4.06.2009

After the long hiatus!


Eliazbeth has returned from Central America! Here are some of the ong-going goings-ons you and I both missed.
Michelle Obama planted a garden at the White House! Damnit, Michelle, I just love you so much. You are such a kick-ass lady.
Did you know that Michelle also gave the first lady of France an acoustic guitar upon meeting her? And broke protocol to give the Queen of England a hug? Did you know that she's the same height as me?
Here's a great little animated video about the history of gardens at the White House. It's really great.
Speaking of gardens, I can see Kyle outside working on the garden right now! The plastic has been put up on the greenhouse, and right now he's digging a bunch of new beds along the fence.
I'm working on a project, too- the patio. Until yesterday, the patio had a picnic table and benches, a whole bunch of firewood, and really gross grey paint on the floor which was peeling to reveal red underneath. Well NOT ANYMORE BABY. I've been pressure-washing off the grey paint, and I'm going to paint a cool trom de leis (sp?) of an Oriental rug in the middle, and hang up hammocks. It's going to be mad tropical.
Also I'm putting up lattice-work on the South side of the patio, to try and a) use that sunlight for something, ie, growing hops, and b) create some nice cool shade during the hot part of the summer, so I can chillax in my hammock in a dark little den of coolness.
Tonight we're making crepes. Savory crepes for dinner, sweet crepes for desert.
I went to Word of Mouth with Kenney yesterday for breakfast. The owners live right across the street from us! How funny. They seem like really sweet people (I only met the lady) and I guess they used to own Busick Court too. I got the "Heavenly Veggie Hash" which was huge and delicious, it comes with two eggs and huge thick slabs of Cascade Bakery bread. Good prices, too. Offcenter Cafe is going to have to STEP UP.
My aunt Jamie is the owner of Queen of Tarts Baking Co (see sidebar for link) and she is eligible to win a couple of the Best of Salem catagories! It would help her out ENORMOUSLY if I could get a couple of people to go to the Statesman Journal website and vote for her! If you've never eaten at her cafe, you are seriously missing out. It's in the basement of the public library. She used to work as a baker for the Conditeri but they wanted her to use cheaper ingredients to keep the prices down (like margarine instead of butter- ugh) and so she quit and opened her own place. It's really wonderful, the sandwiches are huge and fresh and original but the baked goods are where she really shines, the scones and cinnamon rolls especially. And the Marionberry handpies. She uses fresh local organic ingredients whenever possible, getting a lot of her produce from the Farmer's Market and even picking her own blackberries for the episode of Living Culture she was featured on (which you can view here) and as if that wasn't amazing enough, she built her business all by hand. She's self-taught and she had two small children when she decided to become a baker and by God, she became a baker. If you know Jamie, you know how typical of her that is. She doesn't have any advertising budget for her cafe, so it would really mean a lot of she could win one of the Best of Salem catagories so go and vote for a local, independant, woman-owned, local-food serving delicious bakery!
We adopted a kitten from the Humane Society.

Matthew and Fiddlesticks

His name is Fiddlesticks. He was one of those "animals in need" that basically are going to be put to sleep really soon and I just couldn't bear to leave him there so he had to come home with me. He's awesome. He has a ton of zany zippy energy though and I'm having a hard time coming up with stuff for him to do! We need more cat toys.
I HAVE A COLD.
I will put up some pictures of the new vegetable beds tomorrow afternoon, stay tuned, folks.

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