Little juice

What the heck does one make to use up half a gallon of fresh squeezed lemon juice? There's only so much lemon gelato I can eat. And most recipes only call for a tablespoon or so of lemon juice. Lemon recipes doesn't upscale well to half a gallon of juice.



And I'm still knee deep in newly plucked lemons.



Excited by my sugar cane harvests, I'm attempting to make my own sugar.



And I promptly abandon the sugar making effort after two hours of peeling and chopping and grinding. I only produced a couple tablespoons of cane juice. Phooey. Why can't squeezing sugarcanes be more like squeezing lemons?

New heights

Tower of pesto.



I rock.

Beet it

It's a bit disturbing that I manage to lose a giant sequoia tree in the tangle of weeds in the back corner. Who the heck loses giant sequoia trees?



Taming the jungle that is the back corner has a side benefit of a surprise sugarcane harvest. Yay sugar.



Nothing beats beets!

Pwitty

I like using my pink and rainbow weed stick thingy. It makes me feel pretty.



Lemon meringue pie finished. I like using my Home Depot blowtorch. It makes me feel pretty too.

Baaaa humbug

Overnight, the new fountain was attacked by feral goats. Much mayhem left in their wake. Bah!



2008 tomato season starts ambitiously. Let's hope the feral sheep don't eat my baby tomato seedlings when they sprout.



Baby peach trees in bloom. Hopefully we'll get delicious peaches this year. The pink flowers are very girly. But I'm OK with that. I get to day dream about peach pies all summer long. The daydreaming will be good. The reality is that feral squirrels will take bites out of all the peaches.



Kumquats. Very sweet, but seedy this year. Not enough to make a pie. I'm bittersweet about the very last of the meyer lemons this season.



Meat sauce calls for rigatoni. It's one of those rules, like only stirring polenta clockwise. I wish those tomato seeds would grow up soon so I can have fresh tomato sauce again.



Baby artichokes sprouting from seed. Artichoke plants take over a year to form from seed to dinner plate. Which is kind of ironic since 18 months is really way beyond what I'm willing to devote to any sort of relationship.

Baker's dozen eggs

My new favorite way of preparing eggs. Plunk eggs into a 185 degree oven for about an hour. Foolproof perfectly gooey eggs. And my own bread to sop up all the eggy-ness.

And for lunch, my version of bacon sammiches that Meredith and Bruce made when I visited the other day. My raddichio was braised in chicken broth.

And the beginnings of both a lemon meringue pie and a key lime pie. Pie! Pie!



And banana bread and what will be a chocolate hazelnut mascarpone cheesecake.

And the kitchen madness doesn't stop there. Josh and the Flip are coming over for game night. So we have pesto pizza.

And salame pizza. It's been a busy cooking day.

And garlic and herb pizza. And we're still not done cooking.

And proscuitto pizza. The wiimotes may need a bit of de-greasing by the end of the night.

Flour power

Our bus route is 2 to the 8th power.

I'm getting better. Still not there. It may take 2 to the 8th power number of tries to perfect it.

Brain waves

After the unspeakable attack on Unagi that destroyed the fountain, I thought to make a new water spitting thing from backyard bamboo.



Only to find exactly what I was thinking of at the hardware store for less than $20. I must have a telepathic link to the prison labor factories in China.



The topiary sheep got sheared a bit too close- a simple trim turned into a lobotomy.

Thankfully the topiary deer are still fuzzy.

Fini

Umami pasta again. Cheese and wine and mushrooms and all kinds of umami.



When making coq au vin, one must get their mis en place just right.

It's hard to tell if I got coq au vin right. I will have to order this next time I'm in France to find out.

Combination dinner

Bacon and asparagus and eggs. Simple classic combination. It's deliciousness is so out of proportion to the time and effort to make.

Juiced

It's time to make Ed's limoncello again. I will add a sprig of rosemary just like Ed suggested.

Juicing lemons by makes for good hand exercise. But bad for paper cuts. Ouch.

Woody emissions

Just when I thought I was being all cool with my woody wagon paneled Honda, this VW puts my car to shame with it's total and complete woodiness. And only a few blocks away no less. I'm feeling inadequate in the woody department now.



And wonderfully preserved factory made wood paneled Jeeps puts my roll of $7 wood grain shelf paper to shame too.



Spring cleaning time means many hidden vintage Ferraris see the light of day.



And eco-conscious electric golf cart hippies emerge in droves.



To balance out the RV's and gas guzzling modified trucks.



What the heck is a "Hanbag?" And why are there two of them?



And we're awash in VW buses around here. This one is beautifully restored and likely will cost more than some of those vintage Ferraris.



This one not so restored, but I covet it just the same.



And even more VW buses too numerous to post. Some of them even have creative aftermarket touches like rivoting half a Rubbermaid Roughneck container to the side of the engine compartment to increase airflow.



Mayhaps one day, collectors will seek out Chevy Sprints like they do VW buses.



Or Powder Blue Ford Fairmonts.



This motor home is bigger than my house. And it gets even bigger when it does the Transformer thing and extend out all of the moveable walls. 



I think they're going to go to Home Depot to bring back some steer manure.

In front of the bright yellow house is a matching bright yellow Fiat Cinquecento. I want to give it a hug.

New tricks

Unagi is exhibiting some very un-fish-like behaviors.

International travel

Our neck of the woods is a very popular spot for filming commercials, tv shows, and movies. The little auto mechanic shop around the corner is the site of many many car commercials. The most recent ones were for Saturn and Kia.



Our local middle school served as the location for the poor inner city school that Hayden Pannetiere transfered to in Bring It On 3: All or Nothing. Hayden didn't know she was welcome to stop by my house for a spot of tea and finger sandwiches. She's just being shy.

The old Altadena Library sports a filming notice sign today. It's long since decommissioned and now serves as a residence. I would love to see what it's like to live in an old library. Their mailbox is the old book return slot. How cool is that?



Down the street, this was the house in Old School where they filmed the infamous scene where Andy Dick taught ladies how to give blow jobs by demonstrating on a carrot. Will Ferrel also showed his butt crack in this driveway.

This church around the corner is the standby location for pretty much any movie set in Boston. When Reese Witherspoon went to Harvard in Legally Blonde, she actually didn't leave California for most of those scenes.

And across the street from Boston, we have have film location for many scenes of rural Mexico. It's kind like the Epcot World Showcase around here. Not coincidentally, many of Epcot's designers live in our neighborhood.

Retaining water

New toy! Old toy is now nearly useless for work purposes and will be demoted to recipe lookup duty in the kitchen.



Preston is pondering how the heck did they strap the old telephone pole to the new telephone pole without everything toppling over when they popped it in.



Gnarly. Thankfully, not my sidewalk.



Sometimes spray paint on public property isn't graffiti. These neighbors have street lamps shining into their bedrooms.



We have patriotic fountains. I can't figure out is where the water flows out from the statue. Hopefully not anything like those peeing cherub fountains.



New fire hydrant around the corner. Yay safety.

Delicious pomegranate molasses braised short ribs and celery root puree. Meltingly meaty goodness.