This is a little hot water bottle holder I made this weekend. It's very grandmaish but my feet get cold since I am not capable of producing heat with my body. And anyway, I'm pretty grandmaish to begin with so no use fighting it. I saw the knitted hot water bottle holders around and liked them but didn't see myself actually knitting so I did it this way with a little quilted cover, lined, and leftover snaptape from my duvet cover for the closure. Here's the back.

article about e.coli and industrial meat by Michael Pollan
Wendell Berry once wrote that when we took animals off farms and put them onto feedlots, we had, in effect, taken an old solution — the one where crops feed animals and animals’ waste feeds crops — and neatly divided it into two new problems: a fertility problem on the farm, and a pollution problem on the feedlot. Rather than return to that elegant solution, however, industrial agriculture came up with a technological fix for the first problem — chemical fertilizers on the farm. As yet, there is no good fix for the second problem, unless you count irradiation and Haccp plans and overcooking your burgers and, now, staying away from spinach. All of these solutions treat E. coli 0157:H7 as an unavoidable fact of life rather than what it is: a fact of industrial agriculture.

This weekend I was very proud of myself! I took care of many chores and made a few savory and healthy soups for us to have for lunches through the week. My biggest triumph was cleaning out my vegetable garden and harvesting all of the tomatoes that had been languishing including a couple pounds of Sungold cherry tomatoes and several giant sized Amish Paste plum tomatoes. These are great varieties for this region and I will plant both again, they succeeded incredibly against insurmountable odds: no water and almost complete neglect. It was basically a Tour de Force. I ground up all of the ripe tomatoes in a food mill and cooked them up with some chicken broth I made last week (from the leftovers of our organic free range roasted chicken) seasoned with rosemary from the front planter. I threw in a can of some garbanzo beans (would have done dried but I didn't know I had so many tomatoes left) and it was good and made me feel like a soup making goddess! Thaddy and I have agreed that next weekend we will do absolutely nothing since we were so productive this weekend to celebrate the end of daylight savings time.

I liked to read this blog post about how it feels to finally have a home. Waiting to move I have been maintaining a static status quo that no longer gives me that sublime feeling of home. There are small things I could do though, to spark some happy at home feelings like burning incense or lighting more than one candle. I will work on it.

I confirmed that Venice is still the most magical city I've ever been to and discovered an abiding love of the cafe latte, the coffee my grandma made for me as a child given legitimacy with an Italian name. It was nice to know that I can still use most of my Italian and could probably get very proficient with a teeny bit of study next time. Good to be home though and we've roasted a chicken, also confirmed that our bed is the most comfortable place I can imagine. I made a big stride already upon homecoming by finishing a project that had been languishing for a year: put snap tape on the duvet cover I made for the couch snuggling blanket. Project completed and snuggles in progress!

At least when we come back Fall will be here and I plan to celebrate and get over jet lag with Thomas Keller's roast chicken, I already cleaned my oven and everything! Ms. Orangette's salad looks like the perfect thing for leftovers and I'm sure we'll be craving salad after traveling.

Well my weekend was not blissful or relaxing but very annoying. It seems that Thad's car is now well and truly dead so we have to decide what to do and where the money will come from for a new house and a new car. This is not how I like to feel when getting ready for vacation.

A blissfully relaxing weekend awaits and I intend to celebrate with champagne and picnic food, maybe a bitter greens salad with goat cheese. We will watch many dvds and I hope to can something, either tomatoes or another kind of jam depending on what looks good and cheap at the farmer's market. This is my last weekend since I am afraid summer will be over when I get back from Italy. I can make some cookies for the flight.

We have been having fun watching dvds of the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica in preparation for the third to start next month. It is great sci-fi and very addicting. My sweet Thadeus enjoys using the swear word they've developed for the show. There is some pretty sexy content too to keep things spicy.

Last night I cleaned the kitchen and even scrubbed the stove top. Then I took a long shower and washed my hair and exfoliated with my extra special body scrub that smells like the most yummy coconut ever. Afterwards I watched a Jane Austen (novel inspired) movie and felt quite a bit better than I had before I began the whole exercise.

Great article about the "food divide" in the Bay Guardian: " how do you make shopping in farmers markets and cooking for your family more of a way of life rather than a lifestyle."

yesterday at the farmer's market I picked up some fresh black-eyed peas. They made a nice soup last night loosely based on this epicurious recipe.

I omitted the red wine vinegar becuase I forgot. Instead I just sauteed the onion and garlic, threw in 4-5 chopped up roma tomatoes leftover from sauce making, then dumped in a storebought carton of chicken stock, the black-eyed peas (a regular sized baggie-full), oregano and chili powder, and simmered for maybe an hour. Later it looked too chicken brothy so I threw in some quinoa and that made a very nice mushy soup for an almost fall Sunday evening.

craving the next step:

Pouring over books, photos of beautiful houses painted in bright colours, with kids and dogs running through them.

move to Uruguay?

new home in Astoria

I am not good with liminal times. Everyday I wonder if I should plant seeds for a winter garden.

I like these two hanging lights from Dutch by design, especially the Icarus with it's giant angel wing. Very cool name too. The Delight would make a nice bedside hanging lamp but you have to use an energy efficient bulb. I would want to make sure they had some besides the compact flourescents because you cannot use those with a dimmer, which is a deal breaker in the bedroom.

So far 3 people have been by to see the house. Not that many. Meanwhile I am starting to doubt how badly I want to sell. As autumn approaches my instincts tell me to dig in and get under a blanket for winter. I will not be able to buy a better kitchen for roasting chickens or simmering stock. This is the time of year when Thaddy first came into my life. I remember our first date when I leave the windows open day and night and my feet want slippers in the evening. Not too hot, not too cold, just right. I wonder if I will recognize this feeling in another house.

I am obsessed with having a place where I belong. I want a home where I wake up every morning and think yes, this is it, what a beautiful place. Now I will grow something in the garden or make dinner or a quilt or a fire. I will belong there always and years from now remember things as they happen there. Now where is this place, should I make it myself or take over someone else's memories? It must be in a location close to my family and under a lot of trees. A small orchard would not hurt. Am I asking too much? Perhaps the orchard is a bit much.

we had a good salad on the weekend which I will record here for posterity. It included:

1 heart of romaine, chopped
1 shallot chopped up very fine
1 lemon cucumber from the garden
some of orangette's red wine vinaigrette
1 can of tuna packed in olive oil
tons of chopped up cilantro and salt & freshly ground pepper

Apparently tuna and cilantro love each other. This was the perfect salad for coming home from a week of wedding festivities on a day when we had neglected to eat breakfast: light and nutritious but substantial.

raped by color = scientific proof

The New York Times has an article on how color in the home can make you happy:

"a maximalist, color-saturated approach to interiors is a secret to happiness — maybe even the secret"

it goes to the root and makes hair grow

Well the realtor's list was not bad at all. I love his outlook on how people buy houses and hope to god he is right. His take on the craptastic backyard: people want something of their own to personalize when they buy a house, so they will like an unfinished pit of a backyard. Handy for us because our backyard is just such an unfinished pit. The most daunting of the tasks is to clean up the garage, but we would've had to do that to move anyway.

I have started to keep a journal where I can write down my little ideas about our new home and dream away to my heart's content. This has kept me from trolling the house listings so I don't get my heart broken by falling in love with something we can't buy until we get an offer.

In minorly related news I love these coffee cozies popping up here and there. Something similar is what is needed for my kitchenaid. Of course I have to wait to see how we will decorate the new hypothetical kitchen before I can make one. You see how sick I am?

We have chosen a realtor to help us on our journey. He won my heart forever by telling me our home has "pizzaz." I also really like how every time he talks about how we will handle offers he says "when we get an offer, and we will, . . ." to reassure me that it will indeed sell, we will really get offer(s). Tomorrow we get the to-do list for everything that we should do to get the house ready to show people. I am braced.