project sprouts

omg so.

Over the weekend, temps in NY were a blistering 80 to 90 degrees. Blistering is a poor choice of words, it was more like meltingly sweltering. I was a small, sad, damp puddle, too overheated to even consider dragging my sorry self anywhere except to the shower to cool myself. No AC unit, so I finally decided I'd had enough and hauled myself off to Home Depot. I was too hot to even bother putting makeup or real clothes on (I was in my pj's/gym clothes).

All this lethargy, but I perked right up once I stepped inside Home Depot. Partly because HD was about 30 degrees cooler, partly because I was thinking about how much I adore the new sandals I'd gotten myself as a reward for attempting to do something productive like fetching myself some AC (whoever put a shoe store next to HD is a genius), but mostly because I saw green things! Cute, little green things! In the basement level of HD, they have their semi-nursery and growing tools and seeds and I couldn't help myself.

I checked the boxes of AC units piled high in the front of the store and made sure there was no danger of them running out of units while I had a look around, and hopped onto the escalator going down. I didn't come back up for another hour, I was so taken by all the fun things I found.

Limited space, limited resources, but I decided that it didn't matter. I was going to have sprouts and pretty green things in my apartment this summer, dammit!

So I grabbed the smallest window box I could find, a plastic liner, some soil, and a packet of seeds marked "container herbs." I realized that was maybe a poor decision because I can barely drag an AC unit around with two free hands and now I definitely had less available hands than that, but luckily I am a small girl and the HD employees were very kind and they carried the AC unit all the way through the checkout line and onto the street for me. And the taxi cab driver was very sweet and told me "Don't touch the box! You hurt yourself!" in broken English, and hoisted it into the trunk for me. And my roommate carried it up the stairs for me once I got home. Profuse thanks to all, a big tip for the cabbie, and a returned favor for my roommate absolved my guilt and I set to work on my makeshift garden. What I really should have done was install my AC, but I was too hot and tired from all that work (that I didn't actually do myself lol).

I filled the container with soil, dampened it carefully, scattered half the seeds, and tucked them in with another quarter inch of soil. Swept up all the dirt off my floor and carefully set the box in full sunlight. I kept watching that box, checking it every few hours, hoping something would happen. Like a pot set to boil, nothing happened while I was watching it. But I went to sleep last night and woke up and SURPRISE! Little white pins reaching up out of the soil, some of them with tiny green berets. I counted four sprouts this morning and I said my goodbyes tenderly as I hopped out the door for work. I can't wait to come home and see how many more little seedlings have popped up in the last twelve hours. I'm so excited. I need to probably calm down but...eek! They're so cute!! <3

hard times

This has been a rough week. First of all, I have more broccoli in my fridge than I ever cared to have. Second of all, Jeremy is no longer a local, so I will not be able to talk about him anymore. T____T


but, lol.

The Good, the Gorgeous, and the Gross

I enjoyed a lovely salad for lunch yesterday, chock full of crunchy-sweet-spicy radish bits and tender baby greens. Such a nice change from the usual uninspired offerings I usually end up with around lunchtime...

I had to take about 20 minutes the night before to wash and prepare everything, but it was definitely worth it. Even the mini heart-attack I suffered while washing my salad greens.

Heart attack? How could a bowl of salad greens and a radish possibly trigger a heart attack? Ha.

Let's go back to that night. I had pulled out a few handfuls of salad greens and planned to rinse them and dump them into a plastic bowl to take with me to work. I was going to top the salad with chopped radishes and supplement with some almonds and viniagrette at work. Nothing too complex, since it was late and I was tired.

I rinsed my greens a few times, decided they were clean and began blotting them dry (I really need to get a salad spinner). Into my plastic container they went. Suddenly, one of my salad leaves moved. I stared for a moment, sure that my sleep deprivation had finally led to hallucinations. No, I saw it again. The leaf had definitely moved. I cautiously flipped the leaf over and sure enough, there was a nice fat green larva about the length of a quarter and the width of a pencil.

An undignified yelp and hop followed...

I couldn't bring myself to squash the bug, so I gingerly picked up the leaf (with a napkin) and threw it in the trash can. I know, I know. I'm such a girl and death by starvation is hardly less humane. I should have squashed it.

I spent the next 10 minutes washing each leaf individually. And that night, I dreamt of giant caterpillars. Somehow, they seem less friendly in real life than in The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which, by the way, is an epic childhood classic. I hope I still have my copy so I can read it to my kids :D

Anyways, there you have it. The first sighting of a hitchhiker in my CSA share. And a reminder to always wash every leaf. Carefully and thoroughly.

Salad: made with individually, carefully washed baby greens and a chopped up easter egg radish

Crazy work weeks

If I have more weeks like this at work, I have no clue how I'm going to balance picking up a CSA share and dealing with washing/chopping/cooking my portion. Every day, I've been getting home past 3am. The only respite I had was the weekend, where I managed to at least sleep in until 11am on Saturday and noon on Sunday. Still stuck at work until the wee hours though.

Don't get me wrong - I knew it would be like this before I started my job. And I don't mind, most of the time. But it's making me a bit worried about the summer/fall with regards to the CSA program.

When work gets really crazy, not only do I not have time to handle even basic daily responsibilities like laundry, I don't even have the appetite to ingest anything beyond caffeine, sugar, caffeine, and more sugar. Stress and lack of sleep wreak havoc on my body and I become unable to eat anything that's not a simple carb. Even the type of simple carb degenerates from fructose to glucose as my stress levels mount. I have a stash of perfectly decent apples, bananas and pears at my desk, but they go untouched in favor of cookies and chocolate.

When things calm down a bit, I'm going to take some time to think of things I can do in advance to keep myself from feeling pressured by joining a CSA. Buying tupperware en masse might be a good start.

Also, I'm planning on moving out from my current apartment mid-July. Trying to figure out if this will be an issue. I don't think so, because I'm always at work during CSA pick up times anyways and the pick up location is close to my office. If I pick up my share during work and bring it to the office, I imagine I can hold onto my share and just take it home with me later. I'm glad I picked a CSA close to work so that relocating doesn't have as big of an impact on my ability to pick up my shares.

I wonder what people do if they sign up for a CSA share and then have to move halfway through the season?

Also, how do people manage to hold down a job AND feed a family / deal with kids? I can't even take care of myself properly. -__________-

Eat Seasonally, Save a Taste Bud!

I thought this was quite clever. So what's a girl to do? Share it, of course!

Adorable Eat Seasonably Calendar*

Why is knowing what fruits and vegetables are in season important anyways? Don't we have bigger things to worry about? Well, yes, I agree. #firstworldproblems...but only because in the "first world," we have the option to eat things out of season. Strawberries in December? Kale in July? Tomatoes year round? Sure, no problem, sounds great. Globalization has saved us...as long as you were born without taste buds. Didn't take me long to discover this.

When I was a young girl, May was positively the best time of the year. May meant the last day of school, beautiful weather...and cherries. All the cherries I could eat. And eat them I did. By the 3lb bag. As soon as cherry season hit, my mom would buy two bags. One for me and one for the rest of my family. I usually ended up eating both bags...


My devotion to cherries was unmatched and probably stemmed from the fact that I knew the cherries would be gone soon. Like a camel at an oasis in a desert, I gorged myself, knowing that in a few short weeks, I'd have no more cherries and one more year standing between me and my next 3lb bag. When I was 5 years old, I didn't know much, but I did know that one year = eternity. It's like 20% of my life!

My parents were poor assistant profs working hard to provide for the family, so while we were comfortable, my parents didn't splurge on unnecessary items when I was a little girl. But as my parents became more established (read: promoted to real profs!), my mom would surprise me occasionally with my favorite treats or a cheery bunch of jonquils or tulips. One late autumn day, I came home from school, peeked in the fridge, and to my surprise, I found a bag of cherries! I knew they were inordinately expensive when they were out of season, which is probably why my mom only bought one bag. With all the instinctive self-confidence that only young children possess, I just knew it was mine. But just in case...

Me: For me Mom? Really?

Mom: Yes, for you. For working so hard in school.

Me: *briefly overwhelmed by eternal gratitude and love, distracted quickly by cherries* (I prefer to remember myself not as being bratty, but rather very excitable with a tendency towards intense concentration on achieving my goals. In this instance, eating my cherries.)

Words can't describe my glee. One year of waiting had magically halved itself. I washed the cherries and squirreled away a bowl to my room, planning to enjoy my spoils in peace and quiet.

The first cherry was a disappointment. It was bland. I chalked it up as an outlier. After all, in a 3lb bag, there were always going to be some reject cherries that were too pulpy, sour, or ugly to be eaten. I tried another. And another. I may not have been the sweetest or cutest child, but I was fairly bright. After three cherries, I realized something was horribly wrong. These were not cherries. These were not even reject cherries. These were imposter cherries. Not only were they not sweet and juicy, they weren't even tart or pulpy. They were just bland and altogether unappealing.

A picture is worth a thousand words. So, The Incident, in picture form:

Picture Re-cap of Cherry Disaster #1



And because I <3 JGL and because 500 Days of Summer is the story of my life right about now, but mostly because I <3 JGL...

Picture Re-cap of Cherry Disaster #2


I looked at the bowl sadly and determinedly forced myself to finish every last, tasteless cherry. My mom made the effort to treat me to one of my favorite fruits and I wasn't about to throw it back in her face. (See? Not a brat. Just very focused.)

This encounter with out of season cherries was traumatic enough to convince me never to touch another bag of cherries until it was cherry season. I learned, through trial and error and induction, that the same rule applies to pretty much every other fruit or vegetable I can think of. The only exception are hothouse cucumbers, because hothouses don't have seasons. Duh.

When I went away to college and had to start buying my own groceries with my own dollars, I realized that finding in-season produce had yet another benefit beyond taste and quality. It's usually cheaper! Double winning :D

Each year that has passed since that fateful cherry incident has not necessarily made me any wiser, but it certainly has made me older. :( But fortunately, I don't think I've gotten (much) stupider. At least I haven't forgotten the In-Season-Produce-Wins lesson. Honestly, buying in-season produce is almost always the best option in a grocery store and it's getting easier to do every year. If you have a smartphone, it's super easy to look up growing seasons for a particular item. Alternatively, just look for whatever's cheaper and looks decent. That's usually a solid indicator of in-season produce. Careful not to buy produce that's on sale for being ugly, bruised and overripe though! Common sense is your friend.

If, tragically, you lack common sense...no fear! The absolute easiest and most foolproof way to get seasonal fruit and veg is...yup. You guessed it. By signing up for a CSA (or by visiting a farmer's market)! The very nature of a CSA/farmer's market means that you should end up with seasonal and super fresh produce. Since these are the two biggest contributors to the taste and quality of produce, I think it's safe to say that if you are lucky enough to find a good CSA with a reputable farm partner, you'll find it hard to go back to the flavorless, grainy, mealy produce aisles of your grocery store. As a final benefit, CSA's are local as well, which means you might be eating greener for the planet too. Whether this is true is up for debate, but hey, at the very least, you're supporting the local economy and helping build a community!

All this talk about seasonal produce and CSA's is getting me super excited. CANNOT WAIT...............here's to hoping the mild weather continues and that our farmers don't get hit by crazy rainstorms or freak frosts. :)

*Caveat: This calendar, though cute, is for the lovely residents in the UK. Which is not where I am. So...I'm using this as a broad guideline with a generous helping of common sense and my trusty phone internetz. At least until my CSA shares start arriving.