Gardening and cooking

 

    

Picking seed pods off the
hyacinth bean vine.
Wish the blooms showed better.
Note the newly planted herb garden.

Used to be, when I was a kid, that gardening and cooking were womanly chores (except that my dad was a fantastic hobby gardener). In general, though, those were things that kept the little woman busy. Today, that attitude has done a complete turnabout, and women, lots of them, write and blog and talk about the sense of renewal they get from gardening and cooking. I’m probably guilty on the cooking part of that equation. But the gardening? Not so much.

As I hinted above, I grew up with a lush, beautiful garden. My dad bought the empty lot next to our Chicago house (a small feat in itself) and turned it into a garden. Every weekend found him, a college president and a physician, in the rattiest clothes you can imagine, on his hands and knees digging in the dirt. He wore those embarrassingly ugly knee pads that hitched his pants up to an unbecoming angle. Mom was always embarrassed if students came by and saw him that way, but it didn’t bother him. I thought every family had a dad that created a beautiful garden.

Grown and married, I found that wasn’t true. I also found that I love looking at the finished product, but I don’t get that spiritual energy, that sense of renewal, that whatever from gardening. I want someone else to do it, and I’ll enjoy it. But today I did the one bit of gardening I enjoy—planting herbs. My herb garden had cratered during the summer heat, except for a few stubborn onions. When I tried to pull them today, the bulbs refused to come out of the dirt, so I expect they’ll sprout again and eventually have to be dug out. But I planted the herbs Mary and I bought Saturday. If they only last a month or so until a frost wipes them out, that’s okay. I was really tired of looking at that bare earth in the wooden garden container. And just for good measure, Jordan and I picked a lot of seed pods off the driveway side of the hyacinth bean vine. It has been blooming profusely, but now its leaves are turning yellow. Tis the season, I guess.

The cooking part does renew me, as you well know if you read this blog often. Tonight I did pork chops and zucchini/feta salad, a recipe I found I don’t know where but thought sounded good. Christian does not eat zucchini or any squash, but I cooked this in chunks, not slices, until just lightly browned and crisp-tender. When he walked in, Jordan asked if he wanted zucchini, and he said “No, thank you.” I considered kicking her. I didn’t mean for her to ask but simply to serve it to him. I asked him to taste, and he said it was not one of his favorites, but this was the best he’d had. Of course it was—seasoned with oregano, lemon, garlic, shallot, salt and pepper. What could go wrong? The pork chops I ordered turned out to be thin cutlets, but I seasoned them with salt and pepper and lemon zest and quick-seared them. They were tasty and, best of all, not tough as pork chops can be. For an experiment, I thought it was a good meal. Didn’t ask Jacob, but we did discuss tonight what meals he likes, and I have a list.

Spent too much time with corporate America today, this time ADT protection systems. Since I haven’t found my keys (and yes, I called the two places we went one more time today), I’ve lost my key fob that operates the house locks, and I need a new one. Did the “chat” function, but when I keyed in my address, the gentleman told me it was not in their system. Neither was the account number. He kept asking for “the correct address” as though I was deliberately giving him a fake, which makes no sense. I was beginning to lose my cool—all this took half an hour, and it was lunchtime, and I was hungry. Finally he asked if I am a Protection One customer, and I said yes (ADT bought up Protection One several years ago, and when you google Protection One you get ADT). Then he told me they have a separate service number. That should have been the first question he asked me. I was too worn out with it then to call the new number, so it’s on my list for tomorrow.

So is my covid booster shot.

And we’re off into a new week. I hope it’s a good one for everyone.