I can't believe it's been over a month since anybody updated this blog! Pawlene has been catching up on her sleep and cautiously venturing out into the weak sunshine while I have been happily working on a number of projects, including a new, paid, contract position as the Program Coordinator for Live Healthy Nevada County's Food and Nutrition Action Committee. My task: get healthy foods into Nevada County's schools in the form of garden stands and an alternative school meal program. It's my dream job.
Oh, and then there was Easter and happy visits to friends and relatives and delightful visits FROM relatives and a week-long birthday celebration, culminating in a visit to the California State Railroad Museum, for my THREE-year-old son, and goodness, life. I wouldn't say spring has actually sprung (we've been fooled before), but life is certainly happening in a very active way for us.
So Peter is a big boy now. He tells us this at every opportunity. He can take off his shoes All By Himself. He can go pee pee in the potty, when prompted. And he is full-on into the "Why?" stage, meaning you can't read two sentences in a book without him asking why something is the way it is. Example:
We are driving down Highway 49 through Auburn, when we spot a giant pickle on the sidewalk, waving a big sign selling who knows what.
Me: Look, Peter! There's a giant pickle on the sidewalk!
Peter: Why is there a giant pickle on the sidewalk?
Me: Good question!
Peter: Because if he was in the street he would get run into by cars!
Smart kid. At least he answered his own question that time.
We are three weeks away from our last winter vegetable delivery, and I am out, out, OUT of ideas for parsnips, swiss chard, black radishes, cabbage, and leeks. No more, please! Today, as Peter napped, I was agonizing over how to
get rid of utilize the latest crop of winter's bounty. When Peter woke up, demanding a snack, I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I quickly chopped and steamed both last week's AND this week's cauliflower, and threw in a bunch of seasonings inspired by my dear friend Amy's family recipe for whole, steamed cauliflower that she so generously shared with us a few weeks ago. I put it on a plate, and set it in front of Peter.
Peter: What's this?
Me: Cauliflower! Yummy! Like broccoli, but white!
[Peter shoves a floret into his mouth.]
Peter: Like Broccoli!
Me: You like it?
Peter: It's yummy!
[Vegetable overabundance problem solved!]
He vacillates between being an extremely adventurous eater, and a frightfully capricious picky eater. I never know what is OFF the list, or when it will be perfectly acceptable again. And so I keep trying.
In addition to my overabundance of winter vegetables this week, I also ended up with an overabundance of goat meat. At least I can freeze goat meat. How in the world did I end up with five pounds of goat meat?, most sane people might ask. Well, it was kind of the like the grapes in Buffalo, New York, when I was a silly young 20-something who had moved to the East Coast to row for the summer. If Shannon Kopplin is reading this, she is laughing right now. We (Shannon and I) were grocery shopping in some random market, and when I asked the cashier how much I owed him, he answered "$14.83, without the grapes." When I naturally queried him: "What grapes?", he pointed out a display near the register and told me how delicious they were. So of course, we had to buy the grapes too.
How does that relate to goat? Good question. Back in January, the aforementioned Amy invited us to tour her landlord's farm, as baby lambs had just made an appearance. We had a wonderful time, and Peter loved the lambs:
Fast forward to two weeks before Easter, when I had not yet found a local source for my traditional Easter meal of leg of lamb. And then I remembered the baby lambs... One phone call later, and we were back at the farm, getting spoiled by the farmer. First, she served us the most divine fresh sheep's milk yogurt...then she found the perfect size leg of lamb (organic, grass fed, blah blah blah) and gave us a GREAT deal. But then she continued to dig through her freezer. "Ever tried goat?", she asked us. Uh...no. Needless to say, we left with five pounds of various cuts of goat meat, accompanied by vague recipes.
And so, last night, when I couldn't find anything reasonable in the refrigerator to feed Peter, I decided to give it a try. I found a great source for recipes on the Sierra Foothills Meat Buying Club website, which featured a recipe for goat shoulder chops from Cook's Illustrated that looked promising. I cooked them up, and put them in front of Peter. I thought they were a little tough, but with good flavor. He devoured every bite and asked for more. Goat! Who knew? Next week: goat chili.
The only person in the house whose appetite has lately been more capricious (and occasionally ravenous) than Peter is me. One explanation could be that I am eating for two, and the little one is a demanding master. Yep, we are expecting another family member (Human! No more cats!) to arrive in the neighborhood of Halloween. Believe me, nobody was more surprised than we were to discover this happy news. Peter is taking it well. He has requested a sister, but we'll have to wait until October to find out if he gets his wish. He frequently gives "his baby" hugs and kisses, and has even requested a baby in his own tummy. Guess it's time for Part One of the birds and the bees talk...
