Farm Share Week...Um...9

I missed a few weeks there. We've been very busy the past few weekends and since I pick up my farm share on Thursday nights, sometimes it gets lost in the shuffle.

Last week I got zucchini, beets, cucumbers, carrots and pattypan squash. I've been indulging in my new favorite zucchini (and baby bok choy) recipe (you don't have to have bok choy. Apparently the baby bok choy was only a one week thing at the farm share. It was tasty while it lasted!)

I've been collecting beets for the past few weeks and storing them in preparation for making borscht, a Russian beet soup. My brother-in-law lived in Russia for 2 years and has a genuine recipe. I thought my attempt tasted great. Jason told me it was the wrong color. Despite the color issue, he managed to choke down a few bowls. Apparently the tomato paste I put in overwhelmed the bright red beet color. (If you've never worked with beets before, beware the staining red juice.)

A friend told me she just roasts beets in the oven like potatoes, which I'm going to try with this week's batch.

Anyway, on to Week 9. Behold!
3 large zucchini, 3 short but thick cucumbers and a bunch of beets. It doesn't look like much, but one of those zucchinis will make enough for a large side dish for me and Jason for 2 meals. As for the cucumbers, I like to chop one up, drizzle a little balsamic on top, and eat it with my lunch or for an afternoon snack.

And How Was Your Morning?

We live on the 2nd floor of a Victorian house built in 1876. Next to the house is a giant old tree. The tree has three large sections, one leaning toward the house, one leaning toward the parking lot, and one leaning over the side street running alongside the house. Every time there is a storm with any sort of wind, a branch or two breaks off of the tree. Jason and I learned a long time ago that the best place to park our cars is at the far side of the parking lot, as far from the tree as possible.

Mike, the contractor guy who has been working on the 3rd floor and who is also a co-owner of the house (and who is also hilarious with his thick Rhode Island accent), has been telling the landlady for months that they needed to get rid of the tree. Not only is it weak and rotting, but the flowers that bloom on it in the Spring smell like cat pee*, which, as you can imagine, is very pleasant. The landlady kept putting him off, not wanting to pay to remove the tree.

You see where this is going, right?

This morning I walked outside to get something out of Jason's car and noticed the tree didn't look quite right. Then I realized that during the big rain and wind storm we had last night, one-third of the tree had keeled over.


Amazingly, nothing was damaged. If either of the two other thirds of the tree had broken, it would have either crashed into the house, or fallen right on top of our cars.
(That's Jason's red car in the picture above, right in the path of one of the other thirds of the tree)

There was a car across the street, but the power lines neatly caught the tree and are currently holding it suspended over the car.
Amazingly again, we didn't lose our power and none of the power lines actually snapped.

I've never been so glad to not be a homeowner. Jason called Mike, who had a few choice words, not the least of which were "I told you so" aimed at the landlady. He called the power company and the tree company and I have a feeling when I get home, the tree will be mostly, if not all, gone.

Farewell, old friend. I will not miss your cat pee aroma next Spring.


* These trees are ALL OVER Cambridge. For about one week every Spring all the neighborhoods smell like a litter box.

Have I Mentioned I Talk in My Sleep?

Conversation between me and Jason last night at 11:41 PM, which Jason promptly emailed to me:

Me: "she's like a horse"
Jason: "who?"
Me: a lot of mumbling, then "the soap"
Jason: "the soap is like a horse?"
Me: "yeah"
Jason: "what are you talking about?"
Me: "doesn't matter"

Seneca Falls

This past weekend Jason and I went to Palmyra, New York to camp with our ward and go see the Hill Cumorah Pageant. Insane bishop who woke us all up at 6 AM aside, it was a fun time, if very quick.

On the way back, rather than go straight out to the New York Thruway (ie, I-90), we took the parallel backroad that meandered through a bunch of little villages, including Seneca Falls. Jason wanted to make a point of going through Seneca Falls for me because I recently watched Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: Not for Ourselves Alone, a documentary by Ken Burns, and Jason knew how much it had impacted me.

If you are a woman and have ever done anything crazy like vote or own property or go to college or express an opinion with impunity, you need to see this documentary. I had no idea how much it would affect me, but when I realized what these women, and all the suffragettes, had done for all of us, I was overwhelmed. I spent a lot of the documentary holding back tears of gratitude. It's unbelievable to think that less than 100 years ago, women could not even vote.

A Couple Pictures

Molly just emailed me a couple of pictures from our weekend in DC. I still haven't gotten pictures off of Jason's camera. We are lazy with the pictures, as anyone who might be waiting for a wedding picture or two can attest.

Me, Jason and Baby Liam (who looks less like a baby and more like a little boy in this picture). He's wearing the outfit we bought him for his birthday (we also bought him awesome train cars because we're not total squares).Jason helping Liam put his new trains together. I love the looks of concentration on both of their faces.
So how sad-yet-adorable-and-endearing is this? We had been driving around in separate cars all weekend because 2 baby seats kind of fills up Garrett and Molly's car, and Liam had come to expect that when he got out of the car, Jason and I would soon appear. Even though we all hugged and kissed and said our lengthy good-byes, Liam still expected us to show up back at the house. Molly said after he got out of the car, he went to the edge of the driveway, waiting for us to pull up. So Molly had to tell him we had gone back to Providence and apparently he was very sad and asked about us all day long.

Farm Share Week 5

I didn't post about week 4 because after I picked up the farm share on Thursday evening, I rushed home and started prepping for our friends' going-away party. This included slicing up one of the zucchini from the farm share for a veggie tray (paired with parsley hummus made with the out of control parsley from the AeroGrow). Then we left the next day for DC. Week 4 consisted of beets, onions, sugar snap peas, broccoli and zucchini. Since we were leaving for 4 days I focused on getting veggies that would wait until we got home for me to prep them.

Here is the score from last Thursday:
I got sugar snap peas, beets, garlic, pattypan squash, zucchini and baby bok choy. I was only supposed to get a pound of zucchini, but since they were all mammoth sized, he said we could grab whichever one we wanted, even if it was more than 1 pound. The one I got was almost 2 pounds. Nice! The broccoli is gone from the selection, which makes me sad. Having fresh, local broccoli to roast was awesome. However, other things are coming into season and it's getting more and more interesting to choose.

Trip to DC

Jason and I had a great weekend trip to DC. Even though the drive is kind of a drag, it's really not ever as bad as I think it's going to be. On Friday night we wanted to wind up in Frederick, Maryland, so we took the back way through Pennsylvania, which I've never done before. It wound up being a lovely drive and a lot less stressful than the normal passage through New York and down the New Jersey Turnpike.

We noticed that we were going to skirt right by Gettysburg so we decided to take a little detour and stop. I've never been there and was really moved by the monuments and the displays.* It was getting dark quickly, so we only saw a few things. I would like to go back. There is large monument to those who fought for Pennsylvania that includes all the names of the Pennsylvania soldiers. My great-great grandfather fought in the Civil War and I think he fought for Pennsylvania. I'll have to find out for sure and if so, find his name on the monument.

We stopped for the night at Sarah's parents' house and stayed up late talking with Brandon and Sarah who were also in town. The next day we headed first to Sarah's dad's running store where he totally hooked us up with shoes, and then to Virginia to meet up with the Summers family at Chuck E. Cheese for Baby Liam's 2nd birthday party. Jason and I are just as enamored with that kid as we were when they moved away almost a year ago. Probably moreso now since he talks and cracks us up constantly.

Molly and Garrett have a 5 month-old now too who is sweet and mellow and just needs to feel like he's part of the activity around him to be content. He won me over by falling asleep on me during church.

Monday morning, Garrett took us on the tour of the Pentagon, where he works. It was great to just be able to wander around and see everything. The place is almost like a museum with all of the informative displays about the history of defense in the US since Colonial times. I found it fascinating and wish we had more time to really peruse everything.

We drove back Monday afternoon and evening. We had a great weekend and are grateful to good friends who let us sleep on their air mattress and hang out with their awesome kids. Oh, and, you know, Molly and Garrett are pretty cool too.

As soon as I can get some pictures from Jason, I'll post them.

* Hundreds of Harley-Davidsons there for a rally notwithstanding.

Happy Feet

On Friday while I was home alone doing chores, I watched Happy Feet, which we Netflixed, but I knew Jason wouldn't want to watch with me because he's not crazy about the animated movies. FYI, when we have kids, I'm totally whipping out all my Pixar and Disney movies on a regular basis.

Anyway, Happy Feet. Has anyone else seen it? Because I thought it was kind of weird. I mean, it's obviously a kids' movie, but some of the songs the penguins sing in just the first 10 minutes are not really kid-friendly. When the line, "Let's talk about x, baby" comes up and everyone knows what they're REALLY talking about, I call that inappropriate. The rock penguins made me laugh some and the baby penguin was achingly adorable and I now want a baby penguin, which is how I felt after watching March of the Penguins, but I know there are ways to slip in grown-up jokes and themes without including so many things that are really straddling that appropriate fence.

On the other hand, I am super-impressed with how the animators made a penguin look like an expert tap dancer. Because penguins aren't so much known for their agility and fancy footwork.

A Happy 4th of July Indeed

Thanks to some good friends, we had a pretty amazing 4th of July celebration. Our friend Dave works for Microsoft and they happen to have an office at 1 Memorial Drive in Cambridge. In case you don't know, not only is that right next to the Charles River, but it's positioned basically parallel to where they put the fireworks barge in the Charles.

We started out by having a small picnic BBQ with just us, Dave and Jessica and their two girls. I absolutely adore the girls! And the feeling is apparently mutual. They have a lot of energy and wear me out, but I do like spending time with them. Ever since Naomi, the almost four-year-old, was a baby, she's always come to me, even when she wouldn't go to most other people. I used to say it's just because her mom and I had similar color and length of hair, but now I prefer to think it's on my own merits. Well, Annika, the almost two-year-old, has decided that I'm pretty awesome as well. At one point in the evening, we were on the 14th floor of the building looking down at the boats and the people below, and Annika was standing next to me on the window ledge, with one arm wrapped tightly around my neck. She would run around and do something else for a few minutes, but then come back and wrap her arm around my neck again. Being in a headlock works if the headlock giver is not quite 2.

Annika also loves Jason, although they had a falling out early in the evening. Jason had some popcorn and Annika reached into his box to grab some. He said, totally kidding, in a sweet voice, and with a smile, "Hey, are you stealing my popcorn?" Annika looked shocked. She is a very good talker and understands everything you say even though she's very small, and despite his tone, I think she took him literally and thought he was mad. He spent the next 15 minutes or so, bouncing around and grinning at her and trying to get her to eat some more popcorn from his box. She just stared at him with her huge blue eyes, very concerned. But by the end of the evening, all had been forgiven and she reached for Jason at one point and sat on his lap happily watching the Boston Pops with us. I know he was relieved.

So anyway, after our early dinner, we headed over to Cambridge. Jason and I found a great parking space that wasn't too far from the building, but we thought wouldn't be too much of a pain to get out of when the celebration was over. Upon reflection, I don't think a parking space that's not too much of a pain to get out of exists in Cambridge on the 4th of July.

If you have the chance to work for Microsoft, I highly recommend it. I have no idea what day-to-day work conditions are like, but they throw a great party. At the very least, go get yourself some friends who work for Microsoft. We needn't have eaten beforehand because they had amazing cheese and veggie and fruit platters, not to mention the hot dog, cotton candy and ice cream carts stationed all over the 4 Microsoft floors. I'm not even going to tell you what I ate. Let's just say I have had my goat cheese quota for the month.

They had big TV screens showing the Boston Pops concert, so we watched that, and sang along with Neil Diamond to "Sweet Caroline" then headed outside to a deck basically looking straight at the fireworks barge. Everyone sang to the patriotic sing-a-long and then the fireworks started. They were amazing! And being so close was amazing! They were right overhead and the booms echoed back and forth off the buildings from one side of the river to the other.

We had a great time and even though it took us a half hour to walk to the car and an hour just to get out of Cambridge afterward, and then we got home at 1 and I still had to plan Sharing Time for today and Jason had to go into work for a half hour and then plan his Elders Quorum lesson and we were walking zombies at church, it was totally worth it. So thank you very much, Dave and Jessica!

UPDATE: Jessica just posted these pictures on her blog and I snagged them. Note me in the middle left in an Annika headlock.

Farm Share Week 4

The bounty is getting more diverse:
2 heads of lettuce, a couple pounds of broccoli, beets, onions and zucchini. I'm going to try to roast the zucchini with a bit of salt, pepper and olive oil, since roasting is my favorite way to do vegetables lately. Also, I'm going to make my brother-in-law's borscht recipe. He went to Russia on his mission and so not only is it tasty, but it's authentic. I don't know if I have enough beets, though, since they're kind of small, but I'll give it a whirl.

Since I had the day off work today, I got a lot of little chores done, including prepping the veggies for the coming week. Have I told you all how much I love to chop? It's soothing to me.