We went to the beach with @thecogent recently and I was reminded once more why we live here. A 30min drive in one direction will take us to the Mediterranean Ocean.
Where we can bury the children in sand ;)
While a much shorter drive in the opposite direction will take us into the Pyrenees mountains.
Where we can discover hidden places under ancient rocks.
When I don't write a post for over a week I start to get a strange sensation like an itch I need to scratch. And so I will scratch my itch now with a quick review of all the different things which have happened in the last ten days. Most of them food related.
My first job as an electroculture salad producer
Word is getting around that I have the best lettuce in town and our local restaurant, which is particularly good, have asked that I supply them this Summer with fresh produce.
So it was with a great amount of pleasure that Esteban & I prepared this salad box for them yesterday.
Bought new digital scales especially for this!
And made our delivery promptly at 9am.
This is the chef. Her name is Mamou and she is from northern Africa. And her culinary skills are out of this world!
She runs the restaurant with her husband who does front of house.
Upon making our delivery their first question was "do you have more?"
Which was like music to my ears.
I have plenty! Can't eat it quick enough in fact.
So Esteban & I ran to the garden and collected more.
Two types of kale, beetroot leaf and sorrel here.
A couple of small classic lettuces.
Plus a frizzy lettuce and some mint & chives.
Despite Esteban's assurances it would be okay we did not deliver the salad in a dustin lid. We took it home, washed it and presented it in a suitable box.
I charge them €15 per kilogram of washed salad (lettuce only) and €17 per kilogram for the other stuff like kale, mint, sorrel & chives. Don't really know if this is a good or bad deal but I feel happy with it.
Yesterday's delivery made me around €20 and if everything goes to plan this summer (100 people a day sitting on their terrace during lunch and dinner) I will be making at least €50 per week. For now they only offer salad as a starter (and also as a garnish with every dish) but I believe I can persuade them to do a salad as a main.
Especially once I have rocket, mustard, parsley, basil, tomatoes, peppers, cucamelons & cucumbers to throw in the mix.
Cosmic cone cucumbers no less!
Will tell you more about this 51° cone (modelled on the Irish round tower) in a dedicated post, by which time the cucumbers will have grown up it a bit.
Hard to say exactly what it is when we have so many different electroculture devices on the go now but everything on our land is just looking so great.
What about these mangetout? Don't remember ever seeing them this big before.
This one is six inches!
Artichokes looking powerful.
Kale looking curly.
This is what our daily harvest currently looks like, salad excluded.
With the flowering parsley I made pesto, mixed with sorrel, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil and salt.
Crazy good flavour. And goes with pretty much any meal you can think of.
Enough to last us a few days.
I kid you not. Three days after making it the pot is almost empty.
It is particularly enjoyable with my home made bread.
Eaten with tomato and a little bit of cheese if you like.
This is basically what we had for dinner this night.
Our styles of preparation ever changing.
Sabrina is currently favouring the fortress style with a little salami on top.
I even had avocado/pesto/tomato for breakfast!
Have planted a ton of parsley (this time with basalt and various electroculture techniques around them) and I look forward to making more pesto in a month.
Wines & Liqueurs
The cherries have been magnificent this season, so plump and sweet.
With the excess I am currently making maraschino liqueur, a mix with vodka, brown sugar & cinnamon.
Here's one I made two weeks ago, surrounded by orgonite pyramids and cones.
And here's me enjoying a glass last night :)
Tastes like caramel. But extremely potent. Especially when prepared in a skull bottle. Goes straight to the head ;)
Other cherries were used to improve the flavour of my pumpkin wine. Here I am putting them through the process.
And here is the pumpkin wine making space for the cherry juice.
The mix has been bubbling away contently in my office for the last few days with a copper pyramid on it for good measure. Have learned enough to know this unquestionably improves the flavour.
Sabrina made a cool pyramid
Our orgonite making has not stopped and the latest person to get their go on the biggest pyramid mold was Sabrina who was keen to make a present for her mother using these 'immortal' flowers which have a special significance for her.
Each flower is attached to a skewer while the resin sets around them.
She used broken glass for the base.
And while glass is technically useless in a machine like this, it is still undeniably beautiful and a perfect visual contrast with the golden copper & yellow flowers.
She put a copper heart at the base and I feel sure her mum is going to cry when she gets it.
So much I want to say about orgonite and my current journey toward discovering what makes the perfect machine over what makes the perfect bedside table piece, but I will leave it for another post.
I do want to mention that I now have an investor for my cloudbuster who has agreed to pay for the remaining bits! She understands like me that if I build this right it will benefit all of us who live in this village. So yesterday we bought six copper tubes and today we order the iron powder...
Tooth paste for tooth pain
My homemade medicinal toothpaste ran out a few weeks ago and the pain in my damaged tooth came back almost immediately. It was intense. So I made a new toothpaste, ingredients seen here.
This is what it looks like once it has cooled down.
The turmeric (which is good for removing stains & whitening teeth) gives it an orange colour when you spit it out. And the green flecks of the neem leaf make it look pretty weird, but I can assure you it is effective.
The magic ingredient for the pain is cloves, which must be crushed into a powder with intention.
Cloves heal infection, which is what causes the pain.
If you're going to try this don't forget to add a dash of water to make it more like a paste and to prevent it going solid in the winter.
Other news
We fired up our outdoor grill a few days ago because Sabrina's dad is here at the moment and he can help us cook lunch!
It's a decent machine, powered by gas.
While cooking food this way does taste amazing I prefer raw goodies, direct from the garden.
Here's Luna and I on our way to the local lake.
There is so much grass growing on the sand, thanks to all the rain we've been getting recently.
It is nothing short of comedic that Macron has declared this region an emergency zone due to lack of rain.
On the contrary there is so much rain our canal cannot contain it all.
Nature laughs in the face of human absurdity.
And the snakes slither away with the heat of the day.
The kittens have around 10 days more before their new owners come pick them up.
They are always busy having fun, either playing or sleeping, often in precarious positions.
This is so close to being a disaster and yet the cat sleeps perfectly.
Here we are on a day trip to the garden.
We started out with the children carrying them but they seemed to prefer being together in the basket.
Cute little rug rats. Gonna miss 'em.
What I won't miss is all the dead plants and wonky electroculture devices!
Final Thoughts
Before I check out I must share with you how this evening I received a message from the restaurant saying the salad was great and they want the same quantity delivered in the morning. Which is two days after the last delivery! They also say they love my bread and want to include it on their menu. Wow. It's going to be a busy summer, washing lettuce and making bread! And suddenly I have an income of around €100 a week, from something I was already doing :)
Have always said it, when we are free to simply do the things we love, we will in time become great at them and money will naturally flow to us as a consequence, if we are open to it.
I've not been in possession of physical money for many years now, but something tells me that's about to change.
I am open to it!
Love & Light everyone 🌱
