I don’t have any food today, sorry! I know it’s been a while, but we’ve been out of town. I hope to have a real food post soon, but since I don’t know when that will be I thought I’d pop in and wish you a happy new year. We’ve been in Charleston visiting Mark’s family, so I also thought I’d share some of the pictures I took of various animals there to tide you over until I’m able to do some proper cooking.

The first ones are from Middleton Place, which has beautiful gardens.

Lots of water fowl, which I love. I think this is an ibis:

I grew up next to a farm that had peacocks and I’ve loved them ever since.

My first word was “duck”.

Mark has decided that I have “catdar” because I constantly spot kitties. I usually then chase them around attempting to both pet and photograph them. This one was very friendly. Success!

Water buffalo.

I love this and the other sheep pictures I took. The sheep had been driven off from their shady resting spot by a terrorizing toddler. After he left, they wished to return but in the toddler’s place was a much quieter but still untrustworthy Renae, who was trying to photograph the water buffalo. Unaware of this, I started heading back to my group and encountered all of the sheep lined up several yards away staring at me like they were going to eat my soul if I didn’t get out of their spot.

I was reading Folly Beach- and Charleston-themed novels while I was down there this time. I did some reading after returning home from a day of lugging my tripod and camera around Middleton Place and found the narrator of the book I was on at the time taking his camera and tripod to Middleton Place for a day of shooting. Weird, huh?

I recently got an infrared filter for my camera and spent most of the trip taking pictures through it, which then got converted into kinda-creepy B&W pictures that I’m really into right now. My poor mother-in-law had to drag me around town and wait patiently while I set up my tripod and took exposures anywhere from 10 seconds to 5 minutes. It was suggested we go to Magnolia Cemetery for the types of pictures I was taking. It was a great location and I got some fun shots. I wasn’t expecting to run into much wildlife there, but I did. Apparently there are even alligators there, although I unfortunately didn’t see any. I DID see this goose practicing his ballet poses:

Wouldn’t it have been hilarious if after my parents had repeated the word “duck” to me a million times, trying to get me to say my first word, my first word had been “goose”?

Other than the fun infrared pictures I took, the blue heron was my favorite part of Magnolia, though. What a beautiful animal. He tolerated me for a while and let me get pretty close:

Eventually, though, he got tired of me and took off across the water …

… and landed on a tree on the opposite side:

I returned home from Magnolia Cemetery and picked up a different book I was reading, only to have the main character die and be buried in…Magnolia Cemetery. What was going on with the books I was reading mirroring my life?? Well, at least I wasn’t buried in Magnolia.

In more materialistic news, Mark gave me a Vitamix, which I’ve been very much coveting, for Christmas, so if anyone has any favorite things to make in one, please share! I feel I have a lot of blending to do this week.

Those of you who live in the US may have heard (or dealt with) about the slightly freakish snow the East Coast got last Saturday (it doesn’t usually snow in October in the mid-Atlantic region). Ordinarily this is something I would have been loudly whining about – probably right here in this blog – but as it turns out, Mark and I left for LA Friday night and missed the whole ordeal. Yes, it was snowing at home and I was in California enjoying sunshine and 90-degree temperatures. Boy, was that a great feeling.

For our late evening flight, I prepared onigiri (rice balls), which is perfect travel food. I wish I had taken pictures while preparing it, but I was busy getting ready for the trip. Next time I’ll take pictures and do a real post, but really it’s so easy, you don’t need much of a tutorial. And as with most things Japanese, there is little point in me doing a tutorial when Maki of Just Hungry has one that can’t be beat.

To summarize, though, I used a mold similar to this one (Maki’s tutorial explains how to do it without a mold). Just prepare some sushi rice, but don’t cool it and don’t season it as you would sushi – just cook it. Then stir in some salt to taste. Next, fill the mold a little more than half way with rice, then (optionally), make an indentation in the middle of the rice and add about a teaspoon of filling. The filling can really be just about anything as long as it’s not too wet. I used pickled radishes this time. Umeboshi is traditional and I often use it, but I was afraid Mark wouldn’t like it and didn’t want to worry about marking what was in each onigiri. Then fill the rest of the mold with rice, put the top on the mold, and push together. Then unmold – my mold has tabs on it that facilitate pushing the onigiri out.

Finally, and this is also optional, wrap the onigiri in nori, which you can cut out into fun shapes. For traveling, I then wrapped each onigiri in plastic wrap. Unless you use a mayonnaise-y filling, these will be safe at room temperature for quite some time, which is one of the many reasons they are so great for traveling. Other reasons include: you eat them with your fingers, they are filling, they are healthy, and they are super-portable.

For maximum fun, be decorative with the nori.

And now time to bombard you with pictures, though I will try to keep them mostly food- and animal-related. Last year I went totally nutso over the food in LA. As the Angelenos would say, it’s amazing. Here is an example of how amazing: Monday night Fort and Mark and I were at an event, after which we were meeting friends in Silver Lake. I was hungry and my friend warned me there was no food at the bar we were going to and so urged me to find something on the way. I figured that would be a hopeless cause, as we were in a hurry. Then, a block from the bar we drove by a restaurant called Vegan House. There wasn’t anything else around, just a random, open vegan restaurant with, of course, awesome food. There is no need to plan your meals in LA if you are vegan: vegan food is EVERYWHERE. (Except the airport. I hate LAX.)

Another example: I was browsing thrift and book stores near Fort’s new apartment in Echo Park and walked by an ice cream shop. I had really liked the book store I was in and thought how neat it would be if this ice cream shop a few doors down had anything vegan. Turns out it was ALL vegan. That’s LA: I think it might actually be harder to NOT be vegan there.

So anyway, here’s a little recap of my trip. I managed to forget to take pictures of many of my meals – despite the fact I lugged my new camera everywhere – but I did get a few. Saturday Fort took us for a walk through nearby Elysian Park. I love this picture I took of a lizard because he’s looking right up at me and I swear, SMILING! (I have another photo where he’s NOT looking at me or smiling, which makes me all the more sure that’s what he’s doing in this one.)

We hit up wine country on Sunday, where Mark made a new friend …

… as did I.

The views were almost as great as the animals.

Oh yeah, the wine was pretty awesome, too.

Even if I had to share.

Monday night was not only the best holiday of the year, it was Mark’s and my 7-year anniversary. Do you know who we were??

Tuesday we again met up with our friends, who suggested we check out Mohawk Bend. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of our food because it was very dark but I did snap a shot of the menu because I thought it was really cool that everything is “vegan unless marked” otherwise, instead of the other way around! Not only that but they have separate kitchens for the vegan and non-vegan stuff. Everything was delicious here and the drink selection was terrific.

I chased a few cats around throughout the week. There are a particularly high number of them in Venice, where we went Wednesday.

Because I am a great wife, I suggested we go to Disneyland on Thursday, as Mark LOVES Disney. Disneyland fun, see?

Disneyland also vegan-friendly! Vegan gumbo in New Orleans! In a sourdough boule! If you’ve ever tried to find vegan food in a non-Disney theme park, you know how incredible this sort of thing is. It was good and very, very filling. Just what you need to fuel an action-packed day.

The rides are super-fun at Disney …

… but Mark found it very typical that I took more pictures of the ducks than anything else.

Disneyland and Disney World are kinda the same and kinda different. The castles…very different. Like Disneyland in general, it’s much smaller, for one thing.

After a long, hard day of Disneying, we were starving, so I checked my phone for vegan-friendly restaurants in Anaheim. Tana Ethiopian got good reviews and I love, love, love Ethiopian, so away we went! Veggie soup:

Awesomeness:

Friday the unthinkable happened: it RAINED! Actually, I didn’t have a problem with this, other than the fact that LA drivers are even worse in the rain than they normally are, and normally they are even worse than Northern Virginia drivers, who I previously thought were the worst. Mark and I took it easy and stayed local while Fort was in school, though. Which was fine because it gave me a chance to check out Sage Bistro, which was great.

A bright respite from the rain. The counter up front actually contains the vegan ice cream I mentioned earlier.

Mark’s Cobb salad:

My tuna melt with German potato salad:

The snails come out when it rains in LA.

Our final day was yesterday, Saturday. Fort insisted we go to his favorite beach, Malibu. I’ll let the pictures do the talking: gorgeous!

And that was our trip…and also an explanation of where I’ve been during my lull in posting. I’ve really missed Fort and V and am already looking forward to returning to LA, but in the meantime I’m glad to be home with Gomez and Torticia…if slightly less glad to be going back to work tomorrow!

I’m still here! Yes, I survived the earthquake (pretty strong here in Northern Virginia, but I thought it was fun), the hurricane (not strong at all in NoVA, in fact, I was almost disappointed it wasn’t more exciting until a co-worker in Vermont started sending me pictures from there, then I felt contrite), the floods, the downed trees, etc, etc. etc. My lack of posts is not related to any of that, though, it’s the same old thing it’s been most of the summer: I AM SO BUSY!

As I’ve alluded to, and which you can tell from the multitude of raccoon pictures I’ve been posting, I’ve spent most of the summer getting into wildlife rehabilitation. I received a comment recently from someone who was also interested in raccoon rehabbing but didn’t seem sure if she could do it, so I figured I’d say a little about my experience so far. Wildlife rehabbing is something I’ve considering doing for years, but although I’m known among my friends as being very practical, down-to-earth, and capable (at least I think I am known that way!), one of my major weaknesses is a sensitivity about both animals and medical stuff. By medical stuff, I mean, I come very near to passing out if I have blood drawn or watch it being done to someone (or some animal) else, and if I think I have some ailment, like the time I had plantar fasciitis, I have to make my mother research it for me because reading about anatomy makes me sick. So for a long time I’ve told myself there was no way I could get into animal rehabbing because as soon as I encountered an injured animal, I’d either burst into hysterical tears or be paralyzed with horror.

But then I decided I didn’t want to be someone who loves wildlife so much she can’t help them. It doesn’t make sense. My decision to become a (for now) apprentice rehabber was not just to benefit wildlife, but to benefit me. To become a better person. To fix something about myself I can be better at. To overcome my fears. Parts of this summer have been hard, really hard. Harder than I was hoping my first year would be. Much of it has been exactly what I expected it to be: I clean up raccoon poop; it’s not glamorous. But parts of what I’ve been doing – in addition to helping with the raccoons, I’ve been transporting animals for our local wildlife rescue group – have been beneficial in unexpected ways. Not only have realized I’m not paralyzed by upsetting situations, but I’ve been talking to a lot of rehabbers and I’ve found it easy. See, I’m extremely shy. I may not seem like it within the context of my blog, because it’s my blog, but I find it difficult to talk to strangers. Somewhat to my surprise, I have found I really enjoy talking to all the people I meet, and I’ve been asking questions of everyone to learn everything I can. I had/have a bad view of Northern Virginia; there are a lot of things about this area that don’t sit well with me: McMansions, materialism, self-absorption. My perception has changed a lot as I meet more and more compassionate people and learn more and more about the wildlife population here. There are a lot of good people here after all!

So, Jill, if you are reading this: if you want to work with raccoons or any wildlife, don’t sell yourself short! I haven’t had to insert any feeding tubes and if I do, I’ll probably freak out the first time, but I know now I can handle it if I tell myself I can handle it. And for those of you who are interested in wildlife but aren’t sure the hands-on stuff is for you, contact your local wildlife organization: there are a lot of other things out there that are easy to do (driving animals in boxes around is not hard work!) but are so helpful and rewarding.

Alright, that’s the end of my public service announcement for the day. This IS a food blog, right? Where is the food, you are no doubt asking. Unfortunately, there is no food. I’ve wanted to post, and I’ve even snapped a few half-hearted shots of some of my meals, but honestly, in addition to not having time to blog, I just haven’t made anything blog-worthy to tell you about. However, weeks ago, Jes tagged me in a Seven Links post, which I figured would give me something to write about, but I never found the time to sit down and do it. I don’t really have the time today, but I’m making the time. So essentially, I am supposed to link to seven archived posts in seven different categories. It’s harder than it seems, but in the hopes that at least some of my archives are more interesting than I am lately, here we go:

Most Beautiful Post

At first I thought this one would be next to impossible to choose, because what is “beautiful” about my blog, other than food in general being beautiful? But then I realized that although it’s sort of cheating because they were just about the most off-topic posts I have made, the answer is easy. I have to select two, though, because there is no way to choose between them.

My memorials to Tigger …

… and Brachtune.

Most Popular Post

Curiously, this one should be very simple to answer just based on statistics, but the truth is I don’t look at my logs that often; at least not lately because I’ve been so busy. Whenever I do look at my logs, I’m always surprised by how many hits Thai Sticky Rices and Sauces gets; a lot of people come in via googling for sauces for sticky rice. But as far as getting continuing feedback, I think the bread bag tutorial may be the most popular.

Most Controversial Post

Okay, this is the hardest one! Have I ever done an even remotely controversial post?! Believe me, the fact that I haven’t is not because don’t hold controversial opinions or do controversial things, because a large contingent of the planet would probably think I do. But the goal of this blog is to attract not only like-minded vegans, but friendly omnivores. I don’t want controversy here. I want love, peace, and happiness here like the damn hippie I am! This is a food blog (regardless how hard I try to make it a cat and raccoon blog), and I want food to be the great unifier, not the great divider.

I honestly can’t think of a controversial post, but there is one that some random person on the internet has left a nasty comment on a couple of times, and I’ve deleted the comment both times. That’s as close as I think I’ve gotten to controversy. It was one of the old posts with Tigger and this person left a comment about how she wouldn’t ever eat at my house because I let my cats on the counter. I don’t remember which post it was because Tigger was ALWAYS on the counters, but bizarrely, she’s left the same comment twice over a span of like two years. Both times I was undecided about allowing the comment and then replying, “that’s fine because I would never invite someone as rude as you to eat in my house”, or just deleting it. I would never delete a comment made by someone who respectfully disagreed with me, and I’ve allowed other less-than-friendly comments, but I just felt that particular comment was nothing but mean-spirited and meant to hurt my feelings, and it goes against everything I want this blog to be for me and others. I know a lot of people on the internet are into sparring with each other, but I just didn’t want to be reminded of that negativity every time I looked at that post. So I guess my big controversy is I controversially deleted the single mean comment I’ve ever gotten, so none of you even knew there was a controversy. If any of you remember a better controversy, comment and tell me! I won’t delete your comment! (Unless you hate on Tigger, of course.)

Most Helpful Post

I don’t know how “helpful” I usually am; sometimes I think I’m the opposite of helpful because I’m really very relaxed about cooking: I don’t measure things, so I sometimes wonder how useful my recipes are when they are usually just estimations and approximations of what I did. And I am not really a pioneer of any techniques or even flavors. But if I have to pick a post, I would say the tofu press tutorial, just because sturdy tofu presses are hard to find and I haven’t seen any posts like that one.

A Post Whose Success Surprised Me

I’d expect a post with “A-Not-Very-Good Attempt” in the title to fall pretty flat, but I was surprised by how many people commented on my kitchen in my “not-very-good” attempt at seitan ham. Since then I’ve noticed I always get a lot of comments whenever I post photos that show more of my kitchen (which has gotten even better since that post!) than just the food I’m working on. We live in a rental house and the kitchen, although adequate, is nothing special. However, someone I had just met pointed out to me at a party once that my kitchen is obviously the kitchen of someone who loves to cook and that was why she (and everyone else) likes being in it. And it’s true, *I* like being in it, and I guess that vibe transcends to others.

A Post I Didn’t Feel Received the Attention It Deserved

Hm, this is really hard to answer because I’m always flattered by any attention my posts get, and I have a lot of great commenters that keep me going! The only one that comes to mind is maybe the kaiser roll post, just because I don’t think anyone made them (other than those who already have and love The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, which the recipe is from) and they are GREAT. Now, my high school hair in that post, on the other hand, got way more attention than it needed!

The Post I’m Most Proud Of

This is hard, too, but I think I’m going to go with my three miso posts because, well, I made miso. I wasn’t formerly known as a particularly patient person, but fermentation, especially of miso, has taught me the way. I am proud that when I want to know how something is made, I MAKE it.

Wow, that took way longer than I hoped it would! Thanks for making me do it, though, Jes! I’m supposed to tag other people, but honestly, that sort of stresses me out and I’m stressed out enough with work right now, so if I’ve inspired anyone else to go through their archives, I’d love to read your seven posts, but please don’t make me call on people.

I hope to be posting much more frequently this fall as things calm down both at work and with the wildlife. Although I haven’t come up with any blog-worthy posts yet, I am doing a few new things I’ll eventually be posting about: making red wine vinegar, making beer(!!!), and I got a CO2 tank so I’ve been carbonating everything – expect soda recipes galore this fall!