seaweed soup - meeyuk guk

this is a very nutritious and fulfilling korean soup that i always considered comfort food. it costs next to nothing to make and is very simple to cook. it's very tasty, despite what you may think..

 

first off, find your nearest asian food market and buy a package of dried seaweed. It will say seaweed somewhere on the package, anyways. it's hard to describe what it looks like, so here's a picture. it's quite cheap - this bag cost me $2.99 and there are several pots of soup that can be made from it. you will also need:

• toasted sesame oil
• olive oil
• fresh garlic
• chicken broth
• salt & pepper, to taste
  
• toasted sesame seeds, for garnish
• steamed rice, for side dish
  

 

 

you'll have to soak the seaweed before you can start cooking. use a big bowl and rip chunks of dried seaweed out of the package and pour plenty of room temperature water over them. set aside for 10 - 20 minutes. then, without touching the bottom of the bowl, gently swish the seaweed to loosen any sand and pluck the seaweed out of the bowl by the handful onto a strainer. gently press as much water out of the seaweed as possible and set aside.

on medium high heat, saute about 3 or 4 cloves of fresh minced garlic (depending on how much you like garlic) in a few tablespoons of olive oil. add the seaweed and keep saute-ing. the idea is to cook down the seaweed similar to spinach, until it is reduced and wilted a bit. this only takes a few minutes, make sure you keep stirring to avoid scorching the seaweed.

at this point you should add into the pot a few pinches of salt, and some freshly ground black pepper and a tablespoon of sesame oil. i had some leftover mushroom broth so i added about 2 cups of that for extra flavor. you could also saute a few pieces of beef for a heartier soup. my mother usually adds in dried anchovies. whatever you desire. once the seaweed is thuroughly cooked, add a carton of chicken stock and 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer for about 20 minutes. that's it.

 

 

 it's best to eat the soup while it's hot. usually it is served with rice and a variety of side dishes (korean tapas, basically) like kimchi, anchovies, spicy pickles, bean sprouts stir-fry and maybe a fried fish. since we are poor and do not have a korean woman in the house, i just dump a bowl of rice right in the middle of the soup and eat it like that. don't forget to sprinkle the sesame seeds!

 

 

goin' down to chinatown

today was a good day. it started off sucky cause I couldn't sleep last night and then I finally went to sleep and ended up oversleeping. then i started to get an eye infection so i had to take out my contact lens. but soon it was time for suejin and i to go grocery shopping. we are on a very tight budget (about $180.00/month) on food for 4-5 people so we were a little worried about the food situation and like an answer from the cosmos we stopped at a light at the intersection of price st and henry st and had a fateful conversation. i always wondered what was inside the brick building that had a sign that said "chinatown grocery" on it. why? because it's the ONLY sign in savannah that even says chinatown, there's not a single asian person in sight because we are in the g-h-e-t-t-o. surely, it wasn't really a chinese grocery store - that would be....wierd. but for some reason i wanted to go check it out.

so we go inside and sure enough, it looks like a typical convenience store in the ghetto. but then... i found something that caught my eye. something so exciting that i almost thought my eyes were decieving me. there, at the front of the store was a big table with opened boxes full of - asian pastries!!! like the kind you get at mozarts - custard filled breads and sesame balls with red bean paste and even a hot dog stuffed bun! i was thrilled. so was suejin. we immediatly picked out some pastries for breakfast and continued looking around. in the back there was a meat counter and a petite asian woman doing something with her back turned to us. it wasn't a very busy store so i wasn't sure if the food was fresh but then i read some signs on the wall that said, "family specials". they had a meat deal where you could get 3 lbs of ground beef, 3 lbs of turkey wings, 3 lbs of turkey necks, 3 lbs of fish, 3 lbs of pork chops, 3 lbs of chicken thighs, 3 lbs of chicken drumsticks for $31.95. that's a lot of meat! we were wondering what we could make out of turkey necks and wings when the butcher came up and offered to give us extra chicken instead of the turkey. DEAL.

then out of nowhere an asian man tells us, there's more the back. so we go back there and it was like god smiled down upon us. it was a mini asian farmers market!! there were freezers full of rice cakes, squids, a produce section with persimmons and chestnuts and fresh ginger, a few aisles of asian canned goods like noodles, coconut milk and curries. every time we turned around a corner one of us was squealing with delight. suejin even found a shelf of asian cookies and yelled out, "LOOK, they have choco-pies!!"

we happily paid for our pastries and the wonderful butcher brought the boxof meat to our car. we were so happy. we had a month's worth of meat for $32. right now our freezer is packed to the gills.

we love chinatown.

she cooks!

i have a bunch of pics to show from the past couple days. but for now feast your eyes upon this!:


tonight's menu consisted of creamed spinach and ricotta filled pasta shells with a ground turkey meat sauce with melted mozzarella cheese. I used lots of garlic and for this meal my sous chef was Kim (normally it's johnny...) Since Kim can but doesn't cook, this was a remarkable occasion worthy of a photo shoot. Even though she was complaining the entire time, Kim can't pass up a chance to pose. we call this boobs 'n food:


this is the swish and flick: doesn't she look happy?

field peas and greens

johnny insists on his first meal of the year being field greens and peas and since i wasn't up to making some elaborate soup, i cheated a little bit and made him a spinach salad with garbanzo beans, black olives, onions, croutons, parmesan, mozarella & feta cheeses, grape tomatoes, sunflower seeds, mushrooms, bacon and italian dressing. it actually looks good but i don't think i can eat a hearty salad first thing in the morning.

not a very merry xmas

this year with all the crap that's going on, all the pressure we are under, all the stress we deal with everyday, johnny and i decided not to have christmas. beside the fact that we have zero money to spend on gifts or anything, we just wanted to be left the hell alone. even still johnny drove to beaufort to have xmas with his family just to make an appearance. i treated it just like any other day pretty much. i cooked and cleaned like i always do. but i didn't mind cause all the food came out great and the one guest we had over - emily, kim's old roomie - really enjoyed herself. so i guess i can honestly describe our christmas as laid back.

but it's pretty much safe to say i hate christmas. i am now officially the grinch. actually, i never really liked christmas that much as a kid, either. i hardly ever got what i wanted so i didn't bother making a list. when i got older i started getting some things i really wanted - mostly electronic gadgets from my mom (who i suspect was trying to make up for something). but more than anything i hated how people act around the holidays. it seems like people are either greedy, depressed, jealous, anxious, prideful, and self absorbed. i can't exactl exclude myself from those adjectives but i knew christmas was not a very good holiday. it seemed to bring out a lot of bad in people.

and it also stands to reason that since i don't believe in christ, i shouldn't be celebrating christmas. so i don't think i will celebrate christmas anymore. at least, not in it's modern "traditional" sense. yea, i like to decorate with christmas-y things. i like to bake cookies and make snowmen (theoretical snowmen, anyways), i like the general feel of christmas. but i hate the travelling, the obligation, the anxiety over gifts and family. so i'll take what i like and leave the rest.

what about our kids? are we robbing them of a happy childhood? if you really think your kids need christmas to have a happy childhood then you aren't doing a very good job. i think our kids will be very happy, and we will more than compensate for not brainwashing our children into thinking a fat man is going to give them presents. (no offense to fat men...)

so yeah. poo on christmas.

but we actually had a good time. i even got to make experimental peanut butter & jelly samosas.

at the beach in december!

this is my favorite pic of smooshie enjoying his unlimited digging privileges

yea, it's been freakishly warm lately. i keep hearing on the news about all the snowstorms and just wishing a little of that will blow our way. the warm weather was supposed to end by sunday night (which it did!) so we took the bored dogs to the beach one last time for the year. hopefully the dog park will open back up soon and we can start taking them there again. i swear as soon as i have some money we will be donating to the dog park!

it seems like its taking forever to settle into this new apartment, mostly because of a major lack of storage. we have no closets!! we had way more stuff than this place could hold, plus a bunch of Kim's crap and suejin's stuff (mostly for baby). so, johnny in all his magnificent manly glory and handiness had to put up a bunch of shelves and stuff so we could put things away. my first concern was the stove area, which had no place to put spices and just two tiny little slivers of counter space on each side of the stove. I had johnny install a small shelf level with the top of the stove's display console and voila!


i just love organizing things and putting them in the perfect spot. even though this apartment has no storage, it has a lot of nooks and crannies perfect for making your own storage, which i love! the bathroom is my next task to tackle. friday night i made the first official homecooked meal: pot roast. i just love it when pot roast comes out good, and there's practically no way to mess up a pot roast in a crockpot. i don't even go by a recipe, i just play around with it knowing the basics of a good roast is to broil it first. i use about 10 cloves of garlic stuffed in the meat and a good bit of red cooking wine and mushroom broth. yuuummmmm....


my momsent me back to savannah last time with a van load of stuff, including plants, paintings, 100 year old mushrooms (i'll make a whole post on this topic, too), paintings, and fabric - oh! and a sewing machine!!! I cannot wait to use that baby! anyways, i still have to set up a sewing station so don't get too excited yet... right now there's a banana tree and a mango tree living on my kitchen table and i just wanted to show them off. thanks, mom!

sin in a box

this is quite possibly the worst food you can put in your mouth, but every once in a blue moon you gotta have it. southern fried chicken wings and livers! mmm mmm...

ok, so the chicken wings were for me and johnny and the dogs got the livers. i always think livers will taste good and then i find out i don't really like them once i take a bite. i should go sign up for a bypass now. ugh... roadtrip diets are disgusting.

veggies from the garden and dogs in tshirts

i can't take any credit for these eggplants since my chickens destroyed my garden (my fault, not theirs) but my mom did bring me some eggplant from her garden. i still have peppers and tomatoes growing but no squash or beans or anything like that. anyways, i made myself dinner the other night using her eggplant. i made eggplant stir-fry. which i didn't like - only because i don't really like eggplant but ya know, you got to keep trying it cause maybe one day you'll like it - with the exception of brussel sprouts. those are just freakin nasty.

i also had a eureka moment the other day when i put my t-shirt on louie. louie likes to play under blankets and burrow himself into things, and he especially loves to nuzzle up to me (such a mama's boy) so when i was changing my clothes, he was watching me and wanted to play with my shirt, so i just put it on him. he loved it! it was like nuzzling me and burrowing at the same time! so he kept the tshirt on all day.

i noticed that by having a tshirt on, louie was much more calm and comfortable and most importantly, he didn't get as much fur everywhere! so, in addition to being cute and funny, it's functional! naturally, i had to put one on bibi, who doesn't like to wear clothes that much, but she tolerated it just fine. i think bibi wearing a tshirt is even better cause she has such sensitive skin and this could help her with that. i would have put one on the smooshie, but he didn't want to be touched in any way yesterday. such a grump.

while i was sitting on the couch by the window, i took a close-up picture of my eye in macro and it came out pretty good. unfortunately, it also highlighted the terrible condition my skin is in. i used to have such clear pretty skin and now i am aging. ugh.

roasted corn peanut salad

**imagine gorgeous close-up photo here**

have you ever been to f2O? it's a casual fast-food fusion restaurant franchise that serves salads, sandwiches, etc. i went there for the first time a few weeks ago and ordered a wedge salad with the roasted corn peanut salad on the side. the wedge salad was okay, but the roasted corn peanut salad rocked my socks off. it was sweet, tangy, and salty but really fresh and crisp. the flavors complemented each other so well!

well, i've searched high and low for the recipe and couldn't find it. so i hacked it myself. a lot of this is to taste cause i just basically fiddled around with ingredients and measurements but i got the concept down and it turned out pretty damn good. it's a very satisfying side dish or snack on its own. without further ado...

Roasted Corn Peanut Salad


4-6 ears of fresh corn

1 big red bell pepper, finely diced

1 white onion, finely diced

3 medium carrots, fresh and julienned (or coarse grated)

2 or 3 cups dry roasted peanuts (more or less, depending on how crunchy you like it)

handful of fresh basil leaves (from your fabulous herb garden...)

1 cup balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup agave nectar (or honey would probably work just fine)

2 tablespoons of toasted sesame oil

coarse ground sea salt and pepper to taste

1 lime, fresh squeezed to taste


okay, first thing to do is roast the corn. we ran out of propane on our grill so i just lightly brushed the corn with olive oil and broiled them in my oven. either way is fine! don't over-roast them, though - you still want the corn to have some fresh crunch to it.

finely dice the bell pepper and onion, combine with julienned carrots in big bowl. you could probably get really creative here and add fresh bean sprouts or maybe some fresh jalepeno if you want to add some kick. pretend you're making salsa...

in another smaller bowl, combine the vinegar, sesame oil, olive oil and agave nectar. whisk together and taste. if you like the taste, you're done - if it needs more sweet or tangy, add nectar or vinegar until you're happy :)

by now the corn should be done so take those out and carefully cut the kernels off the cob with a knife. be careful with the knife, i was impatient so i cut my kernels off before the corn cooled but you might want to wait until they are cool enough to touch. i just set the corn on it's wide end and cut vertically down the sides, rotating the corn as i go.

combine the corn with the other veggies in the big bowl, add peanuts and toss. drizzle in the vinegar mix, sprinkle some salt and pepper, squeeze in some lime juice, and throw in your chopped fresh basil and toss your salad some more, baby!

the result is yummy crunchy fresh sweet tangy salty delishiousness. you might have to play with the amounts of seasoning to your liking. i would say this dish would go great at barbeques. it's best served cold but ya know.. it's okay to eat it once it's done for quality control purposes...

sorry about not having a picture, not only did i misplace the stupid charger for my camera but the salad didn't stick around long enough to be photographed, anyways..... if i make some more, i'll definitely have a damn picture to show for it next time..

korean feast

tonight we made korean for dinner. my stepbrother had already boiled bamboo shoots so i just sliced them and mixed them with the ingredients from this recipe and fried some kal-chee (ribbon fish) and cooked my glutinous mix rice with all kinds of barley and millet and rice. we ate it with seasoned roasted seaweed and spicy candied cuttlefish. oh, and i made denjang jigae (soybean tofu stew) too. it was a very healthy meal.

johnny is making good progress with the chicken coop. we had a bit of a disagreement on the color of the coop, and it's sheathing material. he wants some boring "barnyard" style coop, with red shingles. i want a more post-modern style, painted the beautiful deep blue and sheathed in clear corrugated plastic. we'll see who shall prevail. i think our chickens deserve to have pride in their residence. i think, as the qualified architect of the family, whatever i say goes.... i won't post anymore progress pictures until the finished product so you'll just have to come back in a few days and find out!

veggie garden grow!

well, it's been a week since johnny built my raised veggie garden, and i have since planted the following: yellow onion, zuchini, yellow squash, sweet green bell pepper, ceyenne pepper, roma tomato, beefsteak tomato, watermelon, yellow wax bean, peas, green beens, okra, carrots, and cherry tomato (on the patio). I also have a hanging basket of strawberry plants and various herbs. i looooove picking the leaves and smelling them. i have pineapple sage, lemon balm, lemon thyme, peppermint, and lavender. i am going to take progress pictures as i go along, so the official snapshot for week one is this:

sorry that it's all out of focus. i'm still waiting on the return of my nikon. also, the garden has advanced beyond this significantly since this photo was taken. i am very curious to see how much this little garden can actually produce. i still want a pmpkin patch somewhere but i still have to figure that one out. johnny is building me a chicken coop!! i can't wait to see it!! i can't wait to have chickens!! i might even build a small koi pond this year....

and last night, in another indian cooking extravaganza, B and i made a feast. everything absolutely from scratch, too. i made potatoes and peas samosas (which came out better than i imagined), B made tadka dal and saag paneer and johnny made tandoori chicken and tofu - from scratch! imagine that, my small town redneck made indian tandoori from scratch! we topped everything off with a super sweet seedless watermelon. its'gooood!

all this rain!

we have been dowsed with about 3 or 4 inches of rain in the past four days. that's a great thing. i laid in bed listening to the raindrops (inside and outside the house) and picture lake lanier filling to it's brim... i sincerely hope we get out of this drought this spring. i put an old 5 gal. bucket under the downspout by the front porch and it was full overnight. i soaked my mushroom log, and maybe if i am lucky, i'll get a mushroom crop out of it. the planter box was a little flooded this morning, but it seems to be slowly draining. the back patio was filled with rainwater - i need to tackle that project next.

it's been 65 days since i saw a movie at the theatre - and yesterday we had planned to go to the inman park festival but it was pouring all day so we went to the theatre instead and saw "forbidden kingdom" which is a martial arts flick with jackie chan and jet li. jet li played the monkey king, which i remember watching as a cartoon in korea. i give the movie 3 stars (out of five). it wasn't awful, but parts of it were corny. i gorged myself on theatre candy, and paid for it this morning.

bibi is doing better. she seems to be using her leg more now, maybe even a little too much. but she is completely spoiled rotten cause she gets to sleep in bed with us and now expects it. she will walk up to the bed and stare at you until you pick her up and tuck her in. then she gets pissed if louie or syrus try to lay in bed too. i love snuggling with the bunni in bed - she'll just lay there and let you kiss her, play with her feet, you can even nibble on her cheeks, blow raspberries on her tummy.... yea, she's a dog. we know.

my mom is now a part of the food shortage hype. i offered to give her some leftover squash, zuchini, and onion plants and she said we need to plant a lot more. so i imagine this year we are going to be gardening like crazy. she got me some chickens but i need to build the coop first. i have no idea how that's gonna work out - chickens, dogs & cats.....

**oh, i always add things to my posts last minute, but i just can't help but poke fun at what retarded shit people build and the even more retarded people who buy into it... http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/apr/26/travelnews?page=2
seriously, it's like watching the paris hilton of architecture. i hope those stupid islands sink into the ocean.

dinnah....is served...

this is going to be a really long post... but it will be a visual feast...

boy, i was busy tonight! as soon as i came home i was gardening. i wanted to hurry up and transplant my seedlings into the new raised bed planter box today but as you can see, there isn't enough soil. johnny went back to get some more, and even that wasn't enough! i mixed in: two kiddie pools' worth of garden soil (roughly 2 bags each?); a big bag and a little bag of peat; two big bags of plain soil, half a small bag of organic fertilizer; and a big bag of compost with cow manure. and all of this on top of the entire contents of my compost pile. i shall be starting a new, improved compost pile now - hopefully this time with big fat red worms. so anyways, i am just about dying of anxiousness to get this garden going, especially since johnny's family is coming to visit this weekend. i also planted all of the kitchen herbs and the hanging baskets of fuschia.

the herbs you see below are (from left to right): rosemary, stevia, thyme, sage, and catnip.

if you are wondering about the kiddie pool comment above, last year i tried to grow pumpkins on my roof. unfortunately, we had the extremely severe drought and all outdoor watering was banned. so they died. before you wonder why i would let a vegetable garden die, we seriously thought water was going to run out. it was that bad. plus, it was a pain in the ass to try and get up on the roof all the time, especially with my bad ankle. the funny thing is, one plant actually survived. i pulled it out and was surprised to find this:

isn't he cute? looks tasty, too. not sure if i can bring myself to eat it, though. i might just look at it lovingly for a few days. maybe i'll try to re-plant it. now i have big plans for the rest of the yard. i have decided to completely till the triangular wasted space between our houses and plant pumpkins there, along with the beans.

wait, it doesn't end there~! after johnny came back with some batteries (finally!) for my stupid camera, i was able to take a bunch of pictures and start dinner. i took a picture of louie to demonstrate his new whiskerless 'do.




if you click on the picture, you can zoom in and see that he has indeed been trimmed. how goofy is that? dear, sweet louie. moving on...

i promptly began dinner, which was to be a modest sampling of homemade indian fare. i though about trying to make palak paneer like B does, using the mexican crumbling cheese instead of paneer (it works!), but i didn't feel like doing that much work. johnny had marinated the chicken and tofu in tandoori and yogurt all day so all i had to make was the basmati rice, and a side dish - which i ended up making my usual aloo mutter and chana masala. the result was fantastic. and, i just love how vibrant indian cuisine looks!


the chiken and tofu tandoori came out marvelous; johnny grilled them outside. i didn't get a chance to take photos of it because we inhaled them so fast. it was damn good. i love indian food.


the end.

* i lied! here's an exciting update: i may have chickens this week!! i found a woman on craigslist who is selling laying cochin hens and chicks and rhode island reds. i contacted her about getting three hens and four or five chicks, but i need a place to put them!! i need a chicken coop!

i'm back!

today is my first day back to work since i contracted the plague. i went to work briefly on wednesday but then had to go straight to the hospital with my mom afterwards. we were there until 1:30 am, and all we got was an asthma prescription. well, actually i got hooked up to the nebulizer and a shot in the ass which felt like liquid fire spreading across my butt. the doc said the flu is really bad this year and actually prescribed bed rest for 4 days. i think from now on i am going to get the flu shot, even if it doesn't cover all strains it helps. i still have a gross cough which i've been told could last up to 6 months. yippee.

the good news is a think i lost a few pounds. from now on i am going to eat way more fruits and vegetables. i'm just not a really big fan of vegetables. well, american vegetables anyways. gimme sprouts and spinach and roots anyday. i'm tired of tomatoes and squash and cucumber. overall, my health needs to improve. seriously. why is this so difficult? well, i'll tell you why. i can be pretty lazy and i suck at cooking. well, i suck at ethnic cooking. i don't know how or why it happened, but it takes a certain old school flair to make the perfect kimchi soup that i just don't seem to have. my denjang jigae always comes out tasting funny. my rice cakes are always gooey and when i do the spicy/sweet thing it either comes out too spicy or too sweet. plus, it takes a lot of dedication to shop for and prepare korean food. i love korean style fish but i can't cook it to save my freakin life. there's no recipe for this stuff, it's all in my mom's head and it changes everytime! i don't think korean women like to write down recipes. it must be bad luck or something.

for now, i need to just commit to eating more salad and raw fruit. less meat and processed foods. much less sugar. no more soda. i am an adult now and adults don't eat these things.

landscape plan

wow. it worked. i scanned this little sketch on the copier at work and emailed it to myself and it worked! well, in case you have no clue what you are looking at, it is a site plan of my house. you have no idea how may times i have drawn this. at least 20 times. half of the time i draw it in CAD, just to be extra anal. anyways, i decided to take my time and be methodical about how exactly i want my yard to look. this may seem easy, but when you are me, it's not. pretend like there are about 50 pine trees at about 120 feet tall scattered all over the page. that's what my house currently looks like, and if you are seriously considering mowing down each and every one of those pines, you wanna be damn sure that you will be able to live with that decision.

the real site plan has so much stuff on it you won't be able to see what's going on so this is really more of a key plan than an actual site plan. you can see how my house is situated on the site, kind of at a slant to the corner of the two streets. i have a driveway that ends really close to that intersection which is a pain in the ass so i want to build a small turnaround driveway. we are also building a new front porch very soon. the rest of the diagram just shows blocks of the land sectioned in different colors, and this is what i want to discuss.



let's start with the teal green section at the lower left. it is called "lawn" because that is exactly what it is. a very pathetic lawn. now, i don't plan on going leave it to beaver and obsess over having a perfectly green lawn but johnny does need something to call his own so i am letting him have a lawn to mow and fertilize. if it's a success, he'll be happy and i'll be happy. my only rule, no harsh chemicals.

going counter-clockwise to the right, the light blue section is called "bird & butterfly". this is the section that i will truly enjoy building because it is actually for my neighbors. we have a lot of people walk past our house everyday and i want to make a little spot for them to sit and relax if they wish. i am going to have a bench with a birdbath and plenty of bird/butterfly houses. i will plant bird and butterfly attracting plants and it will be pretty and smell nice. even though we have a lot of sucky neighbors, maybe they will lighten up after enjoying this little garden. i also want to put a hammock there....there's all kind of possibilities.

next is the green section called "orchard". here i will plant fruit trees like apple, pear and fig. i would also like to grow some nut trees, too. this orchard will provide food for people and wildlife as well as provide shade and privacy for the house. along the fence i want to grow all kinds of berry bushes to camoflauge the dog's yard, which is highlighted in yellow.

the dog's yard is going to require the most work. johnny thinks he can grow grass out there, which would be ideal. i also plan to build some retaining walls to control the soil erosion and make a doggy obstacle course to keep the dogs entertained outside. if you have any ideas for this, please please please let me know. i am also thinking about having a pond and building a new patio behind the house but that will be last on the list.

last but definitely not least is my most dreamed about chicken coop and vegetable garden. here is the most protected part of the yard, away from traffic and out of sight. this would be the smartest place to keep the chickens in case i have neighbors who hate chickens. no roosters, just hens. they will have space here to roam and hang out in the sun or chill out in the shade. i might build a small fence to keep them safe. below the chickens will be my vegetable garden. this spot gets really good sun and good drainage, but it is highly visible from the street so i must have a decent looking garden. this is where my creativity will have to come into play. i want to have boulders and all kind of plants, not necessarily just vegetables. so, i guess my veggie garden will have more than one purpose. hopefully it will work out!

that's all for now, gotta get back to work!

field greens and peas

johnny had been complaining about how he MUST HAVE field greens and peas for his first meal in 2008. I think we ended up having dim sum. his theory is that if you eat field greens and peas on new year's day it will provide you with good fortune for the year. there are many superstitions like this around the globe. unfortunately, i didn't know exactly what kind of dish he was talking about. in korea, we ate a porridge that had beans in it so i was assuming he was talking about a dish in particular. well, it turns out field greens and peas could be anything leafy and anything legume-like. coincidentally, one of the dinners i had planned out for this weeks menu was a lentil soup, loosely based on a few recipes i had found online. some called for ham, some called for spinach. i made one up using collard greens, smoked turkey legs, lentils, and butter beans. i cooked it in the slow cooker all friday thinking it was going to be a disaster because i totally just made up a recipe and i had never made anything like it before. well, to my pleasant surprise it turned out to be the most delicious soup i have ever made. i baked a small loaf of crusty bread and served it with the fresh local dairy butter and johnny inhaled it. he said, "this is what i wanted for new years day!" oh...
i had to take a picture of louie, who is such a mama's boy. he follows me everywhere i go - even to the bathroom. if i close the door (which for some reason i hardly do....) he busts through. i'll sit on the toilet and he will make himself comfy on the bathrug and chew on a toy or something. sometimes he'll just sit and watch me, which can get a little awkward. but he's just so cute. i happened to have the camera in the bathroom so i snapped this photo.

look at the concern on his face. he wants to know if i am O.K. i don't know why he does this but it can be annoying. but cute. sweet louie - such a good boy. such a little monster. he has a fetish for yarn now that i made the lining for my yarn basket and left it in the living room. johnny has come home to a giant sized version of cat's cradle in the living room curtesy of satan jr. but look at that face, how could you stay mad?

xmas 2007

i had a very relaxing holiday with no real agenda and no pressure. it was marvelous. must do it much more often. johnny and i just did stuff around the house, slept in like crazy, went to the movies, played with the dogs, etc. nice. i got him a new electric hair clipper and he got me a steam cleaner and an external hard drive. we also got my mom an external hard drive. i think my most favorite gifts i recieved so far is the soap from ellen and the book "a slice of organic life" from my boss susan. so thoughtful. i wish i was that thoughtful, i try to be but sometimes it doesn't always work out. i think mostly its because i end up wasting time. i don't plan ahead well enough, either. anyways, i hope everyone had a nice holiday. i ordered some soapnuts and i will post about those as soon as i try them out and i almost forgot! i need to post pictures of my mushroom crop. i got one of those mushroom logs a while back and i took pics of the growing shiitakes.

i am fighting a very strong urge to shop after xmas sales. like IKEA, which is having a big sale. and IKEA just happens to be right around the corner from my office. i hate IKEA but they are good to pick up odds and ends. no furniture, though.

desperately needed hope and inspiration

despite the fact that johnny and i had to wake up and leave the house by 6:30 am, i am in very good spirits today. i took marta and met my mom at our second southface sustainable roundtable. this roundtable's topic was food. i was all over it as soon as i heard about it. i knew my mom would be down for it so we signed up. there were three speakers - a guy who does urban farming programs, a master chef, and a co-housing community farmer. it was very interesting and heartwarming and i listened to every word. after the lectures, i went straght up to the co-housing guy and asked him about interning on his farm. he said he had one spot left and that i could apply. so right away i emailed him when i got to work.

i also spoke to a lady from UGA's agriculture dept. and she gave me information about a certificate program in sustainable farming. since the alpaca farm didn't reply to me, i think i am going to have to go through contacts via southface - but that's even better! oh my god - i feel so much closer to my dream i am overwhelmed with hope and inspiration. one thing unanimously agreed upon is that georgia needs more - more organic farmers, more sustainable processing facilities, more farmer's markets and CSA's. the demand is there and strong - we just need more people to supply. during lectures my mom would lean over and whisper into my ear about roof gardens on her hotel and having ricky spread chicken poop on the 14 acres.... oh my god.... my 14 acres.

i am going to have to name it soon.... mom has dry pond but i want something unique and expressive. when johnny and i walked around the land it was nothing but a forest of small hardwood trees. relatively few pines and a few larger hardwoods. it's atop a pretty steep hill but there's plenty of flatness. there's a bubbling creek at the bottom of the hill, alongside the property line that has a small waterfall. the ground is soft and organic - and the only access is a dirt road alongside the interstate. we will have to put sound dampening skyrocket junipers and probably a bridge of some sort to cross over the really deep culvert, but first and foremost i must plant the orchard. this weekend i am going to visit the site again and i'll post pictures. i am pretty excited!

gobble gobble!

happy thanksgiving, everyone! i have been up and at 'em since 8:30 this morning. i have baked more stuff the past two days than i have in my whole life. i started out with pumpkin muffins (all this from scratch, btw) that came out really good, then spiced oatmeal cookies, then gingerbread cookies. for the feast i made homemade cranberry sauce with walnuts, wild mushroom sausage stuffing, caramelized onion and gorgonzola cheese mashed potatoes, spinach, cauliflower & tomato gratin, apple dumplings, and of course turkey. johnny and i bought everything from the dekalb farmers market and i tried to make everything as healthy as i could. i pretty much spent the entire day cooking. mom came over at 5 and we ate a fantabulous meal. even the dogs got to have a taste of thanksgiving - plenty of table scraps. louie was putting on his best angel-puppy face for mom. today was a nice day. who knows what we'll do tomorrow....

this woman can eat an amazing amount of food. i think she has 2 stomachs!

gingerbread men (actually bears) and apple dumpling (to die for!)

i freakin hate raisins

they are vile little things - why would someone want to eat something that's not quite dry but not quite moist and tastes like sweetened funky shit? and then put it into EVERYTHING!

on a side note, i haven't eaten meat in two weeks. now i want to have my colon flushed.