Peas in progress

Shelling peas

Today Jacob and I went to the farmers' market. We found the rarest of finds -- peas in the shell. You can frequently find shelled butterbeans in the summer, and often shelled peas in the spring, but to find them still in the shell! Wonderful.

Peas in particular must be the freshest of fresh. When you pick peas, all the sugar in them begins converting to starch, and it doesn't take long. You really need to eat them within a day or two of their being picked or they won't be sweet.

So we bought our peas-in-the-shell and brought them straight home for shelling. I was impressed, but even 2yos can help with this.

Then I slightly adapted a recipe I found on 101 Cookbooks. Here's what I did:

I shelled and rinsed my peas. I boiled a pot of water with a little salt, and I dumped all the peas in for 30 seconds exactly. Then I strained them and rinsed them with cold water to stop the cooking.

For each cup of peas, I added
1/2 c. toasted pine nuts
1/2 c. parmesan cheese
Salt
Lemon juice
1 T. olive oil

And whipped the whole thing up in the food processor.

  Pea pesto.

We couldn't stop eating it.

I miss Even Steven

Recently, I was in Target. By the Kleenex. I pulled something out of my purse, and I looked down, and there was a $5 bill in the floor.

Hmm.

Did I just drop that, or did someone else drop it? And not notice? But if they did, how on earth would they know, oh yeah, over in front of the Puffs Plus, that must be where I lost $5. Because in that case, they wouldn't have left it there. Right? Finally, I just decided to pick it up. Because it actually might have been mine.

Sidenote: Yes, I'm one of those people who frequently just leaves money loose in her purse. Also lipstick, and I have a bag for that, too. Because when you leave it loose, the cap comes off and your purse turns pink and sticky.

So, it was kind of cool in the end. I got $5. It might have been mine, or maybe not, but I felt OK about having it.

Wednesday, we drove back from Florida. I had about $16 in my purse, so I stopped at an ATM so we could stop at the aforementioned farm stand. I got a $20 bill at the ATM. I spent $22 at the farm stand. So I should have had about $14 left, right? Later, I bought two Diet Cokes at a convenience store. I had $2 left.

What happened to my other $10?? Remember the Seinfeld episode about even steven? And Jerry drops $20 out the window, and gets $20 in a few minutes from Kramer. Or something like that.

All I'm saying is, if I was $5 up before, wouldn't it have been more appropriate for me to lose $5? Couldn't the karmic forces of the universe have waited for me to change the $10 before seeking their retribution on me?

Oh well.

This tastes like my grandmother

  Fried squash

I have a little bit of synesthesia, related to some random things in my life. I may have mentioned it here before, but 5+8=13 is a blue tennis shoe. Well, 13 of them. [Interestingly, 8+5=13 does nothing for me.] I'm guessing once long ago, I had that illustration in a math workbook. I don't know of other equations that do the same thing for me, but I'm sure they're out there.

Every once in a while, I run into something else like that. Today, I fried some squash, our first of the season. We bought it yesterday afternoon at the Brooks farm stand in Baker, FL. Tasted like it was picked yesterday morning. Delicious.

But while I was eating it -- the first bite -- I had this very distinct sensation of being in my maternal grandmother's kitchen. I could see it, smell it, hear her voice, everything.

Two weird things:
* My mom certainly made me more fried squash than my grandmother did, though both of them counted it as a summertime favorite.

* This incident also turned my thoughts to my paternal grandmother, and I had this involuntary sensation of her food marker, without really thinking about it -- congealed strawberry salad. I can't find the recipe; maybe my mom will chime in in the comments. It has frozen strawberries, cream cheese, Jello? Cool Whip? whipping cream? I have no idea. But then you pour it into little individual aluminum molds. Awesome.

links for 2008-05-27

• The Obama Connection | NYTimes.com
  Barack Obama’s grasp of Internet-driven networking comes from his conviction that in a globalized world sociability is a force as strong as sovereignty.

links for 2008-05-23

• Twitter Said to Raise Million in Fresh Funding | New York Times
  Glory, hallelujah. Maybe they can apply some of that toward whatever's caused all the downtime this week!!
  (tags: twitter)
• Tips for designing your garden | Slate
  Great ideas for garden design.
  (tags: gardening)

links for 2008-05-22

• Imbalances of Power | New York Times
  It is hard to remember a time when more shifts in the global balance of power are happening at once — with so few in America’s favor.

links for 2008-05-21

• Dept. of That Explains Everything | The Elegant Variation
  This is a GREAT post about a video interview James Frey did with the Barnes & Noble weekly video series. He says he NEVER reads his own work. Bizarre.
  (tags: jamesfrey writing)

Some things I have quit eating and drinking

• Meat
  But you knew that already
• Coke of any kind, but especially Diet Coke.
  It's either corn syrup, Nutrasweet or Splenda. I'm thinking any of 'em could kill me.
• Frozen, processed food
  Still eating plain frozen vegetables when fresh aren't available
• Canned food, except tomatoes
  Have to see how many I can put up this summer
• Store-bought potato chips
  As of last night. I "borrowed" the deep fryer my sister was sending to Goodwill. I made homemade potato chips. Both the 2yo and I died and went to heaven. Not buying store-bought again. Ever.

About a year ago, I read What to Eat by Marion Nestle. What a great book -- Nestle, a nutritionist and researcher, examines the food industry from top to bottom -- Meat. Seafood. Dairy. Fresh produce. Canned. Frozen. Corn syrup. All of it. She doesn't condemn it all -- but you walk away from the book knowing so much about where your food comes from. If you're like me, you won't like it.

So, I've been trying to reduce the hands [and chemicals and machines] that have touched what my family and I eat. Please don't misunderstand -- our food industry is in so many ways just a miracle. We're producing so much food in America, so much that I'd hazard to say a substantial percentage is going to waste. The "starving children in China" that we were warned about as children are still starving in some underdeveloped country [or down the street...real hunger still exists in America, in Nashville, but that's another post], and we're throwing food away as fast as we can buy it. Or eating more than two people need in any given day.

So in the midst of such abundance, it seems wrong to me to either waste food or to treat it as a commodity. I'm trying instead to view it as a great blessing, and treat it with reverence. If the food is junk, it's not worthy of me or my family. It has to taste good and be good to meet my standards.

Not to say we're perfect in that -- we had fast food the other night. I'm still struggling to deal with the time required to make every meal nourishing and reverent. And work full time and be president of a nonprofit board and be really, really involved in two other nonprofits and did I mention, I'm a mom to two kids?

But I'm not trying to have a whinefest here. Instead, just saying, we're paying more and more attention to what we eat. And being more purposeful about it.

links for 2008-05-15

• Understanding how you process information to help you get organized | Unclutterer
  Yowza. I scored 6/8 as a visual processor...and 0 of 8 in both auditory and kinesthetic. I knew this about myself, but it is stark to see numbers put to it.
  (tags: learning style)
• Make a Summer Fun Book for the Family | By RealSimple.com
  Great idea on keeping the kids busy this summer.
  (tags: family summer recreation)

links for 2008-05-14

• Here Come the Millennials | New York Times
  Herbert cites a couple of studies that explain why the Millenial generation is so politically progressive -- economically, they're worse off than any other recent generation at the same age.
• The Neural Buddhists | New York Times
  The cognitive revolution is not going to undermine faith in God — it’s going to challenge faith in the Bible.
  (tags: religion science)