Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's book. I love her voice. It's like a cross between my Literature Professor, Pat Magness and my good friend, Caitlin Jorgenson (also a professor). I loved this book. It was really inspiring for me. It makes me want to live on a farmette and can all summer long. But short of that it makes me proud that I grow some produce and shop regularly at the farmer's market. Reading this book also prompted me to be more informed about the origins of my food. I am not as zealous as Kinsolver is about saving the gas it takes to cart in my fruits & veggies from all over the globe, although I am happy to do more than just recycle to save the planet. The thing that most hit me is that my money should be going into the economy where I live. I want to support my local farmers and their way of life and help send their kids to school. I want to be more intentional about how I spend my money and how much of it gets to the producers. These things seem to matter. At least I think they should. And if none of that is really impressive to you, Kingsolver's daughter provides these fabulous meal plans and recipies throughout that are mouthwatering in and of themselves. It's worth a look.

Because We All Need Another Personality Test...

find your car personality here

Thanks to my hubby Richard for this fun little quiz.

The First Real Tomato

We got our first real tomato from our backyard today. Hayes has been dying to pick it for the last 3 days. This morning he picked it and ate it for breakfast. By all reports it was delicious! He also had a strawberry from the plant he purchased with his own money this spring. He told his dad it was just like a real strawberry except with sugar on it! I don't know which one of us is having more fun growing all these new and interesting plants.

The community garden is on a roll too. I went over yesterday to tend it with a friend and we pulled enough green beans to feed 3 families, 2 very large zucchini, the rest of the spring onions, a few very large green tomatoes, and enough beets to feed my family. I cannot speak highly enough about those beets! I love fresh food. Hayes said, "This is the best dinner ever! Fresh veggies from the garden!" I couldn't agree more.

Our own cucumbers have exploded and I may not be singing the same tune in a month, but right now, the prospect of all this home-grown food sends me to the moon and back. The bounty of summer!

The Last Chinese Chef Author Interview

I listen diligently to "The Splendid Table," an NPR show that comes on every Saturday. It just so happens that they recently interviewed Nicole Mones, the author of our latest book club selection, The Last Chinese Chef. The book was a lot of fun to read and actually fairly informative about Chinese cuisine. So is this program. You can listen to the full show here. If you only want to hear the interview, slide the play bar to 22:30. You'll need Real Player to hear it.

Women In Art

I ran across this video surfing other blogs. Thought it was pretty cool.

Harrison's Index (with appologies to Harpers)

These numbers are the bulk of the last 3 days:

4 trips to Walmart for plants, soil and mulch
24 bags of mulch
13 bags of soil
3 azaleas
3 red twig dogwood shrubs
1 trumpet vine
1 arborvitae
5 foxglove
3 coreopsis
1.25 inches of rain
2 new whiskey barrels for carrots and beets this fall!
34 wheelbarrows full of removed clay and grass
1 very large wooden beam dug up from a new bed
2 trips to Costco for new patio furniture
1 broken hoe
1 new pickaxe
2 spent pairs of garden gloves
3 very happy people

On Obesity

I mentioned in an earlier post that I am reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. She mentions that after WWII, the industry of farming really took off and commodity farmers began producing twice as many calories as we need. They do this because it is the only way they can survive as farmers. Then, naturally, the food industry began finding ways to market all these calories to the general public. This passage resonated with me today:

"Obesity is generally viewed as a failure of personal resolve, with no acknowledgment of the genuine conspiracy in this historical scheme. People actually did sit in strategy meetings discussing ways to get all those surplus calories into people who neither needed nor wished to consume them. Children have been targeted especially; food companies spend over $10 billion a year selling food brands to kids, and it isn't broccoli they're pushing. Overweight children are a demographic in many ways similar to minors addicted to cigarettes, with one notable exception: their parents are usually their suppliers. We all subsidize the cheap calories with our tax dollars, the strategists make fortunes, and the overweight consumers get blamed for the violation. The perfect crime."

I swear I am going to be a vegetarian again after this summer.

Surprise

Not that I really want this to get out, so don't tell anyone you heard this from me, but yesterday I was home with Hayes because it's summer and I was lax in planning anything for him to do this week, and I really enjoyed myself and my child.

I generally dread these sorts of unplanned days. In my heart I believe it's good for him not to be scheduled to death, not to have so many activities do go to that he has no time to be a kid. But I also feel annoyed when I am his only playmate and we hit about 2 o'clock. He's bored and needs entertaining and I feel for him but don't necessarily enjoy playing army men with him, or the 100th game of laser battle, and let's face it, I'll have to make dinner soon.

But yesterday, just as I am feeling this familiar sinking feeling, I got a second wind. We decided to make strawberry ice cream together and it was, well, it was fun. Hayes measured out everything and even suggested adding chocolate chips (which I am convinced he would add to ANYTHING given the chance). It was like a scene out of a Martha Stewart magazine. And then, as the ice cream was freezing, Hayes had this brilliant idea to invent a game called Stick Bomb, and it was fun. We must have played it for 2 hours. You can see pictures of it on his blog. And when I look back on yesterday, I realize I actually enjoyed myself and my son at the same time, all day. This may not seem like a minor miracle to anyone else, but for me, it is. I mean, I have fun with him at times, lots of times, but it is rare that we can spend a whole day together and still enjoy one another at bedtime. Yesterday was one of those days.

I'm not expecting to have more of these days. I mean, I'll take them if I can get them; but it's good to remember that we can have times like yesterday. It's no secret that I don't enjoy the stay-at-home-mom routine. But a surprise is always nice.