Eating the World, Rise and Shine, and Farm Fresh to My House

I somehow feel an affinity for a living thing that wants to eat everything in sight. No idea why.

There is a monster eating the eucalyptus trees that line the creek in my neighborhood. Its name is Morning Glory, which is polite-speak for an imported pestilence that threatens to devour half the state of California. I’d be more upset if the eucalyptus wasn’t ALSO an alien species, but there you are.  Eucalyptus trees were introduced for timber, but it turns out that the species that grows here twists when it dries, and is too hard to drive a railroad spike into. Not to mention their explosive flammability. In addition, they smell like cough drops.

For scale, see the small footbridge with the waist-high railing in the lower right corner of the posted image. Note the gray skies behind the trees. In the spirit of the honesty that is a hallmark of FFP, that image is lightly Photoshopped. I lowered the lighter tones that washed out the pic and enhanced the shadows a little.

And continuing the theme of truth-telling, I did not keep to my workout schedule this past week. I was ill,  I  had to clean, I had a party, etc. There was some important triple experience in Warcraft to take advantage of before the recruit-a-friend- bonus ends. So I did only seven miles. (The recruit-a-friend was a gift to my husband so that he could have the two-seater flying rocket. It was an anniversary gift. Yes, we are nerds.)

The aforementioned rocket of AWESOME.

At mile 55 on my way to Rivendell, the woods have ended and the land is more settled. If I keep my schedule this week, in five days I’ll be dining at Farmer M’s groaning table laden with meat, beer, and mushrooms-sauteed-with-bacon. I think there will be pie, as well. Stop judging me. I can eat all of the pretend food I want.

My younger child has started school which means that I have to get up and dressed at a certain time very day to take her to the train. I got out of the habit over the summer. This fixed rising time is good, because it develops habits like eating and taking my meds on time, and makes me more likely to work out (which means that I sleep properly.) I wish that I was Joshilyn’s sort of insomniac. She wakes up in the dark before dawn and then she DOES things. My insomnia makes me lie awake for hours in torment, gingerly turning over and over, flipping my pillow to find the cool side, restless but anxious not to disturb my poor husband, until I finally pass out at four a.m.  I still have to get up at seven, and the rest of the day is either spent sleeping or wandering the house like the shambling undead. Either way it’s ruined for anything useful.

We’ve started getting Farm Fresh to You because I forget to eat properly. The monthly box gets me in the mood to go to the produce market again, and then I’m excellent the remaining weeks. Here are some foods I ate this month that I would not have eaten had the food truck not delivered:

I want you, my precious plum.

1. My mom’s cole slaw. (Grate a small head of cabbage, grate some dill pickles in, add salt and pepper, a LITTLE BIT of mayo and a generous slug of pickle juice from the jar, some celery seed. Let sit in the fridge  some hours before eating.)

2. Raw fresh tomatoes. (Slice and eat.)

3. Perfumed Persian melon. (Ditto.)

4. Roasted plums. (Oven at 400, halve and pit plums, place in baking dish cut side up with a slosh of red wine. Roast ’til soft. Eat with roast pork. If you aren’t insulin-challenged, put some on vanilla ice cream.)

5. Grilled squash. (I have no idea, husband does it.)

6. Cauliflower gratin. (Make a roux, add milk/cream/cheese and a pinch of nutmeg, pour sauce over florets in baking dish, sprinkle fresh bread crumbs over, bake at 350 ’til soft, mebbe an hour. Eat and die fat and happy.)

These are things I never think to make because they just aren’t in my house, and WHY? Because they aren’t in my repertoire. Now I’m thinking about fried okra. Okay, not too good for me, but OMG I love fried okra and I haven’t had any for years and years. I think I’ll have back-eyed peas to go with. See? I have the one new thing (or old thing I haven’t had for ages) and it leads to other good things. Some of them are even served without cheese sauce.

Tell me about something really good that you have eaten that is new (or old but long-neglected.) Show me your world so I can eat it.