baby, the bread is rising

I have been dreaming about fish!  Ever since my friends, May and Dan, ate fresh fish in San Diego, California.

tonight we cook cod!

and artichoke!  I already prepared the artichoke–  my first time preparing an artichoke–

a wacky experience… a fun experience!  I think this was my first time buying produce in months…I’ve been diligently eating farm produce stored from the season at Henry’s, and produce that I find on the counter or in the refrigerator here…but I don’t think I’ve bought it…maybe some avocados or papaya or limes sometime in the last year.  There is something about shopping for produce in a store that is far-out to me after the year on the farm.  When I see the onions I picture the whole onion.  I picture the process it might have gone through to get to where it is today.  And I imagine how different the process that store-bought onion went through to get here is from the process of the onions that we hung in the basement of Henry’s house.  When I see the monster potatoes and the shiny apples, I remember what it’s like to dig potatoes– the warmth from the dig, the way I had to learn to use my other foot when I sprained my foot in October, the wet earth, the clumps of potatoes, the little littles potatoes, the whole potato family!!  I see the curious speckled apples we picked from Henry’s tree to make apple juice on the way home from milking mandy the goat.

But so I bought this artichoke.  I once saw an artichoke growing in real life.  For the three months I lived in Arizona, we had a garden.  And there were a few big tall artichokes in that garden.  I could have never imagined that the creamy cream creammmmminess delight of the artichoke hearts we fought over in our salads could have grown in the way it grows.

I had research how to prepare it.  I think it went all right.  We’ll eat it in a few hours.  I already nibbled quite a bit.  I found it highly delicious–

We make pasta tonight as well.  a treat that I learned from a dear dear friend, Antonio.  only the delicious pasta of the world.  We cut funny shapes sometimes because we don’t have a pasta maker, we just roll it and cut it by hand.  Sometimes I think a pasta maker would be fun sometimes.  a little quicker.  a little more professional.  and sometimes I love the process.  and the mysterious, at times, somewhat unrecognizable as pasta pasta we make–

yum.