In Lime We Trust

Cameron says...

Today I sprinkled my garden with lime. There are ants in my bed of greens, and I have no idea what they want there. There aren’t very many holes in the leaves for the number of ants that are marching on the bed, and I have cleared three caterpillars out of there since I planted, so I’m sure that the ants aren’t the ones going for the leaves. Hopefully that will repel them suckers long enough for me to get the garden soil nice and fertile so the ants won’t want to live there.

I cooked some of the millet I bought last night. I tried to boil it like oatmeal or cream of wheat, but millet is not a grain you can bully around with high temperatures and very little water. You have to coax it. So I reduced the heat to 2 out of 10 on the dial and let it simmer for about half an hour. It smells and tastes a lot like corn. In fact, if I didn’t know what it was I started with, I would have thought I was eating grits. The grains popped as they were cooking—not like popcorn—it was more of a rupture than a pop. I made amaranth as well. That was a pleasant tasting grain. It was chewy and had a woody taste. But when it cooled down to room temperature, it felt like rubbery sand in my mouth. I’ll still eat it.

I also shared some lentil sprouts with Corey. To my surprise, he really enjoyed them! He said, “I looOOOve them!”

Wow. A six-year-old with enough taste to recognize how delicious a simple sprouted legume can be. Corey has always been a good eater, his mom tells me. She is the picky eater in the family. While Corey and Emily both can’t even stand to look at cayenne pepper, Corey likes a lot of foods that Emily has rebuffed quite sternly. She said the millet I made today was gross. So it’s two against one, and I think she’ll end up eating sprouts some time down the road. Maybe she’ll like mung sprouts or sunflower greens or something else.

I ended up eating the raw lentil sprouts in handfuls until I got the idea to mix it in peanut butter to make “crunchy” peanut butter.



















I am trying to find ways to make my family eat healthier without them having to realize it. While I can reduce my expectations that everything I eat be the sweetest, saltiest, most flavorful food I’ve ever eaten, I don’t expect my family to have the same attitude. Yet. I was really happy to find I could mix about two tablespoons of lentil sprouts into enough peanut butter to make a sandwich without it changing the taste. The texture was of course crunchier, but who doesn’t like crunchy peanut butter? And this crunchy peanut butter has the added benefit of not shredding the flesh on the roof of your mouth!

And, just for your viewing pleasure, here are some pictures of my new baby boy.