Feeling a little crabby

Before I went vegan, or even vegetarian, I was a huge fan of crab cakes. I ate them every chance I got (which in Kentucky really isn't often.) I remember the pain of encountering my first crab cake after going vegetarian and realizing that I would never have one of those tasty little cakes again. Since then I have learned more about crabs and the idea of eating one (or any bottom dwelling sea animal) completely disgusts me, especially after living on the Chesapeake Bay and experiencing the pollution first-hand. Of course, that doesn't stop my search for the perfect vegan alternative. For the last few years I have been using a crab cake recipe created by a former co-worker's wife, but the recipe required Worthington scallops and a deep fryer which made it a little inconvenient. Last night I decided to try a version that is pan-fried and uses a more common ingredient list.

This recipe is the Chesapeake Tempeh Cakes from the PPK blog. It is a preview for Isa's new Vegan Brunch book and I decided to try it out tonight with the Citrusy Roasted Asparagus that Jae posted at Domestic Affair today. Both dishes came out amazing, well above par, and paired with iced tea made a perfect meal for a cool summer night.

How about a salad?

Salads are one of my favorite things about the summertime so the other day when we got a big bag of locally grown, organic salad greens I knew it was time to start the summer salad experiments (technically, this is local salad number two of the summer, but I forgot to document the first one which was a tofu-bacon Caesar so I will attempt it again later in the summer.)

This salad starts with a mesclun mix (ours included arugula, frisée, beet greens and a few other things I couldn't identify) and then I added tomatoes, radishes, green onions, baked tofu, sliced almonds, croutons, sumac, and what was left of the Caesar salad dressing from last week. Yummy!!

Blood Money

How about a little spinning? On Saturday I decided to spin up the Saint & Sinners blood money batt I bought at Wholly Craft last summer. I have to admit that spinning those pieces of paper into the yarn was such a pain that I only spun them into one of the plies. I also decided to felt the yarn a bit when setting it to assure that those little strips don't come flying out of the yarn.


Name: Blood Money
Weight: 1.6oz
Yardage: 70yds, 2-ply
Fiber Content: Colonial and handdyed humane wool from a shelter, shredded US currency, and a bit of sparkle (unlabeled but probably Angelina)

Code Pink cozy and the bike forum

Last week I finished and mailed 13 squares for the White House fence cozy that Code Pink will be using in their mothers' day vigil for peace. I was really hoping that this could be more of a community project with the local knitters, but unfortunately I only know about four locals who ended up participating. In fairness, this was due to lack of organization and follow through on my part.

Yesterday was the mayor's bike task force public forum at the central library. For those of you who don't know, Lexington received a bronze rating from the League of American Bicyclists and is aiming for the platinum rating (of course we need to get the silver and gold first.) A lot has to happen to raise our community to the level of Portland, Boulder, and Davis, California, but if we keep the momentum from the last five years we can definitely do it. Below I pulled out what I thought were the good and bad points from the meeting yesterday. I should preface this by saying that I am a commuter and not a recreational cyclist so these are the goods and bads from my point of view. If you would like to form your own opinions you can listen to the entire forum on WRFL from 4-6pm today.

The Good

• Liberty Rd & Maxwell St will get bike lanes this summer
• City's complete street policy will take bike lanes into account during any street revamp
• More share the road signs to be added to our city streets
• More community bike programs and hopefully the availability of safety courses (I noticed three commuter courses during the month of May)
• Bike trail from downtown to the horse park has been funded and will be completed by the WEG in 2010
  
• On a state level, they are working to have highway shoulders swept more often which means few flat tires from debris and more share the road signs
• There are some really passionate people working to make all of this happen
  

The Bad

• City police are not stopping bicyclists who violate traffic laws (i.e. riding the wrong way in a bike lane, no lights at night) which makes the roads more dangerous for other cyclists, cars and pedestrians.
• South Broadway is still not a high priority on the bike lane list which means I will be walking or taking the bus to downtown for quite awhile (there are a couple other arteries into downtown that are also not bike-friendly, but with the narrow lanes and careless traffic I think S. Broadway is one of the worst.)

Resources
Bike Lexington 2009- There are lots of bike-related activities this month
LexRides- Underground bike events, includes the bike polo schedule
Bluegrass Cycling Club- Group rides, education, advocacy
Lexington Yellow Bikes Program- a $10 registration fee will give you a lifetime of free bike check outs.
Wildcat Wheels- UK students, faculty, and staff can check out bikes for free. They also provide a bike shop to help you learn to make repairs to your own bike (while the bike shop is technically for University staff and students, they won't turn people away who want to learn to do repairs.)

Weekend wrap-up

Busy busy weekend. Friday we went to a birthday dinner at Bella Notte and then had Rock Band at our place, Saturday was a birthday cookout, and Sunday was season 1 of Spaced then dinner and games with the in-laws. We drank way too much, slept way too little and had a blast.

Yesterday was supposed to be my relaxing day off, but it started with me discovering the electric company triple debited our bill again and an email from the landlord saying he hasn't recieved our rent check in the mail yet. Luckily, Philip came home in the middle of my freak out and he encouraged me to salvage my day by spending my afternoon thrift store shopping. After dropping off a second rent check I headed to Meadowthorpe where I hit Feather Your Nest, Goodwill and Pop's Resale. I didn't end up buying anything at the first few places, but it was nice to look around. I spent about an hour and a half at Pop's going through records before I finally decided on two Petula Clark albums and a Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazelwood 45. After that I picked Philip up from work and I was in a way better mood. We decided to spend the afternoon watching the rest of Spaced and during that time the landlord called to tell me that he found my first rent check under a pile of mail which put me in a great mood.