I spent a lot of my Labor Day in the kitchen with lots and lots of tomatoes. I bought 10 pound from my local farmers market and though my intended sauce turned out like juice (this is the topic of another post, perhaps), I thought that it would be fun to start a tiny little how-to video series!
I have tons of recipe books, but sometimes instead of browsing through index after index I find it’s just easier to google stuff that I want to know instantly.
So here I am on the YouTube, in my teensy apartment kitchen (hey, a lot of awesome stuff comes out of that little room…), giving a quick lesson on how to core tomatoes. The video is tiny, like my kitchen, because it was taken by iphone… but you’ll get the idea.
I first met Ann when I was living in Ravenswood and we connected over our mutual love for worms. Ann is the Market Manager for the stellar Glenwood Sunday Market, and all-around advocate for all things organic, local, and sustainable. As such, she’s also an avid bike commuter.
There's nothing Ann can't carry on her bike, even canning supplies for her annual tomato processing fest!
Where do you live? Rogers Park (a neighborhood on the North side of Chicago, IL)
How long is your commute? When I began commuting by bike, I was working at a bakery in Lincoln Park, biking 13 miles round-trip daily. My commute now that I work in the 49th Ward Alderman’s office is a wimpy 1 mile round-trip!
What kind of bike do you ride? A powder blue Raleigh hybrid affectionately called Baby Blue, or the Blue Bombshell
Do you wear work clothes on your bike, or wear bike clothes and change at work? When my commute was longer, I’d peel off my sweaty riding clothes and change into something more customer-appropriate after a quick stop in the walk-in freezer to cool down. On the road, the hard core cyclists were always swishing past me in aerodynamic outfits, so I thought that’s what bike commuting should look like. Visiting Amsterdam with it’s incredible bike-centric cultural opened my eyes to a world of commuting sans Spandex. One woman even said that a bike commute is the perfect venue for those gorgeous killer heels, because you don’t have to walk in them! Now I hop on my bike in work clothes and a bandanna to wipe my brow.
How do you carry your stuff? Paniers? Messenger bag? Milk Crate? I installed a rear rack with two collapsible metal baskets. It’s heavy, but I haven’t come across a load I couldn’t carry on my bike. This includes the delivery of two giant canning pots to a friend across the ‘hood, and (gentle) transport of my office compost worms- bin bungeed on the back, hand-carrying the container of worms while biking one handed.
Fair-weather rider? No way! I don’t really have an excuse, now that my commute is so short. I say that I bike in all weather because I’m lazy- it would take way longer to walk than to ride! Plus, now I’ve outfitted myself in a stylin’ Dutch cycling poncho, so I’m ready for anything!
Scariest moment on the bike: Off-leash, bike aggressive dogs. Yikes!
Tips for new riders: Get a bike you love or get a good tune-up of your current bike, find a carrying system that works for you so you’re not limited by what fits in your backpack, and start riding! Don’t give up, it gets easier.
Why you ride: It’s faster than walking, cheaper than CTA, good for me and the planet. And I can rock my Glenwood Sunday Market bumper sticker 🙂
If you are a bike commuter and would like to be featured in this series, please send an email to lauren@artintercepts.org for consideration. Thanks!
As much as I enjoy that you believe me to be the queen of domesticity (…because, you do, right???), today I’m zero for two.
Here you see that I’ve overstuffed my slightly-smaller-than-standard loaf pan this morning with a delicious cranberry bread for Thanksgiving. The lovely char smell now resonating through the house from the globs on the bottom of the stove are making me feel real good about myself. I guess we’ll just have to eat this one ourselves and make another for “company”. In spite of this miserable failure, this IS a great recipe:
Lauren’s Mom’s Cranberry Bread
Ingredients:
2 C. flour
1 C. sugar
1/2 tsp. each of baking powder, baking soda, and salt
3/4 C. orange juice
2 TB melted butter
1 C. cranberries (frozen, halved, and seeds rinsed out)
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350-deg F. Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Add orange juice to melted butter and add to dry ingredients until well incorporated. Fold in cranberries (add chopped walnuts to batter, if desired). Turn into prepared loaf pan and bake at 350-deg F for 60 minutes. This loaf freezes really well.
Add to this failure my previous pat of on the back in processing our jack-o-lantern to make canned pumpkin for homemade breads and pies. Apparently, the work schedule these days isn’t as conducive to pumpkin processing as it once was, and my brilliant idea to store the roasted inners at room temperature would (five days later) present itself as fermented, white-ish pumpkin goo. I’ll spare you photo documentation of this, and instead offer you the plan B for “homemade” pumpkin pie.
Life has gotten a little overwhelming these days, and so has my cucumber patch. Back in July I planted two cute little cucumber plants, that have proceeded to take over the rock in front of them (meant to divert them from growing into the grass, the fence, the neighbor’s side of the fence, and a big lady statue that came with the house. As a result, we’ve been eating cucumbers every day since late July and making lots, and lots, and lots of pickles. Basically, friends and family can expect pickles as Solstichristmakwanzukah gifts and we will still have enough to get us through the winter.
I’d love to say that I’m thriving in the excitement of the 58 hours of work, home renovations (we plastered and painted BOTH bedrooms last weekend), and part-time freelance dance gigs. Generally speaking, I crave a busy schedule and function better when I have plenty of things to occupy my head space.
But I think last week I realized what my limits are. When you can’t find the time to go to the dentist, brush your hair, or feed your cats, maybe it’s become a bit too much.
If I’m to be my best self, all the time, I’m going to have to figure out what the balance is between busy and TOO busy.
I guess you have to experience the extremes before you can find that sweet spot where you have enough things on your plate to feel important, but also enough time and energy to putts around at home and pick cucumbers.
‘Tis pickling season! You know it’s come when you see mass quantities of Ball jars on sale everywhere. How fortunate are those who have such an overabundance of home-grown vegetables that the only way to deal with them is to pickle and can them? With fresh inspiration from the edu-tent at the Glenwood Sunday Market, and the fortuitous acquisition of a bounty of cucumbers (from a location which I wish not to disclose at this juncture…), I shall pickle.
After making a seriously good batch of refrigerator pickles (bread and butter, of course), I’m left with a sinking feeling. Do I put them in a hot water bath until the jar lids make that popping sound? Do I simply put on the lid and store in the fridge? Dear me, I can’t remember! I choose hot water bath. However, after noticing a slight sediment that has formed in my pickle jars, and confirmation from GSM’s pickling expert Toni that they needn’t be hot water bathed, I have serious regrets. I hope that six months from now, when I crack open that jar in the middle of a Chicago blizzard, that that my dear pickles that tasted so yummy this morning don’t disappoint…. or give me a case of botchulism.
Want to try it yourself?
Easy Refrigerator Bread and Butter Pickles (courtesy of grouprecipes.com)
8 small pickling cucumbers, washed (not peeled), and very thinly sliced
1 medium onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 cup apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
4-1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp crushed dry red pepper flakes
1/2 celery seed (in my case, optional)
Directions:
1-Combine all ingredients in a soup pot and heat to boiling, stirring occasionally
2-Boil one minute, stirring frequently
3-Pour mixture into a large bowl, cool to room temperature
4-Cover and chill overnight before serving
5-Spoon into jars with tight fitting lids and refrigerate for up to four weeks…. (jury is still out whether or not you can use hot water bath to extend shelf life and seal jars. I’ll let y’all know when I crack them open in a couple months).
Lauren Warnecke 
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