Insert Link - Insert Link - Insert Link

I'm not a huge blog follower, but do have some voyeuristic tendencies for a few people that I find humorous for a quick mid-day distraction. So a new one for me is that of Danielle - I found her blog through another that I pop in to from time to time - FUSSY. Now, about Fussy - she did these amazing action figure yoga classes - if you haven't read them, time to get to it by going HERE - so brilliant!

SO...Danielle. She's funny! I wish I could write like her! But then she CRUSHED me with her internet pet peeves - see HERE. Maybe we can't be internet friends after all.

Farmer's Market haul? GUILTY. Posting every week of our CSA to my Picasa site. But in my defense, I intend to make a little Mac photo book to give to my farmer as a little thank you for an amazing season of veggies! Isn't that a great idea?

Hipstamatic? Now granted, I am not nearly as overzealous as I was when I first got this app - but I DO like it! And not everything is green - look at this!



Kate Beaton - so I'm not ALL that in to comics but a good friend of mine REALLY is (check him out at DHARBIN) and he is always going on and on about her on Twitter. So this just gives me another reason to follow Kate more regularly because I think I might be missing out on something!

The fourth item - well, this is a new one for me. I am certainly guilty of using technology at inappropriate times (but never dinnertime) but I don't need an app to tell me so. But yes, I need to power the fuck down much more often. Thanks.

And finally, following that many people on Twitter? Now that's just plain silly. And downright sad.

june 2010

eesh - what happened to june? i'll tell you what happened...one week at the beach, one fundraiser, one trip to charleston, one long weekend of birthdays + father's day, one week of the craziest of crazy weeks at work and one week in spain.

highlights:
tanned, not burned
feel good feeling of doing some GOOD work for those less fortunate
mccrady's pork duo
star wars birthday cake
all things birthday related, except for the cleaning up part
seeing best college friend for five crazy hours
and of course spain...more on that later

bartender

the other night we were at our favorite sushi place and Caleb's favorite all time restaurant - Cuisine Malaya - or 'Robert's.' because the sushi bar seats were full (didn't they know it was Tuesday? And we almost always come on Tuesday after swimming??), we sat at the real bar. on these occasions, caleb is usually allowed to have a sprite or a gingerale and because of where we were sitting, he even got to see them pour it in to his cup. So this my friends? THIS is what Caleb has decided he wants for his birthday:

stuff white people do

when erik was a little boy, he thought what most little white boys thought - all asian people knew karate and all black people knew each other. such innocence, such hilarity.

so the other night we rented the animated Clone Wars movie for Caleb and at one point during the action the character Mace Windu is introduced. and Caleb quietly turned to me and said, "is that Barack Obama?"

dinner woes

kids are inevitably going to like and/or dislike something that you love and/or abhor. when caleb was born, we wondered what it was going to be - boys bands and a hatred for metal? that was our best guess.

should have known all along it was going to be food related. but this is not the common rant that he will only eat chicken nuggets (in fact he has never had one and maybe we should keep it that way). it is sort of a no vegetable eating thing, though every now and then he will surprise us be announcing he wants brussel sprouts (yes, really...) so i can't even complain about that.

what it is - is baffling. one day he will scarf something down, just weeks later he won't touch that very same thing. all of the sudden he doesn't like popcorn? and eggs? yet that boy will eat $30 of sushi NO PROBLEM. and not sissy sushi - I'm talking ikura, nigiri - the real deal. please don't let it happen to butter beans - my go-to veggie.

and SO - the battle tonight was over pasta with red sauce (as he requested). nary a green vegetable on that plate (also requested). and NOT the green noodles, the white - no YELLOW - ones. and sausage because he hasn't really met a pork product he doesn't like. and yet - we battle. thankfully we ended up with a clean plate - eventually and reluctantly.

oh, and i bribed him with a lollipop.

week one - csa

we did it! we used almost every bit of our first week's delivery. for people with great eating habits, time to plan meals and an unconditional love for vegetables - a CSA is for you. We, however, have not-perfect habits (but in the grand scheme of things I would say they are 'quite good'), little to no time for planning and well, more often than not i end up composting the last quarter or so of the veggies we have bought. so wasteful. i do love veggies - but i love pork more. and ice cream - it NEVER goes bad.

i vowed to change once we got on the new town CSA (after a 7 year wait). so this week:

pick up was tuesday so we made a delicious green salad that night with the lettuces and arugula. it was a clean out the fridge meal using some things that would be of questionable use the rest of the week and in a few cases the following day. basil with brown spots, last 2 eggs in the carton, leftover grilled beets from last week, some bendy carrots. put it all together with a quick mustard vinaigrette and viola! a perfectly tasty - in fact delicious - salad. caleb even proclaimed it a 'feast' - but of course ate nothing green.

so then the bin of veggies sat in the fridge - I put it front & center so every time I opened the fridge there was the constant reminder and ensuing guilt. but still - wednesday & thursday went by with life getting in the way of my best intentions. and then friday. we HAD to use them saturday. so i picked through - admittedly i had to sacrifice some - but ended up with some of the tastiest cooked greens I have ever had. here is how it was done:

we had kale, turnip greens and what i think was swiss chard - in terms of quantity, it filled up the salad spinner. started by sauteeing about a half package of bacon until it was pretty crispy - took that off and dumped in a diced onion and cooked until it just started to brown/caramelize. added quartered baby white oriental turnips and sauteed until all had nice color. piled in the greens, flipped them around with the tongs until they were just barely cooked down. I was supposed to finish the greens with some salt & pepper and apple cider vinegar. but i forgot all of those things and I am sort of glad i did because it needed nothing!

so tonight - the eve of our next delivery - you will find me chomping on the last of the radishes (try them with a bit of butter) and hoping to salvage the last few pieces of bok choy and we will have had a completely successful week one!

operation primal cut

so what started as a very casual pipe dream type idea has taken on a life of its own - and I couldn't be more excited or more terrified. so - a butcher shop. that's the idea and i think it could be amazing. so we've started our research and hope to head out on a few field trips in the upcoming weeks. in the mean time, the right side of my brain is in overdrive swimming with potential names, the overall look - the fun stuff. unfortunately the not-at-all fun part of developing the business plan and working on the financials looms.