State of the garden report

After a week without its mommy...

Sad.  Very little spinach came up--it was planted too late and didn't get misted.  There are a good number of beets but they're patchy.  I replanted some of them.  Likewise lettuce and radishes.  Less than half of the cucumbers managed to make it out of the ground.  The sunflowers are a little better--more than half but definitely not all. 



And the peas--well, just see for yourself.  One in twenty?  Maybe.

The onions appear to be doing okay.  They're not all dead.






I planted the tomato and pepper plants that survived my absence--only about ten.  And planted a whole row of squash--delicatta, yellow, and pattypan.  Come on, squash borers--I'll fighting back this time!





Where'd this come from?

Overdue book report

Where's Billie?
by Judith Yates Borger

Very good reading for airplane travel and stuck in a hotel for five nights.  The crimes and criminals were a bit confusing and I never really understood why some of the stuff happened--the explosion, for example--but that's not really a criticism.  It's a real life story, not a tidily plotted mystery.  Not an Agatha Christie.  Human behavior can be messy at times, and she lets it stay that way.

Especially enjoyable are the details on Minneapolis living.  I like a little bit of travel story tucked in my mystery.  And the detective (a newspaper reporter) was so human I wanted to talk to her.  And sometimes, scream at her.

Still in Boise. One more day.

Meanwhile...


This is one long mirror.  I guess if I were a professional men's basketball player, it would just fit.

It rained today down in the valley, and something miraculous happened in the mountains to the norh east. 

 Snow!

Still off

Miss my kiddies.

Uh...Kitties.
And doggies, but I don't have any good pictures.

Work travel sucks.  Leaf litter, on the other hand, is cat heaven!

Off in Boise. Very off.

No posts for a week, as you will (not) see.  Off in Boise.



To the North, the airport.  Those colorful things in the distance, are the tails of airplanes.






And those white things off in the distance, are, I think mountains.

 

But I shan't see them any closer.

An actual paper book

  
   45 pounds (more or less)
            by K.A. Barson

Started off as the usual teenage angst plus fat.  But this book matured into something a lot more...girls and friends and enemies and parents and little siblings....and growing up and taking responsibility for how you live your life and what you do to others.  When we're teenagers, we tend to blame Mom and Dad for how we are--I did, that's for sure.  My narrow-set eyes; abysmal shyness; pimply complexion and greasy, thin hair...what could I do about it?  It was all their fault!

Eventually, I hope, everyone grows up to discover that they are at last responsible for who they become.  And your parents become people.  And then you lose them...but that's a different story.

Good book, especially for teens with body image issues.  Oh, stop me--that's an oxymoron.
Good book, especially for teens.

The good and the not so good

Recipe #15 from The China Study Cookbook was

Raisin Walnut Bread

It was surprisingly not bad.  I added 1/4 tsp salt to the recipe and might could have gone a little higher.  It had good texture and made a decent breakfast.  Too bad I'd just decided to cut back the wheat in my diet--it was all wheat flour.  I should try again and substitute some oat flour for part of the wheat.

Then recipe #16,
Pumpkin Gnocchi With Italian Vegetable Sauce

Fail!   The gnocchi were dry and hard as rocks despite my following the recipe to the letter.  If I'd made them half-inch size instead of the inch the recipe suggested, I might have liked them better.  The idea was good, though--maybe I could find a better vegan pumpkin gnocchi recipe on the web.

The Italian Vegetable Sauce?  Nope--it was Mexican, not Italian.  There's really no way to ruin zucchini and onions and diced tomatoes, but the recipe called for tomatoes with jalapeno peppers, so I used Rotel.   And that'sa not Italian.   Italian would have called for garlic and a little thyme with the basil and oregano; maybe a little flat-leaf parsley; and perhaps a dose of sliced mushrooms and a sprinkle of olives.  would have been yummy.


That

Long overdue Food Of The Week

I've not done a Food Of The Week in a while, so I'll pull out my long overdue

Nutritional Yeast

Basically it's yeast grown on molasses and then dried and deactivated.  A special species of yeast--not the same as Brewer's.  It's typically suggested as a source of vitamin B12 in vegan diets, but from what I can tell, it's mainly used as a flavor enhancer, sort of like MSG.  The taste has been described as cheesy and nutty, but I haven't been able to detect any flavor at all when I sprinkle it over popcorn.  It does seem to make me want less salt, which is good. 

The next time I have pasta with tomato sauce, I'm going to use it in place of that fake Parmesan cheese that has a nasty bitter aftertaste.  It's got to be an improvement.

Shockingly good book

                 To Kill A Mockingbird
                  by Harper Lee
                 audiobook read by Sissy Spacek

The thrill of the unexpected is what keeps me reading and movie going, and the very best thrill comes when I have no idea what I'm about to see.  When I went to see Saving Mr. Banks or Gravity, I had no expectations at all and was wowed by the results.  And when I picked up this book--don't remember why--all I expected was a rather dry courtroom drama with historical significance.

Don't think it for a minute--it's the story of a family.  A girl and her family--and them's the best kinds a' stories.

It was on the high school's reading lists, but somehow missed both kids.  I'm sorry it did, even if all they might have got from it was, "People were weird back then."  But I don't think so--the lessons it teaches are many, both obvious and subtle.  The irony of the teacher who pointed out how wrong it was for Nazis to persecute the Jews while in America, a democracy, all men were free and equal--well, that was pretty much in your face.  The "smaller" lessons in honesty and honor just kind of seeped in, mostly unnoticed.  But there.

One warning--if you grew up in Kentucky and have a tendency to lapse back into southern twang when you're speaking to friends, don't listen to Sissy Spacek's reading of the audiobook.  You'll talk funny for a while.

The China Study Cookbook #14

Asparagus Crepes
I tried cooking yesterday but started way too late in the evening and sporting a bad attitude.  I got one crepe and a bunch of bitter-tasting asparagus.  Either tarragon and lemon are a bad combination, or else the problem was that my tarragon was old and I used lemon juice concentrate?

I guess I can mark that I made the recipe--one serving, anyway--but I don't have a photo to prove it.  I just threw the crepe, asparagus and sauce in a bowl and sucked it down.  Wearily, at nine in the evening.


I will make this one note:  asparagus is too good on its own, simply steamed with the tiniest sprinkling of salt.  It doesn't deserve to be smothered with vegetable broth, onion, garlic, tarragon and lemon.  We ate it but we didn't savor it.

Great book alert

 

The Warmth Of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson follows three Negro families--and millions of other people--through their migration from the Jim Crow South to the crowded cities of the North and West.  Their journeys were painful, dangerous, and heartbreaking; the life they made in the new world was sometimes little different from the old.   But when they crossed the Ohio River, drove through El Paso into New Mexico, or arrived at Washington D.C., they all seemed to sit up a little straighter in their seats.

I knew that schools were once segregated and there were colored balconies in movie theaters, but I never dreamed that some southern states required entire railroad cars to be designated colored or white.  At other times, not the entire car but each group of rows in the car were segregated.  A marker denoted "colored" or "white", and an influx of white riders could cause the marker to be moved back a row at a time, forcing the already-crowded colored riders to move into standing room at the back of the car.

Who could endure such a life?  Many couldn't--this book tells the story of Ida Mae Brandon Gladley, George Swanson Starling, and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, all migrants to the north in the years following World War II.  Poor white southerners went north, too--my grandfather and several of my aunts did--seeking jobs in the difficult years of the depression.  The black people also sought jobs...but as often sought dignity, basic human rights, and freedom.

In an incredible feat of research and writing.  It's like three intertwined biographies--imagine how difficult it is to write even one biography well, and Ms. Wilkerson has done three!  It's a fascinating time of history--and a book that's impossible to put down.

Food Styling at its worst

The Thai Wraps from The China Study Cookbook were surprisingly good!  Tofu, a little chopped vegetables, soy sauce and ginger...I don't know what made it happen, but it happened.  They kind of remind me of tuna salad with celery.  Minus the tuna.

I can't even think of anything I'd change.  Maybe I should have used creamy peanut butter instead of crunchy, but crunchy happened to be what I had.  And the peanut butter didn't overpower the dish like in some other recipes I've tried.



I've plenty of leftovers, too!

I wish I'd liked this better

Old Books, Rare Friends: Two Literary Sleuths and Their Shared Passion
by Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern

Another long anticipated book that turned out to be not nearly as good as expected. Some parts were gripping, like the search for A. M. Barnard...but that occurred halfway through the book.  Both the early sections and the later ones turned out to be slightly dry-ish details of their bookbound lives, their discoveries and disappointments--much of the former and very few of the latter.

I don't know exactly why this shared biography didn't "come alive" for me--it may simply be that I read it while preoccupied with my own affairs, which at present are more composed of disappointments and include very few discoveries.

I'll donate my copy to the library and possibly they'll add it to the collection.  It belongs there.

Seasoned Salt--taste or tragedy?

First, an update on The China Study Cookbook's Tomatillo-Tortilla Bake.  Leftover with a little melted Jack-flavored Daiwa, it's not so bad.  If I ever try it again, I'll use corn tortillas instead of chips and add some chili powder and cumin.



Ree Drummond calls for seasoned salt in her Drop Biscuits and Sausage Gravy recipe, and it got me wondering--what is seasoned salt seasoned with?  The label calls it:
       a unique blend of spices, herbs, and fine-flaked salt.

Below that--holy smokes!--it's a cornucopia!

salt, dextrose, MSG, sugar, spices and spice oils, onion, garlic, paprika, disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate (listed as flavor enhancers), yellow #5, yellow #6, blue#2, red#40, tricalcium phosphate, natural flavor (who knows what that is), carboxymethyl cellulose, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, malic acid, citric acid and sodium citrate.

What a mess.  I'm inclined not to use it.  In fact, I'm inclined to throw it in the trash.
I think I'll substitute salt (ingredients: sodium chloride) and pepper (ingredients: dried peppercorns).

Dairy Queen

 Okay, Dairy Queen.

by Catherine Gilbert Murdoch




What I call an excellent teen novel.  Some deep stuff but not overplayed.  Humor and pathos; growing up and NOT repeating the same mistakes over and over; breaking free without breaking hearts...all of it.  It's right up there with Speak, Homecoming, and London Calling on a list of the best teen books I've read.

And, kids--don't let my old woman's enthusiasm scare you away.  It's fun, fun fun! 
Whatever lessons may be taught or morals may be imbued, it's easy enough to shrug them off and just cut loose with DJ as she milks the cows, brings in the hay, and practices football...behind her father's back, of course.

Abandoned.

I had to send back a library book unfinished, but I didn't mind.  It wasn't that good--Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde

If I had nothing to do on my days off except sit around and read novels, like some people I know, I would have finished it but probably not given it a very good rating.  The plot was, "teenager gets stuck in a malfunctioning fantasy game and has to play her way out."   Neither original or riveting.

The China Study Cookbook recipe #11

Banana Crumb Muffins

Six tablespoons of sugar on top of fourteen muffins!  That's a lot of sugar, I'm sorry.  The muffins were neither good nor evil, but certainly not good enough to try again.  And all that sugar!

So there's my breakfast for the next two weeks.

I also knocked off Recipe #12 -- Tomatillo Tortilla Bake.  It was truly horrid.  I'm not posting a picture.  I used Picante sauce instead of salsa, which accounted for part of the problem.  And I had to sub a little red pepper flakes for the jalapeno.  But even if I'd not made those those changes, it would still be horrid.  It wants cheese!  Fake cheese, of course, but something neutral and binding.  Without cheese, this dish is pointless.  Maybe something could have been done with rice and soy milk.

I'll try the leftovers with a little Daiwa.

Annoying early March freeze

That freeze last night clobbered the cilantro--it doesn't look like this anymore!  I wonder if the roots survived?



I got carried away yesterday and made three recipes from The China Study Cookbook.  The first one, banana nut muffins, I still haven't tasted.   Here are the others.
The China Study Cookbook recipe#9
  Dominican Chapea

A chapea is a bean stew.  Wikipedia says: Cooked red beans or white beans with longaniza (Dominican sausage), rice, and green plantain are the basic ingredients, with cooked and mashed squash used as a thickener. The flavor is distinguished by the herb, cilantro, and a dash of sour orange juice (naranja agria).

By this description, the recipe was a fail--but it tasted so good!  It was brown beans with rice, butternut squash, cabbage and tomato paste.  While cooking I thought it was going to be bland--do the Dominicans not believe is spices?  But that was my fault.  I omitted the cilantro which would have given it a musty, pungent aftertaste.  Too much cilantro makes me nauseous, so I tend to leave it out or cut the quantity.  (My  love/hate attitude to cilantro is believed to be a genetic thing rather than a cultural one, so I'm not sure I'll ever develop a taste for it.)

The second dish was Couscous Salad.

Pretty, isn't it?  But I didn't like it much.  The dressing was too lemony!

However, since I failed totally at "fluffing the couscous with a fork", I had some big clumps of it in the salad.  Those clumps--undressed--were good!   I should eat this stuff as a breakfast cereal with a little honey or maple syrup!

And this also satisfies my food of the week--
Couscous is made from semolina, the coarse, purified wheat middlings of durum wheat.   Wheat middlings are the leftover products of making wheat into flour.  They (it?) have high energy content and are often used in pet food.  Durum wheat is just our typical modern wheat, bred for high protein content and low gluten.  So there is no reason to believe couscous is any better for you than any other product based on the human-engineered wheat plant.  So sad.  So yummy.


t

Going straight to the top of the "to re-read" list

 
Code Name Verity
by Elizabeth Wein





Why is this considered a YA book?   I saw nothing that would recommend it to the young adult market over a general audience.  It's gruesome and painful to the point where I'm glad I didn't read it at seventeen--it would have given me nightmares.


It's twisted in plot but never vague; a thumping good spy thriller; a World War II action movie where the battles are realistic and gritty and often hopeless, and throughout a masterpiece of friendship, love and honor.  It's probably the best book I've read in years.  The minute I was done, I wanted to pick it up and start over.

My recommendation is: don't read the cover blurb and don't read reviews.  Start on page one and allow yourself plenty of uninterrupted time--you won't welcome visitors.  Or listen to the excellent audiobook.by Bolinda Audio.  The latter will help you with the Scottish accents.

Heaven and purgatory

OMG.  Simplest recipe in the book and it took me half an hour and trashed my kitchen. 



The China Study Cookbook Recipe #8

Hummus wraps. 


Fresh, homemade hummus.  Compared to this, the stuff I bought in the grocery store tasted like creamed cardboard.  So it's worth the mess...but use the food processor, not the blender.  The blender didn't cut it.  (Punny)

The usual note to cookbook writers everywhere:  for every dish, assume the cook has never tasted it before.  Don't say, "to taste" to a person who doesn't know what a recipe is supposed to taste like!!!
If you're too much of a coward to write down the measurements you'd use, don't write the recipe!   Or, in the very rare case of guacamole, where the correct amount of salt cannot be guessed at, suggest a small amount to start with and then tell them to taste and adjust seasonings.

Then I planted some more spinach, lettuce, etc.  Hurried to the store and back to finish my hilling up.  Planted two very short rows of beets.  Then sprinkled everything because I don't trust the weather forecast farther than I can throw it.

Footnote to hummus--it has raw garlic in it.  The recipe called for two cloves, but I used one large clove.  But I ate two wraps, which appears to have been unwise.   It's been with me...the rest of the day...lurking in my shadow...like Voldemort stuck on the back on my head.