When is Giving not Really Giving? - A Psychological Analysis from a Layperson

Let me just apologize ahead of time if I offend anyone by my sidewalk analysis.  It's just some observations I've made and I have to get them off my chest. 
Last week tornadoes tore through my home state of Alabama destroying portions of the city in which I live along with countless other cities, communities, homes and lives.  I was actually out of town on business while the whole thing happened.  Never have I had a longer drive home that the 400 miles I traversed the day after.  I had fear in my heart as I approached home not knowing what I would see.  I knew that our power was out along with most of the city and there were many trees down and homes destroyed.  And as I got within the limits of my home town, I saw - nothing out of the ordinary.  No shrubbery on the side of the highway flattened.  There were no broken or bent street signs.  Not even traffic askew from what I normally experience.  On my street, yes there were trees down, but when I got within 3 homes of my own, it was like there had only been a bad thunderstorm and little twigs were all over the yard.  What is that strange twinge I feel?  Is that relief or guilt?  Shouldn't I be overjoyed that the sun was shining and my home is in the same condition that I left it?  The power outage was merely an inconvenient blemish on a day so sunny and temperate that we didn't even need the A/C.  My young kids thought the whole thing an adventure - from packing bags and stuffies and climbing into the tub to camping in our tent in the sun room even after the electricity was back. 
While driving home, my mind raced of ways to help.  Donate my samples, make my co-workers donate their samples, make toiletries kits, give cash, lend time.  So many things I could do.  But when I get home, everything in my immediate world seems okay.  I know that there has been unprecedented devastation around the state and not even very far from my home.  But the only way I am seeing it is in the papers and on the Internet.  I really did go out the next day and spend about $150 dollars culling together travel samples of toothpaste, deodorants, toothbrushes, etc to make 20 bathroom kits.  I did ask permission of one of the brands I rep permission to donate the samples to American Red Cross.  When I dropped off the bathroom kits that I so lovingly put together, it was an unceremonious dump off at a donations processing site without even a thank you from the person who took it from me.  And I heard this little voice inside my head say, "hey, I worked hard on those and I don't even get a thank you?"  No, that has to be my imagination because they are working so hard and giving of their time to be here to receive donations.  People appreciate it.  I ask about getting a receipt for the clothing donation that my company would make.  I got a sideways remark about corporations wanting the tax break and how no one else had asked for a receipt.  I wanted to get defensive and say that it is their right to get a receipt, but instead I feel sheepishly guilty for even asking.  Is a donation more valuable if we don't ask for a receipt?  It is more selfless?  I feel creepy-like that I am doing all this to make myself feel better for not being a victim.  What is wrong here?  I am making myself nauseous. 
I go home and log onto my Facebook account to catch up on what has been going on since the storm.  Thousands of pictures and videos of the tornadoes posted by all of us that are safe.  We re-tell victims' stories over and over for them.  It is all horrible and unfathomable.  I see links to register to volunteer or donate.  I see an interesting link for Hands On Birmingham that seems to be a central allocation site of manpower for volunteering and has lots of comments on their posts.  I sign up for a 4 hour shift and then go back to Facebook to post that I signed up and see what everyone else has posted.  Well, its all the same thing that I just posted, "signed up!", but in an increasingly aggressive one-ups-man manner.  One person has signed up for an 8 hour shift.  The next is signing up for 2 days worth.  Another will sign up for 4 days and the most recent has signed up for 6 days and is waiting for HOB to post additional dates and needs so she can sign up for more.  Seriously.  I am so glad that some of us have nothing else going on in our lives like work or family or routine that you can completely abandon your previous life to dedicate it to volunteering for the Cause.  Oh, crap did I just say that??  Elsewhere on Facebook, people are checking in at a school in Pratt City, on a bus to Cordova; they have worked 15 hours, slept 3 hours, taken a shower and are now back out there to help more.  "I have half a pallet of pet shampoo to donate."  Thunderous applause follows. 
Please don't misinterpret smart-aleck-ness.  I think that all the help that has been given is fantastic and worthwhile.  I wish more would help.  It is great that people turn out in droves to give time, money and substance to help those who are in need.  I am glad that people care.  I am among them.  But I also know that I posted my little "I signed up" so that someone would see that I am doing my share and assuage my bizarre guilt for not being a victim myself.  And so I wonder if everyone out there posting is subconsciously doing the same thing.  We want to and like to help others, but we need for someone to recognize that we are doing something good and give us a pat on the back. We have a huge case of "it could have should have been me" syndrome.
I guess it doesn't really matter why we give or help or share as long as it gets done.  Kudos to everyone out there who is pitching in to help out in whatever cause it is that you have found to be yours.

The Bloomin' Garden and other Mid-Life Crisis Moments of Note

Thank you God that tax day is behind us, and we can get on with our lives.  So this week, it's a little work and then taking some time out to smell the ocean and the berries.  Lucky me that my work takes me to beautiful coastal areas where the sun shines brightly, like Fernandina Beach, FL.  Lord, I have found the place that I want to retire. Incidentally, since it is Easter weekend, there will be some obligatory praising of the Christian deity.  I don't know how many times I have been to Fernandina Beach for work and never actually went to the beach.  Well, after the 8 hour drive out the day before, I was feeling a little reluctant to get back in my car for the reciprocal drive back.  A leisurely walk on the beach picking sea shells is just the thing.  Look at the shells and smell the salt air.  Ahhhhh. 

An hour later, back in the car, motoring west on Hwy 520, it's pretty boring.  It's pretty boring for at least 4 hours.  Wait, there is a sign with a big strawberry painted on it.  Quick, u-turn and cutting across 3 lanes of traffic, it's a u-pick strawberry farm out in the middle of nowhere on the side of a highway!!  Suddenly, I am not in such a rush to get home.  I look out over the small field - maybe only 1/2 acre and walk up to the farm stand.  "Sure, here is a bucket - $1.50 a pound, pick as much as you like!"  I'm in heaven.  A quick 25 minutes later, I am $5.30 poorer, but 3.5 lbs of berries richer and smiling like a kid who has both sweet berries and dirt in my mouth.  A little dirt never hurt us when we were kids.  Just because I am an adult, there is reason to think that it will now. 

Now, that I'm back home, I can concentrate on my own berries and such in our garden.  Well, there are a lot.  The cage we built was great - until a bird got in and then couldn't get out.  Luckily, someone was around to let the poor thing back out.  Only a few berries pecked, we have our own harvest ready to be picked.  Tomato, bean (wave 1 and 2) and pepper plants are growing in the ground.  Dill and basil are everywhere.  The corn is in, and the okra went in today.  Only the eggplant seedlings are left to strengthen a little before they go into the ground. 
While we were pulling some weeds this afternoon, my sweet hubby says to me, "Are all those tomatoes??" as he points to a frame full of seedlings that aren't weeds.  And I reply, "The two with the trestles around them are the climbing vine full sized tomatoes.  The rest are some form of grape or cherry."  And he says, "Um, I thought that we were going to go easy on the tomatoes this year."  And I start to explain that there are 3 varieties of miniatures, and I couldn't just plant one of each in case they didn't seed, and . . . nevermind.  So I just say that I got a little carried away.  For additional moments on getting carried away, please reference the last blog posting and pretty much everything that I planted last year.
Final 2 carried away moments this week that I am going to attribute to a mid-life crisis.  1.)  I just registered for my first half-marathon.  Pretty ballsy for someone who hates to run.  Training to start eventually.  All I know is that since I shelled out $155 for the registration, there is no way that I am going to not do it.  2.)  In a previous life, namely, my 20s, I had crazy short, buzz cut boy hair.  And then it grew to something that resembled a porcupine that mated with Robert Smith from The Cure.  More than a decade later, I'm goin' back in time, baby.  Someone send me some giant dangle-y earrings.

Confessions and a possible mid-life crisis

If you didn't have a chance to read the last post, you didn't miss much, and I deleted it.  It was short and boring and didn't say anything really.  So, I'm trying again.
So, its April, and I think that this makes it about a year since I started this endeavor.  I can't really say that this has been a huge success, but at least, I have a way to vent without anyone smacking me about the head.  As far as gardening goes, I have plenty of seedlings hardening to put into the ground in the next week.  The first round of green beans and already in the ground, and the next wave will go in with the tomato, eggplant, and pepper seedlings.  I think I need to wait 2 more weeks for okra to go in, but I think that I am safe to put in the corn.  Dill and basil seedlings are everywhere.  The asparagus is sparse but growing.  And if ANYONE has any idea how to stop the spread of the freakin' Chinese chives, I would love to hear it.  I am going to try not to be obsessed with the garden this year, but I can tell that my search for balance will probably have to continue on a bit longer.
I've been finding, recently, that balance is no longer something that I'm really good at.  If I could find a turning point for when this started, I would have to say, maybe 2 years ago.  Perhaps it was one of the millions of moments that I've had thinking, "this is not where I thought I would be at this point in my life".  Maybe not. 
All I know is that when I find something to do, believe in, think, there ain't no stoppin' me.  I started to workout on a regular basis again about 6 months ago.  I couldn't just go to the gym and lift weights and run on the treadmill or take an aerobics class.  I had to join an outdoor boot camp, and workout intensely for 3 days a week.  And then that wasn't enough, so I had to add 1, then 2, then 3 days of running to go with it.  Thankfully, I have reigned that in a bit.  Then I decided that I needed a goal - a half marathon.  So I signed up for that.  Wait, that isn't enough, so I need to do a Warrior Dash too.  No wait, that isn't enough either so I have to run another race this weekend.
I've never been too outdoorsy, even though I work in the industry.  But in the last few months, I've been on more hikes than I had in the past 5 years.  I tried rock climbing for the first time - climbed so much I couldn't open my peanut butter jar for 3 days.  I took my son backpacking.  I dragged my 4 year old on 3 mile hikes.  I worked out at boot camp AND ran 5 miles directly afterwards.  I washed, dried, and folded 8 loads of laundry in one day.  Wait, that last one is normal.  
In the garden, I started out with wanting to do the corn and beans again, let the strawberries continue to roll, and then maybe a tomato plant or two and call it a day.  Now, nothing new is in the ground yet, and I have strawberries, asparagus, 3 kinds of cherry/grape tomatoes, 1 heirloom tomato, 2 kinds of peppers, eggplants, 2 frames of corn, a full frame of okra, dill, basil, thyme, rosemary, ever present Chinese garlic chives, and am still trying to decide if I want to do sweet potatoes again.  Huuuuuuu, big breath.
I am also obsessed with Greek yogurt, soup stock, and cheese.  Did I tell you about the time that I went out and bought beef marrow and lamb neck bones just to make stock and then had nothing planned to do with the stock??  That was intelligent.  Stupid French cook boot that I'm reading.
So, while this blog is about coaxing out the best in something, I think that I need some reigning in.  And so, I blame the whole thing on a mid-life crisis.  I look forward to old age, so that I can take it down a notch.

I Miss You Long Time

A long winter (which isn't over yet apparently) and I look forward to ideas for spring.  I should be turning the ground now and adding my worm poop to get the beds ready for March.  What to plant, what to plant?  Any ideas out there?  Herbs and tomatoes in some form are forgone conclusion.  I'm looking for things you have grown that tasted amazing and didn't die in the southern heat.  Talk to me people.  My seed catalog sits patiently for me to start marking it up!

Fall takes Hold

Usually, I am not a fall season girl.  Summer is my time of the year.  Spring is a close second.  Winter is for cocoa, cider, fireplaces and hibernation.  Fall is ragweed, goldenrods, and razor dry air.  This fall has been no exception.  However, what is different this year is that I am newly inspired to get my kids to take advantage of a fleeting few weeks of nice outdoor weather that bridge the unbearable heat to southerners freezing our a**es off.  Perhaps my son joining the Cub Scouts has also fueled this.  He has his first overnight camping trip in a couple weeks, so we broke out the tent and sleeping bags last night, and he and Jon spent the night under the tent under the stars in our front yard.  They came in around 7:30 this morning after the birds woke them and went back to bed upstairs, but that's nature for ya.
This afternoon we went to a fly fishing clinic in a beautiful nature preserve.  Only Jon got the hang of slinging the fly rod, but we all got a few casts in and enjoyed some beautiful weather.

The garden is also slowly growing; it's definitely not the summer time trailblazing growth.  It's a more subtle development.  The roots have taken hold, there is a new set of leaves; the grape tomatoes and eggplant still grow slowly.  The basil hangs on.  My reluctance to cut down the bloomed stems eggs on the remaining bumblebees to continue to pollinate.  The days may be waning but nature pushes forward.

Yummy Fall Food

I'm just here to brag about my best yet clean-out-the-produce-drawer pasta dinner to date!  Let me just say that typically when I use the odds and ends out of the fridge to make dinner, it is met with the groans normally associated with cafeteria mystery meat or left over casserole at home.  So tonight, while one child colored on the family room floor and the other headed out to play in the neighborhood, I was smoothly evasive about what would be for dinner.  So, just crowing here, but the kids cleaned their plate.  Triumph #1.  It was only after they had mostly finished their meal that I revealed all the ingredients in the pasta.  And surprisingly, no shudders!  Triumph #2.  So because this turned out so well, I thought I would share.  Hopefully you have the exact same leftovers in your drawers!

Fall Odds and End Pasta serves 4
8oz fettucine (or half a box)
1/2 fennel bulb sliced thin
1/2 bag spinach
1/2 bag salad mix
1 green apple thinly sliced
2 slices of bacon and 2 chicken tenders minced together
2 scallions white portion sliced into rings
1/2 c chicken or veggie broth
1/4 t dried or 1t fresh thyme

Cook pasta according to directions and drain.
Mix apples, scallions and fennel bulb together in a bowl and set aside.
Saute mixed meat until just cooked through in a med high heated pot.  Remove meat but reserve oil in pan left from cooking bacon.  If necessary, and an additional tablespoon canola oil.  Toss fennel, apple, scallion mixture in and saute until fennel is tender.  Add spinach, salad mix and then broth and cook just until leaf veggies are wilted.  Season to taste with salt, if necessary
Toss pasta into veggies and broth and mix thoroughly.  Serve with grated Parmesan or Romano cheese.

Fall Preview

Since I have been grounded from travel this week due to inadequate after hours child care status, I have had a lot of time to enjoy the waning days of Indian summer and the burgeoning of fall all the while getting a lot of badly needed office work done.  Being grounded rocks.
Today I spent almost 3 hours rooting out big chunks of weeds and spent summer vegetable plants from the main garden.  I saw a black widow spider and discussed how to tell the difference between a venomous and non-venomous snake while on the phone with a New England friend.  Gratified in my work done, I ventured to the fav garden store to supplement the fall garden.  Lettuces already in the works, I'm going to try some rainbow swiss chard, broccoli and cauliflower, and some beets - only 2 each of the last 3 items.  Last years cauliflower grew to the size of a peach and then just quit on us.  Beets - well I am just skeptical.
Anyhoo, just get yer-selves ready for next week's preview pics.  And I am still waiting on recipes, folks.  Let's go for something with the swiss chard or beets.  I think I can figure out the rest.

Woohoo - Fall! And Regret.

Today was not the first day of fall, but it sure felt like it here - only a few days late.  We've been waiting and waiting and waiting for the cooler weather.  25 days of September had highs in the 90s.  Yes, today is the 27th - so we had the 4th hottest September in 70 something years.  But the cool weather instantly inspired all things fall for me.  I cooked a big pot of chili heating my kitchen back up the 90 degrees that I escaped just yesterday. I started thinking about squash and apples and Chinese hot pot.   I wore long sleeves and steadfastly refused to push them up when the kitchen got said hot.  We opened the windows.
So, while I was stirring my big pot of black bean chili (with some eggplant sneaked in for veggie bulk), I looked at my can of roasted tomatoes.  And I felt regret for the end of tomato season.  Oh sure, I can get tomatoes at the supermarket year round, but, seriously, it just ain't the same.  And then I realized that there will be no more peaches, no more zucchini, no more blueberries, no more super succulent, sweet and tender corn on the cob.  I am so sad.  Like then end of a summer time fling, I leave summer satisfied, but secretly long for one more kiss from a sun drenched Caprese salad.  Rats.  I guess that is the beauty of eating seasonally.  We enjoy the best of the best, and then they leave us wanting more, waiting in anticipation for the next first fresh taste.
Oh well, on to fall.  Autumn is fledgling here.  Send me your favorite fall recipes, please.

Fall is Coming, I Swear!

I've been feeling the first inkling of fall coming.  When I let the dogs out in the morning, the air is actually not muggy.  The highs are below 90 degrees.  I actually feel like looking at something long sleeved.  Yep, fall is on the way.  The over grown garden is in emergency need of a weed-ectomy.  And once a harvest has happened, I'm not very good at removing the dying plants.  But here is my first inkling of fall:  sweet potatoes!!  This was pulled from 2 plants.  We are baking them tonight as company to shrimp pasta with home grown basil and anchovy a plenty.  I don't think I've ever had a sweet potato fresh from the ground a la Scarlett O'Hara.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Insect Oddities and Coming to the Same Place

An acquaintance-friend called me today, and we were talking about the "healthy happy hour" that she had hosted this week.  It was all about putting clean foods into your body and working toward a whole foods lifestyle - basically taking care of yourself and your family.  It wasn't preachy or judgmental.  It was really nice.  I learned a few things and tasted a couple things that I normally wouldn't have.  For those of you that are not aware, I am not a big sweets person.  Every once in a while, I like a little chocolate or a cookie. But mostly, for me, it will be fruit or yogurt - or even better - a giant salt lick.

We talked some about my garden, how I completely overextended myself, and the strange things I have observed.

1.)  I was sure that the squirrel and birds would eat all the strawberries - that was pretty much true.  Thankfully Jon constructed the mega cage of chicken wire and the last part of the season's berries were spared for us humans.
2.)  Nothing ate our tomatoes.  In previous seasons, we had to guard tomatoes with shiny curling ribbon, more large chicken wire nets, swinging pie pans, cayenne pepper sprays, all to no avail.  Birds and squirrel buffet the tomatoes were.  But not this season.  Perhaps they don't like heirloom yellow tomatoes or grape tomatoes.  By the way - the grape tomatoes are still going strong!  Also absent were the giant green horned worms that are scary to have to pick away and can devastate your tomato plants in a single day.  I am truly thankful that I did not have to deal with them.
3.)  Ants love beans.  They don't love corn, eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, carrot fronds, chive tops or sweet potato leaves.  They do, however, love green bean leaves and Chinese long beans.  Most recently I observed 2 giant army ants perched at the top of each long bean.  They grow in sets of 2, and it was as if each ant was guarding a bean.  No seriously, 2 on every set of beans.  I had noticed a few sets that had turned brown and dried up, and they appeared to have some sort of eggs on them.  Perhaps ant eggs?  So why, beans and not tomatoes that are grown in the same bed?  And why long beans and not the green beans which had only the leaves cannibalized and the beans left intact?  CALLING ALL ENTOMOLOGISTS - Please explain!
4.)  Not discussed but disconcerting to me - the cantaloupes and watermelons grow to about 6", then split and rot.  What is wrong?

But circling back to the healthy happy hour, it was interesting to see how people end in the same place coming from completely different directions.  My friend Teena had her happy hour to promote the idea of needing to de-toxify or cleanse our bodies.  She talked about how processed food is full of toxins, food allergies are up, and it is all because of the way our food is prepped and processed for us.  So she was promoting eating whole foods, low glycemic carbs, and gluten free foods.  Her end goal was to be healthier and have more energy.  Well, I cannot give up my carbs - sorry Teena!  But I started our garden for several reasons - to teach the kids about how food gets on our table, to reduce the environmental (pollution) impact of the food we eat by growing it ourselves, to support the local economy by buying seedlings and seeds locally and use local resources to help them grow, and to be able to control what I put in my and my family's bodies.  In the end, the food that we produced encouraged me to cook and eat fresher, and I truly believe that eating more whole veggies made us healthier overall and gave us more energy.  It was just the pasta that dragged us back down.

Wow, this is a long entry for me.  The point is that I think (and hope) that everyone that is reading this has a goal that somewhat includes feeling better and being healthier.  It's pretty cool to me to learn why other people are growing gardens, eating differently.  There is always an interesting personal story that starts the whole thing.  On the other hand, perhaps you enjoy my cheesy puns and gardening whack-a-doodles.

Ciao baby!

OMG those damned mimosa thingies

So, it has been a couple weeks since I have actually set foot in the garden.  My faithful dad has been watering regularly since we have no rain for a while now.  I open the gate, and the first thing that greets me is a 2 ft wall of those wild, crazy mimosa looking ferny weed things.  I don't know if they are actually mimosa plants, but they look like them, and the grow like CRAZY!  Anyway, I had to rip them out just to be able to set foot in the garden.  Not a good sign.
I make my way immediately to the back to check on the grape tomatoes as I can see flashes of red back there.  I think I need a machete.  Whack, whack, pull, rip as I plod back to the tomatoes and melons.  Surprise - tons of old yellow tomatoes.  Still lots of grape tomatoes growing, and lo and behold, a fresh batch of long beans!  Too bad there is an ant the size of my pinky fingernail poised at the top of each and every bean.  No, really, there is an ant on each mature bean.  I totally didn't get it.  But I wanted the beans and not to be bit, so thus began a weird game of "flick the ant". Flick flick flick, snip snip snip.
Then more ripping and pulling of whatever those weed trees are to be able to see the melon patch.  2 melons growing.  :)
Clipped a few eggplants, banana peppers, and another large dose of sweet potato leaves.
Its nice to know that even though I've been ignoring you for a few weeks, sweet garden, that you still grow food along with those weeds.  Thank you.
Tonight for dinner - slow poached chicken with scallion oil and ginger with long beans cooked with fermented black beans and garlic and sweet potato leaves sauteed with ginger and sesame oil.  :)
And now it is finally raining outside.  Keep on growing, baby, 'cause we're still hungry!

I totally miss you!

So much travel and so much time.  I totally miss my garden.  I know that it is over run with weeds and overgrown eggplants and peppers, but there is nothing I can do when I am not home. (frowny face)  I go home tomorrow and will check the whole thing out.
In a couple weeks, I will start to clear for the fall garden.  Taking suggestions . . .

In the mean time, here is an image of nature's perfect snack.

I'm sorry, I was mistaken

Well, it has been a few weeks again, and the garden has been growing out of control.  So have the weeds.  So are the ants.  And why do the ants only like the beans and their leaves and nothing else?  The tomatoes are right there - juicy and sweet.  I've got a little corn left, some peppers . . . no dice.  I am an ant and I only like to eat your beans.  Oh well.

So here is something new - we have melons!  No really, there are melons! We have been watering, but the skies have been pretty stingy, so I never thought we would ever get fruit.  Also, our luck with the monstrously large single sexed flowers zucchini plants just made me assume that we were going to have the sample problems with melons.  And I have no idea if you need cross pollination for melons or not.  Nevertheless, I am pretty excited now.

Where I came into error, however, is in the tomatoes.  I bought this heirloom plant, and I totally don't remember what variety it is.  So when the first fruits were turning yellowish, I was stoked that we would soon have some red ripe fruit.  I was prepared to beat away all birds and squirrels in their defense.  And strangely, they did not turn orange and then red but stayed yellow.  So I waited.  And I waited.  And then I thought perhaps I should pick them and bag them with some bananas to see what would happen.  And they stayed yellow.  So then my suspicions began to grow.  Should I taste one?  What if it is still green?  But after 2 weeks at yellow?  Hmmm.  I did slice one to put on a sandwich but ate a slice solo first.  Holy cow, it was delicious - mellow and super sweet with lots of juice.  Yay, I have some kind of heirloom yellow tomato that I don't remember and therefor won't be able to find it again for next year.  C'est la vie.  Oh well.
Enjoy the pics.

Long Time No See

Wow, it has been quite a while!  Between work and the heat, it has been hard to remember to come visit y'all.  So this is what has happened since we have parted. 

1.)  The corn produced.  Here is a pic of the kids with the first pick.  Since then, we have picked once more.
2.) We grew lots of beans.  Lots and lots of beans.  And then the ants ate lots and lots of beans and the plant leaves too.
3.) Eggplant success - both Japanese variety and Fairytale.
4.) More banana peppers. Of course, the one thing that we would eat the least of is what produces the most - naturally.
5.)  Sweet potato leaves go crazy. 3 or 4 harvests.  I am pretty sure we are getting more out of those plants as leaf bearers than whatever lies below the surface.
6.) And speaking of below the surface, the carrots are just okay and I have one green bell pepper.

There was one week that the garden produced enough food to cover a whole week!  That was pretty exciting.  To bad I was out of town the whole week after I picked it all and got to eat none of it.  Oh well.  I heard that the corn was super sweet and the beans super flavorful.
And today, I harvested a boat load more sweet potato leaves, some grape tomatoes and carrots - and 2 more ears of corn.  I have 3 more days at home, and will get to enjoy it all with the barbeque  this weekend.  Everyone have a great 4th of July weekend!

Great Progress and a Snack

Its been a crazy week, but I spent one whole morning in the garden pulling weeds, staking and harvesting.  It was an exciting and bug biting time despite my liberal use of insect spray.  Something wayward did bite my ear, and it still hurts to wear my Bluetooth earpiece.  Ironically, my mother, who helped weed for the first hour, was also bitten on the ear and cannot wear her hearing aid from the swelling.  As a result, she has been unable to hear me complain additionally about the mosquito infestation.
I have attached a big wad of photos of the garden's progress post partial weeding.  I was most excited about the first harvest of beans and have already taken a second batch since the photo taken on Tuesday.  A Japanese eggplant has also been harvested since the pics.  The leaves in the bag are sweet potato leaves, and I am told by my mother that they are quite tasty sauteed like greens.  And I am stunned that we have corn growing!!  My doubting Thomas days are over, and I hope that they grow nice and fat, so that we will have some sweet juicy corn for summer cookouts.

At our front and side yard garden, the zucchini flower continue to grow, but I have no squash.  I have no idea what is wrong.  Anyone with any idea, please contribute to my learning process.  The dill has completely taken over and I have taken to ripping out entire plants to save space for the basil and rosemary that are just coming up to speed.  Below, I have a picture of my latest dill creation - gravalax, or as my daughter calls it, fish ham.  Gravalax is the heavenly combination of sugar/salt cured fresh Pacific salmon with peppercorn, dill, juniper, and a little fennel.  Actually, I didn't have any juniper berries so I cheated with my next best substitute - Hendrick's gin.  3 days under a brick, and this is what you get!  Jon is currently at the grocery store procuring bagels for tomorrow morning's breakfast feast. 

Well, I'm off to heat up the repairs from my roasted chicken fiasco from 2 nights ago.  Everyone have a great weekend!

I Remembered!!

So, I was sitting in this sales meeting today, and we were talking about why people blogged.  And, while I didn't verbalize, I was thinking the whole time, "hello, we blog to be able to say what we want to say while under the illusion that someone might be listening or paying attention."  I have no illusions.  I know that there are, like, 5 of you that read this on a regular basis and might comment.  And thanks to those of you, truly, because I then remembered that the real reason that I am blogging is to get support from all 5 of you to not be a quitter in my quest for local food consumption and production.  Thanks again.

Now, another "I remembered".  I made a dish the other night from the homegrown dill and remembered to do a before and after photograph!  Here is the before.  I ripped the entire plant out because it was impinging on my basil's ability to flourish.

And now the after - lemon dill chicken with crimini mushrooms.  Please forgive the elementary photo skills.  Thanks to Down Home with the Neelys for a little inspiration.  I totally couldn't find the recipe on their site so you just get the link to their page.  Sorry.  Plus, I made up my recipe as I went along.  Next time I will try to remember to write down the recipe for you.
While I have been gone, I am told, by my sweet hub, that the corn is human adult height now, so I'm thinking that we should get some flowering and pollination (fingers crossed) pretty soon!  Pics of that next time.

Oops I Did It Again

I swear, every time I get a little inspiration from my garden, I plan out this wonderful menu.  I'm not the best cook in the world by any stretch of the imagination - probably not even the best cook on the block.  But what I can make, I can make really well.  So my intention is to photograph the grown or local ingredients, make something, and then photograph the finished dish.  The problem is that some time in between completing a dish and then getting the family rounded up and to the table while it is still not, I completely forgot to take a picture of the finished product.  And I have done this more than once.  So, let's just pretend that I took all those after pictures. 

Before pic: the zucchini blossom photo from the last entry
After pic: deep fried zucchini blossoms stuffed with anchovy ricotta served on a bed of pureed tomatoes and basil

Before pic:  dill from last entry
After pic: roasted wild Pacific salmon with sour cream lemon dill sauce served with short grain brown rice

Before pic:  assorted colored carrots and watermelon radishes from the farmers' market
After pic: said root vegetables cut down and sauteed in butter and a little brown sugar (technically my hubby made this one, but it would have been a beautiful pic)

Envision it all in high resolution, well lit, mouth-watering glory.  There.  I will try not to forget again.

The First Day

Today is the first day of no school.  We celebrated with another trip to pick strawberries.  This time, it is near the end of the season.  So the farm we visited was a bit overgrown with weeds and many berries were over ripe and rotting.  But we were able to collect a sweet gallon of berries plus a local melon and a small cup of sweet onions.  The scents were so heady that after a brief stop for lunch, we came back to a car overwhelmed with the strong smell of berries and onions - nice.
The turn of the lifestyle season from the rigid 6am rising to a more pleasant 7:30 debut to each day is welcome.  Then there is a languid meandering to the breakfast table after a quick check of the e-mail; a more relaxed evening after a late supper.  I love it.  Hello summer, it's good to see you again.

And Down Comes the Rain

Woohoo!  There have been fantastic rains followed by nice periods of bright sun for 2 weeks.  The garden is prospering for the most part, and I am stoked!  I have lots of great pics to share with you.  Check out the corn!  Wow is all I can say.  I am pretty impressed - especially with the fact that this has taken very little effort up to this point.  We are even doing a great job of feeding the birds and squirrels our ripened strawberries.  Jon built a chicken wire coop around the berries the other week, and lo and behold, a few days later, we come back to find a spot where the "fence" had been slightly raised and half a giant red strawberry gone.  Really - it went under the coop.  And why did it eat only half the strawberry??  Would it not be more prudent, if you were already stuck under the coop, to go ahead and eat or take the whole thing?  Stupid smart squirrels.

I am thinking, and certain people are telling me, that we got too late a start on the sugar snap peas.  That is the plot that we worked the least, so the weeds seem to out number the plants about 50:1 right now.
So, what do you think, anyone?  Do we try to let it ride or rip them out and wait for late summer to start working on some fall tasties?  I was thinking about some bok choi or this Chinese spinach like thing called Gai Lan.  I'd love to hear some other ideas.

But back to the gardening.  You will see, I have a lot of dill coming out.  I had 4 plants last year, and it just seeded like crazy!  The basil did not seed as aggressively, but I still have about 6 or 7 little beauties coming out in the plot in our front yard.  I'm already thinking about some homemade pickles and gravalax and salmon with dill cream, . . . and I have no idea what else I can do with dill.  Perhaps dill zucchini, because that is the first veg I see coming.  So beautiful.  I can't wait.

Envy and Pride

I spent this last week far from home in La Jolla, CA.  It was picturesque, tranquil, and completely what I expect from California.  Even though I was in the desert, generally speaking, Californians have it so easy with the food chain and all.  They have the best weather, the best views, the best land in which to grow and raise just about every kind of food that you could ever want.  They have great wine and great cheese.  They provide more produce for the rest of the country than any other state.  And then, they have beaches, mountain, desert, snow, sun, rain, and movie stars.  I can only think of the joke I read in a novel about how France (insert California here) is blessed with all the same great things - great weather, bountiful food, delicious wine and cheese, etc.  So the rest of the countries of the world complained to God that it was totally unfair that France was blessed with all these things and many of the other countries received none of these blessings.  So, being a fair deity, God saw this as a reasonable complaint and evened everything out by creating the French people.  I am not knocking the French people, by the way.  But I can't even say that God has evened things out with Californians; pretty much everyone I know from this state is a pretty cool person with no more than the average amount of quirks embedded in the rest of the country's general population.  Perhaps it is the earthquakes and the cost of owning property that evens things out.
But, anyway, I got back home on Friday morning to a gloriously humid and sunny day.  I felt like I was having hot flashes and the back of my neck got sweaty as soon as I walked out of the airport.  But uncomfortable as I temporarily was, it was good to be home - sweet home Alabama.  Later that day, I was thinking about all the good food that I ate and tasty wine that I drank.  It would be nice if I lived somewhere that I could get almost everything that I want to consume within my home state.  Alabama is not exactly quite there yet.  But I am proud of the foods that we do produce.  We have fantastic goat cheese produced in Alabama, delicious strawberries and sweet potatoes.  And I can't wait for the peaches!!  The local summer farmers' market season has begun.  In a few weeks to months, my garden will be, hopefully, overflowing with zucchini, beans, corn, and all sorts of other yummy goodies.  I am psyched!  So while California this ain't, I am so proud of the efforts put forth by the hard working people of Alabama, and my family, to produce bounty for our tables.  Cheers to all!