Kitchen stuff and hats

First, La and I made slime today. It was a recipe we found in a sample issue of National Geographic for Little Kids. 1 box of corn starch, 1 1/2 c. water (we used two to make it look like the picture), and 15 drops of food coloring.



It really turned out to be a fun project.

I've also been thinking about how you see on various blogs, eat local challenges. And I've always been sort of envious of people who had the je ne sais quois to be able to do it. Whether they had great food co-ops or farmer's markets or what not. And I've been thinking about it some more - we sure don't grow apples in Florida. Or peaches or plums. I think we do grow Asian pears, but not regular (Bartlett?) ones, I don't think. And, I understand the pro's of buying locally and in season, but it's nice to have the option of having a variety of vegetables and fruit in our winter - asparagus, peaches, plums, grapes, etc. that we get from Chile, New Zealand or wherever it happens to be in season.

It sure is nice to be able to buy Florida produce in season. Strawberries are in season right now (I love February just for that reason - I love me some Plant City Strawberries!) You know what else is nice? Zellwood corn. Ruby Red Grapefruit, tangerines, tangelos, and oranges. There are stretches of 17/92 in Orlando that are momentary throw-backs to another era. One is a tractor shop (down the way from the Porsche dealership), and another is a storefront for a citrus grower (Holliana?) less than a mile from a Starbucks. I stopped in on Wednesday and ordered 1/4 bushell of honeybell tangelos to send to my dad for his birthday and picked up some flame red grapefruit and zipper temple oranges for us. The grapefruit was fabulous.


Cleaned the strawberries and I'm thinking of a strawberry and tangerine salad with dinner tonight. Alternatively, they would be fabulous in a salad with greens, grilled chicken, walnuts/pecans and fancy crumbly cheese (like feta, blue, or goat cheese).

In knitting news, I started my sister's second jaywalker sock, and it's going a lot faster than the first one. I'm almost to the heel flap. I also made a two-night hat for Dulaan and started a hat for Kate in Cotton-Ease. Just a basic roll-brim number. Not much to look at yet. It's a little easier to assess and frog if necessary in the cotton-ease than the fun fur, so it's easier to make a hat sized for the intended target audience.