Tag Archives: garden

Odds and Ends and Pots and Pans

Odds and ends
And pots and pans,
Champagne pops
And starts and stops,
Plants and things
And in between,
Tabletops with
Art and feeling.

And art on my brother’s driveway.

Oh, assonance… And consonance… And rhyme… And half-rhyme… Happy new year, and new post, to you too.

Yes, a new year has begun (plus a few weeks now), and I’m happy to be starting it here with words and art, and to be sharing them with you. Words and art, yes, sounds like a good start. That’s one of several thoughts, or odds and ends, that I’ve been collecting. And here are a few more. They follow below, shared as always as a gift for me and you, to peruse and read and at your own pace go through.

1) Pots and Pans: I usually make a few resolutions at the start of each year (any time is good though), and this year was no different. On the afternoon of January 1st, I found myself creating a new note on my phone, a five-minute exercise that left me with some old favorites and general reminders.

Among the highlights was the perennial, “Learn how to juggle five” :), written more actionably and meditatively this time though as, “Juggle five – practice every day for five minutes, relax, and have fun.” (I’ve practiced a few days so far, but not quite yet…every day.) A few general feel-good reminders included, “Be kind every day” and “Be grateful every day.” And then there were some healthy environment ones like, “Do the dishes at least every other day.”

They can really stack up after a while, right??? This was a week’s worth, and actually the first week of the year’s worth. To be fair though, I was sick and wasn’t doing much of anything that week. How about that After picture though?? Yes, thank you very much. (Two weeks later, I’m still kind of working on the ‘at least every other day’ part of this one…but details.)

2) Planting Plant Plans: I have a lot of starter houseplants and a lot of pots waiting for them, so one of my goals over the next few weeks is to bring them together. I have a vision for a garden apartment, with the garden on the inside.

Meanwhile on the outside, I planted some garlic.

Planting garlic and growing and harvesting it is one of the easiest, and most satisfying, garden things you can do. It practically grows itself. It’s like magic – each clove that you plant turns into a full head of garlic.

If you’re interested, and I hope you are :), here’s what to do. First get some garlic bulbs at the farmer’s market (the bulbs at the supermarket might have been treated to prevent sprouting). Then pull the cloves apart, leaving the papery husks on, and plant the cloves right side up about 2″ deep and 8″ apart. Usually, you plant them in late fall, but I’ve planted them as late as December…or also now, well, January 8th according to my notes. We’ll see how it goes! I also planted them in pots for the first time.

The outer five, they got the garlic

It’s okay if the ground freezes after you plant the cloves too. The new plants should come up in the spring if not sooner. Then in April/May/June you snap off the garlic scapes (the green stems that start curling around themselves) to force more energy into the new bulb, and in June/July you harvest (dig up) the new bulbs when the leaves start to brown.

Future houseplants, modeling

3) Freezer Files

The fridge in my apartment came with a freezer (I know, pretty cool, right?), and over the past three years I’ve been doing my best to fill it.

This was the actual view as of two weeks ago. The thing is, this was also essentially the actual view as of five months ago.

I’d filled it over time, and then I got leftover and other-frozen-food usage paralysis. I knew what I wanted to do, which was to go through everything, use it all, and write about it at the same time. It seemed so daunting though, so I never got started. What would the rules be? Would I have to eat only from the freezer until it was all gone? (Meaning no cooking, i.e., not doing something I like?) How long would it take? Would I write a single post at the end about the process, or also one at the beginning? Or should I write several along the way? What if I started and it didn’t go like I thought it would? What if it didn’t work out? What if I messed it up??

Okay, brain, let’s hold the phone for a second there.

What if I just started and saw how it went?

So that’s what I did (and recalled that, yes, that has worked many times in the past (ex. 1, ex. 2)). The beauty and the truth is that of course it’ll work, and that’s what it’s doing now, working out. Now a few weeks in, I’ve eaten or combined into new dishes several freezer items. I’ve also tossed a few items, a temporary affront to my ‘never waste anything’ ideal, but otherwise it’s going great. And it feels great. Item by frozen item, I’m cleaning up the freezer. I’m putting things to use, and I’m simplifying and letting go. Less is more.

Mmmmmmm, no longer frozen and so tasty again eggplant rollatini

Food is meant to be eaten. And you have to start somewhere, so start where you’re at. Get going.

The rules are There are no rules. I’ll use as many things as I can, cook and combine them whenever possible, and take notes along the way, leading to probably a final post but perhaps some interim ones too. I’ll figure it out as I go.

4) Marathon Miles

I signed up for the New Jersey Marathon! Yay!

That decision, made two months ago, was followed by me starting to increase my miles and do some speed workouts. Also yay, except that my doctor had advised against doing the latter workouts so as not to aggravate a minor hip injury. After about three weeks, I realized I should have followed his advice. Boo.

So I bought myself a foam roller (thank you, Princeton Running Company) and have been doing some eggplant side-rollatini-ing. And doing way fewer miles. And going slower. I also starting some physical therapy (diagnosis: gluteus medius strain (yup…weak cheeks)).

The calendar reality is that I don’t think I’ll be doing the marathon now. Maybe I could still do the half, but we’ll see. My freezer file mind is reminding that it’ll all work out, and that once again, as always, I should start where I’m at.

If you can’t run 10 miles, run 3.
If you’re injured, do PT.
If you have an itch in the middle of your leg, scratch your knee.

Okay, that last one was just for the rhymes 🙂

5) March Saneness

This one deserves to go in the opposite direction of alliteration.

There was nothing mad about the Women’s March on Washington this past Saturday. It was solidarity, love, inspiration, and the opposite of hate and madness. I can’t think of a more right place to have been that day than right there with a number of friends, and with everyone else who marched there in Washington and also around the county and the world. We all have our own steps, and for me there was no decision to make but to step out of my own quiet kitchen and start going. The following is what I shared on Facebook that evening:

“We will not go from being a nation of immigrants to a nation of ignorance” – America Ferrera
“Courage will not skip this generation” – Roslyn Brock
“Sometimes we must put our bodies where our beliefs are.” – Gloria Steinem

– Words heard and felt today in Washington, D.C.

6) The Art of Food and Life

How lucky are we, how lucky am I, really.

I have friends I can march with. I can take care of my body, and my mind. I have a freezer full of food. I have plants. I have a kitchen. I have words, and I have art.

There is art on driveways (thank you, artist sister-in-law). And there is art on my kitchen table, a rotating temporary art installation. The current view includes tomatoes from the community garden at work, grapefruit from my mom, and odds and ends from myself and friends.

The view, the backdrop, also includes one of my grandfather’s watercolors, a gift a few years ago from my great aunt. There was a time I thought I would hang it up one day, but I’ve realized I like where it’s at. Along with everything else, it helps make for a full table. And it feels good.

Double Sweet Summer Garden Salsa

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Growing up, I always loved sweet corn. It was a true summer treat, bought fresh from a local farm and then steamed at home for 5-10 minutes before being rolled around on a satisfying-to-the-sight-now-melting stick of butter (or sprinkled heavily with salt if you’re my dad) and eaten along with the rest of dinner. Yellow, white, or bi-color, it didn’t matter to me so long as it was sweet and fun to eat, which is what it was.

And it still is – and still is that simple to make.

But what else can you make with fresh sweet corn that is similarly simple and tastes great? Double Sweet Summer Garden Salsa! Of course. 🙂

I made it twice this week, the first time because it seemed like a good idea, and the second time to confirm that it was ready for the world. The key ingredients are sweet corn and grape tomatoes, both of which I had growing in my garden.

Ready for picking

Ready for a close-up

The other fresh ingredients, onions and garlic, I got from my CSA market share. And then the rest – the olive oil, salt, and pepper – were in my cupboard already and ready to go.

Double Sweet Summer Garden Salsa

3 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped into pieces about the size of corn kernels
1 garlic clove, diced
2 ears sweet corn, kernels removed
25 grape tomatoes, diced
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper

Saute the onion and garlic over medium heat until softened, about 10-15 minutes.
Add the corn and grape tomatoes, and cook for about 15 minutes.
Add the salt and pepper.

And that’s it! Sweet and simple.

The simplest actually would be to do each on its own – an ear of sweet corn husked and then eaten, uncooked, right off the cob (if you’ve never tried it, give it a shot!), and grape tomatoes picked and then popped right in the mouth (it’s more likely you’ve tried this, but if not, give it a shot too!). The combination of sweet corn and sweet grape tomatoes, though, with a touch of the natural tomato tartness, is worth the extra time. And what’s 30 minutes in the end when you’re making something else at the same time that takes a little longer (fresh tomato sauce in my case this time).

On the cutting board

In the frying pan

And in the blue dish

You can eat it hot or cold, but I like it hot.

I’ve been eating it straight like a side dish, but it would also be good with chips or as a taco, burrito, veggie burger, or salad topping. Hmmmm, maybe another name for it could be sweet corn and grape tomato summer salad dressing.

However you use it, and whether the ingredients come from your garden or the farm, there it is, Double Sweet Summer Garden Salsa. Enjoy! Two summer sweets brought together.

Friday Flowers and Pedal Progress

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Two weeks ago, the sunflowers in my garden, that the garden planted for me, were just beginning to bloom. Friday, June 26 saw a couple of these:

and a few of these

Also present were some of the following:

Readers of past posts and those who grow gardens will probably recognize these vegetable varieties. For others, who might need a helpful hint or who like a little challenge, here are clues as to what the three plants above are: the names of the plants, provided in the same order as the pictures above, in newspaper comics-page jumble form.

AHIRDS

MOTTOA

MURMES SSUAHQ

(*Unjumbled answers below)

Two days ago, on Friday, July 10, my morning trip to the garden included a show of similar, and greater, color.

Yellow, red, orange, reddish-orange, and more, the full blooms have begun, and the bees are buzzing, about they go.

In the garden, I took a tour, and like walking through an outside room full of sun, the leaves and I are loving, all that grows.

Along with the sunflowers, the three plants above (*radishes, tomatoes, and summer squash) continued on as well. Not pictured are some of the fruits and vegetables already harvested from these plants. The garden also planted some more of the following for me this year (July 10 portraits as well):

Morning glories

and I transplanted in some of these

Cucumbers

The flowers are from my garden back home, but the words come from the road. The petal progess is something to behold, and I’m happy to share it with everyone who loves flowers, color, and life.

Meanwhile, I’m also pursuing some pedal progress, about which I’ll share a bit too.

Today I went for a 74 mile bike ride, from Oswego to Geneva, NY. Tomorrow will be another 60 miles, and then it’ll be about the same in the 70 to 80 mile range each day after that, until on the seventh day I arrive back at our final destination in New Jersey.

Along with 175 other riders and a crew in support, I’m participating in the annual Anchor House Ride for Runaways, which helps raise money for the Anchor House, a nonprofit in Trenton, NJ that supports runaway, abused, and at-risk children.

The Anchor House provides temporary housing, counseling, and other important services for kids in need.

If you’re in a giving mood and would like to join in the support, here’s a link you can visit. Your generosity, whether expressed at home in your corner of the world, or expressed and felt also in Trenton, is always appreciated. If you like, you can also follow the events of the Anchor House Ride through the articles posted this week at Planet Princeton.

Hope you and everyone are having a great and bright week 🙂

-Dave

On time, and in time, in the garden

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The community gardening season is back! Actually it’s been back for a month now, with the recreation department having prepared the plots and let us know we could get started on May 1st. I’ll admit that my initial reaction to the later start was to be annoyed (late March/early April would have been better for peas and other things), but when I did finally make it there on May 9th (yep, more than a week after I could), it turned out alright. Like it always does 🙂

Had I gone right away, I wouldn’t have seen the small plants coming up from the seeds left behind by last year’s plants – sunflowers, morning glories, and radishes! Apparently there were some strong little seeds that made it through the winter and the recreation department’s roto-tilling.

Upon initial inspection, seeing a lot of brown

But then after looking more closely, some green

And some more

And more! Here, a radish seedling.

A cilantro plant said hello as well

It was a reminder that timing is everything. And that also important is how you respond. This time (and lately more times than not, I believe) my response was (and has been) one of more going with it and seeing the beauty and appreciating what’s there. I wouldn’t call it a laissez-faire attitude, which would imply a lack of action and responsibility, but rather more of a forward-moving, active one, with ownership acknowledged. I can control and act on what I can, like getting started in the garden and planting things (tomatoes, basil, hot peppers, summer squash, cucumbers, corn, edamame, and more sunflowers, cilantro, and radishes!, so far), but you never know how it’s going to turn out. So you go with it and adapt along the way. Like, for instance, how it looks like I’m going to be planting some more seeds or buying more transplants (I actually just got some cucumber and tomato transplants at the farmers’ market yesterday) for the places where the cucumber, edamame, and cilantro seeds didn’t come up. And that’s okay. And like, for instance, how I can take more classes, write more, draw more, apply for different jobs, go on dates, meet more people, and do whatever, and we’ll see how it goes and figure it out.

When you have the right mindset, things also seem to happen at the right time. A friend of mine, who read a number of foodnsight posts recently, remarked how a lot of them were about time, and I think he’s right. I’d thought about starting the blog for a while, but it didn’t actually happen…until it happened to be right time.

A coconut falls when it’s ready.

You can’t say your mother’s soup is the best until you’ve stepped out of her kitchen.

Proverbs add spice to language.

I think, but I’m not completely sure, that’s how these three food / life / thought proverbs go. That’s how I remember them at least, having heard them in lecture and in conversation by a bouncing, full of life college professor who was originally from Ghana and who you could tell truly enjoyed what he was doing both in school as a professor and outside of school as a minister, which in general was teaching, connecting with people, and adding a lot of energy and spice all around.

It’s always the right time to do what you want to do, and to do what feels right. The coconut for the inception of this blog fell a little over a year ago, and more have been falling since, at different rates. Sometimes it’s a chance encounter with a special rutabaga (and a day off from work, and the deadline of a family gathering), or sometimes it’s a neighbor’s gift of plantains (and a good run, plus a friend’s general suggestion to let the words come more easily), and then it falls more quickly. Other times it’s the lessening shelf-life of a winter squash, or that the gravity (and levity) simply builds up, and then it’s time. In any case, the cumulative result is also a chronicle of time passing, a certain curated version of my life that also, I hope, comes with bits of art, truth, and beauty mixed in with the radishes, pumpkins, and risotto. It’s also great when the fun, funny, and creativity are all flowing.

Given the timing of this post, more than a month after the last one, I say we also take a little time and a quick look at some of the food highlights and time-points from May.

Plantains – I made them, and they were awesome! I more or less followed my neighbor’s recipe, which in my case turned out to be the following: after letting three yellow plantains ripen (after about a week they softened a bit and the outsides turned somewhat black), I peeled them, sliced them into coins, and fried them for 5-10 minutes (flipping them halfway through) in an oil mixture of 2 cups canola oil and 2 Tbsp palm oil. I also let the oil heat up first before frying them (medium heat), and when they were done I placed them on a plate with a paper towel to dry.

Spinach – This one also deserves an exclamation point. Sauteed spinach with chopped garlic and rutabaga, made in a mixture of canola and palm oil! I could have eaten a plateful of this it was so good. It was easy too: I sauteed the diced rutabaga (about a cup’s worth) in a few Tbsp of oil over medium heat, then added the diced garlic (a few cloves worth) and sauteed that also until it was softened just like the rutabaga (this brought me to about 15 minutes now from the start), and then added the spinach (about 8 oz, but you can add more) and let it cook over low heat for a few minutes until the spinach was wilted (pictured above). As if that wasn’t good enough (though it was, believe me), I also tried the following: 1) adding a handful of chopped raisins and chopped sliced almonds, and 2) adding the chopped raisins and almonds, and also adding some finely shredded Parmesan cheese. Both ways, so good.

If the canola and palm oil mixture sounds familiar too, it should! It’s the same oil that I used for the plantains. And by the “same” oil, I do literally mean the same oil because, really, although plantains soak up some oil when they’re fried, the amount that remains from the original 2+ cups of oil when frying three plantains is…well, I didn’t measure it, but it looked something like 1-2 cups still remaining. So there was plenty left for me to use with everything I cooked for about two weeks afterwards 🙂 And the rutabaga! Like a squirrel saving a food-prize for later, I still had a softball-size piece of rutabaga left over from the original big one, tucked away in the back of the fridge, waiting for me to use. I had just gotten a fresh bag of spinach from the farmers’ market, and something in my head put the two together…spinach and rutabaga. Yes! It was time to cook the acorn. (I used the rest of the rest of the rutabaga, similarly diced and plantain oil sauteed, in a good tomato sauce the same day.)

Asparagus – Spring time means not only fresh spinach, but also fresh kale, lettuce, strawberries, and asparagus! (and more). The picture above is from a few weeks ago, when I stopped at Terhune Orchards one afternoon after a bike ride and picked a few pounds of asparagus and several quarts of strawberries. Mmmmmmmmmmm, fresh local strawberries. I wish I had some right now… Yes, and asparagus too 🙂 Part of me also wishes that I had a good picture of the strawberries to use here, as a nice, sweet, juicy, red picture would look great following the yellow and green ones above. But that’s alright. And in the absence of such a picture, let’s give asparagus a little extra love. If you’ve never seen asparagus growing, that’s really how it looks in the field, the green shoots growing right up out of the ground (followed by tall ferns later if the spears aren’t harvested). To pick asparagus, you just snap the shoots off at the base. And then once you’re home, you can steam them, add them to pasta, put them in risotto, grill them, roast them with olive oil / salt / pepper and then add a little lemon juice right at the end!, and do lots of other things I’ll try sometime. Lately I’ve been steaming them since it’s quick, like 5-10 minutes, and then adding either a little salt or no salt. Easy and good.

In the process of finding the rutabaga, I came across a few other things in the fridge that, shall we say, ran out of time. Usually I’m pretty good at using things up, but there were a few small things I had to toss this time. And in the world where food mirrors life, and combine, so too were there some ideas I thought I would use when I started writing, but that now I know I’m going to have to toss. In the process of writing, and now feeling where I’m at and the writing is at, I’m reminded again that not everything can make it into the soup. Ideas, people, and stories can’t be forced; it’s better when it all flows and happens naturally. As another friend once reminded too, if it’s important and needs to be felt or said, there’s always another post, another time.

In the garden, things are growing. The passage of time, a month, allows me to share the following:

May 9

May 16

May 23

June 5

Projected future outcome

Actual results may vary…

But where there are buds, flowers often follow 🙂

For now, I found some flowers of another kind, from thinning the radishes,

Radish bouquet

and found some color, and neat patterns too, from underground.

How about that for beauty? It’s like looking down at farm fields from an airplane, but with every shade of red instead of green (and with a lyrical inspiration nod to “The Hudson” by Dar Williams). I think I have a thing for radishes.

Twine to unwind

A good start in the garden

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I got the call from the Recreation Department in mid-April. I was officially off the wait-list! I’d be rejoining the community garden this year.

It was a good feeling to get the good news – I’d moved in the past year and so couldn’t have a front yard garden as before. I was ready to go! The only problem (but not really, in the big picture) was the Recreation Department’s follow-up detail that the garden wasn’t ready for planting yet. They said it might be ready in a few weeks – maybe by Mother’s Day – after the annual roto-tilling and plot-marking was done. In the end, they bested their Mother’s Day mark by about a week, so come the first week in May, everything was set. We were underway.

The garden area, ready for planting: a 4 x 6 grid of plots, so space for 24. My plot: center bottom here.

The community garden in early May, ready for planting. Overall: a 4 x 6 grid of plots, so space for 24. My plot: center bottom here.

And then so what to plant? To the farmers’ market! The market!…For some plugs to transplant. And to the box! The box! …For the collection of seeds I’d accumulated over time by purchase (most of them), by gift (a few), or by end-of-season collecting (a handful).

Curious to know what was inside? So was I!

The view upon opening

The box certainly contained an assortment of seeds. Here are a few stats and a look at the contents:

Total number of seed packets/bags/containers: 109
Greatest amount of any one kind: Sunflowers – 11
Second place: Tomatoes – 8
Oldest packet: Peppermint – 1999
Second oldest: Chinese Cabbage – 2001 (two packets) (also a Hot Pepper packet and a Sweet Pepper packet – 2001)
Newest packet: Zucchini – 2014 (from the NOFA-NJ conference – free)
Second newest: Sunflowers and Carrots – 2013 (from Johnny’s – purchased)
Packets that pack a story: Three flower packets from The Page Seed Company (Marigolds, Snapdragons, Pansies) that have the Hartford Courant imprimatur on the back

IMG_20140618_210305

I got these seeds for free over ten years ago, so now they're not so much Hartford Courant as Hartford Old seeds. Maybe one day there'll also be a Princeton Packet promotion -- and then I could get a pack of Packet seed packets.

I got these seeds for free over ten years ago while working in Connecticut, so now they’re not so much Hartford Courant as Hartford Old seeds. I have a feeling that the Courant germination rate may be similar to an Old germination rate now. I’m going to plant some and see what happens.

Maybe one day there’ll also be a Princeton Packet seed promotion, and then I could say I got a pack of Packet seed packets.

The box also contained some interesting odds and ends, like a ziploc bag full of marigold seeds, a bent spoon container with sunflower seeds, a small folded paper with some chives seeds, and a medicine bottle with Grandpa Ott Morning Glory seeds.

Grandpa Ott in a bottle. I don’t actually have a Grandpa Ott, but my aunt’s handwriting had me thinking for a minute that maybe I did.

I always liked morning glories – as a kid I can remember them climbing the strings on the side of the house all the way up to the attic fan, and I can also remember being inside the attic looking out, seeing the morning glories almost trying to come in – so it was an easy decision to plant some of these. Plus, there’s the awesome medicine bottle storage! I definitely wouldn’t have to worry about little kids eating the seeds and then having morning glories sprout in the their stomachs. (To be honest, morning glories probably wouldn’t sprout in their stomachs, but I heard it might be a different story with watermelon seeds, which kids could consume with a greater frequency).*

First I planted some morning glories the garden. This is how they look in mid-June, a few weeks after sprouting.

I also planted some in a planter by my house. My next step here will be to talk with my neighbor about some strategic planter placement to see how Grandpa Ott feels about climbing a fire escape.

Of the other interesting odds and ends above, I also tried planting the marigold and sunflower seeds in the garden, but apparently they didn’t share the same vigor as the morning glory seeds and decided not to come up.

No matter though, at least for the sunflowers. I dipped into my multitude of other seed packets and found success there.

A little baby sunflower in mid-June. Now imagine about 30 of these in close proximity, and then imagine all of them all grown up and with lots of beautiful flowers. And then remember to check back here in a few months to see if your imagination matches how this portion (about a quarter) of the garden plot turns out.

As for the rest of the plot, I have about 4/5 of it planted now after a month and a half. I transplanted about 10 tomatoes (mostly of the sauce and paste variety), 4 hot peppers (of the some degree of hot variety), and 6 basil plants (of the traditional Genovese, goes well with tomatoes and other things variety). Thank you by the way local community farmers’ markets and New Jersey farmers for the seedlings. In terms of what came up from the seeds I planted, I also have radishes, cilantro, cucumbers, and zucchini growing in the garden.

One of the tomatoes, shortly after its mid-May transplant

The same tomato, now in mid-June

Radishes, harvested this week

Same bunch

Nothing says instant garden gratification like a bunch of radishes

Then again, cIlantro’s also a quick pleaser

And another look at the garden, mid-June. The sunflowers will likely feature more prominently in future looks, hugging the bottom corner and all along the right side.

Overall, so far so good, and more to come.

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