Sunday, September 24, 2006

Mmmmmm....


Glory shots of my latest loaf of home-made sourdough bread. It takes me about 3 days to make one, as I feed my starter (I love my starter, but it does not make for a romantic pet...), make a barm, ferment my barm, make my dough, ferment my dough, let my dough rise, shape my loaf, let my loaf rise, and then finally bake my bread. Fun times. The close-up of the crust (yeah for Macro settings on digital cameras!)is somethiing I am particularly proud of. The fact that I can get a crusty criust that is shiny and a golden brown in color and crackles as it cools... it's like porn.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Battle of the Sunflowers

And the afore-mentioned Miracle-gro sunflower. Or as my friend (The Dark Lord) put it, my flower on steroids. You can see the other guy grown in last year's dirt on the right. Both had a layer of compost as mulch - although I don't know if I would do that again in containers. Even though it helped keep down weeds and helped keep my plants hydrated on really hot days - I think that it promoted a lot of bugs. Some of my plants (and the lower leaves of my sunflowers) got eaten by some bug I never saw. I doused my plants (the non-edible ones) with warm soapy water a couple of times, and that seemed to do the trick. Either that or the drop in temperature ;)

I may be on to something

While living in Japan, I used to drink various hot beverages that we got out vending machines. This morning I went to make my tea (I hate it that I quit drinking coffee!), and realized I didn't;t have any milk. Like a true domestic demi-goddess (not yet a full-fledged goddess yet...) I have powdered milk - I use it in my sourdough bread (I live in SF...) and in my yoghurt (of course I make my own yoghurt). After I managed to get all the clumps dissolved (ew!), I cam o the realization that my tea now tastes exactly like 'Royal Milk Tea' - a flavor of beverage that comes out of a vending machine, and almost always had cornflower blue itty-bitty flower wallpaper motif on the cans. Weird how two things like that can connect in your brain - and how powdered milk can take on a different sense of importance in your cupboard...

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Worst Movie Ever

I know that the above title is an intense statement - but trust me, I have been subjected to the WORST movie EVER. I should have known when I read the Netflix sleeve and saw Mark Hamill's name.... I also am embarrassed to admit that I managed to stay awake throughout...

Thursday, September 07, 2006

My baby Sunflower

This is my baby sunflower I grew on my deck - as anyone who has actually BEEN to my house knows, there are pots and pots of things growing on my deck. This sunflower was grown in last year's dirt w/organic compost. The base of the flower is about 3/4 inch in diameter. Sadly, the two others I planted 6 weeks after this one in some miraclegrow I found (damn evil stuff) are about to bloom, and are twice as tall, with 3 inch buds. They should be blooming in about a week. But this guy's so cute! I am resisting the urge to post pictures of my bolted and blooming arugula... I can't get rid of the flowers...they're trying so hard to be alive...

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Widgets

I have a major problem, and I curse all those (fabulous!) Apple geeks who came up with the widget concept. And for coming up with being able to access them all instantly with the click of a wheely-button. I just downloaded a gazillion of them. They're fun - they're cute - are they helpful? Only when you (don't) have to kill time and/or procrasitnate.... I have hours of wasted time ahead of me....