When the Ocean Is Your Playground -- an earthy-crunchy post. Plus, sandwiches!

Saturday Surf session very nice.  The waves were pretty mellow, but a South swell was building and occasionally things got bigger and, quite frankly, for me a little scary.  But I kept my wits about me and I caught a good one. Wiped out on several others, of course, but fun!   Saturday, however, was also the day after the fourth of July, and the beach was kind of a mess.  It always bums me out when I see trash on beaches (or trash anywhere for that matter).  In fact on most Southern California beaches there's a trash bin about every ten yards.  So c'mon people do like it says on the sign in the bathroom at Zuma!

In fact I've made this a habit -- every time I hit the beach to surf, when I head down to scope things out, along the way I pick up stray bits of trash and deposit them in a bin. I've gone as far as if I spot a piece of plastic in the ocean while surfing I'll try to grab it and tuck it into my wet suit!  I wish everybody who went to the beach for whatever reason would do a better job of picking up after him or herself.

Surfers I've encountered seem to be pretty big on wanting to better the environment in whatever way they can.  This makes total sense.  The ocean is our playground, and we want the water to be clean.  I got to know one surf buddy around the time Sam and I were thinking about ripping out the grass on our front lawn and replacing it with drought-tolerant and native species that can attract bees and butterflies and hummingbirds.  This is good for so many reasons.  We also replaced sprinklers with a drip irrigation system.  Drip irrigation is far more efficient and doesn't produce runoff into the street.  Because what happens with runoff is it picks up gas and oil and any other shit lying in its way and it pours it all into storm drains, and these drains eventually empty into the ocean.  So the less runoff you create, the less you're contributing to pollution.

This one surfer knew another one who designs native landscapes, and he did one for us.  (side note:  did you know the LA DWP will actually pay you to rip out your thirsty grass and replace it with natives?  Well, they do and we got a nice rebate. Go to the LADWP website and click on the tab that says "Turf Removal" if you're interested in this program -- the process is a bit cumbersome, but if you keep on top of it it's not so bad).  So now we have a front yard full of various sages, a really big matajilla poppy (i have not been able to find the truly accurate spelling so forgive me!), rosemary and some lavenders, and a whole  bunch of other things and we just love it.  It smells really awesome, and it looks like this:

One more thing about the benefit of a native yard -- gone is the need for the weekly mow and blow.  Not that I have anything against those guys, but they generate tons of real pollution, and don't get me started on the noise pollution aspect!  Now if we could only get rid of the nasty crabgrass for good.

In the back, however, we kept a small grass area, mostly so the beagles would have a place to run around.  But we also decided to put in some raised beds and grow vegetables.  Right now everything is starting to come in:  zucchini, cucumbers, various types of tomatoes, eggplants and herbs are all here.  So are the sunflowers that Sam plants everywhere.  We have tons of sunflowers right now, and they attract a lot of bees too.  Okay, raising vegetables uses a little more water, but it's good because you can go shopping in your back yard.  Also, you know the vegetables aren't full of pesticides and other crap.  Here are some of the vegetables in the garden right now, along with a shot of sunflowers:

After Saturday's surf it felt like it would be nice to have a healthy lunch, and because we had these vegetables from the garden I decided on a veggie sandwich. Note that the tomatoes and cucumber were ours. The avocado, lettuce and sprouts were from the Silver Lake Farmers' Market.  Monterrey Jack Cheese was probably from Trader Joes.  Yeah, we haven't figured out how to make cheese yet, although I do keep coming back to the idea of a chicken coop and having fresh eggs.  But anyway, here's what i used for the sandwiches.

For 2 veggie sandwiches:

4 slices whole wheat bread
2 tbsps, or more, mayonnaise*
Sriracha (or not!)
1 ripe avocado
1 small cucumber, thinly sliced
2 small tomatoes, thinly sliced
Salt and freshly ground pepper
4 slices Monterrey Jack cheese
Two large Romaine lettuce leaves
A couple of handfuls of alfalfa sprouts
*Mayonnaise note:  We ALWAYS use Best Foods, which is Hellman's on the east coast.  There is not substitute.  Don't try to buy cheaper mayonnaise, or use Miracle Whip!  FYI we've tried this with ranch dressing on both slices of bread instead of mayo and sriracha.  That's pretty good too.

1. Spread mayonnaise on the four slices of bread.  If you're into Srirarcha add as much as you like.
2. Halve the avocado, remove the pit and while it's still in the shell cut the inside into a small dice.  Then scoop out one half onto two of the slices of bread. This will be the bottom half.  Mash the avocado slightly to keep it from shooting out of the sandwich when you bite into it because that's never a good thing.  It should look like this--
   
3. Lay down a layer of cucumber, then a layer of tomato.  Sprinkle the tomato slices with some salt and pepper.
4. Top the tomato with slices of cheese.  Then add the romaine lettuce and top with sprouts.
5. Add the top piece of bread and slice the sandwich in half.

Here's the finished product:

Looks pretty delicious, huh?  Super healthy too, so you feel good about eating it. 

That is all.