Thursday, we played in the kitchen and made:





a Three Sisters warm side dish (it's good cold, too!) of fresh green beans, corn from 3 ears (cut off), canned black beans, zucchini to stand in for the Third Sister (squash, after corn, bean and squash grown together in fields and the basis of a harvest celebration that long predates my Puritan ancestors' arrival to what became Massachusetts), along with some lightly sautéed onions, garlic, a little fennel sliced thinly, coriander & cumin and a simple vinaigrette;



gold potatoes, for the mashing (we really need to find a potato masher or two - K&M don't have one, either as it turns out);



Muhamarra for dipping veggies into, which is that amazing thing you get when you blenderize walnuts, roasted red peppers, toasted and ground cumin, and some pomegranate juice reduction (I'm calling it that because there's now another thing on the market named pomegranate molasses that has Other Crap innit, ew. Go for the yellow label.)



Mince pie, with a poppyseed crust and mince from garden goodness t'other year plus a pear from the new house chopped into it, and cookies of the leftover crust dough (l'il leaves and pumpkins)



A small handful of Meyer lemons to float in the water pitchers, since the trees from our pals tuatha242 and Vanessa Brown are in that ripening-fruit-and-setting-blossoms (at the same) time mode this month; and



Lise had a tremendous success with her ollallieberry cobbler this year, having drained the fruit as it thawed (for nefarious other purposes, that might be either curd or sorbet), and adding a little corn starch to the doings; I placed it in bag in box utterly FLAT in the trunk, and it traveled to Kurt & saffronrose without (slosh) incident.



My seesty, tamouse was up from Santa Monica where she's been working & living this past half-year, and set forth a splendid platter of crudites, including edamame and broccoli-rabe among the more usual suspects;



K's mom Edna made her signature mashed potato rolls (yum!) -- do we have the recipe? yes. Do we make them? actually, it keeps them a sacred delight to just have at special occasions when she makes them, and a can of good old Ocean Spray Canberry jelly, which we served in the time honored Rainbow House tradition: jiggling upright;



Nette brought Real cranberry relish and a yummy pecan pie;



The Cariadus clan (two moms and a set of 2-and-a-half-year-old twins Aedan and Maya) brought a green salad; and

[edited to note that Marina found] pumpkin ravioli with sage-infused olive oil;



Susan brought three kinds of olives;



saffronrose made a great molasses glaze for the 24 pound bird, which we made our way through almost half of (plenty for Soup later!), she and K concocted a cornbread stuffing (wonderful yummaciousness),

Moroccan sweet potatoes which were delicious and nothing like the übersweet marshmallow-brown-sugar stuff of our youths, the (biggest) saucepan of gravy in a few different pouring containers, just as should be, and some lovely wines and tall pitchers of lemon water.



The best? young Arthur cooked his halloween pumpkin for the first time this year and made PIES. Wonderful marvelous pie, and we got to take one home with us after!







On Friday we cooked at home, and funny thing, we had made Enough of the Three Sisters we didn't need to make another batch, and still have some to munch. We did an organic bird, used the giblets in the gravy and fried up the liver for a quick bite while doing prep and everything; had the freshest rutabaga to cut up and mash with our gold potatoes; sliced garneet yams and a few more of those potatoes and baked them, adding onion and garlic and rosemary towards the end (oh, tasty!); ollallieberries and pies as leftover from above, mit schlag of course, and a demitasse of chocolatl to cap off the evening. Wine and water (you know I'm a connoisseur of ye olde aitch-two-oh, sorry I don't remember what wine but trust in Lise that it was Good). We were joined by

Alan, Mary, liveavatar and davesslave.





Good times, good friends and family.

From the Guardian, via BoingBoing: a group of folks broke into a Paris landmark and secretly fixed its 200 year old clock, and shocked the management by showing them when it was done, since it took over a year, and they were undetected all that time. Now that's cooler than just partying in old nooks and crannies!



http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/heritage/story/0,,2217212,00.html



Oh, and they've been cleared of all breaking & entering / trespassing charges. Fancy!

Oooooh.



Our pals Jon and Kalia have a couple of chickens, raised pet-like from chicks last spring, who each give them an egg a day. Awwwww...