Dig In!

I found something fun to do this weekend- the Slow Food group is organizing the "Great American Dig In", a day of community service this Saturday to support local food production. There aren't too many activities in Southern California, but there is this one:

Santa Ana, CA - "National Service Day of Action: Dig In!"

CONTACT: Heather Westenhofer, Slow Food Orange County (Click here to RSVP)

2115 W. McFadden Ave., Santa Ana, CA 92704

9/25/10 9.30am-1pm

Building a raised and terraced bed in the Grain Project community garden in Santa Ana and preparing serving and sharing lunch with the group.

There are fun things going on all across the country. I liked the one in Sacramento where you go see a movie about kids in a cooking competition to improve their school lunch menus. The proceeds go to area lunch programs. Here is the web site for more info:info@slowfoods.org (the link wouldn't work}

Maybe I'll see you there! If you want to car pool, give me a jingle.

Remembering our past

It has been only 90 years since the struggle for women to vote was successful. My mom sent me this link to an interesting set of photos and information about the terrible situations many of the women faced for speaking up for their rights. Unfortunately, I can't get it to copy, so if you want to read it, let me know.

Mr. Fox

He is done! A photo amid the chives and basil seemed appropriate-I read Fantastic Mr. Fox about 20 times as a youth! Time to dig my well thumbed copy out and make it 21.

My knees are still knocking!

We went up to Chico for a wonderful visit with Mike and Chelsie this Labor day weekend. We were busy shooting the guns, ( yes, I can hit the clay pigeons!) visiting the farmers market, checking out one of the top 10 quilt shops in the U.S. and Canada (items to be shown off at a later date) walking around Bidwell park and of course, fishing. The fishing trip is where the knee knocking comes in.

Mike had asked his very nice friend, Scott, about a place to fish. Scott, being the consummate outdoors-man, knew just the place. It was a short drive into the Sierra's, and down, down, down into the Feather River Valley. It was more like a gorge. The mountain sides were steep, craggy granite cliffs-it is a beautiful place. The Feather River is a good sized river and our destination was near the bottom of the hydro-electric dam. From our parking spot the river was quite a bit below us-straight below us. I figured there must be stairs, or some kind of a switchback type trail to get to the bottom. As an advanced-easy hiking Trail Tickler, I'm pretty confident about my hiking abilities. But this was not a hike to the bottom, this was a rope and piton cliff/rock climbing adventure-without the rope or pitons! There were a few places where I thought I was going to have to stay on the little gravel ledge for the rest of my life. Thankfully, Scott must be part mountain goat, and was able to help me get down in one piece. He wins the award for best Sherpa EVER! Once at the bottom, everyone put in their hooks and started having fun. David caught 3 fish on his first 4 casts. Number 4 cast was an 18 inch rainbow. I found a patch of blackberries between 2 big boulders, and feeling quite brave after my decent into the jaws of death, climbed, ungracefully, to do my bit of gathering while the others did the hunting. Too quickly the time came to head back up the cliff. I will frankly state that I was terrified and had to pray pretty hard for strength to make it up. It is hard when your legs feel like rubber and your heart is beating out of your throat! There were just 2 very awful parts and one rock slide and then we were all up to the top. (The majority of rocks being loose and wiggly added to the adventure.) Scott led us to another great fishing spot, which he assured us was easier to get to. I believed him, really! But I was happy to sit in the car and work on my knitting while listening to "The Prairie Home Companion" on the radio. Truth be told, my knees were still shaking! The rest enjoyed another hike down to the river and caught some beautiful fish. I enjoyed watching the sunlight fade from the mountain crest and the stars pop out from the sunroof of my jeep. It was the most memorable fishing trip to this point in my life. I am a bit proud of myself for pushing through my fear of heights and steep places so I could experience this beautiful part of California with my family. And our Sunday trout dinner was an excellent prize for all of our efforts.

oooooh!

Isn't this the prettiest thing you have seen today? I am off to get some watermelon and try this recipe out. I am also going to pick some figs and make some fig confiture! Something to do with figs besides giving them away! You need to look at the story on NPR about canning- you will be joining me in the kitchen, I just know it!

Watermelon Slushie

I like to freeze the watermelon for this recipe, but you don't need to. You can use unfrozen watermelon and throw 6 or 8 ice cubes into the blender instead. Also, the kids love to make melon balls using a melon baller to make the garnish for the drink. You can top with any fruit they like.

Sala Kannan for NPR

Makes 4 servings

4 cups diced watermelon, frozen (freeze fresh watermelon, if possible)

2 tablespoons runny honey

Juice of 2 lemons

Mint leaves and watermelon balls, for garnish

Freeze watermelon for about 6 hours or until it is frozen through. Remove from the freezer and allow to thaw for about 10 minutes.

Mix the honey and the lemon juice together. Place the watermelon and the lemon juice-honey mix in a blender. Puree. If the drink is too thick, add a little water or your favorite juice. Check for sweetness. Add additional honey if needed. Pour into 4 tall glasses and garnish with the mint and watermelon balls.

Plum Jam

Because of Martine's regularity and kindness at the Farmer's Market, the fruit lady gave her 3 crates full of unsellable plums. It is good to have friends that share-so Monday we sorted and pitted and boiled and stirred, and by the end of the afternoon 30 beautiful jars of plum jam were sitting on the counter, ready for being enjoyed over the coming fall and winter. It felt wonderful to take something that was headed to the landfill and create something delicious. The too ripe plums went to the chickens and only the rotten ones, which turned out to be maybe a third at the most, of the total plums went into the dumpster. The jars are ones that I have used many times so we can say with honest pride that we recycled, reduced and reused. It was a great day!

Summer Hikes

There have been two hikes this summer by the Trail Ticklers, and that will do for the time being. It is too HOT around here! Earlier in the summer Martine and I hiked the Telegraph Canyon Trail via Rimcrest. Despite our early start the temperature reached at least 100' on the trail, with no trees to provide shade. We did see bobcat and snake tracks, other than that we just tried to finish the hike as quickly as possible! It was so bad that I forgot to take photos to document our plight. Our favorite part of the trip - cold drinks at the Trader Joe's at the bottom of the hill. My suggestion is to do this hike in the snow:]

Our next hike included David and was on the Santiago Trail off of El Toro Road, just past Cook's Corner. It was a bit tricky to find the turn-off road as the street sign was covered by a tree, and the trail head is not marked, just a big steel gate up the road from where you can park. Be prepared, it is about a half mile steep hike just to get to the gate. The trail is very popular with bikers-much to my chagrin- as something, sounding like a mountain lion about to eat us, approached from behind. I squealed, ran up to Martine, (we were on a very strenuous up hill part, me at the back of the line) grabbed her pack in an effort to protect her (how that would do anything I don't know, but hey, I was frantic) and then realized it was just a biker. Ha ha, that was funny...errrrg. I had a small desire to kick his back tire and shout "use your bell" but I refrained. Trail Ticklers are always under control. Still, I'm sure it was pretty funny for the observers, luckily nobody had a Flick-Vid device so I won't be on you-tube.

The view was quite stupendous from the top, we could see to Catalina Island. But it was terribly hot and unprotected. This trail had been a fire road and is in the process of growing over to a more natural state. Our one bit of wildlife was the horned frog you can barely see in the above photo. I had never seen one before, so there you go, another first. This hike has the dubious reputation of being the hike where we decided that Orange County is too hot in the summer for enjoyable hikes. We will resume with our last three hikes (yes, that's right, only three more left in the book!) in the fall, or when the weather turns cool, whichever comes first.