Rainy Kitchen

Going unprocessed is beginning to feel, more and more, like a virtuous circle. Except when it doesn't. This week has brought a couple successful food swaps, a small setback, and a taste test complete with blindfolded, giggling judges.

I've got updates to share but not enough time to blog (properly? thoroughly? Isn't speed the essence of blogging?). Please check back soon for news on bread making, DIY peanut butter and tacos. These stories will keep a few days longer, although I assure you that no chemical preservatives were added during manufacturing.

Also, a retraction: a friend tipped me off that our local grocery store does, in fact, now carry both Canadian and US garlic, alongside the imported product I complained about a few posts ago. I'm not sure when this happened--recently, I think. Having garlic sleeping in the backyard means never shopping for it again, a happy state of epic garlic self-sufficiency. I failed to notice the change, but good on the store managers. They've been making a visible effort, in the last few years, to sell more local produce in season.

Today I've been distracted by the weather--precipitation indoors and out. You know it's going to be a stellar morning when, before the coffee is even ready, you step barefoot in a puddle of water, look up, and see drops falling from a light in the ceiling and sodden drywall swelling around it. This is an instant call to action: forget coffee, run upstairs to locate leak, turn water off, mop. Again. The ancient bathroom, source of three leakage events to date, will soon be ripped back to the studs. Impending renovations reminded me of the last reno, which I wrote about in a short essay that appeared in The Globe and Mail. It's time to read it again, apparently, and prepare. Anyone else planning a demolition this spring?