Kurt R.A. Giambastiani's Blog, page 70

Summer Zucchini Salad

Once my zucchini plants started pumping out 16+oz fruit, I had to think of something to do with them. Fast. I came across a recipe that turned zucchini into tagliatelle (wide, flat noodles) by julienningthem on a mandoline, and thought, “Eureka!” But no, at least not that recipe, which called for nearly 2 cups of […]

Gird thy Loins

Next week, our very dear friends are leaving on an extended, 3+week tour of Europe. And by “our very dear friends,” I mean their whole family; Grandma, the kids, and the grandkids are all packing up and will travel, together, for nearly a month. First, I set aside my bogglement at (and envy of) a […]

Watching Ariadne

I am out on the deck when I find her, hanging by a thread of her own making. She swings from a long silver strand attached to the eaves, the tender breeze pushing her left, then right. Eight legs outstretched, she is no bigger than a lentil bean, and the sunshine makes her body glow, […]

Zukes!

I found these under the zucchini plant when I was straightening it up, after it had tipped over in the wind. Over six pounds of zucchini…and no, I didn’t let them ripen too long (though nearly so). Only the hint of seeds inside, and a flavor unlike anything from the grocery. Green, fresh, a bit […]

B37 in the Crosshairs

Okay. Now I’m pissed off. All weekend, the news was filled with tweets and squawks about the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, about how “the system had failed,” and how the jurors, now released from their sequestration,were receiving threats and messages of a most vicious nature. The public seemed to want to blame the […]

Witness for the Defense

This weekend, people took to the streets in protest. George Zimmerman was acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin, and people–and our nation, it seems–was outraged. Juries get a lot of grief in our culture. People work hard to avoid sitting on one. They trade tips and tricks about how to shirk the civic responsibility […]

Earthbox Update -Wk 07

Damage report: It was hot and windy over the weekend, and one of the zucchini plants–the one with leaves the size of spinnakers–was partially uprooted. This is a danger of container gardening: the low square footage of growing space. The zucchini (Black Beauty) is not a vining type, so it doesn’t spread so much; instead, […]

Threshing for Facts

For the past few weeks, I’ve beendoing research for The Wolf Tree. It’s been an education, in several ways. Seattle isn’t like New York or San Francisco or London. I don’t have dozens of books to choose from, rows of scholarly tomes filled with history, details, and anecdotes. Most books about Seattle’s history are pictorial, […]

Tantara

There is one piece of music that is so imbued with power, so pregnant with history, so…epic…within the landscape of my mind, that it never fails to raise the hackles on my neck and make my vision swim with tears of memory. I hope you have one of these because for me, when it begins, […]

Earthbox Update – Wk06

We’re six weeks into this experiment, and things are continuing well above expectations. Due to our suddenly sunny summer, the plants are thriving. I’m astonished at how much water they take in, though. If I decide to take this large-scale and go in-ground instead of container, I think I’m definitely going to need some sort […]