It’s that time of year again - canning! Craig and I visited Kruger Farms on Sauvie Island last week and not only picked a boatload of berries (which are now frozen waiting to be jammed when it isn’t 14million degrees (C) outside) but I got cucumbers to make various amounts of pickled products. I always mean to write about pickling, etc (for instance I made pickled okra, asparagus and radishes (FAIL)) but I kept forgetting to talk about it.

I realized last week I am on my last jar of pickle relish, so that was the first order of business. The cukes are gorgeous:

and I hope they will be delicious. I experimented with using the food processor’s regular blade (instead of the slicing one) and I am not sure how crazy I am about the tiny texture of the relish:

But I guess we will see when it comes eating time. I always forget that you have to salt and wait on relish (to get the water out) and inevitably start relish at 7pm or something. Yup.

In any case, it eventually all got jarred in a cider vinegar, sugar and spices mix (this is sweet relish with a healthy dose of jalapenos) and now we wait. I hate waiting.

I used to try and make nice labels, etc. for the preserves (and I still do for gifts) but for home, a Sharpie on the lid is as much as I can do. This isn’t fancy gourmet stuff, it’s just what you do when it’s summer and you like pickle relish.

Next up: bread and butter slices, maybe dill slices (or maybe sandwich slices, hmmm) and onions.

I think the seven of you that read this blog already know, but in case I missed anyone: this is your official notice that sometime around January 1, 2009 the “mama” part of “Tikimama” will go from theoretical to literal.

Oh, and it’s a boy if you care about those sorts of things. Don’t you think “Brock Samson” would be a great name?

We were lucky enough to get into the Tiki Spirited Dinner - chef’d by Chris DeBarr and cocktail’d by Jeff “Beachbum” Berry. It was an amazing experience and I am so glad we got to attend. I took a bunch of pics (forgive my lack of skill at food photography - I should take a class) and posted them on my Flickr account here. Enjoy!

I lied, I had to write one more thing. During our stay in New Orleans, we passed the ubiqitious Mango Mango Daiquiri shops (and others of their ilk) many, many times. I’m afraid a morbid curiosity got the better of some of us and foots were set inside.

I documented it for posterity (and to embarrass them). Click on Craig’s pic to get to the whole set. Enjoy!

In the spirit of “you’ll be a long time dead” in general things stay pretty busy over here at Mathom House. The past two weeks (possibly my first two week long vacation ever) went like this:

• Camping at Deschutes River over the weekend
• Came home, packed, left on Tuesday for Tales of the Cocktail.
• Spent 8 days attending seminars, hanging in bars with cocktail bloggers and eating myself silly. New Orleans was amazing and wonderful, and thanks to the ER docs at Tulane University Hospital for diagnosing Craig with gout. That rich food is no joke.
• Got home on Weds, crashed.
• Got up on Thurs cleaned the whole house in anticipation of arriving houseguests Humu and Rich. We had a ball trolling around, drinking at the Galley, then saw them off to the Coast.
• Saturday was spent staring off into space.
• Sunday was Teardrop’s 1st Anniversary party, which was lovely.



• Monday was back to work and lots of emails to answer.

Whew.

I met some lovely wonderful people at Tales, who I swear I will thank and link later but right now I am Zzzzzz.

Random update: I’m in New Orleans, attending Tales of the Cocktail and hanging with all the cocktail bloggers. Everyone is ridiculously nice, New Orleans is amazing and I’m having a ball.

I would promise pics, but you know how I am. Have a nice July!

Edited to add: I meant to publish this while I was in Nola, but somehow it got saved as a draft. Mysterious.

My next assignment was a “family story.” So I choose the most important member of the family: the dog. Enjoy his thrilling tale.

Sorry about the heavy breathing!

Here I am, telling the story Ugly Fish to a room full of toddlers (and their kind parents) with my homemade flannel board. My friends are very kind to let me hijack a peaceful Memorial Day BBQ for my education. Enjoy!

Budgie Bed Post Surgery, originally uploaded by tikimama.

Budgie made it through his surgery with flying colors. He even got to keep nine of his teeth, though he lost almost all of the teeth on one side, meaning his tongue will probably stick out, which is too cute to bear thinking about. I was so worried about him today, we really do love that little dog an awful lot.

I just realized I have something to do every night this week, except tonight. Damn. I really need to rein in my tendency to overschedule.

Except I have this tick tick tick feeling in my head all the time - the world is spinning, my life is slipping away (not in a morbid way, but we’re all running on finite time) and so I need to maximize this time. Plus, I’m rubbish at long term planning (hence I have a hard time not going to an event this week because I want to graduate this year).

This week, it’s:

* Budgie has dental surgery(scary!), and Tiki Tuesday at Teardrop.
* Weds Birthday Party
* Thursday at Kelly’s Olympian - an artist friend will be painting a mural, I think.
* Friday a private rum tasting

and then who knows what the weekend will bring!