Monthly Archives: July 2007

trenton makes, the world takes

trentonmakes

seen from the train this morning on my bidnez trip to baltimore. I kind of feel like trenton right now. sigh.

why sardines are the best.

treehugger just posted a synopsis of a study indicating that one in every four new yorkers has elevated blood mercury levels. The most interesting part is how it seems to be closely linked to fish consumption. which, as you all know, brings me to that subject that all roads at karinajeandotcom end at: sardines. I’ve said before that I love sardines for a number of reasons. I don’t know, though, if I have ever said that mercury is a tricky little guy: it sneaks through the placenta and right into a fetus. Actually, not to be flip about things, but I’ve read that the best way for a woman to reduce her body burden of mercury is to have a baby because that’s the surest way to make sure the mercury will leave your body. which is horrible! and really scary for women who want to or who are having babies!

if you’re concerned or curious about your mercury burden, you can purchase a testing kit from greenpeace (like I did!).  you won’t be included in the study (it was completed in 2006) but it’s still a cheap and easy way to do some science on your head.

rock’n’roll weekend

Friday night — Neko Case at Summerstage in Central Park):

nekocase

Sat. Afternoon — Siren Festival in Coney Island:

sirenfest

Sunday Afternoon — The Annuals and Band of Horses at McCarren Park Pool in Williamsburg :

bburgpool

anecdote

I’m trying to decide if i should buy a serger. those things range in price between 200 and 2000 dollars, and are really complicated and scary looking with multiple threads and cutting instruments. it’s not a decision I am making uninformed so I got four books from the library all about sewing with sergers. I had to request them, so they came in over a period of days. I also requested female chauvinist pigs, and when I went to pick that up the librarian gave me a funny look. “what,” I said: “I like to read books about sewing machines and feminist theory.” and she totally cracked up.

csa week 6

2007csawk6

raddichio, cauliflower, lettuce, swiss chard, beets (yay!), yellow squash, cilantro, fava beans, and extra: english peas. I should have snagged extra garlic scape but didn’t think of it until the next day.

also my first fruit share: peaches and apples. I let the peaches sit for a day out and they are so perfectly ripe now… and the most incredible sweet and juicy things ever.

I shelled the peas (with 2 other weeks worth of peas) right away and I’m finishing them off right now with chopped hardboiled eggs for my 2nd breakfast. I that night I also made the epically wonderful cheese sauce of yore for the old broccoli. and I washed off all old lettuce and ate it for lunch yesterday. While I was washing greens I cooked the beets (just boiled) and I’ve got the 2nd half of them for my lunch today as well.

status update:

wk 1 oregano (keeping pretty well in the fridge in a glass of water with it’s parsley and cilantro friends)

wk 2 parsley [I had to chuck the rest of the frisee… there wasn’t much left, at least.]
wk 3 white turnip

wk 4 kohlrabi, cilantro, 2 heads of garlic, white turnips

wk 5 spinach, onions, white turnips/radish, cilantro.

I can’t believe it, but I’m really catching up! amazing. the fruit share may make things a little harder. oh, and I didn’t finish my garlic scape soup (from, like, 2 weeks ago), so I have to chuck it. it smells… extra special. it LOOKS ok, but I don’t think I’d better risk it.

amazing incredible cheese sauce that I may want to marry.

I made the most amazing cheese sauce last night. seriously. it was incredible. I wanted to marry it, that’s how good it was.

I followed the directions my friend jesse posted at  his awesome food blog corduory orange. and by followed, I mean a few days ago I re-read his post and tried to remember what he said to do.

first I made a roux.
roux

I used equal parts butter and flour. The cast iron skillet is, I think, the most important part of the recepie.

I browned the roux and when it started to smell a little I freaked out and poured about 1 1/2 cups of milk into it.

roux2

I wisked the milky roux for about 15 min. while I grated cheese with the other hand.
this is the funny part: the cheese? is really really old. it’s been in my fridge for over a year. A fine vintage jarlsberg:
cheese
I figured that because it was so well wrapped and not fuzzy at all, it should be ok. despite the sell-by date on the back:
oldcheese
seriously: this cheese was purchased for my 29th birthday party, but we never put it out. it’s been sitting in my fridge since April 2006. delcious!

I added the grated cheese (probably about 2 cups, not the 6 oz by wt that jesse recommended) and came up with this! amazing! cheese! sauce! that I couldn’t stop eating with a spoon!
cheesesauce

and then I enjoyed it over steamed broccoli.
cheesybroccoli
I am the cheese sauce genius!

on running

I feel like it’s been AGES since I’ve written anything of interest here. I mean, sure: post-bombing my own blog with weeks and weeks of CSA goodies is something. but is it interesting? I don’t think so. remember a month ago when I was making regular posts and they were all about running? oh, those were the days.

so, you might recall that just over a month ago a coworker invited me to participate in a 10K with some of the kids from the philly office. and you know, as I’ve been planning to run the great race in pittsburgh (another 10K), I figured I may as well get that whole distance thing over with. Plus I’d just finished the freihofer’s 5K and was still so excited about getting back into it. I started running. A LOT. I started eating lots of hard boiled eggs and running 4-5 times a week. I figured I had three weeks to train for the 10K, which was 3 miles longer than anything I’ve ever run before. So week 1 was 5K/3 miles. week 2 was 4 miles. That was also the first time I ran outside for real: I drove over to the state park near my folk’s house and did a pretty respectable 4 mile run up and down hills on a poorly maintained gravel road. and then week 3 was 5 miles. I ran in a 5-mile run near my town, and I finished it with a quite respectable time: 52:57 (10:35 mile). And even better, I felt like I could keep running. maybe not for another whole mile, but for a bit more. that weekend I ran 6 miles to make sure that I could, and then on July 4th I ran in the Revolutionary Run at Washington Crossing. It was so great. I ran faster than I thought I ought to for most of the way (probably because 1. it was so flat and 2. there was a dude who was a loud breather running near me, and a couple of times I just had to have some distance) and finished strong at 1 hr 04 min (10:21 mile)! YAY! I can has 10K! and then I had brunch with my coworkers, and drove home the long way. it was great.

I’ve registered for the grafton lakes run for the roses with meredith, and I think it will be superawesome. She has been walking and jogging like a superstar – we went for a walk together on sunday and she trucks! she walks so fast! it was great! I’ve heard the route is a little hilly, so that will be a good lead-in to my month of 10K training for pittsburgh.

this thursday I’ll be running the verizon wireless corporate classic 5K. I tried to get people from work to sign up, but they are Not Into It. I wanted to try and run this one in under 10 min. miles, but I kind of took a week and a half off after the 10K, and didn’t really take the time to practice running.

June 2007 Books

48. The Green Grotto by Lemony Snickett
49. The Penultimate Peril by Lemony Snickett
50. A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton
51. B is for Burgler by Sue Grafton
52. C is for Corpse by Sue Grafton
53. D is for Deadbeat by Sue Grafton
54. E is for Evidence by Sue Grafton
55. F is for Fugative by Sue Grafton
56. G is for Gumshoe by Sue Grafton
57. H is for Homicide by Sue Grafton
58. I is for Innocent by Sue Grafton

Started the Kinsey Millhone series – I’d read a few of these when I was in high school, but not many. They go by quickly. and better yet, my library has all of them so I don’t have to wait for reserved books from other branches to arrive!

Season Sardines

last week I ran a 10K so the week before that (and the one before THAT) i was running 4 or 5 times a week. I had to increase my protein to Super High levels! one of the ways I did this was by eating lots of hard boiled eggs. Another way was to eat some sardines:

seasonsardines1

Season sardines were purchased at my local grocery store. They’re in olive oil – I used to eat sardines in water, but I don’t know if it’s worth it any more, really. the ones in oil are so much better.
seasonsardines2

when you crack open the tin you notice that there are three large pieces of fish in the tin. That’s it – just three big steaky pieces of sardine. no second layer, just hunks of fish. They were really good – kind of fishy, but heck, they’re sardines – but it was hard to break up these steaky sardines to eat on crackers (my preferred method). So on the one hand, it was a real novelty to eat such a large piece of tinned fish, on the other hand I was eating in a recliner and it was a messy process and I got fish oil on my skirt and had to wash it. They were good though! I would buy them over other brands.

ok! caught up! CSA Wk 5

Finally, up to date on CSA posts! pickup was tuesday the 10th – so I’m only 2 days behind. not too bad.

2007csawk5spinach, onions, 1 head lettuce, english peas, white turnips/radish, cilantro, broccoli.

now, I have to admit – when I started putting this stuff away I was in the depths of despair. HOW could I be SO FAR BEHIND when I was only on week 4? and then today when I looked through the photos I realized that I am on week 5! which makes more sense!

I sorted out all the old lettuce – I had heads in there from wks 2 and 3. THREE HEADS. so I washed and ate 2 1/2 heads of lettuce with trader joes green curry tuna on top. kind of a wilted lettuce salad. I had to toss the mizuna from wk 3. such an early failure! sigh. Today I ate the last of the blueberries – I gave away 4 pints but ate the other 8 pints myself (SO GOOD).

so this leaves me with:

wk 1 oregano (keeping pretty well in the fridge in a glass of water with it’s parsley and cilantro friends)

wk 2  white radishes, parsley, frisee (you can only eat so much of this at a time… I’m working my way through it!)

wk 3 white radish or turnip, broccoli,

wk 4 kohlrabi, cilantro, 2 heads of garlic, sugar snap peas, white turnips

I plan to cook the broccoli and kohlrabi tonight. I need to figure out what to do with those turnips/radishes/whatever. I think they’re meant for eating raw, because they’re SALAD turnips. maybe if I grate them and mix with something salady? or maybe I could slice them thinly and dress with an acidic dressing… sort of salad pickle. I’ll fiddle around with them at home. Tonight I am going to cook all the broccoli and make a cheese sauce to eat it with. I love broccoli and cheese, and if that is wrong, then I sure don’t want to be right.

CSA Wk 4

Again, very poor records! pickup was 7/3.

2007csawk4

and included kohlrabi, cilantro, 2 heads of garlic, sugar snap peas, white turnips, spinach, and bok choi.
This week, I tried to address the part where I was SO BEHIND. so I went crazy in the kitchen:

first I made dinner:

aruguala

my old standby: arugala wilted in garlic olive oil and tossed with toasted pine nuts and romano cheese over whole wheat pasta. so yummy. I ate a whole lot of it. thusly using up all the arugala from week 2.

then I made this garlic scape soup from supernatural cooking:

garlicscapesoup

it called for 24 garlic scape and all I had was 20, plus mine were a few weeks old, so it didn’t turn out as garlicy as I expected. it tasted like a green (good!) potato based soup. the green comes from spinach, by the way – and therein i used up the scape from wk 1 and the spinach from wk 4.

and then I sauteed all the bok choi from wks 2 and 4:
bokchoi

I saute in butter with splashes of soy sauce and eat over pasta or rice with nutritional yeast (or romano cheese). so tasty! this was made up for lunches over the week.

so after all this cooking, I was left with this in my fridge:

wk 1 oregano

wk 2  white radishes, parsley, lettuce, frisee

wk 3 blueberries, white radish or turnip, broccoli, 2 heads of lettuce, mizuna greens

wk 4 kohlrabi, cilantro, 2 heads of garlic, sugar snap peas, white turnips

CSA Wk 3

again, I was so busy/tired/etc. from work/running/etc. that I didn’t post or make careful notations of the CSA. Wk 3 was picked up on 6/26 and was Very Exciting!

2007csawk3

most of all exciting was the ENTIRE FLAT OF BLUEBERRIES I had an opportunity to buy. it was $45 extra. TOTALLY WORTH IT. um. as far as I’m concerned.

2007csawk3-2

in addition to the TOTALLY AWESOME AND EXCITING BLUEBERRIES, I received:
white radish or turnip, broccoli, green onions, 2 heads of lettuce, cilantro, 2 bunches of mizuna greens

still working on:

wk 1 20 garlic scape.
wk 2 white radishes, bok choi, parsley, lettuce, frisee, and spinach.

I did take the opportunity to shell and eat the english peas – I cooked them quickly in the microwave and tossed them with two chopped hard boiled eggs. it was SO INCREDIBLE. totally totally divine. Can’t even explain. and so quick and easy!

peasandeggs

During the week I also made and ate for dinner 3-avocado guacamole, using the green onions (which wilt pretty fast if you just toss them in your fridge, btw) and the cilantro.

CSA Wk 2

I’m posting all this way behind. My 2nd week pick-up was 6/19:

2007csawk2

obviously, I didn’t write down the vegs so I have no idea what I got. this list is MOSTLY correct and at least PARTIALLY complete:

white radishes, bok choi, parsley, english peas, lettuce, frisee, and arugala.

remaining from wk 1: one of the three heads of lettuce, garlic scape, and oregano.

how to be a lifelong reader

one of my internet friends passed along this link to “14 ways to cultivate a lifetime reading habit.” y’all may be able to tell from all of my books posts that I am a big reader – and I thought this was especially timely after an email from friend Kathleen telling me that she’s read 27 books so far this year – putting her well on her way to her goal of 50! Rock out with your bad self, Kathleen!

I would say that 10 of the tips on that list I do already, and the other four would require having a kid, buying books from used book stores (or having a local used book store), or scheduling times for reading. Scheduling time for reading has never been the problem… it’s the scheduling time for SLEEPING that gets me!

on being totally swamped

so, I’ve been totally swamped. to start with, I had to do damage control at my job for damage I wasn’t supposed to know about. which was a real hassle, but good in the end, I guess. and then to middle with, I’ve been running a LOT. I’ve got a 10K tomorrow that I’m running with some coworkers from the Philly office and I had to make sure I could run 10K! which is 6.2 miles! which is 2x as long as any other run I’ve done!

so I’m still awfully busy, at work, but hopefully the busiest worstest part (for now) is over. and that means I am free to carry on with my normally scheduled life. You may have noticed there have been no CSA posts: that’s because I haven’t had time to cook and eat any of my vegetables. You may have noticed there have been no book posts: that’s because even though I’m still reading lots, I haven’t had time to write down the books I’ve read. I’ve been eating lots of sardines to keep my protein intake up, but I haven’t told you about it! I’ve been exciting places and have seen exciting people, but natch, of course, no reporting back to you.

hopefully these dark days are over.

check check

testing out some new functionality…