why i love top chef & project runway

ok, some may say this is trashy reality tv, but i am as addicted to bravo tv shows as matt is to his latest new yorker. i think it is primarily because it reminds me of being in art school. seriously, every time i get to the last ten snarky minutes where the judges are tearing things apart and the person who totally deserves to get sent home for their crappy recipe or hideous outfit somehow survives the chopping block for another week, i think to myself: that is SO an art critique. maybe it is my at-home-feeling to watch these poor souls scramble to get something good together for the judges table or the runway only to be torn to bits. or raved about like they're the latest art star. or maybe i just like trashy reality tv. 

least fav project runway people this season: 

suede (why talk about yourself in the third person unless you are updating your status on facebook?)

daniel. kenley. (cause they both think they are super amazing. and they're not)

faves: korto (how could i not love her? she's from monrovia, liberia. and her outfits kick ass.)

terri (so sad to see her go home)

blayne (ok, not really, but i think it's funny that he adds -licious onto everything. still not christian's fierce from last season, but cute.)

jerell 

confusing: joe (how is he still in the running???)

all i know is....please let sjp's vision for an art reality show happen. please. it would be so amazing. or complete crap.

how does your garden grow?

i always brag about our garden, but to be honest, i do absolutely nothing at all out there except for maybe bring matt iced tea while he works or nibble on whatever happens to be ripe on the day i wander out there. my favorites are always the strawberries, but i have a crush on the latest crop of garlic...and these artichokes are wooing me, even though we won't be able to eat any of them until next summer. (but they sure are cute)

first thing in the morning

every morning, matt drinks a pot of peet's lose leaf english breakfast tea, with whole milk and LOADS of sugar. whenever i try to fix a cup for him, i just pour in sugar until it tastes sickly sweet - and then i add a few teaspoons more. it is his morning ritual, and in the old days, pre-little m, i would stay snuggled in bed while he sat in the front room enjoying his pot of tea and the quiet of a day about to begin. as i cleaned the kitchen the other day, his tea had left residue on the counter, and i thought it spoke appropriately of his love for black tea.

full bellies

matt and i have been getting a csa (community supported agriculture) box for about 6 months now. our box, which makes its way down from full belly farm in yolo county, shows up every wednesday afternoon. all we have to do is pick it up from the delivery spot about five minutes away. we never know what will be in the box, and the contents are definitely more diverse than what i would normally buy from the store, so it forces us to haul out the cookbooks sometimes and to eat some of the stepchild vegetables. it has been an adventurous way to eat seasonally and freshly, and to feel more connected with where our food is actually produced.

a few weeks ago we discovered that the entire stone fruit crop at full belly had been wiped out because of a late frost, so our box would lack my favorite fruits this summer: plums, peaches, pluots... honestly, my first thought was that we should bail and sign up with another csa so that we could still eat oodles of fruit straight from the farm. but on second thought i realized that in some ways this was one of the benefits of being part of a csa; suddenly i was much more tied to our farm's fate, and more cognizant of the realities of growing and harvesting food. we are lucky to live in a place where we can get all sorts of local fruits and vegetables, so even with the unfortunate loss of full belly's fruit crop, we can still go to the farmer's market on saturday and load up on seasonal fruit.

matt's been making all sorts of meals with our boxes...i loved these roasted veggies: the new potatoes with pink flesh are called Huckleberries. YUM.