Beth Emmott

Our turn for the theme dinner rolled around this Feb. and this year we chose Japan. Once a year, each couple chooses a theme, makes the main course and the others bring appetizers, first course, dessert, wine and this time Sake.

We had a wonderful time researching menus, seeking places to purchase ingredients and trying out the preparations in order to have some idea what we were doing the night of the dinner.

Setting the table and choosing dishes for all the various things served at once was a challenge and fun. My Mom has given me dishes that she had bought on Okinawa when we lived there in the early fifties. So, we took liberties with some of their purposes and added others, picked up some bamboo mats and tied our napkins with twine.

Table setting for Japanese Theme Dinner-First Course

Table setting for Japanese Theme Dinner-Main Course

Using the book, Japanese Family-Style Recipes by Hiroko Urakami, our main course was:

Wakame Seaweed Miso Soup (Wakame No Miso-Shiri)
Yellowtail Teriyaki (Buri No Teriyaki—we used Striped Bass)
Simmered Japanese Squash (Kabocha No Nimono)
Braised Daikon with two ground sesame seed sauces—black and white. (Furofuki Daikon)
White Rice with a side of Tsukemono (Pickled Cabbage)

This was the last fun thing we’ve done in a while as this was the night Bob’s leg began acting up and that’s been a very long story, but now he’s on the mend and …

My friend Jane, one of my garden gals, has been working on restoring a carousel for 20-30 years. She and her husband, David, gave it to the city of New York as well as a pavilion built for it in Brooklyn Bridge Park in Dumbo where they live and last Thursday it was dedicated with the inaugural ride!

It was a wonderful event, a bit rainy but that did not dampen anyone’s excitement. I’ve seen the ponies from time to time as they were being worked on and have ridden on the almost finished carousel in its temporary home but this was different.

Name in cement and in her new home!

Sitting joyously in its clear pavilion (designed by French Architect, Jean Nouvel), jutting out into the East River it is spectacular. From the stainless steel lettering laid in the concrete proclaiming that this is “Jane’s Carousel made in Philadelphia by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company” to the ribbon for the cutting ceremony every detail was complete. Guests were even given a special horseshoe as a souvenir! (Vincent Farelli would have loved this!)

Ribbon for cutting ceremony!

If all this wasn’t enough, when night falls and the doors are closed, large concealed curtains descend from the edge of the ceiling and shadows of the rotating ponies are projected from within. Magic!

Spectacular view and at night!

Some online links for this are:
Official Site
First Ride
At Night

After Connecticut we drove to Maine where we stayed with Margie and Joe in their wonderful home where guest rooms are private apartments, the food and conversation are wonderful and their garden is perfect for both human folk and VERY large doggie folk.

Bob visited with Joe at work and photographed along the coast while Margie and I headed north to meet Sally and Pam at the Maine Botanical Gardens for this years Garden Hoax. Words don’t do justice. It was misty (as all our garden events seem to be) giving the garden an ethereal feeling. We’ve been to lots of terrific gardens but this was different. It was a Maine Botanical garden. Where elsewhere beautiful flowers are planted to create vistas and swathes of color and texture, here the texture is of Maine. It is a garden in a forest.

Pam and I are in the rain in this pic Margie took
and House in the children’s garden with a cat fence!

Back to Margie and Joe’s for a bowl of home made chowder (what else) and the next day Bob and I headed north to Waldoboro where we stayed at the Blue Skye Inn, visited Pam and David, and ate Ginger Ice Cream in Thomaston (my mother has always raved of the Ginger Ice cream she ate in Thomaston, ME as a child in the 1920′s).

Alpaca

Bought alpaca from an Alpaca farm to card with some wool I have for spinning—this winter’s stress reducing project! and then home driving in one of this summer’s wild rain extravaganzas.

Short and sweet and lots of fun!

It’s been a while all right. My class ended. I didn’t get to go to the last class as Frank called a meeting that evening of all the graphic design instructors and I figured I’d better go to that. Last year I didn’t go to one because I was in Ireland and I wish I’d been able to, so. . .
The Sunday after that we left for a quick end of summer (my summer) vacation to Maine. We stopped first at my brother Senter’s in Connecticut. First thing I see is a bunch of fungi growing from a stump in his yard—I’ve been on the fungus train too long!

More fungi!

We had a great two days sitting on their porch over looking the pond and eating lobster at Abbott’s!

View from the log house!

Eating lobster with Senter and Bitty!

Went to VA to visit my Mom this weekend. Jonna and Diane were there and we had a wonderful time at Curt and Mary’s.

When we left we stopped at the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge which has wonderful wetlands which go right into the ocean. We hiked and photographed a bit, saw turtles, osprey and snakes.

As ever in that part of VA the quiet of the tall grasses and the beauty of the marshes is contrasted by the roar of the planes from the many military bases. My Dad was an air force test pilot and my Mom feels right at home. What others might find loud and jarring she finds quite wonderful and almost reverent.
The new header image is from Back Bay