the panda life

6.01.2010

September 18th, 2010

we are getting married, and started a new blog/website:

http://twobirdsonesong.com/

save the date post cards are in the mail ;)

8.20.2009

cooking from scratch .. seasonal & local goodness

seared chicken thighs, sauteed swiss chard, ginger & honey glazed carrots. whole wheat rigatoni with prisco's housemade chicken sausage and swiss chard in a nutmeg-scented white wine sauce. homemade white whole wheat soft pretzels (adapted from an alton brown recipe). homemade white whole wheat pizzas - leave the olives off mine, please! foraged morels, & tonight's dinner: roasted red pepper & tomato soup, arugula salad with sliced pear, shaved parmesan, & lemon vinaigrette, & some sliced grass fed flank steak.

also need to post about our dinner at avec in chicago. mmm, so good.

7.24.2009

i like turtles

the OG...

interview with Bill O'Reilly...

play him off keyboard cat version...

and if you don't know about play him off keyboard cat...then you have been mostly under a rock...play him off keyboard cat

7.05.2009

CSA, week 1

Ended up with lots of good things our first week. Lots of greens the first week, radishes, turnips, the best sugar snap peas I've ever tasted, and some zucchini/squash.

Looking forward to later in the season... some of these greens are so fresh, but just don't last in the fridge. What are we going to do with them all?! I'm taking care of the huge head of cabbage tomorrow and making a hot & sour soup, and have some plans for the gigantic bundle of kale... hopefully we'll use everything up!

6.30.2009

bummmmmmmmmeerrrrr

guess who got laid off today? i'll give you one guess.

you can read more about it here if you'd like.

i will survive, just like that song says. no worries.

6.28.2009

where oh where is mom?!?!

we miss you mom!!!

6.25.2009

help polyvinyl and help yourself to some of their music...

donate using kickstarter and get wonderful kick backs, such as copious amounts of cds...

or help polyvinyl release one of their classic albums that was never pressed to vinyl:

fun and creative ways to use the internet, WOOOO?

6.24.2009

buki has a surprise for jess!

6.22.2009

Dusts off the blog

Not quite dead, just uninspired recently.

We've been biking and eating good food and hesitantly welcoming summer.

The farmer's market has started up here, which is wonderful for getting the creative juices flowing. This weekend we scored some beautiful little organic strawberries, blueberries, baby greens, pencil thin asparagus, baby squash, and local onions & garlic. After the market we biked up the trail a bit and found a nice shaded area to have a picnic, hopefully the first of many for the summer!

I'm particularly excited for this summer because it is our first year taking part in a CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture. We've purchased a biweekly share with the farm, and are eager to get our first box of locally grown, minimally processed, organic produce. We're just now getting out of a take-out/junk food rut, so I am even more excited to have invested in a few months of ultra-nutritious feel-good food. The question I seem to have gotten the most is.. "well, isn't that expensive?" and I guess that the short answer in yes.

We paid $350 for a biweekly share that starts in late June/early July and will continue into November. Broken down over time, however, I would say that if we were buying equal amounts of certified-organic produce at the local grocery, we would probably be paying more. Also, here we have the added benefit of our food coming from 13.73 miles away (no really, I just did a Yahoo maps search!) rather than thousands of miles from California. That alone can make a person feel a little bit better about their consumption, I think, and a lot better about what they are putting into their body.

So yeah, short answer... is it expensive? Sure. Is it worth it? Absolutely.