My Apartment

I have been requested to post some pictures of my apartment. Here's some photos of my kitchen, dining area, and living room. I apologize for the slightly cluttered look...I am still kind of getting everything set up.

Bread Photos!

I know you've all been waiting breathlessly to see pictures of the breads I've been making, so here they are. Ginger Scones

Basic Hearth Bread

Raisin Pecan Bread

Veggie Top Ten

I have to come up with a bunch of Top Ten lists for a newspaper feature for work, so I figured I might as well test run them here.

Top Ten Seed Catalogs
1. Seed Savers Exchange
2. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
3. Johnny's Selected Seeds
4. Wild Garden Seed
5. Gourmet Seed International
6. Kitazawa Seed
6. Evergreen Seeds
7. Totally Tomatoes
8. Thompson & Morgan
9. Seeds of Italy
10. Burpee

Top Ten Tomato Varieties
1. Chocolate Stripes
2. Big Yellow Zebra
3. Berkeley Tie-Dye
4. Sungold (Cherry)
5. Sugary (Cherry)
6. Green Sausage
7. Northern Lights
8.Cherokee Purple
9. Striped Roman
10. Striped Red Furry Hog

Top Ten Vegetable Varieties (except Tomatoes)
1. Kazakh Melon
2. Flying Saucer Scallop Squash
3. Mexican Sour Gherkin
4. Siberian Garlic
5. Christmas Lima Bean
6. Red Noodle Chinese Long Bean
7. Shimonita Negi Onion
8. Flashy Butter Oak Lettuce
9. Chioggia Beets
10. Magic Molly Potato

Top Ten Herbs
1. Lemon Verbena
2. Chocolate Mint
3. Pinewood Thyme
4. Mexican Tarragon
5. Pesto Perpetuo Basil
6. Thai Basil
7. Lemon Thyme
8. Orange Mint
9. Lemon Myrtle
10. Golden Sage

Ultimately, all my favorites are things that I want to eat or cook with...Maybe there will be a Recipe Top Ten coming up soon!

Baptism of the Lord

Sunday was the feast day of the Baptism of the Lord, if you are following the liturgical calendar. Kind of interesting, in a way, since we just finished Christmas, and all of a sudden here we have the adult Jesus getting baptized by John the Baptist.

But if you think about it, it fits. After all, Christmas and Epiphany are about the Incarnation...about God coming into the world in human form and making himself known to us through Jesus. So it makes sense that as we continue in the year after Christmas is over, we look at the Gospel as it relates to God becoming more known to people.

In fact, all the readings for Sunday show that theme. (You should be able to follow the links to go read them if you want. It's really long to post all the text here.)

Isaiah 42: 1-7

Psalm 29: 1-4, 9-10

Acts 10:34-38

Matthew 3: 13-17

The passage from Isaiah is talking about the Lord's chosen servant, and you can see the "pre-echoes" in the passage as they relate to Jesus and his message that "the Kingdom of God is at hand." The passage from Psalms is really a great response to Isaiah, as it says "ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name." First we hear about God's plans to rescue his people, then the sung response is to give God the glory for it. Then the reading from Acts continues with Peter preaching to Cornelius and his household the good news that salvation is now available to the entire world through Jesus. Then the gospel reading finishes the set with the narrative of Jesus' baptism by John, inaugurating his public ministry of preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God.

How neat! It's like a mini-Gospel story all packed into 4 readings. The gospel is there...just not in the same package of readings that we might typically expect to hear.

Out and About

It's been a quite slow week in the office so far, which is good since I'm still exhausted from the traveling. I hope none of you are counting on me driving very far over the weekend in the next few months, 'cause it ain't happening.

That said, I'm leaving at 4:30 Thursday morning for the Vegetable Growers Conference. I'm sure it'll be a really worthwhile conference, I just wish I didn't have to get up so early. I guess I don't have anything really exciting to say...so I'll just sign off and go back to my vegetating.

The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Berenbaum

I received this book for Christmas from Steven's family. It is every bit as scrumptious as I thought it would be. I'm only sad that my schedule will not allow my to start trying out recipes for a couple more weeks.

I've been making basic breads for quite a number of years, so I'm definitely comfortable with the yeast aspect of bread making. However, the idea of making starters and sponges and using some of the more artisan techniques and ingredients has always been a little scary. What I really appreciate about this book is that it includes a lot more than just recipes...it also covers the science behind why certain techniques work or why different types of flour are better or worse for each type of bread. I remember doing some things with types of flour in my Food Processing class at ISU. (For those of you who remember, this was the absolutely HATED class that had ridiculously long, boring labs...largely watching huge vats of various things boil for hours on end.) Anyway, I think that the information in this book is presented much more accessibly than the class, with a good balance of the Science of bread making with the Art of bread making. Duh...if it wasn't, no one would buy the book.

I have 10 recipes marked in the book to try, starting with the Rich and Creamy Ginger Scones. I'll keep you updated as I have the opportunity to test the recipes...and maybe I'll even torture you with pictures!

Absent Once Again

Once again I seem to have taken an unintended leave of absence from blogging. Not that it's a big deal, since I was actually interacting with many of you in person rather than through a silly website. But I still miss sharing my thoughts with the world on my own personal soapbox.

I've been keeping busy, since Steven and I drove up to Minnesota and then Wisconsin for Christmas with both of our families. I'm still trying to catch up from that. Then we're driving back up for a wedding this weekend. EEK! At least the weather has been pretty favorable.

I'm eating a pink orange for lunch. A Cara Cara orange, to be exact. Rather amusing. I'd forgotten that's what it was until I opened it up.

Work continues to go well. I'm starting to fill up my schedule with presentations at the senior centers and meetings with groups interested in community garden and youth urban gardening. I'm also going to be going to the Great Plains Vegetable Conference in St. Joseph, MO next week. I'm excited to go to a conference where I get to learn and gain ideas for programming here this year.

I think it's going to be a challenge to be busy but not overwhelmingly busy. Some people would absolutely love it if I would go to every single training session and event that might conceivably be construed to fit into my job description. Sorry, not going to happen. Even so, I will be happy as things get a little more busy here after Christmas. It's been a quiet couple of weeks. It still takes me aback a little to realize how different the climate is here. People are starting to prune their fruit trees already...something we would normally not do until March farther north!

At any rate, hopefully this has given you a bit of an update. I'll probably get around to more regular blogging later this month...or next month... It'll be nice once I get back into a regular routine with all sorts of things.