In Season & Fresh from the Garden, the Fields, the Orchards & the Woods
In several of the old European traditions, August was the first month of autumn, the harvest season. And this year, with the especially cool summer weather, it certainly feels like it’s fall already. And harvesting, we are. Some crops have been incredibly successful, some less …
Verdict on my first Blacktail Mountain picked last night? No maiden swooned. No that there are many maidens around here… It was good but not great. It could have used a few extra days of ripening: it was still growing (weighting at 5 pound 14 …
On one hand, it’s been a wonderfully summer, temperature wise. We’ve been enjoying many days in the 80s F (27 to 32 C) which is right balmy for normally muggy Virginia when August days are often in the 90s F (33 to 37 F) – …
A few weeks ago, I blogged about picking up berries in the hedge rows – free wild food… well.. free as in “spend no cash”, but after several hours in the delightful mugginess and bugginess characteristic of a Virginia summer, the numerous scratches that you …
I promised more peach recipes. If “recipe” is the word to use. You got to do a lot of things – fast – when you got a bushel (close to 60 pounds!) of peaches. Perfectly ripe fruit call for a very simple treatment. Why mess …
It rained all through last night and today – something we haven’t had in a long time. The creek which had become so low I could not hear it from the house (but unlike last year, it has not dried out completely – at least …
The lovely peach originates from China, although as its botanical name (Prunus persica) indicates Europeans thought – in the 18th century – that it came from Persia. Peaches seemed to have been introduced to Southern Europe via the Silk Road in Antiquity. They were brought …
I don’t like to throw out (I mean compost) food – even things that other people may not see as still edible. I went wild berry picking earlier in the week (that’ll make a post fo another day) and decided to make a sorbet with …
Most people who grow strawberries – or who pick-them at pick-your-own operations or even frequent Farmers’ market – are familiar with the so-called June strawberries. They bear over a few weeks from mid/late May to mid/late June here in the Northern Piedmont depending on the …
I have said my goodbye to fresh sour cherries for this year. I have frozen and made jam with a bucket of them – and of course enjoyed quite a few in cobblers and eaten them “au naturel”. But for the cook with a liking …