Category: vegetables

throwing some tomatoes

tomato_pd.jpgIt shouldn’t come as much surprise that I have tomatoes on the brain. After getting 10 pounds of tomatoes from the CSA this week, on top of the several pounds I left from last week’s 10 pound haul, I have tomatoes in lots of places. I’ve been making lots of things with tomatoes: tomato salad with mozzarella and basil, tomato sandwiches, roasted tomatoes with garlic…It seems only fitting that I should also make me a tomato list. So, this week’s Themed Things Thursday is all about tomatoes.

  1. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, by Fannie Flagg. A novel featuring a restaurant that serves fried green tomatoes. (I expect they served other things, too. But the title doesn’t include the full menu.)
  2. Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) A movie based on the Fannie Flagg novel.
  3. The Tomato Collection. An album by Nina Simone. It actually seems to have nothing to do with tomatoes beyond the title, but I love Nina.
  4. The campfire song “Lord Jim”

    I know an old bloke and his name is Lord Jim,
    And he had a wife who threw tomatoes at him,
    Now tomatoes are juicy, don’t injure the skin,
    But these ones they did, they was inside a tin.

  5. “Let’s call the whole thing off.” The song written by George and Ira Gershwin. Sometimes known as “the tomato song,” due to this bit:

    You like potato and I like potahto,
    You like tomato and I like tomahto;
    Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto!
    Let’s call the whole thing off!

    Tomato, tomahto…or, as the Wikipedia tomato entry has, with somewhat dubious IPA:¹

    You like /təˈmeɪtoʊ/ and I like /təˈmɑːtəʊ/

  6. Don’t like tomatoes? Perhaps this website is for you: tomatoes are evil. You can purchase anti-tomato propaganda and play anti-tomato games.
  7. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1978). The cult classic movie. A comedy sci-fi horror thriller romance. Oh, wait. Probably not the romance. Spawned (or sowed?) several tomato–based sequels, including one called Killer Tomatoes Eat France!² The second movie, or the first sequel, starred, of all people, George Clooney.
  8. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. (1990) A short-lived cartoon TV show featuring the voice of John Astin. (John Astin was also in all 3 movie sequels.)
  9. I think the best way to end this list is to give you this: the theme song to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!

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¹ I’d be inclined to use square bracket here, rather than slanty ones, for a start, as the slanty ones suggest a phonemic (rather than narrow phonetic) transcription., and the 2 variants of /o/ (əʊ and oʊ) are not phonemic. At the same time, the onset of that last syllabe is transcribed with a t, which seems unlikely in American English. I’d go for a flap. And I produce strong aspiration on the first /t/.
You know, you say /təˈmeɪtoʊ/, I say [tʰəˈmeɪɾəʊ].

²By the way, that exclamation point is part of the title. As someone who rations out my exclamation points, I feel compelled to insert this disclaimer.

magical mystery fruit

Roll out for the mystery fruit. Step right this way.

Yesterday, John, Phoebe and I took the train into town to attend the Cambridge Carnival International, a primarily Caribbean street festival in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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We got there a bit on the early side, so things were pretty tame when we arrived. Things got quite a bit more crowded as the afternoon progressed, though. There were lots of international food vendors there, which was exciting. (The vegetarian options were somewhat limited though. We ended up getting some so-so Indian food that had probably been cooked the day before.) We mostly spent the time at the festival wandering back and forth, taking some pictures, listening to the music, and looking at people. There were lots of non-food vendors, too, mostly in stalls. I went wild and got a tattoo. Well, I went very moderately wild and got a temporary tatoo. (Anyone want to guess what image I chose?)

At some point, we wandered past a woman selling mangos and some other kind of fruit, sitting on a chair in the road median with a stack of boxes. There was a little ring of people around her, buying this green fruit. I couldn’t identify the fruit as we walked past. Later, I noticed people walking around eating this fruit, and saw some green rinds on the ground (scattered among the bits of sugar cane that people had gnawed on). Towards the end of our festivating, I walked past this fruit woman again. There was no crowd this time. I watched her crack one of the green fruits open in her fingers, and pop the fleshy fruit insides of it into her mouth. She then rolled it around in her mouth a bit. I was intrigued.

“How much are they?” I asked, avoiding trying to name them. I didn’t ask their name. In part to seem as if I knew what I was doing, in part to keep the mystery. I bought a baggie of them for 3 dollars.

I’ve eaten a couple of them, still without knowing what they are. They are sweet with a slight bitterness to them, that reminds me a bit of underripe bananas, and which left my tongue feeling slightly furry and numb. The fruit is almost all pit, explaining why the woman rolled it in her mouth. It seems you sort of suck on the pit, and chew the fruit off. They are about the size of a walnut, with a rind that comes off easily, and that resembles a lime peel.

mystery_fruit.jpg
These are photos of some fruit I bought yesterday. I have no idea what it is. It is definitely tropical. Probably Caribbean. Can anyone name that fruit?

In related news, today was farm day for me once more. Meaning I headed back to the farm for my week’s CSA share. Like last week, the share included 10 pounds of tomatoes. I have been working on last week’s tomato haul, but still have quite a few left. (By the way, my photo of last week was of only a portion of the tomatoes.)

Here are my remaining tomatoes of last week, probably about 4 pounds. (Note: the small person standing in the photo is not a tomato.):

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Below is this week’s full 10 pounds. (Not including last weeks remnants.) They include a lot more yellow and orange varieties. (Notice the large, orange brain-shaped one on the right?)

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I also got some husk tomatoes, which were an exciting discovery for me. They were pick-your-own, and I opted out of them last week due to Phoebe’s mood. But I went solo today, and decided to pick-my-own. We could gather a pint total of cherry tomatoes and husk tomatoes. The farm apprentice gave me the low down on the picking before I headed to the fields, including the details the husk tomatoes are ripe when the husks are brown, and the ones that have already fallen on the ground are often the best.

I decided to try the husk tomatoes first, as I was curious. (I’m always game to try a new fruit or veggie.) I tasted the first one I found, and wow! Them’s good eatin’! I decided to gather my whole pint of husk tomatoes. These are tiny little things, though they seem to grow in other sizes, too. Each is the size of a large blueberry, and is wrapped in a little balloon of husk. They taste very sweet, more like a berry or a currant than a tomato. (Tomatoes are berries, after all.) These may also be the same fruit that is known as a ground cherry, and are akin to tomatillos.

husk_tomatoes.jpg

These are the husk tomatoes I picked. I put in an averaged sized regular red tomato for scale. (Note that the plate in this photo is a smaller plate than the ones used in the big tomato photos above.)

photos from the Völklingen Ironworks

As you may know, I just got back from a 2 week trip to Europe, involving a week in Saarbrücken, Germany and a week in Paris (the one in France). On Wednesday two weeks ago we made a trip from Saarbrücken over to the town of Völklingen to visit the legendary ironworks there. The conference I was attending had a half day, giving me a bit of an opportunity for some site-seeing. John, Phoebe and I took the train over in the afternoon, leaving a bit later than we’d planned. The trains left twice an hour, making it a pretty stress-free trip, though. And then the actual train ride was only about 10 minutes, and then the ironworks was only about 5 minutes on foot from the Völklingen train station.

The Völklinger Hütte, or the Völklingen Ironworks, is an enormous relic of the boom of the industrial age. First built in 1873, and with many additions over the following decades, it was last operational in 1986. It was named a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site in 1994, and was opened to the public in 2000.

With the listing of the Völklinger Hütte as the first industrial monument on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites list a new phase begins in the history of the ironworks. It is the only surviving ironworks in the world from the heyday of iron and steel production and a unique testimony to an industrial epoch of the past.

It is really hard to grasp the enormity of the ironworks. It spreads over 100 acres, and the parts of the monument that are open to the public now contain over 5 kilometers of paths and walkways for visitors to explore.

The ironworks looms on the horizon like a surrealist matte painting from a science fiction movie, its dark, hulking presence and complex shape seeming improbable. With its domed towers and elaborate tangles of pipes and tubes, it has a nearly organic look. Up close, it becomes even more awe-inspiring. Now out of service for 2 decades, the domes and towers and tubes are all covered with a patina of rust, layers of paint from decades past peeling away, plants and even trees growing in crevices and on high platforms. I found myself awed by not only by the size and scope of the place, but also by its unexpected beauty. I was startled to find myself describing a place so forboding and monstrously large as beautiful.

Everywhere we looked was something interesting to see. The colors, the textures, the lines. The oversized machinery, enormous gears and tracks. The dangling chains, and exposed wiring. We spent a couple of hours there, but could have stayed many more. We only walked the lower paths and walkways, not having time to climb to the towers and high paths before the monument closed.

I’ve put together a selection of some photos I took on our visit, and I’ve posted a slideshow. Here’s a bit of a sampling of some of the photos:

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We had some good food in Völklingen, too, by the way. There is a restaurant called Platform 11 3/4 in the old train station building, which is right next to the current train station building. The building was very cool, and they seem to have some sort of theater in it. (Possibly for puppet shows?) The staff was very friendly, and our waitress helped us navigate the menu for things we could eat. (They actually had vegetarian options marked out as “rabbit food,” or the German equivalent, which was handy.) The food was creative, and more importantly, quite good. I had vegetable ravioli served on a bed of lentils in a creamy basil sauce. John had some other pasta dish, which I’ve already forgotten the details of. We shared a salad with mixed field greens, cherries, nuts and warm goat cheese streudel.

We also had some good salads for lunch at a little ma & pa seafood restaurant we passed while straying into the town in search of food. The salads, which caught our eye in as we passed the restaurant’s glassed-in counter, had a nice selection of raw veggies, plus some potato salad (Kartoffelsalat!) and a bit of hard-boiled egg. The whole thing was topped with a light yogurt dressing. One of the vegetables was one that I wasn’t able to identify: it was a shredded, or thinly julienned, crispy white vegetable. I wondered if it might have been some sort of large radish or maybe turnip. It was definitely neither celeriac nor kohlrabi. The texture reminded me a bit of jicama. There were also some other sliced crunchy bits that reminded me a lot of bok choi, which I didn’t expect to find in a German salad.

Here’s a picture of my Salat:

salat.jpg

the finger and 10 pounds of tomatoes

Vacation‘s over, and I’m back to the grind. Which in my case involves the violin and vegetables.

My CSA haul of this week featured 10 pounds of tomatoes. 10 freakin’ pounds. I’ve never had that many tomatoes before. There are quite a range of types, including some heirloom varieties, and I took a photo to document their pretty tomato-ness. (I didn’t arrange my tomatoes as artfully as jenny’s WTVG display, though.)

tomotoes.jpg

The most creative I have gotten with the tomatoes so far is to slice up a bunch of the little yellow ones on a plate, and pour some bottled salad dressing over them. (It was decent salad dressing, at least. Some sesame and lime stuff.) I even ate a tomato whole and plain, like an apple, while still at the farm. I’d forgotten to bring along a snack for Phoebe for the trip down to pick up the veggies, and her temper indicated hunger. I hoped we could snack on a nice fresh tomato, but while she was willing to taste it, she was not willing to ingest more than a bite. So I ate the whole tomato myself, sitting in the car, with a cranky toddler on my lap. So perhaps that was a more creative tomato experience than the slices on a plate.

The violin lesson yesterday was a mixed bag, too. I had not actually even opened my violin case since the previous lesson, 3 weeks before. Considering this, I played not too horribly. The first song came through moderately well. The second, on the other hand, led to a discussion of how my hand position needs adjusting and how I tend to overshoot the fourth finger position. I’m convinced that at least part of the problem is the way my little finger bends. I can’t move my damn pinkies smoothly. They sort of jerk and pop, and my muscle control is poor. I feel like I need to develop a workout routine for my pinky to build up its strength and dexterity. (I’m envisioning something set to the Rocky theme song.)

the eggplant strikes back: the vegesaga continues

This is week 8 of my CSA adventure.

    2 pounds of beets
    1 pound of carrots (donated from another farm, as the carrot crop failed at the farm I go to)
    1 pound of cucumbers
    a bunch of onions
    a pint of pick-your-own peas (though I just picked a half pint, as it was raining, and the pickin’s were looking slim)
    1 small japanese eggplant (I traded in my bunch of onions for a second eggplant.)
    1 small summer squash or pepper (I chose an eight ball zucchini)
    1 bunch or chard or kale
    1 sprig of thyme or marjoram
    1 bunch of basil
    1 ping pong ball-sized tomato

I’m feeling a bit down on this veggie business just now. I sent out an email to a bunch of local friends inviting them to come in small groups, and giving a choice of a dozen or so dates. It turns out that many of them want to come and/or are only available on August 2nd, and no one is available this week. It will be fun to have the bunch of folks, though I hadn’t intended to throw a party 2 days before our big trip. However, I actually won’t have enough vegetables to feed them all. I can save the beets and carrots from this week, but most of the vegetables don’t really last from one week to the next. And the point was to feed people farm-fresh vegetables, not ones that were a week or more old.

So I had a thought. Since I’ll be going away for 2 weeks, I thought perhaps I could see if I could pick up 2 shares worth next week. I know that lots of people go away during the summer, and there always seem to be a lot of vegetables at the end of the night when I arrive at the tail end of the pick-up. So, I asked the farmer. I didn’t know what she’d say, and knew that “no” was definitely a possible answer. I was prepared for the “no” answer.

What I wasn’t prepared for was how irritated I would be by that answer.

Her first answer was, “no, it’s not possible, because of the way the vegetables grow.” When I mentioned that other people might also be going away at various times over the summer and might want to switch a week, she said, “Oh, I see. But it would be too hard for me to keep track.” What I find irritating is that I could think of several ways off the top of my head that it would be feasible for people to arrange these things without it taking up much of her time. She writes in her emailed newsletters that she wants to encourage a sense of community, but all communication between members of this “community” is filtered through her. If there were even some sort of bulletin board, or virtual bulletin board, I could post a request that someone swap a week’s pick-up with me, and then some other member and I could communicate directly. But the answer was “no, I can’t keep track.” (Well, when I explained about the horde of people coming for dinner next week, she did say I could email her and that she’d consider if she learned of someone planning to forfeit their share for the week. But it doesn’t seem too likely this will work out, and I will feel like I’ve put her out.)

And then I’ve realized that part of my irritation was not just about her answer. It’s her farm, her business, so her decision. She needs to decide what works for her. But the trouble is, there have been a number of things that haven’t worked for me as well as I’d hoped.

One main issue is that I hadn’t realized how little of the share would actually be food that Phoebe will eat. (We’ve tried, but she’s become pickier.) There have been greens and onions and kohlrabi, radishes and herbs, garlic and bok choi. And then there was all the lettuce. (Do all the other members really not find 5 heads of lettuce a week to be excessive?) Phoebe won’t eat lettuce, and I can’t even freeze it for later. Here I’ve been collecting more vegetables each week than I’ve ever used before, and then we’ve had to buy additional vegetables for Phoebe. It seems so wrong to be buying frozen broccoli and peas when I have a fridge full of farm-fresh vegetables.

And I’m irritated that I’m trying to be all supportive of this CSA business, and spread the word, and encourage people to consider trying it out. And right now I don’t feel so gung ho. It’s been a fair amount of work, both to go get the vegetables (I even had to rearrange my schedule to be able to make it to one of the two weekly pick-up dates) and to prepare them.

I know that there’s a lot of variation in how the farms and CSA shares operate. My advisor at school is also participating in one, and the deal he gets sounds more appealing. He doesn’t go to a farm, but to a pick-up location that is in or near Boston. What he’s gotten in his weekly shares also sounds more appealing. So maybe I just need to find a different CSA next time around.

So, like all relationships, we’ve had a few bumps. I’m sure that we’ll make up again in a few weeks. I have enjoyed the veggies we’ve gotten so far, and we’re eating more healthily than usual, possibly more healthy than ever. But for now, I think I’ll sit and pout and give the CSA the cold shoulder.

all the right ingredients

Yesterday was my CSA pick-up day again. The load was a bit more compact this time, without the mega-loads of lettuce. (I won’t be cursing those ninja woodchucks yet, as I still have plenty of lettuce from last week.) We got beets, scallions, baby fennel, more bok choi (the last of it till fall), a bit more kale, baby garlic, and a little bundle of basil.

I was very excited about the basil, and had the urge to use it right away. And then I realized that, amazingly, I had all the ingredients for a traditional pesto: we had a hunk of parmesan, lots of pine nuts and some decent olive oil. And with the baby garlic fresh out of the ground and that beautiful bunch of basil, we were golden. I am not someone who has a well-stocked pantry in general, so I felt quite pleased with myself for being able to do this. We had the pesto with some rotini. It was pretty tasty.
justpostjune2007
And speaking of having the right ingredients for some tasty goodness, the Just Posts are up again. This month, jen of One Plus Two is joined by Jess of Oh, The Joys to serve up this monthly buffet of posts on topics of social justice and activism. I’ve got a post on the table over there, too. Head on over and dig in. (Just click the pretty birdy button.)

the eleven-o’clock salad

lettuce.jpgIt’s just past 11:00 p.m., and I just ate a big salad. I realized that before you know it, it will be time for my next CSA pick-up, and I still had 3 heads of lettuce, plus lots of other greens, onions, and kohlrabi. You will be proud of me to know that I opted to make and eat salad rather than going right to the freezer to get out the ice cream which we bought earlier this evening. (Note that I have not yet forgotten the ice cream. Its time will come.)

The salad was good. I do like salad. Especially when it’s been tossed with the dressing in a bowl, so that the dressing is all evenly spread around. An equal distribution of wealth, as it were. (I like to eat a good helping of socialist metaphors.) And by the way: boy-oh-boy has our salad spinner been seeing a lot of action lately.

I keep feeling like I want to record more of my life, of our life. I’m not sure why, exactly. Part of it is that I like my life, and imagine that some day I’ll look back fondly on this time, and feel a bit sad if I don’t remember what my day to day life was like. My future self will think things like: “Back when I was a new mother, did I eat enough vegetables?” or “Did I get enough sleep when I was a grad student?” or “I wonder what I thought about pants when I was in my 30s?”

I keep meaning to update the Phoebe Blog more frequently. Phoebe keeps growing and changing, and well, doing things. Again, things that I feel like I’ll want to remember. My memory fades so quickly, and the days blur together. Hell, the weeks and months blur together. I just managed to post a bit to the Phoebe Blog last night, but there are gaps. It’s strange this feeling that I need to record all of it. I don’t think my parents recorded too much about me, or even my sister (the first-born). I wonder if it’s partially my packrat tendencies making me want to store things away. (The packrat in me badgers me to squirrel things away? Can I fit a rabbit into this somewhere?)

The trip plans are coming along moderately well. I have squared away an apartment in Paris. I have filled out the form from the conference organizers to get a hotel room in Saarbrucken, who seem to have reserved every last hotel room in the town so that you must go through them. (Which means you may not actually get a choice about which hotel you’re going to stay in. Which may lead to some difficulties, as we have special public transportation and crib needs due to travelling with a toddler. I sent an email. I think I’ll be known as a troublemaker to the conference organizers. Because I also questioned their request to have a letter faxed from “the head of my institution” stating that I am a student in order to get the student discount for registration, in addition to sending a scan of the student ID. They claim that such a letter should only take “2 minutes” and is standard procedure. Which is a load of hooey.) I also still have to look more into trains.

And I keep thinking it would be nice to watch a movie. It’s possibly been weeks since I watched a movie. Oh yeah, and I’m supposed to be doing work. Oh wait. Now I’m supposed to be sleeping. Crap.

And you know how I felt compelled to write more 7 lists? Well, as I anticipated, I didn’t have much time. Phoebe’s nap ended, followed by needing to get her a meal, and get her dressed, and who knows what all, resulting in a time lapse of two hours. Then we went out a shopping excursion to get a birthday present for John’s aunt. (We’re going to her 80th birthday party tomorrow. Possibly not the 80th such party that she’s had.) We didn’t get home till 8 or so, then it was time for Phoebe to get a bath and get to bed. It was 9 by the time she was in bed. (Way past her bedtime, but she seems to have her parents’ night owl proclivities.) So, no time to work on lists. But since I don’t want to throw them away, or toss them into the compost pile with the beet greens, I’ll lay them on you here.

So, here are some sevens (and sevenths) I thought about incorporating into some lists.

More than seven more seven things.

books:

  • The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. (I haven’t read it, but it seems to have a Phoebe.)
  • The Seven Dials Mystery, by Agatha Christie
  • The 7 habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey (Not that I’ve read it. I have a low tolerance for self-help books)
  • Seven Spiders Spinning, by Gregory Maguire (one of his kids’ books)
  • Seven Daughters and Seven Sons, a young adult novel by Barbara Cohen, based on an Iraqi folktale.

    • music:

  • Seven and the Ragged Tiger, an album by Duran Duran
  • “lucky number 7 passed me by,” a line from Cracker’s “Lonesome Johnny Blues”
  • “Love is the seventh wave,” a song by Sting
  • A line from “Monkey Gone to Heaven” by the Pixies:

    • If man is five (if man is five…)
    and the devil is six (and the devil is six…)
    then god is heaven (then god is heaven…)
    this monkey’s gone to heaven

  • There are also seven days in a week, seven deadly sins and seven wonders of the world. You can be in seventh heaven, you can get seven years of bad luck if you break a mirror, or you can sail the seven seas. Agent 007 is Bond. (James Bond.)

    • If you’ve got more 7s for me, toss them my way. Toss them like a salad.

    vegetables are kicking my ass

    I’m running a bit behind in the vegetable preparation and consumption. The fridge is loaded to the brim with lettuce, greens, beets, scallions and such. (There’s lots of lettuce again, but due to a ninja woodchuck who did in the lettuce seedlings a while back, there won’t be lettuce again for a bit. I swear I didn’t pay him to do it.) We got to pick our own peas (snow peas and snap peas) this week and last, which was fun.

    Tonight I cooked up 3 heads of bok choi, and made a ginger cashew sauce to go with it. The sauce came out moderately well, in spite of my scorching many of the cashews in an attempt to multitask. (Did you know that cooking involves lots of swearing and shouting? It’s long been the case with me. I love cooking, but you wouldn’t know it to hear me at work. If I had a cooking show, it would either be rated R or would have lots of bleeping. Bok fucking choi. Bleep bleep cashews.)

    One reason I’m behind in my veggies is that things have been hectic the past week or so. One major thing that’s been eating up extra time is planning this trip. We are definitely going. We bought air tickets. (The prices are outrageous, and shot up hundreds of dollars over the course of days. Effectively ending the debate over whether to get Phoebe her own seat on the plane. A lap baby she will be. Which, by the way, still costs over $300.) I’ve registered for the conference in Saarbrucken, Germany. My mother will be meeting us in Paris. Phoebe now has her passport. (Hurray!) Still to do is to square away lodgings for both Paris (we’re planning to rent an apartment) and Saarbrucken (we’ll do a hotel room). Also train reservations.

    I continue to be wiped out, sleep-deprived, and behind in many things besides the vegetables. (Commenting, for example. I have not had much chance to comment on other people’s blogs. If you’ve noticed my absence, please know that I’m still reading, though!)

    I find myself resenting the 4th of July, as it means that Phoebe will not be in daycare. (She goes there 3 days a week, and I commute 2 days a week. Wednesdays are my non-commute work-at-home day.) But with Phoebe at home, I won’t be able to get any work or much of anything else done until she’s in bed. If I am lucky, she will have a long nap, and I will have a couple of hours to either sleep or be productive. (Does sleep count as being productive?) I feel like perhaps we should do some sort of fun family thing for the 4th, and forget that I have lots of work to do. And just enjoy the extra day together. I’ll work on it, but I’m too tired to figure out something to do just now. Perhaps we will have a fun and festive Independence Day salad toss. Or maybe beet bowling. Anyone know of a craft project using kale and baby onions?

    the farmin’ life

    It’s week 3 of my CSA adventure. The farm had a “volunteer day” yesterday, and Phoebe and I stopped by to lend a hand with some weeding. I actually managed to pull up a few weeds and chatted a bit with the farmer and the one other volunteer who was there before Phoebe decided that she was ready to go.

    Here’s a photo of Phoebe, picking clover flowers. In the background are the farm’s fields, which have row after row of lettuce. Did I mention there’s been a lot of lettuce?

    farm_phoebe1.jpg

    This week’s pick-up was again heavy on the lettuce. We were supposed to get 5 heads of lettuce. (Yes, 5.) Plus a half pound of mixed loose salad greens. I traded in some of my lettuce for some extra kohlrabi and kale. I also got beets (we got the beets!), bok choi, chard, scallions and garlic scapes. I’m intrigued by the garlic scapes, which are shoots that grow up from the garlic bulbs.

    And I really should be in bed now, as I have to get up early and go to work tomorrow. I think I’ll pack a lunch. I’m thinking maybe a lettuce sandwich.