I haven't had a post yet this summer about the farm. Last year we became a member of our local CSA. Every Sunday we get fresh veggies either from their farm stand or from the pick-your-own fields. We get enough that we split our share with our friends Mark and Heather and still have too much to eat every week. This week I decided to document our veggies. All the colors could be the only Project Spectrum entry I've done!

Every week the farm stand has different offerings. This week we got red onions, shallots, potatoes, cherry tomatoes, slicing tomatoes, green and purple bell peppers, dill, basil, cilantro, and garlic. The farm has the best potatoes I've ever had. They are so buttery when you cook them. The onions and garlic also have a different flavor than what I buy at the grocery store. The farm is in Jersey, so the tomatoes are of course good. We make sauce and salsa throughout the summer.

Outside in big bins were yellow watermelons and musk melons (which taste like cantaloupe).

There's also pick-your-own crops at the farm and this week I picked a bunch of specialty basil, some thyme, oregano, and Mr. Lug picked green beans. I also picked a few okra (okras? okri?) to try out. (Sorry Heather I forgot to give you any! But I only picked about 5 small pieces.) I cut them up, tossed them in cornmeal and deep fried them. Pretty tasty.

With the veggies this week I'm planning to make cucumber dill salad, potatoes with dill and lemon, salsa, pesto, and who knows what else.

This makes the perfect sandwich (if you like tomatoes):
1 Jersey Tomato
Mayonnaise
White bread
Salt

So good. You slice the tomato into thick slices, toast the bread, slather on mayo, salt the tomato and viola - the perfect sandwich.

Posted by jen at 09:03 PM |Comments (9)

I returned to knitting group tonight. I haven't been in a while and I am so impressed at everyone's work! While I've been slacking off barely knitting everyone's been working on the Lady Eleanor! I feel like such a slacker. I am both a slacker and a follower because I now really want to knit this! So I am inspired to keep knitting bigger and better things, but first I have to finish knitting the tank top I started with Tess Microfiber ribbon. I am done the back:

I've got maybe an inch done on the front. This yarn is most definitely high maintenance. You must use fray stop and you have to carefully unravel just a little off the skein at a time.

Next I have to finish my cable scarf and then onto Lady Eleanor perhaps? So much for stash busting. That will require a yarn purchase...

On house news we actually got a whole room painted! Yay!

Posted by jen at 11:10 PM |Comments (9)

First of all a finished object!

Simple baby hat. Pattern: Yarn Harlot's no pattern hat pattern from Knitting Rules! Yarn: Filatura Di Crosa Baby in Kiss. Knit on number 7 needles.

That was a mindless project! It's a cute simple roll brim baby hat for my coworker's baby. I'm planning on adding a flower to it and making matching mittens and booties. Very fast, very satisfying! Actually I'm a little embarassed at how simple it is, but my addled brain couldn't handle anything more complicated at the moment. I feel like a blind monkey could have knit it, but it's the thought that counts right?

Speaking of thoughts - I lost my mind for 20 minutes today. Let me say that me buying three pairs of shoes in a boutique shoe store would normally be grounds for divorce with Mr. Lug, but today I found the mother of all sales - buy one pair get two free. That's right. Buy ONE get TWO free. TWO. Gah!

God help me I thought for a moment - I could get SIX shoes for the price of TWO! But I contained myself.

Posted by jen at 10:25 PM |Comments (9)

1.) I bought a new suit at the Anne Taylor sale that was about 1 billion percent off. I am so happy to have it. Can someone tell me why a good woman's suit is so hard to find? Most of them look like they could've been worn on the set of Working Girl or like someone's grandmother would wear them. Why oh why is it so difficult? Most I try on don't fit in the waist or the pants seem to sit right about at armpit level - or the shoulders make me look like a line backer. And all of them make me look way heavier than normal clothes do. I hate them. But I found a good one at Anne Taylor with a skirt and jacket that are almost flattering. So yay me.

Suits are Bo-Ring

2.) For work sometimes I have to go to client meetings and this means getting dressed up in a suit and getting in the car and driving to one of many locations. After my meeting - which was a sales pitch - I found out that one of the clients is on MySpace. Okay - so everyone and their mother is on myspace, but the thought of that client somehow finding my MySpace page and then thinking that she wouldn't award business to my company over it made me shudder. I wouldn't give me business either if I looked at my MySpace page. Then I started thinking about them finding this blog - but if a potential client ever found this blog, I'm not sure it would deter them. I felt like just BEING on MySpace made me and the client lose a few credibility points. I may delete my MySpace profile after all this thinking. The internet is so small sometimes.

3.) I imagine that pergatory is a lot like the waiting room at Quest Diagnostics. Do you know what I'm talking about? Quest is one of those places your doctor sends you to get blood tests or a glucose screening or whatever. This morning I went in there and nearly every seat was taken, I forgot to bring a book or my knitting, and I figured the wait to get seen was probably an hour. I left. I have to go back this afternoon but I stopped and got my knitting at home so I'd have something to do. I hope they let you bring knitting to pergatory.

Posted by jen at 09:24 AM |Comments (6)

I'm running out of steam on these Taos entries, so I'll end with the wedding. The morning of the wedding we got our hair done at th salon and went to Kate's honeymoon suite to get dressed. It poured all day and we were keeping our fingers crossed that it wouldn't rain during the outdoor ceremony. It continued to rain, but it let up just enough for the ceremony and then the skies opened up again and it poured for the rest of the night!

The ceremony was really nice and the reception was a lot of fun. I was pretty beat by the end of the night since it had been a long week. The food was good and the crowd was small. It was a good time.

I couldn't breathe in my dress. The result of too many margaritas during the week.

Aw, look at how cute they are.

The next day we drove down to Albuquerque to spend the night closer to the airport. We saw just a tiny bit of the town and mostly vegged out in the hotel. All in all it was a fun vacation and New Mexico is definitely a unique place. I'm happy to be back home!

This weekend we worked on the house and I shoudl have some new pictures to post soon. There's a heatwave so I'm hiding in the airconditioning today. More on the house and some actual knitting pictures soon!

Posted by jen at 09:46 AM |Comments (2)

So on Friday Kate and I (and her future Mother and grandmother-in-laws) went to El Monte Sagrado Spa for a treatment.

So pretty!

I had never been to a spa before, so I had to figure out the disrobing thing. I am not so comfortable being naked in a semi-public place, but I didn't see a way out of it, so we all donned our robes and went for our treatment. I had the Sumatra Body Polish, which was a-ma-zing. My explanation of what they do is: they rub you down with great smelling warmed oils and shredded coconut - then you get in this crazy shower and shower it off. After that they massage in this amazing lotion onto your skin and they end it all with a mist of rosewater on your face. I've never been that pampered or smelled more like a coconut curry in my life. So wonderful.

We had lunch at the Spa and then Kate and I had to make our manicure/pedicure appointements. This I have experience with. My technician and I discussed global warming, the lack of industry in Taos, and the evils of pharmaceutical companies. Very lively conversation.

Kate and I then rushed to the rehearsal and I picked up Mr. Lug at the hotel for dinner. After dinner was when the fun began.

Kate and I proceeded to drink our body weight in margaritas and eventually made it to the Alley Cantina* where I then told anyone who would listen to me that "My friend is getting maaaariiiieeeed tomorrow." (But with a lot more shouting and slurring. Everyone was really nice about it.)

I didn't take this picture

The men joined us later in the evening - completely by accident and the rest of the night is a little blurry. I ended up back in the room sleeping away after a momentary run in with the spins and a bottle of water.

*Note that this is the only bar I've ever been to where there was a liine for the men's room. One of the men in line told me that's what happens when there's a 9 to 1 male to female ratio. So if you're looking for lots of single men, I think Taos may be the place for you.

Posted by jen at 12:41 PM |Comments (2)

First let me point out that I did actual kniting on this trip! I worked on the Irish Hiking Scarf on the plane on the way out and the way home!

Okay, so Mr. Lug and I woke up nice and early to get on our 9am flight to Taos. We had to change planes in Ft. Worth and then we landed at Albuquerque Airport! (Albuquerque happens to be home to Scout, I believe! Maybe next time I will get to say hi!)

We got in our groovy rental car and made the 3 hour drive up to Taos.

American Cars? Eh.

The scenery in this area is like nothing I've seen before. I've been to California and to Arizona, but this is just different. The land seems really arid - like a roadrunner cartoon - but beautiful and then the homes and the buildings on the side of the road seemed dilapidated to me, but it could be that they were washed out by the sun.

We made it to our lodging at the Taos Inn - which was quirky and had it's issues, but the restaurant and bar were really nice. The bar had a million different types of margaritas which is exactly what we needed after our long day of traveling. We joined Kate, Alex, and her family for dinner for her dad's birthday at the Trading Post. The food was really awesome.

The next day we had no plans so we went shopping around Taos. I bought a piece of art in this store. The art in town is really great, especially if you like Mexican folk art, which I happen to love.

We then made our way to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge where we met this really spooky biker guy who told us that he once partied up by the bridge and then fell off of it down into the gorge 20 feet. When we turne around he was gone. Spooky! But the view was amazing.

We then made our way to the Millicent Rogers Museum where we looked at tapestries and pottery so old it's hard to comprehend. I really liked this gallery and would recommend it.

That night we had dinner at Doc Martin's restaurant in our hotel. Chris and some other manlly men with us opted to eat the Elk on the menu that night and that resulted in this ridiculousness:

Taos is really an interesting place, and the landscape was different enough to make me feel kind of homesick. In my next post I'll cover the second half of the trip - including my day at the spa and the wedding!

Posted by jen at 08:25 AM |Comments (3)

Congratulations to my best friend Kate and her new husband on their beautiful wedding in Taos, NM where I spent the last week. More details on the vacation later, but congrats to my friends.

Posted by jen at 11:32 PM |Comments (3)