seasonal – Delicate Balance

Food, Northeast, philosophy, Seasonal, Spring

Now is the perfect time.

March 16, 2020March 16, 2020by Alicia Winter2 Comments

The world is a nutty place to be right now. From people hoarding toilet paper as if Covid-19 was an intestinal disease to our fearless leader acting as if nothing is the matter at all, my world, at least, is a little shaken up. The school where I work is closed, as is almost every school I know. I’ve got bored teenagers draped around the furniture, moaning at their loss of friends and freedom, and a fridge bulging with extra groceries, not because I believe there will be a supply breakdown, but because my neighbors are hoarding, and I don’t want to get left with the last jar of, say, hearts of palm, for dinner.

Truthfully, I’d be perfectly content if I stopped going to the grocery store. Perhaps now is the perfect time to really delve into what I preach. I can reach out to my local network of growers and farmers for eggs, milk, flour and meat. My favorite family farm stand still has onions, garlic, potatoes and squash. I can (and will!) have spring greens in my greenhouse in a matter of weeks. I can look for spring vegetables in the woods. I bet I could harvest cattail roots today. See my post about eating cattails from April 2013 https://eattheseason.com/2013/04/15/cattails-yum/

I’ve always been an advocate of slow living. I try to adhere to the principles of slow food, for example. No, that’s not like eating snails. Slow food is the practice of planting, tending, harvesting, cooking and serving food. It takes time. Alternately it is buying healthy local food that reflects your understanding and thankfulness for the process of how food comes to us. It is built on a reverence for the natural world. It centers around community. It fosters patience, flexibility and gratitude.

Slow food’s opposite is, of course, fast food, where the focus is on expediency instead of quality, economy instead of value. It is harmful to us psychologically as much as it is physically. Just so fast clothing, wherein the Costco leggins that you picked up for 7.99 don’t advertise on the label that they were made by children in sweatshops in Bangladesh, out of cotton picked in El Salvador by workers who are paid pennies to be sprayed with chemical pesticides. I prefer homemade, handmade, and local-made. Slow living is living out social justice.

So is this Corona virus the apocalypse or what?

I say no. I say now, this crazy time, can be the perfect time. The perfect time for what, you might ask? To which I reply, the perfect time for anything you want. It could be the perfect time to fix your grill. Or the perfect time to start walking outdoors again. The perfect time to learn to cook. The perfect time to think about planning for the future, or to try some new software, or to learn to knit, or plant a garden. Read to your children. Write a letter to an old friend. We have endless opportunities in this moment in time to do community in a small way. It is the perfect time to slow down, finally, and really experience your life. How many times have you said to someone “I’d love to do it, but I’m just too busy”. Guess what? You are no longer busy! You have some time. Some perfect time.

In this perfect time, I’m mending jeans with fabric from https://www.saraparkertextiles.com/

What will you do with your perfect time? If you find yourself working from home, have been laid off, or simply have extra time due to this unexpected pandemic, write a comment below and let me know what you are doing to make this time the perfect time. Be safe my friends.

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!

food theory, Food, Cooking and Recipes, Gardening

Potty Talk

February 7, 2019by Alicia Winter6 Comments

My dogs love to eat poop.

My dogs especially love to eat frozen poop. Poopcicles.

My dogs love to eat frozen poop and wipe their faces on the back seat of my Subaru.

OK, stay with me people. This actually is about gardening and food and seasonal living. Sort of.

So lets think about poop for a minute. I’m talking about horse poop, although I’m sure they would eat cow poop too, if we had a cow. The horses eat the grass. They digest the grass. That keeps them warm. Then the horses poop out the grass. It goes onto the ground and the worms come to eat it, and they digest it, and they poop too. (yep, Everybody Poops) THAT goes into the ground, making healthy soil, and the grass grows healthier. And the horses eat the healthy grass. The magic that is happening in this very specialized system that I have grossly oversimplified is called …..Drum roll please….Bacteria.

Enter the Dogs. What is actually going on here is the dogs are capitalizing on a healthy system. They are trying to get something they need into their diet by eating the poop of other animals. It’s not because the poop tastes good, although it might. I wouldn’t know. Dogs, being carnivores, don’t have a ton of naturally occurring good bacteria in their guts, but horses do. That’s why we put their poop on our gardens. The dog eat the horses’ poop to get the good digestive bacteria.

Can you see where I’m going with this?

I just finished reading The Mind Gut Connection, by Emeran Mayer. I strongly recommend that anyone anywhere sick with anything read it immediately. Even though I know you all will, I’ll give you a synopsis anyway.

The gut is larger than the brain and every bit as complex.
The gut has trillions of microbes, including bacteria, in it. The microbes are our personal ecosystem.
The Microbes (actually the metabolites they produce), interface with our brains. They control most of our hormones, as well as our immune responses. They can also produce cytokines when they are unhappy, which cause inflammation.
Personal microbial stability = good health and emotional wellness.
Things that kill our personal gut microbes are bad for us. (pesticides, antibiotics, corn syrup, commercial wheat gluten, emulsifiers etc. etc.)
Things that are good for our microbes are good for us. (organic produce, fermented food, wild foods)
We must ‘farm’ our microbes to keep them healthy.

I’m not saying we should be eating poop, although that’s fast becoming a treatment for certain illnesses. Just consider, the next time you stop for a doughnut and a caramel mocha latte, what is happening to your gut bacteria. The next time you have to take a Z-pak, realize that it’s wiping out all the good guys along with the bad. No wonder it gives you the runs.

I know we all get sick, and the best treatment for severe bacterial illness is strong antibiotics. But remember that a healthy gut can (and does) wage war on invasive bacteria. Your personal army of microbes, if you keep it strong and healthy, will prevent you from getting sick in the first place.

Once you’re there and you’ve been coughing for weeks, fever of 103, chest x-ray, and you’re gulping down those steroids and antibiotics and sucking on the nebulizer, it’s time to do some serious bacterial rebuilding. If you just plain refuse to eat poop (just kidding!) there are other ways to rebuild your internal microbial army. They are called FERMENTED FOODS.

Kim chi, sauerkraut, pickles, yogurt, fermented cheese, kefir, kombucha, miso, tempeh, sourdough. These are some of the common ones available at the grocery store. Get them and eat them every day. Or ferment your own. It couldn’t be simpler. Put some vegetables in a crock with some salt. Cover them with water. Wait 4 weeks. Eat. It is actually that easy.

So go forth my friends, and colonize your guts with healthy bacteria. Farm your internal microbes. Eat well, live well, be happy.

Gardening

Down Time

January 30, 2019February 23, 2019by Alicia Winter3 Comments

Ah, January. One of my favorite months. Not only because its often snowy and sunny at the same time, like today, but because I don’t have to be doing doing doing every minute of every day. I’m speaking as a gardener when I say there is always something to be doing in the garden. Except in January.

This is my down time. The time when I get to relax and just think about the garden. I can plan what steps I need to take in the spring. I can lay out my vegetables on my garden plan. I can shop seed catalogs. I can daydream about it, or not, but I don’t have to show up every day and get my hands dirty.

Sure, there are other things to be doing in January, like shoveling snow, but I don’t feel the urgency of things needing to be done yesterday, the crisis of time passing while weeds are growing, that I feel in the warmer months. It feels nice to relax.

It’s also wrestling season, another one of my favorite times. Well, not the wrestling part, actually, that isn’t terribly pleasant. The part I love is watching my 17 yo son kick some booty on the mat. That part is super fun. He’s really good.

Since this blog is about gardening and eating (mostly), you’re probably wondering what is on the table at Winter Farm this snowy season. Well, we are enjoying the moose meat that my son, (also a world traveling hunter) brought back from Newfoundland this fall. We have a bunch of duck, goose, pheasant and venison in the freezer too. I’ve been having fun cooking from Hank Shaw’s cookbooks Duck Duck Goose, and Buck Buck Moose. https://honest-food.net/ He’s a terribly clever chef of wild game.

So what am I doing with all my free down time? I decided to write a novel. Ha ha, I know. I can hear you all laughing. As you should. I don’t really know how to write fiction, and so I’m learning as I go. Playing catch up and realizing it is nothing like I though it would be. Hard work. I have a whole new respect for authors. Anyone out there with advice for a wannabe author?

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, 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!

Uncategorized

Pheasant Season

November 11, 2013November 11, 2013by Alicia WinterLeave a Comment

As I’ve mentioned, fall is one of my very favorite seasons, in part because beginning in late October and running through Christmas, Connecticut hosts a hunting season for pheasant. Throughout the state there are controlled releases of birds on state land at irregular times during the week. These are then hunted by upland bird hunters, usually with dogs to help them find, or flush, the birds. Peasant is by far my all-time favorite animal to hunt, and I look forward to the beginning of the season all year. They not only are a blast to hunt, but they make a delicious addition to the November menu!

I first hunted pheasant, as well as chukar and grouse, with my dad. I was perhaps in my twenties (I can’t remember because it was SO very long ago!) when he invited me along on a private hunt. At a private club, the way it works is that when you arrive you determine how many birds you want to hunt, usually 2-4 per person, and the guides will set them out for you in the hunting area. The birds are raised in huge pens nearby. You relax for a while and then off you go to find the birds. We didn’t have our own dogs then, so we used the dogs that came with the guide service. This may seem to some like an unfair advantage over the birds, but let me assure you it is not. Pheasant are not like wild chickens. They are crafty and very fast and can often outsmart a dog by leaving a confusing scent trail, running in circles, or just generally blending into their environment the way God made them. It is neither easy to find the wily creatures after they are freed nor is it easy to fell them, although I must say that pheasant are slower in the air then the average game bird. That’s one of the reasons I like to hunt them! I need all the advantage I can get.

Back then with my dad I was an average shot. I remember missing the first bird, but I got some that day. Over the years when I lived in Colorado, my husband and I would often head south and east to Blanca in the fall and hunt birds there. I was never a crack shot, like he was, but I hit most of what I aimed at. Recently, when we were back in Connecticut, he and I decided to tune up our game by going over to Millbrook New York and spending the day at the Orvis shooting grounds called Sandanona. http://www.orvis.com/sandanona They have a world class sporting clay course for wing shooters. This was a real treat for us, and not something we could do very often. 100 clays at 20 stations each to practice on. By the end of the day we had sore shoulders and tired arms, but we were smiling. He was smiling somewhat more than me, as he had schooled me at each station, hitting approximately 70% of his targets to my somewhat less then 50%. Needless to say I was a bit discouraged. So the following Christmas, after a whole bird season of listening to me gripe about what a bad shot I was, my darling husband gifted me a trip to the Sandanona shooting school, where I would be taught the proper techniques and principles of wing shooting in a half day class with an expert. I couldn’t wait.

The class was super fun, and I learned a ton about how to shoot. I learned that my gun doesn’t really fit my body. It’s too short, and canted too little to line up with my eye when I draw it up. But I love my gun. My dad gave it to me and I’ll never get rid of it. I learned that even though I am right handed, I am “left eye dominant”, which means that my left eye leads and my right eye follows. I learned that because of this I should be shooting left handed. So I tried that. It’s like walking with shoes on the wrong feet tied together. Not even safe. I learned that I could compensate by using a patch over my left eye, to force my right eye to work. I tried that and actually fell down. With a loaded gun. My shooting went below 30%. I spent the next season practicing closing my left eye instead of my right while I draw. Draw, close, aim, fire. I hit a few birds, but didn’t even make my bag limit for the season.

What now? I’m trying to get back to a place where I can forget my limitations and just shoot. Where I can let instinct take over for ability. I need to un-think shooting. I’m trying to be OK with the fact that, for whatever reason, I’m just not a very good shot, and I’m trying to remember that even though I love to shoot, what I really love is to walk in the woods on crisp fall days with my husband and my son and my dog.

Here is a recipe for one of our very favorite fall meals. If you want leftovers, you had better make 2. It takes a bit of work, but is well worth the effort. FYI the easiest way to get the meat off a pheasant is to cut the skin of the breast and peel it back, and then filet the breasts off the bone. Then continue to pull the skin down over the thighs, exposing the legs. Break the leg joints at the end of the ‘drumstick’ and again at the hip. Use a knife to separate the legs from the body.

Pheasant Pot Pie

6 cups water

1 pheasant, breasted, and legs skinned

salt and pepper to taste

1 tsp parsley

1 tsp. thyme

1 bay leaf

1 cup diced potatoes

1 cup diced turnips

1 cup diced carrots

1 cup diced leeks

1/2 cup frozen peas

1/2 cup chopped onion

4 tbs butter

3 tbs flour

1-2 bullion cubes

1 pie crust.

In a stock pot, bring the water to boil and add the pheasant and the spices. Reduce heat to low and simmer the pheasant for 20 minutes or until cooked through. Allow to cool, reserving the liquid. Meanwhile, chop the vegetables and mix in a large bowl. In a heavy cast iron pan over medium heat melt the butter and then add the flour, stirring constantly until the roux begins to darken. Stir in the bullion. Add about 1 1/2 to 2 cups of the reserved liquid broth to the roux and stir until you have a smooth gravy. Freeze the remainder of the broth for future use. Mix the gravy into the vegetables. Cut the pheasant into bite sized pieces and mix into the vegetables. Put all of it into a pie plate or a 9″ round cake pan,mounding to fit. Cover it all with the pie crust, sealing the edges to the pan. Bake in a 350 oven for 1 hour. Serve warm with a nice salad.

Uncategorized

Greens, and Other Garden Leftovers

October 28, 2013by Alicia WinterLeave a Comment

As a gardener I am still reeling from the summer growing season, and while this recent frost didn’t take me entirely unaware, It did make me realize that it is time to wrap it up. And what is left in the garden in nearly November? More than I’d like to acknowledge. If I identify it, then I’m obligated to address it. If I can ignore something, then I don’t have to do anything about it, right? Isn’t that just the way of human nature? Well, I have been ignoring too many things in the garden this fall, and now I have to put up or shut up. Let’s take my hot peppers. (http://eattheseason.com/2013/04/25/garden-planning/) What was I thinking! Who needs that many varieties and plants of pepper? I have singed the tongues and fingers of everyone I know with baggies of peppers and gallons of hot sauce this fall and yet the peppers still proliferate. Thank goodness for the frost. I lost about 3 gallons of hot habinero, Aji and serrano this last weekend and yet I still spent hours jarring what I was able to pick. Well, they are done. All that is left to do is pull out the plants.

Not so for every other thing still growing. I have piles of leeks that happen to be very frost hardy. My endive are still clinging to life despite the frigid temps at night and I can’t pull them up until the greens all die back or they won’t force into cornichons properly. My parsnips as well as carrots will happily ride out the cold under their layer of mulch until the ground actually freezes, so I can ignore them for a while longer. What is calling out for my immediate attention are the beet greens.

I have a love hate relationship with greens of all kinds. From kale to spinach, collard and mustard, I have grown and eaten them all. I know they are a super food and oh so good for me, and I love the bitter, pungent taste of them well seasoned, but they take so very long to prepare that my shoulders droop at the thought. Washing each leaf, checking for bugs, soaking and washing again…it is so tiresome. I plant them because they are hearty, healthy foods that should be in all our diets, but come fall, when I have no choice but to eat them of throw them out, I sigh and march out to the garden with my clippers.

The beet greens I have been able to ignore all summer. In the spring they are too tiny to clip, and I tell myself not to damage the plant until the beet is fully formed. In the summer the greens look like crap, all wilted and hot looking, covered in dust. I’m more interested in the brilliant garnet gems under the greens. Cold borsht, beet salad with chevre, these are the things that grace the summer table. Greens are a fall dish, to be served with venison roast or grilled chops. And now it’s fall, and the greens look bright and lively with the cooler air. There are still plenty of them out there, as I pick only the largest of the beets, and the ones that were planted too deep tend not to erupt. They still have verdant greens but not much of a beet. And so I clip.

I came across this recipe for beet green soup that is super simple and interesting. I happened to have some barley so I gave it a try. Perfect for a fall evening served with cheesy bread. Make sure to use a very wide (at least 10″) stockpot for this recipe. That way the eggs stay on the top and don’t sink down in the soup and into oblivion.

Beet Green Soup with Barley and Poached Eggs.

2 TBS olive oil

1 Medium Onion

4 cloves Garlic

8 cups Broth

6 cups stemmed beet greens chopped to 1 inch.

3/4 cup of barley

salt and pepper to taste

4 eggs

Parmesan cheese

Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil until soft and fragrant. Add the broth, the beet greens and the barley. bring to a boil and turn down the heat to simmer covered for 30 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Crack the eggs and let them poach in the soup until done to desired consistency. (I like a firmer egg so I cooked mine about 6 minutes) Serve and sprinkle with the cheese.

Food, Cooking and Recipes, Gardening, Seasonal, summer, Uncategorized

The Season of Bounty

July 4, 2013July 4, 2013by Alicia WinterLeave a Comment

It’s that time of the year when a quick evening browse around the garden with a cocktail yields a colorful basket of produce. For a little while this early summer, I could get away with gathering into my upturned shirt, but with the warmer days and rainy afternoons, the harvest has begun in earnest, and I try to remember to bring out a basket along with my drink. Garlic and green onions, early tomatoes, blueberries and strawberries, carrots, early beets, peas and peppers are all coming in by the handful. I always try to balance my desire for fresh produce with the realization that if I leave it a while longer, it will grow bigger, but there is nothing like the taste of sweet baby carrots and tender beets steamed with a bat of butter on a steamy summer evening. My favorite dish of the early summer is, of course, a simple salad of fresh newly picked veggies. The thinly sliced Peruvian white habanero adds a super kick to this tasty dinner.

I am surprised to see the blueberries ripen so early this year, as I usually think of late July as blueberry season, but I predicted this to be the year of the berry, and it seems I have called it right. Even the tangy and delectable wild black raspberries in the hedgerow are beginning to ripen early, and I got a sticky purple handful this morning for my trouble. Unfortunately, as they grown amongst the nettles, I also got a prickly wrist.

On another note, for those of you who read “the Doctor is in” I’m happy to report that my pepper plants are all thriving. Many of them lost all their dark green foliage to the cold snap we had in May, but the smaller, lighter green leaves are beginning to thicken out the plants, and on many there are the first blooms. Some did better than others and are already fruiting, hence the spicy salad, but most peppers like the heat, and will produce best from late July into early September. During this pepper heyday, you will find me in the kitchen, gloves on, chopping peppers for hot sauces and salsas as fast as I can.

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