the Man who Knew too Little / OnionAV

my year of flops article

Point Break / Onion AV

a new cult canon article

Christmas 2010

Very low-key day. Sara is still out of town, and weather was terrible. It was fun to talk to my grandparents. Dinner was festively colored. With the odd summer we had I probably only got about 40 tomatoes this year, but one of my plants has been producing nicely in late fall...

R.I.P. Kodachrome

I sent off 2 rolls of Kodachrome yesterday. December 30th is the last day it will be developed. Such a pity. The lab that is doing the developing has produced a t-shirt that's pretty cute:

I don't shoot much film anymore, no one does, that's why this is happening... I tend to shoot film on vacations/trips. The film that is being developed is from the Death Valley Trip a while ago, the recent Joshua Tree, and maybe others, I honestly don't remember. Part of the fun...

Garden area, after the Rain

Confused loquats, usually the fruit ripens in May or so, I think this will be ripe before that. It's been such an odd weather year.

I think this is amaranth. It's pretty.

Chanterelle Rarebit

That's what I'm calling this anyway. Decent, but nothing special. Dino kale and a couple of chanterelles, sauce was the solid gold crème fraîche and red sauce combo, on toast.

After the Rain

Rain + Seedlings in 6-packs

Yesterday on NPR they said the storm that is on us right now is the biggest storm to hit Cali in 10 years; it's gonna rain for a week. Rainfall totals at 11am fri/sat/sun at the Goleta Fire Station have been 0.28", 1.56", and 3.52" so a little over 5 inches thus far. I planted a bunch of seeds in the ground at Sara's plot, my plot, and Keely and Eliza's before the rain, and also started some on my patio, some greens in big pots and some veggies in 6-packs: purple peacock broccoli, a more normal broccoli and cauliflower, sorrel, sacred basil, korean mint. All but the herbs are up, and it isn't quite the season for them, but they are from Wild Garden Seed and they are supposed to be cold tolerant, so I'm hopeful that they do come up.

purple peacock, and guess what, the stems are purple...

sorrel

The avos are from R/S/L, the hummingbird sage is from Sara. This pic was supposed to show rain, not sure how you do that with a simple digital camera...

Updates:

another 2.24", 0.39", 1.04", 0.09" by 11am monday/tues/wed/thurs, so 0.28 + 1.56 + 3.52 + 2.24 + 0.39 +1.04 + 0.09 = 9.12"

Garden + Wild Garden Seed of Philomath, OR

Good ol' Philomath

Took some pics in the garden yesterday. Some of my seeds from Wild Garden Seed out of Philomath have come up. When I lived in San Diego we did a batch of home brew and the home brew store sold hops from a farm in Philomath. Philomath has like 3,000 people, so that 2 of it's farms have had an effect on my life is pretty cool. Of course when I was little lots of farms there had an effect on me, but you get the point. Anyway. I ordered 16 seed packets from them-- some kales: red ursa, white russian, lacianto rainbow; 2 mustards: dragon tongue indian, japonica mix; some herbs: sacred basil, great green chervil, santo cilantro, korean mint; veggies: purple peacock broccoli, rutabaga, garden sorrel; summer greens: huauzontle, aurora orach, triple purple orach, brightest brilliant rainbow quinoa.

selective focus, Monarch near Sara's plot

hinges of Sara's gate

sara's plot, pretty bare right now, seeds are planted...

Frank's plot

"Victoria" rhubarb

cress, seeds from Keely

radish, seeds Sara had

garlic, saved cloves from garlic I got from Ventura

Dragon's Tongue, I think

looks good, didn't taste like much

Purple Osaka mustard, old saved seed

potato, I think Dutch Yellow, don't have my notes with me

volunteer arugula patch, epazote in foreground

Hmmm, now that I've labeled the pics I realize there was only 1 pic of a Wild Garden Seed plant. C'est la vie. Last week I planted the 2 mustards, the 3 kales, the rutabaga, chervil, sorrel; there are signs of life from the mustards and the rutabaga. Yesterday I started the broc, basil, and mint in 6-packs. So more pics in the near future....

Rhubarb + Crème Fraîche

Really, really epic. Rhubarb and yogurt is pretty good, hot rhubarb and cold ice cream is very good, cold rhubarb and crème fraîche is divine. I was eating it with just-picked arugula last night while cataloging/organizing my cookbook collection so had sweet, smooth/fatty, and spicy. A really nice night. Note: it's green rhubarb cause it's the "victoria" variety; I realize it's a little weird seeing green rhubarb....

Lipstick Peppers 'n' Peanut Sauce

Homegrown lipstick peppers and leftover vietnamese peanut sauce. Tasty.

Nigella/NPR #3

Heard this this morning. She and Steve were on fire. The moorish bit was hilarious. I just read the transcript, and it doesn't read funny, but damn if they weren't laughing at every other sentence...

Saffron

Our friend Laure gave Sara and me a vial of saffron for our birthday's, which was exciting enough, but there was a great story on NPR recently about saffron, now I'm super excited. Except the Bee is gone for 3 weeks :(

37

So my birthday was saturday. The Joshua Tree trip was kind of a joint birthday thing. We had a joint birthday/garden party last weekend. And then I had a pizza party on thursday, made 3c of water worth of pizza dough. This saturday I gardened for about 6 hours, nice, though I missed the OSU/UofO football game cause I thought it was at 3:30 PST, but it was 3:30 EST.
exotic cheeses? that would be a sweet birthday gift. alas, they are soap ;) c'est la vie.

Soap, shea butter, yoga mat. The yoga mat is awfully nice. the Bee hooked me up. Alas, I got her some slightly ill-fitting bamboo shirts for her birthday. Was on a mini bamboo textile craze this fall. Must do better next year.

Elizabeth brought a french apple cake to the thing on thursday. Luckily there was 1 piece left for me on saturday. Some leftover whipped cream, too. Yum.

Taters, Dino Kale, Butter.

Good dinner last night. Onion/garlic, homegrown peppers, garden-grown dino kale, homegrown red potatoes, "butter" from cooking down slightly old Straus cream.

Joshua Tree 2010

We decided to switch up the Thanksgiving holiday and go to Joshua Tree before it and then work on the holiday and the weekend. Joshua Tree was pretty uncrowded, pretty cold, and pretty. A nice little trip. We stayed the first night at White Tanks campground and then 2 nights at Jumbo Rocks campground. I shot slide film, undeveloped as of yet, and put my full Olympus 1030SW and 750UZ albums on Picasa. Highlights below...

snow in the San Gabriels

windy, rainy in the pass

rainbow when turning north on the 62

from our campsite at White Tanks

my favorite image from the trip

two moon shots

Sara watercoloring in the morning. Not sure which composition I like more.

self portrait

last of the Olympus 750UZ shots. Batteries died. Bummer, it takes better pics.
Evening of the 2nd day, the dots of light on the rock are headlamps of night climbers. It's even crazier than it seems cause it was really cold and windy. Well, in the high 30s and windy... cold for Cali.

frost in the morning...

from our Jumbo Rocks campsite

waves of frost on the roof

sun dog, very cool

i like the shadow

oak, on the rocks in the campground

buckwheat

selective focus

shot up my last roll of Kodachrome, and some ektachrome, as well as the digi crap.

cholla

JT + snowy mountains = happy Seth

lichen = happy S Bee

not sure what makes this guy happy

through this pass was a wonderland of rocks

Eriogonum turning the fields red. Really beautiful. Towards the end of the 3rd day. Sara is in the pic, painting the scene. Maybe we'll add a blogpost of her digi pics and watercolors from the trip.

selective focus

Bee + french press

hot chocolate with the cream top from Straus milk

high desert on the way back

sunset 4th night, most of the way home