Things that are Halloweeny

Since this is my blog, I'm going to brag about something I did, okay? Okay. Here it is: I made an AMAZING pomegranate sorbet that pretty much blew everyone away. No, seriously, it was THAT good. So do I have pictures of it to show you?

Sadly, I do not.

In lieu of pictures, please accept the following background information.

A few weeks ago, I became sad when I looked around the farmers market and realized that Summer Fruit Season had ended (it trails on a while in San Diego but the peaches of October are hard to eat after being spoiled by the peaches of August). On Sunday, I took another look around and quickly got over my melancholy as I realized that Autumn Fruit Season is here. Woohoo!

I zoomed from stall to stall, grabbing bosc pears and the first of the tangerines and pink lady apples... and pomegranates. Heavy, cracked, delicious pomegranates.

I've been a pomegranate fiend since I was a kid, but I am not crazy about Pom Wonderful juice (or any of its competitors). The taste of these juices is too concentrated for me, but beyond that, they only sort of taste like pomegranates. I suspect this has to do with pasteurization.

As it happens, however, I live in a pomegranate-friendly climate and frequent a good farmers market so I have more options than some. What I'm getting to here is that another thing I greedily snapped up on Sunday was a quart of freshly squeezed, NOT pasteurized pomegranate juice. Wow. Drinking that juice was like being punched in the mouth with a pomegranate, only in a good way. It was not cheap but it was totally worth the price because now I could make sorbet and I would not have to pull apart all those pomegranates to do it.

I used this recipe* and the results were amazing, as previously stated. Very intense, and perfect with the rich chocolate malt ice cream I had made the day before. Mmmm.

So how, you ask, is any of this Halloweeny in the least? Because the desert was made to eat after making these guys:



This weekend, Valerie and I went to Tyee's house to carve pumpkins. I am very grateful to Tyee for suggesting this activity because I am pretty sure I wouldn't have done it on my own this year. Plus Tyee's lovely husband made us pizza AND her daughter was charming and burbly as always.

(Mine are the two little ones in front: a friendly troll or hobgoblin or goat or something, and another one that's menacing because, you know, fangs.)

Happy Halloween!

* Except I skipped the fancy touches (champagne and garnish) because that lily just did not need gilding.

Or accordian consonant earPlugs playing his head onsh

It's official: I am old. Mr Elinoire and I went to see The Pogues last week. I foolishly thought "at least the crowd will mostly be people my age for once," but I was only sort of right. There were many of my fellow Gen Xers there, but also many people who had not been born when I got addicted to Irish Punk.

Sigh.

That being said, the concert was EXCELLENT and much bouncy fun was had by all, or at least by Mr Elinoire and myself since I did not bother to survey any other concertgoers on their experience. Also? Things have changed since I started going to concerts in the '80s. A few random observations:

• Phones are the new lighters. I saw two lonely little flames when the band left the stage but there were at least 30 glowing cell phones.


• Speaking of phones, there is a reason they don't care if you bring in your phone with camera: the totally unsaleable quality pictures like this:



• The opening band, Ollin, said they were honored to have been asked to perform because they were "a bunch of Mexicans who like to cover Pogues' songs."


• The lime green faux snakeskin freebie "wristlet" I received with my purchase of Clinique products was the perfect size for my ID, cash, phone, and a lipstick.

During the concert, I kept thinking "I should write myself a note so I'll remember to write about somethingorother in my blog!" Unfortunately, bouncing around while trying not to spill your beer as you sing along to songs you learned in college is not the most conducive way to take notes. So I started texting myself little messages to remind myself later of all my Briliant Thoughts.

Remember how I said I was bouncing? And drinking beer? When I looked at my messages the next day, I had to spend some time decoding. Read the title of today's post again if you don't believe me. I wrote that. And sent it to myself.

Here is the probable translation for the message above:

"Something that I now forget was either one thing Or another; I usually don't like accordian music but for the Pogues I will gladly make an exception; Shane MacGowan's impressive substance abuse over the years hasn't killed him like I assumed it would* but it's turned him into an old man and somehow stolen all his consonants; Ohmygod am I glad Mr Elinoire went out to the car and found those earPlugs** for us; when MacGowan started banging what looked like a hubcap against his ear during the last song, Mr Elinoire said "he's playing his head! and he was right; onsh? What the hell is ONSH?! Oh! I think I was trying to write "mosh" and the cell phone had no idea that was a word. (I used to think that the best place to be in the audience was right on the outside edge of the mosh pit because there was a big (mostly) open space in front of you and very little view obstruction, but now I am too old to dodge moshers and come in contact with sweaty people I don't know so I will enjoy the concert from over here instead thank you very much.)"

So there you go.

* I never thought I'd get to see this band because I assumed the lead singer would die of an overdose or drunkenly walk in front of a bus before I ever got the chance. Let's hear it for aging rockers who reunite and tour so they can cash in on their older-and-therefore-more-affluent fan base!

** No, I don't know why I capitalized the P, and yes, the earplugs are further proof than I am old.

Diversionary rambling is what this is

Several large swaths of San Diego County are being eaten by nowhere-close-to-contained wildfires right now, which is bad. The little house we live in is pretty far from them not as far as we'd like but we're probably okay for now. We have lots of friends who've been evacuated from their homes (or may be told to evacuate soon) so we're twitchy as all hell, as you'd imagine.

So what am I doing? Cheering myself up by posting vacation photos from our trip in May, that's what. Oh, and I also made brownies. And will probably make a bunch of jam in a little while. But right NOW I'm posting pictures.

So, to start we have this, a corridor at Fontevraud Abbey in Anjou, France.



Our friend Nathalie (who is an amazingly kind hostess) drove us all over ze place (note the French accent there), starting here.

Not only was the abbey run by nuns (not men) throughout the middle ages, but Eleanor* of Aquitaine, one of my all-time favorite historical figures,** spent the last bit of her very active life here. Her effigy is at Fontvraud, along with her husband's (Henry VIII, who may or may not have asked his knights to rid him of that pesky Thomas Becket) and her son's (Richard the Lionheart, AKA the guy that baaaadd King John tries to supplant until Robin Hood says "uh, no."). So there's a lot to like about Fontevraud.

What you can't see in the picture above is the swallows swooping in and out of their nests. And where, you ask, is there room for a nest in this spare stone corridor?

Here!



Those clever dive bombers of the avian world have appropriated the spaces in the ribbing of the Gothic arches for their own use. You know the groundskeepers must love that, right? I couldn't get a good photo of the swoopage at Fontvraud, but here's one from a tower at le Château de Chenonceau the next day. The dark little triangles are swallows.



And finally I give you this, a photo that has nothing at all to do with Fontvraud, swallows, mud, or even France. It's a random railing in Brugge, Belgium. Isn't it cooooool?



Yes, I thought you'd think so.

* Spelled, amusingly, "Aliénor" at the abbey

** And the inspiration for my name, along with L'il Miss Sensible in Sense and Sensibility and my great-grandmother's cat.

La Nourriture

Did I mention that Mr Elinoire and I really liked the food in France? You know, when we were there this spring? No? Whoops, I definitely meant to say that. I mean, what is not to love about these adorable penguins in a Parisian bakery?



Time for the truth: we did not eat at this restaurant so for all I know, the food's awful.* But who cares? With a display like this, who needs yummy food?**



And finally, chocolate. I'm cheating because this is a picture of a Belgian shop (a wonderful, wonderful Belgian shop with some of the weirdest chocolates ever -- tabacco chocolate, anyone? How about wasabi?) but I had to end on a chocolate note.



* I doubt it, though. This is Paris after all.

** I'm lying. I need yummy food. ALL THE TIME. But I still dig those copper pots.

I CAN HAS LOLCAT PLZ

It's not in the same league as this, but here's (Sylvie's and) my humble attempt at a meme.

Heat is neat

Back to your regularly scheduled blogging soon, but to hold you over until I get it together and write some actual content, I present you with this:

These blissed out meerkats have their own private heatlamp at the San Diego Zoo.



Do they remind you a certain small brown cat?



I thought so.