Kara & Michael’s Blog

I’ve been bad lately about updating this blog about our CSA and this week, Michael and I were away on vacation. For pictures of the sights we seen and a few pictures of Michael (since I am the appointed photographer, there are never any pictures of me) on our gallery.

In the meantime, we came home to what was left of our CSA after my younger sister (who was house-sitting) picked it up and used some of what we got. I’ve been back in the kitchen lately, an abnormal occurrence, because we’re reworking our chore system. I was kicked out of the kitchen originally because my meals were not up to par in terms of healthfulness.

So I’m back in the kitchen, and screwing around in ways that may or may not be very productive. I used our CSA zucchini and mushrooms to make some pasta last night, along with some leftover plum tomatoes from last weekend’s shopping trip. Threw those into pasta with some pesto sauce from a packet (add water and olive oil) and a load of artichoke hearts. Not sure how healthy it was, it needed veggies on the side but I had dirtied a couple pans at that point and didn’t feel like making anything else.

Today, Michael and I made veggie burgers with some of the leftover sautéed mushrooms, cheese, spicy mustard and a tomato from our CSA. It had the most amazing flavor, even if it was just on the edge of mealiness. I also made corn on the cob slathered with some garlic flavored spread. Nothing doesn’t taste better with garlic.

Pretty lazy food, heavy on vegetable prep which takes time, but all in all, not so bad. Beats my tomato sauce + pasta + salad meals of the not-so-distant past.

We saw Gonzo last Saturday. Maybe we’ll review it, probably not. Perhaps this is sacrilegious to avid readers everywhere, but while I knew of Hunter Thompson, I knew nothing of his work (minus the gag referenced when Homer and Ned Flanders head to Las Vegas) and even less about his life. Minus the fact that he wrote in Playboy for a while. I think I read one of his columns before we saw the movie, at most.

I have some issues with the movie itself, but I couldn’t begin to put anything outside of some slight irritation with the documentary style into words, having little knowledge base about the subject coming into this movie. I am almost always disappointed by documentaries, particularly those that function as biographies. Either the point of the film for the film-maker gets lost in the biography, or the biography is mired in the film-maker’s theme and in each case, I want something more or different as a viewer.

In any case, the movie made me laugh and it made me think. Though I didn’t think nearly as much about the movie as mine and Michael’s in-car discussions about John Lennon and Imagine. The record, not the song (which is absolutely infallible).

Starbucks has these light frappucino drinks. Will I still be hip if I recommend them? A grande mint mocha-chip frap is 210 calories. Grande mocha frap - 140. Not too shabby for a special treat that won’t kill your diet.

We bought books yesterday - Cat’s Cradle by Vonnegut, Kindred by Octavia E. Butler and The Best American Non-Required Reading (2007), edited by Dave Eggers. So far, Michael has cackled out loud about the collection. I’m trying to push him into Cat’s Cradle since he’s never read Vonnegut and I don’t have any Vonnegut books since I’ve left home.

Then we stopped by L’Occitane, who are becoming my budgetary downfall. I will stop ordering pizza every week if it means I can have an extra $40 a month to blow on their stuff. This time we bought a roll-on deodorant from their line for men. It smells surprisingly good and has stayed strong throughout the day - a surprise from an all-natural deodorant. Michael is currently raving about the sample of men’s moisturizer we got and the sample of shea butter hand cream. Those folks know what they are doing, and there’s a lack of pretense in packaging and ingredients and the way the store personnel treat you. We walked into Lush and the store people were all over us within moments. I want to walk around and mess with your goods, not be hounded about them. Meanwhile, at L’Occitane there was one salesgirl who kept her distance besides pointing out the trial strips and talking to us about products we expressed interest in. Even though L’Occitane doesn’t advertise it, most of their soaps are in fact vegetarian and none of their stuff is tested on animals. Sit on that, Lush.

And those are my random updates for the past couple weeks.

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