Tag: food

Garden update

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, gardening, health

The garden is looking so great so far this year (excuse me while I knock on wood). Again, I congratulate my self on holding back a few blueberries and strawberries long enough to take a picture before devouring them all!

blueberries and strawberries from the garden early june

In addition to these, the blackberries and raspberries are looking great, and should be able to harvest some of those soon.

The cherry tree has plenty of cherries, but most are way up high and, since this tree is now about 12 feet tall, the birds are reaping the harvest for themselves (not motivated to put up a ladder yet to gather those). Also, due to dealing with the pests that were trying to destroy the tree, we are concerned about sudden death following consumption of said cherries…better to wait for next year (so far, there have not been any avian corpses unexpectedly falling from the sky, thankfully).

The tomato plants all look well, and one of the 11 even has 3 tomatoes on it already! I’m guessing it’s the early girl; the stake with the name of the tomato  got buried during planting and I haven’t yet found it.

One of the eggplant seedlings had aphids and some other unpleasant looking bug on it, but my husband found them early and immediately sprayed it with the insecticide soap, and it looks okay now. Keeping my fingers crossed for this one. The other 2 eggplants seem unaffected.

The zucchini and yellow squash plants all have teeny tiny squashes growing. The bell peppers, beets, potatoes, pumpkins all look good. The melons look iffy, as they have for the past 2 years that we have (unsuccessfully) tried to grow them.

The herbs are all doing well.  The basil we planted from seed is sprouting, and the large leaf Italian Basil plants are still alive, green (not yellow, not black) and look healthy. Last year’s pineapple sage may even have reseeded; will be keeping an eye on the 2 little seedlings nearby.

We are still harvesting last years lettuce, and this year’s crop is growing very well.

How are your gardens doing? What are you growing this year?

Late Summer Wish List

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, tweens

Now that summer is underway, I realized that I forgot some of our “must do” activities, not to mention several

that usually make the list but don’t get done (after all, summer is only a few short weeks and getting shorter every year, with kids having to go back to school sometimes in August (what is UP with that, anyway??).

Portland Head Light

So, here are a few more activities to squeeze in if you have time:

  1. Acton Fair runs August 26 through August 29  (consider it a warm up for the larger Fryeburg Fair coming in October). It’s not too large, so you can go in the morning before it gets too hot and the children (and possibly you) get too whiny. Depending you where you live, there are many other fairs over the next several months; find a schedule here: http://www.mainefairs.org/fair_dates.htm
  2. Perkins Cove and Ogunquit Village. There are lots of shops and restaurants in both places; park the car in the middle of both (sorry; most likely you will have to pony up some cash to park, but it’s worth it if you are spending the better part of the day, which you will definitely want to once you arrive) and explore. Once nice thing about Ogunquit, especially with kids in tow, is that there are public restrooms that are (usually) clean and easy to find.
  3. York Beach is another great place to go for a day at the beach. Short Sands Beach is great, again, because if you have kids, you can part once then spend the day. Beach, playground, bathrooms, restaurants, shops (many of which sell excellent fudge!).
  4. Downeast Duck Adventures is on my list every year (like the South Berwick Strawberry Festival) but I never get there.  In the spirit of  ‘write it down, make it  happen’…I’m writing it down. Here’s hoping.
  5. Wells Harbor Concerts run every Saturday night rain (held at the Wells Junior High School) or shine (held at the Wells Harbor Park) and are FREE. Enough of the concerts are both child and adult friendly to make it work for families (hint: bring the BUG SPRAY).
  6. The Wells ChiliFest is an annual event that will be held this year on Saturday, August 28 at the Wells Junior High School. This is a bonus because if it rains (like last year) you can still go and have a good time (hint: bring bottled water, or something to drink; sampling chili works up a thirst).
  7. Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth makes a great day trip; there are walking trails, picnic areas, and beautiful beach roses! Stop at JulChris Cookies for an amazing mid-afternoon treat on your way home.
Beach roses!

So that’s my late summer addendum. Hope you try something from this or the prior list.  Have any of you made up any lists of your own for this summer?

(another) new restaurant in the old port

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, restaurants

KAMASOUPTRA is the new restaurant, and they serve (you guessed it!) primarily soup. they have a cool tag line:  steamy. hot. soup.  i mean really; how could you go wrong?

well, for one thing, that stupid construction vehicle that is blocking the entrance is …bad feng shui. also, the stairway to the second floor where the restaurant is located was shut down, so i was forced to take the, um, rather suspicious looking elevator which was  moving so slowly that my usually latent claustrophobia was starting to dust itself off. once the doors finally opened and i escaped…i mean arrived at my destination, things  began to look up. the servers were clean and friendly. all soups i asked to try were graciously handed over, no charge. i thought the cheese containing soups were too…cheesey, but my cheese loving friend thought they were just right. the vegetable tortilla soup was my favorite.

a bonus was … they had CUPCAKES! from the TULIP CUPCAKERY! the name alone primes you to love them! and did i mention the sample was free? it was half a cupcake, but still.  having just finished 5 soup samples(not to mention lunch and the scone i had been gifted with earlier), it really was more than i needed, or expected. (full disclosure: the cupcake was a little dry but the frosting more than made up for it).

they sent me on my way with a menu that included a 10% off coupon for my return visit (this week) and several extra coupons for my coworkers.

all in all, it was 10 minutes well spent this afternoon.

if you are in the portland (maine)  area, check them out.

http://kamasouptra.com/home.html

potlucks

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, health

march is nutrition month, and this year we celebrated it at work by having a potluck. the general overall theme was healthy eating; the underlying challenge was to prepare and bring healthy foods that people wanted to eat, which left quite a wide range open for interpretation.  we had the requisite fruit and veggie tray, and a box of clementines from the no-time-to-shopper…then we had the piece de resistance: vegetable casserole, which was a hands down favorite.  this recipe can be found here: http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1750,149169-249195,00.html

ahhh, and then there was the bread.

is there anything better than a potluck to improve morale in the workplace? if so, what??

marching into may

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, health

i just took a walk, then negated the benefits of said walk by accepting and eating a homemade peanut butter oatmeal cookie when i got back to work. i took the walk because this year i signed up for March into May, a program designed to help you become more active. you set your own goals, then update them each week for 8 weeks.  i consoled myself after the cookie-eating with the fact that i DID, at least, take the walk, which i probably wouldn’t have done if i wasn’t thinking about my MIM goal not yet being met for the week. (i probably would have eaten the cookie either way…one of the best bakers i know made it!).

if you decide to sign up for MIM (it’s free! and you can build in your own rewards (cookies!) for staying on track each week , or for whatever behaviors you choose to reward). here’s a tip from someone who has participated in MIM for several years (me!):  for your goal: set the bar low; make it achievable, so it is motivating, not demotivating. 🙂

http://www.marchintomay.org/march-into-may.php

what do you think? is this worth doing? will it help you get out and do some exercise of some sort that you might not have done otherwise ?

food security

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food

one of my goals this year is to support food security. “The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing ‘when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life’. Commonly, the concept of food security is defined as including both physical and economic access to food that meets people’s dietary needs as well as their food preferences.”                                                   

source: http://www.who.int/trade/glossary/story028/en/

so. starting small,  i gave a clementine to my friend and told her that i appreciate her. other food gifts i’ve given over the past month include: dinner to a family whose single parent suffering from complications from surgery, freshly baked bread, chicken soup to a friend who had been sick with respiratory symptoms…for weeks! most recently, baked 2 dozen sugar cookies with green sprinkles for coworkers to celebrate st. patrick’s day.

how can you support food security in some small way this week?

grieving my dead relatives, part 2

by Karen, posted in good grief

march 15 was the anniversary of the day my father died and joined my mother.  had he not been addicted to cigarettes, alcohol, and gambling in his 20’s,  he’d have been 72 years old. instead, he’s been in that great rehab in the sky (i hope…) for 12 long years. as i have often done since he died, i had a fried clam dinner in his honor, because for me, the inherited addiction gene has (in my post twenties life) been expressing itself  in relation to food (as in “it’s all about the food”). (is this wrong??). why fried clams? well, for one thing, unlike my opinion of my mother’s food favorites (see prior blog post entitled “grieving my dead relatives, part 1) which i mostly deplored, i shared a love for many of my father’s favorite foods: coffee, black  (the beverage, NOT the jello), almost any kind of doughnut,  liver, lumberjack breakfasts, lamb chops, hot fudge sundaes, all things chocolate…all good things. the other reason is that fried clams were on the plate for his Last Supper. after days of existing mostly on air and water (the lung tumor had the upper hand by this point and the dying process was well underway), he suddenly sat up in the hospice hospital bed in the living room and said, “i want a fried clam dinner!” which my brother promptly procured and which he really did sit up and eat, every last bite. then, he went to sleep and never woke up, dying about a day and a half later. so, some years i just buy a box of fried clams and eat it myself, no fanfare…kind of an eating meditative prayer. this year i invited my husband to join me and we went to the Maine Diner (http://www.mainediner.com/). we muddied the tradition up a bit; we ordered buffalo chicken fingers for dessert, a food that my father never had, to the best of my knowledge. (was that wrong??)

what do you thing about observing the anniversary of a parent’s “deathday”?

grieving my dead relatives, part 1

by Karen, posted in good grief

necco wafers, tootsie rolls, pepper and egg sandwiches, chipped beef on toast, coffee jello, split pea soup, hermit cookies… what do these foods have in common?  well, for  one thing, they are all foods that i don’t like much. also, they were some of my mother favorites  (i’m sure there is something very freudian in that admission). Her birthday was march 13, and if she hadn’t been dead since 1996, she’d have turned 70. do your loved ones that have died live on in your memory in the context of food, as do mine?  well-known grief expert elizabeth kubler-ross states that “Mourning can go on for years and years. It doesn’t end after a year:  that’s a false fantasy.” how much more pleasant are the memories when viewed through the lens of one’s own (or her own!) preferred foods? i say: much more!

here’s elizabeth kubler-ross’ website: http://www.ekrfoundation.org/