Zone 6 zone denial tip: standard hybrid gladioli are reliably hardy only to zone 9 - or 8b, maybe - but if you have well drained soil, plant them 5 or 6 inches deep and mulch heavily in fall (in this case before the ground freezes), there’s a good chance they’ll come back.

By now you’ve probably gotten the word: the long awaited, massively updated USDA Climate Zone map, the first revision since 1990, has finally arrived. And  – insert giant snarky “this is news?” – it shows large swaths of the country have moved up at least a half zone.

In 1991, when I got together with Bill and began gardening in the Hudson Valley, I could joke that my new life didn’t net me a single climate zone, even though the NY garden is about 300 miles southwest of the one in Maine. Until a couple of weeks ago, they were both in zone 5b. Now, while New York remains 5b – by the skin of its teeth, from the looks of things – Maine has been promoted to 6a.

Of course the difference between the two may well be less than the full 5 degrees between half zones. Same with the big chunk of Nebraska that’s now 5a instead of 4b. It’s also possible that Chicago, a heat island, may have remained exactly the same while getting a higher zone assignment because of better measurement.

But whatever the physical changes, most of the numbers did go up. The USDA, however, refuses to draw what appear to be obvious conclusions.

Perhaps not surprisingly, there has been a lot of flapdoodle* about how the zone changes are strong proof of global warming and the USDA is simply stonewalling. There has also been a fair amount of wishful thinking along the lines of “I thought it wouldn’t be hardy here, but now I know I can grow it. Yay!”

Well, yes and no. USDA representative Kim Kaplan doth perhaps protest too much when insisting that the new map differs so fundamentally from the old that the two cannot be compared. Given the unanimity of projections of increasing warmth in future, it could be quibbling to maintain that the 30 years of data behind the new map is weather, not climate, because climate measures brackets of at least 50 years. And when it comes to wishful thinking, no one with any gardening knowledge would deny that plant hardiness is indeed an increasingly mobile target.

But all that said, I don’t think it would hurt to calm down a little and stop making the poor map carry far more weight than it should. On the first count, there are a lot more robust proofs of global warming (check out this government sanctioned analysis of trends in the Southeast, for instance, if you really want to have your pants scared off.) On the second count, it pays to remember that average winter lows – the only thing measured on the map – are by no means the single factor influencing plant survival; and when it comes to climate change the challenges far outweigh the benefits, even at the home garden level.

Some Factors Other Than the Thermometer That Influence Winter Survival of Plants

Time to harden off. When cold comes gradually, plants have a chance to toughen up in preparation for winter. When cold comes suddenly, plants may be killed by temperatures they could otherwise sail through unscathed.

Duration of the coldest temperatures. A plant rated hardy to -10 is more likely to survive a few hours of -15 than ten straight days of -5.

Winter soil moisture. Dry climate plants from lavender to cactus care a lot more about drainage than they do about air temperature.

Yearly rainfall. Seattle and Tucson have the same zone number but are not otherwise similar. Moisture needers and drought needers alike will go into winter deeply stressed if grown in the wrong place, and that weakness can finish them off when deep cold is added.

Late summer and fall care. Nitrogen fertilizer spurs tender growth that’s vulnerable to winter kill. Late pruning does the same thing.

Snow cover. A deep fluffy blanket of snow that lasts all winter will protect plants (especially perennials) from cold that would kill them if the ground were bare.

Some Gardeners’ Problems Headed This Way As a Result of Climate Change

Rapid temperature swings. A long mild fall followed by a plunge into the deep freeze, and/or a very early spring, followed by a plunge into the deep freeze.

Extreme weather events. Extended droughts, torrential rains, hurricane force winds.

Shorter winters. Plants like apples, peonies and lilacs that must have a long winter sleep can languish with too little rest. Insects and diseases once kept in check by extended cold will have higher rates of survival.

Less reliable snow cover, more frequent ice storms. Snow protects; ice kills.

Hotter summers. Northerners will have better luck with heat-loving annuals from tomatoes to moonflowers. Southerners may well have less; too much heat prevents fruit set and pushes annual flowers into early graves. The region of happiness for plants that must have cool nights even in summer (peas, delphiniums, rhododendrons, sugar maples) is headed toward Canada.

A Few Coping Strategies may be found here.

* Some back story on the flap.

Whatever its limitations, the USDA hardiness zone map has long been a widely recognized metric. Breeders and nurseries use it to rate and label plants. Scientists use it (along with a lot else) when investigating things like the spread of invasive weeds. The USDA itself uses the map to set some crop insurance standards.

Not chopped liver; and by the time the century turned, it was clear to all that the 1990 map was both insufficient and inaccurate. The USDA commissioned a new one from the American Horticultural Society, which had produced zone maps before. Projected appearance date was 2003.

But then the map didn’t show up – or rather it didn’t show up for long. As I remember it, there was a new version on the AHS website, but only very briefly. The curious were told it went away because it was just a draft; the USDA was not satisfied, and revisions were under way.

This was the party line for quite a while. During this while, we were enjoying the G.W. Bush administration, increasingly notorious for its disinclination to confront man made climate change. People began to think dark thoughts.

These thoughts were not brightened when, in 2006,  the Arbor Day Foundation published an updated zone map of its own, using some (but not all) of the same data as the rejected AHS draft. The ADF website provides an animation of the old map morphing into the (ADF) new one. It is not reassuring.

More grumbling. More Bush administration. More delays, now routinely attributed to the difficulty of producing a sufficiently sophisticated, web friendly interactive map.

Not so fast forward to January 25th, 2012. The new map is introduced at the National Arboretum. Distant journalists are invited to attend via webinar. I attend.

Neato! The thing is terrific. It really IS a great leap forward – for doing what it’s supposed to do, anyway. One need only enter a zip code to get the corresponding zone assignment, and there is a lot of other information there for the drilling down.

The introduction ceremony concludes with a question period. Various reporters ask questions. The most vocal questioners do not appear to be gardeners and what they really, really want to know is why the long suffering Ms. Kaplan, who has been fielding these enquiries ever since the flap began, will not knuckle under and admit that the map proves global warming is undoubtedly here. She won’t do it. (Her reasons are detailed on the map site, under “what’s new?”)

So, official word is still that the map was not delayed  - perhaps by underfunding? –  during the previous administration, which may or may not be true. But in fairness, nobody’s trumpeting its appearance as the return of sanity, either. So at the very least the USDA is an equal opportunity sphinx.

The young (only 3 feet tall) Leatherleaf Mahonia in full bloom at Marsh Gardens on January 27th. Eric has planted it near a red berried American holly, to make, as he puts it “a visual pun,” on the two plants’ quite similar leaflets

I was so pleased when Eric sent this – in my mind, Mahonias are associated with far more clement climates than either of mine. Eric’s place over at Yale IS a lot warmer than it is here, but with a bit of shopping around for a protected spot, it sounds as though I just might be able to plant a clump of these beautiful, fragrant winter bloomers.

Leatherleaf Mahonia (Mahonia japonicum var. bealei)

By Eric Larson

Not often do you get something blooming in January here in New England, and when you do, you want to praise it beyond its intrinsic worth perhaps. But who is to say what intrinsic worth is? Many a fellow carbon-based life form will have questioned mine own in the decades of walking around on this blue-green orb.

But Leatherleaf Mahonia is intrinsically AND anthropomorphically beautiful, for its season of bloom and far more.

In mid-winter, the pale yellow fragrant flowers emerge on spikes of about six to nine inches long and somehow manage to get pollinated even in our climate. (The plant is native to China, despite its specific name, though it has been cultivated in Japan for hundreds of years). The flowers are displayed at the ends of the branches, visible even through the fog of a late January warm spell.

Although not as showy and vibrant as its sister plant, Oregon Grape-Holly (M. aquifolium), Leatherleaf blooms much earlier in the season: January as opposed to late March and April. So if you can grow both, you will have an extended season of bloom. In addition, the Oregon Grape-Holly has lighter green, shiny leaves, while our plant has a blue-green cast, and is somewhat dull in appearance.

A closer view of the flower spikes reveals the primrose yellow color of the individual flowers. Very fragrant, these blooms will last for up to three weeks if the weather conditions are right.

Later in spring and during the summer, dark purple to blue-black fruits begin their show on. These fruits are edible and rich in vitamin C, but are not really that tasty. I have eaten a few on a dare, and they left me with the impression that anything that acrid MUST be good for you – if it doesn’t outright kill you.

Birds love the berries, though, so expect the show of fruit to be short-lived. But helping our feathered friends is a good thing…isn’t it? ( D*****d starlings! Two were building a nest in the gutter just above our bedroom window last spring, and my warm and fuzzy feelings towards those barely-evolved dinosaurs evaporated like gasoline on hot cement.)

Leatherleaf mahonias grow 6 to 10 feet tall and spread about 8 feet wide. They are evergreen, will tolerate and even thrive in shade and are not fussy about soil as long as it is on the acid side and not swampy. Most folks looking for an evergreen screen in their shady garden think Eastern or Canadian Hemlock, perhaps Rhododendron. But Mahonia is a great choice.

Gardeners plagued by deer might find it particularly valuable. Although it shows up on many a ‘deer resistant’ list, I haven’t seen a truck, even in the mining districts of Montana, that would hold a grain of salt big enough to view those lists with any degree of certainty. Some lists are strictly geographical: apparently deer in one locality haven’t developed a taste for plants that deer in another location consider haute cuisine. And in a hard winter, plants that were ignored in years past may suddenly start disappearing at a rapid rate.

Before planting Leatherleaf Mahonia, please be warned that it’s a member of the Barberry family, which includes some notorious invasives. I have seen it pop up in spots where only birds could have deposited the seed, so while it’s not on Connecticut’s invasive species list yet, that may just be a matter of time.

The genus name is after Bernard McMahon (1775-1816), who introduced the plants collected from the Lewis and Clark Expedition to an adoring American public who had gotten notices in the mail that they may already have won!

No, I jest. But although Bernard was not Ed, he was a publisher  – of the first American-produced seed list in the United States (1803). He also inspired future generations of garden writers with his Calendar, a comprehensive month –by-month instruction manual on planting and caring for plants, including soil preparation for the “Kitchen Garden, Fruit Garden, Orchard, Vineyard, Nursery, Pleasure Ground, Flower Garden, Green House, Hot House and Forcing Frames.” This went into eleven editions, published by his son, ending in 1857. (Facsimile reproductions are in print to this day, available on order from your local bookstore or of course Amazon. A great read, and still more than a little instructive. LL)

The lemon is underneath the cherries

This floated into the kitchen because Jan 23 was National Pie Day*, an event that got a surprising amount of  PR, given that every day is pie day in most people’s estimations. It’s probably because good pie is still – compared to say, macarons  – in woefully short supply.

Ok. Deciding to bake a pie was easy. Deciding what kind of pie to bake was not, fresh local fruit also being in short supply in the Northeast just now. We’ve gone through all the frozen berries already; we’re eating too much winter squash to make pumpkin appealing, and while apple might seem obvious, it’s not if you breakfast on baked apples with yogurt pretty much every mortal day of the winter.

But then I remembered I had a whole bag of Meyer lemons in the cold room, bought on impulse simply because I was so delighted to see them. Very seasonal. Especially made into Shaker lemon pie, which by containing the whole fruit and getting baked between two crusts seems better suited to cold weather than lemon meringue, even if custard is a major player.

And yet, and yet… “cherry” is surely pie’s first name if “apple” is rejected. And since cherry is almost always made with canned fruit there’s no seasonality problem.

I dithered back and forth for a while, then came down on the side of lemon. Completed the first step – thinly slicing the lemons, mixing them with a LOT of sugar and letting them sit for a day to soften and mellow.

Then I got worried. The sugar didn’t draw enough lemon juice to completely dissolve and the visible bits of lemon peeking through the syrup-rivuletted pile of white crystals looked seriously lonely. I tasted the mixture and found it wasn’t notably over sweet, but doubts remained. And as there happened to be a can of cherries in the store closet….Genius! If I do say so myself.

Cut to Bill and me, standing in the kitchen enjoying. I allow as to how I’d better give at least half of it away as soon as possible, to avoid will power problems. (There are just the two of us and neither is slender.) His reply? “Don’t you dare!!”

Shaker Lemon and Cherry Pie

The lemon filling ingredients are more or less universal, but discarding the pithy end pieces is a nicety that comes from Ruth Levy Berenbaum’s excellent Pie and Pastry Bible. Shaker lemon pie has a closed crust; cherry is traditionally lattice. I compromised by making the lattice a bit tighter than usual.  A closed crust will work just as well.

For a 10 inch pie:

2 large lemons – Meyer are widely recommended for their less acid flavor, but I doubt the Shakers had them and the difference is pretty petitie.

2c. sugar

¼ tsp. salt

1 14.5 oz. can pitted sour cherries in water

1 tbl. minute tapioca

pastry for a 2 crust pie (easy recipe here)

5 eggs

1. Freeze the lemons for an hour or so to firm up. Grate the zest from each end into a medium sized non-reactive bowl, then cut fruit in half the long way. Cut off and discard the flesh-free ends, then slice the rest very thinly. Working over the bowl, remove seeds and drop the slices in. Stir in the sugar and salt and set aside covered at room temperature for a day.

2. Roll pastry between sheets of waxed paper into 2 roughly 11 inch rounds. Stack the waxed paper sandwiches on a baking sheet and refrigerate for 1 to 4 hours.

3. Drain the cherries into a small saucepan and reserve. In a small cup, mix 2 tbl. of the juice with the tapioca and set aside. Boil the juice until reduced by about a third, then turn the heat to medium low. Loosen the tapioca mixture with a bit of the hot liquid, then stir it in. Cook, stirring, until the liquid is thick and translucent. This will happen quickly and there will probably still be white dots of tapioca. Not to worry. Stir in the cherries and let cool completely.

4. Put a rack in the lower third of the oven, put a baking stone on it and heat the oven to 450. (I thought I had invented this – see Crisp Crust Maple Walnut Pie -  but as usual with recipes, no such thing. Ms. B. was well ahead of me and I’m sure she’s not the only one.) Give it a half hour or so to be sure the stone is thoroughly heated.

5. While the oven is heating, fit one crust into a pyrex pie plate. Separate an egg, adding the yolk to the lemon mixture. Beat the white just until thin and fluid, then paint the inside of the pie shell with it. Set aside in a cool place that is not the refrigerator. (If you’re going for the lattice top, prefabricate it on a sheet of waxed paper and chill until needed.)

6. Beat the remaining eggs into the lemon mixture. When the oven is hot, pour it into the crust and top with the cherries. They will be gloppy; it’s best to use your hands. Apply the top crust and cut some slashes in it if you’re not using the lattice. Crimp the edges.

7. Bake for 12 minutes, then lower heat to 350 and bake until bottom/side crust is well browned and top is golden, anywhere from a half hour to an hour more. Be ready to protect the rim so it doesn’t burn. The custard will of course be cooked long before the crust. Doesn’t matter; it’s so sweet and acid the eggs don’t toughen or separate. Cool completely before cutting.

Next time I make it I’ll probably double the cherries, which will not only boost their taste but also raise the top crust a little bit so it browns faster. The obvious alternative, crustwise, is a 9 inch pie, but the filling flavor is so intense it needs a lot of crust for balance.

* Concerning National Pie Day

It’s a brainchild of the National Pie Council, which I’m sure to no one’s surprise appears to be primarily a promotional vehicle for Crisco.

National pi day (March 14, because that’s 3/14) is also a great excuse to bake one but other than that an altogether different kettle of pi. It’s been going since 1988 and was originally created by a physicist named Larry Shaw, who was working at the San Francisco Exploratorium when he came up with the idea.

from the wikipedia entry on pi day, which also includes this -

I love it! - portrait of Larry Shaw, the Prince of Pi

Well Pooey on that, as stepdaughter Celia used to say. I wouldn’t be without one and I’m not particularly gadget prone. In fact most of my cooking equipment is either

Vintage:

Bill manning the Strand Universal kitchen stove.

Or primitive

The outdoor clay oven. Beans in the pot, pork roast in the pan, coals banked at the back to boost heat for the first few hours of cooking. The wooden door is lined with flashing to keep it from getting burned.

We didn’t choose the current incumbent it because it was a turbocharged 1300 watts, or because it was black and chrome, thus more or less matching the kitchen decor. We chose it because it was the only mid-sized unit that would fit on the shelf as currently configured.

This selection method worked out very well with the dishwasher. When we did the kitchen back in 1995, the Asko was the only one that would fit under the 34 inch counter top (unless you count dishwasher drawers, already available but out of our financial reach – which alas they still are). Fifteen years later, it’s still going strong, quietly, efficiently…

Where was I ?

Oh, the micro.

Our current microwave - and, it must be admitted, a few other gadgets I’d be hard pressed to do without.

So far so good, except for its being way too powerful for some of the uses I’m used to. The defrost is little short of amazing, but a full cup of room temperature liquid will boil if you push the beverage button and fail to extract the cup in roughly half the pre-measured time.

There are 10 power levels. As far as I can tell, level 6 is about equal to full power on our old one. Fortunately 1 and 2 are still low enough to make melting chocolate the same tidy, near-foolproof breeze it was with the previous machine.

Chocolate (and caramel) aside, we mostly use this handy appliance to defrost and reheat, so it sounds at first as though the naysayers are right. They’re not; defrosting and reheating are huge, because they make it so much easier to eat well locally all year ‘round, even in the frost belt.

From late fall to mid-summer, the freezer is our reliable source of home grown tomatoes and sweet corn, harvest vegetable soups and stews, a good supply of local meat, and plenty of leftover lasagna, cassoulet, etc. the slow food version of heat n’ eat fast food.

Defrosting can of course be accomplished by always knowing what you want far enough ahead of time to allow complete thawing at room temperature. This is not how we operate, and I well remember the pre-micro days: Become fed up with how long it’s taking to thaw whatever by immersing the container in cool water. Switch to warm water. Become fed up. Put it in a saucepan over low heat. Poke and prod and pry at the slowly dwindling frozen lump while the rising sea of already-thawed material inexorably overcooks. Personally, I’d rather put the frozen item in the machine, go do something else and come back in 5 to 10 minutes to find the job accomplished.

Reheating is equally gratifying, for more or less the same reasons. Whatever it is reheats quickly, all of it at the same time, and unlike things reheated on stove or in oven, it’s  unlikely to dry out while doing so. Of course that’s why micros are lousy to cook with – unless you want to do a lot of waterless steaming – and may explain why the anti’s are so down on them. Nothing dries out, but nothing reduces either. Nothing browns and genuine crispness simply isn’t happening.

* Illustrated oven building instructions here, should you be looking for a project.

My take on King Cake, seasoned with thyme and marjoram, liberally studded with Gruyere, sprinkled with Parmesan instead of sugar but maybe next year I'll dye the cheese in the classic icing colors: green, yellow and purple

The classic King Cake of carnival season has many variations: coffee cake-ish, briochelike, or based on puff pastry. It may or may not include embellishments like candied fruit, frangipane, and colored icing. It may even be chocolate with coconut. But one thing will be for sure: it’ll be sweet.

Not around here. At this time of year I’m still recovering from the holiday cookie binge, and the idea of more of the same doesn’t hold much of a thrill. Yet I’ve always loved the idea of the thing, so our traditional King Cake is basically cheese studded brioche. Traditional tradition is honored in the ring shape and in the hidden token whose finder is the King.

Being King has its downside; it usually means you have to provide the next cake or throw the next party, which may come as soon as next week. (See the Wikipedia entry for an extensive exegesis of King Cake in its many, many manifestations.)

Savory King Cake

This recipe makes two roughly 10 inch rings because one very large one doesn’t always cook quickly enough. If you don’t need two you can freeze one and have it handy in case you wind up being King next time. It’s very simple and quick to make as far as working time goes. Just be sure to allow for the overnight cool rise.

What a difference an oven makes. I have two in my vintage stove, ovens in which these cakes were baked at the (theoretically) same temperature for the same amount of time. The paler one was in the little oven, the darker one in the bigger oven which I know full well runs hot and try to compensate for.

½ c. lukewarm water

1 tbl. dry yeast

1 egg

3 egg yolks

grated zest of 1 large lemon

3/4 tsp. dried thyme, crumbled

scant ½ tsp. dried marjoram, crumbled

1 tsp. salt

1 c. light cream or half and half

4-5 c. bread flour

4 oz. softened butter

6 oz. Gruyere or other nutty flavored hard cheese, cut into ¼ inch cubes

(1/2 c. chopped duck cracklings or crisp bacon, optional)

2 large dried beans, figurines or, so nobody breaks a tooth, large garlic cloves

1 c. coarsely chopped raw cashews, spread on a plate

1 egg, beaten with

1 tsp. lemon juice

Parmesan

coarse salt

1. Put the water in a large mixing bowl –  a stand mixer is ideal – sprinkle on the yeast and let it sit 10 minutes or so to foam. When it’s bubbly, whisk in everything else up to the flour.

2. Let the mixture sit a moment, then whisk in 2 cups of the flour, 1 cup at a time.

3. Add the butter. Switch to a paddle or wooden spoon and work it in completely, then work in enough additional flour to make a very soft, still sticky dough. This may take anywhere from 1 to 2 cups, depending on the size of the eggs, the moisture content of the butter and placement of constellations in the heavens above. The dough is ready as soon as it (more or less) leaves the sides of the bowl.

4. Scrape the dough into a rough ball, cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp tea towel and set it aside in a warm place until doubled, about 1.5 hours.

5. Turn the dough out on a lightly floured board and sparingly, a little at a time, knead in enough additional flour to make a smooth soft dough that is not sticky. Put it in a clean bowl, cover tightly and refrigerate overnight or up to 24 hours.

6. Punch down the dough; turn it onto a very lightly floured work surface and let it relax, covered, for ten minutes or so. Roll it out about ¼ inch thick, scatter on the cheese dice (and meat) and press them in. Roll up tightly like a jelly roll; fold into a ball, knead to further distribute the lumps and again let rest, covered, for about 10 minutes.

7. Divide the dough in half. Roll one half into a snake about 18 inches long, then coil it into a ring, pinching and pressing to join the ends firmly. Insert a token (from the underside) and press the ring firmly into the cashews to embed them in the base. Transfer to a lightly greased or parchment covered baking sheet. If you have room to bake two rings at once, repeat with the other half of the dough. If not, cover the other half, set aside in a cool place, then shape it when the first half goes into the oven.

8. Lightly cover the ring(s) with plastic wrap or a damp tea towel and let rise to not quite double, 1 to 1.5 hours. Heat the oven to 375.

9. Brush the ring(s) with the egg wash, grate on a liberal dusting of Parmesan and sprinkle sparingly with the salt. Bake until risen and well browned, half an hour to 45 minutes. It’s done at 190 degrees internal temperature (let’s hear it for instant read thermometers!), so start checking after a half hour. Cool on a rack and serve in thin slices.

The cheese coated holes make the cake seem light, but it's still tastiest to keep the slices on the thin side.

Concerning Recipes.

This bread in cake’s clothing is from one of my Good Food columns, now lost somewhere deep in history. I have the recipe only because I used it in The Modern Country Cook, itself now somewhat historical, having come out in 1991. The ingredients haven’t changed much but the instructions are a lot more streamlined.

I haven’t done any research but wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn this paring down is happening all over. For instance:

I’m currently in the middle of making a sort of bastard* Cassoulet, and as this is something I seldom do I turned for guidance to The Food of South-West France, by Paula Wolfert, a wonderful book when it came out (1983) and still a model of its kind.

Its kind is extremely thorough, however, so I also checked around elsewhere. Most of the elsewhere in my bookshelf was either equally thorough or not thorough enough, but when I looked again, there was Paula Wolfert’s World of Food (1988).

The Cassoulet recipe in that one is slightly shorter and easier to follow-while-modifying. Down it went to the kitchen. Then today (this is one of those recipes that takes at least 2 days and can easily be stretched out even longer) I was standing here at the computer trying to avoid work…

First recipe to pop up? Paula Wolfert’s, this time from Food and Wine Magazine in 2005. Considerably less involved, though still a bit of a production, and that’s the one down in the kitchen at the moment.

*Bastard may be a bit strong, this batch does involve multiple cookings and multiple meats (including plenty of duck confit), so perhaps it’s as legitimate as any named for someplace in the French countryside. To quote Elizabeth David:

“The Cassoulet is a dish which may be infinitely varied so long as it is not made into a mockery with a sausage or two heated up with tinned beans, or with all sorts of bits of left-over chicken or goodness knows what thrown into it as if it were a dustbin.” (French Provincial Cooking, 1960. Of course I looked. Are you kidding?)

Our holiday tree, 2011, aka the top of the former arborvitae. There’s a bucket of water inside the pedestal.

Putting it up was extremely easy; taking it down wasn’t much  harder and now we have the same pile of long branches anyone with a regular tree will have as soon as they saw them from the trunk, first step in successful home recycling.

Some will argue deconstruction is unnecessary; you can simply recycle the tree by setting it up outdoors, replacing the human-centric ornaments with items of interest to birds: cut oranges, a feeder or two, that cute bell made from suet and encrusted with seeds you got from the office gift-swap.

Well, yes, but myself I’d rather use cut boughs to mulch the perennial beds, evergreen boughs being just about ideal for this purpose: They hold in the cold without matting down and they’re quick and easy to remove in spring without harming tender emerging shoots.

That’s right, hold in the cold. There are some instances where the object is to hold in warmth – such as when you’re trying to protect the fig tree.

Wrapped fig tree surrounded by bagged leaves, further insulated by a large pile of hemlock boughs

But most of the time what the mulch is doing is keeping the surface frozen, so you don’t get repeated thaws and freezes between January and April. “Frost heave” doesn’t just happen to roadbeds. Even when plants stay put, delicate feeder roots right near the surface are often damaged by soil that expands and contracts like an accordion.

The beds in Maine take a lot of boughs, so each year Kristi goes scavenging right about now, looking for raw material. Being well out in the country, she has to work at it. But in towns that offer municipal pick up there’s a bounty of useful material conveniently located right next to the curb.

Alternate use for evergreen branches: back door decor. Former “tree” makes a good anchor; saved up shrub and hedge prunings add variety.

Beds already all cozy – or non-existent? Consider the outdoor arrangement. In cold climates cut evergreens will stay fresh looking right through the entire Carnival season (Epiphany to Mardi Gras).

Added benefit of tree-in-tall pot: this is actually the first tree we’ve had in several years, feline depredations having finally discouraged me from even trying. But it looks like a combination of cat maturity and – comparative – tree inaccessibility is a winning one.

It's not that he COULDN'T jump; even fat as he is that's an easy distance. But as long as nothing moves he's not that interested.

The decorated dark ones are gingerbread; pale stars are sugar cookies. Little round coconut covered jobs are rum balls; crescents are vanilla crescents (known as Moth cookies in our family). Round ones in the back are two kinds of jumbles and the dark rounds in the middle are Mexican chocolate chocolate chip.

I expect to discuss the Christmas Ham in the very near future, and may also pony up a picture of The Tree.

But first, even without cues from the weather, little miss knee jerk has responded to the usual stimulae in the usual fashion. Five or six pounds of butter, along with a similar weight of nuts but vastly less sugar  -  one of the reasons home made cookies taste so much better than store bought -  have already been put to use and I can tell there’s more to come.

The recipe for the gingerbread is here; rum balls are here and vanilla crescents here. The jumbles are David Schama’s Jumbles, via Rose Levy Berenbaum. The dark ones are the original (almonds, pecans, bittersweet chocolate and raisin);  the  pale ones are  pistachio, white chocolate and apricot.  Recipe is at the end of this post, where there are also recipes for Bill’s favorite spritz and my favorite pffernuesse and a link to James Beard’s Let’s Sugar Cookies, the recipe I use -  with a little less sugar and a little more mace..

I told you I wasn’t finished yet.

Mexican Chocolate Chocolate Chip Refrigerator Cookies

The Mexican part is cinnamon and almonds; there is no hot pepper. (If after all the recent overuse that combo’s still ringing your bell, I’m sure you could add a bit.) Be warned that these are crisp cookies. They have only the chips in common with the kind of “chocolate chip cookies” the phrase brings to mind, and if you use chocolate without emulsifiers they won’t even have that.

For about 40 cookies:

1 ¼ c. all purpose flour

3 tbl. cocoa

1 tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. clove

(a generous pinch of salt if you’re using unsalted butter)

4 oz. butter, malleable but not squishy

¾ c. sugar

1 egg

2 tsp. vanilla extract

½ c. small chips of bittersweet chocolate*

½ – ¾ c. finely chopped almonds

1. In a small bowl, stir flour, cocoa, spices (and salt if using) with a wire whisk until they’re well combined. Set aside.

2. Cream the butter and sugar; beat in the egg and vanilla; then stir in the flour mixture and lastly the chips.

3. The dough will be soft, but firm enough to form into rolls. If it isn’t, chill just long enough to shape. Set the almonds out on a plate. Divide dough in half.

4. Shape each half into a roll about 1 ½ ” in  diameter and roll in the almonds, pressing to embed them. Wrap the rolls tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or up to 3 days. The rolls freeze well for longer storage if wrapped again in something more protective.

5. At baking time, heat oven to 350. Cut rolls into slices about  3/8ths inch thick and put the slices about an inch apart on parchment lined baking sheets. Bake just until a broken cookie looks dry inside, 10 to 12 minutes or more depending on your oven. If the first broken cookie isn’t done, leave it on the sheet and break one of the halves for the next check.

6. Let cool a moment on the sheets, then transfer to a rack. Cookies will be soft when removed from the oven and become crisp on cooling.

* Chopped up high-end candy bar is fine. The chocolate chips I use are the little drops of  Michel Cluizel couverture Kayambe Noir (72%) sold by Chocosphere.

 A Note about the Jumbles:

Using chopped white chocolate (in this case Caillebaut) and apricots instead of bittersweet and raisins yields a very different texture because the fat melts out of the chocolate and the apricots don’t absorb as much moisture as raisins do. Result is a richer, crisper, flatter cookie.

If you want cookies with white chocolate chips to stand up, either cut the butter or up the flour.

And almost everything deciduous is down to the bare branches, many of them in need of shaping. What all this is reminding me is that I definitely need some snazzy new material for the string of garden beds that will (next spring) finally be unified into a single sweep of Things That Look Good From Inside The House When Inside Is Where We Are Most Of The Time.

Enter Eric’s excellent suggestion:

Corylopsis pauciflora – earlier than forsythia, far more delicate and FAR more fragrant, to say nothing of better behaved.

Buttercup winter hazel (Corylopsis pauciflora)

By Eric Larson

The winterhazels (Corylopsis species) are in the witchhazel family (Hamamelidaceae) and have many of the witchhazels’ virtues: fragrant flowers on bare branches, wide adaptability and ease of care. But unlike most of its siblings and cousins, Buttercup winter hazel is on the short side. It tops out at six or seven feet, ideal for the home landscape where space is at a premium. And it grows at a modest rate to its eventual manageable size, leaving little need for corrective or size pruning

In mid- to late April, this dainty shrub pops into bloom with a display of buttercup yellow flower clusters. The fragrance is delicate yet quite noticeable, making it perfect for end of the shrub border nearest the breakfast terrace (if you are lucky enough to have such an architectural element). New leaves show red edges before darkening to rich green, then (with luck) turn a rich gold-bronze before falling to reveal the slender but sturdy branches.

Witchhazels (Hamamelis species) bloom at different times: North American mostly in fall, the Chinese and other Asian species and many of their crosses generally in the late winter to early spring, much earlier than our Corylopsis. If you plant as many of the Hamamelidaceae as you can find – and fit in – you can enjoy their flowers for a good part of the year, but if you only have room for one this may be the one for you.

Like most of the Hamamelidaceae, C. pauciflora has very few insect or disease problems to worry about. This combines with its modest pruning needs to make it especially suitable as part of the ‘sustainable’ (was there ever a word so overused?) home landscape. Plant either in spring or fall, in good humus-rich acid soil, being sure to choose a nice partly shady spot.

Our winter hazel here at the garden gets lots of reflected light but no direct sunlight, and it seems to provide plenty of bloom and plenty of fall color, too.

If you can avoid windy exposed locations, you will have better luck with keeping this plant from flagging during the hotter months. In fact, if sited properly, it will need supplemental water only during severe summer drought. Mulch it well, and then let nature take its course.

This is a good addition to the shrub border, but it can also be used as a specimen and as forest underplanting. Planted in front of evergreens, the flowers, spring foliage and fall colors will show up with more contrast. A famous combination at Winterthur Gardens in Delaware includes C. pauciflora and Rhododendron mucronulatum, the soft buttery yellow of the Winterhazel providing perfect counterpoint to the rich almost electric purple of the Azalea, and of course they flower at the exact same time.  I would also look for good combinations with bulbs and other spring flowering perennials.

C. pauciflora can be hard to find, but well stocked independent nurseries sometimes carry it, usually in pots, occasionally  balled-and-burlapped. Spring bloom is fairly consistent and your best chance of finding the plant is in spring. But fall color is highly variable, so if you’re willing to shop around it pays to check out your purchase in fall.

In general, witchhazels have better fall color than winterhazels, but our winterhazel here at the garden has a rich gold color. In addition, the darker coloration along the leaf edges in the close up shows a nice reddish tint in spring after the flowers have dropped and the leaves emerge. Eventually turning green as the leaves mature, that nice touch of color in May and early June is a good foil for other colors provided by bulbs or herbaceous plants. For instance, there are several Tulips that have the same red tints and tones, so that repeating elements from ground to mid-level can be achieved.

Holiday chocolate cookie-candies, everything easy except what to call them.

These classic holiday goodies are almost perfect: Only one (processor) bowl to wash; no cooking; deeply chocolate flavored without calling for obscene amounts of expensive high-end chocolate. Very simple to form and they keep for a long time. Just one small problem: their name.

You can’t really call them Hooch-soaked Crumbs with Chocolate and Nuts, but Bourbon, Rum or Brandy Balls doesn’t exactly do the job either. Maybe they should be called Poor Man’s Truffles. Please consider this an invitation, all suggestions cheerfully considered.

What we need is something that says Small, Rich, Alcoholic* and Chocolate, without getting any more specific. After deliciousness, lack of specificity is the distinguishing merit of let’s temporarily call them SRAC’s; they’re the pasta casserole of cookies. You can make them out of almost any dry sweet you happen to have around.

In our house, that’s sometimes leftover cake, reduced to crumbs and dried in a low oven. But it’s more likely to be cookies, either from a new recipe that was tried and found wanting or from the store closet, where there are always ladyfingers in case of emergencies.  As long as the nutmeats are soft and the crumbs are on the dry side, success is guaranteed.

The many recipes I’ve seen all call for set amounts and ingredients. The one that requires 2 tbl. cocoa or a few ounces of melted chocolate to 3 or 3.5 cups of some combo of vanilla wafers, confectioners sugar and pecans is common almost to the point of universality, but anything with this sort of exact measurement strikes me as… I don’t want to say ridiculous, but certainly the kind of overkill that makes perfectly capable people think they can’t cook.

So, in the spirit of public service, here’s the “recipe” as I feel it should be, a liberator of individual creativity (and user-up of leftovers). Good any time but especially welcome in the season of maximum painstaking baking.

SRACS

(small, rich, alcoholic, chocolate cookies)

1. Round up the stuff you’re going to use, inspired but not limited by the Possible Ingredient list that follows.

2. Grind the crumb item in a processor along with a small pinch of salt. Eyeball volume. Add from ½ to the same volume of coarsely chopped nuts and grind until the mixture is very fine. It may start to clump up at this stage.

3. Grind in @ 1 tbl. of cocoa per cup of material, then whirl in a few drops of syrup, @ 1 tsp. per cup.

4. One or two tablespoons at a time, depending on the quantity and desiccation of the crumbs, add flavorful alcohol. Stop when the mixture starts to coalesce into a mass. Go away and do something else for an hour or so.

5. Test the mixture for texture and taste. It should be claylike, soft but not sticky or greasy. Adjust, adding more of something absorbent if it’s oily or soggy, something liquid or semi-liquid if it doesn’t hold together. If the taste is all that wants adjustment, start by adding the salt if you thought you didn’t need it, then add small amounts of absorbent and liquid alternately.

6. Decide if you want to coat the cookies with something that must be applied right away (option b). If so,  set out the something in a shallow bowl. Otherwise, just roll the mixture between your palms into 1-inch balls and set them aside.

Possible ingredients

Absorbent crumbs:

• Almost any plain cake. Trimmings from something that needed neatening are obvious candidates (assuming you prudently put them in the freezer), but leftover layer cake freed from the icing works fine too. Crumble and dry out before proceeding.
• Purchased or home made plain cookies. Vanilla wafers are traditional, but my favorite ready-made is Savoiardi, the Italian-style ladyfingers widely sold to be used in tiramisu. Nabisco Famous Chocolate wafers up the chocolate quotient; anise biscotti,  Graham crackers and similar add their own unique flavors. Avoid shortbread, which winds up too greasy and of course anything filled with goo (a little jam will just mix in, eventually).

Absorbent non-crumbs:

• Cocoa
• Confectioners sugar

Semi-dry, aka soft oily nuts. I like them lightly toasted:

• Pecans
• Walnuts
• Macadamia nuts

Semi-liquid, aka syrup:

• Light corn syrup
• Honey
• Maple syrup
• Golden Syrup
• Molasses (good with gingersnap crumbs)

Liquid:

• Whiskey
• Bourbon
• Brandy/Cognac/Armagnac/Calvados
• Rum
• White fruit brandies, i.e. kirsch or slivovitz
• Cautions: Cordials like triple sec, amaretto and such are very sweet and a bit overwhelming in this context. Scotch is pretty strongly a personal taste; I like drinking it but don’t care for it in these cookies. If you try it; come to the same conclusion and don’t want to waste the material, try adding a good shot of finely ground black pepper.

Coatings:

• a) Easy: These come out dry enough to pick up without getting chocolate all over your fingers, so the easiest coating is none at all. But in the usual way of chocolate pastes they don’t look particularly appetizing.
• b) Second easiest: Roll as soon as formed in cocoa, coarse sugar or powdered sugar.
• c) Still pretty simple, but now in two steps because anything with genuine texture won’t adhere: Some time within a day of forming, beat an egg white until foamy. One at a time, dip balls, scraping excess against the side of the bowl, and roll in chopped nutmeats, toasted coconut, finely chopped semisweet or white chocolate. Dry on racks. Repeat if desired for heavier coating
• d) Not easy, but not difficult if you’re willing to go for the matte home made look rather than shiny chocolatier perfection. As long as the chocolate doesn’t overheat, it won’t streak white when it sets, and I think the texture contrast that makes hard coated soft truffles such winners is worth the extra bother:

1. Chop enough semi-sweet chocolate to equal at least  a cup or use disks of couverture. (This is enough to coat about 20 1-inch balls, and about the smallest amount it’s easy to melt properly. Any that’s left over can be reused, either re-melted or chopped.)

2. Put the chocolate in a shallow bowl and microwave at low power in 30 second installments, stirring after each. Stop when the chocolate is no more than 2/3 melted. Stir until all is melted and smooth, then perch the bowl over a pan of warm but not hot water; goal is to keep it fluid without reheating it. Sweet spot is 85-90 degrees, but since you’re not really tempering the chocolate, you don’t need to worry about using a thermometer.

3. Set out a rack. Turn off the phone. Dollop a large puddle of chocolate into your left palm (or right, if you’re a leftie). Using the other hand, drop in a ball, roll it to cover, scrape excess against the edge of your hand and put the ball on the rack. Repeat.

Don’t try to use all the chocolate in your hand before adding more; body heat is warm enough to make the chocolate too hot.

See, not as messy as it sounds like.

* If you want to avoid alcohol you could probably use strong brewed coffee or orange juice, but I have to confess I’ve never tried it.

Allium christophii, aka A. albopilosum, aka Star of Persia. A prolific self-sower, among its other virtues, though succeeding generations are smaller than the originals. Also a bit less intensely purple than my camera wants you to believe.

Pop Quiz

1) How many spring-blooming bulbs is too many?

2) How many spring-blooming bulbs is there room for?

3) How many spring-blooming bulbs must be planted before there are enough to cut for the house without diminishing the outdoor show?

Around here, the answer to all three questions is “Who knows?” Several hundred into it I’m not there yet, and that’s not counting the little guys (crocus, muscarii, scilla and the like don’t even show up until there are thousands – unless you force them, which I heartily recommend).

Reason for mentioning it now, when even procrastinators – no names please – have usually gotten all of them in: CLEARANCE SALES!!

Two of my favorite Mail-order Sources are in final get rid of ‘em mode:

Brent and Becky’s, home of gazilllions of nifty narcissi as well as a wide selection of less-usual crocus and other things. Half-price while they last or until 12/05, whichever comes first.

Van Engelen, wholesale quantities and no slouch in the choice department either. Minimum order $50.00, a distressingly easy target. Forty percent off until they run out. Quantity bulbs can be “estate size,” which is to say on the small side; don’t forget to check sizes when ordering.

It being after Thanksgiving, most garden centers have already gone All Christmas All the Time, but every once in a while there’s a bin or two of orphans. And every once in a while they’re worth buying.  But not alas all that often. I’m disappointed almost every time I start inspecting them carefully for shrinkage, mold, etc.

Storage in the warm drought of sales rooms is just about the opposite of ideal, and of course anything in open bins could indeed be anything. (People who just toss their rejects into any old bin are not rare, unfortunately.)

This lily flowered mystery been coming back for years, as sturdy as the astilbe I probably planted later.

In our gardens, lily flowered tulips are among the more reliable returners. Catalogs don’t seem to list this among their virtues, so our situation may be unique. But it’s something to think about. A few other Tulip Tips are here.