Today, this blog turns four. And I’m not going to lie to you…it makes me choke up a little bit every year to think about what has changed since the first day I sat down at my laptop and pounded out my first post. I’ve learned an incredible amount and, through this blog and the associated activities the blog has fostered (Yeah, Twitter, I’m looking at you…) continued enriching my life with new, wonderful people, ideas, and experiences.

In fact, just this week, I had an amazing Monday, thanks to my roommate, Fatemeh, who I met solely through food blog connections. After we both woke absurdly early, she suggested an early morning bike ride through Oakland, followed by Blue Bottle coffee and a brioche, which, people, I must say, is a damn civilized (and mood-boosting) way to start the day. And then, that evening, we met on our patio for Hendrick’s martinis and appetizers, and then she made me a steak dinner, over which we shared many stories. Without this blog, I wouldn’t have had the best Monday in years.

And last night? Over wine and vegetarian food at Encuentro, I finally met Adri, who started reading my blog when I was in Iowa, and who has been a friend on Twitter since she lived in Texas. Turns out, she lives not even a block from me, now, in Oakland. I would have never met her had I not started this blog. And we had a fantastic night of conversation and food and wine that would have never happened but for this connection.

I know I said I’d spend a good portion of this week celebrating other people’s gardens, but sometimes, one has to stop and mark the passage of time. And I had hoped maybe to celebrate by announcing that I’d actually gotten my new container garden underway, but I admit I’m still a bit behind on that project. Apparently I’m marking the passage of time by not hauling dirt…or drilling holes in wine barrels.

So, instead, today I stop and thank, as I do every year, those of you who come through these posts to read, to comment, to learn along with me, and hopefully, laugh along the way. You mean a lot to me, whether your number is small or big on any given day, and whether you comment or not.

But today? Comment, why don’t you? I’d love to say hello, virtually, and thank you for stopping by. Just to sweeten the pot a bit, I’ve got a giveaway: An autographed copy of my friend Tara’s book The Butcher & The Vegetarian: One Woman’s Romp Through A World of Men, Meat and Moral Crisis. Tara is yet another of the friends I would never have met if not for blogging, and her book is a wonderful, heartfelt read. Leave a comment between now and May 13 at midnight PDT, and after that, I’ll use a random number generator to select a winner. Be sure to leave me a way to contact you, too, if I don’t know how to reach you already, just in case you win! (And, just to be clear, if I draw a comment number that is my own reply to one of you, I’ll select again until I get a number that doesn’t correspond to me. I already have my own signed copy!)

And for those who like to celebrate with a bit of the way-back machine, here are the first four May 6 posts that have marked this blog’s growth since it all started on a quiet street in Iowa City:

• May 6, 2006: Planting season begins
• May 6, 2007: One year later, the garden accidents continue
• May 6, 2008: Go west, young gardener
• May 6, 2009: Three years, one post at a time

Cheers to all of you, and may your gardening and food adventures bring you as much laughter as mine do.

• Three years, one post at a time
• An anniversary winner!
• If Oprah likes it, it must be good
• Planning…and worrying a little…
• pH, which also stands for pHtttt

Back in Iowa City, I got to know a fantastic chef named Soleil, who started by renting out a local restaurant for African dinners on Friday and Saturday nights, and eventually opened his own place in Coralville, Iowa. My friends and I used to visit for his delicious Sunshine Soup, his amazing Tanzanian Coconut Fish, and his Beignet de Banana that even wowed me (and I am not a big fan of the banana…).

But, best of all, Soleil greeted everyone with one of the warmest, most wonderful smiles in existence, and makes every diner feel at home in his dining room. Going to Soleil’s Place was more like going to a friend’s house than a restaurant — we brought some wine, tried different dishes, and the conversation flowed over the African rhythms in the background.

Then he disappeared, leaving the restaurant shuttered, and someone thought he might have come out to California, but no one really knew, and eventually I moved, and that was the end of that.

Until, just before Thanksgiving, when I stopped in the farmers’ market and food court at the Metreon in San Francisco for a quick bite before a movie. There, though it was closed for the evening, was a stand that said, “Soleil’s African Kitchen.”

No way, I thought. It cannot possibly be the same Soleil.

A quick Google search on the iPhone yielded his website. Indeed, it was the same Soleil, now living in the East Bay. I started laughing out loud right there in the food court. The empanada vendor stared at me like I was crazy. I didn’t try to explain.

Soleil’s back in the dinner business, as of this week, cooking up his African food at Zocalo Coffeehouse, 645 Bancroft Avenue, in San Leandro. Dinners will be held on Saturday nights at 7 p.m., except for the first Saturday of each month. He’s serving up a tight-but-diverse menu of African dishes, and you can bring your own wine for a $5 corkage fee. Reservations are available by calling 510-228-6747, and I encourage you to support this wonderful chef in this endeavor. One other note: Though it doesn’t appear on the menu attached to this post, there will definitely be a vegetarian entree option.

I know I, for one, cannot wait to dig in to another plate of the flavors that warmed me in Iowa City, time and time again. It’s a small, tasty world, and that puts a sunny smile on my face.

• Three seasons of Spring
• Contigo has stolen my heart
• A celebration four years in the making
• If Oprah likes it, it must be good
• Locavorism in Staunton, Part II

I’m a girl that embraces signs, symbols and all kinds of mysterious stuff. On Saturday night, I took one sip of the Sadie and loved it. My parents, my friend who tried it? They weren’t as into it. Too herbaceous. Not sweet enough.

But I loved it. In one sip, I was transported. In one sip, I was out in my back yard with scissors in hand, clipping thyme in the hot Iowa sunshine. And while the time in Iowa was maybe harder than any other time of my life, there is so much about it that shaped where I am now.

“You know what?” I said to my coworker, Kim, as we took a break out in the sunshine yesterday. “Today is exactly a year since I applied for this job.”

It’s a strange, dotted line from Iowa to Oakland to a cocktail in Staunton and back again. But I can see it as clearly as a mapped route, and for that reason, I’m giving the Sadie a try, starting with infused vodka.

I’ll report back on how it works.

• Thyme for a bloody
• A paw-shaped divot
• Snow and ice and Lenten sacrifice
• Go west, young gardener
• Welcome to the urban garden

“I have a surprise for you,” she said.

This is a hard phrase for me to swallow. I’m a girl who adores being surprised, but, simultaneously, a former reporter with a nose for finding out the truth behind the big story.

But I resisted trying to guess all the possible places, and on Saturday morning, The Mint Killer handed me a set of directions to an address in Berkeley.

I will admit I had an inkling of where we might be going, but when we actually arrived at The Monterey Market, I was still surprised…and absolutely thrilled. I first learned about the market back in Iowa City, it was through Eat at Bill’s: Life in the Monterey Market, which I first saw at a Slow Food Iowa City event at The Mint Killer’s house, and subsequently saw again when Edible Iowa River Valley was involved in a screening of the film at The Englert Theatre downtown.

Lisa Brenneis, the filmmaker, is a tangerine farmer in the Ojai Valley of California, and she makes an appearance at the very end of the film. She’d been through Iowa City and Cedar Rapids while I was living there, but because I was on a business trip, I missed her swing through the Midwest, and hadn’t yet met her.

Lisa examines rice from Koda Farms.

But I adored the film, already revered the market, and thought Lisa was amazing for making the movie in the first place. All that said, I still hadn’t visited the market since I moved here. Why? I have no idea. Or, at least, I had no idea. Now, I think it’s because I was waiting for The Mint Killer.

We jockeyed for parking on the street next to the store and wandered in. “I need to call my friend,” The Mint Killer said. She dialed her cellphone, then looked up. “There she is!”

There was Lisa, wending her way through the crowd as if she owned the place. She stopped to talk to regular customers, she led The Mint Killer and I through the produce out front and into the store, and then she said the magic words. “Let’s go in the back.”

The Mint Killer and Bill, in the back of Monterey Market

Thus began a whirlwind tour of what is a very small, but very wonderful and chaotic and amazing, local market. Back there in the stacks of produce boxes? Yeah, that was Judy Rodgers of Zuni Café, checking for what looked good, just like she does in the movie. Bill and The Mint Killer and Lisa chatted about rice as I took pictures (to cover the fact that I was spending most of my time with my jaw hanging open in awe that I was actually IN THE BACK OF THE STORE WITH BILL FUJIMOTO HIMSELF), and we all jockeyed for position as the stockers raced around us with handcarts piled with boxes of produce.

Upstairs and out of the madness, Bill sat down with us, flipped through a copy of Edible Iowa River Valley that The Mint Killer had brought with her, and engaged in a long conversation with Lisa about whether or not he’d carry the Merced-based Koda Farms rice sample she’d brought from the Slow Food Nation Marketplace. (“I stopped there before they were open, when they were all setting up,” she said.)

Bill flips through a copy of Edible Iowa River Valley in his upstairs office.

“Are you all hungry? Have you had breakfast?” Bill asked. “Why don’t we all go to breakfast?”

Later, The Mint Killer said my face, upon hearing that we were going to actually go have breakfast with Bill Fujimoto, absolutely lit up. I repeat what I said before: my jaw? Utterly slack throughout this entire experience. I barely spoke, which anyone who knows me knows is just about unheard-of. I just listened, soaking in the talk of local farms and the products they are able to sell because Bill’s willing to carry them. “If they need to charge a higher price, they need to just tell me,” Bill said at one point about a particular kind of fig. “The market’s there.”

We headed to Picante for a breakfast of chilaquiles, still talking about food products available in various counties in California, and small fruit and vegetable producers, and the state of food in California and the US. Then we returned to the market so Bill could slice some tomatoes for us—he wanted us to taste the difference between a number of varieties—and so we could poke around the amazing array of produce just a little longer.

Because The Mint Killer and I were headed straight downtown, I didn’t buy anything that day, but I will be back, now that I know where the market is located. I’m happy to support this amazing man who has figured out a way to pay producers a fair price while providing amazing, high-quality fruits, vegetables and other groceries to the local community. And, to be fair, I’ll probably always be just a little starstruck.

“This was the best thing of the whole weekend,” I told The Mint Killer later. “Hands down.”

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Well, make that tomorrow. The conference is still going on, it’s been an amazing weekend of networking and experiences and the occasional gratis glass of Prosecco (OK, maybe the occasional two glasses?), and I’ve gotten very little sleep because even when I get home, my brain is racing so hard I can’t get myself to go to bed.

And, in the meantime, I have a story to tell that has nothing to do with BlogHer, but is time-sensitive. Kalyn of Kalyn’s Kitchen has made some tweaks to the rules for Weekend Herb Blogging, and technically, this story fits under the rubric of the old rules rather than the new. The new rules go into effect this coming week, so today is my last day to sneak this in under the wire. Sure, I could just post it without participating in WHB, but where would be the camaraderie in that?

And see? I’m just making a deadline!

So, even though I’m writing this from a conference room on Union Square in San Francisco, this goes back to my last days in Iowa, for a recipe that, much like my move to California, is not so much specific measurements, and more a wing-and-prayer approach of combining things that go well together, tossing them in the oven to bake, and enjoying what comes out.

I spent the first half of my last week in Iowa in California, actually, looking for an apartment. It was a crazy weekend of hoofing it around Oakland, following leads off Craigslist and taking deep gulps at the rents and the deposits required to move in. I signed a lease that Tuesday evening, boarded a red-eye back to Cedar Rapids, and then crawled into bed as soon as I got home in an attempt to avoid the amount of packing I had to finish in three days.

Because the move happened so quickly, I didn’t really have a chance to properly eat down all the food in my fridge and freezer, and because the winter had been so fraught with delayed travel, I hadn’t been home enough or rested enough to manage the proper cooking program I usually maintain.

This meant I still had some slow-roasted tomatoes in the freezer, and as anyone who reads Kalyn or Alanna of Kitchen Parade knows, you don’t waste slow-roasted tomatoes.

I also had made my last visit to the Iowa City Farmer’s Market that Wednesday night, planning mainly to pick up a few gifts for the folks who would be hosting me on my journey west, but deciding, while I was there, to grab a bunch of locally-grown asparagus. Even though I knew I had to stop using my cooking gear and get it into boxes, the asparagus looked to good not to buy it.

So, on Thursday night, I told Betsy to make time for one last dinner cooked in my big Iowa kitchen. It was time for enchiladas, which, over the course of my last year in Iowa, became one of my favorite go-to comfort foods. Fast, easy and, as I made them, arguably not that unhealthy, I started making large batches every couple of weeks, taking the leftovers for lunch or, on days when the comfort was necessary earlier in the day, eating them for breakfast.

Spinach and slow-roasted tomatoes

I use an informal recipe, so informal that I’m not going to write it out in traditional fashion. But trust me…anyone can do this. I pre-heated the oven to 375 degrees, then pulled out my stoneware 9” x 12” pan (stoneware’s not required). I sauteed the slow-roasted tomatoes and a bag of baby spinach over medium-high heat until the spinach wilted, then mixed the tomatoes and spinach in a bowl with a diced package of baked tofu (hickory flavored) and three or four spoonfuls of salsa. These ingredients, it should be noted, are not written in stone—if you like mushrooms, or chicken, or black beans, or corn, try any or all of that.

I rolled that filling into spelt tortillas, but you can use flour tortillas or even corn, although warming the corn tortillas first will help keep them from cracking as you roll them up. I placed each tortilla seam-down in the pan, nestling them against each other so they held each other together. I poured a 12-ounce bottle of Trader Joe’s enchilada sauce (that’s my favorite brand, but any enchilada sauce will do) over the top and then sprinkled the whole pan-full with shredded Colby Jack. Eyeball the cheese until it seems right to you – there are days when just a light touch works great, but other days when extra cheese makes all the difference. Gauge your own mood accordingly.

Then I baked them up, uncovered, for 20 minutes, until the cheese had melted and the sauce around the edges bubbled and hissed.

Enchiladas, between asparagus and avocado

I also roasted that asparagus, and plated up the enchiladas with the Iowa asparagus on one side and sliced avocado, which just happened to have been flown in from California, on the other. Betsy and I ate dinner at the kitchen table gleaned from another friend who passed it along just when I needed it most, as the light faded over my garden in the back. There would be no more cooking in Iowa, but it seemed just the right dinner to end on: one that featured ingredients from both states, that I served to a friend in the kitchen I’d loved since I first walked into it, and that offered nutrition and comfort for the journey.

This is my post for Weekend Herb Blogging, which is hosted this week by Archana of Archana’s Kitchen. Please stop by later in the weekend for the full round-up of posts!

• Golden statue bruschetta
• Slow-roasted tomato dip
• Iowa City cowboy spaghetti
• Just-about-spoonbread quick corn muffins
• Mind over to-matter

Mint chocolate chip

Over dinner, Dan and I fell back into our running argument about regionally- and locally-made ice cream: I maintain that Heyn’s is better than Whitey’s, and Dan is a Whitey’s guy through and through. We’d been fighting about this for weeks (because, really, what else would a couple of foodies fight about?), and finally Betsy called us on it.

“Why don’t you do a taste test tonight?” she said. “I’ll be the impartial observer.”

“It’s on,” I said.

We agreed to the terms: mint chocolate chip and chocolate chip cookie dough from Heyn’s, Whitey’s and Blue Bunny, a more commercial brand, yes, but still an Iowa-made product. (I should note, here, that when I wrote about locally-made ice cream for Edible Iowa River Valley, we left Whitey’s off the list—it is actually made in Illinois…) Dan and I would sample each flavor and try to identify which sample belonged to which ice cream maker, and then we would also rate which one we thought was the best.

The rating was less the issue, in this contest, than the fact that we both swore we could pick our favorites out of the line-up.

Ice cream acquired, Betsy readied our samples.

“Are you guys going to have a full scoop or just a bite?” Betsy asked.

“Scoop,” I said, and I thought, what else would we eat in a freaking ice cream taste test Imeancomeon.

“Uh, scoop,” Dan said. (I remember this because I wrote it down at the time. I am all about recording intelligent conversation for future blog purposes.)

“What’s the winner going to get?” I asked, very focused on my impending victory over Dan and his assertions.

“I think it’s really what the loser should have to do,” Dan said. “Maybe the loser should have to pay for all the ice cream. Or wear a sign at work tomorrow that says, ‘I lost the ice cream taste test. Ask me how.’”

“Maybe they should have to run outside and run around the house naked,” I said. “Or go to work … NAKED.” Again, I say: I was focused on victory, people. Victory.

Contemplating the chocolate cookie dough

But it turns out that was not the case. “You’re going to be very disappointed with my picture-taking abilities,” Betsy said when she returned from the kitchen with the first round: mint chocolate chip.

“It’s OK,” I said. “I’ll just tell everyone that the pictures were taken by a” (and here, I used finger-quotes) “Masters-degreed artiste.”

And so the tasting began. Cold stares flew across the living room. There were more cackles than talking. And, to be honest, after we tried the chocolate chip cookie dough and I decided that not only was I sure which one was Blue Bunny, but that I liked it the best, as well, I had lost a lot of confidence in my ability to pick out good ice cream. I could smell a loss, so I tried to cut back—a little—on the trash-talking.

When all was said and done, we both correctly identified who made each of the chocolate chip cookie dough variations, but I misidentified the mint chocolate chips. Dan, however, got that one right as well, garnering himself a win. He also took great glee in knowing that I chose a Blue Bunny flavor over two more locally-made options.

Evidence of my favorite...

“Sometimes the best cook doesn’t have the best palate,” said Dan.

“Being a winner doesn’t mean you get to be mean,” said Betsy.

I sat there quietly, hoping they had forgotten my suggestion that the winner go to work naked.

Then they both turned to me with expectant looks on their faces. My stomach sank. Were they going to ask me to strip down and run around the house?

No. Much worse. They were expecting me to expose this loss to the world.

“What are you going to write when you put this on the blog, Genie?” Betsy asked. “That you failed? That you chose Blue Bunny?”

So yes, World. I failed. I chose Blue Bunny. And Dan never really got a trophy out of the deal, so today, his 30th birthday, seems like the appropriate day to mark his domination as an ice cream taste tester. Dan, I hope you’re able to put that skill to good use in future endeavors. And happy birthday, dude. Wish I was there to raise a glass—and an ice cream bowl—in your honor.

• Screaming for local ice cream
• Like a prayer
• Rabbit resurrection
• Gargamel’s bringing the lox
• An answer from across town

Both newspapers are keeping unbelievable photo galleries, both from the ground and the air, up to date. And I’ve been hearing from friends who are sending their own photos around. For example, check out my friend Kelly’s round-up of photos from inside the Alliant Energy Corporate Communications department offices—I worked for almost a year and a half in the cubicle right next to Kelly’s, and can’t even imagine how long it’s going to take before she and the rest of my former co-workers can return to the office. The Alliant Energy tower, for those of you not familiar with Cedar Rapids, is right downtown, about a block from the Cedar River.

But the story that has not been told, that I have not seen reported, is the story about the small, local farmers that provide all the food I wasn’t able to grow in my own garden. These are the farmers that rely on the summer farmers’ markets to keep them going, the ones who aren’t involved in big, commercial agribusiness, the ones who don’t get a bunch of government subsidies or crop insurance to cover their flood-damaged produce.

They are not forgotten. There is a movement afoot to raise money for these folks, and for anyone in the Iowa farming community affected by the flooding. I’ll have more information on how you can help, from wherever you may be, as soon as there’s information to share. In the meantime, though, I’d like to put out a call for photos, videos and stories about farms and farmers in Iowa and Wisconsin affected by the flood.

I’ve volunteered to be one of the collection points for this material, which will be used only for purposes of fundraising and possibly in an upcoming issue of Edible Iowa River Valley. There is no compensation available in return, but your contribution of your material will help raise awareness on behalf of these struggling farmers and those who work for them. In addition, while the details are still being worked out, any material submitted will be forwarded on to the appropriate organization for archival and historical purposes.

Please email anything you have (or links to where the material is located online) to genie (at) theinadvertentgardener (dot) com. Please include in your email a statement that notes you give your permission for the material to be republished without financial compensation.

More information will come as soon as I have it. Thanks so much, in advance, for your help with this project. And please feel free to forward this to anyone you know in the Midwest. The more stories and pictures we have to illustrate the devastation as it has affected farms, the better we can tell the story and, in turn, help the folks who have nowhere else to turn.

• How you can help Midwestern farmers
• One more for the road…
• Year-round farmy goodness, the photo essay
• Welcome, Deadspin readers
• Are they gardening in New Orleans?

Two weeks later, I flew out for an interview. Two weeks after, I flew out to find an apartment. Two weeks additional, and I was walking through the door of my new place.

This weekend will mark my second in the area, and it still feels more like I’m on some kind of vacation, or work trip, or something – I am constantly having these moments where I catch myself thinking I’m just a visitor, just passing through, bound for the airport any day now.

A few people asked me what I was going to do with my plants. Dig them up? Take them with me? Well, besides the lavender plant, the truth is that I didn’t have anything but annuals planted, and the idea of digging up a bunch of lettuce to carry with me in the car simply wasn’t appealing. I love to eat lettuce, and therefore I refuse to develop a personal relationship with it.

But I am a woman who likes her stuff, and so I expected to want to take all my garden accoutrements with me.

As I found myself taking inventory of the various tools, pots, stakes and cages in my possession, I was surprised to discover I didn’t really have that much attachment to any of them, and to be honest, I didn’t have time to get them all cleaned in time to feel like they were worth packing.

There were some things I kept, of course – for two Christmases in a row, Susan has given me great gardening gifts: monogrammed gloves this past year, and a really cute little gardening toolkit the year before. Those made it into the packing rotation. But the big stuff? Because I knew so little about what my gardening situation would be when I landed in the East Bay, it just didn’t make a lot of sense to take them all with me.

I have long been a fan of Freecycle, and its mission to keep things out of landfills that might otherwise end up there, and so that’s where I turned. I emailed a woman asking for pots and gave her a heads up that I had a bunch available. Within a couple of days, all my pots made their way out of my driveway in the back of her car.

Then I saw someone post that they were looking for a garden shovel, so I wrote the woman to tell her I had one available, and, incidentally, was she looking for anything else? She wrote me back to tell me her 11-year-old wanted to learn to garden, and she wanted to help him, so anything would be helpful. I gathered up what I had left and leaned it all against the front porch.

The woman’s father came to pick everything up on one of the days I was home packing. “Really? All this?” he said. “This is great.”

We carried it to his car, where he told me he and his wife were visiting from Maryland. “My daughter’s a single Mom,” he said. “She’s got two boys, so she can use a lot of help. She’s going to put all this to good use. She wants to grow tomatoes.”

Truth is, I would have given the tools away to anyone who wanted them. But I’m glad they went to someone who really needed them – especially to someone who wanted to use them to pass on the gift of a fresh, homegrown tomato to her kids.

• Guest Post: Fairies inspire a young gardener
• Welcome to the urban garden
• Totally bolted
• Wish list
• A-pee-logy required?

Gardeners, plant and nature lovers can join in Green Thumb Sunday every week. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

• Green Thumb Sunday: Where my garden was
• Green Thumb Sunday: Iowa City blue
• Green Thumb Sunday: A peek at the magnolia blossoms
• Green Thumb Sunday: Fire in the garden
• Green Thumb Sunday: At attention

There’s no need to be jealous anymore, ’cause I have an opportunity for you.

A week from today, Local Foods Connection will be rocking the Robert E. Lee Community Recreation Center, at the corner of Gilbert and Burlington Streets in Iowa City, for their annual Community Supported Agricultural Fair. From noon to 4 p.m. on March 22, you can come meet local farmers and sign up for a CSA share.

What does that get you? Well, weekly fresh and local produce. Seasonal stuff. Those goodies that just aren’t the same when you buy them at your local, faceless grocery store. Plus, by purchasing a share, you’re guaranteeing income for farmers, which means they’re more likely to continue providing healthy, local produce, and continue being good stewards of the land.

If that’s not enough for you, you’ll be able to meet me! I helped organize the fair this year, and I’ll be there with some Inadvertent Gardener swag that you can take home with you.

Hope to see you out there!

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