As promised, the DH and I (along with The Boy) went to a local berry farm to augment the strawberry ‘stash’ at Chez Siberia. The DH picked 17 pounds of berries on Friday, most of which ended up being frozen and used as the starter for his strawberry wine (more on that another time). So, with the freezer inventory reading at the ‘danger, danger, Will Robinson’ line for strawberries, we knew we needed to get back to the farm for more.
Lucky for us, they open early, even on Sundays, so we were there in the cool of the morning this morning, along with a bunch of other families, out there in the field picking. (more…)
Strawberries. Until Clarence Birdseye popularized frozen foods, strawberries meant ‘fresh in the spring and early summer or on your toast and waffles as jam and preserves the rest of the year. Now, you can get frozen strawberries anytime, and at Chez Siberia, we do our part to pick and freeze a whole lot. But we also take the opportunity to eat them as soon as we can get them home, rinsed and into a bowl. 
And…we’re BACK!! And we are circling around again, on the subject of farmers’ markets because – I say so. A reader of the last piece told me that she does not go to ‘her’ farmers market because they only had two vendors and all the vendors had were greens and green onions. 
This blogging thing does get out of hand. The first thing you know, you get an idea and then it sprouts other ideas, which breed and make other ideas and pretty soon the whole post gets out of hand and you are looking for a book deal. So, I am going to go with one idea and tell you what the next one is and hold myself to it.
Recently, consumers were faced with another product recall, this time for all sorts of products manufactured with peanuts coming out of the Peanut Corporation of America plant in Georgia due to Salmonella contamination. A bit later, a facility this company owned in Texas was also tagged for the same conditions and contamination. As of early February, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta had identified 600 people in the United States and possible connection with eight deaths due to consumers eating this contaminated food.
Aunt Toby has, I suspect, a rather unique philosophy on sewing clothing for family members in terms of ‘making it pay’, which is this:
Given the plethora (today’s ‘big’ word) of opportunities to buy what looks like inexpensive (i.e., cheap and cheaply made, of cheap goods) clothing, Aunt Toby would like to ask the logical question: If I can go to Wal-get-ohl-H&M and buy a dress for $30.00, why bother sewing? Let’s just say that you are one of the lucky people(few though they may be) who actually can go to the rack, pull off a size whatever, put it on, look in the mirror and say to yourself, “Dayam, I look hot!” Well, let’s look at the major reasons people are STILL sewing clothing in A.D. 2009: creative outlet and fit and selection issues. 
As much as I love traditional chicken soup (aka “Jewish Penicillin”), once I discovered Chinese Hot and Sour Soup when I was in college, I realized what a superior therapy (at least from an upper respiratory standpoint) Hot and Sour Soup is. No matter how clogged up my sinuses get, they can’t withstand the combination of hot liquid, pepper and vinegar that makes up the essence of Hot and Sour Soup. 
I know, I know..I promised something on stale bread all the way back probably before Christmas, and as usual, got distracted (it’s Michelle Obama’s arms, doncha know?). What Aunt Toby wants you to do is to think about stuff that we usually just throw away; or give to the birds; or throw on the compost heap, as food that we can recycle into something else. So, you say you don’t like the stems of broccoli – cook ‘em up in chicken broth, run it all through a blender and you’ve got yummy broccoli soup (jazz it up with some cheddar and you are good to go). We’ve covered left-over mashed potatoes already. Today’s topic (as you can see above) is left over bread. 
Today, Aunt Toby wants you to think of our little meeting place here as Kitchen Counter Gymnasium. We’re going to talk today about getting more strength into our lives … at home.
