My Kind of Blackberry

Every summer I can remember is punctuated by blackberries- first the anticipation, then collection, then...my most favorite food ever, blackberry pie.
I am not a religious or particularly spiritual person but while I'm picking blackberries I feel as if the earth is blessing me with a glorious gift, thorns, spider webs and all.

Since U Been Scone

Sigh. I think I have been home alone a little too long! Now I know why little old ladies bring baskets of muffins to the local banks, etc. They are filling up the empty nest with baking!

But I do love my scones. This is a good basic dependable recipe.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, combine 2 cups flour, 3 T. sugar, 1 T baking powder and a half teaspoon salt. Cut in 5 T butter and stir in about a half cup raisins. Beat together a half cup light cream and one egg. Add some vanilla if you like and stir the liquid quickly into the dry ingredients. Knead lightly, turn onto board and cut into 8 scones. Bake about 17 minutes. Check at 15 if your oven runs hot. I love these with blueberry jam!

Pie Princess

Man, I make a lot of pies in the summertime. Lyle dubbed me Pie Princess a quarter century ago so in this season I try to live up to my royal responsibilites.

This here is a plain ol' blueberry pie, four and a half cups fresh berries, three quarters cup sugar, half teaspoon cinnamon, quarter cup flour, juice of half a lemon.Let that mixture stand while preparing your favorite pastry. Bake at 450 for 20 minutes, then 350 for 35 minutes.

Today's listening pleasure, Nina Simone, The Blues, five stars...I LOVE this music!

Disblurbia

There is nothing I enjoy more than a good thriller. There is nothing I enjoy less than a poor one.

I was looking forward to a pleasant evening watching "Disturbia", newly out on DVD. I guess I should have known better. Thrillers used to be made for grownups. Now they have replaced beach movies
as the mindless and boring teen flick genre of choice.

"Disturbia" employs the gimmick of Hitchcock's classic "Rear Window". Too bad it completely misses the mark as far as style, production and charisma of its actors. Electronics are the stars of this movie. Sigh. Yawn.

No wonder I'm glued to the Turner Classic Movie channel.

Today's listening pleasure, "The Essential Billie Holiday", four and a half stars.

The Tell-Tale Tapping Toe

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I will post the frittata recipe, but for the love of all that is decent, stop the hideous tapping of that foot"

Ahem. There is really no "recipe" for this dish ( the frittata, not the heart ) but here's how I made the one whose portrait(which strangely never ages...wait, that's Wilde , not Poe) appears in the blog below.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9 inch pie pan.
Heat about one tablespoon of good olive oil in a skillet. Saute one chopped leek, one large clove of garlic, minced, a couple of diced sweet peppers and some steamed spinach, until tender. In a separate bowl, beat 4 eggs, a half teaspoon salt, a bit of pepper and basil. Stir in about half a cup of crumbled feta and the veg. Spread in the pie pan and bake for about 25 minutes. Viola!

Today's listening pleasure: Etta James, "Matriarch of the Blues" four stars.

Reduced Guilt Cheesecake Tart

I was craving cheesecake today but did not want to consume three or four packages of cream cheese in the next couple of days. So I adapted a recipe I found on Food Network and called it:

Reduced Guilt Cheesecake

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 large egg
3/8 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup blueberry or other fruit preserves
Hot shortbread base (see below)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a bowl whisk cream cheese until smooth and whisk in eggs, sugar and vanilla. Evenly spread preserves over hot shortbread and pour cream-cheese mixture over it. Swirl a couple of teaspoons of preserves into the mixture if you like. Bake in middle of oven until slightly puffed, about 30 minutes. Cool completely in pan . Will keep, covered and chilled, for 3 days.
Shortbread base
3/8 cup butter
1cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup packed light brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cut butter into 1/2-inch pieces. In a food processor, process all ingredients until mixture begins to form small lumps. Sprinkle mixture into a 9 inch round baking pan, pressing evenly onto bottom. Bake shortbread in middle of oven until golden, about 20 minutes.

Beezer Navel Gazing

Will it never end? (N.B. beezer is my new word for boomer+geezer. I coulda said boozer but out of deference to Clapton's sobriety, I chose not.)

The Chicago Trib recently ran an interview with Clapton, guitarist, devoted supporter of Giorgio Armani and champion of the Chicago blues. I don't mind Clapton as a musician, in fact I own several of his albums. He never lived up to Cream but then neither did Bruce or Baker. Anyway I should take my own advice and enough with the looking inward and backward.
In this interview he bemoans the possible demise of "hand-made music" and complains you can't get vinyl anymore. Eric, do ya get out much, out of the superstar stratosphere?? Hand made music is thriving in countless regional festivals and tiny backwater burgs.Carefully tended vinyl is sold out of basements, all over the internet and in small and medium storefronts in any city I visit anyway.
I'm exasperated with the whole "death of music" hand-wringing and lip quivering. Music is just fine. New artists may have to be content with an artist lifestyle instead of an Armani lifestyle, but just maybe it was the Armani lifestyle that supported the rise of music as industry.
Today's listening pleasure- The Best of Cream (bought for a couple of bucks at Walmart) 4 and a half stars.