Archive for May 31, 2009

31 May 2009
beverage • fruit • Kitchen Garden • locavore log • Recipes • vegetable

S Is For Strawberries

Or is it for Swiss chard?

because my chard is doing quite well, thank you very much. I am now harvesting two big bunches a week, and with all that rain, and that nice temperature, it’s growing and growing and growing – as you can see from the photo taken just after a harvest, a couple of days ago, of ‘Lucullus’, a chard with a white respectable-sized stem and pale green leaves. It has grown remarkably well in the 7 weeks since I transplanted it out.

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I also have planted perpetual Swiss Chard, ‘Golden’ Swiss chard (with, you guessed it, has yellow stems), ‘Rhubard’ Swiss chard (with red stem) and another one with dark green leaves and white stem which label has been lost. And the one self seeding from last year. Those are not as far along as ‘Lucullus’, because I started them later.

Yes, I like Swiss chard.

I like strawberries too. And Tristar, is, again, not disappointing: small, abundant and bursting with flavor.

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So, of course, I am making sorbet. I am also making strawberry jam Read more

sylvie | 11 comments | Tags: , , , ,
25 May 2009
Uncategorized

In Memoriam

Today is Memorial Day in the United States.

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In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

[...] — Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 – 1918)

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sylvie | One comment
23 May 2009
locavore log • Recipes • Side Dish • Vegetable recipe

Making Radishes Lovable

There is somebody in the house who’s not so fond of radishes, especially radish leaf soup or stir-fried radish pods, but I’ve just hit the jackpot!

I made something with radishes where the reaction was: “I can eat radish like that all day long!” I am sure that was an exaggeration, and I won’t serve this at every meal. But I must admit it was good.

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In fact, the current crop of French Breakfast style radishes has peaked: they are gathering strengths to make seeds, and you can tell because the root is starting to a be little hollow. Still… I can’t throw them out.

Thanks to VeggieBelly, I’ve had fresh pickles on my mind – hers was mango, but hey, I don’t have mangoes, I have radishes – and what else do I have growing now? let’s see spring onions and cilantro – lots of cilantro as a matter of fact, and it’s starting to bolt because it did not like the few days above 90F (32C) that we had – so I need to use it.Voila, Quick Pickled Radish Salsa was born! We’ve tried it with several dishes, and we like it best with stir-fry beef, simple pork stew, hamburger steak and served with rice. Definitively need the rice to make up for the saltiness (and heat) of the pickle. And inspired by Marisa of Food In Jars who puts everything in jar, I jarred it. (if the radish salsa is not consumed right away, the radishes will start to turn pink throughout, continue to exude some juice and the texture will change somewhat – still very good – just not the same).

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Quick Pickled Radish Salsa Read more

sylvie | 10 comments | Tags: , , , ,
20 May 2009
Farms • Harvest • Kitchen Garden

May!!!

cherries-ont-top-green-cherry-early-may-09First a quick update from Cherries-on-Top: in April, Garrick reported a black bear visited, knocking down the two hives that were there for increased pollination.They now have lots of little green cherries on the trees – growing!!! (the photo was taken by Garrick in early May). Not all of the blooms have resulted in cherries – Garrick said lost about 40% of the crop compared to last year due to the frost damage in early April. I for one hope that our cool nights don’t do more damages! I am looking forward to be able to make clafoutis, jam, liqueur, ice-cream, sorbet, sauces and other cherry treats. They do have 11 cultivars including white (really yellow) cherries, so there is a cherry for everybody’s taste.

I meant to post this update 2 weeks ago, but it’s been a crazy last 2 weeks!

In the garden:

  • planted sweet potatoes, then had to rush to cover them with Reemay because the night temperatures dropped down to the 30s.
  • weeding Read more
sylvie | 4 comments
13 May 2009
Farms • Fruit recipe • locavore log

Rappahannock Summer Solstice Farm Dinner

Summer Solstice Farm Dinner Flyer

I treasure local seasonal produce, local farms, local farmers, local chefs and dinner parties that get us around the table for food, friends, conversation and laughter. You know that. So it should come as no surprise to anybody that I am helping to put together a fabulous dinner party for 150. It is to take place Saturday June 20, 2009 on the grounds of Mount Vernon Farm in Sperryville, VA.

Guess who’s cooking? Chef Cathal Armstrong of Restaurant Eve in Old Town Alexandria – no less!

Although I provide cookery services for a fee through my business Laughing Duck Gardens & Cookery, Rappahannock Summer Solstice Farm Dinner is something I am doing pro bono, along with my friend Barbara Adolfi who runs The House on Water Street – a delightful vacation house in the village of Sperryville – and with Laura Overstreet, who heads the newly created Office of Tourism in Rappahannock County. We all believe in showcasing our local farm-fresh bounty and protecting our rural heritage! Last year we organized a tapa-style wine and food tasting event featuring our local restaurants and wineries; this year, we are taking another road, showcasing a few farms and wineries.

You can bet this Summer Solstice Farm Dinner is going to provide an extraordinary experience:

- extraordinary chef/ extraordinary food. Cathal Armstrong is an incredibly talented chef who does not need any accolade from me. Who does, indeed, when Tom Sietsema gives you 4 stars out of 4, Food & Wine designates you as one of the Hall of Fame 50 best new chefs, the James Beard Foundation names you one of the 4 best mid-Atlantic Chefs, and Marion Burros puts you up there with The Inn at Little Washington as one of the only few Washington DC area restaurants that can compete with New York’s finest? So, yeah, he does not need any praise from me for his cooking skills… but we are incredibly grateful that is coming to Rappahannock to create this feast in the field, using fresh local seasonal ingredients, quite a few sourced from Rappahannock farmers (Waterpenny, Sunnyside, Cherries-on-Top and Mount Vernon Farm). And, note that in addition to Restaurant Eve, Cathal, wife Meshelle and mixologist Todd Trasher (or – at they call themselves – Fry Cook, Boss Lady and Alchemist) have opened several other establishments in Old Town – Eaomonn’s, The Majestic and PX Lounge – all as classy as Eve in their own way, certainly as impeccably delicious and as fun! In addition to the field-fresh food, dinner will feature wines from Rappahannock county wineries, selected by Todd to enhance the meal. (oh! and whiskey too – from our own Copper Fox Distillery, the roof of which you can see from the dinner site)

sperryville420w

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sylvie | 6 comments | Tags: , ,
11 May 2009
Garden • Kitchen Garden • Nature

Firsts and Lasts

First Shirley poppy (Papaver rhoeas), one of my favorite flowers that I let seed all over the garden.

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They come on the heel of the orange-y wispy field poppies, and they come in shade of pinks and reds, from the clearest vermilion to dark wine; some have black crosses as their center, other white blotches. They are so graceful and so luminous in the morning light. Last year they were beautiful with the asparagus ferns, peaking in June.

Now is also the last of the dogwood blossoms, the petals falling off with the rain. It’s been a good year for dogwoods.

First Swiss chard of the season, chopped and sautéed with garlic and some of the last freezer cherry tomatoes.

Last of the spinach: it was a mistake not to plant spinach last fall; the seeds planted in late winter never made plants big enough before bolting. We had a few nice salads, but that’s it. This fall: no excuse, spinach must be sown in September!

First peas… soon. The peas are blooming now, pods won’t be long. Meanwhile, I pinch the shoots off to force the plant to branch, and they go into salad (pea shoots are edible, you know).

And finally: first black bear sighting of the season. This morning around 6:30 as I was on my way to let the chickens out of their coop. I first was not sure what that big black mass was – I did not have my glasses on, but it moved, slowly, so I knew it was not a pool of shadows. He (she?) was where I was expecting him (her?) to show up anytime now: in the skunk cabbage patch. I was expecting him. It does not mean I am happy to see him. I yelled, he raised his big head, look and me, and slowly, slowly, very slowly, turned his back, and walked up the hill.

He is not always that accommodating.

sylvie | 4 comments | Tags:
05 May 2009
Dairy recipe • locavore log • Soups • Vegetable recipe

Cream Of Radish Leaf Soup and Homemade Farm Cheese

My frugal peasant instincts won’t let me throw out (OK, compost) perfectly good to eat radish leaves. Of course, there is somebody in the house (who shall rename nameless) who does not think that radish leaves are perfectly good to eat.

I still, sometime, manage to sneak them in soup and stir fries, when the leaves are young. There are a lot more difficult to sneak in if the leaves are mature, because they can be… mmm… fibrous.

But I like cream of radish leaf soup. It tastes good, it’s thrifty. And it’s nutritious: lots of Vitamin A, B1, B2, C & Iron. Bottom line: Don’t discard the leaves, that’d be a waste. If the leaves are stringy, pass the puréed soup through a fine-meshed sieve (or a “chinois” if you’ve got one of those) to ensure it’s smooth.

Cream of Radish Leaf Soup is a recipe I submitted to Flavor Magazine for the Seasonal Table of their April 2009 issue, along with Radish Tartines and Homemade Fresh Farm Cheese. Scroll to page 2 for my recipes. But they are other nifty recipes there that I encourage you to look at, including Caramelized Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake with Strawberries & Whipped Cream from Heidi Morf of Twenty Four Crow (Heidi used to own Four & Twenty Blackbirds) , Morel Mushroom Risotto with Rosemary Cream and Chive Oil from David Scales of the Inn at Meander Plantation – a recipe I really should try if more morels deign to be hunted this year… and a few other early spring recipes. I am in good company.

Pictures? How about farm cheese in the making?

sylvie | 15 comments | Tags: , , ,
03 May 2009
Harvest • Kitchen Garden • locavore log • vegetable

Asparagus!

or sparrow grass or sparr grass. But an asparagus by any other name is still an asparagus.

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I learned my lesson from last year: pick every single spear, the huge fat ones (some are larger than my thumb) as well as the skinny ones during asparagus picking season (from 2 to 8 weeks depending on the vigor and the age of your plants). Any asparagus left to grow will turn into fern: not only will the crown stop sending more desirable shoots, the ferns provide habitat for the cursed asparagus beetles. The beetle damages the tips (both nibbling them and forcing them to grow crooked), lay their unsightly eggs on the tips and eat the foliage which adversely affect the following year’s crop. So pick often (as much as twice a day in the hot weather) and pick all!

So we have a bit of asparagus at the moment, but nobody complains since they go exceedingly well with just about any food (or with no other food): munched on the way out of the garden au naturel (the asparagus! not me…); raw and sliced thinly in green salads; sautéed with morels and finished with a little cream; briefly roasted with a little sesame; or as a side dish snapped in large pieces, stir fried with spring onions and served along side a nice little pork chop.

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What do you do with asparagus?

sylvie | 12 comments | Tags: ,
02 May 2009
Kitchen Garden • locavore log • vegetable

First Radishes

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I am told that open-face radish sandwiches are an acquired taste.

I am told – very firmly – that cream of radish-leaf soup is undoubtedly an acquired taste.

Nobody’s perfect!

I still plant radishes. Those ‘Radis de 18 Jours’ are young, crisp, mildly spicy and pleasantly rosy. Still… not quite “18 day” radishes as the French name would have you believed. I sowed them on the last day of March and picked them on May 1, so they are 31-day radishes. Maybe in good French garden soil that’s been manured for 300 years they become edible in 18 days? not here, at least not this early in spring. I have just sowed some more, let’s see if they are of edible size on May 19… Because I don’t have 298 years!

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Note the tiny carrots seedlings in between the rows of radishes: they were sowed at the same time, but carrots take so darn long to come to any respectable size!

The best way to eat those just-pulled from the garden radishes is with a little salt and some really good butter.

The leaves are young enough that they just get shredded and tossed, at the last minutes, in whatever is cooking.

I won’t make radish-leaf soup for a few weeks yet.

But I will enjoy those petite blushy crunchy snacks!

(I also planted ‘Champion’)

sylvie | 8 comments | Tags: ,