I turned 36 last week. 36, OMG. I'm trying not to freak out too much, because hopefully I will get a lot older(!) but wow, 36 is a big number. I have no clue what happened to the first half of my thirties. Must try not to lose the other half in quite the same way.
I really must get my camera sorted out / software installed to sync my phone with this machine, etc. I would love to post pictures of the garden and the veggies but you'll just have to take my word for it that everything looks fabulous. I love being practically self-sufficient... even if it means I am living mostly on zucchini, and Italian yellow blistered squash (which are the most obscene shape, and make me giggle like a loon every time I harvest. I am very juvenile, despite my advancing years. They are so delicious though - off the plant, straight onto the BBQ, or even munched raw).
This past weekend we had a garden party for a few people in the village. The weather behaved itself wonderfully. It's currently really quite warm, and actually I am looking forward to the storm we have been prmosed for later, not least because it means I might not have to spend the two hours watering everything that I currently need to. But if that's the only downside to all this bounty, I can live with it... :-)
Ooh, and I finally got my cavelo nero into the ground, along with some seeds for romanesco cauliflower. It's a bit late, but I can always hope for a bumper brassica harvest. I've got loads and loads and loads of curly kale on the go. I could feed an April and an MR for... oooh, days at least.
Oh well, another dull blog post from Sara... Just saying hi, really. Hi. :-)
Monday, 28 July 2008
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
BabaGOODoosh!
Quick, no-brainer (and no originality, but hey).
Heat oven to high, whack in 2-3 whole aubergines (eggplants), cook until wrinkled and utterly molten inside. You might need to put them on a baking tray.
Cool slightly, and then scrape out the insides into a dish. Mash a lot.
Make a paste with 2 cloves of garlic and sea-salt to taste. Add juice of 1/2 lemon.
Add to aubergine gloop. Mix a lot. Taste and season with more salt if nec and black pepper. Forget the tahini and olive oil.
Serve to as many people as you have.
(Even P loved this. And that's saying something).
Heat oven to high, whack in 2-3 whole aubergines (eggplants), cook until wrinkled and utterly molten inside. You might need to put them on a baking tray.
Cool slightly, and then scrape out the insides into a dish. Mash a lot.
Make a paste with 2 cloves of garlic and sea-salt to taste. Add juice of 1/2 lemon.
Add to aubergine gloop. Mix a lot. Taste and season with more salt if nec and black pepper. Forget the tahini and olive oil.
Serve to as many people as you have.
(Even P loved this. And that's saying something).
Sunday, 13 July 2008
Things you don't want to see in your veg patch
There are, of course, many. Slugs, snails, caterpillars... but I'd take any of our invertebrate friends over the dessicated rat that I found this afternoon, near to the radishes, the spicy leaf mix and one of the (many) zucchini plants. OMG, barf, yuck times one million. P, thankfully, came to my assistance with a spade and removed what little was left. Said deceased beastie was so far gone I can only think something else dragged it there... because surely I wouldn't be so far immersed in my gluttony for greenery that I would have failed to notice a decomposing rodent for several weeks. (Please God, thank you very much...). Urgh.
However, thay say love is blind...
However, thay say love is blind...
Monday, 16 June 2008
Washing My Dirty Brassicas In Public
I've been wanting to update for days, but kept thinking that I'd do a photo post of my garden and the veggies to go with my (little) news... but my digicam is so ancient, needs charging, produces really quite poor quality photos and, well, I'll give up on that idea for the time being. :-) You'll just have to use your imaginations, if you're in the mood.
My life recently has been almost wholly centered around the garden and the veg patch. I think it's fair to say I've pretty much fallen in love with it this year; I just want to be with it all the time. Hmm, makes me sound more tragic than usual really! But honestly, going out in the morning when the sun is almost always shining (it stops shining fairly quickly, I'm not being blessed with the UK's only summertime down here) and picking my leaves for my huge bowl of salad, is just so special, and precious and life-afirming; I just want to hold onto every moment, yet every moment goes so quickly. I am trying very hard to live in the here and now. There is some uncertainty about how long I can hold onto this place at the moment. I rent, and I am hoping with every ounce of my being (shrinking ounces, as it happens, but that's another story) that this will continue to be the case. I can't afford to buy myself; property prices are plummetting but they would have to plummet and then some for me to even be able to get close to grabbing onto this slice of heaven in my own name, but I might be able to get close another way. We shall see.
In the here and now, as I said, I am gathering my salad bowls every day. I need to harvest again for this evening's meal actually, since I just gobbled the lot for lunch today. I snip beetroot leaves, mixed salad bowl lettuce, rocket, baby red chard (growing up fast, so won't be baby for much longer!), curly kale (the other morning I went out and washed each leaf by hand to get the butterfly eggs off because this is *my green* and those little critters are *not* going to have it), nasturtium leaves (hurry up flowers), mustard leaves, and mizuna; the whole lot gets washed several times and then dumped in an enormous salad bowl for me to add what I want to it. Today it was the remains of last night's mixed bean/pea/mint veggie combo and some roasted beetroot. Yum. And then some Total 0% with agave nectar and some crumbled pecan and some oats for dessert. Coffee.
Given another few days I will be eating my own broad beans, raw from the pod with shavings of pecorino cheese. It doesn't take a lot of cheese for a complete taste sensation, so I urge you to try it if you can - I'm afraid this is unadulterated full-fat cheese, but I am getting more and more anti-processing lately so I'm advocating a little of the real stuff, and not often. Peas aren't far from being eaten either. And I've had two very small, very yummy zucchini. No sign of a glut yet. Despite having, um, at least 30 varieties of squash plants out there at the moment....
I'm keeping an eye on my distaste for processed, non-seasonal foods, just to make sure I don't tip over into being completely, utterly insane, rather than just insane. But I might have to give up my beloved Total since I think it is the one thing (over wine, and coffee!) that I think I have got addicted to, and that worries me. I eat it for the extra protein boost but - it's got to be intensively produced, who knows what the cows are fed or in what conditions they are kept to produce their milk, and the stuff is shipped from Greece, so has to undergo even more processing... And it's increased four-fold in price recently. No, I need to switch back to the local Yeo Valley and either stop fretting about my protein, or source it (naturally) elsewhere. Oh, but I do love Total 0%... *sigh* Anyway, in the same vein, I've just chucked a load of cereal for being health food in disguise - if I'm going to have grains, I want them to be pure oats, or sugar free, local museli, not processed Kraft cereals no matter how "fortified"; fortified is fake; I don't want to go there any more. Now, if I could just kick the craving for wonderful, dense, artisan rye bread... but a little and not often (as per cheese) won't hurt me. And let's face it, I can't see me giving up coffee (apparently one can source it from Cornwall, but there are limits), or switching wholly to wine produced in the UK (99% urgh, although most of what I have been sipping lately has been from small producers in France so...), so I am still quite hypocritical and.... ok, just fussy and plain mad.
Has anyone else read Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"? I would recommend it. It has brought a lot of my fuzzy thinking around the issues lately into focus. She is such a fantastic writer. It would also be fair to say that I am insanely jealous of her lifestyle, but there we go! I am so fortunate with my own.
This weekend I was lucky enough to have fresh raspberries and strawberries from my mother's allotment. We have rhubarb and gooseberries in the veg patch here, but only Autumn Bliss raspberries which aren't fruiting yet (although the cuttings from the same plants that mum put into her allotment are, in abundance; a lot to be said for micro-climates). I've more or less given up eating non-seasonal fruit on a regular basis too, so this was a much anticipated treat. Visiting with my mother was a lovely end to a week off work, most of which was spent intensively gardening both here and in a friend's garden. If I never see an 8 foot bean cane again, it will be too soon for me. Erecting around 60 of them to cope with the bumper germination of various bean seeds I've managed was far less enjoyable than I had anticipated - 8 foot pole, strong breeze, bright sun, and 5'6" Sara in a temper are probably not a good combination.
Oh, and Arturo - last time I tried to read your blog (last week) one of your pop-ups gremlins tried to install and run an executable on my machine(!), so can someone let me know if it's safe to venture back into the land of the Yogitect? :-)
Love to all.
xxx
My life recently has been almost wholly centered around the garden and the veg patch. I think it's fair to say I've pretty much fallen in love with it this year; I just want to be with it all the time. Hmm, makes me sound more tragic than usual really! But honestly, going out in the morning when the sun is almost always shining (it stops shining fairly quickly, I'm not being blessed with the UK's only summertime down here) and picking my leaves for my huge bowl of salad, is just so special, and precious and life-afirming; I just want to hold onto every moment, yet every moment goes so quickly. I am trying very hard to live in the here and now. There is some uncertainty about how long I can hold onto this place at the moment. I rent, and I am hoping with every ounce of my being (shrinking ounces, as it happens, but that's another story) that this will continue to be the case. I can't afford to buy myself; property prices are plummetting but they would have to plummet and then some for me to even be able to get close to grabbing onto this slice of heaven in my own name, but I might be able to get close another way. We shall see.
In the here and now, as I said, I am gathering my salad bowls every day. I need to harvest again for this evening's meal actually, since I just gobbled the lot for lunch today. I snip beetroot leaves, mixed salad bowl lettuce, rocket, baby red chard (growing up fast, so won't be baby for much longer!), curly kale (the other morning I went out and washed each leaf by hand to get the butterfly eggs off because this is *my green* and those little critters are *not* going to have it), nasturtium leaves (hurry up flowers), mustard leaves, and mizuna; the whole lot gets washed several times and then dumped in an enormous salad bowl for me to add what I want to it. Today it was the remains of last night's mixed bean/pea/mint veggie combo and some roasted beetroot. Yum. And then some Total 0% with agave nectar and some crumbled pecan and some oats for dessert. Coffee.
Given another few days I will be eating my own broad beans, raw from the pod with shavings of pecorino cheese. It doesn't take a lot of cheese for a complete taste sensation, so I urge you to try it if you can - I'm afraid this is unadulterated full-fat cheese, but I am getting more and more anti-processing lately so I'm advocating a little of the real stuff, and not often. Peas aren't far from being eaten either. And I've had two very small, very yummy zucchini. No sign of a glut yet. Despite having, um, at least 30 varieties of squash plants out there at the moment....
I'm keeping an eye on my distaste for processed, non-seasonal foods, just to make sure I don't tip over into being completely, utterly insane, rather than just insane. But I might have to give up my beloved Total since I think it is the one thing (over wine, and coffee!) that I think I have got addicted to, and that worries me. I eat it for the extra protein boost but - it's got to be intensively produced, who knows what the cows are fed or in what conditions they are kept to produce their milk, and the stuff is shipped from Greece, so has to undergo even more processing... And it's increased four-fold in price recently. No, I need to switch back to the local Yeo Valley and either stop fretting about my protein, or source it (naturally) elsewhere. Oh, but I do love Total 0%... *sigh* Anyway, in the same vein, I've just chucked a load of cereal for being health food in disguise - if I'm going to have grains, I want them to be pure oats, or sugar free, local museli, not processed Kraft cereals no matter how "fortified"; fortified is fake; I don't want to go there any more. Now, if I could just kick the craving for wonderful, dense, artisan rye bread... but a little and not often (as per cheese) won't hurt me. And let's face it, I can't see me giving up coffee (apparently one can source it from Cornwall, but there are limits), or switching wholly to wine produced in the UK (99% urgh, although most of what I have been sipping lately has been from small producers in France so...), so I am still quite hypocritical and.... ok, just fussy and plain mad.
Has anyone else read Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"? I would recommend it. It has brought a lot of my fuzzy thinking around the issues lately into focus. She is such a fantastic writer. It would also be fair to say that I am insanely jealous of her lifestyle, but there we go! I am so fortunate with my own.
This weekend I was lucky enough to have fresh raspberries and strawberries from my mother's allotment. We have rhubarb and gooseberries in the veg patch here, but only Autumn Bliss raspberries which aren't fruiting yet (although the cuttings from the same plants that mum put into her allotment are, in abundance; a lot to be said for micro-climates). I've more or less given up eating non-seasonal fruit on a regular basis too, so this was a much anticipated treat. Visiting with my mother was a lovely end to a week off work, most of which was spent intensively gardening both here and in a friend's garden. If I never see an 8 foot bean cane again, it will be too soon for me. Erecting around 60 of them to cope with the bumper germination of various bean seeds I've managed was far less enjoyable than I had anticipated - 8 foot pole, strong breeze, bright sun, and 5'6" Sara in a temper are probably not a good combination.
Oh, and Arturo - last time I tried to read your blog (last week) one of your pop-ups gremlins tried to install and run an executable on my machine(!), so can someone let me know if it's safe to venture back into the land of the Yogitect? :-)
Love to all.
xxx
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Farewell Thunderchild
P and I had to have one of the cats put to sleep last week. Thunder, one of the floppiest bundles of feline joy I have ever had the pleasure to hear purring in my ear. He developed a very sudden and aggressive cancer of the larynx and it was almost immediately apparent that we had no choice but to let him go. So last Wednesday night we slept with him in the bed between us, and last Thursday morning I held his paw and put my face down by his and heard him breathe out his last laboured breath in one long whimper of (I hope) relief. It is very sad. I miss him dreadfully, and the next morning when we woke up, there were not enough tails and paws in the bed.
J continues to rally. This seems to be such a miracle; no, is such a miracle. That something could be done when he was so low, that something was done. I am very thankful for it. We're not out of the woods by a long way yet, but there is more hope now. At least he is being pulled back into the world, rather than lingering in the suspended half-life that is existence in an isolation unit in a stroke ward.
So a sad thing, and a happy thing, and neither to do with CRON.
Once again I am two minds whether to continue this blog at all. Linda writes in her journal that if you aren't measuring your calories, or monitoring your nutrition, then you are not practicing CRON. I am doing neither right now. I'm eating everything I ate in more or less the same quantities as I did when I was practicing properly last year, and I'm losing (or have lost) weight. The latter is not surprising given we've not been eating out half as much in between hospital visits, work and travelling. I'm monitoring the weight loss, but I'm not monitoring my diet with CRON-0-METER. I'm a good ad lib eater; I have confidence in a lifetime of good eating habits to carry me through right now. The results of the blood tests I had done back in December were apparently excellent.
So if I am not CRON, do I blog? Hmm, don't know. Doesn't stop me reading other blogs though, so I am around.
In other news, I've been gardening fiendishly. The courtyard is crammed with pots of herbs and flowers and I am eating my own salad at least once a day. I can't eat it any more than that because a hungry Sara would do more damage to a tub of leaves than an army of slugs, and I do need to leave some things to grow. Another month, and even I should be defeated by the quantity of greenery that has been sown. The squash plants are growing steadily, although they could do with some more warmth. The beans are climbing away up their poles. I really *must* get my kale into the ground.
Yesterday I thought of channelling the spirit of Miss M, and eating the nettles and ground elder that I was dragging out of the flower beds, but in the end my nerve failed me. I had visions of mistaking the apparently nutritious and delicous tasing ground elder for something less benign, and being found poisoned in my kitchen surrounded by evidence of my veggie gluttony. Maybe in a few days. It is a crime just to chuck nature's bounty on the compost heap, after all. And there is a lot of ground elder out there for the picking.
J continues to rally. This seems to be such a miracle; no, is such a miracle. That something could be done when he was so low, that something was done. I am very thankful for it. We're not out of the woods by a long way yet, but there is more hope now. At least he is being pulled back into the world, rather than lingering in the suspended half-life that is existence in an isolation unit in a stroke ward.
So a sad thing, and a happy thing, and neither to do with CRON.
Once again I am two minds whether to continue this blog at all. Linda writes in her journal that if you aren't measuring your calories, or monitoring your nutrition, then you are not practicing CRON. I am doing neither right now. I'm eating everything I ate in more or less the same quantities as I did when I was practicing properly last year, and I'm losing (or have lost) weight. The latter is not surprising given we've not been eating out half as much in between hospital visits, work and travelling. I'm monitoring the weight loss, but I'm not monitoring my diet with CRON-0-METER. I'm a good ad lib eater; I have confidence in a lifetime of good eating habits to carry me through right now. The results of the blood tests I had done back in December were apparently excellent.
So if I am not CRON, do I blog? Hmm, don't know. Doesn't stop me reading other blogs though, so I am around.
In other news, I've been gardening fiendishly. The courtyard is crammed with pots of herbs and flowers and I am eating my own salad at least once a day. I can't eat it any more than that because a hungry Sara would do more damage to a tub of leaves than an army of slugs, and I do need to leave some things to grow. Another month, and even I should be defeated by the quantity of greenery that has been sown. The squash plants are growing steadily, although they could do with some more warmth. The beans are climbing away up their poles. I really *must* get my kale into the ground.
Yesterday I thought of channelling the spirit of Miss M, and eating the nettles and ground elder that I was dragging out of the flower beds, but in the end my nerve failed me. I had visions of mistaking the apparently nutritious and delicous tasing ground elder for something less benign, and being found poisoned in my kitchen surrounded by evidence of my veggie gluttony. Maybe in a few days. It is a crime just to chuck nature's bounty on the compost heap, after all. And there is a lot of ground elder out there for the picking.
Saturday, 10 May 2008
Thanksgiving
Someone somewhere must have access to a hotline to God because J has rallied once more. I didn't see him today, but P tells me he was off oxygen and off the horrific monitors that had us transfixed like some goulish soap-opera last weekend.
After last week's hailstorms and freezing cold, we are having summery days. Oh, it's so lovely to be warm. Mmmm.
I have a weekend at home and spent all of today getting the veggie patch in order. My purple climbing beans are now in the ground and we have (ahem) 30 squash plants waiting (slight unexpected germination issue). I'm even getting my courtyard sorted out, which is mostly dedicated to leaves, herbs and veggies this year. I'm 2 weeks off being self-sufficient for salad for the next 6 months. This makes me very happy.
And I have an asparagus patch! It is torture letting it all get on and grow rather than eating it though.
However, tonight we had much asparagus - steamed and dressed with a little olive oil, rock salt and black pepper - for appetizers as the sun went down. Everyone else had beef, and I cooked veggie dishes of beetroot baked in foil with thyme, rosemary, and a little oil, and then mixed with red onions roasted with fresh rosemary sprigs and balsamic, and topped with a little feta and mint; carrots and leeks steamed and then dressed with a warmed mixture of honey, grain mustard and lemon juice; a huge green salad with flowers and herbs; and new potatoes with mint and olive oil. You can guess which of those I didn't eat. :-)
Sometimes I feel guilty how much I love my life here. It feels like such a gift. I forget that it is, and that I need to pay for it, and London and the job that I hate is the price I need to pay.
But it's been a good day. I hope whoever it is who has the hotline stays on it, because J needs good days like this too.
After last week's hailstorms and freezing cold, we are having summery days. Oh, it's so lovely to be warm. Mmmm.
I have a weekend at home and spent all of today getting the veggie patch in order. My purple climbing beans are now in the ground and we have (ahem) 30 squash plants waiting (slight unexpected germination issue). I'm even getting my courtyard sorted out, which is mostly dedicated to leaves, herbs and veggies this year. I'm 2 weeks off being self-sufficient for salad for the next 6 months. This makes me very happy.
And I have an asparagus patch! It is torture letting it all get on and grow rather than eating it though.
However, tonight we had much asparagus - steamed and dressed with a little olive oil, rock salt and black pepper - for appetizers as the sun went down. Everyone else had beef, and I cooked veggie dishes of beetroot baked in foil with thyme, rosemary, and a little oil, and then mixed with red onions roasted with fresh rosemary sprigs and balsamic, and topped with a little feta and mint; carrots and leeks steamed and then dressed with a warmed mixture of honey, grain mustard and lemon juice; a huge green salad with flowers and herbs; and new potatoes with mint and olive oil. You can guess which of those I didn't eat. :-)
Sometimes I feel guilty how much I love my life here. It feels like such a gift. I forget that it is, and that I need to pay for it, and London and the job that I hate is the price I need to pay.
But it's been a good day. I hope whoever it is who has the hotline stays on it, because J needs good days like this too.
Thursday, 1 May 2008
May Day
J is very bad today. P and his family have been with him since late last night and now all we can do is wait.
In defiance of (or reaction to) this, I have spent much of the day when I could get away from the PC planting as many seeds as I possibly can into pots (for micro-leaves) and seed trays. I just want to create. I wish I could cook for friends tonight too, but I think it's just me and I have little appetite.
Outside it's hailing, but there is evening sunshine teetering on the edges of the storm.
British Summer.
In defiance of (or reaction to) this, I have spent much of the day when I could get away from the PC planting as many seeds as I possibly can into pots (for micro-leaves) and seed trays. I just want to create. I wish I could cook for friends tonight too, but I think it's just me and I have little appetite.
Outside it's hailing, but there is evening sunshine teetering on the edges of the storm.
British Summer.
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