Things and also Gardening

This year, for the second time ever, I tried to do that whole gardening thing. What did I learn? Well, mostly I learned that up here, tomatoes do best if you leave them alone entirely. While I was paying attention to them this summer (watering! worrying about the really hot days!), I managed to produce a grand total of two tomatoes over the course of about three months. After I harvested my two tiny tomatoes, I left the plant in the ground and didn't touch it. As of my last check, there are now three new tomatoes on my sad and lonely tomato plant. AGH. Eventually, this gardening thing will make sense.

In other food news, I am making goat cheese again tonight! I am futzing with it a whole lot less this time, so I hope that it turns out well. I left half of the last batch (the garlic-herb half, to be specific) at work when I went to science camp last week, and, thankfully, it was all gone when I returned. The other half (the lavender-and-honey half) was put out before dinner on Saturday night, and absolutely demolished-- I was somewhat gratified that my goat cheese went at the same rate as the cheese that is my favorite in the whole world.

And speaking of Saturday's dinner...

Okay, so. I have this... thing for Thomas Keller. I read the entirety of French Laundry at Home last winter, and purchased the Ad Hoc cookbook last January-- I've been cooking my way through it, and I blame/credit it with at least some of my current cooking thing. My housemate Brianna gave me the French Laundry cookbook for my birthday, and I've been rather intimidated by it ever since. There's so much food! And it all looks so good! Surely I can't cook that!

Well, okay, apparently I can. For my usual Saturday night crew (the folks from the yarn store), I made Citrus-Marinated Salmon with a Confit of Navel Oranges, Beluga Caviar, and Pea Shoot Coulis. Um, but without the caviar, because no. It was abso-frickin'-lutely delicious. My guests had seconds. And, best of all (at least to me), I am no longer nearly as intimidated.

When I started this post, I swear it had a point aside from talking about gardening-- the other point of this point was to tell everyone that I signed up for the 4th Annual Dark Days Challenge-- it's a bit easier here than it is in many other places, but it should still be fun and somewhat challenging.