What do you do with the tomatoes that drop to the ground while still green? If they are large enough, you can put them in a windowsill or a paper bag and hope they ripen properly. Or you can make fermented tomatoes – a tasty, healthy treat.
Ingredients:
1 tsp. sea salt (approx.)
2-3 tomatoes, cut into wedges (the fermentation went quicker when I cut the tomatoes)
2 – 3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tsp. pickling spice: mine has pepper, dill, mustard seeds
Optional: dill seed from homegrown dill
Put all the ingredients in a jar. Cover with water. Cover the jar with a cloth and a rubber band.
Does my jar look a bit like Laurence of Arabia? Let the pickles sit for about a week, maybe less if it’s very warm. Be sure to check it every day. When it begins to form a little foam on top, it is fermenting. That’s when I usually cover it with the jar lid and put it in the refrigerator.
If you try this, please let me know. It’s even easier than pickling cucumbers.
With the temperature and humidity high in New Jersey, is it any wonder that I am posting an indoor activity for Summer Stock? In the first scene of Jack and the Beanstalk at Middlesex County College Theater Camp, the mother looks for Jack and Jill.
My daughter is playing a market girl. She did well in the tryouts, so she may get a bigger role in an upcoming play. As her mom, I try not get my hopes or her hopes up too high.
My favorite character was the giant. My daughter said one of the teen counselors played the giant, who is tall in real life, too.
Can you spot the change from this roof to this new one that I am posting today? And I don’t mean the background color.
I decided I prefer drawing the old-fashioned way – with paper and pencil and paints. But I will probably plod along with this scheme of roofs until I get to the fun part, which will be adding color and texture and variety.
I hope you will come back tomorrow – I plan to post an interview with a relationships coach. Stay tuned.
Way back in May I took this photo of Uncle Sam at the Highland Park Street Fair. The fair always seems to announce, summer is coming, summer is coming.
My daughter and I enjoyed roaming Raritan Avenue and taking in all the many booths. As you can see from her pink sweater, it wasn’t exactly summer weather.
The highlight of my summer thus far is the nest of robins growing on our front porch. Here’s a shot of a baby from last week. This week the robins already have many feathers and don’t seem as scared as they did earlier.
Yesterday Rabbi Bassous talked about the split vav in the parsha of Pinchas. It is the only case in the Torah of a letter being split.
יב לָכֵן, אֱמֹר: הִנְנִי נֹתֵן לוֹ אֶת-בְּרִיתִי, שָׁלוֹם.
Wherefore say: Behold, I give unto him My covenant of peace;
The rabbi explained that it is to show us one cannot achieve peace through violence. (Of course, he said much more, but I can’t repeat what he said without misquoting or taking it totally out of context. So I will leave just this piece for you to ponder and explore on your own).
Rayna Eliana reviews Who Shall Live: The Wilhelm Bachner Story – “Bachner’s fierce determination and courage saw him through the most adverse of situations, and he never waivered when he saw an opportunity to save a Jew.”
I had some shots of my rudbeckia (black eyed susans) even closer up, but I found this one in particular to be a charming composition. The black eyed susans grow all over my front yard. I encourage them (by not picking the little seedlings when the full grown plant self seeds).
Every week of the summer on Fridays there is a Highland Park Farmer’s Market. I often go to the organic stand first, and for the past few weeks I’ve been looking at the mizuna. This Friday I finally bought some, and I sauteed it in olive oil and a bit of sea salt. It was very tasty; however, I only washed it twice under the faucet. I should have let it soak – it was a bit gritty, the way leeks sometimes are. Now I know for next time.
Elegant Woman in Pink, painting by my daughter, June 2011
My daughter painted this elegant woman in pink in her art class with teacher Jill Caporlingua. Jill has a Facebook page for her students’ art work – if you go to http://www.facebook.com/gallerychaos2, you can see many paintings by a variety of students of all ages.
If you or a friend has a small business, you can learn how to put up a Facebook business page by reading Ease of a Facebook Business Page.
And I usually wait until Friday to link to other bloggers’ posts, but I did so enjoy these drawings for Jewish months by two of Mrs. S.’s children.
