Garden dividend

Yesterday, I trimmed the grape vines back. They're still kinda wild and hairy looking, but they're not grabbing onto the hammock any more. There are also many more grape clusters on them this year than there've ever been on them before. I guess grapes must like being hacked back to sticks. Anyway, I harvested several leaves from the vines I trimmed and used them to make dolmas. The hardest part is the rolling. The filling comes together very quickly -- fry up some onions and rice, add in some spices and nuts and you're good to go -- but scooping a bit onto a leaf and then rolling it all up is time consuming. That's how come dolmas cost so much at the deli, in case you were wondering. It's a manual process all the way.

And, while this manual process was going on, we dithered about what to have for dinner. Ultimately, we decided to thaw out some of the amazing sauce Aoibheall made, cook up some pasta, and let the Babygoddess make garlic bread. She loves doing that, and chants, "Squunch! Squunch!" as she spreads the garlic butter around. All spatulas are now called squunchers.

It feels really good to make food out of ingredients we grew in the back yard. The grape leaves and the herbs were picked fresh right before I made the stuffing. Doing this helps me feel connected to the world. When the kids see dinner, they know that it grew in the dirt. They probably helped water it or pick it or squoonch it. They don't think that food comes from the store and it grows in cans. Food comes from the garden and it's made of ingredients. Which are my favorite.