The blog is neglected, the house is neglected, the garden is neglected, but the kale keeps giving.
This time of year it’s the tomatoes sun dried in the peak of summer that are the treasure. They go in pasta and gnocchi and minestrone and on pizza. A whole handful go into ragu or bean stew. They go on crackers with feta and in tapenade for spreading on toast. And I have to admit, I have been known to eat them straight from the jar.
This time of year it’s the tomatoes sun dried in the peak of summer that are the treasure. They go in pasta and gnocchi and minestrone and on pizza. A whole handful go into ragu or bean stew. They go on crackers with feta and in tapenade for spreading on toast. And I have to admit, I have been known to eat them straight from the jar.
Spotted on my morning walk, a fine fat fellow looking very relaxed in a tree right next to our driveway. It is easy to imagine if you live in a city that wildlife is happily safely securely flourishing “somewhere else”. You hear about extinctions but maybe you don’t get just how profound it is.
I was planning to make three large males go around four of us, and then at the last minute two more arrived for lunch. And like loaves and fishes, three red claw went generously round six people as red claw pappardelle with a green salad and some garlic sourdough on the side.
We have a star bath. It’s a heavy cast iron bath in a very unfashionable shade of green with a fireplace under it. It sits out in the open with a clear view of the wide starry sky, and on cold winters nights we fill it up and light a fire under it. A glass of wine, a candle, a hot bath that stays hot for as long as you…
Sequential planting is such a lifesaver! This whole year seems to have been routines-out-the-window so far. I love routines. Once you have worked a system down to the point where it just works and you turn it into a habit, it just gets done in incidental time, and incidental time doesn’t count.
All in about an hour. I couldn’t bear the amount of citrus sitting around so I found an hour this morning to make preserved lemons (on the right), lime pickles (back left), lemon cleaning vinegar (at the back), lemon vinegar (tall bottle), and at the front, kumquat marmalade.
Guavas are in glut right now and I keep seeing unharvested trees everywhere. Guava jelly, which can be made as jam to spread on toast (just by using half the quantity of sugar) but is spectacular as a firm jelly to eat with cheese on crackers is the only really good thing I know to do with a glut of guavas, but it’s a really good thing to do with…
Life goes back to normal. Or will never be quite the same. This morning the Petroleum Exploration License for Metgasco to frack for gas at Bentley was suspended and referred to ICAC.