August 1st

First day of the August Break. Beautiful heirloom tomato. I love the orange skin, and the bloom of pink at the centre. It was delicious in my caprese salad with fresh basil, olive oil and buffalo mozzarella. Happy August!

Come join me on the August Break. Please click on the icon to the right to learn more! Hooray!

FRESH MORELS!

Morels! Fresh Morels! found at the grocery store for 7.99. This is an incredible find. Morels are very rare, and not usually cultivated. I have seen them dried at Whole Foods for something like 80.00 per pound.

Morel Morchella spp., Discomycetes.

I have had one morel, once before in my life, 13 years ago. I was working as a gardener on my hands and knees under a blue spruce. I was weeding by hand, it was a very progressive company run by an amazing swiss man and master gardener who hired me as an apprentice for the summer. We used no pesticides or herbicides and instead painstakingly removed weeds by hand, on a property that was apporximatly 40 acres. The gardening became a very zen like practice for me and everyday, the physicality combined with the repetition of the practice altered my state a little, I went through a transformation and noticed every root, insect, bloom, and bud and the relationships of these plant forms to one another. I became highly aware of how much beautiful activity is flowing around us daily, that we miss because our heads are too high from the ground. Anyway, I digress, I was on my knees under a blue spruce, where it was dark and damp and cool. The needles of the spruce were like poisonous darts, if you got stabbed by one you ended up with a great deal of pain and a welt. Beside me was a woman named Kathleen, and she handed me a morel she had picked while the smell of the spruce tree permeated our senses. She asked me, have you ever had one? I had never even seen one before. It was odd shaped looked like a cross between a gnome hat and a honeycomb. She told me to go home and slice it and saute it in butter.

One morel.

I remember being nervous because she had just picked it, there in the garden? What if it's poisonous. I followed her instructions and was flabberghasted how flavourful, earthy, deep and decadent one little mushroom could taste. The one and only morel I have ever had, 13 years ago. That is until now.

I took these beauties carefully washed them sliced them leaving big enough pieces that I could chew them. I sauteed them lightly in butter and finished them with white wine. They shrunk down by about half. I made some gorgeous velvety scrambled eggs and poured the morels over top of them. They were so delicious, I think I cried a little while I ate them, luscious, gorgeous, decadent, earthy, sweet and salty. I feel so much gratitude for the diversity of food. If you ever happen to see fresh morels available any where I appeal to your inner hedonist, bring them to the checkout and open your wallet, I guarnetee you will thank me.

Gardening

Catching up. This is more of a montage to explain what I've been doing on my balcony. From left to right Top Row: Swiss Chard, First Clematis Bloom, Arugula. Second Row, Morning Glory, Sunset, Planting Day. Third Row: My Spider friend, G20 Riot day, that corresponded with my planting day, very weird surreal juxtaposition, Black-Eyed Susie Vine. More to come.

Bad Blogging but saying YES

Ack, I am remiss. This is a life lesson. Sigh. I have been out for the count. I have not posted for many, many days and now fear I am losing face, silly really, but here is my excuse list. For some reason, I have lately been saying a big, fat YES to everything in my life. I had been doing an art course called Planetary Archetypes, that is this amazing, clay process, and esoteric examination of my life by looking closely at the archetypes of Venus, the Moon, Saturn, Mercury etc., and how the energy of these planets influence certain years of your life, amazing process, and then I decided to overlap that course with another amazing course called Unravelling by Susannah Conway http://www.susannahconway.com/e-courses/ it was eight weeks in length and centres again on examining the self by using photography and journalling.
Needless to say, I have just come up for air, and with working full time and living, blogging slipped by the wayside. But I have photographed my garden and I will be posting some photos very soon. I am getting back on the bus. I am new to everything in the blogosphere as well as the paving of the road to hell with my good intentions. I'll forgive myself if you will. Be back soon. XO

Win, Win

I believe in the win, win. That's where you have your cake and eat it too. This is possible, despite the naysayers you will encounter from time to time. The win, win in principle is a situation where everyone benefits. That's why I believe in the CSA. CSA is an abbreviation for Community Supported Agriculture; this is a farm that is supported by members who purchase a share of the growing season. The farmer, grows comfortably during the season because he/she has been paid already and the members enjoy (in most cases) organic, local fare all season long. I have joined such a farm. To me this is idealism in action, the farm is local, it's in Brampton, it's organic and the produce is harvested the same day I receive it, so it is absolutely fresh, and delicious. The farm stays small, so it doesn't become an agribusiness, but there is still room for growth. The members of the farm become a community unto themselves, and as a member there is the opportunity to volunteer on the farm to witness how the food is grown, and contribute your own labour.

There is something about this endeavour that fills me with pride," it's a pocket of resistance" (to quote John Berger) in a world of agribusiness, and GMO's (genetically modified organisms). It's a way to know what you are eating and do some good all at the same time. I am so fortunate to work in a healing centre where we created this CSA, to learn more about this, please see here: www.thecuttingveg.com/documents/Park_Road_Info_Package.pdf

(for some reason I can't get the hyperlink to work, so you will have to cut and paste,sorry)

In this photo, I have green onions, green garlic and radishes. I will be updating you with lovely plates of food I make with produce received throughout the growing season.

Notes from the garden: The garden at Mi Casa, is moving slowly, I've been very, very busy and when I put aside a day to do some plantings the temperature drops to 10 Celsius and it pours rain. I will be posting very soon about some new plant friends.

My number 2...oh who am I kidding, The Boss.

Just a brief post to introduce you to Harvey, the CEO at the High-rise potager. He's not acclimatized to the balcony but keeps me plenty of company by meowing through the screen. His likes are fetching, snuggling and holding hands. Which he actually does. He has lovely gigantic paws which he will put on top of my hand and will then curl his toes so you can't release your hand, it's devastatingly cute. He is a very unique cat, funny and loving. He's a rescue cat and I recommend anyone who is looking for a cat go to a local shelter and find a friend. Ok..I know this blog is about gardening, but he's a character in the story, and the boss, especially when it's dinner time.