Just a hint of fall

We've been waiting very patiently.

Sunscreen containers almost empty.
Sweaters freshly dry cleaned.
Boots polished.
Cozy pashminas organized by color.
New fuzzy socks.

But frigging summer has just been hanging around, laughing.

Until this week. The mornings were gray and cool and the wind was picking up a few stray leaves here and there.  The night air coming in through the open windows in the kitchen had me reaching for a sweatshirt as I wrote this.

Yes, it was still 80 degrees at noon, but here (finally!!!), was just a hint of fall.

Carpool Wars: Battle Taco!

Given how intense this thing is getting, I clearly need to update the "Feud" entry on Wikipedia:

"A feud (ˈfjuːd'), referred to in more extreme cases as a blood feud, vendetta, faida, or private war, is a long-running argument or fight, often between social groups of people, especially families or clans.

Famous blood feuds

The Hatfield clan in 1897.

• Three Kingdoms period, (184-280 AD) feuding Chinese warlords during the fall of the Han Dynasty.
• Njál's saga, an Icelandic account of a Norse blood feud (960-1020; Norway, Ireland and Iceland)
• The Mackintosh-Cameron feud (1290s-1665)
• The Battle of the North Inch, Michaelmas, 1396, Scotland; the battle is fictionalised in the novel The Fair Maid of Perth bySir Walter Scott
• The Percy–Neville feud (1450s; England)
• The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487; England)
• The Talbot–Berkeley feud (1455–1485; England) (concurrent with the War of the roses)
• The Gunn–Keith feud (1464-1978; Scotland)
• The Campbell–MacDonald feud, including the Massacre of Glencoe (1692; Scotland)
• The Regulator-Moderator War, (1839-1844, Republic of Texas)
• The Donnelly–Biddulph community feud (1857–1880; Ontario, Canada)
• The Lincoln County War (1878–1881; New Mexico, USA)
• The Hatfield–McCoy feud (1878–1891; West Virginia & Kentucky, USA)
• The Clanton/McLaury–Earp feud (see also Earp Vendetta Ride), also known as the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" (1881; Arizona, USA)
• The Pleasant Valley War, also known as the "Tonto Basin Feud" (1882–1892; Arizona, USA)
• The Capone–Moran feud, including the St. Valentine's Day massacre (1925–1930; Chicago, Illinois, USA)
• The Castellammarese War (1929–1931; New York City, USA)
• The Great Mafia War (1981–1983; Sicily, Italy)
• The Feud of Scampia (2004–2005; Naples, Italy)
• The Maguindanao Massacre (2009; Ampatuan, Philippines)"
• Carpool Wars (2011-2012; Encino, California, USA)

Carpool Wars: Battle Taco!
The latest skirmish between the carpool clans was brutal, as usual.

First, the battle lines were drawn:

A taco, by definition, is a tortilla folded around a filling, so that's the basic limit. 
Tortillas can be corn or flour, homemade or store bought. 
The filling can be anything -- meat, veggies, combination, etc. 
The tacos themselves can be fried or not, rolled or soft. 
Because condiments are such a personal thing, I'd suggest we each have a "recommended" configuration (including specific toppings, if any), but allow the judges to customize their own if they choose from your available condiments.

Available condiments?
Try five different homemade salsas, freshly chopped mangos, various types of crumbled and grated cheese, quick-pickled onions, shredded lettuce, thinly sliced radishes, chopped cilantro, ripe tomato wedges, sour cream, dill cucumber spears, olives, diced white onions, and fresh avocado.

Now picture them rigidly separated into four distinct sections of a big table, and pity the fool that tried to put one woman's cotija cheese on another woman's chicken taco.

Smack!

The tacos themselves?
Two fried, two not.

The tortillas?
All corn.  Some grilled, some freshly heated on a cast iron griddle.

The fillings that could be anything?
Shredded chicken.
Grilled swordfish.
Slow roasted beef brisket.
Smoky sirloin and chorizo.

Homemade guacamole and chips, in a gorgeous authentic molcajete.
Caesar salad.
Seasoned refried black beans.
Fresh Hibiscus tea.
Margaritas, too.
Juicy watermelon.
Mexican bread pudding and salted caramel shortbread bars.

And after all that work?
The verdict was perfectly split, four ways.

Yep, this this particular vendetta may go on for years**.

And now....The Battle Taco contenders!

eCheesyPennies for your iPad. oCool!

Apparently you can tell something is high tech these days when it has a lower-case vowel in front of the name.

uAgree?

Guess I'm high tech now.

I've got an eBook!

Cheesy Pennies by Sharon Graves | Make Your Own Book

The much loved (but sadly quite expensive) Cheesy Pennies Cookbook (circa 2010) is now available as an eBook for iPad from the Blurb Bookstore or Apple's iBookstore.   For the ridiculously low price of $2.99!

uGo. uBuy.
iHappy!

Grandma's Naughty Cinnamon Balls

Every Friday afternoon, my mom used to come over.

She'd have a load of groceries for us (mostly toilet paper), jokes she'd clipped out of the newspaper for the kids*, and leftovers for the dog.  She'd take over the couch, pretend to be mystified by the Tivo remote, then unerringly find Oprah and crank the volume up.  She'd set packages of whatever junk food was on special that week out on the counter, with neat block letters in colored pens labeling which grandkid got the gummy worms, and who got the Oreos.  She'd frown as I sat glued to my laptop, occasionally nodding and saying "um hm", frustrated that I was not nearly as concerned as I should be about Celine Dion, then dispense advice to my husband when he got in from work. We'd escape to the movies, come home and find her with Nick at Nite blaring, the dog curled up on the rug by her feet, and the cat staring balefully at us from his perch by her head.

Every Saturday morning, she'd make these.

My son would practically run to the breakfast table, my daughter would immediately put a pile of them on her plate, and my husband would sit down, pour a big glass of OJ, and shake his head.  "Grandma," he'd say, "you made the naughty cinnamon balls again! What are you trying to do to me?"

Then he'd take two.

When being a little nuts pays off

Case in point:

When I tell the family at camp about how I coerced my husband and kids into coming to their apple farm in order to relive my childhood last year?
This appears on my doorstep.

Even bigger case in point:

When a friend asks if I want to help with a new company he's starting out of his dining room*?
Two years later, we sell the company, help open the NASDAQ, and this appears in Times Square.

That's me, three stories high, on the right!

Yep.  Being a little crazy sometime pays off.
Big time.
How do you like them apples?

If at first you don't succeed, pie, pie again

You still won't win*.

But you'll have made a damn fine pie.

The mother in the cupboard

A friend said to me tonight,

"Hey, I like these little plates."

Yeah, I said.  My mom got them for me.

In the famous kids' book, a boy has an Indian magically come to life in his cupboard.
Every day, my mother magically comes back to life in mine*.

Happy birthday, Mom.

* I can open any drawer or cabinet in my kitchen and find at least one thing from Mom in there.  As you might expect, we use these things all the time, and she bought every single one of them on sale (or used a coupon).