Happy 77th birthday, Mom
Me, my mom, and my brother, Dennis, on Easter 1961 in our front yard near Pima and Chaparral Rds. in Scottsdale. My mom is 26 years old in this photo.
Today is my mother’s 77th birthday. It’s funny how we see our parents – kind of through rose-tinted glasses. My parents divorced after 28 years of marriage in 1981 when I was 20. Because of the way things went down, I took my dad’s side, and my sister sided with my mom. When it comes to our parents; my sister, Sloane, and I now take the “divide and conquer” approach. She deals with our mom and I deal with our dad.
March 8, 2012 10 Comments
… and some fruity salsa too
Happy Valentine’s Day! And Happy Centennial to my Native State – Arizona – 100 Years Young today!
Yes, Arizona, “The Grand Canyon State”, “The Valentine State”, and “The Baby State” turns 100 today! The “Baby State” because Arizona was the last state of the contiguous United States to join the Union, on February 14, 1912. To see a wonderful slideshow of our beautiful state, GO TO THIS LINK, and enjoy. That is from where I snatched all of the Arizona pictures I have here today. As a special birthday bonus, there’s a little Arizona quiz and a fun name game at the end of the post – just in case you want to play along.
Oh, and I have a fruity salsa recipe to go along with the fruity guac from yesterday too.
February 14, 2012 2 Comments
festive duck
First things first – Happy Birthday to my BBF, Jennifer Markett, who lives in Illinois! I LOVE YOU! And if you were here with me, I would be serving you this wonderful duck strudel! xoxo
Pictured above is my collection of authentic vintage French confit pots. Pretty, aren’t they? Duck confit has been a preservation method, for cooking and keeping duck in its rendered fat in France, for centuries. It results in supremely tender, moist, and extremely flavorful duck. You can then sear the duck legs in a hot skillet and serve them as is, shred the meat and add it to salads, or into the delicious and festive strudel recipe, I have for you below.
One of the great things about this strudel is that you can assemble the entire thing a month in advance and freeze it. Pop it in the oven for your Christmas celebrations and impress your guests! It is out of this world glorious!
A sealed glass jar of confit may be kept in the refrigerator for up to six months, or several weeks if kept in a reusable plastic container. To maximize preservation, the fat should top the meat by at least one inch. As the fat turns solid and prevents any air from reaching the meat, so basically the confit technique is a way of hermetically sealing the meat. The cooking fat acts as both a seal and preservative and results in a very rich taste.
I have been collecting authentic confit pots from France for a while now. Before refrigerators, the pots were used to “refrigerate” the confit. The entire inside of the pot is glazed and the glaze drips decoratively down the outside rim of the pot. The rest of the outside of the pot is left unglazed. The pot was filled with the duck and sealed with the fat. The pot was then buried in the cold mud and the unglazed outside of the pot would soak up that coldness and keep the duck confit perfectly chilled until ready to dig out and use.
The amount of duck confit used in this recipe is small, only 4 ounces. So instead of going to the trouble to make my own confit, I purchased a leg quarter from Chef Vincent Guerithault of the famed Vincent’s on Camelback. Call ahead, and Chef Guerithault will happily sell you some too. Or you can make your own duck confit, I’ve included a recipe from Epicurious.com at the bottom of this post. It is not difficult, just time-consuming. You will need to salt the duck for at least 24 hours before beginning and you have to render duck fat from the duck skin, which I have posted about before. The link on how to do that is there in the recipe too. But if you just purchase the confit, you can get going on the strudel recipe…. right now!
December 3, 2011 1 Comment
baby girl
Happy 24th Birthday to my gorgeous, talented, loving, conscientious, kind, beautiful, wonderful daughter, Marissa!
I’m hoping you won’t mind all these pictures I’m going to post here. From this top one taken during the last months of your senior year at the University of Arizona… to this one when you were the only ballerina in black tights – when you were just over four years old.
Then there is this next picture, taken on your fourth birthday. You were obviously NOT happy that there was snow on the saguaros on December 1st in Arizona! Some things don’t change – you’re still always saying it’s too cold.
December 1, 2011 6 Comments
85 years young!
Happy Birthday to my dear mother-in-law, Patricia Hopkins, who turns 85 today! We are in Rockton, Illinois to celebrate with her. It was a short five years ago that the whole family threw Mom an 80th birthday party. The pictures here are from that lovely November day, five years ago. The first is of Mom and her three sons; Roger, Tom, and Dave. In the next, she is pictured with her three daughters-in-law; myself, Beth, and Debra. And lastly, a picture of the birthday buffet. (And now I’ve added a photo at the bottom from this year’s 85th birthday dinner)
November 13, 2011 1 Comment
tip time and birthdays
Before your tip of the week… a huge HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my “birthday sister”, Laura Dileen Galloway Heffron! Laura and I have been friends since high school when we discovered our birthdays were only one day apart. Laura was my maid-of-honor 26 years ago and is Marissa’s godmother. I was a bridesmaid at her wedding and I am godmother to 2 of her 3 sons. Happy Birthday, Laura! I love you!
This picture is of Laura and me visiting my Aunt Beverly in Del Mar, CA back in the summer of ’78 or ’79. Laura and I were just high school girls standing there all awkward – while Bev poses all sexy… too funny! Bev’s birthday is Sunday, so I’ll take this opportunity to say Happy Birthday, Aunt Bev, I love you too!
October 28, 2011 No Comments
love 10/27
It’s no secret, I love my birthday. Do you know that person who complains that they are another year older? Yeah, I am the complete opposite of that person. Birthdays are a gift unto themselves.
I love October. I love the 27th. I love that I was born in a year ending with zero. What can I say? I just love my birthday. In fact, when I schedule posts in advance on this very blog, I set them up to post at 10:27 AM. So there you go, now you know.
October 27, 2011 8 Comments
happy birthday hubs!
Happy Birthday, Dave!
Have fun golfing today! If there was ever a person who deserved a day off to relax and do the thing he most loves to do… it is you!
You claim you don’t want anything for your birthday, now what am I going to do about that?!? [Read more →]
October 6, 2011 1 Comment
girlfriend’s 50th
Last night’s birthday party dinner for Terrie was a blast. Anytime the Murriettas gets together, nothing less is expected. Please indulge me and I shall share my history with this fantastic family.
Terrie and I have known each other since our grade school days at Navajo Elementary, right here in Scottsdale. We are both native Arizonans. We lived on the border between two high schools, Scottsdale High and Saguaro High. Terrie and her younger sister, Peggy, went to Scottsdale High. Terrie’s three older brothers, Vince, Mark, and John, went to Saguaro, as did I. After Navajo, Terrie and I lost touch and I only knew of her brothers as the “big men – the jocks” on campus.
Fast forward 12 years to 1991. Dave and I are in our second house and have just had our second child, Connor. We live in a cul-de-sac and our backyard fence curves around and backs up to 5 different neighbors. One day, I meet one of those neighbors, Peggy DeBolske. She also has two little ones of her own at the time, Joey and Samantha (Natalie and Steven come along 2 and 4 years later). We become fast friends and soon learn that we are both Arizona natives. Then we discover that we both went to Navajo. I ask her maiden name… Murrietta. “Oh my gosh, is Terrie your sister? And are Mark and John your brothers?” (Her oldest brother, Vince, was long gone from Saguaro by the time I arrived.) Yes! Small World! We, of course, have been best friends ever since and it gave me the opportunity to re-connect with Terrie.
Peggy and Terrie attended my Blog 2nd Anniversary Party earlier this month and Terrie told me that all of the recipes for her birthday party were coming from this site and that Peggy was hosting the dinner party. I glared poor Peggy down and gave her hell for not asking me to help her. I had heard of quite a few places in town that also helped with various catering services so I could have definitely recommended those to Peggy. Anyway, one of my friends also suggested that it may be a good idea to hire an oyster catering service like Oysters xo so that all of the guests will have an oyster shucking experience that they may never forget. Having said that, this is the menu we had for the birthday bash.
August 28, 2011 2 Comments
party prepping
I’ve been prepping for a sit-down birthday party dinner for 30 that I am helping my friend, Peggy, throw for her sister, Terrie. More on the party and the sisters later…
All I have time to post today are pictures of what prepping for a sit-down dinner for 30 kinda looks like. It looks like a lot of food!
August 27, 2011 2 Comments
