A boost even when you don't think you need it

I've had a terrific morning--kids went off to school with no early morning grumpitude, sun is shining, and I have got a good start on the writing without excessive abuse of caffeine and carbohydrates. But what took the morning from good to great was watching this video:

Extreme Sheep

Just go look. I bet it has the power to transform a shitty morning too.

Advice

You folks have been a great source of advice--I really appreciate the recent CSA advice and thought I'd try out another realm: technology.

Can someone explain to me how they use Facebook?

I signed up for it recently because I was searching for some information about some teachers who work at a summer camp I was considering for my kids (and I did get a much better feel for the teachers in question and whether they'd be a good fit for my kids). And then I forgot about it for a few weeks.

But then I got an email message via Facebook from a long-lost-friend from undergrad. And that is great! It makes me really happy to reconnect with some people from my past (of course there are a number of other people with whom I would prefer not to reconnect; I shall dub them the "undesirables".)

I went back into my profile and put in a link to this blog. And Facebook pointed out a whole bunch of people who I could "friend" some of whom I actually do consider friends! And very few "undesirables"!

But I don't want to sink a lot of time into Facebook--I prefer to stay focused here. I have no problem keeping it up as a bridge to this blog, but is that a good use of it? Is there something I'm missing? or some use of Facebook that you've found that is particularly helpful and unique?

Advice welcomed.

An alternate green...

Last year I made corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick's Day. It was my first time making it and I thought it was really good.

Yesterday I made it again and thought it was disgusting. I'm not sure why--I didn't change anything, but this time it struck me as greasy and chewy and just yucky. Maybe it was just the wrong sort of day; if it had been cold and blustery, maybe I would have thought the same meal was comforting. But it was warm and beautiful and I spent part of the afternoon turning over the soil in my garden beds while the girl critter gathered handfuls of earthworms to play with. It really was the wrong thing to eat at the close of such a day.

What I wish I had made yesterday was a different green dish, this fantastic Indian spinach simmered in yogurt.
I can't get enough of this dish--I go back for seconds and then pretty much lick out the pot. I'd eat it for breakfast if there was ever any left over. And happily it is incredibly easy to make. Next year, I'm going to celebrate St. Patrick's day with this alternate green.


Spinach Simmered in Yogurt
adapted from the recipe by Soban Singh Bedla, Vijay Bedla and Peggy Markel in Food & Wine magazine

1 lb baby spinach, washed
2 T canola oil
3 garlic cloves, put through a garlic press
1/2 a jalapeno pepper, de-seeded if you don't want it too spicy, seeds left in if you want the kick
1 T grated fresh ginger
1 t ground coriander
1 t tumeric
1 C plain whole-milk yogurt
1/2 t salt

Put on a large pot of water to boil. When it comes to the boil, plunge in the spinach and let it wilt (it takes maybe a minute). Dump into a colander and rinse with cool water. Squeeze the water out of the spinach and chop coarsely.

Heat the vegetable oil in a medium pot. Add garlic, jalapeno and ginger and cook over moderate heat until fragrant (about 2 minutes). Add the coriander and tumeric and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the yogurt and the spinach and cook over low heat until the yogurt begins to separate and look a little cottage-cheese-like, about 5 minutes. Stir in the salt, taste and check for seasoning, and serve.

wow

I went for a walk in Bird Hills Park yesterday wearing shorts.

I saw a fat robin doing its hop, hop, hop.

I had the windows (well, the newer double glass ones that don't have storms) open and there was fresh air in the house.

Is it possible that Spring is here?

I didn't see this coming; I kept waiting for a major Winter depressive period to hit me and whatdayaknow, it never did!

Is Winter really Winter if I don't go through the emotional wringer?

wow.

But hey, while my mood is mighty sunny, my writing production is really lousy. I didn't write a word last week. I wrote two sentences yesterday. I really don't want to write today; I want to go clean up my garden and plant some peas.

Maybe there is a little hope--it is supposed to rain tomorrow.

The UN-tutorial

Wanna make yourself a yoga mat bag out of a spare pillow case?
Well, you should probably go find a competent sewer to show you how. But if you really like to swear and want to strengthen your relationship with your seam ripper, read on.

Sigh. When it comes to process vs. product, this one falls in the latter category--it turned out OK, but man, the process was not pretty.

A little background info: I have finally found a yoga class that a) fits my schedule b) isn't too hard or too easy c) isn't being taught by an angry teacher (I know, an angry yoga teacher? yeah...it wasn't pretty). So now my yoga mat, which had been hanging out at the back of the closet needs to be relatively accessible. After finding the black cat curled up on it every time I turned around (because cats have a magnetic attraction to anything you don't want them to sleep on), and noticing that the sticky surface of the mat was perfect for collecting cat hair, I figured it was time to protect the mat.

Sounds easy, yes? Take a big tube and make it smaller, with a drawstring and a strap. Ha!

Step 1: Locate spare pillowcase, make sure mat will fit:

Looks good.

Step 2: Cut away excess the fabric and use it to make the a shoulder strap:
Folding and pinning the strap...

...and sewing the strap. I "chose" contrasting thread because I couldn't find the white. And because I wanted to make sure everyone could see my crappy stitching.
Wow! This is going pretty well! Maybe I've shaken off that sewing curse!

Oooops. Spoke too soon. Should know better than to have confidence when it comes to sewing.

Fuck up #1: Sewing the tube for the drawstring before adding the buttonholes for the string to come out of.

Time to get out the seam ripper!

Hmm. Where is that thingy? Time to locate the seam ripper.

I sent the girl critter on a quest to find it which she enjoyed because it meant emptying out the four separate boxes of poorly organized sewing crap.

The contents of just one of the four boxes. (Oh look! There's the white thread too!)

Luckily the girl critter located it because from here on out, the seam ripper is the main character of our sordid little craft drama:
So with our purple protagonist, I ripped out edges of the drawstring tube. Yum yum, munch munch. (I found it helpful to imagine the seam ripper as hungry. Then at least I could feel good about feeding it.)

Fuck up #2--Remembering how to do buttonholes. You'll notice that there is a break in the photo documentation of this process. At this time I was too busy swearing a blue streak and ripping/feeding the seam ripper to remember to take photos.

Despite practicing making buttonholes on a spare scrap of fabric, I still screwed up 3 times when trying to make them on the drawstring tube. (More swearing, more snacks for the seam ripper!)

Step whatever: re-sewing the drawstring tube.

Step whatever+1: sewing the side seam.

Fuck up # whatever: sewing the two completed buttonholes into the side seam.

(Insert favorite curse words, start brandishing seam ripper like a fencing foil.)

Try again to sew the side seam without enclosing the much-suffered-for button holes.

Half success! Also known as: Fuck up # whatever+1. This time only one buttonhole was trapped in the seam.

(Sigh. Consider alcohol. Then realize that drunk sewing is probably dangerous.)

Riiiiiiiiip! Munch munch (even the seam ripper is getting full/sick of this). Finally succeed in sewing a seam in which both button holes are not trapped.

Thread through ribbon for draw cord.

Close up of crappy buttonhole with drawcord.

Bag is finally done.
It doesn't look like it tortured me for three hours now does it?

For $12.29 I could have saved myself the grief, not exposed the girl critter to some very creative language and bought a bag that is ventilated (so your mat can breathe?) and has the added bonus of not looking like an old Ikea pillowcase.

Garden/CSA advice

Last year, my vegetable garden was a major disappointment. I didn't do anything differently, but had lousy crop yields on some produce that I usually want (and in a normal year, am able to produce) in abundance.

So this year, I am going to let the pro's grow the bulk of my vegetables. I signed up for the Tantre Farm CSA -- I've bought their produce at the market and have been reading about their lovely weekly CSA surprise boxes from Kim and the Gastronomical Three ladies. I had a major case of produce envy last summer. I also really love the idea of a weekly surprise box -- I eat pretty much every vegetable out there so there really aren't any particular vegetables that I wouldn't be happy to see. And I like the idea of using the mix to jump start my creativity in the kitchen.

I will still be keeping my garden going and this will give me the liberty to grow fun stuff (pumpkins, potatoes) and stuff that we can never get enough of (peas, spinach).

So I'm looking for a little advice from those of you who have had Tantre CSA shares in the last few years: Are there some vegetables that you would grow to supplement your share if you had the space/time? What vegetables, other than greens like kale and swiss chard which I have heard are always in abundant supply, did you get a ton of or should I definitely NOT think about growing?

Here are some of the vegetables I'm considering for my three raised beds this year:

• peas (can never have too many)
• spinach (ditto)
• potatoes (fun! store well)
• pumpkins (kids should get a kick out of them)
• basil (for annual frozen pesto supply)
• shell beans (the kind you dry, because it sounds like fun and they store well)
• lima beans (because fresh baby lima beans are so different from the mealy stuff we all grew up with)

Suggestions? Advice?

Humanist fiction

I realize that humanism is viewed as passe, particularly in any sort of scholarly company. I swallowed enough of the post-structuralist, Foucauldian cool-aid in grad school to know that there are plenty of people who think that humanism is a dirty word when referring to serious literature. Maybe that's why I left grad school! And this is probably also the reason that I enjoy YA fiction which seems to hope for people to treat each other decently more often than its "adult" counterparts.

I admit that I often do enjoy fiction that isn't written from the humanist perspective; David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas is one book that comes to mind. But sometimes one just needs a break from irony and anger and narratives that want to mess with your head. In short, sometimes I need to read fiction that is heartily humanist in its perspective.

I'm not sure what took me so long, but I finally got around to reading Anne Patchett's Run. I enjoyed Bel Canto which, despite the subject matter of hostages, terrorism and third world politics, is a startlingly humanist book. People who thought they had nothing in common turned out to find commonalities and connections, to respect and value each other despite their differences. Humanist doesn't mean happy-clappy--there's tragedy and pain, but the underlying sentiment is one that does not invoke despair, at least not in my cynical brain.

Run has a similar feel to it. The book has important things to say about family and love and it never makes them feel simple. If anything, love is treated as a complex and confusing force: respected, longed for, and at times scarily beautiful. I know that there were unbelievable bits: the girl, Kenya, is a bit too good to be true and the events (with the exception of one plot twist that I didn't see coming) are a little predictable. It was clear that Patchett was echoing (and at one time, directly quoting) James Joyce's "The Dead", (which I confess is his one work that has really moved me and made me understand the fuss) and maybe there were a few too many similarities for my taste. But these were really minor issues that didn't hamper my enjoyment.

Technically, the book fascinated me by the author's ability to shift the point of view without any apparent awkwardness or confusion. On one page I counted 8 shifts in point of view! It was lovely to get to hear all these voices, to have a scene rendered kaleidoscopically. I also appreciated the author's judicious use of lyrical language--she doesn't douse the whole book in it, but reserves it for emphasis so that when it is used to describe the beauty of a dead fish floating in a jar, or to describe a girl running, or to render the hallucinations of critical illness, the significance of these moments reaches the readers.

What do you cook when you come home?

For once, I did a smart thing and cleaned out the fridge before we went on vacation so we didn't come back to liquefied vegetables in the crisper drawers and containers of mystery foods that had sprouted hair.

But more significant than what wasn't in the fridge was what I wanted to be there. I don't know about you, but after a vacation where I accommodate lots of factors (picky kids, restaurant ignorance, lack of kitchen) and only occasionally get the food I want to eat, I have massive cravings for my kinda food. The In-n-Out Burgers were good, as were the fish tacos, but I rarely get enough vegetables when traveling. There was a reasonable quantity of salad, but I also want cooked vegetables and not just as a wee side dish next to a hunk of protein.

The first thing I made was Sarah's Hummus (recipe below). I thought I had blogged about it before, but can't find any record of it.
This is my favorite hearty hummus. It isn't the stuff we get at the Lebanese restaurant and have dubbed "white velvet" for its smoothness--this stuff is chunky and substantial. It has an extra dose of texture from the roasted sesame seeds and lots parsley that get whirred in at the end (I'm not sure why the green of the parsley isn't showing up in the photo above. I guess I over whirred...). And it makes a lot--enough for sharing, or in my case, enough for the lunch pictured above and plenty left over for dinner.

To go with the rest of the hummus for dinner tonight, I bought a jumbo quantity of spinach to make a recipe for spicy greens and bulgur featured on Warda's blog 64 sq ft Kitchen. (You should go see her beautiful photos, then you'll want to make it too.)

Since I'm overcompensating for a perceived vegetal lack, I also roasted some eggplant and some beets (separately) today to be made into (separate) salads. The eggplant will get a simple feta/lemon/olive oil/mint dressing. The beets will get an even simpler olive oil/red wine vinegar/orange zest/parsley dressing.

And after consuming all of the above this evening, I expect I'll feel a little more open to non-vegetable dishes. But, just in case of continuing cravings, I picked up some asparagus and Brussels sprouts that will get roasted on another day.

Sarah's Hummus
2 cans of chickpeas, rinsed and drained (about 4 cups)
1/2 C tahini sauce
1/3 C warm water
1/3 C olive oil
juice from 3 lemons
4 garlic cloves
1 1/2 t salt
2 t cumin
black pepper
3 T roasted sesame seeds
1/2 C packed Italian parsley leaves

Blend everything but the sesame seeds and parsley leaves in the food processor until smooth-ish. Then at the sesame seeds and parsley and pulse a few times just to mix and chop up a little.

Back

We're back, but I have to say, I could have got used to the place.

Finding wild hermit crabs

Rosemary hedges

Time for contemplation

Newborn seal pups (umbilical cord still visible!)

Fresh picked tangerines for breakfast

Lorikeets licking nectar

Finally understanding the following exchange:

Donny: Those are good burgers, Walter.
Walter Sobchak: Shut the fuck up, Donny.

Turning 6 with friends

Not how I planned to get my writing time...

I'm in sunny San Diego, home of fish tacos and tangerines growing outside the door! I thought I was being wildly optimistic when I printed out and brought along the manuscript of my novel, but I thought maybe I'd snatch a few moments to do a little writing on the plane or when the kids were poking their fingers into tide pools.

Yesterday we did plenty of the tide pool poking--it was an exquisite day and we went to the beach near the house of the friends we are staying with in Encinitas and then drove to Cabrillo National Monument and hiked and explored the amazing tide pools. The girl critter was out of her head happy to get to see and touch wild hermit crabs and critters like the Sunburst Anemone. We even saw some small sea stars with legs so long and delicate you couldn't believe that they routinely survived the bashing waves and tides.

Now the poor girl critter is simply out of her head. She slept in today and woke up hot and cranky, then after some juice and milk, threw up all over me.

So Brian and Ian cleared out of here and went off to Palomar Observatory for some good geeky fun. Mostly the girl is sleeping with the occasional bout of dry heaves, but other than a few requests for a cooling damp washcloth, prefers to be left alone.

I didn't plan on getting my writing time in this way, and I do hope that this is just a brief blip for the girl. But I am enjoying the quiet--the birds singing outside the window, the warm breezes and sunshine--as I work my way through my manuscript, editing and writing, adding and elaborating. Other than the sick girl in the next room, I imagine this is what a writer's retreat feels like.