Diana’s Think Space

A friend of mine recently alerted me to the fact that individuals can sell their own products on Amazon. His plan was to import plastic stuff from China – my first thought, of course, was of selling Butter Bean Boutique clothing. I could get tons of fabric and sell only the less-complicated dresses like Pillowcase dresses – things that I could get done quickly enough that I could still list them as “in stock” until I ran out of that particular fabric. I was especially excited when I saw that Amazon charged only a 0.99 cent closing fee to list these items.

Alas, my joy was short lived. As you can see below, you can’t list an item of your own unless you pay $40/month for it. The “individual” seller’s account can only sell duplicates of things already listed on Amazon, like books, movies, and music.

So the question is now…. would I be able to sell enough $25 dresses in a month to cover that $40 fee? Should I just go ahead and try it? Summer’s waning, after all, and soon pillowcase dresses won’t be such a hot item, so maybe I should get going. Then again, Amazon isn’t a great venue for handcrafted items, and with so many bargains available there, perhaps the lure of something handmade won’t have the weight it would on a site like Etsy. But on the third hand, Amazon has a huge audience, so does that really matter? Someone out there will surely see the value in them…. right?

Opinions? Thoughts?

When I was growing up we traveled frequently to see my relatives in Guatemala. I was a foodie even then – I looked forward to sugar-crusted plátanos rellenos with equal enthusiasm as I did our trips to see the craggy ruins of ancient temples. Some things I have never found satisfactory replicas of in the States – the doughy warmth of a smoky, salted just-off-the-comal tortilla or the unknown spices that flavor thick cacique soup.

One of these things is Guatemalan lemonade. The lemons there are just different from the ones in the States, it seems, because the lemonade you get in Guatemala is sweet, almost floral, with very little of the throat-burning acridness (combatted with too much sugar) that seems such a part of US lemonade… almost as if they used lemon-flavored oranges to make their delightful beverage. In the States I never, ever order/buy/make lemonade, but while in Guatemala I ask for it with every meal.

I was reading about lemonade the other day when someone brought up the topic of using the lemon zest as well as the juice of the sour fruit. The idea was to make a simple syrup with zest in it and use that to sweeten the lemonade instead of plain sugar. A way to get that sweet, fruity actual lemon flavor into lemonade? Outstanding.

While this is still not as quaffable as Guatemalan lemonade, it comes closer. A lot closer. Close enough that I’m proud to serve it up whenever friends come over and sometimes, just because. (It also has the advantage of fully dissolved sugar, so you don’t get that last super-sweet, semi-crunchy gulp that you do when you just add sugar to cold water.)

Summer’s Best Lemonade – serves 4-6 5 lemons 3/4 to 1 cup sugar, depending on your sweet tooth 3/4 cup water 3-5 cups cold still or sparkling water* Zest all five lemons over a small bowl. Be careful to get none of the white, bitter pith. Bring water and sugar to a simmer in a small saucepan. Once sugar is dissolved, turn off the heat and dump in the lemon zest, stirring a bit to make sure it’s all wet. Let it sit until it’s cooled to room temperature, then strain. Meanwhile, juice the zested lemons.

Dump the juice and zest syrup into a pitcher. Add cold water to taste. Stir well – the syrup will tend to fall to the bottom. Serve over ice.

* I think sparkling water makes it more festive – and you’ve gone to all this trouble already, so why not? – but drink it right away because it goes flat in the fridge.

A cool (80 degrees) evening, a friend home from China, a couple steaks in the fridge = a recipe for grilling.

New baby potatoes:

Became devilled potato salad:

And was served with this (flank steak, beaten 1/2″ thick, smothered with a paste of basil and garlic, layered with provolone and prosciutto, tied, sliced, and grilled):

And was washed down with the summer’s best lemonade:

And followed by this (Blueberry Lemon-Buttermilk cake):

Aaaah. Summer evenings, good friends, good food.

I was challenged by my good friend Ann the other day to create some boy clothes for my Etsy shop. I made two different designs – well three technically, but one’s not made up yet – and made Taco model the jersey shirt this morning. This pic won’t make it into the Etsy shop, but it’s too cute to go unseen.

This was my first big harvest from the Patch a week or so ago.

I got perhaps six cups of peas out of that batch… by the end I was sitting there with blistering thumbs thinking “Now why did I plant shelling peas, again? Who thought shelling them all would be romantic?” They did have a delightful flavor, though I wish I had harvested them earlier as most of them were pretty starchy. Taco really loved them… J, not so much. Ah, well.

The carrots were fantastic though. They were a half-long variety, so that’s as long as they’re liable to get. A bit too strongly wild carrot flavored to eat raw (like they had all the flavor of a big carrot, concentrated in their little bitty selves!), they were soooo good steamed. I didn’t have quite enough for a full batch so I added in some regular ole organic carrots we had already, even though I was worried about my home-growns getting lost. I shouldn’t have worried. It turned out to be a good contrast in terms of color and flavor, as my carrots became bright yellow and retained some body, while the storebought carrots stayed characteristic carrot-orange and got softer. Tossed with a bit of butter, kosher salt and fresh ground pepper, we wished there were more ready to harvest.

The turnips we haven’t eaten yet, but they’ll keep.

Next year I think I’ll plant more carrots and less peas.

The other day, coming home from the Patch, I decided to add the tips of all my twenty-some basil plants to my harvest bag. Compared to the load of onions (bitty ones all, disappointingly) I got, I didn’t think it was all that much. But I guess it turned out to be about 14 cups, because once washed and stripped it filled my food processor to the brim.

I remembered a trick I’d heard of before as a way to use up the leftover herbs from those ridiculously expensive plastic supermarket packages – mincing them up, mixing them with water, and freezing them in an ice cube tray. Since I didn’t have quite enough basil for a batch of pesto but still didn’t want it to go to waste, I decided to try it. I sloshed some water in the processor and made those leaves into a fragrant paste.

I think I could have gotten two more cubes’ worth if I hadn’t overfilled the tray so much.

Now I can have the taste of fresh basil even in the winter – and I won’t have to pay $3 per sprig, either.  -grin-

You can watch it marginally larger here.

One and a half hours at the Patch.

One half bottle of organic bug repellant.

39 mosquito bites. No, scratch that, 40. I just found one in the middle of my forehead.

I realized this morning that I forgot to put my URL on my labels. Luckily I remembered in time, and since Taco woke me up an hour early I had plenty of time to get them redone and resent to the printer before 9am. Not that she’s going to print them until Monday but…. I’m excited.

I just Googled “butter bean boutique” and I’m already the second result! So I don’t feel so bad about not having the direct URL now. Yay!