07 Apr 2011
Kitchen Garden • locavore log • Nature

Postcard From The Hollow

Elle est belle ma campagne… She’s is greening, pastures growing for cattle and sheep…

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In the garden, things are also fattening (lettuce & mustard greens) and  pushing up: fava beans up (yeah!!!!), peas 2 inches tall, potatoes, and first asparagus tip showing its purple nose yesterday.

Of course, that tip was just the vanguard. Every year, a few show up in early April, push the soil apart to see the sun, check out the weather and then just wait until they decide the conditions are just right to grow more – several looong weeks later. They also send word down to their brethren that there is no rush since it’s just the few of them (and yes, it is mostly their “brethren” since most of my plants are male).

It’s going to be a good year in the garden. Of course. Every year in the garden is a good year. Promises, broken promises, failures, joys… life.

Are you taking the slow road with me?

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sylvie | One comment | Tags: ,
31 Mar 2011
Appetizer • locavore log • Main Dish • Recipes

Spring Salads

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Every spring , without fail, I become almost tear-eyed that we are eating great bowls of arugula, spinach, mache, sorrel, chicories and the very first of the lettuces – all planted last fall, all growing again with the milder temperatures… and the rain.Brave greens braving the still chilly weather, they show us winter’s over.

Greens make wonderful companions to fried eggs, poached eggs, omelet, lard-fried croutons, bacon, lardons, duck-fat fried potatoes, duck breasts, thinly cut steaks, any meat really… any thing really. Early spring greens are just glorious, so alive. And I am glad I have them, because, I have to wait at least 30 days before I’ll be able to harvest from the just planted seeds. And with spending so much time out, we definitively need a lot of those quick lunches.

One of my favorite quick meals is a green salad topped with warm breaded goat cheese on a croute (a croute is a French crostini – or vice-versa). I like to marinate the goat cheese ahead of time for added flavor – and I’ll often marinate a lot more than what’s immediately needed – they’ll keep well in the fridge for a few weeks. In a pinch,  if you did not marinate the cheese but want that salad right now, just brush the freshly cut rounds with oil before breading them. Read more

sylvie | No comments
21 Mar 2011
Kitchen Garden • locavore log

Spring Garden Rituals

She is here, you know.

The blooming maples are splashing the hills red, the garden’s awashed in the yellows of daffodils and forsythias. Snow drops, winter aconites and reticulate iris seem a distant memory already: our hearts rejoiced in the brave little show they put up when all was dreary, but now we are dazzled by colors and fattening buds everywhere. The skunk cabbage is unfurling its acid green leaves in the marshy areas of the woods and the peepers have been singing full-throated for a few weeks. In sheltered spots, the hepaticas, our earliest woodland ephemeral, are opening their tiny face to the sun.

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Mild sunny days following some much needed rain early in the month, and yes, it’s spring indeed. Read more

sylvie | 4 comments
16 Mar 2011
locavore log

Seasonal Flavor

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I am very happy to continue writing The Seasonal Table Column for Flavor Magazine. The first 2 pages of the  March-April issue Seasonal Table is shown above, with Molly Peterson’s photography. As the magazine also contains recipes from restaurant chefs, my role is to provide recipes geared at the home cook using ingredients locally in season. The March April issue includes recipes for those dishes: Read more

sylvie | 4 comments | Tags:
19 Feb 2011
locavore log

Postcard From The Garden

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Snowdrops have been blooming this week, ever so taller everyday.

They make me catch my breath. Everytime. They break my heart. Everytime. They make me smile. Everytime.

Morning quivers in the thorns; above the budded snowdrops
caked with dew like little virgins, the azalea bush
ejects its first leaves, and it is spring again.
The willow waits its turn, the coast
is coated with a faint green fuzz, anticipating
mold. Only I
do not collaborate, having
flowered earlier. I am no longer young. What
of it? Summer approaches, and the long
decaying days of autumn when I shall begin
the great poems of my middle period.

To Autumn – by Louise Glück

sylvie | 2 comments | Tags:
09 Feb 2011
Desserts • locavore log • Recipes

Chocolat, Je T’Aime.

I post a picture of pickled Jerusalem artichoke or marinated peppers (canned last summer) or wheat berry salad on Facebook. Do I get request for recipe? hahaha… However, I post – as an after thought really – a photo of an almond and chocolate cake… and I get no less than 3 (3!) requests for recipe. My friends like chocolate.
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But who indeed does not like chocolate?

I would normally not post a recipe for Reine de Saba cake, because, really, it’s such a classic. And it’s a classic for good reason: it is such a very good cake – beautiful, dark and tender; it’s also balanced: not too dense, not too intense, just right. After a bite, you’ll understand its name. Read more

sylvie | 5 comments | Tags: , , ,
05 Feb 2011
Appetizer • locavore log • Recipes • vegetable • Vegetable recipe

Winter Pickles: Sunroots aka Jerusalem Artichokes

Undemanding. Vigorous. Pretty in a blowzy sorts of way. Tall. You could almost be talking about me. But not quite: Helianthus tuberosus is what I mean. You know: Jerusalem artichokes, sunchokes, sunroots, earth apple, tobinambours. Look at them in that somewhat blurry September picture, towering over the arches of the cold frame  – well over 8 feet tall (the arches top at 4 feet tall and the ground is sloping up, so the prospective is somewhat distorted). But tall they will grow in decent garden soil, and that only from spring to fall as they are an herbaceous  perennial -  impressive, no?

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The bright yellow  flower is cheerful and pretty too, in an unsophisticated care-free sorts of way – although small when compared to the overall plant size. Nothing like its fat headed cousin the annual sunflower.

Some people actually things sunroots are “invasive”. Well… for those of us on the Eastern North American seabord, that’s impossible: Helianthus tuberosus is native to Eastern North America (from Quebec to North Florida and as west as North Dakota). How can something native be invasive? Read more

sylvie | 4 comments | Tags: , , ,
02 Feb 2011
locavore log

Postcard From The Kitchen

dish-collage

Everyday meals throughout the year. Eating seasonally and locally. A pretty “collage”, no?

sylvie | 3 comments
01 Feb 2011
Desserts • Fruit recipe • locavore log • Snack

Crepes from the Piedmont

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On February 2, in Punxsutawney, PA, Phil the Groundhog is most unwillingly thrust into forecasting the next 6 weeks’ weather (most unwillingly indeed as he is – apparently – wrong 61% of the time). But you know, no matter what poor Phil does or does not do, we are now halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox and receiving 10 hours of sunlight a day again! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is cause for celebration, even if only a modest one.

So whether you celebrate Ground Hog Day, Candlemas, St Brigid’s Day, Imbolc, or just want to have a fun family evening, I propose we make crepes. Listen: if you can make pancakes, chances are you can make crepes! The basic ingredients are the same after all (flour, eggs & milk), the proportions different. As when making pancakes, a cast-iron skillet is the most practical choice. There is absolutely no need for a special crepe skillet: I do not have one.  Fun and easy to make, sweet or savory, sophisticated or homey, crepes are our friends – and they are coffee-friendly, hard-cider friendly and, without a doubt, wine friendly!

If you want to read more and get the recipe for Vanilla Crepes stuffed with Almond Creme and served with Maple Caramelized Apples (and suggestion as what to drink with that) please head over to the Virginia Wine Gazette On-Line where editor and wine expert Mary Ann Dancisin asked me to do a “Virginia Edible” blog post. Except for the almonds and vanilla, those crepes can be Virginia grown…

sylvie | 4 comments | Tags: , , ,
27 Jan 2011
locavore log • Recipes • Soups • Vegetable recipe

Snow Day

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What is it about a snowy day that makes me reach for comfort food?  It’s rather funny actually. We’ve had horrendous days this winter, cold and blustery, wind blowing at 50 miles an hour in 20 degree weather and no snow cover – terribly hard on animals and plants, and humans too. And no special yearning for comfort food. And then comes the much awaited much hoped for snow, finally. Finally, since the previous snow storms went either North, South or West of us, leaving us desperately parched, and feeling cursed. All in all, it was not that much, maybe 5 or 6 inches of wet snow. But I am grateful. And let’s face it: I like snow in winter.

And so maybe it’s a little celebration of sorts this need for comfort food? A sign that, after all, things are OK; Read more

sylvie | 3 comments | Tags: , ,
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