Last week’s maple syrup celebration (pie included) went up in some haste, because I was being rushed by the weather. Day after day the same: sunny and pushing 70 degrees. Not suggestive of syrup season. I felt there was no time to lose.
Then – what else is new? – it proceeded to back around so cold the loss seemed more likely to involve blooming crocus and hellebores, swelling buds of narcissus and hyacinth and early peonies. I spent a lot of time running around with heaps of straw instead of attending to maple posting.
Fortunately, in the event, Friday’s predicted low of 14 did not materialize; almost everything came through ok, and it’s once again March, chilly enough to talk about syrup.
Down East Company Coleslaw – a cabbage-taming touch of maple makes all the difference
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Who has again said very kind things in a post I’m blocked from responding to. This time she unexpectedly came across a book of mine – Reading Between the Recipes – in its stolen incarnation, The Yankee New England Cookbook. You can read what she said here.
What I said… or tried to say, (Vee, we can’t keep meeting this way!) was:
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who could help with an ID?
Any of the pale ones look familiar?
My friend Gary Lincoff, author of The Audubon Field Guide to North American Mushrooms, teacher at the New York Botanical Garden and crocus enthusiast, is a naming things kind of guy. So when he saw the crocus picture in the Maple Syrup post he wanted to know exactly which species and cultivars they were.
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Okay, this may finally do it. For years I’ve been wanting to plant ‘Flying Dragon’, a contorted dwarf form of hardy orange that’s even more gorgeous than the species, and now here’s Eric giving it the pet treatment, just to remind me.
Thorny green lacework in winter, fragrant flowers in spring, aromatic fruit and golden foliage in fall. What’s not to love?
Lack of space and lack of warmth have combined to restrain me, but if I could get one going in a big pot and leave the pot outdoors year ’round…
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Seems like only a moment ago this was shaping up to be the best maple syrup season in years. Alternation of frosty nights and mild days? Check. Saturated ground pushing the sap flow to gusher dimensions? Check. Buckets everywhere? Yup. Blogger testing maple recipes? Night and day.
Ricotta with maple syrup and oil-cured black olives, a trio from heaven
And then – Hot Snap. Enemy of syrup making. Instant wilter of species crocus.
in cool weather, three weeks of delight. If hot, not.
Who knew the drearier aspects of March could be something you’d miss?
The person whose crocus those are, of course. On the good side, I finally figured out how to get a crisp bottom crust on a maple walnut pie without pre-baking the shell, my very least favorite part of pastry making.
Walnut Maple Tart looking tipsy (‘twas the camera, not the tart) and Maple Walnut Pie
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Carouby de Maussane snow pea; the shoots and flowers are (almost) as delicious as the peas
This morning was loud with geese, still symbolic even though they don’t migrate much any more. Everyone is either wearing something green or else proudly pointing out they’re NOT wearing something green. It isn’t time for us to plant peas quite yet – spring and St. Patrick notwithstanding – but those in slightly warmer climes are clearly already at it. The post with directions for building a simple pea trellis is close to the top of the frequent hit list.
The original Sugarsnaps aren’t just the best tasting snap pea; they’re also very heavy-bearing.
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still, although there are only a couple left – both of them big gaudy Dutch hybrids. Then all will be quiet until the promising papilios bloom (or don’t) sometime in early to mid summer.
This is a stem of Benfica, reputedly the deepest, darkest red. It's much darker and redder than this picture suggests.
or this one either, for that matter.
Thus we arrive at the moment for talking about long-term amaryllis care. Questions have been coming in, so here’s the drill:
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Yes, yes, I know: “for dummies” is just a convenient code that means “for non-experts, in non-technical language,” but if I live to be a million I’ll never understand what’s dumb about wanting that.
part of our Hudson Valley vegetable garden
In Kitchen and Garden has always been In Garden for Kitchen as much as anything else, so there’s a lot about growing vegetables tucked in among the posts about flowers and shrubs, preserves and pastries and architecture and wild mushrooms and coyotes and
where was I?
Giving pointers on food gardening, I think. Here are a few posts that may prove helpful as we teeter on the brink of the 2010 growing season:
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It must be spring – after a string of posts from the greenhouses, our friend Eric over at Yale is moving outdoors again. But he’s still in highlight-the-underdog mode. Today’s pet plant is pretty much the Rodney Dangerfield of conifers.
Granted, Pinus rigida isn’t usually much to look at, but it is singularly resilient, and perhaps fittingly, it does approach genuine beauty just where it’s needed most: at the salty, wind-scoured seaside and on rocky slopes, where it can survive in crumbs of soil too scant for anything else.
One of Eric’s young pitch pines.“This one is only 5 years old but looking good,” he says.
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Having just used “threat or menace,” albeit jokingly, I don’t suppose I can say the same about the “Real Food Challenge” (reported here) that’s currently sucking up so much internet ink. In fact, it’s probably unwise to give the thing any more PR by giving it an Eek.
But I can’t resist, because it’s such a classic example of the all-knowing self-righteous preaching that helps the processed food industry keep its stranglehold on the American diet.
Some are ok, some aren't. Can you guess which of these foods you're supposed to make yourself, or never heat - or not eat at all?
Left to right: Back row – Butter, smoked Spanish paprika, olive oil, hard cider, whole wheat flour, center – local cheese: Barat, from Sprout Creek Farm, and Shaker Blue, from Old Chatham Sheepherding Company, (home made cherry preserves, here for another reason), cocoa, thick cut rolled oats.
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