Amber & Hello, My Name is Bloody Mary

With a Wisconsin-style beer chaser.

Amber & Light Tray

After heavy morning snacking, our Tray is lighter today.

Bread share ciabatta slices with bruschetta, open-faced rosemary toasts with farm share basil and sliced tomatoes (plus marinated mozzerella on mine, roasted red peppers on Nick's), stuffed olives, sliced pickles, cous cous salad with green beans, apples, plum, cukes and sundried tomatoes, and sliced watermelon.

Amber & Tuesday Tray

Today's tray features...

...leftover couscous salad (with green beans, plums, sundried tomatoes, cukes and herbs), assorted crackers, apple slices, sliced salted cukes, peanut butter-stuffed celeries, salami rolls, bruschetta and sun-dried tomatoes, assorted stuffed olives, roasted red peppers and a sliced pickle.

Amber & The Art of Tray

River House is a long-standing tradition, spanning multiple actual houses, guests, hosts and kitty companions.  But one thing has remained constant: the necessity of Making a Tray.  A Tray can be featured for lunch, a light dinner, or for an appetizer course served while grilling dinner.  Beth, our first 2010 River Guest and an excellent start to the season, is seen here with a lunch tray, featuring garlic- and prosciutto-stuffed olives, cracked green olives, roasted red peppers, marinated sun-dried tomatoes, a baguette, multi-grain chips, genoa salami, marinated mozzarella, sliced pickle, sauteed zucchini slices, and prosciutto bread.

What all Trays do have in common are: a variety of tasty items for picking at, olives or other Italian specialities, some kind of bread or crackers, leftovers from the prior night's dinner which can be eaten on aforementioned bread or crackers, some kind of cheese, and accompanying cocktails.  The quintessence of Tray is really variety, tastiness, and savoriness.  And, ease.  Tray is all about easy deliciousness.  And fellowship.

Diana has raised the Tray game and made it more about antipasto.  And that is fine because it is still about variety, tastiness and savoriness.  And fellowship.

Also, it is about River.

Sorry, Ginger.  Tray is for people only.

Amber & Bunkered Down

You may be asking yourself, how is ALH surviving on bed rest?  Are the kitties scooping their own boxes and making her meals?  No, they are busy with their own lives (napping, chewing boxes, grooming my head while I am captive).  No, the answer to the success of my bed rest is:

Preparedness.

Before I bedded down yesterday, I ran errands.

These errands included: trips to two different pharmacies for three different drugs (drat the NY state law that says my doc can't call in pain pills, making me have to go pick it up), buying a pill organizer box (you should SEE the pills I have to take), picking up my work laptop for next week (I am way to stoned on pain pills today to circulate), getting my day planner (there's sooo much to plan for when you're on bed rest), buying a treat soap bar and a stop at Lush for seven bath bombs-- one for each day on bed rest.

Also, perhaps most importantly, I picked up a the office mail and lo!  There was a package containing seven packs of M&Ms, all in different flavors.  There are plain and peanuts, classics of course.  But there are also coconut (pukey), dark chocolate, pretzel (disturbing), almond (sooo good), and peanut butter.  I ate the peanut on Day One and the peanut butter today.  Many, many thanks to my kind benefactor, Erl. This kicks the ass of the fruit basket I got that year I called in sick on Shane's birthday.  This human appreciates your resourcefulness, Erl.

And I got this cutie house dress, Le Sac.

Don't confuse it with LaPerm (which very excitingly got its own Wikipedia entry).

But, lest my mother be crying right now because I plan to survive on soap and candy, let me assure you that I have real food, too.  Thank you, Fresh Direct.

I got those 4-minute pre-made meals, juices, yogurts (probiotic!), cherries (ha! take that, farm share that I missed this week!), bread and sandwich stuff, toilet paper, paper towels, tea, pickled tomatoes, milk, cereal... and Ginger, apparently.  That boy sure was disappointed there were no fresh veggies for him to sample.

There were, however, cherries, with which he proceeded to make sahelu with his face.

That boy loves produce.  And I love him.  Even if he isn't supposed to be on the counter.

See, mom and dad?  I am FINE.

Amber & Ducks Mate for Life

If nothing else, I am consistent in my adorations.  See for example, pickles.  (Not Pickles.  About him I can be very fickle especially when he puts the fleece wand on my face at 4 am and then sits on my chest and mews.)  This especially true of my crushes, which I hold onto like Eva Marie Saint clinging to Cary Grant and the eyeball on Mt. Everest (thanks to Steve, who knows the difference between Mt. Rushmore and Mt. Everest).

Speaking of Cary Grant, I am incredibly loyal to my actor crushes. Once I love you on-screen, you can do just about anything, take any bad role, grow old, change your hair and guest star on NCIS, and I will continue to love you diegetically, aesthetically, and dreamily.  Only maybe I will blog about you a little less.  Take, for example, Johnny Depp.

Sigh.  If you've known me for any length of time (or ever had tequila with me), it's likely you know the root story of my love for Johnny.  If you haven't been that lucky (or were just Googling "puff coats"):  In 1987, I watched the premiere of 21 Jump Street, and started to sob--not because the show's tackling of trouble youth was especially effecting, but because Johnny was so damn pretty.  And, I knew I could never have him.  Ah, desire. First it's red, and then it's blue. And everytime I see an iceberg, Johnny, it reminds me of you.

I've seen everything Johnny has made, even Sweeney Todd, even though "seen" there really means squinted at out of one corner of my eye while the window on my laptop was only about two inches wide.  (I don't like scary movies.)  You can make that third lousy pirate film, Johnny, and I will go see it--in the theater!  And I will like it because you are pretty in a white flouncy shirt with bad teeth.  So take that.

The latest test of my love is the Alice in Wonderland posters in the subway.

Now, I love Alice in Wonderland.  (It even inspired my first born laptop name.)  And I love fake eyelashes. And I totally am all about dyed red hair, and hats, and tea, and madness.  But that poster just scares me!  And, I don't think it's a coincidence that I dreamt that I had a weird gap between my teeth last night.  I even tried to avoid the poster by taking a different entrance to the A after Awesome Club, but then I had to sit across from one on the train for 161 blocks!

But, Johnny, I will go see your latest endeavor in the theater, even if it proves to be your scariest role yet.  Because, Johnny, I would pay to watch you breathe.  And my love is nothing if not eternal and hopeless.

Amber & The Perfect Food

You know what goes together better than chocolate and peanut butter?  Tomatoes and pickling.  I love pickles, and I love tomatoes, so pickled tomatoes take my favorite vegetable and applies my favorite preparation method.

The only thing that goes together better is Ginger & Pickles.

But they're not edible.

Amber & Branded

You know you have been branded a monkey-lover when James sends you this photo from the street.

Chimpy bling.

And, in other branding news, my lunch delivery from Laura is now an official club.

On today's menu:
 - Paprika roasted sweet potato, NY cheddar and half sour pickles from the Pickle Guys on Italian bread
- Green Rice Salad
- Butternut Squash Chocolate Cookies

I love clubs.

Amber & Cocktail Hou[r]

C'est arrive!

Amber & Every Reading = Valid

Vacation can mean different things to different people and kitties. For some people, it can mean sitting on a porch watching the river roll by, listening to the breeze in the trees, and eating a mid-day pickle snack.
For some kitties, it can mean chasing ants, lying in the sun on cool wood floors, and exploring under beds and emerging covered in dust bunnies.

And there are things we share about vacation that some people and some kitties share. Like: eating salad.

Amber & Dirty Floors

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that, although I had vacuumed and Swiffered wet the floors last night, they were even more dirty this morning. And, really, really dirt-y.


The boys seemed just as curious about the dirt pile as I was. In fact, they called my attention to it first thing I woke up. Pickles coincidentally wanted to lie down just where the dirt pile was.

In other unrelated news, the dill plant mysteriously disappeared from its pot. I guess it ran away from home.

What a morning of mysterious coincidences!