Speedy Summer Spaghetti

Quick recipe for summer work nights balancing time, food waste, and footprint.

Ingredients:

Last of the really good Italian spaghetti that came from a cooking kit sent to me for a workplace event 2 years ago (yikes, that means the olive oil, capers, anchovies from that kit should probably be used up, too)

Container of tomatoes that started to ooze because I am trying not to refrigerate my tomatoes - but I guess that means use REALLY soon (no, I didn't grow them - this is the summer of being behind in the garden)

Snack mozzarella balls sold in a bag with the balls packaged 3 to a little snack pack with use by date of 9 months ago (some of the packs were swollen close to busting - from gases?; I had debated whether to buy all that plastic packaging, and decided it would reduce waste given my slow consumption rate - borne out by this post)

Basil pinches - I AM growing that!! (though not from seed - I tried, but something ate the early seedling outside, so these were from the Mothership, and I am trying to pinch aggressively and fight my urge to coddle the seedlings)

New York City cold tap water (barely enough to cover pasta)

Sea salt

Olive oil

Garlic (shriveled and largely dehydrated from sitting around too long), slivered

Pepper flakes 

Throw pasta in even before the water comes to a boil to save time (technique covered by Alton Brown and also Milk Street, soundly rejected by the traditional cooks who ran the workplace event and believed fervently that pasta should only be put into copiously excessive water brought to a rolling boil), with tomatoes that will boil and burst, it all reduces to create a "sauce" as the pasta absorbs the liquid, sprinkle in pepper flakes, dish the whole thing, bury cut up mozz that will melt from residual heat of pasta, garnish with torn basil.

Eat on a summer sunset, pink sky, buck supermoon (I didn't actually know that was happening) evening.

Chicks Flew The Coop

Procrastigardening. A "Before" and "After" mini project report.

I should have been studying for a FINRA licensing exam. I may hate myself for letting most of the weekend go. But I couldn't. I needed to calm myself, needed to be in the garden.

One of the gutter planters along the parapet railing has always been inhabited by hens 'n chicks - a legacy of one of Sissy's indoor planting failures. Everything else in that succulent pot had died, survived by a small clump of hens 'n chicks, maybe even barely at that - they might have been sickly, or had pests; she brought them up and they went outside, and survived that winter, and many since. That gutter planter was overflowing, growing over the side, with chicks smushed up against the railing.

I recently set up the bird bath again (after it was disassembled from last year's terrace construction work). It came from Vietnam, shipped, after a trip there by Mama Hen and Papa rooster. There was supposed to be a figurine of a girl, but she either arrived broken, or not at all, or grossly out of scale. So I inherited it, without the figurine.

The basin got dirty quickly, as did the water. There was never a good perch for the birds. So at some point, I decided the robust moss in some of the planters could simulate water. The moss-as-water plan just never worked - the moss never grew in as lushly as I hoped, and when it was dry, it just looked sad. So over the last few days, I added a few stray chicks that had fallen out and separated from the hens. Yesterday, thoughts racing in my head at how behind I am in my studies, I decided to go whole hog on populating the basin with chicks.

I began pulling candidate chicks and realized carrying them in my hand wasn't going to work, so went looking for a vessel. Voila! Rediscovered a seashell - I think from a trip with law school friends to the Delaware shore - that was tucked away during last year's terrace construction and temporarily forgotten - and deposited that first little clutch of chicks.

[Aside: Isn't the orange thing cute? Gotta love New York City curbs. Not sure what it was conceived as - stool? plant stand? side table? It may move inside, or maybe just stay outside and extend the indoor pop of orange scheme to the Jardin.]

Finally, the shell with all the migrant chicks was perched in the center of the bath basin, ready for them to be resettled. 

It rained Friday, so the moss was soaked, and there were some pools of water - seemed like a gentle way for them to transition into their new home.

Final result in the last photo. Decided to leave the shell out as a water receptacle for thirsty pollinators. [I had thought about getting a small glass terrarium and tiny solar fountain for the center, but solar burblers don't seem to come small enough.] Fingers crossed that the chicks like their new home and grow and thrive.

Fingers crossed that I survive this exam. The procrastigardening continued today, only moderately abated. And I had sworn, after the first, "easy," exam that I wouldn't do this. Yet, here I am, a week out, doing just that. Sigh. It is a mental illness. 

Years ago, in college, I took a babysitting stint from Sissy's roommate when I should have been writing a Chinese Foreign Policy paper. I never did manage to finish the paper and took a C+ in the class - on the strength of my exam grades and participation in the class. It remains the lowest grade I have ever received. We still refer to the behavior as "Chinese Foreign Policy."

Hoping I haven't Chinese Foreign Policied myself. There remains a week to see how it goes.

Kill Vill(ainous Invaders)

Invasive aliens and edibles.

Spotted three spotted lanternfly nymphs; offed all three. I left the carcasses about, like heads atop spikes in medieval times or Roman crucifixions, hoping they might be a warning to other nymphs to steer clear.

By the appearance of the successive two, though, perhaps this was not the most effective strategy.  And then, one of the bodies disappeared, and my mind ran to zombie nymphs. But then I saw the ants attack - a feat of collaboration and coordination, slowly, but surely, they moved the many times larger carcass.

And, with that appetizing lead-in...

I also offed the invasive chickweed and shiso, too (yes, the shiso got ahead of me, way, way ahead - and what is a weed but an unwanted plant, growing misplaced, even if cultivated in other quarters), and turned them into lunch with pinched Vietnamese balm and mint, and some celery and walnuts, simply dressed in olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and lemon pepper. Gardening, fresh lunch preparation - the joys of working from home.

So I guess we all feasted on the invaders today. Gruesome vanquishment of the alien enemies.