Winter Squash Brioche with Coconut Crust, where all this started out.
Backstory: Two years ago at around this time, I used the picture above as the coda to a long list of good things to make out of leftover mashed winter squash (an item that many of us will soon have in copious amounts).
What I did not do was post the relevant recipe – even after I was very politely asked. Why? Because the recipe didn’t exist.
That’s the great thing about bread. Unlike cake, you can just make it up as you go along, starting with pureed squash, for instance, faking your way toward brioche and then playing around with the dough.
The result was certainly good enough to revisit, but what with this and what with that I never did, so I never took the notes that add up to a recipe. Until now.
Here they are
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This bald cypress is roughly nine feet high, with a spread of about four feet. Its coppery fall colors show off well against the yellow of the River Birch (Betula nigra) in the background. Not visible in Eric's snapshot are the yellow Clethra, the red and purple Itea and other plants typical of East Coast swamp lands.
As autumn takes hold over at Marsh Gardens, our friend Eric turns his attention to one of Yale’s more educational plantings, a small native bog display. There’s not much chance his bald cypress trees will attain the majesty of those in the southern swamps, but with any luck they’ll grow large enough to show how much beauty these deciduous conifers can confer on a landscape.
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As usual, it’s on the bush beside the barn, a bush that was here (and already venerable) when we arrived 20 years ago.
Mr. Lincoln, I presume?
I think it may be Mr. Lincoln, but then again not being a rose person I tend to think all fragrant deep red/black long stemmed hybrid teas are Mr. Lincoln, aka Mister Lincoln, which again not being a rose person I usually call Abraham Lincoln, even though – thank you Rogers Roses – there is no rose by that name.
Whatever it is, I offer it as evidence that plants can sometimes thrive where they have no business living at all, something to keep in mind when attending end-of-year plant sales.
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These aren’t they, but next year...
I’m not sure I’m really all that worried about it. Between the bacon and the barbeque we’re no doubt consuming enough carcinogenic material to make it a bit bogus to get all het up about the lids on the catsup – especially since after the jars are opened I switch to one of my favorite products: plastic reusable caps like the one on the strawberry jam (reasonably easy to find although not, for reasons that elude me, available wherever canning supplies are sold).
Where was I?
About to say something about “better safe,” no doubt. BPA – free canning supplies do exist.
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Choosing the date for “first frost” is always tricky – do I count a tiny brush of wilt on the lowest dahlia in the lowest spot? Or do I wait for the day when the basil turns black, summer squash – what’s left of it – goes transparent and the zinnias are no more?
Goodbye to all that.
Either way, this year “first frost” is now in the record books.
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Nobody talks much about it, but the truth is the damn things tend to multiply.
While this is going on above ground, extension is transpiring underneath.
In the space of a single summer, one wizened little dahlia tuber can become a clutch of potatolike lumps the size of a basketball and the cannas are even worse – or better, if you’ve got a spot that could use a mass of something. Just because they got overused in the days of carpet bedding shouldn’t consign using cannas as hedging to the dustbin of horticultural history.
A section of the side yard hedge (as seen from the driveway) at the Hudson Valley house. The canna is 'Tropicana;' the neat black grass is millet 'Purple Majesty.'
This is by way of saying that – assuming you’ve got room in the cellar or garage – too much of a good thing may be just enough. And of course a bit more of an expensive thing is its own kind of gratification.
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Eric's Salvia farinacea 'Victoria Blue' and Canna x 'Pretoria'
We are in the season of summing up and looking ahead. Half-empty types (that would be me) are making careful notes of what failed to thrive, what failed to please and why. Those with sunnier dispositions (that would be our friend Eric, over at Yale) are reflecting on their successes and planning repeats.
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A recent sighting at Schoolhouse Farm, in Warren, Maine
We grow a lot of the food we put by for the winter, so most of the relevant posts here start in our own back yard. But as I was just saying on the radio, you don’t need to have a garden to take advantage of seasonal abundance; there’s plenty of it at farm stands and farmers markets. And it’s a bargain. When the fields are yielding full tilt, locally grown produce is not only far more delicious than the stuff in the supermarket, it’s also far less expensive.
Seasonal, however, is the magic word; if you want to eat well in the winter you have to stock up when the stocking is good. It’s easiest if you have a big freezer but even if your freezer is small and already full of pizza and ice cream, saving great produce for winter is not difficult.
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Autumn leaf time coming right up. This is Oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) demonstrating a quarter of its 4-season appeal.
It was warm when we got to the Hudson Valley the other day. Then it got warmer, and warmer, topping out yesterday – I hope! – at about eighty-five. “ September is the new August,” said Bill, with more than a little justification.
August/September-blooming Lespedeza thunbergii, in full regalia in front of the barn.
But there’s more to seasons than temperature, and (so far) the Earth’s orbit hasn’t changed. The solstice is behind us and apples are ripening, whether we like it or not.
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Dear Mr. President, how about these? (Clockwise from top: Winesap, Pink Lady, Stayman
The President’s office has had the requisite makeover, pictures in the NY Post, story in the NY Times, reviews galore all over the net. Expect I’m not alone in agreeing with just about all of them, including both the snarky – it looks like a business hotel; the rug is a tad obvious – and the sympathetic: it looks restrained and comfortable and anyway he can’t do anything too stylish when there’s a recession on.
He also can’t do anything even remotely interesting or he’ll just exacerbate the out-of-touch-with-regular-folks problem. But that’s neither here nor there. What I want to know is “what kind of apples are in that bowl of same gracing (if that’s the word) the jazzy new coffee table?”
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