Our property with its remnants of a gnarly old orchard provides apples, apples and, oh, more apples. With three trees of different varieties we’ve had apples since mid-July. Kind of like zucchini, what can I do next with this stuff? People see me coming with a large bag and they run - the first three bags were fine, but enough already.
Raw Apple cake featuring lots of raw apples is one way to go. Even if you don’t have apples in the backyard, they’re in season right now and you can make this with any tart apple. A large, moist and fruity cake, it lasts for days, (gets older and better) and is good for birthdays - if needed you can easily serve 18-20. The perfect wake-up call in the morning with coffee, or it goes fancy with cream cheese frosting and birthday candles. Today the candles are for Roz. Happy Birthday sweetie - we’re glad you were born.
Seattleite David Montgomery has won a MacArthur Genius fellowship for his work in geomorphology, a study of geophysical forces and how soil and rivers, the landscape have been altered over time.
Joan Dye Gussow writes about loss of land in her book, This Organic Life: “Although the lands that feed us are disappearing everywhere, the paving of California takes on special significance because of its unique Mediterranean climate. You can’t grow oranges in Iowa.” She goes on to say that “some of California’s most productive land is no longer threatened because it has been entombed. The beautiful Santa Clara Valley was once producer of nearly 50 percent of the world’s prunes, apricots, and cherries. Aaron Sachs tells us it took only four decades to transform this Valley of Heart’s Delight, with its 132,000 acres of flowering trees, into Silicon Valley.”
Since reading Gussow’s book I’ve been more thoughtful about soil conservation, so David Montgomery’s MacArthur fellowship caught my eye. One of his books, Dirt, is on my list to read. Montgomery is among a growing group of scientist advocates who are telling us that we need to pay attention to the dirt on this planet. We need it to grow our food, literally to survive, and we’re covering it up at an alarming rate, thousands of acres every day.
And then I noticed that another recipient was an urban farmer from Milwaukee. Here’s a link to a NY Times article, An Urban Farmer is Rewarded for his Dream, which tells more about Will Allen and the important work he’s doing. Plenty going on in Seattle too with urban farming; and there’s the work Fritz Haeg is doing to promote edible landscapes. He’s an advocate for replacing all or at least some of our lawns with edibles. Haeg’s book, Edible Estates, is another good one for the perennial book list.
Worthwhile enterprises to think about and small actions to take: growing some food of our own, giving over more urban land to growing food, and acknowledging what loss of soil means on a global scale to farming and survival. We should have bumper stickers, Save the Dirt!
Many of our pears were ripe and on the ground when we returned home from vacation last week, but salvageable. Time for chutney, pear salad, poached pears, or simply sliced with a piece of cheddar. Unlike other fruits some pears diminish in quality when ripened on the tree – better to pick them just before and let them ripen in the kitchen. We planted our pear tree maybe five years ago, well Bob did, espaliered alongside the garage. We’ve gotten a dozen or so in previous years, but this year the bonanza - dozens. And, we have both Moonglow and Bartletts on the same tree. Amazing science, but not really. It’s about grafting different varieties on to one tree which is what a pear tree needs anyway since they don ‘t self-pollinate. They need a partner pear. Originally, we had four varieties on the tree, but dog damage resulted in the loss of two.
I’ve made Ginger Pear chutney, and we’ll have pears with a tangy cheese and greens in salad. My mom would layer lettuce, half a pear, grated cheddar, and a dollop of mayo with a sprinkle of paprika on top. The attention she paid to assembling her pear salad caught my attention. You never know what unexpected nuances in life will turn a child’s head and heart in a certain direction. That was a salad a kid could love. It’s morphed a bit, but in ‘08 we’re still loving pears together with cheese in a salad.
Pear salad: fresh pears and greens from the backyard, walnuts, hazelnuts, roasted beets, almost any tangy cheese, a drizzle of dressing – another good way to eat a pear.
And then that’s enough about tomatoes for this year . . . maybe. They’re abundant at the moment so I made Gazpacho and dried some.
Returned home from vacation a couple of days ago to find tomato plants, finally, laden with ripened tomatoes. They’re late and not as sweet as when they ripen earlier, but I’m grateful. Glad to have these to enjoy now and preserve for later on. I dried a bunch of Sungolds, and made a batch of Gazpacho.
For the Gazpacho I removed the core from about twice as much tomato as cucumber, seeded and peeled, and put them in a food processor (a blender’s fine too). I then added several cloves of garlic, some day-old bread, vinegar and oil, salt and pepper to taste, fresh dill and chives. Pulse until well mixed and that’s it. It’s good for a day or two if kept in the fridge. A bowl of Gazpacho with a dollop of sour cream or yogurt on top is a pretty nice way to eat your vegetables.
This anecdotal version without exact measurements invites us to add whatever sounds good. This past summer the NY Times did a piece called 101 20-Minute Dishes. Numbers 9 – 19 of 101 recipes are vegetables, many in season right now. Check out their recipes for inspiration, and then create your own versions of Gazpacho that are uniquely PNW. What about adding a splash of clam nectar, for example? Or, a bite or two of Dungeness crab on top?
If you have an abundance of tomatoes in your garden – or Farmers Markets will have some for a while longer – you might try drying some. Read the rest of this entry »
The time of year to save seeds for next year’s garden has begun. If you have plants that have done well in our cooler-than-usual summer, you may want to check and see if their seeds are ready to save. Any plant that is open pollinated will grow into the same plant as the parent unless you are growing more than one variety. Hybridized seeds may produce a plant that is not the same as a parent. If you plan ahead and want to save seeds, you may want to buy heirloom seeds (open pollinated) and stick with one variety of each plant unless you have plenty of space to separate the varieties.
There are organizations dedicated to saving and exchanging seeds. Seed Savers Exchange “saves and shares the heirloom seeds, forming a living legacy that can be passed down through generations. When people grow and save seeds, they join an ancient tradition as stewards, nurturing our diverse, fragile, genetic and cultural heritage”. To find out more about local seed exchanges, contact Seattle Tilth. If you ask around, there may be gardener-to-gardener exchanges. On a recent walk with my brother, one of his neighbors offered seeds from a yellow romano bean that had done very well this summer. Read the rest of this entry »
I’d love to put in some winter starts but my problem is finding an empty spot in my garden. I came across this great video from Kitchen Gardeners International showing a group of school children in Africa making what is basically a raised bed. Looks like a great design with plenty of space.
Surely among the top ten slow foods, tomato sauce. The reward for preserving them in late summer will be the essence of luscious vine-ripened garden tomatoes mid-winter in a soup or marinara sauce, with an onion and sausage frittata or mushroom polenta. I’m a fool for tomatoes and should make myself a tomato cape, something to wear everywhere to signify my devotion. It can get ridiculous and I just pushed the bar a little far the other day. Home-cookin’ tomato-preservin’ smarty-pants.
Since our own backyard tomatoes are behind schedule I thought it would be a good idea to buy ’seconds’ from Billy and make a batch of sauce now and then again later this month when ours will finally, I hope, come on like gangbusters. (Actually, there’s a big ‘if’ in that hope.) Bob tracked down Billy at the Sunday Market and purchased a big box of seconds, 22# @ $2.25 per pound. Total $49.50. When I heard that I knew this handmade sauce would also cost an arm and a leg. A pot full of tomatoes may look like a huge amount, but if you’re making sauce they reduce in quantity. A lot.
We ended up with barely four quarts. Yeah, you’re way ahead of me I know, that’s about $12.50 per quart. That’s a highfalutin’ tomato sauce. It took all afternoon – the Slow Food thing, no problem. I’m a happy camper when something’s brewing in the kitchen.
Lesson learned. From now on I use my own from the backyard, or pull off a midnight tomato caper somewhere. I’m chagrined about the cost, but the good news is that the sauce is amazing. Rich and tomatoey, it will be delectable mid-winter. If you can somehow find tomatoes for a song, or don’t mind the pricey version, you might want to make and preserve sauce of your own.
Monday morning I set out early to photograph the Seattle Tilth garden and the Good Shepherd P-Patch . The weather was changing as I was meandering around. By the time I reached this whirligig, the wind was blowing pretty hard. It’s legs started flying every-which-way and it was spinning around wildly. The weird thing was, no matter where I stood, it ended up pointing directly at me. Seriously.
I know it was probably just the direction of the wind and call me crazy but I took this as a sign. The truth is I’ve been feeling a lot like a roadrunner — I definitely need to take a deep breath, slow down and enjoy the rest of the summer. It’s not like I’ve been over-exercising or anything but sometime during the summer, I jumped onto what feels like those moving walkways they have in airports, speeding me to my next location.
According to Five Elements Acupuncture this is the season known as Late Summer. Five Elements acupuncturists always advocate eating with the season and this is the easiest time of the year to achieve that. Enjoying fresh food takes very little effort now with the Farmers Markets overflowing with loads of recently harvested produce. If you have your own garden or p-patch, chances are you have plenty to choose from.
The other part of nourishing yourself is taking time to appreciate and having gratitude for all you have. Slowing down gives you (and your body) a chance to assimilate and enjoy this unique time of year.
I started walking a little more slowly, trying to look closely and take in all of the beauty the garden had to offer. Okay, I’ll admit that I can’t go past a poppy without close examination and taking a few photos, even when I’m in a hurry. But this time the feeling stayed with me.
Dark green veggies are in the wings awaiting winter performances. I feel like I should whisper it,winter. We don’t want to think about it mid-August, but it’s time to get hardy greens going, past time for some.
A soothsayer would come in handy, someone to proclaim the most auspicious day for getting the little starts into the ground. It gets tricky. Plant too soon and if it’s a warm fall plants mature and flower before winter even arrives; plant too late and unexpected early cold can harm immature plants. Late July through August is usually about right, but as with all gardening the intrusion of unfavorable weather is possible. For example, we lost a bunch of newly transplanted starts during the recent heat wave, but still have plenty for ourselves and a few friends. Thanks Bob.
He started our plants from seed in late July - broccoli, chard, kale, Brussels sprouts and winter lettuce - then replanted them in fresh soil and a larger container when they reached about 3” and were getting crowded. We’ll transplant these seedlings into our garden plot in early September along with a crop of over-wintering beets.
Once they’re off to a good start little attention is required. They grow, produce their hardy leaves and stand strong through most PNW winters. The brassicas - kale, broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts - will last through the winter and improve in flavor when exposed to frost. We’ll eat chard and kale leaves all winter long, and in late winter/early spring we’ll harvest their florets which are as good as the primary vegetable itself. Read the rest of this entry »
You might think the glossy dark brown caramelized ‘butter’ looks appetizing, or not. I happen to know it’s delicious so to me it’s appealing, and besides I have to love apples right now. I have quite a few.
We’ll take as many as we can to the local food bank over the next few weeks – they welcome fresh produce that’s in good condition. Or contact Tilth Hotline if you have extra fruit. They have a Community Fruit Tree Harvest program that allows us/helps us to share the abundance.
Mine is just another backyard with apples ripening by the bushel. It’s happening everywhere right now. Poppy was making applesauce last week while across town I was making a crockpot full of apple butter. In fact, we seem to have the same barely identifiable old apple trees dripping with Transparents, and in our yard we think we have old varieties of Gravenstein and King.
Our house is one hundred years old and way back when was known as Goocher’s Orchards. Now it’s an urban lot, but with the added character of three obscure apple trees, relatively young pear and Montmorency cherry trees which we’ve planted, and the remnants of a beloved Italian plum blown down in the storm a year and a half ago. We’re doing our best to honor the legacy of this little bit of land - we seem to have farming in our blood so it’s not such a stretch. Go back just a few generations and we all have that in common.
The three apple trees ripen sequentially from July through September and we do our best to keep up with most of them by making applesauce, apple butter, apple-ginger chutney, a few apple pies, and a very quick and easy sautéed apple dessert (instructions below). Smear the apple butter on a piece of toast, or on a piece of cheese. Heaven.
Here’s theapple buttertechnique passed on to me by my grandmother. You have to be willing to let apples simmer away quietly in a crockpot for two or three days without much more than an occasional stir and the addition of more apple slices.
Unlike other fruits some pears diminish in quality when ripened on the tree – better to pick them just before and let them ripen in the kitchen. We planted our pear tree maybe five years ago, well Bob did, espaliered alongside the garage. We’ve gotten a dozen or so in previous years, but this year the bonanza - dozens. And, we have both Moonglow and Bartletts on the same tree. Amazing science, but not really. It’s about grafting different varieties on to one tree which is what a pear tree needs anyway since they don ‘t self-pollinate. They need a partner pear. Originally, we had four varieties on the tree, but dog damage resulted in the loss of two.
Pulse until well mixed and that’s it. It’s good for a day or two if kept in the fridge. A bowl of Gazpacho with a dollop of sour cream or yogurt on top is a pretty nice way to eat your vegetables.
I’m a fool for tomatoes and should make myself a tomato cape, something to wear everywhere to signify my devotion. It can get ridiculous and I just pushed the bar a little far the other day. Home-cookin’ tomato-preservin’ smarty-pants.
I know it was probably just the direction of the wind and call me crazy but I took this as a sign. The truth is I’ve been feeling a lot like a roadrunner — I definitely need to take a deep breath, slow down and enjoy the rest of the summer. It’s not like I’ve been over-exercising or anything but sometime during the summer, I jumped onto what feels like those moving walkways they have in airports, speeding me to my next location.
