The Yea and the Nays

The garden experiment is officially being renamed, "The-Occasional-Garden-Meal with Intention-to-be-Every-Day-If-Only the-Garden-Produced-the-Way-My-Imagination-Would-Have-Liked-It". Tomatoes are coming in strong, however, so we might go back to the original name in a few weeks. I do not give up. I like irony and find it interesting. So here is the irony. Crohn's is my latest favorite friend and its visit has been way overstayed. I can't seem to get him out of my house- go damn it! So what do I need to do to make it feel better, if I am going to eat. Low residue, is what is the name of my game. Low residue includes milk, meats, white bread, canned fruit cocktail, and white pastas with butter, oil, or margarine. Hmmm... so tonight for dinner we have on the menu baked potato with butter and some pureed spinach.

Greened Out and Seeing Colors.

Okay... here we go, crop round #2. Zuchinni and peppers have started to show their presence at the Little Brick-e garden centre. However, I gotta say, I am greened out. Totally greened out. Those red tomatoes, which are just orange, at this moment, are calling my name. The purple egg plant flowers look great and I channel my brother in law, Tom, to try and get the squash flowers fried up this weekend. Hmmm.. not too much experience frying, so should be interesting. The big find, however, was the bush of rasberries in the alley down the street. Bup and I found them a few days ago, and Natalia and I sneak over there and take off any rasberries that grow over the fence into the alley. We take our little white bowl and work our picking magic. We have many, many champagne rasberries but their fragility keep up wanting for more. The other fun thing is that we have strawberries making their ways into our plates when we are lucky enough to beat the squirrels or robins to them in the morning. Most morning, we are not up early enough. This early bird is not getting the worm. Menu planning for the next garden meal will have to be zuchinni and pepper over a bed of greens topped with farmer's market eggs with rasberries for dessert. I am hoping to find some good looking brocolli and grains tomorrow at the farmer's market. The Landfears and our neighbors have fruit trees ready to bloom so delights and our fine firefighters have a pear tree filled with pears ready for the eating outside the siren doors. Tomorrow Bup and I will be on an early adventure to snag some of those.

A Playdate and an Investigation

Yesterday as Natalia and her little friend clanked on the piano and ukuele, spinning dreamily on the carpet, we sat on the back porch- me and the neighbors. Got into an interesting discussion. I assume my neighbor knows nothing of this blog, so it was even more interesting to me. She gets to talking about our and her garden. They make the most terrificly tall tomato plants on metal poles that shoot over 10 feet into the air. Not joking. Anyhow, she continues to tell me that her 6 year old daughter and 50+ year old husband will not eat a single vegetable. Maybe a cup of bagged frozen corn here and there, she said. Then she begins to tell me that their house is filled with processed food. Her husband did not realize this until they went line by line through their stock. Half of the boxed items, seasoned items, and pre-cooked items, he did not feel were processed foods and continued to insist that they eat fresh- and this is from a gardener. So I got to thinking. We do pretty good, not great, pretty good avoiding industrialized food over here at Chez Brick-e. I have done a good job of making at least one meal a day from the garden, non industrialized. But, I thought I would go through what was in our freezer and cabinets to find out what we had. Much of it had been donated to us to get us off the rice and beans kick but, nonetheless, the items were still here. Reading my book today, I came across a list of food processed items that were not so obvious to the usual consumer. As a result, our pantry and freezer hit the motherload. Here goes a checklist through their list of processed food items. Food science has given us vacuum sealed canned food. Check. Two cans of beans and one can of artichoke hearts. Frozen food. Check. Frozen peas, peppers, and berries. Mock meats made from soy. Check. Noah's Tofurkey and tofu. Baby formula. Checked from years back. Energy bars- nope. Powdered Jell-o. Check. Donated from Grandma's pantry for Natalia to make and enjoy. Lime flavored. Fortified cereal. Check. Cheerioes, at least they are not too colored. Cyrovacked foods. Check. DOnated from my mom and dad- fish filets. They have been in there for at least 2 years. Do I throw those puppies out? Noartificial sweetners or artificial sweetners with added fiber. No margarine. High fructose corn syrup. Nope, and proud of this in my suprise! Low fat chesse or yogurt. Check. Interesting.