Reason # 278 why I love my neighborhood

Random patch of dirt in the sidewalk near my house, from which grow the most mega sunflowers every summer.

-Wrence

...and then I created FOOD

From what was once nothing but dirt, water, and Carbon Dioxide, I have created salad.

BEHOLD, the Vegetablening:

This was a shot of the garden, featuring the "arugula box," about 2 weeks ago. Today, I harvested my first batch of leaves (leaving the plants themselves intact, so I can harvest again in a few more weeks). Ah, the glory of photosynthesis!

BEHOLD, Salad!

In order to get the full terroir from my arugula, I kept it moron-proof simple: just dressed the leaves with lemon, olive oil, and some shaved parm. I can't even put into words the inappropriately immense amount of satisfaction I had eating this. I MADE FOOD. I mean, I've made bread, beer, and even cheese, but THIS shit I coaxed right out of the AIR (basically.)

Just go ahead and TRY to enjoy the rest of your night, I dare you.

-'God

Mid-Week Remodel

So; the building in which I work has been going through a major remodel for the last year or so. Floor by floor, they are slowly, painfully, and loudly de-80's-ing our whole place. This month our entire floor is being demolished & rebuilt (with sexy results, hopefully) and we have been given temporary digs in other remote areas of the building.

My new pad, I must say, is pretty sweet. I went from sharing a cube that was completely out in the open to having my own semi-private cube with my own window. Also, I am now up on the 12th floor, so there is a view. Now, when management executive types come ambling by inspecting their little empire, I have the forewarning and ample time to back out of whatever episode of Family Guy I was watching, and no one is the wiser. The only person who can now look at my monitor over my shoulder would be a guy hovering 200 feet in the air over Milk Street (previously just about everyone in the company walked behind me no less than 30 times a day, all getting their own sneek peek at whatever I happened to be doing at the time).

The view is ok, if I look all the way to one side I can see the harbor, if I look the other way I can kind of see downtown (mostly though I'm just looking at other buildings). Right around the corner though, I noticed this cool roof deck with garden, right across the street.

If you can click on this to make it BIG, you can see the garden, it's pretty sweet. The top of that building is right about the level of my old cube on the 5th floor.

Speaking of gardens, this year's vegetablening at 46 Tremont is going well. The herbs I planted in May are all mega healthy -in fact I have so much mint now I'm going to need a bottle of Rum to mojito-nize it all. The little onions and hella-peenyoes I planted from seed are up and sprouting; the tomatoes have been transplanted finally and are now stretching their little arms skyward; I hope to harvest a salad from my "arugula box" soon. Check it out:

In other news, RyToy is still missing, after beind kidnapped by a new job & several little summer mini-vacations. With any luck, his captors will allow him a brief statement to his beloved readers on Bros11 at some point in the future.

New International Hits

Starting a new blog is kind of neat when you start to notice people from all over the globe stopping by to see all the crap we have typed so far. Adding to the list mentioned at the end of this post, we now show hits from: Puerto Rico, Brazil, and Lithuania. Sweet.

-'Wrence

Summer Weather

Hey kids, 'Wrence here;

Not much of any terrible importance going on; except, that is, the gradual and inevitable increase in the kick-assitude of the weather here in Boston. It seems like summer has suddenly sprung right from the bowels of crap-laden mud & street garbage itself. Why, just last week was I treated to the miraculous sight, as RyToy & I waited for a bus at Harvard Square, of an adult HAWK, screeching down from the heavens, TALONS OUTSTRETCHED, who dove into a nearby bush and then came back up with a fucking RAT in its carnivorous clutches!! Yea, it was probably the most badass thing I've ever seen in the city. Period. Exclamation point.

So anyway, when the 2nd consecutive day of sunshine, 60 degree temps, and a smooth summer breeze (makes me feel niiiiiice) hit me, I decided that it was time for me to take out my trusted and true little charcoal grille. The wimpy, pathetic, 14-inch diameter job that anywhere outside of the city would probably result in me being laughed off of something in an humiliating fashion, is PERFECT for my 7 x 30 foot driveway.

On the menu was a nice fillet of steelhead trout, dressed with olive oil, lemon juice & some herbs. Also a melange of grilled vegetables was produced (and thoroughly enjoyed), along with some goat cheese crostini. All this was cooked and consumed pretty much completely in the driveway, making cleanup not really even necessary. Score. Add a bottle of really good, decently priced California Cab. Score again.

Also, I felt so good I planted some marigolds in this big planter on my sidewalk. Over the last 3 years I have found that people throw less garbage in it if there are flowers there. Here is what it looks like:


I am proud.

Don't forget to call your mother on Sunday.

'Wrence