Valentine's Day is one of those holidays that my husband and I rarely celebrate. We've been together for 9 years, so we both know where are hearts are, but occasionally he'll get me flowers or jewelry and I'll bake him some kind of heart shaped treat. This year brought emerald earrings and a luscious batch of Jimmy's Pink Cookies from Molly Wizenberg's book, A Homemade Life.

God bless my mother for giving me this book which is part memoir, part cookbook, and full of love and deliciousness. I've made most of the recipes from it, but always shied from Jimmy's Pink Cookies because of my past failure to produce a crumbly, light shortbread. Mine came out tough from too much handling, and when I waste a pound of butter, I tend to stay away.

Well, no fear with Molly's recipe, it is pretty fool-proof, and the cookies–Holy Mary, they are good. My husband loved them, as did the kids and my good friend, Nancy, whom I consider to be an aficionado of shortbreads, pie crusts, and butter in general. The cookies will a keep a few days in the fridge, or you can freeze them forever, but believe me, they won't last.

Wizenberg's blog, http://www.orangette.blogspot.com, is also full of love and deliciousness. Check it out; she is an artist with food and words.

Jimmy’s Pink Cookies (Molly Wizenburg)

For the cookies:
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the frosting:
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 cups powdered sugar
1 1/4 teaspoon kirsch or cherry extract (I used kirsch and probably about 1 tablespoon at least.)
red food coloring

To make cookies, combine the butter and powdered sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, and beat, first on low speed, and then slowly increasing to medium, until light and fluffy.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour and salt, and whisk well. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, beating until the flour is just absorbed. Add the vanilla and beat well to incorporate. (I added the vanilla in after I whipped the butter and sugar due to my fear of the dough becoming tough from too much beating with the flour added.) Lay a sheet of plastic wrap on a large clean surface and turn the dough out onto it. Shape into a disk, wrap well, and refrigerate for one hour.

On a clean, floured surface, roll th dough out to a thickness of 3/8 inch. Using a cookie cutter, cut the dough into whatever shapes you would like. (I used an antique heat shaped cookie cutter, naturally.)  Molly uses a 2 inch round cutter and Jimmy uses a much bigger cutter, often in the shape of a heart.

Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheets, spacing them 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake them one sheet at a time, keeping the second sheet in the refridgerator until the first one is done, for 16 to 20 minutes (my smaller heart cookies took 17 minutes exactly), or until the cookies are pale golden at the edges. Do not allow them to brown. Transfer cookies to a wire rack and cool completely on the pan.

To make the frosting, combine the cream cheese and butterin the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium speed until smooth. Add the powdered sugar and beat on low speed to fully incorporate, then raise the speed to medium/medium high and beat until there are no lumps, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add the flavoring and a few drops of food coloring and beat well. The frosting should be a pretty shade of pink. Taste, if it needs more cherry flavor, go ahead and add more. Generously spread onto the fully cooled cookies. This recipe makes a ton of frosting, Molly recommends using most of it, but I found I had a lot left over. Of course, there's nothing wrong with having too much frosting, I am going to make a small rich chocolate cake to frost with the remainder of it.

The recipe makes about 2 dozen cookies, I rolled mine out a bit thinner and got 3 dozen.

We built the coop with new and recycled materials: the plywood floor and T111 siding was new, along with the many 2"x3" beams that framed the house. The front door and the 2 glass windows were found in our basement. Some of the galvanized hardware cloth we used for the run was found in our shed. If on a budget (who isn't?) use what you find around the house; the coop doesn't have to be the Taj Mahal, just remember that the birds need to be sheltered from draft and varmints. They will adapt to the cold and most else, they love to free range, and the happier they are, the more eggs they will lay. 

The nest boxes should be in an area that is somewhat quiet and dark. This may be a little puzzle because you will also want light in the coop for winter days when the amount of sun affects the amount of eggs laid. Try to incorporate the nest boxes in a quiet area for the girls to drop their eggs in peace. They will also need horizontal roosting posts to go to sleep on, and with that, another thing to consider is some type of removable tray under the roosting poles to collect the chicken droppings; this will make cleaning your hen house easier. it's the one thing I didn't plan for in the coop and i've been trying to come up with something ever since. I believe I am going to lay some plastic seed starting trays beneath the hens' roosts for easy pull out and compost delight this spring. 

For the roof we used a translucent corrugated plastic, it lets in light and keeps out the rain, the slant of the roof allows for easy snow removal. I just brush it off with a roof rake.

You'll need to supply a feeder and a waterer, that's about it. Oh, and some pine shavings for the floor of the coop, and some straw for the nest boxes.

One site that I referred to constantly was http://www.backyardchickens.com. Tons of good information all across the board.

We bought day old chicks from Agway which arrived around Memorial Day. Those little babes went into a wooden brooder box in our basement (also built by Pat) with a heat lamp. By the time the hen house was finished, the birds were ready to move out into the warmth of summer.

Our 8' x 4' wood chicken coop began with a floor frame of 3/4" plywood and 2"x3" beams.

We framed out each wall according to the first blueprint I ever drew up. Here's the wall containing the north facing ventilation window.

We constructed all the walls in the garage and moved the pieces to the backyard. We set the coop on concrete blocks to elevate it and give the hens a place to dust in the shade while also being protected in their compound. Here is the inside of the coop facing west towards the hatch door/run ramp.

This is an outdoor view of the south facing wall with glass windows and nest boxes. 

The east facing front door and translucent corrugated roof.

The southeast and east views. You can see we also added the run, a fenced in area for the chickens to roam outside without getting eaten. 

The north side of the coop has only the screened ventilation window.

The fenced-in run was more expensive than we expected. The galvanized hardware cloth we used to make sure that no critters got into the yard cost a bit of money and we used a lot more than what we found in our shed. We buried it about a foot the whole way around, too, so the birds can relax and dust under the coop, because they love that. There is a gate for us and the girls to get inside.

By the time we put the roof on the run, we had run out of hardware cloth, so we used some cheap wire fencing that we had leftover from our vegetable garden. It succeeds in keeping out the juvenile hawks that emerge each spring from the giant nest in the woods north of our house. As you can see, the hawks will perch right on top of the coop and terrify our poor chingies. 

The finished coop with a few birds inside exploring their new digs. Note the ramp up to their roosts, the feeder and waterer, and screens on all the windows.

PerfektenSchlag.

Definitely perplexed here and not psyched to give the electric company almost $200. So, I'm thinking of ways to cut down the bill, heck, all our bills. The tv was on half of its normal time yesterday and I heated supper's soup on the wood stove. Yes, the wood stove is going to be a help here, as it always is. If you have access to hardwood and can make the initial investment, I highly recommend buying and installing one. We have saved thousands on oil–and those prices just keep going up–and during the 10 day power outage this past October and November, we could not have stayed in our house without it. Plus all the wood cutting, splitting, and stacking keeps us in shape. Yes, love that stove.

So, I went out and bought a metal drying rack for clothes for $29.95 and set it up next to the wood stove with a load of wash this morning. By cutting down on dryer time, I'm hoping to reduce our bill by oh, how much, I don't know–but anything will help. I did run the clothes for about 10 minutes in the dryer to lose some of the wrinkles and get any extra wet off of them, but 10 minutes compared to an hour should make a difference. I am curious to see the result next month and will definitely share. Until then, awaiting longer days.

Update:  been using the dry rack for over a week now, it's pretty sweet.

Had a 65 degree day yesterday, so I hung up a new nylon clothes line out back and set out a load of darks. By 4pm they were almost all dry except for the denim. Not bad.

Another money/energy saver:  if you have young boys, spend the $30.00 or so on a pair of clippers, and you will save the price of a haircut along with the time and energy of going to the barber. Hunter's hair was mighty long from not cutting it all winter, so I gave him my version of a skater haircut. Right before we left for the sitter's and work that afternoon, he gave himself a version of the Shemp by cutting a middle chunk of his bangs out with his own scissors. Nice. I buzzed his hair down with the yellow guard on the clippers yesterday while he sat on a stool in the sun. Hunter now has what my husband's side of the family affectionately calls, "the baldy sour". Yes, If you're not the best at cutting squirming boys' hair, invest the 30 bucks in the clippers; there's something beautiful about the "Stand by Me" look.

When I was 30 I moved up to the Adirondacks to escape post 9/11 Brooklyn, where I had been living on South 2nd and Rodney. Along with discovering that city life was not really for me, post-terrorist-attack New York had really lost its charm what with its doomsday gloom, closed downtown, and my own personal fear of crossing the George Washington Bridge every day while I was working as an extra for some rinky-dinky show being taped in Jersey. I felt it was time to pack it all up and move on to greener (literally) pastures. The city was bumming me out and I felt myself being drawn to the nefarious and ugly side of Williamsburg, the dirty corners of the borough had begun to turn me on. Yes, it was time to fly.

I chose Saranac Lake, NY–right outside of Lake Placid, because I have a very dear old friend who lives up there and I wanted some real friendship and clean air. I was sick of my metro boyfriends and cig smoke. I'd had it with hipsters, long scarves, and bored expressions. I wanted loud, rough, dirty people who were hard from working outside at camps rather than inside at gyms. I wanted to go to a bar that had eighties Fleetwood Mac on the jukebox because no one had ever bothered to change it. And I wanted to live with a garden in the earth rather than containers, and be close to the woods and mountains; the options of camping and hiking right around the corner, without any tolls or fees. I wanted to be inspired by the breath of nature and rise up from my stifle in the city. 

When I arrived at my friend's house, fully expecting to be able to live there for at least a month while I looked around for new digs, got a job, etc., don't you know that I experienced an immediate ironic coincidence? Yes, my friend's roommate had a friend who had also just decided to start a new life in the North Country. Not so weird, maybe a little cramped but the more the merrier, right? EEHH, wrong. This girl who arrived at my friend's place at the same time as I had just been dating, and then was dumped by, pretty much the only guy I had ever had a long-term relationship with. This woman, whom I had never met, was already pissed at me. I gathered that my ex—with whom I had been apart from for at least five years–had given this woman the excuse of still being brokenhearted by me (yeah right) and not ready to "get serious" with anyone yet. Thanks J, what great timing; your revenge was both sweet and cold. I ended up having to find a new place to live a heck of a lot sooner that I had expected. Like within a couple of days, boo!

What's a girl in a new town supposed to do? Hang out at the local watering hole (named that) and shoot some pool with a disgruntled bearded local known as the Doctor. He lets me win, we end up making out–upstairs on the balcony, not in the bar, Those days are o-ver!–and then I mention that I need a place to live. He leads me sort of stumbling in and out of the hilly streets of Saranac Lake under the dark, destination unknown. We walk up this rather steep driveway and through an antique iron gate into a midnight landscape. Already I am blown away by what appears to be an Italian style terrace garden coming forth from a stone wall, but what really opens my eyes is the silver capsule gleaming in the moon light. No kidding, an Airstream trailer right here? And what is that? That little cathedral type structure I see to my right? Oh, a small green house. Oh my, who is this man?

Well, just a homegrown local boy who knows the right people from having lived in this little hamlet all his life. A friendship blooms between the two of us and he offers the Airstream in the garden to me for “as long as the weather holds out”. So I move it. It’s a small and old trailer and is not hooked up to anything. More like living in an abandoned camp than a decked out new model ready for the road, but God, I love it. I have a Coleman stove to cook with and a Coleman lantern to see by. The toilet is a 5-gallon bucket with a portable toilet seat, and it’s in the closet. To sleep with I have a 20 below down bag and my pillow. So far, I’ve got myself the camping and a stellar view of the mountains checked off my ADK list.

Time progresses at my humble dwelling. I harvest the last of the orange paste tomatoes, a variety I have never seen. Cold hearty lettuce is still growing and marigolds abound. I heat tea on my stove and make a sauce. Those orange pastes are awesome. I sit outside on the collapsible quad chair and stare at the leaves as they lose their ability to stay green.

In my desire to CIU (Clean It Up) I had begun running and I did most of my jogs near the railroad tracks that split through Saranac Lake and cross over Lake Colby. As I’m running along, I stare at the ties in a mesmerizing trance while pleading with my lungs to continue and for my heart not to explode. On the tracks I notice these little colored curlicues, so I bend over to pick them up. They appear to be small bits of plastic that have been melted and curled by the sheer force and heat of the metal train wheels on the metal tracks. Neat. These match the small tinny ring I found yesterday in the parking lot at Tops, and will look good next to the Catholic charms I had collected at the botannica in Spanish Harlem with the De Lavega paintings out front. And so begins my collecting of weird little items found on the train tracks. Naturally in the past, I saw my share of found-object art and never thought much of it. It was pretty hot when I was living in Boulder in the early nineties, but let’s face it: who can really do it well? So, my cynicism was definitely intact while picking up this random crap. However, I saw something in it, as well as in a collection of sticks lying by the fire pit at the Airstream garden. By the light of the lantern, I begin to piece these small findings together and what emerges is my collection of skinny totem poles that now resides on the wall in my kids’ playroom.

Fall was making its mark in the ADK, and the nights were getting colder. I took to having about 1 or 5 shots of gin from the bottle of Tanqueray that rested in the cabinet over the bed before I got in that 20 below sack. Knocked me out and once I was asleep, I could stay warm, but boo when I had to get up to pee. The 7 paces to the water closet sucked. I’m a light sleeper so getting up in 35-degree weather and peeing was hard on my constitution and I usually had to do another teeny gin to fall back. So much for the CIU, right? I notice that the North Country does its fair share of drinking up there in the winter. With nights that fall way below zero, you got to. I remember running the two blocks home from the bar I was working at one night and crying with my mittened hands over my ears because I had forgotten my hat. Seriously crying. The snow glittered like crystal and crunched in a weird way I had never heard before. More like a dense pushing crunch, hard to describe, but definitely distinct. And yes, by Halloween, my time in the Airstream was coming to an end.

I made the most of it, waking up at dawn to heat the kettle and splash its leftover water on my face. It’s kind of embarrassing to admit this, but I had let my hair that was over-dyed, ratty, and long from previous platinum bleaching—another result of the hipster (Nico) influence on me—dread up. So I had no worry about combing and styling it, hell, even washing it. My morning routine was simple:  wash my face, brush my teeth, go outside and run. Eat some hippie breakfast of fruit with oats or granola and work at putting Doc’s garden to bed. If it were a super nice day, I would ride my bike out to the cabin he was living in off Moose Pond. Looking back on it now, Airstream camping was idealistic living, even in its cold, primitive state. I don’t think it’d be such fun now with two kids and a tv addiction, but 10 years ago it was just what I needed, a way to regain my strength by roughing it in a trailer with style.

It was short lived and I ended up moving into the second floor of a house with a one-eyed nut named Ivan, but that had to be done. The first snow had fallen and that Flying Cloud turned into a frozen aluminum shell. I still hung around with the Doctor that winter, skiing out to renegade camps in the mountains with names like “Heaven” and “Frog Hollow” while planning out next summer’s garden. To this day he remains one of my favorite people; he is a genius with plants and taught me a lot of what I know about organic gardening. Every time I put my Fedco order in I think of Doc and his little cathedral greenhouse where he kept the catalog amongst his bloodmeal and bat guano. My life has changed quite a bit since I left the Adirondacks for Connecticut, but the mark that beautiful rugged area left on me is indelible. It drew out a lot of the bitter cynicism in my heart and restored some of that youthful idealism I once had, and for that I am eternally grateful.

I am super excited for my fragrance seeds; I love scent, it is the strongest nostalgia trigger (and Lord knows I am a sucker for nostalgia), and walking through parts of the garden while sniffing memories thrills me. Really. So, I ordered Marine Heliotrope, Tangerine Gem Marigold–this will also help kill off whiteflies and harmful nematodes, and Mignonette, which I'm not familiar with but is supposed to have this antique, Victorian strong scent. Of course, I got nasturtium and French marigold as well to combat pests and aid in vegetable pollination and growth. Companion planting is where it's at.

I got 2 additions for my medicinal herb garden, too: Valerian and Arnica Chamissonis, both perennials. When we bought the property, I spent a spring digging up an old flower bed overgrown with weeds and bought seeds like feverfew, echinacea, horehound, yarrow, blue vervain, lemon balm, and comfrey root to begin our homeopathic herb garden. I am happy to say that they all survived and are now thriving. I have not made any medicine from them yet, but once I research this area, I will. Anything to keep from giving the pharmaceutical companies more money. And hey, don't get me wrong, I am all for necessary medicines like antibiotics, pain killers, and my kids are definitely vaccinated. I just get depressed when I see ads on tv regarding women who took some type of anti-depressant or mood stabilizer while pregnant and now have children with birth defects. Maybe there's a more natural way to balance out one's chemistry without the wicked side effects of heavy prescriptions, you know?

Anyhoo,http://www.fedcoseeds.com  is my favorite seed co-op for selection, prices, and honestly produced and collected seed. They also sell supplies and books, all pertaining to the organic and self-sustaining garden.

Recently I successfully weaned my 13 month old, Isla, but let me tell you, it wasn't easy. First of all, that girl was addicted to the chooch. She loved it breakfast, lunch, and dinner, plus any time she was feeling down. With new teeth coming in and winter sniffles, December was not the easiest time to deny her. It took me a good month to get her off of the breast and onto whole cow's milk. It looks weird as I write that, and maybe it is, to raise our children on the milk from a cow, but they need something, that's for sure. Unfortunately, Isla had a hard time with the whole milk and had many a mushy poo. Using cloth diapers at this time was a drag. Well, we took her off whole milk (bummer for me, that stuff is like cream in your cereal) and started with a little bit of lactose free milk., Still yuck, so we bought her some almond milk and mixed it with the Lactaid. It took a couple of weeks, but things are looking much more solid down there. Thank god, because her poor little bum was turning a bit raw.

The actual weaning was tricky. As a babe who loved some nursing right before bed and nap time, trying to substitute a bottle for a boob was not working for Isla. My husband had to feed her before bed while I was out of her sight, and it usually took a couple 4 ounce bottles and some serious rocking. If she got up in the middle of the night, screaming, Pat would have to rock, rock, rock her back to sleep in front of the wood stove. I have to admit, I kind of dug this since I spent almost a whole year waking up to nurse that girl once or twice a night. No offense, Patrick, you are awesome for doing it (and still doing it, since Isla's a light sleeper like me). The naps are starting to get better for me with her during the day. We have a little routine, lunch, try to get outside or if it's too cold, some high action playing indoors, and then about an hour after that–when I see her rub her eyes–the almond/Lactaid combo and it's so long, sucker. Also, any time she gets fussy and starts hitting my chest as if that will bring back the milk, I go for good old distraction. Look at a book, play with some blocks, and at last resort I'll give her my phone. Sometimes it has to be done.

It's really starting to work. She hasn't nursed in about a week, and although she will try to rip off my shirt sometimes after her night tubby while also yanking at my hair in frustration, she's getting the hang of life without the chooch.

I mean really girls, you live in the Taj Mahal of chicken coops complete with 3 quiet and comfortable nest boxes. Not only that, but you have your little cutie-pie nest under the roost ladder, too. So why you gotta lay your eggs out in the cold? With y'all molted and weird, we only get about 1 egg every 2 or 3 days anyway.

The ingredients are as follows: 1 quart bag of frozen whole tomatoes, peeled (1 large can of whole tomatoes), 1 quart bag of frozen green beans (1 can of green beans), a half quart bag of frozen cannellini beans (here you can sub with a can of cannellinis or about a cup or more of dry beans. If using dry, soak them overnight), and the most important ingredient for pure flavor–1 SMOKED ham shank. And trust me, you want that bestia smoked.

You will also need about 4 or 5 medium sized potatoes, 2 medium onions, 5 cloves of garlic, 1 carrot, and 1 stalk of celery, leaves included.

Next, add the shank, both beans, and the tomatoes into a 3 or 4 gallon stock pot and just cover with water.

Turn the burner on high. While waiting for that to heat up, prepare the other vegetables. Peel and chop the potatoes into nice chunks, dice the onions, carrot, and celery (with leaves), and mash the garlic with the knife.

Add all those chopped vegetables into the pot along with some salt, pepper, and a bit of olive oil. Pour enough water in to cover everything and add about an inch or 2 more.

Now let this soup cook down for about 4 hours. I know that sounds like a long time, but it is worth it. At that point it will look like this:

Yes.

Now crucial to this soup is butter, parmesan, and a good loaf of crusty bread. 

When the soup has cooked down and is nice and thick, ladle out however many portions will be supping that night into a smaller pot and bring up to a boil. take a small amount of pasta–I use angel hair–break it into fourths (you want bite-size bits here), and add to the small pot of soup.

While you're waiting for the pasta to cook, you can package all your minestrone (ALWAYS minus the pasta!) into containers for the freezer.

When the pasta is cooked al dente, and with angel hair this only takes about 5 minutes, ladle the soup into beautiful bowl, add a teaspoon sized daub of soft butter on top and a nice amount of parmesan cheese. Serve with your crusty bread and you are in for a rustic, Italian treat.

So is the arugula and the last of my carrots. Well, some of the carrots are hanging on but they are pathetic, stubby Parisian chumpers hardly worth the time it takes to clean, peel, and cut out all the little worm holes and extra off-shoot roots. I leave them for my son to dig up and throw at the chickens. They rush the little roots in an attempt, but then give up. Those little orange nuggets are way too hard for the birds to peck through. And let's face it, our hens are spoiled girls used to eating panettone and leftover cookies during the holidays, not some feeble cold old carrots Hunter chucks at them like ping pong balls.

But gosh darn those Brussels sprouts. They are the family favorite for fall vegetables for not only their delicious nutty flavor after being caramelized in oil and balsamic vinegar, but for their awesomeness at hanging on through frost after frost until there is nothing left on their stalks but the pale bluish green leaves, now whitened with cold.

The arugula will be back in spring, she is a hearty wench.