The first part of this saga ended with finding a good apartment prospect.  After not so much deliberation, I wanted to submit the rental application, along with a deposit to hold the place while they processed our application, and be done with this agonizingly long and drawn out apartment/house hunt.

Matthew felt we’d put the time and energy into looking at houses for sale and wanted to make an offer on a FSBO house we’d looked at a couple of times.  I wasn’t excited about the place, but I agreed to make a low offer.

So last Friday morning, I biked over to drop off our rental application and earnest money and Matthew made some phone calls that ended with making a verbal offer on the house.  Because why have just one place to live when you could have a house AND an apartment?

Anyway, the FSBO was an estate house, and since our offer was lower than their asking price, they had to take it to probate.

Having done all we could, we headed out to a local winery for a relaxing stressful afternoon.  In the middle of our wine tasting, the trustee of the estate called back and engaged Matthew in an exceedingly long conversation, the bottom line of which was, he would take our offer before the probate judge but would not argue for it, but if we increased our offer by $5k (still $15k below their asking price), he would argue for it.

Hot, tired, annoyed that Matthew was spending most of our winery trip on the phone, and frustrated with (and physically uncomfortable because of) a fussy, refusing-to-nurse baby, I had no desire to enter into negotiations or increase our offer on a house that I wasn’t all that excited about.  So we said they could take or leave our initial offer, and they later called back to say, “no deal.”

With our new lease start-date still a few weeks away, we went ahead and pulled out the boxes and packing tape over the weekend, making an impressive amount of progress in little spurts here and there.  We started to discuss how we would arrange things in the new apartment.

And then on Tuesday afternoon, the FSBO guy calls Matthew and says they’ve reversed course and will take our offer, if we’re still offering.  For some reason, I’d kind-of expected this and was not terribly surprised.

After a bit of discussion that evening, we ultimately decided that this was not the house for us, even at our original offer price, and Matthew informed the owners of our final decision.

So.  Packing continues and we’ve scheduled movers.  In a few weeks, our almost-year-long experiment in living as a family of three in a one-bedroom apartment will come to an end, and I am ready!

Related posts:
T minus two months
Moving day
Two’s company
We ain’t goin’ nowhere
Am I asking too much?

Last Wednesday, Matthew and I took some time off work in the afternoon to see another round of houses.  We only had a few on the schedule, so we tacked a recently listed apartment on to the itinerary as well.

Back in April, after over twelve months of apartment hunting, we decided to be a little crazy and throw the option of buying a house back into the mix.  We located a house and made a [very low] offer within a couple of weeks.  Despite offering $40k less than the asking price, we had decent reason to believe that they may accept the offer or counter with something closer to what we were willing to pay.

The house, which was part of an estate and had nothing owed on it, had been on the market for over 250 days this round, and vacant (and probably previously listed) for much longer than that.  While vacant, the pipes burst, and repairing that and the resulting water damage resulted in a $50k insurance claim.  You’d think this would be good reason for the estate’s trustee to consider any that came along.

We sure did, and we were wrong.  The guy didn’t even bother to counter (and apparently he was so “disgusted and depressed” by our offer that he pulled it off the market — at peak home-buying season, no less!).

Within a day or two of having our offer rejected, we spotted a realty sign on an intriguing property — a big, sunny fenced lot with two tiny houses on one edge.  I pass by it regularly and always wonder to which of the two houses the yard belongs.

A bit of research revealed that the property was a foreclosure and included the lot and both houses (each about 500 square feet — like I said, tiny).  We were immediately off and running with ideas of buying it on the cheap and doing a major renovation (which I alluded to here), combining the two tiny houses to make one nice space plus an awesome yard for gardening.  Matthew even drew up some designs.

And then we faced the reality of how much it would cost, both in dollars and in our energy making decisions and dealing with bumps along the way, and the fact that we would probably not be able to get anywhere near what we put into it back out of it if/when the time came to sell.  We decided, sadly, but probably wisely, to walk away.

A few weeks passed, with more houses, a couple more apartments, and nothing that really excited us.  One of the houses that we viewed didn’t have the double lot included as we’d hoped.  Another was somewhat interesting, but seemed overpriced, and while we were considering if and what to offer, it went under contract.

So on Wednesday afternoon, when we saw the apartment that had almost everything we were looking for, I was more than ready to be finished.

To be continued . . .

Although I’ve been there many times, this was the first visit that necessitated a high chair.  In reply to my tweet asking if they had high chairs — they do (funny how you don’t notice these things when you don’t have kids), they also said they had wooden veggies for baby entertainment.

Sir enjoyed the real food far too much to need the wood version, and I don’t blame him.  We started with some wonderful vegan meatballs made from sweet potato and eggplant, served with a chimichurri sauce.  This was my favorite dish, but also the one thing we didn’t photograph.  Fortunately, the rest of the meal was well-documented.

Matthew and I split the house made gnocchi in cauliflower-pea soup (above), which was that evening’s green plate special, and the chard-wrapped tamales with mushroom filling, served with a side of purple slaw (below).  I love the colors on the tamale plate.

Pam and Rachel shared the wild mushroom stroganoff.  Matthew tried a bite, and proclaimed it the best stroganoff ever, with lots of mushroom flavor — we plan to return soon and order this dish ourselves.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get any photos of Sir enjoying the delicious offerings, but if you’re hoping for a cute baby picture, don’t despair!

We started the holiday weekend early with a trip to Montelle Winery on Friday afternoon.  Despite buying local wines almost exclusively since I’ve lived in St. Louis, I’ve never actually visited one of the wineries.

Gabriel checked things out from the floor while we tasted wines, and later enjoyed the scenic view from the large deck.

While at the winery, we were in the midst of negotiating a verbal offer on a FSBO house.  Between that and a fussy, refusing-to-nurse baby, it was pretty impossible to focus on the wine or relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery.

I’ll admit that I was longing for some baby-free time to really enjoy the wine and setting, but I guess we’ll just have to make another trip to wine country, sooner, rather than later, I hope!

All photos in the post courtesy of Gabriel’s Aunt Rachel.

Despite the fact that we’ve had it for over eight months now, I can still count our “biking with baby” trips using my my hands.  I need both hands, not just one, but still.

Sure, there have been mitigating factors: waiting until Sir was a bit older and had decent head/neck control, ordering the baby supporter accessory, winter weather, carrying the trailer in and out of the basement because we have no garage . . . but enough with the excuses!  An average use of once a month at most?  Not good!

Given that we found a high quality, good condition, used trailer for a reasonable price, I’m not sure it was a bad purchase, at this point it just does not seem like a good purchase, either.

Ever since I saw this post on the Momentum magazine blog, I’ve been thinking about options that don’t involve a trailer.  A longtail bicycle, like the Yuba Mondo featured in that post (and here, as well), seems like a great option.

In my excitement, I dug a little deeper into the world of longtails, and found some reviews and comparisons of various bikes including the Yuba Mondo, Surly Big Dummy, and the XtraCycle Radish.*  Based on our initial research, we lean toward the Yuba for it’s combination of features that meet our needs and being a good value.

A couple weeks after my longtail excitement, I read S’s post on front-mounted seats on Simply Bike.  While I like the idea of a longtail, I’m less excited about the price tag — far more affordable than a car up front and down the road, but still overwhelming to my frugal sensibilities.

With a front-mounted seat, you don’t sacrifice the cargo room on the rear rack as you would with a rear-mounted seat, and you don’t have to deal with the weight and bulk of a longtail (especially a factor in our case, with carrying it up and down stairs).

Also, your little one is right up front, experiencing the ride with you, which appeals to me.  While Sir does not seem to mind riding in the trailer, he doesn’t seem particularly excited about it either, and I can’t really blame him.

When thinking about biking with baby options, front-mount seats were not even on my radar, but based on the post I mentioned above, the main contenders are the Yepp Mini, the iBert, and the Bobike Mini.**

Immediately after reading about front-mount seats, I saw an iBert on Craigslist.  For better or worse, I didn’t feel ready to grab it up without more research on the various options, including which seat styles work with which bicycles, and that seat is now gone.

For now, we’ll continue using the trailer, if less often than I would like.  And I’ll be dreaming about front-mount seats and longtails.

*For more info, check out these resources:
Heavyweight Showdown: Big Dummy vs Yuba Mundo
Cargo Bikes in Momemtum Magazine
Beautiful Bicycles: Yuba Monda Cargo Bike
The Best Cargo Carrying Bikes Of 2012: A Review

**See comments to S’s post for feedback on front-mount seats:
Front mounted bike seat for a child: what are your favorite options?

Are you thinking about buying a freezer?  Here are a few things to consider.

How to you plan to use the freezer?
The answer to this question will determine what size freezer you need (or if you really need a freezer at all).

We use our freezer for three primary things: 1) Frozen produce (from the garden and farmers’ market). 2) baked goods — we bake all of our bread, and the freezer space allows us to make 4-6 loaves at a time, and 3) bulk dry goods — various flours, nuts, and seeds — the freezer protects against rancidity and various pest invasions.

Regarding size of freezer, you want enough capacity, without having excess space.  A full freezer is more efficient than one with a lot of extra space.  We have a 15 or 16 cubic foot chest freezer.  There are times when we could use a bit more space, but for us, this is a decent balance between too small and excess capacity.

Freezer or second fridge?
Your answer to the first question will also provide a partial answer to the question of freezer vs. second refrigerator.  As long as you’re using them fairly regularly,  bulk dry goods should keep equally well at refrigerator temps.  However, long-term storage of items in categories one and two in my list requires freezing.  Ditto for meat, if that’s part of your diet.

A second refrigerator will give you SOME extra freezer space, but that freezer is not the same as a deep freezer (either chest or upright).  A deep freezer maintains a colder temperature than the freezer compartment of a refrigerator, which means that frozen foods (produce, meat, baked goods) stay better, longer in a deep freezer.*

Poor little fennel felt a bit left out after my omission, so today he’s getting his very own post.

If you’ve bought fennel at the grocery store, you probably got something that looked like this:

Fennel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mostly bulb, some stalk, and perhaps a spattering of feathery fronds.

Like a lot of supermarket produce, it looks rather different than the straight-from-the-garden version:

Our fennel (June 2011)

See all the featheriness on top?  The fronds do not keep nearly as well as the bulb, hence the missing top half on most grocery store fennel.

Though this year’s crop is nowhere near that size, we harvested a couple of bulbs for early eating (also making room for the remaining plants to grow larger).  After roasting the bulb, we were left with a lot of fronds, which, I’ll admit, sat in the fridge for quite a few days.

They were at the “use it or toss it to make room for other things” stage.  In Stacy’s recent post about CSA membership, the discussion turned to how to use everything that’s part of the weekly produce delivery.

I hate to waste food, so I chopped the fennel fronds and created a twist on the traditional basil pesto.   If you’re lucky enough to pick up a fresh, locally grown fennel bulb at the farmers’ market or receive one as part of a CSA box, you can make use of the flavorful fronds with this recipe.

Fennel pesto

Recipe by Melissa

Ingredients
1-2 c. chopped fennel fronds and stalks
3/4 c. olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1/4 t. salt
1/4 c. pistachios (I used roasted & salted)
Opt. 1 T. lemon juice, or to taste*

Directions
Add all ingredients to blender or food processor and process until desired smoothness.

Serving Suggestions

• Stir into a grain, protein, veggie dish.  I combined cooked couscous, rice, and lentils with chopped raw carrots, summer squash, and kohl rabbi.  Mix in the fennel pesto, adjust salt as needed, and you have a quick, easy meal.
• Add extra lemon juice (and perhaps a bit of water) to create a tasty salad dressing.  If you still have the fennel bulb, make a salad with a bed of greens, roasted fennel and/or thin slices of raw fennel,
  pistachios, and olives.
• Use any way that you would use basil pesto, e.g., on top of pasta, as a pizza sauce, etc.
• Spread onto bread for a simple appetizer or as a sandwich ingredient.

*I didn’t add lemon juice in my original recipe, but  it would be a nice addition.

Related post: Monumental fennel (with recipe for roasted fennel)

Since today is Bike to Work Day, here’s my post from BtW Day last year, when I was 32 weeks pregnant: Finally Bike Somewhere Day.

We planned to wrap things up by late morning and follow the house tour whirlwind by treating ourselves to lunch.  Due to excellent efficiency (and a few houses that we weren’t able to see), we were finished before eleven — too early for lunch — so we headed home.  After being in and out of the car all morning, a separate car trip just for lunch was the last thing I wanted.

Bicycles were an option, of course, but I really wanted to WALK somewhere.  Unfortunately, we don’t have many options within walking distance (if you discount a few fast food joints, which are not even on our radar).  My criteria for a walkable non-fast food restaurant led us to La Tropicana, a restaurant we’ve been talking about trying for quite some time now.

After a bit of back and forth with the waiter and chef, we ordered some vegetized versions of a couple of their standard menu items.  While I enjoyed the meal, getting to and from the restaurant on my own two feet was truly my favorite part of the outing. It felt both novel and right at the same time, and reminded me of our time in Italy last year.

I’m a little bummed that we’ve lived here for four years and just now ventured into La Tropicana — within weeks of a move that will most likely take us to a different neighborhood.  We don’t eat out often, but having a good choice within walking distance is worth a lot.  I hope we’ll have some walk & dine options in our new neighborhood (location TBD), because walking to a meal is the best seasoning.

1. Buy Used
Okay, this one is rather obvious, but it bears repeating.  The million (or billion?) dollar baby industry spends a lot of time and effort telling us (especially first-time moms) that we need a big, custom nursery with shiny new furniture, a dresser AND closet full of brand-new baby clothes (that will acquire stains and be outgrown in the blink of an eye), and a whole array of toys and entertainment devices that a newborn could care less about.  Their strategies prey on our insecurities as new parents, trying to convince us that we can make up for perceived deficits in our parenting knowledge and skills by spending money.

Baby Bjorn potty, like-new condition, $8 on CL ($30 new)

Since most baby stuff is used for a relatively short period of time, you can find many items in pretty good condition at regular thrift stores, baby/kid-specific consignment shops, Craigslist, and/or garage sales.  Make a specific list (but be flexible on things like color), and then ask family and friends to keep an eye out for things as well.

2. Something Borrowed
Even better than buying used, check with friends and family about borrowing items.  Your cousin may not want to SELL that baby swing or bouncy seat, preferring to keep it for a future baby, but she may be willing to loan it to you for the few months that it will be useful.

3. Skimp on Laundry
A new addition does not have to mean tons of extra laundry.  Sure, there will be some additional laundry in the form of diapers if you use cloth, but there’s no reason you should be averaging over a load a day!  A shirt or blanket with a bit of drool, or pants that are slightly damp at the waist from a minor diaper leak, can be removed, aired-out, and re-worn.  Comfortable shirts and pants can transition from daytime to bedtime, with no need for an extra change of clothes.

Basket case

4. Be Flexible
Sir graduated from the [second-hand] Moses basket to a Pack ‘n Play that my sister picked up for us at a garage sale.  Our initial assumption was that it would be a temporary solution while we worked on finding a crib and making room for said crib in our small, one-bedroom apartment.  He slept well in the playpen, so we decided to forgo the crib. 

5. Think Outside the Box
Instead of a big, bulky high chair that separates baby from the table and keeps him from really being part of the meal, we started with a small, portable seat that clamped on the table.  It seemed safe enough, but I was a bit worried, especially as Sir often demonstrates  his enthusiasm for food by kicking and bouncing in his seat.

Who, me?

I was all ready to visit a local baby consignment store to look for a booster seat that we could use with a chair at the table, when Matthew came up with the solution in the above photo: phone books stacked on a chair underneath the clamp-on seat.  His idea transfers the weight to the chair instead of the table, allowing us to continue to use the clamp-on seat, but making it safer and more stable, no purchase necessary.

6. Seek suggestions
When I wrote about our crunchy diaper problem and my search for used cloth diapers, several readers responded with helpful suggestions.  Based on your ideas, I contacted a local diaper service and purchased thirty of their “seconds” for twenty dollars.  Despite some signs of wear, these are good quality, thick prefolds that are more than adequate for our needs.

7. Wait on It
Sometimes not having the time or energy to do the research for a purchase, or actually get to a store [or online] to make the purchase, can be a good thing.  Babies’ needs change very quickly, and something that might seem absolutely essential today may well be old news in a week or two.  Waiting gives you time to find a more long-term solution and avoid an unnecessary impulse buy, but you may also discover you can live without a what’s-it or thing-a-ma-jig.

8. But Don’t Drive Yourself Crazy
I’m NOT so good at following my own advice on this one, but I’ll toss it in anyway.  If you’re spending lots of time and energy trying to hunt down a particular item, or burning gallons of gas driving to far-flung garage sales, you’ve probably hit a point of diminishing returns.

The bottom line is that having a baby is WAY less green than not having a baby, and, as I continue to discover, parenting is all about compromises (my friend writes a blog devoted to that subject).  Sometimes buying new does make sense — in these cases, try to keep the item in good condition to loan, sell, or donate once you’ve finished using it.

Your Turn
I’m sure there are lots of other ideas out there — what are YOUR tips and tricks for minimizing your little one’s carbon footprint?

Related post: A basket for baby (my pre-baby thoughts on baby stuff)

There are various definitions of “pudding cake,” and for Matthew’s birthday a few weeks ago,, I made him a vanilla rum pudding cake that was definitely more pudding than cake.  We actually weren’t sure why the recipe included the word “cake.”

The inspiration for my request came from a blog post I saw back in January.  Yes, I’ve been dreaming of a chocolate cake with vanilla pudding poured over it for over three months!

Unfortunately, like my original inspiration, all of the pudding cake “recipes” I found in online searches involved boxes — boxed cake mix and boxed pudding.  Eh, no thanks.

Instead, Matthew whipped up a chocolate cake (in not much more time than it takes to make a cake from a box) and some delicious, creamy vanilla pudding, creating the cake of my dreams.

He started with the chocolate cake from this recipe, making it as a sheet cake in a 9×13 pan instead of a layer cake.  He made two other changes: 1) regular cocoa powder instead of Dutch-process (it’s the only kind we buy — more antioxidants!) and 2) hot water instead of the coffee.

chocolate pudding cake

Recipe by Matthew

Ingredients
One 9×13 chocolate cake (ingredient list and recipe here)
1/2 c. sugar
2 T. cornstarch
1/4 t. salt
3 large egg yolks
1/2 c. heavy cream
5 t. vanilla
2 scraped vanilla beans (optional but delicious)
2 1/2 c. whole milk
5 T. unsalted butter

Directions
Make the chocolate cake.  Once the cake is in the oven, start on the pudding.

Whisk the sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a medium pan.  Then add the egg yolks, cream, vanilla, and vanilla bean scrapings to the same pan and whisk thoroughly.  Whisk in the milk.

Heat over medium high heat, whisking constantly until the pudding has thickened and is fully bubbling.  Continue heating (and whisking) for an additional thirty seconds, then remove from heat.

Whisk in the butter.  Pour through fine mesh strainer (we skipped this step with no ill results).  Set pudding aside for a few minutes to cool and thicken slightly.

When the cake finishes baking and is still warm, poke holes in the cake at one-inch intervals, using a wooden spoon handle.  Make the holes about 2/3 the depth of the cake, NOT all the way to the bottom of the pan.

Pour the warm vanilla pudding over the warm chocolate cake.  Gently spread pudding and help guide it into the holes.  There will still be a thin layer of pudding covering the top of the cake.

Refrigerate for at least an hour, and then revel in the chocolately, vanilla-y, pudding-y goodness.

Note: If you don’t let it set up in the fridge, you’ll have a big, gooey mess.  However, the cake really does taste best at room temperature, or slightly warmer.  I recommend letting it set as directed, then serving cake and allowing to come to room temperature before eating.

I must admit that I haven’t actually been to the garden in a couple of weeks, and things change quickly in a spring garden.  Fortunately, you can join me on a virtual garden tour.  (Unfortunately, you can’t taste the food virtually.)

A few things of note:

• Most of the garden-fresh produce we’ve been eating has come from plants that wintered-over, some inside and some outside the low tunnel — lettuce, kale, carrots, and Swiss chard.
• After years of struggling to grow spinach, we have a bumper crop this year, and it is delicious!
• The attempts to winterize the artichokes failed, so Matthew started new plants from seed this year.
• Our tomato seedlings look WAY better than anything I saw for sale at the farmers’ market on Saturday.  Just sayin’.
• Some of the potatoes are already blooming, and Matthew cut scapes off of some of the garlic last weekend.
• A rascally rabbit got inside the fence and dined on tender young pea shoots, so we mat not have much in the way of a spring pea crop.

Also, more exciting garden-related news: Matthew found out yesterday that he is the recipient of a Slow Food St. Louis biodiversity micro-grant!  His application included plans to grow celeriac and paw paws, both items that Slow Food StL identified as being of interest to local chefs.

If there’s anything I’m missing, I’ll let Matthew add it in the comments.

How’s YOUR garden growing?