Lilium 'Golden Splendor'
Because the garden is always a relief from the cares of this world.
Because you can’t beat trumpet lilies.
And because neither suspect pistachios nor plagiarized DNA is exactly a visual thrill (whoopie pies are probably a matter of opinion).
Or more accurately, brands that claim to have no connection with the plant that processed the most recent don’t-eat-it delight, can be found on this list.
In the ongoing struggle to prevent biotech companies from patenting genetic material obtained from traditional plants.
Federal Court: You Can’t Patent DNA Obtained From a Known Protein
Any food lover who has eaten a genuine whoopie pie has got to be cracking up over the current rage for – what shall we call it? – the new whoop-de-do : small cakes sandwiched with lots of rich filling that resemble the genuine article the way a square of ground Kobe beef filled with foie gras resembles a White Castle hamburger.
You can read all about it in this New York Times whoopie pie story by Micheline Maynard, or just know that ever since she tapped me for an opinion about their origin, I’ve had them rattling around in my head.
I’ve also had a container of very nice ricotta rattling around in the refrigerator. Also half a batch of the dough for Chocolate Split Seconds.
ricotta whoopie pies
Du Pont has more than 800 salespeople out helping farmers improve their yields – with genetically engineered seeds and industrial chemicals. As the Des Moines Register headlines it: In hard times, chemical industry is buoyed by agricultural need.
I didn’t put help in ironic quotes because Dupont’s reps are also offering expensive technology like satellite imaging analysis, something that is genuinely helpful when you’re managing thousands of acres.
Background: The day is warm and so is the soil. I decide to push it and plant some peas, even though the forsythia is only swollen instead of blooming and
Crocus are still the main attraction.
I look in the seedbox
It's in back. I couldn’t bear to edit him out
Gee, I thought I bought some.
It was lunchtime. I was in the kitchen. Bill went out to empty the compost before making his umptigazillionth ham sandwich ( This is not a man who believes in varying the midday menu.)
“Hey Leslie, come see what’s in the trap!”
A muskrat.
Full grown muskrat - they're smaller than you'd think.
Because sometimes people are quite suddenly coming for tea or whatever in less than an hour and there’s nothing nifty in the freezer and you deeply don’t want to go to the store and also must do something about the books and papers currently covering every flat surface in the house.
Aha, I thought, time for Lightening Cookies, aka Split Seconds, an American home cooking classic. The ingredients are always on hand; only 1 mixing bowl is needed, shaping is extremely swift and you can bake the whole batch at once.
Fifty two butter cookies - apple blackberry in back, apricot up front
but not about polluted peanut butter or killer burgers. It’s something ( potentially) even worse: legislation that in its present form could wipe out small farms, just when the government is starting to understand their enormous value.
In spite of the freakout that’s been careening around the blogosphere, these proposed laws are not a fascist plot. It’s simply that – as you may have noticed – congress has gotten into the habit of being so spooked by current events it rushes into action without considering unintended consequences.
And it looks like they’re about to do it again, this time with an avalanche of well-meaning regulations (S425, HR 759, HR 814, and HR 875 *) aimed at making our food system safer, all the way from farm to fork.
Great idea, except for the part where the laws see no difference between a California corporation with a thousand acres of lettuce and Joe the farmer with fifty acres whose lettuce is only one of twenty assorted vegetables. Read More…
Start on the endless spring to-do list. Lawn and garden cleanup, shrub pruning, seed-starting, seed planting…
and (among yet other things)
* Consider the freezer
* Start on the bulb maps
* Figure out where the garlic is going to go
* Cut back and repot tired houseplants
* Scout for morel spots Read More…
