City Walks: City Garden

City Garden opened up this summer to a great deal of praise. Despite it being a few short blocks from my office, today was the first day I actually wandered down there. It measured up to the hype. Some of the things I loved about it:

White Bunnies

The prairie running through the middle of the two block park - this grass is about waist high.


These river fountains (and the squirty fountains in the other half) are for playing in



The plantings give walkers the feeling like they might start taking over concrete (from down the block it sort of looks like the beds are in the middle of the street).

And best of all it's smack in the middle of downtown. Great location for tourists, locals, and office workers. The new parking garage Schnucks is just down the street, so it's easy to pick up your lunch and picnic here.

These photos don't show the massive number of statues that are in the park, many of which seem very climber friendly, and the many places to sit that aren't art. One of the other things that make it great is that while there is a security presence, they don't seem to be there to make sure you don't touch the art or stay out of the water. All ages are lounging, playing and soaking up the sun. It's nice to know our city gets it right sometimes.

Wish I Were There

This past weekend, we missed what looks to have been a great party down on Cherokee for Cinco De Mayo. I don't want to steal these fabulous photos, but please go take a look. You can read more about this wonderfully wacky neighborhood and see more photos here. Cherokee Street is a bit an odd place for St. Louis, but also a miniature of some of the forces that move about St. Louis. It's the epicenter of the city's growing Hispanic population (although there are Hispanic areas in the county and the city has several other immigrant populations that are larger), there's a thriving arts community that lives here too with some folks who are a bit outside the political mainstream (anarchist collective bakery anyone?), there's a bunch of just everyday folks on the lower end of the socio-economic scale who may or may not be pushed out as this neighborhood gentrifies, and there's also a bastion of more politically connected shopkeepers hunkered down on the eastern end of the street called antiques row who aren't quite so sure about the folks just west of them. Some of the blog posts talk about the tensions, and it really shows just how segmented and neighborhood idenfitied our city can be.

Inauguration Day

This morning I had a meeting at one of the adult education centers. At 11:00, we all took a break and joined one of the classes to watch the Inauguration. If I couldn't be on the mall, this was certainly the second best place. Teachers, students, tutors, staff and we gatecrashers from our meeting watched together; sometimes silently, sometimes in tears, sometimes with cheers. Yeah, there was one guy on his cell phone, and someone was doing her homework (hey we always tell them that they need to put their studying first and turn off that TV), but 95% of the class was listening and there was this feeling going around, like we were part of something. And we were: many of these students voted for their first time this year, either due to age or because no one ever gave them reason to think that their vote mattered before. I couldn't stay for the class discussion afterwords, but I've got that warm fuzzy feeling that these students, most of them labeled only as high school dropouts, gang members, single moms, or slackers, felt like they had helped elect someone who possibly saw them in those terms, but also sees them as parents, churchgoers, community members and people who don't always have a voice, but definitely have something to say, and that maybe that something is worth listening to. I've got a whole lot a hope in them, in him and in us.

Bevo the Beverage, Bevo the Mill.

I was surprised to learn that AB still owned it and even more surprised that they've turned it over to the city for free. Here's the story. And here's a brief history of Bevo the Beverage: "The All-Year-Round Soft Drink. Appetizing - Healthful - Nutritious - Refreshing. Milk or water may contain bacteria. BEVO never does."

Get Your Craft On

I missed the Rock and Roll Craft Show last weekend, due to the move and illness, but I'll be heading out to the Big Ass Indie Art and Craft Show this weekend and the Rock & Roll's former digs, Mad Art Gallery.

Here's the details.

ACORN

As most of you know, Jason and I worked for ACORN for several years back in the 90's. It was a chaotic experience that had its ups and downs. Some of you have been wondering what we think about all the allegations about ACORN from the McCain campaign. In short, we are appalled. We both worked voter registration at various times during our employment and can assure you we never saw ACORN promoting Voter Registration Fraud (something quite different from Voter Fraud, which has more to do with getting false people to vote or to vote twice). In Arkansas, as in many states, you are required to turn in every single voter registration card, even if you think it might be a fake registration. Sometimes people who you hire for campaigns like this are more interested in getting paid than in registering people to vote, so they fill out forms falsely. Those folks were fired, when they were discovered. Sometimes, people think it's funny to give blatantly false names on the card, and some people wanted to disrupt the process, so they did this on purpose. In any case, where we could identify forms that looked suspicious, we would set them aside and turn them in with a note to the county that we thought that they were false. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone knows the starting line-up of the Dallas Cowboys, so I'm sure there were some that got past us. It was not in our interest to register non-existent people - the purpose was to register real people, to encourage them to become involved in our civic process and to turn them out on election day - which is what the McCain campaign is really worried about it. The rich and elite in this country have benefited from low voter turn-out and suppressed civic engagement. If we really wanted these things and if they were really concerned about false registrations, they would make registration mandatory and automatic for citizens like many other countries do. Here's a nice video done by ACORN to set the record straight, it's only a few minutes long so check it out:



BTW, I'm proud to say that because of ACORN training, myself and several other women have been working over the past year to promote civic engagement in adult ed classrooms in the metro area - and we registered some folks to vote too. We've passed the deadline for registration in this state, but if you are registered, please make sure to go and vote. It's important.

Bats

There are bats in my parking garage. I saw one last Friday hanging from the metal grid that encloses the staircase. Initially, I was thrilled. I'm always excited to see urban wildlife (that is wildlife that is not rats) and the parking garage is new, so I was enthused that they were already warming up to it. And bats are especially great with their appetites for bugs and mosquitoes. But Monday morning as I walked down, I saw that the bat had died. It had fallen to the ground right below where it had been hanging. When I got into the office a co-worker suggested that I call the health department, so I did call the Animal Control division and they assured me that they would come out and check it out for rabies or west nile. Now I'm sort of freaked out. I had resisted moving to the parking garage since I hate them anyway, and I already was taking the stairs since I'm not so thrilled with the claustrophobic elevators. Now I've somewhat convinced myself that there is a coven of rabid bats haunting the garage waiting for me in the stairwell. This has seriously upset the only exercise I really was doing (walking down from the 9th or 10th floor and walking up a couple of floors before catching the elevator). Then again, maybe they aren't in the stairwell, but amassed in the elevator, waiting for me to close the doors before they swoop down. Probably it hasn't helped that I'm watching Trueblood, with it's creepy bat montage in the open sequence. So help me get over my irrational bat fear, folks so I can get back to the stairs.

Final Days Of Summer

It's fall already, and it's felt like fall for awhile, given the lack of oppressive heat that summer usually brings us and all the back to school business. But these last few days of summer have brought out the inner squirrel in me. Last weekend, I decided I needed to do something to mark the end of the season so Mom and I put up a bunch of pints of Jason's mom's pepper sauce. This may or may not be the fabled sauce of Miss Dixie, Jason's childhood neighbor, I suspect it is, since it has more of her hallmarks than Kathy's, in any case, it is a delicious sauce. This isn't something I do every year, but I really love the taste of it on beans (black eyed peas, pintos, butter beans, and the like), and the recipe is easy (well, I have to use gloves for the hot peppers, but other than that it's easy) and putting up a dozen pints really doesn't take that much time, especially when Mom is is there to lead my through it.

I had plenty of tomatoes left over (since I lost my battle with the evil squirrels, I had to buy a peck at the farmer's market and we only used half for the pepper sauce). And I was desperately in need of another can of olive oil, so the logical thing was to pick some at Viviano's along with some buffalo mozzarella and make a big sloppy caprice salad. I love so many things about Viviano's. The price of olive oil is astronomical (I can remember when it was about $12-$15 for a 3L can not that long ago), I was
dithering between a new can that they had predominately displayed for about 5$ less than my normal Celio brand. In the checkout I point to the new brand and ask "Am I going to be happy with this?" The two people behind the counter (one has been working there for more years than I've been coming to the store) say without hesitation, in unison and with a tone that is definitive: "no", I scoot out and exchange it for the Celio and the long standing employee looks at me with approval and tells me that's what she always uses. I exit Viviano's looking forward to my salad and the hunk of Marconi's bakery bread. We are not a white bread family. I mean that literally. We don't eat white bread usually - lots of rye and whole wheat and I'm constantly guilt tripping myself over the fact that we eat too much of the processed sandwich bread that has all that corn syrup in it. But, occasionally, I like a crusty Italian style loaf and Marconi's is always perfect. We scarfed it down with the salad and then the next morning I ate it with the last of the gooseberry preserves from Sunflower Savannah a vendor at the Tower Grove Farmer's Market. I had bought this earlier this summer and I'm completely enthralled with it. We had gooseberry bushes when I was a kid and while I remember there being lots of gooseberry pie (I wasn't fond of it, but my grandparent's generation was), I have no memories of jam that tasted like this! And the color is really pretty too. Here's a picture:
I'm sorry I haven't done as much canning as I would have liked this year. It's hard to do with Nora in the house, unless there's a team looking after her, and really I always think it's going to be more labor intensive than it is.

This weekend I also got around to testing the alternative to rice crispy treats in Vegan Lunchbox. While Nora has no problems eating marshmallows and I can make them with Earth Balance instead of butter, there are a couple of people in our orbit who don't eat them due to the gelatin in marshmallows, including Jason. So I thought I'd give these a try since they use corn syrup & peanut butter (I subbed soynut butter) instead. I make the jumped up version with chocolate chips. Once I got over that these were not rice crispy treats, I actually liked them and Jason and Nora gave them two thumbs up too. Nora has taken to calling these "Snack". They are way sweet (they are after all listed in the dessert section) and they tasted quite a bit like store bought quaker granola bars as well as a treat Mom made for us when we were kids - Special K bars. The soynut butter/chocolate combo is a real winner and I like the crispiness of the rice crispies. I think I will make them again and add oats as well and try to find the brown puffed rice that the recipe originally suggested.

Finally here are the lunchboxes from this week so far:This is my lunch from Monday, Jason had a similar one, but I didn't get a photo: blackeyed peas with tomatoes and spinach (Sunday's leftovers), turkey sausage (Jason had the last of the cornbread muffins instead), a pluot, and we both had a side of Snack. I also sampled one of Nora's Vanilla Silk pouches and it was actually good (I'm not a huge fan of the regular Silk, but I find the Chocolate quite tolerable as well). Here's Nora's lunch from today:
Macaroni and meat sauce, carrot sticks and zuchini stars and hearts with hummus dip, a pack of raisins, and Vanilla Silk pouch. I'm suffering from some guilt because I forgot to include my usually notes in her lunch.

That's all for today, but I did want to remind folks about the Strange Folk Festival this weekend. Go check it out!

Weekend Update

This past weekend, Matt came to visit. He and Nora hit it off. And Karl picked up his Matt-worship right where he left off when Matt moved back to DC several years ago. This caused some jealousy on Nora AND Karl's part when Matt gave some attention to the other (as far as I can tell, Matt was not jealous of Nora's adoration of Karl, but maybe I was wrong). You can see, sitting next to Matt is a much valued position.
Often Nora would attempt to get up between Karl and Matt, but climbing on top of Matt was even better:

Matt's visit got us out of the house, much to Nora's delight. We went to the Farmers Market where I bought a cute purse from the St. Louis Craft Mafia booth.
I admit that I initially thought Nora needed this purse, but then I decided to appropriate it. It's a little too big for her, but just right for my wallet, keys, and sunglasses. I wish it had a little pocket inside though. There's an apple on the back as well. I feel very "first day of school" when carrying it. We also picked up one of Companion Bread's Mystery Boxes. These are a big box of pastry goods for $15. It was delicious, but really we needed more people than the three of us to get it eaten. Inside we had a chocolate croissant, several plain croissants, several danishes, muffins and scones. About 8-10 items all together. Very, very yummy.

After the Farmers Market we headed to O'Connell's, a favorite haunt of Matt's (and ours). We feasted on roast beef, burgers and fried yummy things and a pitcher of beer - O'Fallon Weach (possibly one of the best deals at O'Connell's).
Nora was very good throughout the long wait, and we kept the tiger nearby to remind her that next we were going to the ZOO!!!!!

Unbelievably, Matt never visited the zoo throughout his time here and as everyone knows it's one of our favorite places to go. It was a really hot day, which should not have been surprising for August, but we had been really spoiled with mild weather all month long. After hitting the the Rivers Edge (sorry we forgot photos) and seeing the Rhino and the Cheetas up close (all four of them where right up front) and glimpses of the Jade the baby elephant, we headed off to see if our luck would hold and if the baby tigers were out. Disappointingly, they were not, although Jason and Nora and I had gotten a great view of them on our earlier visit. We did check out sea lions, the bird house, the big cat country and then meandered back through the snake house, which I haven't seen in a while. The American alligator was giving us a wicked grin when we decided we really had had enough of the heat and that we needed to head home.

That night, Jason and Matt brought us carryout from Cherrokee Street, and it too was terriffic. Nora and I went to bed and the boys stayed up to late talking, which no doubt they regretted when they got up at the crack of dawn and took Nora to see Tottenham vs Chelsea at the Tigin. I stayed at home and read a book.

Before Matt took off back home we tried to visit some of his old haunts, but it's hard to find things open in STL on a Sunday morning. We had lunch at the Schafly Brewhouse and then took Matt to the airport. Since he left, Nora's been asking about him everyday, so we'd better not wait so long to see him again - it's hard to believe it's been nearly 6 years!

On Monday we hit the Japanese Festival and ate noodles. It was wonderful, but I'm really happy we went early, since by noon it was sweltering and very, very crowded. We forgot the camera, so no pictures of the festival but here's Nora's lunch from Tuesday: Mac and Peas, oranges, cookies and juice.


Unfortunately, Nora is reaching the stage where mixed up things are no longer acceptable. While she loves Mac and soy cheese and loves peas, they now need to be in separate dishes. I'm sad, they looked so nice together.

This is Not a Soccer Blog

Nevertheless, I give you this photo of Jason because it makes him happy.

This was taken during his man-date with some soccer cultural blogger who was road tripping across the US on his way to grad school. Inexplicably, Jason is not wearing Spurs gear, despite the intent of going to this sign to take a photo and despite the grad student/soccer culture blogger being an Arsenal fan. I would have thought that was a perfect opportunity to "support the team", but Greece got the shout out that day.

Look For Me On TV

I just got interviewed by the Weather Channel while walking back from lunch. I was with Laura and she shoved me in font of the camera when the reporter asked to speak to us. They wanted to know what I thought of St. Louis weather. Yeah, I said it was hot. Fascinating television, I know. They seemed to think it was more of a story than I did. I guess standing on the street in 100+ degree temperature, lugging a 25lb camera for hours while trying to talk to folks as they scurry from building to building might make you think it is indeed hotter than usual, but to me this is just St. Louis in the summer.

Now I'm really glad I bothered to put on makeup today... if only I wasn't wearing a maternity shirt from two years ago and sporting a giant zit on my chin. Advice to you all - look smart, you never know where the Weather Channel might be lurking. You'd thinking watching all of those ambush makeover shows would have made me more conscious of this.

Tomatorama

This past week has been full of tomatoes. I picked up several from a guy with a truck on Broadway, and then the next day I was presented with some more, along with some squash grown by Ted and Linda via Mom, and then I couldn't help myself and bought still more (heirlooms this time) from the local gardeners at the Tower Grove Farmers Market. So what did I do with all of these? First there was the ragout with tomatoes and zucchini over grillled polenta, then there was the tomato, kasha, and cheese stuffed zucchini, then there was another ragout of tomatoes, zucchini, white beans and eggplant over more polenta (baked this time), and finally I experimented with my first crepes and stuffed them with fontina, sunflower sprouts and those heirloom tomatoes. Nora even got some in her tofu-cheese quesadillas. We ate it all so fast, I never remembered to take photos. While I'm temporarily out of them, I can't say I'm done with tomatoes though - there are still plans for BLTs or maybe just plain tomato sandwiches, Jason wants some gazpocho, I need to make some of Miss Dixie's Hot Sauce, I'd like to replicate this great fattoush salad I got in Michigan, and well I could eat more in just about any form. If I haven't gotten enough, I think we might have to attend the Iron Barley Tomato Fest later this month. I love August. A Big Thanks to all of you farmers out there with your magnificent produce -especially the tomatoes!

Grocery Store Happiness

Isn't usually an emotion I feel. It's more like grocery store annoyance or grocery store irritability - despite that fact that I like to shop and I like to eat. Lately I've been extremely annoyed because I'm reading more ingredient lists on my food and suddenly I don't want to eat that food anymore. The most recent case was when I bought some turkey sausage for Nora and me and then was extremely annoyed to find that it had whey in it (off limits for Nora) and then after I read everything else, I was sure that I didn't want to eat it either! What with the absence of soy cheese and yogurt products at Schnucks and my already aware state about our meat industry (made worse by everyone reading The Omnivore's Dilemma in my orbit) I have not been too happy at the grocery store lately.

But then I visited the Local Harvest Grocery on Morganford. This place is small but awesome. Local meat (not necessarily organic - but hormone free and grass fed), soy products galore and other organic/healthy food also. And it is so much closer than running out west to shop for those specialty items. I'm happy again. Please go and support it! They even have sandwiches/coffee/sweet rolls for when you just need a quick nosh. Yum!

In the Park

This weekend we went to the Shakespeare festival in Forest Park with Todd and Natascha. Despite the heat, a lovely time was had by all. Natascha and Todd had brought a yummy yummy picnic that we contributed some wine, cheese and bread to and Nora did her best to flip over all of the containers to feed the absent Karl. Or maybe that's just how she views eating - stick food in mouth, dump bowl over, repeat, sometimes with out that first step or with the added step of opening mouth and letting food fall out. It makes for a delightful meal.



The play this year was Much Ado About Nothing, but set in the Old West. Once we got over the strange (but very necessary) disoriented feeling of having all of the actors miked over the loudspeaker and the whole gunslinger atmosphere, we settled down and enjoyed the play. Nora's favorite part was the Hey Nonney, Nonney song (she's got a thing for guitars - maybe she'll have her own garage band one day).

Three of us had to leave after the first two acts. Someone was sleepy (okay, really all of us were sleepy, but one of us HAD to go to bed), but fortunately the two of us who were still following the play had read it before or seen the Emma Thomson version, so we knew the ending, and didn't have to call T & N for a recap.


All in all, much fun, and it was sort of nice to get out and do something adult-ish and still bring the kiddo along too.

Possibly the best part was that the next day, Nora slept into the unheard of hour of 9:00! Absolutely the best Father's Day gift ever (and I got to share in it too!)

Zoo Two

Here's some more pictures from this weekend. Sadly, I have none(!) from Todd and Natascha's fabulous slide show party. But here are some more from the zoo and throughout the weekend.

Here's Nora and Zelda finally making use of that crib! They got on so well and Zelda was a peach for playing so nicely with and keeping an eye on Nora.


We got out and about by use of my parents van, which made me accept that if we ever have another child, a minivan would be an necessity.


Bob, Sarah and Zelda at the zoo - I am totally sad that I didn't dig up my cowgirl hat to join in the fun. I don't know if you can tell from this photo, but Z's hat also includes a tiara!



Here's Zelda and a friendly penguin. It was a busy day at the zoo and I'm amazed we were able to get this close to the tank and I was able to snap the photo without someone walking through.



And then we fizzled out on picture taking and we didn't get much else of the weekend. But in addition to the afore mentioned slide show party (check out Todd blog for the lowdown) there were also waffles, sausage, beer, Thai food, a run through the water jets at Tower Grove park, some tag playing, lots, and lots, and lots of commentary on Karl, (finally, Nora found another member for her Karl fan club in Zelda) not enough chocolate (Merbs closed too early), Ted Drews (that's a DOUBLE chocolate, mocha, heath bar, please), Buffy, and quite a bit of lazing around and napping. Oh and there was some talking too (that's a given).

It was a really nice visit and I was shocked to realize that it had been TWO years since we last got together. We won't wait so long again!

Gray Day

This is from a gray day last week. I shot it while stopped at the stop light so it's not the best, but I sort of like the look of the Arch in the against the gray clouds and behind the gray stone of the Old Cathedral. This week it's been positively summer. All heat and not a cloud in the sky. Looking forward to the weekend!

Arrgh, where did I put that cable?

It's been forever since I posted, my apologies. I've had the best intentions, I've been carrying around the camera for several days now, and today I finally realized that while I have the camera, I have no cable. So no pictures to share unless I dig up one of the old ones.

Nora is doing well. Jason and I have been under the weather for a couple of days as has the weather itself. We seem to be getting nothing but April showers still in May. And I am mourning the loss of our local NPR affiliate's weatherman, Ben Abell. He's retired as of last week. His final broadcast was typical of Ben, just the facts, no goodbyes. He is the only weatherman to admit that the weather conditions are just too complicated to explain in the time allotted. Now we have some impersonal national weather service feed. Ben, we miss you.

Kitchen Redux

As I mentioned below, we moved around the kitchen last weekend - and it seems like we have lots more space. The pottery wheel/island was in front of the stove and the pantry shelves were split up. One was on the wall next to the sink and the other where the fridge is now. Next to the fridge is a little vintage cabinet. For the most part, I've loved living in the old city houses despite the sometimes cramped quarters and outdated kitchens, because, I can actually move them around and reconfigure them in different ways. My favorite kitchen was in the little shotgun house on Missouri. It had an old iron sink with built in drainboard and only built in cabinets above and below the sink, sort of like the more modern version in our house now. Also like in the kitchen now, that one had the built in butlers pantry with glass fronted doors. That pantry and the entire kitchen was half again the size of our current one and despite the bad paint job (why do so many landlords go though that sponge paint stage?) it was my all time favorite kitchen due to the abundance of light and the lack of built in cabinets. Our current kitchen was not the draw for me when we took this apartment, but increasingly, its growing on me.

Zoo Visit

One of those weeks...

So I've been trying all day to upload some video, and for some reason google video isn't playing nice right now, so I have no video to share with you, but I promise you it would have been really cool. I really shouldn't be surprised, nothing this week is going as smoothly as it should, but that's the way it sometimes is.

It's sort of been odd downtown today. The NRA, with its billboards for Acres of Guns, is visiting our fair city. It's the largest convention since the Red Hat Ladies and possibly just as visible. Everywhere there have been NRA hats, badges and vests. It also seems that security is much higher - which is sort of odd, since that is one of their selling points. I don't know if I feel more or less secure on my way back to the parking lot which is right next to the convention center.

So if anyone needs an automatic weapon, come on down...