Corrections

Please note that I was out of my mind when I first typed the Zapple post below. I omitted the part about what to do with the zapplesauce in the muffins, and got the proportions all wrong on the pie. It is correct now. Hopefully no one made zapple pie with a cup and a half of cinnamon.

Zapple it!

Before I forget: if you end up with an overgrown zucchini from the garden, try zapple-ing it! This only works with a big, woody zucchini. 3 inches in diameter or more seems to work well.

From the Garden Vegetable Cookbook, by Andrea Chesman

Zapples:
Peel and core the zucchini, then cut it in half and slice in thick slices (imagine apple pieces).
Cook 4 cups of zucchini in 1/3 c fresh lemon juice (don't add more liquid, the zucchini will give off quite a bit of water).
Once mostly tender, remove from heat and add 1/2 cup light brown sugar, 2 teaspoons cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg.

Puree for zapplesauce (cold applesauce from the fridge, spiked with cinnamon is such a nice, relatively healthy treat to eat on a hot summer day), or use to make zapple muffins:

Muffin batter
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 c butter softened
1 c sugar
2 lg eggs
1/4 cup buttermilk

Sift dry ingredients together in one bowl, cream butter and sugar in another, add eggs one at a time, beat until well combined. Add dry mixture and buttermilk to butter-sugar-eggs alternately, starting and ending with flour mixture. Stir in zapplesauce until just evenly distributed. The batter will be stiff- an ice cream scoop is good for portioning.

Bake in greased muffin cups at 350 20-30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.

For zapple pie, use 6 cups zucchini, 1/2 c lemon juice, and stir in 3/4 c sugar (rather than 1/2c), 1- 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp sugar, 1/4 tsp nutmeg and 2 tablespoons instant tapioca or cornstarch, and use as you would apples. The starch is necessary, because they will give off a lot of liquid. I would also undercook them, leaving the slices a little al dente, before using in pie, or they'll go to mush.

I know this sounds like something your loony, overzealous hippie gardening neighbor would make, but I tried it before I put this up here. I made a zapple tart and took it to work. Everyone kept coming in and telling me how great the apple tart was. You should have seen their faces when I revealed the zucchini surprise. They could not believe it. Hopelessly garden geeky, I know, but when life gives you... well, three foot zucchinis, you've got to make lemonade, if you know what I mean.

Little Visitor

We've had a little disruption in our usual routine.

As I was leaving for work on the Fourth, I came upon this lost little girl. I whistled for her and she came right to the car and jumped in. I couldn't take her to work with me, so Mike took care of her until I got home. She was skinny, dirty, covered with yucky fleas, and had a collar on that was so tight that her little neck was red and chafed. (None of which I noticed, except the dirty part, when I invited her to jump into my car to get her away from the road. Ew.) She was so dirty that we thought she was black and tan! You couldn't tell that she was actually a tri-color with white markings on her feet and chest.

We put up signs around our street, and Mike took her to all of the neighbors to see if anyone thought she looked familiar, though considering the condition she was in, we'd be reluctant to give her back. We are trying to help her find a good home, and have a couple of leads. But she is a sweetie. Now that she has been thoroughly de-flead, bathed and is wearing a fancy new pink collar, she has been able to accompany me to work at the winery and seems to be a very good companion and love bug.

Here's tired, skinny dirty dog three days ago (still smiling, though!):



And here's fancy clean dog:

Lisa's Beautiful Figs

Ahhh, I think I finally got my cooking mojo back. I haven't felt inspired recently-- too many other things on my mind. Summer seems to have burst upon us in a flurry of stone fruit and tomatoes, and I just wasn't ready for it. But today as I work, I am roasting a turkey breast (for sandwiches through the week) and soon will be baking a plum upside-down cake. Probably the first of several this summer. It's such an easy and pretty dessert, especially with dark red plums that melt their colors into the cake. It should be delicious: it has a stick and a half of butter in it! But it's total comfort food. Have a salad and don't worry about it.

My friend Lisa, who doesn't like figs, has a beautiful, squat, old fig tree in her backyard that produces gorgeous, fat, ripe figs, which she graciously shares with me. I think these will be grilled tomorrow and dotted with blue cheese and maybe a little fresh basil from the veggie box. I love them wrapped with bacon or pancetta, or prosciutto, too, but it just seems like too much fuss on a hot day to sit around wrapping sweaty pork over figs.

I hope I wasn't too cavalier about suggesting that you ignore the salmonella issue and tomatoes. Buy fresh and local whenever you can. I still believe that there is something fishy about the whole thing, but I'm not sure what. And anyone with a compromised immune system, small children and the elderly of course cannot be so glib about the possibility of contracting a disease.

Sweet corn is out, as are tomatoes, which will lead to some of my favorite simple salads. Sometimes, early in the week when I have some time to prepare, I might boil five or six eggs, some beets, cook up some beans, and maybe some carrots, and dress all of the vegetables with a little olive oil and rice vinegar so that we can have interesting cold salads for the rest of the week. It's so nice to have all of the elements already prepared crisp and cold in the refrigerator. Add a little tuna (just a little) or cooked chicken, or sliced cured meats-- or just the eggs, and it's a pretty satisfying no-fuss cold dinner. One of my favorite early summer salads is arugula, sweet corn shaved off the cob, shaved pecorino or parmesan cheese, dressed with lemon juice and olive oil, or just arugula, prosciutto and the cheese, dressed the same way. Chive blossoms are a pretty accent if you have them.

Still having trouble with email. Still dealing with impossibly slow download times and various other maddening technical difficulties which may prevent me from communicating. But today turned out to be such a nice day that I'm not going to get upset about it. As soon as the cake is in the oven, I'll come back and try to call tech support. I hope I get a Canadian.

Waterboarding Made Obsolete

It seems my friends at hughes.net have devised a punishment more cruel and unusual than any the FBI, CIA, or any other three letters could come up with: Calling hughes.net's generously termed "customer service" line today gets you at least twelve minutes (I couldn't stand it any longer than that) of a looped, slightly off-key cover version of Madonna's "La Isla Bonita". Translate that through a garbled cell phone speaker and you've got a recipe for torture that is the audio equivalent of sticking the points of frilly toothpicks under your toenails. Who thought this up?

"La Isla Bonita, now that is a nice song. We should use it as our hold music. I could listen to that over and over again. "
"Yes, me too, but we can't afford to purchase the licensing to play the real Madonna version."
"Maybe we can buy a bootleg copy from one of the stands at the flea market on Sunday. That is the solution!"
"Ah, I am happy, now we can play the song we love over and over and share it with our friends who call us for technical assistance."


May I also add that if you have a choice, you should never, ever, ever use hughes.net for your internet service? The "Fair Access Policy" is invoked on a whim, slowing your upload, download and browsing speed to barely dial-up level without warning. One weekend, we weren't even home, and somehow exceeded our allotment of broadband while we were gone, with the computer off... but the difficulties in reaching an actual person are an effective deterrent to doing anything about it.

Each time hughes.net "upgrades" the email system, there is a guaranteed loss of service. Forget getting answers from their FAQ or bulletin site. They don't speak Mac, and insist that the problem-- which suddenly and coincidentally appeared the same day they executed the upgrade-- is a problem with your system--something Apple has done. (I found the answer to how to fix the problem here: on Apple's discussion forum. Go to the advanced tab on the setup for the account, and change the authentication to password. Done. All of this happened to me last time they upgraded, and I finally remembered this time to look for a solution outside of hughes. Which is, I think, their goal.)

If you survive the hold music, when and if you are finally allowed to reach customer disservice, you will be connected with a massive call center in India, (or perhaps a very small one masquerading as a very big one, judging from the length of time I was on hold) where people with names like Sally and Joe will not know what you are talking about, and will use many prepared statements such as, "I am sorry you are having difficulty. May I prepare the answer for you?" or "Thank you for your patience. If I understand you correctly, you are having trouble with your email. Now I am going to tell you the solution, starting with the first step. May I begin? Is your computer plugged in?" They are all very nice, and exceedingly polite, but the system just isn't working.

We've had DirecTV via Hughes for years with no to little problem, but if I were going to get satellite internet again, I'd go with Wild Blue, which was unfortunately unavailable when we signed up.

In the City

Just in Case

If you have tried to email me or are waiting for an email from me, my friends at Hughes.net have once again "upgraded" the email system, effectively disabling my email. I should be smart enough to figure out why this happens every time they do this. Yes, I can get email via the internet, but until I call and speak to my friends in India for at least an hour, and then call my friends in Cupertino-- or Canada-- I won't be able to send and receive the regular way. Hope to do that tomorrow.

If you felt like you should have emailed me something, but you forgot, you can pretend you did and the email ate it. I won't know the difference at this point.

This Week in the Garden

Confused

Ok, I just read something in a womens magazine (dubious source of information to say the least) that said that chemical sunscreens are inherently unstable. Thus, one should reapply them at least every two hours. The sunscreen you put on under your makeup before work won't even last until lunch, according to the article. However, the sun-BLOCKS, which use physical blocks, either zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, will last until they wash or sweat off.

So how is it that the chemical sunscreens cause problems on the reefs, and don't wash off? I suppose the key issue is that they are not biodegradable, and thus, even when they wash off bodies, their chemical structure is still intact, so that wherever they land--nestled down in the micoscopic filaments of coral polyps, for example-- they continue to block sun, therefore starting the whole algae/virus thing.

So, once again, wear a rashguard in the ocean, and look for a biodegradable sunscreen with physical blocks, not chemical blocks. For every day, you can skip the rashguard (they are not shirts and should not be worn as shirts, ok?) but be sure to use a sunblock that has either zinc or titanium to protect your face, neck, chest (this was where my skin cancer ended up), hands, and anything else that you regularly expose to the sun. Reapply if you sweat a lot or it gets washed off. And floss every day. And eat your vegetables. And exercise and drink plenty of water. That should about cover it.

This Week in the Garden

Not Everyone in Class Wants to be Your Friend

Monday was the beginning of a new adventure for me. I started a photography class at the local junior college. As you know, I've been taking photographs for the last few years, first with my point-and-shoot (which wasn't half bad) and with the new DSLR since Christmas.

I've been thinking a lot lately about next steps, next goals. I started toying with the idea of getting an MFA or MBA, or a second BA. I looked into a couple of school's programs and decided pretty much what I decided many years ago when I first started thinking about college: since I'm not sure exactly what I want to end up with, the best thing to do is take the basic courses for credit at the junior college, where the tuition doesn't equal the price of a small car-- or a large one. Not to mention the fact that my camera has a bunch of buttons and dials that I don't have a clue how to use. That small thing.

I love summer session and winter quarter classes. Six or eight weeks to cram in a four-month semester's worth of study for the same amount of units. Highly recommended. Actually, I just really love school. I love the smell of the perennially brown paper towels in the bathrooms, the glittery, multicolored school supplies in the campus store (especially the art supplies!), the variety and vibrance of the students, the sense of purpose. College implies motion, achievement, direction. School, college and before, has always been a cool (schools must spend a fortune on air-conditioning), orderly refuge for me. So many memories...

So, Photo120 it is for now. Here is my instructor's website: brucebrown.com Impressive, eh? The two classes I've had so far have gone by quickly. I feel like my brain has been activated after class: my eyes keep seeing and seeking out vistas to photograph. Yesterday on the way home, I actually pulled out my camera while stopped at a red light in hopes of being able to shoot the cross traffic as it passed and get some blurring lights. If you've ever tried to do anything at red lights, you know that they are short when you need them to be long, and long when you are in a hurry. No picture. Today, to wrap up my first week's assignment, I'm having Tyla and the girls over for lunch so I can knock out a portrait and some action shots. I will post at least one shot from my assignments each week so you can see how I'm doing.

The Alarm Clock of Beautiful Deadened

I am still in the midst of the big work project. For your entertainment, I am posting an article from the French magazine Figaro which I translated using the babelfish translator online. I was hoping for more biographical information for one of the principals of the winery (the name of which I've removed here to keep the search engines from total confusion) and this is what I got. Enjoyez-vous!

The young generation knew to regild the blazon of this house.

(Thank goodness! That blazon really needed regilding.)

The readers who follow our heading with fidelity start to know my attachment with Burgundy and its high-class wines. They can show charmers and silky Chambolle-Musigny, rough and virile Nuits-Saint-Georges, sharp and minerals with Chablis, opulent and greedy Meursault Bref, on this narrow strip of land which goes from Marsannay to Santenay, while passing by most septentrional chablisien at the almost southernmost coasts chalonnaises, the emotions follow one another without never resembling each other. (Not never.)

This richness comes as much from the soils that men who cultivate them and maintain them with the wire the centuries, that they act wine growers proudly exploiting their some wrought vines, at the large houses of trades which knew to carry the wines of Burgundy beyond our borders.

The alarm clock of beautiful deadened

Among these last, it is one, among oldest, whose wines were often a source of frustration. The F______ house, celebrates nuiton field, always had the reputation to produce frank wines, but missing brightness sometimes. Of aucuns would say even austere. The matter was present, the soil also, but it missed small something for magnifier the unit. For all to say, this house made figure of beautiful deadened.

This reputation is from now on to throw to the oubliettes. A recent tasting of the year 2006 revealed wines dazzling, right, greedy, with an explosive fruit, letting speak the soil much more than the breeding. A true revelation. Better, a revolution!

Throw that reputation to the oubliettes! Vive la revolution!

Things You Must Know About

Number one on the list: Tomatoes

Here's the scoop: I went to the FDA site, and here's what I got from it: It appears that only three types of tomatoes are involved: Roma, Round Red and Red Plum, and only tomatoes NOT grown in the states listed at the bottom.

Since we live in California, tomatoes grown locally OF ALL TYPES are ok. Roma, Round Red and Red Plums are even ok if they are grown in California or one of the states listed. Whole Foods has pulled all of the tomatoes of these three types from their produce bins, but are still selling cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, heirlooms and tomatoes on the vine. These are all ok.

It appears you shouldn't eat any of these tomato varieties from Mexico, as it is not on the "safe" list. That's the one I think would be most likely to appear in the stores, since it's tomato season here, and it's almost over down there. It would have been a lot easier if they had just listed the states or countries to avoid, but maybe that's a longer list.

What often happens in cases like these (such as last year's spinach problem) is that they are conventionally farmed by a single company or group, or packed and processed at a central location which is contaminated. Sometimes they are treated in the field with a contaminated waste product as fertilizer (because if it's not organic, you can use sewage sludge or uncomposted manure as fertilizer-- nice, huh?) Since everything is brought from different places, once it's packed, even if they know where the produce started, they can't tell where the contamination originated, so they have to issue a blanket warning like this. I checked this with my local organic farming cooperative. The FDA doesn't list an official scientifically approved cause of the contamination.

In this case, locally-grown, organic produce purchased directly from the farmer or farmer's market is the best bet (as it usually is), as it is packed at the source, delivered within a short time of picking, and not fertilized by waste or processed in a contaminated facility. As Whole Foods mentioned, heirloom and other varieties of tomatoes are not affected.

****SO RELAX AND HAVE A BLT****

SAFE STATES/COUNTRIES LIST
If you live in one of these states and are buying locally grown tomatoes, you are OK.
* Alabama
* Arkansas
* California
* Georgia
* Hawaii
* Louisiana
* Maine
* Maryland
* Minnesota
* Mississippi
* New York
* Nebraska
* North Carolina
* Ohio
* Pennsylvania
* South Carolina
* Tennessee
* Texas
* West Virginia
* Belgium
* Canada
* Dominican Republic
* Guatemala
* Israel
* Netherlands
* Puerto Rico

Number two: Reef Safe Sunscreen
Sunscreen: so important there's a song about it. Here's something I bet you didn't know: the active ingredients in some sunscreens stay active when they wash off of your body into the sea. When they land on coral reefs, the sunscreens block the beneficial rays of sun which keep bad bugs on the coral at bay, and encourage viruses which eventually bleach and kill the reef. I originally read about this in the Denver Post, here, and at Environmental Health Perspectives.

I went through all of our sunscreens just before we left for vacation, because we love to spend time in the water in Hawai'i, and sure enough, every single one, even the fancy health food store types, had at least one of the four ingredients which cause the damage. The ingredients are: parabens, cinnamates, benzophenones and camphor derivatives. Here are some of the names you'll see on the bottles: Oxybenzone, benzophenone-3, octyl-methoxycinnamate. But look out for parabens and the camphor derivatives, too.

Yes, there is a sunscreen, made by Caribbean Sol, which does not contain these ingredients. It is the only one I could find, and I ended up buying it in Hawai'i, though you can of course buy it online and it should be appearing in more health food stores this summer.

The sunscreens it uses are reflective: titanium dioxide and zinc oxide. They include lots of other natural stuff-- you can go to their website to learn more if you want. From a user's perspective, the only drawbacks are that 1) it makes your skin look a little bit lighter when it gets wet, so if you're trying to show off a tan, just give it up for the day, and 2) we found we needed to be a little bit more generous with it, because it's not as oily, and it's a little bit stickier than regular sunscreen. Reflective sun-BLOCKS with zinc and titanium dioxides actually reflect the UV-A rays that make your skin AGE, as opposed to just the UV-Bs that we're all so afraid of, and that are dealt with by sunSCREENS. So that's a bonus.

We bought the kids' version and the regular version, and I think the kids smells a little bit fruitier and fresher, which I like in the summer. What we ended up doing was wearing regular sunscreen on the days we didn't go to the beach or snorkel, and using Caribbean Sol when we did (with showers in between). And as dorky as it seems (again, if you're a tan-hunter) I always wear a rash guard on top to avoid having to use as much sunscreen. If you can go super-dork and wear a long-sleeved rashguard and leggings you should, and you're a better person than I am. But I felt like I was doing my part, because I do love the little fishies in the sea. If you are concerned about toxic products in your cosmetics, you can always go to skindeep and check it out. (Burt's Bees makes one that uses titanium dioxide and is paraben and phthalate free, but it smells like midnight at a Greatful Dead concert. Ok, maybe not that bad. It smells like patchouli and sandalwood. Very much. So if you like that, it's great.)

A Vital Hit of Kitten

I suppose it's bad internetiquette (I thought I just made that up, but it's already in the urban dictionary) to skim photos from other sites, but this is the photo I need right now, from cuteoverload.com. This photo makes me feel the same way as I do when I see the grandpa and the toddler on my way to work.

The original caption and credit: Lady Buffington looks after her week old kittens at the Humane Society of Harrisburg Area in Swatara Township.
PAUL CHAPLIN, The Patriot-News

So, Where Were We?

To blog or not to blog. That has been the question. At first, I was afraid of boring you with my lunch, stirring your envy with more vacation photos, revealing my current state of work anxiety, or even reviewing sunscreens. None of it seemed very compelling. Fear (and/or ambivalence) leads to either no writing, or not entirely true writing. And not entirely true writing, if it isn't entertaining in its exaggeration, is pretty tedious.

And now, all of those things do seem pretty darn insignificant. Without going into too much personal detail, my dear, fiesty Grandma has been in the hospital, and today I can let out my breath a little, because she is coming home. Grandpa has been the superstar that he is, fielding phone calls, shuttling back and forth between the hospital and home, taking care of business. There is a long road ahead, but Grandma is determined, and improving every day. Her fiery nature is driving her recovery forward...that and her obvious and intense dislike of hospital food.

So it's back to hair and handbags, as the Brits say. Good to be back. I promise to post more pictures later today when I'm on a break.