Beeting: The Habit

I have a compulsive personality, which manifests in many ways. Perhaps the least damaging, though, is the fact that I bought MORE BEETS when I went to the farmers market on Saturday. Seriously, guys, what am I going to do with all these beets? I still have some from the week before in the fridge.

It could be worse, I guess. Beets don't make you loot American Indian burial grounds.

Waste Not

The farmers market is in full swing, and one of my favorite purchases are beets. I'm obsessed. Usually I just roast the and eat them plain, with maybe a bit of salt and pepper. Or make a simple salad, like this one. There's just something about these earthy root vegetables, their abundance (all the vendors have them) and the act of roasting a whole mess of them at once. Beets encapsulate everything I love about the farmers market.

The one pea in my mattress is what to do with the beet greens. The leaves are usually discarded, and since I haven't set up a composting system yet (soon, soon) they've always gone to waste. But no more! Beet greens are slightly bitter, slightly beety and super easy to cook up. They don't require the long cooking time of collard or mustard greens, so there's no excuse not to make them.


I started with a tiny red onion sauteed in a bit of olive oil. While that was going, I chopped the tops off my beets (red and golden) and rinsed the greens, letting them soak for a while because they were going limp. Then I sliced them into half inch ribbons and threw them in the pan with some salt and a chopped up clove of garlic. After they started to wilt in went a few generous shakes of red wine vinegar. After five more minutes, they were done. That's it. Seriously. I made some sort of Morningstar Farms veggie cake thingy and that was dinner.


Next time I'll experiment with flavorings (because you know there will be beets in my future). Red pepper flakes, ginger, etc.

Everything Grows

When I was seven or eight, I danced to Everything Grows, a Raffi song, in ballet class. "Everything grows, anyone knows, that's how it goes."

But not for me. I have a black thumb. I can usually keep aloe alive, but that's just because it doesn't need much watering. I've never tried very hard, and have a habit of forgetting my plants completely until they're shriveled up and brown. But I've always wanted to give it a go, and have fantasies about home grown vegetables, lush flowering bushes and rich brown soil.

In the new house, I've made very little effort in the garden, but it's something. I've got some tomatoes going, a pepper plant and some lovely herbs that were a gift from my garden-goddess sister-in-law. Still, the tomatoes don't have cages around them and there are weeds that are healthier than the basil. Every time I muster the effort to totter around in garden, I can sense Jim rolling his eyes. "Sure honey, I bet you'll plant zinnias along the side of the garage. Sure."


Despite the doubt of my darling husband (and myself, let's be honest here) I keep hoping one day I'll turn into the kind of person who can reasonably care for another living thing. The cat hasn't died yet, so that's progress. And I have a pepper growing. I don't remember what kind of pepper plant I bought, so I'm not sure how big it's supposed to get. But it's definitely a pepper. If I can manage to keep this pepper going a little while longer, maybe I'll try to get those zinnias going next. That's how it goes, I guess.

Gentle Readers,

I love reading advice columns. I don't know what it is about them that gets me, the satisfaction of knowing that other people are so dense they can't figure out if they should stop winking at their naked neighbor, or the fun of yelling at the Sunday paper, "No, Carolyn Hax, some feelings aren't OK to have!" (If you're an advice column junkie like me, you'd get it.)

Every column has a different vibe. Abby writes to the masses, covering topics from disrespectful grandkids to the importance of thanking our veterans to cheating spouses to getting out kidneys checked out during National Kidney Month. Carolyn is more self-helpy, very into discovering the reason you've been willing to put up with your mother-in-law mopping your floor when she comes over, not just telling you to hide the mop. There's a chick named Amy in the Chicago Trib. who usually prints way too much of the letter, which always makes it sound sad and rambling.

Prudence on slate.com is my favorite, she's witty and snarky and the questions are sometimes genuinely difficult issues. Not without faults, though, she's definitely got a pro-monogomy streak which sometimes comes off as slut-shaming. I used to read Dan Savage, but the shock factor is just irritating at this point, plus I have a vagina so he probably hates me. And of course there's good ole Miss Manners. I kind of consider her in a separate class, because she's just advising on rules of etiquette, most of which are already established.

So you can imagine my delight when I discovered the same letter printed by two different columnists. It's interesting to see how the letter is edited slightly differently, I definitely think it subtly affects the tone of the response. What does it say about the pre-conceived notions of the advisor? I think columnist #1 is predisposed to hating men. I mean, if you're putting quotation marks around things, you're being sarcastic. And version #2 specifically mentions that the writer knows the boyfriend isn't cheating. That's kinda an important part of the question, don't you think?

The great part is that the answers are very different. Who do you think is right? Columnist #2's was printed a while ago, and I remember reading it and agreeing, but now that I see answer #1, I'm wavering. Based on my descriptions above, can you tell who wrote which answer?


Advice Columnist #1: My boyfriend, "Beau," and I moved in together and already we have trust issues. He doesn't trust me around his computer. He said he has things on it that are part of his past, and it's none of my business.

One of the things he doesn't want me to see is "The List." He keeps a list of all the girls he has slept with - including one-night stands. I have asked Beau how many there have been, but he doesn't want to tell me "because it will hurt me." He has revealed that it's a number between 10 and 50.

I have asked him to delete the list, but he said that if he gets a weird disease in the future, he can always refer back to it. I have nightmares about this.

Should I drop the matter? - Unlisted Number in Texas

DEAR UNLISTED: No, honey. You should drop him.

If Beau was simply afraid you would see how many women he has slept with and was trying to protect your feelings, he would print out the list and stash it in a safety deposit box.

What he's afraid of is that you'll see the list is growing.

I don't blame you for having nightmares. A man who is seriously worried that he'll get a weird disease in the future is exposing himself and you to them now.

So pack your bags, get out of there and schedule an appointment with your gynecologist ASAP.

Advice Columnist #2: My boyfriend and I recently moved in together. One day we had a fight about the fact that he doesn't trust me around his computer because he has things on it that are part of his past that he doesn't want me to see. One of those things is "the List" of all the girls he has slept with, including one-night stands. I have asked him the number of people he's had sex with (he knows mine is two), but he tells me that I don't want to know and gives me a number between 10 and 50. I have asked him to delete that list, but he says he won't because if he gets a weird disease in the future and has to tell everyone he's slept with, he won't remember all of them without the list. He claims I don't have anything to be worried about and that everybody has a past, but he doesn't want to hurt me, and it's best that I not know some things—just as he doesn't want to know some things about my past. Am I being too concerned about a stupid list? I know he is not cheating on me, but should I know his number?

—Concerned

Dear Concerned,
The magic number is … 37! There, do you feel better? No, I bet you don't. You actually know as much as you need to right now, and that is that your boyfriend has had tons more sexual encounters than you. You say that despite his hound-dog history, you are confident in his fidelity, so you don't have the obvious concern that "the List" is more than just an archive. That being the case, he doesn't need to invent some puritanical disease of the future that retroactively infects one's former lovers in order to justify keeping an electronic equivalent of notches on his bedpost. If you are to have a solid relationship, you both should agree that you each are entitled to privacy and a past, and that you promise not to intrude on his personal files. But given that your boyfriend has probably had sexual encounters with dozens of people, including a number of one-night stands, you need to be concerned about diseases he's already contracted. I hope he's had a complete STD screen so that you can be confident that your reformed Casanova isn't jeopardizing your health and fertility.

Busy times call for wimpy posts

I've been so busy with fixing up the new house and preparing for the movers to come (where are those guys, they were supposed to be here by now) that I haven't had time to document all this stuff that I really would like to keep track of.

So here are some pictures of stuff, it's faster than writing.


Shiny refinished hardwood floors. I am afraid to stand on them.

























Our old apartment is...rustic. We were cleaning up killer dust bunnies last night when we discovered that the bedroom floor has been held up all these years by a pickle jar. I hoped it was filled with moonshine, but alas, it must just be for support. Thank you, pickle jar, for being there even when we didn't know you existed. It's kinda like the Footprints in the Sand poem, right?

















Do you all recognize this cow-on-a-stick? It's been with me since college. There's a longish story attached, but the point is, the cow's going away. Cows-on-sticks don't belong in grown-up houses. It's sad, but true. Enjoy that great big pasture-on-a-stick in the sky, cow-on-a-stick.


















Movers are here now, gotta go. One of them is a guy I went to college with. Dave Rudnik, anyone? Small world.

Unclosed

I'm supposed to own a house right now, but I don't. The bank fucked up. You know how I know they fucked up? They offered to pay the difference in what the sellers owe at closing, since they already wrote their check. And they've offered to let us write a personal check instead of getting a cashier's check. Banks don't do that sort of thing unless they were the ones who fucked up.

There's nothing to do but wait and hope everything works out. We've lost a weekend of wallpaper removing and painting, but as somebody pointed out, in a few years we won't even remember that the closing was delayed.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of the house.


This is the kitchen. So big! I am already fantasizing about where to keep the Pyrex and other sundry. The wallpaper is going far, far away, to a wallpaper farm where it can play with all the other wallpapers. We've been happy with our red kitchen so that's the color we'll use again.



This very clever desk is built-in in the kitchen. It will be nice to have a proper place to put the internet machine while cooking. I always felt nervous with it placed precariously on the baker's rack. Oh, and: I am so sad that the baker's rack won't have a place in our new kitchen! I have a secret desire to find a place for it at 625 E. Morgan, but sadly it will probably be obsolete.



Somehow I have talked my darling husband into letting me use the second bedroom as a crafty room. I hope that means this blog will see a lot more action, as one of the major issues keeping me from creating was lack of access to my supplies. For the last five years, everything's been squished in the corner of the living room. I had to literally move furniture to get to it. Lame.

I'll take plenty more "before" pictures once we actually have the house.

Wild Brews for Wild Women

Last night I attended the latest installment of the Tasting Women Series at Sugar Maple. These tasting events are for ladies who want to learn about beer in a Beer Snob Free Zone. This month Janine, one of the bartenders, spoke about spontaneously fermented beers like lambics and gueuzes, which are sour, funky tasting brews. I happen to love them, so I was all about this tasting.

We learned a ton, and I loved that Janine dropped some major science without being dry. She even made diagrams!

Here's the diagram of how you introduce wild yeast into the wort (the pre-beer juice):

See that first step, the Cool Ship? Basically the brewer leaves the wort out in these wide, shallow vats, exposed to wild yeasts and bacteria that come in from the slatted roof. That's right, the cardinal sin of brewing, contamination, is encouraged. So weird. I kinda knew about that step in the process, but what I didn't know was that each barrel has its own little ecosystem growing in it, hence the need for blending, sometimes over and over again to create a consistent final product. That's why these beers can be so expensive, they could take up to years in production.

Anyway, back to the yeast and bacteria. Janine had this diagram about the differences between wild and classic strains:

See how the Brettanomyces yeast is all hippie-looking? That's because he imparts a flavor known in the beer-tasting world as "horse blanket." Yum! I love how this tasting terminology is so gross. Like, Scotch is often referred to as having the taste of wet band-aids. And that's not a bad thing.

Anywho, the tasting was fun. Adrienne, the owner of the bar, put together some awesome cheese and fruit pairnings, and Janine was a great teacher. Here's a list of what we tasted with some short commentary.

O'So Dopplebock (Plover, WI)
Janine couldn't confirm that this was wild, but you could totally taste the Lactic Acid flavor associated with Flemish Sours. Dark color, sour taste with a malty, caramely finish.

New Glarus Berliner Weiss (New Glarus, WI)
This beer is delicious, super crisp and sour, it's brewed with grapes and is very bubbly. Very light and tart.

Lakefront Rosie Kriek (Milwaukee, WI)
I love this beer, apparently it gets its name not from its rosy color, but from the blend of yeast used, which is from the Flemish town of Roeselare. That's where Rodenbach is brewed, and you can totally taste the connection. It's like sour cherries in a glass. Lakefront has really been stepping it up, this beer is a prime example.


Jolly Pumpkin Weizen Bam Saison (Dexter, MI)
Saisons aren't usually wild, but it still works. You get the piney, hoppy flavor at the front end and a sour kick after. It's got the really thick head I associate with Saisons, too.

Cantillon Iris (Brussels, Belgium)
This is a tasty, tasty beer. Pricy enough to be considered a special occasion beer, Iris is very earthy and sour. I always thought it was a gueuze, but I guess technically under Belgian law it isn't because they break a bunch of rules in the brewing process.