Gratuitous celebrity sighting and CSA box

There's an old joke that you know you're from the Midwest if you're on a first-name basis with your mayor but you've never met a celebrity. Art, our mayor, and I had our last meaningful conversation last month at Chautauqua the night he was our emcee. But celebrities have definitely been a rare occurence in my life.



We were visiting our friend B, who just started dialysis this week, at Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital today when Joss Stone came by. She's singing downtown tomorrow night. In this photo, she's just signed a shirt for B, after apologizing that it's pink, but that's her favorite color. I think she wasn't fully prepared to be meeting any 18-year old boys at the hospital, but she didn't have any problem being appropriately gracious and breezy.

Okay, back to one of the normal topics for this blog. The CSA box this week had more cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, and beets. New for this week were a sack of tiny onions and broccoli. I'm experiencing what most newbie CSA users experience -- being overwhelmed by produce. We're doing pretty well. I've already cheated some by freezing grated zucchini and yellow squash to use in bread later, but I don't have enough freezer space to do that much more and peak season for summer squash hasn't even started yet. I'm hoping that the holiday weekend helps -- I'll bring a big salad to our gathering tomorrow!