Garden – Delicate Balance

Torture

January 10, 2021by Alicia Winter5 Comments

Hey folks!

So, I just happened to take a look at my blog the other day. I haven’t paid attention to it in ages. It was one of those dumb things where I looked at my phone at five o’clock in the morning (never a good idea), got a notification from twitter, remembered a tweet that I had replied to, tried to search for it, opened my profile, saw the blog link and clicked on it. Click click click. Down the rabbit hole. Just for fun, I clicked on archives, and re-read a post from January 2019. It was about how there is nothing to do in the garden in January. I had good laugh at that one. Prophetic. There hasn’t been much to do for about a year besides bear witness to a deranged commander in chief, (I’ve developed a love/hate relationship with reality tv, i.e. the news) and learn how to avoid just about everyone. Anyway, the point is that in that blog post, I told you I was going to start a novel. Two years ago. Remember?

Well guess what? I actually did it!

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Like I said, I didn’t have much else to do. But before you all rush over to Amazon and search for my book, (I hope you will be doing exactly that very soon, it’s called Bridge to Eden, but before you do) please understand there is a whole heck of a lot more to writing novels than you might think. Than I thought. Writing the damn thing is only half the battle. Not even half.

First you write it.

Then you edit it.

Then you edit it again.

Then you have beta readers read it, edit it, and comment for, well, everything. Pacing, consistency, plot structure, character development, subtext, foreshadowing, sentence structure, voice. Tone, symbolism, setting, point of view, story arc, conflict. Did I say pacing? Then you rewrite. Then you edit.

Then you hire an editor, and wait. And wait. Then, when she has sliced your novel to bits with her pen in order to reconstruct it in a better way, you do all that first stuff again. Torture.

Then, when you have done all that, and it’s the absolute best writing you can do, you are ready to query. But even before you query, you must learn the correct way to query. It’s different for different for every agent, mind you, and might include a synopsis, a biographical statement, including accolades and other published works, and anything at all you can use to prove that someone else might want to read your story too.

A note about the query letter. This letter must be the best three paragraphs of your life, because if you don’t utilize every single word to hook your agent, (you know, the one you researched, whom you follow on twitter, you like all their posts on FB, know their dog’s name, their favorite ice cream, the one you basically stalk), then you will never get published. Then, once you have queried an agent, and your three paragraphs were interesting enough for them to request the whole manuscript, you wait. Months. For them to get around to actually reading it. Torture.

Then, if you actually get someone on the hook, if you happen to be the lucky winner whose manuscript just happened to land on an agent’s desk the very minute they decided they needed a philosophical speculative dystopian upmarket book club (not quite literary) possibly YA, with elements of LGBTQ, generational bonds and mental illness, well, then, they might just offer to represent you. Then you work with another editor. THEN, if a publisher bids on your novel, they will offer you a paltry sum to publish your blood, sweat and tears into an actual book. And because it’s your first novel and you don’t know any better, you are insanely happy.

Now, before you start to think that I’m already insanely happy, I’m not. I’m still in the torture stage. All I did was finish the novel (and some of the editing). I have a long, long way to go before you can buy it on Amazon. But this brings me to my point.

Eat the Season is now just called Delicate Balance (the URL hasn’t changed, though) and here, along with interesting garden tidbits, recipes, and random thoughts on life, I will be talking about my writing. And maybe posting some actual writing. Hope you don’t mind.

As always, I’d love to hear from you, about your experiences writing, or knitting, or gardening, or cooking, or anything else you want to talk about. Check in. I miss my peeps.

Gardening

A Slow Food experience

February 22, 2019February 22, 2019by Alicia Winter9 Comments

Everything happens in it’s own season.

Seeds fall, sprouts grow, flowers bloom, fruit ripens, matter decomposes. Life happens. Especially with weeds. Those invisible weed seeds are just hiding out everywhere, waiting to pop their tiny green heads into the world and thwart us gardeners. But even tomatoes will grow where tomato seeds have fallen, whether we want them to or not, if the conditions are favorable to them. Life is undeniable.

As gardeners, we try to orchestrate conditions to be favorable to our needs, the needs of producing food and flowers. Our actions can have some influence over the seasons of things, to a certain extent. We force seeds that wouldn’t normally sprout by adjusting the amount of light, the temperature, the humidity, even the wind. We trick things into growing outside of their seasons, even outside of their regions. We grow them under cover to protect them. We grow them in planters to contain them. We grow them in cloth or plastic to give them more chances at life, for our sake. But life is undeniable. Even when it goes against our interests.

There are very few times when a gardener is unhappy about things sprouting. Sprouting means life. It means growth and promise and hope and bounty. Most of the time.

I’m weeping in my cup this morning because my garlic is sprouting. And I don’t mean the garlic that I intentionally planted in the garden last December. I mean my stored cache of cooking garlic that I cured last summer to last me all the long winter months and then some. Sprouting. Green. Bitter.

It’s my fault, of course. It should have been kept in paper bags rolled tight to keep out the light. But for some reason I thought it would be nice to have it accessible in a basket in the kitchen, hanging from one of the rafters. I though it looked pretty. All the purple and white bulbs in a big pile ready to be chopped, diced, crushed, cooked and consumed. Did I mention I love garlic? I have unwittingly provided it with the right amount of daylight hours and what it believes are about 62 degree soil temperatures, so it has decided that now is the time to push out new life and reach for the sun. I have deceived it.

What do I do with it now? If I do nothing, it’s taste will get worse and worse. It will eventually realize it has no soil, no water, no actual sun, and it will start to rot. But the garlic I planted last winter won’t be ready to harvest until July. That’s five long months with no garlic.

But all is not lost, I think. It’s not yet too bitter to use. I could slit open each of the cloves and mine out the green shoot to use in stock. I could chop up the shell of each clove, press it and store it in olive oil in the fridge. I could even plant some in a box inside and see if it grows. But that’s a ton of work. Hours of work. Whatever I do with it, I’ll be crushing out it’s first hopeful bid for life.

What’s the big deal, you’re asking yourself. Crying over some sprouted garlic? Get over it, you’re telling me in your head. Pull yourself together, woman, and go buy some fresh. It’s only about 5 bucks for three cloves of organic garlic. Times 40.

In 2014 I went to the Connecticut Garlic and Harvest Festival in Bethlehem CT http://www.garlicfestct.com/ where I found people who celebrated garlic as much as I do. There I sampled many varieties of garlic and purchased several types to grow myself. Since then I have been selectively storing and planting my favorites for four growing seasons. This garlic represents four years of being on my knees in the heat of July, carefully lifting out the bulbs to cure them, and four years of being on my knees in December, fingers frozen as I poke the cloves down into the frosty soil. And over fifty months of garlic bread, garlic chicken, garlic vegetables, garlic shrimp, garlic aoli, garlic sauce. At least I have some still tucked away in the frozen earth, waiting for it’s proper time to make a play for life.

And so I peel and chop. And peel and chop. And continue to peel and chop.
And I remind myself, dear reader, that this is slow food. My fingers, sticky with garlic juice, are tarred with garlic paper up to the middle joint. My kitchen smells like, well, a really garlicky place. I’m doing this not because I can’t afford to buy fresh garlic. Not because I am a food hoarder. Not because I have too much time on my hands. It’s because this garlic represents my labor. My care. My intention. Even, yes I’ll say it, my love. I love this garlic. It matters to me. I am not willing to cast off the result of four years worth of effort and buy some anonymous garlic. I take pride in cooking with food I have grown myself. Surprisingly, I feel that my garlic has a certain provenance. It’s journey has become my journey.

If you don’t already think I’m nuts, just keep reading.

There is some concrete science that says that food grown in a certain place is symbiotic with the surrounding biome. The plants and animals (us included) that live in that place have a certain microbiota different from other places. Those microbes that are symbiotic with all life in that area provide tangible benefit for their hosts in the form of immune support and disease prevention. All this really means is that different places have different germs, and garlic you grow yourself in your own dirt might actually be better for you than garlic grown elsewhere, in different germy dirt. That’s one of the reasons we eat local, right?

If you’re looking for me today, I’ll be in the kitchen creating my newest signature dish, winter sprouted garlic soup. I promise it will cure the sniffles with one sip. Ask me for the recipe!

Cooking and Recipes, Food, Food, Cooking and Recipes, Gardening, harvest, Northeast, Seasonal, summer

Just peachy

August 14, 2018by Alicia Winter3 Comments

Life isn’t always just peachy, but on those rare occasions when life goes right, it’s important to celebrate. Just so seasonal peaches. The peach harvest isn’t always perfect, and indeed some years are so poor the peaches need to be scrapped altogether. But when everything goes right, and the Spirits of Fruit bless us with an abundance of perfect peaches, it is our pleasure, nay, our obligation, to enjoy and preserve that gift so we can savor it long into the future.

Peaches are one of my favorite fruits. Many a summer past I have looked longingly at what is on offer at my local supermarket in June, or even July, and imagine it might be tasty and delicious. I imagine it’s sugary juice and perfectly ripe density as I bite into it. I’ll pick up a peach and gently prod its unyielding flesh or bring it to my nose in hope of catching the sweet aroma of summer. Foolishly, I may even be convinced to pay the outrageous sticker price for one or two with the notion that this time will be different, that these peaches were perhaps allowed to stay on the branch a little longer than most, or better yet were picked nearly ripe. I’ll gently take the fruit home and set it on the counter to fulfill its natural destiny of becoming delicious. When it’s stiffness finally yields under my thumb, it smells like actual peaches, and I deem it ripe enough to eat, I bite into its softness and feel tasteless mush coating my tongue like wallpaper paste. Into the compost they go. How did I get fooled again?

The only good peaches are the ones you pick yourself, ripe from the tree. And not always those. Years past have given us hard nuggets that never ripen or worse, fall off the tree when they are the size of walnuts. We’ve seen fruit with thick hairy skin and crunchy flesh, as well as wormy bland fruit that has the consistency of blueberries and leaves a slimy film on the tongue. Timing and weather play important roles in a successful peach harvest, and only one of those things is within our control. You make your own luck, my dad used to say. God helps those who help themselves, my mom’s voice calls out from my past. Every gardener knows those expressions are only partly true. If nature won’t cooperate, and inclement weather strikes at in-opportune times, no amount of hard work can fix it. A frost after the trees blossom will kill a harvest overnight. Excessive heat, too much rain, blight, insects and many other things can ruin peaches. But some things are within our prevue, and timing is essential. Choosing which days to apply horticultural oils to protect the blossoms from egg laying insects, fertilizing the trees at the proper times, deciding when to thin the fruits; all these things can affect the harvest. Once the fruits are established and ripening it is time to decide when to pick.

If you see a bunch of rotting peaches under the tree, you’re too late.

Start testing the fruit once one or two peaches have dropped on the ground. If you are impatient, give the tree a gentle shake and see if any fruit falls off. Once the first fruits drop the time is right to test the peaches for ripeness. A gentle press with the thumb on the bottom flesh will give you an idea of the readiness of the peach. If the flesh doesn’t yield, its not ripe. When the bottom yields under the thumb, check the top of the peach near the branch. This should just give under the finger. If it is still firm-not ripe. If it yields, give the peach a twist. If it pops off-hurrah, it’s ripe. If the tree gives some resistance, perhaps it’s not ready to give up the fruit yet. It’s telling you to wait another day. Accept it.

There is only one reason to pick the peaches before they ripen on the tree and that is if the birds find them first. Once the crows and their cronies get a taste of those lovely peaches, it’s all over. They have an maddening way of pecking only the ripest part of the fruit, usually where the sun hits it, and leaving the harder unripe side intact. They go from peach to peach and ruin each one, leaving the unprotected flesh open for fruit flies, ants and other pests to crawl in and spoil the fruit. If you don’t want to share with your feathered friends I suggest that at the first sign of beak marks, you pick the fruit that’s unblemished and mostly ripe. A few days on the counter, covered by cheesecloth to protect it, will eventually ripen the fruits. Better yet, net the trees to protect from the birds.

Once the fruits start to ripen on the tree, they come like a wave. At first there are just a few ripe ones to tempt the appetite, eaten just rinsed in the sink, or grilled. As the days pass they ripen by the basket full, and soon the counter is covered with fruits in various stages of ripening, too many to eat each day. Soon fresh peaches are a part of every meal, and the pies and kuchens and cobblers feel more like an obligation than a treat. It’s time to put up the abundance so that when colder breezes blow, a mouthful of sweet deliciousness will recall to us the sun and warmth of humid August days.

All the ways to preserve the harvest start with the same first steps. Jammed, jarred, frozen, liquored, candied, dehydrated, or even salsa-fied , the peaches must first be relieved of their fuzzy skin. This is done by blanching the peaches in boiled water for 1 minute, and then plunging the peaches into cold water. One minute. Time it. Longer and the peaches will begin to cook and become mushy, and then your only choice is jam. Less and the skins won’t slip off. You can tell during this first step if your peaches are indeed perfectly ripe because if they are, the skins will slide off leaving smooth peachy flesh underneath. If they are a bit under-ripe, the skin will peel off taking some of the flesh with it, and the peach will be nubby looking. See the difference in the picture below.

Once they are blanched there are endless choices for using or saving them. If I have too many to process and not enough time, my first choice is to freeze them sliced into quart bags. This is fast and easy, and allows for more creative uses when I have more time to spare. Take care to fill the bags only partway full or they won’t stack well in the freezer. To minimize the mess, I roll the top of the bag over to fill it. Freezing the peaches does not require the use of citric or ascorbic acid to protect the color, but if you might want to jar them at a later time I suggest using it prior to freezing. When they thaw out the bright peach color will tend to brown slightly, and pretty jars lined in the pantry look so much better if the peaches have been rinsed in a bit of acid first. I use Ball brand Fruit-Fresh.

Canning is another way to keep them safe for months to come, but it does require more effort, and some specialized equipment. While you don’t need a pressure cooker for canning peaches, it does shorten the processing time. I can my peaches in a very light syrup if they were allowed to ripen on the tree. I want to taste peach, not sugar, when I open the jar.

If you are not patient enough to grow your peach trees, or don’t have the space, don’t despair. Take a trip to a pick-your-own orchard, find a farmers market, or as a last resort, buy some from your market when it is peach season in your area. Ask the provenance of the fruit and if it is local, give it a try. Smell is the best way to judge ripeness in market fruits. If you can find good fruits, it’s wise to invest now for a payout later. Buy a bushel. Winter peaches are worth it.

If you have an interesting way to preserve peaches, or a receipt to share, post it here.

Gardening, harvest, Northeast, Seasonal, summer, Uncategorized

Which season is this, anyway?

August 5, 2018by Alicia WinterLeave a Comment

I bought myself a new pair of galoshes. I love that word, galoshes. It brings to mind yellow rubber duckies and chubby kneed toddlers jumping in puddles. Purple umbrellas, rain streaking down window panes, and good books. So I have a new pair. Sleek, navy blue and mid-calf, with a bright orange lining, they are my new favorite shoes. Partly because I get to wear them every day, morning and evening, and sometimes in between. They are made by a company called Hunter, the Rolls Royce of rubber boots. The last pair I had were made by Hunter too, although I cheaped out and bought them slightly used on Ebay. I got what I paid for, by the way. They must have been more than “slightly” used, because they only lasted a few seasons. After a few weeks of doing my chores in wet socks this spring I broke down and bought a new pair directly from the company. And not a moment too soon. The pretty box lined in bright orange with the fancy Hunter logo gave me almost enough gratification to justify the price. At least they are getting a good workout.

It’s been a wet summer here in the northeast. Wet and hot. A wet summer following a cold late spring. Following a weird winter. But no one needs me to tell them that the weather is out of whack, all you have to do is look out the window, or better yet look at your garden. I’ve got tomatoes splitting open on the vine before they ripen, peppers dropping all their leaves and huge eggplant bushes with no blooms on them. My carrots are two inches tall and as fat as sausages, the watermelon, winter squash and pumpkins have no fruit at all, and the raspberries mold before I can pick them. I have cabbage spitting open like hatching eggs and basil plants with leaves as brown and slimy as pond scum. Things are composting before I can harvest them. It’s wet.

It’s in my nature, sadly, to point out the tragic and flawed first. When someone comes for a tour of the garden, or is just walking through, I’ll delightedly complain about all the garden failures. Maybe it’s my way of deflecting blame, as if I’m somehow responsible for the weather. I need everyone to know that despite all my efforts, things are not perfect, and I recognize it. I make them note the worst so they know that I know the flaws exist. That I’m not proudly displaying what is obviously not the way it should be. It’s a terrible way to behave, and not very self-serving. Most times, not only would they not have recognized the not-perfectness of things, but it robs them of the desired delusion that things really are perfect, and just the way they should be. They leave thinking either I’m a downer, or just not very good at what I do. Or worse, they feel the need to reassure me, and make me feel better for my multitude of failures. Ridiculous.

So, now that you’ve heard the worst, both practically and subconsciously, I’ll tell you the good news. Onions the size of softballs. Leeks that are three feet tall. Abundant parsley, mint that is overflowing (isn’t it always) and cucumbers that just keep coming. The garlic harvest was successful, fat white and purple heads drying on racks in the garage. The kohlrabi, while a bit tough on the outside, was none the less plump and crunchy. And the summer squash. Oh, the summer squash. I’m reminded of Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal Vegetable Miracle where she informs her children that they lock the car doors in summer not to deter someone from stealing the car, but to prevent neighbors from dropping off bags of calf sized zucchini on their back seat. Lock your doors folks, it’s that kind of year.

And I can’t forget the flowers. Almost everything was abundant, tall, vibrant and with enormous blooms. My ‘Dinner Plate’ dahlias are actually the size of dinner plates. It’s the best year I’ve seen for poppies, and the Sunflowers are 10 feet tall. Of course the weeds are 10 feet tall too. Some of the grasses growing in my flower beds have become ornamental. I’m trying to go with it and resist loudly declaiming to whomever will listen that I didn’t plant it there, and I haven’t gotten around to pulling it out yet, and if it weren’t for all this blasted rain you wouldn’t notice it.

I’ll let out a little secret. We harvested about 6 gallons of honey from our two hives last week. This is big news for all the folks to whom we give honey as a Christmas gift. While a few of them no doubt have jars of honey stacked in the back of the pantry, I know for a fact the majority can’t wait for their Christmas bag of goodies from the Winter Pantry, the honey being the golden prize. This years honey was pale, golden and sugary, redolent of clover blossoms, honeysuckle and apple. Much different from previous years, when we’ve seen honey that has been almost molasses-like, dark amber and thick. The weather makes a difference for the bees, too.

Not being a bee person didn’t stop me from helping this year. Helping is a misnomer, really, but I was there, standing several yards away and trying to breathe deeply and radiate calm normality. As if that’s my natural state. Ha. Only once did I do what I had promised myself not to; shreek, hop, and swat hysterically at my hair in an attempt to dislodge one furious lady trying in vain to defend her home. Of course my husband, who is a bee person and for whom calm normality is a way of life, came to my rescue, and plucked the poor thing from my head before she could sting me and ruin both our lives. He had repeatedly picked the angry things off his arms and neck without a peep, lifting out the heavily laden frames with calm aplomb. Different nature, I guess.

And I must mention the fruit. The abundant rain and humid weather has certainly been a blessing for all the fruit setting plants. Fat yellow plums are dripping off our diminutive trees and for some strange reason the birds haven’t yet discovered them. Perhaps they are thrown off by the color? It is wonderful to harvest so many unblemished fruits. The downside being that they don’t spoil as fast, so I’m disinclined to make jam, or even to freeze them. Sorry friends, no plum jam in the Christmas bag. Instead they sit in big bowls on the counter and get gobbled down five at a time. This time of year it’s not unlikely for me to make an entire meal of plums, blueberries and peaches while I stand at the counter dripping juice on myself. Elegant.

Conclusion? The weather is weird. It’s different than last year, different than any other year before. Science says it’s going to get weirder. But nature will win out, in the end, I think. And us gardeners, what can we do in the meantime? We have to deal with what we get, acknowledge the bad and celebrate the good, and then go forth and try to be more responsible to the planet. We plant and harvest and eat, we fail and succeed and mostly do the best we can. It’s in our nature.

Cooking and Recipes, Gardening

Morning Score

August 7, 2016February 24, 2019by Alicia Winter2 Comments

This morning, as I walked up the cool dewy driveway to feed the horses, I noticed something in their pasture that hadn’t been there yesterday. The pasture grows rocks; I know because I pick them up and toss them over the fence regularly, yet there still seem to be plenty around. This didn’t look quite like rocks though, or any of the other paraphernalia the horses lose in the pasture, so I walked down to investigate.

Hooray! It was what I was hoping they might be…some puffball mushrooms. They must have blossomed in the field after the hard, much needed rain we had yesterday afternoon. The horse had stepped on some of them, but I managed to salvage some good mushrooms “for the pot”. I didn’t have my camera with me, so I can’t show you, but there was clear swath of darker color in the grass where the fungus was growing, like a big comma, and there was a sweep of puffballs, the fruit of the fungus, blooming right down the center.

As I walked back home with my loot I got to reflecting about mushrooms, for which I have a deep fondness. They often grow in dead or dying material. In other words, they are a product of decay. It amazes me that nature is structured in such a way that life flows naturally from death. Take compost, for instance. I have a compost pile into which I tossed a rotting pumpkin last year, as well as all my other garden waste. This year I can’t see my compost pile for the hybrid squash/pumpkin Audrey III growing there. Abundance from decay. And yet we still see death as a finality.

Back in the kitchen putting away the mushrooms, I was chagrined to remember that I have two dozen jalapenos, 10 ripe tomatoes, 4 cabbages, 6 cucumbers, 2 giant zucchini the size of my arm, 3 peppers, a basket of green beans and a watermelon already stuffed in the fridge. Why can’t I find a score of puffball mushrooms in February, when there is nary a fresh thing in sight? So I’ll make some hot sauce, roast the tomatoes for the freezer (a yummy trick I learned from my mother-in-law) whip up some coleslaw for dinner, jar some pickles, freeze the green beans, and leave the zucchini in my neighbors car, but I am definitely having a mushroom omelet for breakfast.

MUSHROOM OMELET

2/3 cup mushrooms of any kind, diced

2 fresh local eggs (3 if you are hungry)

2 tsp. butter divided

1 oz. goat cheese

Salt and pepper

Heat a nonstick pan on medium low heat. Crack the eggs in a bowl and scramble lightly with a fork. Saute the mushrooms in 1/2 the butter until tender and most of the water has evaporated. If the mushrooms dry out before they are cooked through, add a tablespoon of water to the pan and cook until it’s dry again. Add the eggs and the rest of the butter and cover for 2-3 min. When the eggs are mostly cooked, add the cheese to one side and gently fold the eggs onto the cheese. Turn off the heat. Cover again for a few more minutes until eggs are cooked through.

Cooking and Recipes, Fall, Food, Food, Cooking and Recipes, Gardening, Seasonal

Pretending, and other stuff.

December 6, 2015by Alicia Winter4 Comments

Hello friends

You may have wondered whatever happened to me and my sometimes blog. Well, I’ll tell you. Last spring I was offered my dream job. I was hired to design, build and manage a teaching garden for the Marvelwood School, a small Connecticut private school that both my sons attend. I get to spend part of each day planning, organizing and actually digging in the dirt. It was a very successful first season, and it just keeps getting better. I was offered the use of a small greenhouse on the campus so I can continue puttering about with growing things this winter. I’ll tell you a little secret…I’m experimenting with aquaponics too! I already have 8 little goldfish working hard to produce nitrogen for my sprouts. Well, they actually produce ammonia that will turn into nitrites that will turn into…that’s a story for another day, though. Today we’re gonna talk about a freakishly warm December.

It’s freakishly warm, right? What the heck! I waited until late late late in November to plant garlic, which I usually plant in the end of October, and still the garlic has sprouted and is 4 inches tall. Further disturbing evidence of this unusual weather is the fact that my parsley is actually growing. I have been pulling it in fist-fulls to use in the kitchen, but still it grows. Hard not to when it’s 60 degrees out.

I have still been able to plant narcissus bulbs, as the ground isn’t nearly frozen yet, and whenever I hit one that’s already there I find it has sprouted and is trying to pop out of the earth. My strawberries have actual flowers, for crying out loud! What gives? Anyone? Even I, who loves growing things, am ready for the season to end. Enough already.

I’m trying to pretend it’s winter. Despite the fact that they are still green and healthy, I pulled out my leeks today. They last almost as long in the fridge as in the ground, and I keep telling myself there has to be a hard freeze soon, so I might as well get them out now. Of course I was wearing a T-shirt while I dug, so it really was pretend. I could have probably left them in another month.

I decided to make a real one pot winter style meal tonight with some of the leeks and other put-up foods to try to get in the winter mood. I used the parsley, some potatoes and onions I have in the cellar, and some pheasant leg meat I had left over from a broth I made.

I also had the good fortune to trade a venison sirloin for some guanciale with my good friend Sarah. For those of you who are scratching your head (like me the first time I heard of it), it’s a pork jowl. That’s right…pig cheeks. and I’m here to tell you that it’s one tasty item! It’s an Italian specialty food traditionally used in carbonara, and it is super yummy. More delicate than pancetta, and with a stronger taste than bacon, it ramps up the flavor of any dish. Here I sauteed it until crisp, removed it with a slotted spoon and cooked the leeks and onions in the fat left in the pan.

The potatoes I diced and cooked until soft in salted water, added them to the leeks and fried them until a little crispy. After that I added the removed guanciale, the parsley, the pheasant, salt and pepper to taste, a pinch of cayenne and finally shredded Havarti on the whole thing, covered it and turned off the heat. Meanwhile I had a nice winter cocktail to get me in the holiday spirit. Nothing wrong with rum and eggnog, am I right?

The final product was a stick to your ribs one-dish meal that made everyone happy. It’s still about 50 degrees out, but I’m going to go decorate my Christmas tree and pretend. Happy Holidays!

Seasonal, Spring

Hope and Gardening: spring planning

March 9, 2015by Alicia Winter1 Comment

February and March may seem like the absolute doldrums for gardeners in the North East, but for me this is really where the fun begins. Starting in mid January my daily run to the post is enhanced by the plethora of seed catalogs and gardener supply fliers that inundate the more mundane sampling of bills and offers of credit. These magazines, filled with flawless, sparkling, brightly colored fruits and flowers not only bring the remembrance of springtime just when it seems like winter will never end, but spark the planning and scheming process that every gardener goes through each year. Moreover, for me they offer not just ideas and choices of what to grow, but actual hope for the delights of spring, and desire for a bountiful garden, in much the same way that ads for fancy skin cream lure us in with the unattainable promise of youth and beauty. I know it sounds foolish, but there it is.

This winter, when John Scheepers and Gurney’s and Burpee came to tempt me with their seductive photos, I threw them immediately into the recycle bin, and here’s why. Last fall on my birthday I received a wonderful present from a girlfriend of mine. It was a gardeners journal, a subscription to Heirloom Gardener, and a seed catalog from Baker Creek. She knows me well. I devoured the magazine. I learned more about GMOs and gardening history in the US, and I vowed that never again would I plant a seed whose origin was questionable. I saved the seed catalog for February.

. heirloom gardener

The decision to plant a non GMO garden was a big one for me. While I profess that organic is best, I’m not above sprinkling my soil with a little Seven when I can’t get rid of those pesky ants around my eggplant. Even thought I detest chain department stores and all they do to wreck local economy, I’ve been known to buy a tomato plant at Home Depot on impulse. While I tout the values of a nutrient rich, homegrown local and balanced diet, I’m the first one to order pizza when I’m too tired to cook. So Ok, I’ll admit it, I’m a hypocrite. But now it’s time to step up to the plate. Genetically modified food is bad. Bad for us nutritionally, bad for local economy and a just plain bad for the environment. Get more information on this at www.nongmoproject.org/learn-more

When I plan my garden in the spring I start with a list of what I’d like to grow. Then I make a map of my garden and, referring to last years map, add each thing where I feel it would grow best. When I actually do the work my plan often changes, if, for instance, I bought more tomatoes than will fit in the allotted space. Sometimes I cluster, other years I might mix it up, say putting the carrots in with the beets or planting every other tomato and pepper. My garden is quite small, so I often cram. Every year I plant some things from seed, like beets, and beans, and carrots, and some things from plants that I purchase, like tomatoes and squash and melon. The only things I start from seed indoors myself are pepper plants and this mostly because I have more of a selection than I can find at the greenhouse. Deciding to choose heirloom and non GMO plants means that I have to either find a source for heirloom plants, or grow them myself. While there is a local CSA that I believe sells plants in the spring, I didn’t want to limit my choices, and since I have had some luck with peppers, I decided to go ahead and start my entire garden from seed. That means all the tomatoes, melons, squash, eggplant, cucumber, spices, cabbage and peppers. Yikes!

Last month I finally made my choices from the Bakers Creek Heirloom Seed Company catalog. I highly recommend this company to anyone who is a vegetable fanatic. Their selection is unbelievable and their knowledge extensive. Their website has tons of valuable information and it’s just fun to browse. Check it out at www.rareseeds.com After days and weeks of poring over the descriptions and photographs of exotic and divine vegetables (am I the only one who finds vegetables alluring?) I ordered 38 types of seeds. 10 types of tomato alone, with names like Green Zebra and Black Prince. Where I’ll put them is still a mystery. I made a schedule by counting back in weeks from the average last frost date (May 20th). I borrowed some growing lamps and purchased seed pots and starter mix. I rearranged my bathroom and tub area to fit the seed trays. I planted the onions and the eggplant.

While I tell myself that it’s the best thing to do, I remain nervous about starting all the seeds myself. I’m not a very technical person but I’m smart enough to know that if I was, I’d have a better chance of growing healthy plants. There is a science to it that I have yet to figure out. My policy of flying by the seat of my pants and hoping things work out for the best might not serve me so well in this instance. If I were so inclined, I would spend some time figuring out optimal light cycles, temperatures, nitrogen mixes and hardening practices for different types of plants. Then again, it’s just nature, after all, and there really is no stopping it. The worst case scenario is that I have to source the plants after all. It’s not like I’ll never eat another homegrown tomato if my seeds fail to thrive. And there is hope! Even though there is still 2 feet of snow on the ground, my 300 onions are already an inch tall.

I’d love to hear from anyone with any advice or expertise on starting plants indoors. My set-up is not very complicated, but advice on light times, bulbs, best starter mix, or just about anything would be much appreciated. Happy growing!

Cooking and Recipes, Fall, Food, Food, Cooking and Recipes, Gardening, Seasonal

Fall Harvest, peppers and tomatoes

October 1, 2014by Alicia WinterLeave a Comment

Wow, it’s been a long time since I wrote! I had a very busy summer in the garden. This New England summer was very mild, and the cooler than usual weather made for a lush and productive garden. It was an exceptional year for tomatoes, and as we head into October I am still picking. Most of my tomato plants got the blight, as usual, but this year it was so late as to not affect the fruit. In fact as the days get shorter the plants are having a last comeback and still producing. To prevent the fruit from splitting on the vine, I pick them under-ripe and mature them on the counter or in paper bags for a few days. The flavor is a bit tangier than the full sun ripened fruit, but they are still delicious. I will still have many green ones on the vine when the first frost comes in, so I’ve been perfecting my recipe for green tomato salsa in advance.

This time of year is almost as exciting for me as the spring. It is as much a time of abundance and good eating as the peak of summer. This may be because I usually plant a garden heavy on fall producing veggies like kale, peppers and potatoes, parsnips, beets and carrots, but it’s also a time for preparing foods for the winter. I’m spending my days chopping, stewing and freezing tomatoes, roasting hot and mild peppers and making chili sauces to spice up the long winter. I’ve got quite a few things going on in the kitchen as well as the garden.

The peppers had a nice year. I planted a mixed variety and like always, quickly lost track of what I planted where. While this might bother some, I find it exciting to watch the unknown plants grow and see how they eventually reveal themselves. This year we had a cayenne variety, jalapenos, poblanos, banana peppers, green chilies and regular old green bells. The mix was great, as some we used for stuffing, some for fresh sauces, some for cooked sauces, some roasted and jarred, and some fresh with dip. As peppers are perennial, I have even planted some in pots to bring inside and have for the winter. This is a first for me, but I have been reading up on it and I’ll let you know how it goes.

Another first for me is fermenting cayenne peppers for sauce. I’ve made plenty of hot sauce over the years, but I’ve never fermented the chilies before hand. It is exciting to watch them bubbling away on the top of the fridge. I have them soaking in a sugary Reisling mixed with 2 % salt. It can take anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks for the fermentation to be completed, so I just bide my time and watch the process in fascination. I’m making up my own recipe, but there are quite a few good websites on the process, and here’s one I like. http://talesofakitchen.com/raw/fermented-hot-chili-sauce/

Remember to always wear gloves when handling hot chilies. Even the milder chilies can get under rings and nails and cause irritation and burning. Lingering chili oil can make itself known when you try to take out your contacts. Never never wipe your face or eyes. I have learned these lessons the hard way and I always wear the kind of rubber gloves you find in the doctors office. They fit close and keep the capsasin off the skin. Also, instead of using a cutting board and knife, try snipping the chilies with scissors right into the bowl. This will keep the oil out of the cutting board and therefore out of the next thing you cut on it.

One of my favorite things to do with the abundance of peppers is to make green chili sauce. I first had it prepared by a very good friend and former roommate Rachael Risley (nee. Coulehan), who makes it with a slow cooked pork shoulder. As it’s very difficult to get organic free range pork of any kind, let alone a shoulder roast, we usually make it with chicken. Served with cornbread or tortilla chips, it’s a hearty and satisfying dish perfect for the cooler fall temps. I make the sauce first, pour it over shredded or cubed chicken and bake it with cheese like a casserole. The trick to really good sauce is to roast the peppers first, skin and seed them and then make the sauce. Chopped and sauteed, they just don’t have the rich flavor that roasting adds. It is an extra step, but well worth the effort.

Blister the chilies on high heat, flipping once to get both sides. Put the chilies in a glass bowl, cover with a plate and let cool. This will steam the chilies and make it easier to remove the skins. When cool, remove the skin, seeds and ribs, reserving the liquid in the bowl. Set aside.

Green Chile Sauce

2 tbs olive oil

2 large onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tbs flour

2 cups broth

a dozen or so roasted and seeded green chilies, about 2 cups (any variety, but mostly not too hot)

Salt and pepper to taste

In a medium sauce pot, saute the onions in the olive oil until fragrant, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and saute two minutes more. Stir in the flour. Add the broth and cook until thick and bubbly. Add the chilies and cook for 5 minutes more. With an immersion blender puree the mixture, leaving some peppers and onions whole. If you don’t have an immersion blender, add 3/4 of the mixture to a blender, cover with a dish cloth to allow steam to escape and blend on high 1 minute. Return to pan. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve over chopped or shredded chicken, pork or enchiladas. Enjoy!

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Island Feast

June 19, 2014by Alicia WinterLeave a Comment

As many of you know, we have the luxury of having a family home on Martha’s Vineyard. We are able to go out to the Island a few times each year and enjoy the company of family and spend some time at the beach. One of our favorite pastimes (read obsessions) is ocean fishing, and Martha’s Vineyard is truly a fisherman’s paradise. No matter what time of year, there is always something good to be had from the ocean. My husband’s parents, who are able to spend quite a bit of time here, also keep a large kitchen garden, so summertime on the island is a time of plenty.

The first day I woke to a beautiful balmy island morning and took my coffee into the back yard to check out the garden. My mother in Law had emailed me about what was growing, so I had an idea of what I’d find. What took me by surprise were the giant radishes the size of lemons. I had never seen a radish grow so big. I had planted these very seeds when we last were here in May, in a mix with carrot seeds, but they were average, “garden variety” radish, not some monster varietal. You might remember in my last post a photo of a cheese and radish sandwich on a bagel. Those tiny radish were from my garden, of which I was formerly proud. What am I doing wrong? I’ii have to do some research to find out why in my garden they are quarter sized and often woody, but here they are luscious red orbs of crunchy delight. I picked a dozen, sliced them thinly, and set them in a marinade of rice wine vinegar, sugar and water.

Despite the neat rows of sorrel, arugula, chicory, and red and green lettuce in the garden, I still felt the need to traipse next door with my basket to the twice weekly farmers market. I wanted some cilantro, and that was as good an excuse as any to stroll the aisles of farm raised produce, meats, breads and cheeses, as well as handmade soaps, hats and fresh squeezed lemonade. I was surprised to see the amount and variety this time of year; while my zucchini are just flowering, I found some beautiful 6 inch long ones perfect for the saute pan. When I asked, I was told they grow them under plastic to keep them warm and to fruit earlier. I fought down my rising jealousy with the fact that I live in a different growing zone entirely than Martha’s Vineyard, and furthermore islands are naturally more temperate because of the surrounding seas. In a month I’d be sick of fresh zucchini anyway. But for now I was happy to have it and bought 8 nice ones to bring home, along with a fresh baguette.

Later that afternoon we drove to one of our favorite fishing spots, a jetty that juts out into the sea at the edge of a wide basin, With it’s sister across the way, it forms a channel that feeds a big salt water pond. The structure, as well as the sand beach on one side, provides a great place to fish for black bass, tau-tog, porgy, rock bass, flounder and fluke. It can occasionally be a good spot for stripers and bluefish, but it’s not reliable enough to count on. When the water warms it’s a pretty reliable place for scup, and that’s what we went for today. I’m not a big fan of the littler fish, so I usually make my way around the jetty to the channel and try for the odd striper, but midday at a slack tide is not really the ideal time. I didn’t have much hope. After a couple dozen casts, and a nice lunch, I decided walk out to the end of the jetty to see what was going on there. The boys had long since given up fishing and were napping in the sand when I decided the way to catch my striper was to hook on a huge piece of squid, heave it to the middle of the channel and wait till the big one came along and gulped it in. Yeah right. But as I waited, enjoying the warm sun and the breeze off the ocean, I began to notice my line migrate ever so slightly. My big squid was being nibbled! I quickly reeled in, changed my big hook for a smaller one, slapped on a tiny mouthful of squid, cast back out and nailed a giant porgy. I had three more in the bucket before the boys caught on and we had a blitz. We filleted them on the beach and brought them home to bake over sliced onions, one of the easiest and most delicious ways to cook fish.

A few minutes in the garden provided me with the greens for a lovely salad. I chopped the fresh cilantro into it and used the radish marinade mixed with some good olive oil for the dressing. The baguette sliced up, the zucchini sliced and sauteed with a pinch of salt and the fish baked to perfection completed our Island feast. A beautiful day and a most memorable meal!

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First Out of the Garden

June 17, 2014by Alicia WinterLeave a Comment

Early June in Connecticut is an exciting time for gardeners. By now most things are in the ground that are going in, and all the planning and planting are complete. I usually estimate mid to late may as the time to plant, but after the 15th I keep an eye on the weather and wait for a few days when the night time temperatures stay above 55. Most plants don’t like to root out in the cold. Now in early June the new garden, with its tiny shoots of new growth, is just getting itself established, and it’s too soon to count any success or failures. Those of you who have a greenhouse might be laughing at me, for by now your gardens are lush wonderlands of heavily foliated plants happily bursting with buds and fruit. Sadly, I only have my little bathtub and a grow lamp for starting seeds, and have relegated it to peppers only, so I start most of my vegetables from seeds right in the ground.

There are a few exceptions of course. I always buy tomato plants already started, and with those it’s just a matter of money. The more money you pay, the more plant you get. In early June, for the right price, you can get a plant with fruit already on it, or, if your pocket is not quite so full, at least a 4 to 5 inch healthy looking specimen. This year my budget for plants was a little short, so I went with the smaller choices. I try to buy heirloom varieties in most cases, but there is a good argument to be made for the old standbys like Big Boy and Early Girl. They are reliable producers, are pest and drought resistant and produce nice firm fruits (just like you find in the grocery store!) but the heirlooms for me are much more exciting to grow. I like the idea of plants that are not genetically modified almost as much as I like the unique fruits themselves, whether they are German green stripe or Purple Cherokee. Check out Seed Savers, a wonderful source for heirloom seeds and a really great company, to learn more about heirloom and heritage seeds and genetic diversity (or lack of it) in the American food industry. http://www.seedsavers.org/About-Us/

Another plant I buy already started is eggplant. I have never tried to grow these from seed because I rarely succeed with the plant itself. I have yet to produce a bumper crop of eggplant of any kind, which might be just as well, as I’m the only one in the family who enjoys it. I usually plant just two plants, as I have very limited real estate in my garden, but even with constant attention and words of encouragement, they never seem to thrive. Whether its those damn tiny aphids, blight, rot, or just plain weakness, they always look jaundiced and produce thin tiny fruit. This year, when I saw my two healthy plants begin to yellow, I went to ask advice from a local gardening expert. She starts many plants from seed in a greenhouse and sells them to local gardeners like me. I have never bought from her before, but have heard about her renown with plants of all kinds. She is the type who looks at gardening through the eyes of a chemist, while I’m more of a hope and a prayer type. She explained that most people (me) plant eggplant too early, before the soil has warmed sufficiently, and they fail to thrive. She said that most people (me) fail to protect their plants with a copper fungicide dip prior to planting, and that most people (Not me!) over water and leach the nutrients out. She recommended the copper fungicide spray, a natural pesticide with soap in it, and a fish emulsion top dress to enrich the roots. Maybe with these tools, and of course a few good thoughts, I’ll be serving eggplant Parmesan in August! Oh, and she also gave me three varietals of eggplant that she had left over. With five plants in the ground, I almost hope they don’t all thrive, or I’ll be eating eggplant by myself every single night!

With everything going in, there is not much coming out this time of year, but that’s not to say there’s nothing to eat in the garden. All my greens are up and we have been feasting on fresh spinach, sorrel, arugula and lettuce for a few weeks. The radishes are full to bursting and the second planting is already coming up. I love radish, and usually plant a spicy blend, with all different shapes and colors. I use radish in a variety of dishes as well as eat them fresh washed out of the dirt. I like the diversity of flavor and color, whether on a salad or sandwich, or stirred into an Asian inspired soup. I made just such a soup the other day. Recipe to follow.

The green onions are ready to be picked, if you can bring yourself to give up a full sized onion later on in the year. I always have a hard time with this. While I’m not a patient person by nature, the thought of yanking out those half formed babies for a quick turn on the grill makes me pause. It’s not that they wouldn’t taste delicious, it’s only that I think of myself trudging to the store in the middle of February to buy some old generic onion instead of plucking one out of the lovely onion basket in the basement, filled with my very own. Instead, I satisfy my taste for fresh onion by snapping off the stems of the onion flowers and chopping or grilling those. They taste just as fine as the whole thing, but I can leave the roots of the onion itself in the ground to fulfill it’s destiny.

Aside from the radish, greens and onions, we have been eating lots of cilantro, parsley and basil as those plants establish themselves. The beets are ready to thin and the greens are delicious sauteed or in salads. The strawberries which I transplanted this spring are a bit behind the curve but are beginning to ripen. The peas are blooming and the squash are flowering and the tomatoes continue to make suckers and flower. It’s an exciting time in the garden and lots more to come.

ASIAN NOODLE SOUP

6 cups broth (I used pheasant broth because I had some left over)

3 TBS Mirin

4 TBS Soy sauce

1 TBS sugar

2 cloves garlic chopped fine.

salt and pepper to taste

dash of something hot (chili paste, Tabasco, red pepper)

3 cups cut up cooked chicken (or pheasant)

4 cups chopped fresh spring veggies, such as radish, baby carrot, green onion, endive, peas,

1/2 lime

Prepare rice noodles as directed on the package. Mix the first 7 ingredients and adjust to taste. Simmer and add the chicken. When noodles are done add the fresh veggies to the soup and simmer for 5 minutes. Be careful not to overcook the vegetables or they will be soggy. Place a serving of rice noodles in a wide bowl and ladle the soup over them. Squeeze the lime over the soup. Serve with chopsticks and extra hot sauce. Enjoy!

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