Homegrown, Etc

– Oh, hey there, internet blog site. I’ve been neglecting twelve22 about as much as I’ve been neglecting my garden. The garden, though, still rewards me with amazing produce. I’ve yet to figure out how to get the blog to feed me. Seriously, though, the tomatoes started ripening at the beginning of the month, and there’s just no stopping them now. I made a sauce entirely from garden ingredients today: tomatoes, red bell pepper, red onion, thyme, oregano, and parsley. Salt and pepper were the only other ingredients, and it was amazing. I had some of it on top of vegetable pasta shells for dinner tonight — the photo above was taken with the camera balanced on a drinking glass, because it was so dark and stormy (hence the unusual angle).

– I was also equally impressed with this cooking effort, so it’s a double photo post today. My parents gave me several potatoes that they grew in their garden up in Sandstone. I sauteed some red onion from the garden with mustard and coriander seeds, curry powder, and a bit of extra cumin. I added most of a diced tomato from my garden (a Great White, which is actually yellowish and has the strangest texture: very meaty and dry-ish, but it cooks wonderfully) and let that all mingle for a bit. When I’d finished boiling the potatoes, I added them to the pan and did some in-pan splitting and mashing. I’m pretty sure it was the best curry-based dish I’ve ever made.
– It’s been hot AND humid around these parts lately, which makes running less than pleasant. We had a short reprieve at the end of last week, and I was able to run my fastest ten miles to date. That was very reassuring, because I was starting to think that I’d just become really awful at running, but I’m pretty sure the weather is actually to blame. The weekend after next is Ragnar, so let’s everybody hope for a nice cooling trend, eh?
– The cats continue to be amusing. When Beany was younger, she used to spend a lot of time alone in the basement, which I referred to as ‘doing her experiments’. There’s less of that now that she’s older, but Birdy has picked up the slack. Her favored method of scientific inquiry, however, seems to include testing the reactions of everyday objects with water. Namely, the water in the cats’ bowl. Last week, she concluded that a catnip toy becomes far less desirable when saturated with water (although she made sure to carry it around and drop it at various points around the house to test this theory). This weekend, I returned from an errand to see a plastic bag floating in the oddly-pink water of the cat dish. So now we know that Gu Chomps will dissolve completely in a bowl of water, even if they’re wrapped up and placed on the counter. My furry little scientist.
– I read The Great Gatsby last week, for the first time ever. I know, right? I got one of those English degrees that was more about writing and poking at words than about reading… stuff. At any rate, I’m glad I never touched it in high school or college, because I wouldn’t have appreciated it. I really enjoyed it, though, and it set me off on this vague mission to read everything on the Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels list. Vague in that I have no deadline for myself, nor much drive to actually follow through. I thought that, since I’d just read #2 on the list, I should start from the top and work my way down. But, hey, who put Ulysses at #1? That’s going to take me forever. Sigh.