it came from brooklyn....

i swear to god i was determined not to bore anyone anymore with tomatoes and vegetables and my naive ramblings about the cycle of life. but damnit if emilia the stone cold polish fox--my garden mother--didn't send me pictures of the GIANT ZUCCHINI she grew in her backyard IN BROOKLYN. and i'm sure that the colossal size of this beastly veggie has nothing to do with hydroponics, hormones nor living in a filthy city. it's all about the egg.

see below for photo proof of emilia's all-around amazingness. yes. it's a word because i said so.

incidentally, sometimes in the dead of winter, emilia threatens to move away from her shoebox brooklyn studio. but c'mon city dwellers, could you leave a yard like this? having been in california for three weeks at the height of harvest, it's killing me to imagine how red and luscious my tomatoes must be right about now.


photos courtesy of emilia

tomato update

i asked emre if he could snap a photo out on the ol' fire escape before he left for turkey so you could all see the progress of the urban garden. it's a bit vague, difficult to see the tomatoes and peppers mixed in with the leaves, so be sure to click on the photo to see it bigger. check out those peppers! they are huge! i must be the sharpest knife in the drawer--planting vegetables and then leaving town for a month as they ripen. our neighbors will hopefully appreciate them....

photo courtesy of emre

ah the cycle of life

before i grew tomatoes, i never knew how it all happened, so here is a visual lesson for the day. on the top you see the flower blooms whose sweet scents summon the bees. without the bees, the cute little tomatoes on the bottom wouldn't grow. pretty cool, huh? i guess there's somthing to the birds and the bees .... initially, emillia the polish-tomato-guru-stone-cold-fox fretted that the bees wouldn't visit my tomatoes flowers, since they reside on the second floor fire escape. but i was pretty certain that a bee or a spider or anything else creepy-crawly wouldn't hesitate to fly up at least 36 stories if it meant scaring, biting or stinging me.

fun quote of the week

in the hospital bathroom....

more-hygenic-than-i-cousin: "wait! don't put your purse down! there's shit all over the floor!"

far too un-germophopic and confused me: "what?"

more-hygenic-than-i-cousin: "it's true! i read an article that said that every time a toilet flushes, shit flies out and gets all over the floor!"

i live in new york. i can't even consider this fact or any like it or i'll go insane! already i've lost the luxury of sitting down on the subway platform benches because they are supposedly infested with bedbugs. more on that pleasant subject later.

conversation between 12 year old niece and the aged auntie kitty kat

niece: "nana said you only skipped school once, and that was for a protest of some sort. what were you protesting?"
aged auntie kitty kat: "war"
niece: "oh, the vietnam war?"
aged auntie kitty kat: "the first gulf war! jesus, i'm not THAT old!"

so much for the cultivation of that 'hip, young aunt' image....