It's a cool, gray Autumn day...the sun breaks through occasionally. Good day to have eggs shirred in cream (actually creme fraiche) and toast for breakfast and to start drying and preserving the herb garden for winter.
Drying some lemon thyme, sage and tarragon. Freezing some chives. The system won't let me post a pic. So I'll just leave it at that.Tore out the tomato plants and the undergrowth that took over in the monsoons. Took up most of the pepper plats (one is still fruiting!) and cleaned up most of the rows. And then I planted about 30 garlic plants ((German white garlic from Evening Song Farm.)
Our weather has been wet wet wet...and still more wet. It is so muggy...more like July/August than September/October.
The garden is un-enterable because it so so muddy. We can't mow the grass because it never has a chance to dry out between the rains.
It's monsoon time in the Adirondacks!
Fortunately, our apple harvest is better than the last two years. Our Golden Delicious tree is infected with the apple-cedar fungus (pictured on these pages earlier this year). So it isn't doing too well. But the Cortland has always given us at least a small harvest (the first thing I ever cooked off our land the first year was some applesauce from that tree) and this year the apples are bigger and better than they have ever been! The apples look better (though they will never win any beauty contests) and are larger and better shaped than we've ever had. Oddly, the first batch of applesauce didn't turn the lovely blush color it has in the past.
So I put up several quarts of Apple Chutney yesterday. The nice thing about this recipe, from my perspective, this particular year, was it helped me use up some of the good tomatoes I had left. Didn't get to do much in the way of sauce or stewed tomatoes at all. First, we didn't have the right kind of tomatoes this year (all Romas, some red, mostly yellow) and the ones we had, as I said, all burst on the vine with the rains.
The recipe is quite explicit that I am not allowed to taste it now for another six weeks.
Mrs. Robinson’s Apple Chutney
[with a special thanks to Hilary Robinson, who calls this "my mum's chutney"]
3# apples
1 lb brown sugar
2 t salt
1.8 pints malt vinegar
8 oz sultanas
½ t ground cloves
1# ripe tomatoes
1# onions
¼ t cayenne
2 oz crystalized ginger, chopped (or 2 t ground ginger)
all spices are approximate – adjust for taste.
Core and peel apples, chop, along with onions and tomatoes. Put all into a pan with the dry ingredients. Add vinegar, stir with a wooden spoon.
Bring to the boil, reduce heat until the mixture thickens – at least an hour – stirring occasionally.
When thickened and moisture reduced, dish into hot sterilized glass jars. Cover and seal. Leave to cool. Store in dark space for 6 weeks before using.
The beans were piling up and dilly beans seemed to be the only way to go (even so we have plenty left for fresh eating and cooking now.)
My last venture into dilly-beanland was less than felicitous. I still have some, so I am going to test this theory, but I suspect they are the kind of pickle that needs to sit. The recipe I used this time says as much. They aren't to be touched for six weeks.
In any event, this picture represents about...well...I'm gonna say a third of the harvest so far. I have another quart freezer bag in the crisper filled to bursting with them. And I probably have another lesser quart bag left from picking them over for this pickling.
And while we're on the subject of beans: can I just lodge a protest with whichever vegetable god decided that purple string beans should turn green when they're cooked? I mean, what's the point?! (and they are such a beautiful purple, too....they looked so nice with the green beans and the yellow waxed beans, too.)
We got the red Adirondack chair at the Pember Annual Dinner silent auction last night, along with a nice collection of books about the Adirondacks. Now we have a blue one and a green one and the red.
Rain is interfering with proper usage of our Adirondack seating, but the garden is singing. It is unseasonably cool. And wouldn't you know, the day I decide to put the Turf Builder on is the first day of a streak of rainy days. Dave is here. It's his birthday tomorrow so he is being treated to one of Billy's fine Boston Creme Pies.
In my family, Easter always included an Easter cake in the shape of the lamb. And while I have no use for any of the symbolism of that lamb anymore, the cake remains a fond food memory.
About two years ago, just prior to departing Brooklyn for parts north, I had looked about for the required lamb mold baking pan. My mother's had been tin, and I managed to find one on line (not easily, I might add.) it wasn't exactly like the one I remembered, but I thought it would do. It didn't. The material was so light that when the cake rises in the form (and is supposed to fill in the details of the form) instead it lifted the top, spilling batter all over the inside of the oven. A mess. I had spoken with our friend Beverley about my search and she came over with yet another, flat formed, lamb cake form.
But today...delivered secretly by FedEx ...(I mean really...can't they be bothered to ring the doorbell and at least let you know something is out there? But no...they leave it to you to walk outside and stumble upon the delivery. I don't understand)...a largish box arrived...from Bev. I opened it, and it was immediately clear that there was a heavy object inside, and before I was able to slice away the bubblewrap, I realized: it was an Easter lamb cake mold. In cast iron! (On the left here)
It is difficult to describe just how different the two forms I now own are...the tin one (at the right) a pale shadow of the sturdy, detailed cast iron model. It is night and day, to say the least. The cast iron lamb is, in and of itself, a work of of craftsmanship and art. For starters, it is numbered. The inside details are sculpted, as opposed to cast as the tin one's are. And the cast iron one is heavy, no mere cake batter will lift this top. The pictures don't do the comparison justice, but I include them for the sake of discussion.
Last year during ramp season we had such an abundance of them that we thought we'd see if we couldn't get them to take root, as it were, on our land.We planted them in two different places along our access road, which gets sort of swampy in the spring.
And lo...they took!
That's a ramp...right there in the middle of the picture, with the spaliate leaves that look sort of like lilies of the valley. We only have four plants in, so we probably won't be harvesting them (there are plenty available from friends in the area). But they self seed (right Pat?) so we may have more next year.
Now all we need to do is locate the morels!
Japanese Pickled Ramps (Sukemono)
1 pound ramps, cleaned
¾ C sugar
¾ C rice wine vinegar
¾ C water
1 T kosher salt
1 T Japanese seven spice (Shichimi Togaroshi*)
1 to 1½ tsp Korean crushed red pepper (kochukaru) or other mild crushed chile pepper
If the ramps are young and tender, you can leave the green tops on; if they are mushy or dried out, slice off the tops about ¼-inch above where the stem turns white. (If the ramps are more mature and have a large bulb, blanch them briefly in salted water before pickling.)
Trim away the roots. Peel away any dried or dirty layers and rinse several times to remove dirt and debris. Place ramps in a large heatproof, nonreactive bowl.
Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved, then pour over ramps.
Let the ramps cool to room temperature, then transfer to a smaller nonreactive container, cover tightly, and refrigerator overnight.
*Shichimi Togarashi
2 T sansho (or 1 T black peppercorns)
1 T orange peel or tangerine peel
1 T ground red chile pepper
2 tsp flaked nori
2 tsp black sesame seeds
2 tsp white poppy seeds or black cannabis seeds
2 tsp minced garlic
Combine 2 T sansho (or 1 T peppercorns), 1 T dried tangerine or orange peel, 1 T ground red chile pepper, 2 t flaked nori, 2 t black sesame seeds, 2 t white poppy seeds or black cannabis seeds, and 2 t minced garlic. Grind together to a chunky consistency. Store refrigerated in an airtight container up to 1 month.
I called Ron and Jiyoung Dailey about a week or so ago and told them they should put Bodin on a train and let him come up for First Friday this time because it was all about fly-fishing and duck decoys. So everyone came up and we had a fine First Friday. Bodin met Ron Duel, an 80-year-old master fly-tyer. When I told Ron that Bodin was coming all the way up from New York City to see him tie flies, he said he had a book with a fly-tying starter kit in it and a book that tells you how to tie and that he would bring it for Bodin!
And this morning, Bodin tied his first two flies.
The rest of the afternoon we ate and sat around the fire. Reese is a little pyro and spends the day finding things to throw in the fire. I'm worried about him.
Scott Frush came up from Albany with Brewster's doppelganger dog...Chloe. She looks exactly like Brewster in miniature. That's her hiding behind the chair. Just imagine Brewster's face and you've got it.
Put up about twenty pints (and a few quarts and a few 12-ouncers) of green tomato relish (aka Chow-Chow). Mark Wesner called and told me he had something like twenty gallons of tomatoes ...and would I like some green ones? Of course I said yes (our own tomatoes either ripened or rotted and we were left with very few green ones, though we did get some nice green cherry tomatoes that I made into a chutney.) So he gave Patty a bucket full of them and I went into the museum and picked them up. And when I said "a bucketful" I mean a rather large, wire bucket that must have held close to 30 large, green tomatoes. So I had my work cut out for me.
Fortunately, when I was over at Dancing Ewe making merguez sausages with Jody Somers the other day, he very generously offered me the use of their industrial grinder any time I wanted. An industrial grinder seemed the only way to deal effectively with the quantity of vegetables that needed to be ground up for chow chow. So off I went this morning with thirty or so green tomatoes, twelve large onions, and three red and three green bell peppers to go a-grinding. Boy what a difference a large grinder makes. It was done in less than an hour (and Luisa sent me home with more ricotta and a half wheel of their caciotta that had "blued"...lovely veins of bleu mold streaking through their fabulous cheese. I may attempt a quasi-gorgonzola gnudi with it.) Oddly, the recipe I used said it would make enough to fill 12 pint jars...I got almost three times that!
<---------Tomorrow...eight more quarts of spiced crab apples. I think they'll make nice Christmas gifts.
Green Tomato Relish (Chow-Chow)
24 large green tomatoes
3 red bell peppers, halved and seeded
3 green bell peppers, halved and seeded
12 large onions
3 T celery seed
3 T mustard seed
1 T allspice
1 T turmeric
1 T salt
5 C white sugar
2 C cider vinegar
In a grinder or food processor, coarsely grind tomatoes, red bell peppers, green bell peppers, and onions. (You may need to do this in batches.) Line a large colander with cheesecloth, place in sink or in a large bowl, and pour in tomato mixture to drain for 1 hour.
In a large, non-aluminum stockpot, combine tomato mixture, celery seed, mustard seed, salt, sugar, and vinegar. Bring to a boil and simmer over low heat 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
Sterilize enough jars and lids to hold relish (12 one-pint jars, or 6 one-quart jars). Pack relish into sterilized jars, making sure there are no spaces or air pockets. Fill jars all the way to top. Screw on lids.
Place a rack in the bottom of a large stockpot and fill halfway with boiling water. Carefully lower jars into pot using a holder. Leave a 2 inch space between jars. Pour in more boiling water if necessary, until tops of jars are covered by 2 inches of water. Bring water to a full boil, then cover and process for 30 minutes.
Remove jars from pot and place on cloth-covered or wood surface, several inches apart, until cool. Once cool, press top of each lid with finger, ensuring that seal is tight (lid does not move up or down at all). Relish can be stored for up to a year.
Well the long delay has been due to the intransigence of my technology to cooperate. My camera, from which I have uploaded many hundreds of photos, is suddenly invisible to my computer...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr So I have no current photos to show...or at least I have no access to the photos I took for the time being...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...
And there has been much to talk about, too. Ron and JiYoung and Bodin and Reese were here for the weekend. We ate and played and hiked and toured and had a great time as always. We took Bodin to see the Fly Fishing Museum, which Mark Wenser had just taken Bill and I to see a day or so before (Mark designed the building that houses the museum, as well as restorations and updates to Hildene (left) the summer estate of Robert Todd Lincoln in Manchester, where he also gave us a personal tour.) And we drove to the top of Mount Equinox, where we hiked the Lookout Trail...beautiful views.
Let's see....what else? I spent the day yesterday making 75 pounds of merguez sausage with Jody and Luisa Somers at the Dancing Ewe Farm. We dressed out the meat, trimmed it, ground it, seasoned it and finally stuffed it into casings, tied them off in groups of six and packaged them. Handmade from stem to stern.
And I can't share a single photo of any of it...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Big storm here last night...amazing mostly for how quickly it came up and how ferocious the winds were. Down the road from us on 149, a very nice house had three very large trees down, nearly missing the house. We escaped unscathed, as did our neighbors across the street, but not for lack of downed trees that missed their garage by thismuch...:
The winds were easily in the 40 to 60 miles per hour range (there were reports in Vermont of 70 mph winds, which we could have easily matched) and all in a split second. Literally, one minute there was calm and the next there were blasts of air from the north and the trees in the back yard straining to remain erect. I was actually afraid one of our trees might topple over onto our car and I moved it (llke it wasn't still in the path of a dozen other, larger trees!)
Gusts of wind blew swirling clouds of crushed red slate from our drive. The grasses in the meadow are all flattened, still, this morning.
We lost power about 10:00 p.m. (post American Idol, thankfully) and, apparently, the power went out again sometime around midnight (which would account for the light on the front porch across the street going off...and here I thought they were just being thoughtful.) It's sunny now...but they are predicting more storms later in the day.
