First Book Club (and the meal was wonderful!)

I spent the day preparing the house for our guests.
Above is Mr. Husband's old copy of
GK Chesteron's Orthodoxy
from which he studied for a book club he was in
years before. 

It worked well:
the chicken being buttered, filled with onion and thyme
the night before.
Lots of chopped up garlic inside the skin,
a bit of dried summer savory sprinkled
with salt and pepper outside,
after the butter was put inside and outside the chicken's skin.
As I worked with gloves on,
with these small chickens
(we got two of them so we would have enough
plus leftovers) I had a feeling
not of sentimentality but more of a sense of gratefulness
that the chickens were,
from all I could ensure by the purchase,
organically raised without harm and now
providing such good food for us to share.

Cheesy Micro-fries is the above recipe.
From a cookbook from my school girl days.
My Mom had told it to me over the phone
and while Mr. Husband was helping gallently prepare the meal
I realized I did not know where I had put the paper with that recipe.
Luckly, with my third call home,
my Mom was there to answer it and quickly gave me the recipe.

Mr. Husband got the salad and small tomatoes at
the local farmer's market
and they added edible nasturtiums
to the salad
which Mr. Husband made beautiful.

The potato recipe:
Cut up potatoes, in wedges, leaving the skin on.
Add garlic powder, salt, a smidgen of onion salt,
paprika and then Parmesan cheese.
Microwave until tender or almost tender.
12 or more minutes.
{I did it in two batches, the first being bigger and thus
needing more time}.

Mr. Husband had obtained local beer
which some had, another a wine, some only water.
GK Chesterton had loved beer and things bought locally...

I kept the potatoes warm with a big
metal lid from a large pot and a dish towel.

 

Mr. Husband got the flowers at the farmer's market
very inexpensively.
*
And so everyone came,
saying it was so wonderful to be in a home
and all the lampadas were lit
and we talked over dinner,
the chicken fell off the bone and was proclaimed to be perfect
and then we talked about chapters 1 and 2 and a
little of 3.
It was wonderful, refreshing.
I told Mr. Husband I could not wait to do the next
which was decided earlier that evening to be in about a month's time.
*
And now I know that I can prepare chicken a day before
and let it roast in the oven.
I roasted it at I believe 400 degrees for 1 hour
 and then turned the oven off
and let it stay warm.
*
It was a lovely evening
of which we are all thankful for!

Tuesday and a Lazy Day Cherry Pie

This head cold of mine
made me glad yesterday that
all I had to do for the cherry pie
was take the two pre-made crusts out of the
freezer...

carefully made strips out of the one,
when it had thawed a bit....

While just out of the freezer I carefully
coaxed the other pie shell out of the tin and
into the glass pie pan.
*
Two cans of cherry pie made a brimmingly full
pie that I then made the lattice for.

I read up on how I did
the chicken dinner with pie 
almost a year ago
and did the same trick on the lattice this time,
as Mark Bittman suggested:
milk brushed on and then sugar sprinkled.
Makes for a quickly golden crust.

Followed the cans directions for baking.

Once the pie began to be golden
I took it out.

 

My plan is to bake it a little longer to
make it more golden,
then keep it in the warmed but no longer
baking oven until it is time to enjoy.
*
Hot cherry pie, golden, with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream.
And that is my lazy day cherry pie.
*
Speaking of ice cream,
did you know that store bought ice cream used to be more of a
novelty?... I saw this evidenced in an old children's book 
I got at a library sale in Ottawa,
where the beloved cleaning woman makes up a quick dinner
including real store bought ice cream.
I must say, I am loving every
hint of the way things were years ago
or even how they were idealized into such books
such as this pollyanna book, written in 1939 during a time of
war and rationing.
I admit that I have been enjoying this very light read
while pondering the lack of inner life evidenced...
*
I keep thinking that I will do more baking and
will learn to do a pie crust from scratch but for now,
I am grateful that I could bake something for
tonight's meal and first book club.
We are reading GK Chesterton Orthodoxy.
*
As for the which way to bake a chicken,
thanks for all your comments yesterday!
I decided that I would prepare the chickens in advance.
Mr. Husband cut the onion and garlic while I got the chicken's ready
to be stuffed with the onion and herbs,
then garlic put under the skin and buttered inside and outside
the skin and salt and peppered, with a bit of dry
summer savory.
They are small organic chickens and resting in the fridge
 until later this afternoon
when I will roast them.
*
My nose is no longer gushing forth the
 need for boxes and boxes of Kleenex!
Still stuffed up but it is a marked improvement!
I have disinfected the house once yesterday
(handy Clorox wipes) and intend on doing so again today!
I used latex gloves when baking and preparing the chicken
and am washing my hands frequently.
My goal is to have this head cold stop with me!
*
Hope to show you the meal and that the chicken's worked out perfectly...

Orthodoxy

 

Mr. Husband and I
as you may know
love the works of
GK Chesterton.
*
We are reading the book
Orthodoxy
currently.
*
The third chapter
the suicide of thought
explains so much so quickly.
*
So much so that I keep thinking
why did I not have this as required reading 
during my undergraduate years?!
*
Here are two sections from this chapter that are
towards the beginning.
It explains so much.
*
But what we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert—himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt—the Divine Reason. Huxley preached a humility content to learn from Nature. But the new sceptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. Thus we should be wrong if we had said hastily that there is no humility typical of our time. The truth is that there is a real humility typical of our time; but it so happens that it is practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether.

At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic and blasphemous statement that he may be wrong. Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one. Of course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own. Scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced. The meek do inherit the earth; but the modern sceptics are too meek even to claim their inheritance. It is exactly this intellectual helplessness which is our second problem.
~Chapter 3, Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton 

Baby Blue with future yellow duck

 

My baby blanket is almost done!
I wrote here about my
learning to pick up stitches and the learning process.
I hope to add the duck in the middle soon!
Ravelry here.
*
I have some things to attend to this Wednesday that
are going to keep me away from the computer.
Because of this fact,
I am posting my progress here on my blog but
will be unable to engage in many other's yarn along's this week
so am not adding it to Ginny's wonderful link up.
*
I have recently (in chapter 2 now!) started
GK Chesterton's Orthodoxy
and am really enjoying it!
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I would love to hear what you are making and reading ~
do leave a comment for me
(will see it soonish, God willing!)
and Yarn Along with us!
*