Monica

Remember my cohabitating cherry-tomato plants from a week ago? The wisdom of the Internet was conflicted, some saying to transplant and some saying I'd just have to give up on smaller one. I opted for the former. And lo, they both have more room to sprawl now. I bought some wooden stakes when I got the new (larger) pot, but they're too big, so in the short term they're being helped by (longer) crossbow bolts and in the medium term either they'll take a liking to that climbing wall I've put them near or I'll get some dowels or something.

I sure hope that rainspout isn't going to be a problem. I'll monitor that. There is a drain in the ledge between the spout and the pot.

The rest of the colony is doing fine too:

And the basil seems to be doing fine despite some initial drooping. We've had Caprese salad twice already.

Last year one of my spring CSA boxes included a cute little basil seedling. And I said "huh -- I wonder if I can help it make more basil or if I should just recognize my ineptitude and eat it now". But lo! I decided to be daring, and I was rewarded -- that picture is from July, and it it just kept going and going (with periodic trimmings, a subject I still consider black magic). And I said to myself that hey, we should try that again. I entered this spring with plans to buy a basil seedling.

Then the pandemic happened, and the food-supply network is not as reliable as it once seemed, and siderea wisely counselled people to grow food if we can. And I said to myself that, well, I'm not going to try to plant a whole garden with attendant kneeling-on-ground (or in my case pavement) and weed-battling and the like (and anyway I don't have places with the right sun exposure), but I can expand from one pot. I ventured out to buy two seedlings, basil and rosemary, and one more pot because I only had the one.

But herbs, while delicious, aren't really food in the sense of sustenance, so I thought some more about what I use a lot of and what is practical in pots and durable enough to withstand my ministrations, and so when Grow Pittsburgh (the people who supplied that basil seedling to the CSA) started its weekly seedling sale and one week I was able to get stuff (as opposed to everything being sold out in the first few minutes), I decided to add cherry tomatoes and lunchbox peppers (those are the miniature ones that come in red, orange, and yellow) to my plans. And because my basil seedling that I'd had for a few weeks now was not looking super-perky and the basil had been the whole point of this excursion, I ordered a couple more basil seedlings, and a little redundancy for the others (for parity). I ordered a couple more pots from Amazon to hold them.

Once they were in proper pots and getting more quality outdoor time they started to perk up, and the Internet told me that I was overcrowding some of them. And, well, this is how it begins.

( photographic evidence )

Since our CSA didn't do a winter share this year, we signed up with Imperfect Foods to see if it delivered better produce value than the local grocery store. They take stuff that isn't "pretty" enough for grocery stores and try to make use of it, so your carrots might be huge, your sweet potatoes might be cracked, and your peppers might be misshapen, but who cares? I'm pretty satisfied so far; you get to pick what's in your box and the quality is decent.

Sometimes there are surprises. Pop quiz: which of these items is of unusual size, the mini watermelon or the "purple" daikon radish?

( answer )

• 11 carrots (varied sizes)
• 3 green meat radishes
• 7 Empire apples
• 5 "white" potatoes (I expected the skins to be lighter; haven't looked inside yet)
• lettuce
• Rosie Asian greens
• 2lb spelt berries (what the heck are... ok, got help from Google)
• dozen eggs
• quarter pound of "cowboy coffee" cheese (there's an espresso rub)
• jar zucchini relish (who knew?)

I might need to pickle some of the radishes. My pickled daikon radish back at the beginning of the season worked out pretty well, but I like them more than Dani does. Do radishes roast well, I wonder?

There's one delivery left in the winter CSA. We signed up for the spring share, which is weekly for eight weeks (after a gap of three weeks, if I recall correctly). We'll make decisions about summer later; for that we have options for both size and frequency.

• two bunches hydroponic lettuce
• one bunch Rosie Asian greens
• six Rome apples
• three rutabagas (two bigger than my fist)
• one watermelon radish
• seven shallots
• thirteen baby turnips (are these baby scarlet? that seems the least-unlikely among the varieties they list as possibilities)
• four red potatoes
• two heads garlic
• dozen "pastured" eggs
• jar of, nominally, chopped tomatoes, though it looks more like puree to me
• 8oz jar Japanese knotweed honey

The eggs came with this note: "since these are washed, you'll want to store in the fridge". This raises two questions. First, washed? Second, when wouldn't I store raw eggs in the fridge? I always do, so this note puzzles me.

One of their suggestions for the radish is roasting. I've never roasted radishes, so I might give that a try (though some of it will almost certainly go into salad). The jar of tomato stuff will probably end up in a soup or stew. Most of the roots are good for roasting, though I'll try to broaden my horizons there. (Potatoes aren't the only thing that can be a gratin; turnips work too, I'm told.)

They note that the honey is good for tea. That's handy, as we like tea and, just last night, were noticing that the current jar is nearly empty. (Knotweed?) The hechsher (kosher certification) is one I hadn't seen before, Earth Kosher. ("K" on a globe.)

Today's themes: (1) giant squash! and (2) how am I going to use all those greens while they're still good?

• two three bunches arugula (two different farms, one labeled hydroponic -- turns out one bag had two bunches)
• one bunch endive
• six Rome apples
• one stripetti squash (this type is new to me)
• five parsnips
• three fingerling sweet potatoes
• two bulbs garlic
• three medium-large shallots
• two green meat radishes (these are new to me)
• dozen free-range eggs
• jar pumpkin butter

I'm glad to get parsnips; I quite like them as part of a roasted-vegetable mix. And the eggs are well-timed; I was just about to have to buy more. (I did have to buy more carrots, so I have some to roast with the parsnips.)

We're not keeping up with the apples, largely because both our workplaces get fruit deliveries so we're not taking them for lunch. Plus we got inundated with desserts (baking season, I guess), so I haven't been making cobblers. It's time to change that; I like cobbler. :-) We've had some baked apples, and apples are one of the things I stuff squash with, and there was an apple-beet salad that I'll make again with the last beets. I have a recipe for a soup with (butternut) squash and apples that sounds good. I can always make applesauce, though Dani doesn't like it as much as I do. I welcome any other non-dessert suggestions. (Desserts I've got plenty of.)

I need to figure out how to divide and conquer the squash. We can't eat all of it at once; would unused portions keep better raw (carve off a meal's worth and cook that) or cooked (cook the whole thing and then store)?

I also welcome suggestions for arugula and endive. Salad, yes, and I understand that arugula works well in pasta. Do they stir-fry or saute well? Does either work well in soups?

So far I like having a farm share. I think we're eating better, I'm learning to use new-to-me produce, and we might even be saving a little money, surprising as that seems. We signed up for the spring CSA (weekly, eight weeks). We're undecided about summer; a summer share might produce more greens and zucchini than we're prepared to absorb. On the other hand, the summer share has options for both small and standard boxes and for weekly and biweekly pickups; a biweekly small box is a possibility. We'll decide later.

Random question: what makes brown eggs more or less brown? There's noticeable variation in this dozen and it got me wondering.

Today's haul (a week early because of holidays; next one in three weeks):

• barese (a member of the Swiss chard family? described as similar to bok choy and good in stir-fry)
• six Crimsom Crisp apples
• 2 bulbs garlic (the other pile of garlic in front is delayed from last week)
• shallots (a couple large and a few small)
• five carrots (three large), counting the "Siamese carrots" there as two
• one watermelon radish, named for its distinctive coloring when you cut it open, which I haven't done yet
• six beets
• six golden potatoes
• one butternut squash (smaller than last week's giant)
• 8oz maple syrup
• 2 pounds spelt flour (they recommend brownies and chocolate-chip cookies)

I'll use some barese, shallots, garlic, and maybe shaved carrots in a stir-fry. Some of the barese might go into a tofu hot & sour soup (I have a crock-pot recipe to try). I'll make the recommended brownies and maybe cookies. They included a recipe for a salad of roasted beets and apples that I'll try. I'm not sure whether to eat the radish raw (in a salad) or do something else with it.

In followups from last week: the celeriac with peas was tasty; the celeriac mash (with potatoes and horseradish) was ok (under-horseradished); I used a little of the daikon radish in a salad and pickled the rest (yum). And the butternut squash I roasted. We had some of the goat cheese with dinner tonight.

We joined a CSA for the first time, finally enticed by a pickup location at my workplace. The first pickup was today.

• 1 head hydroponic lettuce
• 1 bunch Chinese cabbage
• about a dozen small carrots (about 6" long)
• 1 spaghetti squash
• 3 shallots
• 3.5 largish fingerling sweet potatoes (I assume the .5 was an accident and somebody else has the other half)
• 1 black Spanish radish (the manifest said "radishes"; Wikipedia said they're bigger than red radishes; this one weighs about half a pound)
• 7 Empire apples
• half gallon apple cider (not from the same farm as the apples)
• 2 pounds unbleached bread flour
• 5oz Bewitched cheese: "Enjoy this exclusive one time only cheese from Hidden Hills Dairy, available only to Winter CSA members! This cheese is a mix between their Buttercup and an Alpine Cheese. Great for snacking, making the perfect grilled cheese sandwich, or as an addition to mac and cheese! If enjoying as a snack, let it come to room temperature first."

For some of the flour I'm going to follow their suggestion of Japanese milk rolls, assuming I can find dry milk. (! That shouldn't be hard, but it wasn't to be found anywhere in our usual grocery store!) I don't know yet how I'll use the black radish; maybe sauteed with shallots and cabbage (and thinly-sliced carrot?), or maybe roasted with carrots and sweet potatoes (and shallots?). I'll do something savory with the squash. There might be apple cobbler in my future, but apples are good for eating raw too. By default the lettuce becomes salad, but I welcome other suggestions (for any of this).

More from that parlor game: Comment to this post and say you want a set, and I will pick seven things I would like you to talk about. They might make sense or be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.

alaricmacconnal gave me: Pittsburgh, writing, your favorite song, chicken, D&D, knowledge, and al-Andaluz.

( Read more... )

I interrupt preparations for the class I'm teaching next week at the music and dance collegium (gosh, I hope I have this calibrated right...) to pass along some random short bits.

Dear Netflix: I appreciate the convenience of your recent change to treat an entire TV series as one unit in the streaming queue, instead of one season at a time like before. However, in doing so you have taken away the ability to rate individual seasons of shows, which is valuable data. It also makes me wonder, when you recommend things to me based on my ratings, if you are giving all ratings the same weight -- 200 hours of a long-running TV show should maybe count differently than a two-hour movie. Just sayin'.

These photos by Doug Welch are stunning. Link from thnidu.

How Pixar fosters collective creativity was an interesting read on fostering a good workplace. Link from nancylebov.

Speaking of the workplace, I enjoyed reading how to run your career like a gentlewoman and several other articles I found there by following links. Link from _subdivisions_.

Rube Goldberg meets J.S. Bach, from several people. Probably fake, but it amused me anyway. (This is a three-minute Japanese commercial. Do commercials that long run on TV, or would this have been theatrical, or what?)

Speaking of ads, in advance of our SCA group's election for a new baron and baroness today, the current baron sent around a pointer to this video about an upcoming British referendum on voting systems. Well-done! (Of course, I agree with both the system and the species they advocate. :-) ) I wish we had preference ballots in the US.

A while back a coworker pointed me to how to make a hamentashen Sierpinski triangle. Ok ok, some of my browser tabs have established roots; Purim was a while ago. But it's still funny, and I may have to make that next year.

Speaking of geeky Jewish food, a fellow congregant pointed me to The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals. which looks like fun. I've certainly found myself in that kind of conversation at times (e.g. is unicorn kosher? well, is it a goat (medieval) or a horse (Disney)?). Some of you have too, I know. :-)

dr_zrfq passed on this article about a dispute between a church and a bar. Nothing special about that, you say? In this case the church members prayed to block it, the bar was struck by lightning, the bar owner sued, and the church denied responsibility. I love the judge's comment on the case: “I don't know how I’m going to decide this, but as it appears from the paperwork, we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that does not.”

47 seconds of cuteness: elk calf playing in water, from shalmestere.

I don't remember where I found the link to these t-shirts, but there are some cute ones there.

Dear LJ Brain Trust,

We recently received a Keurig coffee maker as a gift. This is one of those gizmos that takes individual packets for making coffee (or tea or cocoa). Pour in water, put in individual packet, push the button, and out comes a cup of hot drink a couple minutes later. As the pitch goes, if you and your spouse like very different things, this gadget's for you.

To my surprise, I have found a coffee-based drink that was actually pleasant. This is a first, so I turn to you, o brain trust, to guide my further explorations. Because while this was fine, it isn't exactly healthy. Also, I'd kind of like to know about non-dairy options (for meat meals), assuming any exist that I'd like. For this experiment I started with Dani's mantra that coffee is a good source of calcium.

What worked: a French vanilla packet turned into 8oz of coffee (the gadget supports 6-10), about 4oz (!) of half-and-half (didn't have cream in the house), and about two heaping tableteaspoons of sugar (ack). These were added incrementally, alternating half-and-half and sugar in small quantities until it tasted good. So possibly a better answer is more milk product/no sugar, and I don't know how cream versus half-and-half will play out. There is also the question of other coffee bases to try, particularly if I can find them in variety packs or something so I'm not committing to a whole box of something we turn out not to like. I am categorically uninterested in decaffeinated coffees (defeats the purpose of coffee for me).

For calibration, I also like most black teas. For a "regular" tea I default to English breakfast. I do not care for Early Grey but Lady Grey is ok. I like most strongly-flavored or spiced teas, so my instinct is to look for coffees with some flavor additive. (This is why I gravitated to the French vanilla, and I have my eye on the hazelnut packet.) I think what this all means is that I don't like bitter flavors. What does that imply about coffee roast types? I see a variety of descriptors in that space but I don't know what they tend to mean for flavor. And how should I be thinking about the trade-off between stronger coffee flavors and brew strength?

I'm afraid I've had to redact two of your questions from this public post. :-) You are welcome to ask two others, though I will answer the others privately.

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We had a dozen or so people for gaming on Saturday. I played one new game this time, Pandemic, which I really enjoyed. Ralph, who brought it, wrote about the game here, but I'll share my impressions too.

This is a cooperative game for up to four players (all of our games had four so I can't speak to the experience with fewer players). Each player has a specialization; more about those in a bit. The team is trying to find cures for four diseases before they spread out of control. You win by finding the cures; you lose by having too many outbreaks, by having any disease run so rampant that you run out of its markers, or by exhausting the deck of cards without winning. The game starts with several infected cities; at the end of each player's turn two more cities will be drawn from the "infections" deck and infected as well. Every now and then an epidemic breaks out; a new city (from the bottom of the deck) gets a disease and then all the discarded infection cards get shuffled and put on top. That means that cities that have been infected once are more likely to be infected again, which has the right feel to it.

Players can spend actions (four per turn) to move, cure a single disease token (in the city they're in), build research centers (help with travel and required for finding a cure), or work on finding a cure. Finding a cure requires accumulating sets of cards, which are drawn each turn; there is a limited mechanism for passing cards, and one of the player roles (the researcher) can pass cards more freely (that's its special ability). The other roles are the scientist (requires fewer cards to cure), the dispatcher (can move other people on his turn and can bring people together without the normal constraints), the operations expert (can build research centers for free), and the medic (can heal cities more effectively). I played three games, playing researcher, the medic, and the dispatcher. I enjoyed all the games, and while it had appeared in the first two games that playing the dispatcher would be boring, it was not.

The calibration of the game (we played at the first two levels of difficulty) felt pretty good, neither too easy nor too hard. In the last game we were prepared to win on the very last turn, until the single card that would have caused us to lose came up in the infections deck. Oops.

Other games I played, all of which I think I've written about before, were Trans America (filler), Rum & Pirates, Puerto Rico (three players, four-point spread among scores), and Carcassonne. Other games that were played (this might not be a complete list) were Imperial, Dominion, El Grande, and Hermagore. Pandemic and Dominion got played multiple times by different groups. Belatedly I realized I could have given up a Pandemic slot to let a new person play; I jumped into Pandemic when the choices were that and Arkham Horror (decent game but too visually-challenging for me late in the day), but then the other group decided to play something else instead and I didn't think to move. Oh well; didn't mean to be greedy with the new game.

We had some cancellations and were down five people (from planned) for dinner. Non-sandwich suggestions for leftover lunch meats would be welcome. (No combining with cheese or milk, though, so pizza, lasagna, etc are out.) We'll eat sandwiches too, but I'd like some variety. I think scrambling the pastrami in eggs would be good; I don't have good instincts for the roast beef (would stir-frying it with veggies work?) and turkey breast.