Following up from last year’s post, I wanted to document another quick progress report as we continue to work toward cultivating an edible landscape here in the wild yard of our home in Sequim, WA. This year had its ups and downs, but overall we saw some big improvements in our gardening efforts as we start getting a little more accustomed to the climate!
Continue reading “Edible Yardwork: Year 2”Category: Life
1 Year in Edible Yardwork
Our planet has made a full trip around the sun since we found our home on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula and moved into our beloved, wild yard. To celebrate the occasion, you’re invited to join me for a photo tour of our first year of progress in cultivating an edible landscape!
We’re still pretty early in our growing season up here, so I don’t have much in the way of actual harvest-ready “fruits” of our labor to show off… but this is my 1-year progress report, and maybe later this year I can follow up with an update on the goods (along the way, you’re likely to see highlights on my Instagram feed).
Continue reading “1 Year in Edible Yardwork”Sequim Sweet Sequim
This spring, I’ve been busy getting real about following my dreams… the ones that involve seeking freedom from urban captivity and planting myself in a greener place. I’ve been spending most of my weekends playing out the long-game of our move to the northwest, ferrying across Puget Sound and trekking across the wild Olympic Peninsula in search of a new habitat to call our own.
Eggnog Wedding Cookies
Yes, this holiday cookie recipe is a bit late to the party – but I’m sharing it today as my silly food-bloggy way of commemorating some new-life-news: believe it or not, I’m a married lady now! After 11 years together, Grant and I finally made it official over new year’s weekend and held a tiny elopement ceremony overlooking Seattle’s waterfront in a gondola aboard the Great Wheel. Love is magic – feels good, man!
The New Year is my favorite holiday, but there’s one sad thing about January: no more eggnog! If you’re a nog-lover like me, these cookies make a good antidote for the withdrawals.
Continue reading “Eggnog Wedding Cookies”Food Prep Strategy: 7 Steps to Sustenance & Sanity
Let’s talk about eating logistics. If you like to eat fresh/whole/minimally-processed/REAL food, you have to plan, shop, and cook. It takes some time and effort, but it is an essential form of self-care.
Luckily, since we have to eat every day, we get a lot of practice at this task. With experience, we optimize. We can get better at working smarter, not harder.
Done properly, getting systematic about your Food Plan can improve your quality of life. It can save you time, money and stress. It can help you align your goals with your reality. It can streamline your efforts, freeing up your creative energy for bigger and better things, while keeping yourself well-fed and SANE.
Continue reading “Food Prep Strategy: 7 Steps to Sustenance & Sanity”
Life in the Northwest
Lo and behold, HERE WE ARE. Moving is never easy, but we made it happen, and it is so exciting to finally find ourselves exploring this new world. And really, compared to what we’ve been used to in San Diego, Seattle is like a whole new universe. Even now, in the dead of winter, everything is ALIVE! We see flocks of birds take flight every morning, seas of trees in every direction, and practically every surface is covered with a fuzzy, friendly diversity of lichens, fungi and mosses. Life is beautiful, and this biological abundance is something I take a lot of comfort in.
Making a Move… Hello, Seattle!
Oh, hello.
Apparently 3 months have blasted by since I last made time to write here. Things have been a little chaotic, but I think the dust has settled enough that I can finally go public with an official announcement: this household is closing up shop in San Diego, and moving north. We are relocating to Seattle, Washington!
Adventures in Beekeeping!
Welcome to the story of the latest chapter in my farm-to-table education: beekeeping! For real!! A couple of weeks ago I made the cross-country trek to visit my family back in Florida, where my mom has been experimenting with caring for a colony of honeybees. Since we’re both nature-lovers and food-tinkerers, we had been scheming to share a honey-gathering adventure together ever since she started her crash course in self-taught beekeeping, after a neighbor gave her the hive last year.
Looking back, maybe I should have been more apprehensive about breaking into a bee colony to steal their hard-earned honey, but I knew mom had been through a successful harvest already, and I figured humans must have learned a thing or two about dealing with bees in the last ~9000 documented years of apiculture. So I was all in!
The first step was suiting up – at the time we had yet to invest in proper beekeepers’ garb, so we improvised with some rather goofy outfits. Mosquito netting protected my face, and I tucked sleeves-into-gloves and pants-into-socks to keep unwanted intruders out of my business – it got the job done! It was comforting to be covered, but I was surprised to learn that many beekeepers are able to manage their bees’ defensive behaviors so well that they’re able to forgo the bulky outfit!
We rolled up to the hive, armed with the first line of defense for encouraging gentle bees: smoke. Ever wonder what makes smoke the beekeepers’ secret weapon? Interestingly, smoke initiates the bees’ feeding response, triggering them to settle down and eat honey in anticipation of hive abandonment due to fire! It also masks their alarm pheromones, quelling the collective freakout and making it safer to reach into their box for some honey!
Check out those bees! My mom says there are probably about 10,000 in there!!! There are different types of hives with their own pros and cons, but this traditional movable-frame hive is what my mom was given to get started. Each wooden “frame” in the box can be lifted to reveal a solid slab of honeycomb. After prying out each frame and brushing off the clinging bees, mom passed them off to me to run back to the house.
We loaded four frames into another special tool, the extractor: it’s a large, stainless steel, manual centrifuge. We took turns cranking and spinning our hearts out, and ended up with 9 full pints of honey, plus a few other odd sizes once we ran out of canning jars. It was the coolest thing!!! The honey is mindblowing – raw, golden, and studded with a galaxy of pollen visibly suspended in its sticky sweetness.
I couldn’t help but get smitten with honeybees, and my someday-dream-house plans now include a hive in the backyard. Tending a colony just appeals to all of my sensibilities:
- The bees’ mysterious habits and complex behaviors pique my biological curiosity.
- I’m in awe of the ancient knowledge surrounding beekeeping; humans have been accumulating a profound base of understanding over thousands of years of bee domestication, just waiting to be tapped into.
- It’s a beautiful thing to look at the big picture and watch them do their thing, participating in nature and playing their part in our holistic world.
Speaking of which, supporting healthy bee populations is a good deed! Life on Earth depends on, well, life on Earth. Bees play a crucial role, and their populations have been in an alarming decline in recent years. Tending a big family of happy, healthy honeybees using sustainable methods can help turn things around in your community and beyond.
Not ready to invite a few thousand bees into your yard? Maybe instead, start by just checking out this article on 10 Things You Can Do to Help Bees. Happy Earth Day!
For the Love of Food
I don’t have a full-fledged post for today, but I still wanted to check in to say hello and share a real-time glimpse into my kitchen life. It’s Valentine’s Day, which means I’m getting ready for our annual holiday tradition: home-cooked steakhouse dinner for two. This year it’s grass-fed sirloin, roasted asparagus and whole onions, and freshly-baked seeded sourdough baguettes (swoon).
Grant is out taking advantage of the warm Sunday weather for a surf session, so I’ve been spending a relaxing morning at home sipping coffee, petting Chuy, and leafing through my bookshelf in an attempt to kindle my next spark of culinary inspiration. Harold McGee delivered, as usual – ever since I was gifted On Food and Cooking years ago, I’ve been in awe of the depth of culinary science and history expertly compiled in its 884 pages. I’ve valued it as a reference book, but after blowing my mind about 7 different times just during my morning of leisurely skimming, I decided I’ve been doing this work a disservice by not soaking every word of it into my food brain! I love being a culinary dietitian and building a career around foodie science, so I really need to take better advantage of this wisdom. I know it’s going to be a long haul, but I’m resolving to finally read this thing cover to cover. Welcome to my nightstand, McGee.
Curiosity is a good thing, and we food lovers have a lot to be curious about. I’ll close with a line from McGee’s introduction, a timely reminder (given today’s holiday spirit) to give our attention to the thing we love:
“Food is an infinitely rich subject, and there’s always something about it to understand better, something new to discover, a fresh source of interest, ideas and delight.”
Any other food nerds out there on the same page? Reach out to discuss! You can order the book on Amazon here.
Summer Living
Things have been a little quieter on this website than I like lately. Honestly, I’ve been making an effort to spend more time in the moment; quality time with Grant and with friends, enjoying the outdoors, taking more time to take care of myself. When prioritizing these (irrefutably good) pursuits, I just haven’t had as much screen time to sit down and write/photograph all the posts that I want to share with you. But don’t worry – things have been in the works, and you have lots of good stuff to look forward to!
Before July passes by in silence, I want to take a moment to catch up and chat about the things that have been feeding my spirit. I hope you can derive some inspiration, and I’d love to hear about what has been nourishing you lately too.
- summer gardening: I really like having plants around… it just feels right. My apartment doesn’t have any outdoor space at all, but we still make room for our botanical friends with a little container garden outside our front door. This summer we’ve been maintaining our current resident herbs (parsley, mint, basil and chives), harvesting a bumper crop of jalapenos, and freshening up our window box with a blooming bunch of portulaca (gorgeous and very prolific!)
- summer reading: I’m currently deep into Ram Dass’ Journey of Awakening and on the foodie front, I’ve also been working my way through An Everlasting Meal. Tamar Adler takes us through a leisurely discourse on ‘cooking with economy and grace,’ weaving together conventional wisdom and recipes with a sense of calm and appreciation that draws the reader to see the true beauty of simple cooking. It’s a real delight, highly recommended.
- summer cooking: While I might have slowed down on posting, I never stop cooking! I’ve been living on fresh peaches, making lots of quick dinners with Instant Pot, experimenting with culturing my first sourdough starter, and scheming over lots of exciting healthy foods to share with all of you very soon.
- art is another thing that nourishes my spirit on the regular, mostly because I’m lucky enough to live with a really talented artist. The image above is a painting by Grant Fraker; you can find it along with other original paintings and prints at GrantFrakersArt on Etsy (and follow along on Twitter and Instagram).
