Happy First Tomato Day.

Please just stop everything you're doing and look at this tomato.

Because that's what we did when we saw this, the first tomato of the season, apparently ripe and ready on the vine as we were packing to go out of town on Saturday.

We stopped all the packing and laundry doing and annoying-shit-that-you-have-to-do-to-get-ready-to-go-out-of-town and stared at this thing.

I weighed it in my hand and squeezed it a bit and when a bit of juice hit my finger because YEEK it was starting to split at the bottom from its immense size, I picked it.

Good thing I work out.

Then Bubba proclaimed, "Well, get the bikes. We must go get mozzarella for this."

Obviously.

Sadly, the Italian deli we love so much and for once was actually open (how authentic) had many delicious things (including a meatball sandwich that I SWEAR serenades me from afar) but no fresh mozzarella, so we had to settle for grocery store "fresh" mozzarella packed in that cloudy water, but DON'T FEAR, the tomato held so much goodness, it would have been good with a thick slice of doody.

 Not that I'd ever DO that. But you know.

Thankfully we didn't have to go to such extremes.

No. Instead we invited over a few neighbors, declared First Tomato Cocktail Hour and sliced up our first biggie with mozzarella, basil, olive oil and, obviously, cocktails.

Also, did I say, "Biggie"? Why, yes. Yes, I did.

Now, I don't know what kind of tomato this is, specifically, because it was labeled as Black Krim and is obviously not a Black Krim, but I do know that when the first tomato weighs in at well over a full pound you can actually do a caprese appetizer for 6 people.

Not that it lasts a really long time, but everyone becomes happy and many more cocktails are required because, yes, I do believe this means that summer is here.

It is possible that I celebrated First Tomato Day a bit too enthusiastically because when we got up to leave for our out-of-town going on Sunday morning, I did so with a festive little hangover reminiscent of tomato and cucumber.

Whatever! The first tomato has now come and gone, leaving two more waiting for me when we get home.

And then, if everyone else starts to get in line, many many more so that later I can do a bit of freaking out about WHAT THE F TO DO WITH ALL THESE TOMATOES even though you know I already have plans.

In which I likely offend most people [Recipes]

I realized this week why I love Asian cuisine - the inclusion of pork.

I mean, on the surface, it seems to be mostly heaps of vegetables and rice or noodles or whatever (please, stand back quietly while I make sweeping assumptions, kay), but there's always at least a little meat sneaked in there for good measure.

I like that!

I don't especially like how there tends to be an egg cracked over every damn thing, but thankfully I don't have to do that when I cook in my own house. Bubba and I don't so much *do* the Crack An Egg Over My Dinner thing and always have to do an especially elaborate interpretive NO EGG PLEASE dance when we go to our favorite Korean BBQ place because if you look away for one second, I swear it, they will crack an egg over even your beer.

You Koreans - you're awesome! Your food is incredible! You're fabulous! Just, easy with the fucking eggs already, kay? We're soft Americans. We can't handle your acceptance of eggs as your lord and savior just yet.

Moving on.

This week I tried out a few new Asian inspired dishes. I wouldn't necessarily call them "traditional" or necessarily derived straight from any particular genre of Asian cuisine, but I just have to say that so I don't get a bunch of lip about, "OH THAT'S NOT REAL VIETNAMESE FOOD, YOU WHORE." and whatever.

I know it's not.

Relax.

I've been instructed by my Vietnamese friends on the proper pronunciation for pho and have been advised that not every dish is wrapped in lettuce, so shhhhhhhhh.

The first dish on the test drive list this week was a recipe from Sunset for Sizzling Saigon Crêpes: Bánh xèo. If you can pronounce the Vietnamese name for this then whoopee for you. I can not. I will require further instruction. Though you shouldn't necessarily provide it. I'm happy in my ignorance for now.

I had Tuesday off from work and decided this would give me some time to try out this new and unknown dish. Which it would have had I not decided to piss away half the day drinking tea out in the garden staring at the first ripening tomato. 

So, instead of making this at an extremely leisurely pace, I started it late and I think we ate around 9pm. Oh well, it happens.

Good thing was that this was GREAT. I mean, ruuuuuuuuuuuully good. And it uses a shit ton of vegetables, so I got to clear out the last of the lettuce in the garden, prune back the basil to normal heights, use up some of the onions and chives from the farmshare and pick the 5th, 6th and 7th jalapenos. Plus, I got to use a good bit of the rice flour that's been taking up valuable space in my baking cabinet since I discovered those chocolate beet cake things.

The all-knowing Sunset magazine says that this, in its homeland, is known as a table salad, but I'll just say that we ate it like one might eat tacos. Which is something with which we're a more bit more experienced, living in NorCal and all.

Basically, take a piece of lettuce, add a bit of crepe, pile on some herbs, wrap and dip in the sauce. *SMACK* That's good.

And the sauce? I could drink this sauce.

And nothing like a taco, but that's OK.

Beauty is that these aren't fruity crepes like you get at those crepe type places where they just wrap a crepe around whatever filling (which is also good, but still), but instead like an egg-less (YAY) omelet that's got pork, onions, chives, mushrooms and bean sprouts all in the batter and therefore INSIDE the crepe.

Hell yes, people.

And, since I didn't make any changes to the recipe since this was its first time out of the gates (therefore, all recipe instructions must be followed), you can just see what Sunset has to say on the subject.

The other thing I made that had, as its main motivating factor, the ability to kill massive quantities of farmshariness, was a Thai-type wrap (in that it had a spicy peanut sauce spread in it) with a French-inspired Provencal (insert the funny C in there, my keyboard doesn't have it) vegetable soup.

I realize France is not in Asia - you don't have to clear that up in the comments, but thanks.

I would have done my favorite Tom Kha Gai (thai chicken coconut soup) with the wraps, but I used all the mushrooms for the crepes, so sorry, instead we get a French-ish soup. Happens.

With this menu I managed to kill 4 kohlrabi bulbs, a bunch of carrots, purple beans from the garden, a bag of snap peas from my mom's garden and a good bit of pesto from last year's harvest. YAY!

Also, we're nearly to the bottom of the chili garlic sauce that we affectionately call chicken sauce, which is an accomplishment in itself for two very not-Asian whiteys like we are.

The recipe for the wraps is also from Sunset, but since I totally jacked with the Provencal Vegetable Soup recipe, I'll write that one out for you all longhand and what not.

Enjoy.

Finny's French-ish Vegetable Soup

Recipe by moi. Obvi.

Ingredients

4 small kohlrabi bulbs, peeled and cut into 1" chunks

1 cup of string beans, trimmed and halved

1 medium carrot, coined

1 chicken breast, cut into 1" chunks

15 oz cannellini beans, drained and rinsed well

2 cups of chicken or vegetable broth

1 cup of water

2 T pesto

2 T shredded Parmesan

Salt, pepper - you know what to do

To make

Bring the broth(s) to a boil over medium-high heat, dump in the chicken and let it simmer for about 5-7 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Add the beans, string beans, carrot, kohlrabi and water and let it simmer for another 10 minutes. Serve with a tablespoon of pesto stirred into the warm soup with some Parmesan, salt and pepper on top.

Alright, that's as many people as I'm prepared to offend for the day.

OYW : Sew Along 2010 : July/August

Hey Donk,

Somehow I made it to July without trying out that other tank pattern, but I just want to put it on the record that the only reason I didn't make it was because I ran out of bias tape on the first one and I think you know that I'm not making bias tape even though I have one of those OH IT'S SO EASY TO USE bias tape maker gadgets because IT'S STILL A PAIN IN THE ASS.

Right.

So, I still want to make that tank because I have the perfect fabric for it, but alas, it waits. I must procure bias tape. Which means I must get over to my favorite sewing shop so that I may finger all the tapes. Of course, I could just be buying them online, but somehow that's alluded me until now.

Whatever!

It's a new month, or months rather, and so we have new projects and a recipe to de-stash your fridge/garden.

Which, OH MUTHER, do I need right now. Geesh.

Our farmshare and my garden are conspiring to bury me beneath strawberries. Which isn't the worst thing that could happen I suppose, unless you're buried under there for more than, say, a day, at which time it would become The Worst because ew.

How can something so tasty smell so foul after just a few hours at room temp? Seriously, that's gnarliness. And sort of incredible.

Anyway, I have a recipe for that and you have two new projects and before we go too much farther into this rambling post, we have a winner from May and June!


okgirl2010 made a perfect rendition of the pintucked top and then, because she's obviously aware of my soft spot for WTness, staged her final photos to play into my weakness what with the plastic hanger and all.

For the record, SHE called it WT, not me. Originally anyway.

Nicely played, friend. Now send me your mailing address to finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom and I'll send you a prize worthy of your great WTness.

And for those of you waiting beneath a pile of strawberries for salvation - here's your recipe:

Strawberry Salad

Recipe by moi

Makes 6 servings

Ingredients
2 bunches of loose leaf lettuce, washed and chopped  (about 6 cups)
1 pint of strawberries, hulled and sliced
1/2 c pecans, chopped
1/4 cup Parmesan, sliced thin
4 T champagne vinegar (or other mild white vinegar)
3 T olive oil
Salt and pepper to your taste

Pile the strawberries, pecans and Parmesan on top of the salad greens, pour the dressing over the top and toss.

And, it sounds like Kelli's chosen Elodie the Elephant and someone's (mine - I'm very subtle AND modest) Not-Ugly Car Trash Bag for this month's projects.

So, there's that.

We've got two months until photo pool time (meaning upload your photos by August 31st), so get to making and either amusing a child (or yourself? Do you still have stuffed animals on your bed? Is that awkward when you bring home a dude? Just saying.) or cleaning out your trashy car.

Not that you necessarily have a trashy car, but if I get in there and have to kick cigarette boxes or old tissues out of the way to sit down, I'm going to have to advise you on your car's trashiness status.

I'll be watching you.

OH! And I nearly forgot - if YOU forget what projects and recipes we've got going for the month(s), I added a Sew Alongs tab to the top bar of my blog, so you can just real quick like go over there and see what we're supposed to be doing. And there's a link to the photo pool and everything for, like, quick reference and whatnot.

What's not there, however, are all the details from all of the sew alongs Kelli and I have done. Yet. I'm working on it.

Now go clean out your car.

xo
Finny

Unclassifiably good 4th of July

Redneck

meets Hippie

meets Wine Country

meets Dog Park

Your hosts may be drunk when you show up and it may be an all-outdoors, shoes not required kind of party, but when you leave, you will be full of authentic KC BBQ, locally crafted beer, organic produce and have a few new friends of the human and canine varieties.

Unfortunately, no one has come up with a term for this kind of fete yet, so we're stuck calling it, "Redneck", and then enjoying the surprise on people's faces when they're handed an actual plate, cloth napkin and silverware for their brisket and beans, stemware for their wine and reusable plastic cups for their beer.

I guess we're just contrary that way.

Happy 4th, y'all. Or is it, "you fine Americans"? Or maybe, "Fight the establishment!"? Or, for lack of a better term, "Woof!"?

You know what I mean.

Gardenblahblahblah goes purple

Dudes! It's been a really long time since I did the gardenblahblahblah and wow are there things to blahblahblah about. Garden-wise, anyway.

Last we met, I think I was worried about the potatoes dying a strange and mysteriously bug-free death for no reason. Yes, that was it. Well, I received some helpful advice from that post which I took as, "Hey, smartie, those plants aren't diseased, they're dying back. As in - the potatoes are getting ready for you to eat. So stop freaking out. Loser."

Even though I'm sure that's not what cake meant when she left the comment, but this is how I interpret things when I go on the internet to research their viability and then WHOA am faced with the truth of the situation. That being that my plants look exactly like the ones in the photos I found which are photos of potatoes dying back and preparing to be harvested.

OH.

So, they're small and the photo's out of focus. What do you want? Also remember, these are fingerlings, so they're supposed to be small.

Thank you, cake, for the direction. Muchly appreciated.

So, because I was so sure that this was the case with my Not Actually Dying potatoes, I went out and dug a few up. And don't you know that they were fine. Not huge, but tasty and fine. We ate them with some fish and beans and squash last Sunday and called ourselves Healthy for the night even though we had gone on a Taco Ride earlier in the day and scarfed our body weight in tacos al pastor.

Not important! Now we're eating vegetables and are saved.

Sorta Potato Salad. Recipe forthcoming.

And since we didn't die, I'm calling it good on the potatoes. Though you may be interested to know that NOW they are blooming and their greenery is growing back in places, so part of the plant may be having a mid-life crisis and part of it may be dying back, but soon all of it is going to get knocked over so that the Deal Seeing can be done.

As in, "What's the fucking deal, here, potatoes?"

You know.

And then there's the tomatoes. We have no problems with the tomatoes except for the fact that it's T minus 3 days until 4th of July, our annual First Tomato of the Season eating day, and none of the tomatoes are ripe. Because of the super extra cool, rainy and FRUSTRATING spring.

I'd be all pissed off and on fire if this one didn't look like it was starting to ripe right now.

Trust me. It's turning orange-y on that fat part in the front there. Really.

Beauty is that there are manyMANY more tomatoes on those three plants (down one from last year), so we should have plenty of tomatoes this season as long as my newest garden nightmare (which I have because I'm a garden loser) doesn't come true. That being - I walk out to the garden and find a stranger pointing at the plants, which are suddenly brown and lifeless, yelling, "Blight! Blight!"

I woke up screaming. Obvi.

And then I had to explain my "problem" to Bubba and then I started screaming again. It was terrible.

Anyway, I immediately went out to check on the plants and they all look fine. Green and not ripe, but fine otherwise.

Phew.

Then I had the nerve to go poking around the cucumber plants and LO there was a monster lurking in there.

"Why, hello deh, purty lady."

Not sure how he managed to get so huge since all the other baby cucumbers are baby-sized, but there he was, just dangling there like he was waiting for his fluffer or something.

And did you know that my green beans are purple? They are. And it's not even the result of some fucked up trick by the camera or anything. They are purple pole beans, growing all cute and happy alongside my Kentucky Wonder green beans and I can now vouch for their deliciousness because we've eaten them twice and neither time did they taste like fake grape even though that's what they look like they should taste like.

What?

Grilled Purple Beans recipe forthcoming, too.

Never mind. The important things to note with these beans are:

• They're purple rather than green.
• Their flowers are pink rather than white.
• When you cook them they turn back to green.
• The purple doesn't rub off.
• They're green on the inside

You laugh, but people have asked about all these things.

And now that you've learned so much in one day, I give you all permission to have a cocktail on me. Or just go on about your day. Enjoy.

Running update: Now 100% More Random

Without an event looming in my future, my running life is pretty random.

I mean, it's not like I stop my Supah Technical schedule of 2x/week tempo runs and 1x/week shortish-long runs, but my End Goal About Which I Fantasize Constantly during actual training for an actual booked event is non-existent.

Because I don't have an actual booked event. Yet.

I was *thisclose* to hitting the Register button for the upcoming Jungle Run 10K, but then got an email from Bubba asking me, all subtle-like, if I would maybe-possibly-if-I'm-free want to go sit in a luxury box at the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby in Anaheim this year.

It was very literally a race to see whether I'd reply, "FUCK YEAH", or shit my pants first.

The reply won by a narrow margin.

I then realized that we'd be traveling for the half-week of baseball-related festivities on the day of the Jungle Run, so that snuffed out those running plans and nothing else has really caught my eye since. I mean, yes, I'll do a turkey trot somewhere this year, but that's not until the end of November (obv), so clearly I'll need something before then.

But what? Any ideas, party people?

Just so you know, here are some of my race requirements: (Yes, I have many needs. You just don't know the half of it.)

1. Should be located within a 25 mile radius of San Jose, CA
2. Should begin between the hours of 6-8am
3. Should not include the following words in its event name: Mountain, Death, Marathon, Tri or Ultra
4. Should not include other sports unless the other sport is cycling or pie-eating
5. If it's a trail run - it shouldn't be longer than a 5K (for now, I have to try this once at least. GIVE ME A BREAK, ALREADY.)
6. If it's a road race - it should be shorter than a half marathon because you already know I'm not doing one of those this year as a rule.

That's all I can think of now, but you know there are more so I just want to warn you for whatever reason. And now you can share your suggestions.

Also random in my running life has been this new and exciting twinge of pain in my left Achilles tendon. It's not pleasant and began rearing its naughty head as soon as I hit the road after my duathlon. So, I ran "quietly", as I like to tell myself, to see if I could figure out what was causing this pain. When "quiet" (which is just me running without the mind-numbing distraction of my iPod and traffic) returned zero answers, I took a hard look at my stretching routine. But, my stretching routine has not changed or wavered, so that didn't help much either. Though I did have a nice stretch on our new patio which I'm sure was great entertainment for my judge-y neighbors.

I finally decided it must be the shoes. Because they are oldish and have turned that tell-tale shade of gray/brown that comes from spending a lot of time racking up miles and kicking up road gack while training for races and what not.

So I got new shoes (no thanks to the Brooks people, yet) and my run this morning felt mostly twinge-free.

And while I was buying new shoes, I also got a new running top in a shade I like to call, "If You Hit Me While I'm Wearing This, There Will Be No Mercy On You In Court."

Also handy is its silky breathiness, which is barely a pair of words, but I think you get what I'm saying. However, by the end of my short tempo run (3 miles) the thing had sort of stretched out even though it wasn't tight to begin with. I imagine that after a longer run, like, say 6 miles or more, it'd start to take on the characteristics of a startling evening gown.

In other It's Broken So I Guess I'll Get a New One AGAIN news, I got another iPod.

My most recent iPod, the generation 3 Nano (?)(you know, the square one), crapped out and would only let me skip forward in my playlist and wouldn't go back to the beginning of my playlist no matter how many swears I lobbed in its general direction. I even tried throwing it on the ground, which did nothing.

Why doesn't that ever work?

If anyone's keeping count, though I'm not sure how or why you would, this would be my 6th iPod, a fact that shames me to no end.

Seriously. I am not one of those Mac humpers who lives and dies by the white apple. I just need to be able to run with tunes plugged into my ears and this is the easiest way to do so. I mean, sure, I could get a Zune or other random knock-off MP3 player, but I just don't have the energy or desire to go back out into the world of over-priced music media players to source one.

So, alas, I bought another Nano (this time in awesome orange, which made me feel a *little* bit better about the purchase) and have since shoved my running playlist on there and begun to mull the possible uses for its built-in video recorder, which I find to be a mostly useless addition that made my purchase needlessly expensive.

Whatever. Perhaps I'll be able to video the fight I'll inevitably get into with someone who tries to run me down with their car even though I'm wearing a safety orange running top. Or homeless people having sex on Los Gatos Creek Trail.

Ew.

OK - that's as much random running bullshit as you need for one day. I'm sure of it.

The Farmshare Project: Week 12 [Recipe]

This is me trying to catch up on this project which I laid out for myself not realizing it was going to be so friggen hard to keep track of.

Seriously, they're just vegetables, why do they lead such complicated lives?

To keep up with my vegetables' gallivanting lifestyles, and also to help anyone out there trying to figure out what the F to do with a ton of kale/strawberries/you decide, I added a tab to the blog here that has a long and running list of recipes and posts by vegetable.

Yeah, like THAT was a good idea. Sheesh. Didn't think it was going to be so hard to compile, but apparently I run off at the mouth pretty much all the time about these vegetables, so there was a lot of linking to do. Forgive me if all the links aren't 100% perfect yet because it's going to require some fine-tuning for which I'm not quite yet prepared (or drunk enough).

For now though...

[IT'S PHOTO IMAGINATION WEEK! Yay.]

[I can't find the photo even though I *KNOW* I took it.]
[Sorry.]

Last week's box had:
Arugula
Mix of Baby Asian Greens
Avocados
Beets
Broccoli
Carrots
Garlic
Red Russian Kale
Collard Greens
Lettuce
Radishes French Breakfast
Strawberries
Summer Squash

And their fate was:
We ate them
Broccoli: Broccoli noodle salad (recipe below), Fresh Spring Rolls
Carrots: Broccoli noodle salad (recipe below), Fresh Spring Rolls
Lettuce: Giant salad
Radishes: Giant salad
Strawberries: Strawberry smoothies
Summer Squash: Sauteed with previously stored farmshare onions and garden herbs for a side dish

We left them at the site because UGH ENOUGH ALREADY
Collard Greens


We stored them and they're still edible
Avocados
Beets
Garlic

We "stored" them and they're in the composter now
Arugula
Mix of Baby Asian Greens

From left to right: Fresh Spring Rolls, Steamed Vegetables for Broccoli Noodle Salad, Noodles for Broccoli Noodle Salad, Giant Salad

Broccoli Noodle Salad

Recipe by moi

Ingredients

Broccoli, 1 head cut into florets

1 large carrot, shredded

1 handful of string beans, halved, tips removed (optional)

1 serving of rice vermicelli noodles

4 t fish sauce
2 T fresh lime juice
1 clove garlic, minced
2 T sugar
1/2 t garlic chili sauce

Noodle salad

Prepare vermicelli according to package directions and don't forget to rinse with cold water and set aside to drain well.

Steam broccoli, carrots and beans for 5-7 minutes or until tender crisp and not limp. Rinse in cold water and set aside.

Sauce
Whisk together fish sauce, lime juice, garlic, sugar and chili sauce in a large bowl. Then dump in noodles and steamed vegetables. Toss until noodles and vegs are completely coated with the sauce and allow to stand briefly for the flavors to get all mingley.

Eat with chopsticks if you're feeling exotic or with your feet if you're feeling grody yet coordinated.

Enjoy.

A rarely worn hat

I'm dusting off my rarely worn Cat Lady hat today so that I can describe for you the ongoing aggravation with our feisty cat, Rocket, and how I may die a mysterious death so I need to enlist you all as witnesses.

As you may remember from the few rare posts I've done about Rocket over the years, she is not what you might consider to be a pleasant animal.

She's pretty and fluffy as all hell, but don't be fooled - she is a monster.

A monster with a taste for Vet Face.

How so? Oh, let me just give you a quick list of examples. When you read these, go ahead and multiply their occurrence by 100 and their bloodletting by 1,000:

•  When I was in college and dipping my toe into the dangerous waters of self-administered depilatories, she caught a whiff of Nair and went 100% bonkers tearing through my house like someone had lit her tail on fire. (I had not.)(Though I considered it after I saw the damage she did on her tear.) In her ammonia-inspired rage, she tore 3 framed posters (classy) off the walls, overturned 2 chairs, knocked the (very full) trash can over and hissed at her litter box. When I tried to restrain her pick her up to calm her, she filleted both of my forearms so dramatically that I still have scars. That was 12 years ago.
  
• Once, when Bubba tried to get her into the cat carrier, she magically doubled in size, began grunting like a wild boar and shit a giant pile on the floor. When Bubba finally captured her with the help of two sofa cushions and a beach towel, she still managed to wriggle free a single hind claw with which she, nearly literally, sliced him a new one. When they arrived at the vet, they actually treated him first because he was actively bleeding. Or maybe because they were just afraid of her. And rightfully so.
  
• When I went to pick her up from the aforementioned vet visit, the vet tech approached me in the waiting room after I'd been sitting there for 20 minutes to ask me if I could please come retrieve Rocket from the kennel because she "wouldn't come out". When I went back to see what all the fuss was about, two women with towels were standing back from an open kennel and covering their mouths in horror while the inhabitant of said kennel hissed like a loose cobra, my dear Rocket.

 Really, friends, I could go on. For days.

She is a beautiful, cuddly looking cat without front claws who is slow as all hell and uncoordinated to the point where she can hardly be categorized as a cat anymore, but if you approach her with any intention of affection beyond, perhaps, scratching her between her ears or feeding her a raw bloody brisket, she will rip your face off. Or at least make a hearty attempt.

Well, she would have up until about 6 months ago.

See, this cat, she has started to slow down. She's just about 13 now, which I didn't think was *that* old for cats, but her stride tells me differently. She's very slow. She's awkward and uncoordinated. She doesn't really jump anymore. She runs only to beat the dog into the house or to her food. And she just always looks uncomfortable. Like her bones are creaky.

She reminds me of an old lady.

So, because I try to be a somewhat diligent pet owner, I decided to take her to the vet. For a, like, check-up or something. I say, "or something", because this cat hasn't had a check up in a long time. Like, years? I don't know. She's an indoor-mostly cat and so I've not had any call to put Bubba or myself in harm's way just so that we can transport her to another place and put other people in harm's way. And when I say, "harm", I mean, of course - Rocket.

So what I'm used to are dog check-ups. Because the dog is a social being who accompanies me to work and out walking the neighborhood and to the beach and mountains and other places where she comes in contact with cooties, ticks, rabid wild snowmen and the like. So, she needs check-ups and shots and chicken baby food from the jar because our vet is very sweet like that. Then they coo and fuss over her because she's "perfect!", has the "heart of a marathon runner!", is "the ideal weight", "so sweet", "beautiful", "so young for her age" and so on. It's lovely. Jada loves going to the vet. They give her treats, cuddle her and afterward I walk her down to the dog bakery (yes, this is California, we have these things) and let her pick out a toy or something gay like that.

I'm a social butterfly.

Rocket though? Totally different story. A bad story. That has to start with putting her in the cat carrier, and you know how that goes.

Thankfully, sort of, her Cat Carrier Ferocity has mellowed over the years a bit. And my neighbors (oh how they've saved me) loaned me their top-loading carrier for the transporting of said face-ripping beast. It helps. A lot. And I think it helps that she is slow and creaky, so doesn't put up a fight. She's not wild about me picking her up, but she is slow enough that I can move my delicate parts of the way of her swinging claws before they can open up my forearms.

Well, all of this alleged mellowing of old age has done me a fat lot of good because OH YAY, I've come to find out that, after 3 rounds of orally administered antibiotics, she has been acting a hero but is still infected with an unkillable cootie and now requires subcutaneous antibiotics daily for 6 weeks.

Not know what subcutaneous antibiotics are? Yah, I didn't either.

It's a fancy word for, "You're going to have to inject drugs under the cat's skin with a needle. Every day. For six weeks."

A cat whose life mission is to slice me open and display my innards like one might a frog in 7th grade science class. A cat who has terrified hundreds of people in her 13 year lifespan and rendered seasoned vet techs to quivering messes with her well-seasoned low growl. A cat more raccoon than feline, more wild than domestic, more teeth than fur.

And I get to shamble up to her on a nightly basis and jam a needle in her scruff.

I'll let that sink in for a minute.

Good times, right? Something to get off the couch for, right? Wrong.

So I guess what I'm saying is that, of all the hats I might wear on a day to day basis, this isn't my favorite.

Oh, and if you don't hear from me for a few days, Call. The. Police. - Rocket did it.

The Farmshare Project: Week 11 [Recipe]

Rest your weary imaginations, friends, this week I have photos.

I mean, not photos of every single thing I made with the farmshare, but you know, some old favorites that you've been in charge of imagining for a few weeks now. I didn't want to risk burning out your brains, so I decided to suck it up and crack out the camera for a moment.

I'm the nicest. It's OK, you can say it. I won't get a big head.

So THAT is what a carrot looks like! All this time I imagined them round.

Last week's box had:
Bunch of Chard
Bag of Fava Beans
Bag of topped Red Beets
Bunch of Broccoli
Bunch of Onions
Baskets of Strawberries
Lettuce
Bunch of Carrots
Bunch of Fennel
Bag of Oyster Mushrooms
Mystery Item which turned out to be cabbage and squash

And their fate was:
We ate them
Bunch of Broccoli: Broccoli noodle salad
Bunch of Onions: Chopped on hot dogs (oh yes, we're WT), grilled with fish
Strawberries: Strawberry rhubarb crisp
Lettuce: Salads of many varieties
Bunch of Carrots: Broccoli noodle salad
Bag of Oyster Mushrooms: In pasta primavera
Cabbage: Asian coleslaw
Squash: Fresh spring rolls

We abandoned them appropriately:
Bunch of Chard

We stored them:
Bag of Fava Beans
Bag of topped Red Beets
Bunch of Fennel

And because it's summer now and YAY my awesome neighbors returned from their Midwest pilgrimage with their mom's homegrown rhubarb (For me? I couldn't! I mean, GIVE IT.) I made strawberry rhubarb crisp which is the best fruit-based dessert in the whole world and do not try to tell me differently.

I get very emotional about this, my favorite dessert of the year.

And, let it be known that my recipe is sort of a patchwork quilt from multiple Joy of Cooking recipes and my own pea brain. Just so you know that this recipe is not all my doing, but the way I put it together, it's *sort* of mine. In the sense that I lay claim to the whole thing when it's done baking and only let Bubba look at it out of the corner of his eye.

MINE.

Just kidding, I share. A little. But, in this rare instance, when he offers me the last bite from the dish (because you know only the first scoops are served on an actual plate and the rest are eaten from the Pyrex), I totally take it.

It's MINE.

With other desserts, I usually let him have it out with the remains in the pie dish and don't intrude because I like my limbs attached and don't want to risk a fork wound to the face just for the last bite of whatever cake/pie/cobbler is in his meaty hands.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

Recipe adapted from Joy's strawberry rhubarb pie filling recipe and apple crisp topping

Ingredients
Crisp
8 T cold butter, cut into small cubes
3/4 c all-purpose flour
2 T sugar
1 t salt


Filling
1 1/4 lbs rhubarb, chopped into 1" pieces
1 pint strawberries, topped, halved
1 c sugar
1/4 c flour


To make
Preheat the oven to 375

In a large bowl or 6 cup Pyrex if you want to be just like me, mix the filling ingredients together and then leave it out on the counter to macerate while you make the crisp.

And I don't call it a crisp topping because I hate the word topping when it comes to food. Sounds gross for some reason. Like the reason that I associate "topping" with Cool Whip and Cool Whip is gross. So, I just call it, "crisp", and I'm sorry if that confuses you but I'm sure you'll learn to deal.

Anyway. To make the CRISP - in a medium mixing bowl or the ample bowl of your 14 cup food processor, blend together everything for the CRISP except the butter and then cut in the butter until the mixture has the consistency of delicious gravel. Or peas. Or whatever the commonly accepted term is for how crisp topping (BARF) or pie crust should look before you throw it on top of your fruit filling and bake it.

Like this

Then pour your filling into a square glass dish, pour the CRISP over the top evenly and then tap it on the counter to make sure it all gets in there and such.

Then bake it for 45-50 minutes until the CRISP is golden and the filling is all abubblin' around the sides.

I considered taking a video of the bubbling but then I felt retarded so I stopped.

Once it's cooled below Nuclear Volcanic Death, scoop yourself out a slice and prepare your strategy for how you'll eat the rest of it before you YAY make another one because YAY AGAIN your neighbors brought enough homegrown rhubarb for two crisps and don't you know there will be more strawberries in next week's share.

And then the week after that and the week after that until...oh...OCTOBER.

Too bad rhubarb season is so short.

Enjoy. And feel free to fight for the last bite with a fork.

Fork Force!

Scary.

About those potato cooties, then.

I'm not really sure what happened with the potato plants that made them go from way bushy and thriving to less bushy and sucking, but there you have it.

                                                 Before                                                                            After

And since I've approached this whole potato growing thing with the lackluster methods of someone "experimenting" rather than "growing crucial sustenance", I'll admit to a certain amount of neglect.

Not that I haven't watered them, I have. I mean, the automatic sprinkler has, but the thing gets watered, so that's probably not the problem.

Here's my problem: brown leaves

But, I have begun thinking about the potato situation, as it were, and here are a few things that might have something to do with its recent decision to take its own life. Perhaps you can conjure up a rationale from these random clues:

• When it reached the top of the fourth tire, I said, "Eh, fuck it. That's as many tires as it gets. I can't be piling tires to the sky, and plus, we don't have any more tires so it's just going to have to live." So, perhaps it's stunted?
• The tires really retain a lot of heat, so maybe they're burning in there?
• When I started to feel guilty for restricting their tire allowance, I filled up the top tire to the brim with soil to give them a leeeeeeeeetle bit more room to grow. Maybe I crushed something important with all that soil?
• The soil I used was Topper leftover from Bubba's recent Master Lawn Growing experiment and I hear that has a lot of fertilizers in it so again, maybe it's burning the leaves?

Some other ideas from our cocktail hour brainstorm sessions:

• Space aliens have conspired to kill the potatoes
• Rocket did it
• The potatoes are cursed

 Any ideas you have are welcomed and I'll let you know how they fare as we go. For the record, the things are about to bloom right now, so my current plan is to continue not bothering them (ie. neglect), let whatever branches want to bloom, bloom and then when the plants die back completely, which they now have a head start on doing yay, I'll knock over the tire tower and see what's going on. 

There are still parts of this plant that want to live.

Of course, there are other evils that can be determined once you have the potatoes out of the soil, but a lot of those are bug-related and none of the bug-related symptoms I've found on the internets look anything like what's happening to these plants. And I haven't seen any bugs in, on or around these plants.

Oh, and yesterday when I thought the cause of the leaf brownage could be fertilizer burn, I went out and soaked the plants in a half-assed attempt to "flush" the fertilizer from the soil. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't expecting a miraculous rebirth this morning when I went out to check on the plants because I was.

There was no miraculous rebirth.

OK - go on and diagnose my potato problem now...GO go GO...

But first, some good garden news that doesn't involve dying leaves or cootie-carrying aliens:

My tomatoes are getting big

The beans have reached the top of their tepee and are setting their first fruit from SURPRISE purple flowers

The lettuce is positively bushy and delicious

The tomatillos are tangoing effectively

Apples, nasturtium, limes and artichokes are at the top of their game

And both cuke plants are doing what cucumbers do best: Taking over everyfuckingwhere

The melons, well, I took photos of them just because I took photos of everything else, but let's just leave it at one word: SLOW.

I also sneaked in a Moon and Stars watermelon seedling that has remained unphotographed because I keep forgetting it when I'm all enraged over WHY ISN'T THIS MUTHER EFFING JELLY MELON GROWING YET?

We're up to four leaves, folks. FOUR FUCKING LEAVES. GAH!

Ok, I'm over my hissy now. Mostly because I'm super excited about the purple podded beans (which I assume will turn purple when they're ripe? Right now they're green and the rest of the plant is purple. Weird.) and the Mexican Sour Gherkin cucumbers because they're weird *and* growing, which is how I prefer all plants behave.

So, have you figured out my potato problem yet? NO? Come on, people. What am I paying you for? Oh, right.