Years of grime – time to shine

One of the main tasks that we have in beginning this Wellness Unit is to make sure we get off to a fresh, clean start by scrubbing off literally years worth of grease or mold or just plain dirt. Since we are getting new furniture and kitchen supplies, we are finding a new suprise behind every old appliance we pull out. We have a brand new steam cleaner and it does the job sometimes, but often we find that it just doesn’t cut it. Making the unit spick and span is going to take a lot of work.

An Idea – “Name the Wellness Cafe Contest”

My name is Patricia Bowen- the receptionist in the Wellness Unit. I have a wonderful idea! Its just a thought. How about having a “Name the Wellness Cafe Contest”? As a suggestion, maybe the “Esther Martinez Cafe” or the “Jesse Owens Cafe” or what is the most popular name? Check into the Wellness Unit for more details.

Harry Potter and the Wellness Unit

People have written a lot of sweet things on this blog and they are all true.  But, sometimes I wish that  Harry Potter could come to the unit and wave a magic wand so that the unit would just “take off.”  Not that there is any need for the Defence Against the Dark Arts here.  But there is a huge cloud of things that need to happen over a relatively short period of time and this sometimes can be as overwhelming as a dark spell.  Oh, the optimists out there would say “all things in good time, and we have taken some steps in the right direction.”  That’s nice.  But those of us who tend to the pessimistic side start to feel the anxiety around jumpstarting a new unit and around an innovative work in the clubhouse.  There is so much to accomplish. and there are expectations heard around the house for us to show what we have accomplished.  A lot of what we have accomplished may not be readily available yet to the rest of the house. Sigh

Our visitor from Denmark

This week we had a special guest from Copenhagen, Denmark. Her name is Hanne. She is a very friendley person and we enjoyed having her. I worked with her on salads for the kdr. I wish her a very safe trip back home.

The Lone Tomato + Jalapeno Pepper!

We have our first tomato and jalapeno pepper that was grown here at Fountain House.  We harvested them outside of the Horticulture Unit at the Van Am patio.  We also have our first tomato growing upstairs in the unit.

 Check out our pictures!

Delicious Potato Salad

Last Thursday we made potato salad with the potatoes that were grown at High Point. They were absolutely delicious!

Curried Potato Salad

1 pound potatoes

1/4 cup raisins

2 scallions, minced

3 tablespoonds sliced almonds

1/2 cup nonfat yogurt

2 tablespoons chutney

1 teaspoon curry powder

Cut the potatoes into 1-inch chunks. Steam or boil until tender, about 12 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl. Stir in the raisins, scallions, and almonds.  In a small bowl, whisk together the yogurt, chutney, and curry powder. Pour over the potatoes and combine well. Serve warm or cold. Serves 4

more garden news

3 cheers for corn! The seeds for these plants were put in the ground the first week of June, and now – 10 weeks later – they’re about ten feet tall.  Even though I see it happen every year, it always seems so miraculous.

Last week the Wellness unit teamed up with the KDR to tackle several gardening projects. Jen, Israel, Amrit, Alison, and Luis were up for the first part of the week, and then Chris, David, Adrienne, Tanya, and I went up for the second half of the week.  When we got there on Wednesday, we were really happy to find lots of delicious garden food in the fridge that Jen, Ali & crew made, including AWESOME tomatillo salsa (tomatoes and tomatillos from the garden) and zucchini bread.

Despite the heat and strong sun, we were able to get a lot done in the garden…  Adrienne and Tanya did an amazing job preparing the soil for one of the new raised beds, transforming it from stick- and rock-filled clumps to crumbley, rich, soft soil. They planted a new batch of lettuce, as well as some scallions. Even though it’s late in the growing season, there’s plenty of time left for growing more greens, and we’re hoping that we can continuing supplying lettuce to the KDR up until the middle of October.

We also spent time harvesting more potatoes, beets and our first batch of carrots.

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We started out early on Thursday morning. The area under the cold frame was weeded and mulched, and we tied up the straggley-stemmed tomato plants (not getting enough water). 

As the day got hotter and hotter,  Chris threatened to leave his clothes at the Chalet and wear a thong for our afternoon garden session! Thankfully David kept him in line, and the clothes stayed on.

You can see Chris, David and Steve here thinning out rutabagas here.

On Friday morning, we went to see Len, another local organic farmer who is involved in the NYC greenmarket system. We’d made arrangements with him ahead of time to pick up some additional greens for the KDR salads. As it turns out, only part were green. He also gave us a wonderful batch of bright red amaranth and spicy red mustard, as well as green lettuce, shallots, purselane, and a sample of a special variety of potatoes called Red Gold. 

 more next week when the gardening group returns for a one day trip….

the presentation of food

just a short blog saying what I’ve  learnt about the presentation of food, from making salads  for the  KDR . We’ve mixed  vegetables of different colors, for instance red peppers, cucumbers,tomatoes, cabbages and lettaces, and  brown croutons . The effect was  a lovely  medley of color  making  the salad nice to look at  (appealing)  and great to eat.  Thanks Ruth.

Our first Farmers Market

Yesterday we had our first mini Farmers market.  It was very exciting.  Ruth and I piled  a basket full of zucchini, cucumbers, squash, a few onions, rosemary, thyme and potatoes, and brought  every thing down to  the KDR for  our afternooon meeting.   What made it all exciting was that everything came from our garden at High Point.  We’ve harvested  a great amount of vegetables so far and look forward to  some tomatoes next week. People came by after the meeting   and purchased  some of our bounty.  We  charged  25 cents a  piece and the potatoes went for three for a quarter. Its been an exciting week with our zucchini muffins, and great salads and now potatoe  salad– all straight from our garden at High Point. Stay tuned for  what our next  harvest will be.

Wellness

My name is Pat I have been working in the wellness group since it started. We are doing a lot of reorginizing. We are also learning how to make healthy food .Everyone works together. I am also working out in the gym 3 days a week. Julius is very helpful. I have lost four pounds and am trying to firm up. I am learning about plants and flowers.