For What It's Worth

Elusive Onions is a labour of love. Or maybe lunacy. Any reward I've received from my work here is of the intangible variety. I've never received cash, or gifts. Heck, when once upon a time I held a contest I provided my own prize. So imagine my surprise when I stumbled on a website that put a dollar value on my blog.

Apparently, Elusive Onions is worth $765.47*. 

(The asterisk leads to a footnote that refers to a disclaimer that, if I'm reading the legalese correctly, says that the information provided should under no circumstances be taken seriously for any purpose.)

I was kind of shocked that anyone would go to the trouble of appraising my wee corner of the interwebs. I was also shocked at how little 6 years of writing is apparently worth. Such well-crafted stories and beautiful photography should be worth much more than that, shouldn't it?

Some other interesting facts gleaned from the URLmetrics website:

• Elusive Onions is ranked 10,650,967 in the United States. It has no worldwide ranking.
• There are less than 300 monthly visits
• Topics: Balls (Cashew-Date Laurie Balls, cashews and dates)
• Lots of other techie gibberish I don't understand.

These stats are bizarre, and rather funny. I wrote about balls once. That was three years ago, but apparently that's what get's you noticed on the world wide web! 

I actually don't know why I write here. For the most part I write for myself. It's never been for money, though if someone offered me cash with no strings attached, I probably wouldn't say no. 

Writing here is a hobby.  There are stranger hobbies to have. (Yes, all you spoon collectors, I'm talking about you!)

Writing here is my way of challenging myself. Of forcing myself outside of my comfort zone. Of being scared and being OK with it. It's my version of parkour. I can't imagine being any more frightened jumping from roof-top to roof-top than I was when I shared my first post, or the first photo of myself, or my sketchbook drawings.

Writing here is me shouting from our dust speck that I'm here! I'm here! I'M HERE!

Glad you are too!

Score!

While I was at work on Saturday, my hubbie braved the crowds at the farmer’s market and scored some beautiful locally-grown produce. How cool is that? For $20 he got purple kale, a bag of walnuts, salad greens, beets with the tops on, leeks and shallots. It was all so amazingly perfect that I had to take a picture.



Of course, by the time I thought to take the picture we had already eaten half of the salad greens. It was the best salad I’ve had in ages.

I was so excited by the selection that I had trouble deciding what to make. What a wonderful dilemma! I got over that in a hurry though, and got cooking. First I roasted the leeks and the shallots with other vegetables then used the roasted veggies to make broth. I then cooked beet tops, kale and rice noodles in a bit of the broth and topped that with baked salmon steaks. I’ve never made anything like it before, and was surprised at how well the meal turned out, particularly since I didn’t exactly follow the recipe that inspired the meal.

The broth and the salmon dish hardly made a dent in the farmer’s market haul. I still had enough broth and kale left to make smoked sausage, kale and potato soup. Again, I didn’t exactly follow the recipe , but the results were yummy. I served the soup with a side of salad greens topped with cold steamed beets, walnuts and some feta cheese left from a tart I made earlier in the week.

It’s been inspiring to see how what I have in the house works with the farmer’s market goodies. So far all I’ve had to purchase was the smoked garlic sausage and the salmon. The garlic sausage was made by a local butcher, and for less than $5 I got enough for 3 meals. The wild salmon steaks were slightly over $2 each. They were small, but with the broth, greens and noodles they were enough. The best part is we had two delicious meals, leftovers, 1 ½ litres of broth to freeze, a few snacks, several salads and I still have produce from the farmer’s market trip. I’m so pleased. Pleased with the results, pleased with the value, but most of all I’m pleased with my hubbie for his shopping expertise. I wonder if I can convince him to go again this Saturday?