More Local Fabulousness

Last night I walked to the corner store to buy milk. It's been a while since I wandered through the business district of my neighborhood and it was nice. I read the menus on all the restaurants. I checked out the random flyers taped up on the utility poles. And of course I looked in the window of the antique store, Le Mix, which always has cool mid-century stuff.

It being late November, the window was all Christmas-y, with slightly creepy elf dolls and at least four Santa decorations that you remember from various aged relatives' houses. And there were some really neat old cocktail shakers in festive colors. Good thing for me the store was closed, because I already have way more cocktail shakers than I need.

Christmas Shopping, 2011 Edition

So I spent "Small Business Saturday" slodging through chain stores buying stuff for myself. Completely against the spirit of the thing. But hey, I've been eating local vegetables all summer, that's got to count for something?

To atone for my sins against independent merchants, I will pimp a few of my recent discoveries.

Out Of Print Clothing 
http://outofprintclothing.com/

Wizard of Oz kids' tee
at Out Of Print Clothing

I discovered these shirts while shopping at another fabulous independent merchant, Island Bookstore in Corolla, NC (which is actually a dream shop, everything you'd want in a bookstore all at once - too bad it's 400 miles from my house). But that's another post.

Out Of Print Clothing uses classic book cover art to make shirts, tote bags, note cards, and other fun things. (Edgar Alan Poe phone case anyone?) The images are all actually licensed, and they're pretty awesome. The shirts are soft and cozy. I have a Hound of the Baskervilles tee - I ended up with a men's small because none of the women's shirts really spoke to me, but it's stretchy and fits great.

If you need another excuse to shop here (or put one of these on your wish list), the company has partnered with Books for Africa to send a book to a needy community for every product purchased.

ARTECO
www.arteco.com

Closer to home, I've been seeing some cool jewelry and accessories from ARTECO. E-waste has never looked so good.

Spectra Cable Belt
from ARTECO

I picked up one of these cable belts at a recent Three Rivers Arts Festival - according to the card, it's a communication cable called Spectra that was popular around 1970. (I don't actually remember it but I've seen things like it.)

At this year's A Fair in the Park I looked through cards and cards of pendants, earrings, and pins trying to guess what they were in a former life. Luckily, the provenance is described on the packaging. The ARTECO website says "It's not only about what it is, but what it was." Turns out processor chips are sometimes really pretty!

Heat Sink Earrings
from ARTECO

A lot of the components are relatively unadorned, which I like. They're just fascinating to look at.

Come on, one of your techie forbears would really appreciate an 8-bit Intel processor tie tack.

ARTECO Intel 80186
Processor Pin

A Slate of Candidates You Can Trust

A week or so before the election, the local political party (in Pittsburgh there is really only one) sends out a card with their endorsed slate of candidates. This is the card I got this year.

In case you don't want to zoom in and read the text, the third paragraph is most relevant. It says:

The candidates whose names appear on this ticket will not turn back the clock. These individuals will provide competent leadership while recognizing the fundamental values that make us Democrats. They also will be diligent regarding all issues which come before them. They will continue to move forward and lead us in our recovery from the failures of the past.

Sounds good. So who are these wonderful people? Here's the other side of the card:

Him: Where did you put the other dish towel?
Me: It's over there.
Him: Where?
Me: On my secret shelf.
Him: What secret shelf?
Me: You know, the shelf where I keep the little cutting board that only I use, and the dish towels that I don't want you to dry your hands on, and the jars and bottlecaps I probably should have thrown away but I didn't.
Him: Oh, that shelf.

Augmented Reality - Tour de France Edition

Or, How To Use Twitter To Watch the Tour de France

One of the things I love about Twitter is the fact that you can read commentary from other people while an event is going on. (When I was a teenager I occasionally created a low-tech version of this by watching TV over the phone - two friends in different houses, watching the same TV show.) I use it when watching hockey games, and it enhances my appreciation of the game. Other fans post insights and details I didn't know. And it's witty.

The same happens with the Tour de France, only the difference with pro cycling events is that instead of listening to other fans you're also reading news from the participants! A lot of pro cyclists and staff post on Twitter - and they're surprisingly candid. I've posted before about Kurt Asle Arvesen's photos of his road rash in a past Tour. Lance Armstrong has been tweeting almost every time he gets drug tested (though he arguably does have something to gain by that). Here's the photo Armstrong sent update this morning, before a seriously tough stage over cobblestone roads:

Deceiving Profile by Lance Armstrong

In the first few stages we had the Schleck brothers reporting on each other's injuries. First, Andy was in a minor crash and his brother Frank sent this:

@andy_schleck do U guys is that he is going to have a good sleep? Ich don t think so http://tweetphoto.com/31034360

Sadly, Frank had a more serious crash the next day. Still, Andy was there for us.

He need surgery http://tweetphoto.com/31160227

And also this, since his team kept the yellow jersey as overall leader:

@schleckfrank out with broken shoulder yellow is 4 him today!he be back stronger

Before you complain about their grammar, keep in mind that their first language is Luxembourgish - which I didn't even know existed until recently. So I think they're doing fine with English.

So here's a big list of Tour-related commentators on Twitter. Or you can just follow my public list for cycling (it has some of my friends on it too): http://twitter.com/#/list/erinkpgh/cycling or search Twitter for the #TdF tag.

Tour de France Cyclists on Twitter:

• Lance Armstrong http://twitter.com/lancearmstrong
• Frank Schleck http://twitter.com/schleckfrank
• Andy Schleck http://twitter.com/andy_schleck
• George Hincapie http://twitter.com/ghincapie
• Carlos Sastre http://twitter.com/Carlos_Sastre
• Bradley Wiggins http://twitter.com/bradwiggins
• Christian Vande Velde http://twitter.com/ChristianVDV (Abandoned after crashing in Stage 2 - one of his last race tweets was "Who wants to see my eye?")
• Ryder Hesjedal http://twitter.com/ryder_hesjedal
• Levi Leipheimer http://twitter.com/LeviLeipheimer
• Robbie McEwen http://twitter.com/mcewenrobbie
• Dave Zabriskie http://twitter.com/dzabriskie

Twitter Cyclists Not In the 2010 Tour:

• Kurt Asle Arvesen http://twitter.com/kaarvesen
  Arvesen couldn't go for the Tour this year after crashing in the Tour de Suisse, but he seems to be having a nice time recuperating at home: http://yfrog.com/6fxpvbj
  
• Fumiyuki Beppu http://twitter.com/Fumybeppu - I like to try to read his Japanese posts
• Viatcheslav Ekimov http://twitter.com/eki_ekimov
• Danny Pate http://twitter.com/UltraPate
  

Tour News Sources on Twitter:

• Team Radio Shack http://twitter.com/TeamRadioShack
• Cycling News http://twitter.com/Cyclingnewsfeed
• Nike Chalkbot http://twitter.com/chalkbot (Today's photo of the Water Test is awesome - http://yfrog.com/4b58gj)
• Road ID http://twitter.com/RoadID
• Team HTC/Columbia http://twitter.com/HTCColumbia
  
• Commentator Paul Sherwen http://twitter.com/PaulSherwen
  
• Commentator Phil Liggett http://twitter.com/PhilLiggett
  
• Team Director Johan Bruyneel http://twitter.com/johanbruyneel
• Hincapie Sportswear http://twitter.com/hincapiesports
  

More Useful Websites:

• Steephill.tv Tour de France Dashboard http://www.steephill.tv/tour-de-france/ - I especially like the team list (right sidebar a few inches down the page), which includes rider bib numbers.
  
• Versus official TV coverage (caution: plays sound & video) http://www.versus.com/shows/tour-de-france/

Share and enjoy.

Two Pasta Recipes

I was going grocery shopping and wanted to make sure I had all the ingredients for this pasta recipe I wanted to make, but instead of getting the recipe down from the messy folder on the top shelf in the kitchen to read the ingredients, I just searched the Internet. This usually works - you might not find the exact recipe you want, but you'll find something similar enough that you can determine the key ingredients.

Only I couldn't find anything like this recipe. So I started worrying that my pasta happiness relied on the 4-year-old printout I made from the Post-Gazette website. And it's the kind of ink that runs when it gets wet.

So here is the Pasta with Ricotta and Broccoli Rabe recipe, so I won't lose it.

Ingredients:

• coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1.5 pounds (1-2 bunches) rapini (broccoli rabe), coarsely chopped
• 1 pound gemelli or other short pasta (whole wheat pasta is good too)
• 2 T olive oil
• 4 anchovy fillets (optional)
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1/2 t red pepper flakes
• 15-ounce container part-skim ricotta cheese (1 2/3 cups)
• 1 cup milk

Boil rapini in a large pot of boiling salted water for 1 minute. Transfer to a colander using a slotted spoon. In the same pot of water, cook pasta until al dente according to package directions. Drain pasta and return to pot.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add anchovy fillets, garlic, and pepper flakes. Cook, stirring, until fragrant (30-60 seconds). Add rapini and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender - 5 to 6 minutes. Stir in ricotta and milk; cook just until heated through (3-4 minutes).

Add contents of skillet to pasta. Season with salt and pepper and toss to combine. Serve immediately.

Six servings with 472 calories, 12.5g fat, 23.7g protein, 67.5g carbohydrate, 2.4g fiber

And just because I like it and it's also pasta, here's another recipe. It's not so easy to forget.

Linguini with Zucchini and Chick Peas

Ingredients:

• 12 oz (3/4 box) linguini
• 2 T olive oil
• 3 small zucchini, cut into thin half-moons
• kosher salt
• 15-oz can chickpeas, rinsed
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1/4 t crushed red pepper
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (2oz)

Cook the pasta according to package directions. Reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water, drain, and return the pasta to the pot.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the zucchini and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cook, tossing often, until just tender (4-5 minutes). Add the chickpeas, garlic, and red pepper and cook until heated through, 2-3 minutes.

Toss the pasta with the reserved pasta water and 1/4 cup of the Parmesan. Divide the pasta among bowls and top with the zucchini mixture and the remaining 1/4 cup of Parmesan

serves 4
from Real Simple August 2009 issue

Emergency Leak Control

Drip Control System
Originally uploaded by erink

Since Snowpocalypse! hit Pittsburgh and brought us 2 feet of snow in 40 hours, followed by another five inches two days later and another five inches six days after that, a lot of people are dealing with leaky houses.

My first rental duplex had a flat roof, so I have years of experience dealing with ice dams. My current house, which is otherwise pretty great, has aged box gutters that have been leaking for two years (mostly because I put off fixing them after the high-priced roofer did a bad job). That means that when we get ice dams, water leaks in some of our window frames from the gutters.

An ice dam is ice that forms in your downspout. Snow melts under the ice on the roof because your house is warm, but with the downspout blocked, there's nowhere for it to go. If you're unlucky, it goes down, through your roof or gutter and into your house. Unless you can get the downspout unfrozen or remove all the snow and ice from your roof, it's going to keep leaking.

So, not much you can do outside until spring. But inside, there are a few techniques you can use to control the water.

Obviously, you want to deploy buckets. But it's tough to get the buckets right under all the drips, and even when you have a well-placed bucket, once it starts to fill up there's a lot of splashing, and that gets your floor wet too.

The solution is plastic. Dry cleaning bags work great, and trash bags are good too. (If you don't split the trash bags open to cover more area, you usually can reuse them for trash afterward.) If you have big problems, you can try those plastic painting drop cloths, as long as they're not too heavy for the tape.

Here's what to do.

1. Tape the plastic bag up on the wall or window so that the dripping water falls onto it. You can use multiple pieces of plastic if you overlap the top piece in front of the bottom piece so the water falls down onto the second piece.
   
2. Make a plastic highway to the collection area (bucket or trash can or whatever). You actually can move the bucket several feet from the leak, as long as the bucket is the lowest point in the system and there's a clean path to the bucket.
3. Watch the water flow. If it's dripping off an edge, try to curl the plastic inward so that it funnels the water back toward the center.
4. If you still have trouble with splashing, move the bucket farther away from the wall. The more gradual slope will slow the water down and minimize splashes. Make sure you don't create a low point on the way to the bucket.

Here are some details of the drip collection system in my TV room.



The plastic is taped to the window frame with scotch tape. You can see the brown spots where the water was dripping. (Click through for a larger version on Flickr.)



Here is the bottom of the system. I had water leaking from underneath the bottom of the windowsill so I taped up another bag there. I used masking tape there because I was afraid Scotch tape would tear the paint (still not sure the masking tape won't, but whatever). I had to wait until the wall was dry to get the tape to stick. This picture also shows the transition from dry-cleaning plastic to trash bag. I taped the trash bag to the window to catch another drip, but you can just tape it to the top bag (it is also taped to the dry-cleaning bag, but that's hard to see).

If you're going to be away for a while, you can use a trash can instead of buckets, it holds more water. Also, drips usually stop a few hours after dark when the roof water refreezes, so that gives you a chance to regroup. But don't leave your bucket out of the system for long!

I've often wondered if strings would be useful, but I've never tried it. For example, if you have a drip on the ceiling can you tack up a string and get the water to preferentially run down the string into a bucket?

Oh, another few tips. If you can access your roof or gutters by leaning out a window (carefully!), you can sometimes help clear the ice. A hockey stick is a great tool for this. We use my old stick to flick ice out of the gutters and to chop up the ice into flippable pieces. Be careful not to damage your shingles, or to clobber someone on the ground. We also pour warm water into the gutters to melt the downspouts. After the first storm we were alternating pouring in buckets of water and pumping the standing water out of the downspouts with a tiny battery-operated pump (you could also use a straight siphon or a drill-mounted pump).

There are gutter heater cables you can use to help melt ice from your roof shingles and downspouts. They're not much help once the ice is up there, you have to have a roofer install them ahead of time.

So, hope this is helpful - or at least amusing.

Quest for Paczki - 2010 Edition

Much easier than last year. But still not as good as Jenny Lee's.

Joys of Working From Home

This is literally what just happened to me.

Every room in my house is nice and cozy, except the kitchen, which has two outside walls and a tile floor (and a bit of a draft around the floor). But the kitchen has the best light and a nice clear workspace, so I decide to work there. It's 12 degrees outside, so my feet are cold. I go upstairs to get a pair of socks.

On the way to my socks, I notice that the window in the TV room has started dripping again. We have elderly box gutters and were in denial about the drips for a year or so, which means that when snow starts melting from the sun, there are a few places where the water backs up and seeps through the box gutters and into the house at the window frame below the gutter. And we got 20" of snow on Friday night. I have a vast knowledge of how to rig dry-cleaning bags and buckets to deal with the drips, and we lean out the windows of the third floor clearing ice with a hockey stick and buckets of warm water. When you hear great crashing sounds, you know the downspouts are clearing and you're done.

So I head up to the third floor and start clearing the gutter above the TV room window. That goes pretty well, a little ice flicking and about four buckets of water, and I hear crashing sounds and the water drains well. I go to check on the other problem gutter, spend some time pitching ice out of it, and decide to use the tiny battery-operated pump (which I bought but never used for the basement flooding that has since been fixed) to drain some standing water out of that gutter. Okay. Third floor secured.

So I head downstairs to check on the TV room. And a mysterious water disaster has occurred. The bucket is askew and apparently a gallon or two of water has pooled on the carpet and run into the room, stopping to get soaked up by the big floor pillow we have there. Replace the bucket, pick up the floor pillow and get it drying in the bathroom, deploy all the ShamWows (you'll say "wow" every time!) I can find, along with some towels. Run downstairs to the basement twice, once for a plastic shelf gadget to get the bucket off the wet carpet and once for a fan to help the carpet dry. Hang soaked ShamWows in the bathroom to dry.

Check on the bedroom window for drips. Still dry.... Count my blessings. The front of the house didn't get much sun today.

Okay, everything's drying, nothing's actively dripping except some stragglers in the TV room that are going into the bucket. I need to change the wet band-aid on my thumb (I cut myself mysteriously while digging out my car yesterday). Okay. Back to the kitchen to work.

My feet are cold.

A Christmas Lesson

I loved this video. It really defused the jewelry ads for me too - apparently, it's possible that someone can actually love me and NOT buy me a diamond tennis bracelet (which I wouldn't use and ordinarily don't want at all). Now they're just funny.

Exotic Candies of Utah - Annabell's Look!

Annabell's Look!
Originally uploaded by erink

One of the unexpected perks of driving all around the southwest for vacation was finding regional candy in the gas station convenience stores!

Annabell's LOOK! was pretty tasty. It's nougat with dark chocolate on the outside and some tiny pieces of peanut embedded in there somewhere.

This is what it looks like on the inside:

Stay tuned for reviews of more nougat-based and cherry-flavored delicacies from the exotic southwest.

New phone...

Last post from my non smart phone!

Happy Hocktober!

To celebrate the opening of the NHL season, I give you:

Bears Playing Hockey



Living in the modern world, we don't have a good idea of how dexterous bears are, and how capable they are on two legs. I've seen old film of them riding bikes and doing all sorts of difficult tricks. Trained bears were part of Russian circus tradition until very recently, although they're very rare now (for good reasons). This looks to be a mid- to late 20th century European show.

Not many skill players on this squad, but if you make it to about 1:50, there's a fight! Close enough for me.

Protest This

(A stealth G-20 post.)

I was reading a story in the Post-Gazette just now and it's talking about some of the protesters out for the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh today. And they interviewed this fellow:

"I want to be part of a moment," said Sam Brown, 22, of Sewickley.

Mr. Brown is a recent graduate of Wheaton College in Massachusetts, where he majored in art history and Asian studies. Now the poor economy has forced him to move back with his mother in the Pittsburgh suburbs, he said, and he scours craigslist every day for jobs.

All I can think is, Dude, it's not the economy.

(The whole story: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09266/1000288-53.stm)

On Litter

A week ago I spent a few Saturday morning hours picking up trash along the highway near my house. It was a volunteer project supposedly related to the G-20 Summit coming to town late this week, though I have my doubts foreign dignitaries will be cruising I-376 between Forest Hills and Edgewood. Whatever. You know, company's coming, yinz gotta redd up n'at.

Here's what I found:

• Most common litter by far: Cigarette butts. There were just hundreds per square yard, outnumbering and possibly even outmassing all the other litter. No, we didn't try to pick them up. Somehow cigarette butts get a special status that makes them not litter in the eyes of smokers ... except they are.
  
  I remember this being a big problem on the beach at Waikiki. There were signs all over telling you to pick up your butts. I think if you dug down to any level of beach sand there you would find cigarette butts in waxing and waning layers depending on how fashionable smoking was in past years.
  
  I was trying to figure out ways to get rid of the butts. Maybe instead of paying the new fines for smoking in public areas we should give offenders the choice of community service picking up cigarette butts for a few hours? Can we invent a special tool to pick them up by the shovelful? Or could we put a deposit on them and/or offer a bounty? (We could tag each butt so you can count a big trash bag full electronically, right?)
  
  
• Number two most common trash by the roadside: Plastic car parts. They're everywhere. From little pieces of plastic to entire bumpers - there's even a ditch along the stretch we were working that I named the valley of forgotten bumpers because there were about eight partial front-ends down there.
  
  
• Number three trash category: Drink containers. There weren't as many bottles and cans as I expected, and this category includes a lot of fast-food cups and cup lids. Which do biodegrade, by the way, they get really brittle and fracture when you pick them up.
  
  
• I expected a lot of those floss-picks since you see them all the time in parking lots. (I mean really, what is the trigger in the grocery store parking lot that causes people to suddenly think about dental hygiene? And why can't they use the trash can afterward?) But I only found one. The personal hygiene product that was the surprise winner: Q-Tips. I picked up five or ten of them.
  
  
• The area with most trash was the entrance ramp. Lots of bags and large items. It's like they have to dump ballast to get up to highway speed.
  
  
• Styrofoam coolers are not a good thing to put in the back of your pickup truck. Even the plastic ones can get away from you.
  
  
• Road maintenance crews are not tidy. I didn't really expect them to be. They pour asphalt right over the trash and leave bolts everywhere when they replace the guide rail.

Though I thought the entire set of truck lug nuts and bolts was interesting, the only piece of trash I actually brought home was a large broken glass fragment almost 1" on each side. Trust me, I showed remarkable restraint.

So, I've done my part for the city's reputation. Don't you jagoffs mess it up again before Thursday!

Cigarette butt photo by Flickr user multisanti; some rights reserved.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tikun/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Plus Size Doctor

Plus Size Doctor
Originally uploaded by erink

Saw this in the craft store - in case you're inspired to dress up as an overweight physician for Halloween, they've got you covered!

How To Eat Produce At Home

A friend of mine was envying our farm share and our ability to turn it in to food. (Actually we have a mutual friend who does much better - our last eggplant rotted; she made baba ghanouj.) Hitting a farm market once a week or once a month is a good low-commitment option, but you still need to figure out how to work fresh food into your routine. Here are some ideas that work in my house.

Salad

Salad is a no-brainer, and even though I don't really like it a lot it's a good addition to most meals or a good quick meal on its own.

First, buy a head of lettuce. Romaine is my favorite. When you get home, wash each leaf and cut them up into pieces about 3 square inches apiece. You can tear it if you don't want to cut it, but cutting is fine. Put the pieces into your salad spinner (yes you need this) and dry them. Store the prepared lettuce in a large plastic container with a piece of paper towel on the bottom. The paper towel helps keep the moisture right in the container so the lettuce will keep for a week or more. This way you can grab a few handfuls when it's time to assemble your salad. Yeah, you can buy the bag lettuce at the store, but this is usually better.

Tomatoes - All my salads need tomatoes. Keep them out of the fridge, because tomatoes have a flavor chemical that degrades in the cold. I just wash the one I'm using right before I cut it up for the day's salad. Cherry tomatoes are an option too if you want to be able to control portion size (though I never have a problem getting rid of excess tomato after making a salad!)

Broccoli or Cauliflower - Broccoli is another requirement for my salads, and farm broccoli is way better than grocery store broccoli. Like the lettuce, you can get a bunch of broccoli and prep it that day then keep the salad-sized pieces in a plastic bin in the fridge for a week or more. Just cut the tops off and throw the stems away (unless you're crazy about broccoli stems, I'm not). I like to cut them really small, about 1" square or less, so they fit on the fork.

These are the minimal ingredients for a decent salad for me. These parts go without saying:

• Fresh black pepper
• Good dressing (Ken's Steak House Lite Balsamic Vinaigrette is my go-to dressing, but I also bought a nice Caesar recently)
• Pepitas or sunflower seeds
  

More things you can put in salad to make it good:

• Parsley - cut it up with kitchen scissors and mix it in with the lettuce
• Carrots - I'm not a big fan, but lots of people like this. Slice it or dice it small so it's not too hard to chew.
• Celery
• Cucumber - especially good with a ranch or bleu cheese dressing
  
• Onion - red or white sweet onions, chopped or sliced
• Pickled beets
• Hard boiled egg - you get to use those neat wire egg slicers for this!
  
• Tuna - if I'm making a meal salad I just drain a can and dump it on. When I'm eating it I tag-team between eating a little tuna and eating some lettuce and other stuff.
• Cottage cheese - again, I just dump it on and tag-team.
• Cheese - somehow I don't do this often, but sliced up swiss or muenster is yummy.
• Chick peas or other canned beans - you probably want to rinse them
• Leftover vegetables - the other day we cut up our leftover wax beans and they were yummy in salad. Might have been the butter....
• Nuts or other seeds
• Grapes, raisins (ew - not my thing) , or sliced apples
  

Cooked Vegetables

Most veggies can either be steamed in the microwave or sauteed in a frying pan. Tough greens like kale, chard, and collards are better in a pan. To sautee them, cut up the vegetables (take out the stems of those greens, or just start them earlier than the leaves to make sure they get softened enough), put them in a pan with some olive oil or butter and salt and pepper. Use medium heat and cook until they're soft (probably like 3 minutes for spinach but 8 or 9 for kale).

When steaming (broccoli, beans, asparagus) I usually just put them in a glass bowl and leave them wet after I rinse them. You might want a little more water depending on how much food there is. I have a plastic microwave cover that keeps a little extra steam in. Try 2-3 minutes to start, then keep going until your veggies are as soft as you want them.

Fresh fennel bulb is great sauteed. Also zucchini and yellow zucchini (is that a squash?), slice them up and season them with a little cumin. I think it's cumin...?

Veg and Rice Dinner - one of my big excuses for eating white rice! But you can do a more nutritious grain if you want (brown rice, quinoa, etc.) or even pasta like couscous. Basically I cook up some veggies and a pot of rice, then just chuck the veg on top of a bowl of rice with some soy sauce and sesame seeds. This is really good with chard or kale, or broccoli, or beans (I mean green beans or yellow beans).

Rice microwaves surprisingly well. So if you do a big pot of rice you can keep the leftovers in the fridge (with your leftover sauteed fennel) and put together a leftover meal really quickly.

Fruit

Yeah, it's not a huge burden to eat fruit, but sometimes looking at a big peach just seems like too much of a commitment. Also I don't like the fuzzy part. I found out that if I cut them up I like them better.

I keep a tiny cutting board next to the sink for cutting up fruits before I eat them. It's easy to rinse off and re-stow. You'll also need a paring knife, which is not expensive. In the spring I hull and slice a lot of strawberries for my cereal. (But now it's blueberry season and they're a lot easier than strawberries because you can wash them all at once and then put them back in their box in the fridge. Strawberries rot faster after you wash them so it's better to wash them when you use them.)

A yummy dessert or snack (or breakfast): cut up fruit (nectarine, peach, pear, etc.) or berries and throw them in a small bowl with some yogurt or cottage cheese. Ice cream makes a good dairy medium too. You can put in nuts or raisins or granola or wheat germ too. And a little sugar or honey is no crime if the yogurt is too sour. There's always banana to sweeten up the mix too.

I haven't quite got the hang of eating melons. I think the key is to cut up the whole thing when you get it.

Share and Enjoy!

So, that is my advice on how to eat produce at home. I'm no cook, but it's not that hard when you get the hang of it. You still throw things away, but at least maybe you'll use some of them!

Farm Share 8/11/09

Farm Share 8/11/09
Originally uploaded by erink

Someone asked about my farm share the other day, and I haven't posted anything about it for a while. This is what we got in our box from Kretschmann this week:

• A bunch of beets
• One onion (I cut off the top because it was in bad condition, but apparently there's stuff you can do with it if it's not)
• Two green peppers
• Four tomatoes (of moderate quality) - apparently there's a "late blight" causing farmers in the region to lose a bunch of tomatoes this year ... Bummer. So much for my insalata caprese dreams. I still have hope for my plants, though a friend four blocks away just lost his tomato patch.
• Lettuce - this week we got two bunches of something like romaine.
• Chard
• One tiny watermelon
• Green beans
• A bunch of curly parsley
• Carrots
• Two cucumbers

Seriously, Microsoft?

I am more than pissed off by these Bing commercials.

The premise is that web searches are no good at restricting their results to what you actually meant. And that's just not true. It hasn't been true for ten years. Get over it!

If search engines were that annoying they wouldn't be so popular. Millions of us would not be using a search-created homepage. Search works great. The only thing pissing me off about search engines now is Bing's marketing campaign.

This is fun, though. http://blindsearch.fejus.com/

Garlic Flower

Garlic Flower
Originally uploaded by erink

One of our farm shares two weeks ago included a garlic bulb with a stem attached that was like 5' long. Seriously. Well, at least four feet.

We kept it like that for a few days, because it was cool looking. Then eventually the beau cut the garlic off the bottom and put it on the counter where we keep garlic. But we didn't throw out the stem yet, because, well, it was cool looking.

A few days on, the flower bud at the top started opening. So I recut the stem and put it in a little vase. (The stem is down to about 3' now.)

The flower is only about as big as a quarter.

Our other farm share has been giving us garlic scapes, which are just the stem part. You can use them in salads and eggs and stuff, they're garlic-flavored and a bit more dense than green onions. But now I'm thinking maybe we should make them all into flowers.