Fire Escape Farm

The rain in NYC has finally been useful for something.  It looks like beautiful  jewels on the leaves of my Fire Escape Farm.

 

A few weeks ago, I purchased an Earth Box.  Adding pounds of heavy, wet, organic soil…and fertilizer…and dolomite…was fun, kind of.  Luckily I had a gorgeous helper.  🙂  We named her Eartha Kitt.

 

This is her blanket which prevents her from getting weeds.  Ingenious.

 

And here she is freshly planted.  From the back row, left to right:  basil, patio tomatoes, and cauliflower.  Front row:  jelly melon (no idea), marigolds for biological insect repellant, and strawberries.

 

Eartha Kitt’s best child is…the cauliflower.  It may take over Brooklyn.

 

Note the jelly melon ladder grip device.  He made that all by himself.

 

From scrawny…

 

To sensational.

 

One small step towards really beautiful and really delicious…real food.

XXX,

SCB 🙂

This post is part of Fight Back Fridays hosted by Food Renegade.

Stumptown Downtown

Thank the Franks.  This is GREAT coffee and I’m not easily impressed.   I first sampled the brew at the Court Street Cafe Pedlar and learned about the beans from the well-informed staff.  They are fairly traded (some are direct trade which is even better), ethically and responsibly grown.  Not all are organic, but there’s lots of red tape and high price tags involved in the organic certification process and that’s out of reach to many of these small farmers.  And these small farms and micro batches are what yield these amazing cups.  Prices are a bit higher but I feel I’m supporting a great global cause.  🙂

 

Stumptown Coffee is being freshly brewed at the Brooklyn Flea which was held today as a sunny Sunday version under the Brooklyn Bridge.  These boys know what they’re doing.

 

Freshly ground coffee and HOT water – what else does one want in life.  Except for some really good milk, preferably raw, but that’s a future post.  😉

 

Lots of lovely things to look at and take home from the Brooklyn Flea -art and jewelry, collectibles and clothing.  But strolling around with my good friend and a cup of Stumptown…I had everything I needed.

XXX,

SCB

Farm-Fresh Fantasy

 Fauglia, Tuscany, Italy  ♥       Summer, 2007

Well hello SCB fans…do I still have any?  Mike?  Dad!?  🙂  I haven’t blogged because I’ve had little to say and didn’t want to waste anyone’s time. 

Back to the present…here are the things I’m interested in these days:

• Cooking
• Gardening
• Buddhism/meditation
• Healthy living
• Great books/great films

 

Here’s what I know how to do:

• Film Production

 

So…where does that leave a girl?  If I ever made a big life change, I’d move to a farm where I could do EVERYTHING on the first list and NOTHING on the second list. 

I would live on my own home-grown food (like Michele O!) and drink raw milk all day long (does anyone have a Brooklyn hook up for this?  It’s like trying to get crack delivered).  I would have enough money from my distant relatives in outer space to pay people to work/hangout on the farm.  We would all live together surrounded by our beautiful land and spend evenings around our huge rustic wood table eating our delicious dirt candy, drinking and laughing…indoors by the fire on chilly nights with lots of candlelight and fresh flowers everywhere – and outside in the summer, under the old oak trees, just around dusk, with the fireflies lighting us up (my favorite of all flying things). 

 I would sleep like a baby and wake up with the sun to meditate on my soft cushion, followed by a nice workout before my breakfast of still-warm freshly laid eggs and um…imported Italian coffee. (Hopefully the eggs aren’t the only freshly laid things).  I would take a hot, fragrant bath with petals and herbs from my cutting garden and then use some all-natural beauty products, although I wouldn’t really need them given my constant glow of well being.

AM I DREAMING?  Or could I do this??  People have done this.  Even people who live in Brooklyn…have just up and DONE THIS!  I’ll keep thinking.

 In the meantime…if you like any of the things on my list…leave me a comment and inspire me for future blog posts.

SCB  xxx

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I don’t blog too much these days.  I could blame it on my boyfriend, my job, my Netflix account…all good things that keep me busy and entertained.

But the truth is, I’m just lazy!  And that not only keeps me from blogging, it also improves my quality of life.  Lately I’ve noticed how many appliances I have doing things for me…and I love it!!

 

Take for example my beautiful, digital, ridiculously expensive, completely automatic espresso maker.  I start each day with 2 shots from this masterpiece while praying to the Gods of Caffeine that it never stops working.

 

With that kind of coffee habit, clean teeth are important and so easy with my electric toothbrush that not only illustrates applying the brush to the tooth (in case I get confused), but it smiles when I’ve completed my 2-minute job!  I’ve made it happy! 

 

Into the bedroom and the King of Supple Skin…my fantastic Korean humidifier!  I’ve had MANY humidifiers over the years and I’m not easily impressed.  But this one…this is the HE-MAN of humidifiers.  Get yourself a BuBang and never go back.

And lastly – the piece de resistance, the appliance that all my other appliances are jealous of…my Roomba robot.  I call him Ralphie.  I’m fascinated by his maneuverings and his courage going where no (wo)man has gone before.  I never fail to smile (like my toothbrush) when Ralphie’s finished and ready for a recharge. Off he goes back to his dock (how does he know where it is?!?) gets in, plays a happy little tune and calls it a day.  I am lazily overcome with joy.

XXX

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sugar Cookie…

 

…Brooklyn wishes everyone a sweet 2009!!   xxxx  🙂