La Quinta, California: Dave and I are busy organizing ourselves for a months-long RV trip. So excited - and I will be posting pretty-much daily during our travels.
It has been a busy few weeks with lots of house guests. Our Happy Time! Our last guests were Lisa and Lucile - and Lucy brought two of her gal-pals to celebrate the end of the school year. It was very very hot the weekend the three little girls were here, so a lot of pool time. The pool was 91 degrees (only heated by the sun).
Ellie had visited us before and spent the night, so she knew the lay-o-the-land. Luna seemed to feel right at home as well.
The girls are really into baking and wanted to bake brownies. I told them I had everything in stock, but imagine their surprise when cocoa powder and flour came out of the pantry instead of a boxed mix. They added big fat chocolate chunks to the top before baking, just in case the stick of butter required wasn’t rich enough. The first night the girls were here, Dave turned-on the fire pit (just what we needed!) and they made S’mores. Girls sure like chocolate.
Before Sunday Brunch, Lisa arranged for the girls to have a pickleball lesson with our (retired) club pro. He had given Leo and his posse lessons last year, and Lisa really liked his style. Ellie plays tennis and the coach could tell immediately.
So that was last weekend. Since then we have both had our Shingles vaccines (ugh, needed a day of rest after that one) and have started gathering our sports equipment, clothing and foods to place into the Petite Peregrinus. We have places to go and things to do, and maybe it will not be 110° while we are doing these things?
I have found two new items to place into the RV. (Just what our RV needs - more weight.) The first is a jewelry cleaner “wand” thingy. It looks like an eyebrow pencil, but it has a little brush tip that applies a cleaner to rings, earrings, etc., while you can use the brush to dig around in the crevices. I was so impressed with how my wedding ring sparkled. Perfect for travel (suitcase or RV).
I am replacing the circa 1999 iron in our RV for a Rowenta steamer/iron combo. What a find! I’ve been practicing on my 5000 linen tank dresses and the handheld device works so well and so quickly. I’ll be the crispest camper at the KOA!
And to close, a few new recipes have been tested lately:
I made a smaller version of this dish and served it with a Greek/Israeli/Persian salad (they are basically the same - cucumber, onion, tomato, olives, feta, etc). Though a garlic lover, wow was this garlicky.
More Za'atar the next week, this time a refreshing salad with tuna. No cooking involved.
And believe it or don't, we went out to dinner one night. Our club had a bocce ball mixer party. The chef set up a grill outside near the bocce courts. Beer and wine were flowing, but it was over 100 degrees (even at 6:30p, so we grabbed a burger, ate it under the shade of the patio (with misters) and fled back to our air conditioned house. Not many were brave enough to play bocce, but it was a fun time either way.
And speaking of our club, the restaurant is down to summer hours (most people have fled to their "real" houses until November). The menu has been pared-down a bit as well, but they have added a few new items and I am crazy about the new taco salad:
This salad comes in two sizes (above is the petite) and is vegetarian - or you can add ground beef, sliced sirloin, grilled chicken or shrimp. There are tomatoes, corn, black beans, red onions, avocado and maybe some other things I can't see/remember. The best thing? The batter-fried slices of fresh jalapeno croutons. Wowzer!
I've been working on a recipe for a while (Leo is my bread eater), and I think it is perfected after I made it with buttermilk. Buttermilk just makes so many breads better.
Speaking of Leo. He graduated from middle school and is now in high school. Still can't get my brain around that. The next four years will fly by. Lucy advanced to 7th grade. Both kids had remarkable report cards. Of course.
Must get back to packing. Until my next update, I remain, your organized correspondent.