Big doings afoot

Dear family and friends,

I am looking forward to today with a lot of happy excitement, but I'll write about our NYC trip after it all unfolds. This morning, I will write about our delightful Sunday at home.

The high point of course was the visit from the Lavins: Sophie, Brendan, Gracie, Katie, and Sarah. The three girls now know us and come in with happy smiles. Though their house in Locust Valley is about 5x the size of ours, the girls like the hidden nooks and crannies in ours, especially the present closet that Merwin built into the slanted "attic" behind a regular closet. Wow! lots of things to explore. They decided to put on some shows for us, using the props from the closet. Gracie (who is in 2nd grade) was invariably the leader, but the others were either fully engaged as her helpful adjuncts or leaders in their own songs, dances, acrobatics, and more. What energy! What verve! Really impressive. Reminded Merwin and me of our granddaughters who used to like to put on shows for us also. some 20 years ago!

Otherwise, it was the usual: a new recipe, email consultations of all sorts, work on Hamlet, and finally ending up with the Olympics interspersed with an abbreviated version of Jane Austen's Persuasion on Channel 13. It lacked some of our favorite parts from this production, but it was a nice reminder of the delicious whole.

The recipe is not quite as wonderful as Mark Bittman describes it (March 11, 2009), perhaps, but good enough--and easy. Here is my adaptation: Mashed Potatoes with Arugula (or any other bitter green)

Heat oven to 400 if you want to make the dish right away.
Prepare two large Yukon Gold potatoes by scrubbing and removing any eyes but leaving them unpeeled. Cut into quarters, and drop into a 3 qt. pot of cold, freshly drawn water, with salt added. Boil until just tender, about 1/2 hour.

Meanwhile, wash the Arugula or other bitter green thoroughly and spin dry.

Take the potatoes out of the pot with a slotted spoon and put into a 8 x 8 square pan for mashing and, later, baking. You want to use the hot water to briefly cook the greens for one minute: dump them in the boiling potato water.

Pour the Arugula into a strainer and chop it up.

Mash the potatoes right in the baking dish with enough good olive oil to make it light. I used a fork. You can use a beater or whatever. Add the chopped Arugula and lots of pepper and more salt if you like. Smooth the mix in the pan and sprinkle with 1 C homemade breadcrumbs. Drizzles with more olive oil. Altogether 1/4 to 1/2 C of olive oil.

I always keep a supply of homemade bread crumbs in the freezer: they are so much better than store-bought ones, which contain so many odd ingredients besides the bread itself.

The potato-Arugula mix can go right into the oven for about 15 minutes until the crumbs are nicely crisp and brown, or you can set it aside for later. It is good hot or warm or even room temperature once it is baked. It is better, in fact, on reheating.

Nice side dish, or for potato freaks like me even as a main dish. Note that it's parve, can be used for meat or milk meals.

The sun is shining, and off we go to the City for an exciting day, which I hope will not exacerbate the hip problem. Tylenol to the rescue!

Love to all,
Bernice