Fast Times on Jefferson Ave

This has been a strange weekend.

Yesterday bummed me out because it seemed the world was against me. I didn't go to yoga at the farmer's market, and then the YogaToday download that I purchased wouldn't play correctly! Then I went outside to take out the Sungold and Black Krim plants that weren't doing so hot, and I realized that the southern army worm issue had escalated into an infestation!

The past couple of weeks have been heartbreaking; every nearly-ripe tomato we had housed one of these gross worms. Ugh! I would check a tomato, hoping that it was clean, only to see the tail end of a worm disappear into it.

I realized the plants were all half dead, so I ripped them all out. Sadness! Now I have a pile of green tomatoes in our kitchen window.

This is in honor of one of our last ripe, clean brandywines. Although odd in appearance, it was super tasty!


I finished clearing out the tomato plants today. And I found that a parasitic wasp had valiantly done its duty on this villainous horned worm:


But back to yesterday...it stormed all afternoon, which meant a bike ride was out of the question. And the internet was out of commission! This double rainbow nearly made up for it all:

But last night, I found myself at the strangest place... the St. Louis Mills Outlet Mall. Porkchop wanted to practice hockey stops on her left side before today's practice, so I went with her and walked around the mall. It was exhausting. The Mills is HUGE. And there are all sorts of things that I find jarring...an indoor skateboard park, a glow-in-the-dark putt-putt course, loud people...I could go on.

Besides the horned tomato worm, today has been much better! I had a morning meeting at Mississippi Mud to review our neighborhood association's website. And then Porkchop and I walked to Benton Park Cafe for lunch. In the afternoon, I dried our last batch of Sungolds and Fox cherries:


And then two crazy things happened. First, a guy was urinating across the street from our house behind Save-a-Lot. This is just a minor crazy thing, but it riled me up a bit. Second, another guy plowed into a car parked in front of our house and sped away!! We ran out the door, but couldn't get his plate number. The bikers at the corner bar were all over this shit and chased after him, but were unsuccessful in finding him. About 10 minutes later, the police arrived. And then, as if it had been rehearsed, a woman in a pickup pulled up and asked, "Did this just happen? Was it a red car? Well," she continued as we eavesdropped in suspense, "it's parked by my house." The police took off, and then a police van arrived shortly thereafter. While the police captured the car, apparently the driver is still at large. But, still, neighborhood justice!

Lastly, fall is here! Even though it was 85 today and I still have melons ripening, I want to wear sweaters, drink cider, and walk through fallen leaves. October, here we come!

Grammarians Against Apostrophe Abuse

This is my new favorite t-shirt!

Because the iPhone camera leaves lots to be desired, I'll transcribe the text for you: Apostrophe's! Extra apostrophe's! Use 'em for plural's! One dollar!

It makes me happy. And it's from the Natalie Dee website (but drawn by someone else).

P.S. Tonight we go to Porkchop's 12-year graduation reunion (they missed the 10-year mark). It will be a small group, but it's large enough for me to be nervous. New people! Ack!

Things we're Doing

Keetah is snoozing on the doormat, Porkchop is reading Harry Potter (I know! Weird, right?!), and I just finished my class reading for this week.

That's right, I'm back in school!

I'm officially enrolled in MU's master's program in educational technology, with an emphasis on learning systems design and development. The first class is all about doing needs assessments, and then future classes will be about website design and development and learning theory. My goal is to get into the e-learning sector. We'll see what happens.

The program is all on-line, which might seem sketchy to you, but seems great to me. For one thing, if someone annoys me, I don't have to read their posts! And I don't have to attend 3-hour-long seminar classes. Brilliant! Sign me up! (Oh wait, I'm already signed up.)

Also, since it's through MU, I get to take advantage of a Tuition Settlement Scholarship. It's a long story about one of our fellow students suing the school for charging tuition disguised as "educational fees," when it was written into the university's charter back in 1839 that in-state students wouldn't be charged tuition. All this means is that I will receive $550 a year while taking classes. Woot.

Birthday Things
Porkchop turned 30 last week (as in August 21)! We had cake, lunch, opened presents, went to the zoo, grilled shrimp, and went to see The Time Traveler's Wife (better than I expected).

The cake was super delicious and from The Cakery (PS: their cakes freeze really well. We're currently enjoying a freshly defrosted piece):


I suppose Porkchop's favorite present is her iPhone:


I will begrudgingly admit that the iPhone does come in handy. Like when we're lying in bed and want to look up something on the internet, but we don't want to retrieve the laptop from downstairs. Now we just reach for the iPhone. So depending on how you look at things, it's either convenient or it encourages laziness.

Other Things
Over the weekend, I baked the tomato-corn pie posted on Smitten Kitchen. Can I say YUM! I love the biscuit crust (Porkchop made our crust)!


Last night was our neighborhood association's movie night. Just a few months ago, we never would have imagined that we would be hanging out watching Labyrinth with one of neighborhood's alderperson, but since I'm now the secretary for the association, that's exactly what we did!

I'm glad we're getting more involved with the neighborhood and meeting the people we live around (By the way, on the street behind us, there are three queer residences and there was another queer couple watching the movie. It seems we unintentionally moved into the gayborhood).

The movie was held in the front yard of one of the public schools that was recently closed. The closure of so many remarkable public school buildings saddens me so much. Here is the outside of the front entrance:


Apart from the A/C unit, how cool would it be to go to school with these gargoyles?! I looked around inside, and the school was pretty awesome. Amazing wood floors and built-in wooden cabinets and closets in the classrooms, and stained glass. Plus, this school is only four blocks from us! Now kids are being bussed who-knows-where.

Also attending movie night was the Fire and Ice Cream Truck!


A neighborhood couple turned an old fire truck into an ice cream truck, but they don't sell your normal ice cream. They sell Serendipity ice cream, Gus' pretzels, Fitz's sodas, and other local tasty items. You can also find the truck around the Arch grounds.

Well, another weekend has passed too quickly!

Check out These Melons

Besides tomatoes, I really wanted cantaloupes to grow in my garden. So far, they've proven slow and difficult to set. I think I'll be lucky to get a half dozen.

We ate this one last week:


It was a green meat melon, and deliciously sweet.

We have another cantaloupe and a honeydew coming along nicely on the vines:



And we have three of these little guys, too:


At this point, I'm not sure what kind these are; maybe the golden-on-the-outside, green-on-the-inside. I'm a bit worried about these because the vine is growing straight up the trellis, and I think the melons might not be supported adequately.

We also have a couple more butternut squash growing. This one is my favorite because it's so bulbous:


This is our current butternut squash family:


I might be a bit obsessed with the butternut squash.

In non-garden news, Porkchop and I went to Chicago a couple of weekends ago for an ice hockey tournament. Here's Porkchop suited up in her new team uniform:


And here she is on the ice (look for the red helmet):


Porkchop's team played really well, but didn't win any of the games. However, they held their own and Porkchop scored a goal in the second game! Pretty good for someone who hasn't played in a few years!

Porkchop's new team is a B-team, and since I'm used to watching C-level teams, I was surprised at the speed and physicality of the play. I actually watched the entire games instead of reading when Porkchop was off the ice! Of course, this sort of play meant Porkchop was checked and knocked down, which made me nervous.

After our Chicago trip, we finally finished painting the first floor. Ugh, I don't want to pick up a paint roller for long, long time!

We finished just in time for a series of visitors: Katie and Beth stopped by while visiting from Minneapolis, I have a friend coming in this weekend, and then my family comes for a short stay the weekend after that.

This Friday is Porkchop's 30th birthday! We both have the day off, and we plan on doing fun things around the city. For example, buying a bunch of shrimp and brining and grilling them. Yum!

Have a great week!

New-to-Me Restaurants

In my previous post, I forgot to mention a couple of restaurants that I tried recently.

First up, Crêpes in the City (Yelp link because it looks like they haven't renewed their domain name!). This place has been open for around a year, I think, but I never had a chance to go until I was serving on a jury last week (forgot to mention that, too. Also, Porkchop served on a jury recently as well.). Anyway, this meant I was conveniently within walking distance of the crepes.

And the crepes are so delicious! I would walk several miles for them! I had the Mediterranean (tomatoes, olives, artichokes, mushrooms, etc.) on a whole wheat crepe. The crepe was huge and packed with filling, and utterly lovely. I chose the whole wheat batter from the list of five possibilities (regular, herb, whole wheat, espresso, and chocolate, if I recall correctly). Batter choices! Nice!

Before, Rooster was my favorite crepe place. Now...I think it might be Crêpes in the City. Of course, I'll have to go back a couple of times to sample more...especially the dessert crepes.

Second, we had Sunday brunch at Benton Park Cafe. This cafe is super close to our house, but we just hadn't made it over there until now. They were packed, but since we sat outside, we didn't have to wait for a table. I had the California omelet, and Porkchop had the South of the Border burrito. We both had the loaded potatoes on the side. Thumbs up on everything! Tasty and good-sized portions! Oh, and they serve a slice of cumcumber in their water, which is all sorts of refreshing.

Put Up or Shut Up

Porkchop and I should be painting the office nook tonight, but instead we're resting. Of course, "resting" means that Porkchop made the most delicious dinner of local bratwurst with apples and onions, mashed potatoes, and roasted (homegrown) delicata squash (well, I did the squash, but it wasn't much work). And then we did dishes, picked tomatoes, and Porkchop did some paint clean up.

Here is the painting as it stood Sunday morning:


Woo! Bright colors! The colors in the two rooms are actually the same, but they look a little different. These rooms have now been touched up, and Porkchop put the first coat up in the bathroom - a lovely dark chartreuse which looks pretty darned good.

While painting this weekend, we also canned sweet pickles. A lot of them:


That's about 7.5 lbs of cucumbers. And they made 10 pint jars. Canning in progress:


Did I mention we made pickles?

That isn't the only canning we've been up to. Two weekends ago we went blueberry and peach picking:


We took the fruits and made blueberry-lime jam and peach butter:


I think we have 8 jars of the blueberry lime, and maybe 5 of the peach butter (which is amazingly delicious, oh yeah).

We've also been putting up tomato stuff: oven-dried tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, and tomato-basil dressing (which we also use as a pasta sauce). Oh, and I canned two pints of crushed tomatoes over the weekend. I also have designs on the butternut squashes ripening in the kitchen window. Last week I made a super tasty bisque with a squash, so I intend on making up and freezing a couple of batches. To get us through the long winter, you know.

Going back to tomatoes, we're in a bit of a lull right now. The cherry tomatoes and sungolds are still coming in, but I've picked the green zebra, black krim, marvel stripe, and brandywine clean. Now a second wave of baby tomatoes has started, and I can't wait for them to grow and ripen!

Here's the last black krim...it's a bit naughty looking, don't you think?


Oh, and the tomatillos are starting! Here's the first one:


What else...

We bought school supplies for a couple of neighborhood kids:


If you're in the neighborhood, I encourage you to do the same! The info is here.

That's all! Have a great week!

Nesting Dolls, Birthday Weekend, and Other Things

Okay, first up, who wants to order a set of nesting dolls?

Porkchop is an excellent nesting doll painter. For example, here's a set she made recently for friends of friends:


I don't have pictures of these folks, but believe me when I say these likenesses are amazing. Let Porkchop know if you want a set! Email her at porkchoppress (at) gmail (dot) com for pricing and other details. Sets aren't limited to 5 dolls, just so you know.

Birthday Weekend
Along with celebrating the birth of our great nation last weekend, we also celebrated my turning 31! We left Thursday afternoon for Madison, where we stayed with Porkchop's friend Patrick, who is starting the MFA program at the UW this fall. After a late night at the Weary Traveler, I had a hard time waking up for my breakfast date with old friend and former co-worker Darcie (who contributes to the Craftology 101 blog). I wasn't as bright-eyed as I wanted to be, but we still had a great time catching up and enjoying our Marigold breakfast. The next time I see Darcie, she might be living in Denver, which is all sorts of exciting (our breakfast also marked Darcie's last day at our former employer - woot!).

After breakfast, Porkchop and I left for Minneapolis. The day was perfect for driving...sunny skies, low humidity, a cool breeze, and Twilight on CD. Twilight was perfect for driving, but I don't recommend listening or reading it otherwise (Also, guess what's worse than the book...the movie! We watched it last night, and I can't believe how horrible it is!).

Upon arriving in MPLS, we went to Katie and Beth's apartment, which is actually two floors and the size of a house. It was our first time to visit K and B in their new city, and I'm so glad we made it up there. Being around K and B is like having my batteries recharged. We laugh, we talk about things, we have fun doing nothing. During one of our dinners, we talked about how, out of our 9 years of friendship, we only lived around each other for 1.5 of those years. So, those must have been really formative years because we're still good friends.

Anyway...without writing a novel, here's a bullet point summary of what we did:

• Visited farmers' markets!
• Walked around Mill Town. Pictures below are us at some mill ruins and watching a boat go through a lock:

• Ate good food! We enjoyed the following restaurants, all of which focus on organic and locally produced food: Birchwood Cafe, Spoonriver, Seward Community Cafe, and the Craftsman (where K and B treated us to a birthday dinner). We also enjoyed delicious ice cream from Izzy's (mmmm)! At Izzy's:

• On July 4th, we made pesto potato salad for a potluck hosted by K and B's friends. After eating, we walked over to Powderhorn Park and watched the neighborhood firework display. Everyone from the neighborhood watched the fireworks! It was so wholesome and Mayberry-ish, only the neighborhood was really diverse. It seems some people in MPLS think Powderhorn Park is a "rough" neighborhood...these people need to visit our neighborhood in St. Louis, and then we'll see if they still think Powderhorn Park is rough!
• Went to the Mall of America. Hey, everyone does it.
• Helped Katie buy a used 10-speed (actually a 12-speed).
• I finished one of my Facebook Making Things project for a friend who lives in MPLS (actually K and B's friend, and my friend by association). It's the sev(en)circle from the Assemblage blog. I was using stash and scrap yarn, so I made the loops different colors, and I really loved the end result:

I think that's it for MPLS! Super fun times!

Our 10-hour drive home on my birthday wasn't so fun, but fortunately we had Twilight for entertainment.

Porkchop gave me super great gifts! My favorite is my new lunch bag (this is a bad pic):


My tiffin and water bottle fit in it, and it's neoprene so my water bottle doesn't get anything wet. I also received this pack of 5 Envirosax and the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. My first loaf just came out of the oven! It doesn't look like the pictures in the book, but maybe it will still be tasty.

Garden Things
Upon our arrival home, I found a baby melon in the garden!

There are a few more little guys out there, which is very exciting.

We also found that our potato experiment didn't turn out well. St. Louisians will recall the crazy rains we had earlier this summer...these rains broke our potato plants and made them die early. We had hoped for the best, but this is our yield from our garbage can:


Murrr. Another garden lesson for us.

On a happier note, Porkchop came home a bit early on Friday and finished our strawberry and blueberry bed!


So awesome!!

Have a great weekend!

Six Month Review

The 64/40 Construction Countdown sign displayed 6 Months 0 Days this morning, which means it's time to check in on this year's goals. Here's the list with comments in bold:

• Plant my own vegetable garden! Done!


• Can my own food! Started with jam!


• Figure out my career. In progress! I'm applying to a part-time masters program...more on that when I'm actually taking classes.


• House maintenance: paint inside, paint the foundation, finish the drylocking in the basement, put up that additional downspout, fix up the backyard....this list could get quite long. Um, hmmm. Currently picking out paint colors for the first floor. House maintenance is hard.


• Learn how to knit Fair Isle-style. It is so time to do this. There are still six months left to do this.


• Do more baking! I've fallen behind this past year sadly. Sort of.


• Secret project with Porkchop. Maybe more details later. Still in planning phase.
  

In other news, check out my nautiloid!

It's going out to a friend as part of my Making Things 2009 project on Facebook.

Proudest Gardening Moment

Tomato success!!!


Our first Sungolds! YAYAYYAYAY!!!

I let a couple get a bit too ripe, but the others are firm and juicy and sweet. *yum*

I also picked some more pole beans this morning.


What else?

We made smoothies for breakfast, I'm making roasted garlic and rosemary bread, Porkchop's working on a corn chowder, and we're enjoying delicious sweet iced tea. It's extra delicious because Porkchop thought I said "around a cup of sugar," when I actually said "around a half-cup of sugar." It reminds me of the iced tea my Grandma Freeman made when we were young, only our tea isn't as sweet.

All in all, it's a good day for the hottest freaking day of the summer.

If it doesn't settle down to the high 80s tomorrow, I will be so sad.

Have a great weekend! Stay cool!

Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough

Who isn't listening to Michael Jackson right now??

Porkchop received a couple of voicemails with the news this evening. It's amazing what happens while you're going about minding your own business.

Michael Jackson had a weird, troubled life, and it's unfortunate it took the turn that it did. That said, MJ's songs are part of my childhood soundtrack, and I can't help feeling a little sad (Porkchop is a lot sad, maybe, but trying to not show it).

Soon after my family had cable hooked up, my mom signed us up for that crazy new station called MTV.

And then our lives changed.

My brother and I spent quite a few hours reenacting videos like Beat It and Billie Jean, and of course don't get me started on Thriller! Since our town's newspaper wasn't so great, we subscribed to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and we anxiously awaited to receive the issues which contained the MTV schedule for the Thriller video. Our mom made sure we turned on the TV at the right time!

I wasn't a big fan of Michael Jackson in his later years, but Porkchop introduced me to the Jackson 5 discography, and I now have the backing vocals of ABC and other hits engrained in my head.

Have you ever seen Porkchop dance to the Jackson 5? It's awesome.

Other Things

I'm enjoying working on this:


It's the nautiloid pattern from Knitty, and it's so fun to knit!

What else?

Just a couple more days until we have some ripe cherry tomatoes!! So exciting!

Using a gift certificate I received recently, we dined at Trattoria Marcella last night. For the $12.20 we paid after the certificate, it was a good meal. I would have been a bit disgruntled otherwise; not due to the food so much as to the service. For example, we sat and sat, and although we received water and yummy hot bread with a cannelini bean dip, there was never mention of our server. Servers walked around all about us, but no one approached. Finally, a guy showed up and explained there had been a "mix-up." We received our food in a timely manner, but our server seemed like he couldn't care less about us. My seared tuna was tasty, as was Porkchop's shrimp and rigatoni, but I didn't really feel welcomed at the restaurant or well cared for, and the food wasn't so astounding that I want to hurry back.

All for now!

rip rip rip

A few months ago, some very special yarn caught my eye. After searching for the perfect pattern, I decided to go at it on my own.

But nothing was working, so I decided upon a little elongated garter shawlette pattern.

I finished the shawlette over the weekend, and feel rather meh about it, so now of course I've found the perfect pattern for the yarn: this slipped rib scarf.

I purchased two skeins of the special yarn. One skein is knitted up in the shawlette, and about a quarter of the other skein is knitted up as a scarf that I abandoned when I started the shawlette. So...I see some ripping in my future.

What's a Yogini to Do?

For yoga this evening, I went to my beloved YogaToday after perhaps a 10-day absence. My, my, how things have changed!

New layout, new features, and a new pricing structure. Yep, we finally have to pay!

I've always said I would pay for YogaToday videos, but now I actually have to make the decision. Pony up the money, or find something else. (They will have one free video a week, but that can mean you're stuck with a novice class with Neesha, as I was tonight.)

Adi and Sarah are my favorite instructors ever - better than anyone with whom I've had an actual class. So...I might just do the $9.99/month unlimited subscription.

I know! Crazy! Spending money!

In other yoga news, I'm rather close to achieving mayurasana. I dreamt about it last night, and awoke inspired. More practice, more practice.

Have a great Friday!

Garden Goodies and Lessons Learned

All of this rain is helping our garden plump out nicely.

Like these pole beans! (And what might prove to be the last of the sugar snap peas.) Pole beans are kind of crazy.


And these tomatoes:


My attitude toward labeling plants is label, schmabel, you'll know what it is when it grows. So, unfortunately, I can't remember what these guys are! Super choice, maybe.

I'm pretty sure these are black krim:


And I'm hoping these are sungolds:


Also, check out our first pepper!


I'm thinking jalapeno, perhaps.

Finally, here are some squash buddies:


Butternut and delicata, no confusion here.

So, as you can see, there are lots of good things happening in the garden. However, we've also had some minor difficulties. It's all a great learning experience!

Here's what I'll keep in mind for next year's garden:

• Start pruning tomato plants early, even if the plant seems too small. Otherwise, you'll end up with sprawling plants with a million stems.
• Investing in some fancy tomato ladders might not be a bad idea! Our stakes are working well, but the sprawling nature of our plants has us improvising with sticks and other things. Sometimes it works, sometimes the stems collapse.
• Start the squash trellis early, and use thick material. I started ours too late, and the thin bamboo doesn't seem to work well. Tonight I pulled up our lettuce (which was getting bitter anyway) so that the squash and melons have more room to spread out.
• When people say that you need sandy soil for root crops, listen to them! My beets and carrots are nonexistent because the soil is too thick, and my onions are flat! I'm considering pulling things up this weekend and mixing in some sand. I really want beets!

Flat onions! Not good!


Also, I might relent next year and label what we plant.

Good night! Keep on growing!

In a Jam

This past weekend saw more jam-making with rhubarb-ginger jam. Ah, rhubarb...

How I miss Wisconsin for its plentiful rhubarb! A friend of ours had a whole mess of rhubarb in his yard, so we were never in short supply. Unlike here, where there is only a smattering of rhubarb in the farmers' markets (in the ones I've been to, anyway).

So, the jam started with making candied orange peel last week.


It uses a ton of sugar, but it's worth it. The dried stuff is good for baking, but I enjoyed it most right after removing it from the boiling water and rolling it in sugar. When the peel still has liquid in it, it's like eating one of those garish candy orange slices that you buy at Walgreen's, but only a billion times better because it's real. When I first tried the orange peel, it was like a big carnival in my mouth - so much flavor! Yum!

But, don't worry, I didn't eat all of the orange peel. I reserved the rest for the jam, which also used ginger and crystallized ginger. The rhubarb hung out in a big bowl of sugar for a day, and then I cooked it all up. Since this jam didn't use powdered pectin, I had to cook it for a while over high heat. While doing so, I suffered my first canning injury when some of the hot hot hot jam spattered onto part of my toes not covered by my Keens. Ow.

In the end, I came out with this:


Two pints and one half pint. Yep, 2.5 lbs of rhubarb, 5 cups of sugar, 1/4 cup of orange peel, and 4 oz of crystallized ginger, and this is all I have to show for it. Well, it is quite tasty, so that's a good thing.

All for now! Have a great week!

Veggie Things

I've been stressing out about my tomatoes and other garden things, so I breathed a huge sigh of relief when Porkchop spotted these guys today:

Maybe I will have tomatoes for real this year!!

I also love looking at this little delicata squash and its unpictured mate. Correction: this is just the ovary...not an actual squash. Let's not get too excited.


Our squash plants are NUTS.

On the tomatillo front, so far there is only a single real one:


But I'm not too concerned, as tomatillos are known to have lots of empty husks, and then BAM, you're drowning in the suckers.

Speaking of BAM, this week's Fair Shares pickup was huge: ground beef, tortilla chips, sundried flour tortillas, salsa, cheese, collard greens, bok choy, broccoli, zuchinni, yellow squash, garlic scapes, chives, eggs, lettuce, and strawberries. And we bought a little bag of Billy Goat potato chips, which holy crap, that was the best $2 we've spent in a long time.