earthy and herby

my garden, nature, , , , ,
salvia leaf close-up 9-14
mystery salvia

What is so exciting about autumn? If things are slowing down and dying, wouldn’t that be depressing instead?

Maybe the season just finds us ready for change, glad to move on from the laziness of summer to the harvest and to tidying up, getting ready for the winter….The heat is not so enervating, and the air is fresher and not heavy.

In autumn, being a gardener, I get close up and intimate with the dirt and the plants’ roots, as there are so many perennials that need trimming and the planting beds cleared out. Today I reached my hands and pruners down through the swaying leaves of the lemon balm, to where its roots run all tangled together with oregano just below the surface of the ground, and their earthy and herby smells rose up and quite affectionately came right into my nose! I always leave the door open for them.

coleus 9-14
coleus

I pruned the spent flower shoots and leaves of the “mystery” salvia, revealing all the clumps of volunteer plants with their fresh new leaves. Better Homes and Gardens has a salvia guide online, but I didn’t have any more success than before in finding my plant among all the 30+ varieties they show. [update: it has been identified as Indigo Woodland Sage, Salvia forsskaolii.]

pimiento

 

I picked the last of the pimientos and fried them all up with slivers of garlic. Here is one of the loveliest so you can see how big and heart-shaped they typically are.

Two friends showered us with goodies from their gardens in the last few days, including things we didn’t have in our own, like lemon cucumbers and green beans and hot peppers. Tonight I managed to deal with quite a bit of the bounty and include it in a yummy dinner. The Yellow Brandywine tomato vine is loaded with fruit and now it is all ripening late. So sweet.

One last zinnia picture: This is one of the trailing type with blooms only two inches in diameter. When I look at it closely the detail grabs me. It almost looks as though tiny yellow stitches are holding the petals on. Orange is a good and even arousing color to go with the season; maybe it will help to energize me for the remaining garden work. Happy Autumn!

P1110362

The giving comes, the taking ends.

poetry,

FRIENDSHIP

Such love I cannot analyze;
It does not rest in lips or eyes,
Neither in kisses nor caress.
Partly, I know, it’s gentleness

And understanding in one word
Or in brief letters. It’s preserved
By trust and by respect and awe.
These are the words I’m feeling for.

Two people, yes, two lasting friends.
The giving comes, the taking ends.
There is no measure for such things.
For this all Nature slows and sings.

~ Elizabeth Jennings

Chicken Adobo

food and cooking, ,

I couldn’t find my old Sunset Magazine recipe for (Filipino) chicken adobo, so I researched online and discovered that quite a bit of controversy persists over the proper method and proportion of ingredients. It seems to depend on what region of the Philippines you or your mother came from, whether you will use equal portions of soy sauce and vinegar, or will include tomatoes — and more variables than that. Cooking is folk art, isn’t it?

P1110258
chicken thighs after marinating 18 hrs

Eventually I settled on this recipe from The Splendid Table, created by two women who don’t appear to be Filipinas themselves, but I liked that they authoritatively state: “One of the cooking techniques that sets Filipino adobo apart is that you brown the meat after it is cooked, not before. That aroma of a browning, marinade-saturated chicken can drive you crazy.” Theirs was the only version I found that included this instruction. By the way, in Spain when they talk about adobo they refer more generally to a marinade, and not to this particular dish.

P1110262
reducing the marinade for sauce

Even I tweaked the recipe a bit. I used a little less vinegar and more soy sauce, and I fried the onions separately and threw them on the rice at the end.

However you adjust your ingredients — and unless your mother insists that you make it her way, you should feel a great deal of freedom to experiment — the essential flavors that make adobo are vinegar, soy sauce, black pepper, bay leaf, and garlic. Pork and beef liver are commonly used instead of or in combination with chicken. This version called for 10 large cloves of garlic, and mine were actually gigantic.

The whole dish was quite piquant and delectable; I was glad that I did saute the chicken at the end because the skins got nice and crispy-tasty. I served white rice to soak up some of that garlicky sauce, and a vegetable, and we feasted.

P1110266

Rainyness

my garden, ,

sage & rain 9-11-14

Just hours after my last post, my prayer for rain, showers did fall on us. I knew that there had been a weatherman’s chance of that in addition to our hope. P.G., as the Irish say, Please God, there will be a dampening in those places that need it most, to retard the incendiary possibilities!

When I drew the blinds this morning, a hummingbird was feeding at the Mexican Bush Sage, but when I went to get my camera he must have gone home and got the message that it’s too wet right now for that, because he never would come back. But he will, and a passel of relations with him, because they love this sage.

I’ve been wanting to take a picture of our bush that is humongous this summer. It only came into full bloom within the last week or so, but it will keep going until Christmas and beyond. It’s a plant whose stems must be cut to the ground every winter, and then this happens! Without being irrigated, I might say. Not long ago I included it here in a list of drought-tolerant plants.

So thankful for a rainy day, even if it doesn’t register on the rain gauge. A friend is bringing Indian food for lunch today – and doesn’t that sound perfect?

sage w cross 9-11-14