Aw, geez. I'm having a deja vu all over again moment here at the Sprawl. When I was in grade school, I used to have lunch with either Aunt Mary or Grandma Theresa. Grandma was my dad's mother, and she was a cranky old doll who made the world's best apple strudel. She also cheated at cards and bunco!

I always looked forward to lunch with both of them because it was nothing short of fun. Sometimes when I arrived at Grandma's she'd have the kitchen closet completely emptied. There would be stuff everywhere! Baking pans, pots, pans, big bags of flour, sugar, brooms, mops, ironing board... And there would be Grandma, in the middle of that mess, swearing in Slovenian. (I know she was swearing because she made it a point to speak English when I was around. Slovenian was reserved for when she didn't want little pitchers with big ears to hear what she was saying.)

The whole reason for the closet being torn up was that she was looking for something and all the usual places had been checked.

Today I am looking for a box of old photographs. Most of our family candids are on slides, but somewhere in this disaster of a house, there is a turquoise blue notebook that has old black and white photos. And in that box is a picture of Grandma Kate that I want for the Italian Club's cookbook.

So, today, I am Grandma Theresa's clone - there is stuff everywhere, while I excavate all the possible nooks and crannies in search of the darn box. I'm having no luck, but I sure have found a lot of stuff that we could get rid of, and that might be the whole reason why the universe has sent me on this fool's errand!

The House Goddess was watching me fold the dishtowels and we were both remarking on how we were switching to all white because we could bleach the bejeepers out of them with impunity. I help up a great towel that is pretty old, but noted the now lavender design was formerly bright blue. She nodded in assent on the issue of why it no longer pays to have pretty colored kitchen linens. Then she pointed to a rather oddly shaped and disreputable looking rag. "What's that?"

I giggled and admitted that when my Jockeys reach the point of no return, I cut up the salvageable parts for silver polishing. She grinned at me and announced that I was old school.

Here is how old school I am not. My mother and her sister kept house by a strict schedule. Monday was wash day. Tuesday was ironing day. The dishtowels said that Wednesday was for mending, but that was kind of flexible. So was Thursday marketing, given the fact that by Thursday my mother's hair wasn't presentable. (Aunt Mary's hair was always perfect, but she was good at doing it herself.) Friday was for cleaning, but that went on every day from what I remember, and Saturday was for baking. Now, again, that was negotiable. Aunt Mary baked whenever she wanted to, and you always knew what she was up to because you could hear her whistling when she baked. On Saturday, Mom was at Josie's getting her hair done.

The dishtowels decreed Sunday was for church. Sunday was for a roast that was ready when Uncle Eddie and the Mopstick came home from church. (Aunt Mary went on the High Holidays, as did my mother - dressed to the nines, of course in their shoes and matching purses.)

The Monday and Tuesday drill was the same, though, and one thing I learned early on in my apartment living days was that most tenants did laundry on the weekend. On Monday night, the laundry area was available. I had a show I watched on Tuesday night, so I ironed in front of the television. (I still iron in front of the television!)

In my current status as chief cook and housekeeper, I get some odd looks when people find out I pay the House Goddess to come every other week. I guess they wonder what I do with my time. But think of the women in The Help - and the women who live in a certain neighborhood of The Star City. They have someone who shows up every day, in a uniform, to make beds, launder, clean, polish silver and cook. In The Help, there was silver polishing day. That wasn't on the dishtowels, but I'm thinking my mother did that on Wednesdays, if she wasn't in her sewing room making up something nifty or changing the hemlines in our skirts.

The House Goddess keeps me honest. Big Kitty and I are slobs. We are also accumulators of the first order. When HG is due, it forces us to pick up after ourselves. She'd laugh at the idea of keeping house by the dishtowel schedule, but I happen to know that at her house, Thursday was clean-the-house night! Just ask her kids.... She ran that show with the zeal of a drill sergeant with a batch of new recruits!

But, we are on the dishtowel schedule. Today is Friday, and we're cleaning. She's doing her jobs and I'm doing mine. Oh, geez. Here she comes. If she catches me on the computer I'm sunk!

The trouble with getting ready to entertain, getting ready for an event or getting ready for something outside of one's usual routine is that the first thing to go is the "me time" required for writing or making art. This past week, I scheduled a day in my studio. A few years ago, I made myself unavailable for a couple of weeks, as though I was leaving the house and going elsewhere to work. It seems this is what I will need to do to get myself into the studio.

Half of the room is my awfiss. It's an awful mess, hence the name. For someone whose workplace was always tidy and who was the darling of the custodial staff because of it, you'd never know it by my home desk! And it's always been that way! Piles and piles and piles, teetering precariously and balanced upon a mere sheet of paper that once disrupted, will cause an avalanche of disorder.

The studio half, on the other hand, gets messy when I'm working, but is easily tidied. I do have a table that is presently a catchall and rather dangerous - one slight breeze and heaven only knows - but the rest of it is fine. Sure, I could use another set of shelves and it would be perfect, but there isn't room for that, so the cats have to share the futon with art supplies. They don't seem to care as long as their blankie is there.

Because I hadn't been down there, things had gotten dumped here and there, so yesterday I spent a little time with Dino singing Aint' That A Kick in the Head while I brought order to the joint. Then I started working on a long overdue project for a lady who helped us with a parliamentarian problem waaaaay last fall. She's a purple person, so her thank you gift had to be purple. I had just the right papers and aside from the angst of doing "real" calligraphy, I had a ball.

At the end of the day, when it was time to come upstairs and make dinner, I felt like I'd "done" something. It made me wonder about other artists and how they schedule their time. I know we don't work by the clock - none of us artsies can do that. But we still have to have blocks of time because art doesn't happen in minutes. It happens in hours. I spent a healthy three hours on just the calligraphy part. (If I'd practice more often than once every twenty years, maybe it wouldn't be such a trial!)

I'm not sure what non-artsies think about how art gets made. I'm sure they don't have any appreciation for the time, never mind the cost of the materials. But how do they view what we do? Do they understand the fact that we are stellar problem solvers? (Oops, that isn't going to come out right...I might need to do this over...I hate the way that looks; can I undo a part of it...what happens if I...which of these looks better...crap! I hate that color!) And do they understand how many problems get solved all in the course of making one tiny card?

My sister once suggested I just do an assembly line thing. Good grief! Each of my cards is different, and even if I did use the same basic layout, there is no way I could duplicate that previous card. There was some problem that arose, that I solved and hence it has a look that is unique. You cannot duplicate the bugs in the ointment!

And that is, as Martha Steward would say, a good thing. It's all supposed to be different.

Thankfully, Big Kitty meanders down when I'm working, asks a couple of questions about how a piece of equipment works, wonders about something I'm doing and is really good at helping me engineer certain effects. The spouses of artsies are a critical component because it is their ability to go with the flow and their encouragement that moves what we do from playtime into legitimate creative work.

I'm looking at a busy week with other obligations. But I'm also trying to figure out when I can clock in at Ten Cornstalk Studio. I think my feline employees would appreciate me showing up. Someone has to turn on the iPod! Besides, I really do like working there.

The other day Ellie Krieger posted a picture of The Moosewood Cookbook to Facebook, along with the notation that it was her first cookbook. She asked, "What was yours?" Mine was The McCall's Cookbook, given to me by my sister. After all these years, I still use it. There is no finer macaroni and cheese recipe, nor banana bread recipe, in the world, as far as I'm concerned.

I am also quite fond of Ellie's cookbook, So Easy, not to mention all of the Giada, Ina, Maida, Marcella, Craig, Pierre and Ken cookbooks. These are the ones I return to time after time. They are old friends and I'm on a first name basis with them. Even the Big Kitty refers to them in that fashion.

We have been members of a locavore delight, Good Food Good People, for a few years now. Jane and Spike subscribed to it and we decided to give it a try. We were hooked after the first year of weekly sacks of vegetables. There were new things in there, and I didn't always know what to do with what I got. If the recipes they included didn't click for me, I was up a creek. But recently, there has been a wealth of new cookbooks dealing with vegetables. I spent a lovely free hour sipping coffee and reading Deborah Madison's latest. Needless to say, I want that book! (I have a book group order to make and a coupon to use... Hah.) Madison has been on the vegetarian scene for ages, beginning with The Greens Cookbook. Her cooking has evolved, along with the more adventuresome farmers and their products.

The whole vegetarian scene has been shifting away from the mushroom laden, bean busting and patchouli-reeking food of that funny little health food store I used to frequent on Howard Street in Chicago. Whole grains and unusual vegetables are becoming mainstream, as are backyard vegetable gardens (and the accompanying skunks, groundhogs and possums that wallow in their bounty). My yard, going straight up a hill, is not condusive to vegetable gardening, not that I haven't given it the desultory try from time to time. I have shade at all the wrong times. And, in spite of studying BGF's superior tomato growing methods, I've no solution for deer that bite the tops off my tomato plants, nor the members of the large-size rodent genus who ransack the fruits.

And so, I content myself with the weekly box of earthly pleasures. This week we had a bag of crunchy spinach and rather than making the ubiquitous spinach salad (not that it wasn't a tempting idea), I made a pasta dish with it. I had an ulterior motive. I still had a butternut squash in the basement and I wanted to use it up. The squash was peeled, seeded and cubed and then roasted. Orchiette pasta was cooked, the spinach washed, hazelnuts toasted and skinned and crushed, sage minced, butter browned, romano cheese grated. All this got mixed together and it was pretty darn good. - I think another time I might add garlic to that browned butter. I got this recipe from The New Southern Garden Cookbook by Sheri Castle.

Last summer I read The Unprejudiced Palate by the late Angelo Pellegrini. In it he described his upbringing in Italy, his family's relocation to the Pacific Northwest, and his garden and theories on cooking. There was a man who hauled in loads and loads of manure to improve his soil, who harvested his vegetables and fruits, and who taught at the university and fed whoever showed up with delicious, simply prepared foods. The book reminded me of something Ruth Reichl mentioned in one of her books. She read about food. She thought about food. She prepared food. And she credited books like Pellegrini's for shaping her passion for food.

With the publication of the latest generation of vegetable cookbooks, Ellie Krieger's question becomes more relevant to me. I will never allow a winter to pass without having made at least one batch of beef stew from McCall's. I will always make Julia Child's onion soup recipe, not to mention beef bourguignonne. Marcella Hazan's roast beef in red wine will continue to be a go to recipe when I have people here for supper. But, I have to admit to having left Molly for Ken Haedrich, who introduced me to whole grain baking with his cabbage potato pie in the cheddar cornmeal crust. The early Moosewood books were too mushroomy, too cloyingly honeyed, and the ingredients no longer appeal to us. I made the breakfast cookies in another of Molly's books and realized that they were too oily. They would have been so much better made with butter.

And that is how it goes. Our tastes evolve, and along with that is the way we prepare what we eat. It's time to really read those old cookbooks and decide on their future - on  my shelves or off to the AAUW used book sale. The new books offer so many interesting ways of using the ingredients that are now available through our CSA that it doesn't make sense to stay stuck in the 70s or 80s in terms of vegetables and non-meat dishes.

Gotta say - this is a problem I like having. New recipes, new ideas and a lot of good eating!

This is Chip. Or perhaps he is Dale. Either way, this lil critter sits here and doesn't move a whisker. In case you are wondering what the clay "thing" is, it's a broken tile from the Matthiessen Hegeler Zinc Co. (LaSalle, Illinois) property that was dismantled in the late 1970s. We think they were put together in order to form some sort of spiral that would deal with pollutants. However, that's pure conjecture. All I know is that they are way cool, I transported them to my garden from Illinois and use them for borders, much to my dad's dismay

I've been working hard in the yard, trying to do the spring cleaning, however like a lot of springs, the weather has been alternatively hotter than a pistol and bone-chillingly damp. I get out there when Mother Nature gives me a good day, work like hell in order to get as much done as I can, and then pay for it later. Okay, if I'm being totally honest, as creaky as I am, a couple of aspirins, a soak in a hot bubble bath and I'm pretty much fine. It could be worse, I tell myself.

The hosta garden is cleaned up, the lilies-of-the-valley are about to bloom, and the hostas are unfurling. They behave like stretching athletes, opening themselves to the world and breathing in the fresh air. And then I have to go and ruin it by sprinkling slug poison and critter repellant! I tell the hostas it's for their own good, and I think they might believe me. I don't think they feel like themselves after the slugs have made them look like green eyelet.

Last year, critters bit the blooms off the red tulips, but so far, things aren't as bad. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the presence of a pair of dogs next door. Gee. I sure hope that's the case! Might save me some cash in the critter repellant department. Lordy, but that stinky stuff is dear!

Jake says all of us have high hopes in January, but then reality sets in and the rest of the gardening season is a matter of knowing deep down we will never achieve the glorious garden we envisioned as snow, sleet and crud fell. He's right, of course. My garden journals are a testament to that theory's veracity. On the other hand, gardening is really a lot like people who remarry...a triumph of hope over reason.

BGF sent me a great article that appeared in the Chicago Tribune about the gardening experiment of a group of students at our alma mater. As I read it, I thought back to when we were there. I wonder if either of us would have volunteered to live in the house and tend that garden, cook communally and sell the extra produce. BGF is the king of tomato growers - the only one I can think of who might top him would be my principal from Bedford Co. He always took a week of vacation near the end of summer so that he could can bushels of tomatoes. BGF is more prone to popping home for lunch and wolfing down tomato sandwiches!
I've tried tomato growing, but fall way short of the mark. In the past couple of years, deer have bit the tops off my tomato plants, and what they didn't destroy, the groundhogs did.

I noticed Fatso up on the hill above the neighbor's. The dogs weren't out, but Fatso was wary, so I have to believe those two barking fools have to be having a positive effect. Haven't seen deer, either, and no hoofprints in the soft earth. I think any time you can break up their pattern, you stand a chance of defeating them. They like routine. Usually.

And, add in the neighborhood cat who wanders through our yard. Oh, my, but how we cackle when our cats see him! The visitor is scared of us, which is odd because cats seem to know we're happy to see them. However, my reputation as a feline drug dealer is intact since I know that cat is lurking around certain parts of the yard in anticipation of the appearance of the kitty weed. I need to plant some more of it, though, because one reliable stand of it got mowed once too often, and I know the cat has been lounging around that area sending me telepathic hints. My own cats are heads, so the supply has to be increased in order to insure everyone has a chance to get high.

So it goes in Sprawl Land. The weeds are in abundance, the chores never end and the fairies dance in the garden when we aren't around. There is plenty to celebrate, I think.