Blarg. The blog.

Today I got up at literally the ass-crack of dawn to try to catch some Chinooks in inner Elliott Bay. A buddy from work and I fish quite a bit and last week EB opened for 5 weeks of Fri-Sun only. We're allowed 1 hatchery or native Chinook per day.
Unfortunately our first trip out was a series of unfortunate events:

• The Seattle Parks dept didn't open the parking lot until well after 4am (their posted time)so one of our group had to park a distance away.
• On our way out the crab pot lines got tangled. In cold rainy weather it took what seemed like hours to untangle them
• A down rigger ball (10 lb lead weight coated in rubber) got thrown overboard (they cost $45)
• The kicker motor BROKE
• We got a bite, but the line snapped so there's a Chinook with a lure in his mouth trailing a flasher (lure, flasher, ball bearing swivels and whammadyne hook = $25). So we were down to one down rigger trolling on the main motor
• We got another bite, but lost the fish in the fight
• On the way back, we stopped to pull the pots and found that mine had been dragged to sea (crab pot, bait box, buoy and line = $45) - we caught 4 keeper crabs, but J threw one overboard because we said "it's a rocky, not a dungeness." He took that to mean it's not a keeper. We were merely stating the species. 5" or better male OR female rock crabs are keepers, so we tossed a keeper back into the drink.

This week went WAY better. No bites, not even a nibble, but starting your day with a fishing trip is AWESOME. Pure joy!
I must've looked pretty shady driving the back streets of north Seattle at 3:20am on my way to Shilshole because I was stopped by one of Seattle's finest. The officer approached the car with his hand on his gun and asked if I was indeed Michael Harris. I told him I in fact was . He asked for my ID, went back to his patrol car and came back a few minutes later. He said, "You are free to go, you are not the Michael Harris we are looking for." Fishy...
Meanwhile: Back to Urban Farming...
This weekend should be our first veggie stand weekend in our driveway. We're planning on doing it on Saturday, midmorningish. Everyone is welcome to come on buy (pun intended). We're very excited about the growth in the yard. I think if we get 5-10 interested veggie purchasers we'll have sold out of our harvest for the week. Yesterday I gave two garden tours to passers by and scheduled another one. It seems the spectacle of 8 foot tall sugar snap peas and literally GOBS of veggies being grown int he front yard equals an invitation to stop by and ask to see everything while I'm watering the lawn and drinking a beer. I'm more than happy to oblige. I love to show off the garden. I sent a family off last night with some free samples and their promise to stop by tomorrow and buy us out of all the lettuce.
Trisa and I are loving growing our own food and buying local. We've been on this adventure for 5 weeks and with the exception of purchasing food for road trip snacks and our contribution to a pot luck, we've managed to not buy any food except from farmers markets. To date our rank of markets is as follows:

1. Mercer Island - tops for actual food variety and amount
2. Ballard Sunday Market - they have a meat pie maker
3. Snohomish - overall a great market well worth the trip out, plus there's a bakery in Snohomish that sells the awesomest pies in all the land

Today or tomorrow I'm going to try my hand at baking with Duck eggs. Most likely I'll start with a loaf of bread.
Mike's Meat Pie Review (hopefully I can get my hands on all sorts of meat pies and review them - maybe once per month) - Mike's meat pie review really rolls off the tongue quite nicely so I'd like to make it a regular tidbit in the blog...
My first meat pie (and only so far) was from Deborah's Pies in the Ballard Sunday Market. We bought the Peasant's pie, which would normally not have been something I'd have chosen due to there being sun dried tomatoes in it. But the allure of feta compelled me to bite the bullet and try it out.
The pie was excellent. It looked good, smelled good and the taste was a sensation in my mouth. I paired it with a uber chilled Pinot Gris from Columbia Valley AVA. The pair was perfect. the sun dried tomatoes were not over powering and only added to the balance and complexity of the affair. My only complaint is that the directions on the box did not cook the pie to it's tip top potential. Several more minutes were needed to bring the center to a wonderful warmth and the bottom crust was slightly mushy, most likely caused by the frozen water melting and not heating fast enough. I'd recommend flipping the pie at least once when it is half cooked, bake it at about 15 more degrees and for about 10 minutes longer than the directions state. OR... use convection if your oven has it. Otherwise I give that meat pie 4.5 Pi out of 5 Pi.
That's all for now.
Word,
Mike

Tennis Elbow, Whooping Cough and the Ballard Sunday Market

No, I don't have whooping cough. Neither does Trisa. But I did get a booster vaccination for it today along with my Tetanus and Diphtheria boosters as well. My doctor practically frog marched me to injections to get it done. I thought there was a chance I'd had it in the past 2 years, but he said I had to have it in writing, or else. So, down to the crotchety nurse with the needle I went.

I've since come to find out that California, Illinois, and Alabama might all have Whooping Cough (also known as Pertussis) epidemics. Vaccines for Pertussis only last through childhood, so right now many states are recommending adults go get their shots again. My doctor takes vaccines very seriously, evidently. I'm in for a sore left arm for the next few days.

I went in to have my right elbow looked at. With little poking and prodding, Dr. Mac pronounced me afflicted by the ever-so-serious repetitive motion injury known as tennis elbow. I went to Rite Aid and got me the rather inexpensive cure - a large, glorified, rubber band that I'm to wear for the next week or so. If that doesn't do the trick, I'm back to the clinic for a cortisone shot.

Yesterday, we went to the Ballard Sunday market. To say the least, it was a spectacle that everyone should behold. There's music, weirdos, and TONS of "farmers" peddling their wares.

Trisa and I purchased Deborah's famous meat pies. We presume that they are not full of people as they are known to be on Fleet Street in London. But only time will tell if we presume correctly... We also bought a strawberry rhubarb pie from Deborah. We took home some goat patties, pears, cheese, cheese, and more cheese, and couldn't find BUTTER anywhere. What cheese maker hasn't got enough milk to make a little butter? Sheesh. We picked up lunch at some "world famous" veggie Quesadilla stand. We found out it's world famous for the WRONG reasons. Fool me once. We also bought a CD form a street musician playing haunting, somber cello melodies. He's called the Gypsy Cellist. I didn't see any Gypsies, but what would be the fun and mystery if they were seen? So they all must've been hiding somewheres.

Groceries for the week from the Ballard Sunday Market came to $50. We spent a little more than that on lunch and the CD. Parking was $2.

I can't wait to try the peasant's meat pie this week. I'll write up my full review when we do and post it here. I'll also review the strawberry pie. I love pie, so it'll be VERY hard for me to criticize it at all. If you all knew how much I love pie, you'd say "WOW! You love pie an awful lot!" I'd have to agree.

I'm waiting, praying, for the day that we find a cobbler maker at a farmer's market. If we don't find one soon, I'll have to make my own cobbler after we go to the u-pick berry farms. Maybe cobbler is the only food I love more than pie. I'm decently sure that when God was sitting around making Eve, he took a break at some point for cobbler. Seriously. Cobbler is heavenly. It's a well known fact that most angels carry the stuff around with them wherever they go. Anyway, I digress. Digressing is not good for tennis elbow, so I'll shut up now.

Peace out,

Mike

It's about time

I know, it's been a bit more than a week since my last blog. Trisa has been keeping up weekly and more.

I got busy last week doing a landscaping project that was way bigger than I'd thought it would be.

These keys are sticky.

Let's begin with the tallies of the farmers market grocery shopping for the last two weeks.

Week 2 - our first week shopping at farmers' markets we went to Pike Place.

We bought, cheese and mac and cheese from Beechers. Bread from La Panierre. Milk from the sanitary market dairy section. Veggies and fruits from the corner produce stand. The total for our groceries came to $46. The biggest expense was the processed food items - mac and cheese. But we can't walk away from Beechers without it. It is truly the universe's best mac and cheese.

Week 3 - we found ourselves on Mercer Island trying out a new market (new to us). The MI market prides itself on being a no-trinket, no gimmick, no resale market. There's JUST FOOD and beverages. We bought bread, cheese, fruit, smoked tuna and tuna jerky, two muffins, and a but load of apple ciders. We wanted to try out the cidery's wines and hard ciders so we spent $56 there.

The cheese monger has only 2 cheeses and 2 cheese spreads. I know for a fact I'd get tired of their cheese if we shopped exclusively at MI. The fish monger was great. She was knowledgable, friendly and wicked awesome at sales. Plus there were canned, fresh, smoked, kippered, and bagged varieties. We will be going back to the tuna girl. We bought some kippered tuna and tuna jerky.

All told we spent $108 on everything at the MI market. If you take out the $56 for all that cider and wine, then groceries for week 3 cost $52. I forgot, we also got some great pasta. There's a pasta maker there and he makes friggin awesome pasta.

So, for those of you that only read the bullet points:
Week 2 = $46
Week 3 = $52

There you have it. I'll blog again later.

Peace out,

Mike