Dear Vermont, Today I Forgive You For Winter. . . Even March

I spent a half hour yesterday afternoon in the garden with my family taking photos and had this moment of realization. This is why I live here. It's not the six months of winter with another month of absolute yuck on either end. It's not because I love driving forty-five minutes to a decent grocery store, or thirty-five minutes to daycare. It is true that Vermont is not always the easiest place to live. But in brilliant summer moments like this one it is a very easy place to love.

The Sweetness of Summer in Vermont

There were definitely a few desperate moments this winter when I was pretty sure there was still going to be snow on the ground in June. But summer has finally come to the shire. The flowers and lush greenery are amazing, and the stark landscape of winter seems lightyears away. These are pictures from around the yard yesterday afternoon, just after a rain. These days are so luscious, and so few and fleeting that sometimes they have a sweet sadness to them. It is something we didn't realize during our first summer in Vermont after Brooklyn. We traveled, and we were busy, and it all slipped by before we realized it. Now we stay put, and travel in February like sensible Vermonters.

  You may already be sick of Peonies, but ours just came into full bloom yesterday, so I am still in love.

This is actually deadly nightshade. . . TH was a little worried to hear it was growing in the garden. . . don't know why. . .

Ellery and the Baby Gym

We are doing well here.  Insanely busy, what with now balancing the needs of two (mostly) sweet kiddos with the demands of business with work.  Happily people have been ordering lots of jewelry, so we are having to figure out how to balance everything right off the bat.  

Ellery is now almost 3 months old, and starting to do things.  Intentionally, I mean.  He is reaching for things, using his hands a little, and making lots of great new baby sounds.  And he is as fat as a house, and very cute.

Spring weather has finally arrived here, followed in about three hours by the black flies.  Ah, life in Vermont!  And things are getting going in the garden, which is very exciting.

I'm sorry about the lack of posts.  It is hard to find the time, although I do miss it!  I do a lot more on Instagram these days, so if you want to keep up with what is going on around here, both creatively and with the little family please find me over there.

xo

Patio Spinach

This is the worlds easiest and most satisfying thing to grow, and you can grow it anywhere you can fit a window box.  All you need is a little sun, and some spinach seeds, and you can have fresh greens in the early spring and through the late fall.  They like a coolish ground temperature for germination, like around 60-65 degrees, so depending on where you live you may only be able to grow them in the transitional seasons.  Or if you are in the mid-atlantic you can probably grow greens right through the winter. 

The trick is that you thickly plant a pot or window box with seeds, don't bother with rows or anything, and then as the leaves get big enough to eat you snip them with scissors leaving the root system intact.  Then the smaller leaves below grow to take their place.  And if you keep snipping and watering they keep on growing.  And the greens really do taste a whole lot better when they are home grown than the ones in the box from the store.  It works with other types of baby green too.  So if you have room for a window box you can have a tiny garden with really very little effort.  And they grow so close together you don't even ever have to weed them.  It is truly no fuss.  

Lunch Idea

Good tomato season is so short, especially here in Vermont!  And even if you don't have your own garden there are still so many (probably way better looking than my funny looking ones) heirloom tomatoes at the farmers markets.  This is the only time of year that a plain old tomato sandwich with salt and mayo on crusty bread is a really appealing option.  You could even make this for yourself at work, all you need is a knife.  Fast, easy and delicious, and so fleeting.

Put an Egg on it

This is my new favorite kitchen sink style spring meal.  I call it a kitchen sink meal because you can really make it with almost any vegetables you happen to have in your fridge.  I adapted it from a Momofuku recipe I found on chow.com for roasted asparagus with miso butter with a poached egg on top.  The miso butter, poached egg combo is pretty amazing, and it is a great foil to some slightly bitter greens.  In the photos above it is made with roasted baby bok choy, broccoli, and scallions.  I also added a little sticky rice on the side to stir in, which bulks it up to a hearty and healthy main course.  I use the same basic cooking times as the Momofuku recipe, so click here to see how to make it yourself.  I highly recommend adding some scallion halves (cut lengthwise).  I have also made it with asparagus and fiddleheads, but that season is mostly past.  But I plan to keep adapting this through the summer with whatever is coming out of the garden.

p.s. My friend Holly told me that putting a poached egg on things is all the rage now in New York restaurants, so I am quietly patting myself on the back over here for managing to be so on-trend out here in the boonies!

Take a Deep Breath

A Person Could Really Starve Gardening This Way. . .

 It looks like a lot of lettuce, right? And I grew it from seed in this little planter in my Mom's greenhouse.  I'm very proud of it, it is so healthy and happy.  So tonight we needed a little lettuce for our dinner salad, so I thought it could be time to do the first harvest.

This is what it looks like when you pull some up.  Still more like micro greens than baby greens.  And you should have seen me down there carefully selecting which seemed to be the most mature plants.  I probably burned more calories selecting and pulling it than I gained eating it. (Plus I looked like a crazy person, but luckily I was alone)

I could have easily eaten the whole planter, if I was just having salad for dinner.  But luckily there was a chicken, so I could hold back, and most of the lettuces will live to see another day.

The Last of the Green Things

I am very proud of these brussels sprouts, because I grew them from seed.  Brussels sprouts have a very long growing season, so they can be hard to grow up here where the gardening season is relatively short.  So most years I try to grow a few of the slower growing things from seed, winter squash, melons, leeks, and mostly fail.  Usually my little seedlings are so puny by the time it is time to put them in the ground that they are pretty much doomed to fail.  But not this time!  Most of the sprouts are pretty small, much smaller than you'd get in a store, but they are very tasty.

The top picture is one of the leaves from the brussels sprout plant that went astray on its way to the compost pile.  I found it the next morning covered in frost.

Chipping Carrots Out of the Ground

Smart people pull their carrots out of the ground before the ground freezes.  Procrastinators, on the other hand, have to spend an hour chiseling them out of the ground with two shovels.  Which one of those groups do you think I'm in?

The October Garden and Show Wrap-Up

We had our first major frost over the weekend, and although we tried to save the peppers by covering them with a sheet it was just too far below freezing for that to be enough.  So anything frost tender is looking pretty grim out there.  But I was thrilled to pull my first turnip and find it to be so round and handsome.  I very rarely cook with turnips, although we have so many out there I think that is about to change.  Any recipe suggestions?

It is weirdly warm today, and I am hoping to get out in the garden this afternoon to do a little clean up, pull some more turnips, and dig up the onions and potatoes before they rot in the ground.  We'll see if we can get the boy into the fresh air after a busy and tiring day at school, fingers crossed.

And please notice my gorgeous new cutting board.  I bought over the weekend this from my neighbor at the Weston Craft Show, David Munyak.  We use cutting boards constantly around here, and I decided I might as well have a good looking one! Kind of like a nice pair of jeans, or a good pair of glasses, if something is going to be such a major part of your life it is worth spending a little money to get something that will make your eyes happy.  The show this weekend was truly lovely, sales were steady, but the best part about it by far was connecting with other local artisans.  I am really starting to feel like I am part of a community of amazing people, and it feels really good.

The Last of the Tomatoes. . .

The last of the tomatoes, plus another haul of tomatillos.  And there are still LOADS of these things out there!  Aside from tomatillo salsa does anyone have any idea what to do with them?? I'm a little tired of doing the same old thing, although I made and froze a ton of salsa last year and still ran out mid-winter.  But please send any other tomatillo suggestions my way!

I haven't forgotten the rest of the Richmond posts, I just wanted to do a quick check in here at home, and I thought these colors were too pretty not to share. Oysters and candlelight are next, I swear.

A Weekend of Not Labor

We had a very action packed labor day weekend up here, and none of it was packed with labor, which was the best part about it.  Being self-employed we almost always work at least a little bit on weekends, so this was a welcome break.  We went to quite a few picnics, one of which was thrown by friends at their lovely mountain-top spot in the photos above.  (There were actually other people at the picnic, I swear, but I somehow managed not to catch them in these photos)

I discovered my new favorite breakfast, which is a kind of poor-mans-bagel-and-lox, which is an everything bagel, chopped fresh garden tomato, capers, cream cheese, fresh red onion, and salt.  Basically everything you can put on a bagel, minus the lox.

And I finally started processing the garden produce in a way that we'll be able to enjoy it in the months to come.  Above is Smitten Kitchen's recipe for oven dried cherry tomatoes, which you can check out here.  And below is a batch of oven roasted tomatillo salsa, which you can see here.  Both very easy, and very yummy. 

So now I have staved off the garden guilt for at least a few days, and can get down to preparing for the next show of the fall season, stART on the Street, in Worcester, MA on September 16th.  Also, today is Emmett Bean's first day of preschool, so stay tuned tomorrow for the obligatory photos of the small child in clean clothes and a large backpack.  Probably organized parent would have given him a bath last night so that he was clean too, but, well, I guess that tells you what kind of parents we are. . . But I'm sure there will be many tears this morning when I drop him off, possibly both his and mine, so please think warm thoughts for us on our big day!  (And you can possibly do a little happy dance for us in our very quiet and distraction free house around 10am) 

Making Applesauce With Mom

My mom has made applesauce from the apples from our early mac trees pretty much every year for as long as I can remember.  This year I finally signed on to help so that I could learn how it is done.  This is a little photo journal of the process, so I'll always have a reference.

Wash all the apples in the sink. It's ok if they have some questionable spots to be removed later

Cut apples into chunks, removing any brown or wormy spots, stems, and any crevices that could trap dirt

Put the apple segments in a large pot over a diffuser so the bottom doesn't burn or brown.  Add enough water to help the apples stew.  Cook until very soft and mostly disintegrated. 

Pass through a food mill and pour milled apples back into the pot to be seasoned with sugar and cinnamon to taste

Spoon applesauce into sterilized jars and add a half teaspoon of powdered citric acid to prohibit botulism 

Place new lid on jar and add ring.  Tighten ring, and then loosen slightly to allow air to escape in the boiling water bath.  Simmer filled jars submerged in the boiling water bath for ten minutes and then remove carefully with jar tongs.  Place them on the counter and wait for the seal to form as the jars cool, then tighten down the ring all the way.

My parents are thinking about selling this house, and if they do it is traditions like this that will be the saddest to let go of.  I don't know if having all of these photos will make it harder or easier, but I know in the long run I'll be glad to have them, and hopefully Emmett will too.