Rings like trees

Well world, I am way into my second produce variety box, and you know what that means: I just ate my first beet ever. I roasted beets in the oven today, how crazy is that? My only real beet knowledge comes from seeing them dying in their own sick bloody juice in salad bars. They have always looked way too disgusting to consider eating. But I decided that I'll try everything that comes in my variety box, so today, it's beets.

The one I just ate was golden yellow inside, and a little bit sweet, with texture kind of like a cooked carrot. It was very pretty and I sliced it into little circles. Also, apparently beets have rings, like trees. Mine was six years old.

(Note: I didn't put my beets in the refrigerator for a few days after I received them, because I thought they should be stored in a cool dark cupboard like potatoes are, but I was so very wrong about that; they're supposed to be refrigerated. So there is a chance that my mis-storage altered the way they turned out. Who can say for sure?! Produce is so exciting!)

I am doing other things besides dedicating my life to local abundance (which is an experiment that may die off at some point, although I hope not). School has started again (and I am taking an EEK SCARY POETRY WORKSHOP, among other things), and this is a really busy time at work, so I won't be blogging nearly as often for a while, although hopefully more than once a week. We'll see.

My bizarro best

Last week I signed up for a produce box, delivered to my home for free, from Fresh Abundance. This is something I did a couple of times about a year and a half ago, and loved and thought I would continue to do forever and ever, with one "variety" box of produce (a.k.a. seasonal grab bag, selected by Fresh Abundance, not me) arriving on my doorstep every Friday. Well, I did it exactly twice and then forsook Fresh Abundance altogether, probably because it's not exactly cheap. A variety box costs $35. To me, this was too big a chunk of our ideal grocery budget.

But recently I've been doing some thinking, and here's what that thinking has revealed: I think most of my diet should come from things that grow in from the ground: fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains, beans, etc. Not EVERYTHING. Oh no, let's not get crazy. I'm going to eat cheese and eggs and ice cream. But if, as most health/diet experts would advise, I made the majority of my diet fruits and vegetables (really good, local, in-season ones), those fruits and vegetables should probably merit a big chunk of my food budget.

So, back to my variety box. I got a lot for my $35, all of it organic, most of it local. I'll list everything just so that you can take in the vast majesty of it.

• 3 apples
• 2 oranges
• a whole bunch of the best nectarines I've ever had
• a few peaches
• a few bunches of grapes
• several pluots
• two pears
  
• one head of red cabbage
• one giant head of romaine
• one HUGE onion
• 2 potatoes
• 3 or 4 carrots (THE BEST CARROTS OF MY LIFE)
  
• a bag of green beans
• a red pepper
• a jalepeno
• another unidentified pepper; it is tiny, which makes me think it might burn my mouth off
• a gigantic bunch of cilantro
• a ginormous bag of tomatoes

This is a lot of produce, way more than I would normally eat in a week. But I am trying, and it's been fun for me, and so I keep looking for recipes that will use some combination of the menagerie of abundance I have here. Last night I made Indian food with potatoes and onion and carrots and peppers and coconut milk and spices, and served it with quinoa and a lot of cilantro (which I thought I HATED, I must add, but it is so good with Indian food, apparently), and it was fantastico.

Other times, I just get panicky at the thought of all the produce in my refrigerator and start flinging things together into bowls and eating them. Which brings me to the weirdest ever BEST FOOD EVER.

Sarah's Bizarro Cabbage and Bean Salad
Now, the reason why this is so freaking bizarro to me is because I thought I didn't really like cabbage, especially not purple (or red) cabbage, especially not as the star ingredient in anything. In fact, yesterday, I was so unconfident in what I made that when I was eating at work I hid it from view whenever anyone passed by, to avoid scorn and ridicule. But, omg, it is delicious, with the best texture and flavor. I am in love with my bizarro salad. I'm in love, I'm in love, and I don't care who knows it!

Ingredients:
3/4 cup chickpeas or kidney beans
1 cup chopped red cabbage
some chopped olives
lemon juice
olive oil
sriracha
sunflower seeds
feta

So, you simply and wonderfully combine everything through olives, put in some lemon juice, olive oil, and sriracha to taste, top it all with a little bit of feta and a handful of sunflower seeds, and then indulge in the surprise treat of your life.

Growing up

My brother was here visiting last week, for the first time in three years. Not that I haven't seen him in three years, just not in the Inland Empire. So, we spent a lot of time talking and lounging and playing Rock Band and eating and watching TV both good and bad and generally staying up a little later than I normally would, and sleeping in. On weekdays I get up at 6 and for me sleeping in is something like getting up at the ripe old hour of 8:30, but when I asked Ty what time he usually wakes up he said, "Ohhhhh, I don't know. Sometime between 10 and 11." Because he stays up late doing things like playing in three bands and planning a beautifully nomadic trip to South America, and I stay up "late" editing church newsletters and working on my thesis. And so when he said 10 or 11, I thought, oh good, because that meant I could sleep in AND sneak around getting things done in the morning and avoid being a mega boring married work machine during his waking hours.

So one morning at around 9:45 I called Brad's mom to check on a few things, including how those muffins I made recently were treating her. And as a mega boring married work machine I thought, hey, while I'm on the phone, why don't I sweep the house?! Our brooms and dustpans and mops and Swiffer-type things are all hanging in the stairwell that leads straight to where my brother was sleeping, so I knew I'd have to gather that broom very quietly. So I tucked the phone between my shoulder and ear, slowly opened the door at the top of the stairs, took the broom off the hook, and promptly bumped the mop hanging next door, which in turn knocked EVERY SINGLE OTHER MOP, SWIFFER, DUSTPAN, ETC. clattering and thundering and colliding down the entire flight of stairs, where they landed within several feet of the couch where Ty slept.

Or so I thought. It turns out that he had woken up a little bit early and was watching back-to-back episodes of Top Chef. Meaning, I was upstairs being boring and worried about keeping quiet, and he was being just as boring downstairs. So he put all of the brooms and dustpans and mops away and came upstairs, and I made him watch The Rachel Zoe Project for a while before we went to a coffee shop, where I did boring work stuff and my co-grown-up did the New York Times crossword puzzle.

Muffin man

Last night I spent a few hours as the muffin man, baking about six dozen. Some for my mother-in-law, some for a staff meeting, and a few little baby leftovers for me and Brad. I made some pumpkin ones which were decent, not great, but the others are what I need to share with the world. These strawberry cinnamon muffins are soooooo so so good. Normally, I believe that any food thing with some semi-liquidy food thing lurking in the middle is at best questionable (Cadbury Creme Eggs) and at worst DISGUSTING (Gushers). But these have jam in the middle, and that very jam is a pure delight. I'd also like to note that these are low fat, if you care about that sort of thing. Please, treasure them.

Note: a good blogger would post a picture to really sell you on these muffins. I am not that blogger.

Happy birthday

Good morning world,

After that oh-so-bloggy last post, I had to stop blogging for a few days. But I'm over it now. And today is a very important day. It is the birthday of my most faithful of readers, Miss Danyeal Jones. Danyeal is a Johnny-Flynn-loving, Emmy-godmothering, world-traveling, barefoot-in-the-summertime best friend of mine since junior high whose history is littered with terrible birthdays. I hope that someday we will live together in the same city. Happy birthday, Danyeal!