The Urban Orchardist

Finally got around to eating the snails. I keep them in a bucket, capped with a colander, starving, for four days. Then my friend Severine came over and we boiled some water. My sister’s French in-laws said parboiling, so parboil we did. After that, we shelled them and let them soak in salty water for about an hour. Then sauteed garlic and olive oil, threw them in and snails turned into escargot. I didn’t bother to put them back in their shells or on the escargot plates–we ate them from the pan. They were chewy, but the garlic sauce was delicious.

Not to post bunny porn, but here’s Simon and Celeste making babies (cross your fingers). What was interesting about this was when we put Celeste in the cage, she started making theses little grunting piggy noises. Simon was very happy to see her, he sniffed her and hopped around before mounting. A radio reporter from KALX was in attendance, recording the sounds of an urban farm, so we were glad Celeste could add another dimension. Look for adorable baby bunny photos in 30 days…

In a very troubling repeat, I’ve lost a second bee colony. This one was in the backyard of some hippies (see lady on the other side of me). When I arrived to do a hive inspection (now that it’s spring and warmish out) I noticed this drippy stuff coming out of the bottom of the hive. It was now-fermented uncapped honey. Not a good sign. Inside was tons of honey but no bees. Again, there were no dead bee piles outside the box. They had just vanished. Inside the brood area, a few formed bees were inside cells as if they were born but no one could feed them. Very strange. Oh well, guess I’ll extract the honey this weekend. I heard the Pescadero hive is still alive!

Broke out the smuggled Frenchie cheeses–chabichous, tomme, boutons, banon, and some brillat savarin–this weekend. I invited people to eat cheese, but first forced them to work! We harvested artichokes, carrots, swiss chard (still in a pile in the garden, the rabbits won’t even eat it). Also, pulled weeds and cleared all of the flowering arugula. Planted the tomato plants that Billy watered while I was away in France (they were huge!). Only then did my lovely friends sit down to eat cheese, drink rose, and enjoy a lovely day. These are the green globe ‘chokes, the violettos are just starting to come up. Of course there are aphids on them. I just soak them in water overnight–the remaining? That’s extra protein.

Still jet-lagged.
Returned home to no baby bunnies.
Is Simon shooting blanks? (To be very crass.)
I had a great time in France, mostly because of my cute new niece Amaya and Riana’s great cooking. One of my favorite things Riana cooked was a rabbit! We bought it at the Narbonne Central Market. In France the animals in the market still have their feet and heads. The rabbit we bought was no different. The farmer lady chopped the fresh rabbit into pieces for us, using an enormous pair of scissors. We said ‘oui’ when she asked if we wanted the head (it was for Lucky the cat). Once we got it home, Riana dredged the rabbit with flour and spices, browned it, then baked it in a tagine for an hour. Delicious. I can’t wait to do the same with my urban bunny crop, if only they would reproduce.