Disjointed pieces

I walked to work this morning, knowing that I wouldn't make it to the gym with farm pickup afterward. It's not enough (I need more intensity, and more range of motion work, too), but better than nothing. A few notes from the walk:

• The drains on the outbound side of the pepperpot bridge were being snaked. I never thought about how they could become clogged, really.
  
• Overheard: one man saying to another, "The one reason a woman would..."
  And just that bit was enough to raise my hackles.
  
• Cloud reflections on the Hancock Tower in the morning, looking from the Public Garden, are pretty neat. I should bring a camera with me sometime.

Some politics: someone forced out of government for not whitewashing data (written up by Fairdice), and Hauntmeister's prediction for why we're in Iraq, version X (Bill Moyers had the right idea (Thanks to Hammercock, among others, for the link.)).

And the government is starting to address the issue of petrol use, given the skyrocketing prices. A campaign to encourage driving less, alternate-fuel cars, or buying smaller cars? No, requirements for the industry to make cars and light trucks (read: SUVs) more fuel efficient. Which makes me wonder why car makers wouldn't automatically make engines as efficient as possible without government requirements. And why people continue to buy gas-guzzlers. The connection doesn't seem to be made in people's heads, according to the poll cited at the end of the article: "A poll conducted earlier this month on behalf of the Associated Press and America Online found that only about 7 percent of those surveyed blamed motorists driving gas-guzzling vehicles for today's high energy prices. Instead, some 30 percent of those surveyed blamed oil companies greedy for profits." While I'm not assuming that the oil companies have my best interest at heart, I can't imagine how anyone could see doubling prices as only adding profits. Finite supply, infinite demand? War in oil-producing regions? Easily-extracted oil mostly gone? I suspect these have something to do with it...

Farm share, week 11

• two hot peppers (I got ones that were narrow, long, and red, but there were a variety of shorter and greener ones.)
  
• two sweet peppers (long red ones as well, but larger)
  
• a watermelon (I took a yellow one yet again.)
  
• 2.5 pounds of tomatoes (I got a mix of brandywine and 'plain' ones.)
  
• two pounds of potatoes (All with red skins, but some are white inside, and others are yellow.)
  
• a head of celery
  
• a bunch of edamame (still on the stalks)
  
• a head of garlic
  
• a stalk of broccoli

ETA, 0830 8/25 Red Fire Farm won some Massachusetts tomato prizes: best slicing tomatoes (Jet Star), best cherry tomatoes (Matt's Wild Cherry), and second best heirloom tomatoes (Brandywine). This weekend is the farm's tomato festival, if anyone else out there is a tomato addict...
Plus, I didn't know MA is 18th in tomato production (52 million pounds). I don't tend to think of MA being a big agricultural state, really.

Food, again, and two gripes

The last few weeks farm share has included watermelons. I keep thinking I should make watermelon pickles with the rinds, because, well, I can, and here I've got organic watermelon rinds (after I cut the inside into chunks to chill and eat over the sink). However, I'm not a huge pickle fan, so I'd never figured out how I'd use watermelon pickle. Until I read a number of recipes that included the option of adding crystallized ginger. Vinegar, sugar, spices, and ginger... Aha! It's really watermelon chutney, and that makes it much more useful. (Odd how the brain works.)

I cut up this week's watermelon. It's perfectly ripe, which is why it split in that satisfying way as soon as I put the knife in, with a little *snap* as the rind split. The sensation is rather like slicing a really fresh white mushroom, with a bit more sound effect. Both are pleasing. After putting the watermelon chunks in the fridge, I peeled the rind, and set that on the stove to boil. (In previous weeks, I'd followed the recipe instructions that have you peeling the rind after boiling, which is an extremely frustrating task, as the texture has changed from firm to bendy. Which is why I never got around to the pickling part of it before this week.)

In the interlude while the rind boiled, I pulled out the large bouquet of soybean stalks, and started pulling the soybeans off. It requires more force than picking berries or peas, and they can hide in the similarly-green leaves. I like doing it, despite the time it takes, as it puts me at the end of the harvesting chain, rather than just the end consumer. I have only one large pareve pot, so I'm not boiling them tonight, but it'll be much quicker tomorrow or Friday now that they're off the stalks. Mmm... edamame.

Back to the watermelon. After it boiled enough, I drained it, and diced it up. Recipes made a point of saying how you could cut it into whatever shapes you want, but who's going to take the time to cut fancy shapes in limp watermelon rind? Back into the pot it goes, then drained again (it's not for nothing it's called watermelon). I added enough cider vinegar to barely cover, plus a mixture of white and dark sugars. I diced a number of rounds of crystallized ginger and put that in. The smell was not really complex enough, so I just added a touch of nutmeg and cayenne, on a whim. Soon I'll have a couple of half pints of watermelon pickle/chutney... suggestions for how to use it are welcome.

I got a number of new foods on a whim Friday. Mini-reviews:

• Primal Spirit Food's Soy Primal Strips (meatless jerky, available at Harvest) were fairly good. The texture is stringy like dried meat (in the right way for jerky), but I thought the flavorings a bit uni-dimensional. Texas BBQ was too sweet, and Hickory Smoked was too unrelievedly spicy. They were still pretty good, and I'll likely get some to keep at work, probably trying some of the other flavors (seitan and shiitake based). The one definite drawback is that the packaging is a pain to get open, requiring much force.
  
• Elliott Bay Baking Company's European Tea Biscuits (available at Filene's Basement (?)) are low-key pleasant. I tried two flavors, lavender vanilla and lemon ginger, and I think the flavors are a bit too subtle, especially in the former. That said, they're decent in a pinch, designed for dipping (perhaps the flavors are muted to keep from fighting with tea/coffee flavors?), not very sweet, and have the advantage of being pareve as well.

---

My building has two largish trash bins, and have had them for a couple of years. Today, we were informed that they are too large, and must be replaced. They've only now decided it's a problem?
(Definitely time to clear out my car, to fit enough new bins/barrels/whathaveyou in the car.)

I got an email from one of the other people in the building, asking me if it was ok to have put five boxes in my storage unit until October, since my area is empty. Which is not a problem (obviously, I'm not maximizing my use of the storage), but it bothers me that they asked only after the fact. (Not that it changed my answer. Nor did I manage to say I'd prefer to have been asked in advance. Sigh.)