Category Archives: food and cooking

Love and Hate in the Garden

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We thought we had cut the bottlebrush shrub down for good, but it was soon evident that he took it as a pruning for more vigor. That was a long time ago. Ever since this Callistemon showed us who is boss we have liked him even less, and try not to look at him except for about twice a year when we hack away at his skyrocketing branches to let more sun shine on our nearby vegetables.

We were doing that yesterday when I noticed the lone first flower of the season, barely opening, and it didn’t seem so brash and domineering when in a tender phase. I let him into the house.

On the left is a photo of the amazing Early Girl tomato vine. My husband wanted to plant anything but Early Girls this year, because after 30 years of being The Best and most famous of our tomatoes, superior in every way, they were disappointing for five years in a row.

I begged to plant just one Early Girl, and she has turned out to be the largest of our ten tomato bushes, with the biggest and most perfect fruits, and the consistently wonderful flavor we expect. She did not want to be cast off, so she tried really hard this time – that seems the obvious message. I will never again even think of forsaking her.

In the tomato photo you can also see the tree collard emerging from the ground like a dowel on the right side of the staked vine, and leafing out on the left side.

It’s great, in theory, to have a perennial leafy green vegetable always ready for the picking, but our garden is simply not big enough to accommodate such a meandering type. I don’t think I had ever harvested one leaf, and he was suffering an aphid infestation again, so I removed Mr. Tree Collard. Above right you can see him before he went into the yard waste bin.

This is the Summer of Parsley. I like to let parsley go to seed and sow itself where it will, and in the spring there were lots of little seedlings which I stuck in here and there. They’ve now formed thick hedgerows in some places, I’ve got plenty to cook with, and new seed heads are starting to hang across the sidewalk.

That’s not convenient, so I put those pretty sprigs into a vase with the budding bottlebrush. The parsley had been growing right under the shrub, so they weren’t complete strangers. To all appearances they are getting along, and each has something to contribute to a relationship that is proving to be a boon to the household.

 

Green and Lively Maryland

agriculture, family, food and cooking, nature, travel, , , ,
old and young feet

We’ve been living in the Maryland countryside for two weeks now, and only today did I have enough time to start a post here, time to even think of writing more than a shopping list.

We’re taking care of four grandchildren while Pearl and Nate are abroad. They are energetic and happy-family-robust kids between the ages of  eight and fifteen, who should help me stay young if they didn’t make me feel so old and tired by comparison.

The heat and humidity are enervating as well, though today when I was driving (alone, for the first time) a road that curves along under tall leafed-out trees and with lush bushes and vines on the borders, I was able to contemplate the agricultural resources of heat and humidity and summer rains. I stopped along the way at one of the numerous produce stands to buy big peaches and some squash, and drove into the driveway past the neighbors’ hibiscus with dinner-plate blooms.

a Natchez berry

Last week in preparation for Mr. Glad’s birthday we all went to the berry farm to pick giant thornless blackberries in stark contrast to the little wild things we usually have to pick for hours to make a couple of pies. We had more than enough berries in about twenty minutes, but it didn’t feel right to us, to pay with so little time, so we picked some more, and ended up with more than enough for three big pies that I spent most of the next day baking.

Mr. Glad fell in love with a German striped tomato at the farm store, so we brought it home for the dinner.

 

 

It filled two bowls and served the whole family deliciously.

That day Aunt Kate and Uncle Soldier came to celebrate with us, and their youthful energy was very welcome. Some of that energy went into making sushi for the birthday guy.

sushi

Lots of things are different here in the East from what we see on the West coast. A groundhog wandered across the lawn yesterday, a huge creature that we had only seen in “Groundhog Day.” And Mr. Glad found a large butterfly that was new to us. Fireflies and cicadas liven up the back yard in the evenings, when the temperature drops a little and we can actually stand to be outside with them.

Neither of us had been on the sort of Atlantic beach where people play and swim in the summertime, so we made the effort of a long drive to Fenwick Island State Park in Delaware and the grandchildren loved it. It had been a while since their last experience of the ocean and some of them had listened to many scary jellyfish stories in the meantime. The lifeguard told us that those unpleasant creatures aren’t a problem until the ocean water has been warm for a few weeks, usually not until mid-August.

We also loved being able to really relax in the warmth of the sand and sun — nothing like our local beaches back home. We wished we had more time for playing in the waves and watching the exuberant and laughing body-surfers we had brought with us.


The children are off in four different directions today, one of them with his grandpa down in Washington, DC checking out the sights there. It’s the first day I have had time alone other than a few minutes before falling asleep at night, and it’s been the most healthful thing. I feel like an olive tree that’s been getting a little too much fertilizer for about two weeks, and suddenly has a day with just water and sunlight. I may be old for a tomato, but olive trees live on and on.

 

Grandma didn’t make pesto.

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My grandma of renown was no slacker, and she was the person who taught me by example how to prepare for a trip. When my sisters and I stayed with her in summertime, we usually went with Grandma and Grandpa on a week’s outing to a cabin or camp in the mountains.

Everything was ship-shape on the home front when we drove off early enough in the morning to have breakfast at the Tracy Inn on the way. There was not a speck of dust on the furniture, and the beds had been made up with fresh sheets as soon as we were out of them. Certainly Grandma would have made sure that Grandpa deadheaded his prizewinning flowers.

Liam, whom I’ll see tomorrow!

But Grandma would never have thought to drive down the state to visit one grandchild for a few nights, and then turn around to fly across the country the very next week to sojourn with a passel of other grandchildren for more than two weeks. The way I am doing. I have to keep reminding myself that in a myriad of ways I am not Grandma.

I am blessed to the point of unbelief having so many grandchildren, and Grandma only had a few of us whom she saw twice a year. Grandma didn’t do the gardening, and she didn’t write any blog posts, though I daresay the wonderful letters she wrote are worth more per hour invested than what I put out.

If there had been basil growing in the back yard, I know she would have arranged things so that the pesto was made at least a couple of days before departure, giving her time to sweep and mop the kitchen and get to bed at a reasonable hour the night before. She wouldn’t be complaining, because she liked traveling and had Everything Under Control.

Not me. I have mostly been whining about everything, including the reality of all the work undone and how I hate leaving home. I was standing at the sink this afternoon whimpering as I pulled leaves off stems, when it hit me that making pesto is one of my most favorite things to do. How wonderful is it that I have a garden that grows basil, from which a woman can create one of the wonders of the culinary world?

And the people in my life — oh, my! Preparing for and going on trips with my grandma was one of the happiest activities of my childhood. She was so good to provide that for us. Hugging and holding my children and grandchildren is necessary food for the maintenance of cup-running-over happiness. Right now I don’t really care if the floor is still dirty and the bed unmade (and a hundred other negatives I won’t waste time listing even to myself) when I drive off tomorrow morning. What do you know — I’m not Grandma!

If Grandma had been washing basil and found a Japanese beetle in the sink, she’d have said, “Tch, tch!” with disgust, but I saw it as a photo opportunity. I could feel this way because this summer I’m not growing green beans. Japanese beetles have ravaged many a crop of green beans here, and in the past I developed a quickness in squishing them between my fingers.

Grandma would not have written a letter or recipe or anything the night before a trip. But writing is also one of my favorite things to do. So here I am.

I see that I blogged about pesto three years ago without giving my recipe, so I will put it up this time:

PESTO
3 cups packed basil leaves
2 large cloves garlic
1/3 cup pine nuts or walnuts 
1/3 to 1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
 

Mix in the food processor, adding the oil and cheese at the last. Add more salt if you like, or more oil if you need it to be runnier. I’ve had this keep for weeks in the fridge, and years in the freezer, and still be flavorful.

It’s probably easy to guess what is another favorite activity I will indulge in before the sun goes down: gardening. I need to spread some manure around where I thinned the perennials yesterday. Maybe I will run out of energy to clean up all the basil-tinged oil smeared around the kitchen before I fall into bed, but it’s very comforting to have a few little tubs of that tasty stuff in the freezer when we haven’t even got to August.

Grandma wouldn’t understand my style of housekeeping, but she would love me anyway.

The boon of a boy with the pox

family, food and cooking, my garden, nature, , , , , ,
Feeding the neighborhood cat

All the planets were in formation for me to have a blessed weekend. First, grandson Scout came down with the chicken pox. Second, his parents needed to attend a wedding and to travel through our part of the state to get there. Third, I had no obligations I couldn’t get out of. So he stayed with us for three nights! This was only a few days after we’d returned from that trip to his house over the Memorial Day weekend.

Though we have eight other grandchildren, this is the first time we’ve had entire responsibility for any of them this long. I was really busy with the little guy, and it was very satisfying.

His pox weren’t bothering him much, which made it possible for us to just have a good time. After the first full day he was here, I was so high I was ready to write a glowing blog post about the experience as soon as he went to bed. I put it off, and at the end of the second day I was exhausted and couldn’t relate to that woman of the previous day or remember the feeling. It’s a mercy he sleeps long at night so I could too.

That first day I was in the Mom groove — it reminded me at least a little of when I was a youngish mother 30 years ago with a lot to get done every day, little children underfoot and needing something every few minutes. You learn to make the most of every five-minute snatch of time when they are occupied, and you figure out how to get tasks done with them alongside and “helping.”

Scout’s very favorite activity at our place is watching the Kreepy Krauly pool sweep when it comes on for 2 hours every morning. I didn’t want to find out if he would be happy doing that for entire time it runs, because I needed to be right next to him inside the pool fence. I was indulgent to an hour’s worth, which was nerve-wracking enough.

Eventually I figured out that I could prune a few rose branches or sweep the fence while we were in there. Scout helped me dig weeds, too, when he wasn’t trotting from one side of the pool to the other following the machine, talking about it or to it, “Heh-woh, Kweepy!” I think I came closer to falling into the pool than he did, more than once.

Two of the three days he was here were unusually warm, even into the evenings, which made it possible for us to spend a lot of time outdoors. A big dishpan and the hose would have been enough to occupy him, but I also brought out the play stove his grandpa had made about 30 years ago, and some plastic tea dishes. He set to work making “chicken noodle soup,” or so he said.

One of the ways one makes use of the minutes when caring for a little one is to explore together — watch bugs, smell roses, and notice how the hose water feels on the toes.

Scout is a talker and asks the name of every flower he sees. I was able to satisfy him about most of the ones growing in our yard, and a few in the neighborhood. When we got back from one our walks he put his nosegay into a little pot.

None of our grandchildren lives close enough to us that we can see them frequently. For the present, Scout is the closest, and five hours isn’t very close. Maybe the arrival of his little brother or sister late this summer will give us the impetus to make the drive more often.

I’m ready to put in more Grandma Time!

Frilled Shasta Daisy