Things are growing

I've been gone for the past week (that story to come next), and it is amazing to see how much plant growth happened in that short amount of time. The fava beans and peas gained at least 6 inches. The spinach is identifiable as spinach. The arugula is beginning to go to seed. The kale has taken over than its fair share of space in the container ...

An amazing dinner

Dinner last night was quite an affair. I never would have predicted that it would have taken this long but it was about 2 hours from start to finish. And, was it worth it? Indeed.

The Menu:

Herbed lamb kabobs - We had something similar to this at a local restaurant but I think ours tasted better. It is moist and extremely flavorful.

Roasted red pepper

Carrot salad with harissa, feta, and mint

Braised greens

Kalamata olives

Freshly cooked naan (or, probably more correctly, pita bread)

Lamb Kabobs

1 lb ground lamb (ours was from the farmer's market)

1 egg

1/2 cup bread crumbs (I'm not sure if this is ultimately necessary but the texture and consistency turned out well with this included)

1 finely minced shallot

1-2 Tbs of chopped fresh cilantro and mint

2 tsp dried parsley (I'd have used fresh if I had any)

1/2 tsp fennel seeds

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Mix all of the above in a large bowl - hands work the best for this - until thoroughly combined. Shape into "fingers" around skewers. You can either grill or broil at this point. We broiled last night since it was pouring. We initially had the oven's top rack as close to the top of the oven as possible. We had preheated the oven to 425 because we cooked the bread right after the meat and peppers were done and then broiled the top side of the lamb on "high" broil for about 5 minutes until it had browned. The top oven rack was then moved down to the next lower rung and the kabobs were turned over. We continued to use "high" broil and cooked for another 5 minutes until they were cooked through.

Roasted red pepper

1 large red pepper cut unto 1-2 inch chunks and broiled along with the lamb

Carrot salad from this site. I used a different harissa recipe from a Mediterranean cookbook but this recipe looks good as well. The reason the dinner took so long was I had to make the harissa from scratch. I've never made it before and it took a bit of preperation. Next time we make this dinner (and believe me we will) it will probably take about an hour less.

Partly why it's been 4 months

I haven't written on this blog for a very long time. I'd like to fully blame (if finger pointing is required) my computer, but I've also not much felt like writing somehow.

The computer saga really isn't much of a saga. I've had this dell laptop since the beginning of my residency 5 years ago. It served me fairly well (besides the hard drive going kaput in a relatively brief period of time) up until a year ago when it decided to run exceedingly slowly. I just put up with it for months. Then we got new computers at work, nice little dell laptops that actually work. So, this home computer didn't get much use for awhile. I wanted to put together a music compilation but couldn't even keep the media player from locking up while opening let alone burn a disc. The computer fix-it man put in 2 gigs of RAM and cleaned up all of the spam and put in a great anti-virus program. Now we are as good as new.

Then, last weekend, Mike's 8 year old Mac decided to give up the ghost. I don't know if it was jealous of updated computers or what but even the apple experts can't get it to turn on. So, a new computer is on the way (from China - did you know that Macs are produced in China?).

That is a long way of saying perhaps I'll be writing more now that my computer is working. And, I can download pictures again so maybe I can show you life around here, including our beautiful landscaped yard and garden ...

Local vs Real?

This is in response to and inspired by a post by Lady Susan who, after discussing Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, posed the question, "Real Food vs. Local Food. Does it need to be a competition? Is one exclusive of the other?"

Let me start off by saying Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite authors. Mike likes her as well but tends to think her writing isn't very subtle since you know exactly what her motivation and politics are from the moment you start reading. I personally have no trouble with that, probably because I agree with her politics and viewpoints. Anyhow, I loved Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I read it before I made my move away from veganism. I think what she and her family did for a year was a fascinating foray into personal sustainability and something to strive towards. However it is not a reasonable expectation for many or most people in this country due to time constraints and arable land access. But there are some important lessons to learn from it. Do we know where our food comes from? And, are those foods sustainably grown or raised? How much of our food can we reasonably get from local sources? Can we get to know any of the people who grow/raise our food? To begin to answer some of these questions makes us at least consider what we are consuming. Are they real foods or Michael Pollan's "food-like substances." Because, if we know where food comes from, truly comes from, then it's most likely a real food.

Eating real food is where we should start, and if we can get some of those foods from local sources, even better.

Maybe it is ridiculous of me to feel better when I know where all of my foods come from but I love farmer's market dinners: fish caught by Tuna Dan, potatoes from Lazy J's farm, kale from the Johnston's farm ... It feels nourishing in a spiritually grounded sense to get to know the people who grow my food. I work in Sequim one day a week and can drive during my lunch break to get raw, whole milk from Dungeness Valley Creamery. I can see (and smell) the cows whose milk I'm drinking.

Of the many impetuses (impetusi??) of becoming an omnivore again, was a desire for local protein/fat sources. I can get locally caught fish, locally eggs (and know that they are really pastured) - great big brown eggs with bright yellow/orange yolks, and just this past weekend, a family from Sequim is selling meat from their grass-fed cows at the farmer's market. They have been raising the cows for several years but previously only selling 1/4, 1/2 or full sections. Apparently it takes a different licensure or something to be able to sell small cuts. Here is the local paper write-up. Way to go small farms! The guy is a 5th generation farmer.

So, there needn't be any head butting between local and real. We all need more access to real food and until small farms become more valued once again, most people won't have much access to local, real food. Support what you can in your community.

Yard transformation update

The landscaper is doing a great (and fast) job with the yard. Small sections of grass have yet to be seeded. We are excited about not having a yard of dead grass and weeds. There is a lot more detail as you walk around, but the following pictures give a sense of it.

I love witch hazel. My mom has one in her yard; they bloom in the middle of winter when everything else is brown. And they smell wonderful. This is a similar variety to the one that she has, called Arnold's Promise. When I lived in St Louis, the park I ran in frequently had several witch hazel bushes, one of which was an Arnold's Promise. My friend and I would make fun of the name because we could never remember it. Anyhow, it gives me great joy to have one in my yard and to be able to smell it every day during the dark winter months.

What's a tractor doing in our front yard?

Or, what does landscaping look like in the middle of winter?

It feels extravagant to pay someone to play in the dirt for us. But, neither of us have the expertise or time to do, at least, an adequate job of fixing our sad yard. It wasn't landscaped well to begin with, the drainage is horrible, the sprinkler system doesn't reach everywhere, the grass was driven on a week after we moved in (by some idiot guys in a truck) with resulting rut marks, and on and on. We think it looks better in its current state of destruction than it has for the last several months.

I'll update with pictures as it progresses along.

Ireland Part I -- driving

I have finally decided to write about our trip to Ireland this past summer. It'll come in several installments ...

We landed in Dublin at 8am on July 21st amidst a downpour. So, we were tired after some 15 hours traveling, in a different time zone, wet, and disoriented.

We rented a car in order to see more of the country in our alloted 11 days. Mike was unanimously elected to drive during the trip, and I the navigator. Before we left, everyone kept warning us about the narrow roads, crazy drivers, and having to drive on the opposite side of the road. After about 2 days, driving was basically okay with occasional moments of absolute terror.

The roads are narrow, curvy, and often lined with stone walls less than a foot from the edge of the road. Imagine driving on US country roads that are usually 30-40 mi/hr at best. These same roads - with the above added features - are often 100 km/hr (60 mi/hr). And if you happen to slow down below this speed, maybe to go around a sharp curve, the car behind will be tailgating and wanting to pass at the first available opportunity.

When the roads weren't lined by rock walls, they were lined by shrubbery. When another car would come towards us - on the right side of the road, which took several days to begin to get used to - Mike would veer the car as far over to the side of the road as possible since the roads are so narrow it feels like you will scrape the side of your car on the passing car. I became intimately familiar with some of the shrubbery as my side of the car dove into it. At least it was better to touch bushes rather than rock walls.

Most of the cars in Ireland are small which makes this whole scenario a little more tolerable. However, there are public and tourist buses running around on the same streets. It's a long story that I won't get into now, but we ended up on a bus to get us back to our rental car after 2 days on one of the Aran Islands. There was another bus that appeared to have broken down that we had to pass. At most, there were 6-12 inches between the buses as we __slowly__ passed the broken down one. We stared at the folks on the other bus and could have reached out to shake hands had the windows been open. Someone on the other bus shot a picture of us as we drove past.

The first picture is the only photo we got of the car. I meant to take another but forgot. Note its small size. The next is a caution sign I found amusing. The next is an example of the roads. The "shoulder" is generous here. The next 2 are us following a tractor. And the final picture, another sign I found amusing (which, in case you can't read it, says "burn fat, not oil" next to a picture of bike).

The last thing I'll say about this topic for now, is that we were strongly encouraged to buy car insurance while renting a car in Ireland. It, along with Portugal, I believe, is one of the only foreign countries where one's insurance from the US doesn't translate since the roads are just so dangerous. It was comforting to be able to drive around with relative impunity and not worry about having to pay hundreds of dollars if the car were to sustain a scratch or two. Luckily, I guess, we didn't end up needing to use the insurance. But we were certainly glad we had it.

a date palindrome

apparently these are pretty rare ...

01-02-2010

!!

nature in winter

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks.

We went to Eastern Washington to spend Christmas with Mike's family and captured a lovely sunset on the way over.

And a drive-by view of the Olympics while going over the Hood Canal Bridge.

A (slightly blurry) New Year's Eve blue moon over the neighbors' house. Apparently there won't be another blue moon on New Year's Eve until 2029 or something.

For New Year's Day we drove to Port Townsend. We got there at high tide and the wind was whipping the water all over the place. Just as you drive into town, by the ferry terminal, the water was splashing onto the side walk. This dock looks like it is going to be submerged.

Fort Worden wasn't quite as windy as in town but the sky was just a sheet of dark blue clouds.