Music and Cats

Normally, I have nothing to do with fresh tomatoes this time of year. The tomatoes one sees around here in May are either hard, flavorless pink golf balls, or fancy, overpriced imports shipped from who-knows-where. And yet, as I write this, I am happily devouring a small handful of sweet, ripe local cherry tomatoes.

Fresh. Local. Tomatoes. In Seattle. In May. How is this possible?

Not ten minutes ago, my petite serving of tomatoes was still on the stem. For almost three weeks, this tomato plant has occupied (quite literally) the front row seat in our southwesterly bay window. In the past ten days, I’ve harvested a couple dozen luscious crimson orbs. They ripen a few at a time, and one plant is great for the person who wants several tomatoes every other day or so. (Paul doesn’t like raw tomatoes, nor do the cats, so these are all mine!)

Before the tomato plant came to live with us, it was raised in a greenhouse in Sequim (pronounced Skwim), WA. This lady and her husband raise tomato plants and worms. They grow the tomato plants in the worm castings, which they also use to make worm tea, a better drink for your thirsty plants than for you. Do they feed their worms tomatoes? If so, lucky worms!

You can buy your own tomato house plant at the Ballard Farmers Market.

I have few vivid memories of my first couple of years of grade school, but this is one: my teacher pours some cream into a jar, and screws the lid on tight. She shakes the jar for a few seconds; the cream sloshes. Shifting the jar to her other hand, she shakes it a bit more. She passes the jar to one of my classmates, who shakes the jar a few times, then hands it on to someone else. The jar moves around the classroom, with each child taking a turn. Some kids shake gently a couple of times; others agitate the jar as hard and fast as their six-year-old arms can manage. The cream expands. When it’s my turn, the thickened cream fills the jar, and it doesn’t seem to move when I shake it. A couple minutes later, in someone else’s hands, something changes; there is liquid sloshing in the jar again. Our teacher takes the jar, and shakes it hard for another minute or two. She opens the lid, and drains off the liquid. There’s an irregular lump left in the bottom of the jar. Using the back of a spoon, she presses more liquid from the lump, then turns it out into a small bowl. This does not look like anything I know. She opens a package of saltine crackers, and spreads a small amount of the ivory substance onto a cracker for each of us. We bite into the crackers together. Butter! And we made it!

When I began looking for local foods, I had no luck finding butter that is locally produced, from local milk. But Smith Brothers Farms sells cream from their herd. I could make my own butter, just like in first grade. I ordered a half pint with our first delivery.

I pour the half pint of cream into a pint canning jar, and screw the lid on tight. I shake the jar with my right hand hand, then my left, then both. Then my right again. And my left. Over my head. Up and down. Side to side. Eight minutes later, I no longer feel any liquid shoshing around. I open the lid. Whipped cream completely fills the jar. I scoop out a quarter cup, and replace the lid. More shaking. Several minutes pass slowly, and then the magic happens; the whipped cream begins to separate into butter and buttermilk. A few minutes later, I’m looking at a lump of fresh butter in a pool of buttermilk.

I haven’t eaten a saltine cracker in years. But each time that I spread a bit of this butter on a slice of toast, or melt it in a frying pan, I have a flash of the same feeling that I had almost 40 years ago. Butter! And I made it!

You can learn more about making your own butter without a churn, and see photos of the entire process.

On our anniversary, my sweetheart gave me this perfect yellow rose. I placed the rose in a vase. I got my camera. I set the vase on the windowsill in our bedroom.

Sasha wanted to smell the rose.

And Sergei? He wanted to eat it. I took this photo just moments before he bit into one of the small leaves, and attempted to pull to rose out of the vase. Fortunately, I caught the vase - a wedding present - before it hit the floor. Rose and vase are now safe on the mantle.

Every animal comes out smelling like a rose at the Friday Ark. Stop to smell the flowers at the Carnival of the Cats, at Niobium on Sunday.

… years with my love.

What’s missing? Oh, yes… (more…)