A Cooking Life

Garden Report: June 16

I finished planting over the weekend, even though the weather doesn't quite warrant it (overcast and 53° at 10AM this morning). The salad greens, peas, and garlic all look happy, but I'm pretty sure I caught the tomatoes scowling at me earlier, and the eggplant look like they could use a sweater. But everything was getting potbound, and I was afraid roots would start rotting from the damp. Some of the seedlings had a fine film of white mold starting on their soil surface. So into the dirt with them all! Still no beans planted, though – they'll just rot unless the soil dries out.

Soup Weather

Our early spring seems reluctant to let go. I know summer doesn't officially start until the 21st of June, but it's not unreasonable to expect some hot sunny weather from the end of May forward. It's been mostly in the 60s, even on sunny days, with temps in the low 40s or even 30s overnight – not even warm enough to sleep with the windows open (to my mind, one of the great joys of spring). And then we keep getting days like today: grey, dark, rainy, blustery, and COLD, hovering somewhere in the low 50s. It's the kind of day that forces you into a sweater and wool socks, demands a fire in the woodstove, and marches you into the kitchen to make a pot of soup.

Here We Go Again

You'd never guess it from the weather today, but we've had a mercifully early spring. Last year, it was almost the middle of June before the trees were fully leafed out. This year, they were almost a month ahead of that. I've gotten a good start on the garden already (last year, I didn't plant until the third week in June).

The boxes TJ built for the first raised beds 6 years ago were starting to crumble with rot, so he built new ones – this time out of hemlock, which has a natural resistance to insects and rot. The wood is from a local mill, rough cut, so even though we couldn't get the 2 x 10 boards we used last time, stacking 2 x 6s that are a full 2 x 6 inches (instead of the frail 1.5 x 5.5 of “finished” lumber) gives us new boxes that are taller, beefier, and much grander seeming. The three beds full of garlic (above, in the foreground) will have to wait until after harvest for replacement.

Cranberry Chutney

We traveled for Thanksgiving this year, first time in our 7 years together. We've always either had kids or TJ's had to work – or both. But this year we had no kids, TJ had the day off, and my sister-in-law Carolyn invited us to join their feast in New Jersey. I cooked up my contributions – Creamed Onions, Buttermilk Pie, and two cranberry treatments; we dashed down Thursday morning and dashed back on Friday. It was a joy to finally spend a holiday with TJ's sisters and their families and his mom. I had several recipe requests for the Cranberry Chutney I brought along.

Apple Custard Tart

Given the current economic climate, I count myself beyond lucky to be so loaded down with work. I've even undertaken the unthinkable: training someone to take up some of the slack. This is not an easy proposition for so controlling meticulous a person; it's much simpler to do everything myself. But I've found someone with a suitable skill set, and having a helper will spare me having to let whole projects go to another supplier.

I miss blogging. And I've let inertia keep me from it more than is necessary. C'est la vie. I'll blog when I can, and hope that I still have an audience.

None of this means I've stopped cooking. It's been canning season, and I've put up plenty of good stuff from the garden. TJ and I together have been getting the hang of smoking (with the Weber Bullet), and we've had some great successes with it. And with houseguests here and gatherings there, I often enough have a requirement to make something a little special.