eatonedgecliff

Lake Street Dive

Courtney and I had the pleasure of seeing Lake Street Dive on Tuesday at our awesome Beachland Ballroom – just a hop skip and a jump away. Lake Street Dive is a jazz/swing/pop/soul quartet founded about ten years ago in Boston where they all went to the New England Conservatory of Music. They’re based in Brooklyn now and have recently popped up on several late night talk shows, NPR and are touring all over the place. I first saw them on the Showtime Inside Llewyn Davis concert – which is awesome if you haven’t watched it. Their sold out show in Cleveland was excellent. Rachael Price – their lead singer – is just amazing. Such stage presence, dripping with talent and an amazing voice. I hope they continue to do well – but not too too well so they keep the venues small.

A couple pics off the internet:

a couple videos:

The Rosie Project; Graeme Simsion

Books

A Genetics professor who lives life just off the spectrum uses his scientific way of living to find a suitable wife for himself. An easy to ready Australian novel told form his point of view. I thought it was hilarious, original, sweet and definitely a keeper.

PJH rating: ****1/2

BLT

Bacon, lettuce, Main Dishes, Tomatoes

BLTs are always good. But BLTs in the summertime are awesome.

Tomatoes are the most important part and the tomatoes from our garden were perfect.

Lots of mayo and lightly toasted Italian bread and…

add some chilled Rose and you have your perfect late August dinner

Scones

Blueberries, Breakfast, Cranberries, Cream, Miscellaneous, Raspberry

I’ve made scones a few times using this recipe and it’s a keeper. Light on the inside, crunchy on the outside and quick and easy to make. A bit decadent with the cream but it seems to do the trick.

It’s probably easier to do this with the food processor as the recipe calls for but I like using an old fashioned pastry-cutter-in-thingy-do. It is very satisfying. Plus everyone is still sleeping when I have made these.

Dreamy Cream Scones
America’s Test Kitchen Cookbook via www.smittenkitchen.com

2 cups (10 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour, preferably a low-protein brand such as Gold Medal or Pillsbury
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons chilled, unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1/2 cup currants (Deb Comments: “I used dried cranberries, and chopped them into smaller bits”, Patrick Comments: I used raspberries once and blueberries once – both were good. I bet chocolate chips are good… or heath bar bits )
1 cup heavy cream

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 425°F.

2. Place flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in large bowl or work bowl of food processor fitted with steel blade. Whisk together or pulse six times.

3. If making by hand, use two knives, a pastry blender or your fingertips and quickly cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal, with a few slightly larger butter lumps. Stir in currants. If using food processor, remove cover and distribute butter evenly over dry ingredients. Cover and pulse 12 times, each pulse lasting 1 second. Add currants and pulse one more time. Transfer dough to large bowl.

4. Stir in heavy cream with a rubber spatula or fork until dough begins to form, about 30 seconds.

5. Transfer dough and all dry, floury bits to countertop and knead dough by hand just until it comes together into a rough, sticky ball, 5 to 10 seconds. Form scones by either a) pressing the dough into an 8-inch cake pan, then turning the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, cutting the dough into 8 wedges with either a knife or bench scraper (the book’s suggestion) or b) patting the dough onto a lightly floured work surface into a 3/4-inch thick circle, cutting pieces with a biscuit cutter, and pressing remaining scraps back into another piece (what I did) and cutting until dough has been used up. (Be warned if you use this latter method, the scones that are made from the remaining scraps will be much lumpier and less pretty, but taste fine. As in, I understand why they suggested the first method.)

6. Place rounds or wedges on ungreased baking sheet and bake until scone tops are light brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on wire rack for at least 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Cedar Point

Travel

Monday, August 5th, 2014
The stars lined up and we were able to organize a two day trip to Cedar Point to celebrate Jack’s birthday, and more importantly to get a way for a few days of mindless fun. I haven’t been to Cedar Point in three or four years and have been hoping that we could work it in this summer. Me, Jack, Rachel, Grace, Nicole and Sophie (Courtney was still not up for roller coasters just yet post surgery) took off from Euclid at 6:45AM. We were splurging and staying at one of Cedar Point’s hotels on Monday evening so were taking advantage of the early entry. We arrived at Cedar Point after an easy ride at 8:00 AM. Checked into the hotel and got our early entry passes. We grabbed some (nasty) coffee and took a stroll around the grounds of the hotel and down to the beach and then headed to the entrance around 8:30 or so to be ready to storm the gate at 9:00 – already probably 100 people in line when we got there. We hit the Maverick first – walked on, then went to Millennium for about a 20 minute wait, and then decided to do the Maverick again – as it is awesome thank you very much. So we were able to get in three big rides in that

first hour. We would have had to wait probably five hours to do it otherwise. We spent the rest of the morning in the back of the park – old fashioned cars, Gemini, Magnum (25 years old this year – still awesome!!) all with little lines. We got a text around 11:00 that our room was ready so we headed back for lunch as we were starving and dying of dehydration already. We stayed in the Sandcastle Suites which is way on the northern tip of the peninsula. It was pretty nice – nice grounds, nice pool, standard suite. We brought lunch meat, rolls, chips and lots of soda and hung out and relaxed for about an hour and a half. We then took the shuttle to the front of the park to check out the Gatekeeper – the new coaster from last year that I’ve never been on. Very cool looking. Unfortunately we decided to wait in line for it and ended up waiting almost two hours in hot hot hot hot HOT HOT HOT line. Really bad. The ride was OK – nice first hill – but not as good as Maverick or Millennium or Dragster. Definitely not worth waiting in line for two hours in. We then went on a couple more rides and headed back to the hotel to relax. We hydrated and then spent an hour or so at the pool which was perfect. We had chili for dinner that I brought along, heating it up in the microwave. We hit the park again at 7:00. After going on Raptor and and some others we split up – Grace and Nicole went for the Dragster while Jack, Rachel, Sophie and I hit Mantis, Magnum and a

couple of other other things. We ended the night, right at 9:55 in the dark on this crazy new huge 300 foot swing ride that I have never been on before. OMG terrifying. Going over the lake with the wind blowing and dark out – what was I thinking. Give me a 300 foot coaster any day. We finally stopped and ate some amusement park junk food and then walked back to the hotel getting back around 11:15 quickly crashing after a long day.

Tuesday, August 6th, 2014

I woke up around 8ish or so and went out to the pool deck to relax while the kids were still sleeping. After about an hour and a half I went back and woke Jack and Rachel up and we went for a walk along the campground, down around the water park and then along the boardwalk behind the park. The girls were STILL sleeping when we got back but got them up and got organized, cleaned up and checked out around 11:00. We stopped in Huron on the way back at a place called Berardi’s that turned out to be great. We all had a big late breakfast. I had some awesome blueberry pancakes and bacon that hit the spot. We then hit the road and made it home before 2:00. A great day and a half away.

Rachel and Sophie very nervous for their first ever ride on the Millennium. That first hill is a doozey.

last picture of the trip – I left my phone in the room for rest of the day as I didn’t like keeping it in my pocket on the rides. (bonus points for the boy photo bombing our photo though).

Sausagefest 2014

Uncategorized

We had a sausagefest for Jack’s birthday this past weekend. Italian, Sicilian, bratwurst, slovenian, polish boys, kilbasa, hot dogs… sausagepalooza

The girls escaping from the boys and eating on the front lawn… Emily, Shea and Sophia

Natchez Burning; Greg Iles

Books

Unsolved racial murders from the 1960s are brought back under investigation after the elderly players are dying, or murdered in today’s still racially charged Natchez, Mississippi. Lots of characters and interesting history, but christ almighty there is no need for 900 pages. Hire an editor already. I did finish it though as the last couple of hundred pages (!) picked up a bit. I was very surprised at the glowing reviews I looked at after I read it as I thought it was mostly a bloated bore.

PJH Rating: ***

Thai basil mojitos

Basil, Lime, Mint, Miscellaneous

I used the recipe for frozen mojitos that we like but used 1/2 thai basil and 1/2 mint

link to frozen mojitos

Basil

Basil, Carrot, garden, Garlic, Main Dishes, Parsley, Pasta, Side Dish, Squash

It’s basil season on Edgecliff and we’ve got lots…

I grew four kinds this year. The standard genovese variety…

…a red variety I forget the name of – different than the one I usually grow (and don’t like it as much)…

…thai basil (going to try thai basil mojitos this weekend)…

If one has lots of basil then of course one needs to make pesto: One huge load of basil…

…about three heaping cups once trimmed and cleaned…

…a couple cloves of garlic (this beautiful garlic is from our CSA and is so much fresher and such a huge difference…who knew)….

Swirl it all together in the Cuisinart with a healthy dose of good olive oil et voila.

Pasta with super fresh pesto and lots of herbs, zucchini with lots of basil and some really cool purple carrots (sauteed in butter and maple syrup). A beautiful summer plate of freshness.

Wisconsin, July 2014

Travel

Jute Lake, Wisconsin, 7/1-6/2014

We snuck a last minute five-day-long weekend trip to Wisconsin over 4th of July. Courtney, Grace and Sophie picked me up at work on Tuesday around noon and then we picked up Claire in Lakewood and drove to Rockford getting there around 11:00PM. Up early the next morning and were at the Boulder Beer Bar by noon. We didn’t do much at all during our four days/four nights there. The typical places to eat (Bent’s Camp twice), relaxing on the dock, kayaking, cookout at the campsite and enjoying the peace and quiet. The bugs were horrific unfortunately and we couldn’t go on our typical walks through the woods as you would get swarmed by mosquitoes. Bummer. We drove straight through on Sunday via Milwaukee through downtown Chicago and didn’t have any troubles.