Daily Notes- September Two

From Art Propelled- by Christoph Jacob

I like this "rock" because the holes seem to correspond to the phases of the Moon.  Waxing and Waning.  Very clever of the maker.

Yesterday was another day of cooking.  I haven't done much over the Summer but was getting hungry. So, out of necessity, I started cooking.  Or making.  The chicken salad only needed a cold cooked chicken from the grocery, white meat shredded and mixed with mayo and the "secret" ingredient of honey.  A good amount of honey.  No salt or pepper.  I have a lovely jar of clover honey from a greenhouse customer saying "thank you".  I'd brought him a plant he wanted, from my garden at home.  And he gave me honey he had collected, from his home.

So, I have cold fried eggplant slices.  I have cold chicken salad.  I have cold "pasta" made with roasted Sungold cherry tomatoes (huge amounts of pectin in these golden orbs--which makes for a decadently creamy sauce) cooked to thick sauce with onion and olive oil before mixing in the cooked spaghetti.  And of course, the daily Tomato sandwich.  Before the cooking I was eating a bowl of homemade granola moistened with Ready Whip and chocolate baking chips (very bitter and dark) for supper late into the evenings.  Tomato sandwich for lunch.  Granola for late supper.

I haven't done as well feeding my husband.  He won't eat the eggplant--not even heated up and topped with marinara and melted cheese.  He won't eat the Sungold Pasta.  Too many tomato seeds. And he won't even consider tasting the chicken salad.  And the tomato sandwich?  He can't imagine why anyone would eat that.

I did make him a panful of marinaded beef cubes with mushrooms.  Leftover Chinese restaurant rice.  He has ham, turkey and cheese that he rolls up and eats with the refrigerator pickles I make him. Only one jar left.  The cucumber plants dried up.  He will eat Tomato Soup I make from the over abundance of garden tomatoes--which I just remembered.  So after Goodwill, I will make Tomato Basil soup.  With homemade cheesy dumplings.  And there are lots of packages of frozen meatballs in the vestibule freezer.  He just forgets they are there.  Even if I make a list of things to eat and post it--he forgets.

And we have been eating the sweetest most tender corn of the summer.  Butter and Sugar I think it's called.  White and yellow kernels.  10 ears for $2.  From a local farmer.  At the grocery store.

There has been no production canning this summer.  The zucchini plants didn't make an abundance of zucchini for the usual pickles.  No fruit for jam making.  No marinara making.  Last October's was lost to the power outage and a warm freezer.  We still might have grapes for jelly.  But I am not making plans for it.  The birds could still eat them all just as they get ripe.