The house across the street from us is pink. I’m talking light pink with bright pink trim. It’s an unusual color choice but hardly anyone notices because the entire lawn is filled with glass. You might be thinking glass like a hoarder has trash all over the lawn but it’s nothing like that.
Bruno, an old man with a white beard down to the middle of his chest, lives in the pink house and the meticulously placed glass on his lawn is a 15-year art project he has been working on. There are Bombay Sapphire bottles, vintage vases, ashtrays, and anything else you could think of propped up on metal rods and stacked a few items high. The sea of rainbow glass is odd at first glance but it really is kind of cool. He scrubs each one to remove any algae that pops up after it rains and he spends two days a week mowing and trimming the grass around each bottle. This is done in cleats so he has a better grip on the hillside. He loves it and I have grown to enjoy looking at it while I wash dishes in the kitchen sink.
Bruno himself is a character. Always in red pajama pants, and often barefoot, he spends his days out on our block working on random projects. He drives a 1980s Mazda 323 with “GEEZER” on his license plate. He has a flip phone but no computer. If you ask him why he will tell you because he is living in “the real world.” One day he asked me if I saw an article in the paper to which I told him we don’t read or even receive the local paper. He spent 30 minutes in disbelief and telling me repeatedly how ridiculous that was.
When I work on new recipes I always take the first imperfect versions over for him to try. I do this because he is happy with whatever I bring him and he is brutally honest. A few summers ago I tested a new ice cream recipe and I knew the texture was off. He told me it felt like raw bacon on the tongue…
After our conversation about not receiving the paper, he started bringing me the Wednesday food section from The Kansas City Star because he knows how much I enjoy cooking. Like clockwork, sometime around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, he comes down our long driveway and drops it off along with a few comics he thinks are funny. If I’m not home he rolls it up neatly and leaves it around the door knob with a rubber band. This is one of the most wholesome things I have experienced in a long time and a memory I will always cherish.
On the back of the food section are the obituaries and coincidentally I love reading obituaries. They are fascinating and I am nosey. If I am being truthful I usually glance over the food section and go right to the obituaries. Last week I finally told Bruno how much I enjoyed the obituaries and it turns out he does too. Now he is bringing me strange and hilarious obituaries he has been saving over the years (maybe he is a bit of a “collector“). The most recent one he brought me was from April 30th, 2013. It was an entire newspaper page in length and…I can’t even begin to get into how bizarre it was. But I will tell you, I never thought I would be having weekly chats with an 80-year-old man about our love for obituaries.
Anyways, all of this story is my way of saying I don’t have much food news to report again this week. We have some stuff going on but I am not ready to talk about it just yet. Outside of the stuff going on our life has been kind of bland. Sometimes life is just bland and that’s okay. Marco has been going to the office again and I have been home working on recipes. Rinse and repeat.
The weather has been beautiful, for the most part, and I have been finishing up shooting the last three 🔥Easy Summer Grilling🔥 recipes. One recipe that didn’t make the cut is grilled fish cooked directly on hot coals. This recipe is actually very easy and it has quickly become my new favorite way to cook fish but grilling on coals is a whole other thing. Maybe next year.
For the last two weeks, we have been ending our days with a long walk after dinner. It’s warm enough to be comfortable but not sweaty and it is light until 9:30ish right now. The fireflies have started to pop up and the woods echo with animal noises. It’s the biggest thing keeping me grounded, present, and grateful right now and sometimes we accidentally walk until it is completely dark. Most nights we run into Bruno and he and Josie say goodnight to each other with lots of pets and a big hug.
This week’s Kitchen Club recipe…
I have been sitting on this Grilled Pork Chop recipe for over a year! You have seen it, I love it, go make it!
20 Classic French Dishes Everyone Needs To Try *How many have you had?
Age Your Cake *I have seen this with my recipes too. Chocolate Rye Molasses Cookies are significantly better on day 2.
Bring Your Kitchen Outside *Grilling inspo
Punctuality Is Having a Moment *Thank god.
Caramelized Lemon Butter Orzo with Kale and Garlic Breadcrumbs
Sicilian Escarole & Sausage Orecchiette *From Colu Henry’s cookbook, Back Pocket Pasta.
Pan con Tomate (Spanish-Style Grilled Bread With Tomato)
2021 Disco! sauvignon blanc from Subject To Change
Subject To Change is the same winemaker out of California that makes FKA, the fruity red blend we love that tastes more like a cider than wine. We are obsessed with FKA and now equally obsessed with this sauvignon blanc. It is a little more traditional and sips like a sauv blanc but with funky notes from the skin contact. Get one, here.
Dreamy and worth the watch ⬇️
It took us three years to try Vietnam Cafe and this week we had it twice, ha. Once when the power was out for 18 hours and I couldn’t cook and again on Friday because we wanted to try more! It’s fast, easy, and everything you could want take-out to be. What we both enjoyed, and the reason why we had it again this week, is it’s not too heavy and doesn’t leave you feeling sluggish. Lots of herbs, broth, chilis, and rice noodles!!
I have said it before and I’m saying it again…You NEED Joyce Chen scissors. I use them for everything because of how nicely they fit in my hand and how strong they are. From snipping herbs to cutting through chicken bones these guys do it all. This week I used them to cut open and clean the fish I grilled. We will be using them later this month for one of our Easy Summer Grilling recipes and even if you get them just to have around the house, you will fall in love with them too.
After nine days the baby cardinals left the nest 😭. This is the last photo I have of them; I miss them tremendously.
Thanks for reading!! Talk to you next week! Xx M