Veggie night

This has been one of the most scheduled summers I've had in a long time. Tuesday and Wednesday are running nights, Thursday was softball night, and Monday is veggie night--a mad dash to cook, preserve, and eat the weekly bounty of fresh organic vegetables from our CSA.

It's quite a challenge, but I love cooking and finding new ways to make good use out of things.
But with only few days at home this week (camping trip ho!), it was emergency time when I came home with this week's overflowing box.

So I dried:

































Slawed:
















Blanched and froze:

















Pickled:























and Roasted:

















All in about two hours. (I also made some mac 'n' cheese for the leftover broccoli.) I hope the Chinese eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, green beans, and summer squash I didn't get to can make it until next week.

Our laptop may be dead...

But it still makes for a warm nap.

Books by category

This is how I categorize the books I've read in my head. I think it may be more helpful that than just a chronological list.

Updated January 2008

Australia (colonialism)
The Secret River - Kate Grenville

Boy books (books that are manly)
*An Abundance of Katherines - John Green
Love is a Mix Tape - Rob Sheffield
I love you Beth Cooper - Larry Doyle
Heat - Bill Buford
Cabin Pressure: One Man's Futile Attempt to Recapture His Youth as a Camp Counselor - Josh Wolk
*American Born Chinese - Gene Luen Yang
The Discomfort Zone - Jonathan Franzen

England
Black Swan Green - David Mitchell
Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
Austenland - Shannon Hale
Mary Reilly - Valerie Martin
*On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan
Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Novel by Leonie Swann
The Water's Lovely by Ruth Rendell

Faith
Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith - Anne Lamott

Friendships, relationships
Frenemies - Megan Crane
Austenland - Shannon Hale
The Sweet Edge by Alison Pick
Literacy and Longing in L.A. - Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell
*Let the northern lights erase your name by Vendela Vida

Graphic novels
*American Born Chinese - Gene Luen Yang
Cancer Vixen - Marisa Acocella Marchetto
Girl Stories - Lauren Weinstein
The Plain Janes - Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg

Health issues (memoir)
*Poster Child: A Memoir - Emily Rapp
Waking: A memoir of trauma and transcendence - Matthew Sanford
Gaining: The truth about life after eating disorders - Aimee Liu
*Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man Who Dared to See - Robert Kurson
Cancer Vixen - Marisa Acocella Marchetto
Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant - Daniel Tammet
Second Opinions: Stories of intuition and choice in a changing world of medicine - Jerome Groopman
Warm Springs: Traces of a Childhood at FDR's Polio Haven by Susan Richards Shreve
Identical Strangers: A memoir of twins separated and reunited by Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein

Illustrated
*An Encyclopedia of Ordinary Life - Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Impending Motherhood
*If you lived here - Diana Sachs
Great with child: Letters to a young mother - Beth Ann Fennelly
Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night - Peggy Orenstein

Interesting jobs (memoir)
Heat - Bill Buford
Candy Girl: A year in the life of an unlikely stripper - Diablo Cody
*Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States - Pete Jordan
Cabin Pressure: One Man's Futile Attempt to Recapture His Youth as a Camp Counselor - Josh Wolk
The Best of Friends: Two women, two continents, and one enduring friendship - Sara James and Ginger Mauney
Here if you need me: A true story by Kate Braestrup

India
The Inheritance of Sorrow - Kiran Desai

Japan
The Doctor's Wife- Ariyoshi Sawako
Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night - Peggy Orenstein
Bento Box in the Heartland: My Japanese Girlhood in Whitebread America - Linda Furiya

Married life
*Two in a Bed - Paul Rosenblatt
Two-part invention: The story of a marriage - Madeline L'Engle

Minnesota interest
Boundary Waters: The Grace of the Wild - Paul Gruchow
*Poster Child: A Memoir - Emily Rapp
Candy Girl: A year in the life of an unlikely stripper - Diablo Cody
Waking: A memoir of trauma and transcendence - Matthew Sanford
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse - Louise Erdrich

Outdoor Adventure/Appreciation
Two in the Wild - Susan Fox Rogers
Boundary Waters: The Grace of the Wild - Paul Gruchow
*Deep survival : who lives, who dies, and why : true stories of miraculous endurance and sudden death by Laurence Gonzales

Montana/pioneers
Hattie Big Sky - Kirby Larson

Native Americans
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse - Louise Erdrich

Mystery/Crime/Suspense (in that they are these things, but they'd never be shelved as such)
Unseen - Mari Jungstedt
Snow Blind - P.J. Tracy
Nineteen Minutes - Jodi Picoult
*The Spellman Files - Lisa Lutz
The Princess of Burundi - Kjell Ericksson
Mary Reilly - Valerie Martin
Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Novel by Leonie Swann
*The Water's Lovely by Ruth Rendell

Running
The looniness of the long distance runner - Russell Taylor

Scandinavia
Astrid and Veronika - Linda Olsson
Shyness and Dignity - Dag Solstad
Unseen - Mari Jungstedt
Out Stealing Horses - Per Petterson
The Princess of Burundi - Kjell Ericksson

Science Fiction/Fantasy
Life as we knew it - Susan Beth Pfeffer
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling

Social/political issues
The Omnivore's Dilemma - Michael Pollan
*The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade - Ann Fessler
Without a Map - Meredith Hall
Partly Cloudy Patriot - Sarah Vowell
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A year of food life, by Barbara Kingsolver
Gluten Free Girl by Shauna James Ahern
The simple home : the luxury of enough by Sarah Nettleton and Frank Edgerton Martin

Teen girls/Girls coming of age
The Boy Book- E. Lockhart
*Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
Girl Stories - Lauren Weinstein
The Plain Janes - Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg
Dangerously Alice - Phyllis Naylor
Fourth Comings - Megan McCafferty
Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume by Jennifer O'Connell, et al

WWII
Survival in Auschwitz - Primo Levi
Stones from the River - Ursula Hegi

Books I wouldn't recommend
Falling boy - Alison McGhee
I like you: Entertaining under the influence - Amy Sedaris
Girls - Frederick Busch
Pretty Little Mistakes - Heather McElhatton
Cancer Vixen - Marisa Acocella Marchetto
The Lost: The Search for Six of Six Million - Daniel Mendelsson
Swapping Lives - Jane Green
The Headmaster Ritual by Taylor Antrim
The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

The last person in the world to sign up for Twin Cities

I said my legs needed a break. That I was excited to do more yoga. That I was tired of having my weekends filled up by long runs.

But I was fooling myself.

I lasted one week without run club. It sucked.

Because here's what has happened frequently during the last six months:
1. Come home from work a. tired or crabby or b. wearied by some life problem
2. Drag self to run club
3. Arrive home feeling happy and strong
And I was scared about not having steps 2 and 3 in my life anymore.

So I took a hard look at why I hadn't signed up for the Twin Cities Marathon in October, and discovered it was two things:

1. Not wanting to steal thunder from good friend and first time marathoner KC
2. Feeling like Grandma's was such a big deal for me and so many people graciously listened to me blabber on about it... and worrying that people would think I would demand the same amount of attention again.

But when I really thought about it, I knew #1 wasn't that big of deal, and #2, well, is pretty stupid, too.

So I really couldn't have procrastinated any longer. The race has been closed for over a month, but my run club gets a handful of guaranteed entries, and even then, I had waited until there were only two left.

This is not like me. I am a planner. I make lists.

So here I am, spending my Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Sundays at run club again. I even agreed to be a pace group leader.

How does this turn of events leave me feeling?
Happy. And strong.

Note: I wrote this post two weeks ago... please excuse the delay in posting.

Inner air conditioning

One and a half months of summer are officially gone, but lo! there is still time to take summer by the reins and keep it from galloping out of control into fall.

And what better way to celebrate it than with cold press coffee.
























Cold press coffee "tastes like coffee smells like it will taste," as my mother-in-law so brilliantly put it. Without the bitter edge created by heat, you taste all of the caramel-y and fruity and mellow flavors in the coffee.

And it is insultingly easy to make that I can't even deign to call it a "recipe." Mix ground coffee (fill grinder to full) and water (4 cups). Let sit overnight. Strain and add 4 more cups water (or water and some milk). Drink all morning long because hey, it's meant to be cold.

There is still time for happy hours on bar patios and bike rides with ice cream stops. But hurry! August has the illusion of being summer, but with all of it's back-to-school urgency and busy-ness, it's not to be trusted.