September 2017 – Mom's Guide to the Galaxy

This year’s big harvest: tomatoes

This year’s favorite harvest recipe: tomato soup.

Each year, it seems to be a different crop that goes wild and leaves me scrambling to use it or freeze it. Last year’s tromboncino squash forced the discovery of new recipes (orange zucchini bread is fabulous), the purchase of a food processor, and is still taking space in various forms in the freezer.

A few good tomatoes — Ripe Glacier and Ananas Noire tomatoes.

This year’s bumper crop is Ananas Noire tomatoes. Cassandra will happily eat them raw, but they’re fairly large, so even she can’t keep up. I’ve been taking extras to work a couple times a week. The stellar find for dealing with the excess harvest is this tomato soup recipe.

I typically make a recipe at least once before tweaking it to my taste, but I don’t usually have plain tomato juice in the house, so I substituted V-8 juice (which is mainly tomato, with other vegetables added) the first time. I’ve worked up from there, adding onions (caramelized one time), green peppers, celery, and what pushed it over the edge to I could eat this every day, leftover beef. Some days I even remember to pick some basil for the recipe.

Tomato soup ingredients in the crockpot, then swirling in the heavy cream, and lastly, in the bowl.

I drop it all in the crockpot first thing in the morning, then run the immersion blender through it when I get home from work. After it’s mostly blended, I add the heavy cream and blend again before dropping the butter in. (Let’s be honest, that’s mostly because I like to watch the swirly pattern as the cream mixes in.) I leave the butter to melt for a few minutes, then stir and serve.

I’m not particular about which kind of beef I include, it just depends on what leftovers I have in the fridge. After a day in the crockpot, it’s all going to dissolve nicely. The first attempt was thin sliced fajita beef; I’ve also tried steak and short ribs (cooking on the grill, of course). They all work nicely.

In theory, we eat a little of it and freeze the rest for delicious soups in the winter. Last weekend’s soup – a full crockpot – never made it to the freezer.

Million Dollar Quartet at the Paramount

We’ve had season tickets to the Paramount Theater in Aurora for a few years now (since the year they had Cats and Les Miserables on the schedule), so I think it’s fairly significant that Cassandra declared Million Dollar Quartet as her favorite so far. It even beat Aladdin, which we saw in Chicago last December.

The Million Dollar Quartet was made up of Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley, and is set entirely in and around the Sun Records recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee, on the one day that the four performers happened to be there. Jerry Lee Lewis was the new face in the studio, the hotshot kid who was (in the musical, at least) impressed by the indoor toilet at his hotel and the famous musicians he was meeting. At the same time, he was eager to declare that his would be the next gold record on the wall. Elvis Presley was searching for happiness at a studio that didn’t understand him, and the other two were hoping for their next big hits.

Imagine, if you can, the amount of talent that was gathered at Sun Studio on December 4, 1956. Then imagine what kind of talent you need to reproduce that sixty years later, including capturing the era in the set design.

The Paramount nailed it.

This show is definitely worth seeing. It’s probably worth seeing again, though I suspect my opportunities to do that – at least during this run – will conflict with my karate schedule.

Time for the Brookfield ZooRunRun!

Or as I prefer to call it, the ZooWalkWalk. That’s what I usually do at Brookfield Zoo’s annual 5k, though this year included a little sprinting as well. Several years ago, we happened to arrive at the zoo as their ZooRunRun was finishing, which is how it came to my attention. By the time it rolled around again, we were already learning karate and hustling up the Hancock once a year; walking a few miles on a fall morning seemed like a nice addition. Consistently scheduled for early September, the zoo has a knack for perfect weather for the event.

The runners start first, split into groups by their expected mile time (self-assessed), followed by the walkers. Everybody is timed automatically based on the bibs, and you can scan the QR code on your bib to retrieve your time. Alternately, you can queue up for the lone laptop (there used to be more) and enter your bib number. In addition to the traditional water and banana handouts, there were two different samples this year to help with recovery – BarkThins and Kind bars.

As a walker, I slowed down occasionally to watch animals that usually rest in the heat of day – both the warthogs and wallabies were unusually active this time. After the race, the wallabies had already settled into their normal lounging by the time we walked by again. In fact, one of the biggest benefits I see to the ZooRunRun – other than supporting their conservation efforts – is the opportunity to wander the zoo before it officially opens. The faster you move during your walk or run, the more time you have at the zoo with reduced crowds.

Hardware is a strange name for a restaurant

That was my first thought when a friend asked if I had tried the place I’d been driving past at least once a week for the last year. “It’s a farm-to-table restaurant.” Wait, what? Really? I just thought it was a brewpub, which I don’t go out of my way for since I don’t drink beer. (Yes, I realize brewpubs have other good features.) So I Googled the restaurant and spent a while ogling their menu.

Last week, I had a chance to go with a friend. We opted for a high-top table, right next to their greenhouse. (They grow their own salad greens in the greenhouse, along with hops for their beers, and fruits and nuts in their micro orchard.) Then the waiter introduced himself and said these magic words: “We have 411 whiskies.” I could go every day for a year, have a different whiskey each time, and not make it through the entire list! I won’t go that often, of course, but I did set up a spreadsheet to track which whiskies I’ve tried there. The Templeton Rye from their Happy Hour menu narrowly beat some of their whiskey flight options for the evening.

Greenhouse, whiskey, wood grilled bread, meat & cheese plate at Hardware — The Greenhouse, Templeton Rye, Wood Grilled Bread, and a selection of meats and cheeses at Hardware in North Aurora

Their food was equally impressive, particularly knowing the greens are grown in sight of our table, and some of the meats are cured or prepared there. After our Wood Grilled Bread with hummus, olives, cucumber, feta cheese, and arugula, the waiter brought fresh baked rolls and honey butter to the table. I had almost finished my roll when dinner arrived – homemade ravioli for my companion, and a mixed platter of meat and cheese for me. The roll came in handy between bites of habanero tequila cheese, and my favorite of the meats was the duck bacon.

I did bring half of my platter home, so we didn’t look at the dessert menu while there. I did, however, look it up afterwards, and suspect that I’ll be ordering just an appetizer and dessert next time. And a whiskey, of course. Only 410 left to try.

The Five Doctors, with running commentary

I’m not a bit fan of talking during movies, especially at theaters where it might disturb other people. When you’re already paying someone else to provide a running commentary, it suddenly becomes appropriate.

I somehow missed the Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) Kickstarter back in 2015, which brought the show back with 14 new episodes. Having grown up^* on Doctor Who, I was excited to learn about a RiffTrax Live event for “The Five Doctors,” a 1983 special that brought together the first five regenerations and some of his companions. Without commentary, “The Five Doctors” is the epitome of classic Doctor Who – campy effects, BBC set budget, interesting costume choices (“Snuffleupagus pelt”), and some fairly obvious plot twists.

With commentary, you can still enjoy all those things – though some of the original dialogue becomes lost – and appreciate mocking yet another timeless classic. (It also allows you to appreciate just how far Doctor Who – and the BBC’s budget – has come.). But first, we were subjected to a British safety video from the era, with commentary, of course. Rest assured that nobody who watched it will play anywhere near power lines, power stations, or a poorly animated owl who lectures an equally animated bird about the danger without making any effort to stop the children who are about to be injured or killed (poor Jimmy!).

Actually, that was second. The usual pre-movie ads and trivia were replaced with comical ones – obvious anagrams that were translated into entirely different, but related, terms (instead of Cars 3, it read Buy More Toys), fake trivia, and other entertainment. Arriving early was a fortunate choice.

The extended episode itself was a barrel of laughs with the MST3K crew clearly enjoying themselves with a live audience. There were a plethora of comments on the fashion choices, particularly on the Gallifreyans’ parts. The rile of Sarah Jane Smith was reprised by Elisabeth Sladen, with a brief appearance by K-9, perplexing viewers by her ability to fall down a minuscule slope and needing a rescue from it. Sarah Jane is far better written in future appearances. Eventually, the Doctors pulled together and saved the day… not exactly a spoiler three decades and several regenerations later.

The real advantage to a live MST3K performance was the timeliness of the jokes, such as comparing the Tower of Rassilon to the current Dark Tower movie. I’m hoping for a DVD or download release, so my daughter will forgive me for seeing it without her.

* It’s a relative term.