OHMYGODWEFINALLYMOVEDSHITDAMN

So, yeah. We're here. 

In the country.

FUCKINGFINALLYALREADY.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

The bees are here. With a view.

Jada's here. On the horrible carpet. Because she's the only one that likes horrible carpet.

All of our shit is here.

Our hilarious contractor is here pre-filling our new fridge with pink-bowed beer for Bubba.

Jada's new buddies are here

Sure as shit the turkeys are here

I've even cooked a few dinners after stripping clean (except for one. I left one tomato. On each plant. Because I'm a lady.) my vegetable plants. 

I needed help lifting this.

All people use roofing material as a patio coffee table. ALL PEOPLE SHUTTUP.

Weird kitchen with ugly tile countertops and the fabulous fabulous view.

Our Realtor is a hero, awesome and hilarious.

Too bad Jada doesn't love him AT ALL.

What more do you need for move day than (clockwise from bottom left) Fruity Pebbles, Rice Krispies and caramel, cinnamon, dark chocolate old fashioned, bacon maple chocolate, apple fritter, Oreo caramel, dark cherry cordial, sprinkles, strawberry Pocky, glazed old fashioned and salted caramel dark chocolate Rice Krispies donuts? WHAT MORE I ASK?

OK, that also.

Especially after this farewell from San Jose.

Figures.

Jada was the only one that loved the horrible grass.

So, we're here. We're in the country. We're unpacking and adjusting and meeting the neighbors and marveling at how the movers knew exactly how we wanted our furniture arranged. 

Perfect.

We've built a new stairway and deck.

Put on two new roofs. 

Cuddled our painter's dog

Found some good breakfast spots

Hunted turkeys

Hunted turkeys

 and stargazed (while taking shitty pictures with the phone).

And next weekend is my birthday and do you know what I'm doing for my first birthday in our country house?

I'M SETTING UP MY CRAFT ROOM MUTHER FUCKERS.

Yeah. We're going to be just fine "Way out there so far away from everything! What are you going to do?".

Hey, I might even write a meaningful blog post one day. 

MIGHT. 

Good to see you guys, by the way. You look hotter from here anyway. 

Oh, just a whole bunch of random shit. And photos.

Ugh. I just hate going so long without talking to you guys.

I get all, "Oh, I'm sure I'll come up with something meaningful by the weekend and then I'll write it up full of scrumptious swears and it will be like nothing happened."

Like I never all the way mixed up my life and routine and then went on acting like I was going to be able to keep all non-work related aspects of my life unchanged.

Well, we all know I'm a delusional ass, so let's not act so surprised.

But yes, I have been delinquent in my posting.

Happens, I guess.

So, the good news is that I am making this shit happen right now, but the bad news is that I have no direction, so that is when we go to the photos on instant upload to see what the fuck I've been up to that I want to tell you guys all about.

Usually this involves food or food, so let's just start with food and see where that takes us:

We resurrected one of Bubba's smoked tri-tips from Chesty and almost blew our brains out with deliciousness last night.

I pulled the first spring onions yesterday when I was pruning back the dill and discovering lots of oddly shaped radishes. Asses.

I brought some of my basil over to a friend's house the other night and she proceeded to make me a drink fit for a fancy person. Which I am most certainly not.

I had a hair appointment on Valentine's Day, so obviously I brought my hairdresser a Valentine of vegetables. Because I'm, like, 80 kinds of weird. Just not the harmful type of weird. That's an important distinction.

I made those annoyingly awesome chocolate ganache cupcakes for Bubba and it got sort of colorful in my kitchen for a hot second.

Mostly because of my new crazy ass silicone cupcake cups.

I ate so much of this frosting while I was making the cupcakes. Seriously. I didn't end up making dinner because I was so full from frosting. Way to go, me.

I redeemed myself with this badass salad. It's not particularly photogenic, so I'm not sure why I took a picture of it. Or why I'm showing you. 

Made a little Best Sauce Ever. Yep. with my cuddle-worthy wooden spatula. 

Ooh! I forgot about this, but I totally made the pumpkin mascarpone soup again and WHOA is it still just as good as I remembered. 

So, food is done. Mostly. I mean, depending on whether you count the garden as food.

Which we do. In the future beans will be here. For now, only my neighbor's gorgeous tree and a tipi.

Future beans having a day outside. They were into it.

This is my first full season with my pink lemon and it is looking pretty promising. Also, there's a big ole lemon on there, so it's going to really go into a cocktail here at some point. That's how I'll know it's a success anyway.

To sow spring seed, one must wear one's coveralls even if it's just mostly for the pockets and so that I don't tear up the running clothes I'm wearing underneath because I'm too impatient to change clothes between running and gardening. 

I liked having monster beans hatching on my grow rack so much, that I may always start my beans indoors first. It's just too hilarious. RAWWWWWWWWWWWWR! Sorry. That could not be helped.

Hi, Tallest Monster Beans. I'm sorry that I didn't lower the light right on top of you like I know I should have. That's why you're freakishly tall now and no one will want to be your friend at school. 

Sort of hard to tell from this crap phone photo and the mounds of dry leaves, but the front yard meadow is sort of looking decent right now. And it's about to look way better. And then it'll look sort of blah for a while, then haggard, then ugly and then HEY! It looks kinda good again! And we'll have gone full circle. 

I didn't even know how to hold it is how odd this radish was.

This has been a rather radishy winter. Kinda nice, actually.

I mean, how fun does that look?

Too bad I'm just eating this and thinking about how hot our summer's going to be if the garden is this warm all winter.

Especially since I'll be working in the greenhouse that today -  IN FEBRUARY MIND YOU - was 111 degrees.

IN FEBRUARY.

MIND YOU.

TODAY. 

IN THE PLACE I'LL BE WORKING COME JULY AND HELL HEAT.

Ugh. I shall perish.

First though - ship a shitload of hydroponic basil.

First actual shipment. Very goofbally selfie. Favorite hat. 

GO BE WITH PEOPLE'S MOUTHS AND KITCHENS.

ALL OF YOU.

OK - I'm done.

That was a lot of random photo barfing. Good job hanging in there. Sorry that my posts have gotten all spastic, but I'm allowing myself room to veer ever so slightly off my long trod path of strict discipline because if I don't, I'm 100% sure that my I will melt the fuck down in the brains.

But for sure YAY SPRING!

Not all about the fish this time.

So, you know what I've been doing aside from working all the live long day and then making room in the liquor cabinet for new gin?

ONLY COOKING MY FACE OFF IS WHAT.

Yeah. I've cooked some stuff recently that was rul good. 

And I baked a thing that was rul good. 

And I have a crush on a new vegetable. 

Because that's a thing a person can have - a crush on a vegetable. It's called love, people, and I encourage you to try it.

In my case, I have Bubba and Jada and life and this muther fucking parsley:

It's as big as my fork, milder than your typical parsley and, after a light frost, is just a little bit sweet so that you go, "WHATTHA YUM?" when you first try it.

Everyone, I'd like you to meet the fourth member of our love square - Giant of Italy parsley. 

And before you get all, "You can't love parsley like you love Bubba..." and other nonsensical shit, do remember that I tend to get a little overexcited about vegetables. 

I mean, right?

You know I sort of have a thing for growing vegetables. 

And I have tasted a lot of types of parsley and grown a lot of types of parsley, so it's not like I just tried it for the first time and declared it the soul-fillingest parsley of all time. 

It's totally not like that. 

Because, until I just had this parsley the other night with butternut squash ravioli I awesomely froze for myself a few months ago, I just grew parsley because it was an herb I chopped up and put in the base of every soup and meatloaf and meatballs and a billion other things I make because parsley is a standard.

If by "Standard", I mean "BITCHIN", which I do.

Or am I the only one that puts parsley in everything? Is this maybe a personal problem I have? Is it possible that I don't really want to lay down my life for this variety of parsley now that I've enjoyed its riches in my mouth which sounds really really bad?

No, none of that can be right.

Mostly because it sounds absolutely lewd.

And, while I do love this parsley, I don't want to, like, marry it or something.

I just want to eat it with every meal. 

Or whatever. I'm sort of a slut for food lately because I keep getting really good stuff from work and then from my garden and then my lovely Bubba who announced that he'd like a chocolate cake which prompted me to (accidentally) find the world's most incredible chocolate cake recipe.

So yeah, fuck vegetables for one second - chocolate cake.

That's the real story here.

Just you try to look away. IT'S AN UNDOABLE THING.

Firstly, I'll warn you that the recipe is from Cook's Illustrated, so while 100% awesome and worth it, you need to be prepared to dirty every tool in your kitchen twice and have to do dishes in between projects.

Because this recipe is a total project.

Like, I had a strategy going into it (make the frosting first, put it in the fridge to firm up, THEN bake the cake, etc)(hey, that's a strategy!)(Shut up.) and there was proprietary shopping involved and then there was lying down with a cocktail involved after I finished baking and frosting this cake. 

Sort of took it out of me, all of that mid-stream dish doing. 

But I can say that it's the best chocolate cake I've ever tasted, Bubba nearly flushed his wedding ring down the toilet when he took his first bite and declared he loved it more than anything in the world and even my not-sweets-eating boss was "stoked" on it. 

The only things I did off-recipe were to bake it in a 9x12 glass dish as a sheet cake rather than as cupcakes, not try to fill the thing awkwardly with ganache and then I put a bit of this awesome vanilla bean baker's salt on top. 

Then Bubba pledged his love to me (as long as the cake is joining us) for the rest of his life. Again. Because he did already do that once when we got married. Before I learned how to make this cake. So, like, I know he didn't just do it for the cake.

Can you imagine?

Anyway, I am also going to shill like the shilliest shiller from shilltown right now:

HOLY SHILL

Yeah. I grew that. 

And, FOR TESTING PURPOSES ONLY, I brought it home from the farm to make sure that it was, um, shelf stable - yeah, that's it - and also edible. 

"Edible" is the lamest word for this basil.

Then I felt crazy and like a seasonal cheater when I actually went into a grocery store (FRIGHT) and bought sweet red bell peppers. 

In winter. 

Like a total traitor. 

I mean, they're still organic and they're actually from our ranches in Mexico, but eating bell peppers in winter feels wrong and naughty.

So, spank me. Because my enchilada peppers are THE FUCKING MOST.

At least I put some of the cilantro from work on top. Ripped it out of the ground myself earlier in the day. 

And also some of these chives.

Gee. Hope there's enough for the harvests.

So yeah, cooking, working, eating, skiing Utah, riding and running the Santa Cruz mountains, emptying and refilling the liquor cabinet, repeating - that's what's been going on over here. 

Lest you think all we do is fuck with the fish.

Come at me, bro.