Forest fires are a huge drag when they’re happening, although I have to say last summer as we watched this column of smoke rise behind Livingston peak, we were thinking of morels. The Jungle Fire was scary — it roared down seven miles of drainage in an afternoon — my friend Scott who was over there covering it for the paper said it sounded like the loudest jet engine you’ve ever heard. And yet, a few months later, here’s what’s happening in the burn — morels. Lots of morels. I went up early yesterday morning and it’s fascinating up in…
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Look what I found at the dog park this afternoon! I’ve always wanted to find a Giant Western Puffball, and I found two! They were a pound or so each, and the size of a grapefruit — growing right there in the long grass in the woods — so I snatched them up and brought them home. Where I cleaned off the edges where the dirt and the bugs were (a few maggot holes, but nothing like the boletes later in the summer). then I sliced them up, brushed them with olive oil infused with the parsley/basil I put up…
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We had several big forest fires here last summer — and while all that smoke and destruction was awful, in the wake of a fire, come the morels. Morels. Yummy, yummy morels. I went up last weekend and only found a few. Eight, to be exact. Here they are: And then on Monday, the MH went up and found the big pile in the first picture. We’ve had three warm days since then, and I plan to go back out on Saturday, when I don’t have to work. It’s a big burn, and if things don’t dry out too much,…
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We’re knackered here at LivingSmall — the Real Job is a little crazy — back soon.
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Here are the first roses of the spring … Therese Bugnet, I think — I’m terrible about putting the markers in the ground. The cranesbill geraniums in the background are starting to bloom and the Iris that my friend Andrea gave me a couple of years ago have finally really come in. They’re huge and gorgeous this year. So, the weather warmed up, and the flowers are starting to bloom, and just about everything survived our little snowstorm. I think I lost one or two cucumbers, but I have plenty and can afford to lose a couple. The peas and…
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Sam over at Becks and Posh did a little comparison shopping, and discovered to her surprise that by shopping at the Farmer’s Market last weekend, she saved 29% over what it would have cost her to buy the same items at the supermarket. Considering that she was shopping at Ferry Plaza Market, what’s so exciting about this is that Sam’s also been keeping track of her food expenditures all year — and what she’s finding is that for ordinary produce shopping she’s ahead by going to the market. I’ve shopped Farmer’s Markets for 20 years (scary, that thought — I’m…
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When I bought those peaches in the grocery store the other day? Well, I know what I was thinking — I was thinking that I needed some fruit for breakfast, and since oranges are really going out of season (I know, they’re not local, but it’s not perfection we’re after here at LivingSmall), I thought I’d give the apricots, peaches, and plums that had just come in a shot. I lived in the Central Valley long enough to learn that at least they’re coming into season there, and stone fruit from California seemed less egregious than grapes from Chile, so…
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I made two skirts today and I made them without patterns! I used this great book — I hate patterns. I hate the tissue paper. I hate the fussiness of the directions. But I’ve also gotten very tired of spending fifty or sixty bucks on skirts that seem to have two seams and an elastic waist. Now, I’m by no means a seamstress, but even I can sew a skirt with two seams, an elastic waist, and a hem. So here’s the deal — I’m short. I’m not skinny. And I like clothes that don’t look like what everyone else…
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My next door neighbor and I have not always gotten along very well. We both have dogs, and her George and my Raymond play a particularly annoying game of barking-along-the-fenceline. It’s been a source of some tension, but the last few months at least, thing settled into just cool instead of our previous state of low-level hostility. Saturday, I was walking back from the hardware store when I ran into Mike, who lives on the far side of S.’s house. Turns out that part of the reason S. has been so cranky lately is that her mother is dying and…
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This morning, the food section of the San Francisco Chronicle covers the conflict between Carlo Petrini and the Ferry Plaza Market farmers. There’s a really interesting conversation going on in the comments over at Steve Sando’s blog — Sando, who runs Rancho Gordo is one of the farmers who sells his stuff at Ferry Plaza, and he’s on the board for the non-profit market. He also is one of the folks who met with Petrini when he was in town last week promoting the upcoming Slow Food Nation event next Spring. Petrini has a book out, and was supposed to…