The "Chips and Salsa" Lady Says I'll Love Them...

I tried to grown green beans in the garden again this summer.  I had visions of dilly beans dancing in my head.  But, all three or four attempts at growing them from seed failed me.  So, mostly, in an effort to keep a pretty and tall wrought iron lattice I got on super sale from a closing Smith and Hawken store from "disappearing" from my garden one night, I planted seedlings from the garden center.  They were labeled your run of the mill "Blue Lake" beans, but I found that unless you picked them less than 3 inches long, they were all seed, all the time.  While they grew lushly, they "weren't no eatin' beans".  I let them go to seed and thought nothing more of them.

But, yesterday, as I was chopping the bean stalks down to green manure, a pod opened up and I found some creamy, smooth, white beans in my hand.  I thought maybe it was worth exploring these seeds after all.  I gathered what was easy to harvest and headed home after three long, hard hours in the garden turning over soil and green manuring the last of the summer crops.

Since I was well past when I should have been eating for my adrenals, I stopped at a little local Mexican joint called "Chips and Salsa" for some quick nourishment.  They know me and my eating habits pretty well there, which meant as soon as they saw me walk in, they started some shrimp tacos without even asking.  While I waited, the owner and I started talking a bit.  She speaks little English.  I speak no Spanish.   But, we didn't need words to see that with bean leaves still stuck to my shirt, dirt on my knees, and hay stuck to my skin, I'd just come from the garden.  She gestured to my garden bag and I pulled out the beans.  She immediately smiled.  I asked her if she knew what they were.  She said a "Mexican bean.  Very yummy.  You will like".   I tried to ask if I need to soak them overnight and I'm not sure she understood, but she said to cook "like a white bean, pinto bean".  And again reiterated I would like them.  I said, garlic? Olive oil?  And she said, "yes, yes, very good!".

This concept of dried beans excites me, now.  It brings out the Laura Ingalls in me.  Putting away beans for soups or smashes for the winter is a whole new adventure.  As much as I loved the fresh fava beans last spring, I think I will double my crop and let half dry out.  I would love to make some genuine fuul next year.  And maybe I'll peruse the catalogs for some black bean seeds.  It would be nice to make my black bean quesadilla with feta next winter from dried beans I've grown myself.  

But, for the moment, maybe today I'll roast a chicken, do a quick soak of the beans and make myself some white bean/garlic/rosemary mash with my mystery beans.  And hope they are as my 'Chips and Salsa' friend said:

Garden Ghouls

Wondering what the garden connection is are you?  Well, I went up to Fourth Street in Long Beach to check out the Zombie Walk tonight and was quite taken with this character calling itself "Psycho Cindy".  As it turns out, "she" was our community garden co-manager, Patrick.  Remind me not to go to the garden after dark...

And some pro-garden slogans from the living dead....  

Happy Halloween!!!!

Harvest in Color and Infrared

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

A Secret Garden

A few months back my friend Hilary took me on a little adventure.  She took me to a secret garden in the hills of Los Angeles.  This garden has a name, but she is sworn (and therefore so am I) to not breathe a word of it.  It's a gated garden and because she is a true believer in all that is beautiful and life affirming, she has been granted a key.  A key which she, in turn, is granting to me.  And it makes my heart do flips.  In the words of Wayne and Garth:  I am not worthy.

This isn't a typical garden.  This steep and winding garden has lovingly and painstakingly been crafted out of tiles, stones, sculptures (wire and otherwise) and the things of life.  It has been erected piece by piece in moments of celebration (His Holiness The Dalai Lama has visited) and grief (the passing of loved ones) and horror (9/11, if only the people in charge of the NYC memorial who are fighting amongst themselves could see this garden's simple and loving memorial).  Oh, it has flowers and trees, but that isn't the POINT of the garden.  Its magic is that it's a garden of imagination and art and belief and faith and desire and music and chimes and soft breezes through the canyon.  And its magic is that, above all, it is a garden of thrones.

There is a throne for your every fancy, desire, dream, and anguish.  If you are in need of some self-compassion: here is your throne.  If you are in need of some flowing tears: here is your throne.  If you are in need of some laughter:  here is your throne.  How about some healing?  Do you need some of that: well, sit here in this throne.  And if you just need some silence?  There.  Over there is a throne for you tucked under an arbor.  Some are named quite specifically:

and as you climb perilously higher and higher, others are for you to just sit and imagine what it might be for you that day...

The makers of this garden are in love with music as much as they are in love with stone and reflection (both the light and internal kind).  There are chimes that ring and musical notes that dance.  And near the throne of music is a tribute to jazz.  Names I knew, names I didn't.  But, it rang its own chime in my heart.  Jazz was a great gift to me the past few years and so I sat in the throne of jazz for awhile, rubbing my hands over the smooth, ruby red stones feeling joy and regret.

And as I finally wandered from the jazz throne I took a detour along Route 66, realizing in many ways I'm a real California girl, now. 

But, you can change your perspective here....  You can look through the looking glass and see a man working in a sea of blues:

Or you can see yourself reflected back in some stones of blue:

Finally, Hilary and I met up on some adjoining thrones, choosing carefully which thrones we would finally rest in for a bit from our silent and individual explorations of the garden.  We would finally speak as we looked down over the winding road that embraced this magical garden in its curves.  We enjoyed the soft, cool, breeze that defied the hot summer day and talked about how lovely it would be to be here in the dusk with a bottle of wine.  I told her that I wanted to be in love here.  I wanted to be in love with someone who would love this garden, too.  Hilary looked off for a moment and then said that while she'd brought her husband here once and he'd appreciated it, she didn't care that he didn't want to keep returning to it, as she did.  She said that she loved the garden and that was enough for her.  I've always admired their relationship, so I thought hard about what I wanted and needed or misunderstood perhaps about myself when I was in a relationship.   I considered it deeply as I looked around at the beauty of the garden and the mystery of each turn of the hill of stones we'd climbed up.

Finally, with a sweet, far off chime playing softly with the breeze, I turned to her and said, "I suppose I don't need someone who loves the garden.  What I really want is to be loved by someone who loves me for being the kind of woman who loves this garden."

And with a graceful nod of approval from my friend, we both looked back down into the secret garden filled with colorful, useful, ethereal thrones and felt grateful for the key to it...

Start to Finish...

PART TWO interrupted

Harvest 10/3/2010

I'm still working on my garden dilemma.  I'll post PART TWO: the dilemma soon.  In the meantime...

After my walk to the Lighthouse this morning, I stopped by my garden to see what the intense combination of heat (113 in Long Beach!!!!!) and rain (torrential downpour for an hour) had done for the tomato plant I'd decided to spare from its green mulch death for another week.  Score!!  Or should I say STRIKE! Since I got one of those bowling last night (doing a happy dance).   Not only has this plant completely recovered from its blossom rot start, the green tomatoes look healthy and happy and these pictured above had vine ripened.

Granted, there may not be even enough to make a third quart of pasta sauce (I made and froze the sauce below last week), but they'll be nice to slice up here or there this week.

Pasta sauce for winter

One of the major components about adrenal recovery is eating regularly - not always my strongest suit. Some weeks I have a weird commuting schedule and now that I live alone again, it just doesn't seem worth it or I don't have the energy to always to cook something "just for myself".  Indeed, there is something healing about preparing a meal to share with people or the person you love, saying a silent prayer of thanks over it, but I digress....

Some days, honestly, my adrenals have knocked me so far off track I can't get the energy up to eat, never mind prepare a meal.  So, I subsist on things that are good for me, like sardines, and some things that are maybe not sooo good for me, but are easy and in an adrenal fog or thyroid low can get the job done like steaming some shrimp wontons from TJs.  

Occasionally I'll guard myself against those hard days and get something big going that will last me a week and just "be there" like a pot of veggie quinoa or the chicken curry I made last week (yummy, btw, w/ sweet potatoes and fresh corn off the cob).  But, today,  I've decided that I will cook individual meals for myself.  I will use the pepper, tomatoes and parsley on some lime grilled shrimp tacos for lunch.  And I will use the thyme and parsley on some salmon for dinner.  I will try to take care of myself like I would take care of someone I loved.

And because it is Sunday in October,  I'll turn on some football or jazz or maybe both.  I'll reorder my business cards because I forgot a letter in my website and they were printed wrong (did I mention I'm still dealing with some brain fog!).  I'll finish my business taxes that are due this month, and I'll work on both my real job and my fake job (look tomorrow for shots of a cool wedding I shot at www.squidpictures.blogspot.com).

But, mostly,  with the help of the beautiful bounty from my garden which I was blessed with today, I'll eat when I'm supposed to....