light speed

I feel like things are moving pretty fast these days and I’m not sure how to keep up with my life.  Does anyone else ever feel this way?

The show here was pretty fantastic with a huge turnout and a awesome experience, even if the night before opening I was pretty much a basket case and didn’t want to go… speaking of which thanks to all who came on out the art.  I was the idiot cowering in the corner! HA.

And yes I even sold something!

cheesybite

My good friend, neighbor AND an Australian (yes New Zealander’s and Australian’s can be friends) just got back from a trip down under and she came bearing gifts…. gifts of the weird bastardized beloved Vegemite kind.

Yip it’s a new product those crazy Australians have come up with,  a cockamamie combination of cream cheese and Vegemite, yes I said cream cheese AND Vegemite and it’s delicious, we’ve already polished off one jar and I can see there being an arm wrestle for the scrapings of the second one.

bbq

The township of Roxbury can now boast it has four restaurants, not much else, the gas station, PO, laundromat all have their place but we only just recently discovered CHA CHA HUT BBQ on Bridge St, Roxbury.  In the name of “investigative reporting” Mr Weiss and I dove head first into smoked mac & cheese, BBQ beans, potato salad and I got me a side of pulled pork with two sauces, South Carolina mustard and North Carolina vinegar sauce.  YUM. I can see this becoming a regular thing.

I still had some cabbage rattling around the fridge, so I dumped this dressing on it and we had a side o slaw.

So the next time you go burning through Roxbury, hit the breaks take the first left and roll on into the Cha Cha Hut.

not beeting around the bush

I was looking for the slackers way to make beets without going to the trouble of roasting, peeling and almost exhausting myself before getting around to actually eating them.  Here is a simple no fuss raw beet salad recipe, just make sure you don’t wear white whilst dithering about with these suckers.

Beet Salad

3 beets peeled and washed (I used a combo of golden and red)

1/2 a large sweet onion

2 tbsp chopped cornichons or capers

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp good quality mustard

3 tbsp oil oil

1/2 tsp both salt and pepper

1/4 c crumbled feta cheese (optional)

Using a box grater, grate beets and onion and place in a bowl.

Looks like a crime scene or a bad Jackson Pollock!

Add the cornichons or capers, salt and pepper and stir.  Whisk together the mustard, lemon juice and olive oil to make a dressing.  Pour over beet mixture and stir well.  Let sit at least 30 mins before serving.

haunted

After this…

boring old bag of carrots kept haunting me every time I opened the fridge, I decided to take affirmative action and turn them into something decidedly more appealing.

Carrot Soup

1 bag carrots, peeled and sliced

1 clove garlic chopped

1 medium onion chopped

2 c veg stock

2 c water (I use a mixture of stock and water so your soup doesn’t get over run with the stock flavor but is more carroty)

1/4 tsp each sea salt, pepper, cumin, celery salt

1 inch nob ginger finely grated

tbsp olive oil

In a large pot heat olive oil, add onion and garlic and saute until translucent, add all the seasonings, carrots and cover.  Cook 10 mins, add stock and ginger, gently simmer, covered, another 20 mins until carrots are soft.  Blend. Adjust seasonings and serve.

The Gershwin Hotel

Yes I’ve been a busy little bee… this coming weekend you can find me at the Gershwin Hotel, as part of the PooL Art Fair.  What am I doing there ?…you might ask,  well if you have ever checked out my alter ego over here, I am exhibiting some Polaroids as part of a group show.  So you NYC’ers who are looking for a very cool event to stroll around, look no further.  You might even find a shy elusive kiwi lurking about somewhere, Room 1043 to be exact.

escape

Well we made it… out that is, and it was touch and go there for awhile.  After a failed attempt Friday night to leave, Mr Weiss and I DUG ourselves out from the aftermath of “February Fury” , is what the local ski mountain called it.  When it was finally over we received a whopping six feet of snow in three days and when people could finally venture out, everyone was pretty much shell shocked and nobody could say they had seen the likes of this before.

Living on a private road, we finally realized how lucky we have been with our neighbor plowing but as luck would NOT have it, his massive farm tractor/plow broke down the day,  leaving us all (well all three houses)  stranded.

The pictures that I have already posted seem like kinda a joke now compared to what we eventually ended up with and this is what we had to deal with to get out….

see those faint posts sticking out near the tree line… that’s my garden fence, they are 5 foot posts.

oh dear, the trailer looking completely laden down.

Mr Weiss walking along our “path” we forged from the house to the car, keep in mind that he is standing on about 3 feet of hard packed snow.

this where we dug the car out of…

this took most of the morning (and part of Friday night) to get the car onto the road.

We got lucky as another tractor came in to see if they could fix the neighbors snow plow and he made a small pathway in that we dug down further and got out… talk about an advertisement for SUBARU, this car rocked!

we shoveled in about 10 feet increments in front of the car to get through…

the very last part just before making it onto the town plowed road…

we made it! I would not be exaggerating if I was to confess I actually cried with relief when we got out.  I know I know, whimpy, trust me I did think there would be nothing more exciting than really being  “snowed in”  BUT I HAD to get back to NYC for work engagements and didn’t realize how stressful it was until the light at the end of the tunnel (literally) shone.  The real tragedy in all this was that we couldn’t even get to Belleayre Mountain to enjoy the full benefits of snowboarding on POWDER… and tones of it… now that’s enough to CRY over for sure.

First order of business come spring…. A MASSIVE KICK ASS SNOW BLOWER!

still snowing….

Mr Weiss declared… “I’ve never seen anything like this!”,  he’s referring to the fact that it’s STILL SNOWING and the drifting that took place overnight has 6 – 8 ft mountains surrounding us.  Mr Weiss grew up in a snowy place, and is calmly going about trying to find where the car is, The Catskill Kiwi however is a finger push away from instigating my own “Estate of Emergency!”

Yesterday before the panic set in I did however manager to make my FIRST SNOWMAN!

“hi friend whatcha up to?” these were taken yesterday… now look

Mr Weiss trying to climb his way up at 10 ft drift to the garage to retrieve the snow shoes… which are now parked outside the front door.

hang in there little bird house!

outdoor shower…

top of one of the smaller trees…

there is a car under there somewhere…

we’re not sure when this is supposed to end… but if anyone hasn’t heard from me in another day or so…SEND OUT THE SEARCH PARTY!

snowy

Yesterday up at the wee house, we woke up to a FOOT OF SNOW! yessiree bob, A FOOT, I kid you not… witness.

unearthing the car

our road

poor airstream

as soon as we got the car uncovered, it was off to Belleayre Mountain to tool around on for the day! Not a bad Wednesday.

UPDATE: Thursday 12.34 its still snowing buckets accumulation so far 8 inches and counting… we may have to dig ourselves out! OR NOT hee hee hee.

hail ceasar

I suck, yes I do… I totally found this dressing recipe online, somewhere and did not save the link, so I have no idea who to credit this genius… but this is probably THE best ceasar dressing I have ever tasted.  So unknown friend out there I THANK YOU, because you have just elevated boring romaine to spectacular status!
Ceasar Salad Dressing
1 tsp. salt
3 eggs
1 1/2 tsp. sugar
3/4 tsp. dry mustard
3 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. Parmesan cheese
4-6 cloves crushed garlic
6 tsp. wine vinegar
1 c. plus 2 tbsp. oil
6 drops Tabasco sauce
6 drops Worcestershire sauce
3 tbsp. olive oil
Throw everything into a blender,  refrigerate.  Easy.  It makes quite a bit of dressing which will last in a jar in the fridge.