joy of juicing or blending

After we watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead on Netflix, Peter has been making juice for our breakfast. Joe Cross had suffered chronic urticaria for about 9 years before he has decided to go on 60-day juicing diet eating nothing but green juice. I had suffered a bad case of idiopathic chronic urticaria as well earlier this year. The disease made me miserable. I am so thankful when my condition had finally improved and I am now completely hives free. It is wonderful to be healthy!

We don't have a proper juicer so we have been blending our vegetables and fruits with our Vitamix blender. The taste may not be as clean as a proper juicer but the fiber content is good for us. What went into the juice this morning were: 

• swiss chard from farmer's market
• apple and celery from Adams
• carrots from Obercreek Farm
• parsley from our garden

Delicious! Thanks to Peter who has been juicing for our health for a month now! He even overcomes his obstacle of getting up early in the mornings on the days when I commute into NYC to give us a healthy start in the morning. What a wonderful husband! Such a simple joy!

joy from our fig trees

tiny fig trees in April 2013

same trees with figs - Aug 2013

We purchased three small fig trees this year from Edible Landscaping. When the trees arrived in April, they were quite small as you can see from the photo on the left. We were not expecting them to be fruitful for a couple of years. Surprisingly, we have now over 20+ figs between the three trees in just 4 months later. I wonder if it is due to the compost that we have added to the pots when we transplanted them. Simple joy from our fig trees!

VA Hospital - appreciation party

2013 Appreciation Party

Peter and LuLu have been volunteering through Good Dog Foundation since 2010. After we have moved back to Hudson Valley, they have been going to VA Hospital to visit patients regularly. Last Friday, there was an appreciation party for all the volunteers. Aren't those wonderful people and dogs that volunteer their times? LuLu had better luck than her mama. She actually won a raffle and got some wonderful new toys and dog treats that were prepared with love by one of the volunteer. What a lucky dog!

Below is a photo of LuLu's official badge when she volunteered at Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan. I can't help smiling everytime when I see this photo. LuLu (Dog) Liu!

LuLu's badge @ Beth Israel Hospital

tomato mozzarella salad with arugula and pesto

tomato mozzarella salad with arugula

We have signed up for CSA (community supported agriculture) this year with Obercreek Farm. As we are just a family of three (two people plus a dog), we chose the half-share option which allowed us to pick up the vegetables from the farm every other week.

Last Wednesday, we got fresh tomatoes, arugula, a huge bunch of basil and many other vegetables. Then we stopped by Adams Fairacre Farm afterward to pick up fresh mozzarella cheese and some meats.

After a bite into the vine riped tomatoes, I can finally understand why people are so crazy about summer tomatoes and why people like Alice Waters kept emphasizing eating local. The flesh of vine riped tomato is so fresh and sweet. With our vegetables from Obercreek, I have made this wonderful summer salad. I am definitely signing up for Obercreek again next year.

Recipe: adapted from The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

• some ripe tomatoes, sliced
• fresh mozzarella, sliced
• some arugula
• salt (sea salt or kosher salt) & black pepper
• extra-virgin olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• pesto or chopped fresh basil

1. Wash and spin dry arugula. Lay the arugula on a plate.
2. Place sliced tomatoes on arugula.
3. On top of tomatoes, place sliced mozzarella cheese.
4. Scoop a little bit of pesto on top of mozzarella. You can also substitute pesto with chopped basil leaves.
5. Drizzle a little bit of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and black pepper on the salad.
6. Allow the salad to sit for about 10 minutes for flavors to blend in. 

jealousy

These two weeks, we have LuLu's best friend (or boyfriend as some would say), Stanley, staying with us while his family is on vacation. LuLu and Stanley have known each other since they were half a year old. They get along pretty well in general. I am surprised that they have stopped fighting for food.

However, it was hilarious to watch LuLu getting jealous of Stanley. Sometimes while I gave Stanley a back rub, LuLu would come and gently (or sneakily) push her way on me so that she conveniently positioned herself between Stanley and me. So it is true that dogs have emotions like human - in this case, jealousy.

It is wonderful to have Stanley as our guest.

chirashi lunch from Tsushima

Tsushima's chirashi 

If you love sashimi, good value, and you are in midtown Manhattan on a Tuesday morning, head out to Tsushima on 47th Street. It offers chirashi lunch for $16 on Tuesdays. If you are able to grab a seat before noon, you will get the additional benefit of happy hour price of $13 for the same bowl of chirashi. The assortment of fresh fishes are arranged on top of seasoned rice. Hmm... delicious! My favorite pieces are salmon and salmon roes. What are yours? The restaurant gets filled up very quickly. So get there early! 

something to look forward to

This year I will be crossing another decade milestone. I remembered I was so depressed as I crossed the last decade. There was this impending dread as if something bad was going to happen the day that I crossed it. But everything was normal just like the previous decade. This time around I am not as anxious as before. It is because I have something to look forward to.

my anniversary present - rasied garden bed

zucchini sprouts

This year, Peter has built a raised garden bed for me as our anniversary present. I have planted some vegetable seeds and a couple of tomato plants from Adams. Nothing really grew. At first, I thought that I have planted too late (late in May). Three months have gone by and we had just gotten a handful of sugar snap peas and one zucchini. My dentist told me to give him the surplus sugar snap peas. All I could say was that we harvested TWELVE pea pods - that would be six each for Peter and me. He then just laughed and told me to get myself a green thumb. After 3 months, shiso leaves and carrots are still tiny like seedlings. One tomato plant bore some green tomatoes and the other one had a couple of flowers. So needless to say, I was a bit disappointed. It turned out that the soil for the garden bed was not right - it looked more like mulch than a combination of soil and compost.

I have dug in some garden soil and planted mustard greens and bok choys last week as my Fall crops. They have sprouted and are looking healthy. Perhaps we will get some vegetables from our garden in the Fall after all. I will just need to make sure the worms do not clean them out.

At the end of this season, I am going to mix in some cow manure and compost into my garden to prepare for next year's growing season. I have plans to start seedlings indoor in January. Even though January and February are very cold here in Hudson Valley, I will have fun growing projects to look forward to! Next year I am going to do better with my vegetable gardening!

full house

This is the week before Labor Day week. A lot of people we know are traveling before school starts in September. We have Stanley (an Australian Silky-Hair Terrier) with us for two weeks as his family is traveling in Southeast Asia. In the next day or two, we will get two Beta fishes from two different families that are going on vacations. These two fishes will need to be in different locations of house so that they don't get stressed out by each other. We will also need to help one family with caring of indoor plants. With LuLu, Stanley, and two fishes, it will be a full house!