Here’s today’s lunch. There was a break in the rain and I ventured out into the garden to see if there was enough for lunch. A yummy salad of arugula, wild arugula, spinach, green onion, radishes, parsley, pickled mushrooms, and some delicious feta cheese that my Milk Lady brought me with today’s delivery. I toasted up a piece of flatbread that I made earlier in the week — I’m on a flatbread kick and tonight I”m going to try this recipe from the LA Times. And a glass of real milk from my milk lady — what can I say.…
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So, here we are, the last primary in the nation. Although I’ve been an Obama supporter for months, I’ve been lying to the campaign. They (quite rightly) have been encouraging people to vote early, especially since here in Montana you can register any time, including on election day, and you can vote right when you register. The Bozeman Chronicle had a photo on the front page this morning of a line of early voters snaking out the door of the courthouse over there yesterday. But I’ve written on this blog before about how I love to go to the polls…
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It was a busy weekend here in the backyard. The Mighty Hunter came over and banged together two new raised beds for me along the new privacy fence. Here’s a picture with the tomatoes in the new beds before I put the Walls o’Water up: This year I planted the following varieties: Principe Borghese, Milano Plum, Jaunne Flamme, Marglobe, Black Cherry, Sasha’s Altai and Galina. I planted one of each, in that order, in each bed … so we’ll see how they do. I’m a tiny bit anxious about the contents of the beds — the dirt was pretty good…
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It’s a little hard to see in this photo — but two weeks ago, when I was making a cake for a party, my KitchenAid beater sprung a sproing! It broke! Now, to be fair, this beater is at least 35 years old (I’ve written before about my heirloom KitchenAid), and thanks to the miracle of Amazon I have a replacement beater, but it seemed that a breakdown after all this time was something worth commemorating. And I’m really hoping that I’m just imagining that my elderly KitchenAid is beginning to sound a little sluggish. Since there’s no one left…
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Here they are — the first preserves of the season — pickled oyster mushrooms (just writing that makes me feel like someone in a Tolstoy novel — they’re always eating pickled mushrooms in Tolstoy). It’s been unremittingly cold and rainy, which is terrible for just about everything except the oyster mushrooms. While I only found a handful of morels this weekend, I found probably 20 pounds of oysters — the small and tender ones I sauteed in lots of butter, some garlic, thyme and a little alleppo pepper, then finished with some wine and cream. Then I froze them in…
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I’ve written before about the egg-scallion-tortilla thing I love for breakfast — all winter I have to make do with store scallions. They’re fine. Sometimes I add my own frozen blanched greens. But it’s hard — one of the things I hate most about winter. But now it’s spring! And although it’s been a long time coming, there are finally things coming up in the garden. This morning, my breakfast omelette/tortilla contained a green onion (from the garden), a handful of wild arugula, a big sprig of lovage, some parsley and a handful of chives. This is the thing about…
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I keep hearing the headline in my head to the tune of “The First Noel” — but here they are, the first morels of the season. It got hot here this weekend — into the eighties — and after our long cold wet spring, I just knew there must be mushrooms out there. These “yellow” ones show up in woodsy copses along the river, then later, the black ones emerge in the mountains. I didn’t find very many yesterday — this is maybe a pound or a pound and a half — but I only hit one spot. Ray and…
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So, ever since my ancient calico cat, Patsy, went off to the great beyond I’ve been plagued by neighborhood cats who think my nicely turned and raked raised beds are big litter boxes. Ugh. Last year I tried cayenne sprinkled on the beds, and finally resorted to draping them all in tree netting. Which was fine, but as the plants grew up through it, it became a pain in the neck. So this year, I went for more drastic measures. I ordered this fabulous sprinkler scarecrow from Amazon. You hook it up to the hose, and set the sensitivity level,…
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I just had a terrific little visit with Barb Marshall of CrazyWoman Farm. She brought me 18 pounds of lamb — about half a lamb — a nice big bag that included a whole leg, a whole shoulder, a bunch of chops, some kebab meat and some ground lamb. She delivered even, all for six bucks a pound. And she’s really cool — we had a nice little chat about my urban farming — turns out she used to live on the next block over. It’s one of the things I really love about living in this particular rural place.…
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The weather is still sort of strange and blustery here — intermittent rain, yesterday was windy, and while it’s been warm, its really only been warm-ish. So while I put in some turnips and beets and more onions over the weekend, it wasn’t really a gardening weekend. But spring is here and I’ve been feeling that I don’t have anything to wear, so yesterday afternoon I made a couple of skirts. I fixed/finished one that I’d sort of botched — I wasn’t using a pattern but had cut it out using instructions from Sew What! Skirts! One of my projects…