Catching up is hard to do July 11th, 2007 by torimckee
I’ve learned a few things in the last few weeks since I last blogged.
1. When your husband has dental surgery, if he wants Kozy Shack tapioca pudding then buying it at the local grocery store makes it local enough for me.
2. Eating locally isn’t feasible in every situation - though I hope it someday will be. I spent last week volunteering in the kitchen at Drift Creek Camp in the Siuslaw National Forest, and their location, the sheer quantity of food they serve, and their tight budget don’t allow for buying food locally at this time.
3. When the temperature rises above about 95 degrees, all bets are off. It was 106 yesterday where I live. I took my hot and grouchy self down to Home Depot and bought a small air conditioner for my bedroom, and after my husband installed it I took him out to dinner to Red Robin, which is where he wanted to go for a burger and a big beer. It was 10:00 pm, we were starved, they have air conditioning, and they were open. (I did shop at a couple of local places for air conditioners before purchasing one at Home Depot, but the local places either didn’t have any air conditioners left or the ones they had were way more than I could afford to spend or even wanted to spend for an item I’ll use fewer than fifteen days a year.)
4. Fresh tuna is yummy. When Andy picked me up from camp last Friday, we went into Newport and bought an albacore tuna right off a fishing boat, the Chelsea Rose. It was reasonably priced ($2.00 per pound!) and soooo fresh. When we got home, Andy grilled it just plain and it was one of the best things I’ve tasted! We froze some in portions to grill, and froze the rest to can when the weather is cool enough for that kind of effort. I’ve never had fresh tuna before - how have I never had fresh tuna before???
5. Blueberries don’t need to be washed before freezing if they have not been sprayed. Who knew? All this time I’ve been washing and drying my blueberries, freezing them on a cookie sheet and then putting them into bags. Andy and I realized the other day that we can talk about picking blueberries until we’re blue in the face (no pun intended) but the reality is that when it’s this hot it’s just not going to happen. We picked and froze 25 pounds a couple weeks ago but since we eat them all year, Andy especially, we wanted to get more. I went to Anderson’s on Highway 99 just outside of Corvallis on Monday and bought 50 pounds of picked blueberries. The blueberries taste great and are not sprayed. The quality was really good too. My puppy Libby benefited from the measly half pint or so of mushy berries that I found - turns out she likes them as much as we do! The man who sold me the berries and helped me carry them out to my car told me that since they aren’t sprayed, there is no need to wash them before I freeze them - just put them into freezer bags and I’m all set, and if I have to wash them, I should just give them a quick rinse when I take them out of the freezer to use them.
6. Cling peaches are yummy. First peaches of the year - yeah, maybe they’re not as easy to cut up and eat as freestone, but it’s the beginning of July and they are ripe, locally grown peaches and I am in peach heaven. They go great with blueberries, which I happen to have plenty of.