Salvaged Amaryllis

Here's the amaryllis in all its glory, and as it began.

Before it bloomed, but getting there.

Snapshot: Outside and Inside

Snow Day. There is at least a foot of snow on that table.Here's a close-up of the cherry tree branches about a week after I brought them home from the Union Square Green Market.

13 days after we mashed the cut end of each branch with a hammer, we found it blooming when we came home from work. Note the red-tinged water in the vase, probably tannins. Here are two pictures, not even a week apart, of our exploding amaryllis bulb. Last winter it only put up leaves. We planted it in the ground over the summer and took it out of the ground last November. After drying in a bag for a couple months we potted it January 31.

Red Hook Lobster Pound

Trucked down from Maine every week, this seems to be the closest you can get to fresh lobster in Brooklyn short of boarding a ship out of Montauk. Located on Van Brunt Street in Red Hook, just behind the storefront are two tanks full of crustaceans. These two are between 1.5 and 1.75 pounds.

Check out the Lobster Pound. This summer there will be space next door for consuming the lobster rolls.

There was a mini Boston Cream Pie for dessert. It was Valentine's Day after all.

Custom Framing

Final product:Working from the premise that framing is too expensive and homemade things are always better, my brother fashioned the above frame from a rough-cut piece of cherry wood in his wood shop. The stain is only polyurethane, the rest is natural redness. The next step was having a piece of glass cut, 12.5 x 12.5. After a few phone calls, I found this place in the east village. The staff were very helpful, and the glass only cost $6. Don't let the Rottweiler "Tyson", placidly pacing the shop, keep you away.

AAA Glass Plus, Inc.
528 East 11th Street
New York, NY 10009
212-995-1635

Bread Alone Bread

Six months in new york and I have finally found a way to procure whole grain, local bread without an extra plastic bag every time. Sold both at the Union Square Green Market (where they'll bag the bread in a reused bag) and at a local grocery on Court Street Gourmet Fresh (although not listed as a retailer on the website), this is a wholesome (whole food) bread without the chemical crap. At $4.59 a loaf ($4.75 at their Union Square stall - still haven't figured out why it should be more expensive) it's not cheap, but when you consider that any sandwich usually costs more, it's worth it. Plus it's healthy and tastes good. From the site it sounds like the grain is locally sourced. Win, win, win, win, win.

Blizzard 2009

Enough snow to obscure the front steps.The block.It reminded me of another snow-covered new york street .Uncovering the snowblower revealed a raccoon nest. These are either his tracks or those of one of the feral cats that frequent the front garden.The digging out has already begun.

Homemade Apple Sauce

It's easy to pick pounds and pounds of apples and not know what to do with all of them. An apple a day doesn't even dent the surplus that results from a day picking apples upstate. So, we peeled and sliced up the mostly Green Delicious apples and boiled them in a pot with water and cinnamon. A little lemon keeps them from browning too much. Once they're cooked to a soggy mush, run the apples through a food grinder.The result is a lot of applesauce. This is only about half the jars that were added to our freezer. So far the apple sauce has served as a complement to chicken pot pie and a marinade for pork cooked in the oven. There is plenty left.