cauliflower rocks!

Yum! I forget if I mentioned that cauliflower has become my new brussel sprout (as in, I've rediscovered it and fallen in love--don't worry ervy it may be just a crush).

I love to cut it into smaller sections and cook it with butter and onion and a bit of white wine til it's cooked, but still firm. Awww, it's DELISH!

Recently, I've loved playing with colorful cauliflower. I've seen purple and orange, and it makes me just want a bouquet of it all on my plate!

for the "sew I knit" along

The sewing project for "sew i knit" this month was to sew a top.

I finally finished my pattern. I chose Simplicity 5057, pattern D.



A tank top really doesn't take too much fabric, so I used an old vintage pillowcase I'd found thrifting.



It's been a while since I'd worked from a pattern, mostly I deconstruct and reconstruct clothes to my liking, or I just wing it. But I dutifully cut out the pattern.



I ended up getting fed up trying to turn the ribbon ties inside out after sewing them up, so I left them out. I also think that despite cutting the pattern to specifications, the lower back panel should have been longer, so I ended up sewing on a ruffle to compensate. I'm not sure how I like it or if I'll take it off. Right now, I think it adds a little bit of girly girl to it.





Overall I think I'd try the pattern again with a few modifications.

chemo caps

I just found out today that one of my aunties has lung cancer. She has never smoked, but apparently lung cancer is also known as Asian women's cancer? At least that is what the doctor told her. She will be going through chemo treatment, so I am planning to knit her a couple chemo caps out of baby soft cotton and perhaps chenille? Is chenille a good yarn for these caps?

I'm looking at these patterns currently:

very cute, I'm thinking of doing this one in chenille

and then one of these three in cotton for summer wearing:

one
two
three

In happier news, Evan and I are closer to finding the location of our wedding/reception. We've narrowed it down to two choices. One is a beautiful private estate in Sonoma that nestled in the middle of lush grape vines! The other is a local historical mansion located at a country club near my parents' house surrounded by the Berkeley hills. Both are gorgeous locations, and we have a hold on the July 7th date (7/7/07) at each. So we should decide after this weekend with more budget analyses. Pictures to come!

Thank you's

I've been meaning to post thank you's. I finally figured out where my digital camera was! It was in the trunk of my car. Sheesh, what a silly place for it.

Anyhoosit, I was able to take photos of the wonderful packages my SP Angel, Maureen, and my colorwap partner, Dana sent me.

Maureen sent me a lovely package with some beautiful speckled green wool, an awesome pattern booklet to make a wallaby sweater, some great notecards and stitchmarker, and a nice set of bamboo circulars (yay!).


Dana sent me an amazing green package for May colorswap! Look at all these goodies! There's yarn, green striped candy canes, green ribbon, a very much needed pin cushion, a CUTE CUTE CUTE pouch with a knitted sweater on it, some new green flops, a cute froggy thermometer, a yankee candle scent for my car, some stitch markers, a cute butterfly measuring tape, some wind chimes (that my cats find fascinating), and some wonderful mint chocolates with a cute sugar turtle and frog on top (those were quite tasty!). Phew! Wow Dana. Believe me, I was blown away! I think you definitely should win an award for the best colorswap pal ever!



My kitties LOVE the wind chime. They stare at it with their kitty laser eyes trying to decipher what the tinkling of the tubes means...

Yay! Still happy and glowing!

As requested, here's a shot of the ring! It's so sparkly! It's hard not to walk around in the warm Californian sun and not be distracted by the sparkles. Ervy likes it too. Too bad this picture doesn't capture all the sparklyness well.

Thank you all for your congratulations! And seriously Janis, we must have some weird psychicly linked lives.

This was going to be a post where I talked about how ervy and I met and how we got to where we are... then I told the erv man I was going to post that and he said, "yup--the sappy post." How very correct indeed erv man :) It's funny, because neither of us is normally sappy, but engagement bliss seriously tramples over all those normal habits.

*happy sigh*

Did I mention both evan and I are most looking forward to cake tasting? Mmmm...

I have some photos and thank you's I need to post about the wonderful packages I've received from my colorswap partner and Secret Pal Angel. But of course I need to take the photos first. All I can say is, WOW! I've really been spoiled by these wonderful people.

Tantalizing Tea Note!

I got a card from my Tea Swap partner! I love it! I love how it's so cryptic.

I got to my mail box, and thought, "What's this letter for me from Alaska?"

I opened it up to find this:



and inside the card:


Not only am I mad jealous of my tea swapper's artistic skills, but I'm now extra super excited about this swap. This has to be the best TEAse EVER!

Plus the card smelled like cinnamon! Yum!

Thanks Tea Pal! This totally rocked!

cinco de mayo celebration

My Cinco de Mayo turned into a wonderful unexpected celebration. Friday at lunch, ervy and I met at our favorite little family run Italian restaurant in Menlo Park - Buon Gusto. We chatted about some of the studies I've been working on, and some other random conversation I don't recall too well. Then, before the dessert course, my ervy quicly pulled out a ring and slid it across the table saying, "So... do you want to get married to me?

I'm happy to say, I remembered to say 'yes,' after a lot of giggling. I also remembered to take a picture of our dessert for the blog. My favorite dessert at the restaurant - they call it chocolate salami, it's like a marbled chocolate cookie/cake wrapped in chocolate and served with chocolate sauce! It's wonderful. And it was perfectly celebratory!



I do admit though, that I was completely retarded and took a picture of the dessert, but not US at the restaurant. Silly lori. I should mention that ervy forgoto this too. So, silly us.



Sunday, our friends Hilary and Steven took us out to dinner at Cascal in Mountain View for some celebratory tapas and wine! They also gave us a fabulous wedding planning guide book which is helping us figure out all the ettiquette and wedding details we've never known about.

Yay! I love my ervy!

InsaniTea

lol. To borrow the naming scheme Adagio uses... :)

This post is for the flash your tea stash for the knitter's tea swap, but I figured it could grace my blog too!

Okay. I'll be the first to admit I'm a tea fanatic. I mostly prefer loose leaf teas, but I do have some herbal tea bags, and chai in bags (because I can't seem to find a decent loose leaf chai anyway). I suppose I may adore tea too much, and I'm very conscientious about my brewing time and water temperature so that each cup of tea can be its very best :) I guess I'm a tea activist.

Anyhoo, here's my stash (it's missing some tea that my bf and I keep at work)


closeups:




Here are my favorite teapots that are most often in use. The three in the middle are cast iron. The biggest can serve 8-10 people, the middle 2-3, the smallest pretty much me or 2 small cups. I generally use my IngenuiTea from Adagio at work, as it makes it easier to brew loose leaf. I think I have an affinity for blue tea pots, don't ya think?



Tea for me! A hot cup of Pu-erh and some mini blueberry muffins!



cross-posted to Knitter's Tea Swap

One Singular Confection

I'm SO excited! I've been wanting this personal cupcake holder ever since I saw it on 52 Cupcakes! Now the container store is selling them! *happy dance*

One Singular Confection

With silver bells and cockle-shells, and pretty maids all in a row

Nikko and I go out to check on my little deck garden everyday. I'm so amazed how much plants can grow in a 24 hr period. Every time I go out there, my lemon tree has put out new leaves and buds overnight! My radishes and carrot sprouts grow another inch while new sprouts pop up all the time. I woke up yesterday and my Old German Tomato plant and grown a couple inches over the wall-o-water!











Nikko always gets tuckered out after our balcony visits as it's pretty warm out there. Today he walked back in the house and decided to plop right down on the kitchen floor until he cooled off:


My mint plants, planted only about a month ago have vigorously put forth new growths. Today, I decided I needed to cut them back ALOT. I was quite aggressive with my pruning, but both plants still look full and healthy. I washed and destemmed the cuttings, and placed all the mint leaves in a pint jar. I've covered it all with Absolut vodka to create a mint extract to use in either cooking or cool summer cocktails. Apparently, over the next 10 days I'm just supposed to shake the jar a couple times a day. Then I strain out the leaves from the liquid, and voila! A strong mint extract!


Just in case y'all forgot, the title of this post is from a nursery rhyme... apparently full of religious symbolism

In the pursuit of happiness, craftiness, and great buys...

Seriously, this weekend was beautiful. It was so gorgeous, I had to take Nikko out for a walk on his leash around our block. He had the most fun when a couple of doves crossed our path on the sidewalk!

Okay, so my weekend really started Friday. I didn't intend for that to happen. I had a bunch of work I was planning to do from home after I went to dim sum at Koi Palace with Minger, Adam, Adam's Mom, and the Fu. But you know, since none of us had hard set schedules for the day, we ended up going to Target to buy Trivial Pursuit 90's edition and headed out to Dolore's Park in SF to play games and watch the many many ADORABLE doggies! This toy poodle named Emma came bounding up to us. I didn't know what breed it was (the owner let its fur grow out naturally), I just kept yelling, "OMG, IT'S A TOY. IT'S A STUFFED ANIMAL!" It was THAT adorable. We hit a couple of neat stores including Dog Eared Books and Retro Fit Vintage. I bought these two books at Dog Eared:

Left: Vogue Baby Knits Two $5 (it has some cute patterns, and I'd like to start prepping for when family members have more babies so that I can have some handknitted items to send right away!) Right: The WASP Cookbook $6 by comedienne Alexandra Wentworth. She collected a bunch of recipes from distinctively white upperclass Americans and compiled them into an amazingly humorous book. I was tickled pink when I got home and found out that since it's not in print anymore, it's actually worth more than $6. Plus, it's been quite fun to read.

Also, look at this cute/handy magnet I found at Target in the dollar section:

How useful! I always am googling the conversions, now, I'll just look on my fridge!

Saturday, I worked a bit and took some walks with Nikko. I also got some spinning done. I finished a second bobbin of two ply confetti yarn (a blend I concocted of merino and some unknown wool type).


I also carded and spun up some of the merino X locks that I had separated out and washed last week. To my great delight, separating the locks DOES make a difference! I found that in carding, I would get fewer neps and it was easier to pick out the shorter cut bits, and much easier to get any remnant VM out too! For spinning, it spins like a dream, and the fibers are much better aligned! I love this merino X. It's fluffy, and I added some drops of lavender essential oil to the washing machine when the wool was soaking so it's smells heavenly to work with it. This is my spinning set up currently. You can see the TiVo remote has easy access from my chair so I can skip through the commercials on the X-Files!

Strawnanachoc Tart

That's right. Say that three times fast...

strawnanachoc tart...
strawnanachoc tart...
strawnanachoc tart...

mmm... STRAWNANACHOC TART!

By now, you're probably thinking, "okay. wtf is a strawblahblah tart?"

It's this:


Sure. It doesn't look like much. But let me tell you, it's the perfect ending to a wonderfully warm happy weekend. It's been a bit toasty here in Bay Area! Wildflowers are a blooming, and my allergies have blown off the charts. Days start feeling just a mite bit more lethargic, and I'm drawn to the outdoors like bugs to yellow. That's when I start craving fruit tarts. Nice...cold...fruit tarts. This recipe was thrown together with the help of Nick Stellino's inspiration and Cook's Illustrated's guidance.

Strawnanachoc Tart
For the pastry I altered the Cook's Illustrated recipe for a chocolate tart to be a regular tart.

Pastry ingredients:
1 large egg yolk
2 Tb heavy cream (I didn't have this on hand, so I used a tablespoon of melted butter and maybe 2 Tb of nonfat milk, and it still came out fine)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 Cups flour
3/4 Cup confectioner's sugar
1/4 tsp salt
10 Tb cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

Filling:
your favorite banana pudding recipe or instant banana pudding mix
1/3 C Nestle swirl (milk chocolate and white chocolate) chips chopped into small bits
1/4 C Bailey's Irish Cream
2 bananas
Strawberry Jam

To make the pastry, whisk together yok, cream (or substitute) and vanilla. Combine flour, sugar and salt in a food processor with 4 one-second pulses. Scatter butter pieces over flour and process with short pulses in food processor until mixture resembles coarse meal (20 one-sec pulses or so). With machine running, add egg mixture and process until dough comes together.

Turn dough onto a floured board. Kneed a few times and form it into a ball. Wrap dough and refigerate for 1 hour. After refigeration, remove the dough, unwrap it, and place it on your lightly floured surface. Give it a nice whack with your french rolling pin just for the heck of it--err, I mean it start softening it if it's too cold to be malleable.

Roll out the dough between two sheets of lightly floured wax paper pieces until it's about 15 in around, or big enough to fit in your tart pan with a little excess. Transfer dough to your tart pan and push it into the edges and cut off the excess.

Place the tart pan in the freezer for 30 minutes. After this cooling, preheat ovem the 375F. Set tart pan on baking sheet and cover with lightly greased foil. Place pie weights in the tart to prevent bubbles in the tart. Bake for 30 min. Take pie weights and foil off of tart and cook for another 5 minutes. Take tart out of the oven to cool on a wire rack.

Prepare your banana pudding. After the pudding has cooled, stir in the chopped chocolate and irish cream. Pour the pudding mixture into the tart and let set in the fridge for a bit. Slice bananas and decorate top of the tart. Heat a couple spoonfuls of strawberry jam in a sauce pan on the stove and brush the top of the tart with liquified jam.

Refrigerate and serve cold on a hot day!


Question
Do you think a tart could/should be classified as a type of pie? My friends and I had this very discussion, and I'm curious to hear what others think.

my radishes have sprouted!

really! They're such cute little sprouts too! I also bought some packets of sunflower seeds (teddy bear, and some reddish variety) to start sprouting for my mom. She's away this week, but she's been wanting sunflowers in her garden for her to snip during the summer to have beautiful flowers for the kitchen. For mother's day, we're going to be planting things in her garden so I figure I can start the sprouts now and transplant them on mother's day.

I've been a pretty busy bee updating the Bay Area Knitters ring. I FINALLY placed links to everyone's blog on the main page (man, 117 people! phew!). I then invited them all to be a member of the blog so that they could add posts about activities in the area. But Blogger only lets you invite each member individually, three people each time. So that was a bit slow too!

On the plus side, I enjoyed hopping around the ring and I found Celadon Cupcake inspired me to dress my dish soap:



This was a quick and dirty version I whipped up minutes before ervy came home. I plan to make my dish soap a couple outfits. I also think my mom and ervy's mom would enjoy one for mother's day. How adorable! It makes me smile every time I wash dishes :)

Look! I also finished up another long lostforgotten UFO! My Hooray for Me Gloves done up in that silvery/beige israeli yarn I found thrifting! I would have been done Tuesday night, but as I finished up the thumb gusset on the second glove I had an "OH CRAP!" moment. I was making a second left handed glove! Poop! So I had to rip it back and redo it. I tried to take multiple pictures to capture the cabling, but that darn flash just loves to wash it out! (Pssst.. can you tell what show is on in the back?)



I've been planning for more spinning too--lest you think I've just been knitting/sewing and neglecting poor Wally. Here are a couple bags of merino x locks lined up to get ready for a bath :) I saw this technique on a couple people's blogs recently, but I can't remember whom. I hadn't spent the time to maintain the lock structure before, but we'll see if that makes a difference.

sheepvertising

Click on the photo to go to the NY Times article. Business is paying to keep sheep covered... it's like a spinner's dream.

This weekend was Tony-The-Tiger-great. Friday night, the erv and I stayed home to watch the 1953 movie How to Marry a Millionaire with Lauren Bacall and Marilyn Monroe. We learned a new phrase to say something is wonderful. They kept saying, "I think it's just CREAMY!"

We also opened up my new scrabble set (my old one was missing a few letters, and I picked up a new set at Target on sale for $7.50!). I lost to ervy :( but it's okay, I beat fufu and ervy Saturday night :). I also finished my lap blanket from weekend knitting.... I know, I know.. you're saying, "what lap blanket?" As well you should. I believe it was a little under a year ago that I was knitting this. See, it's here in this post. It's about time to start finishing up my UFOs.

I do have to admit, I started a Nautie. They're just so darn cute. This one is greenish for the May colorswap. I'm trying to use up some lionbrand homespun I bought when I first started knitting (I hate this stuff now, the yarn always seems to bunch around its binder thread as i'm knitting with it!)



Sunday ervy, fu, adam, and I went to the farmers market where I picked up some pretty baby artichokes so that I could make this delicious looking thing. We then headed over to Chef Liu's for lunch, but I veered over to the Mountain View Tea Village and Gallery to see if they had Blue Spring Oolong tea. I ended up walking out of there with some Ah Lee Peak Oolong. Ervy walked out with $30/oz 1965 Pu-erh, which by the way, was absolutely amazing.

The owner offered to have us try some new teas right there in the store. She sat us all down at their beautiful redwood trunk table and did a lovely tea serving of Drunken Princess Oolong and their amazing 1965 Pu-erh (as well as this Pu-chong mix they always keep warm for themselves from a mix of the pu-erh teas people have tasted along with some chrysanthemum flowers -- she said it was the way their master had taught them.) Goodness, it was so wonderful.

PROJECT: COLORSWAP

PROJECT: COLORSWAP

I'm so excited! Lynne emailed me and said there's an opening for May Colorswap. May's color is green, and I ADORE green!!!

Here's my colorswap questionnaire:

Are you crafty?
Hell yeah!

Would you enjoy things like: Buttons, ribbons and
embellishments?
Yes! I especially love ribbon and buttons... so I'd probably like whatever other embellishments come my way :)

Do you dye your own wool?
yup!

Do you like to scrapbook or make homemade cards?
I don't scrap book, but I sometimes make homemade cards. I never seem to like the special occasion cards you can buy in a store...

What are your favorite scents?
vanilla, clean laundry, gardenia

Do you like stationary and cards?
I love cute stationary. Having stationary has really come in handy since I've become a knit blogger. Sort of a wonderful self-perpetuating thing.

Do you like to sew or embroider items?
I sew . I tried to embroider once...it wasn't pretty

Do you like beads?
yes!

What kind of candy do you like?
candy innovation! Candy I haven't tried before! But a safe bet is always chocolate--especially dark chocolate!

Do you like hand lotions or soaps?
I find I always have a surplus of scented lotions, but I love yummy smelling soaps

Do you like to wear costume jewelry? Necklace,
earrings, bracelets etc.
costume? I like jewelry... does that count?

Do you like to make/or use stitch markers?
I do both. One of the best parts is giving them to someone though...

Do you collect anything?
unfortunately, my dad gave me the 'collecting bug.' He always collected stamps and coins (still does) and tried to get me to do the same as a kid. So nowadays, I think about starting a collection of things (shot glasses, cookie jars, gravy boats, etc) but I find I just don't keep collecting

Do you have any allergies?: Smoke, food, fiber, pets,
etc.
not allergic to smoke, but I don't love the smell :)

Do you have any hobbies?
knitting, sewing, spinning, cooking/baking

Do you like scented or unscented candles?
scented

Are you a fiber snob?
no. but I don't like the really scratchy acrylics. And I do love natural fibers

Do you like to play cards or board games?
yes! both!

Do you like neon colors, pastel, light or medium
ranges in the color of the month?
for green, I like either really vibrant I'm-gonna-knock-your-socks-off green or very earthy greens. But green is such a pretty color in general

Do you like kitchen magnets or key rings?
not particularly

Do you like picture frames?
sure.

radishes

Did you know that radishes can mature in a month after planting them? Some varieties take longer like the black spanish radish (yum!) and watermelon radish (double yum!)

In the whole vegetable garden theme of things, this sounds almost like 'instant' gratification for me... I mean it's not truely instant, but I'm just fascinated by how quickly they are ready for harvest. I plan on planting a bunch of varieties when I go up to Seattle. Some varieties are okay for warmer weather, but I think it's more of a cold weather crop. Still, I decided I might as well give it a try before I leave sunny CA, and I planted a few in one of the big wine barrel planters I have. I may only get tops and not bottoms if it's too warm, but c'est la vie. It's just fun to try.

knitting question

I would love to start knitting some socks out of some beautiful Opal yarn I have, but I don't have size 1 needles. Would you sock knitters out there recommend I get dpns or do that thing with two socks on a circular?

actual knitting content!

I've been knitting again! How absolutely wonderful to actually complete a project! I started a small my-so-called scarf around Valentine's Day when ervy got me some beautiful pink yarn from Full Thread Ahead

Asha was ecstatic that I picked up my knitting. I left it for a moment on Monday and she curled up with it to nap.


I finished it and blocked it. I spoke previously about the ridges I was getting in the pattern. I think this was due to the fact that the original pattern calls for 30 CO stitches, and I decided to cast on 18 to make a narrower longer scarf with the pretty pink yarn ervy gave me. This did create some spaces in the knitting, but I ended up using it as part of the design to add some contrasting color. I wove some of the beautiful handspun my sp6 gave me to add some flair. Then I dressed the sleeping Nikko in my scarf:


"mom, i'm trying to sleeeeeeeepppp...."


aww cute kitty overload!

I joined a new swap. My last secret pal flaked on me, so I've been tentative about my thoughts in joining up in new swaps... but really, this new swap is so perfect for me... it's the Knitter's Tea Swap, started by Suzie.

foodie related

I've been meaning to blog about the very tasty restaurant the erv and I found down in the Santa Barbara area. We ended up driving to nearby Carpenteria to Clementine's Steakhouse.



We loved this place. For $20 you get a humongous dinner complete with soup, homemade bread, salad, pickles, a main course (I got fried chicken), and homemade pie!

The place is dressed up to look like someone's grandmother's house.

It's amazingly comforting, and our waitress (I think Clementine's daughter) was wonderfully nice. If you're in the area, you should try to stop by here for dinner.

Clementine's Steakhouse
4631 Carpinteria Ave, Carpinteria
Phone: (805) 684-5119

breathing & chocolate chip coconut cookies

Today, I feel I deserve cookies. As you all may have noticed, I have been rather absent on and off these past four or so months. At the end of last year, I applied to PhD programs in social psychology. January I waited and went to the big conference in my field. February I began to hear back from schools. I thought, "hey, wonderful! I'm going somewhere..." But I have honestly been going insane the past two months trying to decide with Ervy WHERE we will be spending the next 5-6 yrs of our lives.

Well, the wait is over. Today, I accepted University of Washington's offer of admission, and then, after sending all the appropriate emails and filling out several forms in triplicate, I made cookies. Because I DO deserve cookies.

You might notice the two vitamin C bottles on my kitchen counter. That's actually only 2 out of 3, the third is still packed in luggage from my last minute trip to Santa Barbara last weekend (I was visiting UCSB again with Evan). The last few months have seen the erv and me go from sick to sort of sickly, so we're stocked on the vitamin C.

Celebration Cookies
this is really just the chocolate chip cookie recipe off the toll house chocolate chip wrapper. I added 1/2 cup of coconut to half the dough for today's cookies and froze the dough without coconut for another day when I deserve cookies

2 1/4 C flour
3/4 C white Sugar
3/4 C light brown sugar
1 t vanilla extract
1 t baking soda
2 eggs
1 t salt
2 sticks butter
2 cups chocolate chips
1/2 cup dried coconut flakes (the big kind)

Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in a bowl and set aside.

In a mixer, beat butter with sugars and vanilla extract. Add eggs one at a time. Beat in dry ingredients slowly. Mix in chocolate chips (do not over beat, just stir them in). At this point I froze half my dough in a roll to make another day. I then mixed coconut into the remaining dough and used a medium cookie dough scoop to get them the same size. Bake at 375 F for 11 to 13 min. When you take them out, they'll still be quite soft. Let them rest for two minutes before you move them to a wire cooling rack.

it's that season again!

Every year, the spiders come in droves, and I start having nightmares about the darn crawlers. Last night I dreamt I went to yoga and while I was in some ridiculous pose, a hoard of spiders started swarming around me.

ok. but seriously, it's not just spider season. It's the season where I get the bug to start planting. This year, I've planted three tomato varieties: Oregon Spring (a short season tomato, so I should get some early tomatoes), Old German (a beautiful bicolor tomato), and Brandywine. Now you might be thinking, "gah lori! it's a bit early/cold still to be planting tomatoes, doncha know!" But to you, I say "phhhhhhhhhbtt!"
I don't know when I'm going to start moving away to grad school, and I want to get the possibility of tomaters in this season. Plus, I've got my wall-o-water. See:


I saw these at Wegman's last year, but by then I didn't need them. It's basically just some plastic tubes you fill with water that help retain the heat around the plant during the early season. Here's a pic of one of my tomatoes in the wall:


I've also decided this year I would try companion planting more. Hence the marigolds around my tomato plants. They're supposed to help ward off pests... we'll see how that goes. Apparently, mint and basil also are great companions to tomatoes, so those have now been added to a couple of the barrels.

I've also convinced my mom to let me plant a bunch of tomatoes, veggies, and herbs in her backyard this year. They get a TON of sun, and have a lot of space so I think it will be perfect, and a good way for me to plant other varieties in hopes of harvest. I'm planning on planting Stupice, Hawaiian Pineapple, Green Zebra, Early girl, and Marvel Stripe. I'll also probably do a big boy or better boy for them.

I found this photo on my camera. It's of an amazing chickpea stew. This was absolutely delicious, although I edited the recipe slightly and added the whole can of diced tomatoes (i think 28 oz... Cook's Illustrateds says Muir Glen is the best brand)and all of the chickpea broth. It was so tasty, economic, and would feed an army!




Here's evan's bro, Sean, and his Tufts girly (i can't remember her name) sitting down to our vegetarian dinner: