No more horticulture than a bowl of yogurt

Last night, upon arriving home from Atlanta, I discovered my basil plant in a very sorry state. The poor guy clearly couldn't handle a couple days without water as well as I thought he could. His stems were flaccid and yellow, his leaves crumpled and drooping and a worrisome shade of brownish-green. I watered him, apologizing profusely* and expecting little in the way of recovery. This is what he looked like twelve hours later:

I shall name him Lazarus. And repot him soon: the greedy bastard is already growing out of his pot! If this is a success, perhaps the purchase of a cilantro plant is in order (after my move, if I can hold myself back). Or a parsley plant. Or some chives. I'm pretty sure the Union Square Greenmarket has all three.

The last flower on my orchid plant dropped over the weekend as well, which means that I'll follow the advice of several books and websites I've consulted and snip the stems at an angle between two nodes in order to encourage regrowth. A cool temperature helps, apparently, so I can keep my room climate amenable to the basil and the as-yet-nameless orchid all at once.

Now, this next photo may not look like much, but it depicts something truly, deeply delicious.

That is my very own jar of homemade rhubarb barbecue sauce, or, as I like to call it, rhubarbecue sauce. It's tangy. It's spicy. It's sweet. It's a great way to make stewed okra (chopped up with seeds in, please; I like it gooey!), which can conveniently be served on top of oven-baked sweet potato hash browns.

Atlanta appears to have had an influence on my diet, despite the fact that baked hash browns are probably an offense against god and country in most parts of the world. My next plan for the sauce: dip paprika-crusted grilled tofu in it. It's so good, and I have so much of it to work with.

*Does anyone remember that part of A Wind in the Door during which Calvin describes the experiment he did with plants? He kept one in his home with his abusive family, left one unattended, and coddled and cooed over another. According to him, the coddled plant flourished, while the plant left in the presence of verbal abuse withered.