By Bob Hicks
What’s been cooking lately in the Scatter kitchen? Well, a lovely baked dressing made up mostly of mushrooms, celery, onions and leftover bread slices (Mrs. Scatter’s clean-out-the-fridge creation). And another batch of baklazhannia ikra, or “poor man’s caviar,” an addictive eggplant/tomato/onion/pepper relish that William Grimes discovered recently in one of those great old [...]
By Laura Grimes
Dear Mr. Scatter,
You do realize, right, that while you sped away to have a raucous dinner party at the assisted-living facility, you left me here to 1. make my own coffee. 2. fetch my own newspaper. 3. share my bed with more beasts than usual and 4. somehow end up with less bed [...]
By Laura Grimes
More than a year ago Mr. Scatter’s parents moved to an assisted-living facility.
By then, the seven children were making choices for them and the parents weren’t sure where they were. The little cottage they had lived in was cleaned out.
A very few favorite items went with the folks, a few basic kitchen items [...]
By Laura Grimes
A little-known blog fact: The Scatter family has a hand-made recipe book.
Nearly a decade ago, we started collecting our favorite recipes that went with some of our favorite food stories. We loaded them up in notebooks and gave them to our close family and friends for Christmas. It’s called Star Pie: A Galaxy [...]
By Laura Grimes
My mom is swimming her way south and the meat marathon has begun. Look what we got cooking on the stove:
We bought turkey wings just to make turkey stock just to make turkey stuffing just to go with Grammy’s turkey breast.
When Mr. Scatter asked The Meat Guy for “two turkey wings, one for [...]
By Laura Grimes
If you’re wondering about Mr. Scatter, he’s been busy with paying gigs so we can afford all this meat we’re cooking for Thanksgiving. If you read the last post, you know by now that even though most of us in the family are vegetarians, somehow we’re cooking both a whole chicken and a [...]
By Laura Grimes
My mom’s coming for Thanksgiving. I’m pretty excited. I’ve already talked her into making pie (it didn’t take much).
We have to get a turkey breast just for her, though. None of the four Scatterers eats turkey. We had a long conversation at dinner one night just to solve what to [...]
By Laura Grimes
Book Club was great fun.
After I wrote my last post, a book clubber discovered it and broadcast it to the rest of the group. Then the email trail went eerily quiet. This is not a quiet email group. It’s not overly communicative, but the stillness was … worrisome. Were [...]
By Bob Hicks
Keep Portland Pickled. Or maybe, in honor of a certain shape of preserved cucumber, Keep Portland Speared.
Imagine a city where something called the Portland Fermentation Festival is such a mind-boggling hit that you can’t get in the doors. It’s like reporting that the Iowa City Haggis Festival or the Twin Falls Ukelele and [...]
By Laura Grimes
The season’s pickle swaps are in full swing. These things sneak up and before you know it, you have hot peppers in the cupboard and elk meat in the freezer.
A few jars of piccalilli flew out the door the other night in return for promissory notes for bread-and-butter pickles and honey.
An email popped [...]