This weekend I started seeds — tomatoes and leeks right now. I’ve blogged before about my seed starting setup, and nothing’s changed since last spring, so I’ll simply send you to this older post if you want to know the mechanics of how I get things rolling every year. This year I’m going to give leeks a shot. I love leeks, and they’re so expensive in the store. I tried them once by direct sowing and they didn’t take, so I thought I’d give it one more shot. For the leeks, I simply filled one tray with seed starting mix,…
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In related topics, there’s a terrific article at Culinate today that touches on many of the same topics we’ve all been discussing over here. Take a look: What is householding? — Making the choice to stay home :: by Harriet Fasenfest :: Culinate.
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I made a really gorgeous no-knead bread this week. Even with my crummy point-and-shoot camera, you can see the tiny bubbles along the surface of the crust. This bread not only sprung up like you see, but the entire crust was shattery when it came out of the oven. This one took two days. It’s been so cold, and I’m such a miser, that my house has been hovering between 57 and 62 all week. I mixed up the regular old no-knead recipe in the middle of the day Monday. Three cups flour (I use half bread flour, half all-purpose,…
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I’m finding the recession sort of interesting, and frankly, kind of inspiring. It’s easy when times are fat to get lazy — to buy stuff instead of fixing something or making it yourself, but really, just going out and buying things isn’t the way I was raised. I had one of those moms who if you were bored and whiny on a Saturday told you to “go make something” or better yet, “go outside and make something.” Maybe it’s being from the Midwest. Lan Samantha Chang had a piece in the Sunday NY Times about living in Iowa, and how…
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I made a cheese! Unlike yogurt cheese — this is a “real” cheese for which you use rennet and everything. There’s a biology/chemistry professor in Cincinnati who has a terrific website about making cheese, and I followed his instructions for “Neufchatel” cheese. (Although I did half a recipe — I didn’t use all my weekly milk share.) This was really interesting — first you gently heat the milk, add a little souring agent (I used yogurt) and a tiny bit of rennet dissolved in water. Then you let it sit overnight. By morning, you have curds — which to me…
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Sunday was a lovely snowy day. Big fat snowflakes like something out of a movie. About ten, Raymond and I walked to the dog park, and everyone was there which was fun — we walked a couple of laps, all the dogs doing their thing and the “grownups” had a chance to catch up. On the way home, we ran into Anna and Max who were going for a walk with Silas, who is almost three. They had the sled in case Silas needed a lift on the way home. Everyone had that silly smile you get when it’s snowing…
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Cooking in clay is one of those things that you read about in cookbooks and wonder what the fuss is all about — or at least I did, until my mother gave me this funny little pot one year for Christmas. I have no idea where she found it, it was an odd gift, even for her. For the first few years I had it, I assumed you could only use it in the oven. It wasn’t until I was at a party during one of the Squaw Valley Writers workshops and saw Barbara Hall using hers on her stove…
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Way back in my youth I worked in New York for a company that repackaged magazine material into cookbooks — our biggest client was Gourmet Magazine. So I’ve watched with great interest as Ruth Reichel has taken that hoary old magazine, run by women from the suburbs who at least in the late ’80 were still known to come to work in plaid skirts and knee socks (knee socks! I remember my shock that grown women would go out dressed like old girls — oh, and in blouses with those big floppy bows that women wore in the ’80s in…
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It’s raining today — a nice soft spring rain, so I took the poor scraggly herbs from the Winter Herb Garden and put them outside the back door. The rosemary seemed particularly crunchy, but it did it’s job — it didn’t die. The thyme has been remarkably successful — the last few weeks it’s been sending out delicious little soft green shoots. I also got my act together last weekend and organized my seeds. As you can see — my “system” is nothing fancy. A couple of cheap bins from Pamida and a paper bag — but by the end…
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There’s a vigorous and healthy debate going on in the blogosphere about school lunch. Congress is gearing up to revise the Child Nutrition and WIC act, which includes the school lunch program, and the forces of Hope and Change have ideas. (Click through to the actual essays linked, my summaries necessarily oversimplify.) Alice Waters started the debate on the NY Times Op-Ed page, advocating that we double the lunch subsidy from $2.17 to $5.00. She also, no surprise, wants a program that works with farmers to get organic local produce into schools, and advocates rebuilding school kitchens. This suggestion, particularly…