Weekend Report

Last weekend Jeremy and I left lovely spring/summer-time Minneapolis and headed back to a cold, early-spring feeling Seattle. Ironic, isn't it? Seattle actually got snow in mid-April and I hear the first week of June was one of the coldest on record. It's also been raining non-stop (which is more unusual than you may think).

But for some clouds on Friday and early Saturday, the weekend turned out to be glorious and all our friends thanked us for bringing the lovely Midwest weather with us.

We had a packed out schedule. Friday we arrived at Seatac a little after 3:00, caught a bus into town, and then transferred to another one which took us to the Madrona neighborhood. Our wonderful, wonderful friends A&D were letting us stay in their guest room and also borrow a car! We tossed our suitcases inside, said hello to the dog, and I quickly changed into a slightly nicer outfit. Then we raced off to the University District.

We met my brother around 6 for an interesting Thai dinner and then drove over to the University of Washington campus for graduation, where we met up with my mom and two sisters, and I caught up with fellow cohort classmates B, L & others. My mom handed over my cap & gown & hood and I dressed right there on the square.

At 7:00 all of us graduates were herded into a windowless room in Meany Hall and given some brief instructions as to how the evening would look. The first comment was: "If any of you will have to go to the bathroom between now and 10:00 - go now because we aren't going to let you out of line later." At which more than half the graduates turned and left in search of the bathrooms!

Finally it was 8:00 and we were marched out of our holding room, through hallways and up stairs and into the auditorium. After welcoming comments, presenting of awards, and keynote address, we finally made it to the actual graduation.

I think the masters ceremony is so much better than undergraduate. In the first place there are way fewer graduates to go through! When I got up to join the line to the stage, I looked way up and saw that my husband and mom were both gone! They're missing it! I moaned. But then I saw a flash and realized my husband was just a few feet away snapping pictures. And my mom turned out to be on the other side of the stage waiting to take pictures as I made my way across the stage. I gave my name card to the announcer who read my name. I walked forward a few feet and handed my "hood" to one professor and two other professors helped put the hood over my head and attach it in the right way. I walked forward a few feet to have my hood "fluffed" (that's what they called it!). Then I shook hands with the dean, received a little congratulations certificate, signed the graduate book, and posed for a picture. Phew! I guess it doesn't get any more official than that: I'm a graduate!









We all returned to our respective hotels, houses, etc for a good nights' sleep before another long day. Jeremy and I met my brother for a brief breakfast at 8:30. After he left for work we stopped by the University Farmer's Market to pick up mushrooms, fiddlehead ferns, garlic tips, some beautiful chevre from our cheese-man, a bunch of flour from a local farm, strawberries, and cherries. Then we jumped in the car and ran down to Voula's to meet the rest of my family for second breakfast.

After breakfast we went over to Pike's Market and checked out all the sites, including buying a set of baby clothes for my little sister's munchkin. Then it was Greek spanakopita & yeeros from Mr. D's Greek Delicacies, Russian piroshkies from Piroshky-Piroshky, and some sweets from the Three Girls Bakery. We said goodbye to my family (who was driving back to Portland/Salem) and we drove up to Greenlake to meet A at Zoka. Jeremy thinks they make the best Roibos tea so we had to go there to buy a big bag of it.

We had a lot of fun catching up with A and getting job advice. After tea, Jeremy and I walked down to Greenlake for a little stroll. Some yards in Seattle have the most incredible bushes of rosemary and other herbs. As I've said here before, we just don't get rosemary bushes in Minneapolis. It's a pain having to buy rosemary in little plastic boxes from the grocery store - so rosemary was on our list of things to get while in Seattle. Meandering down to the lake, we'd occasionally pass a yard with a big bush of rosemary or sage spilling out onto the sidewalk. After the briefest glance around to make sure no one was around to sound an alarm, we'd surreptitiously break off sprigs and branches and bundles of herbs. We made off with quite a bundle!

On our way to meet friends for dinner, we stopped by M&L's house to see how they were doing. They've been doing a massive renovation/remodel on their house for some time so it was great to get a tour of the nearly-complete house. Then we drove up to Maple Leaf to one of our favorite restaurants, the Maple Leaf Grill, to have dinner with J&R. Good times, good times.

Earlier that morning I had received an interesting phone call from E, a former roommate of Jeremy's in Seattle.
"Hi E, how's it going?"
"Great. I was just trying to call Jeremy but the number didn't work. Uh...we got a package in the mail for Jeremy so we're just trying to figure out what to do with it. Maybe we should mail it to you guys?"
"Oh," I said with a smile. "We'll just come pick it up."
"You're in town!?!"
"Yep, we're in town for graduation."

So after dinner we walked over to E, M & A's house to pick up the package. It turned out to be a birthday present (about a month early) from Jeremy's grandma. It was very bizarre that it arrived on the very weekend we were in town. Strange [cue Twilight Zone music]....
So we got a bonus visit with E & A and A's two crazy cats.

Sunday morning we had arranged breakfast with our hosts A&D so we could actually hang out with them while in town. Their weekend schedule was just as busy as ours! We provided strawberries and Jeremy made omelettes with fiddlehead ferns, garlic tips, fresh herbs (read: rosemary), and cheese. They were amazing, and we had a wonderful & wide-ranging 2-hour conversation with our friends.

Next we were off to North Seattle Friends for church and saying hello to numerous friends. Lorraine, the pastor, had even put together a little card and gift and brought me up to the front of the church to share about graduation, life in the midwest, and future plans.
After church we picked up some food for a picnic and went to a park with T, H & S. T & S took turns running S over to the swings and slide (since S is 2 years old and into that sort of thing). We had a great lunch and fun catching up on all the news.

We said goodbye and then Jeremy and I ambled over to the Picardo Farm P-Patch for a brief tour of the patch. The bounty and size of the patch is incredible. We jumped in the car again and headed down to Columbia City, home of A&G and their two goofy dogs. A&G had recently moved into this house and A wanted advice on what was growing in her backyard. We identified a huge bolting spinach patch, rosemary, sage, thyme, and catnip. A was kind enough to let us swipe some more herbs before we left. After munching on fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies, local cherries, and a few glasses of wine, A took us to the main street in Columbia City and showed us some of her favorite developments. We eventually said goodbye and Jeremy I ducked into Tutta Bella for a very tasty dinner.



We took a scenic route home and got some wonderful views of my mountain: Mt. Rainier.





At home we worked on packing birthday gift, graduation gifts, random acquisitions, and lots of food into our luggage. We had both brought extra bags and a cooler so everything fit perfectly. After a lovely breakfast on Monday morning, A drove us down to the airport. Goodbye Seattle! Hope to see you again soon!

Squirreling around

The ultimate goal:



Yes, the squirrels are quite desperate to get into this bird feeder hanging on our front porch. They've climbed everything they could and it's just too far for them. I am a bit surprised having seen some pretty fantastic squirrel-leaps. But we've had the feeder up for a month or two and no squirrel has made it into the feeder. They're relatively content with eating the seed...or just digging holes in the garden and planters.

p.s. It doesn't look like this anymore here - these pics are from the beginning of May. We now have all our leaves and grass and flowers and more green than you could imagine!

The Rhubarb Recipe

It has come to my attention that some of you actually wanted the rhubarb muffin recipe. Oops! Here it is, courtesy of one of my favorite recipe books: Muffins, by Elizabeth Alston. This has been made Jeremy-safe which means it doesn't use refined white sugar or white flour and doesn't use as much sweetener as the recipe called for - but it is still amazingly tasty!



Rhubarb Muffins

1 1/2 cups diced fresh rhubarb (discard leaves) or 2 cups frozen sliced rhubarb
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 heaping tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 large egg
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup (the real stuff!)
3 tablespoons red currant jelly (or some other seedless variety)
1 cup milk
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

If you are using frozen rhubarb, spread it on the counter for a few minutes until it is thawed enough to dice. We like a combination of some finer pieces and some bigger pieces, but the size is up to personal taste.

While rhubarb thaws, heat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease muffin tins. This will make about a dozen muffins.

Thoroughly mix flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl.

In a medium-size bowl, whisk egg, honey or maple syrup, and currant jelly until smooth (jelly will not completely dissolve.) Whisk in milk, butter, and vanilla. Stir in rhubarb. Pour over dry ingredients and fold in with a rubber spatula just until dry ingredients are moistened.

Scoop batter into muffin cups - an ice cream scoop works really nicely for this. Bake 20 to 30 minutes, or until light brown and springy to the touch in the center. Turn out onto a rack and try to cool at least 15 minutes before serving - unless you can't keep your husband or housemate or whoever from devouring them straight out of the pan.

Happy baking!

Home preserving: Asparagus

So Jeremy has this dream of self-sufficiency which not only includes our lovely garden (which is doing well) but also includes freezing, drying, canning, and otherwise preserving lots of vegetables and fruits when they're in season.

Asparagus has been in season lately so we got a whole ton of it to preserve.

Here's the big box o' asparagus:



Here they are chopped up and sorted in to certain sizes - which determines how many minutes we'll blanch them:



Aren't they lovely?



After blanching we packed them in freezer bags and popped them in the freezer. Now in the dead of winter, we can have asparagus soup!

Rhubarb, and lots of it

Rhubarb seems to like it around here. A plant popped up here in the backyard before it had even finished snowing. I saw the first leaves peaking up through a pile of leaves one day and uncovered the mysterious plant - I had no idea what it was then.

Then Rhubarb started hitting the farmer's markets and co-op and I saw people out in their yards harvesting great piles of it. I didn't pay too much attention because the only I thing I knew to do with rhubarb was to make rhubarb pie - which I do not like.

Then one day I was looking through my muffin cookbook and found a recipe for rhubarb muffins. I decided to give it a try and holy cow! They are the tastiest muffins! Jeremy quickly tracked down two co-workers who have rhubarb in abundance. We visited one co-worker yesterday. He grabbed a sharp knife from the kitchen and lead us out to the backyard where the rhubarb was healthy and strong and taking over everything. We harvested a lot of rhubarb - about 7 pounds (minus all the leaves).





Chopping up the rhubarb and getting it ready to blanch and then freeze:





Now we can make a whole lot of muffins!

Chickens!

Jeremy and I have been talking about getting chickens for a couple months now. It probably won't happen till next spring, but we're planning to build the coop by the end of the summer. In preparation we took a class called Chickens 101 and then we went to a chicken coop open house yesterday. These guys are pretty well known in the chicken community in the Twin Cities. They have tons of chickens, ducks, geese, and a goat I think. We hung out in the coop for awhile checking out the birds and asking more questions about coop building. More on this in the future.

May 31st: Hail

Jeremy and I biked over to a friend's house in the afternoon to play Koob. Just before 6:00 we hopped back on our bikes to head home. It was a nice day, sunny and in the 70s. Partway home an alarm sounded somewhere in the distance. I've learned that these alarms don't mean fire, they mean storms, severe weather, tornadoes, stuff like that. Ahead of us, huge dark clouds were piled up in the sky. We made it home safely and five minutes later the thunder and lightning started. Then the rain started. I was looking outside and saw these little white things bouncing off roofs and sidewalks. What could those be? Hail? Is that hail? Is it actually hailing!? It's 70 some degrees and it's hailing! What a weird place this is.