Summer begins

It's officially summer now. For the first time in years, central Kentucky kids are out of school before Labor Day. In celebration, I'm at my Berea listing letting in some fellows for a termite treatment. Somehow my sellers and I forgot to communicate about the alarm code. Oops. If there was ever a doubt, sound can definitely be used as a weapon AND a cardio workout. My heart rate is just now returning to normal levels.

I went to my last middle school honors day yesterday at Morton. Will received an award for Academic Excellence for having a "4.0 All Year" and awards for Science and Geometry. We're so proud but I really thought it would be more appropriately announced as a 4.0 for the final day of the grading period when he managed to bring his grades in a couple of his classes up to an "A."

I'm looking forward to not having the discussion for the next few months about why we expect him to have all "As." Why? Because you can.

Oddly, I've never had that conversation with Mary Rollins.

And so, next year Will is off to high school. He'll be in the Liberal Arts Academy at Henry Clay, otherwise known as "The Academy.". Fortunately Will has linked together that good grades in high school equal scholarship dollars for college so perhaps he'll motivated for a more proactive approach to homework.

One way to wash a cat...

Adventures with Vegetables

Admittedly, not a single one of the photos included here contains a vegetable. Unless you consider rhubarb to be a vegetable and, well, I just googled it and it is so I now retract that statement there is a vegetable here it's just hiding under a crumbly top of butter, oats and brown sugar.

We are on Week 3 of our Greeley Farm CSA and I couldn't be happier. We were in New York for the pick up time of week 2 so my old friend Marian (she's not old, just our friendship) picked it up for me and she got to enjoy and share the bounty of my half-bushel basket. That made me happy although it was painful to have to buy conventional store lettuces last week. This week I've added some beautiful eggs from Farmer James into the mix. I scrambled some yesterday morning and what a difference it was. I'm going to hard boil some with some regular eggs and then do a blind taste test to make sure I'm not suffering from a CSA bias.

This week's basket included strawberries so becoming that I bought a spare second quart James had in his truck. It seemed a good decision since we ate the first quart in about 2 minutes with some homemade whipped cream.

We also have rhubarb this week, more bok choy (apparently they had a lot of bok choy at the Transy cafeteria this week as Marc was really elated to have missed dinner at home last night when MR and I ate one and half pounds by ourselves. He said, "please don't say another word about bok choy, I'm sick of it), chinese cabbage and green onions and a lettuce mix.

I hadn't cooked rhubarb before but I just whipped up the crumble below. and it couldn't have been easier. It's adapted from Mark Bittman recipe.

1.5 lbs of fresh rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 tsp of cinnamon
cup of brown sugar (I might use Splenda or stevia next time)

Toss in a bowl and put in a Bybee baking dish (or any oven-safe 8 or 9 inch round dish)

Then put into food processor:
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup oats
1/2 tsp of cinnamon
2/3 cup of brown sugar
5 tab. of cold butter cut into pieces.
1/2 cup of chopped hazelnuts (any nut would do I think)
Pulse the food processor a few times and spread on top of the rhubarb in the baking dash.

Bake at 400 for approximately 35 minutes.   

Rhubarb Crisp

My basket (in case you didn't know, which I didn't, those long things
that look like celery stalk on the top right are the rhubarb).

Milestones or maybe mileage is a better title...

Dearest Blog friends (and Dad),

There has been much quietness on the blog since last week because there's been so much excitement in real life.  Mary Rollins turned 16, we went to New York to celebrate (saw Isabug and David -- on break from Rock Stardom for a night, had fabulous time, want to see some pictures?), returned home, and Mary Rollins got her driver's permit.

What I really want to write about is driving with a new driver.  It makes me twitch, as in, "Mom, could you please stop twitching?"  I can't help it.  It's not my leg sore from trying to phantom brake as I have been warned of; it's trying to control the impulse to grab the steering wheel.  All right, I'll admit, I have grabbed the steering wheel.  Trust me, there was good reason.  I don't think those walkers on Lakewood realized just how close to the grim reaper they were.  It's getting better each day though and yesterday we tackled Alumni Drive and two left turns across traffic.

On Friday, as she went for her very first drive after passing the learner's permit test, I said, "You know what?  I don't know that I put on enough deoderant this morning, Mary Rollins."

Her response, "Me either."