Category Archives: My Life

4th of July Weekend Fun

We kicked off the holiday weekend with a potluck attended by many of the Sustainable Back Yard tour hosts.  The Winstein’s, who live and raise goats  in Webster Groves, hosted the gathering.  We enjoyed lots of fabulous garden-fresh dishes, all of which happened to be vegetarian, even though it wasn’t specifically a vegetarian gathering.

Matthew giving tour of our garden for Sustainable Backyards 2011

After dinner, we toured their garden and goat milking shed.  Each goat can give more than a gallon of milk a day (!), and they make cheese with much of it.

We enjoyed a lazy day on Saturday: late breakfast with some friends at our place, afternoon chilling, then heading to the pool for an early evening swim.  We returned home for a simple, tasty dinner featuring vegetarian Field Roast sausage (which I’ve been wanting to try since reading about it over at Daily Garnish) before walking to a nearby park to see fireworks.

The show from our front row seats

Fireworks under the Arch are great (and we may get down to see them tonight), but nothing beats a fabulous neighborhood fireworks show in my book.  Of course, the easily walkable/bikeable part is a huge plus!

Sunday brought two firsts for me: pasta and pickles.  I’ve written before about our fabulous homemade pasta noodles, but Matthew has always done the bulk of the work there — I provided assistance and encouragement.  Yesterday, I busted out the rolling pin and worked out my arm muscles, with good results 🙂

Likewise, we make pickles most summers, but it’s something that Matthew grew up doing, so he is the head pickle chef.  Yesterday, I whipped up our first batch of refrigerator dills, which, it turns out, are ridiculously easy.  I’ll have to photo document the process next time and share our easy, delicious refrigerator dill pickle recipe.

With a bit of the weekend left, we’re planning to make spanakopita (subbing our Swiss chard for the spinach) and possibly check out fireworks tonight.  Happy 4th!

The consequences of eating watermelon seeds

It should be illegal to sell watermelon without some kind of warning label.

WARNING: Consumption of watermelon seeds may cause extreme abdominal swelling and numerous other side effects.

Ungreening Green Drinks

It had been a few months since we made it to a St. Louis Green Drinks event, so last night’s gathering was a priority.  They had a great panel of speakers on the topic of Urban Farming — apparently quite popular, because it was standing room only.

The usual meeting location, Schlafly Bottleworks, is easily bikeable for us, but last night our trusty steeds did not grace the bike racks.  Although I’ve been feeling pretty good for the past week, I have had a few relapses into not so good, and I’m beginning to wonder if it’s as much my body giving signals that I’ve been overdoing things as it is related to what I’m eating.  So I’m trying to be good and take it easy, at least until Friday.

Despite having some justification for riding in a car to get there, I felt a bit guilty all night, especially given the nature of the event (but hey, at least the topic wasn’t green transportation).

Not all was lost, as I had some great discussions after the panel, including the chance to bring up Cycling Savvy.  Speaking of, if you live in the St. Louis area, don’t miss the July series of Cycling Savvy courses.  I won’t be teaching, but depending on baby’s arrival, Matthew will be teaching both of the on-bike course segments (“Train Your Bike” and “Tour of St. Louis”).