CSA, Week One

We decided to join a CSA this summer--that's community supported agriculture, for those who don't know. Basically you pay up front to a farmer and then get a portion of everything he or she produces. I consider this Adventures in Figuring Out What's for Dinner, since we don't really know what we are going to get, week to week. To quell my fear that we wouldn't be able to eat arms full of escarole, mustard greens, and Chinese cabbage, Tilly and Brent are sharing our share this summer. We'll see how it goes.

I don't want to bore you with the mundane details of our CSA, but we did decide we want some sort of records about how we use up the veggies to determine whether or not it's worth doing it again next year. Assuming we only have to buy minimal produce between now and October (between the CSA and the garden, I'm hoping that's realistic), we should come in at or even below our regular grocery budget.

So. Week one. We got:

• Mustard Greens (Jason made a tasty stir-fry stir-fry, but turns out I'm not much for mustard greens
• Chinese Cabbage (black bean tacos, yum)
• Radishes (also with the tacos)
  
• Arugula (pasta with tomatoes, scallions, arugula and goat cheese)
• Romaine (salad)
• Red leaf lettuce (salad)
• Scallions (anything we could think to put them in. Love scallions.)

So far, so good. I'm just glad we didn't get spinach, since I harvested two bagfuls and had to pawn them off on friends yesterday before we leave for our trip. At first Jason thought maybe the spinach would last until we get home, but this morning I showed him how much it has already grown since I cut it on Saturday. Yikes!

Farmers Marketing

My one goal for this summer has been to ride our bikes to the farmers market in Falls Church. And by this summer, I mean sometime in May or October, since no one in their right minds is going to ride their bikes anywhere once real summer hits. So that's what we did on Saturday--hauled out my bike (Jason biked to work all week), got lost a little on the way, and eventually made it to the really great farmers' market that's close to the church.

I just like walking around the farmers' market, even though we don't usually come home with loads of groceries. Tilly and I have talked about trying out lots of markets in the area, but right now I'm really partial to this one, with the stand where they sell homemade bread and the one with all the pots of flowers and the one where they make crepes. Mmm, crepes. This week the only thing we bought was English peas, which we took home on a much more direct route than we came.
Peas turned into this delicious, springy-flavored lemony tortellini soup for lunch. Yum!

Turns out it was just the right weekend to take this bike ride--today it is hot and humid and very much like the middle of summer. I know, because I tried to go running at about 10:00 a.m. Huge mistake. Too hot for anything but sitting on the deck, drinking ice water. Or sleeping.

How Does Our Garden Grow?

Very nicely, actually. Am v. happy with the way I planted the rows this year and my decision to actually follow the plant spacing instructions on the seed packets. Turns out the people who wrote those things know a thing or two.The weather has been perfect for garden growing--ridiculously hot days (90s, anyone? Ew, and humid, ick.) and nights of torrential rains. Every day I go out to see the garden and things appear to have doubled in size. There are already about four baby tomatoes growing, and we've had our first official harvest: spinach and strawberries. Add poppy seed dressing and glazed walnuts, and we've got the makings of a spectacular salad.

(Oh, and remember how I was worried about the green beans? Now I'm only worried that they will take the garden over...)

Visitors!

My mom and Uncle Jim spent the week with us, which, as usual, was great fun. There are so many nice things about moms, like how they hem your pants for you (Jason asked if I was running a sweat shop) and tell you that you look pretty in the dress you want to buy and let you crawl into bed with them to watch a movie and take you to lunch at Chili's where you always share chocolate molten cake. I think Jason gets neglected when my mom is here because I feel the need to squeeze every last drop out of our time together. (It turns out he doesn't really mind a little time to himself.)

One of the highlights of the trip was going to see "Little Shop of Horrors" at Ford's Theatre. If you know my mom, you can imagine how she reacted when she heard the name of the play, but she'd been wanting to see a show at Ford's Theatre for years, so she let it slide! Fun, fun.

On Monday night, we got to go watch Jason play hockey at the really reasonable hour of 7:30 (instead of the usual 11:30 pm). It's fun to see how much better he and his team have gotten since they started playing together!



Mom and Uncle Jim spent their days on the Hill, meeting with Members of Congress to try and garner support for the work that Expansion International is doing with internally displaced people in Kenya (remember these folks whom we met while we were there last summer?). It was really exciting to see how God really did go before them and prepared the hearts of the right people--they were wildly successful, so good to watch!

Such a fun trip and what a good time we had together!

May

There is really no excuse for the fact that we've haven't blogged for, what, nearly three weeks? Sort of embarrassing. Work has taken a decidedly welcome turn into pleasant slowness--I left work Friday AT FOUR with my inbox cleaned out, no constituent mail to write, and 29 emails in my inbox. Let me say that again, 29 emails (not the 435 with which I started the day). Unheard of. It's possible that in some far-flung realm of the imagination, I could get bored if this kept up. Bring it on.

While things have been slowing to a happy pace for me, they've sped up for Jason, who has had a really busy week or two. I think he was really looking forward to a weekend, and that is probably why he is still asleep while I sit here, way too early on a Sunday morning, drinking my Lady Grey and kind of hoping it rains today so that I can get some work on my thesis done. (If the sun is shining, chalk this up as another day of sunny distracted lack of progress.)

I am sitting here trying to think of what we've been up to that has kept us from blogging, and nothing comes to mind. We did have an awesome Sunday school retreat a couple weekends ago, but that is for another blog (when, hopefully, I have at least one picture to share). I do, however, have pictures from Cal and Clark's first birthday bash. Cute.

Last weekend Tilly and I hit the farmer's market in Falls Church for the first time this year, where we bought tasty asparagus and amazing peonies, before heading off to book club, where we ate crepes with Nutella and didn't talk about the book at all.

Yesterday we had delicious blueberry muffins for breakfast on the deck (still slightly chilly outside, but worth chattering through breakfast). And our garden is now planted and beautiful--I'm always such a good gardener in the spring, until July comes and my carefully-tended plants start inexplicably wilting away.

Friday my office got a behind-the-scenes tour of the National Zoo, which was pretty sweet. My favorite parts were the adorable baby gorilla and the frogs with poisonous skin. I was really hankering for a nephew to share the experience with.
And finally, we have spent our nights all week planning our upcoming trip to France, where we plan to bike through lavender fields, picnic, and eat chocolate croissants and goat cheese until we are ill. The Provence vacation inspired not only the French breakfast from last post, but also my favorite summer soupe au pistou--my goal this summer is to make the soup at least once with only produce grown in my garden (minus potatoes, which I didn't get around to planting). Since it's a primarily veggie soup--beans, leeks, carrots, zucchini, basil, etc.--I consider this a pretty decent feat...and the whole reason I planted carrots this year!