July 8/July 4
This blog will return next week when I hope to have my faculties back.
July 2/ honeymoon shmoneyspoon
Mr. Radish married me 48 years ago today. We are off on a day honeymoon with a posh BBQ at home tonight.
July1/ Twos
There is a offshore marine layer. We are liking this for a little break. My daughter called yesterday, she was so frazzled that she almost couldn’t speak. She is heavy into maintaining the health of a two year old. It is not clear if he will do himself in, or someone will put out a contract. Yesterday was the day all mother’s fear, little Teddy got into his mother’s makeup and painted his face and the carpeted stairs. “Mom?”, “Mom?” One of the pleasures of being a grandmother of seven is that there is someone always out of kilter but there are more in sync. The very worst of the 2 year olds are now nine and ten. And as much as two year olds can drive you batty, nines, and tens are your reward.
June 30/ Summer noise
Inside
Drier doing whirl, whirl work Washing machine going chuga, chuga Dishwasher: relatively tame “Where do we keep the knives?” by some one who should know Fan: shush, shush Two computers playing games. One saying “Poppit” and “Hello der” Machine that asks multiplication answers. Bing, bing. really bad noise Coffee pot buzzing it is done. Mariners winning for a change, cheers “No one will share the computer with me”. Refrigerator door left open and nasty subliminal buzz Oven timer buzzing “Don’t let the flies in” Another bigger fan :shush, shush,shush Coffeemaker done beep Microwave completion beep Drier done: long beep “Why can’t we watch tv?” Outside Hear the radishes grow.
“Dear Lord”, see www.expatprincess.wordpress.com
June 26/ Kids and summer
Soon all of the grandchildren will be here for week or two. It is hard to get in the groove of thinking in children’s think about what to do. I could do it for myself as a child, but I have trouble translating it to current children. I had my favorites of building stone forts with mud. I tried that for three years and it always fell down. Reminds me of the China quakes. When all of the kids are here at once we tell them to “go outside”, and figure it out. But kids really want other kids. My oldest granddaughter, fourteen, is happy to hide and work on her Geometry class, but given the chance, even she would welcome company. Only part of the problem in our case is that there are the rich houses and the modest houses, and the rich houses are gated. And the rich people own the best beach. But there are kids inside the gated community. Then there are year round people, and there are summer people. Summer people are mainly weekend people. It is hard to get these children together. So although there is the borrowed skateboard, and there is a new electric guitar at our house, what is needed is other kids. What can pull this group of local kids together? In other times, you would just show up, hang around, and when the crowd moved, you moved with them. Or the other alternative is to have something so fine, that all of the other kids are interested. When I was 13, I had a swimming pool and that helped. I wish it was so easy as to be able have a stand from which to rent umbrellas. Yesterday it was gardening with Grandma. ******** I was talking to another grandmother yesterday, and she said her ten year old grandson, Joe, set up a table and umbrella in the heart of their small town and was selling soap, Eau de Joe. PBS heard about it and has done a bit about him on their show KIDS BIZ in September.
June 25/ Garlic in my times
I grew up about 60 miles north of Gilroy, California. Gilroy was the garlic capital of the world. Christopher Ranch was the main ranch. Two brothers from Italy I think started the ranch. Nearly everyone thought that Gilroy was a place you did not want to be from. We maintained that garlic still came out the pores even after people left. This being Food Candy Wednesday, I have been reading the columns. On the New York Times food site they have added a new format which collects a lot of articles on one topic. On today’s page is root beer which I didn’t read (as I thought it could initiate another craze), asparagus, and garlic. Mark Bittman, NYTimes Minalmalist cooking guru talks about packaged peeled garlic. You know the ones at Costco in that large plastic jar, which you may have thumbed your noses as being over the hill, and what would you do with all that garlic anyway. Mark says buy them. The garlic is as good as you will buy most of the season when the garlic is thinking of making its green sprouts. “No one can tell the difference.” And he eats and drinks with some of the food heavies. But this is the interesting part, how do they get all those peels off. They put divided cloves in a steel container and air pressure them off. The peels just blow off. So we can forget the next question that there are any dangerous chemicals or other conspiracy forces to our health. I did not recognize the places of sale other than Costco. But the brand is Christopher Ranch. How you use up a box of garlic cloves is your call, but perhaps as they are already peeled, you will use a lot more. Me thinks yes.
June 24/
Summer is here for a while; I think until the weekend when there will be family crawling like hungry ants everywhere. It will be easier this year as there is only one toddler. Fortunately, he now sometimes sleeps through the night. What is great for the adults is, the kids take care of each other, and if one cousin does not work out as a player, there is always someone else. Now most can go to the beach alone. But because there is beach for them to go to, they don't want to go. Since the 25 cent fine for saying you are bored has been installed, there is a lot less spoken boredom. This year we have two more kids to teach to play poker.
My youngest daughter is now my kitchen assistant. Maybe now we might say I am becoming her assistant. She and I are cooks, and while time consuming, we like to be the decision makers, and it removes us from any after dinner clean up. Some of our dinners flop. Most are cool. For example this coming Friday night are homemade hamburgers and buns. This is not a good example of quick and easy, but it will be a an example of something really tasty. Grinding you own meat for hamburgers empowers you. What can I say? Sometimes the spirit moves us. Mostly I can not control myself, and it is my daughter who reminds me that a menu is not quick and easy. The next night is pork kabobs which somewhat redeems me. But then the peaches were going to rot on the counter in their box from Costco. So I made peach pies to freeze.
My daughter says in conversation the other night, "I think our family is defined by food." I then remembered about a blog of Dorie Greenspan about the difference of putting out dead wine bottles for recycling in Paris as opposed to NYC. In New York it is ,"All those bottles?", sort of thing as opposed to in Paris, "It must have been a great party."While true, I still do not know how I think about being defined by food.
June 22/ hair for cancer and family
What a delight yesterday was for me. It was a GRANDMOTHER’S SPECIAL. My two granddaughters, fourteen and nine, had their hair cut for Locks of Love. This is an organization that makes wigs for mostly children with cancer. My daughter’s all attended the actually cutting. The mother nearly wept. This has been a long haul for especially the red head who was able to give at least and inch and a half extra lenghth. Seeing the girls and how pleased they were, was dream whip. 
Dorie Greenspan is a cookbook author and traveler. I have several of her cookbooks, one coauthored with Pierre Hermes the renown Paris pastry chef, and the other Baking, from my house to yours. The first book is impossible to cook from, and the second is just the opposite. She sometimes writes for Bon Appetite. And she loves to be in France. I read her blog, , which is titled, In the Kitchen and on the Road with Dorie. The baking book is quick breads and desserts. But she gives a lot of information and choices. An offspring of this book and blog is another blog called Tuesdays with Dorie, www.tuesdayswithdorie.wordpress.com. Home bakers have joined together over the internet to bake their way through the Baking book. They comment over the recipes and explain their variances. Many take wonderful pictures of their efforts. I myself have recently baked the recipes that were chosen for the week. This week is Berry Cobbler, which is likely the easiest recipe in the book, and is where Dorie says new bakers might start. This is my and my granddaughter Thing 1’s effort at this weeks peach and blueberry cobbler. Thing 1 is a beautiful pastry chef. 
June 18/ Summer begins
I realized that I am getting to be an old grandparent, not the fun grandmother who several years ago was drinking martinis playing soccer. My grandson was here one hour and he said he was bored. I am setting a jar out for kids to pay 25 cents each time they say they are bored. I could have a Bobbi Brown blow out at the end of the summer. The kids are fun to have at the dinner table as they are comedians. I am not allowed to use these grandchildren’s name on this blog, but my oldest grandson is referred to as “Thing 2” on his mother’s blog. At dinner he announces that he can not wait for hair to grow on his face because he wants little tufts under his lower lip. When I married 48 years ago, I did not know that I was signing up for facial hair on a grandson. Who saw beyond having children? Now I hope to see five grandsons with facial hair. Tufts are going to be tough. 
Monday was arrive from Shanghai day. This required two vans. We are told that most of it is presents, although I have yet to see any. These are pictures of the arrivers and some of the greeters. The arrival of the family is the only way I can tell it is summer.
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