hi how are you?

tumble scarf

2012-01-26T20:15:00.004-06:00

I'm a very proud owner of one of these amazing scarves. My friend Miriam is not just a great social worker, but the most stylish person I know and quite crafty too. Click on the photos below to see her shop. These are warm and not too bulky and solve the problem of never being able to tie it like the models do! Now let's not ruin this with words.

I'm not making fun of science, but (mumble mumble)

2012-01-26T17:44:00.001-06:00

Said by a stodgy young man on the train, wearing a checkerboard shirt, purple striped bow tie, red sweater vest, and tweed jacket.

caveat emptor

2012-01-25T19:51:00.002-06:00

Sometimes working in court is kind of depressing. The cops here do this thing where they go up to someone on the street in plain clothes (try to pick someone who looks like they use crack) and hand them $40 and ask if they can get some crack. If the person comes back with crack, arrested for dealing, if they don't (more often) they're arrested for stealing $40. Seriously, what indigent person WON'T take $40 off someone stupid enough to hand it to them?

slow week

2012-01-19T20:32:00.003-06:00

I joined a gym and started swimming again. I'm so out of shape from 3 months of no running, and having a cold since the end of November (with a nice break for Christmas). On the bright side, it's very easy to get my heart rate up!

I have friends from Chicago coming to town this weekend and I'm beyond excited about it. I haven't planned anything so hopefully we can have a lot of spontaneous fun and not freeze.

Even though the temperatures have been not too bad (20s and 30s) it has felt miserably cold to me. In Chicago I was usually comfortable down into the single digits. I don't know if it's because I haven't busted out my down coat yet or more just because I don't want to be here so it feels bad to me. I guess I should get out the down coat either way!

chrysanthemum mittens

2012-01-14T17:57:00.003-06:00

coming along slowly...

2:30 sunset

2012-01-12T21:05:00.001-06:00

2:30 sunset, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

black eyed peas and corn chowder

2012-01-11T19:24:00.001-06:00

january 1 black eyed peas and corn chowder, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

Since Aaron is on a break from school, he's in charge of dinner now, which is awesome because I don't have to do anything. Getting him the Homesick Texan cookbook for his birthday was the best idea I've ever had.

Even if he sometimes makes gross things... I just can't get into black eyed peas. Some southerner I am.

happy new year!

2012-01-01T16:22:00.001-06:00

I have a bit of a cold (again! - stupid airplanes) so we stayed in last night. We were streaming a show on Netflix until we heard people outside yelling "10! 9! 8!"

Who needs a TV when you can hear street noise in your 5th floor living room? For all I know it was Dick Clark himself out there.

Then we became a statistic by googling "Auld Lang Syne" at 12:01am on January 1. That would be an interesting chart to see.

knitting

2011-12-31T11:50:00.003-06:00

Now that Christmas is over, I can share what I've been working on for the past couple of months. I never did get a photo of either pair of socks completed, just halfway done. Now I'm working on something for myself, Knitty's Chrysanthemum mittens.

These are for my mom. I let her pick out the yarn but I don't think she knew what I was going to do with it. "Sunday Swing" from Knitty.

"Mermaid's Lagoon" from Knitty for my aunt Dorothy. My first attempt at lace. It has many mistakes, but they're not very noticeable.

I just finished the cuff, and am getting started on the chrysanthemum part.

christmas tradition

2011-12-29T21:32:00.003-06:00

In Austin it seems most everyone has tamales on Christmas eve and this year my family decided to attempt to make them. Normally you can get them just about anywhere, and everyone knows someone in town who makes them (or who has an aunt or grandmother who makes them).

The process was pretty involved but I think we've all gotten a little more adventurous with our cooking these days, and they weren't more difficult than a lot of other things I've made. My dad cooked pork for most of them and Aaron roasted a poblano so that we could make queso y rajas for me. We also threw some nopal into some of them.

My mom whipped up the masa and got the spreading of it down to a science. I rolled them up and after an hour in the steamer they were delicious!

Aaron and I also put ourselves in charge of the salsas. I made the verde (tomatillo, cilantro, jalapeno) and Aaron made one with red chiles and apple cider vinegar and a few other things I didn't see. I also made a mole, which had over 30 ingredients and took about 8 hours to cook. I have had some gross moles, but this one was really good. It was a Rick Bayless recipe that he apparently used to make "Lacquered Chicken" at the White House. I laquered my tamal with it.

tractor blanket

2011-12-12T21:57:00.003-06:00

little kids don't know not to be gender cliches! for a little boy who REALLY loves farm equipment.

quiet winter

2011-12-10T19:51:00.002-06:00

I like the idea that summer is a wild frenzy of growth and activity and winter is quiet time. I've been sewing a lot for my shop and knitting a lot, though I don't want to post photos since some things are Christmas gifts. I'm doing my best to keep a cold from turning into a sinus infection and that requires me to slow down even more, which I normally suck at.

It's hard to believe that winter is just starting even though it hasn't been all that cold until this week. I guess it's the short days that make me feel so subdued. Today I slept in until 10am, and by the time I went out to run 2 errands and made it back home, it was 3:15 and only 30 minutes away from the start of sunset.

I hope that all of you out there are getting to rest and recharge this winter. We have some holiday travel planned, maybe our last ever. In the meantime there's knitting and Hulu to catch up on a few months' worth of The Office and Parks & Rec, and a new addiction to streaming Breaking Bad on Netflix, which led to me dreaming the night before last that my friend's husband was secretly addicted to meth (blue biker meth, of course).

kumquat marmalade

2011-12-09T20:10:00.002-06:00

The first time I made this recipe it was with tiny oranges from my friend's little indoor orange tree. These store bought kumquats were not nearly as awesome, and very seedy. Hopefully the marmalade will still be tasty!

our kitty thinks the bed is hot lava

2011-12-07T21:57:00.003-06:00

She will only get on the fleece blanket we keep on the end, never on the bedspread... occasionally she stands at the edge of it and looks up at us cautiously. When we get cold and pull the blanket up to cover us suddenly she has free reign and safe passage. Right now she's sitting on my legs and purring like she expects them to hatch.

For a very quirky kitty who tries to bury her water bowl every day and spends hours staring under the stove, this is one of her more charming eccentricities.

small apartment

2011-12-06T12:18:00.000-06:00

Sitting on the couch, and every time I cough I can hear the strings on the guitar vibrate a little.

fiber bike

2011-12-05T10:00:00.003-06:00

I'm at home today with a nasty cold, but here is a photo that I snapped last week in SoHo.

Have I ever felt invincible or unstoppable?? I smoke crack!

2011-11-29T20:27:00.002-06:00

-Client, responding incredulously to a diagnostic interview question about manic symptoms.

- I want to smell Rihanna. - Oh, we SHOULD have smelled Rihanna!

2011-11-25T09:16:00.001-06:00

two girls on the subway early this morning, shopping bags in tow. Realized after a minute they were discussing designer fragrances, not people.

happy thanksgiving!

2011-11-23T22:06:00.003-06:00

I miss my family, but it feels wonderful to not be traveling anywhere this Thanksgiving. I got out of work at 3 today and was able to come home and bake a pie with Aaron, then watch a movie. We also made some bread for tomorrow, pizza dough for dinner, and cornbread for the stuffing... yeah.

We have some friends and family not too far away, and a few people are having get-togethers, but we've seen each other so little these past couple months that we both were looking forward to a day to ourselves with nothing planned. Just some food, a football game, and our traditional post-thanksgiving-dinner walk.

Here are a couple photos I took on my lunch break this week. We're definitely in that time of year where, not only does the sun start to set at 3:45, it never seems to fully rise in the first place. It makes for nice light, even if it can be a bit depressing. In the second photo you can see the statue of liberty off in the distance. It looks bigger in person.

hey, I like the smell of Christmas!

2011-11-23T13:49:00.000-06:00

-little boy to his Caribbean nanny on the streetcorner by the Christmas tree stand

self sufficient library

2011-11-22T13:58:00.013-06:00

One thing that I enjoy during the winter months is reading up on gardening and other non-winter pursuits so that I can get excited about the next year. I'm looking for a few good books and open to suggestions. Here are some books that have inspired and informed me over the past few years.

Looking back, I think the book that started it all off was Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I always enjoyed her novels and was just starting to think about where food comes from when I read this. I was sad because it inspired me so much to eat locally, but it was winter. The next spring I grew my first cucumbers and tomatoes on my little back deck. Though she can be slightly annoying at times the information is great and so is the writing. I'd recommend it to anyone just starting to think about these things.

Fast forward a year and a half, and as we move into our new apartment with a garden plot, a friend gives me Urban Homesteading by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutsen. I sort of became obsessed with this book. It's full of really practical and interesting information about how to be more self-sufficient on a lot of levels.

They have a newer book called Making It that's on my wish list, especially if I ever manage to become a homeowner. I understand that it has directions for a lot of practical projects, large and small.

Ashley English has a set of four books that I love. Her Canning and Preseving was my first canning book and I still go to it often. For my birthday this year I bought myself Keeping Bees and it was really easy to read and informative. I can't wait to have some bees. Someday I'd like to get the other two books in the series, Home Dairy and Keeping Chickens.

My other canning go-tos are the old standard Ball Blue Book of Canning and Preserving which you can get used online for cents, and Linda Zeidrich's Joy of Jams, Jellies, and other Sweet Preserves and her Joy of Pickling

I have so many other canning books on my wish list, but have held off because I figure, how many recipes do I really need? Still, some of these look amazing.

Mes Confitures by Christine Ferber
Putting Up and Putting Up More by Stephen Palmer Dowdney

and also, I hear The Backyard Beekeeper by Kim Flottum is really good.

As for gardening, I got some decent garden advice from Urban Homemaking and several other books that are unfortanately in storage right now and I don't know their names. I got two great gardening books last Christmas and the book I used when I first started was a British container gardening book called Kitchen Harvest: Growing Organic Fruit, Vegetables & Herbs in Containers by Susan Berry that was confusing (I think something was lost in translation) but inspiring.

For my birthday I bought myself a copy of Rodale's Garden Problem Solver: Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs by Jeff Ball. I haven't started reading it yet because I'm waiting until the really depressing part of winter hits, so it might cheer me up.

I also have a basic organic gardening text. Here are some more books I have my eye on:

Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening
Perennial Vegetables: From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, A Gardener's Guide to Over 100 Delicious and Easy to Grow Edibles
Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners
The Complete Kitchen Garden: An Inspired Collection of Garden Designs and 100 Seasonal Recipes
A Year at North Hill : Four Seasons in a Vermont Garden
Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables
The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses

Don't those all sound good? So in deciding which one(s) to choose, I want some advice. What are your go-to books for information and inspiration?

pomegranate

2011-11-20T09:06:00.001-06:00

pomegranate, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

I decided to make a pomegranate liqueur... it involved smashing up the seeds. Pomegranate juice EVERYWHERE.

argyle enchiladas

2011-11-19T08:34:00.002-06:00

I haven't been taking many photos of what I'm making, but I'm still making things. It just gets a little boring taking photo after photo of soup.

These enchiladas turned out pretty cute though, and we ate them with the very last tomato of the year.

white people getting what?

2011-11-16T19:36:00.004-06:00

Part of my job involves me spending time in Manhattan arraignments each day and it's certainly been interesting as things ratchet up with Occupy Wall Street. Zucotti Park is just a few blocks from my office and yesterday you could hear chanting through the windows.

I have to say, it's pretty striking to see a bunch of white people getting arraigned and/or waiting for a loved one to come through. I guess I know intellectually that people of color are disproportionately arrested due to straight up racism and as the result of hundreds of years of systemic oppression, but it's not until you see what you're NOT seeing (that would be, white people getting arrested) that you really SEE it.

I guess that's my deep thought for the day. For the record, I agree that our country is warped and caters to corporate interests and the rich while neglecting the very basic needs of the majority. I hope that what those crazy kids are doing has a lasting positive effect.

crock pot

2011-11-16T19:17:00.001-06:00

crock pot, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

I don't seem to have much to say lately, so I guess I'll stick with the theme of "cat in thing."

2011-11-13T10:33:00.002-06:00

dutch words are hard to spell

2011-11-10T18:32:00.004-06:00

Most people misspell our cat's name, particularly if they aren't New Yorkers. I always found the c in Bleecker to be one of the many charming qualities of the name, so I was pretty alarmed to see an ad in the subway about how they're renovating the "Bleeker Street Station." I got worried that they decided to renovate the name, too.

As soon as I got to work, I went to the MTA website just to make sure. Whew.

grainy yogurt

2011-11-10T15:23:00.000-06:00

When I make yogurt, it tastes good but the texture is grainy. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

library books

2011-11-09T11:33:00.003-06:00

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but while Aaron is a student and we're living in the most expensive city in the country on a social worker's income, I've rediscovered the library. We both love books so much that we tend to buy and collect them, so I haven't had a library card since I was a pre-teen in the suburbs and had to get a ride from my parents to check out a book (not counting college and grad school of course, in which case the books I sought in the library weren't remotely enjoyable to read...)

So far I've gotten into a pretty good routine of checking out a couple books at a time and managing to read and return them before getting any late fees. The NYPL is also nice in that they email you when your book is almost due, and let you renew them online. I've picked out a few duds, but most have been pretty good. I'm a picky reader and I've been surprised to find that I've liked almost everything I've gotten. I can recommend the following:

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart - a near-future satire that has, in the 3 months since I read it, been coming true at an alarming clip. In the book, the US defaults on its debt, and dissatisfied citizens camp out in Tompkins Square Park, just to name two things. It's very funny and very thought-provoking.

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen - this was one of those books that I just couldn't put down, even though I'm not 100% sure that I loved it. When I read The Corrections I felt very weighed down by the misery and overly-flawedness of all the characters, and I can say that I was less bothered by that with this book. I appreciate that his characters are so flawed yet so lovable. Still, it's hard to get on board with the moral which is apparently, people suffer greatly in life for a long time before finally figuring out how to be okay. Still, it was very entertaining and I managed to read it in the 1-week time limit set by the library, thanks to 7 hours on Amtrak.

Candide by Voltaire - a quick read and I had to love that this edition had cover art by Chris Ware.

Incendiary by Chris Cleave - a novel-length letter written to Osama bin Laden from an unnamed woman who lost her husband and son in a terrorist bombing in London. Surprisingly funny and very easy to read despite the dark subject matter.

Just today I checked out The Call by Yannick Murphy - I'm really excited because I loved Here They Come. I also got One Hundred Years of Solitude. I didn't really like/get Chronicle of a Death Foretold, so we'll see.

viniagrette

2011-11-08T20:29:00.002-06:00

I know I've posted about ranch dressing before, but that's a special-occasion kind of thing. This here is a staple in our kitchen.

Vinegar + oil + spices +? something sweet = dressing.

This one is blueberry vinegar (just blueberry skins steeped in white vinegar for a month then strained out), vegetable oil, dijon mustard, salt, pepper, and a little maple syrup.

knitting season

2011-11-06T07:31:00.004-06:00

It turns out that a lot of the social workers at my new job knit. Talking to them got me all inspired to start back up, but then yarn is so expensive. Luckily I have an old friend from junior high who blogs about her sweet life in Portland where she has fruit trees and mountains and oceans and a dog (aus dem garten) She pointed me to knitpicks which has some pretty affordable yarn and free shipping if you buy enough.

I do have some yarns in my stash and I have to think about what to do with them, but in the meantime I've got 4 new projects on my plate. Just yesterday I finished this for my sister-in-law who is going to give me my first niece (that it possibly the creepiest way I could have put that...)

It was surprisingly easy to make - I was a little nervous about sewing it up but it turned out to be a little tedious but not overwhelming. The pattern is free, here:
flo the elephant

Late last night I started on my newest project which is knit on size 0 needles and the cast-on alone was significantly daunting. I wonder what I've gotten myself into:

enchiladas verdes

2011-11-05T10:13:00.004-05:00

This is a winter staple in our home... green salsa that I canned from tomatillos and red salsa too. Sometimes I put onions, mushrooms, squash, or something else inside, or sometimes just cheese (I like monterrey jack or a crumbly mexican cheese)..

The avocado was obviously not seasonal or local, but it was a special treat. The tomato and pepper were from the third-to-last CSA pickup.

When I brought the leftovers to work my office-mate said, "That smells really hot." And I said, "It is."

dino & lbj

2011-11-01T17:07:00.001-05:00

dino & lbj, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

Aaron's cousin came out to Chicago a few years back and taught us to screenprint. He made this print of angry LBJ with her assistance. Weekend before last we took the Amtrak down to Baltimore to attend her wedding. One of the table decorations was a bunch of spray painted dinosaurs. Aaron couldn't resist making a stop motion animation with his camera phone, and it seems one of the dinos came home with us.

homemade dried basil

2011-10-29T21:00:00.001-05:00

I don't use dried basil often, but it's nice to have on hand for those winter and early spring days when fresh basil is just not possible. I use a lot of it when I make pasta salad.

This was my first time drying herbs. I would have liked to do it by hanging them upside down, but our apartment has more than its share of cockroaches, spiders, beetles, centipedes, and at least one mouse. I decided to go with the oven method. I set it to "warm" and put the washed and dried basil in there for about an hour. I later realized I should have turned the oven off and let it dry more slowly but hopefully it will be fine.

october snow

2011-10-29T11:12:00.003-05:00

Garden = confused.

And as for the new job, so far so good. The first few days were excruciatingly boring, but I have reason to believe that will improve. My coworkers all seem nice and I find them easy to talk to. I only just now realized that's perhaps because they're almost all white women or gay men between the ages of 25 and 35 with master's degrees in social work. So I feel a little weird now because I think there's a lot of value in spending time with people who aren't exactly like you. Still, my old job was so dangerous and disturbing and questionably ethical that I'm not going to complain about being somewhere boring just yet.

goodbyes

2011-10-21T16:56:00.005-05:00

Today I ran-not-walked away from a truly awful job. I'm not sure exactly what I'm running toward but I'm going on the assumption that the probability of it being worse has got to be really, really low.

When work feels like a prison, it helps a lot to have some good cell mates, and I'm really going to miss most of my coworkers. Yesterday they surprised me with a cake and some presents (I think they thought I would call in sick for my last day...), one of which was an ice cream maker.

One of my coworkers recently moved back to NYC from the Dominican Republic and was pissed because she couldn't find her favorite ice cream flavor anywhere. She even asked the guy at her bodega why they don't carry Macadamia Brittle, and he agreed to special order it for her, but when she arrived at the appointed date and time she was informed that the flavor was discontinued. That was a hard day for us all.

We spent some valuable work hours googling and found entire message boards filled with people lamenting the discontinuation of this flavor and then some more time looking up recipes. We found that you can still buy it in 5-gallon tubs, and I tried to convince her to buy a tub and convince her bodega guy to keep it in his freezer for her (she's very charming, this one - she could do it).

In the end, she bought an ice cream maker and I promised that if she brought it to the office I'd make her Macadamia Brittle ice cream, better than Haagen-Dazs. Alas, we never got around to it, so with one last chance I hit up the hippie grocery store for macadamia nuts (normal stores don't carry them?) and the normal store for organic heavy cream (hippie store doesn't stock dairy?) and with the boss out of the office at an all-day training, we made it happen.

some recent foods

2011-10-19T15:44:00.002-05:00

There's been a definite shift in the CSA haul over the past few weeks.

October 4

October 18

We've been eating more soup. It hasn't been cold, but it hasn't been hot, so soup works. Though, after 5 years in freezing Chicago apartments it's weird to be up here on the top floor, sweating with the windows open when it's 50 degrees out.

There's baked potato soup

Roasted tomato and eggplant soup

Tomato soup

And squash soup

All the recipes except the tomato soup are from smittenkitchen.com because I'm lazy like that. Why shop around when there's a nice internet lady testing out all the recipes for me? And in fact, her tomato soup is better than this one, too.

Speaking of squash we also had stuffed squash, and squash pizza. Yup, it's fall.

thwarted

2011-10-15T20:40:00.001-05:00

Bleecker always looks so comfy in her shoebox, I had joked to Aaron that I'd like to find a box big enough for me to sleep in all day. Sure enough, the next day several hundred dollars' worth of cotton batting arrived in this:

I was sort of excited, until I realized she beat me to it.

worst case scenario

2011-10-13T16:09:00.003-05:00

I've been feeling the anxiety this week - I suppose it's the combination of decisions that have to be made without enough information, and waiting for other people to make big decisions that will affect me.

Last October I was offered a new job at a wonderful agency two blocks from my apartment. I had just gotten my LCSW and wasn't really looking, but noticed that this place was hiring, which they never do because people never quit there because it's a wonderful place. I went back and forth and almost accepted the job (actually, funny story: she called to offer, I said can I have a day to think about it, she said sure, I called back to say yes, she said could I wait one more day because when I asked for more time she had scheduled another interview. I knew this lady was weird from when I did my internship there, but when you offer someone a job you don't keep interviewing people for said job...). In the end I thought it best to stay where I was because I was unsure if I would be moving away the following May (and I did).

Here it is, October again and I'm going back and forth over job offers. I don't want to share the details just yet, but I've been trying to juggle three potential jobs and worrying a lot about making the wrong decision.

I don't get anywhere near as anxious as I used to, and I think one of my favorite techniques is to go ahead and mentally hash out that worst case scenario. Whether it's being in a job you hate, being unemployed, getting yelled at, getting hurt, or whatever, most of the time it's something I know I can handle, and realizing that helps a lot.

I learned this when I was in grad school, doing counseling with elderly people (and by elderly, I do mean 85 and up). I had a great supervisor and she read my process recordings and made good comments. Once she noted that I had gotten one lady to finally confide what she was so afraid of, and then I started pointing out strengths and positive things. My supervisor explained that before you can start telling someone why they shouldn't be worried or afraid of something, you have to explore the fear and acknowledge it. You have to say, yeah it would suck for you to lose your independence and move into a nursing home, yeah it would suck for you to lose your job and blow through your savings, yeah it would suck for your boss to turn you down for that promotion.

It's something about the way we're built, but it seems that only then can we start to acknowledge our own strength and resilience, to say I'd be the wii bowling champion of that nursing home, I'd learn Mandarin and banjo off the internet if I was unemployed, if they take my stapler I'll set the building on fire... just kidding.

homemade veggie burger

2011-10-11T16:06:00.004-05:00

My dad gave me a book with recipes for all different kinds of veggie burgers. It also has recipes for how to make buns and fries and other things. I made the most basic patty, whole wheat buns, and baked fries. It was good! I also made the pickles, and I made ketchup too but am still using up the last of the Heinz from the fridge.

lazy sunday

2011-10-09T15:29:00.004-05:00

We went out for a friend's birthday last night, in our old-old neighborhood (circa 2004), and for the first time in as long as I can remember, we slept in past noon. I usually wake up starving but eating a plate of onion rings at 2am does allow the body to rest.

Today I've been relaxing, just making some beans for later and maybe some bread. I re-potted some plants so that I can sow seeds for greens and radishes once it cools back off. We're having an indian summer (am I using that term correctly?) and it's 80 degrees out which means 85 in our apartment. Today I had to pull a very annoyed cat out of the window, I think she JUST noticed that there's a whole world out there.

no, but i did smoke a little bit of crack

2011-10-06T20:04:00.002-05:00

-what one of my old clients said to the pre-op aide who had asked him whether he'd eaten anything after midnight. Not sure what made me remember that just now.

chicago

2011-10-04T16:09:00.004-05:00

Here is a blurry cameraphone photo of me serving up some apple-honey challah at the party my friend Susan threw for my visit to Chicago. When someone emailed Aaron the photo he replied that I was smiling because there's not room for a loaf of bread that big in our NYC apartment. Sort of true.

I have to say, my Chicago friends are the best people on earth and that's that. My flight was all cloudy and we came through and could suddenly see the ground right as we passed over the shoreline of Lake Michigan. The trees were changing and it was so perfect. I miss that place.

holding it together

2011-09-28T20:08:00.001-05:00

moma drawers, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

hello, world. i have been busy this week, my parents came to visit and we did all the new york things you have to do on your first visit. i spent the week playing catch up and getting yelled at by mentally unstable people, some were my clients but some not. i'm about to leave town myself for some chicago time, wish me bon voyage!

cat finds black sweater

2011-09-21T07:20:00.001-05:00

cat finds black sweater, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

water main break at 106 & cpw

2011-09-19T19:59:00.002-05:00

water main break at 106 & cpw, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

walking a mile next to streets turned into rushing rivers was the best, most calming part of my day. the rest of the day sucked, directly as a result of that water (flooded subway stations leading to very overcrowded buses), but it was still worth it.

why it's a good idea to make your own ranch dressing

2011-09-18T09:18:00.002-05:00

ranch dressing, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

We'll have to give Aaron credit for this one, he's always been the best at making dressing. A little oil, some vinegar and spices, and there you go.

The other day he was craving ranch dressing (oh, how I love it) and we found a recipe and saw that it's not all that hard to make from scratch. We had all the ingredients in our fridge/pantry/window garden.

If you don't have buttermilk on hand (we never do) just pour a splash of vinegar into the container and then fill with milk up to 1/2 cup. Making it in a jar means no dirty dishes because you can add the mayo, sour cream and milk up to the appropriate lines without using measuring cups or spoons.

The verdict: this one is spicy. It doesn't taste exactly like the ranch made with the Hidden Valley powdered mix that I grew up with, but I guess I can get used to life without whatever delicious chemicals they put in there.

We got the recipe here:

http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2009/06/buttermilk-dressing.html

sunset from our window

2011-09-17T18:59:00.001-05:00

sunset from our window, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

best subway station in nyc

2011-09-16T16:40:00.001-05:00

best subway station in nyc, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

food in jars

2011-09-15T08:32:00.000-05:00

While I really enjoy the process of canning, and love to have rows and rows of jars filling my shelves, it's also pretty satisfying to crack them open (not literally) and make a from-scratch homemade meal more quickly than you could heat up a hot pocket.

Last week I was working on Project Use Up Fifty Pounds of Onions and made French onion soup with a couple jars of stock that I made earlier in the summer. A few days later we opened jars of red and green salsa to put on the potato-and-egg breakfast tacos that we had for dinner.

my life according to google maps

2011-09-14T14:04:00.007-05:00

I had to submit all of the addresses I've lived at for a night job and some of them I had to google to remember the exact address. I got kind of intrigued by the map images. Texas sure is ugly in the winter.

mr. bee

2011-09-13T17:20:00.001-05:00

mr. bee, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

I saw this guy in Central Park yesterday. My bee book says there are 3500 kinds of bees so I'm not sure what he is, but maybe a bumble bee? He was HUGE.

nerd dresser = hippie soda, yarn needle, nerd glasses, new yorker issue, scrabble box

2011-09-12T19:11:00.001-05:00

nerd dresser = hippie soda, yarn needle, nerd glasses, new yorker issue, scrabble box, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

random update and obligatory thoughts on the 9/11 anniversary

2011-09-11T11:08:00.005-05:00

It's been an odd week. I had a second interview for an evening job as a therapist, and an unofficial job offer. It looks like I'll be working 3 jobs soon, one with a 2 hour roundtrip commute. I'm looking forward to getting a lot of knitting done, but wondering when I'll get a chance to eat.

I hit the 3 month mark at my job here, which means I finally have health insurance, which means I can finally treat my psoriasis which decided to go crazy during the time when I couldn't afford to see a doctor or buy meds, and I also started physical therapy for hamstring tendinosis, a very painful flareup of an old injury that has made running, walking, and even rolling over in bed unpleasant for me since July.

I listen to a lot of NPR while I sew and cook, so I spent a lot of time this week hearing remembrances related to 9/11, interviews with firefighters and those who lost loved ones, investigations of what went wrong on that day, and reporting on the wars that followed. At the same time I spent the week emailing back and forth with friends and family about the wildfires scorching my hometown. At one point I was listening to an interview with firefighters who were at the world trade center, and I got confused and thought they were fighting the fires in Texas. I tried this week to comprehend what it must have been like for my aunt and uncle to leave their home on very short notice, not thinking that they would never have the chance to go back. Like on 9/11, I felt far removed from something big and unable to understand it.

I didn't want to write anything about 9/11 because I don't feel like I have any claim on what happened that day. Its story is not my story. I had never even been to New York back then, and I can't say I was all that affected by it. Of course I cried when I heard the voicemails people left for loved ones, but those were personal stories... I had no understanding of the events as a whole.

On the other hand, it was only this week that I realized how much living through that week and month and year at that particular time in my life shaped who I am today. I was 20 years old and learning so much about politics and our country's actions around the globe that my worldview was changing more quickly than I could articulate. I already felt lost and alienated, confused and angry, I was already questioning my values and trying to understand why most of the people around me seemed to have a very different view of the world than I did. Maybe what happened in 2001 only sped up the process.

My most vivid memory from that time is not of anything that happened on Tuesday - that all passed in a haze. I worked at a credit union and watched the towers fall on tv while working at a drive up window. When my shift ended at 11am I tallied my checks and cash for the day and went to school. What I remember is that on Friday, the credit union wanted us to all wear a t-shirt with the name of the credit union and a big American flag. I felt so disgusted by our government and all the things it had done in past centuries and recent decades to inspire hatred around the globe, and the idea of expressing pride in our country made me literally feel sick. At the same time I understood that those who died weren't the government, that their deaths were tragic and senseless. My boss and coworkers were truly kind people and I knew that they would never understand why I wouldn't want to wear an American flag, even if I had been able to explain it at the time. I felt alone and wondered if there was something really wrong with me.

It wasn't until 2004 when I moved to NYC (a NYC that talked mostly not about 9/11, but the 2003 blackout and the war and the Bush/Kerry elections, and hurricane Katrina) that I had a chance to connect with other people who felt more shame than pride in our country, who felt trapped because the idea that our country had this coming to it can be too easily misinterpreted as a justification of murder and disrespect for a loss I'll never understand.

And it was several more years still before I replaced sadness and anger at how badly the world works with an interest in how we all work as individuals, and the desire (and later the ability) to do something positive. I don't think much about politics anymore because I find it very overwhelming, but I'm glad that I can do something daily to help people cope with life so that difficult experiences can lead to meaning and healing and not fester and become something that perpetuates itself at the family level or on a grander scale.

It was only this week that I was able to turn off the radio and stop listening to the broadcasts because I will never understand what happened that day, and I don't have to. If I'm lucky maybe I never will.

one guess what this will be...

2011-09-10T10:16:00.002-05:00

one guess what this will be..., a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

rain & fire

2011-09-06T21:41:00.002-05:00

Today was CSA day and it was the heaviest load yet. We don't get a CSA "box" because they expect you to bring bags to carry the stuff home. It's for the best because I have to walk 5 streets and an avenue, so about a half mile, plus up 5 flights of stairs with my haul, so a box would be a pain.

It rained all day here and it's not supposed to stop until Friday. It was raining hard enough that even with an umbrella AND a rain coat, I got soaked. I love rainy days, but having to be out all day in it is definitely not ideal. I stopped to take a few photos in Morningside Park because the willows looked so nice in the rain, and the ducks didn't seem to mind at all.

Being out in the rain today was even weirder because of the fires all over central Texas right now. There are several fires way too close to the house where I grew up, and I learned that my uncle's home burned down. I can't even comprehend what that must be like... I still feel so broken up about "losing" my little rented home in Chicago, and I left willingly, and got to take my things with me. A friend sent me a photo from our going-away party today, and I almost cried just to see our happy old home that I miss so much. I can't even imagine what it's like to have it all erased and the land scarred too.

london & france

2011-09-05T10:01:00.004-05:00

I just realized I never posted anything about our time in London and France. It was almost 4 months ago now and I'm already forgetting. On the bright side that means I can forget all the bad parts and remember the nice things!

We arrived in London late in the evening and stayed in a little mom-n-pop hotel where Aaron had stayed many years before for a school trip. It was a little grimy, with questionable shared showers and probably bedbugs too, but it was pretty charming. We saw a lot of sights but mostly it was just nice to be together. Aaron had just quit his job the week before and we hadn't had a lot of time where we weren't packing and planning and whatnot. The weekend before we had been in NYC to look at apartments, and the one before that we drove to Texas and back. The hotel was on Russell Square and we hung out there for breakfast the first day and a few other times throughout our stay.

Aaron did a lot of sketching throughout the trip and I did a lot of reading. I finished all 5 books I brought before we even got to Spain.

One thing Aaron really wanted me to see was the Borough Market, a big farmer's market. We had lunch there and I snapped a few photos:

I never seem to remember things I see at museums and they all blur together, but I don't think I'll ever forget the installation we saw at the Tate Modern. It was by Ai Weiwei and he was in prison in China at the time for his dangerous views. The entire hangar-sized room was filled with tiny sunflower seeds, each hand made in porcelain and hand pained by artisans. I'll leave it to others to describe what it was meant to say, but it spoke to me about mass production, the value of human craft, and the incredible power that can come from collective effort.

The first day we walked about 16 miles (mapped it on Google) which would have been fine except I was wearing the least supportive shoes ever and I had a sharp pain in my foot for the rest of the 3 week trip. Still, we were able to see a lot in just a few days. We saw all the touristy high points but avoided most of the crowds, and had a few good dinners at a vegetarian restaurant in SoHo and a pub in our neighborhood.

We also spent a good chunk of time just hanging out in parks. It was still so cold and rainy when we left Chicago that just sitting in the park on a warm, sunny day seemed like all a person could ask for.

The whole time we were there I kept feeling like I should be more excited. The truth is I've never been much of an Anglophile, I don't care about the royal family and I'm not into all that Disney princesses and castles stuff, so it was hard for me to get super excited to see London the way I was about Tokyo or Bangkok or even Montreal. I was also pretty overwhelmed with the fact that we were leaving our whole life behind as soon as this trip was over. Still, I'm glad to have had this experience and time is reshaping the memory of the trip to be something that Aaron and I can share and look back on and value.

I already wrote about Barcelona and Granada, so I guess all that's left is Paris, Provence, and our many hours driving the French countryside.

hurricanning

2011-09-04T09:28:00.002-05:00

Apparently I wasn't the only one who saw a hurricane as the perfect opportunity to spend the weekend in a steamy kitchen. Someone out there on the web dubbed it "hurricanning."

I wish I had kept better track of what all I made, but I was putting it away as I went due to our extremely limited space. I thought I'd write out what I can remember, though:

The red peppers were made into a few things. 3 pints of lightly pickled roasted red peppers, 4 pints of sweet-pickled pepper strips, and 3 quarts of vegetable soup. I also froze a bunch of roasted red peppers for use in pasta salads and things like that. We still had a ton left and have been eating them all week. I would have made more canned things but I ran out of jars at the end.

With the squash I made 6 pints of bread and butter squash pickles. These were a hit with my husband and dad last year, and really easy to make. I would have made more, but again, I was out of jars. There's also squash in the vegetable soup and I gave some to coworkers, and we've been eating it like crazy all week too.

I used the basil in a lot of the pasta sauces, and I also made 8 cups of pesto, frozen in 1/4 cup portions and stored in a gallon ziploc in the freezer. We also still have a TON of basil.

The tomatoes were made into all kinds of things. I already wrote about the 2 pints of ketchup. I also made about 4 pints of tomato jam. I LOVE that stuff. I would have made more but I was out of small jars. It was the first thing I made because it doesn't require peeling or seeding, and as usual I underestimated the amount of space I'd need:

I also put some tomatoes in the vegetable soup I made. I'm interested to try it and see if it's any good. I threw in some white beans, and thyme and rosemary from the fire escape:

I also made 3 quarts of roasted tomato and garlic soup using a recipe I found online. I hope it's okay, it's not FDA approved but it had tons of positive reviews. Roasting is nice because the peels come off easily, but it really heats up the kitchen and I was drenched in sweat most of the day.

I made another kind of tomato soup from the Ball canning book, I think it was about 3 quarts as well. We were skeptical of the recipe but figured why not give it a try. It has some red peppers and onions (I bought a 50 pound bag) as well as carrots, which was nice because we had a ton from our CSA.

I woke up Sunday morning, measured out 48 pounds, and spent a good 5 hours blanching, peeling and seeding them. They became 14 quarts of diced tomatoes to be used in soups and sauces all winter, 4 quarts of tomato-basil pasta sauce, 3 quarts of a different type of pasta sauce, and a few other things.

That evening I made 6 quarts of roasted tomatoes - I'm really excited about these, as we ate a bunch with pasta and they were delicious. Just roasted with some garlic and rosemary and pressure-canned in pint and quart jars.

Then we filled the oven with tomatoes for drying overnight.

Doing this two nights in a row, minus all the burnt ones, became a gallon ziploc full of "sundried" tomatoes in the freezer for the whole year.

I ended up feeling really good about this. It was a ridiculous amount of work and I was exhausted all week. Standing for 16 hours per day in an unairconditioned kitchen with all 4 burners and the oven on turns out to be tiring. But it feels great to have all this good food just waiting for us, and financially it's great to know that our grocery bills will be much smaller in the coming months, because with some flour, yeast, eggs, pasta and cheese we can make a lot of really good meals.

I'm also anxious to see how the soups turn out. I may be getting an evening job in addition to my day job and I love the idea of having home-canned soups around that we can open and heat up easily. My one regret is not keeping track of what I made, I'd love to know what 125 pounds turns into, jars-wise. I counted the jars, looked at recipes, and came up with a figure of 140 pounds, so I'm glad I went low since we ran out of jars with 25 pounds of tomatoes left.

ketchup

2011-09-03T12:54:00.003-05:00

We finally used the last of the vegetables we bought in the Bronx last week. I was pleasantly surprised how much easier it is to put very ripe tomatoes through a food mill. We had 8 pounds remaining and decided to turn it into 2 pints of ketchup. I said I wanted to take a before and after picture but Aaron said that making ketchup is so crazy that a before and after picture would, "just look like you took a picture of some tomatoes, then threw them away and took a picture of ketchup."

to whoever decided to name it "narcissistic personality disorder"

2011-09-02T17:24:00.002-05:00

...thanks a lot. Clearly you were never the one who had to tell someone what their diagnosis is. You might as well have just called it asshole-itis for all the effect it has on people.

disarray

2011-09-01T20:25:00.001-05:00

brought the plants in from the fire escape for the hurricane, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

that's been the story of the past week. attempting to cope with a couple hundred pounds of vegetables, a hurricane, and a husband on vacation means a messy house and a lot of undone chores. i can't complain though because we've had picnics in the park and movie nights at home and all the other things normal people do, plus we now have enough canned food that we could probably just not leave the apartment until next summer if it wasn't for silly things like jobs and needing fresh air.

this thing scared the crap out of me

2011-08-29T20:56:00.001-05:00

this thing scared the crap out of me, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

I was walking to a client's, admiring this nice community garden, and actually jumped when I saw this stuffed leopard or cheetah or whatever. Must be some kind of human instinct.

terremoto y huracán

2011-08-26T22:18:00.003-05:00

This week came with an earthquake and a hurricane. People are making a surprisingly big deal out of the hurricane and I'm just glad it's happening on the weekend when I don't have to go anywhere or do anything. I didn't even feel the earthquake because I was in the subway, but based on what was going on when I came up you'd think we all just survived armageddon.

The only think I've done to prepare for this potential disaster is that I roped Aaron into getting a zipcar with me last night at 2 and driving out to the wholesale greenmarket in the Bronx to buy 200 pounds of produce which we then carried up 5 flights to the apartment at 4am in a mere 3 trips each. I wanted to go on Saturday (it runs 2am-8am) but the guy told me they would be closed for the hurricane, so off we went on a Thursday night and I felt surprisingly good this morning after minimal sleep although I was upset to leave my 125 pounds of tomatoes at home and go tend to the needs of people in crisis. Assuming we have gas and water, I probably won't notice the weather because I've got a solid 72 hours of canning ahead of me.

jumper

2011-08-20T11:58:00.001-05:00

jumper, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

saw this while my client was being loaded into an ambulance. the emt looked up and said, "looks like we've got a jumper"

maiz

2011-08-19T21:14:00.001-05:00

maiz, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

corn grows in upper manhattan.

food

2011-08-17T21:46:00.003-05:00

Things have been pretty boring around here. I'm just killing time while Aaron works around the clock trying to finish this semester. At least the food is entertaining.

I like trying to figure out how to use the CSA veggies without letting anything go to waste, and without eating the same few things over and over. Yesterday I asked Aaron what he wanted and instead of the usual overwhelmed, "I don't know" he said enchiladas. I was excited about the little squashes we got and they turned out to be a pleasure to cut... they were so smooth!

I used salsa verde that I canned a few weeks back from farmer's market tomatillos, and made a little corn salad with corn I canned last summer and the peppers and tomatoes from the CSA. It was pretty good! Next time I might go with a hotter salsa, though.

Tonight I just made some greens and fried up some squash with butter and sage from the fire escape (sage grows out there, but not butter, sadly). It might be a boring meal except the bread was so good!

We went to a party a while back and a guy brought bread he baked. We all tried it and said how good it was. Later Aaron told me I was a "very good person" for saying nice things about that guy's bread. I thought that was funny but he did have a point because that guy's bread tasted like crap and mine kicks ass.

making myself a pink skirt

2011-08-16T13:40:00.001-05:00

making myself a pink skirt, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

when life gives you seeds, peels, and corn flavored liquor...

2011-08-15T21:33:00.003-05:00

A friend of Aaron's back in Chicago used to bring us moonshine from Kentucky every now and then. She grew up there and her dad's a psychiatrist who occasionally accepts hams and booze and whatnot in barter when clients can't pay.

It feels like drinking gasoline with a hint of corn flavor, and is fun for those late hours of a party when only a few people are left and people start to accept dares. The first jar we had was still half full (and significantly mellowed) when we were blessed with a second (this time in a reused Reese's artichoke hearts jar).

When we were in Montauk for my birthday I was disappointed overall with the produce at the farm stands but I did score some black currants. I'd seen recipes for them but never found them for sale. I almost ended up throwing them out because they smelled so funky (and some were moldy) but my recipe mentioned their "strong flavor" several times and that's usually code for "weird flavor" so I decided to go for it. I made a blackcurrant jelly that's really good, though it never exactly jelled.

I decided to take the seeds left in the jelly strainer and add them to the moonshine. After a few weeks to steep I strained them out and added an equal part simple syrup (so 1 part booze, 1 part water heated with 1 part sugar, cooled before adding to the alcohol). I was afraid it would be really strong what with the medicinal flavor of the blackcurrant and the raw taste of the booze but topped off with lots of tonic it's actually quite delicious!

hey pretty lady, is that sterling silver?

2011-08-15T16:29:00.000-05:00

-guy on the street, regarding a food mill I was carrying. (it's not.)

purple dinner

2011-08-12T18:13:00.001-05:00

The CSA is fun because there are plenty of things that I like to eat but I've just never had the urge to make. We got 2 big Chinese eggplants this week and made the first one into a stir fry.

We didn't have fish sauce or oyster sauce, so it lacked a little depth, but overall it was pretty good.

moles and trolls

2011-08-10T21:03:00.002-05:00

One thing that I do like about my job, and the types of jobs I've had for the past few years, is getting to really know the city (be it Chicago or NYC) and see places most people never go.

Most people would be very surprised to know how incredibly hilly upper manhattan is (I know I constantly am). Where we live is at the south end of a ridge that runs 100 blocks north from the top of Central Park to the northern tip of the island. If you veer northwest you're on top of a ridge (Morningside Heights, Hamilton Heights then Washington Heights and the dreaded Fort George Hill). If you veer northeast you're in the lowlands, not that it's flat exactly.

There are several places where going two blocks east calls for rappelling gear, and leave it to the city to come up with the perfect solution. In several places there are tunnels going east/west so that people exiting the subway can either come up on one side, or two blocks over and 100 yards up an elevator. I'm not always sure that riding in a hot, sticky elevator packed with people sweating and yelling and breathing is better than summitting the hill on foot, but it's a welcome option for people like me who spend 4-5 hours a day on foot traversing these neighborhoods. You can visit clients on one side and then cut through the tunnel and elevator to the other side, it's like magic.

Of course, the tunnels are just awful but at least they try to make them cheery:

pickled okra

2011-08-07T08:41:00.004-05:00

Pickled okra is a big thing in Texas and nowhere else apparently. When we found some to buy in Chicago the label was in the shape of the state of Texas. I'm not a huge pickle person myself, but my dad and my husband love the stuff. When Aaron saw the 5 pints on the table he went straight to thinking about college football since he likes to snack on them while we root for the Longhorns.

Pickled okra is one of the easiest things you could make. There's no need to salt and brine or do much prep at all. At the farmer's market I got into a conversation with the only other person buying okra and she asked how long it takes to pickle them. I told her, oh, no time at all, it's really just a few minutes and then you let them sit for a few weeks. Her response: A FEW WEEKS!? I guess it's all relative... who needs instant gratification?

I bought 3 pounds of local okra at inflated NYC prices = $12. It made 5 jars which would have easily cost us $25 at the store, if not more. Besides, it was fun.

I got the recipe from Joy of Pickling, but it's basically 2 cups water, 2 cups cider vinegar, 1/4 cup pickling salt, boil it an pour over jars with okra, a sliced garlic clove, a hot pepper, and 1/2 tsp of dill seeds.

unconvincing

2011-08-03T19:28:00.002-05:00

using it up

2011-07-31T14:54:00.001-05:00

You make all these pickles and jams and chutneys and sometimes it's a nice surprise when you suddenly remember that they're actually useful for something.

my office

2011-07-31T09:37:00.000-05:00

cheers, summer

2011-07-27T21:49:00.003-05:00

you hate me, but i still love you.

inspirational

2011-07-26T20:19:00.002-05:00

inspiration, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

It's really hard for me not to see this as a flat-topped boy crying tears of blood because of the snake on his head.

summer

2011-07-24T21:45:00.004-05:00

Whoa. I don't know why I keep getting these jobs where I have to be outside during the summer. The first 3 years I lived in NYC I worked at a summer day camp. It was exhausting but at least I got to wear shorts. Now I have to be in dress pants and shoes... I think my feet cooked.

Luckily everyone else is too hot to notice that I'm showing up to their place drenched in sweat. It's nothing that 2 to 3 showers a day won't fix... temporarily.

I made a new friend and we decided to be smart and spend an over-100-degree day canning 2 batches of apricot jam in her tiny kitchen. Life without air conditioning is such an adventure. I trekked out to Brooklyn and experienced a cleansing sauna effect from the 4 boiling pots and then ran through a fire hydrant for the hell of it.

Pretty much everyone at my job has quit except for me so I'm interested to see how things go from here. I feel like I'm just along for the ride in a lot of ways, but I don't know who's driving anymore.

fun

2011-07-19T21:44:00.002-05:00

pacman graffiti, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

Here's something fun I saw today.

Another "fun" thing I saw today was a mouse in my silverware drawer. Simultaneously I could see a roach running up the wall in front of me. Not 2 minutes prior I had been inspecting a bite on the palm of my hand trying to determine whether or not it came from a bed bug.

Moving out here, we knew it would sort of suck, at least in the sense that we were leaving so many good things behind. We both really held out hope, though, that we would also enjoy our time here and learn to love our new home, job, etc.

Unfortunately not only the apartment, but the street we live on, school stuff, and especially my job has been comically terrible.

I know better than to write publicly about my job but rest assured that if I could give a one-sentence rundown of the highlights so far, it would make dealing with mice, cockroaches, and bedbugs all withing 60 seconds of each other seem like a relaxing day at the spa.

I can only hope that one day I can share the wonder and hilarity that is my 9 to 5, but then again I hope that by the time I'm able to do so I will have moved on completely.

well, i'm really smart, so i think i'll just figure it out myself

2011-07-18T16:52:00.002-05:00

what i ended up telling the very persistent guy at my door, who insisted he needed to see my electric bill so he could figure out why i'm not getting my "money-back savings"

they've got the right idea

2011-07-17T09:22:00.002-05:00

they've got the right idea, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

I was sitting at the bus stop at 113th and Frederick Douglass and wind came through the crack in the plexiglas and blew on my head and I thought it was a bug so I whipped around and saw that behind the bus stop, someone planted a container garden and it had tomatoes growing all over. It made me really, really happy.

pickle relish

2011-07-16T23:18:00.001-05:00

here's something i did, i made pickle relish. i haven't had the chance to taste it yet because i want to let the flavors mingle for a while. i hope it's good! csa cucumbers and farmer's market bell peppers.

things that work, or why medicaid is cheaper than murder

2011-07-15T21:34:00.008-05:00

I forgot about how when you live in NYC there are always these awful news stories that don't get broadcast nationally, usually about really gruesome murders of children. Every year I've lived here there's been at least one. The latest is one of those, the type of thing you hear on the news and really wish you'd never known about, so I won't describe it or post a link to it.

Like with several other high-profile murders of late, the person has already confessed and rumors are swirling that he hears voices, that he's psychotic. When I hear something like this I feel so many conflicting emotions. Anger that the media, in their frenzy for a headline, consistently implies that mentally ill = murderer. Fear of getting hurt by one of the people I work with, or failing to prevent them from hurting someone else. Relief that there may be at least SOME explanation for such unimaginable violence. Worry that my clients will hear about this story and internalize even more of the stigma out there, hating themselves more and becoming more ashamed of something that's not their fault. By the time this man is assessed and diagnosed (and it seems likely that real clinicians may have a different opinion than newspaper journalists) everyone will already have it in their minds that this man was "a schizophrenic."

The truth is that overall, mentally ill people are no more likely than the rest of the population to commit violence. They are more likely to be the victim of violence than non-mentally-ill people. But it is also true that someone who is symptomatic, often due to going untreated, can be very impulsive, unpredictable, illogical, and even violent.

I suppose if I could paint the picture myself I'd try to make it clear that any of us can reach a point where we behave irrationally and out of fear, that any person can experience psychosis or delirium for many reasons including sleep deprivation, infections (such as urinary tract infections), brain injury (like TBI that many soldiers have), organic brain syndrome (such as that resulting from seizures/tumors), legal and illegal drug use, alcohol use, and yes, mental illness. And that doing ANYTHING to discourage people from seeking a remedy to any of these problems is inviting danger and pain for the people involved, their families, and strangers too.

Mayor Bloomberg made comments the day of this boy's funeral and pointed out that since the act that took his life was so random, it's hard to think of anything that could have been done to prevent it or that can be done to prevent something similar from happening in the future. But it seems that if this man was mentally ill, the most obvious steps, steps that might have prevented this, are making it less humiliating to seek treatment for mental illness and funding programs that treat mental illness.

The man who committed this murder was part of a very insular and conservative community where seeking treatment for any psychological disorder is highly stigmatized. The way the media has responded to even rumors of his hallucinations has only served to increase people's fear and misunderstanding of mental illness, almost certainly leading to more people going untreated. Many people who know him were reported to say that they knew something was wrong but no one would or could step in to help. If it wasn't seen as embarrassing and shameful to need this type of help, people would be far more likely to suggest it.

We are also living in a time where funding is being cut year after year for the treatment of severe mental illness. The states have used community-based treatment as an excuse to cut almost all funding to state hospitals and more intensive treatment providers, so that when people become very unstable they often cannot get the treatment they need in an inpatient setting. And even community-based services are being cut so that agencies can no longer take on new clients, or no longer help people without Medicaid, or no longer provide the level of services they used to. Often they can no longer pay for qualified professionals and instead have well-meaning but severely undertrained people providing direct services to people experiencing psychosis.

Most baffling is that providing these services is cost-effective. I can't think of a more poignant example than comparing the cost of a lifetime of government-subsidized treatment for this individual to the cost of trying him in court, incarcerating him for life, and possibly killing him in the most expensive way possible. I'm assuming there's no need to point out the intangible "cost" of a life cut short and a family and community left heartbroken.

I grew up in a conservative area, but I just can't understand why anyone would not want to spend government resources making sure that we're all safe and healthy. I can't think of anything more important to do with money.

For anyone that wants to know more about these things, here are a couple good articles and a PBS documentary I recommend:

This article describes how budget cuts at the state level led to a bachelor's-level social worker being left alone in a residence with a psychotic man who was not getting the treatment he needed (also due to budget cuts), who stabbed her to death.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/us/17MENTAL.html?http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif_r=1&scp=1&sq=schizophrenic&st=cse

A short article about how hard it was/would have been for Jared Loughner to get help:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/us/11mental.html?scp=6&sq=schizophrenia&st=cse

A Frontline episode about mentally ill people who are stable while in prison and become symptomatic (and return to prison) because they can't get treatment when they are released.

http://video.pbs.org/video/1114528522

new decade

2011-07-11T17:07:00.003-05:00

We went to Montauk for my birthday. It was pretty fun. We also made a pie. I stirred the chocolate custard and Aaron stirred the eggs into a meringue. It worked!

My 20s were filled with adventures and excitement and travel and new experiences. I had a good time. I think the next phase will be about connectedness and meaningful work and seeking joy every day.

new project

2011-07-09T13:59:00.002-05:00

new project, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

I haven't knitted anything since Thanksgiving... it was very exciting to get new yarn in the mail!

7/7

2011-07-07T19:03:00.002-05:00

I can't help but like today's date. It's been a slow-ish week, meaning no one went to a different hemisphere and no one experienced any major job drama, ahem. I attended a very strange rooftop 4th of July party where a friendly shorthaired hippie girl noticed that I brought sangria in a mason jar and asked if I live "in a community." I'm not sure what she meant but she made it sound so nice.

I spent half of this week at a work training that was about as pointless and irritating as any other training, but it was kind of better than going to work, sadly. Today was hot, confusing because I had accidentally checked the weather for Chicago, as I often do, and thought it would be much cooler. I spent most of the day trekking around Harlem with way too much stuff in my messenger bag, drenched in sweat.

I hit up the farmer's market after work and they had peas on sale so I came home and shelled a billion peas, blanched and froze them. Throwing away all those pea shells made my miss my compost pile big time. It feels so, so wrong to throw away all this stuff that would go right back into the earth if we gave it the chance. I feel like it adds insult to injury that the building super re-bags all of our trash into thicker black bags, like they just want to make sure it never, EVER decomposes.

Lately I've been running in the park a lot, I try to get in 5 or 6 miles before work. I like it there because it really smells like plants, except for one part that always smells like stale beer and nutmeg, like the leftovers of a weird Christmas party.

chef

2011-07-02T21:20:00.005-05:00

This week our CSA box had zucchinis and snap peas. I was super excited! I'm usually not the type to cook without a recipe, but it's hard to go wrong with veggies this fresh. I sliced the zucchini thin with a vegetable peeler, salted it a little, and left it in a colander to drain. The peas I boiled for 1 minute, then put in cold water. I used the same water to cook some pasta and when it was done I used the same pan to cook some garlic in olive oil, then dumped the pasta, peas and squash back in for just a second. With grated romano on top it was really good (shaved parmesan would have been better, but I got too hungry at the end).

rosemary infused olive oil

2011-06-30T07:36:00.003-05:00

I bought this little empty bottle for $2 at Zabar's and now I have rosemary oil to put on my bread.

doing this made me happy

2011-06-28T18:17:00.000-05:00

fire escape salad

2011-06-26T15:33:00.004-05:00

I planted these seeds when we moved in, so about 5 weeks ago. I haven't done anything to take care of them, aside from sticking a bunch of toothpicks in the dirt to keep the pigeons out. Today I harvested enough for 4 or 5 salads, and planted some basil and cilantro and dill seeds.

god, i miss it so much

2011-06-25T09:11:00.001-05:00

I was out for my run in Central Park this morning, and when this Department of Eagles song came on my ipod I remembered this video, and felt so homesick.

Summer Sped Up (A Chicago Timelapse) from Josh Kalven on Vimeo.

plant, plant, plant, kitty

2011-06-22T19:02:00.004-05:00

sort of like duck duck goose, if the goose had sharp claws and teeth.

veggie burger

2011-06-21T18:40:00.002-05:00

Even though it's not remotely local or sustainable or anything, every now and then we treat ourselves to veggie burgers. I make up for the store-bought-ness by using home-baked buns, veggies from the garden or farmer's market, and homemade dill pickles. Next year, homemade ketchup.

quiet

2011-06-19T08:47:00.003-05:00

It was a rough week at work, and weird having Aaron gone after we just moved in. I had planned to go see Junip in prospect park on Friday night, but it was thunder and lightning and rain from 3 until dark, so I stayed home. I love thunderstorms, so I wasn't too disappointed. Sometimes a nice record at home can be almost as good as a live show (sometimes).

Bleecker woke me up at 6am, running around and yelling, popping her head up over the edge of the bed and meowing in my face. She doesn't normally do that... maybe she misses Aaron too.

Now that I've finished my green tea, homemade bagel (a little tough) and grapefruit (so not in season), I'm headed to the farmer's market and laundromat before it gets any warmer out there.

restless

2011-06-16T18:34:00.002-05:00

I've been feeling a little listless, a little restless. I got out the scissors and gave myself bangs, then got out the knife and made some greens. It's good.

dinner for one

2011-06-15T19:21:00.002-05:00

I'll admit that I was sort of dreading this meal. I found a recipe for broccoli rabe sauteed with garlic and then topped with romano. It says it serves 6 and it's just me here. But then again it called for 2 pounds and I have no idea how much I used (so scientific). I decided to also make a white bean salad, I had some jars of beans I made a while back so I opened one and tossed it with the scallions and the remaining garlic scape, plus some salt and pepper, oil and vinegar.

With a little hunk of homemade bread, it was really good! I cleaned my plate! I think it helped how fresh the greens were. I think if they had sat even a day longer, they would have been too tough.

prentice

2011-06-15T11:03:00.007-05:00

I hope this building doesn't get demolished. It looks so cool on the outside, and the inside is even better. I always enjoyed visiting my clients in the psychiatric institute there (because of the views, not the hospitalizations, obviously).

You can click on the photo to read about the preservation efforts.

already eating stuff i thought i didn't like!

2011-06-14T19:42:00.003-05:00

I got my first CSA box today. It was supposed to start last week but they pushed it back due to the cold spring. Unfortunately, Aaron left for 2 weeks in India this morning, which means I am on my own to eat a whole lot of leaves.

Today we got chard, bok choy, leaf lettuce, broccoli rabe (I didn't even know what this was), a bunch of scallions, 2 garlic scapes (seriously? 2?), a bunch of tiny turnips, and little potted oregano and purple basil plant. I also signed up for a fruit and coffee share, so I got a quart of amazing tiny strawberries and a half pound of organic, fair trade, locally roasted coffee beans.

Initially I was a little perplexed but then I decided to sort it out, nerd style. I decided to stir fry the bok choy for dinner tomorrow or the next day, and try a recipe for sauteed broccoli rabe with romano another day. The lettuce I washed and put in a plastic container for salads, and though I like to eat chard raw I think I'm a little in over my head at this point, so I blanched and froze it = future lasagna. I also froze the stems of the bok choy to throw in some soup in the fall, and kept all the odds and ends in the freezer for stock.

I was perplexed about the turnips because the only ones I've eaten were the size of a softball and tasted like dirt. These actually taste like radishes and can be eaten raw. I also found a recipe for a small batch of pickled baby turnips (just a pint) so I'll try that if I don't finish them.

For tonight I decided to have a baked potato (I had a potato lying around) with the scallions and scapes, and a salad with the radishes. It's actually really good!

chipping a huge tree

2011-06-14T18:41:00.001-05:00

chipping a huge tree, a photo by sarahs_and_aarons on Flickr.

i was walking by central park yesterday and they were cutting up this huge tree and putting it through a chipper. wouldn't giant pieces of wood like that be worth something?

rhubarb rosemary jam

2011-06-14T06:58:00.002-05:00

I made this rhubarb and rosemary jam. I love rhubarb AND rosemary, but this was gross. Sweet and slimy... I threw it out. It was my first time using liquid pectin... don't think I'll do that again.