All posts by GretchenJoanna

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About GretchenJoanna

Orthodox Christian, widowed in 2015; mother, grandmother. Love to read, garden, cook, write letters and a hundred other home-making activities.

Tomato Trio Salad

food and cooking, my garden,

Two years ago when it was tomato-planting time, we knew that later in the summer several grandchildren would be in the garden and swimming in the pool. I planted a “Grape” tomato bush thinking that it would be fun for the kids to pluck the 1-2″ fruits for snacks.

It turned out to be quite a resource to have right in the back yard, miniature tomatoes that were nearly all perfect, and all very sweet and flavorful. They appeared in large clusters and ripened quickly. Not only that, they came off their stems with the slightest nudge, and a clean break. Any meal I prepared seemed to benefit from a few of these pretties on the side of the plate or filling a bowl of their own.

The top pic is of the “Grapes” in 2007. The grandchildren didn’t particularly like to eat them. But Grandma ate tons–well, maybe just bushels. And I planted another “Grape” last year with equal success and savor.

This spring there were no Grapes to be found. Oh, there are various cherry-type tomatoes that grow in clusters like grape clusters. But on all the long wooden shelves at the best nursery (I finally made the drive after several nearby were found lacking) no one could help me find the plants with that proper name and the oblong shape of a Thompson Seedless grape. The kind that make the fruits we buy in little cartons at Costco, and again this year they are for sale there.

I found many interesting tiny-tomato plants, but was so disappointed I couldn’t think straight to decide which one would be the sorry substitute. So Ibought three. They are Juliet F1, Sun Gold, and Green Grape.

On the right are some Sun Golds just getting ripe last month. They are tangerine-colored.

It has turned out to be fun indeed to have three colors of little love-apples. Sun Golds are definitely the most flavorful. Juliet F1 is so big, it’s on its way to being a Roma. No great flavor there. The Green Grape has been o.k….it’s just hard to know when it’s ripe! The fruits get a bit yellowish, and then you know.

We also have some large tomato varieties this summer, Early Girl and Mule Team. The mules are a very slow train, just now starting to pink up. And the Early Girl plant is a runt, with few baby girl fruits. Our reputation as awesome tomato farmers has gone down the drain the last couple of years.

This week we got some hot weather! Yay! Down with fog, Up with sunshine! That means plenty of cherry tomatoes, and a hankering for salads. So I made a tomato-basil salad tonight.
Started with the tomatoes, as many as B. and I could eat, because this salad won’t keep. As soon as I cut the green ones in two I began to be fond of them just for their looks.
Early in its growth I just pinch the flowers off the basil every week or so, to make it get bushy. Tonight I pruned it above new buds, and then used scissors to get the leaves off, before chopping. If I were making pesto I wouldn’t be concerned about getting a bit of stem and flower. I didn’t know how much to put in–maybe it ended up being about 3 tablespoons?

Some goat cheese went in, in little gobs or crumbles, whatever form I could manage. They all sort of melted into the tomato juice in the end.

 

 

 

And I toasted some pine nuts to put on top. Didn’t use half of these in the end, so I put most of them away in a jar in the fridge.

The biggest challenge for me posting pictures of food on my blog is finding a place to stage the picture. The kitchen is a complete mess, and the table has the wrong color of placemats on it. The living room is too dark….At least tonight, I could be glad it was salads I was photographing (ah, yes, I made another one I’ll tell you about later) so a hot dinner didn’t get cold while I scurried around trying to set up a nice environment for my creations.

Husband B. really liked the salad, and so did I. He sprinkled a vinaigrette dressing on his but I take mine neat.

Mountain Retreat Complete

books, cabin, church, , , , ,


As I wrote in my last post, I was departing for a mountain retreat. And I made such a big deal of my delight in anticipating it, I also promised a report.

It takes a full six hours to cover the 300 miles to my destination, and most of that time I listened to various things on tape or CD. As the library didn’t have anything promising on my last-minute visit there, I was forced to remember that we had taped readings of the New Testament in the cupboard. As with books, I took way more CD’s and tapes than I could possibly use….

On the trip down I listened to the latest Mars Hill Audio tape. Please ask them for a free sample if you’ve never heard their interviews with various authors, teachers, musicians. It’s like an audio magazine where you eavesdrop on discussions between thoughtful people. And I heard the whole Gospel of Matthew on tape–what a perfect intro to a prayerful couple of days!

Sierra vinegarweed

My least beautiful photo, but the best of my attempts to capture this flower that graces the roadway, around 5,000 to 6,000 ft elevation, with a misty lavender haze. When you get close, the effect is spoiled as the plants are revealed as dry and stickery, puny individuals. (That sounds like a description of us Christians relative to the whole Church.) I don’t know what it might be, do you? It was the first of my pictures on this expedition.

It’s about this point on the driving, an hour and 3,000 ft down the mountain from Our Lake, I always have to turn off all recordings or radio and have quiet, so I can focus on the smells of the trees and hear the quiet of the forest.

Incense Cedars contribute one of the aromas. As a child with my family, on trips up the mountain it was filling my senses about the time I got carsick, and it took me most of my adult life to get over this association and develop an appreciation for the tree. But I haven’t known just what they looked like, so I found this photo on the Net.

Far in the distance at left you can see a lake that is not our lake. But this photo was mostly for the sake of the manzanita that I love, and in the absence of the wildflowers that catch your eye earlier in the summer, it takes center stage for me, so I made it fill the foreground here.
Ah…the first view of Our Lake. Other than that purple haze, all the wildflowers I saw at high elevations were white. Like this Pearly Everlasting. I just looked up its name this morning.
Ranger’s Buttons along the road going in. I picked up some granite rocks near here for the garden at home.

Yarrow was growing next to the cabin. I saw it when I was turning on the water down the hill. There are various things to do when you first arrive: turn on the water, turn on the solar, turn on the water heater. Bring your stuff in from the car. My legs were so heavy and I felt generally exhausted, so much that I wondered if I could resist falling on a bed and sleeping immediately. It must be the altitude. All evening my brain was slow, and I was so sl-e-e-py.

yarrow

For that reason I didn’t start right in on heavy reading, but took advantage of the magazines my sister had left. When my father’s mark was more on the place, you would find old issues of California Farmer, National Geographic and Sunset piled up everywhere. Now I find the New Yorker! Well, as I haven’t been on the treadmill for some time, where I used to read New Yorker, it was a welcome change, and just the thing for an oxygen-deprived brain. The most interesting article I read was in two parts, on Siberia, by Ian Frazier. His book on the subject is due to come out next year, and it looks to be worth reading.

This old coffee table caught my eye when I walked through the cabin door, the only furniture from our childhood home that never varied or wore out, and the only piece that we have (just since my last visit) installed in the cabin. Either my father or another ancestor built this table, I’m pretty sure, but none of my siblings can remember, so I guess we will never know its origins.

I brought some candles for indoor prayer times, and then was pleased to discover I had a little icon card of Christ the Shepherd in my purse to display with them. I prayed He would shepherd me through my weekend in the way of the 23rd Psalm, and give me light, and Himself as Light.

Speaking of light, I did lie out under the stars in my sleeping bag the first night, for a couple of hours, until my narrow bed (a lounge chair cushion) made it impossible to sleep. The stars and night sky were comforting, like an angelic blanket. This time little wisps of clouds were decorating the constellations; I could smell the trees, sweet and dry and piney-sharp, with a bit of wood smoke from the campground down the hill in the mix.

Much of the time I spent on the deck, reading this book, drinking tea, and watching the hummingbirds battle over the feeder. If the sun goes behind a cloud, or a breeze comes up, the temperature drops, so you find yourself putting on and taking off your sweater, moving under the umbrella and then back out in the sunshine again.

When I was wearing my red sweatshirt the hummingbirds would buzz threateningly behind my head as long as it took them to figure out that I wasn’t a giant flower.

The Inner Kingdom had been on my shelf for a year; I’m so glad I threw it in the box to take up! The author Kallistos Ware was a convert to the Orthodox Church as a young man in Britain and was a lecturer at Oxford for a long time. I have read other books by him, as a catechumen and since, and was able to hear him speak in 2008, which was pure pleasure.

This one is first in a planned six-volume collection of his works. He is a wonderful writer–so scholarly yet easy to read. I’d say he is more teacherly than devotional in his style, and he treats the subject matter so thoroughly that most every intellectual question I might have was answered; I was spurred on to love the God he so lovingly describes. I finished the whole book! What a satisfaction to finish something so nourishing.

Soldier came up to be with me for part of the time. He also read a lot, and hiked, and played his guitar, everything from Dylan to gospel. It was a rare treat to be just the two of us together.

Here are the books all packed up and ready to carry home again. I only used about half of them, and there is an extra in the box going home, the novel by Jane Smiley that my sister had left in the cabin and that I am borrowing. It looks small enough for reading in bed, but I didn’t take the time to dip into it yet.
On the way down the mountain I had to stop and try once more to capture the beauty of the manzanita. I couldn’t, of course. And those tree smells wouldn’t be bottled up. I could never get a picture of the night sky that would make you feel the weighty silence of the Holy Spirit in it. But you know how it is–I had to try!

Mountain Retreat

books, nature, quotes, , , ,

I’m off to the mountains again this week. Two years ago I made my first solitary retreat in this remote destination, with some fear at the outset about being alone where there is no phone, and few people around. But the fear was gone the moment I walked through the cabin door and the reality of God’s presence came freshly on me. Why had I been talking about being alone up there, when it was really God and I together for a few days? And it did end up being best kind of retreat and rejuvenation of the spirit, by the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps this time I will spend more time at night looking at the stars. That other outing it was late September and almost too cold for it at that high elevation. There are none of men’s lights to interfere; I’ll put on my glasses and lie on my back on the deck. I remember how the sight of those uncountable stars filled me with awe for God, and with God Himself, so much that I couldn’t bear it for long.

Maybe I was unconsciously “thinking” ahead when I posted that poem and thoughts about night recently. I’ve been looking forward to the time for reading and prayer, and now that I start writing I’m reminded to anticipate the joy of the dark and starry night as well.

Our civilization has fallen out of touch with night.
With lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of night back to the forests and the sea;
the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it.
Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of night?
Do they fear that vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space,
the austerity of stars?
–Henry Beston


But back to the bookish part of the opportunity. The process of preparing for the trip by choosing my reading material (and even the food to bring, I might add) is a sort of pre-retreat. I know I won’t be able to fully mine any of the treasure-troves that this list represents, but if I left one at home, it would surely be the one I’d want to dip into, right? In addition to a couple of the history or literature books from on my sidebar list, I’m taking these spiritually meaty ones.

Books for a Mountain Getaway:
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by Michael Pomazansky
The Inner Kingdom by Kallistos Ware
Little Russian Philokalia Vol. 1 by St. Seraphim
Courage to Pray by Anthony Bloom
On Prayer by Archimandrite Sophrony

Well, I’m going on my adventure, and pray God will bring me home to tell about it. If not, you’ll all know that it really was unbearably glorious!

Jello and Hospitality

family, food and cooking, ,

In the Good Old Days, as they appear now to be, I never thought to make the kind of meal one might eat at a restaurant. We had soup and bread several nights a week, interspersed with stews made from whatever came from the vegetable garden, cooked with some eggs. If company came for dinner, I would add dessert, and set the table more carefully, but soup and muffins were still as likely as not the main event.

I was thinking about this the other night when our son-in-law was in town and I invited him to dinner late in the day. I didn’t want to try to put together something really fancy because I didn’t have a couple of hours to spend on it, so I concocted a quite decent dinner with what was in the refrigerator. Three leftover items, some ham from the freezer (I love the microwave!) and a green salad, and we were all quite happy with the result.

Jello wasn’t on the table that night, but I am working on incorporating it into the menus more, being inspired from two directions. Gelatin salads are making a comeback in the culinary world; renowned chefs now create gelatin dishes that are gourmet. (Or am I behind-the-times again, and they are through that phase?) They aren’t likely to have the Jello brand name in their titles, and all the artificial flavors or colors that we have become accustomed to, but that’s all for the better.

My friend Myriah wrote to me about her grandmother recently, and Jello figures in the story, which I share with her permission:

I remember my grandmother always in the kitchen cooking for her visitors and family. She would wake up before everyone and start baking sweet treats for the day. There was always a cake, pie or cookies freshly baked. Then she would make breakfast which always consisted of pancakes or waffles along with the eggs, bacon, sausage and canned fruit.

After breakfast dishes were cleaned up she often times would start canning fruit or peeling apples to make into applesauce. At 9 in the morning she would go to the donut store across from her house and have a lively conversation with neighbors. In the afternoons she would walk to town or go to her sewing club, Canasta club, or help out at the hospital. For a short time she went to bridge club but she stopped going being they didn’t break from cards and have a time to eat and enjoy each other’s company.

Every evening my grandmother made a huge meal for whoever was around. She often invited people she met during the day to come over and enjoy a meal. She loved people and would talk with anyone. When I was very young I would be nudged by my grandmother’s foot to quit staring at the guests. After dinner when I was helping with the dishes she would be explaining to me that it wasn’t nice to stare and that the person just had a drinking problem and had a big nose or that they slurred words because they couldn’t afford teeth, were dressed differently because they couldn’t afford clothes.

In my grandmother’s eyes everyone deserved to be loved and accepted right where they were at in life. Often times she would not give me an explanation, but would say they are an “odd duck” and that they just need to be loved. Her house was so different than my home. My parents guarded their privacy and even built a fence around the perimeter of our land to insure that privacy. Sometimes people would come to our house and ring the intercom and my mother would ignore them hoping they would drive away quickly. “Don’t talk to people you don’t know,” was often the message I heard growing up. When we had people over it was after my mom had fretted and planned for days what she would make for a meal or how she would cope with the guests.

I have a couple of memories swirling in my head as I write this. My mother stating that, “I wish your dad wouldn’t invite so many people from work.” Then I have another memory of my grandmother in her kitchen exclaiming ,”I love Jello, you can make a quick dessert and it is so cheap and feeds so many!”

My grandmother thought Jello could add to almost any meal. I am surprised she didn’t incorporate it into breakfast. When she was around 90 years of age and moving to a retirement home she gave me all of her recipe books and tin boxes of recipes. In one tin box there were over 50 Jello recipes. Almost any ingredient I find in my refrigerator I can use in one of my grandmother’s recipes. She has used cottage cheese, sour cream, whipping cream, lettuce, grapes, pineapple, cucumbers, onions, cranberries, nuts and even kale, just to name a few. She had Jello molds hanging on her kitchen walls. She also had a special glass dish to show off her layered Jello recipes.

I am fortunate to have had many days in my grandmother’s kitchen. I don’t have quite the joy she had when she talked about Jello. My girls and I have tried many of her Jello recipes over the years. They don’t remember their great-grandmother ever cooking. They remember drinking root beer and eating store-bought cookies in her retirement home. So, I have the tin of recipes sitting on a shelf. I read them once in awhile when I want to feel close to my grandmother.

I don’t remember eating Jello at my own grandmother’s house, but I did inherit her recipe box that included quite a few recipes for gelatin dishes. My mother-in-law got me started serving a Jello “salad” at Thanksgiving and I continued the tradition for a long time because we all found it a welcome contrast to the heavy foods on our plates.

Nowadays we try to have a couple of real vegetable salads on the sideboard at such feasts, but Jello is so much fun, I hate to abandon it entirely. I even made the rainbow jello pictured above for Christmas dinner one year. As my refrigerator is not level, it made for a wobbly rainbow that did not want to stand erect, but it is so pretty, I might even try it again now that several years have passed.

Grapefruit juice and fresh oranges went into the best concoction I made, and no artificial colors, but I haven’t perfected that recipe, [update: it’s now here in this post.] so I am going to give you one that comes down through my husband’s German relatives. I don’t care for it myself, but as I wanted this post to be about hospitality, it’s only right that I give this example of something I made many times for my husband’s sake, and for his birthday, actually.

Beet Salad

Heat in pan 1 cup water, 1/2 cup vinegar, 1/2 cup sugar. Boil 5 minutes with the following seasoning: 3/4 teaspoon salt and 3 or 4 shakes allspice.

In a bowl put 1 package lemon or lime Jello. Add the hot liquid (above) and dissolve Jello completely. Add 1/2 cup beet juice drained from a #2 can (about a 20 oz. can) of beets, to make 2 cups of liquid, and the drained cubed or julienne beets from that #2 can. Put in a pan and refrigerate until firm.

Serve with a dressing made of 3 boiled eggs that have been cut up and mixed with mayonnaise and a bit of salt.

Whether you serve your guests Jello or gelatin or something else more elaborate or healthfully balanced, I hope it is a project that doesn’t stress you out and keep you from putting your guests at ease, as the food is the least part of being truly hospitable.