3 posts from May 2008

Holy swizzle sticks.  Last week it snowed.  Seriously.  Not a lot, but it did snow.  Today it was 85 degrees F (let's call it 30 degrees C, for you foreign communist types).  I shake my fist at the heavens. 

Oh, oh, first some good news:  I don't think I told you people, but I totally got a teaching job again.  I am adjunct faculty now.  Their plight is now mine!  I will be teaching medical transcription (yay?) and English for a Montana college.  I will work entirely online and entirely asynchronously so that I can do the work around my other schedules.  It's going to be so fantastic.

We got our "economic stimulus" money today, and it was...puzzling.  There are two adults in our household and one child, so we believed we would be getting $1500 ($600 per adult, $300 per child).  But we actually got $900.  Now, I realize it's stupid to complain about suddenly receiving $900, but we are puzzled as to whether I don't count for $600 because I only work part-time or if T doesn't count because he isn't a citizen (though he is a legal permanent resident, a full-time worker, and a taxpayer).  T thinks it's probably him because it isn't the first time that he hasn't counted for something since he came here.  We think the American immigration system is wack.  But anyway.

Oh, I have to make one comment (or possibly more) about Top Chef before I continue.  This week Antonia made the comment, and from the tone I am assuming she meant to disparage, that Dale only cooks "Asian food."  That's like insulting someone for only cooking "European food."  In fact, in this one episode he made a Japanese-ish salad and then a Vietnamese lunch.  I would venture that there is more difference in flavor profiles and ingredients between Japanese cooking and Vietnamese cooking than there is between Italian and French cooking.  Get over your Occidentalism, bitch.  Besides, in the last episode, Dale actually made a ragu that was one of the only things the judges liked on that team, and so far as I know, Italy is not in Asia.  Sorry, I just really hate it when people think that all "Asian food" is alike (or, worse, that all "Asian culture" is alike).  It really ruffles my feathers. 

OK, OK, onto the good stuff.  Hum de hoodle.  The weeds proliferate.  The weed problem here is never going to be really under control because we have two large fields that are entirely uncultivated and uncontrolled near us, and the seeds blow in from there.  But the number and tenacity of the weeds blows my mind every day.  Fortunately, we eat some of them (dandelions good), but today I pulled up a dandelion that had a taproot of roughly the same diameter as my wrist.  Obviously I didn't get all the taproot, which means it will come back, and when it does, I'm going to break out the big tools and get that taproot and roast it and drink a cup of Victory Chicory.  Yum.

My son is on a kick where he wants dandelion muffins all the time.  For those we use the flowers.  I pull all the petals out of their base and only use the yellow petals, then I just fold them into a regular muffin recipe, and they give a light honey-ish flavor to the muffins.  We like them a lot, and my son is a devoted picker of dandelions when he is offered muffins.  Later this season, I am going to make "poor man's capers" by pickling miscellaneous edible flower buds, and I have dandelion buds on the list.  If we keep picking the flowers now, we might actually have some flower buds again late enough in the season to try it, but we'll see.  I've heard the "poor man's capers" are quite good, and I do have a recipe of sorts, but I haven't made it in the past.  I'm growing a lot of edible flowers this year, so I should have a good variety to choose from, each with its own flavors, and then maybe I can choose a favorite.  It is unlikely that I will ever live in a climate where I can successfully grow real capers, and we can't afford them at the store, so I have my fingers crossed.

I'm finding myself somewhat baffled, also, by the sporadic germination going on in the beet and daikon areas.  I have about 8 daikon that are just growing like mad, and they're all clustered together in this one little section of their designated growing area.  Same with the beets.  I cannot for the life of me figure out why the other seeds around and near them are not germinating.  However, I am a big believer in Darwin, and I will keep seeds from these few, these proud, these survivors, because clearly these seeds have what it takes to survive the harsh conditions in which they find themselves.  I feel like I need to do a Stephen Colbert fist pump now.  I'll bet seeds are much happier in California.  Damn this weather.

Let's see.  My son keeps snacking on herbs before they've really had a chance to grow.  He is especially partial to sage and thyme, although the various mint plants are taking some hits, which is fine because you can't kill mint once it's there.  Raw, straight off the plant.  Am I the only one who finds this odd?

(In other good news, the kid is now entirely diaper free!  Yay!  It took a while to get him off the night diaper, but we let him set his own timeline and do it when he felt ready, and it's worked like a charm.  It's so cute when he wakes up all sleepy-eyed to go potty in the middle of the night and then demands a "huggle."  You can have a huggle anytime, kid.)

Operation Shubbery is also coming along grandly.  I don't know if I mentioned before, but when we bought this house, there was very little in the way of shrubbery or shade trees.  Our gigantic hounds promptly killed off the backyard grass, too.  And last summer we baked.  No shade, bare dirt, white house--our backyard was a fucking convection oven.  This year, we put rosa rugosa all along the south fence (that's where most of the wind comes from, and the roses should look good and offer some wind protection).  We also installed three baby trees--no, four.  Three paper birch and a black walnut, though they're all just one-year-old saplings right now.  Along the back of the house, we have put two rose bushes and two blueberry bushes and we're going to add one red-twig dogwood.  My husband has cut sod out of the places where we have the vegetables and the new flower beds and installed the sod in the backyard.  The dogs are sequestered in a portion of the yard.  They have shelter there and very nice shade, and when we are back there with them to mind that they keep out of the veggies patches and refrain from eating the rose bushes, we let them out to roam around the backyard, but so far the sod is living and looks good.  I am really hoping that between the grass, the new bushes (which are admittedly still small) and the sunflower forest we're going to plant, this year won't be quite so bakey back there.  It was truly intolerable last year.  Next year, we are going to put in several more lilacs.  For one thing, we need some screening in the front yard.  We live right across the street from the elementary school, and I often find myself groggily watering my rhubarb in pajamas and cursing at squirrels, and the kids don't need to see that.  For another thing, we need to screen that giant damned propane tank in the back yard.  We have one new lilac there this year, but we really need two to properly screen it so that we can enjoy our flower beds and corn field without having to look at that hulking sign of dependence on fossil fuels that are not only unsustainable but also originate largely in countries whose governments I don't particularly wish to support.  God, I hate the propane.  I love that my cook stove is gas, yes, because electric stoves are stupid (unless it's one of those super induction stoves that I covet so, as if such a thing were ever going to be financially within reach for us), but I hate everything about our heating system.  We have taken note that we need more wood this year, and we will get it and burn it and try to get off the Saudi teat, but damn. 

People, right now, and this is no joke, the plants are eating up all of my available free time.  I even do things with them (repotting, watering, what have you) while I'm watching Stewart and Colbert.  I feel like I am eating, breathing, and sleeping dirt.  It's not entirely awesome, and I'm ready to just get all the little babies planted and get it all mulched so that I can occasionally take a breather.  Bleh.  But official last frost date here is Memorial Day (sure, it could frost after that, but you have to bet that it won't--the only month frost is truly unlikely here is July), so a lot of things can't really go out until then.  I may well die before then.  And now I'm all frantic because I'm actually going to be gone on Memorial Day weekend, and not much will get done (we're going to Austin, TX--my son, me, and my mom).  I alternate between feeling like there's only so much I can do and it will all get done eventually, if not in the most ideally timely manner, and freaking out because it's not all already done now. 

Oh, I need to get some pictures up, don't I?  Eh, when I get back from Austin, I'll figure out how to get the pictures from camera to computer, I promise. 

Anyway, I'll be writing more when things get a bit more sane around here. 

What is your deepest, darkest fear?
Submitted by [Susan].

That one day, my husband will turn to me and say, "JESUS CHRIST, WOMAN, JUST SHUT UP FOR A MINUTE."

In truth the deepest, darkest fear for me is probably exactly the same as for every other mother, and it is so deep and dark that it is as close to unthinkable and unspeakable as it could be, because to speak it or think it seems to be--in some admittedly Oprah way--to invite its possibility.  But there is no bigger fear than the fear that something irrevocable and terrible will happen to your child.  It's unbearable even to think it.  My husband and I and my mom have all joked, because my son is very active and something of a daredevil who cannot wait to push boundaries and go up one more step on the ladder, that broken bones are fine, we expect them, we can deal with them, we'll all survive them--just please no head trauma. 

I just wrote several paragraphs flaying some idiotic bitch that I randomly saw on TV today, but then I lost interest.  Yes, she was an idiot.  She was an idiot of a variety that I have met very commonly, namely the idiot who thinks that having friends who are gay and/or Hispanic wins her the Tolerance Merit Badge, despite the fact that said friends grew up in similar conditions, were similarly educated, read the same books, and hold entirely the same political opinions as she does.  Because diversity is all about the skin color or sexual orientation.  Right.  Idiot. 

But then, as I said, I just lost interest.  Idiots are a dime a dozen.  She was certainly not an exceptional idiot--half the college students in Missoula think exactly the same way (and the other half are too drunk to notice such a subtlety as someone's race).  So.  Let's pass her over for more interesting and non-idiotic topics.

Namely!  The asparagus!  It hath risen!  So, fuck you, Californian asparagus!  It's nothing against California or its asparagus, but I'm so excited that the asparagus I tediously planted and laboriously tended last year is coming up this year.  As yet, the stalks are barely peeking above ground, but we will actually be able to harvest and eat some of this year's crop.  Sweet mother Mary!

Oh, and the radicchio overwintered very nicely, and we harvested our first radicchio today!  Hurrah for fresh greens (or reds, as the case may be).  They are calling out to me for some bacon and cream, because nothing enhances healthful greens like a giant dose of heart attack.  Yum.

I don't know if I told you, but I developed an elaborate garden plan this year to milk as many nutrients out of our backyard as possible.  First, there are the cool-weather, spring things like peas and fava beans and spinach.  We basically turned our entire garden space over to these things with the understanding that they will be mostly kaput by the time we need to begin insertion of nightshades (tomato, pepper, eggplant).  In other words, we expect to have approximately one gazillion peas.  The first couple of weeks after planting, we had terrible weather with snow and lots of freezing, and the peas refused to sprout, and I had begun to despair that, as so often in the past, all my plans had come to nought.  But they sure the hell are sprouting now.  We have rows and rows of peas (only two rows of favas, because we do love favas, but last year they failed miserably, and we couldn't see giving a lot of space to something that failed so completely).  We have Alaska bush peas, Green Arrow, Blue Pod Capucijner, and god knows what else--name a variety of pea, and we likely have it sprouting out there.  Some will get frozen.  Some will get dried.  Many will be eaten right there in the garden.  Yum.

The spinach is going nuts!  The kale!  The daikon!  I am so pleased.  Despite the batty weather, things are going according to plan. 

We did also get some tomatoes this year that are supposed to have some cold hardiness.  Specifically, we have Beaverlodge, Oregon Spring, and Stupice tomatoes.  All of those do need protection from frost but should otherwise be OK in the cold.  I'm a little skeptical.  I learned to garden primarily in Arkansas, and the heat and humidity down there just make this a much different ballgame.  We did bite the bullet and go ahead and plant the Oregon Spring seedlings, though, and so far they look fine.  We're also putting in the potatoes.  Ack!  The potatoes!  What a fiasco!

See, my parents have recently purchased 5 acres where they are building a new house, and I had received permission to plant my potatoes on their land, so I ordered....ohhhh...about 27 pounds of seed potatoes.  That's actually 27 different varieties, one pound each.  I got them from Ronniger's, a source I highly recommend.  I have every color of potato known to man, I'm fairly sure, and I believe we have three different varieties of purple potato (my favorite!).  As it turns out, the water is a long, long way from being hooked up at my parents' new house (the city is dragging their feet--long story), so if I planted the potatoes there, I'd have no way to water them and so would have to just pray for rain everyday.  So, we planted them here.  It's going to be tight to get everything in this year.

I thought earlier that I should list all the varieties of veggies that we're growing to give you a sense of the scale of the enterprise here, but I realized that that was a bad idea.  We have more than 20 varieties of tomatoes alone.  Hell, we probably have more than 40 varieties of tomato, and then there's the peppers and the eggplant and the potatoes and the brassicas!  The brassicas! 

Perhaps I can give you a sense of the stupid overreaching of my plan by telling you we have two different kinds of sesame (kin, which is tan, and kuro, which is black).  Four kinds of scallions, in addition to the chives, shallots, leeks, and onions.  Three types of kale.  Two types of salsify.  Salsify, for chrissakes! 

Lord, I cannot wait.  It's all so delicious. 

OH!  OH!  I have to tell you about this new book I got.  Obviously, since I do the home canning, I am always on the lookout for good cookbooks for that activity.  Canning is not a subject that gets a lot of play in contemporary cookbooks, as you can imagine.  I suppose it is out of style, but it's really something you need a good cookbook for since it is really one of the most scientific and potentially hazardous of all kitchen tasks.  You can't half-ass it when you're dealing with pH and pressure--it's serious business.  Anyway, so I happened upon this book called Pickles to Relish.  It was written by a scientist/home canner who apparently is inhabited by a semi-fictitious alter ego known as "Jamlady."  And both of them are serious.  The first part is a rant about the failures of modern education, the failures of modern society, and a call for a return to the art and science of home pickling.  It gave me goosebumps.  I mean, she is preaching to the converted, but I was so pleased to know that someone (anyone!  even a questionably mentally ill woman!) else thinks this way.  I have no named alter ego, yet I have long felt crazy and isolated by my pickle-making.  It isn't just a hobby, dammit.  It's a way of life!  God, I love crazy pickle-making ladies.  Maybe later this summer I'll have another contest to give away some pickles. 

Also, later this summer, I'm going to start getting with some recipes and processing and storage information for all the vegetables.