And now, a cooking report.

Today, unlike yesterday, was cloudy. Big clouds, big cloud cover. In a word, chilly. The temperature dropped a good ten degrees from yesterday.

I got up and plugged in the space heaters. Put on my slippers. Made some pancakes. (Pancakes are not just breakfast, they are an epistemology, and don't let nobody tell you different.)

I worked, sort of, on a poem, sort of. I felt dissatisfied with my efforts, and possibly my poetic means, and also my feet were cold.

We went to the store and chatted with our friends the grocers there. We bought bread and a newspaper and some snacks. We came home and made lunch.

I wrapped myself in a voluminous afghan to do a crossword which I did precisely half of and then fell asleep. My cold feet woke me up. I got in the bed. I put extra layers on my feet. Still cold. I got up and put on socks. Yes, the obvious thing, socks. Why did this take me so long WHY. I blame the chilly weather and the gray situation happening in the sky.

Well, I finished that crossword and read a chunk of my French detective novel, then got out of bed with decisive power, because I was going to make a pie, and for a pie you need pie crust. I found a serviceable pie crust recipe on the internet--well, it was better than serviceable--and got started.

DIGRESSION: in the middle of the above paragraph, I got up to fortify myself with a snack and also another small sliver of pie. The historian said, 'Are you finished?' meaning my blog post.

'No,' I said emphatically. 'No. What do you think this is, child's play?'

'Actually, I sort of do,' he said. I wheeled about, nostrils flaring. (Or that's what I think I looked like. I like imagining myself as a very nimble dragon.) 'Not too much revision,' he continued. (More wheeling and flaring.) 'For you,' he amended.

'No,' I said, emphatically. 'No. I need fortifications, so I can finish.'

'Will you read it to me when you're done?' he said.

'Yes,' I said, with emphasis. 'Yes.'

END OF DIGRESSION.

So I made the pie crust. Cold butter. Flour. Salt. A little sugar. Very cold water. I put it in the refrigerator to rest. So that it could dream of expanding into layers and becoming flaky, or else being perverse and leaden. Whatever things pie crust dreams of when it's resting. And we went out for a walk.

We saw a new eagle's nest, and some skittery, unrevealing birds, and then we went down to the water and saw some water birds of an indeterminate variety. One of the birds was diving and coming up with fish which it ate with a great deal of showy flipping and swallowing with its long neck.

When we got back, I took the pie crust, located the rolling pin, and made a smallish, very thin circle on a piece of foil. I have been making galettes instead of pies in pie tins because galettes are, frankly, easier--you don't have to lift and fit the crust into the tin. Also, galettes seem Frenchier, ergo more nonchalant, insouciant, and je ne sais quoi. I ground some almonds with a little flour and sugar and cinnamon, and put that on the rolled out crust.

I peeled four fat peaches and layered them onto the ground almonds. I tossed some more of that almond mixture onto the top of the peaches, then folded up the edges of the crust (so French!) over the peaches. Baked at 375.

While the pie was baking, I took pretty much every vegetable there was and made a glorious frittata. This included onion, a purple pepper, a zucchini, mushrooms, and the remainder of an excellent corn salad I had made back home, as well as the last of a potato, yellow bean, and feta salad. Six beaten eggs and a bunch of parmesan. When the eggs had set on the bottom of the pan, I slid it under the broiler for about five minutes. It was puffy and perfect. (I had to take the galette out of the oven for this broiler magic--then back into the oven it went.)

This, my friends, was an excellent cabin dinner. (The sliver of pie I just ate--research & fortification!--only strengthens this judgment.) We needed it, what with the strenuous laying around we did in gray weather.

Plus frittata for breakfast. Plus toast.

The weather.

Today, in Scotland, the weather was overcast, a bit rainy here and there, breezy. In other words, summer. Or at least this summer, according to my daughter.

'It seems like we should be outside when the weather's nice,' she said, as we watched children ride around in GoKarts outdoors, and play on a fantastic billowy Jelly Belly made for bouncing, and glide down a long hill on lawn sledges.
I was shivering a little, my scarf wrapped around my be-cardiganed shoulders. 'Chilly?' I ventured.
She laughed. 'Nice for here,' she amended. Around us, grown adults were wearing strappy tank tops and flip flops and shirtsleeves.
I just asked the historian what temperature it was when we were there, enjoying the children, giving several boosts to GoKarters as they repeatedly reached a hill that stalled all but the strongest children.
'Oh, the fifties. Low fifties,' he said. Which seems about right to me. In and around the low fifties today, my daughter and I got up and took a long walk over the River Don and out into the countryside, where we saw a couple of herons, a deer, some other waterbirds. We walked again, all of us, into town, perhaps a mile and a half, to the library and to have lunch. (The weather in Scotland is also walk-filled.) We had ice cream at a country store, with berries grown onsite, then went to the play place for an hour.
The weather in Scotland is cool. It's close to the sky. It's surrounded by hills, and by all the gardens are in a full riot. The weather is go outside and stay there weather. It's wear what you think summer means kind of weather. It's the fields are green and ripe weather, let's walk weather. It's weather for people who know how to get a little damp, wear walking shoes, conjure up a fine afternoon that may just be cloudy, may just be a little bit rainy, and bounce into the sky to meet it.

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