Fruitful events

Wintermelon sorbet. The graininess of the ice crystals... sigh... disappointing. This flavor may be better in gelato form so the milk fat and egg custard help smooth it out. Next time. Next time.

Tuna, artichokes, and bean crostini. A spoonful of capers, splashes of olive oil and red wine vinegar. Another lazy man concoction. Aside from the toasted bread and chopped red onions, everything came out of a can or jar. 5 minutes, tops.

Banana plant finally flowering! Bananas hopefully soon. Giant tarantulas not as welcome.

Today's harvest. Herbage and tomatoes. Not produce self sufficient this summer, perhaps next year.

Home made spaghetti-O's. The crostini may be from a can, but tonight's pasta is made with backyard basil and tomatoes. Go figure.

6 years of living in this house, and this is the first time I used the bathtub. Now I'm good for another 6 more years.

1up

As part of a cock-a-may-me daydream about opening a neighborhood sandwich shop/ brew pub, I present to you the Luigi sandwich. Named after Mario and Luigi of Nintendo fame. Seared trumpet mushroom, brie, romaine, and some basil spread. Toasted baguette rubbed with garlic. Next time, I will reorder the layers so the cheese melts into the baguette instead of messily dripping out between the mushrooms and lettuce.

The Sarah Palin lipstick on a pig sandwich would be a mound of vinegary pulled pork with strawberry rhubarb compote on top. The bun will be served on the side so that there is no meat inside when presented to you. Depending upon what happens in November, the Sarah Palin sandwich may be accompanied by sour grapes.

Water babies

The morning light as seen from the potty is very pretty today.

With gallons remaining in the last batch of Agua de Jamaica, I'm resorting to sorbet-ization to help make a dent. I may have to change my habit of making Brady Bunch quantities of food. Or get cracking making babies.

Fun guy

It doesn't take much to trigger a chorus of "My Humps" in my head.

Hot today. Over 100 degrees. It's nearly October. Damn climate change. I blame Dick Cheney.

Wild mushroom spaghetti. Well, not exactly wild. The 3 different kinds of perfectly unblemished hen of the woods, king trumpet, and shimeji mushrooms were cultivated at a Japanese laboratory under strict temperature and humidity conditions. Once the $50 million dollar, 250,000 square foot, green energy powered, zero landfill mushroom lab opens near San Diego, these mushrooms would be both organic AND local! Not exactly the kind of local organic farming the hairy pitted granola earth moms have in mind. But tasty.

Green tree sloth

I'm making a ginormous vat of Agua de Jamaica drink (pronounced Hah-My-Kah- not Gee-ah-May-Kah.) Otherwise known as Sorrel in the Carribean, Karkady in the Middle East, Bissap in West Africa, or Hibiscus Flower Tea to the pale people of the world. I make mine with piloncillo sugar and canela (Kah-Nay-Lah aka cinnamon.) And this time I added cloves, ginger, and tangerine peels. Sometimes I spike my Agua de Jamaica with rum because that makes me more handsome and attractive.

Fusilli pasta with basil pesto- sloth style. My lazy meal prep tip of the day is that I don't bother heating up the pesto sauce in another pot, I just plop the pesto into the final serving bowl and then plonk the bowl over the pasta water instead of the lid. By the time the pasta is done, both the bowl and the sauce are warm and heated through.

Imaginate

I'm starting to recycle the old standbys to use up all those tomatoes. I should be more inventive.

The rule around this house is that the uglier the pizza, the more diliciouser.

Winter stores

It's the tomato sauce time of the year. This year's Summer of Garden Neglect has produced much less bounty than last year. But we will make do and be grateful for with what we have. Thankfully, supermarkets and Costco have been invented so I'm in no danger of starvation this winter.

I went totally nuts at the Super H Mart bulk bins. All sorts of flavored and dried and pickled fish products. The octopus jerky and candied anchovy snacks were especially delicious. All you pasty white people gagging right now need to get over your food prejudices and keep an open mind. Delicious is delicious in any culture.

I only bought this because she reminded me of those WW2 Rosie the Riveter "We Can Do It." posters. I had no clue what these were when I threw her into the shopping cart.

Tomato sauce. And crimini mushroom tapenade. If I had a basement, I'd totally have a giant freezer chest. And I'd buy an entire hormone free grass fed cow to fill it.

I made Nancy chocolate toffee chunk cookies for Greg's party tonight. I even followed the recipe. It was painful to do so.

Bad ass

Tomatoes again. No fresh basil leaves in the house, but I have emergency pesto. See... thinking ahead.

Preston's butt cancer lump is getting bigger.

Butterflies in my stomach

I filtered out all the fat and solids from bacon infused vodka. When I get my courage up, there will be bacon bloody mary's. Scared. Very very scared.

Once again it's Pesto Festo time. Tonight we make three different kinds- pine nut basil, walnut arugula, and pumpkin seed cilantro. Always good to have pestos around the house as a sauce for pasta, or sandwich spread, or stirred into a soup, or a marinade for seafood, or floor wax and glass cleaner. I am not sure I labeled all the identical looking pestos correctly, so I may be putting together some ill-conceived flavor combinations in the future.

Height of tomato season is upon us. We will be eating a lot of caprese salads over the next month.

This batch of pizza dough is especially perky and eager. It didn't get the memo about me being a failure at yeast things. Sssshhh... nobody tell.

Spinach and sausage farfalle. They don't really look like butterflies to me. There must have been a lot of vino when they invented farfalle.

Moon, my ass

It's the Autumn Moon Festival time of the year now. But I celebrate with rigatoni and meat ragu rather than Chinese food and moon cake. I should probably learn to cook Chinese food at some point in my life, but I've always despised moon cake. Moon cake. Ick. I was not even tempted to buy moon cake at Costco this year- and I'm normally a sucker for anything Costco. Moon cake. Ick.

August moon in September. Chinese mythology says there is a bunny that lives on the moon. Western mythology says the moon is made of cheese. I say, mmmm... braised rabbit with cheese souffle.

Preston is totally uninterested in the August moon. He might like Costco moon cakes though. And he definitely loves cheese and bunnies.

Spicy death

Tuna green curry. Post-travel laziness and a disgusting plague caught from snotty disease ridden children calls for throwing the dregs of the pantry and refrigerator into a pot with something strong and spicy. We will battle the plague with spices and fish sauce.