her able hands

On Saturday morning, I went out to check on the Pattypan plants that are limping along in the lasagna bed and there were five huge open blossoms…each with a sleeping bumble bee in it. Actually, one blossom had TWO sleeping bumblebees. At first I thought, holy mackerel, these plants are poisonous and are killing the bees, but when I touched one flower the bee stirred, looked around and then burrowed in deeper. Then thoughts of a long, hard winter crossed my mind, but that’s probably unrelated and the bees were likely just enjoying the shelter of the tunnel-like blooms overnight. Bumblebee motel. So weird that there were six bees, though, all checked in to rooms next to one another. Were the two sharing a room a couple? Or was that just a one-night-stand?

I thought about running in to get the camera, but I was enjoying a few minutes away from the Lila Show (Mo-ooom! Watch what I can do! No! Watch it again! No! Just watch what I can do!). I didn’t want her to bring that show outside where it was relatively peaceful for five minutes. Then a chicken started in, belting out the Holy Crap This Egg Is Splitting Me In Two song like Ethel Merman so I just went back inside to make a grocery list.

I missed OLS week 8. I cooked a local meal, but forgot to take photos and forgot to post about it. We had local Amish raised chicken breasts on the grill with the local Maple BBQ sauce, my potatoes sliced thin and layered with my onions, slices of tomato and local Amish farmer’s cheese, all wrapped up in tin foil and cooked on the grill. I sliced a few pattypan and grilled those, and steamed up some haricot verts. It was a delicious, fresh meal with just nonlocal salt and pepper.

I’m falling behind with a bunch of things. But I’m exercising some and I’m going to let that count as progress.

I’ll leave you with a couple of garden shots. This is a Bright Lights Chard, taken before we got all of that rain. I tend to let the Chard fend for itself with the straw mulch and maybe an occasional watering, unlike the tomatoes which I watered almost every day in late June and all of July.

Poor thing’s looking pretty limp there. But then we got several days of rain, I think a total of almost 6 inches.

Looking pretty great now. And I finally realized that I have to stop planting my chard like inner-city row houses. I thinned them down quite a lot and gave a good 8 inches between plants and now the leaves are growing big, ruffled and strong.

Technorati Tags: bumblebees, garden, critters, one local summer, eat local

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There’s always something happening while I’m busy with meal preparations and I seldom have anyone in the kitchen to help me. Sometimes this is just the way I want it, to have the kitchen and my thoughts all to myself. But other times I feel like the little red hen and get all overwhelmed by all of the chopping and peeling and mixing and measuring with the clock moving so fast. When I’m feeling behind like that, my resentment can flare up without warning, catching me and everyone else by surprise. Kind of puts a negative spin on dinnertime.

Here’s part of our first real harvest of Haricot Verts, ends snipped off and ready for the steamer. In the background you can almost see Tyler and his friend out in the yard carving wood stakes into swords. Shortly after this photo was taken, they stood up and began to duel. Within ten minutes the swords were broken and they began a new set.

Here’s the first Black Krim tomato. It fell off the vine and while yummy-ish chopped up with two just-picked Boston Pickling cucumbers and tossed with a little balsamic dressing, I think it could have used another day or two to ripen fully. You can almost see Chris in the background. He’s scooping the leaves and grass out of the pool while Lila crab walks around in the water with just her head above the surface.

Meanwhile, I was inside shredding the baseball bat zucchinis, cracking eggs, grating Parmesan, sautéing onions and peppers, mincing herbs—all for zucchini fritters. Once again I watched the clock go from 6:30 to 8pm and my meal was just getting served and I thought, hell I need a sou chef.

The beans were divine. I do not think I will ever tire of the flavor of these beans, especially when picked so young and tender. They taste like green. I eat them and I think, wow, I’m taking all of this green into my body. Pure green. I’m so happy I planted two more big patches. I need to run out tonight to pick again before they get too fat and tough. My favorite way to eat them is whole, steamed very lightly so they’re still quite crunchy (this only tastes good when you pick them super small) then a wee dab of butter melted on the hot beans, tossed with coarse sea salt and cracked pepper. Sometimes I’ll snip a little fresh dill on top. Truly, the most heavenly flavor in the garden right now, but the Brandywines are coming on, so make room, baby.

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I never did post the follow-up to my zucchini post. Probably because it turned out to be not so exciting. As a matter of fact, I left him waiting a day too long and all the bluster and show tunes drained out of him. I found him just lying there in the straw, looking exhausted from the effort of having held himself up for so long. Too big for his own britches.

But he was sure delicious in my Puttanesca last night.

Technorati Tags: zucchini, costata romanesca, gardening, kitchen garden, food porn

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I missed last week’s post, and that was a meal of grilled pizza with non-local cheese, and a bunch of local veggie salads.

Last night my boss had a big party at his gorgeous home and I brought along my nearly 100% local grilled pizza. I’m so inventive!

I made a ragout of eggplant, onion, garlic, tomatoes, basil and oregano to put on the crust made from local flour, then topped it all with more of that Cleveland mozzarella. Only things from away were the yeast, olive oil, salt and pepper.

I’ll try to come up with something a little more interesting next week. But I’ll be hard-pressed to come up with anything more delicious!

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ETA: My blog was broken, so this never showed up last night, which means I’m late again for the round-up. Ah, well… At least I fixed the problem.

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A quick walkabout in the garden before I went off to the harmony sing last night revealed an almost-ready-to-pick Costata Romanesca growing up out of the cluster of stalks like a, well…you know.

I didn’t have time to grab the camera, but here’s a shot of the same one that I took on Sunday last.

I’ll pick it tonight for sure, along with some more haricots and whatever else looks ripe enough, but I’ll take a picture first so you can see how ridiculous it looks thrusting itself up out of the smallish plant. Indeed, I’m surprised to see such a robust fruit coming off of this vine that just hasn’t grown very big leaves at all. This variety has a very thick base attached to the plant and grows almost straight up with what looks to me like pure male aggression. But a touch of olive oil and garlic in the sauté pan tames him right down.

We’re due for yet more thundering, torrential rain today. It’s been quite the deluge around here, some folks I know who have a rain gauge measured 5.5 inches over two days. But more than 3 of those came down in one hour.

The humidity has knocked me somewhat senseless. I don’t know how I ever lived without central air.

Technorati Tags: zucchini, costata romanesca, humidity, rain

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