Bookworm

The first cold Saturday of fall, a book sale at the library, some interesting fashion choices, and a happy reader with her arms full of books.

Raspberry Bento

Raspberries; local pears; whole grain apple and cheddar flax mini-muffins; broccoli; grape tomatoes; shrimp & carrot curls on spring greens; whole grain oatmeal raisin cookie in the middle. R loves shrimp, and it's been working well this school year, putting them in her lunchbox frozen and with an ice pack. They're thawed by lunch, but still in the safe temperature zone.

DeLaney Farm Brunch

Farm-to-Table brunch this morning at DeLaney Farm in Aurora. They made breakfast burritos with produce from their own fields. It's an historic farm started by Irish immigrants, who deeded their land to the city as open space and a place to grow food. A lot of labor, paid and volunteer, goes into growing food on this farm, donating it, and delivering it to CSA members.

This is how you would make salsa if you had a whole field full of heirloom tomatoes. It was amazing.

We got there really early and staked out a table. When they started serving breakfast, we put our coffee and orange juice cups and a jacket & bag at each seat to hold our place. We came back from getting burritos to find people sitting at our table, our drinks gone, and our stuff swept into the dirt next to the table. I tried not to let that ruin my morning, but it was hard. I didn't feel like taking pictures for awhile, so I don't have any of the breakfast.

My high school friend T, the most talented gardener I know, came with us. Everything is more fun with him. He brought an elegant carpet to sit on and his iPad and speakers with music, and we set it up in the dirt and had a great time anyway.

After brunch, we walked out into the fields and saw their bee houses.


I got so many good ideas, from signs to smart ways to stake tomatoes. They do rows of fencing with tomatoes tied to each side, and also a single stake or rebar for each plant, with the main stem tied to it with plastic ties, and the rest pruned away.

Aurora peppers, which turn purple-black when ripe, and are supposed to be insanely hot.

T had just been telling us about Indigo Rose tomatoes, which he tasted for the first time at his community garden. He was blown away by how sweet and smoky they are. And then we saw them in the field. They are truly purple.

Once we got past the table-stealers, everyone was so friendly and happy to be there.

Onions and greens.

 . . . and pumpkins!

September Harvest

Such a long dry summer for a yard and gardens that are all hand-watered. No rain, week after week into months, and hours of hand-watering weren't enough. We will have to figure out something else next year. Eggplants surprised me by being  more resilient than tomatoes. Rosa Bianca and Listada eggplant, and the long purple Japanese eggplant kept producing all summer too.

September is harvest month, and we still have some tomatoes. This was a year of early hail storms that stripped seedlings to the stem, and an unusual explosion of hungry rabbits. And then waiting all summer for rain and watching for the monsoon season, which never came.

Still, we got some gorgeous eggplants.

Last Long Weekend of Summer

Freedom is sweeter after a couple of weeks of school.
 

9th Birthday Family Party

 On R's actual birthday, we had her family party.

This year she wanted garlic bread, "frozen lasagna from the store," cherry tomatoes, peaches and "NO other vegetables, no salad or sides at all" for her birthday dinner. I put fresh basil on the lasagna but she picked hers off. Sparkling water and fresh raspberries in the champagne flutes.

She wanted red velvet cake with pink frosting. She examined her cake when she got home from school and said, "Hmmm, the sprinkles are a surprise. I guess I like them. I know those flowers are eatable, but is it ok if I don't eat them?"

Flowers from the garden.
I am really not good at photographing dark red in lamplight.

My brother, her Uncle D, likes to taunt her with a nickname he made up just for her. She wanted me to take a picture of her getting mad while she read the card from his family.

Some how-to-draw books, the Wolf Almanac, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by request, some more people and furnishings for her dollhouse, ("I always get Calico Critters, but I would like to branch out into people this year!") and a pocket full of grandparent cash. Such a lucky and well-loved little girl.

Happy Birthday to our sweet nine year old. Last year in the single digits.

Shrimp Flower Bento

Whole grain bruschetta; grapes; raspberry apple galette, blueberries & raspberries; shrimp on spinach with home-grown Japanese Black Trifele tomatoes and grape tomato; cocktail sauce; edible flowers (borage, geranium, marigold & nasturtium).

Charlie Has a Doppelgänger

Our neighbor friend S just got a border collie puppy named Dexter. He is four months old.

Ears! I forgot how they have to grow into those. I think Charlie's were even bigger.

R appreciated his fuzzy puppy coat.

S thinks he will be more on the brown side when he grows up. But for now it's like an optical illusion. We couldn't stop laughing.

8.27 Bento Lunch

Cheddar with turkey pepperoni; raspberries and grape tomatoes; carrots and Kashi cheddar crackers; apples, blueberries, and apple-blueberry whole wheat galette; clementine slices.

When Life Gives You Apples

Our generous neighbor B gave us all the organic, unsprayed apples from her tree that we could pick. After we got home from raspberrying yesterday, we climbed ladders and D got on the roof and we filled bag after bag after box with apples. Some of them will go to the food bank when I work my shift there on Thursday, and I'll can some and freeze some.

But today I made pies. I found this little pocket pie mold from Williams Sonoma at a thrift store over the summer. It seemed like the pies looked better when I cut out the apple shapes and pressed them together by hand, sealing with fork tines, rather than using the press. Here it is (above) unbaked, with egg wash and sprinkled with turbinado sugar . . .

 . . . and here it is hot from the oven.

I made some little free-form apple galettes, just the right size for a lunchbox.

Some gallettes had blueberries, and I made a batch of pocket pies with a whole wheat crust.

And one full-size apple galette, with some of the raspberries we picked yesterday. I dropped some pies off as a thank you to our wonderful apple neighbors, we'll eat the raspberry version tonight, and the rest I'll freeze to pop into lunches. And now I really do have a lot of canning to do.

Raspberry Picking

On Saturday we drove to Hoot 'n Howl Farm, just outside of Boulder, to pick some raspberries.



The first week of school is always hard for me. I miss my little summer companion. It was nice to have her back all day long for the weekend.

I think D likes it too.

Western slope berries. And a kind dad, who says yes when his daughter says "Would you hold my pink bag for me?" That didn't stop me from making fun of him.





The farm is a wonderful place. It seems like such a labor of love. You can walk right out into the fields and pick, following the signs for which rows are open. Then you weigh your produce and pay for it on the honor system, putting cash into a little tin can. They had heirloom tomatoes and beautiful vegetables, apples and peaches for sale at their honor system farmstand. Now R knows where raspberries come from, and what hard, hot, thorny work it is to fill one of those little supermarket clamshells. And I have a lot of canning to do.