I’ve been trying for days to figure out a way to write about this topic without sounding like a scold. Maybe the key is to ask you all (well, the three or four of you left after my various lapses in blogging) — what is it with dinner in America these days? Why is it so hard? Estimates vary, but it now seems that something like 30-50% of American families are not eating dinner together on any given night. I don’t get it. I’m not talking about pulling off some gourmet multi-course meal. I’m just talking about dinner — a…
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I’ve been meaning to write about this article, BACK TO THE RANCH: Consumers are going to the source for pastured beef, pork, poultry and eggs in the SF Chronicle food section since it came out (which to my horror, was a month ago). Anyhow, looks like more and more families in the Bay Area are buying meat directly from ranchers — I’ve written before about knowing your meat, and my astonishment that most Americans are totally freaked out by this idea. When Patrick and I lived in the Bay Area we talked about finding someone to buy a side or…
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Look what I found once the frost killed off all the foliage — a zucchini as big as my leg! I thought I’d done a pretty good job keeping up with them but this one was lurking in the back, hidden by the cucumber trellis. I may try to save some seeds from it — for now I just pose it places and take pictures. The garden is pretty much done. My other big surprise of the season was these beautiful raddiccio heads. I took them to a party where first we admired the pretty colors, and then the visiting…
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It’s an odd week here at LivingSmall — September 11 rolls around once again and I can’t help but remember calling Patrick, who was in the truck on his way to work. He hadn’t wanted to wake me up before he left, just after the first plane hit. We were on the phone together when the first tower fell. Seeing all the footage makes me miss him. He was the person I knew I could call any time, and we all need that person in our lives, the one we know we can pick up the phone when something happens.…
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Things have gotten more interesting on many fronts, including the food front, here at LivingSmall, because we have a new sweetheart — we’ll call him the Mighty Hunter (MH). He hunts, and fishes, and pounds nails and cooks, and one night last week he called to say he was going to cook me dinner. “Great,” I said. “What are we having?” “Antelope liver,” he answered. When there was a long pause on my end, he said “Is that all right?” I’m not big on organ meats, but I’m game, so I said sure, but suggested that maybe we might need…
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Heading into week two of vacation and just beginning to feel like a human being again. I was tired. Run down, dragged out, wrecked kind of tired. And now I’m looking at a lovely summer day stretching out before me and thinking that the hammock sounds good, and a book. I should probably mow the lawn at some point, but it’s a small lawn, that’s ten minutes of activity. That’s enough. It’s summer vacation.
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The garden is finally starting to come in this summer. I’m on vacation for 2 weeks, and I spent a lovely morning the other day puttering in the vegetable garden. I pulled out all the peas, which did really well this year, but which were starting to get woody. The tomatoes are starting to pop after a couple of days of hot weather — it really takes until August to get a tomato around here, but once they get past that 6-inch stage it feels like summer’s really begun. I have a lot of greens, and more onions than I…
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They’re back! It’s spring in the Greater Yellowstone area, and the bears are awake and afoot. Some of you may remember that the dogs and I had a little encounter last year (see Not the Top of the Food Chain, and Bear Update). Well, this year it was three local girls, who got pinned up in Suce Creek for two or two and a half hours by a grizzly. They were hiking, they saw the bear, the bear charged and they all yelled at one another to drop and cover their necks. They dropped to the fetal position, covered the…
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I spent my long weekend painting the two grotty little bedrooms in the basement, and turning one of them into an office. I also install chair mats for office use for safety and comfort. It was one of those projects that, for much of the weekend, felt like I’d never get to the other side of it. First I had to move all the furniture out of those little rooms — I’d been using one as a guest room, so other than moving a queen-sized mattress by myself, it was pretty simple. But the other room I’d been using as a…
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When I was in France a couple of years ago, we shopped in the local ville most nights. it was more expensive than going to the big Carrefour warehouse store, but it was much more convenient and we liked the idea of supporting the local economy. Plus the butcher was loquacious and fun to visit, and despite his heavy Provencal accent, after a few days, I began to understand him and could converse a little. It was a lovely store — not only cuts of meat, but any number of prepared foods as well, and if you wanted to buy…