A local connection

As you know, I'm all about local. But this is different.

Dear friends of ours, Wibby's family, are currently in China to be united with their baby daughter. As I talked with J before they left, I kept feeling all the same feelings that I had when we went to get CiBaby. The neatest part...they are going to the same Province that CiBaby was born, as that is where there little one is from as well (CiBaby from Jingzhou, babyM from Wuxue...opposite sides of Wuhan along the Yangtze River). As I type this post, since they are 12 hours ahead of us, they are either on their way or getting ready to depart for Wuhan, in the Hubei Province. The kicker of the whole thing is that they will have our absolutely fantastic guide, Grant, with them every step of the way. He lead us through the process flawlessly, showed us the sights and talked to us about the Chinese culture. It was a fantastic experience and I only hope the R Family will have the same.

And again to think...a garage sale was the catalyst for a wonderful relationship, and now...a local connection.

Localicious

Thanks to a wonderful little Park & Rec art class for CiBaby this summer, I have 8 whole hours (spread out over 4 days, of course) a.l.o.n.e. Ahhhh heaven. So what did I do on my first day of solitude? I headed on a necessary errand...to restock my spice and seasoning shelves, which of course took me to Penzey's. I could seriously spend a good chunk of time there, but my spice cabinet and pocketbook said "stick to your list!"

With one necessary errand done and about 25 minutes to kill I swung into the Golden Fig store. Seriously, if you love food like I do, love to talk about it with other foodies and have not been there...GO! Okay, so you don't really need to be a foodie, but I'll bet that you'll start to become a very discerning consumer once you've visited this lovely little shop! Local local local...that's what it's all about. I could spend a king's ransom in that shop, but today I settled with 2 fantastic new (to me) items...Golden Fig's The Bees Knees - fresh squeezed lemon juice, water, local honey, local mint and lavender (we used sparkling water as our "mixer") and Extra Dough's Smokey Chipotle pecans (oh.my.god...HEAVEN!!!).

Another item you can find at GF, and our local farmers market, is Sunrise butternut squash fettuccini. While yes, it's light in flavor, you just need to make your toppings light as well. For this reason, and the reason that I have a bunch of produce from our garden and CSA begging to be used, I made up the following...

Summertime Pasta
8 oz Sunrise butternut squash fettuccini
2 Tbsp finely chopped fresh sage
2 cobs corn, kernels cut off
1 medium zucchini
1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, halved or quartered depending on size of said tomato
1/4 cup finely shredded parmesan cheese
sea salt
bacon grease* and/or extra-virgin olive oil

Cook fettuccini as directed, al dente. Once cooked, drain, rinse, and toss with a little extra-virgin olive oil then set aside.

Meanwhile put 1-2 tsp bacon grease or olive oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat and add sage. Saute 2-3 minutes. It will turn crunch. Remove sage from skillet and put into a small, heat resistant bowl. Add corn kernels to the skillet and turn up the heat to medium. Saute 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally. While the corn is cooking, make long ribbons out of the zucchini using a veggie peeler. Toss into the pan with the corn. Add a sprinkle of sea salt and a little olive oil if needed. Cook another 2-3 minutes. Add pasta, toss with veggies and let cook a couple of minutes, basically to just heat the pasta a bit. Turn off the heat, toss in the tomatoes, sage and parmesan cheese; toss to combine. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes...then serve with more parm, if desired.

Seriously, I don't think eating can get any sweeter than local! Totally localicious!

*Yes, I save bacon grease...have I mentioned this before? It's great for flavoring and a little goes a long way.

The smell of a garden

We've had a lot of hot, steamy days with bouts of rain lately, which has made the vegetables plants grow like crazy. So today, while taking a survey of the gardens, I realized it was necessary to tie up the towering tomato plants...again. After I was done, I went inside to wash my hands and the smell came over me...tomato plants.

Funny, isn't it? A particular smell that invokes memories. Memories of summer, the garden, my childhood.

The other day, when it was particularly warm, I had just been working with the tomato plants and decided to join CiBaby in the swimming pool. I jumped in and sat down beside her. She climbed onto my lap and said, "Mama, you smell like tomato plants."

Now my list will include my daughter in the garden with me and her keen sense of observation.

Wickedly good!

Today, T-Daddy and I had a much-needed date, which took us to see Wicked. I can sum up the production in one word...FANTASTIC! The music and singing was awesome, the costumes were great and the story itself is one that really resonates with me...which is basically, don't judge a book by it's cover (sorry, bad pun, but appropriate) or mass review.

Have you ever met someone that other people have warned you about, for reasons you have no idea, but withhold judgement until you meet them? Then once you meet said person you can't put your finger on it, but know that there's something deeper than just what a lot of people see? The facade, will you. Of course, sometimes it isn't really a facade, just a really good paint job...and they truly are certifiable...you know those.

Anyway, if you have the opportunity to see the production, do, but I also highly recommend reading the book (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years)), it's a great read.