This was inspired by a post on friend Despina Yeargin’s Facebook page more than a year ago. The photo had a little lantern on a stone bench surrounded by snow, and she invited poetry responses. This was mine.

From leaves ablaze with autumn hues
And crow cacophony
The setting moon is so amused
I’m sure he winked at me

The dust bunny population had simply grown too large, say the Hansons. “As long as they were quiet and stayed in the dark, we’d grown fairly comfortable with sharing the space. But then they became too bold, too brazen.”

Dustbunny Sprite - with apologies to Mr. Miyazaki's soot sprites

Apparently the quiet housemates were no longer content to live in the shadows. “They didn’t stay in the corners and under the bed as they used to… we’d open up a window and they’d just come strolling out across the floor, openly and with no shame. Or they’d ride up a sunbeam onto the kitchen counter to ask when dinner would be ready. Seriously. Something had to be done.”

The Hansons deployed several implements of destruction in their impromptu extermination. “It wasn’t planned. It just happened. I guess we’d had enough.” Primary tools included a broom, dustpan, and vacuum. “Basically lots and lots of vacuuming. I sort of started vacuuming, and just didn’t stop,” says Mrs. Hanson. A bucket and mop were later utilized to clear the evidence. “A pretty thorough job. All in all I’m pretty pleased with our Saturday.”

In another part of the house, Mr. Hanson sorted through seven year’s worth of boxes full of books, figures, and knick-knacks from previous residences and places of employment, suspected to be dust bunny breeding grounds. An extermination of this scale has not been seen in this house since… “Ever?” says Mr. Hanson. “It was time.” Floors, carpets, tile, countertops, windowsills, bookcases, shelves, the Hansons missed nothing.

“Well, actually we didn’t make it into the bedroom, and the bathrooms were a bit cursory,” clarified Mrs. Hanson. “We sort of lost steam after the sun went down. But we’ll get the rest next weekend. Anyone hiding under the bed had better go ahead and make their peace.”

The vacuum is put away for now and the mop hung to dry, but the Hansons promise it’s not over. “And the cobs laughing in their webs had better look out,” they warned. “We just didn’t see them yesterday, but they’re next.”

Quick and Tasty Fish Tacos - eating in front of the XBox is optional

This dish is inspired by two meals I enjoyed at my excellent friend and “Good Cook Cooker” Despina’s home. She made pan-fried fish tacos one night for a social evening, and veggie quesadillas one day while I was there working on a project.

This is an unintentional combination of the two, and is just delicious, and fast becoming a staple for us (as it’s also inexpensive). Note that mine are not pan-fried, not for any healthy-sounding reasons but that it simply seems like a lot of hoo-ha and these ended up being really good as they are so I sort of stopped there.

Now, here are the exact ingredients as we purchase them, and instructions as I make them. But it’s quite free-form, substitute away! Fresher and homemade/homegrown ingredients would be far superior, and pan-frying the filets would be super yummy as well. If you hit on other great combos, or have your own favorite fish taco recipe, just do me a favor and drop a note here in the comments so I may try it too!

Ingredients:

Small (8″) flour tortillas
Bagged shredded mild cheddar cheese
Bagged mixed baby greens
Bagged (seeing the theme here?) broccoli slaw
Bagged frozen fish filets – we like Perch for this
Daisy sour cream
Bottled mild chunky salsa
Butter
Kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, lemon-pepper seasoning

Cook the filets:

Preheat oven or broiler. Depending on their size, allow one or two fish filets per person. Arrange the them in a broiling pan or cookie sheet, brush a little butter on top, plus salt, pepper, and lemon-pepper seasoning. Preheat the oven or broiler, and cook the fish filets according to the instructions. (Why does my computer keep trying to spell-correct filets? Is it fillets? Wow, it took that. No really, I’m sure it should be filets. I’m going to ignore that little squiggly red underline and so should you.)

Meanwhile,

• Preheat pan, skillet or griddle to somewhere between medium and medium high, about 4 o’clock on my stovetop which I realize doesn’t help you at all. Have all other ingredients on the ready, because once the pan is hot this goes fast! Not too hot or the tortilla will burn before you get all the ingredients in.
• Drop a partial pat of butter into the pan – or for you measureheads, let’s say a teaspoon – spread it around with one tortilla and leave in the pan. QUICKLY layer evenly onto 1/2 the tortilla very small amounts of each the following: a pinch of cheese, pinch of broccoli slaw, a few greens, some fork-shreds of fish filet I am ignoring you angry red squiggle, a spoon of sour cream and a bloop of salsa.
• Check the bottom of the tortilla, when you just start to see lovely browning like the photo, fold that bad boy in half with the spatula and press flattish for a moment. Flip it onto plate, give the griddle about 10 seconds to recover, and go again!
• You may be surprised how easy it is to overstuff these, it takes a few trial tacos to realize just how little of each ingredient you need.

Make 2 or 3 for each person. Enjoy.

The lovely ladies at Nest in Style were kind or misinformed enough to interview me alongside garden photog superstar Laura Mathews (a.k.a.Punk Rock Gardens), for a topic on taking great garden photos. And WOO HOO the podcast is now live!

Then, I saw with delighted horror that they mentioned my website in my bio. I gimped over to my OWN admin for once (pause while I try to remember my login) and see if there are any blog posts sitting in the drafts folder that I can whip into shape and publish so there’s something to look at!

So hang on just a sec as several months of half-finished thoughts and diatribes get once-overed and pushed live in an effort to look like someone lives here… hold please…

Joe Lamp’l, Patti Moreno, Nathan Lyon, Theresa Loe and Carl Pennington

Ingredients:

• 1 package of Ramen with its seasoning packet – chicken works well
• 1 processed cheese single – any kind (melts better than “real” cheese)
• Parmesan cheese (optional)
• Water

Directions:
Break noodle block into 8-10 pieces, put in pyrex or microwave safe bowl. Add enough water to cover noodles, and then another ¼ cup. Stir to be sure all noodles are wet. Microwave on high for 2-3 minutes, or until you see the water just boil. Stir with fork and allow to sit for 1 minute. Pour off water until it is about the same level as the noodles (tricky, as the noodles are floating). Add about ½ of the seasoning packet. Tear cheese into strips or pieces and stir them into the broth. Allow your cheese sauce a moment to cool and set, sprinkle a bit of Parmesan on top and eat with fork or chopsticks.

Variations:

1. Sass (an old roommate’s method): add hot sauce and chili powder to taste
2. Comfort (MY METHOD): add up to a 1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese, a few grinds of fresh pepper, stir or toss to coat
3. “Gourmett”: omit seasoning packet entirely, add shredded asagio and cheddar, 1 sprig rosemary (chopped), kosher salt and ground pepper

What. This is a real recipe!!

Have funner variations of your own? Insert into comments section below.

What do I write about? Myself? My aspirations? My credentials – trying desperately to convince you I’m worth reading, or following, or subscribing to? Or do I cheat and pull over posts from past blogs, other articles and pretend this blog is older than it is! More established. More experienced. More mature, like a little girl experimenting with lipstick. What? I’m a woman. See? Lipstick.

Nope, that doesn’t feel honest. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done it before – launched a blog using old content – and I can’t say I won’t do it again but at the very least my first post should be something current! Even if it’s a nonsense, string-of-consciousness bit of drivel such as this.

I can’t even really tell you what to expect here, since I think we’re going to find that out at the same time. It will probably have something to do with gardens, photography, internet marketing, social media… oh forget it, I don’t know yet. And I won’t spend time right now setting up blog categories (or your expectations), until we all figure out what’s really going on here.

Welcome to my mind – oh watch your step – sorry about that. I wasn’t expecting you. Usually it’s a little bit tidier than this…