What's Growing?

I tried to post this yesterday, but I had trouble downloading the pictures back at the "farm" (my dad's garden) so I emailed myself, and promised I'd get around to it later. Then I had to rant about the Prevention Magazine advertisement last night, and didn't feel like taking several more hours to do another blog. So, without further ado, here's what I wanted to say yesterday:

The peas, earlier this summer:
The last batch of peas (although we may try to plant another crop for fall)
Safely tucked away in the freezer:

Last week I kept busy by picking, shelling, eating, and freezing peas . . . this week is going to be a different story! Michael and I spent the 4th of July weekend in Minneapolis enjoying good company, good food, and good music. Today it was time to head back to the garden. I discovered that my carrots are still not growing, but almost everything else is making up for it. The bush beans are ready to pick, although the pole beans, which were planted two weeks earlier, don't seem to be doing as well. They are climbing like crazy, but don't have any flowers or beans. I finally figured out a little bit about harvesting the onions. The ones with flowers (about a third) should to be picked now and eaten, because they won't store. The kohlrabi, which is completely overgrown (two are bigger than 7 inches across), still tastes very good, and I'll be making a bunch of it for dinner. The turnips are literally popping right out of the earth, but I picked 7 only to discover that four had been eaten by some kind of bug. Also, my zucchini are starting to mature. I picked four today, and will probably be dropping off squash at my neighbors' houses in the dead of night trying to get rid of it before too long - it's taken over the entire corn/bean/squash row!

Today's Haul (partial) I guess I didn't end up taking any pictures of the green beans . . .

(The top picture was taken with my dad's fancy camera, with the flash off, because the flash wasn't working for me in the kitchen - the pictures were coming out mostly white. The bottom picture was taken with Michael's Japanese camera, set to "cuisine" which he discovered during our honeymoon - which was a good thing because we took so many pictures of our food! I'm delighted with this setting for blogging purposes!)

Giant Kohlrabi (peeled and sitting in water because I didn't know what to do with it at the moment . . . my mom cut it up in spears and we dunked it in ranch dressing - yum)

Onions curing on my kitchen counter:


I was going to start pulling down the pea vines, in the hopes that we can get another crop in this summer, but then it started to pour, and I decided that job could wait.

I stopped by at the Hilldale Farmers Market in Madison this afternoon, but didn't bring much cash with me, so I had to pass on the raspberries ($3 or 4 a pint). I did get two tomatoes, some early garlic, and a bunch of purple carrots.

Note: I ended up eating plain yogurt with maple syrup for dinner before book club, then a snack of local popcorn when I got home. The kohlrabi had to wait . . .

The Lies my Health Food Told Me

I finished reading Fast Food Nation yesterday, and added two new blogs to my daily reads. (You can find links for them on the left.) This evening I opened my latest Prevention magazine and started flipping through the pages, ignoring all of the ads for diet foods making health food claims (my Food Rules book is on loan to my mother-in-law, so I don't know what rule that is but I got it from Michael Pollan) and then read this on page 51:

"Savor the Summer . . . Naturally." (Sounds good.)
"Summer cooking is all about yummy homemade treats. This summery recipe with some of nature's tastiest ingredients like pure honey, almonds, and sweet organic blueberries. Just simple, minimally-processed ingredients and nothing artificial. Enjoy!" (I'm interested.*)
"Blueberry Almond Bars
"Naturally delicious, these blueberry almond bars pack as much flavor as they do goodness.
"Ingredients (Makes about 18 servings)
"1 cup silken tofu, soft
". . .
"1/2 cup evaporated cane juice crystals
"3/4 cup plain organic soy milk
"1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
". . .
"1 tsp pure almond extract (optional)
"1 cup Kashi (R) Heart to Heart (R) Blueberry & Oat Flakes Cereal
"1 cup Kashi (R) GOLEAN Crunch! (R) Honey Almond Flax Cereal
". . .

"Toppings
". . .
"1/2 cup cup Kashi (R) Heart to Heart (R) Blueberry & Oat Flakes Cereal
"1/2 cup Kashi (R) GOLEAN Crunch! (R) Honey Almond Flax Cereal"

etc.

*In tiny print across the top of the page, it reads "Advertisement" and there is a Kashi logo in the middle of the recipe, but the whole thing could be construed as kind of misleading in a health magazine filled with other non-commercial recipes (although I'm sure that legal battle has long been lost for the consumer).

What I find interesting about this advertisement is Kashi's use of the terms "minimally processed" and "nothing artificial." The italics above are mine.

Has it occurred to the Kashi writers that you simply cannot get tofu or soy milk without majorly processing soy beans? The ellipses included in the recipe indicate actual minimally processed, natural ingredients like eggs. I left out the oil, although it does say "expeller pressed canola oil" and that sounds like processing to me too . . . I wasn't sure what to think about the evaporated cane juice crystals - but yesterday I watched a video on YouTube where a doctor who slowly repeated himself and failed to use any hard facts to back up his statements spoke out against not just high fructose corn syrup but all refined sugar, pointing out that sugar, whatever its form, never appears so highly concentrated in nature.

I don't happen to have either of the Kashi cereals called for in the recipe in my house (all we have is a slightly stale box of plain Cheerios and a ton of oatmeal) but I do have a sample of Kashi Heart to Heart Warm Cinnamon Oat Cereal that I got as a free sample at the Taste of Minnesota last weekend. It can probably give a relatively good idea of what a consumer might find in Kashi's other cereals. Here is the list of (minimally processed? natural?) ingredients:
Whole oat flour, Oat bran, evaporated cane juice syrup, yellow corn meal, corn flour, Kashi (R) Seven whole grain flour (whole: oats, hard red wheat, rye, brown rice, triticale, barley, buckwheat), oat fiber, wheat germ, honey, cinnamon, salt, expeller pressed canola oil, natural flavor, decaffeinated green tea extract, alpha tocopherol acetate (vitamin E), decaffeinated white tea extract, baking soda, spices, ascorbic acid (vitmain C), activin (A trademark of San Joaquin Valley Concentrates) Grape Seed Extract, Luo Han Fruit Concentrate, beta carotene (a source of vitamin A), ferrous fumarate, Folic acid, pyridoxine Hydorochloride (vitamin B6), Turmeric for color, zinc oxide, vitamin B12.

Are you still with me? I believe that is 29 ingredients. (I did not count each of the types of flour individually, although I probably should have.) I just want to break this down a little bit further. There is a trademarked kind of grape seed extract in this cereal. I don't even know what Luo Han Fruit is . . .but here it appears in concentrated form. I imagine it would be pretty difficult to get decaffeinated tea extract without some processing. Something tells me that doesn't occur in nature.

Maybe you are wondering why I included the natural vanilla and almond flavorings in my list of irony. Here's Eric Schlosser on the topic:
"The distinction between artificial and natural flavors can be somewhat arbitrary and absurd, based more on how the flavor has been made than on what it actually contains. 'A natural flavor,' says Terry Acree, a professor of food science at Cornell University, 'is a flavor that's been derived with an out-of-date technology.' Natural flavors and artificial flavors sometimes contain exactly the same chemicals, produced through different methods" (Fast Food Nation, 126).

He gives an example: "Amyl acetate . . . provides the dominant note of banana flavor. When you distill it from bananas with a solvent, amyl acetate is a natural flavor. When you produce it by mixing vinegar with amyl alcohol, adding sulfuric acid as a catalyst, amyl acetate is an artificial flavor. Either way it smells and tastes the same." (126)

Okay, so the phrase "Sulfuric acid as a catayst" (126) makes me think I'll stick with the natural flavors. But Schlosser goes on to explain, "A natural flavor is not necessarily healthier or purer than an artificial one. When almond flavor (benzaldehyde) is derived from natural sources, such as peach and apricot pits, it contains traces of hydrogen cyanide, a deadly poison. Benzaldehyde derived through a different process - by mixing oil of clove and banana flavor, amyl acetate - does not contain any cyanide. . . . Natural and artificial flavors are now manufactured at the same chemical plants, places that few people would associate with Mother Nature. Calling any of these flavors 'natural' requires a flexible attitude toward the English language and a fair amount of irony" (126-127).

I have to admit, in my quest to re-create a diet of locally produced whole foods, I have not yet gone so far as to throw out the imitation vanilla extract in my cupboard. And I'm still buying brand-name whole wheat pasta at the grocery store. But come on, Kashi. Shame on you, and on Prevention Magazine and the Rodale group for playing with consumers this way. Corporations throw around these catch phrases to lure in new customers who, like me, are trying to become healthier citizens - choosing organic, non-processed foods to benefit the little guy. But Kashi is neither natural nor a little guy. Sure, big organics might have a place in the world, but it upsets me to think that they are tricking people into thinking that buying this stuff is just as good as supporting a local farmer who grows real food that is only processed in consumer kitchens.

For more on that, stay tuned for my next blog . . .

Edgewater Cup Soccer

While I was in Indianapolis enjoying my nieces, Oliver apparently developed a grudge against the entire sport of soccer, and took his frustrations out on his new toy. The battle must have raged for a while, because he looks pretty worn out here. I think Oliver won.

Settling into Summer

Barbara Kingsolver is always quoting or referencing Wendell Berry in _Animal, Vegetable, Miracle._ Okay, maybe not always, but frequently. The first time I read _Miracle_ I was excited by the references because I have a tenuous connection to Wendell Berry. Professor Graham included _Fidelity: Five Stories_ by Berry in the syllabus of the Law and Literature class I took during my second year. (This was my favorite class, by far. I know you're shocked.) Wendell Berry is from Kentucky and if I remember correctly, was an emeritus or adjunct professor at UK while I was there (but Wikipedia says he resigned from the faculty in 1977).

I was kind of disappointed, in 2005, to discover that _Fidelity_ was not a novel, but a collection of short stories, but I liked Berry's writing. Through Professor Graham's now mostly-forgotten lecture on Wendell Berry and my experience with his short stories, I knew I liked Berry. But when Kingsolver, and then Michael Pollan, started throwing his name around, I knew I needed to read more.

Consequently, I was delighted to learn last spring that my new book club would be reading a Wendell Berry book this summer. I didn't catch the title the first time, but later learned the book was _Jayber Crow_. A little investigation proved that the story was a novel, not a nonfiction piece on sustainable farming, as I'd been hoping, but I was still interested. Imagine my delight when, on page 183, I encountered this passage:

"Buying a tractor at that time was not unusual. A lot of people were doing it. The young men who had been in [World War II] were used to motor driven machinery. The government was teaching a new way of farming in night courses for the veterans. Tractors and other farm machines were all of a sudden available as never before, and farmhands were scarcer than before. And so we began a process of cause-and-effect that is hard to understand clearly, even looking back. Did the machines displace the people from the farms, or were the machines drawn onto the farms because the people already were leaving to take up wage work in factories and the building trades and such? Both, I think.
"You couldn't see, back then, that this process would build up and go ever faster, until finally it would ravel out the entire old fabric of family work and exchanges of work among neighbors. The new way of farming was a way of dependence, not on land and creatures and neighbors but on machines and fuel and chemicals of all sorts, bought things, and on the sellers of bought things - which made it finally a dependence on credit. The odd thing was, people just assumed that all the purchasing and borrowing would merely make life easier and better on all the little farms. Most people didn't dream, then, that before long a lot of little farmers would buy and borrow their way out of farming, and bigger and bigger farmers would be competing with their neighbors (or with doctors from the city) for the available land. The time was going to come - it is clear enough now - when there would not be enough farmers left and the farms of Port William would be as dependent as the farms of California on the seasonal labor of migrant workers."
Berry, Wendell. _Jayber Crow_. Counterpoint, 2000. p. 183. (I do not have the proper citation format for any single style memorized and am on summer vacation and did not look it up. Sorry.)

You might think this little essay on industrial farming is strange coming from the mouth of a 30 year old bachelor barber who was mostly raised in an orphanage, but Berry manages to blend it in with the rest of the narrative so that, if you weren't looking for it, you wouldn't even notice that the book had gotten very political all of a sudden.

I'm not finished with _Jayber Crow_ yet (our July meeting was canceled due to vacation plans, and the book was pushed back to August, so I have plenty of time to finish it) but it is a really good read and I will most likely be reading more of Berry's books - both fiction and nonfiction - in the near future.

Michael and I enjoyed our honeymoon, as you can tell in my previous post, but we did miss most of strawberry season and the best of the peas. The garden in Madison has gotten away from my dad and me a little bit this summer (I think the kohlrabi has gotten woody, tough, and inedible, I only ate our lettuce and spinach once or twice, and I missed the cherries completely) but I actually enjoyed picking several pounds of peas - and shelling some of them with Adele! (For some reason, she decided that the largest pods, and the big, round peas that were inside, were "Man peas" - cue deep two-year old voice. She could see that the man peas - and the mama peas, and baby peas - came out of the pea pods like her baby sister came out of mommy's tummy. She and I decided that the biggest peas of all were the Bapa (grandpa) peas. I have no idea where Man Peas and the deep voice came from, but they prove that I have the cutest niece ever. Luckily, Memaw got home from the store (with fresh-ish sweet corn!) in time to take a couple of pictures. Adele is a good helper and a good worker. I missed her help this morning when I had to shell all of my peas myself!


See how hard she was working - her little tongue is sticking out!

Adele is no ordinary girl - do you see her mermaid tail?

Anna Kate didn't help very much with the peas, but she was a little yellow-clad sweetheart.

I planted about seven or eight rows of peas this year, picked four times, and yielded 3/4 lb of shelled peas and 1.5 lbs of pea pods in the freezer, and another cup or so of shelled peas in Indianapolis, along with a small bunch, maybe half a pound in the pods, in my parents' fridge. There are still a few peas still on the vine, but they're basically done. We also have 3/4 of a pound of peas in the fridge from our CSA, which need to be shelled. I hope there will be more at the farmers market on July 10, because I love peas, and don't have enough to last through the winter right now!

I've discovered that I need more gardening advice. I have a book about gardening, my dad has several, and I've read the bulk of them - but they don't include enough information about Harvesting the darn produce. I've noticed that there are exacting, scientifically based (?) research-proven methods and calendars available to ensure that you plant all of your seeds in just the right manner, with the correct soil density and temperature, during the right phase of the moon, when the wind is blowing from the proper direction - but there is no information about when foods are ready to be harvested. Peas are easy to see and pick. Beans, beets, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, winter squash, and pumpkins are also easy - we've grown/picked those before. The onions and potatoes are tricky. And the basil. I didn't read about pinching back the basil to prevent it from flowering until it was too late . . . but the basil is still good. (It seems to be flourishing among the tomatoes.) I have no idea when the onions are going to be ready. They look ready now, but I thought they would be harvested closer to fall - you're supposed to be able to dry them and store them in a cool place . . . I don't have a cool place right now! And the potato plants have flowers but I felt under the straw and couldn't find anything remotely resembling a baby potato yesterday. Did they burrow in under the dirt which we thought would be too heavy? And why won't my carrots grow? The radishes did very well, and the turnips are bursting out of the ground (although I thought they would not be ready until later) but the carrots refuse to grow. According to the seed packet, they were supposed to take twice as long as the radishes. The radishes have been done for weeks, but the carrots are not carrots yet. I've pulled a few in an effort to thin the carrot patch - which really doesn't need to be thinned because it's very sparsely populated - but there is nothing beneath the leaves but the tiniest little thin white root. The carrot greens could be attached to anything at this point - there is absolutely no indication that a carrot is going to emerge. At least I know I'll be able to get them at the farmers' market. Sadly, the same could not be said for celery last year. Maybe this year will be better. Imagine all the soup we can store after Michael and I get our chest freezer!

I eagerly bought seed packets and worked in my dad's garden this spring without really knowing what to expect from my first attempt at gardening. Likewise, Michael and I joined a CSA without knowing what we were going to do with things like bok choi and kohlrabi (to name a few vegetables currently waiting patiently in my fridge to be made into dinner). So far, I've learned to plant less lettuce (our CSA provides more than enough) and more peas, and also that you can't freeze too much asparagus or too many strawberries. I'm trying to plan ahead for tomato canning, corn freezing, and apple-butter making (slightly worried about the canning part because I grabbed my last jar of last summer's tomatoes out of the cupboard in preparation for dinner tonight, only to discover that the lid had popped, the jar was no longer sealed, and the tomatoes were only fit for the garbage disposal).

Here's what's competing for space in the yet-unpurchased freezer so far:



Strawberry jam (this is actually my last jar from last year's six batches - this year's jam is still at my parents' house, along with the top layer of my wedding cake, which Michael is still intending to eat on our anniversary), whole strawberries, mashed strawberries with a little sugar (I bought eight quarts of berries from a farm stand in town after we got back from our honeymoon- my mom couldn't believe they still had berries on the 26th), peas, peas, and more peas. Not shown: two pounds of asparagus and big plans for the rest of the summer!

Honeymoon

While we were planning our wedding, Michael suggested that he take charge of planning the honeymoon - and that the whole thing be a surprise for me. I decided to take him up on the offer - planning the wedding was hectic enough, and travel plans tend to stress me out.

He kept me posted about the dates of our trip, but everything else was top-secret. A few months ago I started worrying about our trip - did we need passports? His was expired, and mine would be by the time our trip rolled around (June 16). Were we going to leave the country? If we were going on a cruise, would we need passports for that? Was there enough time to get new passports before June? (This is why he was planning the trip.)

I decided to bring up the passport issue with Michael, because I really didn't want to be stressed out about a trip I had no control over. He decided that we would go to the travel agent and have passport pictures taken, then send off the paperwork just in case we needed them. Even if our trip was to Waupun, we would probably want passports sometime in the future.

Filling out the paperwork was a little bit stressful, because the US Government wants to know the dates of the trip you have planned (no problem) and your destination (big problem for me). Michael filled that part of my form out for me.

Our passports arrived in plenty of time, and I put mine in the safe, with Michael's, and tried to put the whole thing out of my mind.

Not knowing drove me a little bit crazy (what should I pack? How did I know whether we could babysit on the day after we got back - I had no idea whether we'd be jet-lagged or totally relaxed from a week at the spa!) but it was exciting not to know too.

About a week before we left, I made a list of what to pack - including swimsuits (I had to ask Michael if we were going somewhere that would provide towels or whether we should bring our own) and a fleece jacket. Previously, all Michael told me was that I'd need something to dress up in. (That, and we were not going mountain climbing so I could leave the carabiners at home.) I showed him my list, and he approved it, which wasn't all that surprising because there was a little bit of everything on the list! (Later, I asked Karen for packing advice too. She approved my list after Michael told her where we were going.)

Finally, the day of our departure arrived. I had four books in my carry-on bag (assuming we were going to be going in an airplane) because I had no idea whether we'd be speeding from one activity to the next, or hanging out at the beach all week. (Michael said there was a beach available and we could spend as much or as little time there as I wanted. Of course, I had no idea what else there would be to do, which made the beach comment fairly unhelpful.) One of my greatest fears was that I'd be stuck without a book to read. (I got through two of the books I brought, and got halfway through a third.) My top two guesses about our destination were Door County and a cruise.



We dropped Oliver off at the kennel on the north end of town, and Michael headed down Hwy 51 towards I-39. To go north on I-39, he just needed to stay in the right lane on 51. To go south, he needed to be in the left lane. He kept joking that we were going to Wausau (which would be north) but at the very last second, he swerved into the left lane, and we headed south on 39. I was grinning, because I can't remember the last time I was in a car and had no idea where I was going. Can you?

As we approached Hwy 51, I wondered if we would be heading to the Dane County airport. Sure enough, Michael got in the right hand lane and exited. He said we were going somewhere I'd never been before, but I wasn't sure if he knew I'd taken that road to get to the airport before . . . and then he turned into a gas station. He asked if I wanted anything. Food Rule # 57 "Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does." Food Rule # 19 "If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't." Food Rule #16 "Buy your snacks at the farmers' market" Food Rule #2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 - don't eat stuff with high fructose corn syrup or unpronounceable ingredients. (From Michael Pollan's _Food Rules_) No, I didn't want anything. Except I was thirsty. I generally don't like to buy bottled water, because the plastic is bad for the environment, and it is ridiculous to spend a bunch of money on water . . . but what if I was going to be in the car for several more hours? On the other hand, I sure didn't want to buy a bottle of water if I was just going to have to throw it out in the airport in a few minutes . . . finally, Michael suggested I just go ahead and buy a bottle of water, and he'd help me drink it if necessary.

Michael went around the back of the gas station, and wound around, keeping me on the edge of my seat. . . and then turned back towards the interstate. I didn't completely rule out the Madison airport, because there are other ways to get there (although by this point I pretty much had ruled out Door County) but I was starting to focus on other destinations (like Janesville).

We passed Madison without any fanfare, and soon we were headed into Illinois . . . and stayed with 90 instead of continuing south on 39, so we probably weren't headed to St. Louis . . . soon enough, we started seeing signs for O'Hare, and Michael got in the lane marked "O'Hare." (We also passed signs for I-80 towards Joliet, and I had to text Karen to tell her that, phew, we did not seem to be headed to prison for our honeymoon - much to Brian's disappointment.)

Suddenly, the O'Hare exit was upon us, and Michael switched lanes! Apparently we weren't headed to the airport after all. At this point Michael agreed that no, we were not going to the airport. (Which was okay with me at this point because it was getting late - around 3:00 - and I was sort of getting worried - if we were going to fly somewhere, and we go to the airport an hour or two before our flight, and if our flight were longer than an hour or two, we were going to be getting there pretty late . . .)

Michael took the next exit, and asked me to help him look for the Radisson. I should know to trust my husband by this point. He'd booked a room for the night. In the morning, the mystery would start all over again!

Our "honeymoon suite" turned out to be a regular room with a king sized bed, but the room was clean and there were complimentary bottles of water for us, so we were satisfied. While we were checking in, Michael confirmed the arrangements to leave our car at the hotel for the trip. The lady behind the desk wanted to know if our flight (I pretended not to hear) was going to be international or domestic. Michael paused for a moment, and I walked to the other side of the lobby so they could talk in private. (Later, Michael told me he never answered the question, because she didn't actually have to know - she just wanted to tell him how to catch a shuttle back to the hotel from the terminal, so she told him how do do either.)

Shortly after we arrived, we headed back to the car - Michael said he'd made a dinner reservation, and then let me guess where we were going. How on earth was I supposed to know? Was it a chain? We'd had a nice dinner in Orlando at TGI Fridays 2 years ago . . . maybe that was it. We both love Ruby Tuesday's, but only get to go on rare occasions (Seeing TSO in Milwaukee, or while visiting our relatives in the -apolises). The other restaurants that are significant to us were kind of far away at that point (Ruby's in Madison, and La Tolteca in Portage) so we probably weren't headed there . . .

Then it occurred to me that we had enjoyed an awesome sushi dinner in Chicago during a Scrabble tournament in 2008. I suggested this to Michael, then immediately took it back, because while I don't know a lot about Chicago's geography, I figured that we were nowhere near that restaurant. But then I remembered asking Michael about a mysterious email from the director of that particular Scrabble tournament the other day . . . and Michael confirmed that we were going to Kansaku.

We ate way too much sushi, but it was a wonderful dinner!


At some point, Michael informed me, somewhat tentatively, that we would need to leave the hotel *very* early the next morning. Like 4:00 early. So we watched America's Got Talent and went to sleep early.

Michael was too excited to sleep much, but I slept pretty soundly. Not knowing has its advantages! We got on the airport shuttle (not a big surprise at this point) and headed for USA3000, which I had never heard of . . . but the driver took us to the international terminal (after dropping four soldiers off on their way home to Nebraska). . . so I guessed Indianapolis was out as a honeymoon destination . . .

Michael and I checked in together, but I held back while he confirmed the destination of our flight with at the counter. He had my passport, so I just waited until it was time for the moment of truth - and breathed a sigh of relief when my checked luggage turned out to have about 4 pounds to spare. (Michael's only had 2 or 3 - we had thought mine was heavier so I loaded him down with stuff like my beach towel and my gardening hat . . . which I was not certain I'd actually need . . .)

Our flight seemed to be the only one in the international terminal at the unholy hour of 4:30 in the morning. I wasn't sure how much time we had, so I declined breakfast at Miss Nonalds (McDonalds) outside of the security check-in, mostly for timing reasons, but also because one of the books in my carry-on bag was Fast Food Nation. And then there are all of Mr. Pollan's rules . . . #20 "It's not food if it arrived through the window of your car" and #21 "It's not food if it's called by the same name in every language. (Think Big Mack, Cheetos, or Pringles.) Not that I thought my chances of finding real food were any better on the other side of security, but still . . .

Annoyingly, all of the restaurants on the far side of security were closed, although a woman was opening a stand with trail mix, sandwiches, and soft drinks. We went to the gate first, just to make sure everything was in order. (I behaved myself and didn't peek at the computer monitors announcing upcoming departures, and we chose seats with our backs to the gate, so I couldn't see where we were going.)

We ended up visiting the food stand for a vanilla frappuccino (which certainly breaks at least three rules that I can think of off the top of my head) a yogurt, and a bag of trail mix (slightly better choices). Then we waited. I had suggested to Michael that we not sit by any young children, because they would likely be talking about the upcoming trip. We sat for at least an hour without anyone mentioning our destination, but suddenly a large group of very late passengers arrived (the people sitting behind us had been stressing out about the group's whereabouts for at least half an hour) with several young kids. They ate donuts with their aunt and before we knew it, the adults started asking the kids about Mexico. The first time could have been random but after the next two or three mentions of Mexico, I figured it must be our destination.

Amazingly, the airline employees made at least two announcements over the loud speaker for our flight - mentioning the flight number but not its destination. I couldn't decide whether I wanted them to page Passenger X for Flight 305 to Our Destination or not, but they didn't, so what could I do?

Finally, it was time to board . . . and they announced that our flight was going to Cancun.

Here are a few pictures of the trip :) (I apologize for the goofy spacing.)

One of the pools at our resort.


Some shots of our room - we had two balconies, one of which had a jacuzzi.



Me with my awesome honeymoon planner :)

The view from our jacuzzi balcony.



Special "Luna del Miel" fruit tray.


Yummy food!






Silly pictures.


Fun entertainment.



Wildlife!



The Caribbean Sea!





Side trip to Chichen Itza on the Summer Solstice.


The sun rose between the two columns of pillars several hours before we arrived - that only happens twice a year.


(it was probably over 100 degrees, according to our tour guide . . . I was glad I brought my hat after all!)


The trip included a buffet lunch and entertainment.

In addition to man-made wonders, there were many natural wonders at Chichen Itza including a 200 year old tree, and a famous cenote, or sink-hole.



We had a wonderful trip. The best part was the company, but the second-best part is a tie between an amazing destination and not having to worry about the details myself!

Update!

So the governor vetoed the raw milk bill . . . (another win for corporate agriculture).

In other food news, my mom and I made four batches of strawberry freezer jam today! I thought about taking a picture, but didn't have my camera, and was too lazy to borrow one and then email it to myself . . . but we may make some more next week, so I'll be sure to take a picture then!

Our CSA started last week, and Michael and I drove to the farm to pick up our produce . . . in a downpour! We got green garlic, lots of lettuce and spinach, oregano, and a basil plant. The next day I picked up some green onions and two quarts of strawberries.

With a handful of radishes from my garden (in my parents' yard) the vegetables and strawberries made awesome salads for a delicious dinner in Madison with friends on Friday night and a thrown-together-at-the-last-minute dinner with Michael's dad on Saturday. (Homemade croutons didn't hurt the salad either.)

Michael and I are trying to figure out our CSA pick-ups for the next two weeks, because we're going to be gone for most of the rest of the month. Later this week we head to Ohio for his cousin's graduation, then drive up to Indianapolis so that Michael can meet his new niece, and then we head home for two days before leaving for our honeymoon!

We kicked off summer yesterday (Michael had a half day at school) by hiking at Devil's Lake (sorry, it was a spur of the moment thing and we didn't take a camera) and watching Tomorrow Never Dies. We're planning a relaxing summer of honeymooning, camping, putting our feet up, and watching reality TV (America's Got Talent and Last Comic Standing).

I'll post pictures next time!