Posts filed under 'garden'
Nobody ever seemed to know what to do with persimmons when I had them. I have ideas of developing a Persimmon soufflé, but it won’t be while I am on this diet. Still, they are ripening as they always do this time of year. They’re really at their most gorgeous right now before they are ripe. They are velvety, cream, orange and pink, firm, and covering thousands of trees around town now that the leaves are falling. There will be literally tons of them, called cachi in Italian, and free for the taking.
I’ve decided to garner up recipes from around the web and make links to them. The first is Karenuccia’s Persimmon Bread.
That photo above comes from How Stuff Works, a genuinely useful site to bookmark.
November 11th, 2008
I just clicked on that revolving photo presentation in the margin a moment ago. I couldn’t figure out what I was looking at. It was a portion of spoonbread! I haven’t even thought of spoonbread since I posted that article and recipe. It was just delicious. Why haven’t I even thought of it?
What food occupies the top layer of the mind right now?
Tomatoes. I bought a book yesterday that is just different recipes using tomatoes. They are late this year, so they are just beginning to ripen and should stay with us until November, when we will take advantage of Puglia’s longer summer and buy from the Pugliese farmers every Saturday. I’ve already Post-It marked several pages to try, and have started wondering if any of the newly discovered regional dishes will make up readily for twenty.
Lamb. I still have half the lamb I bought this spring. I am pondering slow-cooking a leg in the fireplace for lunch in the garden. Or I could invite just one person and flash cook the rack.
Green beans, or fagionlini. I helped Amelia pick hers this morning right after I picked mine. Mine provided two fists full, hers a whole basin full. We discussed various recipes in which the bigger and more mature beans are good. Amelia went in to prepare Fagiolini alla Greca for lunch! I decided to make a puree one day and a sformato another day. Mine, who live under a walnut tree, are never going to provide that many, but this time of year you can pick anyone’s beans and they’ll thank you for it. If they are not completely stripped they stop making new beans.
Pickles. The cucumbers are really coming on and the dill is almost heading. If the plums don’t hurry up and riped, I may make some pickles from them, too. There are too many to just eat, even if you made plum cake everyday until they were over.
Suppers. When the heat recedes and you can take pleasure in making food just-so for happy people who are happy to eat what you make. Here below is a supper from a few weeks ago. What pleasant people they were! Think what size that table must be to hold fifteen and still have room for another fifteen. What a gorgeous villa that is, and what a terrific kitchen it has! If you ever need eight bedrooms, just ask.
What makes you think of food, and what food are you thinking of this season?
July 22nd, 2008
Three days now of sun… could this be summer?
This is anything but a brag shot situation, because the weeks of rain have left so many damages and weeds, I had to really hunt for shots that I could gulp and show, but having gone out with camera as well as tools, this is what there is.
That’s how you just came into the garden and onto the terrace. I am calling the part on the right “Mint Madness” this year.
Look who’s peeking down at us from on high. It’s the gufo, otherwise known as Tilda.
She has re-entered the kitchen at least twice now by climbing this rose. She won’t come out now because Bear is there and she trusts no cat.
If we look across the terrace and squint a bit, we can see a sea of hemerocallis just starting to toss flowers at us.
We would go down there using these stairs if the roses hadn’t completely closed them off.
A few of the potted things really need to be pulled out to share some of the sun.
And when we go inside we find Tilda has found amusement in picking cherries up by their stems through the net covering the flat. Once they were opened, she tossed them onto the floor and chased them for a bit. I found and washed all of them, except the two I later stepped on. I thought Guinness might be interested in a cat that doesn’t like chicken but likes cherries, but I suppose all cats like to chase cherries.
June 21st, 2008
As you can see the excitement around here is mounting. Here are Momma, Tom, Bear and Nonna all quivering with excitement as they await the advent of the first adoptive patron. “Choose me, choose me!” each one cries. Who will be the first? Who will be the most appealing cat who is first chosen for distance adoption?
They are all facing west whence they apparently believe salvation will come.
June 13th, 2008
This is one of the things you might see if you spend time with your cat on the terrace. They come out very late and night and dig holes in the lawn. In a single night a pair of them can destroy over 10 square meters! They never work for the Italian Postal Service.
They always work in pairs. They mate for life, we are told. They are not very intelligent animals, so for life doesn’t mean that long. I have been told several times that hitting one can puncture your tires. I frankly have a hard time believing that.
The above photograph came from a website that should be bookmarked for every lover of Italy. It’s called “Life in Italy” and the “Wildlife in Italy” page lays bare who is doing all that damage to your garden while you sleep. There are insect photographs that instill character and charm into bugs. To be perfectly honest, I have never seen an Italian porcupine looking so laid back and chubby. They always have their enormous spines up when I see them, and then it looks like a tiny creature with an exaggerated hairdo.
Are you feeling well today? If not, have a look here at what is growing in this garden to make you feel better.
Hungry? Here is a recipe made of the familiar nettle — a herb you will find bothers your cat not at all.
Here a claim is made that Italian snails and slugs like red wine instead of beer. Beware of the last photo on that page. You might be willing to sacrifice your plants to that face.
June 11th, 2008
Earlier today, eg sent me a link and suggested it was an idea I could use with the cats. It’s just a fabulous idea, and I am all for it. It seems a bit much work to completely rewrite the entire proposal, however, so for a start, just go here and insert cat wherever it says sheep.
Our situations are very similar. The sheepherders are keeping the hills of Abruzzo in traditional ways. The cats and I are keeping the hills of Umbria in traditional ways. The sheepherders are under financial pressure and need help. We are under financial pressure and could use help. Now it is true that they have many hundreds or perhaps thousands of sheep you can adopt, and I have a varying population of cats that number around seven give or take a litter, they also need more money because they are tending to a larger land mass than we are.
Our initiative, “Adopt a sheep and defend nature”, is meant to invert this serious trend, and propose naturalists, environmentalists, and gourmets, the distance adoption of a sheep, that in exchange of maintenance and rearing expenses, will yield its fruits (lambs, milk, cheese, ricotta, wool, manure) as well as protection of the portion of land it defends together with the rest of the flock. Stock farms taking part in the initiative guarantee their products, including biological products, with quality marks, and among other things offer agritourist accommodation. Therefore the person adopting the sheep will be able to stay at the chosen stock farm and periodically follow the farm activities: grazing, lambing, milking, sharing, and transhumance. All this in full respect of the animals’ needs and habits, as dictated by the regulations of biological production.
Besides the fact that neither I nor Wordpress knows what transhumance means, and that I would be hard put to hire rooms out to all the adopters should they decide to come, I think we can do a bit better than they on some issues. It’s a bit obscure, but the upshot is they are going to sell the products of your sheep to anyone, not send it to you. I am not sure what most of you would do with a year’s worth of wool, milk, lambs, grazing and manure, anyway. I can promise you, on the other hand, that if you adopt a cat I will happily send you anything it produces in a year that I can find. I will make adopters a reservation with Alberta if they want to be near their adopted cat, or somewhere in town with 4 stars if they just want to swing by and pick up their cat’s year’s production.
The advantages of the initiative “Adopt a sheep and defend nature” to the user are the following: a saving of over 12% of the market value of the products obtained, products that are certainly genuine, the option of using products derived exclusively from the adopted sheep (at the discretion of the user), since the adoption is nominal apart from the cheese products that need the milk of a number of sheep, which would still be guaranteed by being reared following the same criteria.
So, it appears that you will be given a 12% discount when you buy your sheep’s products. The cats products will be yours absolutely free!
With an annual contribution of € 190,00 we will be able to count on a capital that will help us by anticipating the shelter and feeding expenses and encourage us in carrying on our activity.
I assure you, that with the exception of Other Guy, who seems to rack up vet bills like E Taylor collected gems, your annual €190 contribution will make life much nicer for the cats and for Umbria. The photo above is where your cat hangs out and where you can meet your cat or shear your cat. The chaise longue on the left is wearing its cat cushion and is accompanied by its anti-cancer umbrella. The table under the gazebo is strewn with embroidered cloths the cats have mounded for lounging. Two sides of the cat habitat are edged with catnip, so you can convince your cat to nip and then try to climb the concrete telephone pole behind. There is ample space to romp with your cat or even get down with him or her and roll around the habitat’s terracing. I think that beats the sheep crib, even if we don’t have lambs.
Special concessions, discounts or promotions for all the events and shows related to pastoral life will be reserved to those who join: the shearing festival in April - May; the transhumance festival at the end of May - beginning of June; the guide to the flocks at the summer mountain pastures on foot or on horseback in mid June; guided excursions in high altitude pastures in July - September; thematic evenings on production, pastoral activity, and taste laboratories, according to a calendar that will be updated every six months.
If it seems really important, we can institute a shearing festival in the spring. The transhumance festival is a bit more difficult, but we will consult a bigger dictionary and see what we can do. All the cats but Gloria do love to go hiking, but they prefer lower ground, not the mountains, and a quarter to a third of a kilometer is as far as they go. We can, however, go that distance and back again any number of times. Thematic evenings are pretty much dedicated to food — theirs — but they share very cheerfully, even with the hedgehog. Tastings should be no problem at all.
We do not yet have a prepared contract to sign, but it will be our pleasure to email you one on request. After all, the cats don’t have numbers, but names. Other Guy, Bear, Gloria, Nonna, Tom, Mamma and Tilda. I’ve talked it over with them and they seem extremely eager to have new patrons and to get home visits!
June 10th, 2008
