Taming the Mania

Note: I wrote this post on the 23rd & then had some issues getting it uploaded before I left for Baltimore. So please read it accordingly.

My home smells a bit like lovage today. Very faintly. I, as planned, stripped all the leaves off and chopped them very finely. They’re frozen in ice cube trays now. I put the stems out with hummus to see if they’d be an adequate celery snack substitute. Only Bill was willing to try them (I don’t like celery much), and he said the stems were entirely too woody for that kind of consumption. So, into the stock bag they went.

I also chopped the rhubarb into chunks and froze that on a freezing sheet1. I’ll dump that into a baggie today.… Continue reading →

Veggie Mania

The other day, I commented to twitter that it’s time to bring in my plants from outside. For me this includes a thyme plant, a lemon thyme plant (neither of which grew in the slightest, but neither of which died back at all either), and an asparagus fern. There’s also some really cute volunteer flowers and some volunteer chives in pots my landlords left, but those can stay where they are. I’ll harvest the remainder of the chives, chop them up and freeze them.

My friend, Ellen responded, “I stood by my back windows and contemplated the huge task of harvesting the backyard… Too much food.” Assuming she meant that there’s just a lot of work getting all the food from her copious garden into her house, I volunteered to help.… Continue reading →

A gift of produce

In light of my last post on interdependency, I thought it might be nice to show a fun little slice of it. In this case, it ties back to Ellen and Grant.

As I said in the linked post, I met them on Twitter. So this is maybe 90% of how we interact. Ellen, a bit ago, tweeted something about eating tomatoes for every meal. She also said something about Grant abandoning her with a prolific garden.

You see, Grant and Ellen share a large garden and some chickens somewhere in the north of Chicago. I guess Grant is traveling right now, and so not pulling his weight in terms of eating the food they’ve grown. And apparently there’s only so much Ellen and the chickens can eat.… Continue reading →