Film Cut: Post-Inception Grass-Mowing

It is a heat wave here in Winston-Salem, by gosh. Upper 90s, as high as 99 forecast for Saturday. Blistering.

This afternoon proved to be just right for dashing up to the Steak-N-Shake on the north side of town, followed by the late-day matinee showing of Christopher Nolan's Inception. I'll tell you what: I really like Christopher Nolan, going all the way back to Memento, which is still one of my favorite movies of all time.

There was still just a hint of daylight when I got back to the house, and the grass has needed mowing but it's been too darned hot, so I thought I'd see if I could pull it off. I did, but it was still baking even in the evening dusk. I hustled and got it done, but I was drenched nonetheless and could get no relief afterwards when I tried sitting on the front porch to cool down.

Stucco'd On You

Come to visit the Roediger House and drive up into the driveway, and you'll find yourself on the south side of the house. That's what this is a shot of:



Before the addition was put on over the last year, there was a mix of brick making up the foundation under the house, which you might be able to see in this close-up of the bay that is in the center of the above photo:



To get the new part to tie in with the old, my general contractor thought we should extend the stucco on the foundation all the way to the side steps coming up on the porch. While I liked the old brick being exposed, it was rather a mismatch and wasn't really sitting all that firmly, and the result is an aesthetic improvement:

Gutter Drainpipe

I do like to make note of things that are on the eventual to-do list, and here's another relatively small one:



When the kitchen/bathrooms addition was put onto the house in 2009, the reworking of the gutters left me with one downspout that's not currently tied into the underground pipe/drainage system. The problem is the brick sidewalk from the parking area to the side porch; it will have to be torn up in order to run a drainline into the other drains that carry rainwater away from the house. In the meantime, I'm left with this black corrugated plastic pipe hooked (usually, or most of the time!) to the end of the drainspout. It doesn't quite get all the water to the parking lot to run out to the street, so I think this is creating more of an issue with my cellar flooding than should be the case. It is unfortunate that my general contractor, Peter LaRoque of LaRoque Construction in Mocksville, NC, thought this was a suitable way to leave things.

Because now, with the heavy rains of summer thunderstorms, I'm getting a lot of washing along the side of the porch, heading to the front of the property. Here are two pictures from a recent downpour, where you might be able to see how much water is flowing beside the porch:






What this is leading to is loss of my topsoil, and now the roots of the trees in the side yard are becoming increasingly exposed:





I'm going to have to rework the edges around that corner of the parking area to reduce the amount of run-off heading into and across the yard, at least in the meantime. Eventually, I hope to have this gutter draining into an underground pipe, connected with the other downspouts and channeled out the front retaining wall.

In the meantime, I've gotten a slightly longer plastic drainpipe (although it does not appear to be the 12-feet in length that was advertised on its packaging!) to route the water more directly to the parking lot itself. So far, this seems to have had a dramatic effect on how much water is coming into the cellar, though, which is excellent news.

Meal No. 121: Pancakes

I sure do enjoy making pancakes and wonder why I don't have them more often.



And that habit in the Jones household, growing up in Buies Creek NC, of adding peanut butter to all kinds of things has never quite left me. It's still a mighty good accompaniment to pancakes and real maple syrup.

Sunday Visit with Byron Hoover

It was a weekend of visits with former students, starting last Thursday with lunch with Paula Wilkins (one of my grad students from WFU), then dinner Saturday night with former 7th grade student (1994-1995) Matt Stalnaker. On Sunday morning, former WFU education student Byron Hoover stopped in for coffee, followed by brunch at 6th & Vine. It's always good to see him, although he does give me a hard time for not writing enough.

Here he is pictured with his son Noah, who like his dad is known for quite a creative streak.

As I've probably said in past blog posts, one of the attractions of buying this house was that I thought it would be a great space for entertaining my groups of students each year from Wake Forest. Since I did not find WFU to be a good match for me, the house is more often populated by others, but it makes me happy that former students are still regulars here. They're always welcome.

Meal No. 120: Not So Cajun Chicken

This evening turned out to be a great opportunity to have Matt Stalnaker and Bethany Chafin over for dinner, and the meal was Not So Cajun Chicken with rice, green beans, and rolls, and Vietnamese coffee ice cream for dessert. It was a great evening, and a delight to get to meet Bethany and spend time with her. Of course, I've known Matt quite a long time: he was one of my 7th grade students in Raleigh, back in 1994-1995.

Not So Cajun Chicken is a real favorite dish and it had been too long since I made it. It's almost exactly on target with a dish served at Crowley's in Raleigh, and many thanks continue to go to my UNC college roommate Jimmy Randolph for tracking down a suitable recipe for it several years ago.

Overnighter Guests

The Roediger House entertained overnight guests who were passing through town on the way to the North Carolina coast.

We stayed up darned late last night visiting, and it was after 4 am before I went to sleep. I was up before 9 am and had some creamy cheese grits and pear cobbler for them to snack on when they got up.

And before they left, I put them in the master shower and got them to pose for this family portrait:

Bed & Breakfast, Suddenly

A couple of hours ago, I got a text from Indiana. Turns out folks are passing through Winston-Salem around 1 am on the way to a couple of weeks of vacation on the North Carolina coast, and they announced their intention to stop off and catch their breath and get a good night's sleep. Beds are made, towels are put out, and general cleaning of the rest of the house is now done. Just like my mother would, we shall manage with grace this surprise.

Baby Mantis=New Back Door Neighbor

I've got a new back door neighbor. And I mean my back door, and what's been constantly lurking around it the last few days:



Somehow I've managed to go my entire life and never lay eyes on a baby praying mantis...they've always been full-grown. They are such amazing-looking creatures. I'm going to get kind of used to her being right outside whenever I come and go.

But you know how the kids do tend to grow up and move on...

More New Showerheads

We homeowners can get excited about some small-fry things, I know.

But look: contractor-grade fixtures that are built into a project tend to be cheap, yucky, and barely capable of satisfying one's needs. Now, toilets don't matter much to me, and I can't imagine getting worked up about builder-grade potties. But things like faucets and showerheads, now, that's another matter entirely.

So the basic showerhead pictured at right has been in place in the three upstairs bathrooms since the project was completed (I quickly had better showerheads in place in the master bath, because that is not a matter for delay.) And they've been perfectly serviceable, but that's not the kind of shower experience I want for the long-term, and I want the same for my guests. Showers should feel good, cleansing, complete, perhaps even a bit invigorating.

That doesn't mean I went hog-wild or anything, but in early July I did finally get around to obtaining replacement showerheads and installed them while I was home for my vacation time. Here's the new rain can showerhead for the landing bathroom:



And this is the new showerhead in the Van Gogh shower/tub (I put the same kind in the Wyeth shower):



One of these days, I'll get around to publishing some blog entries that tell more about those bathrooms. For now, I think the house tour is incomplete for those of you who've not been here to see all this stuff I've done to this great old house.

Meal No. 119: Burgers on the Grill

Hey. It's summer. There should be regular and frequent trips out to the grill on the front porch, and by golly, burgers are what I like to see grilling there.

That, plus I had a mess of ground beef left over from Saturday night's spaghetti pie and tonight's meal meant I didn't have to run to the grocery store.

Meal No. 118: Baked Pork Chops & Hoecakes

Just had to give those baked pork chops another go, wonderfully and deliciously simple as they are. And this evening I decided to try making some hoecakes to go with them, and while they tasted good, I don't think this is how I ultimately want them to be. A bit greasy for my palate, so I'll have to tinker a bit with what I'm doing.

Meal No. 117: Spaghetti Pie

Since returning from Maine, my menus have been noticeably influenced by my good friend Cindy Coulson, and over the years I have gotten from her no small number of good recipes. This evening was a great chance to enjoy the company of good friends and, more particularly, to celebrate the birthday of Jen Martin, and it was also a chance to try out another one of Cindy's recipes.



What you see here is a hearty dish called Spaghetti Pie, something that's more common in the Mid-West than around here. It was darned tasty, with some good white corn on the side and some fresh-baked maple whole-wheat bread. For dessert, I made white chocolate macadamia nut cookies earlier in the day, and there's still a little bit of fudge and some key lime frozen custard left, too.

Solitary Con-dine-ment

It remains to me a beautiful kitchen, even when it is the site of a strangely solitary Friday night meal:

Plumbing Patterns = Concerns

Give me a pattern of events, and I'm considerably more likely to be drawn to a conclusion.

When the plumbers installed the fixtures in the master bath, the General Contractor (Peter LaRoque of LaRoque Construction of Mocksville, NC) told me that the kit was missing a top finial for the drain plunger:



So, plumbers who are trained and licensed and whose livelihood depends on pleased customers, versus a weary underpaid factory line worker in a Delta plant in rural Indiana...who is more likely to have been careless about such a small part as a finial? I knew I'd just need to get ahold of another one and be done with it. It arrived earlier this week, and now finally that faucet looks complete.



But back to the issue of patterns, and who now seems more likely to be at fault for the missing finial...

1. Remember the shaky shower control?
2. And more recently the kitchen faucet handle?

So I think the carelessness of someone working in my house is what cost me the ten bucks to get a new faucet finial.

Meal No. 116: Beef Tenderloin & The Boys

Beef tenderloin remains on sale at Harris Teeter, and I'm a glutton for some tender red meat. So tonight's big dinner spread for a guys' night included roasted beef tenderloin in a port wine sauce, company mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts au gratin, fresh-baked golden potato bread, fresh sliced tomato, and a spicy horseradish sauce.

Here's the brussels sprouts au gratin getting prepped:



Here are three of the five of us just getting started on their dinners:



And here's my plate:

Meal No. 115: Baked Pork Chops

Thanks to the winning touch of Chef Cindy during last week's vacation to Maine, I came home with a new recipe for preparing baked pork chops. Tonight was the time to put it to the test, and while I think hers were better, it was still good. Baked potatoes, blue cheese coleslaw, and heartland sunflower bread made up the rest of the bill of fare.

Dessert: more of the key lime frozen custard from Sunday's movie night. There was a pile of it left over.

Movie Night No. 2: Auntie Mame

Among the joys of summer is the chance to get the outdoor movie nights underway again. The first one of the season, shown in mid-June, was more of a private affair for good friends and out-of-town guests. For Independence Day last night, it was the evening's entertainment to have the first general gathering of friends for a movie night.

The film: Rosalind Russell's 1958 performance in the title role of Auntie Mame, a rip-roaring and occasionally touching film for which there is no true parallel. It's quite a film, and the gathering of 14 folks let out enough guffaws that I think it can be judged a success.

Since I've had some time at home as I enjoy the second half of my vacation this summer (the first half being spent in Maine), I was able to whip up a pile of goodies (the cinnamon chip-oatmeal cookies and fudge already blogged about), as well as a big freezer of key lime frozen custard, which was very good, I think. I think the guests became weary of my pushing so much food on them.



Because it's the warm days of summer, it was the kind of night where some of us could linger afterwards, first outside with some music still going, and then back in side gathered 'round the island in the kitchen. So it was a late night, but it was a pleasure to have Jay and Tracy Brown stay over. When we all got up the next morning, I served some pumpkin muffins and fresh fruit to go with our coffee:



I think Tracy might be able to talk Jay into coming back:

July 4th Pulled Pork BBQ

It does appear that my menus can be majorly driven by what's on special at Harris Teeter. With a mix of whatever might be the target of a palate's hankering.

So put the Boston Butt pork shoulders on a half-off special, and the desire to whip up another batch of indoor pulled pork barbecue takes control. This is the recipe that I tried once before, back in early February when there was snow on the ground, to mighty good result. What makes it work is the spice rub, as pictured here on the right, and the cooking time, which is long and slow.

But what comes out of that oven is a pure treat and, to my tastes, darned close to what a North Carolina barbecue restaurant might be serving up.

Here's the run-down. Let's start with the prepped pork portions, after I had deboned them and rubbed them down with smoked mustard and the spices in the picture above:



Mind you, the spice rub occurred after the pork had soaked in brine for a couple of hours. The cooking then occurs in two stages: first, all wrapped up in foil to trap the heat and steam and to make it tender (that's a 3-hour roasting); then an hour and a half uncovered, to sear the outside and get a good tasty crust:



Get some good white wheat buns and add a side of blue cheese coleslaw, and you've got a great casual meal suitable for a healthy gathering of seven eaters, including good friends Jay and Tracy Brown who came over from Raleigh for dinner and the evening's outdoor movie night showing:



Update: In the blur and rush to plate these dinners for a larger gathering of folks, though, I did not snag a picture of the Sunday evening plate of food. The following picture is from Monday evening's left-overs, with the addition of some fresh-baked heartland sunflower bread from the bread machine:

Cinnamon Chip-Oatmeal Cookies

Since there'll be a movie night here tomorrow, I've got to have cookies on hand. Here's a peek at a plate of the cinnamon chip-oatmeal cookies that just came out of the oven. They're not really orange, however; something strange about the coloring in the photograph, methinks.

Finally, Fudge!

One of my favorite desserts to make, and which almost always seems to go over pretty well, is chocolate fudge with walnuts. But it's been a mighty long time since I've made any, and today I finally brought fudge-making to the new kitchen. Here's an aerial shot of the finished product, right after I'd set it up on the wetbar counter to cool:



I'll leave it alone to sit a while, maybe even over night. Then I'll cut it up into squares and be ready to serve it to folks coming for tomorrow night's outdoor movie night.

Coming Off the Handle!

After a while, I imagine that faithful readers of the blog will begin to wonder if the new addition to my house is going to fall apart around me. Well, it's not bad like that, even though there was concern about the stability of a center support beam after all was completed.

Last night, while I was washing off some blueberries, the knob on the kitchen faucet came off in my hands. I had begun to be aware, sort of faintly, that the handle seemed loose, but generally I'm too busy when I'm at the sink to really process something like that.

But it all came in pretty sharp focus when I realized I had the handle in my left hand and it had completely divorced itself from the faucet to which it belonged. I did not have on hand an exact size Allen wrench but I reattached it best I could. I'll add it to the list of things for Peter LaRoque of LaRoque Construction of Mocksville, NC, to look at when he returns to work on other fit-and-finish issues with the house. This is the third plumbing-related issue to crop up in the last couple of months, including a completely unattached shower control and an off-line hot water heater.

Irish Cream Scones for Saturday Morning

On a Saturday morning during vacation when I wake up at 4:30 am, I get to thinking about things I can make. So up and out of bed by 5:30 and to the kitchen with irish cream scones on my mind. Going against what the instructions said, I decided to use my scone pan for these, but that was not the right move, because they were too thick and didn't cook all the way through on first go-round.

So I put them back in for a while and they turned out better. With a large mug of fresh-brewed coffee, this was a sweet start to the first Saturday in July.

Meal No. 113: Panini Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

It involved the purchase of a special pan at Bed Bath & Beyond, and specialty bread at Ollie's Bakery just down Brookstown Avenue, and fresh homegrown tomatoes from Ronnie's Country Store on Cherry Street...but this evening's simple fare was a panini grilled cheese sandwich with sliced fresh tomato on the side.

Cheeses on Challah bread: Vermont white cheddar, muenster, gruyere, and feta.

Fresh ground sea salt on the tomato slices.

Xingu black beer from Brazil as an accompaniment.

Meal No. 112: Sage Crusted Roasted Pork

Using a recipe from Cuisine at Home, one of the several recipe magazines I have coming to the house, I put together this evening a sage-crusted pork loin with roasted vegetables. It was an interesting but easy process to put together and it's not really like anything I've made before. Here's the whole of it, just before I put it in the oven:



I also almost missed it, but at the bottom of the recipe was a small graphic that directed watchful readers to an "online extra," where they had a recipe for a creamy mushroom sauce to accompany this. So I pulled that up quickly and also prepared this delicious goop:



This evening, I made baked potatoes for the first time in the new kitchen, and also (for the first time) some Parkerhouse style yeast rolls. It made a pretty plate. It was also a delicious meal enjoyed by a gathering of four of us: