JSD

Yes, but I'm not sure what I'll do with it. Any suggestions?

My pot arrived today. Wow, that was fast. We're not returning it. It's beautiful and really, really big.

Thanks, my husband already suggested I return it. I wouldn't have known about my "purchase" at all, until the arrival of the merchandise, had it not been for the confirmation in my email this morning. I immediately tried to cancel the order because it had not yet shipped, but I was not allowed to. I guess it was an Amazon vendor rather than Amazon itself. Oh well, live and learn. At least it's a nice pot instead of a piece of junk.

I checked out this special yesterday and today I found out that somehow I accidentally bought it. I fixed my "one click shopping" so I won't do this again. The price is great, but I don't really need it, nor did I need to spend $139. Oh well.

Mark Bittman had a recipe for lentil and rhubarb stew in the New York Times, using Indian spices. I haven't tried it yet, but it really sounds good. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/dining/08mini.html You have to sign in, but it's free.

My mother hates rhubarb too, but I think it's because she had it once without enough sugar. Consequently, I never had rhubarb until my neighbor gave me some plants from dividing hers, about seven or eight years ago. Wow! We really love it and I'm probably going to pick the first of the season this week. Last fall I divided my two plants, and gave away some, and now have four new plants of my own. We live in the high desert and it really thrives here. The people I know who love rhubarb have mostly eastern or midwestern roots. Our area is has a lot of transplanted Californians who don't seem to have any experience growing it.

Walls of Water work very well for us. We've been using them (the same ones) for probably 8 to 10 years. They give us a jump on planting. When I think I don't need them, we'll have a frost and then I have to replant. Typically we plant tomatoes on Mother's Day, and remove the walls of water 3-4 weeks later. I started my tomato seeds on St Patrick's Day (indoors). They're about 1 1/2 inches tall! I haven't done any work in the garden yet, but my rhubarb is up, and some herbs, such as oregano and parsley.

For me, the biggest change in the last 15 years is that back then I was working and had a toddler, whereas now I am not working and have a teenager who drives. I used to come home after a long day at work, picking up the baby at day care and maybe stopping at the grocery store, then trying to get dinner on the table as soon as possible, while also trying to make it tasty and nutritious. If I used convenience helper type foods, dinner would be served earlier than if I made dinner entirely from scratch. This was an important consideration when, someone was clinging to my legs, whining. Now I have the luxury of time.

Saw this and immediately started humming "Heat Wave." ← I know our temps are nothing to yours. Still, it was cold enough here that I was fearful when I went out to the fish pond with an ice pick to break open a bit for the birds, and hoped I wouldn't slip on the ice and kill myself. Our neighbor hired someone with a front loader to plow our street! Yeah! Our chicken soup was pretty tasty. I used some hot peppers off a plant I dug up from the garden this fall.

Be careful what you wish for! We've had 6 feet of snow in the past 2 weeks, and our street still hasn't been plowed. This morning it was down to 8 degrees F. I've been making soup. We had clam chowder last night, and split pea before that. Tonight we're having chicken soup.

We had waffles with 4 types of maple syrup. It was mighty good after shoveling 16 inches of snow off the driveway. We've had nearly 2 feet of snow in a day and a half. We've experienced more, but it was more fun when we had a snow blower.

We visited Scotland this summer, and had the full breakfast everyday. Only once did it include haggis. We were walking around a lot, and we never ate lunch, or the second breakfast, or tea, or a before bed snack! The big breakfast kept us going until dinner. Granted, we ate an early (7ish) dinner, usually. I was struck by the lack of hugely obese people I see daily at home. BTW, I ordered bacon every single day, and was served ham instead! My husband works with some Brits, and when they visited, they stayed at a hotel here in the US, where they were served the huge breakfast which included eggs, meat, pancakes, waffles, etc. They wanted to know if that's what Americans eat everyday!

We had homemade tomato soup (from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone) and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner tonight. I have a Le Creuset square griddle and I used that: whole wheat bread and sharp cheddar with butter on the outside. I usually loosely cover the sandwiches while they cook with a piece of foil. After the sandwiches were crispy and melty (outside and inside, respectively), I pulled them apart and put in slices of tomato. We have a strange tomato growing in the garden this year. It looks like a yellow brandywine, except inside it looks like a tequila sunrise. Delicious dinner!

I used to live in the coldest spot in the nation. It was determined by having the most number of days with the coldest morning temperature. The funny thing was, all of the days were in the summer! We too had 50 degree swings daily. It might be 35 in the morning, and 85 in the afternoon. We didn't even bother growing vegetables. I really admire people who try with that type of adversity.

As long as you expect failure, you probably won't be disappointed. At 5400 feet, you can probably expect frost ANY DAY OF THE YEAR. Around here, they had a freeze this past week, the first week of August, at 5700 feet. If you can put your pot on wheels, then you can bring it in when needed. With basil, it doesn't need a freeze to die. It only needs to get down to about 40, before it wilts. It needs nice warm moist conditions to germinate. Next year, start the seeds much much earlier, the pots covered with plastic. You won't need to rewater until you remove the plastic. Remove the plastic when the plants start to touch it. At that point, you need to water, but not too much or too little. You'll have to use your judgement.

I think I would buy some little plants at a nursery or home improvement center if they are available. It's kind of late to grow basil from seed, especially at your elevation. Basil is very tender. It doesn't need to be freezing for it to die. When is your first frost date? Basil doesn't like it to be even cool, much less freezing. Next year, start them much earlier. The seeds need to stay damp until they germinate. If they dry out even ONCE, they won't survive. Sorry to rain on your parade, but next year you'll have better success from seed. I'm at 4700 feet, and I started my basil in June. I should have started them earlier than that.

I don't have any jarred salad dressing. I do have pickles and ketchup. I don't think that counts as salad dressing. I do have 5 bottles of maple syrup, though! Once I bought the ranch dressing powder at Costco (in a big jar), but it tasted like cigarette ashes, so I threw it away. I used to buy salad dressing, but once I found out how easy it was to make, and how fresh it tasted, I stopped buying dressing.

I would love to have some instruction! I hope I can find the ingredients, though. I'm really clueless on menus, too. For instance, with the chicken dish we had last night I served watermelon! BTW, I have the Time-Life India books, which I'm starting to read. Because I've only eaten at Indian restaurants a few times, I don't have a frame of reference. The first time we were with a friend who ordered everything for us. We loved everything, and more and more I'm craving the heat. The peppers in the dish last night came from our garden.

I'm not sure. I went to two international markets, but one turned out to be Chinese, Thai and Japanese, not Indian. The other one had a section with some Indian items, but not much in the way of unground spices (seeds). I found out today about two other markets, so I'm going to check them out tomorrow. We have Indian people here so they have to get their spices somewhere!

I picked up an Indian Cookbook from the library yesterday - Easy Indian Cooking by Suneeta Vaswani. I couldn't follow any recipe exactly last night because I don't have the full complement of Indian spices, but I did make a chicken dish with yogurt, curry powder, hot peppers, onion and garlic. Although it was very tasty, I would like to be more authentic. So today I went to two international markets in my town to look for ingredients. I couldn't find mustard seeds or poppy seeds or fenugreek. I bought some coriander seeds, and basmati rice from Thailand. I did see lots of curry powder. Do the average Indians make everything from scratch, or do they use curry powder? What basic spices should I get? The book recommends whole seeds rather than already ground. Can you recommend any mail order companies?

Which ones are the culinary varieties?

Bugs ate all of my zucchini plants this year, so I'm jealous. My favorite use of zucchini is soup from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Basically, you cook the zucchini in stock until soft, and then blend it until smooth. It's seasoned with a dollop of vinegar, sour cream, and dill. It's wonderful. I think zucchini is pretty watery unless you salt it. If I'm going to make fritters or a vegetable stir fry, I think it's essential to grate it, salt it, and let it drain. I love zucchini with feta, too. I have several oregano plants just for teaming up with zucchini and feta, and tomatoes when they ripen. I think the worse thing to do is to serve it underseasoned and watery. I think that's how people grew up with it, and no wonder they don't like it.

My apple trees have a bit of powdery mildew. It was diagnosed by a neighbor. I was relieved because I was afraid it might be fire blight. Does anyone have an idea of what to do about powdery mildew?

A range is not your only alternative to wall ovens. You could have separate wall ovens installed under the counter. The only advantage to a range is a little flexibility, allowing you to put the ovens in a location that's more convenient. We have two wall ovens, installed under the counter, opposite each other.

This year, for the first time, I started my tomatoes from seed. They were from Tomato Growers in Florida. I have the following: Stupice Silvery Fir Tree Fireworks Gregori's Altai Tommy Toe Lemon Boy Brandywine The only one I've had before is Brandywine, which is widely available at nurseries here. A friend visited Tomato Growers and bought the seeds. I have them in Walls of Water, and I checked on them a little while ago, and one had collapsed and crushed the plant. I think my dog was nosing around the compost we added.