adding spice to the everyday

What a lazy day.

Today I have done very little, though perhaps others may beg to differ. I haven't really ventured away from my door, less than 30 feet, and this may be why I feel lazy. I had one of those mornings I quite like, when I wake up ridiculously early (not by choice) and wander around the house for an hour or two and then head back to bed for a nap. I was up the second time by 10am, but still it felt like I was being slothy.

My laundry hasn't figured out how to wash itself (stupid laundry), so I had to do it myself this morning. I managed to watch the two movies I had out of the library that are due back sometime soon. (I can't really remember what day it is, so I'm not sure if I'm already late with them or not. Date has become less important recently.) The fruit and vegetables I've collected as of late were deciding whether or not to teach me a lesson, if they should go bad or hold out for a couple more days to see what I'd do with them. I felt it unkind not to deal with them when I noticed how listless they looked on my counter and on the shelf in my fridge.

(I should mention that yesterday morning I met up with Nathan, Augusten and Lily at the UBC farm to hang out and check out what the farm had for sale this week. I picked up a bunch of radishes, two large tomatoes, a small bag of blueberries, a bag of sugar snaps (or sugar peas if you prefer) and a bunch of kale. Nathan and the kids go weekly to wander around and to see how food grows, and Augusten especially is pretty into growing stuff. They had bannock and jam and we wandered around, looked at the chickens (and when we couldn't see the rooster we assumed the low clucking in the hen house was somehow related, that naughty rooster), checked out the children's plots, and headed home, all done before noon. It was a lot of fun. The produce that I left on the counter from the farm wasn't looking so lively this morning.)

First up were the bananas, which normally I'd throw into the freezer for banana bread cravings, but decided to address them immediately. I have a book out of the library, The modern baker by Nick Malgieri, and flipped through it for suggestions. The cocoa banana muffin recipe looked pretty nice, so I made 18-ish of those, plus two half-sized ones for testing, but since they had to be tasted immediately out of the oven I am reluctant to count them in. They turned out quite nice and I'm going to try out a few more recipes from this book as soon as I get more butter and flour to see if I should buy this for my collection. It has a similar looking cake as the Dorie Greenspan one that I love, the one with the chocolate cake with fluffy white icing, so it already has that going for it.

The remaining fruits and vegetables were dealt with quite easily. The radishes are trimmed for eating, the sugar snaps rinsed (and I've been pecking at them all day), the mango chopped up, the blueberries rinsed and picked through, the green pepper chopped up and ready for something. The kale, though, was a test project since I've never actually made anything with it before. I had seen a mention of kale chips ages ago and it's intrigued me ever since. After I rinsed the leaves, I tore the kale into bite sized pieces, tossed it with a bit of olive oil, salt & pepper and minced garlic, and laid it on a cooling rack set in a baking sheet. In 25 minutes I had crunchy kale chips that I'm not sure are going to last tonight. So tasty. I know I should cook with it since it's a dark green and dark greens are good for you, but it's hard to get into leafy vegetables sometimes.

Oh, I should probably also mention that yesterday was a pretty great day, all around. After I got home from the farm I went to pick up a gift for Terry because it was his birthday. He and Kathy picked me up for his birthday plans, which started at a driving range in Richmond. The Elvi were out in full force, three of them hitting balls with us for a couple of hours, one in a very Elvis outfit: a yellow Polynesian-looking shirt, white slim pants and black ankle boots, finished with the regular Elvis rings and his 1950s shades. Imagine him hitting balls beside you. It was Terry's attempt to add exercise to his life, but he's never golfed before so it was pretty amusing to watch him struggle with directions. We all headed off to meet up with a few more people to see Transformers, which was full of plot holes that didn't let your brain rest for even a second. We went for late night all-you-can-eat sushi after and stuffed ourselves full until we got kicked out. The Elvi are like any other boys' club and large portions of the evening involved them groaning at whatever cheesy joke one of them made. They're a fun bunch, the Elvi. I love listening to the politics of the Elvis Tribute Artist scene; the sketchiness of some promoters always astounds me.

Even with the laziness today, it's been a pretty good weekend.