Wednesday, August 13, 2008

life in bullet point form part two

no time for any thing but bullet point at the moment...not sure why...

- Kohlrabi. Grow it. Peel it. Roast it in small cubes. That is all. Who knew?

- Moving to the big house for the fall/winter because the (tiny)cottage is under some very creaky acacia trees and there are some crazy wind storms here in the fall.

- Studio is almost totally cleaned out and decorated. This Saturday I am going to Long and McQuade to rent equipment, and then I guess I record this thing...

- Have temporarily stopped using cookbooks in order to increase my arsenal of recipes that feature food that is totally in season and found either in my backyard, or in the backyard of my CSA farm (which happens to be across the street.) Tonight was tomato-coconut-basil tofu with sides of braised chard and beet greens, roasted kohlrabi, baby beets and zucchini and wild rice with blueberries (from the best, and best priced, organic blueberry farm ever.) Loves it.

- Grey's Anatomy comes back on September 25th. I now think about this every day, so I figured I should make a note of this on my bee-lowg. I don't care what anyone thinks. That show got me through 24 hour a day morning sickness when I was pregnant, and is now my blissful one hour to myself a week. Sometimes TWO hours! Like on September 25th! 'Til series finale do us part. 

- Books I have read so far this summer: The Omnivore's Dilemma (Pollan), Frankenstein (Mary S.W.), In Defense of Food (Pollan) and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Kingsolver). 

That's it for now. Better update with photos soon.

xo.h

Friday, August 8, 2008

life in bullet point form...

Some updates on my life here in manure-topia...

- The lettuce glut has finally come to a close, and we are now able to eat just one big salad a day rather than trying to figure out how to include lettuce as "a part of your complete breakfast."

- Now is the season of (from our farm) continued chard and kale, little spicy yellow peppers that are coming in before all the other peppers, basil, cilantro, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, cherry plums by the dozens falling from the sky, beet greens, chives, early blackberries, etc.

- Right now there are also cute little versions of what will be future eggplant, zucchini, cucumber, all the squash, tomatoes, artichokes, red runner beans, and many more etceteras. I should have bought a deep freeze when I moved here. Next year...

- Something sad. A mother rabbit unfortunately decided one night to build her nest and have her babies in the middle of our strawberry patch which has just come into berries again, and is routinely visited by all manner of probably predatory small mammals and birds. Anyway, one morning my mom and her friend discovered that three of the babies had been killed, one rather brutally, by some sort of small animal -- at the time my mom did not know if these were rabbits or mice or what, but she buried the three and her friend brought the two others to the wildlife society here in Langley where they said they were indeed baby rabbits and that they were both hypothermic (from the cold night uncovered in the nest) and lethargic (from being exposed to 30 plus degree direct sunlight the whole morning before they were found.) The prognosis was not good, but we are going to check in to see if either of them survive. 

- There have been two bear attacks in two days in Burnaby. Freaky. One happened in someone's front yard, and one happened in someone's basement. I have just come into some bear spray in the form of a pen. "Excuse me Mr. Bear, before you eat me, do you think I could have your autogr...ZOINK!!!" 

- This is the part where I say the record is coming along, except what I have to say actually is that it is written, as it has been for a year, and that I am going to be recording it on mostly rented equipment in a garage that I am "turning into a studio" -- the quotation marks are for indicating that in fact I am mostly just picking peas and arranging parts in my head these days. More to come on this. I say this so I feel pressured to actually work. Whoever thought deciding to make a record in the summer was an idiot. Oh wait, that was me...

- Kai is becoming a total beach bum. He even has spiky hair and he's kind of salty tasting.

That's all for now. 
Please send me record making vibes. 

Love H