Go buy some tea for Taiwan

The Tillerman Tea Company, one of the storefronts in Napa’s cute l’il Oxbow Public Market, just sent off a press release saying it would donate 10% of all its sales, both in-store and online, through Sept. 30 to support relief efforts in Taiwan. In case you weren’t following the news (and I was, because a good friend of mine was there), Typhoon Morakot dumped about 100 inches of rain within 24 hours on Taiwan. 100 inches is about one year’s worth of rain. The death toll is at more than 500 people, many hundreds more are still missing, entire villages have been virtually wiped out due to mudslides, and allegedly Taiwan is still refusing aid offered by Japan and the U.S.A. and possibly other countries–but that’s a whole ‘nother story and I digress.

So, back to the press release, and I quote: “Damage to tea-growing areas was substantial. Among the hardest hit was Alishan township in Chiayi County, one of Taiwan’s best tea-growing areas and the source of several of Tillerman’s teas. ‘We are very happy to report that all of our friends are safe,’ said David Campbell, proprietor for the Napa-based tea shop. ‘But the destruction is significant and saddening. There will be no more tea from Alishan for the rest of this year, if not longer. We cannot even begin to imagine how this will affect the livelihood of these tea growers.’”

So if you’re a tea-drinker, this is a good way to help send support. Face it, your cupboards were growing empty and you can never have too much tea anyway.

Adventures in babyfood

Avi, now six months, has been eating fruits and veggies for about two weeks and let me tell you it has definitely been an adventure. A wonderful adventure! As I have stated I love to save money so I figured why not make his baby food. I am telling you, if you have about an hour to spare every few weeks, making homemade baby food is a breeze.

I started with steamed carrots. I blended them up in the Magic Bullet, which works out perfect. I have had the Bullet for years and never really used it until now. There are other machines you can buy that are specific for baby food such as the Beabe Babycook that runs for about $140. Yes, this machine steams and blends the food all in one, but why buy a one-trick-pony when all you have to do is use a pot and a blender?

I knew that if I was going to keep up with making Avi’s baby food I needed something to freeze the food in. First I bought the Baby Food Storage Cubes by Baby Cubes at Babies R Us for $9.99. These are great. There are two sizes, one ounce and two ounces, and they come with a storage tray for the freezer. While I really liked these for storing food I didn’t so much for the freezing. The negative about the cubes is that the food is stuck in them once frozen, which doesn’t work out so great if you want to make more food than will fit in the 8 containers.

Instead of buying another set of 8 cubes I bought the Perfect Cube ice trays at Sur La Table for $12 for a set of two. These are food grade silicone, each tray has 15  cubes that are 1 1/4 ounce each.

These are the best thing! The silicone makes it easy to get the food out  once it is frozen and the size is perfect for mixing flavors. Once frozen, I store each flavor in plastic freezer bags in the freezer.

Corn, edamame, green beans and strawberries

Now frozen and ready to go in bags

All I do now is pull out what I need; it only takes about 20 seconds in the microwave to unthaw.  The best part of these trays is when Avi is done with pureed foods I can still use them for ice or other things. I love tools that can multi-task.

So far Avi has experienced carrots, roasted yams, peas, avocado, banana, strawberry and nectarine. Oddly the banana is the only food he is not too fond of. I am eager to give him the corn, edamame and green beans I made last night. I have to add, I do not add anything to his food. No salt. No butter. Just the fruit or veggie.

Avi's first peas

Purple Mountain’s Majesty

I’ve found it! After years of wonder I have found the purple mountain, and it’s in Clear Lake, California. (I’d say it was somewhere else but I can’t even figure out what “purple mountain majesties” is supposed to mean!)

Here, take a look:

There it is! Dead center in the hazy distance...

I was staying at a friend’s lake house in Clear Lake last May. It was a beautiful place not even a mile northeast of Konocti Harbor Resort. We were all hanging out on the deck when we looked directly across the lake and saw this odd purple mountain … within a mountain … thing. We couldn’t figure it out and even went so far as looking through a telescope to get a better idea. I would have driven there but the lake was so big it probably would have taken a day out of the trip to get around and back, so we just stared at it sporadically throughout the weekend with glorious wonder. Eventually I spoke to a local about it and he said the earth over there is just “like that.” Great. That really says a lot for me. But at least someone else was aware of it and we weren’t simply hallucinating before the majestic Clear Lake. Regardless of the story behind this colorful anomaly, it was quite a beautiful site to monitor throughout the day, especially with the peacefulness of Clear Lake all around us.

Google Maps' aerial view of what I believe to be the purple mountain/pile of majestic dirt that we'd been staring at. Feel free to comment with a plausible explanation...