Farmers Market Fruits; Kitchen Counter Still Life with Sunrise

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Sunday morning after a Saturday farmers market; early morning sunlight just beginning to come through the kitchen window. How could I not take a photo?

Coming soon . . . A few recipes from over the summer that I somehow didn't find the time to post.

Now I'm going to make the time.

Copyright © 2005-2009, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved

Just For Fun...

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There is yet another cherry clafoutis coming (tis the season, after all), but I'm so intrigued with settings on my camera that I didn't know existed and playing in PhotoShop, that I can't help but post these in the meantime.

Black and white. My little camera. Who knew?

Copyright © 2005-2008, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved

Simona's Room With A View

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This is the view that my friend Simona sees while seated at her desk in her cozy office space warmed by a cheery woodstove. I took this photo this morning, a beautiful North Coast day if ever there was one, and if I didn't also have a west-facing view, albeit one of redwoods not ocean, I would be so jealous. I have food-related items to share, just no time to share them. Soon though. Very soon.

Copyright © 2005-2008, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved

New Profile Photo: The Yellow Recipe Box

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Changes, changes...

I'd grown tired of the photo in my sidebar and tried for a long time to get a photo of me that I could live with day in and day out. Well, as I grow older, those photos get far-er and fewer between and, being decidedly un-photogenic IMHO, I'm just vain enough to be selective with what I will let the public view.

So it seems that I have turned into my old yellow recipe box. The one crammed full of recipes from my mother, my sisters, old family friends, dear current friends, and me. Much like me when I'm in my kitchen, this venerable and well-used recipe box is usually covered with the smears and smudges of a lifetime of cooking. It was given a good washing for this photo but rest assured, the smudges and smears are back. I'm quite comfortable with this as a profile photo; it holds a lot of the essence of me as a cook.

Now if I could just figure out how to separate my garden blog from this one. A yellow recipe box on a garden blog somehow doesn't fit... Anyone got any clues?

Copyright © 2005-2008, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved

The Vegetable Garden

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The weeds are waist high in my vegetable garden. I can barely make out the greens and purples of my newly planted basil, so lost are they among the wild cacophony of flowering invaders: Native white daisies in full bloom, their yellow centers reflecting the bright yellow blossoms of the invasive dandelions; blue-eyed flax; spikey evening primrose; nastily prolific but handsome copper and yellow coreopsis; native blackberry runners running amok; soft yellow buttercups; and the occasional volunteer onion, its papery white flowers atop a tall, smooth green stalk. Scattered here and there like punctuation marks, gleaming orange nasturtiums that escaped from their border bed grow in the understory that is my forest of weeds.

All these and more, beautiful in their own right, threaten my vision of the orderly rows of green beans, cucumbers, tomatoes and squashes that I have not yet been able to plant.

The late rains have drenched my garden's soil, the sloppy, muddy ground effectively keeping me from the task of weeding the usually easily contained maverick weed population which has grown so lush and abundant this year.

Today I stand on the deck overlooking my vegetable garden, leather gloves pulled on tight, hoe in hand, face raised to the gray and lowering sky, daring it to rain one more drop.