Oh, hi there!

Hey readers! Whoops, I know I haven't posted in a while. I haven't forgotten about you! Spring has flown right by. Stay tuned for some delicious new garden pics coming this week!

xoxo Emily (& Maxie Boy)

The Importance of Growing

I came home from vacation and discovered that one of my irises had bloomed. I wasn't sure what color they would be if and when they bloomed, and had been burning with curiosity for months. I nearly dropped my suitcase on my foot when I spotted it through the glass door--this opulent display that would make Georgia O'Keefe blush. Gorgeous. Brazen. Lascivious.

Why is this such a big deal? How can I explain what this flower, what my whole garden means to me? Well, it goes a little something like this:

Obviously, there are the usual benefits that come with gardening--
bright, fresh food at your doorstep,
like this beautiful bok choy that went in my potsticker soup tonight for dinner,


or seeing real beauty in simplicity
Dig the Fibonacci-esque baby cucumber tendrils here-



But I feel that there is a new, rather imperative benefit to gardening. There is this obnoxious unspoken pressure amongst people of my generation (especially the highly educated in Silicon Valley) to have done everything by the time you are thirty. I don't want to have done everything, seen everything, perfected everything. How boring. Gardening eliminates this smugness. It makes you simple and humble. It knocks the arrogance right out of you. Oh right, I'm not the center of the universe...I'm not even close. Gardening gives you a little perspective; it forces you to acknowledge plants who were growing and evolving long before you even existed. And to be truly successful, you must rely on those who are older, wiser, and who have done it before.

New geranium buds...

Gardening reminds us to talk to our friends, neighbors, and loved ones. It gives us something in common and thus rekindles the ancient art of conversation. There's no texting during gardening. There are no iphones. There are people, plants, and earth.

More radishes...


and look at this, Miz Liz Lemon has another bud!


Gardening encourages cross-generational conversation. I owe much of the success in my garden to talking with people (whom I may not have encountered otherwise). There's Jim, the elderly plant expert at my local OSH who gave me the lowdown on growing peas and beans, who told me, "Kid, bring in a stalk and I'll tell you if you've done it right." Yes, sir! There are my two colleagues who shower me with new plants and seeds--they make me braver than ever. There's my mom who shares her garden in her cooking each Sunday (she has inspired my use of herbs--they go in everything!). There's my neighbor who suffered a stroke last year and can't remember the names of the plants, but he remembers what to do with them--you should see the climbing jasmine and nasturtiums on his deck. Just this afternoon I reconnected with an old friend who put a container garden in the yard of her new place (she adopted one of my mint plants--I think mojitos will be on her).



This brings me back to the iris. I cannot rip myself away from it, nor similarly from this idea that gardening breeds generosity and a sense of belonging. Gardening encourages us to share, to give, and to be communal. This iris, this spectacular iris waited almost a year to bloom. My dear friend dug the bulbs up from his yard and gave them to me, after I said I was a little hesitant about growing non-edible plants. He simply said "stick these in a pot and they will grow." Slowly, but surely, they did.

And slowly but surely, I belong to something bigger than myself.



Which reminds me, I am sick and tired of being told that the country is going to hell (if the world is rotting, I can only fix what's in my own backyard). I am fed up with hearing vitriol and stupidity in our society (this is poisonous and we know it). I've had it with people in power persuading us to cut each other down. That is bullshit. We should not be cutting our neighbors down. We should be growing. We must continue to grow.

Muy Caliente

I spent the entire day obsessed with enchiladas. Dreamy tomatillo salsa and delicate corn tortillas floated through my classes, the staff meeting, and the drive home. I am dying to tell you about it because I am a long time enchilada fan but have never made them myself. When I was a kid, enchiladas with pork were one of my dad's specialties. In grad school, I drooled as my roommate Lucia whipped up her family's version with homemade salsa verde for the top. And now, I have my very own version!



As for me, I love any excuse to combine delicate sauteed vegetables with melty cheese--a luscious combo. To start, I sauteed the veggies in a little oil-- two poblano chilies, two portobello mushrooms, one small sweet yellow onion, and shallots.

Okay, kid, let's make with the cocktail.


Hey, you know what makes cooking more fun?
Bourbon and soda. And a little nosh...
like a handful of the white cheddar I just shredded. Mmm hmm.

And now, the assembly line. Lucia used to heat the salsa in a saucepan then submerge the tortillas in the sauce until they were soft and pliable (30 seconds?). That's what I tried and it worked great. I recommend having tongs handy to fling the saucy tortilla into your baking dish. Lucia used to use her fingers, but as I've previously mentioned, she was the stuff of legend and was somehow unscalded. I opted for tongs.

I had four things on the stove: the cheese, the veggies, a pyrex baking dish, and the simmering sauce. First a tortilla went into the sauce, then transferred to the baking dish. Meanwhile I sprinkled cheese in the center, then a spoon of veggies, then rolled up like a cigar like my dad showed me. Then another tortilla goes in the sauce to soften.

When the whole pan was done, I poured the remaining sauce over the top and sprinkled with more cheese. I fit 8 total in the pan before I ran out of tortillas, and had leftover cheese and veggies. Baked at 350 for 20 minutes.


Ready for our closeup.

Ooooh yeah, come to mama.

Veggie enchiladas with salsa verde and homemade beans.
Wish you were here to share!

The Luxury of a Lazy Sunday

Stop
and take time.
Keep time, waste time, watch time, make time.
Time to fill the apartment with warm, spicy smells.
Oatmeal cookies with almonds, spices, and dried fruit.
(I'm bringing them into work to share so stop by room 34.)

Time for saving and savoring, time for pruning and preserving.
Time for things that take time.
Spicy pickled baby carrots.
A sharp little taste, a little heat in cold vinegar.
A smile in the cold.


Time for the kind of lunch I couldn't have at work:
Salmon-egg salad with garden herbs on challah toast
Spicy pickles.
Beer.

Time to turn on some tunes,
pick up knitting, crosswords, sudoku.
Time for bubble bath and laundry neatly folded,
for delicates hanging to dry.

For my new spring hemp blouse (6 inches done this weekend!)

Time for new garden friends, outdoors and in.

In my wildest dreams I couldn't have created the design on this orchid.
I hope it will be happy here.

Time to lounge, to loaf, to snooze, to stretch out on the couch with your kitty
and just be.

Mmm hmm.

It's the little things

Sometimes, it's the little things I like best.

It's a fried egg and challah toast on Sunday mornings.

It's noticing it's still light at 7:30.

It's the students who make me laugh in the middle of lessons.

It's the hot bath before bed.

It's the lunch beer or a kir with dinner, just because.

It's how I discovered the seeds I planted for one reason (not to mention any names, beets)...

...are actually more desirable for another reason entirely (the tops--delicious!).


It's finding pieces of your parents in yourself. I know many may cringe at this idea, but for anyone who's had a meal at my parents' table will know why I smile instead. Saying to myself "there's nothing to eat" and knowing (as my folks did) to look in the cupboards and make something up. I take great comfort in understanding where I came from

especially when I get to stop and sit and savor something like this.
Orzo with homemade tomato sauce, shallot, sausage, and sauteed beet greens. Yum.

Spring in my step

Thank you, planet earth, for knowing exactly what it would take to rocket me out of the dregs of last week. If you were human, I would buy you a lager and ask you to dish on other planets, and how Venus and Jupiter have a secret thing going or whatever. Because, honey, let me tell you, a little warmth was all I needed.

Ooh, that sun.


To celebrate, I will have a beer on my balcony and sing a super nerdy song:

70 Degrees...no socks...la la la la!


Um, right. I digress.
New for spring. Potatoes are out and the newbies are in.
(I dug the rest up and my mom made homefries with sauteed pepper.)

New garden friends.
Clockwise from lower right: cucumber, jalapenos, bok choy and flat leaf Italian parsley.

Bok choy. I know, right?

Jalapeno peppers. Sure, they look innocent now...

Rainbow chard. Look at the colored stems showing already.

...and sweet peas. I am attempting a non-edible flower. It happens to be my favorite flower of all time, so I'm really hoping they like my garden and grow for me. Come on, little honeys!

Yukon Gold Rush

Readers--I know I have not posted for awhile. I really haven't had the heart. I spent all of last week tangled in the news of the current budget crisis, the likely job cuts and salary roll backs, of the knowledge that my beloved California is 49th in the nation for spending per student. That's in addition to the usual stresses I carry around with me--just one of those weeks when you feel like you spend your life juggling eggs. I felt stifled and stuck, which I hate. Anyway, I didn't post because I didn't want to talk about it, knowing it will just enrage me. So how about I change the subject with a few tantalizing garden snapshots?

I do, however, want to talk about these beautiful little Yukon gold potatoes I harvested yesterday. I mean, look at them. How could you not fall madly in love?

For a long time potatoes were not my favorite food. I tolerated them but found them dull, wondering always mid-bite why I was not eating rice or pasta instead. Then last summer my former teaching mentor (she and her husband are expert gardeners) suggested that I add potatoes to my balcony garden. When she described how to do it, it was so stupidly easy that I had to try it. Take a grocery store potato (I've done this successfully with Yukon gold and purple ones) and cut it into chunks, making sure each chunk has an eye. Plant the chunks 3-4 inches deep. Water. Sit back and wait for the magic.

Back in December, I planted the potato chunks in large containers (the ones reserved for tomatoes in the summer). Of course, you all remember this photo from January...

A week later, it look liked this:

Potatoes are great for growing in the winter because they are dirt cheap (ha ha ha, dirt) and make your garden look lush, full, and green. Actually, in California they're great for any time of year. I originally planted in the summer and harvested in October. Winter, however, begs the addition of green things to my balcony. Your garden will look like a jungle before long.

Eventually, the plants will get so heavy that they will fall over and start to wilt (approx 3 months?). That's when the treasure hunt begins and you go rooting around (ha ha ha roots--I'm on fire today) looking for little earthy gems. Oh look, there's one there.

Yank up the plants to reveal your original potato chunk, now shriveled and shrouded in roots.

Dig around in the remaining roots to reveal more little beauties, one after another!

I love it when gardening gets political or when food is about things much bigger than just what's on your plate. Growing potatoes has made me think so much about world history. I now understand why they were a popular staple in places like Peru and Ireland where people had many mouths to feed and hardly any money. One potato multiplies into 10, or 20, or maybe more.

You say potato, I say AMAZING!!!

I ate mine last evening sauteed with scrambled egg, baby leeks, sage olive oil and butter. I did another handful parboiled with butter and chives. Soft, earthy, warm, inviting. Yes please. Other worries can wait.