This is what's up

This was sad. 

Some work came due and life has gotten busy with end-of-school year open houses, concerts, and dance recitals. Cooking has been sporadic, unfocused, and slapdash. A few days ago I accidentally omitted the brown sugar from a promising maple pecan chiffon cake. Two nights ago I burned (entirely my fault) the stuffed artichokes from Louisa Shafia's New Persian Kitchen. Our chickens eat all my mistakes so at least we’ve been saving money on layer crumbles. 

I did successfully make the New Persian Kitchen lamb meatballs and they were minty and delicious. And Shafia’s watermelon tonic is pretty and tasty, though I'd recommend making it for a party rather than everyday drinking.

I will fully engage with this lovely book soon. I swear. 

Other than that? I've been listening to Michael Pollan’s Cooked in the car (I agree with this review), reading an interesting book about alcoholic writers called The Trip to Echo Spring, and eagerly awaiting my copy of Jennifer Steinhauer’s Treat Yourself. Owen dragged me to X-Men: Days of Future Past and it was surprisingly not terrible. One word: Magneto. As a trade-off, Owen agreed to accompany me to Fed Up, which I hoped would convince him to cut back on his three bowls of afternoon cereal and the orange soda that he buys with his own money, but it’s left the theaters. What edifying movie should I make him go see instead?

We have dozens of tiny green figs forming (finally) on the three fig trees that I planted years ago, scores of plums about to ripen all at once, a couple of rose buds, and two broody hens. We put the goats up in the front yard every evening for a few hours and I love watching their progress eating down all the Scotch broom and blackberry brambles. Once they’ve consumed every last twig I hope to find someone to do some landscaping. This is what it looks like when you stand in the front doorway:

Very rugged. I don't actually mind it that much, but when we sell the house years or decades from now we’ll have to plant pretty shrubs, and terrace, so we might as well do it now and enjoy. 

I forgot to mention that I made these cookies from Kate Zuckerman’s Sweet Life.The recipe doesn’t tell you when to add the oats, but I added them right before the chocolate chips and raisins and the cookies are sensational. 

For now, that is all.