Photo inspired by a bit of my morning reading - here. These came from our asparagus bed, which grows wider every year. I picked them yesterday, and I plan to pick a few more today and tomorrow, as they become tall enough. Favorite way to cook asparagus? Actually, there are two: either tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper and grilled on our charcoal grill...or sauteed in a pan with a little butter, little lemon juice, salt and pepper. Yum.
It's finally starting to feel like October, temperature-wise (80 degree weather does NOT, in my opinion, belong in October. Glad THAT's over.) and so yesterday Bill picked some more herbs and I packed them in oil and froze them, like I talked about in this post a while back. This time I added oregano, chives, tarragon and thai basil to the collection in the freezer, along with some more sage and basil, because we just have so much of them.
Bill also pulled the cilantro plants, which had ceased looking like cilantro and had transformed into seed-bearing coriander plants, like so:
While he and the kids pulled up the strawberry bed (we need to put them in a better spot next year - they just haven't been doing well where they were.) I picked all the little seeds off the coriander plants.
This was not as tedious as it may sound - it was kind of relaxing, actually. No thinking involved. Just picking the seeds....
I've left them in a bowl to finish drying out, and then we'll put them in a jar with the other herbs and spices and use them for spice mixtures and rubs throughout the winter.
This past Saturday morning we got together with friends of ours to go to The Southern New England Giant Pumpkin Championship at Frerichs Farms in Warren, RI.
I've never been before but our friends went last year. It's very much a country fair, only on a smaller and single-themed scale. There were a few fun things for the kids to do, including a pony ride, and there was food. But most importantly, there was the 1,000 lb pumpkin drop.
That was at noon, so we made sure to arrive in time to watch this most exciting part of the event.
A crane was set up in a fenced off area and a big pumpkin was lifted way, way up high.
And then, the pumpkin was released,
And it fell down, down, down...
Until...
It smashed
And then the crowd cheered. Hooray! We've dropped a vegetable from a great height and it smashed! Yay!
Almost immediately, people rushed to examine the remains. Small children carried around chunks of pumpkin innards as souvenirs.
Later on, they held the weigh-off. First, they weighed the giant hubbard squashes. There weren't as many of those - it's a newer category, and there aren't as many brave hubbard squash obsessives growers out there. Yet. After the hubbards, they started in on the pumpkins.
After each vegetable was weighed, it was transported out of the competition ring and set off to the side, where children and their parents could pose for pictures with them.
Like this. (It was a very bright, hot, sunny day. Can't you tell?)
And where was Julia? See that orange, pumpkin-shaped cage way in the back, there? That's the pumpkin ride. When I heard there was a pumpkin ride, I thought kids would, you know, ride on the pumpkins. Um, no. It's a hayride in a big pumpkin frame, drawn by a tractor. Bill and Julia bravely took the ride.
They also, as I mentioned, had pony rides, which was probably the highlight of the day for my kids.
We stayed a couple of hours - but eventually the heat and overwhelming pumpkin-ness got to the kids and they both wanted to go home. So we did.
They ate some Halloween Dunkin Donuts Munchkins on the way home...
It was about a 45 minute ride.
And within twenty minutes...
And they were both out.
If you want to see all the pictures, they're posted here.
Last weekend the onslaught began. The tomatoes are coming in. We were getting some here and there for a while, but last week they began to ripen in earnest, and so for the next few weeks, our house will be smelling like warm tomatoes and chopped herbs on a regular basis.
I've got 4 baking dishes of tomatoes in the oven right this moment - with more tomatoes in the wings that will be ready in a few days. And plenty more ripening outside.
Transformation...
And then they're packed up and stashed away in the freezer.
I've also harvested a ton of basil and made a sort of pre-pesto mixture - just the basil and some olive oil, and a clove or two of garlic to get the fun started.
From the garden...to the food processor...
to the freezer. I top each container off with a bit more olive oil, cover them, and they're done.
I pack them into fairly small containers, since a little pesto will go a long way. I'm set for the next two years, I think.
And I also thought I'd see what would happen if I did the same thing with other herbs. So last Sunday:
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
At some point today or tomorrow I'll do a few more batches...we still have tarragon, oregano, thai basil, and another variety of thyme (the above is creeping thyme...we also have summer thyme, which has a stronger flavor. We had lemon thyme for a while, but it hasn't come back in the past couple of years...something to think about for next year. I love it with fish.). We have chives, too, but they tolerate the cooler weather, so we'll probably just use them up as we head into winter. And we have mint - but much of it has been depleted by several recent rounds of mojitos.
Anyway, that's the update from the garden and the kitchen for today. Time to go check the tomatoes again. The aroma is intoxicating....
You're right - there wasn't one. I had typed in this long garden update post, with pictures from the garden, a couple of basic recipes - and at the very end, suddenly I couldn't upload the picture of the eggplant in the garden...and I tried again and again...and then finally figured FINE, I'll just save what I've got as a draft and try again later. Nope. Couldn't do that either. (Of course now that I think about it, I could have saved the whole thing as a word document...but it didn't occur to me yesterday.) So anyway - yesterday's post? Gone.
So here's the shortened version:
Our gardens are a tangle of greens - leaves and vines and tendrils and thorns. It always looks crazy and unkempt at this point - but it's the best time as well, because everything is producing.
We've got cucumbers and zucchini aplenty - good thing the kids like them. And we've got tomatoes ripening - actually, Bill found some red ones yesterday - they're small, a bit bigger than cherry tomatoes - I can't think of the name at the moment (I'm hurrying because I have to leave for work soon) but anyway - two ripe little tomatoes yesterday afternoon. I cut one into two for the kids to share, and cut the other for Bill and I. There is nothing better - NOTHING better - than a warm tomato, just picked. Unless it is a tomato sandwich made from a warm, freshly picked tomato - on white bread with mayo, salt and pepper. Don't go gussying it up with other stuff - no, if you're going to have a tomato sandwich, then be pure about it.
Anyway. We've also got tons of basil, which I will cut back soon and run through the food processer with some olive oil and pack in small containers to freeze. I also do something like that with the tomatoes - I've probably mentioned it before...you slice the tomatoes in half, or smaller if you've got different sized tomatoes working together. You put everything - cut sides up - in a baking pan and pour a generous amount of olive oil over all them. I sprinkle some salt and pepper on too. You can sprinkle herbs on too, but I don't because I like to be able to do that later, depending on what I'm making. But I jump ahead. You put the pan of tomatoes (or, if it's August and you're drowning in tomatoes, many pans) in an oven set around 300-325 and bake for at least an hour. You're looking for the tomatoes to give up a lot of water and to shrivel and shrink in the process. They will cook gently in the warm oil, and at the end they will be sweet and heavenly. It's up to you how long you cook them. You don't want them to burn, of course, but a little brown or black is okay.
After you've taken them out, let them cool and then scrape the whole mixture into a container, cover, and stick them in the freezer. You can use them later for sauces, pasta dishes, pizza - whatever and however. The point is - it's the best thing in the world to have a taste of summer produce in the middle of January.
Gotta go - talk to you later!
I was outside around 6 this morning while the kids watched "Stuart Little 3" and Bill slept.
I love this time of day...I like the angle of the sun and the dew on everything. Here's a bit of what I saw out there...
Now do you see the little pink reflection in the water droplets above?
It's a reflection of the pink rose above it. Isn't that cool? If I had a different lens, I could have captured more detail...but still...kind of a fun little moment in my morning. (Yes, I'm goofy.)
(Mere? This one above is the one I was talking about...can't remember what it's called.)
And that's the lot. Well, there were more, but this is a representative sampling.
Today we've got Alex's preschool "graduation" to go to - that's a bit later this morning. After that we may go to the pet store and get another lizard. The frog that shared the tank with the anole was found dead last Saturday morning in a corner of the tank. So no more mixing of amphibians and reptiles in the same tank, according to Bill. He saw some other kind of anole that he wants to get, so I think we'll be adding that creature to the menagerie this afternoon.
For now, that's all. Have to start figuring out what the cute clothes I can make the kids wear for the song-fest today. Alex told me they will be singing "We love our flag," "My country 'tis of thee," "Take me out to the ballgame," and a couple of other graduation-themed songs like "hello kindergarten" and "bye bye preschool" or something like that. He says he has to stand during all of this (because he's in the oldest of the 3 preschool groups...plus he's tall) and he doesn't want to because then his legs will hurt. Uh huh. You're singing anyway, buddy. Your legs will be fine.
The other night he told me he didn't want to sing because all his teeth would pop out. I don't know where he gets these ideas. But I told him that he could bring a bowl with him to catch his teeth if it happened.
Have a lovely day, wherever you are!
...and the corn is as high as...
...well, okay...not exactly...and not yet....
After my walk Saturday morning, I went back to my sister's house to take some pictures of her flowers.
She has a TON of gorgeous pink irises that are blooming. Mine haven't bloomed yet, but I'm thinking within the next day or so they'll start. Here are some of hers:
And a bit of detail...
Anyway, the rest of the batch can be found here.
My irises are all standing tall, with multible buds on each stalk, just waiting to bloom. One brave stalk decided to start earlier this week. It's right near our front steps, and I think the wind whacked it against the steps and broke the flower's neck because when I came home from work that day, expecting to see the purple flower fully opened, it was...but it was also bent over at an unnatural and horrifying angle. So I snapped the flower off to put me out of my misery.
Another bud followed a day or so later, but it was low enough that it didn't suffer any damage when the wind blew.
I've also got several yellow irises just waiting to open. Unfortunately it's been cold and rainy for the last few days, and the buds are all huddled together, shivering and closed, waiting for the sun to welcome them.
They've got a bit of a wait. We're not supposed to see the sun until Monday. I don't know if they can wait that long.
Anyway, enough anthropomorphosizing of the flora.
Things are coming up in the vegetable gardens nicely - we've got to pick the arugula and broccoli rabe TODAY because the rabe, at least, is going to seed, and the arugula is certainly big enough to provide enough leaves for a little salad. Or to go into a couple of sandwiches.
I took a few pictures out our big front window this morning - the pansies are sprinkled in leftover rain...I love that. I think I get some distortion photographing them through the glass, but I'm not tall enough to go outside and get the shot from there. Anyway, here's how things are looking in the window box...
I just took another look at the yellow irises...just in case. But no. They are still closed.
This afternoon we're having cake and ice cream for Julia - her birthday is tomorrow. She'll be three.
Time flies...
Doesn't it?
Enjoy your day!
I knew I'd taken this picture...I was taking shots of the gardens, my kids, flowers...and the lobster pots and buoys behind the garage. I loaded everything from my camera into my laptop, and later on did some organizing...things garden-related...things kid-related...and things I wanted to eventually post here.
And I lost the picture. I found one that I liked of a couple of buoys. And a lobster pot image. My husband has a non-commercial lobstering license. He can drop up to 5 pots. Unfortunately, we don't have a boat at the moment, so lobstering is kind of in limbo.
But anyway. Tonight I sat down with the Red Sox on the tv and decided I'd change the banner. Time for something that just screams SPRING. I think I've managed that.
And then - over to the left side of my desktop...below a line of other icons...there it was. The icon for this picture.
And now...I can share it with you....behold...
While the kids were watching "Happy Feet" for the third time since last night, I ran outside to check on the peas and broccoli rabe, and anything else I might find in a hurry.
First of all,
No peas yet. We have six of these 5-gallon buckets, and Bill planted peas in all of them. This is the only orange one, and with the blue tarp to one side, it made at least a colorful image, even without anything green visible beneath the row cover. No broccoli rabe, either.
Some new leaf growth on our monster rose. The monster rose started out as a tiny little rose plant in a 5 inch pot that we bought at a plant sale years ago. There was this house near the tiny place we rented before we bought our current home... The husband had a little greenhouse in one corner of the yard and GORGEOUS flower beds covered most of the rest of the property. Every August he thinned out his gardens and potted up the overflow and sold it. We bought a lot of irises from him and two rose bushes. They were just little bitty things, and we had no idea what they would grow into. I thought they were mini roses, I think.
Well, there's nothing mini about this one. See the thick end that's obviously been trimmed? Bill trimmed that last year. It was NEW GROWTH last year. You know Audrey II from "Little Shop of Horrors?" Well this is her cousin, Wild Crazy Rose. No matter how much Bill cuts her back, she just spreads and stretches and shoots out a ton of new growth every year. If left untended, she would take over the block. Before lunch time.
I like her - she has a ton of small pink blossoms all summer - they have no fragrance, but they look beautiful, sprawling along the fence and planning a mutiny against Bill with the other roses.
And this is the other "mini" rose we bought way back when. This one doesn't sprawl - she's much more docile and content to stay at the corner of this garden near the driveway. Again, there's new leaf growth. The flowers are a funky orangy pink. Not my favorite color, but she blooms a lot and really brightens up the yard.
And while we're visiting roses, this is Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln is a long stem rose bush with beautiful dark red blooms. And they smell like roses. (Okay, duh. But - oh, man, these flowers smell like other roses wish they smelled. Yeah. I'm reaching. But still. Really. So very fragrant.) Bill bought Mr. Lincoln a couple of years ago because this variety is incredibly hardy and our climate isn't always the friendliest for roses. If I remember right, the other roses we'd moved from Bill's mom's gardens after she passed away still hadn't settled in and started to flourish, so I think Mr. Lincoln was mostly a gift from Bill to himself to keep from going insane about the other roses.
And it's truly hardy. I don't think Mr. Lincoln is going anywhere. Which is fine with me. Don't tell the others, but I think he's my favorite.
And this is Emmett. Our garden gargoyle. He's currently residing under one of the two forsythia plants we bought last year. He seems content.
This was supposed to be our first daffodil this year. Well, techincally it still is, but last weekend a small child (one of ours or possibly the little boy from across the street - he and Alex were running around through the yard with sticks and it's possible this is when tragedy struck.) But even with a nearly broken stem, this little daffodil bloomed anyway.
And finally (for today) - little bits of green peeking through the dead leaves and debris in our little strawberry patch. We planted new ones last year but weren't supposed to harvest any in order for the plants to get strong and established. This year we can pick them. Yay!
And that's it for tonight.
Not a whole lot new from last week - the seedlings are growing, but it's been pretty cold out, so Bill can't start to harden them off yet. Things are kind of in limbo until we get a bit warmer weather.
But here are a few pictures I took this morning...
Cilantro...
This is the arugula (above) - it's doing really well. One of my favorite greens...nice and peppery.
Summer thyme continues to get bigger...
And pac choi...
Tiny forests.
This morning I took a few pictures out the front window. It rained last night and everything was still sparkling and dewy...
These were the first two pansy blossoms left over from last year...
And these...
are some of the pansies my son picked out last weekend.
And there were white ones too, like this bud.
Meanwhile, in the basement, those seeds Bill planted last weekend have sprouted and the seedlings are shooting up tall and skinny. Much like my husband did when he was a sprout, I imagine...
Here's some arugula underneath the plastic cover...
And through this hole in the plastic, you can see some summer thyme.
And finally, some swiss chard.
There are lots more little baby plants poking up through the soil. I haven't checked outside to see how the broccoli rabe is doing. I don't believe the peas are up yet. But it's just a matter of time.
We've got lots of tulips coming up too - we planted a ton of bulbs in the front gardens, along the front walk, and in the garden beside the driveway. Our lone daffodil blossom was ready to bloom on Sunday...until a small child stepped on it. Not sure if the small child was ours or the neighbor's. Ah well. There will be more....
The kids and I went down to my parents' house this morning, and while we were gone, Bill planted seeds in trays and has them set up with lights and little markers indicating what's growing where.
There will be more, but these are the ones that he starts in March:
Arugula, Cilantro, Lettuce, Oregano, Pac Choi, Radicchio, Parsley, Rosemary, Sage, Swiss Chard, Creeping Thyme, Summer Thyme, and Tarragon.
We're also (well, HE's also) going to dig up the monster raspberry bush before it devours our yard and the rest of the block, and plant a portion of it in a whiskey barrel. We can't just get rid of it, because it was his mom's, and she'd probably come back and do something to get even, like turn all his beer flat.
This is the whiskey barrel. To the left of it you can see stalks from the raspberry bush. To the right is Julia. The phrase "cow poop" finally sunk in while she was running her hands through the manure that Bill added to the peat moss and the soil today.
These are five of the six buckets of peas...with their protective little hats on...
And here is the main garden where lots of little broccoli rabe seeds were planted.
And also - the tarragon from last year is coming back. You can see little bits of green in among the dead twigs. Bill planted more tarragon, but it's not a terrible thing to have more than one plant.
And these are the pansies that Alex selected for me yesterday.
Yesterday my husband planted two kinds of peas, and today he planted broccoli rabe in about 30 squares in the main garden. The peas and the rabe are cool weather "crops" and will do fine even if it shows tonight, which it's supposed to. Bill will start most of the other seeds indoors soon, and after we harvest the rabe in May, it'll be time to put all the other seedlings in.
Before planting the rabe, Bill mixed some manure into the soil, which has already been mixed with compost from our overflowing bins behind the garage.
While he did that, I looked around for tiny signs of spring. In the photo above we've got chives coming up...
New growth and leaf buds on our monster climbing rose...
And a mini crocus or two or three coming up along the front walk.
Happy Spring!
Here's what we're Bill's going to start from seed this year:
Broccoli rabe
Peapods and Sugar Snap Peas
Arugula
Cilantro
Lettuce (not sure what kind - something green)
Oregano
Bok Choy
Parsley
Rosemary
Sage
Summer Thyme
Creeping Thyme
Swiss Chard
Tarragon
Basil (Thai and Sweet)
Corn (Tom Thumb popcorn and Silver Queen)
Cucumbers
Dill
Eggplant (Italian and Japanese)
Hot Peppers (Cayenne, Jalapeno, Ancho, Habanero)
Mustard Greens
Tomatoes (Brandywine, Ridorta, Rio Grande, Borghese, probably yellow pear, Sweet 100)
Zucchini
Bell peppers
Carrots
Bush beans
Pumpkins
Radicchio
Parsnips
Fennel
And we also have strawberries, blueberries, asparagus, horseradish, chives, mint, and raspberries that will come back...and sour cherries from the tree.
The fun begins....
It's clouding over, but today is at least a bit warmer than it's been for the past few days. I'm not complaining about the cold - I love winter - but there also comes a point when I'm just ready for things to start turning green, and for bits of color to burst open.
We've all been outside today - first I had the kids fill the paper recycle bin with stuff that accumulated inside, then we put food out for the birds.
When Bill got home from a rehearsal, he took the kids out to play, and he puttered around in the garage and pulled logs from the woodpile to bring inside. I went outside for a bit, too, and here are a few of the sights...
This is Julia holding a little rock she found.
...a branch from our cherry tree...
...tulips coming up in the front garden...
...and Alex brought me a tiny yellow johnny-jump-up from beside the garage.
I think this is one of my favorite parts of the year - not winter, not spring, but the turning point from one to the next.
Yesterday morning was beautiful - frost covered everything. I went outside and took a bunch of pictures. Here are a couple of them...
And this one...all that remains of Sid the Snowman...
The day warmed up - it was beautiful out - felt like spring.
It was also Brew Day for my husband and a few other people - I took a bunch of pictures of that event too...but more on that later. For now - my coffee awaits...then i'm bringing the kids to my sister's house so the cousins can play together and the grown ups can drink coffee and talk about grown up stuff. Whatever that is.
We've got a monstrous red raspberry bush out in the back yard, behind the vegetable garden, near the stockade fence that separates our yard from the neighbor's yard behind us. Besides the rasberry bush, which came from Bill's mom's yard, there are two blueberry bushes and a little spare garden Bill put together to corral the extra pepper and tomato plants we had this year.
The raspberry bush is a wild creature that sends out runners under ground that sprout in unexpected places with new little monster raspberry plants. I'm sure the neighbors have some in their yard. Think Little Shop of Horrors, only without the carnage or the singing.
The nice thing about the raspberry bush this year is that we've had two harvests. The first one earlier in the summer, and the second one now. My sister's got the same thing going on with her raspberry bush. Pretty cool.
The taste of just-picked raspberries is one of those tastes that connects to a certain period of my childhood. I was younger than seven. It was before my mom's parents moved to RI. They still lived in Fair Lawn, NJ, and we would drive down to visit them periodically throughout the year. They'd drive up to visit us too, but of course it was way more fun to go there.
Their driveway was on the left side of the house, if you were facing the house from the street. The neighbor's driveway was right next to my grandparents', and the two were separated by a long cement half-wall that my sister and I liked to walk on. It was maybe 6 inches wide (I'm guessing here) and we would walk from one end to the other, like tightrope walkers. Very exciting and - in our minds - a little dangerous. I'm guessing the wall was maybe two feet high.
Behind my grandparents' yard was another neighbor's property, but the interesting thing about it was that it was higher than my grandparents' yard. Much higher. We'd climb up onto the cement half wall and climb up into the Zabriskys' huge yard. (I may have spelled their name wrong, by the way.) Anyway, their yard was - to me - huge. They had a great big garden and at least one greenhouse - and raspberry bushes. They would invite my sister and me into the yard and offer us just-picked raspberries...I believe they had several varieties. I don't remember what else they grew - but I remember the raspberries - that tart, juicy bite, warm from the sun, kind of crunchy from the seeds.
They also had 3 Bantam hens that patrolled the grounds. Their names were Lu-Lu, Taw-Taw, and Brownie. Brownie was, not surprisingly, all brown, and the other two were brown and white. They were so cute and tiny! I loved them. The Zabriskys (Zabriskis?) would send over eggs for us and we'd have them fried for breakfast - little kid-sized eggs. Magical little treats. And I didn't even like eggs back then...but I'm pretty sure I liked these.
So anyway - that's where the raspberries have been taking me this season. Fair Lawn, New Jersey, a good many years ago.
I've been trying to plan a garden for the front yard. At first I was going to make a raised bed around the tree we've got out there, but the tree is really close to both the street and the edge of the border garden that runs the length of our front walk.
So even though part of me was determined to make it work, just so I could have a big, showy spot for my iris plants...the other part of me wasn't satisfied with what I was seeing in my mind's eye.
Last night I measured out a rough rectangle that included the tree in the front left corner...figuring that the irises and other flowers would take up the other three quarters of the area. I put sticks in the ground to mark the corners. And this morning when I looked out the window at it...it looked stupid. Even the finished product in my head, while filled with irises and whatever else I decide to put in there...still looked stupid. Bill stared at it too, and said he was having trouble visualizing it. He'd said the same thing a couple years ago when I had this idea of half sinking a small old dingy in part of the yard and having a garden "pour" from the boat. He couldn't visualize that either. So we used the little boat for a giant ice bucket for cans and bottles of beer and soda at the cookouts we've had...and that seemed to be the boat's job.
But then this morning, when I was kind of babbling on about the feeling of the garden that I wanted to create...and that I didn't want it to look stupid or awkward...Bill suddenly said "Well if you want to sink the boat, go for it."
(imagine "Ode to Joy" right about now)
And that was it. I am psyched. I can see the finished garden...lots of blues and whites to kind of give it a watery feel...and then the other iris colors along the borders of the walkways, where the purpley blue irises have been since Bill's mother and I planted them right after he and I closed on the house.
Bill's big concern is that it not look dumb, having the boat there. So, to set his mind at ease, we'll drag the boat around to the front yard and kind of position it the way it'll be once it's "planted." I think I will make him a little model of the way I want the whole thing to look...just so he can see that maybe it won't look stupid after all.
We'll see. I think it will be nice and relaxing to look at. Kind of free-form, spilling out of the boat and making a rough, soft-edge triangle in the front. I think I want to plant some baby's breath in and among the irises too...I have a pink baby's breath plant...but these would be white...kind of the froth on the waves....we don't live near the beach like we did before we bought this house...but I think I can create a little of the flavor of it.
We'll see.
But at least it's a nice project to start planning...and it looks better in my mind than that rectangle did.
I will let you know how it goes.
My left ankle hurts this morning. It was hard to walk when I got up an hour ago with Julia. The ankle thing used to happen sometimes either when I was going to culinary school on the weekends or before that when I had jobs that required being on my feet for a really long time. Now it's just because (staying true to the name of this blog) I rarely wear shoes when I'm home and yesterday I was on my barefootkitchenwitch feet for a very long time. Day before, too.
We had our third annual clambake/cookout yesterday. Smaller than the past two, but mostly because we slacked off in getting in touch with people. I blame Julia. Or, rather, I use the birth of Julia as my convenient excuse for being sluggish about organizing things this year. Part of me was just feeling "I don't wanna!" But we did it anyway.
Bill and John dug about 20+ lbs of steamers on Friday. Ordinarily that trip would have included some fishing and would have resulted in bluefish that we would have fileted and tossed in the smoker...but we don't have the boat any more. We were planning to get something bigger, something newer, something safer (i.e. no secret bad fiberglassing repairs done by previous owners that result in surprise cracks or holes in the hull...) this year, but didn't, for various reasons. We'll do that next spring. Instead, Bill traded the boat trailer (trailer, mind you, not the boat) to a coworker for a case of beer. The woman he teaches with and her husband needed a new trailer for their boat, or something like that, and Bill said they could have this one (which is in better shape than the boat) - as long as they took the boat along with it. They did.
So anyway, with no boat, Bill and John used Bill's canoe to paddle across the mouth of the Green River, up here in Narragansett Bay (RI), to get to where they dig for steamers. Paddle across, dig and dig and dig and dig in the sand and mud and gravel and wave off horse flies and sand fleas and eventually stop talking because it can be tedious work after a while, then - after all the excitement (ooh! steamers!) wears off, paddle all the way back, with sore arms and shoulders because they don't do this every week.
But they seemed okay the next day.
Anyway, so we served steamers, which is the main "clambake" element of this shindig. We don't dig a pit in the yard; we cook up the clams in a brewpot on top of a big propane flame.
In addition, there were other foods that have become part of this young tradition we've established...
...My brother-in-law, Jacques, deep-fried a turkey. This year's was the best so far - perfectly moist inside and crackley crisp on the outside.
...I made chowder. The past two years my father provided the chowder, but my mother recently broke her hip and so they didn't make it (the clambake or the chowder) this year. Mom can move around better and better, but there would be a lot of uneven lawn terrain for her to navigate, plus the stairs into and out of our house if she needed to use the bathroom...so I made the chowder - a curried mussel chowder that Dad has made before, and it's from a book by Jasper White called 50 Chowders. Yum.
...The other traditional parts were the beers and rootbeer on tap - all made by Bill. Pathetically enough, I don't remember specifically what the beers were. Not, at least, with great beery descriptive terminology. One's an ale, one's a lager. Both very good and perfect on a sunny, hot (but thankfully not humid) summer afternoon. The rootbeer's good, too. By the end of the day the rootbeer was gone and so was the ale (which had a slight apricot flavor, not too fruity, very pleasant stuff).
...Instead of smoked bluefish, we bought a big salmon filet and smoked that instead. I had some of the leftovers last night around ten o'clock. We serve our smoked salmon with Ritz crackers and sour cream - sounds weird, perhaps, but it's a great combination. I also made an herbed sour cream too. Our gardens are doing great this year and just about everything I cook lately involves a trip out there to collect something. Can't wait til the tomatoes and eggplant are ripe...though it'll mean the summer (and my maternity leave) is ending.
...I made sangria again - with the last two bottles of watery merlot that Bill made last year from a kit (the recipe for the wine resulted in the wateryness, not anything Bill did wrong), and peaches, apples, and oranges...very pretty. Most of that's gone - there's probably enough left for me to have a glass of it later on today with my lunch.
...New foods (I may have leftovers for breakfast) included clamcakes this year. Makes sense, with the chowder. Don't know why we didn't think of doing it before. I also made a potato salad of sliced, roasted Yukon gold potatoes combined with sliced (cooked) Italian sausage, cannelloni beans, sauteed zucchini (from the garden) and onion, and fresh herbs, and olive oil. People seemed to like that. I also threw together a pesto made up of just about every herb we're growing, plus nasturtium leaves, mustard greens, and a peppery asian lettuce called "mabuna" (I think that's spelled wrong though), plus garlic, olive oil, a little salt, a little black pepper, grated parmesan, and I used almonds instead of pine nuts or walnuts. Served that spread on thin slices of toasted baguette...
...Other people brought things too, and while the majority of guest arrived early in the afternoon, enough others came at various points throughout the afternoon so there was always something new to eat on the table. Had a couple of cakes - which all the kids ate in one collective gulp, it seemed. They swooped in like the seagulls in "Finding Nemo" (MINE MINE MINE MINE!) and left little more than a crumb or a smudge of frosting when they were finished....Other people brought fruit...Emily brought the fixings for strawberry shortcake, which was my personal favorite. We had bought a watermelon and completely forgot about it.
...We had bought cans of ginger ale and individual juice boxes for anyone that didn't want the other stuff we offered...Alex has just learned to use a straw, and loves juice boxes. He takes a few gulps via the straw, then pulls the straw out and gets somone else to put it back in for him and then after another gulp or two decides the juice is all gone. This is because he insists on gripping the straw with his teeth and pulling up on it as he drinks. So when half the box is empty it seems like there's no more. And no one can convince him otherwise. For a while he would bring someone a juice box, get them to put the straw in, drink half, put the box down or tell one of us "all done" and hand it off, then go back to the juice boxes floating in ice water, get another one, bring it back to the same group of adults with the order "do dat one" and - because he is cute and for really no other reason - one of us would put the straw in the little hole and let him get away with more horrendous waste of 10% real juice and plenty of artificial flavoring and coloring. Over and over. People started using sleight of hand to replace the new juice boxes with ones he'd already had us open. He didn't fall for it. He just went back and got another box. Or he started approaching different people.
...He's got a little plush elephant that I bought for him when we went to the zoo recently. He loves it, and it was his guest at yesterday's party. He likes to drop the elephant ("EPH-ant") into water. Puddles, usually, but yesterday, for a while, he dropped the poor little elephant into the ice water where the soda and juice boxes were. Over and over. He'd take the sopping elephant out, wring some water out of him, and drop him back in. He looked over at my sister at some point during this activity and grinned and said "all keen" which translates to "all clean." Which means he was giving the elephant a bath, which I think is maybe because when we went to the zoo most recently, the elephants there were having a bath. They were being hosed down, rather than dropped repeatedly into ice water and wrung out, but still....
...Oh - and my friend Beth pointed out that I never did post any kind of follow up to my recent addiction to the reruns of "Profiler" shown at four in the morning on Court TV...I had been watching what seemed to be some kind of finale and I wanted to see the show that should have been the last episode the next morning. Well - Julia slept late! It was wonderful, sleep-wise, for me, but I missed the entire episode!!! And then the next time I was able to watch, there was some other actress in there as some new Profiler. What happened to the Samantha Waters character????? I did a quick search on line, but all I could find were descriptions of the episode that would have appeared in TV Guide or something like that. I still don't know how they ended it!! Did she retire? Did she die? I know the actress wanted to leave the show, but that doesn't tell me what they did with the character. Can anybody fill me in?
This morning it is muggy and kind of foggy here. Julia sort of woke up around 4:30, but after some bottle fell right back asleep. I was going to start cleaning up the kitchen, but wasn't quite ready to face it. Now, however, I think I am. Plus I hear little bits of noise in the room above me, which is where Alex is, though I hope he sleeps a bit later. He was up waaaaaaaaay past his bed time last night. He had a wonderful time yesterday. He just kind of did his own thing, most of the time, moving from one batch of people to another. The majority of other kids ranged in age from 12 to about 7 or so. My sister's kids (Calvin and Natalie), and Beth's kids (Ceileidh and Conor) and Betsy's kids (Chelsea, Andre and Christopher) were wild. They were chasing each other or playing tag or storming the beaches at Normandy all over the place - back yard, front yard, through the house...changing the rules, yelling at whoever cheated, screaming for no reason other then it's fun to do that while you're running with a whole pack of other screaming kids....Other kids of other friends were there too, but the Magnificent Seven I just mentioned were the core group and were there, running and screaming, from the beginning until almost the very end.
We ended things by sunset. Partly so we could get the yard cleaned up before it was dark. Partly so I could get Alex to go to bed. And partly because I just wanted to be able to get some sleep before Julia would be waking me up in the morning. It was nice, actually. Alex was very ready to go to sleep, and Julia dozed off soon after. Bill and I had chowder and smoked salmon and watched some of the Red Sox game before I finally went upstairs. He came up a bit later and apparently (I found the evidence: a red twist tie left on the table by the couch) had stayed behind to finish off the package of white cheddar cheese puffs (with patriotic red and blue specks on them!) that Beth brought. (She says her kids insisted she bring them. Yeah. Sure, Beth.) I found the empty package in the trash can over by the dryer. I think he really stayed up later than I did just so he could have them alllllll to himself.
Gotta go now, I want to get a few dishes put away or a bowl washed before either sleeping child awakens.
Later today I plan to sit out on our deck and do nothing but read the paper.
Spring is peeking through the ground today. Little bits of green appearing: tiny chives popping up in the window box on the rail next to the kitchen door... a few crocuses pushing through the frozen earth along the front walkway...and Bill has planted the first crop of peas. He will plant more in another couple of weeks, too. We love fresh baby peas - Alex does too. The first harvest of the year.
I've ordered seeds, too. Mostly herbs - we grew basil and dill and Thai basil and some parsley last year...and some cilantro...but there are others I want around so I can just reach out a window or go over to the garden and snip some for cooking...oregano and rosemary and sage and tarragon...and lemon grass and chervil and I thought I'd try to grow cumin, too.
We're thinking about putting a mini greenhouse in one of the dining room windows too. That's my wish, mostly. I'd like to grow my herbs year-round. We'll see.
We're also planning other projects for the back yard. Mostly the lumpy yard needs to be roto-tilled and evened out. That's long overdue, but the past two years we've been busy with other things. But this year - definitely. After that we'll put down brick or stone walkways around the raised garden beds and then fence in the main part of the yard for Alex to play in. After that we can think about landscaping around it.
The front yard needs some work, too, but at least we've got lots of spring and summer flowers that will come up along the walkways and distract passersby from the lumpy lawn and the really pathetic maple tree we inherited.
I like early spring, still rather drab in color, but with little bits of green hinting at the other colors to come.
