dough. I sauteed some mushrooms and we put on a few olives. Sometimes I buy "special" cheese....and sometimes I use what we have. Tonight was what we had. And it went pretty well. I had some mozzarella and some leftover fontina and some of the parmigiano-reggiano we had grated for the tagliatelle night.So we sipped our wine, rolled our dough, heated the oven and baked pizzas. We sat in our little cozy living room enjoying pizza and wine.

I told John, we have had pizza all over the U.S. And at some of the "it" places, but I don't know how you could beat this. Maybe it tasted so good just because we were.....HOME.

September Saturday

Ciabatta--Poolish Version and some Pasta

The fall weather has really sparked a baking mood around here. Even John is into it.
Yesterday morning we woke up to very cold and foggy start of the day. We both felt like a pasta supper at home so we decided to make our first Bolognese Ragu of the season. "Which one should we make?" I asked. "Mario, Rao's, Marcella, Lidia or how about Biba?" We were lucky enough to go to Biba's Restaurant one summer when we found ourselves in Sacramento. The dinner was unforgetable, but what I remember most was the gnocchi. The BEST I have ever had. But today we were on a Tagliatelle with Bolognese mission. We had some carrots and onions still from that sorry garden, so we went and picked those and set off browning the celery, carrots and onion in butter and olive oil. Added in the pancetta and the ground pork then the chicken stock and tomato paste....and no the paste was not from tomatoes in the garden..I didn't even get enough to make a pizza sauce. Total waste of time and water this year. I promise ..this is the last rant I go on about that garden.....we let the sauce bubble away on the stove for the rest of the day and went onto pasta making and Ciabatta making.

I told you all that I was following the Bread Bakers Apprentice baking challenge from Nicole over at Pinch My Salt. We are sorta out of order...and are into making sourdough bread right now.

The day ended with the most delicious pasta. It was good. There really is nothing else like that homemade handcut tagliatelle. So soft and silky.And you know what? That pasta was really good this morning for breakfast.

Today I am making homemade pizza for John for Sunday Night football. More on that later.

100 years old and Halloween

Well, being that our neighborhood is rumored to be about 104 years old, this fig tree must be at least that old. It sits across the lot from me in the backyard of an abandoned old house. Neglected, unloved and uncared for...I feel sorry for it. I have had my eye on it all summer long. So today, I took a stroll over and YEP, the figs have started to turn. I picked a few, peeled 'em and ate them while they were still warm from the sun. Went back and got my camera and took a couple of shots with the figs still on the tree. I have HIGH HOPES for these figs. They have found a home with me. I'm thinking fig tart already.

Today also got the serious Halloween decorating under way. I got into the old trunk upstairs and fell in love all over again. Just like I do every year. Got a few things out..but there is more. Stay tuned.

Halloween Decorating

We are starting our Halloween decorating today. The heat broke...so it is full steam ahead. I got these flowers at Trader Jo's. I am not usually much of a lily fan, but these really caught my eye. The orange looked so September. And I like them sitting on my woodstove. With the orange and black, you know the feeling I'm getting off that. The little witch is part of my vintage Halloween collection. I have been crazy for Halloween since I can ever remember. As kids, we just went nuts over Halloween. We lived in Los Gatos, CA and back then there was a dime store with the wooden floors. My brother Mark and I would drag my poor mother into that store every day of the week in the month of October. It was when they had the costumes that came in the cardboard boxes. I am sure by the end of October Mark and I each had about a dozen different costumes. We could never make up our minds. Next door, was a bakery called "The Cream Puff" (how perfect is that?) We always got to go over there and pick out something for dessert that night. I usually got a .....cream puff. It is still my favorite dessert today. After we got home, my mom would call and ask Mary Alice, our neighbor, if it was o.k. for Kary and Mark to come "trick-or-treating". We would struggle to get our costumes on and after supper, when it got dark enough, over the bridge we would go for our "practice" night of trick-or-treating. And ya know what, even though about 100 years has passed, I still go "practice" trick-or-treating from Labor day till Halloween. And I still can't get enough.