Water

Shame that this was never submitted to the photo contest of the Student Handbook of UH

Turtles

Pre-Passover Planting

Pink-flowering Strawberry

It is not permitted to plant during the eight days of Passover, though non-essential plant activity is permitted, like watering and fertilizing, and even pruning if necessary. So after cleaning the garage, I planted two banana peppers and one sage plant into large pots, and potted up the Cuban Oregano (actually a form of Coleus).

The plan for this spring is to have 2-3 banana pepper plants, two or three basil plants (Dolly basil instead of Genovese this year), two Brown Berry cherry tomato plants (these grow rather tall), two or three slightly hot pepper plants, and 3-4 Ichiban eggplants in Nature's Way Rose Soil, which was found to produce the healthiest, most productive plants last year, as compared to 5-1-1 made with aged pine, and unsifted Sta-Green potting soil.

That should maximize production as much as possible, keeping in line with the three rosemary plants I already have, allowing for near-constant picking for rosemary chicken.

And now back to studying for molecular evolution.

Experimenting with Vodka Infusions

The title says it all, really. My father infuses vodka bottles with lemon peels (4-5 lemons per liter), and around the time of Succot, one etrog per bottle as well. In an act of experimentation, I've tried to create new, perhaps better, infusions, using this Wikihow guide and this (now defunct) blog.

Grapefruit mint vodka was ... interesting, but not to be repeated.

Yerba Mate-infused vodka (one day was about enough) was also interesting, akin to a caffeinated alcoholic beverage of some sort. Definitely something to try when in need of a downer-upper (or a double downer for those who fall asleep from caffeine).

Grapefruit peel was impossible to drink. It's rather difficult to avoid getting the pith as well as the peel, but maybe using just the zest could work.

Strawberries lent a slight sweet flavor and red color to the infusion, but the taste was nothing special.

This is blueberry vodka (but not with wild blueberries):

Its taste is about as unremarkable as strawberry-infused vodka. Perhaps wild blueberries would work better.

Next up will be vodka infused with cantaloupe, pineapple, and vanilla beans.

Tart Tarte

Today is Sunday and also Mother's birthday. A double whammy! Cooking day and a day to make gifts to Mama coincide!

There was a lot of one-hand egg cracking in this one. Presenting Tarte au Citron:


and muffins au Citron:


Update: Delicious! (A lack of vegetable oil sprayed onto the muffin pan before baking required careful disposal of the small ones.)