June 2003
July 21, 2003
One Two Mater
All of a sudden tomatoes are riper than a watermelon in September. I have dozens of the small cherry and golden globe that I used most in a tomato cucumber salad last night. Maybe that's why I had trouble sleeping. Either the tomatoes or the cukes. Went to bed at midnight and got up at 4:30. I'm sure I'll be tired right before it's time to go to work.In the garden yesterday Ray and I noticed a strange thing. A catepillar was covered with little white something-or-others. I wasn't sure if they were lice or aphids or what. I did a Google search and found out they were wasp larvae. Here's a picture.
The catepillar is the Tomato Hornworm (she was crawling on the tomato plants). The Braconid wasp lays her eggs on the hornworm catepillar then they hatch and eat the hornworm. Bad for the hornworm, good for the garden.
July 17, 2003
No, Not Lemon Jello
After the several weeks long process I've finished making my first batch of limoncello, an Italian lemon liqueur. It is a very potent drink (haven't done the math to figure the exact alcohol content but it's probably between 90 and 110 proof) and great for sipping in small quantities ice cold on a hot summer day. The recipe is posted in my Recipe section. Since the recipe makes 4 liters which is no small quantity at all it also makes a great gift should you decide to make it. But if you know me you'd better not since that's probably what I'll be giving you for Christmas or your upcoming birthday.Cheers.
July 16, 2003
Queer as Straight Folk
The Bravo channel aired its new show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy last night. It's part reality makeover show (pick one: What Not to Wear, Fashion Emergency, Faking It, Trading Spaces...), part Sex and the City (which I've always thought was really just a gay man's fanstasy of what it would be like if he and his three friends had uteruses), part Fox Force Five, the show described by Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction about a crack team of deadly women each with a uniqe skill. On Queer Eye there are five men on the team: one a design expert, one a fashionista, one a grooming stylist, one a culture scenester, one a food and wine guy. Each episode they come in and have one day to turn a down and out straight man (here read "slob") into a woman's dream (which may or may not be a gay man's dream too).As a straight man observer to last night's show let me give a couple of tips they missed but are pretty obvious to me.FASHION:Think about what you wear. It doesn't really matter whether going without socks in your leather oxfords is a good thing or not. If you've given it thought and wear it this way deliberately then it is fashion. If you put your bare feet into your shoes because you are too lazy to do the wash and have no clean socks, it isn't fashion.DESIGN:Be neat. First step to having a stylin' crib is keep it clean and orderly. That's 80% of good interior design.FOOD and WINE:Know your guests. Don't spend money on expensive ingredients like fois gras or truffles if you don't think your guests will appreciate them. If they aren't adventurous at the table they seldom will think "Wow, this guy is really sophisticated!" but rather "Yuck! I can't believe I put that in my mouth!" Also don't serve anything you yourself don't like. You should always taste everything you cook and if you don't like asparagus, how will you know if you've cooked it right? Keep things simple. Simplicity is its own elegance.GROOMING:Long hair on men (I'm talking anything past the shoulders) is almost ALWAYS a bad idea. You may think you look good but you'd look better with shorter hair. Cut that pony tail Willie Nelson! You Fabio, not the singer. CULTURE:Give things a chance, pay attention and be open to new ideas. If you don't like opera, don't listen to it but at least have heard a fair sampling of it. There is nothing wrong with looking into music and books and fashion that other people like but never accept their taste over your own. Have thoughtful opinions about things. You are entitled to your opinion and if you don't like The Beatles that's fine (you're wrong, but that's fine).Hope that sets you straight.
July 15, 2003
Pieces of Eight! Pieces of Eight!
I've always said that if I opened an exercise studio in Saint Thomas I would call it "Pilates of the Caribbean".Thank you. I'll be here all the week.So the new Disney ride/movie Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (or PotC:TCofBP for short) opened. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Here's a movie that uses every pirate cliché imaginable and pulls it off. I remember hearing someone say "Avast ye matey!" but I could be wrong. The acting is solid with Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush pulling the major load of talent. Keira Knightley of Bend It Like Beckham and Orlando Bloom are good central heros in this tale of gold lust gone wrong. (I wonder if Disney chose Mr. Bloom on account of his first name and its geographic relationship to Disney World?)The plot had some holes for me. It's strange how I can believe I am following a movie pretty well and then ask a friend the next how so and so was able to do such and such and he'll say, "Oh that's because his father really wasn't the archbishop but grew up as a Portuguese waiter in Santa Barbara." How'd I miss that? When did they say that in the movie?Anyways, PotC:TCofBP is my favorite summer movie so far this year (
).
July 07, 2003
When Life Gives You Lemons...
I made limoncello this weekend. Limoncello is an Italian liquor made from lemon peels, grain alcohol and sugar. For the 2.5 liter batch I made I needed the zest of of 24 lemons. I'll post the recipe once I'm sure it turned out alright. That should be in 45 days. But this left me with an awful lot of lemon juice. Aside from that I bought too many lemons to begin with. I thought that a double batch would take about 40 lemons so I bought two 3 pound bags of lemons, twice as many as I actually needed. What to do, what to do.I decided to make some lemon curd and with the lemon curd some lemon bars. The recipes are in the Recipes section. That took about half the remaining lemons and all of their zest. I think I'll make some mint lemonade tonight since I also have mint leaves in abundance.My first cucumber of the season came up. That inspired me to make a very simple but delicious tomato cucumber salad.By the way, what is it with price of grain alcochol? I've never been a heavy drinker but for my limoncello I wanted to mix about one fourth 180 proof alcohol with three fourths 90 proof vodka. I remember when "Everclear" was dirt cheap. Now it's an expensive boutique brand. I ended up buying the cheaper but still seemingly trendy "Diesel" brand alcohol for about a dollar less a bottle. I doubt I'll lose anything because of it flavorwise.
July 04, 2003
When in the Course of Human Events
For the past several years I've taken the opportunity on Independence Day to read again the Declaration of Independence. A recent book titled Treason tries to make the case that liberals over the past decades are un-American and traitors to this country. I am neither a liberal nor a conservative but if today July 4th should remind us of anything it is that this nation was founded by men who were treasonous. Governments were meant to be uprooted when they became destructive to the people. Thomas Jefferson proposed forcing a new constitution every seven years so that no new generation would be beholden to laws they had no part in shaping.When certain leaders on this day ask us to think about the people who fight for American liberty I agree. But let us look for the people who fight for everyone's ability to say what they believe without prosecution, for our right's to be secure in our homes and our selves without laws destroying that security, for the people to determine for themselves how they live, whether they worship God or not. Let us pay respect for people who have fought to give all adult citizens the right to have a say in how this country and the people who actually use that right. Let us seek out those who continue to try to make government accountable to the citizens and remind us that we grant government its rights, not the other way around.Let us truly work to make this country great and not just mouth empty rhetoric about freedom and peace, education and health care, safety and defense.
July 01, 2003
Peas in a Pod
Some of the peas have begun to ... ripen? Are peas ever ripe? They're still green. Well, become eatable...edible...able to be eaten. They probably will never make it into the kitchen or any dish. Nothing tastes fresher to me than peas right off the vine. We'll probably just eat them in the garden as they come up.I have my first ripe tomato, a little cherry bugger. Usually if I don't bring them in before they turn bright red the birds dive in for the kill and steal them away or at least peck them to pieces.My indoor growing lamp project is moving along swimmingly. Pretty much everything, all 48 plants, have sprouted. Now it will be a matter of getting them to mature enough so they can be transplanted and survive. When I was thinning out some of the tomatillos I noticed they had pitifully tiny roots. I think I'll have to switch to setting them in water instead of misting them and Ray recommended using fish emulsion to help fortify the roots.Corn is over 6 feet tall. In the northern Midwest I remember them saying corn would be "knee high by the 4th of July". A lot taller than that in the South. Not sure when we'll be shucking it.I'll take some pictures this weekend of the crop and post them next week.