sorry!

Sorry my blog sucks---I'm not into blogging anymore, but I don't feel like taking the blog down, so it's just floating sadly here like an old sock.

I am just not into blogging, s'all.

love,
Kate

rum and coke

Never have been a rum person. but I have recently discovered that New World rum is very different from that European rum that tastes like medicine. I like Sailor Jerry's spiced rum, which is thick with vanilla. If you have ever opened a bottle of vanilla extract, inhaled a whiff of it, and wished you could drink the whole bottle, or even somehow absorb and embody its essence, then Sailor Jerry's is for you. Mix this with cola for maximum sweetness and goodness.

Sailor Jerry was a tattoo artist of some note, I gather from the biographical information on the bottle. He has a certain outlaw quality.

tomatoes in winter

One of the rewards for living here, besides living here, is growing tomatoes in winter. I bought three young tomato plants last month at Lincoln Avenue Nursery in Pasadena. They are healthy, but have been growing with extruciating leisure. Finally, last night, I ate my first ripe one in a salad, along with some baby greens from my garden: arugula, swiss chard, butter lettuce, beet greens, and something called "Vitamin Green."

"i ain't no primrose, buddy."

I picked up Vitamin Green at Sunset Nursery out of curiosity, and it has quickly become my favorite salad green. It tastes just like its name. Pungent, green and rich with vitamins and minerals. But then, I go for the pungent ones.

Vitamin Green looks a little bit like the foliage from a primrose.

Lately my favorite thing is to stand around the garden and eat greens picked straight off the plant. Not even washed. I know that's bad hygiene, but it's great for hygiene of the soul.

I have a bunch of beets that are probably ready to be dug up, but as I have never grown beets before, I am not sure if they're "done." A beet is not a muffin. You can't exactly open the oven door and check on it.

The moon has been huge, which I think the fairies like.

:)

Strange Magic Two

Today I will present my second episode of

Strange Magic

Misses & Hits of the 1970s

We will begin the festivites around 4:15 pm at littleradio.com

You can listen through iTunes.

This show is dedicated to the 1970s, a decade of fanciful, cinematic, dreamy and aspirational pop music. Yay! We will, we will rock you.

Last week's show list was as follows. As always, we sprinkled an ultrafine mist of sounds from other eras. (Clear throat):

1. The Wackers, "Hot Wacks"

2. The Wackers, "We Can Be"

3. The Real Kids, "My Baby's Book"

4. Ted Mulry Gang, "My Little Girl"

5. Nina Simone, "My Baby Just Cares For Me" (1959)

6. Curtis Mayfield, "Blue Monday People"

7. Journey, "Stone In Love"

8. Bay City Rollers, "Shang-A-Lang"

9. Nick Lowe, "Rollers Show"

10. Ted Mulry Gang, "Dark Town Strutters' Ball"

11. Fats Waller, "Dark Town Strutters' Ball," composed by Shelton Brooks 1917

12. Elvis Presley, "Burning Love"

13. Journey, "Don't Stop Believing"

14. The Toms, "Long Line of Collectors"

15. Olivia Newton-John, "If Not For You"

16. Electric Light Orchestra, "Sweet Is the Night"

17. Isley Brothers, "Hello It's Me"

18. Todd Rundgren, "Couldn't I Just Tell You"

19. 38 Special, "Hold On Loosely"

20. Badfinger, "Beautiful & Blue"

21. Dobie Gray, "Drift Away"

22. Poco, "Raindrops"

23. Shakone, "Love Machine"

24. Status Quo, "The Price of Love"

25. Fanny, "I Need You Need Me"

26. Stevie Wonder, "You and I"

27. Disney Pinnoccio soundtrack, "When You Wish Upon A Star," 1940

xoxo

kate

Boogie-woogie yay!

"I can see your house from here."

It's finally summertime. School's out for summer!

That means time for my rock & roll radio show!

Strange Magic.

(The show formerly known as Rock & Roll Love Letter.)

I am SO excited about the show I've got planned for tomorrow, Thursday June 19.

4 pm West Coast Time.

Go to Littleradio

Then go to "Tune In."

It's a really neat station.

And tomorrow, I am going to play music to make YOU happy.

Gardening wise, I am waiting waiting waiting for my tomatoes and strawberries, and the suspense is killing me. 

This Is Why

I Love E.L.O.

The Electric Light Orchestra.

E.L.O. is music that brings an eager message to the world, a message of some urgency but great delicacy:

Life is special.

This is why I Love E.L.O.

But E.L.O. gives even more: Their music also says, Music is Special.

Music is An Event.

And isn't it exciting?

You might say that E.L.O. is music about music.

Music about the Beatles. Music about Beethoven and Roy Orbison.

In this way, E.L.O. is very Disney. Because so often, the Disney ethos is art about art. Fantasy about fantasy. Experience about experience. Take Angels Stadium in Anaheim, designed under Disney: a baseball stadium about baseball. Or Disney Hall: a concert hall about concert halls.

I like that, though.

And no, I'm not smoking pot.

To bring this all back to the subject at hand, I would now like to posit that the Passion Flower, Passiflora edulis, is the most Disney of flowers. Or, put another way, it is the E.L.O. of flowers.

Passiflora edulis is the one flower that, more than all flowers, says, Aren't flowers cool?

Passiflora edulis is a flower about flowers.

There's really no other explanation.

MORE GOOD NEWS:

"...Women who ate five or more servings of chocolate each week in their third trimester of pregnancy were 40 percent less likely to develop preeclampsia than those who ate chocolate less than once a week."

If I could grow my own chocolate in the garden, you know I'd be all over that action. 

Instead, I am going to grow something called Chocolate Morning Glory . I am going to grow it on my arbor, which is currently naked. This is what the Chocolate Morning Glory is supposed to look like. 

"Is there something yummy going on? It must be me."

Some people hate Morning Glories because they can be a bit invasive. I love them, because my mother always grew them in our backyard on Third Avenue in Koreatown. I also love them because they grow quickly to create a near-instant screen of loveliness, and they always reach for the sun. Aw. Morning Glory blossoms only live for a day, but they put on quite a show. Many times, the sight of a brand-new, just-opened Morning Glory in my garden has yanked me out of the dark blues and into the bright sunlight. 

Morning Glories have an important lesson to teach. And like the best teachers, they teach by example.

So, my big Artistic Plan is to grow them on the arbor with something called 'Ruby Moon' Hyacinth Bean, which apparently makes purple bean pods and lavender-ish flowers that look like sweet peas. 

"We represent the purple pod guild."

Brown, purple and lavender: a color combo made in flower-chocolate heaven.

"He's the bean pod, I'm the flower."

 

Over the weekend, I played the vintage 1970s Family Feud board game with some friends, which I can't recommend enough.

 

It's truly a great game. But one of the questions was a bit fucked-up for me. 

"Name five fruits or vegetables that grow on a stalk." 

Feeling horticulturally savvy, I blurted out "Brussels Sprouts!" 

Oops.

You see, the key to this game is not being correct, but being able to think like someone in the 1970s. Maybe someone who's not necessarily the smartest blouse on the rack.

Apparently people in the 1970s didn't know very much about plants, because the answers were all things like beans, which obviously grow on vines, and celery, which is a stalk, but doesn't grow on a stalk. 

My answer was a big zero. I felt like such a mom. I mean, a Family Feud Mom. You know what I mean.

xo

Kate

PS: Go eat some chocolate.