Next FoodNetwork Star and does anyone care anymore?

Did anyone watch this past season of FNS?  Did you care if you did? I did watch it but I did something I rarely ever done in the past; I DVRed it to watch later. I opted to watch Game of Thrones and then Masterpiece Mystery instead.  Yes, British accents often trump all, it’s true.

The format of the show as a bit different this year; 3 current FN stars (heh) would act as mentors to 5 home cooks each and send them all the way to the top of the FN food chain (see what I did there?) and to their own show. We had Giada DeLaurentis, Alton Brown and Bobby Flay. So, big head, big attitude and big ego. Nice combo!  Don’t look at me that way! You know Giada has a giant head for that wee little body she’s toting around.   

At first, things seemed promising but soon, it felt like they all hated their teams, and each other. If you had forced me to take a guess at the beginning of the season as to top 3 standing; I actually would have said Justin, Ippy and Yvan. Instead, I was almost right…we got Justin and Yvan, but Michelle snuck in there. Michelle is the Guy Fieri look alike in case you weren’t sure. We also got Martie at the end there because her Southern charm and chutzpah won over Bob and Susie, who seemed softer and gentler this season.   And you may be saying to me “But Lori, what about Eric? He has had chef’ing skills.” and I will answer with “Firstly, who said you could use my name, and secondly…yes. But that doesn’t necessarily make for good tv.” His chef’ed his ass right on out of there actually. I admire him for sticking to his culinary guns. But those guns could not stand up Justin’s lip balm and Martita’s Latin spice.

And let’s go there..if that woman “Un Beso” ed me one more time, I was going to punch her. Must we ALWAYS have the spicy Latina?  If I ever get on one of these shows, I am going to be the spicy Jewess. See if I’m not! There was a soul food guy, or should I say… a guy they tried to put in the soul food category. There was the type A overly competitive one…Nikki, who I never quite warmed to. Actually, I wanted her to go home the first week. The fact she kept hanging on was commendable and annoying.  Emily was retro girl and I liked her, it was hard not to.  I like a bit of quirk.

In the end though, it was Alton’s love child, Justin that took the prize. And I think, deservedly so.  People often say that they think outside the box, but they seldom do it.  Justin actually does. He would do things and I would think “how cool!” It wasn’t how I cook or I how wanted to cook, but it is how I would want to be entertained by a cooking show. In the end, I can cook and I do get a lot of my ideas online and from books, sometimes from shows. But mostly I watch these shows to be entertained by the person doing the cooking.  I don’t watch Bobby Flay because for all of his culinary prowess, I don’t enjoy watching him.  Ok, I want to punch him in the face, but that’s just me I’m sure.

I am not entirely sure how I feel about this new format. I don’t mind it as much now as I did at the beginning and now I know that Alton is a big ole crybaby.  He teared up at the end there, go watch it. And I suspect he was the biggest surprise for me, how invested he actually got. I saw the most commitment to a team from him actually, and while I am not a fan (of him, I have watched his show), I give him props for actually giving a shit.

So, do I still care? I guess because I posted about it, I do. And I still actually want to be on this show so I must care. I think the shake up in format was probably because people were caring less and maybe this shook things up. I still really like the idea that I could be sitting here typing this one day and the next, have my own show. In theory.  I was asked recently about Master Chef and the difference there is that I want to cook on tv, I admit it. I’d like to be tv personality (I think. I could hate it). I don’t need to be a master chef, I don’t necessarily need a cookbook either…and honestly. Joe Bastianich scares me…even while he is a little sexy. Shut it…he is.  Also, I think MC is HARD. Like really hard. I think it probably is harder than FNS and that kind of scares me. I like being an armchair judge for that one.

Next post up…food trucks I have known.

Cooking like the Rock Star you are!

It should come as no surprise to some of you that I have a bit of a girl chef crush on Anne Burrell.  Her passion for food and cooking is not only adorable, it’s completely infectious. I almost wish I was a bad cook so I could go on Worst Cooks in America with the hope of ending up on her team.  Her tough love approach with her charges is no nonsense but kind of nurturing at the same time. But if you don’t respect the ingredients…watch it!

For Christmas, a friend who loves and knows me, gave me Anne’s cookbook called Cook like a Rock Star. Well ok Anne, I think I’m up for the challenge…when I have time anyway. I’ve managed to read the book and go through the recipes, but haven’t had a chance to make anything. I’m a busy lass.  Or, alternatively, lazy. You can decide…but keep it to yourself. I prefer to think I’m just uber busy leading my very glamorous life. So, this review is about layout and form moreso than the recipes. But let’s face it…they are not going to suck.

This book is gorgeous. It could be a recipe in and of itself, it looks that yummy.  It’s set up in a farily logical order of little nibbles (Piccoolini), Firsts, Pasta, Seconds, Sides and Desserts but with a little bit of an Anne twist. SIdes are known as the sparkle factor. And honestly…when you eat out, don’t sides play a big role in the decision making process? Or, is that just me? Anyone?

Moving along…

Here is thing that absolutely sends me over the moon about the book; at the beginning of the recipe, Anne lists what the Mise en Place should be.  For those that don’t know (and why don’t you?) mise en place is the organizing of ingredients in a professional kitchen. But you can do it at home and you should. It makes life a lot easier. I do this as a general rule, no matter what I’m making.  I also set up my ingredients before I start to actually cook. With most recipes/cookbooks, you have to go through the recipe and pull out your mise en place. Anne does it for you. That’s a big honking deal in my book. And it’s something that makes the book user friendly. See? Anne wants you to succeed.  She’s setting you up for cooking success.

She also introduces each recipe and her history with it. I like that. It’s kind of warm and friendly.  It also includes explanations on techniques like braising and browning, trusssing, pasta cooking, etc.  I like that too. I like learning more about techniques and learning new ones. Even if I don’t think I’ll ever do it (I am not sure I’ll ever need to truss anything but I guess you never know) but I like having the knowledge.

Here is my one problem with book; it makes me hungry. Seriously, everything in it is so appetizing to me and all of the photos look so good that it took me ages to read because it would invariably make me hungry.  And then my eyes would start to glaze over with throughts of zucchini and parm fritters, bucatini, spice roasted cauliflower and pear tarte tatin. For someone like me who thinks about food almost constantly (no, I really do…it makes Weight Watchers a challenge sometimes), getting through a book where almost everything appeals to me is a challenge. But, that’s a good problem to have.

So, there is some definite worth and fun and love of food to be had from Anne’s book. I highly recommend it!

 

Why I Cook

There are lots of reasons to cook. I cook because I’m hungry, because someone else is hungry, because it’s there or because no one else will if I don’t.  There are the logical reasons to cook; it’s how we get nutrition, it’s how I can control what goes into my body (and my people’s bodies….I wish for my people to also eat good food), because on Weight Watchers, it’s easier to make your own food so you don’t get stuck eating diet frozen meals every night. That’s a “HELLO! to sodium right there if I ever saw one.

But I don’t cook because I have in the traditional sense. I love to cook and bake and I get a lot of enjoyment out of it and out of watching people eat and enjoy what I make. But I’ve noticed lately, since around the holidays that I actually kind of, well, need to cook.

The holidays were tough this year, for a multitude of reasons. And they never really got any better by the stunning denouement of Christmas then they had been when December reared it’s ugly head.  In order to deal with it all emotionally, I became a one woman baking machine. Anything that crossed my mind to bake, I baked it. Cookies, peppermint part, cheesecake, raspberry squares. Christmas Day saw a ham dinner (I am the worst Jew ever, I know…but I like pork) that was a little silly, but delicious, for the three people it fed.   It was a lot of food and a lot of baked goods.  And so, I thought.  I thought about what possessed me to cook/bake like it was going out of style.

The beginning of January came and it hit me, like a ton of bricks…it was about control!

The one time during the holidays when I felt in control of the situation, my emotions, anything was when I was cooking or baking something.  For someone like me who has a bit of a thing about control anyway, you’d think I would have thought of this sooner.  Well, sometimes distance makes your head work better.   When I’m cooking, I am totally focused on it. I lose myself in the cooking but I feel in total control at the same time. I feel confident about what I’m doing and that it’s going to turn out, for the most part, fine.  I know that if I follow the steps of the recipe, then things are going to turn out. And even if I’m just experimenting, I’m in control.

I know people who don’t cook who don’t get this.  For them, the kitchen and it’s mysteries don’t make sense. To me, they do. It’s probably the one place in my life where things make the most sense. I know certain ingredients do certain things, have certain tastes and will give me certain results.  It’s comforting to me.   I feel at home among my tools and appliances. And I can tell when something is not in it’s right place.

So, I cook because I love it but I also cook because sometimes, I just need it.  I need to focus that strongly on something so that another part of my brain can either rest or work on other problems.  There are plenty of nights when I don’t cook but then I start to miss it and have to do something. Today, I broke in my new stand mixer and made brownies.  That was a labor of love for me. But, I also noticed that I worked off some frustrations I was feeling in another part of my life.

And seriously people, these brownies are good!

 

To goal or not to goal? That is the question

And the answer is that goals are a good thing. I don’t believe in making resolutions so much as having goals for yourself.  There should always be things you want to accomplish. Resolutions to me seem negative. I want to stop this or stop that or not be this or that. Goals seem much more positive. I made none last year and didn’t really accomplish much until year end which is not the best way to get through a year. So, I’m resolving to make some goals. Heh, see what I did there?

Seriously, now. While this a food blog, and will remain a food blog…I am also going to use this space note my goals for the upcoming year.  Some will be food related, some won’t. Bear with me…it is a once a year thing for the most part.

1. I want to continue to get healthier. My goal is to continue on Weight Watchers, continue to lose weight and exercise and take good care of myself and mostly eat delicious, healthy food….with forays into food porn.

2. In the kitchen, I want to continue to challenge myself and my goal is to try at LEAST one new, fun, scary hard to make dish per month. I am getting a stand mixer and I plan to use the hell out of it.

3. Move. Seriously. My landlord’s son called and just seeing his name gave me an anxiety attack. No way to live. It’s time. So, this is the year I want to make it happen.  By the way, the call was nothing bad…he was making sure I wanted the tenancy at will agreement and to apologize for not alerting me to the new neighbors.

4. Once this play is over and I’ve determined that I actually do like doing this, continue to audition for more things. Maybe take some classes.  We’ll see.

5. Read more

6. Not stress about making jewelery and do some of the other crafts I enjoy. Also, I am going to tackle my sewing machine and make it my slave.

7. Take the second  part of the baking class at Culinary School. And maybe another class or two

8, Did I mention move? Ok, I did…awesome. Once again…move.

9. Try and move ahead in my career..probably tough. Need to add it because it should be there but I realize it could be beyond my control.

10. Be more patient and maybe a little nicer. OK…I’ll try anyway.

11. Try and keep my closet neater on a more regular basis.

12. See more of my friends.

13. Not be so hard on myself.

14. MOVE

15. Clean up my finances…again. I did it once. I didn’t learn my lesson. I have now learned it and I can do it again.  This is going to be tough with the moving thing because I am going to have to make magic happen. But the Cohen women are known for this kind of magic.

15 things are good and probably too much…but the invisible #16 is that if these things don’t all happen, to realize I am human and fallible and that is ok. There’s always 2013.  I am going to have prioritize some of these. MOVING is pretty essential to me not being in a constant state of anxiety so that’s a priority, which means I have the face the thing that freaks me out the most and that’s money.

So, there you have it…my running list for 2012.  The hope for myself and mine is a much better year than 2011 was. And I hope for you all, the same. A healthy, prosperous, peaceful 2012!

 

Barking up the Right tree and other Holiday Delights

You know people, I put a lot of thought into these titles….so, I hope you appreciate them.

I love cookbooks…I collect them. When I travel, I try and pick up a local cookbook if I can. It’s a reminder of where I’ve been, the food I’ve eaten and the people I was with.  They are also something I don’t feel translate well to a Kindle. That may change with the purchase (one day maybe) of an iPad, but I doubt it. I think cookbook pages need to be flipped through and used and they need to get stained.  For Christmas, my best friend got me this: http://www.amazon.com/Cook-Like-Rock-Star-Culinary/dp/0307886751/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325273140&sr=8-1

I love Anne Burrell. She makes cooking like fun. She dresses in great colors and has awesome hair. How can you not love her? And it seems most people do. I grew to respect her a lot on The Next Iron Chef: Superstars because she did get nervous and worry about things, but she always put her heart on the plate and you can’t ask for more than that. She’s also great on “Worst Cooks in America” and it’s hard not to root for her team.

So, I am pretty excited about this book and will be trying recipes from it…and will post a review of the book itself soon.

Onto the holidays. I did a little more baking than usual. I hit sugar cookies, a chocolate chip cheesecake, raspberry squares, lemon souffle (or mousse if you’d rather either…which by the way, until I get a standmixer, I am not making this again. There is a HUGE amount of beating [heh] going on here) and the thing I was the most excited about; dark chocolate peppermint bark. I love bark. I love it because in general, I think I am the only one in the house that eats it, much like Peppermint stick ice cream. So, I used this recipe that my friend Christine posted from Bethenny Frankel. I love dark chocolate too so yay for this. I decided to try it. Here’s one thing that annoys me whenever I see one of Frankel’s recipes…she’s all about healthful eating and such, Skinnygirl…blah blah. Yeah, try and find nutritional info on her recipes on her site? Yeah…go ahead. I can’t find it…am I looking in the wrong place? I can’t even track her SkinnyGirl drinks because there’s no nutritional info. I gather it can’t be a lot…not the point. I don’t expect her to go all Hungry Girl and give us the points, but some info so I can figure it out would be nice. Bethenny, do a sister a solid and post some nutritional info every once in a blue moon.

Anyway…the bark is freaking delicious. Next year…I’m going to do it with white chocolate.  But, some photos of the process!

Crushing Candy Canes

It’s 10 candy canes in total…5 mixed in, 5 crushed on top…you can do them all at once or in 2 batches. However works best for yo

I melted some chocolate….I only had 10 ounces of dark chocolate chips, so I supplemented with 2 oz of semi-sweet morsels, because it’s what I had.

Before the melting

After the melting, but before the candy canes get mixed in

mixing in of the candy canes

It took me several minutes to figure this one out. It’s not on the stove and the bowl is floating in mid air?! Really?  I must be holding it in one and taking the snap with my phone with the other hand. It’s weird. But that’s multi-tasking for you.

And the finished product…trumpets sound!  Actually, they sound in my head whenever I finish something that turns out ok. I lead a very rich inner life.

Becoming Bark

FYI, this is totally a picture of the inside of my fridge.

Anyhoodles, it was a great deal of baking and with Christmas dinner to make…I’ve done practically NO cooking this week, save heating up some ham and potatoes and sauteeing some mushrooms.  I think next year, a smaller ham will do.   Of course, I am going to take the big ole  bone and make some split pea soup with it. Soon. Really. Soon.

Has Top Chef jumped the Mahi Mahi?

I have a confession to make. A deep, dark confession. I’ve not been watching the most recent season of Top Chef: Texas! Or rather, I’ve been DVRing and watching later, but honestly not really paying attention to it. I tend to play games on Facebook while it’s on and then I mostly listen. Sort of.  I do forget to fast forward through the commercials though.

I am finding it boring. Or maybe it’s finding me lacking as a viewer, I’m not sure which. The people are kind of boring. When the biggest attitude is from judge Hugh Acheson (this season’s Anthony Bourdain and that’s a compliment by the way. I like Hugh), then you have a problem. I thought we might get some entertainment from this season’s Hall and Oates bromance of Chris (Hall) Jones and Richie (Oh, so very Oates) Farina, it was not to be. Richie left us early…we hardly knew ye Richie!  He also cried like a baby when he was eliminated. There’s no crying in cooking shows, Richie.  Hopefully Chris brings home the prize for you.

I was also hoping for strong women this time and while we get two (Grayson Schmidt and Heather Terhune), once again I am left wondering if strong=bitchy when it comes to women. And why we are so quick to label women as bitches if they are tough in the kitchen. I am tough in my own kitchen and I’m….ok, bad example. Season 1′s Tiffany Faisson even came back to All Stars as a kinder, gentler chef and she got eliminated. What does that tell you?  Mind, I don’t find either Grayson or Heather (who I prefer, mostly because she is named after an orchard that does AWESOME wine) particularly bitchy, but then again…it’s me so you may want to take that with a grain of salt. The week before last’s episode  (episode 6) saw both of them win, one the Quickfire, one the elimination challenge. It also saw another woman, Whitney (You aren’t Grayson?) Otawka go home.  A bad gratin will get you every damned time.  And apparently two women went home last week. I don’t know…I’m behind an episode.

I am kind of perpetually behind 2 episodes. I can’t help it. BBCAmerica’s Dramaville is infinitely more entertaining than these people. At least in Episode 6, we saw Tom Colicchio get mad.  That’s always fun. But he’s right. There is nothing to commend these chefs and maybe you all did pick the wrong ones with your dumb method of getting to the top 16. The cooking has been ok, but no one has been bowled over. And personality wise, eh. You want good chefs but you also have to want good tv. And if you say you don’t, think back to any season of any reality show where there wasn’t a strong set of people personality wise. What do you remember? Nothing. You remember nothing. Trust me on this.

Maybe it’s overkill. We went from last season’s TC, to TC: Just Desserts, to this season. And while I like Johnny Iuzzini and his hair, I am generally left cold by TC:JD. TC needs to go away for awhile and let us miss it.

Project Runway did that (well, it had no choice, PR and Bravo parted company) and remember when it came back? We missed it. We were glad it came back. Even if it was short lived (and do NOT get me started on the borefest of PR: Accessories!  How do you take something awesome and make them dull as dishwater).  The good thing about Runway is that it needs Fashion Week to do its thing. TC only needs a kitchen.  I mean even Padma looks bored. Well, more bored than usual.  So Top Chef, before you decided to do another season…go away for a bit. Let us miss you and then we will welcome you with open arms and a well cooked gratin.

Food, glorious food!

Because, it is. Glorious, that is.  But lately I’ve come to think about food a bit differently. I decided that I really did need to drop some weight. There is no burning need to be a size 2 because that’s not my body type and frankly, I don’t think I have that kind of willpower. But no, I was starting to get a bit sluggish and wasn’t feeling all that hot and so I decided that my body would just feel better if I dropped some weight.  Just because I’m in my 40s, I don’t have to feel like I’m in my 70s.

So, I decided to do Weight Watchers. This came after a lot of research and thought and asking people I know and trust who are on it or have done it what they thought of it.  WW people have an almost fanatical devotion to the program and I do not mind saying that it threw me off a bit.  Groucho Marx said he would never belong to any club that would have him as a member and I kind of felt that way about WW. I’m fairly circumspect about what I weigh and I didn’t want it rah rah’ed all over the room. Once I was assured that this did not happen, I felt better.  And I was concerned about cost but it’s through work and that makes it all the more affordable. So, there were my two big issues blown to Hell.  And I did think I was going to be deprived of things I like. I’ve done diety type things in the past, Atkins being the big one. It wasn’t good long term and I put all of that weight back on when I went back to work after being laid off. Besides, life is too short to not eat a nice crusty baguette.  Bread, pasta, potatoes, all food of the Gods and I wasn’t prepared to live life without them. And the Atkins cereal sucked all kinds of serious ass.

But as you know, I love to cook and bake and I love to eat. I was worried that this was going to be curtailed by WW. Oddly, it hasn’t been. What WW has taught me is portion control. I bought a food scale and I am not afraid to use it. And yes, I did actually weigh a boob and no, I am not going to tell you what it weighed but I like to think that it explains a lot. It’s my fantasy, let me have it.  And I haven’t actually cooked less, I’ve been cooking more because frankly, they have some good recipes. And  I don’t deprive myself. Sometimes you gotta plan and sometimes you just gotta eat or have that cocktail and not worry about it. I think life is too short to not enjoy yourself when you can. If this was something that was going to make me think food was the enemy, it wasn’t going to work.  People thinking food is the enemy is the problem.  Food is wonderful. Especially cake.  Cake is beyond wonderful. Shit, I want cake now and we have none. Damn.

Where was I? Oh yeah…it’s amazing what you think is a portion and what really is a portion.  In some cases, it’s better than you expect and in others, you’re all “Seriously?  I can eat double that amount of cereal. Really?” and then I take a little extra because shit, it’s cereal. I love cereal. It’s one of my comfort foods.

And so far, it’s not a drag and I can do it easily enough and I don’t feel like I can’t eat what I want. I just need to eat less of it and exercise  (Feh…now this IS something I don’t like to do). And sometimes, I eat more. Whatever. I have Activity and weekly points. I can do that.  Now, let’s be honest..it’s me and that means I get distracted by shiny, pink objects a lot. In 6 months I could be over this but this is actually the one thing that seems to be consistently working at taking the weight off. Now, I just gotta stick with it. Again..me…distracted…shiny things.  I don’t even mind tracking. I’m a born list maker so to me, it’s like making a list.

I do have some blog guilt though. I go away for a long time and I come back and talk about diets. Blech. It’s more to share what’s going on but it is not going to become the focus of this blog. I shall be back to posting recipes, herb failures and smack talk about  Food tv shows very shortly.  And there is new season of Top Chef! Whhhooooo!

But yes, I do feel better and I do feel like I have more energy and I am still enjoying food and eating. I’m also craving fried chicken (my numero uno favorite/comfort food) so I need to get me some of that!

 

Epic Herb Fail

So…I admit it, sometimes I’m having a bad day, or I’m hormonal or I’m just a moody bitch. This past Monday, all three aligned to occur at once and when I saw the little black flying bugs on my herbs, I acted before I thought.   It’s not something that I do regularly anymore, but Monday was such an epic fail of a day that it was the basil leaf that broke the camel’s back.

Little black, flying bugs I hate you.  Between them and the outrageously hot July, it was getting tough keeping them misted enough, watering them enough but not too much and just overall keeping them alive and happy.  So before I could even think about, the herbs…dead and alive…were relegated to that herb garden in the sky.

That sound you hear is the broken heart of a green thumb.  So…once I got down feeling sorry for myself and my herbs, I did a little research and found out how to kill the little boogers, getting some good info in the process.  Why did I not do this beforehand, please see paragraph one. If I have one regret about this, it is acting before I thought it through. But we all get to do that sometimes in life and this was my moment. Hey, I could be sitting here, lying to you about it. Telling you the mythical herb God came down from the mountains of Herbacia and took my herbs as his yearly sacrifice, all the while cackling. Enjoying my heartfelt and bereft screams to him..”Not my herbs, you bitch!” but no, I told the truth.  I had heat, black flying bugs and a terrible, no good, bad day.

So…where does that leave us? Well, it leave us with a little more room in the kitchen and a new plan. I am one of those people who tends to dive in at the deep end (swimming metaphors are weird when you don’t swim) with things. If I don’t know how to do something, I tend to pick something overly complicated to start. Yes, I just make things more difficult. With gardening, I already have a green thumb, I’ve already grown things and I’ve already tested my abilities so I figured the more, the better.  Well no, maybe not in this case. I am going to take a step back and start small. I am going to grow basil and MAYBE one other herb, but definitely basil to start. I had the best luck with it. I am going to do a little research, take some notes and start again.

It’s not failing that makes us who we are, most people fail at some point. And at some point, we all have to fall on our sword a bit. What makes us who we are is what we do once we fail. It’s ok to go off and lick your wounds for a short time, but you can’t let it beat you.  I have faith in my ability to grow things and I have faith in my ability to pick myself, clean the potting soil out from under my fingernails and start again.  I am going to master one herb, then the next. And believe me when I tell you, I will master them.

Good news is I do have a good amount of basil to work with now. I was able to get some chives, sage, cilantro and parsley out of the deal before it all went south. So, I know it can be done. So,  HERBS: MACH 2 (electric boogalo) is coming to a blog near you!

IN MEMORIAM

My herbs in happier days…

Herb-a-licious!

Herb-tastic, even. So…I have herbs. Ok, I should really say that I have greenery because they haven’t fully sprouted yet, although a few are going gangbusters.

After about a week, less actually, we had some growth in the Tarragon and the Chives. After another day, the basil started sprouting. This is the Basil by itself and the seeds I threw in with the Basil plant I already had going (and I wish they’d had Sage seedlings when I went because I would have liked to do the same thing with the Sage plant.  Following that it was the Oregano, Cilantro and Parsley.

Herby!

See?  The beginnings of something great! What worried me was the Rosemary. It was proving to be a bit shy and wasn’t doing much of anything. This would make me the saddest of the sad because my favorite herb is Rosemary and were it not to grow, I would take it very personally. But, as luck would have it…bit of a slow grower.

Rosemary...thank the herb goddess!

So, not much yet…but it’s getting there. Very very very slowly.  Ok, well I knew this wouldn’t be an overnight sensation of herb-acity! (Yes, I can work in a lot more of these so be careful about how you tread in the comments mein leiblings).

So, today I pruned the basil plant back by grabbing some of the leaves and I’ll use them tomorrow for something. But the thing was about to tip so I figured it was good timing. Did the same with the Sage and fried it up (I cannot tell you how fantastical Sage is when you fry it up in a bit of olive oil) with some Polenta cakes (don’t get excited, I bought a package of organic Polenta from Trader Joe’s, I didn’t make it myself).  So, I had some leafy greenness!

Happiness is a fully grown herb!

Check out my 1970s counter top! You should see the fake wood paneling on my walls. No, I’m not kidding. Yes, I wish I was.

But I can hear you, my gentle readers, saying “The Hell?! Where be photos of the growth? Those herbs are lovely but you didn’t grow them sister, show us the goods!” And so…I shall and remember, patience is a virtue as I have a world of bad puns at my disposal and I am not afraid to use them.

Let’s break it down…going from left to right. The two at the very left are Rosemary. I hope by putting them together, they will compete to grow the fastest.   Next to them, Cilantro in the back (which is something people either love or hate. I love it) and  sweet Basil in front of it. You can never have enough Basil. Really.  Next door to them is Parsley and in front of him, if you couldn’t tell, Chives.   I suspect that is what is going to have to be replanted first. They’re leaning a bit as you can see and what was interesting is that they were leaning into the Sun.  Next, Oregano in the back and then Tarragon, looking startlingly like each other.

A few more snaps!

Basil Plant with some growth and herb-lings!

Ok kiddos…there we are, about 2 weeks out and we have growth! It’s always good to know that the skills you think you have do show themselves!

 

No Garden, no problem!

I live in an apartment. I’ve pretty much always lived in apartments and this tends to make gardening a bit difficult. Our last apartment, we had a sizeable back deck and we planted the hell out of it. The fella built me lattice work and wooden railings to which we affixed window boxes. We had flowers, plants and vegetables.  It was something we both got a lot of enjoyment out of. When we moved, we gained more space for living and way less for gardening.  But we’ve always, at least, had houseplants.  This is the kitchen, as you can see…a veritable see of green. We like photosynthesis!

Yay for plants!

You see that Christmasy looking plant. That was wee when the fella bought and thanks to the tender loving care of mom and I, it is now huge.  We’ve got the thumbs of green in my family.  We also still have a poinsettia that we’ve managed to keep alive (mostly mom) and it is NOW starting to get red leaves again, I shit you not.   So, all this to say…I like to grow things and I don’t have a lot of room.

So, I like to garden and I like to eat…so…so…I think to myself “Herb Garden!” Because really…I need another hobby like I need a hole in my head, but once I start down a path, I jump in with both feet, in the deep end. Shallow end is for sissies. Also, swimming analogies are way more ironic when you really don’t swim. But what is a metaphor between friends.

Herb-tastic!

So, the above is Sweet Basil, Sage and Fern Dill, which I bought specifically because I liked how it looked and this plant looked a little sad and lonely and in need of some love.  These are just to start off and give me something use now, which I have. The basil was used on a little tortilla pizza I made earlier in the week.  It was very tasty and it smells divine.  My hope is that my brand spanking new basil plant will follow suit.

But since buying them already grown is not really the point, seedlings abound! Rosemary, Chives, Garlic Chives (which I didn’t use), Cilantro, Oregano, Parsley, Tarragon and more Sweet Basil.

Seedlings!

So, the pots are biodegradable and once they are ready to be planted in larger containers, they can go with the herbs.  Pretty handy. I hope. In a funny twist of fate, I opted to not use the tray ones above and used slightly bigger separate ones.   And yes, two Rosemary packets, it is my favorite herb. And no, no thyme…it makes me ill actually. And yes, I am sure it is tasty but I am not going to grow something I’m not going to use. No point there.

And so…we begin.

Rosemary for rememberance

And in the end, for now…we have this!

Ta Da!

I wrote the names on them so I could keep track of what everything is as it’s growing before it truly spouts leaves. This way, I can see what is working well and what might not be working quite as well.  When they grow (and I mean, when…not if, I am optimistic! And possibly delusional, which is another story), I will be able to tell by look and smell, but for now, this is a good way for me to keep track of things. And if you don’t think I would have a detailed schematic of a garden, you don’t know how type A I can truly get about some things.

I even re-planted the other 3 herbs in big girl pots, so they know they can stay with me permanently! I had some Basil seedlings left so I put them in with the Basil plant because…well, why the hell not? Let’s run her up the flagpole and see how she flies.

And why tell you? Well, because this is a blog and that is what you do but also because I plan to document my experience in herb-dom here and it’s best I warn you all in advance. Don’t say I never gave you anything.

So…from me and my herbs…adieu!

The line-up!