If you've ever been somewhere and felt, without doubt or reservation, an immediate, almost shocking sense of belonging, a sort of kinship usually reserved for siblings, best friends, and true loves, then by jove, you get me. There are those places you and I always want to go back to, right? These points on the map that are so much more than...points on a map. It's memories of a place and time and the people who made it special. I find myself always wanting to go back to my Nana's house in Prince Frederick, Maryland. Her house was a one-and-a-half-story custom-designed home, built by my grandfather who died before I was born. The house sat low at the end of a curving driveway, surrounded by forests and fields on all sides, and was aptly named Woods Edge.
But that's one of those bittersweet memories. Nana's house is gone now, and no amount of Christmas dinners and summertime family gatherings on the back porch; or of me, hammering away rude little tunes on the music room's piano, will conjure up my Nana's house, because it's no longer there. What's in it's place is a development of townhomes, something out of A Stitch in Time, where all the doors are on one side, all the lawns neatly trimmed on the other, the driveways from an aerial view must look like the spokes on a comb.
Thankfully, there are other places I cherish from my childhood...
Someday I might be given the opportunity to travel to Europe on one of those six-week tours you dream about, but I would shake my head and say thank you very much, but no, if it meant I couldn't take my (almost) yearly trip to Rehoboth Beach. Situated about halfway down the eastern arm of Delaware, Rehoboth was the place I learned to negotiate waves by going thru them, and later, when I could go out further, I did a fine job of floating along on top of the water where each wave was just a swell, before it could crest and crash onto the surf, before being sucked back into itself, groaning like an old man struggling up from his easy chair.
Rehoboth Beach is special because it's the place where I learned it was ok to be a kid--to get cotton candy stuck to the sole of my shoe and my shoe stuck to the boardwalk as droves of people past by. We'd rent a cottage, or stay in one of the cottages owned by cousins. There were two, now there is just one. Ah, but what can one do? Oleta Adams said it best when she sang the words: Everything must change, nothing stays the same, the young become the old, and mysteries do unfold...
London is another place I'd like to revisit. Work took me to this up-all-night city ten years ago. It was busting at the seems with frenetic energy and I loved it. Loved every second of it, even if I was the "Ugly American." My mom's British, and I had visited as a toddler and again when I was 17, spending six weeks with my mom's family in Harrogate, which, being situated in North Yorkshire as it is, isn't exactly London, but close enough for this Yank.
As I'm getting older, I am beginning to think of places where I'd like to relocate, and later retire...well, okay, thirty- some years from now! But I hope that I can do so while I'm still young enough to enjoy it. And, if I do, I think I'd like to be somewhere close to a beach, or any body of water, really. I sometimes like to peruse those "living" magazines Coastal Living and Cottage Living being two, and dream about the places in the pictures. I found the image above on the Web, and it about sums it up. I want to wake up with the ocean on one side and chickens laying eggs in a chicken coop on the other...maybe a dairy cow, just so I can say I'm sort of a farmer--a lady farmer--you know? Maybe a horse snoozing in its paddock. Each morning I will wake up early, just before the sun spills over the horizon, go out in my jammies and slippered feet to collect a couple of eggs, milk old Bessie, and brush Fritz the horse. Then it's back to my little cottage by the sea, with its just-big-enough-for-two--kitchen, a perpetually whistling tea pot, and some cats, and a dog or three, languidly stretched out in the least convenient places. I'll make breakfast. Then later in the day I'll check on the cheese I made the night before. That's it, I want to make cheese and eat eggs when I retire. Lots of both. Who doesn't like eggs and cheese?
This picture was taken on the Maine coast by someone with really good low-light skills (which means: not by me).
If you want an easy recipe for cheese, here's one for Paneer that you can fold into your favorite Indian recipe (I use it in all my kormas, masala's and in Palak Paneer--pureed spinach with cheese), or add herbs to for a great spreadable cheese for crackers or fruit.
Recipe for Paneer (Indian cottage cheese)
1 litre of whole milk (the creamier, the better; but you can substitute low-fat milk if you prefer.)
4 Tbsps freshly squeezed lime or lemon juice
1. In a medium, heavy-bottomed pot, heat milk to the point just before boiling, but do not allow to boil. Turn off the heat and remove pot from burner. Add the juice one teaspoon at a time, stirring after each addition. The milk will begin to separate. Stop adding juice once the greenish-watery whey juices have separated from the milk. 2. Allow to cool for a half hour, or until cool enough to be handled.
3. Place a colander lined with cheese over a pot so that you can strain the cheese. Be sure to allow the cloth to overhang the edges of the colander, as you will be tying-off the cloth to hang the cheese for drying in the next step.
4. Once you have strained all of the whey from the curd, tie up the cheese into a bundle and hang it from your sink's faucet, or any convenient hanging place. Reserve the whey for soup stock, or for making ricotta cheese.
5. Gently squeeze the bundle to help extract all of the whey and form a tight ball (as if you were making buffalo mozzerella balls). The more you squeeze, the firmer your cheese will be. 6. When most of the liquid has drained into the pot, untie the ball of cheese and flatten it, still inside the cheese cloth, and shape it into a square. 7. Place the bundle between two pieces of plastic wrap. Lay a heavy pot over top of the the cheese and leave it like that for an hour. 8. Next, set the bundle in a pot and cover it with ice cold water for one or two hours. This step is optional. Cut the cheese into cubes and add to your favorite Indian dish; like Palak Paneer (pictured below, pre-cheese and pre-puree.Try saying that three times fast!)
