here is the house...

Community Supported Agriculture

I think I forgot to mention that Eric and I joined a CSA this year. For those not indoctrinated, that means we bought a share in a farm about 2 hours away in Tivoli NY and once a week we go to a local community garden to pick up our allotment of fresh veggies, fruit, eggs and flowers. We also are getting a couple of free range chickens and a half a lamb later in the year through the CSA. Today was the 4^th week and the CSA is now in full swing with TONS of fantastic vegetables to choose from. Part of joining a CSA dictates that you need to volunteer for a shift at the distribution site to help the core members supervise the pickup. Today was my volunteer day and it was actually a lot of fun. I got to meet a lot of the other CSA members and swap recipes, as well as get a little bit dirty hauling around crates of green, leafy things. It also helped that this is the first nice, sunny day in NYC in about 3 weeks—it was nice to have an excuse to be outside for a couple of hours getting stuff done and meeting new people. Also, as a volunteer we got a take a little bit extra if there were leftovers, which there were tons of. We took the rest and boxed it up for donation to a local church that runs a food bank. So let's break this down: great, extra veggies, doing good for the community, hanging out with cool people, getting stuff done…yeah, there's really no downside!

Another cool thing I'm finding with the CSA is it forces me out of my food comfort zone. I, like most people I assume, have a couple of dozen recipes in my repertoire that mostly rely upon a core group of vegetables that know and like. Even though I might see other veggies in the store and be intrigued, if you don't know what to do with them you usually don't buy them. Well when you join a CSA and get whatever is fresh and good that week you are forced to figure out new recipes and broaden your horizons. It's been a little challenging and takes some extra time but ultimately it's proved to be a lot of fun and has resulted in only yummy dishes thus far.

So here's a photo of my bounty for this week:

So we've got from the top right going clockwise, garlic scapes, baby carrots, mixed greens, zucchini, summer squash, broccoli rabe, sweet Japanese turnips, baby bok choy, green cabbage, farm fresh eggs and our first flower preview bouquet. I took 2 extra squashes and 1 extra bok choy but other than that this is exactly what a full share looks like for the week. Pretty sweet!

Last week I took the garlic scapes and diced them up, sautéed them for a minute with some mixed fresh herbs and then sprinkled them on top of an omelet made with a bit of truffle oil. This week I will probably use them to make a pesto which is what everyone seems to be recommending. They taste like a much milder form of garlic, without the bit, and I thought they reminded me vaguely of asparagus mixed with garlic. The bok choy I will use to make this fantastic chinese style spicy shrimp soup recipe that I found a few weeks ago. The sweet turnips and carrots I will chop up and roast in the oven with some potatoes, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper until they caramelize to make a sort of mixed root vegetable bake. Broccoli rabe is one of my comfort vegetables so I'm sure I'll mix that into some sort of red-sauce, Italian style pasta dish. Maybe I'll try my hand at some stuffed cabbage and a zucchini and summer squash casserole. The possibilities are endless, but I gotta use them all up this week cause next week I'll get another bounty of all new stuff—yay!

Here's a better picture with just the flowers. Let's see how long they survive without the cats eating them.

The Trouble with Rain

Oh water, that fickle mistress! On what other substance are we so reliant yet so utterly screwed when it decides to enter our lives in unexpected ways? Here in NYC it has rained every day 8 days in a row, sometimes torrentially and other times simply driving and steady. The temperature here has also been unseasonably cool which has pretty much convinced our plants that it is April. Not that there is anything wrong with that—things are getting very lush and flowery out there (yes I'm starting with the good news first)

Case in point, check out this newly huge and purple flowered meadow sage! It's pretty much swallowing all the other plants around it.

And, not only has the mystery perennial bloomed fully, but it is no longer a mystery—ladies and gentleman I give you the Penstemon "Husker's Red"

It's hard to see in that photo but even the Coral Bell in front of it with the greenish/purple leaves is starting to bud something. It's super flowery out back!

So what's the bad news you might ask? Well, we found yet another massive fuck-up performed by our original contractor--Good times! I can't tell you how much I would love to just move on and forget about him and his crew completely and let bygones be, but when all these huge cut corner keep affecting my life negatively on a daily basis it's hard to be so yogic. So what was it this time? Well, we knew the ceiling under the stoop needed some work a few months ago but we were waiting for the right time to tackle such a messy job. But Eric was having issues breathing in the house for a couple of weeks on end and was miserable from lack of sleep and did some investigation and found some mold growing in the crevices up there. So on the next nice weekend day he made a hole in the ceiling to check it out and immediately the whole thing came crumbling down on his head. The underside of the stoop was COVERED in mold which we scrapped off so we could survey the damage. There were some huge areas where water had been coming in from the steps above and an old steel bar that was completely rusted out from repeated soakings. Then we realized that the contractor has just covered over all the rust and water damage with the new pieces of sheetrock that was hanging about two inches below the real ceiling. So for almost 2 years water has been collecting and mold has been forming in that 2 inch space. It's a wonder the ceiling didn't collapse sooner. After cleaning the whole thing up we left it bare until the next big rain storm so we could see exactly where the water was coming in.

With our good fortunes the next driving rain storm came a couple of days later at 3 am and the sound of water rushing in woke us both up. Huge puddles of water were coming in from all along the metal bar and from two other large cracks near the corner—well at least now we know where the patching needs to happen. First we need to button everything up from on top where the steps to the tenant apartment are, and once we are sure there is no more water coming in we can use come hydraulic cement to plug up these holes from the inside and then re-sheetrock and re-paint. I'm sure you can imagine how angry we are to fine yet another example of our contractor's lack of work ethic and shoddy management. I would love to let this go, really, but his mistakes just keep on staring me in the face. Sigh.

So, positive note for the end? Well we finally ordered our new HDMI equipped, ultra-powerful receiver which is the last piece for our kick-ass surround side entertainment setup! And we also got two new red leather storage ottomans to increase the comfort level and functionality of the living room. At least something is almost finished…

Meat…You’re Right in Liking It

If this was the 1940's and the American Meat Institute was looking of new campaign picture, this is the one we would submit (taken from Eric's phone, so unfortunately you don't get the full meaty goodness, but you get the idea) Man, that is a lot of meat…

Inspiration:

A Slight Obsession with the Yard

On a day to day basis the garden is changing, everything is growing in (some of it slightly out of control!) and little buds are appearing everywhere. I'm so freakin' psyched for flowers out there that even the slightest hint of a bud makes me happy! I've been going out every single day, sometimes multiples times per day, to check the progress of the flowers. It would probably be much more effective if I could let some more time go by and then have a really big surprise. Perhaps the next couple of days of rain will provide that.

But seriously, check out the tops of those tall red plants…

Those are the Celosia and they will soon have big tall spikey red flowers…in fact I may need to move some stuff out of those planters as it might get way too crowded in the near future in there.

Behold our mystery perennial above, that tall spikey ones that will soon have big white flowers. Gino couldn't remember what type of plants these were and they are pretty non-descript right now. I am hoping once the flowers come in full I will be able to identify it. Bud close up:

We have five of these things and they are all super tall now and covered in these little white buds so chances are there is going to be some major flower action out back in the very near future—sweet!

What else? Well my favorite plant in the garden changes on a weekly basis. My current obsession is our Globe Blue Spruce. Man, it's the best color and it's looking so fat and bushy! I wish we could get more blue plants, especially for the front of the house, but they need TONS of direct sunlight to get that color. What a shame. But just for contrast here is a before/after shot of the blue spruce in the foreground with the rest of that side of the garden, top photo taken 3 weeks ago and the bottom one a couple of days ago.

Wow, what a change! Our birch is now weeping below our mystery perennials with the white flowers. Me thinks there is some pruning in our very near future.

Talking about bushy, the meadow sages and looking huge and green and just in the past few days we've seen the beginnings on their soon-to-be tall spikey purple flowers

Close-up

Our Backyard is so Hot Right now it’s Melting our Fence

Spring days + weekends with friends and family + snazzy new Weber grill = BBQ overload! Eric's got some photos of meat searing that I will post shortly…yum!

But it's not all fun and games out back—in the last few weeks the fence along the right side right next to the sunroom has bowed AGAIN! We had it replaced last October and it was fine all winter and most of the spring. We had originally thought that the warm air from the vent was what was warping the fence but when it was fine for 7 months or so we figured maybe it was just installed wrong. But now it's happening again. The strange thing is that this vent has connections for 4 things: the downstairs bathroom fan, the dryer in the basement, the stove itself and the vent hood above the stove. Only the stove related vents and the dryer would create heat so we tested this by turning up the oven to 500 degrees and turning the dryer on high at the same time. Then we felt the air coming out of it and it really wasn't all that hot. The only thing we can think is that the warm air from the vents combined with the warm air outside is the deadly combination for this fence. Sigh. Well, here is the only vent with the fence bowed the first time:

See how the top has the air blowing down pretty much near where the fence is bowing. So we talked to Alex (our ever-trusty metal worker extraordinaire) about putting together a solution that would vent up and over the fence and to the side so as not to really hit the fence at all. Also, when he took it down he saw that these vents were completely clogged up with debris and there was no convenience way to access it for cleaning so he opted to build us a nicer solution with an access panel for cleaning. Here's what we got:

It's hard to see in this pic, but the top left of the new vent cover goes up slightly and there is a small opening to let the air out a couple of inches above that top fence cap. This not only prevents water or snow from collecting on top but it forced the air up and out and hopefully away from the fence. The other hope is since those side and top pieces are thicker that they can take a little heat. You can also sort of see the access panel, but here's a close up:

Right now it's just primed and painted with a high heat paint on the inside, but we will spray it cooper to match the other vents in the coming weeks. We will also get the fence company back out to replace this section again. Yay lifetime warranty and free repair!