Tuesday, 8/19/08: Eating the Fruits and Vegetables of My Biking Labors
I’m going local again today just because that’s the way it is. A mid afternoon dog walk takes me back to the North Branch LIbrary to pick up Breakfast of Champions. I open it to one of the simpler but cruder drawings by Vonnegut and laugh out loud. This is what our friend Martha laughingly told me about when I drew a similar “sunshine” image as part of a tasteless visual joke last Friday on the back of a restaurant’s daily special menu. I am looking forward to this book and must force myself not to try to read it now while walking the dog and crossing Central Street traffic.
Bread is low so I decide to go to the Heavenly Hearth bread shop in Wilmette but on my bike to save time. I just don’t feel like I’m getting as much done as I would like: even with discipline, working at home is a challenge. Not so much from my family but from phone calls and emails, which are mostly and fortunately about business. I end up staying up past midnight to compensate. I chat with the bread shop proprietor about his vacation.
The main observation today is how far into the week a bike trailer full of produce will take me. A dozen ears of corn at 2 or 3 per meal gets you 4 to 6 days. The blueberries and blackberries are holding up well despite daily topping our cereal. Peaches, two bags/green boxes, doing well but they do need to be eaten given their ripeness. Radishes still looking good but forgot some from a week or so ago but they’re OK. The watermelon half is still there so I need to remember that.
Dinner came from the Farmer’s Market load and miscellaneous Whole Foods stock ups and our garden. My wife has imparted to me the philosophy of whipping together dinner without a gratuitous rush trip to the store, so today’s is corn on the cob, a salad of spinach and FM vegetables, and leftover pasta with pesto made from basil from Nancy’s container gardens.
The bagels from Sunday’s bike errand are holding up but disappearing fast, thanks to Number One Son for whom the term, “low hanging fruit” applies to any food easily prepared and applied to his mouth at mid-afternoon or middle of the night.
One late night walk with the dog under the waning moon and that brings today’s mobility to a cool close.