Horrid Discovery

I made a truly horrid discovery this evening. I made French fries in my Fry Daddy the other day. I used the leftover oil to perform an experiment. I chopped and breaded some of my garden okra and drenched it in the hot oil of the Fry Daddy. That is when I made the horrid discovery. It makes pretty decent fried okra. Not great, but decent. I really need something with adjustable temperature control and experimentation with oils in order to make it great. Right now my standard oil is canola for saturated fat, smoke point, and flavor purposes. The horrid part is that it was way easier than pan frying, but that also diminishes the taste somewhat. Even though it wasn't quite like Mom makes, it's good enough to make a fried okra lover like myself contemplate making it every day. Add to that what looks to be an ample supply of okra coming from my garden, which seriously looks like it is going to be outrageous, and you have a recipe for making me fat. I must summon my willpower. That and I need to find time to prepare the okra for freezing.

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And a Hush Came Over the Wire

For those of you that didn't know, today is a voluntary day of silence for Internet Radio stations. It's to bring attention to the problems being caused by a new royalty rate increase that will cause most Internet broadcasts to cease due to inability to pay. Ars Technica has an article up about it with lots of good links, descriptions, ans discussion. I suggest you take a look at it. As someone who listens to a radio stream, 99x out of Atlanta, during work, I hope this will call attention to a misstep that should be corrected. Go to savenetradio.org if you want more information.

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Let’s go out to the lobby

I say that fully knowing that the two movie theaters I frequent here no longer have any drinks I want. Anyway my brother and I went to see two movies recently so I thought I’d give you a rundown on them before I forget about them.

Last week we went to see “Ocean’s Thirteen.” Arguably this is probably one of the better threequels that has come out this summer, in that it most accurately channels the spirits of the first two movies. Essentially, if you liked the first two, then this one should not disappoint.

Then this past Sunday we went to see “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.” This actually turned out better that I expected it to. I reviewed the original a while back, and I noted that they needed to make the sequel more like the latter part of the movie. Well guess what. They did. And the reviews on RT demonstrated that. Plus it has Jessica Alba in it. And I don’t know what happened, but Alba’s and Kerry Washington’s lips looked HUGE. And who told Alba to wear such freaky looking blue contacts. They were ok in the longer shots, but up close, strange. But it was quite entertaining. I wonder if they will make another one.

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Here I am

I’ve been neglecting this page for a while. So what’s going on? The garden continues to grow. I’ve picked about 3 dozen Roma tomatoes and one Century, but none of the other regular tomatoes are ripening yet. I have lots of fruit, but they are all staying green. Oh well. Oh and several of them have grown out of the tops of the 5 foot cages I made. I’m making cage extensions. My first batch of corn has started to go to tassel and is about 8 feet tall. I’m curious how it might turn out, but two days ago a big wind storm blew half of my second batch of corn over. I had to get out and tie it up like I did the first batch. Note for next year, I live on a hill and must tie my corn up after it gets over 2 feet tall. I’ve been picking squash and zucchini and giving them away. I think the plants may give out in another few weeks. One has traveled almost 3 feet it has grown so much. My bell peppers have finally started to put out a lot, but I’ve only picked one. I have to tie all of the peppers up this evening. I’ve probably picked 2 dozen cucumbers, several around 14 inches long. I’m going to have to change the way I plant them next year, because they overran my cages already. I also may plant a few of the shorter varieties. And Saturday I picked okra for the first time. I planted too much. I’ve only harvested from 35% of the plants, and I estimate I’ll be getting over a gallon of okra each day or two when all the rows start producing. I’m not sure I’m going to have enough time to pick it, much less prepare it for freezing. Oh yeah, my Godparents sent me their stand up freezer. So now I have a place to put extra produce. And last week I made a pizza. I put some of my Ichiban eggplant, roasted Roma tomatoes, mushrooms, black olives, and mozzarella on it. It was pretty darned good if you ask me. I have a few changes I might make for nest time, but overall it was good for my first attempt at a pizza without meat on it. I may make some pictures later to put up. It all depends on how much okra I have to pick.

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No More New Timmys

I just saw on CNN.com that Don Herbert, better known as "Mr. Wizard" passed away today. I remember watching his show almost religiously on Nickelodeon. I remember it was the last cable channel we got at the time, 18. He introduced me to fascinating properties of the world and physics. He was probably the second most influential television personality at the time, no one can displace Fred Rogers. The two Misters of children's television. I salute you Mr. Wizard and thank you for all you have done.

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And so it begins...

Well this is one of the first pictures of a harvest. I included a Dr Pepper can for scale. I brought this stuff to work and gave quite a bit of it away. In honesty I've already harvested some squash, cukes, and 3 eggplants previously, but this is the first one that really felt like harvesting rather then picking one or two things for a friend. This stuff is growing fast. The squash are about 3-4 days of actual growth. They doubled in size each day. The same goes for the zucchini. It's crazy. And you can see the mutant conjoined squash on the right. It's just strange. I'm going to have to get a basket or something to carry this stuff in. The tomatoes haven't even really started to come in. Lord I'm gonna have my work cut out for me.


Well, now to get ready to go home and mow the grass.

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