Arugula–Nothing to Laugh About

Posted in Cooking, Farming, Gardening, Health, Humor, Nutrition by Shelley Sackier

There are no fun facts about arugula. Period.

I’ve scoured the internet, intending to illuminate and entertain, but after having read everybody else’s idea of ‘fun,’ I have come to the conclusion that these folks need to get out more often.

For example: “Hey! We’re going to the dentist!”

“You are? You lucky ducks. Instagram the hell out of that for us, ok?”

This is not fun.

I need FUN facts about arugula in order to encourage others to buy it, plant it, grow it, eat it. It’s really difficult to sway folks–who are used to seeing their food handed to them through their car windows–to start eating something they think needs to be eradicated with a drenching douse of Round Up.

Yes, you can tell people about its history, the fact that it was around before the Romans conquered Rome, but so has dirt, and people aren’t tossing that into their tuna casseroles for dinner.

You can remind them that arugula is one of the only herbs that has made some interesting presidential headlines … oh, wait, no, there’s another one.

Or how about I announce that arugula was once considered by many and used by scores as an aphrodisiac? Except for the fact that anything put next to flickering candlelight by default becomes an aphrodisiac. So it doesn’t count.

Since I could not come up with anything uproariously entertaining about the plant, I will divulge the few personal ‘fun’ facts I have encountered.

I don’t remember planting it. It just showed up in my garden one day, and we’ve been eating it as a science experiment ever since. No one seems to have been affected negatively.
I cannot kill it. It’s like a Hydra. Seriously.
I am competing in a one woman competition to see who can come up with the hottest, spiciest arugula leaf by leaving some of the plants to grow old, woody and leggy. Thus far, I am winning in that one of my plants may qualify as eligible firewood come fall.
If you take one of the leaves and squish it between your fingers and then bring it to your nose while inhaling deeply, you will be reminded of the smell of … arugula. It’s amazing.
Arugula leaves make wonderful bookmarks.
I am trying to popularize my newest dance move called The Arugula. It intermingles nicely with The Funky Chicken and The Mashed Potato. This is best accompanied by Mozart’s only foxtrot.
There are very few etchings and even fewer bronze carvings of the arugula plant.
No one has ever recorded a song about arugula that has made it to the top of the charts.
No one has ever recorded a song about arugula.
Haggis, our resident hound, is addicted to it. He eats more of it than I do, and I’m writing this article … with his help.

Okay, so I hope this little pitch will have you all digging a small hole and tossing out a few seeds or snatching up a bunch at your local market. Or, if you find yourself in the neighborhood, come on up and I’ll load the backseat of your car with some of mine.

Once you get home, here are a few ideas of what to do with your booty—er, bounty.

Arugula and Bacon quiche

Corn Macaroni with Asparagus, Fava Beans and Arugula Pesto

Penne with Turkey, Arugula, and Sun-Dried-Tomato Vinaigrette

Roasted acorn squash and gorgonzola pizza topped with arugula

Roasted Beet and Blood Orange Salad with Spicy Greens Recipe

Meatless Monday: Roasted Beet and Arugula Sandwich with Green Olive Tapenade

The Best Lentil Salad, Ever

Searching for the Best Arugula Pesto Recipe, Making Arugula Pesto Cream Cheese Spread, and Discovering Arugula Pesto Pizza

Now Go Forth and Arugulate!

~Shelley

PS If you’re searching for seeds (from arugula to zucchini and everything in between), I’m recommending a company that not only has a worthy mission creed but a wonderful moral code. Give The Mauro Seed Company a looksee.

Their motto? Grow One, Give One. I’m impressed. Maybe you will be too.

Lastly, for the time being, our blog is closed to comments, but if you enjoyed it, maybe pass it on to someone else. Email it, Facebook it, or print it out and make new wallpaper for the bathroom. If it moves you, show it some love and share. Cheers!

Don’t forget to check out what we’re cookin’ in the Scullery and what we all talked about down in the pub. Plus, you can see more of Robin Gott‘s humor–all from the only pen carved from a human funny bone.

23Jan2016

A 422 Day Year? Yep, It Happened.

Posted in Astronomy, Calendar, Farming, Humor, Romans by Shelley Sackier

If pressed one day to reveal my dream tattoo, its explanation would arise as a result of watching far too many Monty Python skits.

More than likely I’d need to find a space massive enough to accommodate this:

All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

The one thing missing, I would hazard to say, is the calendar we depend upon today.

Imagine this– you are a farmer, tied to the land and your animals, agrarian in every sense of the word, and counseled beneath the Roman Emperor Numa Pompilius’ calendar.

Lunar to begin with, it consisted of a mere ten months—March through December. Now as much as many folk would wish to be rid of January and February, Numa spit in the eye of his subjects’ greatest fears and threw two months into the beginning of the year, officially recognizing the missing sixty days of terror, when unmentionable fiendish ghouls ruled the streets. Yes, you could still walk around covered in ash and leap through the flaming pyres of purification meant to ward off those who shall not be named, but now you’d be able to pencil in on which day you’d prefer to have a chalky complexion and ones where you’d singe your coattails.

Fast forward around six hundred years. Same ancient farmer—well preserved from a fine diet off the land—and same ancient calendar: lunar and totally bungled. Sure, Numa threw in a few extra days here and there to appease those around him with better mathematical skills. But complaints were rife. A 355 day year falls a little short for the agricultural savviness of most farmers, and after a decade or so, they’re getting reminders from Outlook to start planting seeds around December 23^rd.

Houston? We have a problem.

Cue Julius Caesar. Even though the guy had a lot on his plate: a budget crisis, political corruption, throwing a few dinner parties complete with gladiators and lions, he apparently got tired of showing up way too late for the Vernal Equinox Festival each year. Things had gotten so out of whack while Rome was busy conquering the world, nobody noticed—unless you were friends with a farmer—that the first day of spring was scheduled for somewhere in June, just after school let out. Something had to be done.

Since he had friends in high places, Caesar sought the help of someone whose influence was of the highest order, astronomically speaking.

Sosigenes, an Alexandrian greatly envied for the size of his telescope, er … astrolabe, was beckoned forth and instructed to untangle the calendrical conundrum. Pronto.

Up for the challenge, Sosigenes took out his freshly cleaned slate and chalk, came up with a slick marketing plan, and presented the new Julian calendar, complete with slides. The only glitch was that before implementing the shiny new calendar, they had to set straight the old one.

Thinking no one would mind—or even notice—Sosigenes threw a few missing days into the current year. Sixty-seven to be precise. Thirty days were added in between February 2^nd and 3^rd and thirty-five snuck in just after the last day of November and the first of December. The other two might have been tossed in as a couple of three day weekends.

Still, no matter how much publicity sparkle the PR department tried to spin it with, the Romans became a cranky bunch. And who could blame them?

February now seemed like an unending Lent, and Sosigenes was getting hate mail from kids who were expected to be ultra-patient for the start of the Christmas season. People were going to have to wait an ungodly amount of time see if Caesar would put a menorah on the front lawn of the Basilica. Sadly, they’d never know.

Regardless, there are a couple of things we can take from the lesson of what soon became coined as The Long Year. Firstly, Rome realized their kids were falling way behind in math and sciences and that the Chinese were catching up. Secondly, Romans back then were older than what their driver’s licenses said. And lastly, we’ve got little to complain about when every four years we tack on an extra day in February, because seriously, look at all the Romans did for us. If you can’t remember, I’ll show you my tattoo.

~Shelley

For the time being, our blog is closed to comments, but if you enjoyed it, maybe pass it on to someone else. Email it, Facebook it, or print it out and make new wallpaper for the bathroom. If it moves you, show it some love and share. Cheers!

30May2015

Dipping a Toe in the Pond of Progress

Posted in Farming, Gardening, Humor, Leaders, Technology, Teens by Shelley Sackier

Apparently, I live under a rock.

Which is a declaration from one of my kids that makes me snort with laughter, because although from his perspective, yes, I am not as ‘hip and with it’ as a sixteen-year-old immersed in the ever-changing kaleidoscope of pop culture, but seriously, buddy, look around. We actually live on top of a rock. In the Blue Ridge Mountains.

He doesn’t appreciate the irony.

I’m typically not one for labels, so when I receive my weekly life assessment from my son it’s pretty easy to shake off. But when Seth Godin, one of my great-brained literary and entrepreneurial heroes tells me I’m a laggard … I sit up and take notice.

And then I cry a little.

Because he’s brought graphs to prove it.

And pictures never lie.

According to Seth, whenever something new is unleashed from the great minds of opportunistic impresarios, and we are all launched into the next great race of Don’t Be Left Behind!, there exists a graph that needs to be understood if you’re hoping to make a shift in cultural behavior. The graph illustrates a picture that reveals how the population is divided.

It’s called the INNOVATION ADOPTION LIFECYCLE.

I call it: Nature’s Crowd Control.

Folks are divided up into factions that label how quick they are to get on board with new concepts, new technologies, new devices or new celebrity baby names that could only have been dreamed up by taking the online quiz to determine your ideal prostitute moniker and blending it with a piece of fruit found strictly in South American street markets.

The factions are as follows:

Innovators

Early Adopters

Early Majority

Late Majority

And LAGGARDS

When I read this, I straightened up and shouted, “NOW HOLD ON A MINUTE!”

And then I quickly apologized to the cashier who had snatched back the jumbo package of toilet paper that probably took out a forest equaling half the trees in one of our country’s smaller national parks to create. I had been looking at the graph on my smartphone while grocery shopping and reassured him that yes, I really did want all that toilet paper, and then took note of all the people around me who now suspected I had some sort of minor colonic affliction.

Once I got safely home, I pulled out my favorite book of all time—my Thesaurus—which, like The Bible, The TV Guide, and The World Atlas of Whisky—all books of paramount significance—should be capitalized.

I looked up laggard. I was not impressed with the alternatives. I am not a dawdler, or a loafer, or a slowpoke. I am not a slacker, or a sofa spud,

or a navel gazer—except when specifically cleaning that important and oft-ignored body part.

As this beautiful bell-curve was specifically created in 1957 and applied to agriculture and home economics of the time, and was used to track the “purchase patterns of hybrid seed corn by farmers,” the definition of the term laggard meant: very conservative, had small farms and capital, and were the oldest and least educated of the populace.

But I would not consider myself very conservative. In fact, I can recall a time, years ago when I actually considered having a third child—and not just because of the tax deduction.

Yes, maybe the small farm thing would stick and likely the bit about not much capital too—but surely that’s about to change because we all know how it’s typical for unknown children’s author’s income brackets to shoot right through the roof after they’re published.

But oldest—nuh uh. And least educated? Nope. I’ve got me some learnin. And as long as I keep up a steady stream diet of news feed from The Drudge Report and The Onion I should be golden on most international issues of import.

Now just to quiet the shouting in the background that’s coming from the balcony containing my teenagers and all of mankind’s teenagers who believe their parents are still dressing in high-waisted culottes and are on the verge of no longer sleeping with their teeth, I figure it’s only fair to look at the chart through their un-cataracted eyes.

It’s true that I am not the person who “comes up” with the shiny brand new inventions. I’ve not worked at a start-up, I don’t have a lab in my garage and I’ve yet to start a movement. So innovator is not a term applicable to me.

It’s also true that I’m not the first to stand in line all night waiting for the release of something that may or may not work, might be massively overpriced, and will likely be remembered in a pop culture montage at the end of the year in a reel entitled AND THE BIGGEST WASTES OF SPACE THIS YEAR WERE …

Yep. Not my style.

I also hate to be a crowd follower. If all of the Kardashians own one in every color it comes in, cross my name off the customer list.

Which brings us to the ‘late majority’ category. This is where I usually get caught. I reason with myself relentlessly. Something might prove to be a good idea—after a great deal of trial and error and three review cycles in Consumer Reports—but then I get whiff of the new contraption coming down the pike. If I buy it now, I’ll have something outdated within minutes, but waiting another month for the replacement means I’m now proudly sporting the unwanted badge of ‘I got it first.’

So this slides me back into the category of laggard. Or worse–I never board the bus.

So I’m left with this degrading classification reserved for folks who spend a good chunk of their day talking about how their latest operations panned out.

But you know what? I’m fine with it. I am who I am. A little behind the times, but careful and diligent. And I certainly don’t have time to worry about what a bunch of teenagers think of my speed of progress. I’ll get there.

First I have to head out to the garden and get the soil ready for my big corn crop this year. I just finished thumbing through a catalog and purchasing a bucketload of super seeds through this new company I discovered called Monsanto.

~Shelley

*ROBIN GOTT’s NEW POST* (click)

7Mar2015

Shedding Light on the Seat of Power

Posted in Business, Farming, History, Humor by Shelley Sackier

Today was an interesting day. Today I found a small section of my brain where, upon closer inspection, it was revealed that a couple synaptic plugs had come loose from their sockets and were lying about on the floor not contributing to the overall brain function capacity assigned to my person. Sparks were flying, but the juice wasn’t flowing.

I really hate when that happens.

It’s like discovering that for the last five years, your health plan allowed for you to have a free massage every week, but only if you clicked on the web site’s tab that said Legal Jargon You’ll Never Understand and Fine Print too Tiny to Read.

Who goes there??

Well, I did. At least for a quick look-see. Not to my health care plan, but to another ordinary every month invoice. And what I unearthed was confounding and a little bit balmy. But I am attracted to the absurd. And this fit the bill.

When I was a kid, the food co-op movement was starting to rev up its engine, and folks were beginning to find little shops where they could scoop up bulk food from hand-labeled barrels and bins. I was never particularly interested in stepping over this threshold, as the air held the scent of patchouli, and the atmosphere reeked of good health. The only bin that roused my interest was the one containing carob coated raisins and peanuts which—for a reason that could only point toward a level of unflattering intelligence—fooled me every time into believing its flavor had changed from the week prior and now would be delicious.

It wasn’t.

Ever.

Just mutton dressed up as lamb.

Recently, I have taken over paying some of the household accounts. One of them is the electric bill. Scrutinizing the statement top to bottom, I also examined its name. I belong to an electricity co-op. This came as a massive surprise to me, mostly because my mind had a hard time grappling with the mental image of local folks driving to the edge of town, where the rents are cheaper, walking into that ‘good commune vibe’ atmosphere, pushing a few old mason jars across the counter and pointing up at the bin lined shelves to say, “I’ll take 45 of the yellow joules, 25 green volts, and how bout …60—no 70 watts of the really bright red ones.”

An electricity co-op? Really?

I had no idea any such thing existed. And since research is like an addictive drug that must maintain a high dosage level in my bloodstream, I reached into my jar of joules and cranked up the old computer for a little overtime.

It turns out that utility co-ops were introduced to the U.S. somewhere around the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his shiny “New Deal” plan for America. As folks were in the midst of the Great Depression, it became even more depressing to discover that Big Business owned utility companies were not interested in spending the extra bucks on investment to bring electricity, water, and communication to the outskirts of society. If your nearest neighbor was a collection of cows, you’d likely still have to rely upon your hearth, your rain barrel, and smoke signals.

Shortly after Johnny Town Mouse left a visit to his Country Cousin, it was clear that listening to all that lofty babble about how grand things were in the city was a bitter pill no one wanted to swallow.

Cue disgruntled homesteaders, sharecroppers, and ranchers. Please enter stage left.

The utility co-op was born. Now you could tell that boasting braggart of a relative of yours that not only did you have running water and a light switch, but that you were now an owner of a business that stretched as far as the eye could see and beyond. You were a proprietor in the fast-paced industry of the Utility World. Public Power just took on a whole new meaning.

Okay, all of you in overalls and Birkenstocks, take a bow, and head back to the barn. Those cows aren’t going to milk themselves.

I liked the idea of a utility co-op. In fact, once I began to understand the structure and organization’s ideas, I called my electric company to speak with a real person to get a few more facts.

“So,” I began, “being part owner of a company, that means I have some say in how the business is run, don’t I?”

Absolutely, came the operator’s reply. The whole idea of the cooperative is that the community shares in the responsibility, management, and profits of the company.

“Profits?” I whispered excitedly. “As in revenue?”

Yes, ma’am. In this case, we call them Capital Credits. Our success is your success.

“Well, I think Capital Credits is a Capital Idea, and a Credit to whoever came up with that little gem.”

We hung up the phone and I paced about the kitchen planning what I would do with the share of my business—my Capital Credits. I quickly phoned back.

“I forgot to ask. When do I receive my dividends? When do you cut me a check?”

Oh! the operator chuckled, You, yourself, won’t actually receive any money. But the benefactors of your estate will.

“Wait. What?”

Yes, it’s called Estate Retirement.

“You mean I have to die first to extract benefits from the co-op.”

Precisely. We simply need to see a death certificate from your estate representative, and whomever you dictate in your will to be the recipient is immediately issued a check for your years of collecting Capital Credits.

“Hold on a second. I grow my own vegetables. I DO NOT HAVE AN ESTATE.”

It’s just an expression, the operator said, snickering again.

“Well, I’d like to express my dissatisfaction with the way the profits are withheld from owners.”

Ma’am, this is a business. The profits are mostly rolled over into maintaining a working utility company.

“What happened to the whole idea of “Sharing is Caring?”

Oh, dear, the operator said. I’m just going put a mark in your file for future reference to other agents should they take a call from you. You are what we refer to as Newbie Members.

“What does that mean?”

New to the idea of business profits and margins. In your case, The lights are on, but nobody’s home.

~Shelley

*BONUS CARTOON FOR THIS WEEK’S POST!* (click)

27Oct2013

Hell is empty and all the devils are here!

Posted in Farming, Gardening, Humor, Mountain life, Nature by Shelley Sackier

There is a plague on my house.

Or more aptly, there is a plague IN my house.

Even more aptly, there is a plague in BOTH my houses. (The hound has a tiny cottage just outside the dog door.)

It’s evil. It’s widespread. It’s pandemic.

Actually, it is a they.

STINKBUGS.

These six-legged beasts have made themselves at home—without invitation, without cessation, and without a return trip ticket from whence they came.

A few years ago, the abominable scourge was the ladybug—or ladybird beetle. I can’t believe people complained about our overabundance of ladybugs. Growing up, you were lucky if a ladybug landed on you—it was a chance to make a wish, or count its spots to see if a good harvest was coming your way. And as is well known—a good harvest could make or break the day of a seven-year old.

California citrus growers released thousands of the beetles—purchased from our good friends Down Under—and kept their fingers crossed that the clumsy, crimson cutie pies would gorge their tiny bellies on as many aphids as they could muster. They were champions. Our desperate need to send grapefruit for the holidays was saved.

But eventually people complained. (Bet you didn’t see that coming, right?)

Rumor had it that the next idea was to release some parasitic wasp that would in essence sneak up on the ladybugs, inject them with venom, rendering them paralytic and zombie-like, and then lay eggs inside them. Our tiny beetles shortly found wasp eggs hatching and chewing their way out of their own belly.

Yeah, love that fix. Let’s launch a battalion of those wasps to teach our ladybugs a lesson.

The lovely ladybugs are no longer an issue in our abode, but have now been replaced with these malodorous, marmorated, major pain in my backside bugs.

Stinkbugs, so true to their name, are now making a yearly pilgrimage to my neck of the woods to worship something found in all the creases of my curtains, along the crown moldings of my ceilings and embedded deep within my light fixtures. When not paying homage to their transcendental deity, they rejuvenate their shield-shaped bodies by guzzling any sweet, liquid libation they can locate. Gone are my plump figs, my peppers and thick, leafy greens. I am a mecca that provides a free for all service of food, lodging and late night vespers to these party animals. A one stop church and chow, a synagogue and sip, a temple and tipple—I could go on …

I suppose I would have a lot more energy to create a battle plan to reclaim my house and crops if only I were allowed a proper night’s sleep. I have challenged cognitive skills at the best of times, but when paired with a chronic sleep disorder—thrust upon me by the late night riot of cocktails and carousing that these bugs launch into once I’ve donned my nightcap—I am left droopy-eyed, sluggish, and just barely tuned in to the fact that one of them is crawling along the back of my neck as I’m trying to work at my desk. I’m guessing he’s attempting to peek over my shoulders to report back to the others of my annihilation strategy.

They fly, stumbling along in the air, drunk on fig juice and nectar of collard greens. Their buzz is analogous to that of a small child’s radio controlled flyer, and just like the barely airworthy kidcraft, the bugs are likely to fall out of the sky at a moment’s notice. I’m not sure if they suddenly tire of the effort their wings ask of them, or if they have a very low work ethic, or even if their tiny brains stopped focusing on the task at hand and gave up coordinating calculations for lift, thrust, drag and weight, but they plummet and hit the earth—or the person standing between them and the earth–with a crisp thwack. They then are stuck on their backs, stranded by their hefty bulwark, many unable to flip themselves over because Mother Nature did not take into account the overwhelming dullness of mind these creatures possess.

A good number perish this way. No funerals are held. I am both elated and repelled at the sheer number of dead stinkbugs lining the windowsills, scattered across the countertops, or that crunch underfoot when I’m lulled out of bed with the need to use the facilities. I’ve decided to wear combat boots to sleep so that I’m totally prepared should the need arise. Plus, battle waits for no man.

They fall into my cup of tea, dive bomb into my pot of soup, squiggle their way into the folds of my face towel and I am fed up. I’ve lost sleep, my appetite and my appreciation for cilantro—for this is what they smell like when squished.

The only answer is suction.

I stalk these foul creatures like I would conduct a witch hunt—that is if I was an uneducated, fearful Protestant—which I am not. But for the sake of good plot, I pretend to be close. At least for this scenario. It is method acting.

It is me and my central vac hose. We suck them up one by one. Gleefully. Triumphantly. Like a woman possessed. Or getting rid of the possessed.

I fly about the room, cackling maniacally. The witch and her wand.

I cast these evil creatures into the abyss with a parting quote: We are time’s subjects, and time bids BE GONE!!

~Shelley

Don’t forget to check out what we’re cookin’ in the Scullery (here) and what we all talked about down in the pub (here). And to see more of Robin Gott‘s humor–all from the only pen carved from a human funny bone–click here.