doodledee

So a month or so ago I was reading the newsletter from our little co-op and I noticed that they were advertising a “CSA Fair" coming up later in the spring. "CSA? WTF?" I said to myself as I read the little blurb. And that's when I learned that CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and it's one of those deals where you give a bunch of money to a farmer and in return, they grow (and deliver) a bunch of fresh delicious food to you throughout the spring and summer. Genius!

[For what it's worth, I've taken to calling them Crop Share Agreements because a) the acronym stays the same and b) it sounds more like what it actually is and less like some do-gooder plant-hugging agenda carrying movement, though in reality that is probably exactly what it is, but whatever.]

This was the first I had heard of CSA's, so before I went to some silly 'fair' I spent a few minutes digging around on the internet looking for more information into the legitimacy of the whole concept. Turns out it's totally for real. Who knew.

While searching, I stumbled across a farm down in northern Iowa that trucks their stuff up weekly to a couple of centralized drop-off locations throughout the Twin Cities. As luck would have it, one of the locations was at 50th and France. Translation: no need to go to CSA Fair and audition farmers, my organic ship just came in.

I wasn't sure we'd be able to eat an entire box of fresh produce every week, so I called my buddy Rivkin to see if he'd be interested in splitting the subscription with us. He lives pretty close by, so it'd work perfectly. Before I could even finish asking he said he was in. He's that kind of guy. I had initially been thinking we'd just alternate weeks, but he pointed out that he didn't want to end up getting the box on rutabaga and brussel sprout week, which was easily enough to convince me to just split the delivery every week. He's also smart.

Our first delivery was last Friday. The night before the farmer dude called me at home to remind me that it would be arriving the next day. After all the weeks of waiting I was all wound up and I kind of lost it for a minute and started gushing about how much I was looking forward to it and how I was happy to support his business even though it was in Iowa and stuff like that. He said he hoped he'd be able to live up to my expectations and then he quickly got off the phone, presumably to call a bunch of other hyped-up dorks like myself.

The first box has already been fun. It had like 9 different things in it, and there were at least two I've never heard of before: lovage and spinruts. (huh?) There was also some asparagus and a big bunch of stinging nettles (huh again?) and a ton of spinach and some baby bok choi and some other stuff that I'm forgetting right now. I had no idea what to do with some of it, but thankfully they included some recipe ideas in the box so now I know that if I actually planned to eat the nettles, I should probably use them in soup.

As far as 'real' uses, so far we've made a big ass spinach salad and a nice bok choi stir fry. Ideally that balances out the massive portion of coffee cake I had today, but I'm not betting on it.

Veg on.

Rock Spring Farm [rsfarm] - This is the place we signed-up with
More info about CSA's [usda]

Note to readers: don't panic. While I'm sure some bloggers would think that documenting the contents of their weekly veggie box would be somehow worthwhile, I am assuredly not one of them. That said, this certainly isn't the last you'll hear of it. Consider yourself warned.

The other evening Libby was doing a few dishes before dinner when she noticed that the hot water wasn't as hot as it usually is. She told me about it and I said "huh" and went back to reading the paper. Problem solved.

Then she turned off the cold all the way. "It's only like barely warm".

"Well maybe we ran out of hot water or something," I say, even though that never really happens in our house.

"How would that have happened?" she smartly replied. And she was right. The last hour had seen no baths or showers, no dishes, no nothing. The last hot water I had used was while washing my hands a few minutes earlier, but I was certain that I kept my usage under 30 gallons while doing so.

Fearing the worst, we head down to the basement and HOLY CRAP THERE'S WATER EVERYWHERE. Ok, it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't exactly something you want to see, especially 15 minutes before dinner on meatloaf night. A somewhat sizeable leak in the bottom of the heater, water draining all over the floor, pilot light off, etc, etc.

"Crap," I say.

I shut off the water and sucked up a couple shop vac fulls of water. Libby got out the paper plates. After dinner I called and left a message for our amazing plumber guy. Then I shopped online and found the water heater I wanted to buy and called Sears to confirm they had it in stock. (Attention Sears Bigshots: your people are nice, but your phone and computer systems are an embarrassment. That is all.)

At 7:10 the next morning our phone rang. It was the plumber, and he started by apologizing for not calling earlier. He's that kind of guy. I broke down our situation and he said he had a water heater he could sell me (duh) and I asked for a price and it was $200 more than the Sears one I was thinking about so I said "no thanks" and drove out to Sears and got the cheap one and just had him do the installation. I helped him. It took about 90 minutes. It was a lot of fun. I wish I had more plumbing problems just so I could call this guy to come over fix them. Except for the paying part. That part sucks.

In other news, in an emergency situation it is possible can fit a 30-gallon water heater in the back of a Jeep Wrangler. And by "fit" I mean "wedge". And by "wedge" I mean "better bring some bungee cords".

Hot water on.

Spring is here and the weather has turned and that means it's time to cook outside again. Hells yeah.

To be fair, I'm sure that - like myself - many of you insisted on soldiering through the winter months, slipping on your boots and scampering back and forth from house to grill all in the name of cooking a steak or a burger over an open flame, but I'm not really sure that counts as "cooking out". I know when I did it felt more like "work", although not in the sense that "sitting in a beige box" is "work", that's more like "a job". My simple definition is that it's not a true cook out unless you can sit in a lawnchair next to the grill drinking a beer and reading the paper while your food cooks. Don't agree? Get your own blog.

So anyway, I've been gradually easing into all the outdoor options over the last month or so. I naturally kicked off the season by increasing the usage frequency of gas unit, making some after-work burgers and chicken and fish and all the usual stuff. Then on the weekends I've been firing up the kettle for more of the same, but also for some kabobin' and to test drive another take on the cantonese pork recipe I've been trying to perfect. (Pretty good, but not there yet.) Finally last weekend the stars aligned and I brought out the smoker and got down with some low-n-slow ribs. Trifecta.

So far my favorite part of grilling season has been the controversy surrounding the 'new' Kingsford charcoal. For those of you who haven't been following the star-trek-nerd-quality arguments on BBQ forums like I have, Kingsford changed their little briquette things for the 2006 grilling season and it has been causing quite a stir. The new stuff supposedly lights faster, burns hotter, and lasts longer, all of which sounds great until you realize that the old stuff worked just fine and that if something has changed it means you've gotta re-learn all your little tricks for keeping your smoker at 225 for 18 hours because that's how long it takes to make tender delicious smoke crusted pork butt. Curses.

I ripped into my first bag of the new stuff for the ribs I made and my nutshell verdict is this: it got a little hotter than I expected, but I'm thinking that was the result of my bad vent management. Otherwise I didn't notice anything else different. All in all it was far from the chaos I expected - it is just charcoal, duh. I'm eager to try it on an over-nighter and see what happens. Either that or I'll just start using lump in my smoker like I do in my kettle, who knows.

BBQ on.

Kingsford Briquettes: New versus Old [nakedwhiz]
New Kingsford Sucks [infopop] - this is where i first heard something had changed

Last Friday's forecast was "gorgeous, sunny and mild" and last time I checked that alone is a good enough excuse to cash in a vacation day. And seeing there's no better thing to do on your beautiful early spring day off than head down to the Zoo to see the annual Farm Babies exhibit, that's what we did. It's a fun time. They've got a bunch of baby pigs and chickens and cows and the kids get to run around and pet them and feed goats and all kinds of fun stuff. They even have tractor rides. Rock on.

Go figure, we weren't the only ones who managed to come up with the idea. The place was mobbed. Not weekend-at-the-state-fair mobbed or anything, but still crazy super mobbed when you compare it to a regular day at the zoo. Add in the fact that it's early in the season and they're not fully ready for huge crowds yet (think: bathrooms, concessions, unfinished offseason construction, etc) and it feels even worse. That said, I gotta admit they seemed to handle it pretty well.

Here are some tips for going to the Minnesota Zoo on busy summer days.

• Bring your own food and water. The food at the zoo is expensive and is just normal food court stuff. Also, the lines can be insane when it's busy. (No offense if a 20 minute wait for cold $4 onion rings is your idea of fun.) Bring a picnic in a backpack, there are tables everywhere.
• Get there early. I think they open at 9, so that's a good time to shoot for. We go on Sunday mornings during the winter and it rocks. You can sit in front of the giant fish tanks all by yourself and just zone out and watch fish and read the paper and stuff. That's probably an impossible dream during the peak summer season, but it's still worth it to beat the crowd if only to avoid the lines at the entrance.
• The dolphin show is cool. On busy days it's always going to be nutso packed. If you're only going to be there the one time, it's probably worth fighting your way in to, so plan your schedule around it. Personally, I'd just avoid it when it's super busy.
• Skip the monorail unless you're really into monorails or something. The walk around the loop is nice and it's not that long. There's a big playground thing at the halfway point – kind of out by the farm – and it's a good place to stop and regroup and have a snack.
• Bird show: mint, and surprisingly uncrowded most of the time.
• Farm babies specific: skip the cow barn, it's hot and crowded and they're just cows after all. Other stuff is neat, though. Oh, and if you have a stroller, just park it somewhere and walk around, you'll never be able to maneuver it in and out of the buildings and you'll look like a jackass if you try.

There, that should get your started. You're welcome.

Minnesota Zoo [mnzoo]
Farm Babies at The Zoo [mnzoo]

I broke the scooter out of winter storage over the weekend. It was in a neighbor's garage, along with our tow-behind bike kid carrier thing and a couple of other enormous garage occupants that we needed to move out to make room for the cars. (Kudos to neighbor lady for storing the stuff for us.) Now that it's 70 out, the cars go back to the street and I go back to 2-wheeling whenever possible. Damn straight.

When I 'winterized' the scooter last fall, I followed the instructions in the manual about "storing for long periods of time". (My old man helped.) We changed the oil, pulled the plug, drained the carb, etc, etc. Go figure, after sitting unused for 4 months, it still started with zero hesitation. It’s almost like the guys who write those manuals know what they're talking about. Who knew.

Then, just for kicks, I tried to start my lawn mower. In contrast to the intensive scooter regiment, my lawn mower 'winterization' checklist consisted of a single item: pushing it to the back of the garage and piling a bunch of crap on it. In hindsight that may have been a mistake. I pulled the cord maybe 25 times and it never even came *close* to starting. Methinks I've got some work to do. Whoops.

Also in the sports wrap from last weekend: The Hell of the North cycling event more commonly known as Paris-Roubaix. For those of you who don't follow cycling, Paris-Roubaix is a vicious single day race in northeastern France. Much of it is run on Napoleonic-era roads made of cobblestone pavers. It is an insanely hard race filled with insane cyclists peddling insanely fast down roads that are basically insane to ride a bike on. Needless to say, it's awesome.

This year's favorites were the Belgian Tommy Boonen - who has been kicking everyone's ass lately - and the American George Hincapie, who has ridden well at P-R before and is the team leader of Discovery now that Lance has retired. I'll sum up why this race rules with two quick stories.

Late in the race a pack of around 15 riders - including Hincapie and Boonen - broke away from the field. It quickly became clear that the eventual winner would come from this group. The excitement starts building. Then, out of nowhere, while blazing down the crazy-bumpiest-hardest section of cobbles of the entire race, Hincapie's bike literally just shatters. Handlebars, fork, everything. All he can do is throw his hands up and try to coast over to the ditch, at which point he's thrown ass over teakettle and like breaks his collarbone or something. Brutal.

On with the race. With 17km to go, this Swiss dude named Cancellara makes his break. People give chase, including Boonen. The gap is around 40 seconds, but is coming down as the kilos tick away. It looks like Boonen may be able to reel him in. Then, again out of nowhere, Boonen is forced to STOP AND WAIT FOR A TRAIN. Oh man that must have sucked. Six and a half grueling hours in the saddle and just when you think you may take it home, a frickin' train comes roaring by and you have to stop and wait. And how does he react? "Eh, that is cycling" or something similarly mint. Not exactly a Randy Moss reaction.

Official Paris-Roubaix Site [letour]
Live Updates (archived) [letour]

The Masters was last weekend. It's just so pretty, especially in full HD glory. The final round didn't shake out to be the suspense-packed ratings monster CBS was dreaming of - and looking at the potential in the final round leaderboard, you almost feel sorry for them - but it was still a good tournament. Special props go to my new favorite player Miguel Angel Jimenez, the ponytailed Spaniard who looked just impossibly cool as he swaggered from tee to green.

Ok, now the bad. Can we PLEASE stop referring to how great a golfer's "imagination" is. "They're just so imaginative, so creative." Barf. I must have heard it 20 times. And here's the deal: they're not. They're not changing the game, they're just PLAYING the game. Tiger using a 3-wood to chip was changing the game; it was imagination; it blew people's minds. I certainly didn't see anything like that last weekend. So save it.

In other news, the green jacket ceremony in the Butler Cabin remains the most awkward 4 minutes in television year in and year out.

Official Masters Site [masters] - An oddly ugly website for such a pretty venue.

I've had three odd encounters with elderly people in the last week or so. After the second one I thought about writing them up, but I decided it wasn't worth it because a list of only 2 items is kind of lame. Then today I had a third, and hey, that's for me.

• Getting my oil changed the other day. I'm waiting in the glass-walled fishbowl of a customer waiting room down at the Valvoline. There's an old dude in there with me. It's a Saturday afternoon, but he's still wearing a blazer. His late model Lincoln is on the rack. He's having a confused sounding conversation on his cellphone, don't really talk much. I just put my head down and read my paper. The manager guy comes in with the old dude's paperwork. "Your total is 44 somethingorother." Old dude starts signing his name and then kind of blows up at the guy. "That's kind of a lot for an oil change, don't you think?!" (Full disclosure: I certainly do.) Manager guy explains what all they do, how you can bring it back for fluid top offs anytime, etc. Old dude says it's a leased car and he's bringing it back on Monday. Manager guy leaves. Old dude spends next 10 minutes bitching to me about how expensive it is. I spend next 10 minutes trying to read my paper.
• Playing with junior out front the other day. Old lady from down the street pulls up in her car. She's super nice. Stops and talks for a minute. Eventually she reaches in the back seat and pulls out a grocery bag. Whisper-asks me if "it would be okay to give him a S-W-E-A-T". "A what?" I ask. Then she opens the bag and I see that it's [literally] full of candy. "Ohhh," I say, realizing that she meant to spell s-w-e-e-t, "sure, he can have a tootsie roll". Tomayto, tomahto.
• Jerry's grocery store just added a couple of those ‘self check out' lanes. I was over there grabbing a few sundries for dinner and since I only had a handful of items I figured I'd check myself out. Turns out there are two 'express lane' self check stations. Both were in use. There's an old dude on of them who's almost ready to pay, so I figure it'll only be a second. Wrong. Old dude decided to bring his coin bank down to pay for his groceries. His total was 9 something and he's standing there feeding in quarters and dimes. $8.93. $8.83. $8.73. Jerry's manager dude comes over. "You want me to change those for bills for you?" (Me: "yes please") Old dude: "Nah, this is working." Like 4 minutes later I'm all checked out on the other machine and the old dude is still there, feeding coins. He's probably still there.

The other night my fake Tivo box screwed up and only recorded the first 30 minutes of TV's #1 jungle-based reality show, Survivor. I know, it sucked.

It was far from the first time faketivo has screwed me, but usually when it bonks it's because I start recording after the show has started, something apparently so confusing to the craptastic software running the little box that it can only bring itself to actually save like the last 30 minutes of the show, even though the little 'record' light stays on the whole time. In this case, however, I had set it up to record days in advance - a scenario that has never failed me before - so I guess I've got a new algorithm to find a workaround for. Curses.

Anyway, we only got through the recap flashback stuff and a couple scenes of beach strategy before the recording ran out. No immunity challenge, no tribal council, no nothing. Such a disappointment.

I was all ready to break out my standard “tv on demand is still broken" rant when I remembered that CBS may have already at least partially gotten the message. I point my browser over to the Official Survivor Page and thar she blows! TV on the internet! Who woulda thunk?

I keyed in my credit card to cover the 99-cent fee and relaxed for 50 minutes while the 500MB episode downloaded. They advise you to download-n-watch rather than stream it, which seemed a little weird but I guess isn't completely unreasonable from a stability perspective. You also have to download the CBS DRM plugin for Windows Media Player, presumably to manage the fact that you don't really 'buy' the show, you just 'rent' it for 24 hours. I could see how that would maybe bother some people, but whatever, I only need to see it once.

We watched it on my laptop. It worked mint. Good picture and no commercials or nothin'. A real pleasure. Except for the sound, which sounded like crap coming out of my little laptop speakers, but I'm assuming it would have sounded fine had I hooked up something a little better.

Yay internet.