Every Word That Was Ever

Pete and I live under towering oaks, which means we're also up to our knees in drifting leaves.

Pete: We're gonna blow the leaves to the driveway and you'll push them into the backyard.
Tata: So...there's nothing for me to do until you're done with the leaf blower?
Pete: Not really, because I have two. Would I hog all the fun?

For two hours, we blew leaves all over the place, though it seemed much longer because "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" was stuck on the mental jukebox and I fucking hate Billy Joel. I was hoping for "Ghostbusters" but not such luck. Anyway, we had a blast tossing a giant pile of leaves into the leaf shredder and dumping piles of mulch around our trees for the winter. Hooray! Before we went in for the afternoon, I cut a daunting pile of fresh herbs, then we fell down and took short naps, during which I cursed Bill Joel's ancestors.

Many moons ago, I fell in love with the idea of making compound butters, but lacked the nerve to try it. Pete tossed the cleaned and stemmed herbs into the food processor, and two pounds of butter into the stand mixer; he combined the butter, herbs, some ground pepper and white wine and took it for a spin. We tasted it and opted for more wine and ground pepper. Pete wrapped three separate portions in parchment paper (though we could just as easily have glopped it into Gladware), labeled it and shoved it into the freezer.

I had absolutely no idea it was that easy to make. No idea. Pete says for decades he's put all kinds of things like sun dried tomatoes, shallots and spices into compound butters. Tomorrow night, I want to try making compound butter with tomatoes I dried in the dehydrator and herbs from the backyard. Suddenly, I see what I might find at the farmers market in a new light.

And now I'm much too tired to come up with a punchline.