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Scout & Zooey in the magazine basket

I am a pretty serious animal lover.  I love to watch them play and cuddle with them.  I have two cats, Scout is my 13 year old boy, and Zooey is my 12 year old girl.  They are a significant part of our family and bring much joy to our lives.  Scout is the pretty one, and he’s our velcro kitty.  He wants to be touching you all the time - in your lap, next to your leg, curled up next to your tummy when you sleep.  It’s sweet, yes, but can be a royal pain in the butt when you’re trying to read or when it’s just too hot!  Zooey is our smart one.  She’s not as strikingly beautiful as Scout, but she is always watching and sussing things out.  She loves to play tricks on Scout and get him to chase her and then double back and bite his butt.  She isn’t much for long cuddling, but she really likes to sleep at the end of the bed next to my feet.  They only get to sleep with me for about an hour in the morning after LJ leaves for work.  We can’t let them sleep with us at night because Scout likes to sleep on LJ’s head.  This DOES NOT work.

I’m bringing this up today because a dear friend of mine is about to lose her dog to old age kidney failure.  It’s a sad day.  When you’ve had an animal be a part of your life for many years, it is as tragic and gut wrenching as losing a family member.  My thoughts are with my friend all day today. 

And here’s a send up to all those folks who bring animals into their lives and make all the lives a little better for it.

Did I wake you?

My sweet mother decided she wanted to go on a trip to the beach so she took all four of her children and their spouses to Paradise Island in the Bahamas for five days.  The adventure began last Saturday when we all arrived midafternoon within an hour or two of each other.  We were all in the hotel pool immediately, soaking up the sun and wetting our whistles.

The first evening, the hotel had a band that did pop music and rhythm and blues.  If there’s one thing the Arnold clan has, it’s rhythm.  We were singing and dancing all night long.  We formed a dance line and boogied down to funky town.  Even my 82 year old mom got in the act.  Everyone in the room got up and danced with us and it was a real party. 

On Sunday, LJ and I decided to go into old downtown Nassau.  Some of the old buildings were beautiful and I loved the government buildings.  They were all pink with white trim and green shutters.  And the landscaping was gorgeous.  There were, of course, hundreds of little shops selling junk for tourists to waste their money on, and I contributed my share.  There were also a ton of high dollar jewelry shops.  We couldn’t really figure out why since the prices seemed very similar to prices in the states.  The only thing one would save would be taxes - not that significant in my mind.

Sunday afternoon we were back in the water.  Sunday evening the hotel activity was karaoke to rap songs we weren’t too familiar with.  So, as Arnolds sometimes do, we got drinks in the lobby bar and proceeded to have a song fest on our own.  My brother Steve and I sang big band songs from the 40’s.  It was such fun!

Monday we decided to go to the Atlantis Casino.  Mom and I played slots and my brothers-in-law played roulette.  And the winners were - Mom and Rob!  Mom won $100 and Rob won $150.  Good job!  In the Atlantis complex, there was a wonderful aquarium that wrapped around the building.  It was stocked with hundreds of beautiful fish, large and small, all brightly colored and some really cool manna rays.  That was fascinating.

Our Paradise Island resort was all-inclusive and we ate most of our meals at a buffet that offered a variety of choices.  Generally, we found the food was quite good.  They had a nicer restaurant that required appropriate dress and reservations, so we decided to have a more formal evening there on Monday night.  The food was good and there was lots of conversation and laughter, as always happens when my family gets together.  The evening would have been perfect if Mom had not fallen getting on the elevator at the end of the evening.  She had to be taken to the hospital the next morning to be x-rayed and get everything thoroughly checked out.  She sustained a pretty bad sprain and was in a lot of pain, but meds and sleep helped her get through Tuesday.

On Tuesday, with Mom back at the hotel sleeping, we went to the beach.  The water was unbelievably beautiful and the waves were pretty powerful.  We had so much fun playing in the ocean.  Jen declared it the best thing on the whole trip.  Tuesday night the hotel put on a show of native dances and a limbo specialist.  LJ got picked from the audience because he was the tallest guy there.  He had to “assist” the limboist go under the lowest bar by holding another guy standing on the limboist’s abs.  Funny.  It was a good last evening.

Wednesday was travel day back for all of us.  It was a lovely vacation and a really memorable one to have with my whole family.  Thanks, Mom!

Keith, Pam, Lynn, Bobbie, Patrick, Jim

We couldn’t have ordered up a more beautiful Thanksgiving Day if we had tried.  LJ and I had 6 friends to the lake with us for dinner.  The sun was shining, it was about 68 crisp degrees, and the wind was calm - just perfection. 

Beautiful Day

We drove down Wednesday afternoon, and I was able to get the Italian Cream Cake done the night before.  I had made the cornbread for the dressing on Wednesday morning, and we bought a 15 lb. Kosher turkey the Sunday before and it had been thawing in the fridge and was ready to go.  We had things so under control that we were able to sit out on the deck and enjoy the lake on Wednesday evening.  It was a beautiful start to the holiday.

Thursday morning I put the turkey on a bed of onions, carrots and celery and put lemons, onions, carrots and celery in the turkey cavity.  I seasoned it up well and massaged it with olive oil.  In the oven for its 3 to 3 1/2 hour roast.  LJ helped with the house cleaning (Helped is an understatement.  He did it all!), while I was in the kitchen.

LJ Cleans

  Friends started arriving about 2:00.  By that time I had my potatoes simmering in the half and half infused with garlic, and the turkey was pulled from the oven to rest.  I used the turkey drippings to finish off the cornbread dressing and got it in the oven.

What a feast!!! Patrick brought his always wonderful roasted Brussels sprouts with pancetta, a delicious yankee type stuffing with leeks, cranberries, sausage, and white bread, and whole cranberry sauce.  Keith brought his green bean casserole and perfect pecan pie.  Pam made homemade bread (which she thought was overdone, but it wasn’t) and sweet potato casserole.  Lynn made a luscious fruit salad, and Bobbie brought a wonderful dip and crackers, and we all proceeded to make pigs of ourselves.

The Feast

This Thanksgiving was particularly special this year.  It’s the first Thanksgiving Day that I have ever spent without any family.  Mom and my sisters and their families were together in Kansas City, and I called and it sounded like they were going to have a special one, too.  My brother and his wife were having a small one together.  We were all missing Dad, but we all recognize that we have so much to be thankful for.

Lynn, Patrick, Jim, & Pam

This year I am especially thankful for all our loving friends.  We have so many and they mean so much to us. 

Pam, CJ, and Jim

This past weekend we celebrated LJ’s Aunt Deedy’s 90th birthday.  Think about it - 90, n i n e t y YEARS old.  And I assure you, she is a pistol.  She still drives to Westminster Presbyterian Church every Sunday morning.  It was a lovely celebration, with all four of her children and their spouses coming to town, her grandchildren, nieces and nephews, in-laws and out-laws, not to mention friends from the aforementioned Westminster church and Grace Presbyterian Village.  It was glorious, and so was she.

For the occasion, LJ’s sister Janet, with whom we traveled to Italy, came into town from Olympia.  Since she was here so close to the actual date, we decided to have her and LJ’s Mom over Sunday to celebrate an early family Thanksgiving.  I think the dinner turned out beautifully, and if any of you are doing a small celebration, I would recommend these dishes.  Unfortunately, we put out the camera and still forgot to take photos so I don’t have any pictures.  Use your imagination.  The colors were beautiful. The menu:

Pumpkin Soup

Apricot Glazed Cornish Hens

Italian Sausage Rice Pilaf

Broccoli with Sage Brown Butter

Italian Cream Cake

I’ll post the recipes for the Pumpkin Soup and the Apricot Glazed Cornish Hens and stuffing.  The Hen recipe is adapted from an Emeril Lagasse recipe, and the Pumpkin Soup is my own. 

Cornish Hens with Apricot Glaze

And Italian Sausage Rice Pilaf

2 Cornish hens, halved

1 tablespoon olive oil

¼ lb. Italian sausage, casings removed

½ cup diced onion

¼ cup diced carrot

¼ cup diced celery

2 teaspoons chopped garlic

2 teaspoons orange zest

1 cup long grain rice

1/3 cup golden raisins

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

1 ½ teaspoons chopped fresh thyme

½ teaspoon cinnamon

Salt and pepper

2 cups chicken stock

1 cup apricot jam

½ cup fresh orange juice

Preheat oven to 375.

Heat oil in a heavy 2 quart saucepan over medium heat and add sausage.  Cook until the fat is rendered, about 4 to 5 minutes.  Add the onions, carrots, and celery and cook until onions are translucent.  Add garlic and 1 teaspoon of the orange zest.  Add rice and cook stirring constantly for 3 minutes.  Add the raisins, parsley, thyme, cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon black pepper, chicken stock and bring to a boil.  Cover the pot, place it in the oven.  Check after 30 minutes, and remove from oven if all liquid is absorbed.  Leave covered and let rest until hens have finished roasting.

Combine the apricot jam, orange juice and remaining zest in a small bowl and whisk to blend.  Place in a saucepan over medium high heat, and boil, reducing by about half.

Season hens with salt and pepper.  Spread glaze on hens and place in the oven with rice.  Remove and reglaze every 15 minutes for a total of 45 minutes or until thermometer in thigh registers 160°.

Pumpkin Soup

Cynthia Jackson

1/8 teaspoon each of:

Cinnamon

Cumin

Cloves

Ginger

Cayenne

2 cloves garlic, minced to a fine paste

2 tablespoons butter

1 15 oz. can pure pumpkin

2 cups chicken broth

½ cup half and half

2 tablespoons real maple syrup

Salt and pepper

Melt the butter over medium heat in a heavy saucepan.  Add the spices and garlic stirring until toasty, about 1 to 1 ½ minutes.

Add pumpkin puree, broth, half and half, and syrup and thoroughly combine with a whisk.  Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally, and cook for 10 minutes.

Season to taste with salt and pepper.

4 first course servings

It’s my birthday, and once again LJ has pulled off an event weekend that made it so special.  We had a mini staycation in Dallas.  The best way to describe it would be to say we ate our way through the weekend.

It started with lunch on Saturday at Jasper’s, Kent Rathbun’s incredible restaurant featuring, as he describes it, gourmet backyard cuisine.  It is a lovely place with a warmly modern decor.  The ceilings are incredibly high, and the tables are dark wood but the lighting and accessories are all metal and glass.  I wanted to eat something light considering I had an idea that much more was to come that day, but, alas, Mr. Rathbun is not known for light.  I had the Smoked Salmon Cobb Salad, and it was delicious.  I expected thin slices of lox-like salmon arranged in a Cobb Salad, but instead was treated to a generous portion of perfectly cooked salmon filet.  The salad had the expected boiled egg, apple smoked bacon, tomato and avacado with a rich creamy dressing over all.  What utter decadence!  LJ had what was called Grilled Chicken Breast, California Avocado.  It was a lightly grilled breast of chicken over a lovely sauce of avocado puree with avocado chunks and grape tomatoes accompanied by Paula Lambert’s specially made creamy cottage cheese.  LJ said it was perfectly cooked and delicious.

Later in the afternoon, we checked into the lovely Warwick Melrose Hotel.  The old, stately Melrose is where my parents spent their wedding night 63 years ago.  It has been lovingly restored, and it retains its old charm while being perfectly comfortable.  Our room was a mini suite on the 8th floor with windows all along the side facing downtown.  It had a homey little sitting area and luxurious draperies and bed linens.  The bathroom floor was marble and it had all the amenities you would expect from a hotel of high caliber.  The Library Bar is still warm and inviting with its dark wood walls and high ceilings.

The highlight of the evening was dinner at Rise No. 1.  It’s a tiny little place with antique French googaws filling the room, wooden tables with mismatched chairs, a circle of stone in the center, and an exposed kitchen.  The restaurant specializes in souffles, and they are remarkable.  But first, the salad.  LJ and I started with a Rise No. 1 house salad with baby lettuce, bleu cheese, toothpicks of granny smith apple, pecans, and the most amazing “Pecan Vinaigrette.”  It is like nothing I have ever had anywhere.  It’s made with fragrant walnut oil that almost makes you think of chocolate when you take the first bite.  We were overwhelmed with the salad, but Rise was just getting started.  Oh, and the bread!!!  It was without a doubt the best bread I have had since I was in France.  It made me understand why, when Jacques Pepin was asked what his favorite food is, he answered, “really good bread and really good butter.  What better can you get than that!”  This bread was perfectly crunchy on the outside and slightly chewy on the inside.  I could have made a meal of it.

My entree was Truffle Infused Mushroom Souffle and LJ had Jambon & Gruyere Souffle.  We kept going back and forth trying to decide who had the best.  Each one was intensely flavored and light as a feather, a feat I don’t believe is easily accomplished.  Whe the waiter asked me at one point how the meal was going, I believe I teared up!  Then came dessert.  I could not resist my all-time favorite, Grand Marnier Souffle, and LJ had Bread Pudding Souffle.  He insisted his was best, but for me you can’t beat Grand Marnier.  Anyway, both were flawless.

After dinner we went back to the hotel and went into the Library Bar for an after dinner drink and a little entertainment.  They had a lovely female singer who wasn’t bad, but it was glorified karioki with prerecorded background instruments.  I wonder how good she could have been if she had been accompanied by live piano and drums or bass which would have allowed her some room to express herself instead of following a pre-set arrangement.

Anyway, what a lovely birthday.  Great food, beautiful surroundings, lovely music - it doesn’t get any better.  How lucky I am to be married to someone who loves these things like I do, and generously lavishes me with them.

We slept in this morning after last night’s wonderful anniversay experience.  We went to the Botonist for Brunch around 10:30.  LJ had blueberry pancakes and I had scrambled eggs and smoked salmon.  I’ve certainly had my yearly requirement for salmon since I’ve been here.

Outside the Botonist

Our neighborhood

We’ve had such great luck with retail therapy over here, we don’t think we have room in our luggage for everything we bought.  So we went to the Post Office and bought a box to put our dirty clothes and some other stuff in.  We took it back to the Post Office and shipped it to ourselves.  It cost over $100 to mail that silly box!  Oh, well.  We’ve had better ideas.

Early afternoon we took the tube to Green Park Station which lets you out at St. James Street.  There we wandered through the Ritz and past Christies which had amazing artifacts in the windows.  We went to Wolsely’s at 4:00 for tea.  The building was originally the headquarters for the Wolsely automobile which went out of business during the depression.  The building is perfectly restored and looks like the set of a 1920’s movie.  It was really elegant and beautiful.

Big Ben and Parliament

After tea we went to look for a very old pub called the Red Lion, but we never found it.  Sometimes directions in guidebooks are somewhat less than perfect.  Anyway, we found a perfectly wonderful little pub called the Golden Lion and we stopped for a glass of wine.

We went back to the flat to pack and get ready for the long flight home tomorrow.  It’s been such a memorable trip.  I really hope to be back soon.

We started the day with breakfast at the Abbey Hotel in Bath.  LJ finally got his traditional English breakfast, eggs, wiggly bacon (as opposed the the American streaky kind), broiled tomato and baked beans.  Ugh!  The we took off to tour the Roman baths.  How amazing!  They were beautifully preserved and the tour is set up so you are given real insight into who used them and how they were run.  There are now two levels to look at the underground pool.  The second level walkway above the pool was added in the late 1800’s.  Here are a few pictures of the baths and museum.

We checked out and took the train back to London and arrived about 2:00pm.  Back at the flat, we cleaned up and went to tea at the Botonist.  It was just delicious.  They have a wonderful pastry chef.  One of the special pastries we had was a nutmeg custard tart that was really special.  The scones and finger sandwiches were really good.  I had no idea how much food was served at tea.  It really is a meal.  I was very glad our dinner reservations were not until 9:00.

We took the tube to Jamie Oliver’s restaurant, Fifteen.  It was 45 minutes by train from our flat.  The restaurant is really cool, as you might expect.  It had a young, hip vibe with crazy graphics and very young, beautiful servers.  Ours was a Brazilian guy named Fabio.  LJ and I had the 4 course tasting menu.  Almost the best thing we had was the amuse bouche.  It was a scallop with fresh ginger, lime juice, cilantro and a tiny something crunchy.  It really did jump in the mouth.  My first course was a salad with baby greens, a grilled peach, burrata cheese (which is an artisanal cheese made with mozzarella and cream), toasted almonds and balsamic vinegar.  LJ had prosciutto di San Danielle with Italian black figs, gorganzola dolce and pea shoots.   His next course was risotto bianco with mushrooms and truffle pecorino.  My primo was potato gnocchi with Cumbrian pork ragu.  LJ’s secundo was pot roasted pork with apricot, rosemary and white wine.  Mine was char-grilled salmon with spinach and black olive sauce.  Finally, desserts were honeycomb semifreddo with lemon sorbet and strawberry limoncello soup (LJ), and elderflower panna cotta with gooseberry compote (me).  OMG!  Yes, we took a taxi home and collapsed.  This was the actual day of our 40th anniversary and what a day to remember it was. 

Jamie wishes happy 40th

We started the day with breakfast at a little neighborhood boulingerie on King’s Road-coffee and ham and cheese croissants.  We then made our way to the tube to Waterloo Pier to buy tickets to a riverboat cruise down the Thames to Greenwich.  The weather was picture perfect, partly sunny and a cool breeze.  The tour guide gave us the history of London on The Thames as we motored slowly down the river.  I liked the Mayflower Pub which commemorates the place where the Mayflower ship launched for America.  We de-boated in Greenwich about lunch time.  We found a local pub and had fish & chips and a cold lager. (They actually serve it cold now.)

After lunch we took the boat back and got off at the Tower of London stop.  We had done the Tower tourist stuff on our first trip to London years ago, so we just took a couple of photos and tubed back to Sloane Square.  We stopped at a market and bought food for the flat - eggs and streaky bacon, beer and wine.  All of the essentials. 

We also stopped in a stationary store and bought a card to write a message to Stacey Kent and Jim Tomlinson.  She is a great jazz singer and he is a sax and flute player and their music is what caused us to make this particular trip.  We’ll see them perform tonight in celebration of our 40th wedding anniversary.  We wrote a note in the card saying how happy we were to be able to be here in London seeing them on our special occasion, and we asked them to play our song, “Never Let Me Go.”

We took the tube one full hour to Hornschurch and then walked another 25 minutes to the Queen’s Theatre.  We were pretty glowing by the time we arrived, but boy was it worth it!  Stacey and Jim and group were truly awesome!  They were more improvisational than the last time we saw them in the States.  And the highlight of the evening was when Stacey made a beautiful tribute to us and sang our song.  We both sat with tears running down our faces.  What a miraculous evening.  We made the tube trip back in a kind of romantic haze.

Oh, by the way, we heard on our walk home from the tube station that Michael Jackson has died.

Friends are coming! That’s my favorite thing. We’re having friends to the lake for down home food and fun. We had hoped for sun so we could go out on the lake, but no such luck. It’s raining like crazy. We’ll have fun anyway. I’ve got a brisket in the oven, and I’ve got a potato casserole all whipped up and ready to be baked. When the brisket comes out, I’m doing an old fashioned lemon chess pie. With a big salad and bread, that should be a feast.

I’m using Gale Gand’s Lemon Chess Pie recipe; however, I’ve used others in the past. Gale is a great pastry chef, though, so this should be delicious. Here’s the recipe:

Lemon Chess Pie

2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon fine cornmeal
4 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons grated lemon rind
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 9″ unbaked pie shell
1 cup heavy cream, whipped

In a large bowl, combine the sugar, flour, and cornmeal. Blend well, then add the eggs and combine well. Add the milk, melted butter, lemon rind and juice and mix well. Pour this into the crust. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 mintues. (If desired, you can cover edges of crust with foil for the first 30 minutes of cooking to prevent over browning.) Cool to room temperature and serve. May be refrigerated, but bring to room temperature before serving. Serve with dollops of whipped cream.

This week I did the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I (with my siblings and my Mom) put my sweet, little, Alzheimer’s afflicted Dad into a nursing home. It hurt like hell, and it still does, so I thought I would just write about what a wonderful, unique individual he was when he was himself.

At Christmas every year, Dad would walk with us kids to McCree Park where he would climb the trees and pick mistletoe. My baby sister Jenny would egg him on to climb higher, further out on the limbs. We would laugh until our sides ached as he dangled precariously from the tree tops. We always took home way more mistletoe than Mom wanted in the house, but Dad always put it over her head first thing and claimed his kiss, and she didn’t complain too much.

Dad was a big fan of University of Arkansas football. The year they played Texas for the National Championship, we were all watching in the den. Arkansas made a fine play, and Dad got so excited he jumped up and knocked the globe out of the chandelier with his head. It flew up in the air, and he caught it as he and the globe both came down. We thought he was pretty special.

My Dad was the biggest fan of jazz that I’ve ever known. His tastes were wide and varied. He loved the straight ahead stuff from Bud Powell and Art Pepper to Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis. And he really loved our local jazz hero, Red Garland. He loved the musicians and the singers and collected them all. He had (actually we still have) every album Billie Holiday ever made and many in duplicate because he would buy the fantastic boxed sets which were released after they were originally done on LP. The same goes for Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Anita O’Day, Mildred Bailey and Benny Goodman. He loved the big bands and collected all of them. And the big band singers - what can I say. The Helens (Forrest, O’Connell, Humes, Ward), June Christy, Peggy Lee, Jo Stafford and his beloved Martha Tilton. His LP collection numbers somewhere between 7,000 and 8,000 and his collection of 78’s runs about half that. And among all that great jazz, you’ll find a smattering of opera, classical, and authentic country such as Mother Maybelle Carter and Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.

Dad’s love of music was not just in listening. His knowledge was downright encyclopedic. He knew the year a song was recorded, what label it was on, and could name all the musicians. When my brother, Steve, and I would sit for hours and listen with Dad, it was always sort of a game for us to identify the singer and the sidemen accompanying. When I didn’t know the singer, I’d just guess “Helen” because there were so many of them I had a decent chance of being right. This was a terrifically fun game to Steve and me. I was pretty good at the singers, but Steve was much better at the more difficult trivia than I was. The music education I got from my Dad I would compare to one from any institution of higher learning.

Dad was a reader and a writer and challenged us to do both as much as possible. He was a lover of movies and art, and we would make lists of favorite things. My lists of favorite movies, favorite songs, and favorite singers would change with each year. Dad loved Alice Faye, and he said a day never went by that he didn’t think of her. Oscar night was a special night at my house. He was so proud of the Academy when they awarded Midnight Cowboy. He didn’t think they would have the courage. After all, it was the only movie rated R ever awarded (maybe even nominated) for Best Picture. And we all cried for joy when Meryl Streep won for Sophie’s Choice.

I will miss him so much it’s unbelievable. The shell of a body that is left of him will linger, but the essence of the man is gone. And it’s unbearably sad.