Bowl fever | Gardening fever

Lightly-cooked baby kale, cannelini beans, tomatoes, carrots over rice pasta

We used to attend a yearly fundraiser for the local homeless shelter called Super Bowl. It was an event put on by our neighborhood high school in which local potters as well as the high school's pottery classes, donated hand-thrown pots. Soup provided by restaurants was served in the bowls. We'd choose a bowl to purchase, and then have it filled with soup. I have a substantial collection of bowls from many years of attending the event — each one different — that I'm very fond of. I also have a collection of plain white bowls in two sizes, that I love. In addition, I have lots of other miscellaneous bowl collections as well as larger serving bowls in all sizes and designs. Surely, I have enough bowls, but I still look longingly on a certain oval-shaped white bowl from World Market in which I was served a delicious lunch at a tea house in my old neighborhood — more than once. If I could figure out where to keep more bowls, I might buy them.

I was wondering what came first, my obsession with bowls, or my pleasure in eating an entire meal in a bowl. In my last post, there were photos of one-bowl meals that combined both cooked and raw food. Here are examples of cooked food in bowls.

Sweet potato, broccoli, kidney beans over quinoa, with tahini sauce

Tofu, mushrooms, broccoli, tomatoes, avocado (raw) over quinoa

Zucchini, chickpeas, tomatoes, mushrooms, olives over quinoa pasta

Taco bowl: chips, black beans, bok choy, tomatoes, creamy chipotle sauce

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Plant-friendly spaces

It's been three years since I've had my own space to garden in, and even now that I finally have space again, it's not a lot of space. I thought I was going to do a lot more landscaping than I did, but I haven't decided just what I want to do to spruce up our small lot. So instead of tackling the real gardening issues, I've been trying to make some of the smaller outdoor spaces more peaceful and inviting. I've added a bunch of plants to the little front porch ...

... along with a couple of chairs and a plant stand borrowed from the dining room. I sewed cushions for the chairs to make them a little more colorful.

On the back deck I've planted various herbs and flowers in pots. (Notice the large bamboo pot in the back? I found it at a garage sale for $1.) We've cleared enough space in the yard to plant an assortment of veggies, and I made a small herb garden around the side of the house.

I want the bench! (And the garden, too.)

I'm still hoping to turn the spaces around our house into pocket gardens, like the one in the photo I took on a recent walk. I would love to come across a bench like this to stash in a side garden! Here's hoping foraging through garage and estate sales, and craigslist, will come through for me. :)