Archive for locavore log

08 Jun 2011
beverage • fruit • Harvest • locavore log • Recipes

On Cherries

cherry orchard, June-07-11 007

I first encountered really fresh cherries when I was 15 – a defining age to meet a flat of just picked sun-gorged brilliant cherries, I can tell you. On the tropical island where I grew up, cherries do not fruit – they grow, but without a cold dormancy period, they do not fruit. Papayas, mangoes, longans, cherymoyas, pineapple, yes. But cherries are an exotic expensive luxury that travels a long way to get to Reunion Island – like litchis in Virginia. So I was 15, my family was living in Provence for year, and Provence has wonderful cherries. I was hooked. Read more

sylvie | 8 comments | Tags: , ,
07 Jun 2011
locavore log

June Flavor

Flavor Magazine is a regional publication focusing on the Capital Food Shed, Virginia, Maryland, DC. I started to write the Seasonal Table column in January 2011. The June/July issue is out with 10 seasonal recipes. 8 are extremely easy but nonetheless flavorful. No surprise indeed if one cares to choose produce harvested when perfectly ripe. The Wheat Berry Salad and the Spring Lamb ‘stew’ require a little attention and and more time to execute them – but nothing a novice can’t handle. I really love Molly Peterson‘s photos and the way Flavor’s art designer laid them out. Molly is also co-managing Mount Vernon Farm in Sperryville, VA – so has a real appreciation for the seasonality of life on the farm – which I think shows in the way she captures the seasonality of our food.

sylvie | 2 comments | Tags:
05 Jun 2011
Desserts • Fruit recipe • locavore log • Recipes

Fresh Strawberry and Ginger Rhubarb Tart

tart, strawberry & rhubarb 007

I don’t do pies. I just don’t. Maybe you have to grow up with pies and learn to make them with your mother or your grandmother…

Tarts, however, that’s another story. Maybe because they are easier to make than pies? I mean, you certainly can gussy up a tart, but as its most basic it’s fruit, a bit of sugar and one layer of pastry shell. The pastry can be an all-purpose short crust, a sweet short crust, or puff pastry. or whatever you can get together. The filling is nothing more than fresh seasonal fruit sprinklered with sugar and baked, or a slim layer of fruit jam or fruit compote baked and topped with fresh fruit. You could even use custard or creme patissière that can be flavored ad infinitum (That’s getting into gussying it up, by the way). The fruit can be cooked or uncooked. The dough can be prepared well ahead… You can even turn them upside down! How flexible is that? Read more

sylvie | One comment | Tags: , ,
04 Jun 2011
Harvest • locavore log

45 Minutes and The Cherries Are Sour

 

In 45 minutes, I can pick 9 pounds of sour cherries. It’s a pleasant 45 minutes, in the orchard, with views of the pasture and the hills. It’s relaxing even if it’s hot. If I am lucky the gnats are on the other side of the tree.

In 45 minutes, I can pit 3 pounds of sour cherries. (that means 135 minutes to pit 9 pounds!) Read more

sylvie | 4 comments | Tags:
01 Jun 2011
locavore log

Maintenance Notice

For the next few days, starting Thursday June 2, the blog may look funky as it’s getting revamped. After much (much!) foot dragging I am switching theme. As much as I like the clean simplicity of the current one, I picked it 3 years ago when I started blogging and knew nothing whatsoever about “themes”. There are a lot more things I want to do, so I new a theme with more capabilities is in the very near future. Be patient as we work through the update!

Meanwhile, the garden is producing its first potatoes & beets – and we are firmly into pea season.

Yeah!

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sylvie | 2 comments | Tags:
26 May 2011
beverage • Fruit recipe • locavore log • Recipes

Strawberry Liqueur

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Time to make more strawberry liqueur! The 2009 batch is almost all gone – the liqueur gets a little darker as it ages.but retained its fragrance. It’s a nice drink to sip by the wood stove in winter or – slightly chilled – on the porch in summer, watching the fireflies.

The original entry was made in May 2009, the recipe is just repeated below

Homemade Lemon-Verbena Strawberry Liqueur.

  • 4 cups, washed, hulled and quartered strawberries, any bad spot removed
  • 3 cups vodka *
  • a 1/2 cup of fresh lemon verbena leaves, loosely packed
  • 1 heaping cup sugar

In a large lidded glass jar, combine all 4 ingredients. Stir well. Cap. Stir daily for 2 weeks until the sugar is fully dissolved. Then place in a cool dark place for 6 weeks and let age. Strain strawberries through a clean butter muslin cloth. Let drip for several hours. Discard solids. Repeat straining to have liquid as limpid as possible. Bottle. The cloudy part of the liqueur may settle. Decant into new containers. The cloudy part is fine to cook or drink – it’s just not as pretty.

* Note: in those states that allow the sale of pure grain alcohol (180 – or so – proof), you may replace the 3 cups of vodka with 1.5 cup of grain alcohol. After aging and straining the liquid, add 1.5 cup distilled or unchlorinated well water.

sylvie | No comments | Tags: ,
24 May 2011
beverage • locavore log • Recipes

The Year of Rhubarb

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Or maybe it’ll be “A Year In Rhubarb”, given the voracity with which I am acquiring stalks for the kitchen. I can’t help it: there are so many plump juicy stems for sale… I have to make up for years of deprivation, you know: there was no rhubarb growing on the tropical island where I spent my childhood.

I am hearing from growers that this year’s wet cool spring has done wonder for rhubarb. Unfortunately, the cool spring is ending this week as we not-so-gently steam and wilt with the thermometer reaching 90 degrees  ( 32 C). The wet part is still on though with copious rain showers every day – rather tropical, really. What that will do for rhubarb is anybody’s guess, but I am furiously buying rhubarb. Close to 30 pounds to date, and few weeks to go still…

It’s been fun. I’ve made ice-cream (several batches and settled on proportions I like), sorbet, syrup, cordial, compote, tartelettes, fresh strawberry & ginger rhubarb tart, jam (some with elder blossom cordial, some with vanilla bean and some with fresh ginger root), rhubarb strudel (or was that baklava?) as well as fresh rhubarb chutney (delicious with a rack of lamb). And frozen a bunch, should I suddenly have a craving for rhubarb. It could happen.

It’s about time I share some recipes… so… on today’s episode we’ll learn to cook rhubarb once and make no less than 4 dishes! We’ll delve into the secret lives of rhubarb (oh… wait… we did that already!). Oh, well, then we’ll … learn how to coax the juice  from those stalks without turning them into mush and we’ll make first a  happy rosy syrup, and then a sweet and even happier little cordial. Read more

sylvie | One comment | Tags: , , ,
11 May 2011
Farms • fruit • locavore log • vegetable

On Growing Rhubarb

rhubarb-008-traveling

Until recently I thought tender all-summer long rhubarb was available only in place like England, the Pacific Northwest or Maine. Places with cool and moist summers. Places like Vachon Island where my blog pal Tom of Tall Clover Farm harvest armfuls upon armfuls of crimson stemmed monsters. Makes me turn green with envy…

I was convinced that rhubarb in Virginia was a fleeting all-too brief treasure, the plants sending flowers forth as soon as it got too hot and then considerably slowing down for the summer. Because this denizen of the mountains of Central Asia likes it cool. And since we rarely have a real long cool even-temperatured spring here (let alone a mild summer!), I thought: in Virginia you got rhubarb in May and that was it.

Anyway, that is indeed what I thought until very very recently. Until last week as a matter of fact. Read more

sylvie | 6 comments | Tags:
28 Apr 2011
locavore log

Post Card from The Orchard

2011-04-newman-hall-orchard-0401

sylvie | One comment | Tags:
26 Apr 2011
locavore log • Vegetable recipe • Wild Food

A Good Year For Morels

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It’s been a good year for morels… they are even reported to be growing in people’s front yard or back yard or back door. Not mine though. Keith has to go hunt them in the woods. It’s such a good year in fact that our world famous restaurant The Inn at Little Washington is selling them at the Inn Shops. It is said that many morel hunters will show up at the Inn’s back door to sell their catch… it must be very many with lots of bags then…

But after a dry winter, we’ve had rain, lots of rain (some with flooding), extremely mild spring temperatures – we’ve only hit 85F (yesterday) and it’s cooling off again. Some years we have high temperatures much earlier in April. I think morels like a mild spring with some cool nights (but not frosty). In other words… they like my kind of spring weather. Read more

sylvie | 7 comments | Tags:
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