A little warm-up exercise

Well, hello, there!

Life has been overscheduled lately, and my blogging muscles are beginning to atrophy. So, here’s a little warm-up exercise to help get me back in gear. Behold, 4 things I love right now:

Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
At the beginning of the year, I decided to read Gone with the Wind at some point, and I began trawling book sales for a good used copy. I found an old edition at the store in town and paid 85 cents for it (original price: $1.50). I brought it to the beach as my only book, and seeing as I usually knock out a book a day there, I figured that I’d get maybe halfway through it by the time we went home. Well. I did a lot more sleeping and ocean frolicking than I planned, because I am barely 200 pages into it. But I really like it! That Scarlett, man! She is a spitfire. I only remember random scenes and lines from the movie, so the book is basically fresh to me. I love how Margaret Mitchell wrote the book after she ran out of books to read, and so far, it’s very enjoyable. I’ve had to dip in and out of it for other reading (book club book, getting Insurgent from the hold list), but I’ll be back on track next week.

Our CSA share
A few years ago, JG and I tried a CSA share at a local farm. The produce we got was great, but the farmers were incredibly disorganized, and the end result for us was stress. Last year, a farm a mile down the road introduced CSA shares, and we went for the full, extended share, which equates to a giant weekly share of produce from May to November. I was nervous about the commitment, but it has been so great! In addition to old favorites like roasted beet salads and garlic scape pesto, JG has whipped up some excellent new things that we have enjoyed, like kohlrabi remoulade and roasted fennel. The farmers send us a little email newsletter every week with what’s in the share and what to do with it, and it’s been a really pleasant experience.

Spilled Milk podcast
When I first got my iPod, I tried listening to podcasts, but I immediately got deluged with a huge backlog and then promptly gave up. Recently, between lots of baking projects and a lack of interesting new audio books for download, I’ve started to listen to podcasts again. My favorite one by far is Spilled Milk, by Molly Wizenberg and Matthew Amster-Burton. They talk for 15-20 minutes on a food topic, sometimes cooking, sometimes taste-testing, and always laughing. I’ve downloaded the entire history and am chugging through it as I frost cupcakes and decorate cookies. My favorite episodes so far are the ones about junk food, but the poached egg episode was quite good, too. I believe that one of the reviews on iTunes goes something like, “It’s hard to believe that something to consists of so much laughing could be so addictive, but that’s how it is.” And it’s true! I find their good-natured banter so cheering, and I do find it very funny. There are times when I laugh so hard that I can no longer maintain a tight grip, like perhaps on a piping bag of icing. JG will find me collapsed over the counter, gasping for breath, tears streaming out of my eyes, piping bag askew, because I am laughing so hard. Molly and Matthew have a certain brand of free association/tangents that reminds me of my sister and me, so I kind of doubt that JG and my BIL would like it, but no matter! If you listen to it and do not find it hilarious, I’m sorry for the oversell. But if you do, it means that we are tuned to the same humor frequency, and we must get together and laugh and laugh (and eat).

Planning for Seattle
JG and I are visiting Seattle for a week of vacation soon, and the countdown is on. I’m still making the final tweaks to our itinerary, which I carefully constructed based on various recommendations, geographical efficiency, and personal preference. Mainlining Spilled Milk episodes has only increased my excitement because they very occasionally mention something that is only list, and then I go ballistic, as if I have influenced this podcast episode. Even though it was recorded over a year ago. Whatever! Still excited! I am crossing my fingers for good weather, but there will be good food, sites, and people, and I can’t wait.

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