Two Weeks of Local Booty - Garden Grub, CSA, and Farmer's Market - September 5th and 12th, 2009 (aka J Sucks)

So, um, yeah, I suck, I'll admit it - I've been a bad blogger as of late. I realized mid-week last week that I never did a local booty update last weekend (and we got some really good stuff!).

Not to worry though, my reasons for my lack of blogging are not necessarily bad ones. First off, I have been really into writing. I had been working on one fiction piece, a more serious work, and got bogged down with it. So I put it down and began to pursue another idea I had and it has just been pouring out of me. At the current moment, I am up to page 33 and I am very pleased with it. With my more serious work, I saw its potential, but I also knew it was going to take an awful lot of work to make it something I could be proud of. And in all honesty, the subject material, while initially therapeutic, began to get a little depressing and I decided to put it down. That wasn't easy for me to do, as I like to finish things, but I knew if I continued to force myself, what I produced wasn't going to be very good.

So I put it down and began to work on a piece with a plot that wasn't quite so close to home. It is funny, quirky, and I have had a blast writing it. The writing is coming quite naturally and I think it might actually be, well, decent. In all honesty, I wasn't really expecting that. But when I began reading over what I had written to edit it, I found myself interested in the plot, in the characters. When I discussed it with Brett, he seemed really into it, making comments along the lines of "that sounds like something you would actually want to read". That might sound really lame, but it is harder to do that one might imagine, and in all honesty, I read a lot, there is a lot of crap out there. More crap than quality.

What I've discovered too, with some of my favorite books, TV shows, movies, is that humor can be used in very interesting ways. For example, one can broach and incredibly difficult topic like religion in a light, non-offensive way, while still making a point. Daily life for average folks is also fun to write about because we are all secretly closet weirdos with strange hobbies, habits, and behaviors. I've always been one to say that the ordinary, when looked at closely, is almost always more interesting than the extraordinary.

Anyway, along with writing, I have also been firmly ensconced in reading mode. Like I noted above, there is a lot of crap out there. If any of you actually look at the 'Books J's Read - 2009' list, you will notice that not a lot of the fiction books are rated very highly. This might also make you wonder why I bother to read books that I know I wouldn't rate highly. The explanation for that is fairly straight forward, to me a good book is one that is novel, well written, not predictable, one that makes me think or laugh, with solid characters, good plots, and whenever possible, a good dose of humor. But, a book doesn't have to be an award winning or best selling work to be entertaining, and I think entertainment, the light and fluffy variety are fun too. So while I wouldn't never dare to call a lot of what I read literature, I still enjoy it in its own right. (And I am always open to book suggestions, if you have 'em, send 'em my way.)

Occasionally, very occasionally, I come across something really good, and I rate it accordingly. These are books that I wouldn't be afraid to recommend or defend the merits of to a friend. My tastes in books is also just that - my taste. You all might disagree with my ratings and would have valid reasons for doing so. I will admit that I am much more forgiving of non-fiction than I am fiction. Even if a non-fiction work isn't all that interesting, if I learn something, something of value, a new perspective, whatever, I am going to give it a high rating even if the person has a tendency to have really freakin' long paragraphs and horrible punctuation (like the first edition of Clive Ponting's awesome environmental history novel A Green History of the World).

Anyway, I will admit that I have also been into watching old episodes of Iron Chef lately too. So all and all, those are my excuses.

Since I didn't post a local booty update last weekend, I am going to do last week's and this week's in one post.

We got some garden grub last weekend from our container garden:


Starting from the bottom right: a hot Hungarian wax chile, a sweet banana, 15 serranos, and 2 more cayennes.

Here is last weeks CSA:


Starting from the bottom right: a green bell pepper, a red bell pepper, a small yellow summer squash, a large yellow onion, and 4 tomatoes.

And this week's Danjo Farms quarter veggie CSA share:


Starting again from the bottom right: a cucumber, a zucchini, 2 yellow onions, 4 tomatoes, 2 New Mexico chiles, and 5 ears of sweet corn.

Here is our farmer's market haul from last week:


Again from the bottom right: a quart of jalapenos from Danjo Farms (I froze them for use over the winter), cilantro, fingerling potatoes, an heirloom tomato (we didn't catch what variety), and two gorgeous acorn squash (one of which has been roasted with pure maple syrup, cinnamon, and a touch of brown sugar, so yummy).

And this week's farmer's market haul:


Okay so this is the best picture of this week's farmer's market loot and it is at kind of an odd angle, I apologize.

Let's start from the rightish area: a quart of banana peppers from Danjo Farms (going to be frozen for use over winter), home-made focaccia from Danjo Farms (more on that below), sundried tomatoes from Danjo Farms (what can I say? we are loyal and their stuff rocks), a pie pumpkin (I broke the stem off because I needed it to fit in my bag without puncturing everything else and we plan on eating it soon), and one freakin' massive sweet potato.

A note on the focaccia: anyone in Columbia with a heartbeat, get to Danjo Farms stand and try their focaccia - but don't buy too much, leave some for 'ol J&B. I'm not normally one to be out there championing people to buy things, but there are rare times that come along where it would be wrong not to share. This stuff is so good I cannot begin to describe to you how wonderful it is. I want a focaccia share - now there is an idea. Seriously though, this bread is amazing, both B and I agree that it is probably the best bread we've every had - light, fluffy, slightly chewy, with just enough seasoning so as not to overpower the tastiness that is good home-made bread. Mmmmmm.

So, I promise to try to be a better blogger, though I am really into the writing and I apologize in advance to poor Selina for having to read my long winded ramblings.

J's Song of the Day:
"Elevator is Temporary" - The Lilys

Have a great weekend everyone!

'Til next time!

Weekly Local Booty 5/2/09 - I Love Mid-Missouri!

Today was my first trip to market this year - even though it opened a couple of weeks ago. Last week, Brett and I were sick, the previous week I forgot, and the week before that Brett stopped by and reserved our CSA, so things just worked out to today being my first trip. It was a very successful trip, I must say. It being fairly early in the Mid-Missouri growing season, I didn't expect as much variety as I found, I am really stoked to get in the kitchen

There is something about winter that kills my cooking "mojo", part of it was that we were pretty unprepared to "eat local" over the winter, and I was reluctant to buy a bunch of out of season produce, so our meals got pretty lame. Hopefully we can prepare a little better this year. I know that next weekend, I am stocking up on asparagus and freezing some for winter. Wahoooooooo!

Check out my first haul of the year. This ran somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 (oh, and check out Gabby in the background).















(Sorry about the picture quality, I think there was something on the lense.) Starting from the bottom right: 3 bunches of asparagus, 1 lb. oyster mushrooms, 4 tomatoes (!!!!!), 1 lb. ground flax meal (!!!!!), garlic chives, 2 bunches of spring onions, a dozen eggs, spinach, penne pasta (!!!!!), and Country Goodies Salsa.

I'd say we made out pretty well. I thought I would show some pictures of my favorite finds.















Garlic chives! I have always wanted to work with garlic chives as it would be something we could easily grow in our apartment, it being a little early in the season for "regular" garlic, I decided I would give it a shot. I have many ideas already....















Ground flax meal! I am excited to see things like this ground flax meal and the Missouri Grain Project, it is a wonderful experiment and it allows locavores to source even more of their diet from their local region. We use a lot of flax meal, in our granola bars, in our oatmeal, in our gravy, all sorts of things. AND, this was less expensive than the kind we usually get from the store.















Oh glorious tomatoes, how I love them. I do not even want to venture to guess how many pound of tomatoes Brett and I ate last summer, we both LOVE them, very, very much. Hence why we are planting about 12 tomato plants this year. :-)















Asparagus, one of my favorite things about spring! Local asparagus is so fresh, so tender, I don't know if there is anything quite as good a garlicky roasted asparagus. Oh my, I can't wait!

We have company coming tomorrow, so we figured we would make a nice yummy dinner of Our Take on L's Black Bean Burgers (with local tomatoes of course) and garlicky roasted asparagus. Mmmmm.

And finally, here is photographic evidence of why Gabby's middle name is indeed Trouble.















Something she quite enjoys doing is burrowing in my pajama drawer and then pulling all the pajamas out of the drawer. She was caught red handed here. It is hard to be made at such a cute face though.

Don't forget about the "It Seemed Like A Good Idea At the Time" writing contest. It is "open" through May 31st. And be sure to vote on the goodie to be received by the winner.

Have a great weekend!

'Til next time.