So maybe, possibly, quite probably, starting a new monthly series the month before I moved 300 miles – Connecticut to Maryland – was not well planned out. Somehow, I pushed aside all of my previous moving experiences. I didn’t fully recall the chaos and the amount of time it takes to settle in. But oooh I have been reminded.  It’s only this week that I now finally have reliable phone service at the house! (Thank-you Mr Dixon for solving my communications “Black Hole” problem!!) Things seem to be 3/4′s of the way back on track now – whew! I’m ready to announce this month’s book giveaway AND a bonus extra to making up for my dropping the ball! Without further ado I give you: Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson.

One night Harold decides to take a walk in the moonlight with his purple crayon and oh the places his imagination takes him!  He takes you from a straight line, to the moon, to a boat to sail on and a pie to feed his hunger – all created with his purple crayon and imagination. Harold explores all the greatness and possibilities outside his front door in the end finding himself home again settled in his bed.

The Rules: For the sake of simplicity, all comments must take place on the blog attached to this post (doesn’t have to be fancy, even a hi will do!), comments on our Facebook fan page won’t be counted.  I’ll close all comments 9pm EST on the set date.  If 10+ people have commented I’ll put the total number of comments into a random number picker (your assigned number is based on the comment sequence – first comment = 1, second comment = 2, etc…) and the number that comes back is the winner!  I’ll announce and contact the winner two days after the closing date and arrange to send them a copy of the book!  So excited to share this with you!!  So here are the details for this month’s book.

July 2010 Book: Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson

Comment Closing Date: August 3rd, 2010

Announcement of Winner: August 5th, 2010

Bonus!!: This month to make up for my dropping the ball I’m also giving away the dvd cartoon version of this book – it’s the same one I was shown in school many many times!

Now if you just can’t wait until August 5th here’s an Amazon direct link. 

Good Lord it was freaking hot! May 31 2010 was moving day.  What started out as a breezy, beautiful 70˚ day in CT turned into a gross, disgusting, humid 90˚+ day in Baltimore County, MD.  To top it off the local electric company hadn’t turned on the power like I requested.  Can you read NO a/c!!! This also meant that the cable guy couldn’t hook up the tv and internet.  No internet for over an entire week – slay me now!!  This was not an auspicious start to my big move.  Thankfully it got a whole lot better really quickly.

I’ve been planning this move since last August.  Coming down, checking out places I might like to live, meeting people (Twitter is totally awesome for this) and just soaking up the vibe that is Baltimore. As it goes, a friend of mine had a friend who lives in the area and connected us through Facebook. Back in October we met for lunch at a local Panera and four hours later Mary and I parted as the best of friends – love that!

Mary’s happy place is Camden Yards. I mean – BIG time happy place!  She gives the most amazing tours of the ballpark and the history/baseball knowledge that pours out of her is nothing short of astounding.  A couple of weeks before the move Mary and I started talking about meeting up and going to an O’s game.  I checked the schedule and happened to notice that the O’s were going to be hosting the Red Soxs my first Friday in town. As a CT girl who grew up going to Fenway and vividly remembers Bill Buckner’s flub during the 1986 World Series, this was an opportunity that just couldn’t be missed. Mary, knowing full well it was going to be ugly for the O’s, was up for it.  And it was – ugly, ugly, ugly for the O’s but it was also completely awesome to be at the ballpark.  I love the vibe and feel of Camden Yards, so much so, that the following Friday I was back at Camden Yards and on Mary’s tour taking photos.

*Complete aside – It’s official – every ballpark/team on the east coast somehow has a tie to Babe Ruth.  How that is possible I have no absolutely no idea! The image of the statute on the end – yup, you guess it – that’s the “young Babe Ruth”…*

So how could it possibly get better then that?? I give you Honfest! Talk about something that is quintessentially Baltimore! For those of you who don’t live in the Baltimore area – what is Honfest you ask? I’m not sure I can fully answer that question! Think beehived, hair sprayed, curler wearing, gum smacking women wearing lots of pink, orange, animal print clothing with cat eye glasses. I kid you not. Here’s how the official Honfest site defines a Hon:

The term Hon is actually a friendly Baltimore greeting and comes from the word honey. Around here, however, the women who vie to become Baltimore’s Best Hon are a vision of the sixties-era. They are women with beehive hairdos, bright-blue eye shadow, spandex pants and anything with leopard print!

Adore, Adore, Adore Honfest! So much fun, people watching and great food. There was even a place were you could get your ‘hair did’ in a beehive.  I am sooo doing that next year. Without further ado – here were some of my favorite Hon’s of the day!

I have no idea what adventures Baltimore in July will bring but I am SO looking forward to them!! If there is anything going on that I absolutely HAVE to go to, see and be a part of – share it here and I’ll try to make it happen!

Yes it’s true – The UnKitchen Diva went on a rather long hiatus this spring. During that time a house was sold, she went on the road for 21 days straight and moved to Maryland.  To say she was otherwise occupied would be an understatement!!  Once she got to Maryland she heard over and over again about CSA.  What is this CSA?? Apparently all over the country there are Community Sponsored Agriculture (CSA) projects.  You buy a share in a local farm and every week pick up fresh produce.  Everyone in her area of Maryland raved about One Straw Farm – so obviously that was the place to go.  Besides The UnKitchen Diva figured if this didn’t get her to like vegetables NOTHING will!!  After getting lost and then saved by one of the owners of the farm, she was escorted into the huge cooler.  In there were Strawberries, Lettuce, Chard, Garlic Scapes and other things she had no idea what to do with.  The UnKitchen Diva turned to the farm owner, relayed her story (probably in far to much detail) and asked for help!  This is how she ended up with Chard and Garlic Scapes in her bag of loot! Now what to do with it??  I give you Baked Chicken with Sauteed Chard and Garlic Scapes!

Baked Chicken with Sauteed Chard and Garlic Scapes

1 Chicken Breast                                   Olive Oil

1 Garlic Scape                                       Several Chard Leaves

1/2 Cup Brown Rice (precooked)              Pepper

Paprika                                                 Garlic Salt

Salt                                                       Spoonful of Butter / Margarine

1) Get the owner of the farm to tell you in step by step detail how to cook the vegetables in your bag, immediately forget it all, go online to learn it all over again…

2) Preheat oven to 350˚.  Plop a frying pan on the stove top and pour some Olive Oil in (I’d guess about a tbs. but honestly I just pour until I think –“yep that’ll do”). Measure out ½ cup of cooked brown rice, put in microwave bowl, put some tabs of butter on top and put in microwave.

3) Take one Garlic Scape (and seriously am I the only one who wants to say Snape and thinks of Harry Potter??) Chop up into ¼” pieces and put into cute little glass bowl – because where else are you going to put it??

4) Take 3-4 leaves of Chard, roll them individually length wise like your making a snake with play dough, unroll because you forgot to wash them, wash them…, re-roll. Cut them into 1” sections. Then cut sections in ½ (first time I made this I didn’t cut them in ½ and it was like trying to eat long spaghetti strands of chard – difficult at best!!). Put in cereal bowl and make sure it’s heaping over the sides.

5) Unless your super speedy your oven should be heated now. Take a square pyrex pan put a huge spoonful of butter/margarine in the bottom and stick back into oven to melt.

6) Take 3 sections of paper towels – why 3 no idea, but it must be 3 – wash hands, rinse chicken breast, get grossed out by chicken fat, put on the 3 folded sections of paper towel and wrap the towel like a burrito around the chicken to dry, wash hands again!!

7) Take pan out of oven, put on stove top – not counter…, unroll chicken from paper towel burrito, place in pan and roll in melted butter, getting butter everywhere.

8.) Sprinkle on salt, garlic salt, pepper and paprika – in that order – it’s easier to see how much you put on – trust me….

9) Stick in oven and set timer for 9 minutes.

10) Run around the house, check your email, update your Facebook status….

11) When the timer goes off turn the burner under the frying pan on to medium to medium high heat.  Take chicken out of oven, flip, sprinkle spices again, stick back in oven and reset timer for 9 minutes.

12) When oil is hot plop in the Garlic Scapes, move them around, hear the sizzle, look for some browning on the edges – about two minutes.

13) Ok this part is like magic – I was told it would do this but didn’t believe it. Dump the Chard in, mixing it up so it gets covered in hot oil. Stir a bit and then watch it shrink to ½ it’s size – seriously it’s like a Honey I Shrunk the Kids moment! Stir around making sure what’s on top gets to the bottom etc.  After about 2 minutes it looked done to me and there was 3-4 minutes left what to do? I moved it to the back of the stove and stuck a top on it – seemed like a good plan to me!

14) When the timer reaches 2 minutes press the 2 minutes express cook on your microwave to heat the rice.

15) Timer goes off take chicken out of oven and cut into cube like pieces.

16) Layer chard, then rice, leaving the chicken for the top – making it look pretty!

Viola – Baked Chicken with Chard and Garlic Scapes!!