Who needs Watershed?

Miller Union, thanks to Kyle’s recommendation from way up yonder. They had ginger-blueberry soda ($3.50) and also a fig-herb one. (I didn’t try them; hearing about them was delicious enough.) I ordered the veggie plate without even asking what was on it. It wasn’t an inexpensive lunch for 2, but it was worth every penny.

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Another day, another veggie plate

Talk about exceeding expectations. The "farmers market vegetable plate" from Seasons 52, which is known for its small portions. I was ashamed to leave 2/3 of this on the plate, because it was good. That's tofu with tomato tapenade at the bottom. And some sort of root vegetable upper right.

Southern summer supper (Hello, world! am I back?)

Zippers and crookneck squash with deelish Vidalia onions from Jaemor Farms. Pierce's tomatoes. And OK, the rice is leftover from Mirage, but maybe it's a southern Iran kind of rice. That is one pretty plate.

Change is hard

closest thing to a veggie plate on Watershed's menu

“What’s seasonal vegetable farroto?” I asked our server.  I was hoping farroto meant veggie plate. This was good: farro with a cream sauce over barely wilted kale with nice peas, over-roasted cauliflower and assorted ‘shrooms. And a perfect small lunch portion. But it’s not this.

“I don’t like change,” said my lunch colleague, who was looking for the salmon croquettes on the new menu, which seemed to me to have a lot of  fried seafood. (I never liked those salmon croquettes anyway. My own are better.) But honestly, the new chef wasn’t doing very well with the old menu. And Farm Burger next door is eating their lunch. It has a line out the door while Watershed sits almost empty.

 

Things I ate with friends

Looking through the pics on my phone, I came across all this pretty food from week before last or so…

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Leon’s Full Service in downtown Decatur after Jane and I showed up for Diane’s funeral a week early. Mirage during Neil’s quick visit to the ‘burbs. It was St. Patrick’s Day, but who wants Irish when you can have Persian? My monthly Ege after the Foundation board meeting. We are usually in the minority among Japanese folks here, but days after the earthquake, the place was packed, and I was wondering if people from Japan needed to be with others from their country. Total speculation, but people were actually waiting at the door at 9:30 on a Monday night.

Something’s germinated!

after just a week and a day. Must be the ones I pre-soaked.

With all the lifted toilet seats in my house, you’d think I could find me a yardman

I devised a new strategy.

After Amy's little tiller (see it there?) did its job

I’m tired of complaining that I can’t grow veggies here — and I’m sure anyone who knows me is sick of hearing it, too. Hell, we’ve lived in this house almost 20 years.

What if I plant early-season things, it occurred to me, that will get in much of their growing season before the leaves come out on the trees in early to mid-April? I see no freeze in the 10-day forecast, at least. I’ve been watching this spot out my office window, where we cut down the trees a year and a half ago, and I think I can get 5 or 6 hours of sun in parts of it.

So I ordered spinach and beets and cabbage and chard. Seeds. I’ve never grown a-one of these things, and neither did my mother. Doubt either of my grandfathers ever did spinach or chard, either.

I had this one weekend with nothing scheduled, and it turned out to be beautiful, so I got out just before noon to get going. Dan caught me dragging scrap lumber out from under the house to use to level out the spot, didn’t like that, and decided to live up to Lyta’s praise for him.   I warned him that this whole thing may be folly, but he went to HomeyD and built me a proper frame.

I did get Tom to dig out one boulder, and hauled Warren and a few friends  out of the street to move it, but I’ve got some stumps someone needs to help me with. Because the tree guys spread a heapin helpin of chipped-up tree, on top of what was loamy woods already, the dirt is very dark and soft. I dug out all the rocks and roots, then headed to handy Amy’s to borrow her tiller.

When I saw the thing I almost laughed. A teeny attachment to a weed wacker. Wheels/till  maybe 6-8 inches across. Nothing like the big two-handled tractor things I’m accustomed to. But let me tell you, it did the job! Took me about 20 (exhausting) minutes to dig up the patch.

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Tomorrow, I’ll mix in my wheelbarrow of compost and a bag or so of Darleen’s chicken whacky. And put those pretty little seeds in and see what happens. Stay tuned …

Sound the alarm! Alert the media!

This is seriously the last bit of butter left in my house. There’s not even any in the freezer. Not even a stick of unsalted.

It’s a rare occurrence in this household, let me tell you.

 

Very proud of myself

I’ve been meaning to do this for years, but snopocalypse finally drove me to look up hot chocolate mix recipes. Reading the ingredients of the stuff you buy at the store  makes me feel like a baaaad mother. I went through about 4 boxes during snow week, just averting my eyes from the side of the box and Thinking of England. Yuck.

Here’s Alton Brown’s very easy recipe — you probably have all this stuff in the house already. (I keep instant milk for bread machine recipes.) It took me less than 5 minutes to put together enough for 12 or 15 cups. I would use a little less in each cup than he says. Here are the results…

not! red velvet cake

For their 4th-annual combined birthday party, Warren and Max requested red velvet cake.

I learned years ago from an astute mother of triplets that red velvet cake is craved by hyper boys (and girls). Kids who are already bouncy just love to get some of that Red Dye No. 40 in their systems so they can go really berserk. Max and Warren admitted to inviting 60 — which means they actually told more. You think I was going to put 3 bottles of red dye into a sheet cake? Hay-yell, no!

But I had beets in the house, so I figured it would be no problem. Here’s how that went…

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I used this recipe, I think. They all looked pretty much the same, with varying amounts of cocoa and red dye. I added a little sugar to the beet juice, so when I tasted it there was no hint of earthiness, just sweet.

People thought it was great even though it wasn’t red. I didn’t think it was anything special. Here’s the odd thing. It didn’t have any spices at all, but because of the color, it somehow tasted like spice cake.

I have personally never understood the attraction to red velvet cake. I think the people whose eyes light up when they talk about it (“I *love! red velvet cake!”) must be the ones who get high off the dye.