Sunday, June 11, 2006

You've Got a Friend in...Fayetteville

No, really, I do! One of the nice things about being in Arkansas this month was the opportunity to catch up with my old SF pal Josh, who's now a VP at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville. He and his lovely wife and their two blonde-ringleted children hopped in the kiddiemobile and drove up to Eureka this afternoon, for burgers and bbq on the balcony of the Basin Park Hotel. (Given their double stroller, and all the staircases in Eureka, finding a place with an elevator was a wise choice. It was a fine place to chat, and definitely the sort of vinyl-tablecloth place where it's perfectly OK to whip out a couple of baby-food jars. Don't go for the food, though; my prefab, run-over-by-the-Sysco-truck burger looked and tasted like well-kneaded grey Play-Doh.) After playing catch-up about our lives over the last few years--their trajectory from Mill Valley to Tiburon to Little Rock to Fayetteville, mine from SF to Bologna to NYC to Eureka Springs-- we headed back to the colony where I got to show off "my" kitchen and actually entertain in the living room.

Mismatched Tupperware and measuring spoons make great kiddie toys, as it turns out...and once toddler #1 was napping in my bed, and toddler #2 was busy with the spoons, I dished out bowlfuls of almond-cherry cobbler with vanilla whipped cream, made with 3 cans of pitted sour cherries instead of fresh sweet ones, drained and tossed with 3 TB tapioca, 3/4 cup sugar, and 1/4 tsp almond extract (the unsweetened juice will go into Monday's cherry lemonade).

Fruit, biscuits and cream have been the theme of the weekend...and since I didn't have time to take pictures of the peach-blueberry shortcakes, I snapped a few quick ones of the the cobbler. (Minus what we munched, and what went home with them for breakfast). And I was all set to post them, except that they came out looking bizarrely lurid, as if Weegee shot pastry in full color. So just imagine a really pretty pan of cobbler in your mind, and let's leave it at that. Josh's wife has promised to trade me her grandmother's secret biscuit recipe if I give her a pie tutorial, so I might be making a field trip to Fayetteville next weekend. The bright lights await!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"Fruit, biscuits and cream have been the theme of the weekend..."
well this should be the theme of my life I decided. I just absolutely die for biscuits. I think that once a person gets biscuits into her psychic bloodstream that she never gets it out. But this is where your jam comes in because once you want the biscuit then you need the jam or excellent honey and butter. Butter lots of butter. you know my mom had me butter ALL the biscuits whether they were to be honeyed or jammed or gravyed. It didn't matter. (Most of my relatives made you decide ahead of time if you wanted butter and honey or gravy). So I sat and buttered the biscuits just like I made the table. ( If cousins were there they wanted that job.) It was my duty to do them hot out of the oven before the family came to the table. Of course as soon as they smelled the biscuits and heard the oven door those biscuits didn't get cold.