Ham Sandwich Indicted!

Round one of tomato season is a go! Recently picked: Black Krims, Green Zebras, Cherries, Romas, and one Marglobe. Also, The jalapenos are kicking it into high gear as well. Currently, my go to, too-lazy-to-do-anything-else summer dinner has been B.B.T.M sandwiches--bacon, basil, tomato, mozzarella. Pressed and grilled on multigrain bread with some mayo, it's like summer in your hand. Enjoy on your porch with the Sam Adams Summer (or another of your favorite summer brews), and it's seventh heaven.

I realized a little late that I probably should have been keeping a garden journal this season--the kind that details when things went in the ground, when they started blooming, fruiting, how many of each thing I planted, etc. Since I failed to do that, this blog will have to serve as the next best thing. Above is the start of a tomatillo growing. The plant has been covered in little yellow flowers for the better part of a month now, and they're finally morphing into actual tomatillos. Very exciting. The tomatoes are going like gangbusters, this is the pink tomato plant (exact species escapes me), listing a bit from the weight (and my jerry-rigged support system--I was apparently too lazy to get some cages. Eh.). The red cabbages have provided me with the most drama this year, as they were attacked by worms in late June. Since showering them with that Sevin dust (it kills everything under the sun and is ok to use on plants), the worms have not returned. Bastards. Their impa...

I really like it when a recipe describes something as "rustic." It's an immediate signal that whatever I'm about to produce can be casual in appearance, with flavor being a more important concern. Don't get me wrong, a skillfully latticed cherry pie (for example) is great, but sometimes, it's 8:30 at night on a Thursday and you just have to do something with those berries otherwise they're going to meet a tragic demise wasting away in your refrigerator. The NYTimes had a recipe in June for a Foraged Fruit Tart , that I had printed out for the specific reason that it was "rustic" in the best way a pie/tart recipe can be: make the dough, roll it into a circle, dump the fruit in the middle, and fold up the edges. Bake. Eat. Technically, this style of tart is called a galette, but that just seems to be fancying up something that is really quite casual. I took the tart pictured above to my coworkers, and it was very well received--it apparently made ...

So, I posted a message on Columbus Underground about urban foraging and was surprised at the size of the response I got. As a result of the discussion, I created a google map, here , so that people can mark and share their locations--although I realize that some may want to keep their spots secret. ;) Happy Hunting!

After seeing an uptick in information ( NY times article here , and a website here ) about folks in California and Oregon engaging in urban foraging projects, I'm curious if anyone in Columbus has any thoughts or experience on the idea. For those of you who are wondering, urban foraging is nothing more than finding edible fruits es growing wild or in public spaces (or, in some cases, trees in private yards with branches over public sidewalks). The various urban foraging programs in other, more fruit-prolific cities have organized groups that coordinate distribution of the bounty provided by these trees, enabling someone with a lemon loaded tree to swap fruit with someone that may have an abundance of cherries in their yard. (See the NYTimes article above about Asiya Wadud and her creation of the fruit exchange Forage Oakland.) While I didn't refer to it as urban foraging, I was thinking about this a bit last year, when I noticed that a house one block down from mine had an appl...

Special thanks to my friend Michael for forwarding me the following two websites. They detail (or, at least outline) two new programs going into effect starting July 1, 2009. The College Cost Reduction & Access Act has two parts that will be of interest to public interest lawyers. One, after making loan payments for 10 years on government-backed loans, the government will forgive the loan balance for qualifying borrowers. And two, there's a new, income-based repayment system in place: monthly loan payments will be capped at an amount relative to the borrower's income and after 25 years, the federal government will forgive any remaining loan debt. For further info check out the following: Student Loan Relief on the Way for Law Grads and The National Law Journal

I found a batch of wild poppies in an alley behind my house this weekend. I never cease to be surprised by what's hiding in the neighborhood! My Fruit CSA with Wayward Seed Farms has finally started (yay!), and my first delivery was 3 quarts of some of the most gorgeous strawberries I've ever seen: I froze some, turned some into a strawberry vinaigrette (pureed strawberries, fig balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, a little sugar, garlic, and oil), and put some into a strawberry tart for my dad for Father's Day: The pastry cream recipe is from the Cook's Illustrated New Best Recipe Cookbook . I received it as a gift for my birthday one year, and it is a staple in my kitchen. I find it's a great resource for ideas when you're looking at a random ingredient and not sure how you want to use it. Also, they've done tons of leg work and have figured out the best methods and ingredients for making almost every classic/basic dish out there. Also, I harvested my first bat...