Rain dance

Wet feet plus chalk-covered front steps make this:

Cutest mess ever.

Imagine...

... if you walked into a restaurant, ordered the green salad, and got this:

(Minus the dirt.)

More garden

Coming along, slowly but surely.

Carrots were a bit of an afterthought. One of the neighbourhood cats dug them up, then I put in more seeds, then it rained like mad and the seeds went everywhere, now I have carrots popping up all over the place.

Alien lily pad nasturtiums. They won't blossom until fall.

Early Wonder Tall-Top beet.

Bolting spinach. I'm letting it do its thing.

Monster gooseberry harvest is not far off.

Pole beans, looking like they'll flower soonish.

Happy potatoes, soon to have another big load of soil dumped on their heads (I'm growing them in a 3-foot bin).

Broad beans starting to flower. The ants like to hang out here.

Slugs like bok choy. Really a lot.

Small but sturdy and ambitious tomato.

Risott-oh

Remember when I said the turnip green pesto would be good in risotto?

I was right. Very right.

It was even better the next day, fried up in little crispy risotto croquettes.

I could eat these all day, every day. There are three left in the fridge. Would it be wrong to go fry them up right now without telling Hubby C? Maybe a little, but not wrong wrong, surely.

Operation: freezer purge

It has occurred to me that, on the off chance that my little veggie garden should actually grow any amount of veggies, I really ought to clear out some room in my freezers. I am very lucky to have a normal fridge freezer, and also a small chest freezer in the basement. The problem with having all this freezer space is that I just chuck all kinds of things in there "for later," and then "later" never really comes.

Last fall, I put away tons of fruit and vegetables. We used all the vegetables, but the fruit - berries and stone fruit, mostly - just languished, in part because my very generous, Costco-shopping mother in law is perpetually dropping large amounts of fruit at our house. I suspect that she thinks that the grandchildren might die of scurvy if deprived of "fresh" (as in "fresh off the container ship from Mexico") fruit through the winter. It's a cultural thing, in part, and maybe a bit of a generational thing, too. Hand-picked berries from the freezer can't compete with the allure of foreign ones in plastic packs. Her heart is in the right place.

Anyway, since I can barely keep on top of the humanitarian drop-offs, I've been hard pressed to make a dent in the fruit store. When I was looking for recipes for strawberry jam I came across a very tempting recipe for blueberry butter made in the slow cooker. Brilliant: minimal effort, maximum deliciousness. I pulled out a two-litre milk carton filled with what I thought was blueberries and set it on the counter overnight to thaw. In the morning, though, I found that it was actually a carton of raspberries, and that, in thawing, they had shrunk down to about three cups.

Soooo I went back to the freezer, fished out some red gooseberries and some chuckley pears (also known as Saskatoon berries or serviceberries - they grow everywhere here), threw them in with some sugar (I use about 3/4 cups sugar to each cup of fruit) and 1/3 cup lemon juice, boiled it up, and kazaam! Four jars (and half of a little one) of absolutely delicious raspberry-gooseberry-chuckley pear jam.

I was still sold on the idea of slow-cooker fruit butter, though, so I dug out some peach puree I had put away last year (I had blanched some peaches and peeled them with the intention of slicing and freezing them, but I left them out too long and they got really ugly and greyish), and a big frozen lump of half-squished golden raspberries. The raspberries smelled kind of freezery at first, but that dissipated. I smushed the raspberries through a fine-mesh sieve to get rid of the seeds, then I took the pulp, added it to the peach puree, added a cup of brown sugar (there were about 5 cups of fruit mush total), threw it in the slow cooker, and let it go. After about 1 1/2 hours, I propped the lid open with a wooden spoon to let the steam out. By bedtime (which was late), it was still kind of thin, so I left my cooker on the "keep warm" setting and went to bed. In the morning: perfection. It is so freakin' good. Just barely sweet, silky, super fruity, but with that musky brown-sugar-ness. I might make more once the golden raspberries are in, without even bothering to freeze the hell out of them first.

I still think I'll have a go at the blueberry butter when blueberry-picking time comes around.

I still have last year's (or possibly 2008's) rhubarb, and lots of pulped green tomatoes to work with. The green tomatoes make a great cake, and I think, now that I'm into the fruit butters, I might try a rhubarb-vanilla butter with honey. Rhubarb, vanilla, and honey are heavenly together.

Pesto, change-o*

A couple years back, I shared my recipe for pesto made from turnip greens with walnuts and pumpkin seeds. I hadn't made any in a while, so I decided to spend my few minutes this evening without a whining child attached to me chopping the hell out of stuff. It was quite therapeutic. And therapy was necessary today. Very necessary.

These are turnip greens (or turnip tops, or just "greens," whichever you prefer). If you get them in the spring, they're tender and grassy like spinach. Later in the summer they are a little tougher, but still not as tough as collards or anything. Kind of like a tender kale.

I don't have a food processor, and my mortar and pestle are only small, and my blender makes this kind of thing too pasty, so I just chopped the greens to bits with a kitchen knife, while listening to The Broadcast, which is seriously some of the best radio out there.

See, I just chopped/grated/bashed everything up and chucked it in a bowl. Easy.

And it looks pretty in jars. I socked three 1/2 cup jars in the freezer, and we had some with pasta for supper tonight. I have enough in the fridge to make pesto melts for lunch tomorrow.

This stuff makes an awesome pizza topping, by the way, and I'll bet it would be really good stirred into risotto. I don't know what your local equivalent of (to?) turnip tops might be, but this would be just as good with spinach if you still have some kicking around the yard (or when the fall stuff comes in).

*"Pesto, change-o" came from Hubby C, not me. He's as much a dork as I am.

Failed photo shoot with bad lighting, inappropriate camera setting, and ferocious Bear (vol. 1)

"Who, me? A photo shoot? What a delightful idea!"

"Uh-oh."

"Sho! Sho! Ju-ju! Sho!" (trans: "Would you show me the photos of Jude, Mother, please?")

"Cha! Cha! Teee!" (trans: I, Charlie, would like my photo taken, and am saying "cheese!")

"Ju-ju! Teeee! Cha! Sho! Sho! Cha! JU-JUUUUUU!" (trans: "I'm almost two and I don't know what I want and I'm going to try to take the camera and whack my baby brother in the head with it, and when you try to stop me I will lose my shit completely! Aaaaagh!")

"You ruined my photo shoot. Jackass."

Aren't boys lovely? And isn't it awesome how I kept taking pictures rather than coming to the aid of my infant? Yeah, it's every man for himself around here.

Lanterns

Saturday was the Victoria Park Lantern Festival in St. John's. Of all the summer's fests and concerts and celebrations, this one is my favourite.

(My camera turns to crap after dark, so I didn't get any shots of the lanterns in their lit-up state. I'll bet there are loads on Flickr, though.)

(Yup, there are. Is it rude to link to someone's photostream if you don't know the person? Or is it cool to give strangers the linky nod? I just can't keep up with electronic etiquette.)

Volunteers spend the spring and summer months making lanterns - most of them from recycled materials - and on the day of the festival there are musical acts, dancers, lots of general community merriment. Then, when the sun starts to go down, the lanterns are lit and enthusiastic percussionists lead a procession from the lower part of the park to the upper part, where a trail of blue lanterns (made from jam and pickle jars) mark the place where a small river once flowed. Lanterns in the shape of stars, boats, houses, unicycles, drum kits, animals, huge pieces of fruit, whatever glow magically along the banks of the stream. It's flippin' gorgeous. This year we had to take Bear home before he completely melted down, and so we missed the fire show (fire jugglers, flaming hula hoops, all that good stuff).

The Lantern Festival is also kind of bittersweet, because its founder, percussionist Don Wherry, passed away just after of the first festival in 2001. Don had a heart attack while leading the procession, which is tragic, but kind of beautifully poetic. On Saturday, instead of a moment of silence for Don (who also founded the rather famous Sound Symposium), they had a "moment of listening," so everyone could take in the noises around them, the city traffic, the bellydancers' jingling scarves, the children running about. It was all so lovely.

And Bear got to go on the swing. Happiness.

Strawberry jam

From dewy field...

to bucket...

to colander

to jar...

in just 24 hours. Ah, freshness.

My mother, Newby, and I trekked out to a rambly, unkempt, side-of-the-road U-pick just outside of town and filled a couple buckets yesterday afternoon. Most of the haul is in the freezer, but I did make a small batch of jam for Miss B. I've promised to mark one of the jars with "Do Not Open Until Bonnie Returns." She needn't worry, as I'm not all that fussy about straight-up strawberry jam. Strawberry-rhubarb, now that's my thing. And, as luck would have it, I managed to score some rhubarb at the farmers' market this morning. The stars are aligning, friends. I also scored a whack of garlic scapes - I wasn't sure I'd get any after my mother's Colossal Garlic Crop Failure of 2010 (damnable wet spring!), so I'm awfully excited.

Hey, I have a question. Do any of you know anything about growing (or eating) arctic kiwis? I've found a variety that might grow in my zone, and I'm intrigued. But I've never actually seen or eaten the things. I'm just totally seduced by the idea of super-productive backyard fruit crops that grow vertically. Can ya blame me? Would it be the awesomest thing ever, or would I just have heaps of tiny kiwifruit and nothing to do with them? Is kiwi jam any good? I've seen recipes, but it seems kind of weird to me. 'Cause it's green, I guess. Am I missing out?

Meet the crops

Well, a few of them. More to come. Full list is here, if you want to know just how crazy I am.

the most promising of my Brussels sprouts

nasturtiums, and a clump of chives that I found under the gooseberries in the back of the yard

snow peas

Bull's Blood beets, which are supposed to be very dark burgundy and not at all green... hmmm... anyone know why they're so green?

Black Valentine bush beans

my fig twig, much happier outdoors

almost-edible strawberries

rainy strawberry leaf

pole bean, with big ol' mess in the background

Garden salad

It's been slow going, what with the worst spring ever (snow on May 1, frost on June 1, chilly drizzle on July 1), but my little kitchen garden is finally starting to do wonderful growy things. Look at this salad:

That's baby arugula, spinach, and Bull's Blood beet tops, lettuce thinnings, dill, basil, chives, radish sprouts, and tuberous begonia petals. I call it "Spicy Love Salad," because there's so much pink and so much zippiness. The beet tops are my favourite part. Luh-huh-huve.

I should fill you in on my garden, now that it's actually full of things. I'll do a little photo meet-and-greet later, but here's what I've got growing:

Beds 1 and 2 (front yard):

:: snow peas

:: shelling peas

:: Bull's Blood beets

:: green beans

:: spinach

:: arugula

:: more beets

:: Brussels sprouts

:: carrots

:: chives

:: sage

:: nasturtiums

:: leaf lettuce

Bed 3 (back yard)

:: Egyptian onions

:: Cosmonaut Vulkov tomatoes

:: chives

:: garlic chives

:: nasturtiums

Bed 4 (back yard:

:: winter squash (red Cinderella pumpkin, red kuri squash, and buttercup squash, I think)

:: pole beans

:: borage

:: radishes

:: mesclun (mostly eaten by slugs)

Cold frame (back yard)

:: yellow pear, red pear, and Black Prince tomatoes

:: Genovese basil

:: purple opal basil

:: calendula

:: head lettuce

Pots and containers (back yard)

:: broad beans

:: zucchini

:: mustard

:: dill

:: cilantro

:: more nasturtiums

:: tuberous begonia

:: fig (relocated from indoors)

:: bok choy (slug chow)

:: more lettuce

:: more peas (also mostly eaten by slugs)

And the potato bin has, naturally, potatoes.

And I stuck some lavender and thyme in Miss B's perennial bed. Oh, and there are two pots of strawberries (Miss B's), into which I've stuck some chocolate mint.

Oh, and I found a rhubarb plant growing under the variegated weigela. And the gooseberries are going to be amazing this year (the blackcurrants, not so much). Oh, and I bought some ostrich ferns for the dark, dank far corner of the yard, so we can have fiddleheads some day.

Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed for summer weather until the end of October. Stranger things have happened, right?

"Andreae?" "Absent!"

Wow... so much I haven't blogged about these last couple months. To make a long story short, I turned 33, Hubby C had a lovely Father's Day, Miss B finished school and jetted off to Chicago with her dad (she's there for another three weeks, sigh), it went from depressingly cold to hell-hot (well, hell-hot for St. John's, which is about 27C and humid) and my garden went nuts, hubby C built a cold frame and has almost finished our stone patio, we've barely cooked anything indoors in two weeks, and, um, that's about it.

I've also been taking photos with an actual 35 mm camera (a what now?) so I don't have much to share electronically. Soon, I hope. Until then, here's the latest reply ever to eight questions, courtesy of the very wonderful Sigrid (maker of most splendid recycled-t-shirt-underthings).

1) Does your mom or a mother-figure read your blog? (Discuss.)

Yes, she does. She's also my friend on Facebook and calls me up if my status updates seem dodgy. I've come to accept it as normal, and it's not as though I ever write anything of a particularly intimate nature here. Mom and I see eye-to-eye on most things, and my general anti-consumerist, re-purposing, authority-questioning ways are courtesy of her influence. She even posts links on her Facebook page to things I've written. She may be my biggest fan. She's probably reading this right now.

2) If you could choose outstanding talent in any area (and you didn't have to sacrifice your soul) what would it be?

I know this probably sounds lame, but I would like to be a really good driver. I'm planning on learning to drive some time over the next year or so, and I'm scared shitless. I suppose most people would think of driving as a skill rather than a talent, but to someone who doesn't know how to do it, it's as mysterious as any arcane science. So I would like to be an outstandingly talented driver.

3) Desert Island book/movie: what is it?

A guide to edible plants? Or a disc with both seasons of Flight of the Conchords, which I have watched at least five times now, and which I still find hilarious.

4) What is your favorite made-by-you item?

My friend Emily was the first person in my social group to have a baby, way back when we were in university. I knit this sweater for her little guy, who is now about to turn 10 (holy crapoly). Emily's three kids all wore this sweater, then when Bear was born, she gave it to me. Now Newby has just grown out of it. I remember cutting the buttons (one of which has just fallen off) from an old shirt of mine.

5) Do you have any tips for laundry efficiency? I am desperate.

Nope. The one rule I stick to is keeping everybody's laundry separate. Well, Hubby C's and mine go together, since we share a dresser, but everyone else's is divided up. At least that saves the chore of bringing it to the right room. And we don't wear anything that requires ironing. Other than that, though, I'm pretty hopeless.

6) What junk food do you adore?

I could sit down and eat an entire box of Whippets (the cookies, not the dogs). Every now and then I consider making some kind of classy version of them, but why bother? They're perfect the way they are, right? If you're outside of eastern Canada you might not be familiar with them; they're like Viva Puffs, only without the jammy filling. Is there an equivalent in the US? Anybody? In Quebec you can also buy a similar cookie called Ti-coq, but I can't find any information on them online. I have, however, found a Facebook group called "Addicted to Whippet Cookies" with a discussion of the question, "Es-tu plus du type Ti-coq ou Whippet?" ("Are you a Ti-coq person or a Whippet person?"). The group has a whopping 62 members...

7) The style/fashion of what decade (or century or eon) do you think would or did or does most flatter you?

I think mostly curvy, fairly structured 50s-60s-ish stuff, full skirts and goddess necklines and the like. I used to wear a lot of old cocktail dresses and twin sets and pencil skirts and such. It's damned difficult to nurse a child in a cocktail dress, so I'm more into the jersey knits nowadays. But I do like a sharp line and a full, just-below-the-knee skirt. Were I a lady of leisure with children of not-breastfeeding age, I would wear dresses just like my wedding dress every day, even to the grocery store and the garden centre and to meet-the-teacher nights.

8) What is your current favorite piece of clothing or footwear?

I picked up these Clarks at Value Village a couple months ago. They'd never been worn. Now they're well broken in, and I can take them off and put them on with a baby in my arms, which is the most important part.

Do you like my mosquito-bitten feet? I was attacked yesterday evening, on my twice-daily slug-murder spree. Perhaps the mosquitoes are in league with the slugs, and are out to avenge their most brutal murders.

Okay, I'll tag Skippy, Erin, Melanie, and Melissa, even though I know you're all in the middle of wrangling toddlers or setting up a house or melting or working or gestating (or some combination of these) right now...

New questions, though, to keep life fresh and interesting:

1. Is there anything you've ever eaten that was so delicious that you think of it and go kind of misty-eyed to this very day?

2. Are you a city person or country person? Half and half? Why?

3. You know how, before you actually have kids, you have all these parenting principles ("I'm going to home-school/make all the clothes/never buy junk food/bury the tv in the back yard"), and then when you actually have to raise a kid/kids, you end up kind of abandoning said principles? Do you have any of those? Do you feel guilty? Liberated? Indifferent?

4. What's the loveliest place you've ever traveled? Could be wildly exotic or comfortingly local.

5. Okay, same as Sigrid: Laundry tips? Please?

6. Do you have a life plan, or do you just sort of truck along?

7. Would friends of the teenage you recognize the current you? Would you still get along?

8. Any novels to recommend for an almost-seven-year-old girl? What were your favourites? Which are you looking forward to sharing with your own kid(s)?

Chill

As in, "I think I've caught a." As in wool blankets and scarves and hats. Not to sound like a big ol' complainer, especially when much of Canada is cookin', but my tomato plants have stopped growing at three inches, and my Brussels sprouts are shivering. My pole beans and Egyptian onions have rotted in the cold, wet ground. This is just gross.

Here are some cold, grey beach rocks for a cold, grey day. Cold. Grey. Cold.