More bounty from my mother’s garden.

If you go to the Puyallup Fair this year and see the Horticulture entries, you’re bound to see her entries in produce. She also has entries in the Floral building. I remember many a morn of waking up earlier than the sun to go enter all the flowers before school. From kindergarten on up through the big games, I was there. Every year. Entering flowers in the fair. Which, by the way, earns a fair amount of cash.

Fun fact: Every year for as long as I can remember, except for the last couple, I have entered flower arrangements in the fair. Yes, I am a champion flower arranger. At the Puyallup Fair.

With these flowers.

Fun Fact #2: I had a guinea pig named Zinnia. It was my favorite flower at that age. True story.

Love this pom pom flower.

That right there friends, is the biggest raspberry in the world. No kidding, you could eat it in more than one bite. Without trying.

Rows upon rows of tomato plants, a slight breeze mixing their scent with the wafting aroma of blackberries. Zucchini and spaghetti squash vines sprawling over the ground–lined with old, yellowed newspapers sprinkled with fresh grass cuttings. The garden was surrounded by hundreds of yellow and orange calendulas and delicate nasturtiums.

Nasturtium leaves were always my favorite because of the way the water balled up in little droplets that would slide around on the circular leaves. They epitomized the meaning of a dewy morning.

A month or so ago I went back to visit this garden. Not just the garden, honestly I was going to my parent’s house to help my mom can applesauce and raspberry jam. What doesn’t grow on my parent’s property? They have blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, Italian plums, multiple varieties of apples, peaches, pears, cherries, every vegetable there is plus a few more. I was a spoiled child, clearly.

Yet growing up with a garden like this literally in my back yard still didn’t teach me to not be afraid of spiders and bees. Though now I have a husband that is allergic to bees, thus I feel that my fear is validated. Never minded ladybugs though. Who’s scared of a ladybug, I ask you?

Obviously white flies. Which is why I did this.

Dragonflies are also frequent visitors to the garden.

I literally have dozens of photos I could show you of this garden, but until Part II, I will end my introduction to the fantasy land with this: flowers that I wish could be made into a dress.

I write this on the first truly dreary day  in a long time. It is classic cold, wet, rainy Seattle. But I welcome it back like an old friend, August or not. The summertime is always a relief when it arrives, with it’s forthcoming fruit and abundance of produce. Seattlites are blinded by the sun and subsequently blind the rest of the world with our paleness. We eagerly haul out our kayaks and lay outside in the parks soaking up every last ray of precious sunshine.

But the sound of rain on the roof is one of the most treasured and simple pleasures that there is. So I curl up on the couch with my laptop and watch the rain drizzle down the window pane, and savor every moment of this cool weather while it lasts.

In Seattle we have this glorious, glorious store called Uwajimaya’s. It’s an expansive Asian grocery in the International District where I get nearly all of my ingredients for making the husband’s favorite Thai and other Asian dishes, like Pad Thai and Bulgogi. My most frequent purchases are rice noodles, tamarind concentrate, and limes. At the ‘Waj this runs me about $3.50. At almost any other grocery store, that would only buy you the rice noodles. As you can see, I am incredibly thankful to have this store in Seattle.

The ‘Waj is a really entertaining place to explore. They have the largest variety of tofu and pocky, and so many different kinds of sauces that it makes your head spin. Oyster sauce, All-Purpose sauce, Thai Chili Garlic sauce, Plum sauce, etc. It takes an entire aisle, and it’s a long aisle.

But their seafood and produce sections are my most favorites. The seafood section has quite a few tanks with crabs crawling over each other, in addition to a prawn tank and a line of open tanks that look like tide pools with oysters, geoducks, and live sea cucumbers (only $4.99 each!).

Photo by Gexydaf.

The thing I love most about this store is that some items are dirt cheap, like the aforementioned rice noodles. On my most recent trip I found small tapioca pearls for .69/14 oz. bag. Now that is cheap. Subsequently I bought a bag and made tapioca pudding that night.

Oh yeah, and who doesn’t want to wake up to a can of Boss every morning?

Photo by heath_bar.