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Monkey Monday: back in the States edition 9 July 2007 8:56 am

Posted by Tracy in : anthropology,cooking,eating,garden,travel,work , trackback

Dear readers!

I had a fabulous vacation, (for pictures see here) and now it’s good to be home, even if my brain is so busy thinking about the trip that I hardly know where to begin writing even on just the TracyFood-related ideas. Good thing it’s Monkey Monday, and I can ease myself back into daily posts with a little stream-of-consciousness.

After three weeks, the garden is completely out of control, but awesomely so. Two key words: spaghetti squash. A few more words: I need to weave some more twine between the bean poles so the scarlet runner and blue lake pole beans have more places to grow. Better than words are meals: Since getting back from our trip super-early on the 6th (Peter’s birthday!) we have already eaten Sungold cherry tomatoes, Dragon’s Tongue heirloom bush beans in a garlic-balsamic-honey glaze made with homegrown garlic (so awesome!), and stir-fried snow peas with tofu. (If you like things numerical, it was well over a full pound of beans and 10 ounces of the snow peas, some of which were going all sugar snap.) Also there may have been just a few more red currants, yay!

Remind me to do more research on red currants and why I’ve never seen them for sale in any stores in the U.S.

Speaking of things not sold in the States (and which go great with red currants), I will soon be putting my harvest-quantifying tool (i.e. kitchen scale) to work on a few recipes from my Dutch Wannee Kookboek in the hopes of approximating vla pudding. Yum.

I am fascinated by the weird and subtle differences between U.S. and Dutch supermarkets and other food stores, but I will try not to bore you with them too much.

Also I must write about krentebollen, one of my personal madeleines de Proust.

I thought I had about a week’s worth of entries about why I’m the world’s worst vegetarian before this trip, but now that estimate must very much be revised upwards. Eek.

On the “no, really, I do more than wish I was still on vacation” front, it’s the week before Oregon Country Fair, which means I’ll finally have a chance to answer a burning question stuck to the cash register at Morning Glory:

Are you ready for an assload of hippies?

Again, eek. Not as “eek” as checking my cell phone messages a few hours ago to hear that I was expected at work on “Sunday the 9th” — but since there’s no such date this month, it was still okay when I called in all panicky to hear that nope, I’m supposed to be in at 10 today, which is no problem at all. I guess it’s good I’m still jet-lagged and not used to Oregon summer temperatures after the past three weeks’ relative cold and wet in northern Europe, with the effect that I’ve been waking up at around 6:30 in the morning and rolling with it and staying up just to enjoy a few non-sweltering hours (a choice so unlike my usual sleep-loving self that I actually took my temperature at one point to make sure I wasn’t feverish). Which is why I’ve managed to write and post this little entry so bright and ugly for a change!

All right, off to the job. Please comment if you’re particularly interested in any of the random half-formed thoughts mentioned above, or else I’ll be forced to keep writing about whatever captures my attention first.

  • http://www.allchiara.com Chiara

    Yes, interested in all of the above–especially about the differences between Dutch and American supermarkers. (DO THEY REFRIGERATE THEIR EGGS, THOUGH?)

  • http://soy.dyndns.org/comics Penny

    I’m interested in the difference in supermarkets (hi, can you tell that I forget to read and then read a bunch? it’s true).