we're goin' to the fair

Today is everything last Monday wasn't. Whereas last week was hot, bright and dry, today is cool, dark, rain falling since about 5:30. I have nowhere pressing to be, nothing that can't be done a little later. As long as I make it out the fairgrounds before noon, and the post office before 5, I'm good. I got up around 6, put on the kettle and threw a load of towels in the washer. Toasted an english muffin, made tea, and grabbed my new book -- Divisadero, by Michael Ondaatje. No one else is up, and if I want to spend a few hours reading, nothing's stopping me. It's a good book - no burned up airmen in the desert, but plenty of intense characters. Click the book link, and read the first review. What he said. ;o)

If the rain keeps up today, and I suspect it will, I'm not going out to Livingston Farm. Who wants to look at rock and gravel and dirt in the rain anyway? The trip to the fairgrounds is to enter my nesting robin quilt - I really ought to think of a name for this beast, beyond "Rainbows and Pine Boughs and Wide-mouthed Frogs" but eh, maybe not. I'll show you a poicture of my blue ribbon later this week. riiiiiight.

Later, I'll bake a pie. I'm thinking it'll be Bumbleberry. I'll post a picture and recipe later today.

Later...

Bumbleberry Pie

Pastry for double crust pie
4 cups various frozen/fresh fruit and or berries
1 1/2 cups rhubarb (chopped)
1 Granny Smith apple (peeled, cored and chopped)
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp tapioca
1/3 cup flour

Toss all the assorted fruit and berries with the sugar, flour and tapioca. Pile into a pastry lined pie plate, top with the second crust, crimp edges and cut vents. Bake on a cookie sheet (it bubbles) at 400º for 1/2 hour, then reduce temp to 350º and bake another 1/2 hour or more until the crust is golden and the filling is oozing out the vents. Cool completely, at least 3 hours.

This pie could have stood another 10 minutes in the oven, and would have benefitted from an egg wash, but that didn't stop us from eating it anyway. ;o)