One month later.

I am having fun. Cooking for fun. What I thought was lost has been renewed. I used each of these cookbooks Sunday, and more that one recipe in several. It was a glorious satisfying day of cooking for family. I am old enough to consider myself an intuitive cook with out sounding (I hope!) too braggy. When I get my rhythm, hit my stride and go all out, I feel like I am spinning in the center of a symphony.
I cream butter with sugar and bake far longer than the book says, I know what I like, shortbread just on the edge of being too brown. What are they saying when they say shortbread will not, or should not "color"? And that no, there is no salt needed? Of course you need salt! Of course you need brown bottoms and edges, otherwise why not just add sugar to the flour/water paste my mother made for me as a child and eat that? Flavor, flavor satisfies.
I work in layers. I juggle. How else does one keep from becoming bored? Am I to sit and watch bread rise? Can I not do seven other things while the onions are caramelizing? Rhubarb, apples, and lemon simmer gently on the back burner, todays elixir; tomorrows jam.
Yes, that is bread rising, En plein air, on my living room Florentine end table, in the front yard.
I need the house cool for my sanity, but my bread does better in the warmth of the sun. Gently covered with a tea towel, on a table hopefully the squirrels won't notice,thankfully, they are so dumb even they would not think an end table in the front yard peculiar.
Glorious eggs, deviled, egg salad with dill, gently hard boiled with salt and pepper, natures perfect food, I believe, in spite of decades of the world bashing eggs. I never really listened, so I don't know if eggs are in or out right now, all I know is they really do deserve the title, "The incredible edible egg."

Elizabeth suggested we make honey ice cream for the Fourth of July. Pondering the thought of figuring out a conversion between sugar and honey so I could make Enda Lewis' ice cream custard I Googled honey ice cream, and a recipe from Patricia Wells came up first. No need to look any further than Patricia!
I fished six vanilla beans out of my vanilla jar and had at it. Splitting each one, gently pressing while the juicy nectar and seeds ran on to the plate. These beans had been merrily living in vodka for months, all the better for it! Combined with the milk, heavy cream and honey, the pot of gold was barely scalded.


The house felt alive. The scents of rhubarb and lemon, vanilla and freshly baked bread filled every nook and cranny. All the while, a big pot of New England baked beans slowly cooked all day, surrounding me with a very fond memory; my Mother's presence.