csa champions

This year Mr. S and I joined our first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). We're lucky enough that my place of employment serves as a drop-point for our weekly fruits and veggies (though we've seen very few of the former), so all I need to do is bag up our goods and carry them home every Thursday. Easy enough.

Not as easy, however, has been making it through our weekly load before the next one arrives. A bag of green beans, some squash, a bunch of cabbage and the occasional cucumber have ended up in the trash. I hate, hate, hate throwing away food -- especially fresh, organic, delicious veggies. But, considering the Veggie Wasting Tales I've heard from CSA veterans, we've been first-time CSA champions.

We plowed through stir-fry after stir-fry early on in the season (I don't ever want to see cabbage or summer squash again), made it through bowl after bowl of green beans, and managed not to waste a single bit of a vat of cabbage-cucumber-dill salad. We've tried new recipes (that even used the tops of the carrots and that Mr. S actually liked!) and have fallen into a weekly routine of eating the most delicious caprese salads I've ever had straight out of our big yellow mixing bowls. It's been a delicious summer indeed.

The low point was near the end of Cabbage Mania, when I found myself saying out loud "I don't want to do the CSA again next year." But, now that we've moved on to sweet corn (oh heavenly sweet corn, I've never tasted any corn so ripe or delicious as you), basil and six kinds of tomatoes (and started baking the zucchini into bread instead of eating it raw), I'm thinking I want to sign us up again next year.

I mean, when else am I going to eat rainbow chard and kale and discover that the inside of a purple cabbage, when cut just right, looks like a Christmas tree???

the things runners do

Look what running's done to my toe. Have you ever seen anything like it? I haven't. I'm obsessed. Nearly every day I examine it and exclaim about how it's morphed into an even more horrendous iteration of the Most Disgusting Toe Ever. I mean, a month ago, it looked like this:

And a couple weeks ago it looked like this:

Not bad at all, but I was equally obsessed. How naive I was! At least then it still resembled a toe -- now it's just a blackened stub of unidentifiable tissues.

But you know what? I think I'm obsessed because secretly (well, not so secretly anymore) I'm really proud of that toe. It's one of the few outward signs I have of all the miles I've been putting in. A battle scar of the 6am alarms, the 95-degree-heat-index workouts, the sore muscles, the chaffing in places where you least want chaffing, the hours of pounding the pavement.

I've truly enjoyed training for this marathon, and I love running now more than I ever have before. I'm proud of my long runs, my faster times, my hill workouts, and my determination to run every run, even if it means pushing through shin splints and tight quads and sleep deprivation to do it.

I just apologize to all of you who have been, and who will become, victims of this pride as I show off my rotting toe to friends, family and coworkers alike. Thanks for humoring me, thanks for your support, and thanks for not threatening to vomit on my feet if I make you examine The Toe one more time.

You're the best.

friday favorites

Oh Friday Favorites, I've neglected you. And not for lack of favorites, because I have many. Life is good indeed.

- Cruising through the countryside of southern Minnesota with the windows down, Mr. S. in the passenger seat and Wagon Wheel blaring out of the speakers
- Training so hard that I find myself eating lunch at 10am... and again at 2pm... with snacks in between.
- Researching readings and poems and lyrics and sayings, and brainstorming how they'll work themselves into our marriage ceremony (which will take place just ten months from yesterday, by the way).
- Hearing Nathaniel Rateliff at the Turf Club, after Juicy Lucy's at The Nook.
- Having my brother and future sister-in-law in town and sitting around the dinner table with my entire family.
- Knowing that in SIX SHORT DAYS I'll be standing front and center at First Ave as my mind is blown

cactus emergency plan

In my parents' house lives a very large cactus. Seven feet tall and so girthy I can't get my arms around it. My dad drove it home from California about thirty years ago when it was just a wee cactus, not the monstrosity it is today. At Christmas my mom puts red velvet bows all over its prickly branches. It's a special plant.

It also tends to fall over once and while, when it gets too fat and sassy to hold itself up. Then commences a laborious, well-practiced ordeal of wrapping it in a sheet, rolling it outside, trimming it down, re-potting it, rolling it back in and admiring its slimmer self. The best part about the trimming? Lots of baby cacti, all given away to friends and family. Oddly enough, at the ripe age of 25, I've never been on the receiving end of one of these special plants. Until now.

My parents came home from vacation a couple weeks ago to a toppled cactus, and when I went to visit last weekend I brought one of its unruly offspring home with me. It's a wee version indeed, but still required a cart to haul it upstairs, and was met by an inquisitive look from Mr. S. But now it sits in our living room, soaking up the sun, awaiting the day when it will follow in its mothers' footsteps and require us to invent our own Cactus Emergency Plan.

I can't wait to decorate it with little bows come Christmastime.

undercover

Covert grilled cheese delivery? Why can't Minneapolis have something like this? Or, undercover pie delivery? I love food.

double rainbow

Apparently this is old news in the world of internet phenomenons, but it's new to me, so that makes it post-worthy (well, that and the fact that work has been all-consuming and therefore using up all of my writing brainpower before I can get to my beloved little blog).

So if you haven't seen this video, enjoy. I think it's quite amusing. And if you have, well, watch it again.

well-earned

My lunch today? A chocolate-banana shake and "big" Italian sub from Potbelly. My running-packed weekend has me craving ice cream and meat, so this is about as satisfying as a meal can get right now. Over the last few months I've decided that training for a marathon not only earns me the right to eat more than 1,600 calories in one meal, but also the right to nap every day, drink lemonade until my belly hurts, force conversations about running on people who don't really care (and expect endless accolades and appropriately-time astonished gasps), and receive daily foot rubs (I'm still waiting for this last item to materialize).


I just realized you could replace "running-packed," "training for a marathon" and "running" with "gestation-filled," "being pregnant" and "babies" and that paragraph would still make complete sense. Maybe pregnant women and marathoners should form support groups. Or eating clubs.

pie and the likes

All this running has me craving pie like no other. Cherry pie, blueberry pie, apple pie... and other pie-like things, like peach cobbler and rhubarb crisp. If you put a pie in front of me right now I would do some serious damage. And it doesn't help that I work on the Pie Account at work, so I'm looking at gorgeous photos of mouthwatering pies all day long, reading recipe after torturous recipe. Oh pie, you are such a tease.

So, in honor of my (lifelong but currently ramped-up) obsession, here are some inspiring recipes that I just may have to make some time soon...

Cherry Fried Pie and Peach and Blueberry Crumble from Ezra Pound Cake
Peach Cobbler from My Baking Addiction
Rhubarb Crisp from Epicurious
Caramel-Apple Streusel Pie from Pillsbury
Best Blueberry Pie from The Bitten Word

cream is my biffel

I love cream. Oh so very much. One of my favorites foods is Special K topped with fresh peaches, blueberries and honey, with cold whipping cream poured all over. My mouth is watering as we speak. Be still my saliva.

Anyway, while building a list of food blogs for work today, I stumbled across this recipe for Sweet Cream. I've had trouble focusing ever since. All I can think about is getting out of work as soon as possible, sprinting home and whipping this up, eating it with the fresh berries that were just delivered from my farm share. Heaven on a spoon.

If you love cream too, I think you should make this recipe.

That is all.

Wait, no it's not. What's "biffel," you ask? Technically, it's BFFL. Best Friend For Life. I refuse to say "BFF," but I love me some Biffel. Biffel is one of three acronyms I allow myself to use in everyday speech, along with BTW (but only in writing!) and BFD. I only use LOL, OMG and TTYL when mocking.

Fascinating, I know.

hottt

The weather's been hot, the World Cup has been hot, running's been hot, my social life has been hot. I'm hoping all this heat makes up for the cold shoulder I've been giving my blog. Probably not, but hey, I can try.

You know what else is hot?

These. Can you picture them in fuchsia? I can. And it's wondrous.


Also hot? Forlán. Uruguay, I was rooting for you, I really was. But if anyone had to beat you, I suppose the country that hosts one of the coolest cities I've ever been to will do.


Lastly, all this hot weather has turned my rooftop "garden" into Basil Heaven. Sweet, Lemon and Thai, to be exact. And tonight Mr. S. and I are experimenting with the Thai variety. Stir-fry anyone?