Don’t try to read my mind, it’s scary in there.
I spent my lunch hour today at the Canadian Embassy. My Canadian coworker invited us to the annual Canada Day festivities at the Embassy. I am unashamed to say that I snarfed down three hot dogs and a bunch of water - très Canadien, eh? 
It was nice to get out of the office for a bit, and it didn’t hurt that I got lunch, a Canadian flag, and some flag “tattoos” for my trouble.
It’s been raining so much here lately, that we haven’t been able to mow the lawn much. I know E isn’t particularly happy about it, but at least the bees are happy. They seem to like the clover that’s growing in the yard:
I’m trying to pay more attention to the bees… and to the smaller things in life that I tend to overlook because I’m busy or just plain not paying attention. Bees are on my mind more and more lately because of the news about Colony Collapse Disorder. I now have a number of veggie plants in the back yard, that won’t get pollinated unless the bees or other insects are drawn to the yard. Imagine what will happen if all of the bees die?!
So here’s to our slightly overgrown lawn, bees, and the other small things that might get overlooked.
The first basil harvest from this year’s basil plants. Kind of small, but it will be tasty with this weekend’s farmer’s market finds, including some lovely grape tomatoes.
It’s been a busy couple of weekends, but there has been garden work happening.
1. Eggplant ‘Black Beauty’, 2. Banana Pepper, 3. Tomato ‘Cherokee Purple’, 4. Tomato ‘Better Bush’, 5. African Daisy, 6. Herbs
I’m doing pots this year because we will probably be moving again. How far is anyone’s guess, but at least my tomatoes will be portable! 2 of the three tomato plants and some of the herbs (including the Genovese basil) are locally grown by smaller farms in the area. The rest of the plants were purchased at Home Despot, but they claim to be locally grown (all in the Maryland area, I belive). I don’t know how accurate it is that the HD plants are locally grown, as the pots indicate they are distributed by a local company but don’t necessarily say they were grown there.
Rasberries should be showing up at the farmer’s market any time now… but until they do, I’ll be eating Sharon’s Sorbet!
We’ve tried the Lemon and Rasberry flavors… I’m hoping we can find some of the others as well. Sharon’s comes in Passion Fruit and Mango (among others) as well, and there isn’t any corn product - not even citric acid. Whoo hoo!
I’m currently reading The World Without Us
I found out today that Gary Paul Nabhan has another book out that I need to read. Renewing America’s Food Traditions: Saving and Savoring the Continent’s Most Endangered Foods
In between all of the books, we’ve been having some wonderful meals. My last two trips to the farmer’s market and our visit to Eastern Market last week, have morphed into several delicious meals, including an impromptu lunch of whole wheat pasta, goat cheese, and local asparagus and tomatoes. A lovely oil and vinegar dressing with a red onion (probably from Georgia) tied the whole thing together for a truly satisfying and fairly healthy meal. We finished the last of the eggs from Smith Meadows Farm this morning, so I have to make a trip to the market next week for sure.
6/2/08 ETA to add correct link to Smith Meadows Farm
I’m getting cranky in my “old” age. Maybe I’m just noticing inconsistency more these days. I don’t know. I just know I’m annoyed at the stupid political BS that runs rampant in this country.
There was a piece on NPR yesterday, talking about how Bush is sending a bunch of food aid to various developing countries. [I won't get into the fact that it would be better/faster/more efficient to send money rather than ship food.] It’s great that we are trying to be good world citizens (??) and help other countries in their time of need, without starting a war, but I wonder…
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I almost hurled when I read this. I’m not sure which is worse, that the animals were treated so horribly, or that the meat went to school kids. Further proof that the meat industry needs to be cleaned up - literally.
I love pineapple. Pineapple is so sweet and yet tangy at the same time, it’s almost a magical fruit (one that doesn’t make you toot!). The only way to go is fresh, and I finally cut up the one that’s been sitting in the kitchen today.
The only problem with pineapple is, that when you cut it up, you lose about half of the darned thing. It occurred to me as I was cutting up the pineapple, that if I focused on cutting off the outer part (it’s not really skin - what is it? Husk?) very carefully, I could make a second layer cut that contained a little bit of the husk-like part (the stuff in the bowl) and put that part in the juicer! Yay! I made some pineapple-granny smith-ginger juice that was lovely. The juice was a little heavy on the ginger, which kind of muddied the pineapple flavor, but it was still quite good. I might use some of the “good” pineapple for juice tomorrow morning.
