I should mention that I was more or less a vegetarian at the time, but I’m not one to pass up a new food experience and joined in the meal.  Good decision.  Not only was the beef mad-cow free, it was delicious.  Delicious is almost too trite a word.  It was cooked so that there was a nice browned portion on the outside, and the middle was warm but rare enough to be sushi-like in texture, and amazingly tender.   I’ve had my share of great cuts of beef before and since, but they are shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave compared to the memory of that meal.

When I get into story-telling mode about the trip, I’ve always mentioned the paper, the noseprint and the inspection, and wondered aloud if, perhaps, it was Kobe beef.  Imagine my surprise when one of my favorite bloggers posted this familiar-looking certificate.  Mystery solved.

A few weekends ago we went to Sidney to visit Deejay and Dani, and while we were walking to dinner we noticed an arcade that was shutting down and putting its machines up for sale the following day.  The Galaga/Ms. Pacman machine was what drew Amos in for a closer look, and it was indeed a beauty.  But.  They had a Simpson’s pinball machine for sale as well.  I’ve wanted a pinball machine since I was a kid, and the Simpsons is one of my favorites.

I fell in love with it at the RePlay in Lawrence, KS.  Its field is well-designed and you don’t have to be Tommy to enjoy a game.  Plus, the nuclear reactors light up!

The best part: it’s practically new and was on sale for half of what the guy originally paid.

We walked back to Deejay’s house and I checked our reserves.  I could cover half of it with funds from my “mad money” account, and Amos was an easy sell on the rest.  Lifelong mission: accomplished.

Amos brought it home the next weekend, and with some help from Tina and Aaron, we got it set up and in the house.   Since then, I have been a pinball wizard in training.  In a rare feat, I beat out not one but TWO of Amos’s high scores this weekend.  Perhaps some residual flu virus (which had me down Thurs/Fri/Sat) sharpened my concentration.

For those of you who don’t know, Amos and I got married on my birthday, so we’ve since referred to 9/29 as my “birthday-versary.”  Next to getting hitched, I think this is my favorite birthday-versary present.  I would *so* much rather have a pinball machine than the equivalent value in jewelry.  Is that weird?

This year, though, armed with All New Square Foot Gardening, brand new raised beds, and a renewed desire to avoid the grocery store, we’ve tried again.  (Google docs spreadsheet here for those interested.)  My friend Julee came up and generously spent a couple of days helping me jump start this backyard farm.  I was going to e-mail her these pictures, but then realized that I hadn’t posted on this blog in darn near a month.  Here it is:

Middle bed

East bed (with sad-eyed, vegetable-loving hound dog, who gets hollered at every time he tests the plants for flavor)

Julee brought along “multiplier” onions, originally brought over from the old country, according to family history.  She plunked them in the ground the day before she left and I wasn’t entirely sure they would grow.  As it turns out, they were just waiting for about two inches of rain, which came over the weekend.

I've got onions, they're multiplying.

They went from zero to six inches seemingly overnight.  It may be that it’s not oppressingly hot out yet, or it may be that I’m just getting old, but I love going out each morning to check on my little plants.  I am especially excited about checking the rain gauge the day after a storm.

In case you’re curious there is no photo of the hops/spinach/basil bed because the hops is looking a little scraggly and, being female and a bit self-conscious, they didn’t want their photos all over the internet (boy, are they lucky there’s no Facebook for flora.)  When next year rolls around and the vines don’t have a transplanting hangover, they’ll make their internet debut.

I’ll do my best to make progress reports.  We should be sampling some of the lettuce crop in the east bed’s cell D6 this week, and the cats have already been enjoying the fresh catnip garnish on their kibble this week.

The stucco repair work on the garage is nearly done, and we spent Sunday cleaning it out. Everything went back in with room to spare.  It’s like having a new garage instead of the decaying, falling-down hovel it once was.  It’s a good thing that tree fell on it.

Related to garage-cleaning: if you want a 1970s blue three-speed Schwinn appropriate for people up to 5’10″, please let me know. Otherwise it’s going on Freecycle.

A nice lemon shade, perhaps?

A bright, cheery yellow.

As promised, here’s a brief write-up on the bread-making experiment.  To my great delight, it worked almost exactly as advertised.  I’d made bread before (ciabatta-style) with a kneaded dough and while that was OK and the end product very tasty, it did require me to be near the kitchen and at my timer’s beck and call for two or three hours.  After reading the intro to the new book, I executed the first recipe, and despite one minor mishap (no cold water in hot Pyrex!) the bread turned out great.

The first loaf required about twenty minutes of my attention, spread over two days. It does require some planning on baking day since you need to get the process started at least an hour before you plan on serving the bread, but that time can be spent getting dinner started.  Or, if you’re me,  you’ll spend it searching the internet and rummaging in the refrigerator trying to figure out what to make.

The end product of this experiment was much more dense than other bakery breads I’ve had, and also had a more complex flavor.  I dare say it might even be better than Le Quartier.  You don’t need any fancy toppings, but fresh butter is a wonderful addition.  If you’ve been pondering bread-baking, this book is a great way to get started.

Next up: a recap of the Mother of All Garage Sales.

On the way back from dinner last week.

I took a somewhat spur-of-the-moment trip to visit Julee in Arkansas last week.  It was the perfect vacation: temperate weather, leisurely walks, and goooood food.  The photo above is from a sign shop within hollerin’ distance of Julee’s tower house.

Food-wise, I feel compelled to share this simple yet delicious recipe: rosemary pork chops.  We had that tonight for dinner, along with garlic/chevre mashed potatoes and asparagus.  You know you live in a privileged society when you find yourself thinking, “My, what am I going to do with all this chevre?”  Delicious.

Will report soon on my baking experiments — I just ordered Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day from Amazon.  Should be here in a week or so.