Harvest time!

So it was getting dangerously close to frosty time and I was going away for the weekend. As head gardener, it was my job to decide if we should bring in the green tomatoes on our porch or not. I decided better safe than sorry, and picked them all. I also picked the basil and spent the Thursday before my trip making some pesto. The pictures show the lovely fruits of the garden.

It turns out that I don't think it has actually frosted here yet. We are close to the lake, and thus are temperatures are often 10 degrees off those inland. It has been cold and rainy, though, so I am going to believe the tomatoes would not have ripened anyway and that I made the right call.

We had a super tasty dinner the other night of the green tomatoes sauteed and mixed with angel hair pasta and the homemade pesto. Yum.

Messed Up

Hello! I arise to tell you a story that really crystallized for me how messed up we are in the US about thinking about how women's bodies should look.

Last night I was at a party for R's department, talking to a student who knew the part of the world I do research in. She was asking about my research and if I was "tough" because of having to live in harsh field conditions. I told her the only harsh condition was the food, which resulted in me quickly losing a lot of weight. But when I returned everyone kept saying how good I looked like 20 pounds lighter. And I had to reply -- I don't look good, I look starved! This is not healthy! The other woman has a similar experience where she was really sick for awhile and lost a lot of weight and everyone complimented her on how good she looked. Both of us were amazed at the experience of being malnourished and sickly and yet receiving more compliments on our looks than ever. Dude, that ain't right.