OK, so this post isn’t really about housekeeping; it’s about a conversation between my husband and me. I should point out that my husband and I are a pair of smartasses and that everything said here is said with equal amounts of snark and love. (As my stepfather was fond of saying, “If I’d wanted a smartass, I’d have … Read more
We haven’t had much indolence here recently, have we? (Well, we have, but I haven’t been writing about it.) So today we have a post on leeks! Leeks are some of my favorite vegetables and are the essence of spring to me. They have a delicate savoriness that reminds me of the scent of spring … Read more
I’ve said this before, but winter is the season when we eat a lot of greens, many of them from our winter garden. (Of course, this year we’re not having much of a winter at all. Not only are the fruit trees in bud, they are also beginning to bloom. There have been many mutterings … Read more
Fall has arrived here in Southern California. People like to joke there are no seasons here, but there are. We have to leave the windows closed at night and we bundle up in the morning and overheat in the afternoon. I can also tell fall has arrived when I begin to get sick of tomatoes … Read more
I was going to do a post on scientists and their depictions in romance novels, along with some thoughts on Ramon y Cajal’s thoughts on the ideal wife for a scientist, but I think I’ll wait on that until my thoughts are more fully formed. Instead, I’m going to take the easy way out, and … Read more
I’m drowning in tomatoes here. This spring, when I had my dozens and dozens of baby tomato plants sitting out, my husband said, “You’ve started too many tomatoes.” And I retorted, “I did not. We will use all the tomatoes we get.” I said it very grandly, very confidently, the way a person who hasn’t … Read more
A while back, when I was flipping through some homesteading magazine, I thought to myself, “I’ll never be a real homesteader, I’m too lazy.” And when I was thinking of things to write about for this blog, I decided to write about my misadventures in homesteading, and call the series “The Lazy Homesteader.” I didn’t … Read more
When I was growing up, yogurt was a rather mysterious food. My dad liked to eat the ones with the fruit on the bottom, but we kids were never fed it regularly, and I didn’t know a single person that bought the plain kind. After all who could willingly consume such stuff? (Ah, the ignorance … Read more
I’m not at my best in the mornings. I need two cups of coffee and an hour or so before I’m really ready to tackle the world, at least the full-on, shoulder-into-the-waist, NFL-style tackling. This is important to keep in mind for the rest of this post. Like the Dowager Duchess of Grantham, my kids … Read more
I really, really enjoy making my own bread. There’s nothing to equal the taste of bread fresh from your own oven, whether it’s white sandwich bread (which is so completely unlike white bread from the store, it’s entirely another species), crusty French bread, or soft, spongy pita bread, there’s nothing in the store to rival … Read more