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!

From there to here | Tire safety | Safe sunscreen?

Buffy, standing up through the opened top of her Gogo soft pet carrier

Buffy was ready to roll when we started our four-day road trip from Seattle to Wisconsin. She had a new soft harness, new lightweight pink collar and her favorite dog carrier to ride in, and I guess she was as pumped as a 17-year-old miniature poodle can be. The first day was pretty exciting for her, and she had a little trouble focusing on the necessary tasks of sleeping and staying calm, but the last three days she was an easy rider. She liked the motels, too, though we humans learned that carpets in the dog-friendly rooms are disgusting. They don't smell bad but they are covered with scary spots and look terrible.

Our first night was spent in Missoula, Montana, where The Good Food Store provided our supper. I had a bean burger, and Ken had a tempeh reuben. Mine was just OK — too salty and bread-y for my taste. I know I could have removed the bun, but I was lacking in discipline and overate, instead.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were our lunches of convenience every day of the trip. Each morning I'd repack the cooler with ice, and make two sandwiches for the road — we carried coconut milk yogurt, fruit, carrots and the pb&j in the cooler. We also had a bag of homemade trail mix and some additional pretzels. Dinners we planned to find when we stopped each day.

The scenery in Montana was gorgeous. We were surrounded by mountains, and open land in a thousand shades of soft green and apricot. Remind me to take some photos on the trip back.

Our second night was spent in Sheridan, Wyoming. We had Chinese takeout in our hotel and then went for a walk downtown. The rodeo was happening while we were there, but, you know, vegans don't go to rodeos, so we strolled down the main street to soak up the Wild West feel of the place. The stores were all closed for the rodeo, but Buffy was delighted to just walk around and window shop, and so were we.

How about a pair of gold cowboy boots to go with that wedding gown?

The street was filled with sculpture of every kind from abstract to very literal. The one above is called Granny's Garden, I think.

The rodeo is a pretty big deal and most of the shops had Rodeo signs in the windows.

The above is a bar window. The sign says, "it isn't always the bull who knocks you off your feet."

Even the shops selling non-cowboy-like Tevas and cool socks had ropes and guitars.

If I were a leather-wearing kind o' girl I'd want these boots.

The shops may sell modern goods but the buildings are beautiful, old and historic.

The mint is an icon. Be warned, though, that it's full of stuffed, previously-alive animals.

Wyoming (especially western Wyo.) was a beautiful ride. The third day was scheduled to be our longest as we made our way through Wyoming and South Dakota, and everything was going well until somewhere east of Murdo, S. Dakota, when we blew a rear tire and had to pull onto the road shoulder. The first thought we had was, "OMG where are we?" It felt like the middle of nowhere - flat, open land, few cars. It didn't help that it was 95˚ without an inch of shade. (Why aren't there any trees?) We felt cooked. And, I think we were still a little creeped out by the plague of flying grasshoppers we'd encountered at the last rest stop. There were still grasshopper bodies embedded in the windshield wipers.

A guy in a pickup came to our aid and changed the tire. He was wearing overalls, cowboy boots, and called his wife "mama." In exchange for his efforts he received a monetary reward and our extreme gratitude. I was desperate to photograph him for this post but was too shy to ask if it was OK. I guess I'll never be a photojournalist. :)

Buffy was relieved to be back on the road again but we were shaken, and every road-sound seemed like an impending catastrophe. By the time we reached Sioux Falls, S. Dakota, we were too exhausted to go find dinner so we ate our "emergency" udon soup bowls. The next morning Ken replaced our 9-year-old tires with new ones manufactured in 2010. (See below for a short, informative video about tire age and safety.)

Our first dinner at home was Indian takeout from a neighborhood restaurant. The next day we went to the farmers market and bought summer squash, green beans and cucumber to add to the broccoli and tomatoes growing in the garden our tenants had planted in the backyard. We also bopped into Trader Joe's for greens, carrots, avocados, canned pinto beans and sourdough bread because it was way too hot to cook, and the only thing we could possibly do was make a big salad. You can see the summer squash grated into the vegetable mix. I dressed the salad with balsamic vinegar and let the rich avocado stand in for oil.

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Are your tires too old to be safe?
Even tires that are purchased "new" may be years old and unsafe. Old tires are subject to tread separation and can be deadly, according to this report. This isn't what happened to our tire, but having our tire blow out focused our attention on just how safe our tires were as we traveled at high speeds on the highway.

http://youtu.be/pxlsKPCzjyw

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Is your safe sunscreen safe? Is anything safe?
I was a little disturbed to read recently that number 4 on the American Cancer Society's report on knowledge gaps for 20 suspected carcinogens list is titanium dioxide. This is an ingredient that often replaces dangerous ingredients in the newest sunscreens. Titanium dioxide and zinc oxide are listed in the sunscreens noted as safe by EWG (Environmental Working Group). My new sunscreen has both. Anyone know anything about this?