Potstickers. Nostalgia.

Wonton skins with filling

Every once in a while, Beez asks for a batch of potstickers. The process for making them is kind of involved--grind the meat; mix in chopped vegetables, egg, cornstarch, and a bunch of seasonings (recipe is here); lay out half of the wonton skins, spoon filling onto each, moisten the corners and fold the skins to form the dumplings, brown them in some oil, add stock and steam them; then repeat with the other half of the wonton skins. 

Dumplings formed and ready to brown

While I was working I had plenty of time to recall our family watching one of the early cooking shows together, learning how to make these little Chinese dumplings.

As I set out the wonton skins in the familiar grid pattern on the sideboard, I found myself thinking of all of our kitchens where I've performed these very same actions: In New Hampshire in the old red farmhouse with the lamplit kitchen and the scratchy radio playing in the background, in the very old house on High Street with its wonderful sense of history, in the little country apartment with the view of the woods and the fields, and in the house where the bears and the moose lived all around;  then in New Mexico in the little adobe house in town, in the big brick house out on the High Plains, and now in our adobe home in the orchard.

Little Pete helps out

And in every one of those kitchens, I've always had a helper. In the past, there were children in the kid-sized aprons I had sewn for them, standing on chairs or stools to help. Nowadays, I have a no less eager helper with an enthusiastically wagging tail, cheering me on from the floor.

Please?

Please get this thing off me...

Little Pete has been very patient. In spite of a tiny glitch (the name of this peculiar recipe will make everything clear), his recent Necessary Operation was a success. His stitches are out and he is free of the awful lampshade hat he wore and used as a weapon against pushy pack members and unwary human shins.

I just had to post one last photo of his dirty little face framed in that awful thing. Note the ever-wagging tail. He's a good boy.

Little Pete Comes Home

If you have been reading this blog lately, you will know that we have been grieving the loss of Bertie Pierre (see Gone Away), a tiny pup with a huge personality packed into five pounds of love and good humor. Bertie is the reason that the blog itself is in a kind of mourning with those dark gray edges.

Last Saturday Beez and I went to the Farmer's Market and saw one of the animal shelter dog walker volunteers carrying a small pup who was too shy to go for a walk in the busy, noisy market. We stopped to chat and she turned so we could see his face.

I believe that time actually stopped there, for a moment. We each took a deep, shaky breath because the little guy's eyes were so much like Bertie's.

Long story short, Little Pete has come home:

No more noisy, overcrowded shelter (The staff and volunteers try so hard but the city needs to reorder some of its priorities, really). 

No more sense of impending doom (a very large percentage of the dogs in the shelter go unadopted and are put down).

No more loneliness for the little guy, because he is already getting integrated into our pack of rescue dogs. He snuggles, he plays, and he romps in spite of what looks to be a previously injured and poorly healed leg. 

Did we really need another dog? No. Did we really need to have Little Pete to join our family? Yes. 

Little Pete (full name: Pedro Martinez "Little Pete" Zee). I had a hard time getting him in focus because he was romping and had just paused for a second

Exploring the yard with big Leny