how does YOUR garden grow?

It's that time of year kids. Get ready for the countdown of harvestables, pictures to follow.

So far I've begun the drying with some basil, oregano, lavender, spearmint, regular mint. Nevermind that other than the lavender this shit will be growing all summer long so I have no need to bother drying yet. It makes me feel safe and ready if I just have stuff around. Ready for what you ask? I don't know: the revolution? I will greet the onslaught with infused oils ? Who knows. I just know that it makes me feel better and so it begins. Someone who didn't know better would think I was either a witch or 110 because I just have shit hanging all over the house in various stages of drying.

I've also been suffering from coveting the garden of FFFO. She has an established 10 yr old garden which is AWESOME and a new plot she's set up with all kinds of squash, and potatoes like you read about. Le Sigh... I'm seriously contemplating just "dropping" some squash seeds somewhere random and looking surprised when squash results. The plot my garden is in kind of sucks, although I have 6 cayenne plants going gangbusters, and more cherry tomato plants than anyone needs. I see some pickling in my future.

Speaking of pickling, I had a canning frenzy this weekend. Watching her raspberries over ripen and drop off (and thinking about stealing them under cover of dark then discarding the idea as probably bad) and NOT be made into preserves by me, I went for the next best thing which was random roadside berry huts. Ubiquitous around here thankfully, so I got a bunch of raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and some pickling cukes. 14 jars of jelly and 4 pints of pickles later I was able to rest. I don't know how good any of it came out though, because I have 3 open jars of jam in the fridge right now and can't really justify opening more (one of them might have an "accident" soon though, I'll keep you tuned) and the pickles have to sit for 8 weeks.

8 WEEKS! Birthday pickles for me! yay?

Here's one batch of my preserves.

If I don't die of botulism upon consumption, I'll post a taste review once my grandmother opens hers up. Oh yeah, jelly for everyone!

omfg

kerry "what does this button do?" smith strikes again.

honestly...

V is for f*cking AWESOME!

So this weekend largely consisted of me mooning around the house reading whack ass books by accident (the whackness, not the reading. That was on purpose)
HN and I had both scored at the Book Thing a couple of weeks ago, and one of his treasures was lying around. He's gone (oh I, oh I, I'd pay the devil to replace him (anyone??)), so I have time on my hands and since I was nursing a minor hangover from the Big Gay Anniversary ExtravaGANZA! and a dog with a bleeding penis (I don't want to talk about it, you don't want to hear about it) I decided a little house schlubbing was in order.

I picked up a little ditty called The Steel Remains, by some fairly popular Sci Fi dude -at least I'd heard his name before and since I'm not really well versed in things like that I took it to mean he was at least semi well known. It's a pretty good book, but there is some serious gay sex going on in there. After the first very surprising sword fight of the friendly kind, I looked up the reviews on Amazon and it seems there's plenty more to come. It's like reading an Anne Rice book, but with actual literal swordfights peppered in as well as the metaphorical kind. Overall not a bad read, but it was *really* unexpected.

The Steel Remains indeed.

Anyhoo, to backtrack and get to my point, HN and I had done a little yard saling Sat morning. It's that time of year, which is my FAVORITE time of year because I love cheap stuff that I would otherwise happily pay a lot for. The first yard sale we hit was totally my victory for the day. It's the kind of yard sale that's so good you think your mojo is working and you're motivated to keep going for the morning, but you know really you couldn't top what just happened. Anyhoo, this was a bunch of old ladies cleaning out their basements and kitchen stuffs and it was like they saw me coming and put out the good stuff. As a not completely irrelvant aside, I love old kitchen stuff. I love the idea of cooking with/using something and wondering who was doing what with it 40 years ago. I've got a very few things of my grandmother's and a couple of things of HN's grandmother's and I don't know if I'm getting maudlin in my old age or what but I just totally dig the history. I think this is a sign of aging, but anyhow that's where I'm at.

SO. Back to my story. I got a bunch of little weird things (because you always do at yard sales don't you) but here are the big 3, in reverse order of awesome.

1)Creme Brulee set, WITH TORCH!
That's right. I now own a blowtorch. I don't care if it's 4 inches tall, it counts. I had been reading Mimi Smartypants friday and she mentioned it, and I've sort of been on a Flan kick lately due to the copious amounts of eggs in the fridge, but then when she brought this up I was all "Oooh, Creme Brulee. mmm, tap, tap, tap, crackle" and I happen to have a bunch of cream leftover from a dessert I made last week, so I spent a good part of Friday looking up Creme Brulee recipes and being sad I didn't have a torch and trying to self justify needing one. I have ramekins that would do enough but they're not made for the purpose. They aren't fluted, it's not the same. Still I would have made do without, but when I walked up Sat morning and this was the first thing I saw I knew my time had come. Bargain price 1 AMERICAN DOLLAR! You can't beat that with a stick.

2) Oster food processor: If we've talked lately and your name is Becky, you probably know I'm on the hunt for a food processor. I have a blender, a stick blender and a magic bullet, so I thought I had it all for the longest while. Then lately I've been making shredded salads, and a few puree soups and I've come to realize the shortcomings of my current tool set and the value of the food proc. so I've been looking around trying to decide what to do. I'm totally not above dropping 1-2 large bills on the right machine if it's going to last me 20 years, but the problem with doing so at this time in my life is that I am food processor ignorant. I have pretty much 0 experience with them, so I don't even know what features I consider a must have and what I can live without. So I've been trolling CL and goodwill looking for a starter machine to get me acquainted with the big deal and help me refine my needs. FOUND!
This thing is old, but it works, it's been maintained and it has all blades and accessories. I am so on my way to knowing it all. I can't wait. Price unmarked, but I didn't care. I bundled it up in my arms and yelled "OH MY GOD it's like they're in my head" while HN shook his head and lamented my total lack of a game face. (Bargaining is an art form in his family and they take it very seriously. His mother once tried to bargain for fabric with the counter girl at JoAnns. I have no skills in this realm, and in Latin and South America I am not even allowed to talk to a salesperson. Truth. ) Anyway, HN was trying to explain that if you yell things like "OH MY GOD I've always wanted one of these" they pretty much know they have you and there goes the power, when I spotted the coup de gras of yard sale finds and ran off yelling even louder. I was across the yard and needed to make sure I got it so I was hoping that if I made enough of a specatacle the old lady nearby would freeze in her tracks long enough for me to swoop in. It didn't work but she totally wasn't interested in it anyway so it's a moot point.

drum roll please.....

3) a KICK ASS old school Schlemmertopf Clay Baker. When I say Old School, I means it. This fucking thing says West Germany on the bottom. All of their delicious skills with heavy cream aside, the krauts know something about cooking, and specifically about clay bakers. For this type of thing, German is the way to go, and I'll tell you how I know that. I've been looking into them on and off since having an in depth discussion on the subject with my dad a few years ago. He wanted a Romertopf for xmas or something, and my dad being like me but older took to the web to do copious amounts of research on the subject and we talked about the various models . A lot. Recipes were researched, reviewed and discussed (and it was then that I realized we truly do mock what we are to become) and he settled on the fully unglazed Romertopf. At the time I was still not big into the braising thing, having just figured out where the on button for the oven was, but since I've started cooking a nice clay baker is one of the things that's been on my "I will own you someday" list. I've picked up a couple of the smaller sized ones at goodwill, good for veggie sides or the single lady's chicken breast but in my head the need persisted for a big honking gorgeous coq au vin for 6-8 sized job. Well now I can cross that off the list. Behold:

Price if bought new: 50 bucks. Price at yard sale: $2 Awesome old detail of 2 roosters about to throw down on the dome: Priceless.

Coq Au Vain rouge, coming right up. I know it will be rouge over blanc because as a result of the Big Gay Anniversary ExtravaGANZA!! held this weekend I am now proud recipient of 2 giant ass bottles of red wine. Seems someone got excited and optimistic and corked 14 BIG bottles of wine, 8 of which were drank. That leaves 6 opened bottles and not even my powerhouse neighbor thought she could pull that off without having a one go to vinegar so she brought 2 over to me yesterday. Tragic, FULL and opened. Only not so bad, because as I know from leaving a few wounded soldiers around myself, you can freeze wine for use later in cooking. I froze 2 ice cube trays worth for the little jobs, and busted the rest up into 2-3 cup ziplocs and froze em up fordelicacies as yet undiscovered. (lying flat, for easier storing once solid)

Beef bourguignon and coq au vin recipe reviews to follow. And probably also some bolognese sauce too. And also maybe a review about drinking thawed wine and whether I think you should try it.

And although it's not a tagine (another item on the list) I fully believe I can make the long heralded Moroccan Chicken with preserved lemons and capers in there and it will do. I also believe if I channel my positive thoughts and go yard saling again next weekend that I will find a legit tagine. Ikea has one, as do several of the major players in the cookware game at this point, but from my extensive research the clay makes all the difference. According to Alton Brown you can just use a clay pot and saucer like for plants until you get a real one, but that makes me feel funny so I'm doing more research.

This is the week I discover clay pot cooking, and you all can come with me!

Is that your mechanical prowess, or are you just happy to see me?

I FIXED SOMETHING! Like for real. Not with zip ties and glue (ok, there were zip ties involved but they were very temporary.

Let me back up:

Last saturday, I took my yardsaletreasurehunt.com generated route map and hit the road. There were yard sales *everywhere* I hadn't even made it 10 miles from home because I just couldn't get to a place where there were no yard sales. Turns out this was very lucky for me because as I was turning out of one particular cul de sac*, my gear shifter went completely limp in my hand. I could move it but it wasn't engaging anything, and it def was not interested in shifting gears. I had been in 3rd when whatever had just happened happened, and in 3rd I was going to stay.

There was a quick moment of "oh shit, my transmission just fell out" because the haters keep saying that's going to happen, but I got out, looked under the car and found this not to be the case. I then realized that I could drive, it was just going to be in 3rd.

So I got back in the car, limped home and did what I always do when things break. I called Ichiro! He immediately directed me to www.chrysler.com and told me to get a new car. See above about haters. He doesn't know the bond my car and I have and how we're going to be together 4-eva. This is my first car yo and I am locked down 4 life!

We then began a co-google session, which is basically when you just say words out loud and one or both of you googles around the train of thought. I had kept saying that I felt like the shifter was working, it just wasn't catching anything under the boot. I could feel it skating by something. He said linkage, so I googled that and found this thread on a website. The part where he says "The Saturn SC2 is a deceptive monster" really caught my eye (tho I disagree, it's fucking funny. He is one unhappy bunny that one.) Also, this bit caught my eye "Lemme tell you another thing that saturn maintenance tries to screw people on, and how I beat them on it, just in case anyone has this problem. There is a plastic piece that connects the shift linkage to the shifter. When it breaks, your shifter just goes floppy in your hand." AHA!!!

He went on to describe the official Saturn solution, which is $450 worth of new linkage stuff, and his own solution, which included drilling through metal and bolting,etc etc. Ichiro astutely recognized that this was a recipe for an ER trip and possibly surgery, so we decided I should investigate more before trying this solution. He set out to do more virtual digging while I went to take the car apart. Like Megan Fox in Transformers, only without all the "Sexiest Woman in The World" business to distract me, I got up in there with a screwdriver (Because it's a Saturn and that's really all you need to take one of those apart) and pulled out the entire middle of my car: Console, ummm, other stuff (don't have the manual, don't know what it's called) , and some other pieces too for good measure. In short, a whole bunch of stuff. I stripped everything under the dash and in the middle of the car down to the actual parts, including rolling up my shift boot to get at the linkage connectors, which just made me feel like a million bucks, and also very smart.

It also made me feel a little gross, because some of the shit I found in the nooks and crannies defies imagination. It's like the car equivalent of the Land of the Lost Left Socks. Every nasty, foody thing that I had lost in the car turns out to have been installed under my middle thing. Beer caps for things I haven't drank since college (I'm sure that I as driver was not drinking them, and that they belonged to passenger road sodas), that half a bag of gardetto snack mix that just disappeared, some fries, a hot tamale and enough dog hair to build an army! Also, remnants of the vomit from the first time I tried to take Star for a car ride and she snarfed Snausages all over the place. Awwww, I remember it like it was yesterday (though now that I think about it, it was in the 90's. Woah)

Anyhoo, digging deep, this is what I noticed:

HA! wrong picture uploaded. and it stays.

Seriously though, this is what I found:

This little beauty, so eloquently described on the thread mentioned above as "cheap plastic crap" had flat busted, leaving my poor other plastic thing in there just flopping around. It was supposed to look like this(with a black cap where you see the metal ball):


but with no cheap plastic crap to hold it down, it didn't. It was a hot mess in there. I sent these pictures to Ichiro, along with descriptive text such as "metal BALLS" and "Stupid fucking plastic shitbox sonofabitch" and also a couple of "Shove your Chrysler MothaF*cka!"s for good measure.

By the time I got back in the house, I had an IM waiting that the black thing was called a Shifter Bushing, that this was a common problem, that there was an ebay dude who made them (check out his ebay name and his number of sales man), and that Saturns were ghetto.

I clicked the Buy It Now icon, and sat back to wait. 30 seconds later I got bored and read further and noticed he said I could booge the thing together for a couple of weeks with some zip ties so down to the basement I went, emerging with an armload of those. 45 minutes and 62 zip ties later I hit on the desired configuration and did indeed have a working car back. 3 days later, box showed up and in under 10 minutes my car was good as new and put back together.

In short I RULE!

* I think I found where all the Village of the Damned kids moved when they grew up. These cul de sacs were just full of the SAME people. Literally, in one cull de sac there were 6 houses, 7 golden retrievers and 6 Suburbans. They're just like little copies of each other. blech.

What about Louis?

This is Louis. Here is a little info about Louis:


1) Louis lives in WA state, he is visiting MD for the summer with his family.
2) Louis and I are hanging out for 10 days while his family is back in WA for some family business.
3) Last night, Louis took off into the hills of Phoenix for a tour.
4) Louis then tried to cross a major roadway.
5) Louis got hit by a car and dislocated his hip. His family was up half the night at the Pet ER but then had to leave to catch the flight they couldn't change.
6)I picked Louis up at the ER this morning, and we got home about 9 am.
7) Louis cannot get comfortable.
8) Louis is loud when uncomfortable.
9) Anesthesia makes Louis nauseous.
10) Louis had some odd looking kibble for breakfast this morning.
11) Louis is teaching me about Zen and disconnecting by way of puking all over the place (and me) during customer calls today. Sometimes, you just have to work even with puke on your feet. I had previously been unaware of this fact.

Last but not least,
12) Louis is a really nice dog. Right about now, he's very lucky he's so sweet because we're holding on by a thread over here.

Truuuuuuuuuuust me...

Sometimes (mostly I think because I read too much Poe as a child) I think of how easy it would be for HN to "get me out of the way". I have a thing for being able to eat stuff, so as we're walking through woods, fields, high priced topiary gardens, what have you, he'll point to something and say "you can eat that" or more usually just hand me a piece and watch me go to town without so much as a sideways glance, nevermind a pause to consider. As I sit here enjoying immensely a cup of red clover tea from blossoms snagged at one of the aforementioned places that shall remain nameless, it occured to me that should he ever decide to be nefarious, all he'd have to do is be all "here, try this hemlock. It is SOOOO delicious!" and off I'd go. He could then very plausibly say "I have no idea what happened. She was just eating stuff off the ground and keeled over" My mother would not be surprised, the first thing she said when I told her about eating sorrel (my new best friend) was "are you sure it's a good idea what you're doing? I never ate plants." and I'm sure my dad would heave a big sigh, he having told me like a million times that I need to stop just picking up random things and eating them- even when it's not that random and I'm pretty sure I know what I'm eating.

Just wanted to share all that. And if you're red clover is missing and I've been by lately it's probably totally not a coincidence. I think I see an obsession coming on. I am helpless in the face of a natural diuretic.

oooooh that smell, can you smell that smeeeeeell??

Hope you know that song. Also hope it gets stuck in your head now. You're welcome.

Anyhow, remember my little bird friend in the wall ? Not the one in the kitchen wall, the one in the bed room wall behind the radiator? yeah, I had kind of forgotten all about him until last night when I lay me down to sleep and couldn't help but notice some funk emanating from HN's side of the room. I began sussing it out (kind of hoping it was like a pair of his socks or something so I could be all "you nasty twin!" at him) by sniffing around and also got dog involved and together we determined that the stink originates....behind the radiator. Sick dude.

Can I get a dry heave for the little rotting man in my wall? Thanks

How long does it take a birdling to rot anyway?

Take me to your leader...

Oh wait, I am your leader! Well come here then...

My new friend Cobi that I found at the gym peer pressured me yesterday and made me get my lead climbing cert. She then also made me lead some climbs.

Good stuffs!