Hola! Hola! Back from Mexico, in fact since Thursday night, but I've been having too much fun hanging with the Bryt family, visiting from New York, to scratch a post together! It's been a fast blast of weekend, with Bartley arriving Wednesday for work, and Maud and their daughters Catherine and Natalie joining him (us!) Friday night. We just had dinner here at the hacienda, simple pasta and roasted vegetables.

Yesterday Maud and I stole over to Stacey's to see Cooper Cuteness, Stacey's amazing Stacified house, as well Stacey's studio/new work. Thanks Pooh!

Then back here to cook and cook, with Harry Cunliffe and Suz et al coming for dinner to join all of us. For a little appy I made shrimp paste, a recipe from The Gift of Southern Cooking, basically sauteed shrimps pureed with lots of sweet butter, with a hint of cayenne pepper, sherry, and lemon. We spread it on toasts, but I'm dying to try it stirred into some hot grits, oooh... I'm a little obsessed with it in fact. (Recipe posted in comments, below.) For dinner, I grilled an insane amount of beef tenderloin (lots of tasty leftovers, more than enough to put Bartley & Maud on the plane with thick roast beef, tomato, lettuce, and horseradish sandwiches!), whipped up my new favorite saute of okra, onions, and tomatoes with bacon, and made a pile o' popovers. Ahhh, popovers. Nothing is better alongside beef, especially with pan juices to soak them in. Just kill me. It was a pretty magical evening - literally, since Harry is a sometimes magician and was gracious enough to show off a few of his tricks for the kids. (And adults!) Great, great fun!

And now, the Bryts are gone, sniff. House is very empty feeling, although not for long. Nathan is home from Florida soon (yay!) and then we're heading out for Cooper's 2nd Birthday Party! Happy Birthday Cooper Cuteness!

Many, many highlights from Mexico to share, a little later today, so stay tuned...

Badger Homecoming, the weekend of October 26, heh, heh, heh! Thanks to our friend and co-Badger alum Jon, who pulled together tickets from our other mutual friend Niko - woo hoo Jon and Niko!

And this time, I'm taking Nathan (and Jon's taking his daughter Sophia), which will cast a verrryy different (read: sober!) view of Madtown, ha. And I can't wait! I'm so excited to show Nathan where I lived and went to classes, my Gamma Phi Beta sorority house, the KK (burgers, of course), the Brathaus (aka State Street Brats, more burgers with Jon and Sophie, uff, a burger-y weekend, and yet, somehow I'll manage, ha...), the Union Terrace, Gino's (lasagna and tortellini bolognese, baby), perhaps a Parthenon gyro (if we can somehow fit it in), hopefully lunch on Sunday with my Portuguese professor Mary Schil, The University Bookstore for Bucky Everything (especially for Cooper, who lurves Bucky), and of course, the creme de la creme...a Badger Football Game. (And oh, lots of walking to burn off all that heavy food, good Lord I don't know how I didn't weigh a coupla hundo in college...)

Camp Randall, here we come! Woo hoooooo!

Oooh, get this! My doorbell rang this evening and lo and behold, there were Susie and Cory, bearing not just treats, but warm, home-baked Apple Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce! Yessss! I adore Apple Bread Pudding, and now so does Nathan, ha. Thank you, thank you, thank you, my dear friend. You're The Best!

Turns out this is one of those rare Sundays that I won't be cooking. Weird, huh? I love to cook on Sundays, especially in the fall, oooh: cool air + time = soup or stew or roast or bread or vegetables or, or, or... But not today, man, our fridge is bursting with tasties, a food bomb ready to explode, BAM! Don't worry, we'll defuse carefully, a meatball here, some clam chowder there (I had a meatball for breakfast, in fact, yum).

Why so much food? Wellll, turns out I was solo for dinner on both Thursday and Friday nights, so the big ol' pot of Manhattan Clam Chowder I made on Thursday is still pretty big, and the shrimp cocktail I made on Friday is still untouched by John. And then last night we had Suz, The Coreman, Vivian, and Sullivan over for a Break-from-Unpacking Spaghetti Dinner (recipe posted in comments, below), with meatballs and garlic bread and salad and Cake-Eater Chocolate Cake. Uff. One of the more filling meals I've made in awhile, although sometimes a homemade meatball really hits the spot, you know? Kind of like a matzo ball. Random... Anyhow, we have lots of meatballs, and pasta, and bread, and cake, and whipped cream...oh my, you get the picture.

Excess! Bursting! No cooking! And we'll enjoy every bite...

You know, sometimes I get a hankering for good old fashioned spaghetti with meat sauce. Reminds me of the Kraft spaghetti-in-a-box we used to eat when I was kid, you know the one, with the packet of herbs to stir into tomato paste with water? My mom used to make that sauce with ground beef for a quick, filling dinner and Stacey and I LOVED it. With lots of Kraft Parmesan cheese. And lots of bread toasted with butter and garlic salt and cut into small squares - aka garlic toast. YUM. I'm of course not using that mix (does it still exist?), but the end result is pretty similar. At least I think it is - maybe these days I couldn't even choke down the mix, who knows? And who cares? As long as it tastes like I remember, that's all that really matters. Ah, Food Reminiscing, two of my favorite pasttimes combined... Noshtalgia...

After our tres gourmet feast, I'm heading over to Suz's for yep, Feminine Hijinxing with My Minxes. How perfect and adorable is this Cartoon Suz, created by Kim's brother Pat for Susie's podcast music-writing venture, Mod Pod Music? When I can't pull off Friday Morning Coffee with Suz, I'll just pop this cutie up on my screen and play the latest Feminine Hijinx! Sometimes Susie's laugh is just what the doctor ordered - in person, or via podcast.

And so. Allow me another moment of noshtalgia. I've had plenty the past few days, remembering time spent with my stepmom Susanna's unforgettable mother, Shirley Hopkins Taylor. Shirley passed away on Tuesday, at age 83, in Billings, MT, after what can only be said was a life lived well and fully. I was 12 when I met Shirley - always hungry (already 5'7" with four inches yet to grow) yet picky is how I would describe my food self at that age. I was a little terrified of her, as was everyone, I think, because she was no wallflower, Mrs. Taylor. No. Clever, very charming, funny, opinionated, industrious, and yes, quite bossy, Shirley was a master entertainer and their beautiful ranch home in Kirby, MT, saw a steady stream of visitors from all over the world. Happily well-fed visitors, I might add. Raised as a privileged Chicago city girl who, with her New Yorker husband Walt ended up improbably yet succesfully running a Montana cattle ranch as well as her own thoroughbred horse-racing business, she created this unbelievably cool (my word, not hers, ha) East-Meets-West setting, at once rustic as well as refined. Shirley was a famous eater - she loved great food. Oh, the amount and variety of food the W Lazy T Ranch has cranked out over the years, for ranch hands and family and guests alike, I can hardly imagine it. Lots of rare beef (of course!), buttered veggies, and deep, dark chocolate, her favorite dessert. Privileged or no, Shirley was a daughter of the Depression and nothing - nothing - went to waste in her kitchen. Sunday's glazed ham showed up as Monday's ham sandwiches, Tuesday's ham casserole, Wednesday's ham salad, and Thursday's ham soup. Ditto the Thanksgiving turkey (which resulted in my first taste of both turkey salad with grapes and turkey tettrazini, yum).

Shirley would never have thought about it, but she had a big, big impact on my interest in food and cooking - in my adolescent exposure to food at her elegant table (I was scared of half of it, but boy I learned alot, from what to eat and how to politely eat whatever was served to me, to how to properly clear away the dishes - no stacking! - when all was done) and of course via her daughter, my stepmom Susanna, who taught me how to cook everything from Asparagus to Zabligione (literally A-Z). Shirley will rest in peace next to her husband Walt, at a beautiful site on their lovely W Lazy T ranch. And that will sadly be the end of an era.