One-Block Party?

Sunset invited its readers to take up a One-Block Party challenge, to use its new One Block Feast book as a guide and by summer's end orchestrate a party based around home-grown and home-made dinner ingredients. Although I let the deadline for entry (yesterday) slide by with only a little regret, it did get me to thinking: what can I produce in the limited and challenging setting available?

Generally, I rely heavily and happily on my local farmers markets, supplemented by a few friends or co-workers with gardens. Living literally on the water, with only modest deck space and some not-well protected pots to tend, attempts at nurturing any but the most hardy stock have been disappointing. Succulents do well, as do some very drought-tolerant, wind tolerant vines and flowers. And with great care, a few herbs, including basil.

So I'm going to brainstorm this one with my neighbors, and come up with a challenge both less prosaic than the usual 100-mile diet and more realistic than one geared towards folks with yards. We've got the most idyllic spots to enjoy a locally-crafted meal together. Surely we can craft a delicious challenge for ourselves. Stay tuned -

Samovar Sanity

Many an evening have I been out and wished for a nice cup of tea, but passed on the idea out of prudence - caffeine. But I must never have never been to a formal affair with hundreds who feel the same.

And so it came to be that our hosts for the Brass Dragon Ball, bless them every one, took pains to provide elegant samovars of plain black tea, Earl Grey, and (for the outliers) coffee, all sans-caffeine.
It made the clever little tea sandwiches, strawberries, and petite-fours just that much tastier.

BRAT diet

Three days into the lose-four-pounds-in-four-days diet, it was a relief to feel some appetite return. But stomach flu strikes me so rarely, I can never remember the traditional wisdom about which foods to avoid and which to start nibbling as the first pangs of hunger signal recovery. So of course I asked the internet. The shortest answer is: Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast.

After the short answer, plenty of long ones are now available, particularly from pediatric medical websites. But the main points of all of them seem to be the same:

• Start by avoiding harder to digest foods, like fats and meat protein and dairy.
• Use foods like the BRAT list as a starter, not as a strict, restrictive regimen.
• Take advantage of the food already at hand, that provides the same benefits, if you don't have the exact items on the list (bananas and applesauce, for instance, provide soluble fiber and electrolytes).

I ended up eating a fruit smoothie, some gluten-free toast, grape juice, and some almond-milk rice pudding. Plus tea (because one site added a TY to BRAT, allowing both yogurt and tea). Between naps, and big glasses of water.

Next time I may just call my mother, for the same advice plus sympathy. The internet may be handy, but it's darn short on sympathy.

Lemon Meringue Pie

When friends give you lemons, make pie.

More specifically, make a decadent, sweet-tart lemon custard topped by fluffy, browned-to-caramel in spots meringue, all held together by a gluten-free, coconut macaroon shell pie.

Not the Sushi!

So Japan's reeling from a devastating earthquake, plus the tsunami, plus nuclear reactor emergency response. All this makes a great news week - so many angles for bad news, with a sprinkling of human interest. A few pundits make the usual abhorrent blame-the-victim statements, whose only silver lining may be to disgust the rest of us so much we resolve on the spot to send whatever aid we can.

In the midst of all this, the one headline that really took me aback? "Price of sushi may rise!" Really?!
Tall glass of clean, clear drinking water's still free, here. Let's not feel too sorry for ourselves.

One Block Party Challenge

Sometimes you just need a deadline and a worthwhile payoff to get you rolling on those good intentions. Like, say, growing some of your food in your own backyard/ patio containers, and spending more time enjoying the simple pleasures with friends.

Well, Sunset Magazine just stepped forward with those motivators, all neatly tied up as the One Block Party Challenge.  The task is straightforward - grow a summer garden, throw a harvest party. And send your story to Sunset by September 15.  You were going to do the first two anyway, right?

While you are perusing seed catalogs and sketching out this year's gardens beds, take a few minutes to also plan your approach to the challenge - what you'll grow, which recipes you'll cook, etc. Write it all up in your entry, due to Sunset by March 30.

If you need ideas and inspiration, check out the preview of the One Block Feast book, available online at the contest page of Sunset's One Block Diet blog.