Summer 2011 and onward

Mr. EV and Buffy taking a driving break at the Columbia River Basin.

I've been distracted. From weeks of thinking my elderly dog was dying to multiple house problems in Madison, to SUN and extremely warm weather, to moving, I've been distracted, and just couldn't seem to focus the time and energy needed to write this blog. I'm still distracted, but missing the vegan blog community and my blog, so I'm giving the blog another shot.


Are we there yet? This trip is making me tired.

My dog survived the summer and the road trip to and from Madison, Wis., to Seattle, and though she's 19, she's doing well.


This is what a hail-damaged roof with defective shingles looks like.

The Madison house got a new roof, and eight feet of new pipe under the concrete basement floor (plus a new floor over the pipe). I never thought we'd see the end of the dirt and mud tracking up the basement steps, and I couldn't believe the mountain of rubble piled on the basement floor. We were pretty stressed out during the period while all this was occurring (no water in the kitchen, no clear end in sight, scheduling headaches, etc.) but no point in complaining now. At least the new tenants won't have to worry about the drain baking up and flooding the basement. Been there done that.





That's a pretty short description of three months worth of time, and it doesn't mention all the good times of enjoying summer in the Midwest — seeing friends being the most important — great meals, shopping at the Pink Poodle with my next door neighbor, etc. etc. Even though I wasn't blogging, I was still taking lots of pictures, and I'll share them from time to time in future posts.


Laloofa is in the middle.

I would like to mention one special event on our way back to Seattle. I had a blogger meetup with Laloofa (Mehitable Days) in Sheridan Wyo.



She's just as delightful in person as she is on her blog, and I wish we lived closer to each other so we could get together often. We shared a breakfast in the park with Mr. EasyVegan, Laloofa's friend Robin, and Buffy.





This pic of me and Mr. EV was taken by Laloofa. He's wearing his "stand with Wisconsin" t-shirt, because heaven knows, we do!





Here are two more images from our return trip to Seattle. They are from the Columbia River Basin in Eastern Washington.

We're in our new house in Seattle now (built in 1912, so not exactly new), and we're on our way to getting it furnished. The house is small — only two bedrooms and one bath plus an attic room, and we're doing a lot of craigslist and consignment shop shopping. (We rent out our Madison house to visiting academics, furnished, so we're pretty much starting from scratch here as far as furniture goes.) The mattress came from a store, the rugs are new, and the sofa has been ordered, but nearly everything else is recycled, 'cause that's the way we like it.


A slightly demented Miss E finds a new use for the built-in bookcase that will eventually house some playthings for her to use when she visits.

We're looking at a craigslist bookcase this evening, and I hope we like it — and, more importantly, can carry it! — because it would really be great to be able to unpack the cookbooks. :) Mostly we like the house, but although I consider myself pretty observant, I'm amazed on a daily basis to discover things I hadn't noticed when we were looking at the house to buy. And I'm not talking about good things. Sigh.

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Recipe testing, again
This is a food blog so I should post something food-related, and as I'm testing recipes for a new slow-cooker cookbook by Robin Robertson, I'll share a few photos of some of the recipes I've tried so far:


Potatoes with tomatoes and butter beans


Creamy polenta with mushroom ragú


Braised Manchurian-style cauliflower


Yosenabe

I recommend keeping this cookbook on your radar because based on what I've tasted, it's going to be a good one.

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Tidbits
If I'd posted this back in July when I'd first read about it, it would be news. Now it's old news. Any Lost fans out there? Jorge Garcia ("Hugo") is now a vegan. Here's a link to his blog.

Meatless vs. local (from the Vegetarians of Washington newsletter)
It turns out that what's in your grocery bag may matter even more than how far it traveled to get there when it comes to climate change.

A new study conducted at Carnegie Mellon University has just concluded that going meatless has a much bigger impact on global warming than going local with your food choices. 83% of the average U.S. household's carbon footprint for food comes from growing and producing it, and this is where meat is particularly harmful. Transporting the food to the point of purchase only accounts for 11%. In fact, the researchers found that going meatless for just one day had a greater impact than going entirely local for a whole week. This is in line with the UN report that said that raising livestock caused more global warming than all the cars, buses, trucks, trains, planes, boats and ships in the world put together.

Spam I am
I know all bloggers get spammed, but every once in a while I get one so weird I just want to share (minus the spam link). This particular spammer wants to send you to a page about car roof racks, but with translation this remarkable, the message has become rather obscure. I'm glad Blogger does such a remarkable job of flagging and removing spam that my readers never see it, unless, of course, I choose to share. :) Here it is:

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Vida Vegan Con
In just two days I'm headed to Portland for Vida Vegan Con, and am pretty excited. Mr. EV is going too, and we're taking the train, so even getting there and back should be fun. Is anyone reading this going? I want to meet you!