pickling and canning

bread and butter and sweet gherkin pickles

pickled grape tomatoes
loosely following Cajun Chef Ryan's recipe

tomato sauce!

bike storage rack from scrap

We already had one store-bought bike storage rack, but needed a second one, so we built one from a scrap 2x6 and 2x4 that I found. This rack can actually hold four bikes. The support arms are ladder hooks from the hardware store. The adjustable height mechanism is shown below--thanks to our friend Rory for the design! The top nuts are turned to fine-tune the height:

multimodal camping

I'd been wanting to do this carfree backpacking trip for two years--we finally did it, so I wanted to document it here. 17 mile bus ride + 5 mile bike ride + 5 mile hike!

community supported agriculture: season summary 2010

We picked up our last CSA share for 2010. For a last hurrah, the Pachamama CSA members gathered at the farm for a potluck and pick-your-own pumpkin fun. Now I'm craving some apple doughnuts...

the hitching post

Apologies for the month long blogging silence at the height of harvest. Don't worry we put the time to good use. After 6 1/2 years together, Eric and I got married! It was a beautiful day...

We held a short ceremony outside. It had been raining all morning. Luckily the rain stopped before we needed to start. For a little whimsy, I entered to The Bridal March played by kazoos scattered throughout the audience. For the remainder of the ceremony music, our friend Justin played ukulele. Reverend Ed Searl officiated. It was great.

We were able to have the reception in the main sanctuary space of the Unitarian Universalist church that Eric grew up attending. The wood vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows provided a perfect ambiance. We didn't have to do much to make the space special. We set up tables, chairs, linens, etc. with the help of our parents the day before the wedding.

At each table, we placed a small bouquet of organic field flowers. We picked up the flowers from the Oak Park farmer's market via Heidi Ong at Illinois Specialty Cut Flowers. The table bouquets included basil that made the room smell delicious all night. My bridal bouquet was totally awesome too! Sunflowers and cabbage flowers!?
For drinks we had a self-serve table of generic brand sodas, liquor, local wines, and a keg from Chicago's Metropolitan Brewing.
Obviously the food was great. We chose to have our wedding in September so that our celebration could make full use of local, seasonal, organic produce. Our caterers Michael and Wendy Howe at Village Gourmet Cafe and Catering did a great job developing a custom menu that featured all of these things. And thanks to them, I learned that pickled asparagus and pickled tomatoes are amazing!
Our friend Susan made a beautiful, delicious, vegan wedding cake. She traveled across the country with a suitcase full of baking supplies!! Two layers of the cake were chocolate chunk and one was autumn spice.
Oh and months ago, our friend Lou designed and screen printed our invitations!

Yippee!

bike trip to fort collins

Over Labor Day weekend we went on a bike vacation to Fort Collins (50 miles each way). We rode Saturday morning, stayed overnight Saturday and Sunday nights, and rode again on Monday morning.

On our way there, as we got closer and closer to downtown Fort Collins, we encountered more and more costumed people on bikes. It turned out that Tour de Fat was going on that very day. We caught the tail end of things but at least we got to see a giant puppet of Tony Danza give the crowd a hug!

In addition to New Belgium Brewing, Fort Collins has Odell Brewing Co and Fort Collins Brewery. After checking out Tour de Fat we headed over to Odell's to sample 12 of their beers. Aww yeah!

It would only be a slight exaggeration to say that we ate tempeh for every meal. Avogadro's Number makes their own tempeh which they serve in their restaurant and distribute across town (picture from the Fort Collins Food Co-op).

We ate at many veg friendly restaurants. One of the restaurants we ate at was Tasty Harmony. We were excited by their raw menu items so we got the raw vegan cheeseburger with onion triangles and sprouted chickpea hummus followed by a slice of raw coconut cream pie. We decided it would be fun to start preparing more raw foods so you might be seeing more of that kind of thing around here.

Other than eating and drinking in Fort Collins, we mostly just relaxed and meandered. We happened upon a bike show in an art gallery and a film at Lyric Cinema - an independent movie theater. Maybe someday Boulder will have an independent movie theater...

On our ride home, we slowly approached what at first was a funny little cloud behind a mountain. Later the cloud consumed the entire horizon. It was from the wild fire in the mountains just west of Boulder. So spectacular and solemn!

bloody mary

In our fast paced world, it's important to slow down every now and again - perhaps with a nice long brunch and perhaps with a bloody mary.

Ingredients:
4 oz. tomato juice
1.5 oz. vodka
dash of lime juice
dash of hot sauce
dash of vegan worcestershire sauce
dash of celery seed
dash of black pepper
dash of salt
many green olives and miscellaneous veggies

car share

As mentioned in the previous post, we moved! Our new location is near a bike path so I can get to work and near a bus stop so Eric can start getting to work in another month after he wraps up his thesis! Other bonuses are that we gained square footage and we're allowed to get a dog. Unfortunately, my dreams of gardens and chickens and food cellars have not come to fruition just yet. Ah well, someday soon enough...

As for the logistics of hauling our stuff across town, we considered doing some sort of organized bike move, however, given our current time vortices - Eric finishing his thesis and our upcoming wedding - we opted to utilize eGo CarShare, a local, non-profit car sharing organization. As members of eGo, we can rent any of their cars parked around Boulder or Denver at an hourly rate. We make our reservations online and we have an electronic key that allows us to use the car when its our turn.

There are several of these kinds of organizations across the country including ZipCar, a widespread for-profit company. It's a fantastic way to reduce car ownership. They fulfill people's random car errand needs like buying furniture from craigslist or taking a pet to the vet. I can now attest that they also work marvelously for moving across town!

impromptu solar cooking

We moved into a new apartment, which has better solar access (read: worse shading) than the previous. I noticed that the aluminum threshold gets very hot, so I decided to throw on some turtle beans and do some impromptu solar cooking. It got up to 134°F, which I know is nothing compared to actual solar ovens. I'll still have to boil these, but the hot soaking will reduce the cooking time.

boulder is getting a tool library

(photo source: takomabibelot)

I'm excited that Boulder is getting a tool library. Our friends Libby and Tristan built their tiny house/gypsy wagon primarily using tools from a tool library in Santa Fe--proof that you can accomplish a lot without requiring your own woodshop and expensive tools! I'm hoping for a thickness planer I can use on salvaged wood.

Boulder's Tool Library is happening through the efforts of the Center for ReSource Conservation and Adam Jackaway, who went through the same graduate program as me. You can vote here every day until September 10, to help the idea win a $20,000 grant. Read more about the tool library: here.

And find one near you: List of tool-lending libraries.