Pop wrecks

Hannah doing her best Britney on a Starbucks run. Bring on he papparazzi!

Lullaby Bunny plays Rock-A-Bye baby, vibrates, then puts you to sleep when you tug on the handle between the legs. I practiced some self restraint and did not point out some of the disturbing connotations of Lullaby Bunny to the harried father.

A rare quiet moment for Naomi. The camera does not capture her devil child tendencies. How could something so small be so loud?

Hannah and I got tattoos like drunken sailors on shore leave. Though I doubt drunken sailors would specify Finding Nemo tattoos. Britney might though.

Slow Fasting

Bakeries remind me of my failures with all things yeast. But I will not give up! I will learn to bake yeast breads in my lifetime!

Hurry Up Slow Food! Waiting in line with Jenne and Aaron for the Slow Food Nation festival makes me impatient for the deliciousness inside. The food may be slow, but I want it now now now!

I wonder if I'd get kicked out if I took a bite.

The charcuterie pavilion. The bunny and pig feet terrine was surprisingly good. Mmmm... Pork. If I was a pig, this is how I would want to end up. Sadly, the line was insanely long the rest of the day, one can never have enough cured meats. There is such a thing as slow food that is too slow. Now now now!

The honey tasting section! Coffee infused honey was very interesting. Would be great with ice cream. I spent many minutes commiserating with the bee keepers about bee colony collapse disorder. But then ADHD distracted me with fishies.

Fishies! We learned about white and marble fleshed salmon being underutilized and generally wasted because people aren't used to the color. But this is totally just a marketing problem. All that is needed is to stop treating it as a genetic anomaly and position it as a rare delicacy. If I was Dictator of the World, I'd hawk marble salmon as a super high-end choice and charge twice what normal pink salmon goes for. Trademark a new made-up vaguely Northwest Indian tribe sounding name for it and before you know it, what was once fertilizer and cat food becomes the new regional specialty. Rather than try to sell it to supermarkets, I'd start evangelizing the high end restaurants to build awareness and set the notion of a high end price in the marketplace. Just need a few PR tricks to get some buzz and awareness in the dining and wine media. Yuppie foodies will totally fall for this ploy. And since traditional grilling and pan searing salmon preparations don't highlight the marbled and mottled coloring, I'd shift the emphasis of the marble salmon recipes towards things like cured and smoked salmon to emphasize the color difference. Marble colored lox would totally be awesome! All it takes is a little bit of imagination. But I'm not Dictator of the World yet, so I won't be able to profit from this. 

Lots of pickled things, but I didn't see any Germans.

Smoked beer. Like combining cigarettes and booze. I can tackle two vices in one!

Native American foods. Bison stew delicious! Now I want to go hunt me some Bison. And by "hunt," I meant getting back in line and getting another helping.

The Ice Cream pavilion. The yogurt and salty caramel ones are my favorite. My little Costco ice cream maker will never make ice cream with this smooth texture. If I was Dictator of the World, I would have a few PacoJet's at my disposal to make ice cream. And I would have Oompa Loompa's to help with labor.

Escape from L.A.

Today's late summer harvest includes lemons, 4 variety of tomatoes, and two kinds of asian pears. All the makings of a nice salad.

The pear tree produced only one single sad little tiny pear the size of a walnut. I can't believe this is the same kind of pear that Harry and David sells for an arm and a leg. Needless to say, I will not be profiting from this tree. This pear tree may have an appointment with the wood chipper soon. It may be spared if it starts producing partridges.

Filthy. My floors are filthy filthy filthy.

But I will not deal with filthy floors today. My procrastination and denial skills are so advanced that air travel is one of my tools.

And to aid in my escape from filthy floors, a crazy expensive $9 airport beer. For $9, a frosty glass mug would have been appreciated rather than plastic. But at least the airport bar floors are less filthy than at home.

Uncle visits Hannah and brings hugs and toy sushi bento box. Filthy floors remain at home.

Embalassed

Simple salt pickles from the Japanese picre press. Cucumbers were a bit bitter, so I will peel them next time. But carrots have a nice bite. Picre presses open up all sorts of opportunities for experimentation. Juniper berries. Pickled onions. Coriander. Pecks of pickled peppers. Eggplant. All sorts of new pickle inventions. And the inevitable failures. Massive massive pickle failures. Pickled bacon anyone? 

Fried rice - peas and bacon and corn. I just can't seem to make Chinese food correctly. One more thing that makes me an embarrassment to my people. The list is getting pretty long.

Energy stores

Tiny champagne grapes require much too much effort to eat. I was tired eating just this one bunch. Why did I get the 4 pound carton of champagne grapes from Costco? But champagne grapes may be a good way to tire out sugar frosted bomb enhanced ADHD children.

Increasing the thai yellow curry stockpile. It pays to have curry rice stockpiles lying around- a life saver for when one is too tired to make a meal from scratch. Too tired from eating tiny bunches of champagne grapes. Or too tired from chasing after ADHD children.

Innoventions

I bought one of Kieron's photographs. It now has a place of honor in the kitchen. Please support your artist friends.

Embiggened by the deliciousness of the previous tomato capellini, we make this once again. Still cromulant!

Nearly pointless kitchen gadget of the week- Japanese spring loaded pickle press. The name makes it doubly awesome. A.W.E.S.O.M.E.-O.

Drunken pork

3 words. Bacon Infused Vodka. Be scared. Be very very scared.

Egg on face

Bruce sandwiches again. Now firmly ensconced into the repertoire. Bacon makes everything delicious. Thanks Bruce and Meredith!

I'm no longer a fan of the white peaches. Sure, they're super sweet. But they lack soul. The old yellow cling peaches may not be as sweet and commercial, but they have peachy soul- a wonderful balance of acid and sugar. A sense of history and tradition. When a yellow peach is at it's peak, biting into a sun warmed one with juice dribbling down your chin is transcendent. Why bite into a saccharine silicone Britney Spears when you can have the full volume joys of an Aretha Franklin?

Forbidden fruit

My relationship with the iPhone 3G turned out to be a one night stand. It was sexy. I adored it. I was excited by it. And like a one night stand, I can't make or receive voice calls from it at home. So I go crawling back to Sprint, but the terms of our relationship have changed. It's just not the same anymore. And no matter how reliable that cell signal is... And how utterly functional the Blackberry services are... I've tasted what life can be like. And I pine for that soulful iPhone. It's like herpes. A fleeting moment of happiness. And then a lifetime of regret. Once you catch it, you can't forget it, and it's never the same afterwards.

Brown turkey figs from the backyard. They seem more purple than brown to me. These are great, but I like the elusive green figs better. But apparently, the green fig tree also needs a reliable AT&T signal to bear fruit.

Sour notes

The first of the backyard green grape tomatoes. A simple tomato basil olive oil capellini to celebrate. Yay tomatoes. There should be more ballads written about summer tomatoes. And sonnets. And odes. I'll even settle for a jingle.

Reducing consumption

Ramen noodles with indented space to hold an egg. Like a nest. Very good product semantics. Too bad the noodles taste icky.

10 lbs of garbage and 82 lbs of back seat removed for better fuel economy. Damn $5 gas. The non-aerodynamic box now gets 26 mpg. Not bad for a rolling shipping container.

My grocery purchasing decisions are often influenced by being matchy matchy with my kitchen. It's now become subconscious that I don't realize I'm buying orange things.

Grilled calamari suffered from extreme shrinkage. Sigh. What seemed like multiple portions, turned into one.

But at least I have summer corn. Corn doesn't shrink much on the grill.

And summer peaches. These peaches are only "meh." Grilling it makes it somewhat tastier. But what I wouldn't give for a juicy sun ripened yellow peach right about now.

Pining after

The world's best-est limoncello ever! Beautiful chartreuse jewel toned colors from the Aaron method- combined with the delicious piney rosemary flavors of the Ed method. And the super aromatic kick from an armful of Davy lemons. Is good. Is very good.

No minors signage hung outside my bedroom. To help me stay out of trouble.

Woodie wagon is back in action. This time sporting fashionable Korean pine planks.