madcap

That was a really enjoyable evening with some friends and food and drink and a roof deck. I made Moroccan Chicken with Fancy Cous Cous and seared slices of summer squash and it goes a little something like this:

brown the outsides of a bunch of chicken breasts in olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat, pre-heat oven to 350, layer very thinly sliced onion, lemon, tomato, kalamata olives and garlic cloves in a roasting pan and put chicken in, layer more over top and sprinkle with a goodly amount of Penzey's Balti Blend seasoning. Cover with tin foil and bake for an hour or so until everything looks melty and juicy and smells awesome. Sprinkle fresh cilantro over it all and serve over cous cous.

Fancy Cous Cous, just prepare as directed but throw in a bunch of golden raisins while it's cooking, then serve with almond slivers and drizzle a few tablespoons of honey over the top. YUM!

I used all fresh veggies from my garden and it was awesome!

Last night I dreamt, among other not as awesome things, that I was racing someone up the stairs of the Prudential building in Boston. We were laughing and playing and running up the stairs, just some random dream friend I didn't know.

Then we got to the top and it was thunderstorming and crazy with lighting and there were these weird cushion things and we hopped on one and sailed off the top of the building into the sky and suddenly the storm broke and it was just beautiful.

I am terrified of heights but I really loved it. Dream friend kept telling me that he has tried this many times and sometimes it works but sometimes he falls, he was taking good care of me though, in the sort of way a stranger does when he's a caring person but doesn't really know you yet. We landed on the streets of back bay and then we took off again up and up and up and we stopped on top of a tall orange billboard to watch the sunset with another dream friend of his, who was an older gentleman and seemed very experienced in the methods of cushion thing flying. Finally we caught the updrafts circling up and up and finally landing on the Pru with chilly red cheeks all out of breath.

It was an awesome dream.

I could hear myself saying "I did it because I'm horrified of falling from a great height and I thought it was time to get over it."

gee... I wonder what that means? (no I don't) ;)

Lots of people have been asking me how to make a garden grow. So I've decided to write down some tips.

• when putting in a garden, make sure you pick the right spot. you need full sun to grow vegetables, that means good strong full sun from at least 10am-4pm. Without that, your vegetables will be wussy.

• first step is to build up the soil. this means a lot of work, compost, and probably a year or three. it doesn't really work to buy a bunch of soil and stick in in a raised bed. for really abundant growth I recommend buying a few bags of good organic soil and blending it in with what you've got. build a raised bed, it's pretty easy, and if you can, find someone with a tiller or cultivator to really get deep down and turn the soil. If you can't find a tiller then get out a shovel and dig. You want to turn the soil up from 3 feet down if you can. you want to blend in all the good stuff you can, compost, cow manure, organic loam. You need to build up the microbes in the soil so you have lots of organic matter full of nutrients for your plants. Buy some earthworms if you don't have them present in the soil. Those little guys might look gross and slimy but they are your best friends when it comes to happy plant life.

• for the first year of having your garden, choose plants that don't take a lot of nutrients from the soil. Peas are a good example, as are okra, cucumber, pumpkin, lettuce, onion, garlic, tomato, beans, spinach, and radish. That way you're not depleting the soil as soon as you've built it up. At the end of the growing season, make sure everything is mulched or covered to prevent weeds from growing in the fall and depleting the soil further. In the early early spring, till everything up again and plant rye grass, let it grow until you're ready to plant vegetables, but don't let it go to seed, till it in again to return those nutrients to the soil. rye grass is amazing for that. Make sure to rotate your crops every year if possible. where you planted highly depleting plants last year, plant low depleting plants next year etc.

• if you're growing vegetables in containers, you need to allow proper drainage. my mom had a lot of success with her container garden this year. she took big green storage bins and put plastic bags filled up with packing peanuts in the bottom, drilled holes in the bottom and sides of the bins, and then filled them up with good organic soil. you have to water a LOT more with container gardens because the soil doesn't hold moisture as long.

• soaker hoses that are hooked up to a timer are a fantastic way to make sure your garden gets water. I put mine down along rows and coil them around tomato plants, then I mulch over them so that all the water goes right into the ground and doesn't evaporate. I just turn them on and go do whatever and the timer will shut off the water after a few hours. This summer has been great because of all the regular rain though.

• Mulch mulch mulch! My favorite mulch is marsh hay, but if you can't get that then use anything you've got around. I personally don't recommend bark mulch like people use for flower beds, it attracts bugs and is a pain to get rid of once you put it down and takes a long time to decompose. I prefer stuff that you can just till in and it will decompose in a few weeks. This year I used a layer of wet newspaper covered with a thick layer of grass clippings and pine needles and oak leaves because that's what I had available to me. It worked out just great! You mulch to keep weeds out and water in.

• feeding... feeding is tough. I am blessed with 30 years of carefully tended organic soil so I barely have to feed. But some people do have to feed. I don't have much advice for that as I don't really do it myself. I put Tomato Tone in with my tomatoes when they're planted but that's about it. I recommend fish and seaweed fertilizers too. they smell to high heaven, but they work! I'm not really big on feeding, more on soil building. It seems more effective and more natural.

• easy to grow plants: peas, beans, squash, lettuce. peas and beans often need a fence to grow up, but once you put one up, just stick the seeds in the ground, water and wait! Easy! Tomatoes are slightly more difficult because they need maintenance (cages, propping up, tons of water). Melons are pretty easy, cucumbers too as long as you start them inside first. peppers can be finicky in my experience, but if they work for you then they're easy. My friend Kath says potatoes are easy too, and I trust her on that, although she makes everything look easy. ;)

• challenging plants: corn, carrots, asparagus, artichokes. how the hell does someone grow an artichoke!?!?

• patience. you will have to work pretty hard through may & june, but once july hits it's really all weeding, watering and my favorite part, harvesting! Don't loose hope. Eventually things settle down and you can leave the garden on it's own for a weeks at a time, as long as you've got regular rain of course. but yeah eventually you can just lay back and keep track of vegetables so you can pick them when they're ready.


Anyhow those are my tips. :)

So to continue my trend recently of having nightmares where people I love do incredibly disrespectful and frustrating things to me and then don't understand why I get so upset, last night I dreamt that my parents mowed down my entire garden. they transplanted the tomato plants, but everything else was mowed to the ground. I have a feeling it's because I have been slacking off on the garden front recently and needed to do a great deal of weeding.

To make up for it, I got right out of bed this morning, had some eggs & toast like any good farmer would, made myself a giant atlas jar full of iced tea with mint and lemon, put on my garden sneakers and put my hair back with a bandana, lacquered myself with sunscreen and got to it.

I pulled the old lettuce that had gone to seed with neglect, and weeded the shit out of everything. got the weed whacker out and cleared down all the 6 foot tall weeds between the rows. The tomatoes were getting so heavy they started flopping over even though I caged them, so I got some metal fence posts that I pushed down deep for support and propped them up. I fished out one of the butternut squash vines that was threatening to take over a Brandywine tomato plant and repositioned it. Next year I will be sure to allow more space for the squash vines. they are out of control. I think I'll clear out a big old squash patch in all the empty space between the peas and the garlic beds. Next year I'm also going to start everything early in flats so I can get a head start. At this rate I'll have tomatoes & squash well into september, and I'd have preferred to have them in July instead.

Speaking of tomatoes, I found one the size of a baby head today. A big Brandywine that's mottled in green and orange and should be ready to pick by next week. I also pulled up all the beets because the squash vines were suffocating them and they weren't getting any sun. they're small but cute! and enough for a yummy poached beets and goat cheese salad. I harvested more summer squash, and roma plum tomatoes and two supersonics which are DELICIOUS by the way.

I also had a nice visit with grandma (who said the massage I gave her the other day really did the trick and is back to swimming again after a week off) and my aunt meg who is down from Arlington to help grandma with accounting and then later we're all heading to my mom's art opening at the Ventress Memorial Library here in Marshfield.

I also saw the cutest thing EVAR which happened to be a box turtle happily munching on a giant mushroom that had pushed it's way up from the pine needle mulch on the path between my house and grandma's. there are mushrooms everywhere right now from all the rain and cool nights and the bright moon.

My hamstrings ache, my fingernails are crusted in dirt, I have a few calluses and blisters and mosquito bites, and I stink... but I'm a happy emily today.

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses if this is the cheese then yes
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes do I get extra points if I grew them myself?
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters raw and fried!
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda no but it sounds good!
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl please! I'm a new englander!!
33. Salted lassi in Istanbul, can't reccomend it though.
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu and it made my tongue numb!
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal but not for a very long time and never again
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini dirty vodka yes, dirty gin no
58. Beer above 8% ABV in Istanbul as well! Effes EXTRA
59. Poutine at the Beehive
60. Carob chips yes but I HATE carob with a burning passion
61. S’mores my 60 year old uncle had one for the first time last week! cute!
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin um... as in the clay? no.
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake we call it fried dough up here
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain mmmm so good
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette why do they keep talking about internal organs eeew!
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost probably have but didn't remember the name
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie and it's probably still living in my guts
78. Snail didn't care for it honestly.
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum rick makes the best tom yum!
82. Eggs Benedict I prefer eggs florentine these days.
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare probably at the Deluxe
87. Goulash
88. Flowers used to eat marigolds and nasturtiums all the time
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate maybe? I don't keep track of chocolate as I eat too much
91. Spam but never again
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa I've had regular harissa, and it burned my face off
94. Catfish mmmmm catfeesh
95. Mole poblano mmmmm... love
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta such an unfortunate name for a yummy corn dish
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake rattlesnake, and it was super tough and tasted like chicken.


so basically I've eatin most things except for a few rare/exotic dishes, that weird one with the congac and cigars, and anything that contains offal.

Today an old friend of mine gets married. We don't talk anymore, but from what I can tell the man she is marrying loves, honors, and respects her for exactly who she is. It is a rare and beautiful thing to find people in this world who do that for us and, regardless of the bad blood between us, it makes me smile to think that she's found someone who does that for her.

Also it seems like a lovely day with nice weather so that's always good for a wedding.

Yummy Zucchini & Mock Sausage Bake!

couple tablespoons of olive oil
2 large Zucchinis chopped up into cube-ish shapes
1 onion, diced
italian herbs: I used fennel seed, basil, fresh oregano & thyme, 2 bay leaves and chervil
sea salt & ground black pepper to taste
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 package of ground turkey/chicken
1 jar of tomato sauce (I used Classico Triple Mushroom)
enough grated cheese to cover the top, I used cheddar and parmesan

heat olive oil in large iron skillet, sauté chopped zucchini until tender, remove from skillet and spread out on the bottom of a large glass or ceramic casserole dish.

sauté onion, if you need more olive oil then go for it, add herbs and garlic and cook until fragrant, add ground meat and brown, season with salt & pepper, drain liquid if there is any, and remove from skillet, distribute over zucchini in casserole dish.

pour tomato sauce and spread out so that it covers everything, grate cheese on top, bake for 10-15 minutes or so in a 350 degree oven.

you can serve it over pasta or rice or something, but I just served it in bowls with crusty garlic bread.

yum times!

yay! I just went out to the garden and found a happy butternut squash! it's that perfect butternut squash size too. it should be ready to harvest in a couple of weeks, still green. there's little teeny ones all over the plants too! it's going to be a good squash year. I stuck some newspaper under the butternut to keep it from getting brown spots on the bottom.

I also got a nice summer squash and zucchini (just in time too before they decide to become massive) and my first ripe red super sonic tomato, and I decided to pick that white eggplant because it told me I could, and a few more plum tomatoes.

Also I harvest about two fistfulls of haricot vert and 25 or so sweet 100 cherry tomatoes from the deck garden my mom put in this year.

And I gave my grandma a massage. It's been a good day. ;)

Wikipedia your birthday and pick 4 events, 3 births, 2 deaths, and 1 holiday.

October the 1st

Events:

331 BC - Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela.

1880 - First electric lamp factory opened by Thomas Edison.

1908 - Ford puts the Model T car on the market at a price of US$825.

1949 - The People's Republic of China is declared by Mao Zedong.

Births:

1577 - Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Swiss friar, martyr, and saint
1910 - Bonnie Parker, American outlaw (d. 1934)
1924 - Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

Deaths:

1189 - Gerard de Ridefort, grandmaster of the Knights Templar
1838 - Charles Tennant, Scottish chemist and industrialist (b. 1768)

Holiday:
World Vegetarian Day

I love it when Griffin is dreaming and he wakes himself up with a little meow and looks around all rumpled and confused. I imagine he is thinking something like "but but but... where is that scrumptious moth I was chasing!!!" or "oh thank goodness it was just a dream, that horrible pit bull was chasing me and I couldn't run fast enough!" or "tuuuuuuuunaaaaaaa juuuuuuuuuuuice. mmmmmmmm!"

In other news, I love iced coffee. I really get a rush of euphoria when I drink it, especially if I've waited till a bit too late in the day to have it and have started to get a small headache. I take a big long sip and WOOOO! It's stupid how sensitive I am to stuff... but sometimes fun! Fun = how I can hallucinate from half a hit of ecstasy, not fun = how I'm ready to pass out if an airline pilot increases elevation too fast on a take off.

ah well!

someday I'd like to see what happens to me if I deprive myself of food and sleep for a day or two. I'd probably "achieve enlightenment". enlightenment sounds kind of scary to me though so I think I won't try.

so I'm selling a bunch of my club clothes because well... let's be realistic here, I'm never going to wear this stuff again and honestly it should go to a better place, ie: YOUR BODY. Please feel free to point others in the direction of this post who might be interested but aren't on my f-list

I'm also selling some stuff that I made or customized/altered, so if you've ever wanted to own an Emily Original, now's your chance. there will be more of this in coming weeks as I get ready to move.

( here's the stuff )

My harvest from the other day:



Morgan with his new birthday gift:



People doing naughty things with the giant zucchini:

alright well I tried.

I tried really hard to be positive and optimistic and psyched today and now I'm going to just give up and let this one go.

Some days just weren't meant to be awesome and that's alright.


EDIT: ha! isn't it funny how sometimes just letting go of your expectations about something ends up turning it around into just the thing you were hoping it'd be in the beginning? I just put together a late dinner of baked giant summer squash stuffed with chicken sausage, onion, carrots, celery and my garden grown green pepper. seems there isn't a bad mood cooking won't fix.

I just watched the news. there's all kinds of crap going on.

This whole Russia vs Georgia thing is not cool. I don't know who to trust about it. The people on the news are saying that it's Russia's way of proving that it's a World Power and that Georgia is just one of many countries that used to be in the Soviet Union that are trying to join NATO and it's pissing off Russia.

All I know is, people are dying and it doesn't seem to be for any reason I can figure out.

In other news apparently taking acid reflux meds depletes your calcium uptake. That sounds shitty. Personally I have managed my own tendencies for acid reflux by drinking a teaspoon of unfiltered apple cider vinegar diluted in a cup of spring water, with honey if I'm feeling ambitious. It makes heartburn go away in minutes. Settles my stomach when I'm feeling nauseous too. In fact, I think I'm gonna have some right now!

Well I suppose this is what I get for neglecting my garden for 2 weeks.

A zucchini and a summer squash the size of Michael Phelps' forearm. sigh. Pictures to follow...

At least I also got a normal sized one of each and there's flowers all over the plants so I'm sure to have more as August progresses.

Other fruit du vin: two ripe plum tomatoes, a single, rather plump, pickling cucumber, a hot peruvian pepper, and a green bell pepper.

there's a nice white eggplant that I'm not going to pick yet as it doesn't have that hollow eggplant feel to it yet. I'm also going to be overwhelmed with butternut squash come september and the pumpkin vine is seriously going to start knocking down the garden gate any second. the thing is insane and I don't know what to do with it.

In two weeks time I'm going to have to start canning tomatoes as I'll be awash with ripe ones. That's if we ever get any fucking SUN around here. not that I'm complaining, haven't had to water in weeks.

I'm considering taking a day off this week just to clean everything up. it's a mess.

• I kind of want to have sex with the entire men's olympic swim team. cuz like:



right? Michael Phelps is like an anatomy experiment, an AWESOME anatomy experiment.

• thunderstorms are nice... but I'm getting a little depressed from the rain. I really wanted to go out and garden today, and I still will, but I'll be soaked the whole time. such is life.

• I am selling/giving away ALL of my club clothes. I'm never going to wear any of this stuff again and it must go. One of my projects today is going to be cataloging and photographing all of it for eventual posting and ebay selling.

• I am also going to be cleaning out my closet for my move. I haven't worn most of that stuff in 2-3 years so it's going bye bye. Anyone up for a clothing swap before Sept 1st?

• I'm making a bunch of ties for the wedding of an old coworker of mine. fun!

does anyone know a way to watch the opening ceremony of the olympics online?

well! that certainly was exciting.

Well friends, I'm off to Oregon for an extended weekend to go camping with Thom's entire family. ACK!

It should be fun. There's a big lake, and probably trees, and smores, and ukuleles.

I'll be back on Tuesday!

xo

Spiritualized was fucking AWESOME last night. I hadn't seen them as a live band before (<--is that correct grammar?). Apparently, and Sara Ru is going to be REAAAAAALLLY pissed that she missed it, and I'm sorry because I had no idea there even WAS an opening act, but apparently... the Dirtbombs opened up and they were epic and at the end of their show they said "Spiritualized is up next and they are gonna blow your MINDS."

And they did. There were gospel back up singers, there were spaced out guitars, Jason Spaceman wore sunglasses the whole time, it was a crazy trippy fun time. And they played the song I play to myself when I'm feeling blue and it always makes me feel better, Shine a Light, from Lazer Guided Melodies which was AWESOME.

I was super super sad I missed Rick & Judi, as they couldn't be there, because I like them, but also because Rick was the person who got me into Spiritualized in the first place. But I did take Philip as my date and he hadn't heard much Spiritualized and so I got to kind of initialize him and then we got late night sushi. yay!

And now I have to see them every single time they come around.