Pantyhose, Garlic and Garter Belts

So my teen daughter has her driver’s licence and likes to go out and do my errands for me. It’s an excuse for her to take the car out alone and since I'm often content to stay home and get things done, it works for me. The other day, I put “pantyhose” on the shopping list. She questioned it. I mean, I haven’t worn a dress in..... um... well, let’s just say it’s been a long, long time.

Butterfly: “Pantyhose? What do you need those for?”

Me: “Garlic.”

Butterfly, looking a little as if she’s sure it’s time to start looking for an old folks’ home: “Whaa?”

Me: “I need some sort of hosiery to store my garlic. I’m tired of it sitting around in a basket.”

Butterfly: “Oh. Anyway, pantyhose are weird.”

Me, looking at her like I’m sure I won’t be going into the home alone: “Well geez, what came before was weirder.” She looked at me with a bemused expression. I told her about this thing called a garter belt I had to wear when I was a teen. We had stockings, and they only came up to the thighs where you hooked these things hanging down from the garter belt into the tops of the stockings to hold them up. They were lumpy. They left marks on the backs of your legs from sitting on them. They were ugly, weird and uncomfortable. Pantyhose, I told her, are fantastic by comparison. (I spared her colourful reminiscences about my girdle.)

Butterfly only laughed. So I went on. When I went to school there was a dress code. Girls had to wear skirts and blouses. I wore a garter belt, and apparently was the last one to wear this antiquated garment in my school, just because I didn’t know about pantyhose when they first came out. When the other girls did wear slacks outside school, and obviously had hosiery on their feet, I wondered how they were holding up their stockings underneath, without those telltale lumps on their thighs. Bandaids, I wondered? Had they just taped their stockings to their legs? If my mom knew about pantyhose, she kept quiet about them. And I didn’t hang out with the girly-girls. I mean, they were so.... um.... you know... girly ~ all lacy frills and pinching their cheeks to make them pink. Ew.

I didn’t discover pantyhose until one day I was walking through Kresge’s and saw these “Bas Culotte” with a picture on the thin package that looked like mannequin legs. I sort of screeched to a halt and backed up. Searching the package for the English, I found “pantyhose.” What’s this? You pull them all the way up like long johns and no garter belt needed?? Cooool! After that, discovering knee highs was just a matter of time.

I think I buried the garter belt in the back garden. Deep. I didn’t want Mom coming across it if she decided to put a plant there or something. While I was at it, I put my pad belt with it. (Remember those, ladies?) I had discovered tampons. And later, of course, came sticky backs on those other things. Wow. I mean, innovation applied to women’s products. Coooool!
Well now, wasn’t this an interesting jaunt down Memory Lane? Meanwhile, my garlic is all packed away in the pantyhose Butterfly brought home. I cut the legs off, put in a bulb of garlic and tied a knot, repeating until I had all my bulbs tied up in the hosiery. Then I tied them to a shelf on the side of my kitchen cupboard where they will hang throughout the winter for as long as they last. I just need to cut them under a knot to get hold of a bulb of garlic when I need it. I’ll store my onions out of the garden the same way. Actually wear pantyhose? Not on your life. That’s for girly-girls. For me, pantyhose are for garlic, onions, and polishing my hand-made candles.

There's a Pickle in My Apple Tree

No kidding. OK, so school's in. Cucumber plants are climbers and side-winders. They will climb up almost any other plant if they're allowed to. You have to keep an eye on them. But there weren't too many plants near where I planted the dill cukes so I left them alone. There was just an apple tree.

Ok, so there's more than one pickle in my apple tree. And precious few apples. What am I gonna tell people who ask how my apple tree did this year? I'll have to tell them I got a fair to middlin' crop of pickles out of it. As if that's not enough, I'm going to have to convince Hubby to get a ladder to pick them. I can't reach 'em.

*sigh* Oh the travails of the gardener.

Peach~Blueberry Bundle

Here's a gluten-free recipe that worked... at least my fam thinks it's good. :) It's that time of year for fresh peaches and wild blueberries, so that's what I used. Here's what I did:

Fruit mixture:

5 or 6 fresh peaches, peeled and cut up

1 and 1/2 cups blueberries

about 1/4 cup brown sugar, or to taste (or sub honey or maple syrup to taste)

3 tbsp. tapioca starch

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 lemon, squeezed (about 2 tbsp. juice) [Reserve other half of lemon for crust.]

Stir it up to blend everything.

Crust:

1 cup almond flour

3/4 cup whole bean flour

3/4 cup sourghum flour

2 tbsp. sugar (any kind, to help it rise, or a bit of honey,but cut down a bit on fat)

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. sea salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1/3 cup shortening

1/2 cup milk alternative (or real milk if you can have it)

1/2 lemon squeezed (or 2 tbsp. juice)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Stir the flours to blend. Add sugar, salt, soda, cinnamon and stir. Now, I recommend vegetable shortening cut into the flour mixture, but I used safflour oil because I just spring-cleaned my kitchen (better late than never) and couldn't find where I now keep that shortening (I know I have some. I'll no doubt find it when I'm looking for something else.) Anyway, you need 1/3 cup neutral fat cut into the flour mixture till it's crumbly. Pour 1/2 cup milk alternative (I used soy, but almond would go great with this, rice is fine, etc.) Add lemon juice to the milk to sour. Leave it sit a few minutes, then stir. Add it all at once to the crumbled flour mixture and stir until milk is absorbed. Do not overwork. Drop by spoonfuls into greased baking pan to coat bottom of pan. Spoon fruit mixture evenly on top. Bake in 425 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Serve with a little ice cream or whipped cream of some kind if you like. :)

This is a healthy, hearty, fruity, yummy dessert or breakfast food ~ also gluten-free with all the best of the season. Of course, you can substitute apples or other fruit as your family likes. I just like to enjoy peaches and blueberries in season. :) I may even try a fall version of this with pumpkin, to replace that pie I'm not going to make this year. ;o)

Is it Art?

Is this art? It's a cucumber. At least, it was supposed to be a cucumber. It's rather like me: large arse, little on top. ;o)

Of course, it grew that way because it was an "extra" cucumber plant. Yes, it's true. I had more plants than I had room for. So I put this one in amongst the blueberries. Ack. Blueberries like acid soil. Cucumbers do not. I put some compost into the hole where I planted it, but plainly the po' thang didn't have enough nitrogen to grow properly.

And so, vegetable art. :) Oh wait, it won't keep, and my stomach doesn't care if it's misshapen. ;o)

With a little hummus dip, yum.

Viral What?

Viral marketing: a sales campaign that spreads like a virus. You know, like the Old Spice man. Of course, at least that's mildly entertaining. Elsewhere people desperate to make a buck use not just commercial, but social networks, to spread word of their products.

Mental image: a gaggle of privateers desperate for rumoured treasure, all circling the same few small, leaky boats, offering rescue to those who surrender something... their money, their identity... something of worth. No, not the leaky boat. They're not interested in you, they want what you have. I guess some people are so desperate to escape the leaky boat, bobbing wildly in the swell, they'll do what they must for rescue. They have to be surrendering, or why would the privateers keep circling? Which one will throw the first rope, and at what cost?

And who of all of them is noticing the approaching storm building on the horizon?

Ok, so now I feel like the dude in the white robe walkin' around with the "end of the world" sign.

Nah. Viral marketing has been going on for a long time, in modern terms. It was at the heart of the post war boom. Remember television? It was a newfangled invention then, and it was used to hawk everything from cigarettes and laundry soap to appliances and cars, all in the name of entertainment. It's what villified the dandelion and made suburbanites all want carpety green lawns. Keeping up with the Joneses, it was called. The media by which the viral message is sent has only become increasingly slick over time.

The gathering storm? Well, see, I can't help observing that approximately 85% of the people I encounter on Twitter, for instance, are really trying to sell me something. That's not scientific... just an approximation. I mean, ya never know, maybe some of the people who now seem to be just chatting amiably will suddenly shove something at me they want me to buy. It will be something I've just go to have. It will be a secret something, a special something, an old and wise something that's been re-evaluated and packaged all anew. It will be something I can't live without... like that rescue rope. It may even be available for "free" if I just give up my account password, bank account number or access to my soul.

I just don't see how this is sustainable. I mean, are these privateers buying from each other? Or are those of us bobbing in the swell, in our leaky boats, supposed to make them all rich on the little that we have? There are more of them than us, isn't there? How does this work? *sigh* I guess I'm terribly stupid, because I don't understand how they're going to accumulate wealth when the people using the social network to actually socialize are so few, comparitively speaking. Yeah, I must be missing something essential to getting rich quick, which probably explains why I'm so poor. ;op

This morning there was a pithy message from one of the privateers. It was a quote, 'cause pithy quotes are cool and they're free, like bait on a hook. It said: "Sanity may be madness, but the maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be." Don Quixote

Ok, a question: what if I see both? What if I see the dirty little truth, but can still see infinite possibility, both at the same time?

Even as I ponder this, the same tweep's next message: "Use the incredible 1,300% of Twitter to claim your life-changing share of 9,490,000 of CB tranactions" [sic]

Ow. Talk about a bitter, jagged little pill. Clearly I'm missing something. Apparently I, alone, have attracted mostly viral marketing types to my tweets. I am to believe that I am sadly unique. *sigh* Another tweet: "Most of us can see the writing on the wall, we just assume it's addressed to someone else." Ivern Ball

Ow again.

Heh. Ok, so no thanks. I don't need anything. My leaky little boat is probably going to sink and I might drown, but clearly I'm quite mad anyway, quite unneeded in a sea of potential social network consumers, and if that isn't the case, I don't think too many of us stand a chance in that storm that's a-comin' anyway. You go, privateers! And good luck!

Garlic, Glorious Garlic

One of my Facebook friends recently shared the fact that beets are now considered the new "wonder" food... or "miracle" food... or whatever. Isn't that great? Well, ok, great news for those of you who like beets. But sorry, I'm just not gonna run right out and buy some. Although, Hubby likes 'em. Might buy a jar for him, already pickled. But, nope, not for me, thanks. ;o)

I told her, it's ok if I don't care for beets, because I do like ginger, and it was a miracle food before beets were, even though I suspect they've both been around for about the same amount of time in human history. But you know, it isn't officially miracle food until some researcher says so.

Even more important, I'm a big fan of garlic. I mean, garlic really is glorious. And healthy? Whoa! Garlic down through history has been reputed to fix everything from the common cold to the Bubonic Plague. We know for sure it's a natural antibiotic and that it's good for the cardiovascular system, most notably because it keeps that bad cholesterol down.

Nothing, ever, will surpass garlic for goodness and health benefits. I'm sure of it. So, no, I don't pickle beets. I do however, as I've shown in previous blogs, pickle dill cukes. And there is a piece of garlic in most of those bottles. (There'd be garlic in them all, but sometimes I forget to drop it in before I put the lid on.) Usually it's my own garlic in there. The only other garlic that comes through my door is either locally grown, or when I can't get that, I will buy U.S. grown garlic, in a pinch. But I try to either grow enough, or buy enough at market, to get me through the year. Problem is, I use a lot of garlic. It's in my hummus dip, spaghetti sauce, other pasta dishes, ratitoulles, sauces and dressings. I chop it coarse, chop it fine, roast it, grate it and crush it. I mean, it's garlic. It goes.

Garlic is ready to pick in mid to late July. Like... now. And above is one of mine. I just pulled them out of the ground... about 30 bulbs of ... yes, glorious home-grown garlic. :) Miracle food supreme.

Aaaa~Choooo!!

Oy, ragweed. It's not sneezy yet, but it's growin' healthy out in my yard, getting ready to bloom and start causing trouble.

Every year in late summer, the news talks about ragweed and the impact the pollen has on so many of us. But I have NEVER seen the photo crew actually find ragweed to show on TV. They film all kinds of natural weeds, often golden rod, which is rarely responsible for allergic reactions.

So here's what ragweed looks like:

Out of the center of this will grow a spike, and the spike will develop little yellow flowers, and those little flowers, in turn, will put out a pollen that could make you sneeze, and make your eyes irritated, etc. (We call it hay fever, but it ain't hay.)

This is the time of year to put on your hat, sunglasses and garden gloves, and go out and pluck out all you can find in your yard, before it blooms. You won't get all the root, so one sunny day about a year from now, you'll have to do the same thing. No big whoop, right? Do your pluckin' then enjoy a nice glass of iced tea and relax. By plucking it out before it flowers, you'll reduce the ill effects for your family. I know, I know... you'll still get sneezy from your neighbours' ragweed. But it's got to start somewhere, right? And getting rid of the ragweed closest to you will help.

Now, if you'll excuse me, my tea is brewing for homemade iced tea, hat on my head, garden gloves at the ready... I'm off to pluck ragweed. Mwahahahaha!