She Spills The Beans

Having a Crash

I'm trying to recover from another crash.  I'll be back when I can.

What's In the Box

After I picked up the box last night, I was too swamped with cooking and work to get to this then, so here it is on Thursday lunchtime.

We have in the box this week:

Red Roasting Potatoes (Wonder if these will be as incredibly sweet as the Yukon Golds from last week?)
Sweet 100s Cherry Tomatoes
Nakata's August Red Nectarine (These will probably be the last nectarines I'll eat this year. Where did the season go?)
Soghomonian's (Three Sisters) Ribier Grapes (big, black, seedy and sweet)
Genovese Basil
Romaine Lettuce
Roma Tomatoes
Fair Hills' Gala Apples (I've resigned myself to the fact that apple season is here - I don't like it yet, but I've at least accepted it.)
Baby Leek (Not "leeks" but "leek" - as you can see, there's one diminutive leek in the box. I tucked it into the bag of shallots and onions I have in the fridge because when I went to wrap it up all by itself it looked so lonely. I guess it's because it so resembles a scallion, and both they and leeks usually come in bunches with all their friends...)
White Garlic
Italian Frying Peppers
Italian Zucchini

When I was driving over to get the box I was absolutely exhausted from the day's several long phone calls for work. I had some dal in the fridge, but I'd already had that for lunch, and I was trying to think of what I could possibly manage to make for dinner, considering that at that moment I could hardly stand up.

Once I opened the box I was relieved to see its contents. Summer vegetables are so easy to work with. I knew I had some cooked chickpeas in the fridge - this is like having cooked chicken breasts for an omnivore, I think, in that they can go any which way. I minced some garlic, chopped up some plum tomatoes I'd gotten from Michele on Saturday, a zucchini and some basil from the box, started some water boiling, and in no time was enjoying a little tomato and zucchini stew with chickpeas over whole-wheat pasta.

"A good dinner doesn't have to be complicated," I thought.

Looking at what was in the box, I also decided to whip up some whole-wheat pizza dough, making another iteration, with another small change, to the food processor-kneaded recipe I've been working on perfecting all summer (it's almost there, I swear). By the time I was done with dinner, feeling refreshed and had put the food away, the dough was ready to be made into crusts.

I topped the pizzas with sliced plum tomatoes and frying peppers from the box plus some onions, and a nice layer of fresh mozzarella and Dry Jack cheeses. (I had to photograph this pizza under a mix of incandescent and florescent light, which is not very flattering...I tried the "night portrait" mode on my camera too, but it made the pizza look like a deer in the headlights somehow.)

Sometimes I surprise myself. I thought I was going to come back with the box and be forced to collapse for the evening, but a little dinner and a little rest really helped. When I went to bed last night, I was feeling some of the feeling of tiredness after an active day, which is so pleasant as compared to the all-encompassing exhaustion that I constantly carry around to varying degrees. I can tell today that I pushed myself a little too much, but I'll take it easy and hopefully I'll stay on an even keel tomorrow.

When Chimp came home from work late in the evening, I said, "You only have two choices for dinner. I made a chickpea stew with tomatoes and zucchini, or there's pizza."

"Pizza?!" he said, dropping his bag and heading for the kitchen.

"I knew all you'd do was complain," I told him.

Might Not Post For A Bit

(Squeamish alert: kitchen injury described below.)

I accidentally got some fingertip in the fennel last night (bad hand positioning; I know better but was tired and was not being careful) and my left ring finger is out of service for a while, rendering me unable to touch type. I can still write longhand, but as my Tablet PC died a couple months ago and our scanner no longer has a working driver, that's not much of a posting option.

This is, would you believe, in all the years I've been cooking, the first time I've had a mishap like this. I feel like an idiot, because, as mentioned above, I know better.

The initial adrenaline rush and subsequent stress of the situation were exhausting enough to knock down my functioning a bit - I had to send Chimp to the market today, as I just wasn't feeling well enough to stand up for that long.

So I have been laying low, keeping my hand elevated to reduce swelling, watching cooking shows on PBS (ah, how I love the obsessive-compulsive nature of America's Test Kitchen...makes me feel not so alone in the world...), being grateful for these and generally feeling sorry for myself. Well, mostly for my finger.

Hot Plants

My rosemary is recovering.

I nearly did it in this summer. The combination of July’s heat wave and my relapse – the first of which coincided with and seemed to have a hand in the other – both put forth their best effort to snuff the spiky, resinous life from it.

It had seemed to be holding its own in the heat, and then one morning before breakfast I looked out the kitchen window while washing my hands and noticed it had become yellow, dry, and sickly-looking. Nothing else looked that great around that time either – the sage was getting leggy and sunburned, and even the mint looked a bit peaked. The two basil plants I’d put in the week before everything went south with my health and the weather had looked so green and hopeful when they first went into the ground and had been promptly chewed down to the roots by the local roof rats.

And I, my fever roiling, having lost another five pounds I didn’t have to spare, and only able to summon the energy to shower every third day, caught a dim glimpse of my reflection in the pane's glare as I replaced the oversized cake of olive oil soap in its wood and wire holder with a small clatter and lathered my hands in an unconscious rhythm.

I wasn’t looking so hot either.

I always wanted to grow rosemary, and Fresno was my first real chance. My mother-in-law, a formidable gardener who has the sort of graceful, unstudied-looking yard full of exuberant azaleas and lush greenery that is the result of more than 20 years of diligent, thoughtful work and smart plant choices, told me that in the mid-Atlantic, where I grew up, there are two ways to overwinter rosemary.

“You can bring it inside and kill it, or you can leave it outside and kill it.”

Not so Fresno. I’ve been amazed to see rosemary, huge boxwood-sized amounts of it that clearly take the better part of a decade to grow, acting as a hedge. You could roast all the potatoes in town and not use half of a plant that size. And you can hardly find one – let alone two – ways to kill it. It loves this climate.

So I’ve been growing some in a container since last summer. I probably should have moved it out of the sun somewhat when the heat wave came, but I never had the energy to do it or direct Chimp to do so. Really, he didn’t need another thing to do, what with trying to keep me fed and somewhat comfortable and from constant tears. When I asked him about its fading appearance, he told me he was watering the plants; even constant watering wasn’t enough to prevent ill effects from that streak of 115-degree days.

After the heat broke, after that string of ten days during which I didn’t leave the house, after I got back the ability to sit up, and bathe, and stand for a minute or two, I started watering the plants again from time to time. It wasn’t much of an herb garden this year. It seems like I was too busy with and tired from a schedule full of research projects during the spring, and I hadn’t gotten around to planting dill or summer savory or parsley or cilantro or even basil early on. But I did have what had overwintered – the sage, and the mint, the two kinds of thyme, the Greek oregano, the winter savory – and the rosemary.

Week by week, the rosemary sheds a few more of the yellow leaves it was nearly overcome by. I find them in the chips and on the ground around the container when I turn the hose toward it. I set the sprayer on "jet" to blow out the webs that the spiders seem to love to build in it, and a few more dead leaves come off. The fiercely propelled water raises its piney fragrance, and I run my hands through the plant, plucking off a discolored piece or two and picking up its aromatic gum on my skin in the process. I bring my hand up and inhale deeply.

I’ve seen this plant through a summer and a winter and another summer. Actually, that’s not quite right – I’ve watched this plant through that time, and I’ve given it a bit of supplemental water and a better-than-average soil. It keeps going, den of weaving spiders and heat waves notwithstanding. It is made for this place. I wish such adaptation and resilience for myself.

Trying

I had gotten much better...I was almost there, almost back to functioning. I even took a couple pictures on Saturday when I put most of the day's energy into a massive peach crisp. Then on Sunday night I caught the cold that Chimp picked up during his first week back on campus, and that has laid me up ever since. I am done with the sore throat, on to the massive head congestion segment and am shifting from the sneezing stage to the coughing stage. In terms of my usual personal cold progression, that means I am slightly more than halfway done with this thing.

The peach crisp was delicious. Here are the victims sacrificed for it:

Uphill

I apologize for being absent for so long; I’m on the slow slog back to functioning again.  It gets boring about now – not that it’s particularly exciting to be really, really sick, but at least there are notable and dramatic things to report when really, really sick, like, “I couldn’t manage to sit up for more then ten minutes today.”

Now I’m to that point where I’m able to care for myself and not abjectly miserable but still subpar and subnormal. I went to the office for about four hours yesterday; Chimp drove.  I didn’t feel that tired when I woke up this morning, but I found myself working reclined rather than sitting up, which is probably my body telling me that I did more than I thought.

There are all sorts of great food things going on in the last couple weeks that I haven’t blogged on – we’ve had the miniscule grapes they use to make currants in our CSA box, and I’ve had some phenomenal Rose Concord grapes from Fred Smeds of Savage Island Farm.  It’s fig time in Fresno – the Fig Fest was on Saturday August 12 at the farmer’s market.  We’ve also had a quart box of figs in our CSA box two weeks in a row.  There aren’t many places where you can get local figs. This is about it.

I touched on that when Chimp was unpacking the vegetables and I was putting five kinds of plums into a bowl after a short trip to the farmer’s market yesterday afternoon. I said, “There may be things I don’t like about Fresno, but this is not one of them.”

Never So Cool

Yesterday was up and down. I drove myself to a doctor's appointment - albeit a mile away - and while I was driving for the first time in weeks, thought to myself, "This isn't half bad. Maybe I'm not that sick after all." Then, in the afternoon, when we had just come back from a short trip to the farmer's market, and I stumbled into the bedroom, collapsed on the bed and was lying there whimpering, feeling as if someone had pushed me down a flight of stairs, I thought, "No, I think I might actually still be sick."

The A/C guy arrived around lunchtime, turned on the air conditioner, headed around to the side of the building, and returned in less than 30 seconds to return to say that the compressor wasn't running. He headed back out, and less than a half-hour later, was back to say that the hard start was broken and that he'd replaced it. He turned on the A/C, and sure enough, it was producing cold air.

And it is really producing cold air now. We were actually able to keep the house slightly below 80 degrees yesterday, which I don't think we'd ever previously been able to do on a near 100-degree day.

Toasty

Our air conditioner seems to be broken again.

I suspected it last night, when it was as hot outside as in, but of course, we had turned a burner on for a bit to cook some beans. I suggested to Chimp, rather crossly, I'll admit, that there be no more evening cooking until at least October.

This morning, when our sweary neighbors were out in front of the building swearing and yelling at 11:30 a.m. with their barking dogs (who sound as if they are swearing when they bark), I thought, "What the heck? Let's close the windows and turn the A/C on early today." Yesterday, we hadn't bothered to turn it on until after 2:30, and I thought perhaps that might have been part of the problem.

No, the problem, I think, is that the air conditioner is not producing cool air, and having realized that only late in the evening yesterday and it being bedtime at that point, the house was hot, I had an awful time falling asleep, slept badly when I did, had terribly disturbing dreams, and as a result, am feeling worse today than I had the last few days.

The A/C guy is supposed to come tonight; I went with Chimp and showed my face at the rental office looking particularly pitiful. It is supposed to be at least 100 degrees tomorrow; if our air conditioner is not working, we will have to decamp to a hotel again. Close readers of this blog will remember that an overheated house and the process of moving us and cats to a nearby hotel was what caused my crash on July 22.

I am a container of milk. It is important that I be kept cool.

Now, we lived without an air conditioner and did just fine for three years in Kalamazoo, Michigan, but the average high there in July is 84 degrees, it is always breezy, and there are often these little puffy shade-creating things in the sky called clouds, as well as frequent thunderstorms to cool things down. In Fresno, it's 97 degrees, the sun starts shining in April and doesn't quit until October. Also, I swear, we have a different sun out here, one that has a profoundly sadistic bent.

Of course, in the three years we've lived here, it has never been anywhere near 10 below zero, which I can't say for Kalamazoo. Every place has its advantages.

Tonight we will have lentil salad for dinner. It will not require a burner to be turned on.

More Small Steps

I seem to have mostly gotten out of the pit. The mornings are still quite crummy, and one small outing a day on average (or a little bit less) is enough, but I can sit up reliably now and I’ve managed to do a little something outside the walls of the house each day for the past five days.

Wednesday, as mentioned, we went to the farmer’s market. Thursday, I got my hair cut (though my hairstylist, who can spot the degree of my functioning with great accuracy, took one look at me and said “Oh no.”). Friday, we drove down to my office for a meeting, which took a pretty good chunk out of me. Saturday, we went to the farmer’s market for a few minutes. Today, I didn’t go anywhere, but while Chimp was working on cleaning out the garage, I sat in a patio chair next to the car’s front bumper and cut and flattened boxes for a little while.

Though I’m going in the right direction, I’m not going there at the rate at which I’ve usually done so in the past. I’m just not regaining my strength and abilities at the same speed. It’s not from a lack of rest – I’ve been very good about getting enough sleep. I don’t know why my body is so tired, but it’s still calling on me to really limit my activity. I do not wish for it to punish me any more, so I am continuing to obey it.

It’s boring to do so. You can only read so much. I would much rather go out and take a run – today, being one of the rare temperate days of our summer, would have been ideal for it.

It is hard to be patient.

Leaving Home

Today I left the house for the first time in - yes - ten days. It’s been a long way up from where I crashed down to after the CSNY concert, and there is a long way still to go.

Today’s outing wasn’t for long; Chimp drove and we went to WFM to get some groceries and then to the farmer’s market momentarily for fruit, then back home. I can feel it in my body – when I got home my left shoulder muscles felt spent from carrying my purse – but I can still sit up.

Several team members in Whole Foods said hello to me, as they are wont to do since I am so often there taking their stuff and giving them money for it. Most of them I didn’t even notice until they greeted me, being totally in my own little world of “Is this okay? Am I all right right now?” A few asked me how I was doing. It seems to be pretty apparent from looking at me that something is going on. I said “I’m doing okay” to a couple and told the blonde specialty guy that I was upright, and that was a victory today.

My days throwing 90-pound wheels of cheese around as a specialty person and hustling robustly around the store seem particularly far away right now.

Once we were back home, I could tell I’d made the right call in continuing to work from home. Just that little outing sapped me enough that it was clear driving thirty miles would have been a big mistake.

Just as I had been slowly increasing the amount of time I sat up and marking the change in how early in the day I was able to manage it, I’ve been working on getting back to making myself presentable. In the past couple weeks, there were some stretches of three days at a time there where I didn’t take a shower because I just didn’t have the energy.

Yesterday I got up, took a shower and did my hair, albeit that the hairstyle was a bit of an unambitious and halfhearted one. Today, I managed the shower, the same lackadaisical hairstyle, and got some makeup on too. I still haven’t gotten back to putting in my contacts in the morning. I don’t have prescription sunglasses, so when we went out this afternoon, I put my green vintage cat-eye sunglasses over my very-horizontal modern glasses. It’s a look, I’ll tell you.

I continue to take pictures of our CSA boxes. Perhaps tomorrow’s victory will be a box posting.