It’s a little sad that the leaves are starting to change colors. We only start getting them in May up here, so seeing signs of their departure only 3 short months later somehow seems unfair. But those signs also are indicators of extremely exciting things knocking on our calendar’s doorstep: garden harvest, fruit harvest and winemaking, shaggy mane hunting, butchering … Read More
Lawn Converted Into Food
Over the past few years I’ve watched a few hundred episodes of Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library TV, and am a regular commenter there. Recently, I’ve been enamored with Daniel Klein’s ‘Perennial Plate‘ project about eating locally in Minnesota. So recently I had a bit of a ‘duh…’ moment, realizing that I had the gear to do some video blogging myself, … Read More
Pickled Carrots
I was short-of-breath-giddy to get this jar put together. Since I was a kid, I could pretty much pass on pickles – pickled cucumbers that is, but not these. Pickled carrots, in my little world, are in an elite class of their own. And baby carrots, they top that elite class. It just so happens that I married a lady … Read More
Onion, I’ve Got Your Back
Some people get excited about growing orchids, I get excited about growing onions. If there’s a vegetable that I depend on more in the kitchen, I’m not sure what it is. Doesn’t matter which culture of cuisine: onions. I think onions ended up being pretty un-sexy in the grand scheme of things. They store well, they can be pretty cheap … Read More
4 Wines & A Plate – Riesling
This was the first time we gave Riesling a go, and my expectations were high. I like Riesling. It was a hot summer day. I had a funky garden salad topped with wood-fire-grilled salmon topped with a puree of 4 varieties of chive an onion, topped with stir fried garlic scapes. Good company. But one can’t win them all. Execution … Read More
Pea-Growing-Newbie
My first success with peas ever Blanched with butter and salt - by far my favorite use
A Quickie Garden Tour
Valerie reminded me today that I need to post more about gardening. I’ve also been meaning to post some photos for my gardening buddy who recently moved away [who’s on dial-up, and will hate me for this post, then love me]. I have a decidedly unconventional garden with streaks of conventionality running about. I just got in from taking a … Read More
Harvesting, Not Thinning: Baby Beets
Eliot Coleman sticks in my head – probably from Four Season Harvest – re-framing the concept of ‘thinning’ into one of ‘harvesting’. Today I embraced the latter. My beets needed ‘thinning’. A well intentioned older neighbor even told me so. And ‘harvesting’ to enjoy baby produce is a far more enjoyable job, let me tell you. [Not that I don’t … Read More
Ketchup…from scratch
Having made lard, I’ve been mucking about [very successfully, I may add] with pastry dough. Which lead to tourtiere. Which lead to copious amounts of ketchup being used, which is how I roll with tourtiere. Heinz. I used it up, yep I did. Onto the grocery list it went. Then I considered a ketchup a friend of mine had given … Read More
Die Kale, Die.
Yesterday we were served a lovely kale dish by some friends, which made me reflect upon the copious leafy masses that were now shading my newly planted grapes. Grapes need sun. Shading them is unacceptable. The kale had to die. I have to be honest, I’m not sure why I waited this long to thin my chards and kales – … Read More