Eating & Drawing: Now with Baby.

"Here is sort of a thing. Damn it's been since April that I posted! That's terrible! Even given my usual summer garden-related blog slump, that is really bad."

That's a draft I found when I logged into this blog yesterday, written last October. Ha, I thought that was bad, now it's July, & it's been well over a year since I've posted anything. Or drawn anything either, to be honest.

And I'm not really sure where this is going to go-I'm writing this now from my iPhone while breast feeding a five week and four day old baby. 

Yup. I found out that I was pregnant ten days after I started writing that October blog post, & Eating & Drawing kind of flew out the window.

My baby girl Iris Marjorie was born on June 14th at 2:27pm & she's sleeping in my lap right now. 

I was thinking that it would be nice to start this blog up again, as I am home taking care of the baby at the moment, & I spend a lot of time here in my breast feeding chair, with not much else besides my phone to entertain me & I'm getting rather sick of Facebook. 

Not sure how much drawing there will be or how coherent these posts will be, written in little snatches of free time here & there, but writing here is a little like talking to an adult so I'd like to give it a try. 

Should this become a mommy blog though? Wasn't this my art blog? Should I get a new blog, since my life isn't much about eating or drawing any more? Dare I put up posts with no visual content?

I think Iris & I will now go take a walk & think about it. 

And we are back. This was a big day for us-we drove to town to walk on the bike path & that went well so we went to cvs to pick up Iris' birth announcement cards. 

This is the fourth week that Iris & I have been home alone together (she will be six weeks old on Friday) & the first time that we have gone anywhere alone together besides doctor's appointments & our breast feeding support group. 

I'd imagined before Iris was born that we'd be spending the summer taking walks in the woods around home & working in the garden together, & that hasn't really happened. 

It's been very hot & unbelievably mosquito-y here this summer, & this has left us trapped in the house. For really the  first time in my life. 

I really like to walk, I really like to be outside, that is so so important to me, & in the last six weeks I have been inside more than I ever have in my life. 

It's weird. I love this girl so much. I would do anything for her in a way that I have never even felt close too with any other living thing. I am happy to do anything for her, but it is odd to suddenly feel like I can & do exist without what I used to consider my basic needs: art, fresh air, exercise. 

So, yeah, long story short, we did take the damn car ( I hate the car, I hate to drive, & driving with a tiny baby is just that much more terrifying to me) & go out today & that was good. 

And I wrote on this blog again & that was also good. 

I guess I will keep this up. See how it goes. Bear with me-there might not be much or any art for a while, & the only way I can really write is on my phone with one hand with the baby in my lap, so forgive sloppy spelling & grammar for now. 

Will there be any food? We will see, my post-partum feelings about cooking & food are complicated but that's another post. 

Hi y'all. Welcome to the new Eating & Drawing. 

I had a baby! Wild. Who would have thought that would ever happen, back in the Drinking & Drawing days. 

But here we are. And she us definitely the best thing I have ever done in my life. So stay tuned. 

Egg Day.

Happy (late) Easter, if you're into that sort of thing.
Or "Egg Day" as my mom adorably said in a text yesterday.
"Egg Day" seemed appropriate, as we did begin our Easter Sunday with very fresh eggs for breakfast, courtesy Easter morning from Lulu & Miranda. Being relatively new chicken owners, every egg is still something to celebrate.
As a half Jewish/half Catholic girl raised in neither faith, I mostly celebrate holidays with food. Not to say that I don't take holidays seriously. I celebrate anything. I am a big fan of any excuse to cook a festive meal, pretty much. Mardi Gras, Saint Patrick's Day, Valentine's Day, whatever, bring on the food.
& the rituals. Christmas trees, menorahs, Easter baskets, Mardi Gras costumes.
Upholding traditions in some form is important to me.
I plan on making chopped liver & matzo ball soup this week in honor of my Gramma Bess & Passover. (I celebrate all the Jewish holidays with those things, they make me think of her the most).
Easter I've always been fond of: Spring is something to celebrate, egg dyeing is a nice ritual, & there's something about the Easter myth that appeals to the drama queen in me. Plus, Easter is a holiday where I have traditionally managed to avoid family obligations & spend the day the way I like, at home cooking a good old fashioned Sunday dinner with the person I love.
This is the first Easter in a long time that I haven't had to work, & our first married Easter.
We spent it exactly as I hoped. We ate a delicious breakfast of our own eggs & bacon while listening to some of the truly excellent Christian Country hits of Randy Travis, then we dug in the new garden all day.
We are attempting to clear by hand an about 60x60 foot square of abandoned & totally overgrown garden space.
On this Easter Sunday we tilled two new 45'x4' beds & planted sugar snap peas, yellow beans, French Breakfast & Easter egg radishes, golden beets, & blue potatoes, then dug a cold frame to harden off the kale & Kohlrabi & broccoli & cauliflower seedlings we have started indoors.
I'm really getting to know that pitchfork. I'm pretty proud of the calluses I've gotten on my palms, these last few weeks.
Then we cleaned the chicken coop (yay farm chores!) & hung out laundry on the line (I love finally being able to have a clothesline here!) & other weekends tasks, trash, sweeping, dishes, etc.
So we totally deserved the completely indulgent Easter dinner we had.

Egg Day Dinner 2012.

 Roast Duck marinated overnight in wine, garlic, sage, rosemary, chili peppers, olive oil, & salt & pepper. 
We bought the duck on a Friday night as a weekend impulse & grilled the legs that night, served with curried rice & broccoli. Then marinated the rest of it over Saturday night & roasted it Sunday.
Owen's famous Cheesy Bacon Mashed Potatoes.
I swear that man is insane. One pound of bacon, both ricotta & fresh mozzarella, & 1/2 & 1/2. Into mashed potatoes. I love him.
With some leftover Kale Pesto because I like to eat a green thing & I'm still on the Kale Pesto kick.
Topped with, of course, Duck Gravy.  Huge amounts of Duck Gravy.
God damn I'm glad a married a man whose good with gravy. 
My leftovers for lunch at work were kind of insane. Yeah, I'm just eating my roast duck & cheesy bacon mashed potatoes & duck gravy over here, don't mind me.
I went to bed completely exhausted & satisfied last night. Good food, seeds planted, house & coop clean. 
Right now I'm making a soup from the duck stock. Fridge soup, don't you know it!
I have a huge pile of seeds on hold I'm gonna buy at work tomorrow. There is a whole cleared bed we haven't even touched yet.
I don't mean to always be all Pollyanna on y'all the time here, but mostly, stuff's good. I don't think we have anything real to complain about.
I guess somewhere along the line I've turned into a positive thinker. Or I'm just happy.

Spring Cleaning, Kale Pesto & Hey, It's Garden Time Again.

Hey y'all it's spring! Hence the lapse in posting. A new garden to till, seeds to plant, & since we actually have a yard here raking & clearing of flower beds & all that fun stuff. Including grilling outside!
Hells yeah to having a huge yard in a gorgeous place.
Watching chickens frolic while grilling meat is where it's at.
It's been busy busy times around here. I've been putting in many hours at the day job (numbers numbers numbers) & we have land to clear, since our cottage came with ample abandoned garden space. We were going to rent a rototiller but since for the past two weeks I've only had Sundays off, it just didn't work out & we couldn't resist starting to dig.
Then the awesome sense of accomplishment that comes with doing shit by hand got to us & we'll probably just finish it that way. We invested in a nice shiny new pitchfork. I'm totally loving it.
On top of all that, I agreed to make a painting at my boss' request as a present for my co-worker's son's first birthday, & that is guaranteed to make me a nervous wreak on all counts. I am always apologetic when people buy my paintings, I'm terrible at creating work on request, & I don't know anything about babies. Plus I love this co-worker, so even though I was being paid it really mattered to me that she like the finished product.
Here's what I came up with:

March 2012: Teenaged Chickens Love Kale. 

There you are. I CAN work on commission! Call me for all your chicken painting needs. Really, do that.
I need an agent. Or the right sort of self-esteem. 
I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Those are two of our now eight week old chickens. They do adore kale. 
So I've been doing that, working, gardening.
I have this week gone on a spring cleaning spree. The house has gotten rather of out of hand with everything else going on so my goal this week has been to take on at least one major cleaning task every night, since I no longer have a painting deadline & I have a real weekend off this week so the garden can happen then.
I am quite fond of Easter. As holidays go, it pleases me. As does Passover. I do have a Catholic & Jewish soul I guess. I want the house in a good place by then. My plan is since we have spent every holiday since we got married last September running around between in-laws this one we are staying home & I am cooking a leg of lamb & we will eat chopped liver & matzo crackers first & we will spend the day living fabulously & decadently & enjoying each other. Hell, we have chickens now-we can dye eggs laid in our yard!
Oh yeah, Kale Pesto. Yes this is a food blog! Kale Pesto.
I'm obsessed with it. I feel like finding a cheap way to make decent pesto in the winter is achieving a major life goal for me.
I buy a lot of kale in winter because it's cheap & I'm poor & I like eating green foods.  I get bored with it though.
Secret fact: I'm a very food adventurous & love vegetables but until Owen had his vegan restaurant cooking job & learned a certain kale & cumin seed trick, I hated eating kale.
 What can I say? I grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts & we had Kale Soup in the elementary school cafeteria quite frequently. It isn't easy to get over early food trauma like that.
 KALE PESTO has really blown my mind. Although I greatly anticipated garden food season, we are not there yet, not at all. Still a few weeks away from asparagus & fiddleheads & ramps, even.
A bunch of kale is a couple of dollars & making a quick pesto out of it is a cheering way to eat summerish food right now in early April when you want it but it is not here yet.
Recently I have made a kale pesto & chicken apple sausage lasagna. I made a nice pasta thing with kale pesto, anchovies, & cannelloni beans. Kale pesto makes a delicious sandwich condiment, & is fantastic mixed in scrambled eggs. Good over grilled applewood smoked chicken (we have a huge downed apple tree here). 
Recipe, Sort Of: Kale + Olive Oil + Cheese + Garlic + Salt & Pepper + Chili Pepper Flakes &/or Splash of Sriracha (Optional, I like it hot), into the food processor. Quantities to taste. Any cheese works fine.  
There you have it. There are always new things to learn about food. Thank Christ. I'd be so bored otherwise.
Kale Pesto! Fantastic!

Virginia Is For Lovers.

Still More Summer 2011.

I want to get the old ones up before I start with the new.

Everyone Wants To Know Where Their Food Is Coming From.

More from Summer 2011. 

I'll get this blog current at some point. I've been in a collagy mood lately, so there is tons o' new stuff.

Happy Little Trees.

Happy (almost) Spring from Eating & Drawing, where we don't normally feature landscape paintings.
But let's take a break from our regularly scheduled programming & enjoy the view from the hill beyond my house.
(Don't worry, I drew my beer too.)

3.13.12: Evening View From The Hill, With Beer. 

There's one goal accomplished: sit against a tree on top of the hill, drink a beer, & draw. 
It's the perfect spot for sitting in the sun & reading, painting, drawing, & enjoying a lovely cocktail. 
It is a truth of me that I spend my life seeking out such good outdoor sitting spots. My mom's deck & the dock at our pond are two. The Botanical Garden at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco is another, as was my old front porch on Prospect Street in Noho. Or any curb in the French Quarter in New Orleans.
This one though...there's our cottage, the chicken coop, then the gardens, a small wooded hill, & when you reach the top, a cornfield & a small dairy farm, framed by woods & distant mountains.
I love this spot. I take the hound up here every day just before dark & on the weekend mornings.
On our first full weekend here, back in January, coming home from errands we grabbed some beers & saw the most amazing sunset up there.
I have been looking forward to hanging out here in warm weather since we moved in here in December.
We have had some 70 degree days here recently.
I've been coming home giddy with joy from driving home with the windows open blasting country radio.
It get dark after seven pm now. God that makes me happy.   I love being outside. There's so much post-work time to be outside now.
It's gorgeous out here where we live now. I'm so excited about spring & summer here.
THERE GONNA BE SO MUCH SITTING OUTSIDE & DRAWING Y'ALL! 

Where Practical Meets Adorable: The Elements Of A Food Story.

This is what I see when I open my fridge. 
Home brewed beer & an oh so cute little basket of eggs. Broccoli, bagels, & cheese.
Fun fact: I like to take pictures of the inside of my fridge. The collection of foods one has on hand at any given moment tells a little story.
This is totally stupid, but one of the things I disliked about having roommates is other peoples' things in my fridge. That messes up the story.
I know, I'm odd.

3.7.2012: Fridge Contents.

This is one of those realities that is too cute to be believed, but is also practical.
Seriously. I've never had chickens before, & we were just collecting eggs & sitting them loose in the fridge. One night I opened the door too hard & one rolled off the shelf & broke & it was oh so sad because I still appreciate those eggs from our girls oh so much. Plus it made a gross mess in the way back hard to reach part of the fridge behind the veggie drawer & it was terrible.
Being me, I immediately introduced that cute little basket I just happened to have lying around (thanks Mum).
It makes me smile to see that cute little basket with those eggs every time I open the fridge.
 I'm looking forward greatly to more practical adorableness come vegetable harvest season. Nothing makes me happy at the end of a summer day like a basket of gorgeous, dirty, freshly picked produce.
Thanks again to my Mum for keeping me in Peterboro baskets.
It's the little things that make you happy that make everything ok, sometimes.
Here's the elements of a food story:
My groceries purchased at work today: broccoli, an avocado, bunch of green curly kale, two heads of garlic, block of Bridge tofu, bottle of Sriracha chili sauce, growler of Lefty's Brewing Co. Irish Stout, bag of bulk short grain brown rice & one of wild rice blend, & a bulk bag of Pierce Brother's Fogbuster coffee.
Go food produced in Franklin County!
Free slightly out of date food I also took home from work with my groceries: loaf of Bread Euphoria Three Seed Bread, & Blue Ledge Peppered Chevre.
Also present around the kitchen: two old potatoes, bag of yellow onions, half of a cheap Stop & Shop steak, salt pork back fat, two fresh eggs. 
From above will emerge dinner.
I like lists. I like food.
Maybe it's all my years working at the grocery store, but I love grocery lists & receipts. I find lists of food items very pretty. 
While we are in listing mode here at EnD, I'm currently listening to my itunes set on Country & shuffle. Enjoying especially this evening Hank Williams, Brad Paisley, Miranda Lambert, Toby Keith, Loretta Lynn & Taylor Swift. I don't really know where my current country phase has come from but I'm enjoying it. Blame Bear Country 95.3.
Reading Goat song : a seasonal life, a short history of herding, and the art of making cheese by Brad Kessler.
I think we should get goats. I just took Storey's Guide to Raising Dairy Goats out of the library yesterday. What do you think? Goats? Yes? Tell my husband if you agree.
Also, what should I make for dinner? You know the players, tell me the story.  
It was almost 70 degrees today in here Western Massachusetts. My dog & I sat on top of a hill at dusk & took in the warm wind & breathed & waited for spring.