In Season & Fresh from the Garden, the Fields, the Orchards & the Woods
I love visiting other people’s gardens and tasting food they cook from their garden. So when I went to visit Pat D.’s garden in Castleton, VA, I was in for a treat. She asked me to stay for lunch, and served a most intriguing Tomatillo …
When I am really busy, I don’t always have the time to cook from scratch everyday (and frankly, sometimes I don’t have the energy!). Yet, we eat well. One of my strategies is to cook something purposefully large on the week-end, and reuse it during …
The season is changing: I can taste it in the air. The nights are getting cool yet the days are still warm. The daylight hours are shortening; the light is mellowing; the air is crisper. The leaves on the trees are subtly goldening – soon to burnish or russet. The dew sparkles again in the early morning grass; soon there will be mist in the morning. Soon the geese will honk overhead, soon birds will gather to go south.
The colchicums raise up their rosy goblets to the sky; the cyclamens nod gently. The bees are buzzing in the goldenrods and the asters – their last chance to gather nectar and pollen in quantity before frost does away with the flowers.
Golden-fingered Autumn is here.
Lots to do in the garden, from transplanting the lettuces and the kales, to bundling the cardoons for blanching, from sowing the rocket-salad to digging the potatoes. And…weeding – always – and picking, picking, picking: peppers, okras, tomatoes, tomatillos, carrots, beets, the late corn and the last of the green beans. Tomato fatigue has settled. But with cool nights, it’s time again for warm soups! It’s time to reawaken those taste buds to the goodness of tomatoes with a mellow Early Fall Tomato Soup that’s perfect for a light dinner on a cool night, maybe with toasted bread and blue cheese, followed by poached pears or an upside-down apple cake. Or for lunch with a grilled cheese sandwich.
(This the THIRD bonus post from Keith, the last one in the series about spit-roasting a whole pig. Read Part One here, Part Two here and see a couple of additional photos here) Wake Up Using backward planning, I rolled out of bed at 4:15 …
(This the SECOND bonus post from Keith – me thinks he is having some fun with this. Read Part 1 “The Pig” as well as my own post for our Busy Weekend . Sylvie) I wasn’t going to talk about the delivery of the pig, …
(Bonus post from Keith, also read Sylvie’s post for our Busy Weekend)
So far as manly man food goes, a pig roast has to be close to the top. To round out the event, let’s make it a pig roast for a volunteer fire company in rural Virginia. Yeah.
It had been years since anyone could recall a pig roast for the company; Robbie – a sheriff’s deputy and volunteer – and I were talking about the lamb roast Sylvie and I did in July when we made the decision. Chief Ann gave the go ahead and the prep work began.
Getting a good pig was a challenge. Changes in the population (fewer traditional farmers), grain prices this year, and demand in the cities for locally raised meat have made getting ‘quality’ pigs harder. Lots of the volunteers remembered things from their youth – either raising pigs or having relatives who did. Some talked of doing it again, but their long commutes to ‘real jobs’ and sky high grain prices may have made this self sufficient source of meat a thing of the past.
I met a pig farmer from one county over who embraced the USDA’s ‘get big or get out’ policies. They are doing a good business working between the ‘old ways’ and factory farming supplying hole pigs to pitmasters through the mid-Atlantic. I think their operation is a big improvement over the monstrosities out there, but I don’t know that their pigs ever see the sunshine.
Our go-to supplier was Belle Meade who supplied a beautiful pig at a generous price. I don’t know if Belle Meade’s model can feed the world, but I do think it can make the world a better place. Buying from someone like Belle Meade is, unfortunately, a luxury for most people, but I like to put my money where my mouth is.
We’re already planning for next year. If all goes as I hope, the company will be eating our own pig, raised by one of our numbers and financed by the rest.
Note from Sylvie: the pig must be scalded. The fatty skin will keep the meet moist and tender while roasting. It is discarded after cooking – unless you want to break it in pieces to flavor beans – or you want to spoil your dog.
Continuing: Pig Roast – Part Two “The Delivery”
First it was dinner for 29 on Friday for a troupe of 16 student actors from Cambridge, England, and the families who were hosting them for the two nights they were in Washington, VA. On their annual touring of the US East Coast, CAST stopped …
Attempt number 1. Not bad… actually, taste is great, but I need to steep the cheese longer next time (more than 10 minutes!) so it has a better rounder shape. Goes heavenly for with all those late summer tomatoes, a little fried garlic and some …
Vanille teased me for being in an “upside-down” baking mood (and she should know – being “down under” in New Zealand) because I blogged back-to-back about Tomato Tatin and then about Upside Down Plum Spiced Cake. I felt like I had to make a post that was not upside down. Well, not really… but I am still working through my 4 gallons of Italian plums, and nobody ever – ever – complains in the house when I make dessert. So, here! ANOTHER Italian Plum Cake.
The recipe comes through courtesy of my mother-in-law. She wrote that it’s from a newspaper clipping dated 9/13/89 that’s in her recipe box. Although the clipped recipe calls for plums, Rusty informed me that she never made it with plums, but has tried it with other fruit – mainly apples (in which case she adds nutmeg because she likes nutmeg) and pears. She says it’s good even cold, great for a snack or for breakfast (her son agrees). I added a little liqueur to the cake, changed the spices used, increased the amount of fruit, and – since I don’t think it’s a torte (which it what the clipping called it), I am renaming it: Rusty’s Italian Plum Cake. I also use white whole wheat flour, which works perfectly fine with this rather rustic (but delicious) dessert. Continue reading Rusty’s Italian Plum Cake
Should you go walking along a bottomland stream in Rappahannock County, you are likely to encounter pawpaws (or paw-paws or paw paws). You may not notice them though – unless you paid attention – because they are small under story trees that grow in clumps. …
