effed up foot

I hurt my foot. I believe it to be planter fasciitis. it sucks. i am supposed to be resting and elevating and icing. i am really good at doing all of these things for a few days and then i blow it and have a bbq and drink beer and chase our friends new puppy around our yard all day. as if you would do differently when presented with beer, friends, and a puppy. come on!

So since i am trapped on the couch, bored out of my noggin, i thought i would give you a pictorial garden tour. Come along, will you?

Wait, first i must announce/remind you that we have lived in Denver for a year now! Last year at this time, Denver was knee deep in a very ass kicking heat wave. and everyone kept telling me that during the summer, thunder storms roll in during the afternoon and cool us down. there were no storms. there was no swamp cooler. It was dry and brown and we had to go to the pool a lot.

Flash to this year. we had a late spring and we are having an even later a summer. And the storms are here. thunder, lightning, hard fat rain, and hail. I take hail personally, like god is throwing rocks at my garden. This is from two days ago:


So here is how the garden looks on approach. You can see a lot more green than before, huh? well check it from inside, dudefriends!

the first sign of yellow squash:

chives that are about to flower. i love chives. why did i not know that for so long?


all of the sweet allysum seeds that i started inside croaked. in a desperate attempt to not waste the $1.49 i spent on the seeds, i sprinkled them at the borders of some of the planters. low and behold, sweet allysum is the cat of flowers. ignore it and it is your bff. give it some lovens and you will only come to be disapointed.

if i were to smell like anything on the planet, i think i would choose to smell like fresh basil.
the strawberries are throwing out runners. they are going for it. so are the sunflowers that i planted behind them. i think that if you have kids and you have sunshine, you should be obligated to plant sunflowers for your kids. they grow like an inch a day and at the end of the summer, you have snacks! what kid doesn't love snacks?


the lettuce patch is a bit conflicted. or maybe the fact that Jules keeps napping on it is the problem. i don't know. parts are good and parts are not so good. we are sooooo close to being able to start harvesting but i don't want to push it.

and for the surprise front runners......brussels sprouts! I love the b sprouts....always have. i believe mom tricked me into trying them by calling them "baby cabbages" and it worked. oddly enough, i never really ate cabbages as a kid so i don't really get how that would appeal to me. moms are tricksy.

i have found that i am really annoying. wow, way to set y'all up for some easy heckling opportunities, right? i should disable the comments section. anyways, i have been doing this thing where i need to remind people i am from california via food items. i realized i was out of control when i made a salad for friends and i put jicama in it. the b sprouts are all about that plan. none of our friends here are fans of the sprouts but i am going to cook them and i am going to cook them incredibly awesome-ish and they will be loved. they have to be because we have 9 plants and no one likes brussels sprouts 9 plants worth. not even if neil started calling them baby cabbages. i must share.


Carrot/scallion town is booming. i have thinned the carrots. i can't wait for these guys because it is a mix of orange, yellow, white, and purple carrots. i don't know if the guinea pigs are going to appreciate their new gourmet snackins but nothing is too good for Simon and Walter. They are from california, too...so they may appreciate the fanceys.

peas:


a little friend on a zucchini leaf. you can see how the hail does a bit of damage here:


have we talked about borage yet? it has the most beautiful flowers, bad bugs hate it, and bees think it is their knees....get it? bees knees? i am funny. seriously this foot injury thing is mind numbingly boring. i need out. i need to go ride bikes or something. anything.
nasturtium from seed. can't wait for this one to flower. edible flowers that bad bugs hate.

my eggplant isn't doing too great, nor is it not doing well. but it does show just how much dirt the rain and hail kick back up on the plants.

and here it is.....my heaven....tomatoes, basil, chives, marigolds, tarragon, and some cilantro is in there somewhere as well:

We hung a birdfeeder right outside our kitchen window. i love it. as do the birds.

We have hippy heighbors. well, i suppose they are retired hippies, at this point. they have prayer flags and a sign in their window that says "friends for peace". i love them. a few weeks ago, i had to knock on their door and ask for weed vs. flower identification assistance. Neil, Alice and i had a great time in the front yard, noting that any plant that is growing where you don't want it to grow is a weed. period. Alice did however warn us that some of these potential weeds may flower soon, so we spared a few......look!

i am glad i didn't just hack everything down.

Alice also told us about when she first bought her house, 20 something years ago. she had been renting for a few years and finally was able to buy her house for herself. she had a housewarming party and since she was finally able to garden, she asked her friends just to bring something for her to plant. a friend of hers who didn't have much money showed up with a handful of violas, clearly dug up from her garden at home. Alice planted them and every year there are more volunteer violas all over her property. here are some that have snuck on over to our side of the property line:


And just because......



So, i have some errands to run but i swear i will totally stay off of my foot for the rest of the day! wait, after i check to see if there are any tomatoes and the veggies may need a watering and i am sure the dogs would like a little walk and......

it's spring, bitches!

I think i wrote about Spring before but i was lying back then. sorry about that. before i was using the calendar to make my determination. now i have actual evidence in my yard. being the detective that i am, you would think that i would have relied upon the evidence at the get go. i must have been having an off day.

we have a huge bush that we have been told is lilac. mom loved lilacs. they reminded her of new jersey. lilacs don't really grow in the bay area. but they are sold at your local flower shops right around mother's day, so i used to always get her a big sprig that would make the house smell way better than what puppies would make it smell.
evidence:
We planted Tomato Alley today. i am supposed to wait until after mother's day to plant but i have never been famous for my patience. Mom's lilacs are my tomatoes. i absolutely hated that i couldn't grow tomatoes in SF.....especially after all of my fond memories of stripping my mom's tomato plants bare as a child. i'd sneak outside and gorge myself on them.

Neil built bamboo tipis to support my five little friends. they are Big Beef, Celebrity, Super Fantastic, Cherokee Purple, and Mortgage Lifter.

I am truly obsessed with my garden. i have been reading up on companion planting. tomatoes love to be planted with basil. that makes enough sense. it's like they understand that they are fated to end up in my mouth together anyways, so they just accept it....appreciate it, even. but strawberries and thyme? that is what they say so i am giving it a try. (in my garden. not in my mouth)


and my seeds are doing really well, too. upon reading this here blog, neil took his plant favoritism to a grand new level. not only was he saying hi to the basil, he took to swearing at the marigolds. "hey basil! fuck you, marigolds!". that's my husband. i am happy to announce that neil had zero impact on the marigolds.
and the beloved basil:
peas!
my scallion forest:
in all, we have planted two lettuces, beets, strawberries, thyme, 4 kinds of peppers (orange and purple bell, ancho, and jalapeno), tomatoes, tarragon, basil, oregano, thyme, cilantro, eggplant, rosemary, squash, radishes, scallions, swiss chard, lemon cucumbers (another childhood fave), brussels sprouts, carrots, peas, and watermelons. dill and mint in containers, catnip, and various veggie garden loving flowers. i likey. expect more updates. pics. ramblings. insanity.

have you met Jules? He's the OG. Got him when i lived in Seattle approximately 13 years ago. He is named after Samuel L Jackson's character in Pulp Fiction because the movie came out the same week that i got him. anyways, he is old. He sits on the deck in the sun all day. he torments moose and he is very handsome. he follows me around the yard and likes to chill in my garden with me, as well. smart kitkat, that Jules.
Miss Neil's mug? here you go:
i think he is prying open an electrical box with some kind of metal implement.

and the dogs are just happy to have their lawn back.
the green is beautiful. you appreciate it so much more when it goes away for a few months. looks like we've got nothing but the 70's coming up. niiiiiiiice.


feel free to subit name suggestions for the tomato plants in the comments section. if you don't offer me better suggestions, they will all be named after characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. i am totally not kidding.

It's exciting to be Polish.

And, if you are me, it is exciting to stuff food items with other food items. This combination of exciting things obviously dictates a golobki feast! Golobki is stuffed cabbage rolls. It is Polish food. It is good. There are gazillions of different stuffed cabbage rolls from all over the world, but this is the one my mom occasionally made me when i was growing up.

i would like to add some unsolicited advice here about regional foods, connecting with your ancestry, and advanced chefery in general. it's complicated so bear with me.

salt your effing food, people.

My family has a "traditional" Polish feast every year on Christmas eve. It is called Wigilia. If it were to be your first Polish food experience, you may never go back for seconds because for some reason, my family hates salt. Luckily, similar to your common "kids table" at Thanksgiving, the 707 Nelsons and Team Martinola created a "salt lovers table". and that is how i know that Polish food is actually quite tasty.

Back to Golobki. it is cabbage stuffed with rice, ground beef and pork, and baked in a tomato/beef broth. it sounds so unbelievably bland, right? it is not.

so i have two Polish cookbooks that were Ma's. one has a picture of Golobki on the cover and the recipe mom used. The other has no golobki recipe but it does have at least 7 recipes for various meat items suspended in gelatin. why do i not throw the pickled herring infested book away?


First! Boil some water. salt it. cut out the core of a head of cabbage and plop it into the boiling water.

in a matter of minutes, the outer leaves will start to seperate from the head. remove them and place them on a paper towel to drain and cool.

Normally, your meat mixture would be a pound of ground beef and a pound of ground pork, a cup of cooked white rice, and one sauteed onion. but i am from Mill Valley so my mixture is this: One zucchini, grated, 1 cup of minced mushroom, 1 cup of brown uncooked rice (why waste time cooking rice that you are going to cook again? is that the root of all of those Polish jokes?) and i also added 3 minced garlic cloves to the last 30 seconds of my onion saute. AND SALT.

your cabbage leaves should be cool by now. if the rib is so thick on your leaf that it can't lie flat, take a pairing knike and shave off some of the rib. lie your cabbage leaf flat and fill with enough filling that you can just make a little burrito out of it. obviously, the outer leaves will hold more filling than the inner.

here they are all lined up, waiting for the next step.
butter! the recipe calls for 3 Tbsp of butter to saute the rolls in, but i used half butter have olive oil because i am also Italian. saute seam side down til slightly brown and flip to do the same to the other side. this really makes each little love loaf its own little secure entity. it gives the golobki the confidence to stand up to the rest of the cooking process.
place in baking dish seam side down. poor beef broth to almost cover the rolls. you will need a lot because the rice will soak it up. Get a whole box of broth and plan on using the whole thing. on the side, take 1/2 Cup of beef broth and mix with 4 ounces of tomato paste. blop that mixture over the top of the rolls. cover with tin foil and bake at 325 for as long as you can without burning your dinner. i would say an hour, at least. but the longer everything hangs out together, the better it will taste.
ugly on the outside.
ugly on the inside, too.
but delicious all around. I know that it may seem weird to you to not actually use any beef meat but still use beef broth. i don't like beef. but i do like beef broth. i wish someone would make a french dip sandwich with turkey meat, but still give me the beef juice to dip it in. anyways, it is healthier, easy, and yumtastic so if you want to live a life as exciting as mine, give this recipe a try.

don't forget to salt.

i am making a Moroccan inspired chicken stew tonight. if you are lucky, i will forget to take pictures.

easter - a day to stuff your face in the name of JC

i may have overdone it. see, i have been spending the last few months attempting to get my blood pressure under control. turns out the meds i had been on in SF weren't really working. also turns out Moose makes me crazy, which may or may not have an impact on my blood pressure. anyways! a month ago, i was put on 2 meds. they worked. they also caused an impressive rash. so i went to an allergist who declared i was not allergic to either of these meds. i believed him cos i saw how not rashy i became when they poked the meds under my skin. i continued on one of the meds and it *almost* kept me at a good bp level. except that it didn't. so my doctor added my second med back on and i went all rashy again PLUS dizziness this time. so no gym, no fun,no nothing for the last few days. i don't do well if i can't do all. i just don't.

and then there was easter! here is what we had to eat:

green salad
fruit salad
cream cheese danishes
cherry danishes
potatoes
bacon
sausage
goat cheese and prosciutto strata
raspberry and lemon french toast strata

too. much. good. food.

there were 6 and a half of us. us, the jungs, mel and beth. mel had double plans so greta and i texted him after a while to see if he was going to come back and play with us. being three years old, she does not suffer from the "fat finger" iphone affliction the rest of us struggle with. she is an excellent texter.



we played "Apples to Apples" which is in second place for fun (first place will always be catchphrase), but in first place for being incredibly enjoyable whilst not causing couples to contemplate divorce after playing.
Beth introduced this game to us. look how happy neil is to be spending easter with his sister.now look at how happy neil is to be spending some time with the entire box of "apples to apples" cards i spilled on the ground:
Greta is a dancer. she is into it. sometimes she closes her eyes when she dances. i kind of feel like if she were stranded in the forest and could only communicate with the wildlife via dance, it would just be a matter of moments before mice would be bringing her crumbs to eat and butterflies would be braiding her hair.
moose thought he was a part of the show and bowed for us all
Greta will be getting a puppy soon. getting a 12 week old puppy is one thing. having a 75 pound two year old puppy want to cover you with kisses is another thing. G is learning how to say "NO" like a big girl and moose is FINALLY learning not to knock G over just because he loves her so much. jesus H, people. it's just exhausting. so this new level of vague disinterest mixed with slight amusement is a godsend. G wanted her picture with each pooper.

and with matilda:




she is going to absolutely love having a dog in her life, and i can't wait to meet their future pup. they will be getting a pup from a rescue, unlike our President who has greatly greatly disappointed me by not adopting like he said he would.

and then it was time to eat again. seriously. we had an 8 hour day today.




easter may be the new thanksgiving. shocker, i know. but if 40 can be the new 30 then thanksgiving had better watch its back. i'm just saying,

WTF?

Remember all of that sunny garden building? This is what 6000 pounds of rock looks like:

If you like, i can tell you how 6000 pounds of rock feels, too. Whilst Neil was at work, i had the honor of moving most of this rock out of the alley and onto our property.

I built raised beds with some of the rock. They look pretty gray and benign now, but when they get wet you can see that they are actually quite colorful and assorted. This is why we needed to build a fence:
Moose doesn't now how to discern a rock garden bed from a dog bed.

Then we had 10 yards of soil delivered. This is what 10 yards of soil looks like:

As with the rock, i had to move the soil from the alley to it's new home. Neil built an amazing arbor over where the fence will be and....





WTF winter? Seriously. WTF is up with you? We had a great spring in March and now we have fallen back into winter. Yesterday it thunder snowed. i didn't even know that thunder snow was an actual thing! I only hope that all of the little buds that were starting on my lilac bush hold on tight because i would really like to see them do their thing come mother's day.

And since mother nature is kicking my ass, i have taken to making the green happen indoors. Here are 25 Genovese Basil Sprouts and 25 French Marigold sprouts:
Neil talks to the basil every day when he gets home from work. He does not address the marigolds.
is that what it is going to be like when we have kids? "hello son!" *daugher waves frantically for Neil's attention. Neil ignores daughter* whatever dude. say hi to your daughter....i mean the marigolds. i think. whatever.

i have bell pepper seeds going. and i also have seeds starting for flowers. seeds are cheap! did you know that? when i think about all of the money i have spent at nurseries on plants, i kind of want to punch myself in the face.

here are my lobelia, mexican sunflower, tropical milkweed, and white swan echinacea seeds all sprouting about:



i am totally into it. like crazytown into it. i think that is what happens when you live somewhere that has real winters. you crave spring. you watch your little basils pop up and you greet them with love and you promise them out to your friends, knowing that you will be saving your friends a bit of cash as well and life is kinda good and stuffs. well, at least Neil does this. I actually greet the marigolds with love as well BUT THAT IS JUST ME.


Have you met Midge? She is the middle cat. sometimes i wonder if she feels neglected. Especially when i find her Hugging The Couch. Note to self: pet Midge every once in a while. She is the marigold of cats.