the garden: fall planting

The other day, Tony was lamenting back-to-school time and summer's imminent departure. "It seems like summer just started," he told me. 

Um, no. See, he drives to work. For those of us who walk to the Metro every day, it seems to me like summer, the incessant 90-degree temperatures and the wretched humidity have over-stayed their welcome. Bring on autumn breezes and light jackets. 

So I'm happy to report that I've officially declared this to be "late summer," which is when you put fall vegetables in the ground. The cool season crops that you plant in the spring also do well in the fall. 

Tony and I usually have a salad with dinner, so I planted four different kinds of lettuce and one spinach. And I get a kick out of picking radishes, so I planted three different types. 

I always have had good luck with Botanical Interests' Freckles romaine, so I'm planting a ton of it. I've had fairly good luck with Burpee's Black Seeded Simpson, so I'm trying it again. The Burpee Big Ruffles Hybrid spinach got eaten by bugs when I planted it in the ground in the spring, so I'm planting it in a pot this fall to see if that works better. And I got two kinds of lettuce from my dad, which I'm trying for the first time: Botanical Interests' Speckles butterhead and some sort of baby romaine. (Lettuce seed packets have about 10 billion seeds in each one, but you only need a seed or two in each hole, so they're good for sharing with, like, your 100 closest friends.) 

As for radishes, the Burpee Cherry Belle did well for me in the spring, so I'm planting it again. Plus, I'm trying some new fancy pants kinds: Botanical Interests' French Breakfast and NK's White Icicle. 

By the way, I love those garden label sticks (which were a present from my parents) to help me remember which variety I planted where. 

Let's talk containers. I have most of my summer vegetables in terra cotta pots, which are great for amateurs like me because the clay absorbs excess water, so it's hard to kill your plants by overwatering them. But that's not such a good quality to have in the wintertime because the excess moisture in the pots will expand when it freezes, and the pots will crack. So, I planted some of my cool-season vegetables directly in the ground, in between the summer plants that I'll have to take out when the weather turns -- and the rest I have in indestructible plastic containers. If there's a light frost, I'll try to cover the lettuce and radishes or bring the containers inside to extend their lives for a little bit. But if I forget, at least the pots won't break.

And finally, another great planting tip, which I picked up from my mom: Put a coffee filter over the holes in the bottom of your pot to make sure dirt can't escape. 

recipe: hard boiled eggs

I have perfected the hard boiled egg. The yolks turn out perfectly yellow without that green ring that forms when they're boiled for too long. And the yolks are just firm enough. 

I usually boil up a bunch of eggs on Sunday evening, and Tony and I eat them throughout the week. I'll eat an egg for a quick breakfast, or I'll dice one in a salad with dinner, or I'll have one for an evening snack. 

I give my mom 95 percent of the credit for this recipe, although I adjusted her original cooking time to 14 minutes from 15 minutes. (It seems the yolks start to turn green at 15 minutes, and they're not firm enough for my liking at 13 minutes.) 

Hard Boiled Eggs

• Desired number of eggs
• Salt 
• Water

Place eggs in an empty pot or saucepan. (Tip from my grandma, who grew up on a farm: Don't use fresh eggs. They're harder to peel.)

Sprinkle salt over the eggs. (This also helps make the eggs easier to peel.)

Add water to the pot and fill until the water line is about 1 inch above the top of the eggs.

Place pot over high heat until water comes to a rolling boil.

Take pot off of the heat, and cover. Let sit for 14 minutes. 

Drain and rinse with cool water to stop the cooking. The eggs will keep in the fridge for a week.

<3

From the archives: 

recipe: scrambled eggs

the garden: celery update 1

You were skeptical that I'd be able to grow a new celery shoots from the butt of an old stalk, weren't you? Well, I'm happy to report that Phase One of my celery experiment is going swimmingly and just as planned. (Read my first post on growing celery.)

This is how the plant looked Sunday, after sitting in a bowl of water on the patio for 12 days. (I changed the water every day or two.) The new growth looks great. The old base is starting to rot away.

Time to go in the ground. I buried the old stalk, so only the new growth is above the ground. Celery likes cool weather, so I put it in the shade of my green pepper plant, which I hope saves it from the last of the summer heat.

My two previous attempts at growing celery ended here because the plants died shortly after going into the ground. Hopefully my thumb has become more green since then. Stay tuned.

life: unstuck light bulb

And what do we have here? 

This, ladies and gentlemen, is an unstuck light bulb.

The light bulb in our downstairs bathroom burned out last night, and Tony quickly discovered that we had a stuck lightbulb situation on our hands. Which prompted yours truly to Google the phrase "stuck light bulb." Which brought me to this super helpful video from Real Simple.

Watch the video for full instructions, but the bottom line is that you make the duct tape into handles that give your turns more oomph to get the bulb unstuck. My skeptical husband is now a believer. File this tip in the Good Ideas folder.

P.S. That incandescent bulb was there when we moved in, I swear! We replaced it with a CFL.

d.c.: radon test

There is science happening in my house right now.

The D.C. Department of the Environment is giving away free radon test kits for District residents, and I sent away for one. Things I since have learned about radon:

(1) I had assumed, wrongly, that radon is a problem only in houses with basements. Apparently radon also can seep from the soil into houses that are built on crawlspaces and slabs.

(2) D.C. says radon exposure is the second-leading cause of cancer in this country. It uses phrases like "radioactive decay" and "alpha particles" and "lung cancer."

So, why not send away for a test kit? Here's what mine looked like when it came in the mail:

I now have the test sitting on the dining room table for 48 hours while it measures the air quality. The kit included an envelope that I'll use to send it back to the testing lab. (This post epitomizes responsible homeownership, doesn't it??) 

Science, do your thing.

decor: white bed linens

I'm in love with all-white beds. To me, they are classic and romantic. Clean and soft. A restful place where you want to lay down and take a nap. 

Jamie has white linens on his bed, and I love, love how it looks, and I decided I wanted to do the same thing in our second bedroom. When we moved in to our house about a year ago, I made the guest bed with mismatched sheets, pillowcases, and bedspreads that we've accumulated over the years. And over the past year, I've slowly been accumulating all the pieces for a matching bed: bedspread from Bed Bath & Beyond, quilt from my mom's linen closet, pillowcases from Marshalls, and -- finally last weekend -- shams from T.J.Maxx. 

Drum roll, please ...

(You may recognize those white sheer curtains from this post.)

The shams were the last piece of the puzzle. The first time I priced shams, my mouth dropped. Like, $50 for one nice sham? And $20 for a poorly made one? (The sham and bedspread on my own bed were a gift.)

So I stopped in my beloved T.J.Maxx last weekend to look for shams, and, lo and behold, I found some nice quilted ones for $15. I usually go into T.J.Maxx around the change of the seasons to look around. Maybe I'll find a pair of jeans. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll find a winter coat. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll find a dress to wear to a wedding. Or maybe not. But very rarely do I go into T.J.Maxx with a shopping list and find what I'm looking for. It's hit or miss. I must've been lucky last weekend.

And now the guest bed is ready and waiting for guests! 

dining out: founding farmers

This was the Weekend of Brunch. 

Tony and I had brunch Saturday at our neighbors' house and brunch Sunday at Founding Farmers with my coworker Avery and her boyfriend Nathan. And aside from brunching, Tony and I didn't do much else for the rest of the weekend. Except relax at home with some DVDs and go for some jogs (to burn some of the calories).

The decor at Founding Farmers is beautiful. It's open and modern and has a classic farmhouse vibe at the same time. And the atmosphere is always bustling. But the best compliment I can give the restaurant is that the food is reliably good. It emphasizes its sustainability efforts and the locally sourced and seasonal food on its menu, which is fantastic, but that wouldn't mean a whole lot if the food didn't taste good.    

We started the meal by sharing a bag of beignets, which were fried and greasy and sugary and warm. They tasted like something you would find at a county fair. Served with dipping sauces on the side -- my favorite was the chocolate, of course.  

Drinks made in-house: my lemonade and Avery's spicy Bloody Mary.

Tony ordered Dogs and Rolls, which are fancy pants hot dogs. His favorite was on the end, a tomato chow chow dog with fresh tomatoes, pickled onions, and sweet and sour sauce.

The D.C. location of Founding Farmers is near Foggy Bottom. There always seems to be a small crowd of people waiting for tables, so I recommend making a reservation. We made our reservation mid-week for Sunday brunch.  

<3

And while I'm on the subject of delicious food that is very, very bad for you, may I present this mint chocolate, cream-filled homemade doughnut, which one of the other guests brought to brunch Saturday at our neighbors' house. Yes. 

<3

From the archives:

entertaining: brunch on the grill

entertaining: berries and brunch

dining out: matchbox

the garden: celery

Twice I have attempted to turn the butt of a celery stalk into a whole new plant. I read on the Internet that it can be done. Twice I have failed. But I am not ready to give this experiment up. I'm too in love with the idea of growing a new celery plant from a base you'd otherwise throw away.

So I'm trying it again, using the celery base from the Bloody Marys at Sunday brunch. I have the celery in a bowl of water, and pretty soon new shoots and leaves will start growing from the middle.

Once it looks like a substantial plant, I'll put it in the ground, so only the new growth appears above the soil. Twice I have made it this far. 

I think my fatal errors in my previous attempts are related to the heat. Celery likes the cool weather. I put the first plant in direct sunlight in the height of the summer. It shriveled and died quickly. I put the second plant in the shade of a tomato plant, and it survived for a few weeks, but I think the heat took its toll. 

So I'll try again and hope the weather starts to cool down. 

dining out: granville moore's & atlas arcade

A year ago, I was boarding a train to Philadelphia with Tony, Jamie, Mike and Jen, kicking off a 30th birthday weekend celebration for Jamie that included dinner at Eric Ripert's restaurant, one too many beers, and assorted adventures befitting the transition from your 20s to your 30s. It was a grand and memorable 30th birthday celebration, a proper sendoff to Jamie's formative decade. 

Fast-forward one year, which means Jamie's 31st birthday is upon us. And, it seems to me, 31st birthday celebrations are as mature as 30th birthdays are grand. The five of us reunited for a birthday dinner at Granville Moore's, which was definitely the right locale for a grown-up birthday. 

Granville Moore's is one of the best restaurants on H Street. It's also small, and it doesn't take reservations on weekends, so it's not always easy to get a table. Maybe it was the rain that kept people at home Saturday evening, or maybe the birthday gods were on our side Saturday, because we waited just a half hour for a table. Which was just enough time to enjoy some Natty Bohs next door at the new Atlas Arcade. More on the arcade in a minute. 

The five of us held court all evening at a large table near the back of the bar. Candle light. Johnny Cash on the stereo. Food that didn't disappoint and unexpected beers that kept coming from a waitress who knows an impressive amount about Belgian beers. 

It's a Belgian restaurant, and mussels are its signature dish. Here are the bleu cheese mussels Jen ordered: 

And one of the many Belgian beer bottles that crossed our table that night:

I don't usually order dessert when we go out to eat, but, hey, Jamie only turns 31 once. I present the chocolate fudge tart that was the highlight of it all: 

<3

As I mentioned, while we were waiting for our table, the five of us ducked into Atlas Arcade, the new H Street bar where you can play classic arcade games while you enjoy your beverage. It reminded me of a smaller, slightly cramped version of Barcade, the appropriately named bar-and-arcade establishment in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. For one thing, the aforementioned Natty Bohs set the hipster tone for the bar.  

And you know what? I like Atlas Arcade. No, I love Atlas Arcade. I played Galaga for the first time in maybe seven years. When Tony and I started dating in college, we went to see a lot of movies at the local movie theater, which had a Galaga machine in the lobby. We'd show up early to movies to get in Galaga time. He taught me how to play, and over the next three years, until I graduated and moved away, I got darn good at that game. So, yes, any bar that brings back those memories, you get an A+ from Jessi. I'm sure the nostalgia is the allure for a lot of folks here.

Here's Tony, Jen and the lovely Galaga machine.  

All that said, I have somehow lost all of my Galaga skills in the past seven years. Because I made it to the second level before getting 86ed by one of those little aliens that swirl down and hit you. Which just means Tony and I will have to go back to Atlas Arcade, so I can brush up on my skills.  

decor: area rug

I love back-to-school time. I have no use for reams of notebook paper, highlighters, or dorm shower caddies. But I do have a use for inexpensive area rugs, which are plentiful this time of year. 

And why are inexpensive rugs so valued in my home? One word: Victor. 

He's so cute, isn't he? He doesn't look like a tiny furball of destruction. Two issues. First, as I've mentioned, Tony had a choice between adopting a long-haired cat and a short-haired cat. And guess which he chose. Second, we did not remove Victor's claws. And he's not very good at retracting them, so any woven surface he walks across inevitably gets snagged. 

See where I'm going with this? I love inexpensive area rugs. 

Exhibit A, which I picked up at Bed Bath & Beyond last weekend for $30. (Make that $24. Because what kind of thrifty homeowner would I be if I did not always have one of those blue 20-percent-off Bed Bath & Beyond coupons in my purse?) 

It's a 5-by-7 rug, which fits perfectly under my dining room table. I had an IKEA color-blocked rug under the table before, which was nice in theory, but we had to vacuum it every day because it showed cat hair so horribly. The new rug has texture and different shades of cream, and it does a much better job at hiding it. And when Victor inevitably snags this rug with his claws and I have to throw it away, I will not be upset. Because it cost me $24.

life: keeping godot

I've been doing a bit of spring cleaning the past couple of weeks. (I'm several months late, I know this.) And it culminated Saturday morning with Tony taking an entire carload of household goods, clothes, and books to the Goodwill in Northeast. 

Tony and I have been together for almost 10 years (!) but we've never gone through our books to get rid of our duplicates. Here he is, hard at work:  

(He's standing on a chair, by the way. We built bookshelves over the closets in the bedroom. Great space saver.)

It pains me to get rid of books, but lately I've been watching Hoarders on Netflix Instant and taking mental notes. One lady had 100 cans of Electrasol. Meanwhile, I had two sets of Harry Potter books. No one needs 100 cans of Electrasol, just like no one needs two sets of Harry Potter books, I realized. Goodbye, Harry.  

Except. We have two copies of Waiting for Godot. And Tony refused to part with one of them. "It's a ridiculous play. It's ridiculous that we would have two copies of the book. They both stay." How do you argue with that?

dining out: bacio pizzeria

Tony and I picked up some calzones from Bacio Pizzeria in Bloomingdale on Friday after work, then headed home for a night in, just the two of us. Good food. A couple episodes of Treme on DVD. Jamming to the iPod. Catching up on some reading. A nice night.  

Bacio is a cute, carry out pizza joint, and it remains one of my favorite pizza places in D.C. Mostly because of the cornmeal crust. I was in an adventurous mood Friday, so we ordered calzones instead of pizzas. 

It wasn't a perfect restaurant experience. Bacio messed up the order a bit, including putting olives in my calzone. I hate olives. Luckily, they were whole olives, not chopped up, so they were easy to pluck out. 

But it's hard to stay mad at Bacio for long. The good food makes up it. 

Bacio is a nice addition to the neighborhood for folks who live in Bloomingdale, Eckington or Shaw. It's out of the way for the rest of us, but I say it's worth the trek if you're in the mood for new, good D.C. pizza. 

<3

From the archives: 

dining out: district of pi

entertaining: brunch on the grill

After a summer of unrelenting humidity and temperatures topping 90 degrees most days, yesterday most definitely was a welcome break. The humidity and high temperatures took a vacation -- like most everything else in Washington in August in an election year. And the beautiful weather was a reminder that summer won't last forever and that fall will be here eventually. 

Tony and I spent most of the afternoon outside with Ben and Mandy on the pool deck of their apartment. We came for brunch and stayed to swim -- two of my favorite weekend things. Ben made brunch on the grill at the deck, which was fitting for the day. 

First up, grilled French toast, which was soaked in a batter that included Grand Marnier. Topped with strawberries, also mixed with Grand Marnier, and Cool Whip.  

On the side, grilled nectarines and plums, served over spiced yogurt. That's Greek yogurt, cinnamon, honey, toasted walnuts, and orange zest. 

And this watermelon wasn't grilled, but I have to mention it because this is the first watermelon I've seen in I-don't-know-how-long that actually has seeds. Ben and Mandy got it from their CSA, and I can't say that it tasted any different than seedless watermelons I buy at the grocery store, but it was nostalgic. It brought me back to my childhood, when I would eat the seeds and worry about watermelons growing in my belly.

Rounding out the meal were grilled Canadian bacon and homemade Bloody Marys. A fine meal. And before anyone realized it, it was 4 o'clock. Sunday, you were perfect.

small spaces: blanket storage

Let me introduce you to my latest storage conundrum. Blankets. 

I've been cleaning out the closet in our second bedroom and under the beds, and I've discovered that Past Jessi tucked blankets everywhere. And when I gathered them up and put them all in one place, I realized I had a storage conundrum on my hands. Where in my teeny, tiny rowhouse am I going to store a sleeping bag, three crocheted blankets, two quilts, and three blankets? (And this is after I put three blankets in the Goodwill pile.)

I was talking to my mom on the phone about my storage issue, and my dad piped up. Between the mattress and box spring in your bed. Brilliant idea, Dad. Simply brilliant. He's an unexpected source for storage solution ideas, but I'll take it. I grew up in a really cute house in Northeast Ohio that was built in 1920. It's not as teeny, tiny as my D.C. house, but I would still call it quite small. My parents moved into a bigger house after I left for college (go figure), but my dad said he picked up a thing or two about storage solutions, having raised two kids in a small space.

So I laid out the blankets on top of the bed and arranged them to be relatively flat.

And under the mattress they went.

And there have been no princess-and-the-pea moments. Tony and I can't tell there are any blankets under there. 

And here's the layout under the guest bed: 

I put the last blanket under the couch cushions. This is the blanket we use in the wintertime when we watch TV on the couch, so it's in a convenient place once the weather cools down.

Jessi: 1. 

Storage conundrum: 0. 

the garden: tomato taste test

I set up a little tomato taste test last night for Tony because I was curious how noticeable the differences in our varieties were. And we had a surprise winner.

The contenders:

• Bonnie Plants Early Girl. This, by far, has been the most prolific variety in my garden. I've been getting tomatoes on these since June. I bought a four-pack at Home Depot for $1.68, and all four have been good producers. I have two in the ground, one in a large pot, and one in a small pot. I thought I'd get the best tomatoes out of the plants in the ground, but it's actually the plant in the large pot that's doing the best. 
• Bonnie Plants Rutgers Heirloom. I got these in a four-pack at Home Depot for 84 cents. I gave two to Mike and Jen, and I planted one of the remaining plants in a large pot and the other in the ground. I haven't had much luck with these, though. I've only gotten a handful of these tomatoes all season. 
• Bonnie Plants Husky Cherry Red. This plant was $1.74 at Home Depot, and I've been pleased with how many tomatoes I've gotten. It's in a medium pot. 
• Burpee Snack Attack Hybrid Cherry Tomato. My dad started this one from seed, and it's been another good producer. The tomatoes are larger than the Bonnie cherry tomato. Also in a medium pot.  
• Bonnie Plants Better Boy. I spent 49 cents on this plant at Home Depot. And I have gotten zero tomatoes out of it. It's right in the ground. Clearly I'm doing something wrong. I'm earning my gardener ranking of 4 out of 10 on this one. 

So that leaves us with four tomatoes in our taste test. I cut three slices of each kind of tomato for a total of 12 bites.

Then I had Tony -- with his eyes closed, no peeking -- rank each bite on a scale of 1 to 10. So the highest total score a tomato could earn was 30. (This scoring system is more complicated than Olympics gymnastics, isn't it?)

And the winner is ....

SNACK ATTACK!

It got 9, 9 and 8 points for a total of 26 points. Neither of us were expecting a cherry tomato to get the highest marks.

Runner up was the early girl. She earned 10, 7 and 8 for a total of 25.

The heirloom got a 8.5, 6 and 7, totaling 21.5.

And he gave the Bonnie cherry tomato a 5, 5 and 3 for 13 total points. Ouch.

<3

Bonus: I used the leftovers for a cucumber-and-tomato salad. Yum yum.

things to do: marine evening parade

Day to day, it's easy to get caught up in the unglamorous side of living in the nation's capital. Bureaucracies. Metro delays. Rotten humidity. Until I jog by the Supreme Court or walk through the Capitol or take in the Lincoln Memorial at night. All good reminders of how grand this city is. 

I got another reminder of that Friday at the Marine Barracks Evening Parade. 

It's quite a show, put on by hundreds of Marines. They wear dress uniforms, march in unison, hold stoic faces, make formations, twirl their rifles -- with bayonets! -- and throw them into the air and catch them. All with precision. And to top it all off, the ladies get escorted to their seats by Marines in uniform.  

Oh, and the dog. This is Sgt. Chesty XIII, an English Bulldog, wearing his Marine Corps uniform. He's the mascot for Marine Barracks Washington. He has a whole service record. He gets written up for doing things like falling asleep. Kind of cheesy for such a serious service, but, hey, it's pretty cute.   

The Marine Barracks is one of the oldest places in D.C. Thomas Jefferson picked the spot for the barracks in 1801, and every commandant has lived in that grand white house at 8th and G Southeast since the barracks were finished in 1806. 

Apparently two places are authorized to fly the American flag, the Star Spangled Banner, as it was in 1801 (15 stars, 15 stripes), and one of them is the Marine Barracks: 

Speaking of that grand house that the commandant lives in, Tony and I got to take a tour before the parade. Nice dining room, huh?  

And here's his view of the barracks from the second floor balcony of the house. Eighth Street and the Barracks Row bars and restaurants are just on the other side of the barracks pictured on the right.

Tickets for the Evening Parades are free, but they go quickly. It looks like you can't reserve any more tickets for this summer. But you can show up on a Friday evening at Eighth and I, and they'll take walk-ins as they can. 

decor: window shades and sheers

Tony and I moved into our house a little bit over a year ago, and for several months we'd spend our weekends doing home improvement projects. Like painting. Especially painting. Oh, the painting! Walls. Trim. Inside. Outside. Not to mention the mini-demo projects, yard work. Organizing, decorating, re-decorating, discarding. Our to-do list hasn't gone away, but we've tackled most of the high-priority projects.

Our calendar was pretty open last weekend, so Tony suggested we block off Saturday and Sunday for some home improvement projects that we've been putting off. It'd been a while since we've made multiple trips to home improvement stores in one weekend. (Specifically, two Home Depot trips and one Frager's trip.)

My favorite project of the weekend: finishing the window treatments in our second bedroom. One of the shades had been broken since we bought the house, but this isn't a heavily trafficked room, so replacing the shades wasn't a high priority.

I ended up buying vinyl roller shades, which I've always liked because they're sleek looking. And then I saw how much they cost, and that made me like them even more. I ended up with heavy-duty, room-darkening shades, for about $20 each. With the brackets and plastic pulls, the we spent just under $50. Not bad for two windows.

I have sheer curtains on the outside of the windows, so I mounted the shades on the inside. You measure the inside of your window, and the folks at Home Depot cut the shade to the right size for you.  And this is where the two Home Depot trips came in. Apparently the cutting machine at the Home Depot in Northeast has been down since the derecho storm earlier this summer. So we also made the trek out to Home Depot near Landmark Mall. The installation itself was relatively simple and required a drill and a screwdriver.

And, voila, new shades! Happy Jessi.

<3

From the archives:

decor: vintage postcards