and go well with marbled Guinness cheddar,

melted on top of bread to hold while dancing a jig around the kitchen.

And this morning, a wee bit of Guinness cheddar was left to melt over local eggs scrambled next to breakfast sausage (next year I’ll source blood sausage), wilted spinach, and roasted “dirty” potatoes tossed with an olive puree (from this Food & Wine recipe, but roast at 450 degrees for 45 minutes, and add some olive oil to the olives for better adherence).

One of my traditions on St. Patrick’s (some of my forebears were Irish) is to read Seamus Heaney to begin the day.

Much like the narrator of Heaney’s famous “Digging,” between my fingers, the squat keyboard rests. I’ll dig with it….

Related posts:

1. grilled cheese appreciation week: cheddar thursday
2. kthread cooks: whatever provençal
3. winter white

In her honor this Bastille Day, I am posting a picture from my holiday breakfast this morning of toasted brioche from Almondine with homemade butter, and a sour cherry jam and a blueberry jam I made this morning, letting them cool while I whipped unhomogenized cream.

I’ve sliced the rest of the brioche, and taken the butter, jams, and cream into the office, so we’ll see what the PopTech Brooklyn crew thinks of them—both jams are very easy and will take about twenty minutes, a pleasant morning or Sunday afternoon activity.

For the cherries, buy and pit a pint of sour cherries (or a pint of blueberries), put them in a large pan with 1/8 cup granulated sugar, stir occasionally while simmering for twenty minutes (you may wish to boil off the remaining liquid over high for a few minutes at the end). Let cool for at least 15 minutes; either jam will keep for about a week chilled.

Happy Bastille Day!

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2. heirloom cucumber and shoots of corn
3. kthread spins: cloudberry jam sandwich

I’ll stand by what I wrote when I originally posted this (great comments on that post), explaining the recipe:

Why fry a doughnut that has already been fried? A turn in a hot pan caramelizes the outside of the doughnut to a crispy shell and returns the inside to a pillowy, soft state.

I hope you celebrate in style and to make these with all of you in all of your kitchens by next year this time (I’ll bring the lard)—

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1. kthread cooks: fried doughnuts
2. kthread cooks: fried green tomatoes
3. crisply, on a holiday weekend

Full playlist below image. Apologies for the beginning pop—pretend it’s a beverage opening, please. More music in the kthread spins section.

You, Me, & the Bourgeoisie – The Submarines

Little Secrets – Passion Pit

Technologic (Daft Punk cover) – Peaches

Down the Line – José González

Rhythm – Major Lance

Sunlight – Harlem Shakes

Mr. Blue Sky (ELO cover) – The Delgados

Jackson Station – Orchards & Ponds

Tallymarks (feat. Thao Nyugen) – Portland Cello Project

Moonson – Delorean

Confusion Girl (Don Diablo loves to slowdance remix) – Frankmusik

We Will Become Silhouettes (Mexicans with Guns remix) – The Postal Service

No Home – M Shanghai String Band

—

Related posts:

1. kthread spins: music to greet the morning
2. kthread spins: sunday kind of snow
3. kthread spins: and I in my cap

(Flour the crab, tap off excess, fry in two tablespoons of fat on high heat for two minutes a side.)

Tempted to make pesto from whatever green winks at me in the kitchen, sprouted sunflower greens (about a cup) with a few walnuts, an eighth of a cup of parmesan, one clove of garlic, and two tablespoons olive oil became a mild paste stirred into warm potatoes.

And the bits left in the pan sizzled with the browning butter that I poured over the crab, sprinkled with Sel Gris, and picked up, letting the juice run down my arm and onto the potatoes that are best eaten without a fork in the sunshine…

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1. pppsst: spsp (summer pesto squash pasta)
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3. stinging nettles and strangled priests

Cava is always involved with America Day celebrations (see America Day I and America Day II), and a cork soon popped at the apartment; Stewart, John, Ben, Michael, and I toasted to the revelries ahead:

Then, there was Mothership Wit on draft at the Riverfront Tavern, and stellar huckleberry vodka that led to some of us not waking as gloriously as the tulips,

that waved near the Noshville diner, where Lady Liberty waited on the roof (you can see her in the distance above), whole pickles unnerved us on the table, and the server wanted to take part in America Day.

Stewart and I both ordered the ‘We Dare Ya’ breakfast, a dare we lost to pancakes the size of flying saucers,

and afterwards, we began incorporating all the elements of country music songs: reverence, wine, and Baby Jesus,

a nice day for (any kind of) a white wedding,

casually perplexing proposals (I found a large ring with a white stone that we needed to fold into the America Day narrative and Wonder Woman costume—so, this is the America Day where Wonder Woman becomes engaged to a hot Nashville musician).

Michael analyzed what Wonder Woman’s ideal wedding gown would look like in reference to cupcakes,

Ben disappeared to find coffee (which should be a country song),

new leaves heralded Spring,

and dogwoods bloomed in front of the Nashville Parthenon, where this scholarly group was bound.

I circled Stewart, John, and Ben with my Lariat of Truth,

before deciding to lasso a saxophone player instead,

and in this place of learning, we noted that really all of America rests upon what’s written on the bench:

We drove to East Nashville’s Hip Zipper vintage,

discovered I Dream of Weenie was closed and our weenery dreams were to be unfulfilled,

so we bought scratch tickets at a gas station and headed toward Cowboy fashion on Broadway.

As is America Day tradition, Ben met a bachelorette,

Stewart lit a cigarette (seriously, how gorgeous is my Facebook husband? Note the vehicle in the background) while John stood by in a very serious black cowboy hat,

Ben evaluated Michael’s boot choices,

I liked the boots I was wearing,

that prompted this wonderful Linda Carter story from a sales clerk.

We were welcomed in American Apparel,

where Ben Superman and Michael contemplated truly blue jeans,

though I liked the lettering on Hatch Print Shop posters more.

We five decided B. B. King’s was appropriately American, taking the long walk back to Section D,

extending the pickle motif with fried pickle chips and horseradish sauce along with Blues Brew.

I ordered a Porktato (yes, I take implicit menu dares as well, and I think a Tofutato would also be great),

before the boys gave each other direction in matching sweatbands,

and we headed out for an American dance party at Mad Donna’s,

with Michael reminding us that Girls Just Wanna Have Fun across the street at Lipstick Lounge,

and we suffered through terrible karaoke before returning to Riverfront Tavern in America Day stripes by Ryan (at left) and plaid (Matt, to the right of John).

Ben was reunited with his bachelorette,

and there was more of that lovely huckleberry vodka.

The next morning, we brunched in the sunlight at Mad Donna’s,

with Michael’s French toast swimming in double doses of syrup and caramel,

and Ben’s unusual, colorful Cap’n Crunchberry French toast serving as a metaphor for our merry Day encrusted with bright flecks of Americana.

As this fantastic four dropped me at the airport, I glanced back with love—I will meet them anywhere for next year’s America Day IV (Chicago? New York? Los Angeles? Where do you think?)—

and we do hope that those of you that couldn’t join us this year will rejoin us or experience the magic of America Day for the first time next year…

View the entire Flickr set with additional photos and videos here.

Related posts:

1. America Day II: Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through
2. year three: there was a star danced
3. stewart croons at the bluebird cafe

Recipe: (for a houseful of people) Add four tablespoons olive oil or 2 pieces of bacon, diced to a large pot over medium. Heat 3 minutes. Add 1/2 small onion, diced, cook 3 min; add 5 cloves garlic, minced–cook 1 min. Add 6 to 8 cups of water (depending on how many in your house), bring to boil. Chop one bunch collards and one bunch kale into 1/2in pieces, add to water. Cover and simmer 25 minutes. (Throw in diced red pepper if you like.) Season and serve with cornbread. Update: And add a little splash of vinegar (I like apple cider) at the end, if you like. (Thanks for reminding me, Phil!)

Cornbread recipe recommendation: Mark Bittman, New York Times, September 26, 2008 Recipe of the Day
use: whole milk, substitute: 1/4 c light brown sugar, add: 3 chopped scallions to batter

reading recommendation: Why I Live at the P.O., Eudora Welty

listening recommendation: Lost Coastlines, Okkervil River

collards wallpaper on Flickr

drink pairing: whiskey and rye

salt recommendation: table

Resolutions? New Year’s Day traditions? What do you think should accompany cornbread?

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Just back from traveling, I looked in the mirror and thought about what I wanted to happen before the end of the day:

And then I walked out front, started my car for the first time in two weeks, and pulled up to the stop sign.

Only my car didn’t stop, the brakes failed, another car narrowly missed the front end of mine, and I was somehow able to tap the brakes for about a mile to a repair shop.

Shaken, but fine, my fervent wish for the days ahead is for all of us to live gloriously—so if that car had hit me, I would be proud of how I spent the days before and after.

Filmmaker Benjamin Reece asked fifty people in New Orleans the same question in the beautiful video below; I’m especially moved by the beginning of this video, the moments before the answers, when the focus adjusts and the subject smiles bravely.

New Orleans is a place that has had many things happen before the end of a single day.

Fifty People, One Question: Restored from Benjamin Reece on Vimeo.

What do you want to happen before the end of the day?

And please share your thoughts with Benjamin and see the video in HD here. I plan to look him up the next time I’m anywhere near Magazine Street—

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So we’re making my favorite breakfast food, pancakes, with crispy edges:

Recipe: 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt. Stir. Crack one egg in middle, add 1 cup buttermilk. Stir. Drop 1/8th cup circles in pan with 1/2 in vegetable oil over med-high. Cook until bubbles begin to pop; flip. Cook 45 seconds more. Take out of pan; repeat. Serve with (a dash of truth and) honey/syrup + butter or crème fraîche + salmon eggs. Or eat straight out of the pan.

reading recommendation: A Wind in the Door, Madeleine L’Engle

listening recommendation: “Pancake”, Tori Amos

pancake wallpaper on Flickr

drink pairing: mimosas, darlings

salt recommendation: peruvian rose

What do you put on your pancakes? (At breakfast, lunch, or dinner…)

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In recognition of Captain America’s return to Charlottesville, we deemed this past Saturday America Day II: Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through.

Like last year’s first America Day, we determined to spend the day doing very American things; this time, relating to music.

(Follow the rest of the adventure after the jump–)

Keicy, Jordan, Dana, and I began the day with a visit to Dave Matthews’ farm, Best of What’s Around, for fresh eggs and a lesson about chickens from Matthew and Suzanne Holt.

As the rest of the hipster musicians dragged product through their hair and arrived at America Day HQ, we took a few band pictures on a bridge (no troubled water in sight) and headed off to a small town. (Ben’s parents live in this same small town.)

Delighted, Nina and Laura discovered a bike a fan had left for them in downtown Waynesboro.

Then we all looked for (caffeination and) non-obvious books about music at Stone Soup Books;

Jordan chose Oliver Sacks’ Musicophilia, I chose Puff the Magic Dragon, Laura found a book with scores and woodcuts titled My Pious Friends and Drunken Companions, and Jeremy located a Johnny Cash biography by his wife.

We detoured to Ben’s grandmother’s house to visit and she graciously pressed homemade sweet potato pie on us, fueling our journey to Wright’s Dairy-Rite in historic Staunton.

Nina, owner of alternative label of Hoss Records, evaluated our options on the jukebox before seemingly everyone in the diner surprised me with a chorus of “Happy Birthday.”

Riding milkshake sugar highs, we followed a slightly akimbo Statue of Liberty pointing us back to Charlottesville for American Idol karaoke (after Laura accompanied Dana on the guitar piñata),

And in fantastic leggings, Steph crawled the VIP booth at Escafe and directed us to a party at Kiki Bar’s closing night.

A few hours later, the shimmering continued as we toasted Easter with wild hibiscus flowers opening in flutes of cava,

biscuits with butter and jam, carrot cake, croissant pudding, rainbow chard, roasted lamb, potatoes, aioli, iberico ham,

and eggshells dusted with gold and silver that, peeled back, yielded solid chocolate fillings.

With gold dust on our fingers, and locals in the know, we shall have music this year wher’er we go…

For more pictures, see Laura’s Flickr set, my Flickr set, and see the video in HD on Vimeo.

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3. lobster roll quandary and lemon meringue