Author Archives: Virtual Farmgirl

Photo by Quinn Dombrowski via Flickr. On Saturday I did something that made me very sad. I canceled our Chicago Tribune subscription. It was a decision, even in the midst of Saturday’s unfortunate confrontation with a particularly nasty “customer service” rep, that was pretty hard to make. We’d had this subscription since 1996, not longContinue reading “Why I Canceled My Chicago Tribune Subscription or Customer Service Is Dead”

Earth Day ’09: The Children of Irving My son fell down on the playground yesterday and skinned his knee pretty badly. When he told me about the fall, the next thing out of his mouth was, “I can’t wait until we have some green out there.” It took me a minute to understand what heContinue reading “All He Wants Is a Softer Landing”

I just love this video. I’ve never met this fellow, but after I found him on the Interwebs (thanks Google), he helped me and Sim grill up some Coho salmon the other night. Ages ago, I bought Sim some cedar planks for grilling fish. We’d never used them until, at my son’s request, we gotContinue reading “Howdy. Here's How I Grilled Coho Salmon on a Cedar Plank”

Our Trees. Photo by Hoosier Outsider. My dad has been waxing nostalgic lately and this time is doing so while armed with photographic evidence. I can’t tell you how eager I’ve been for this day. So I’m sure there will be some embarrassment (for me) in some of his Facebook posts and e-mails. He wasContinue reading “Loggers Not Welcome Here: This Is Our Tree”

This is take two of our experimentation with Anupy Singla’s new book, The Indian Slow Cooker. We had so much success with our first dish, we were eager to try something new. Here’s what I learned: A. It’s really important to have the right ingredients. B. Sometimes it’s OK to improvise. C. This cookbook isContinue reading “For Lunch Today, Tomorrow and Maybe the Next”

Pawpaw & seeds. Photo cdresz on Flickr. Here’s a local, edible fruit that I’ve not heard of in a long time: the pawpaw, aka, Hoosier banana or the poor man’s banana. A long time ago, I’d heard that these odd mango-looking fruits – the largest native to America – were edible. But until this week,Continue reading “It's Pawpaw Harvest Time. How Will You Celebrate this American Original?”

I’m not quite ready to say I’m now a fan of arugula, but I think I’m slowly acquiring a taste for it. I know I like it in pesto form. There’s only so much pasta tossed with pesto in a week though, so I’ve been dreaming up new ways to use up the tub IContinue reading “Arugula Pasta, Pizza & Omelets. Enough Already”

  At first I thought that our big elm, one of a pair in our backyard, was just in need of some TLC. We’d already pruned it back once, hoping the thinning would do the old girl some good. We’d still have plenty of shade and winter wind cover. Then we were hit by thatContinue reading “Sad to Say Goodbye to My Shade Elm”

Updated: Until a comment on my post about my CSA share – and the things I disliked in it – I had no idea that arugula could be made into pesto. I’m getting pretty good at whipping things into some form of pesto – cilantro, basil and whatever other herbs I can toss in, plusContinue reading “Arugula Pesto? Don't Mind if I Do”

I’m hoping that I’ve just been cooking all wrong with turnips and that there is some recipe out there that will make these bitter root veggies into something I can enjoy. That’s because I got a beautiful bunch of them in our CSA box this week. And even though I really don’t like turnips andContinue reading “Turnips Are Just Not My Thing, But I'm Still Trying”