Happy birthday, Emily Dickinson!

Yesterday was Emily Dickinson's birthday. Not many folks that I know of celebrate her birthday. We did. I read two of her poems ("of bronze and blaze" and "I started early - took my dog") to the children. And we had corn fritters with dinner. Not everyone associates corn fritters with Emily Dickinson, either, and I understand that. But my research on what Emily Dickinson would have eaten was limited to a cursory glance at her poems which revealed several mentions of bread. And the discovery of this awesome site, Feeding America. In glancing through the cookbooks on that site, I learned that

1. women struggled with finding meaning in their lives even in the 1870s. It may sound stupid that I thought that women were content with their lot back then. Why should women be happy with cooking, cleaning, birthing babies and occasional writing and charity work? That's what I do all the time and I have moments of doubt about whether I'm fulfilling my potential.
2. In the 1870s folks ate corn fritters which is significant because I happen to have the America's Test Kitchen Family cookbook which has a recipe for corn fritters and Emily Dickinson's life spans the 1870s. Mission accomplished. Where is my flight suit?

It turned out that photographing the corn fritters was the biggest challenge on a gray evening in winter. But the fritters were good.

nibbling on granola bars

 

Made these granola bars with a recipe from the Good to the Grain cookbook. They are quite tasty, very sweet (which Kim Boyce warns her readers about in the directions) and extremely chewy  - but maybe I overcooked mine.
Amendments: I used golden raisins and fewer than she suggested because that's what I had on hand. And they are still awesome.

I also ventured into the healthy flours section of the supermarket today and found all the flours I needed to make Boyce's multigrain mix. Bob's Red Mill is prolific in its production of flours and I'm set to mix batches of multigrain flour mix as christmas gifts.

Can't wait to try this ...

I just got this book from the library. I'm planning to add it to my christmas wish list, too. There's no way I can bake all of these good foods in just three weeks.  Strawberry Barley Scones, Five Grain Cream Waffles, Graham Crackers, Onion Jam and Huckle Buckle all vie for first recipe to try.
I admit I haven't hunted for the flours used in the book yet. Some may be diffficult to find and some may be prohibitively priced which would put a damper on my enthusiasm.
But at first blush, this book has revived my hope for home baking. A friend and I had recently been bemoaning the demise of homemade baked goods because 1. no one takes the time to do it, 2. most of us can easily hop over to a bakery when we want a sweet treat, and 3. no one needs more sugar and refined white flour. I know these treats still use flour, which is, by nature, a refined food. And some of these recipes still use sugar. But the emphasis is on flavor, not sweetness. The author, Kim Boyce, incorporates a lot of fruits and vegetables in the recipes (sweet potato muffins, carrot muffins, quinoa and beet pancakes, pear and buckwheat pancakes). And she has used the ultimate taste-testers - her children.

I could wish that there was a photo for every recipe, but the photos that she does show are beautiful and I am so grateful to her for putting out a book that I can use to make fairly healthy treats for family and friends. She even has a recipe for a multi grain flour mix that I think would make a great gift for my friends and family members who like to bake.

Chicken Feet and other Stories

Turkey bones are picked clean, leafy tops of celery have waited in the hydrator since I chopped the crisp stalks into bite sized bits for my cornbread dressing (a tradition I cling to because 1) It’s not Thanksgiving without cornbread dressing; 2) it’s one of the ways I celebrate Dell Marie, my grandmother’s maid who cooked our family’s cornbread dressing from the time my mother was a child until Dell Marie’s retirement when I was in grade school; 3) No offense here (maybe I just haven’t sat down at table with the right stuffing), but stuffing usually tastes like canned dog food smells.)

So. Armed with turkey bones and leafy celery tops, I have at my disposal some of the fundamentals of good turkey broth. What more than turkey bones, celery and water does a good stock need? Onions. Check. Carrots – a precious commodity in my house. I’m down to only one bag full of carrots from my own garden and to cook all the flavor out of a perfectly good carrot when I have so many other uses for them, is a sacrifice I’m not willing to make, even if carrots are the secret to perfection when it comes to chicken stock (which is debatable in my world but is vigorously maintained by several cookbook authors, including Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall.) So. Skip the carrots, but that’s okay because I have a secret ingredient up my sleeve. Chicken Feet.

(Hindsight reveals that I should have actually put them up my sleeves and done my own version of a Saturday Night Live Lawrence Welk skit a la Kristen Wiig, but that would have involved holding them, perhaps letting my sleeves brush them and freaking my children out to an unforgivable degree and I couldn’t get myself there.)

Like a witches brew, minus the eye of newt and toe of frog, my broth pot has an unsettling effect on my family.

What, for example, is the black patch on the pad of the chicken foot? I have no idea. But I cooked it anyway, because my farmer assured me these were clean chicken feet. (My farmer looks like Qui Gon Jinn, so the question arises: is he using the Jedi mind trick on me?) And is it really right to cook the talons? I think not, but I didn’t know it at the time. Subsequent research has revealed that some folks cut the chicken’s toenails prior to eating the feet. But if I’m not eating the feet, just boiling them for many hours, maybe it’s okay to keep the claws untrimmed? Well, all I can say is we’ve now eaten turkey pot pie made from leftover turkey meat and my turkey/chicken feet stock and we have experienced no ill-effects from supping on talon broth. And finally, what about that membrane that is peeling off the shank? I think I was supposed to remove that, too. Didn't, but lived to tell about it.

What inspired this leap into what I will call backwoods culinary sense? Well. Thrice in one week I encountered the idea of chicken feet. First in a column by longtime Texas writer and reporter, Leon Hale, who mentions the use of chicken feet in his mother’s chicken-and-dumplings preparations during the Great Depression. Second in a cookbook I’d brought home from the library and have since returned and because it is not within reach I cannot confirm which cookbook it was, but I bet that it was Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s Meat book (and even if it wasn’t, I put that book on my recommended list for his thoughtful approach to meat eating, meat preparation and animal husbandry). Third, while picking up my delivery of local meat, cheese and dairy, I opened a cooler of frozen grass-fed beef and pasture raised poultry and pork and beheld (and here is where, in the movie version of this story, a dramatic choir of voices should sing out and a hallowed aura should appear indicating a mystical confluence of universal forces) a bag of chicken feet. I interpreted the choir of voices and shining aura as a sure sign that the universe wanted me and my family to embrace the nose to toes to tail philosophy of meat eating. So I ordered my own bag of frozen chicken feet for the next week’s pick-up.

As if I needed further proof that this was my rightful path, my months-long wait for Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon ended. During the intervening week, the library notified me that the book was on hold for me. So when I picked up my chicken feet, I was armed with not just a mystical faith that this was right, but with nutritional information about the trace minerals and boost to bone, joint and digestive health provided by a stock made from chicken feet.

And thus ends my story of chicken feet, except to add that

• I added only 3 or 4 feet to my stock pot with my turkey bones, onions, celery and water to cover and simmered it for a couple of hours
• yes, my broth was gelatinous when cooled in a way that my broth hasn’t been in years 
• no, I haven’t found it to be a fountain of youth, revitalizing my skin, hair and fingernails. But that’s not to say I won’t keep hoping. 

P.S. This post is part of the Fight Back Friday carnival of renegade food links. Read more good ideas for cooking Real food at Food Renegade Fight Back Friday.

garlic and marigolds

According to the U of M extension folks, I'm about two weeks late on planting garlic. It should be done within one to two weeks of the first frost, so that roots are developing and shoots are growing, but not above soil level, by the time of the first hard frost (28 degrees - so that answers that question for me. Thank you U of M).

Having adopted the stance of my father-in-law ("try it and see"), I planted my garlic today (adding compost to my bed, digging 1" deep holes, spaced 8" apart with rows 1' apart, (which took up 2 rows of my 10' bed (bed #5))), despite being off on my timing. Then I mulched with straw and I'm about to go water (knowing that water is fundamental to all life, I forgot that part until now) and maybe it will work and maybe it won't. If I get to the point where I can harvest garlic, I'll know the time is right when the foliage dies back. Then dig up bulbs, dry in the sun and store in a cool, dry well-ventilated location (which I don't have).

Does it work to save marigold seeds? As I was digging out the frost-bitten marigolds, it seemed worth a try to save the seeds. I'm drying them out now and then I'll tuck them in an envelope and and see how they do come spring.

fall action plan

Since I learned from Bob Flowerdew that I don't have to dig my vegetable beds in the autumn, I'm working on a new checklist for "putting my garden to bed" for the winter.
1. Pull out vegetable plants and annuals.
2. Pull out little metal stakes that hold the soaker hoses in place.
3. Move hoses to the side. (This is the first time I've not rolled them up and put them in the shed - is this laziness or an example of "working smarter, not harder?"* We shall find out come spring.)
4. Rake up debris (see elucidating photo above).
5. Hoe to get any pesky weeds that have survived my eternal vigilance.
6. Rake debris up again.
7. Replace hoses in beds.
8. Cover beds with mulched leaves (I ran out of mulched leaves, so most of my beds will be bare. It feels wrong, but my mower having played out, I have fewer options than normal. Apparently taking the mower to the fix-it shop is not an option.)

I also pulled out my elephant ear bulb and have it drying out for a few days before I put it in sphagnum peat moss or garden vermiculite. But before I settle it in for it's winter storage, I'll trim the top growth.

Friend or foe? I saw several of these guys while I was cleaning my veggie beds. I left them until I could learn more.

*A phrase that I understand is used in the corporate setting and which must be a number one contributor to work-place dissatisfaction and stress-related heart disease.

hard frost

I don't know the exact definition of a hard frost, but my understanding is that below-freezing temperatures that last for more a few hours qualify. At 5 a.m. my husband told me it was 23 degrees and when I checked at 7:30, the temp was still 23 degrees, so I'm calling this a hard frost. Plus a visit to the garden beds revealed rock hard ground - rock hard when rapped with the knuckles, but still diggable (the technical term) with a shovel.
(Fortunately for me no whistles sounded alerting me to the freezing temperatures and routing me from my bed so I could take the only blankets in the house outside to cover my precious, tender tomato plants on whose survival hinges my entire livelihood. See Eudora Welty's "The Whistle" for a stark portrayal of a night in the life of tomato farmers in Mississippi during the Depression).
I have been anticipating a hard frost and hoping I'd have straw on the premises in time to mulch my lettuce bed (see Bud Markhart's advice in Norther Gardener, sept/oct 2010 issue).
And lo and behold I got straw yesterday. But did I put it on the lettuce bed before temps dropped below freezing? Hmmm. As my kids like to say when they are on the defensive, "why would I?" And really it's a great defensive stance because usually, as in this case, the reasons why one would are so numerous there isn't time enough in the day to go into it.
So... the lettuce froze and I put straw on it anyway and we shall see what we see come spring.

This truly dynamic photo enlightens the viewer as to what straw looks like and how dead my marigolds are (upper right).

I dug out my scarlet nantes carrots, too, by the bye. They are now stored in a plastic bag in my hydrator. Potatoes - last plant - are still in the ground.

mellow fruitfulness

The kids found two raspberries on the raspberry bushes and claim there are flowers on the bushes ready to produce more. I thought I had June bearing raspberries - is there an everbearing in there or is this the effect of perpetual Indian summer.

tomato experiment results

Q: Will tomatoes wrapped in newspaper and stored indoors ripen?
A: Yes, maybe 25% of the tomatoes will ripen, the rest will decay.

Q: Would diligently checking the tomatoes every other day have staved off decay in some?
A: I don't know.

Q: Did the light frost before the tomatoes were picked affect their quality and or create a tendency to rot?
A: Uhhh... maybe.

Q: When the subject of autumn and tomatoes and tomato harvest comes up with with people aged 65 (or so), will they suggest that you try wrapping the tomatoes in newspaper and storing them until they ripen?
A: Yes, 100% of the time (sample size: 2)

Q: Will the wrapping in newspaper technique yield tomatoes into December, as per the anecdotal evidence found in blogs?
A: Not according the the anecdotal evidence found under my bed.

composing compost

I've been waiting for the mosquitoes to die off so I could deal with my compost which looks neglected, but I think compost likes to be left alone. I know some folks turn theirs and some folks water theirs and my mom layers hers. I throw debris and kitchen scraps into whichever bin is empty and I wait, using from the bottom of my handy black bin that I bought many moons ago.
The other day, I went to use from the bottom and found that my bin was almost empty! Why that astounds and pleases me, I don't know, but it felt like an accomplishment. And it meant I could take advantage of a pleasant and mosquito-free day to move compost from the dilapidated chicken-wire bin I made myself, to the black bin with the use-from-the-bottom feature. And it made room for autumn leaves! I just hope I have more compost by spring planting time.
A third bin my be necessary.

keeping my autumn sensibility

I'm going to reveal myself as belonging firmly on the side of the complainers, the glass-is-half-empty types, the sour-pusses when I admit that my autumn sensibility is wearing thin. More than three weeks of perfect, sunny, warm-during-the-day, cool-at-night, dry weather have left me longing for an excuse to go dormant with my plants - hide in the house, cook stews, bake cakes and work on indoor projects, like the plants do underground.
But, the plants aren't going dormant. The tomatoes are out, sure. Lettuce I can deal with. A pepper blossom means coming fruitfulness and I'm not ready. How do folks in California stand it?

squarsh

seed saved in an envelope for next season and, yes, microwaved within the squash for five minutes so I could cut through the thick-skinned monstrosity to get at the seeds and bake the squash in rings - as per Better Homes and Gardens recipe.

lettuce now praise indian summer

Three weeks of indian summer and the lettuce is happy. I planted more seeds today (cos and ruby) to fill in the already-been-picked spots.
After I was so pleased to learn that small radishes are lauded by Bob Flowerdew, my radishes have decided to do what they never did this past spring or summer and that is to grow full bodied very quickly.

It may  not look like much, but this is a biggie for me.

stand tall molly lou marigold

The marigolds look a little battered, but I still see an occasional bee or butterfly/moth hovering about them, so I'm leaving them a bit longer. In the background is a mound of mulched leaves which I'm spreading on the gooseberry/blackberry/rhubarb/blueberry bed.

I took out the pepper plants and picked off the last wee jalapenos - we put them on our enchiladas last night. And yes, I do touch people's food with my dry, wrinkly old-lady-hand-lady hands. I have a bundle of jalapenos still to freeze and I need to will myself to take the time to use my wizened hands to chop them and put them in freezer bags and label them and, finally, to put them in the freezer. I will thank myself in February and March whenever I make chili.
And by the bye, my kids are too old for it now, but I've always loved Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon.

compare and contrast

See the big, well formed acorn squash that might feed a family? That's from Grandma and Grandpa. The little baby acorn squash that makes but a suggestion of a snack for one person was grown by me. Must try harder next time.
I had the vine variety of acorn squash and the vine 1) took over the world and 2)got what I will call powdery mildew - whitish junk on the leaves which then withered and died.

So, I pulled the vine out and called my little half-formed acorn squash good. They aren't very sweet, but I eat them anyway and any powdery mildew that I have caught is crusting on my internal organs rather than on my outside, so that's a relief.
Next year... bush acorn squash. (And I can wish, all summer long, that the word "bush" wasn't such an uncomfortable word). Or, as per the recommendation of the in-laws, save the seeds of the two squashes they have given us and plant those next year.

Haralson Hurrah!

Apple Crumb Pie this time, as planned. Let's hope the pie tastes better than my crimped edges look. For the crumb pie (the original recipe is in the Star of Texas Cookbook by the Junior League of Texas) I made a crust, peeled and sliced thin 7 medium haralsons, enough to make a good mountain of apples. Sprinkled the apples with 1/4 cup sugar mixed with 1 tsp. cinnamon. Then cut 1/3 cup butter into 3/4 cup flour mixed with 1/4 cup sugar. I went lighter on the sugar than the original recipe recommends - sugar depletes B vitamins, and I can't maintain my status as a sugar nazi among my family members if I don't cut sugar everywhere possible and look disapproving when my husband eats the sugary cereal I won't let the children have.

The pie took a good 50 minutes to cook. Start at 425 degrees for 10 minutes and then lower the oven temp to 350 and bake until the apples are tender and the top is lightly browned. And with the leftover pie dough...

cheese straws like Mimi used to make (or not quite as good and more like cheese wedges than sticks/straws). Just roll out the rest of the dough, put grated cheese over half of the middle. Fold the dough in half to make a half moon shape. Seal the edges so cheese doesn't melt out and bake until crust is lightly browned and cheese is melted.

emergent lettuce

I guess I mean "arising as a natural or logical consequence" rather than "calling for prompt action" when I say my lettuce is emergent. I planted the seed on Sept. 29 and the lettuce has emerged, or surfaced or sprung up - see how I mean that? Anyhoo. It's all part of my plan to have lettuce cropping until winter hits and then see which lettuce at which stage makes for good baby greens in the early spring - if any survives at all, which depends, I think, on whether I put forth the effort to find straw/hay. Would fall leaves work instead?

we're not in wonderland anymore

No one in my house is as open to suggestion as Alice, so I had to eat my radishes. They were quite good. And just as I was bemoaning their small size, I read Bob Flowerdew on radishes: "tasty and nutritious while still small and tender" (BF, The Gourmet Gardener). Sometimes, you find out you've been doing things right all along.

the end is near ...

so I'm trying the wrap-in-newspaper-layer-in-a-box method for turning my green tomatoes red. It seems a waste to discard so much potential. Bob Flowerdew suggests green tomato chutney, but I am a little too red-blooded-american (ignorant, provincial, unsophisticated) to know what to do with chutney or be sure I'd appreciate it once the effort went into making it. So.... wrapping green tomatoes in newspaper and sticking them in a box that fits conveniently under my bed is what I plan to do with my green tomatoes. Will it work? Will I forget them and wake up one day to find my husband and I are sleeping over a mass of putridity? Time will tell.
Regarding Bob Flowerdew:
1. neither of my girls will put their hair in a braid, put on coveralls and go as Bob Flowerdew for Halloween.
2. I just mulched my young apple tree, only to read that Bob Flowerdew recommends grass under apple trees because the competition with the grass for moisture and nutrients makes the apples better keepers and the grass cushions windfalls, making the fallen apples more salvageable. Now I know. I am going to pretend like young apple trees need mulch and then by the time my tree is a well-grown, solid producer the mulch will have decomposed and the grass can have it's way with the ground.

Happy Haralson Season!

No bottom crust? Strange decision on my part, perhaps, but it hasn't discouraged anyone from eating a most delicious first haralson pie of the season. Next time (which will likely be tomorrow, if my husband's wish is granted) I'll do an apple crumb pie. It's been a year since I made it, but I believe it's a crust on bottom and crisp-like topping. We'll see.

Apple Pie

haralson apples, peeled and sliced thin (enough to make a large mound which will cook down significantly)
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/3 cup sugar
1 - 2 TBS flour

Toss apples with cinnamon, sugar and flour. Place in pie plate.
Cover with crust (1.25 c. flour, pulsed in food processor with 1/2 c. butter, 1 tsp. sugar, 1/4 tsp. salt until it resembles coarse crumbs. add 3-4 TBS ice water, pulsing between each addition, until mixture holds together when pressed but is still crumbly. mold into 1" thick disk and wrap in plastic wrap. refrigerate for 1 hour to 3 days. roll out prior to use. makes one crust). Flute edges of crust and cut slits in crust.
Place in 375 degree oven for 45-55 minutes, until crust is lightly browned and apples are tender.

when the frost is on the pumpkin ...

now that's the time for dickie dunkin' (as my mother always says). The frost is also on the geranium (now that's the time for a crazy cranium). You might say frost was general over all my backyard this morning. Not a killing frost - it only got to the low 30s. But the zinnias were browned and have an eye-sore quality now, so I'll take them out. My carrots and potatoes are still in the ground, but I think they'll be okay until a hard frost.

m'lord baltimore

My Lord Baltimore Hibiscus is putting forth one last effort to "be splendid and more splendid." M'lady has retired for the season. They survived an early spring transplant to the west side of the house, although they did give me a scare being rather late to put forth green shoots with the warmer weather. M'lord is particularly lucky because he peeks around the house to get some east sun in the morning in addition to his westerly blistering in the afternoon.

Frumpin' up the Jam

... with ground cherries! The corn/jam/raspberry guy at the farmers' market had ground cherries for sale this week. New to me, but he said they make the best pies ever and great jam. I bought $3 worth, which amounted to 2 cups hulled. A quick internet search gave me some guidance for jam-making and the misleading impression that ground cherries would taste delightfully tart. I ate one and found it tasted like three-day-old dark meat chicken. My eldest tried one and came to the same conclusion. Discouraged, but reasoning that the addition of sugar and the application of heat couldn't make the ground cherries taste any worse, I threw them in a saucepan with 1 cup of sugar and 3/4 cup water and boiled them. One recipe suggested boiling them for 5 minutes or so (I boiled them for 10) and then refrigerating the jelly overnight (two nights passed before I got back to my project) and then simmering them another 15 minutes until they become translucent (never happened) and then pouring them into a sterilized jar (which I did).

The result? Delicious!

Resoundingly slapped with a seal of approval by two kids and me. (husband: indifferent). The seeds look like they would make for a miserable eating experience, but they don't effect the texture at all. The color is unappealing. The taste takes me back to the fig jam Nanny Ray used to make. Marvelous!

just cos ...

and Black Seeded Simpson. I picked a half dozen Parris Island Cos plants and cleared the way for another row of seeds.

 I only planted the BSS and PIC. A Northern Gardener article suggested planting seed through the autumn and covering the lettuce bed with 6" of straw once the nights get frosty. With luck and a good covering of snow, the lettuce might be ready to grow with the first warmth of spring and I'll be eating fresh, home-grown lettuce in early spring.

Above are the PIC and BSS a week or so ago. I have decided against rotating my crops within the season. So this is the lettuce and radish bed and it has had several plantings of lettuce (different varieties) and radish over this summer. Plus I had beans and peas in this bed. I do add compost into the bed before each new seeding. So far it's working.

Joe Pye Weed (native!)

I planted my two Joe Pye Weeds on the West of the house (note the delightful backdrop created by my aluminum siding - almost as delightful as the chain link fence behind the blueberries) amongst some cat mint and phlox (also native) and salvia.
I made a solemn vow to never plant fewer than three of the same plant ever again, but then I broke that vow because the nursery only had two Joe Pye Weeds left and they were half off and I have been wanting them and wanting them. Clearly, my back was against a wall and vows had to be broken. It's comforting to have tested my mettle and found that I am not hampered by resolutions at inopportune times.

New Blueberries

It was a great day at the local nursery. I got two Polaris blueberries and two Joe Pye Weeds (native!). I've only gotten the blueberries planted (the J.P.W. will require some shuffling, rearranging, etc). I put the Blueberry bushes in the bed along the fence. Polaris is a half-high variety and I hope my other varieties (can't remember what kind - Northblue, maybe and St. Cloud?) will work as pollinators. I added coffee grounds to the back-fill dirt and have cypress mulch which I hope will work as well as cedar for making the soil properly acidic to keep the blueberries happy. Some people might test their soil, but I choose guess-work and trial and error.
P.S. I am not as Minnie Pearl-ish as this photo might lead one to believe. I have taken the tags off of the blueberry bush.

I can't find my blueberries

and my sourdough starter got moldy. If I had a banjo and some musical talent, I'd set those words to song. Since I don't, I am

1. weeding the grass and pulling the strawberries (even though it hurts) that threaten to choke out my poor miserable blueberry bushes. I can't abandon my blueberries yet - they had their best year since I planted them in spring 2007, yielding almost 20 whole berries! This spring, I mulched them with the pine needles from our dead-as-a-doornail Christmas tree. Maybe that gave them a boost. Maybe they've aged into "greatness." I just read that if their soil is not acidic enough, the bushes will yellow. And if the soil is too acidic, the bushes will die. Since mine don't yellow and don't die, I'll assume they are happy. Maybe more pine needles this spring and some mulch with compost would make them produce more.
2. throwing out the moldy starter and looking to this site for guidance in a fresh start on starter.

Good show, old maid

The zinnias have put on grand show this summer, and the bees and hummingbirds and goldfinches have made merry amongst them to their hearts' content. I planted the Giant variety (being slip-shod in my record-keeping, I can't give more information on the kind of zinnia - something about Giant and California, if I remember correctly) and was a bit surprised at how giant a Giant zinnia is. It shaded my vegetables a bit - my peppers, in particular, got a bit lost. But, looking on the bright side (which the peppers couldn't do, because they were in the shade), the zinnias' height hid the weeds that always get the better of things no matter how good my intentions or how diligently I weed at the beginning of the gardening season.
Bob Flowerdew and Eliot Coleman would shake their heads in dismay and I strive every year to do better at weeding. Now I've learned to not turn the beds in fall or spring. "Now I've learned" meaning that I read that this spring after I'd turned my beds already, but both Bob and Eliot (Flowerdew and Coleman in case my leap to a first-name basis is confusing) told me (not personally but in their books which they may publish for other people besides me, but I don't know for sure) that I don't need to turn my beds. I do need to aerate, says Eliot. And maybe I'll try it.

Beauty and the Yeast

my starter, a large portion b/c I couldn't bear to discard any

At this point in my sourdough story, I seem to have achieved neither beauty, nor yeast, nor great taste. This may be an exercise in learning my limitations, but a man's got to know his limitations, so Dirty Harry says (and I presume a woman should know hers, too) and so I proceed.

 My starter is rather soupy and not very promising looking, but my first batch of bread did rise in the oven. NB: I used mostly whole wheat flour (use all-purpose next time?) and I added only a pinch of salt. The resulting bread tastes like communion wafers, according to my husband and is inedible, according to my kids.


I actually enjoy eating it with lots and lots of butter. I've stiffened my resolve (stiffen being such a suggestive word, but I'm sticking with it firmly because it's hard not to find innuendo in lots of words) and disposed of some of the growing collection of starter. I've also expanded my research resources. I started with The Lost Art of Real Cooking, which is delightfully vague in its directions and made me feel sure I could at least try making sourdough. I've also looked in to what Ma would have done (Ma Ingalls, of course) in The Little House Cookbook and what Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall suggests in The River Cottage Family Cookbook. Now my challenge is to find a warm nook in my house for my starter to bubble and grow.

Scarlet Nantes Carrots

Freshly dug Scarlet Nantes carrots - first picking of the season.

• planted on May 15 (as seed)
• good keepers last year (in the hydrator in my fridge) 
• can stay in the ground until frost.