Cati Porter

Cheese Alert! Just to forewarn you. You know, so you have no one to blame but yourself for continuing to read on.

I think I have food on the brain because the weather has officially turned chilly, and chilly weather always makes me want to cook. For Jacob’s 10th birthday a couple weeks ago I made his favorite dinner, as pictured above: my semi-famous gruyere-spinach-mushroom quiche. It is the best in the world. Just ask me. Because I’ve been asked for the recipe a number of times, I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t share it with the world. This quiche could inspire world peace. Really. So! If you want the recipe just open your Fanny Farmer Cook Book to the recipe for bacon and cheese quiche; disregard how much cheese they say and grate the whole darn block of gruyere; then omit the bacon and add an entire container of fresh baby spinach and an entire container of sliced crimini mushrooms (liberally sauteed in olive oil & butter), then completely disregard how they say to assemble the quiche and put it all in one bowl, stir, and pour into your betty crocker pie crust. Then bake it according to their directions. (They’re right about that part at least.)

Yum! Children, can we say “calorie-laden?” But unlike many things in life, this is one indulgence that is well-worth it.

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This year I attempted to become a farmer. Yes, I planted zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, eggplant, and watermelon. Our yield: Three edible tomatoes (i.e. ones that were not pre-eaten by the bugs) and this surprise watermelon, which we picked just last week:

This is all we’ve eaten of it so far. It is in the refrigerator in a large plastic bag. It feels very wasteful. I hate to even look to see what the state of it is. (Maybe it is still edible. I am ever the hopeful girl.)

All of the plants are growing like mad, though, and have taken over the garden. Lots of blooms, just not much by way of produce.

Enough about food. No I’m hungry. I guess I should go raid the fridge.

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As I mentioned before, we’ve all been sick with who-knows-what (no wants to label this thing the dreaded h1n1, but I suppose it’s possible that that’s what this is/was). The kids feel better now, but now the hubby and I are not so hot. I’m on the upswing, and did manage (after several days of putting it off in favor of sedentary deadlines, like my paper, and a book review, and book discussion comments for my Antioch group) to clean the house. Granted, it’s not *clean*, as in, you could look in every corner and not find a dust bunny. But at least there are no crumbs on the floor, all trash has been thrown out, and the dishes are done. Now I finally feel I can get ready for Halloween. Of course, that’s tomorrow already. But better now than miss it all together.

The next post will contain a ghost story or two, in honor of Halloween and my kids and the annual Ghostwalk in Riverside that we couldn’t go to this year because we were sick. Last year I wrote four of the stories and had a couple of friends write two more, because I was asked to help facilitate that. But this year, when I was asked, I was just too swamped. I feel badly that I sort of let them down. But I can’t do it all. Sheesh!

Okay, breakfast, then a ghost story post, then off to my boys’ school’s annual Halloween parade — Boo!!