As the Garden Grows

Rain, rain, rain. That has been my garden's theme this rather mild winter in Northern California. While this makes me want to hoard even more rain barrels just in case this summer is a dry one, it also has convinced me that I never want to live in a climate where this much rain is normal. Don't get me wrong - we needed this rain. But, the earlier rains in January and December I blame for making me restless. And, since I hate being out in the rain, I also blame the rain for making me and Sesame out of shape. I'd be a sloth if I lived in Portland or Seattle. Well, at least now I know that I'm meant for a climate with more sun.

If anyone wants to see more garden photos, my current obsession, you can find them at  @foggyveggiegarden on Instagram. I'm cramming by brain with books on high-yield gardening, permaculture (fascinating!), and dreaming of a south-facing garden. My current garden gets 6 hours of direct sunlight, at most, and it's bumming me out. However, I have managed to grow a fair amount of greens (and purples and reds) for us to eat this winter. 

The beauty of our mild climate is that I can grow food all year round, even though our lack of light makes the vegetables somewhat stunted compared to a sunnier local. Our neighbor across the street has the perfect vegetable-growing space, and I covet it daily. Yet, I can't really complain. Other parts of this country are buried in snow.

My other obsession, still, is my Instant Pot, the kitchen appliance I never thought I'd want yet now can't imagine living without. I haven't been without homemade stock since getting this device. I've also made Vietnamese yogurt multiple times, pho ga, countless Indian dishes, and amazake (much maltier than I expected in comparison to the amazake I buy from the store). My Instant Pot has replaced my slow cooker, and surprisingly, my fancy pants rice cooker. I can make perfect jasmine rice in 20 minutes, no lie! My fancy rice cooker will probably go to a relative soon.

Sesame and Greaseball are doing well. Greaseball is as grumpy as ever, and Sesame continues to become a better dog, although I'm resigned that she loves the boy more than me. I feed her, train her, and walk her, but all the boy needs to do is exist to be the apple of her eye. If he's watching television, she's watching him. If he's working at home, she's by his feet. When he plays the bass, she's his biggest fan. Can you tell I'm annoyed by this? I reason that because of this, I get to pick out our second dog, too. So far, he's not buying it.

Making More Booze Than We Can Drink

A pretty picture of the makgeolli all bottled up before I ended up spraying half of the contents down the drain.

Although we've had an uptick in productivity from our garden, we're still by no means growing enough veggies for our daily use. So far, this has been fine because we usually do dinner out 3 times a week. Also, we've made our front yard look like a prison compound by caging off all our edibles to deter deer. It's working, although I just hate the way it looks - no French potager garden for us. Instead, we have what I would describe as a somewhat efficient, American ugly garden. Perhaps I'm being too harsh, but I'm still bitter about the limitations the deer put on our yard. About the 10th time they came nibbling our greens, I had enough and we bought rabbit fencing and fenced the whole damn yard in. 

While we fail at gardening, we excel at making booze (I realize that it sounds like the second part of the sentence sounds like the reason for the first part of the sentence). We have more booze here of the homemade variety that we can possibly drink. Last week, after reminiscing on the terrific Korean dive bar scene (delicious Korean street food and booze make Korean bars kick ass in comparison to their American counterparts), I attempted my first batch of makgeolli (Korean sparkling rice wine). Nevermind that we have at least 15 gallons of beer and wine fermenting already. What's another 5 gallons?

Perpetual spinach, amaranth, and bok choi

Remember my last post where I said that my husband and I seem to work in parallel rather than in series when working on projects together? The same thing happened here. This started out as my project, but since it involved making booze, the boy (who has made hundreds of batches of beer) had set ideas on how I should go about making booze. While I was out in the front yard piddling in the garden, he dove into the project. And since he is known for his lack of moderation, he started us off with 6 pounds of rice. 6 pounds of rice!!! I was going to use 5 cups of rice for my first batch. 

By the time I realized that we were going to have gallons of potentially crappy makgeolli, I had to keep going since the ball was in motion. So far, I've bottled it up, sprayed one bottle all over the kitchen after checking it, then sprayed 3 bottles into the sink with a tool over them to prevent more blow outs. The fermentation was still too active when I bottled them, so the fear was that the glass growlers would all explode. Dare I say that this tops the "molten beans on the ceiling" incident of 2001?

Straining the rice from the rice wine

Sesame and I are onto our 3rd round of Canine Circus school. I dig it, she digs it, and it makes us both communicate better. It sounds like couples therapy, which in some way, I guess it is. 

Sesame at her happy place

Other random notes to share that won't fit anywhere else: watch Stranger Things on Netflix. It reminds me of the Goonies and X-Files all wrapped up into one. Winona Ryder is excellent! Read We are Water by Wally Lamb. This is the first non-dystopian novel I've read in some time, and I couldn't put it down. I'm currently reading another Wally Lamb novel, The Hour I First Believed, and although it's good, the subject matter (Columbine shootings) makes it hard for me to read in big chunks. Something always disturbs me and I have to put it down.

Also, I may have another knitting pattern out soon! If anyone feels like test knitting a small cowl, drop me a line.