Our typical weekend does not usually begin with elbowing our way through thousands of people, in search of both ammunition and a little house-protector in the form of a 20 gauge shotgun, but today, unfortunately, it did.

–Let me just take a moment right here to emphasize that gardening and cooking are not the sum of the parts of me, and yes, I am both right-leaning and a gun owner/collector/shooter.  Some individuals on Twitter seem to have alternate conceptions and decided I needed unfollowing after tweeting about our difficulties finding ammo today.  Or hell, maybe that was just the Last Boring Tweet they could stand and it’s pure coincidence.  Either way, I am who I am and apologize to no one for any of it.–

This was the line outside our local downtown event center at 9:30-ish this morning:

There were at least triple that many people already inside, and while gun show crowds are, by definition, vastly more polite than crowds encountered anywhere else, getting through that mass of asses and elbows – with both kids in tow – had me (and my PMS) snarling. 

So, what better way to decompress than to come home (attempt and fail miserably at a nap) and dig in the dirt.

Several of the romanescos were ready to harvest today:
 

We like these very much.  Lots of crunch, and a nice, mild broccoli flavor.  The perplexing thing is the enormous plant that produces the lovely fractal heads…once they’ve produced ONE head, they’re done!  This enormous, HEAVY plant has nothing left to give, it has to be yanked up and composted at this point.
 

Oh well, they’ll make some damnfine compost.

In other news…

One of the pitcher plants is about to grace us with a blossom:
 

Yep, they actually bloom! 

The carrot spirals are going strong:
 

And the myriad greens are ready for scissor-cutting.  This is Green Lance and Galisse:
 

This is Yukina Savoy:

The Green Lance has a very mild spinach flavor/texture (and actually can grow taller, eat the stems like broccoli), the Galisse a beautiful butterhead texture/flavor, and the Yukina Savoy has a stiff texture with a stronger spinach-y flavor.  Together, they make one damnfine salad:
 

We shredded the leaves to remove stems on all but the Galisse, threw in some romanesco sprigs, and tossed it with an Italian vinaigrette to go with our pasta.  The Boychild – notoriously picky about salad lately – ate every shred.  And the very biggest benefit…I am not running to the bathroom as would have happened with store-bought salad.  TMI, yeah, but hey, compelling evidence in the argument to grow your own.