Tomorrow! the White House will officially begin work on a Victory Garden. I have to say that it is incredibly exciting and also a relief to see the white house taking action on healthy eating and living.
Here is a link to the article in the New York Times detailing the garden and the role it will play.
Molly reminded today me of an occurrence sometime ago that I had failed to share with the internets. Upon our return from London (which by the way I still plan to post photos and highlights of the trip, I, like you, had almost forgotten we had been there!), I was raving, ie whining about not having, the amazing cream teas of English culture. A proper cream tea really cannot be beat, and is composed of both hot tea and a scone with cream and jam. We quickly learned that the jam must always go atop the cream and one must not make a sandwich of it. I'm looking at you McDonalds. We even went so far as to try the cream tea at The Wolseley where I made a complete boob of myself by asking what type of fruit scones they have. Fruit scones are apparently always raison. One may also have afternoon tea, which is a cream tea plus little sandwhiches, and MORE pastries. How this is not considered either dinner or lunch is beyond Dave and I. Well, after a week or so of my mutterings and complainings about lack of creaminess in los angeles, a coworker decided to amuse me with a cream tea at my desk. Behold the photos!
Just in case you were wondering, the red onions were the first out of the starting block of seedom. I know this because I have been staring at the wee piles of dirt since planting on Wednesday. Okay not continually... well maybe.
For my birthday, Dave got me a great book entitled The Urban Homestead. It's a helpful guide on how to make the most of your environment in an urban setting. I highly recommend giving it a read if you are at all inclined to grow, bake, or make something with your surroundings. We have since my birthday and the book steadily increased the amount of baking and cooking we do, such as giving up store bought breads and eating out during the week. We've also started to try our hand and growing more food. For the most part we've been successful, surprising I agree. Currently around the house and yard we have lettuces, basil, parsley, chives, thyme, mint, cherry tomatoes, snap peas, artichokes and rhubarb! We've even managed to keep the blueberry bush alive and happy in southern California and should have some fresh blueberry pancakes to share in the next few weeks.
With that limited success, we've taken the plunge and purchased seeds with the ambition of gorging ourselves on fresh vegetables this summer. I did some research on the seeds and bought them from Seed Savers (in Iowa!). I will warn you that if you go to the site you might find yourself more than a little hungry after reading a few of the descriptions.
This picture gives you a sneak peak of the spread we hope to have growing come summer.
..and here I am planting a few of the little guys who can't go outside just yet. More to come!
Two posts in one day! Craziness! Here's the plan for this week.
Sunday: Oscar party!
Dave didn't join so I made up some white bean tomato saucy thing that vaguely resembled a dish from my Spain cookbook.
Monday: Devil's chicken thighs and braised leeks
This recipe was entirely too complicated for a Monday night but I did it anyway and it was worth every ounce of effort. I didn't make the whole recipe but rather guesstimated for two thighs. I did substitute homemade veggie broth and some broth left over from making chickpeas for the chicken broth. Also didn't have any tarragon so I threw in some chervil. seemed good enough! A breakdown of the recipe can be seen here.
Tuesday: Dave's birthday Yeah!
We went to Father's Office for burgers and sweet potato fries.
Wednesday: Red kidney bean curry
This along with some homemade hummus. On a side note, I have come to love the bulk section at whole foods and predict more grains in our future. Even thinking of planting chick pea plants in the garden?! Uncle Allan if your reading this I'm going to need advice.
Thursday: Pasta with beets and greens
The beets at the farmers market have been looking seriously yummy so wanted to work them in this week.
Friday: Turkey cutlets
Adapted from this recipe and planning to serve it with some asparagus and celeriac.
I'm addicted to knitting!
My most recent project finally made it to its owner so I can finally share. The pattern for the bag came from a book I got at the library (the central branch is all too conveniently located across the street from my office) and is called the missing piece hobo bag. Its essentially 4 triangles knitted across with decreases. The knitting chart is actually really beautiful looking on its own and I'll try to upload it in my flickr later today. Lastly the yarn is from a loom store right in highland park. Love, that this was all local!
