Week 4: growing

• I harvested and froze the cilantro – if it doesn’t grow back, we’ll dig it up and put something else in its spot.
• The lettuce is nearing the point of microgreens, so we plan to thin it this weekend.
• Three budding strawberries!
• The onions are sending up shoots of green – I planted them on a whim without being responsible and starting them indoors 60 days ahead of time.  I figure if by the end of the summer we have onions, awesome.  If not, I’m out about $1 in seeds.

Week 4: eating

• Scrambled eggs with chard for breakfast – Mina liked the chard!
• A couple of delicious but non-local meals complemented by asparagus (grilled, alongside grilled chicken and halloumi, and blanched, alongside chicken poached in vodka tomato sauce with penne)
• Farmers’ market strawberries used in homemade ice cream – our first batch with the new Cuisinart was amazing.

I’m taking two summer classes, so from now until the end of June our culinary experiments will be primarily in Shane’s hands.  I told Shane last night that all this reading about local food (Plenty, Food Politics, The Farm to Table Cookbook) has me really excited about the change of seasons, the wonderful diversity of food options that will be available in a few weeks, and reaping the benefits of this diversity and surplus to provide for meals many months in the future via canning, freezing, making jam, etc.  I’m especially excited and hopeful that there will be more aha! moments with food, where we both will discover that things we thought we didn’t like we didn’t like just because we’d only known the pale supermarket version.

And with that, off to the market!