Hungry Times Two

There's been a lull here at Hungry Times Two (staring at computer all day for work, or job-search), but a recent community garden visit inspired this post.  I always joke that I hate yard work/landscaping and love gardening because you can't eat mown grass and tomatoes are worth the effort. In essence, it's the debate between flower/ornamental gardening and fruit/vegetable gardening.  There's definitely one crop that achieves a beautiful, edible balance between these two camps: okra! We're growing a red okra (delicious when grilled) and this lovely flower's currently on one of four okra bushes (below). The okra shot was taken with a chain link fence in the foreground, which keeps out riff-raff (rabbits, squirrels, etc.) and is also supporting our prolific burpless cucumber plant (below). We've had a bumper crop of cukes and yellow squash, which we've discovered grows FAST in just a day or so!  Erin made sure to document "Attack of the ...

A friend in Tennessee sent this along, and I thought the sheer ingenuity behind it was worth sharing. This is a fish-stick I wouldn't mind eating. (I ate enough of the other kind in elementary school). As he noted, these are "stockers", so unlike wild-caught trout (catch and release), these are fine for all-you-can-eat grilling. Yum.

Check this out! Our friends Eleni (a-lane-ee) and Joelle own Savor the Flavor catering and have started offering cooking classes . If their Facebook link shows up correctly, you get to see people cooking things from sushi to Italian to Greek (Eleni's family is Greek, so she's got special insight into ingredients and cooking methods for Greek cuisine). Way to go Eleni and Joelle - you're making better cooks of all of us!

So it's really hot outside. Our teensy apartment comes not with central air, as we have accustomed ourselves to, but with two window units - one in our bedroom and one in the living room area. Unfortunately, there is not a source of cooling for the kitchen, therefore cooking involves a lot of sweating, struggling, and, for me at least, a sailor's vocabulary of curse words. It is real hot in there, mmmkay ? So hot that I just want to commit right now to a summer of no-cook cereals and salads. However, man (and woman) cannot live by lettuce alone, so we're going to have to figure something out. My first hunch is to secure a grill. Yes, we gave ours to a friend when we moved, which was hasty (both the move and the giving of the grill - sorry, KG, you know I love ya and I hope you're using that thing). We used to have a built-in gas grill at one of our many rentals in Nashville and then we bought a tiny tabletop-style charcoal grill that isn't amazing but it gets the ...