Balcony wildlife

This is the home of my pet spider, Edmund.

Balcony garden

This is the south end of my little garden. Bay laurel which stay out until December and then tolerate the indoors for a few months before I put them back where they belong. When I put them out, the house seems empty, when I bring them in, it is cram packed. There is also some basil, a queen of the night, impatiens, some of which has volunteered in my christmas cactus. And there is my sweet opuntia.

This is my feverfew. I love it. It has been a constant companion no matter where I lived for almost 20 years.

Gardening in tiny spaces.

This is the north end of my garden. In this mess of plants are tomatoes, cucumbers, sage, thyme, basil (way too much to ever eat), rosemary, feverfew, kenilworth ivy, sunbeam coreopsis, morning glories, some sort of salvia which was supposed to bloom red but didn't, petunias and a few other things whose names I can't recall. a lot of this is just stuff that comes back year after year. I've had the feverfew and kenilworth ivy for more than 20 years, moving it accidently from place to place (well, 3 places). The coreopsis snuck in there about 10 years ago. I had the most lovely wild morning glories for years but they abandoned me. I feel bad about that. The thyme is perennial. It doesn't seem to mind staying on the balcony all winter. The sage is new this year. The rosemary comes inside in December and tolerates the heat and dryness of my condo until I put it back out in April. It usually has some sort of pest issue. Scale, mites, mildew, I give it a shower every few weeks.

Key lime Pie

Key limes are not easy to find if you are not a restaurant. I had to use bottled stuff with an additional kick from a regular lime. It has been almost 8 months since I made one. And I made about 4 zillion of them but I could not, for the life of me, remember what the hell was in them.

Dental fun

Root canal yesterday. Aside from the dread and fear before hand - I didn't have a lot of pain but making it hurt so they know which tooth is the problem was looming large - the actual procedure was horrifying and lengthy. Don't let any one, like my Aunt Elyse (a dentist) tell you "oh it's nothing." It's not nothing. And then the meds they give you afterward keep you up all night. And I'm only on a quarter of the dose I start tomorrow.

Poignant recipe

I made chocolate bread pudding for the first time since I closed the restaurant. I didn't realize how emotional it would make me. I realized that for the most part I avoid cooking anything that reminds me of the place. I thought it was because of how much I hated being there. But just slicing the egg buns made me wistful.

The detritus of the food industry

No restaurant anymore. Instead I'm doing other things now. Like weird religious iconography in colored pencil on ply wood. 3 individual pieces.