The happiness that comes with the harvest.

     Thanks to my friend Ann* and my husband’s panhandle relatives our kitchen is overflowing with produce.  Broccoli, tomatoes, turnips, sweet potatoes, squash (both winter and summer), cucumbers, new potatoes, dill, mint and bell peppers… it’s an embarrassment of riches!  So far I’ve used a little bit of the mint in my iced tea and I’ve got plans to make a loaf of Cheddar Dill Beer Bread but that hardly puts a dent in our crisper drawer. 

     Luckily for me, Kim Martin and Laurie Bostic at Barking Cat Farm have some great produce recipes on their website.  Turnips, butter, black pepper and honey?  Yes please!

     Now I just need a great recipe for some yellow squash because, truth be told, I don’t really like yellow squash.  Any ideas?

 

*(Although she is perfectly capable of growing fabulous vegetables, Ann didn’t actually grow any of the veggies in this picture, instead she introduced me to Jazbac Farm and their fledgling CSA.  Thanks Ann!)

A learning year.

 If you wanted to be charitable, you would call this, our first year of organic backyard gardening in Fort Worth, a learning year or perhaps an experimental year.  If you wanted to be unpleasant, nasty or painfully honest you might call it a bit of a failure.  (But that would make me sad, so please don’t…)

The tally for our garden thus far has been: approximately 2 cups of really great cherry tomatoes, four or five kind of ho-hum large tomatoes, 1 delicious cantaloupe, 1 small, stunted, mealy and pale watermelon, a couple of salads worth of baby lettuce, maybe one serving of English peas, a scary, giant yellow zucchini and a small handful of delicious strawberries. Oh, and a bumper crop of basil, thyme, oregano, chocolate mint, chives and lemon balm.

That’s not a lot of produce for a summer’s worth of effort, but I’m not downhearted!  Even though we didn’t harvest a lot of veggies, we learned a lot about our garden and I’m ready to keep plugging away.  In fact, not only will I keep plugging away, but I’m actually going to double our gardening space this fall.  How’s that for optimism?

The new beds will be in our side yard on the east side of our house so they’ll get lots of lovely eastern sunlight.  There are no big shade trees in this part of our yard so it should be the perfect spot.  And, as an added bonus, it will help us get rid of some of our beautiful but not particularly practical turf grass (more on that later).

So just what exactly have I learned from our ‘learning year’?

* I’ve learned that tomatoes won’t tolerate much shade so I need to plant them where it’s sunny all day long.  None of this ‘dappled shade’ nonsense.

* I’ve learned from Heather Venhaus and her dad Frank Venhaus that these sun-loving tomatoes do best when treated badly.  According to Heather, her dad swears that tomatoes do best when you give them a good whack  with a broom handle every day.  He’s a farmer, he  should know.

* I’ve learned, thanks to Sheri and Ben Schoenbaum and the San Antonio Botanical Garden, that I need to apply lots of organic fertilizer.  Before talking with Ben and Sheri I was using dry, organic fertilizer when I planted the plants and then about once a month.  Now I’m giving my plants about a quarter cup of dry, organic fertilizer every week.  It has made a huge difference.

* I’ve learned that I need to plant my peppers farther apart.  Our mild ‘Big Jim’ New Mexico peppers are every bit as hot as the jalapenos that are planted about a foot away from them.  Many thanks to my brother, Chris, for pointing this out.

* I’ve learned that I really need to be consistent with my watering.  Our radishes are sad, sad reminders of what happens when you don’t water your veg garden enough.

* I’ve learned that melons take a lot more space then you’d think.

* I’ve learned that knowing exactly when veggies are ready to pick is a bit of an art.

* I’ve learned that eggplants are vindictive little suckers and they will refuse to set fruit out of spite.

What have you learned about gardening this summer?

My friend Kate.

This is my friend Kate.

I have known her forever.  Literally.  At least for her forever because I have known her since before she was even born.

Kate and I used to spend almost every day together back when I was her nanny.  She was the most beautiful, funny, stubborn, quirky, smart little tow-headed kid I had ever met.

Kate was always up for an adventure and ran all over DFW with me.  One of her favorite adventures was “Timmy Tuesday” at the old Gloria’s in Oak Cliff.  Tim and I would do her hair in all kinds of wacky ways and take her to eat black bean dip and cheese quesadillas.

Kate has grown up (even though we keep trying to make her stop) into a truly lovely young woman.  She is beautiful, feisty, opinionated, strong-willed, smart and ready to take on the world.  She still has a mop of blond hair, although it’s no longer quite ‘tow’, and  she still likes the black bean dip at Gloria’s.

Kate asked me to write a blog post about her (wait, who am I fooling… she demanded I write one…) so here you are, Kate.  Hope you like it.

xx00

All Girls Should Have a Poem, Richard Brautigan

For Valerie

All girls should have a poem

written for them even if

we have to turn this God-damn world

upside down to do it.

New Mexico March 16, 1969

The pause that refreshes.

It rained.

It rained for two days.

It rained for two days in Texas.

It rained for two days in Texas in July.

Really.

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn’t quite a miracle.

But it certainly was an event.

A break from the heat.

A preview of November.

 

 

 

 

 

For two days we hit summer’s pause button and marveled at the raindrops.

Walking.

I went to the doctor earlier this summer because I wasn’t feeling fabulous and I thought I should touch base with a professional just to make sure nothing serious was wrong.  She gave me her opinion and told me to go home and ‘do some research’ and see what I thought about her diagnosis.

I did my research (actually, I’m still doing research… I love research!) and what I found is that I need to be walking. Walking will apparently cure what ails me, or if it won’t quite cure what ails me it will at least make it all that much more bearable.

So I’m walking.  I walk myself in the mornings, taking as many hills as possible.  I walk the dogs in the morning and the evening (they’re happy as little clams with this new regime.).  I walk to the library.  I walk to the grocery store occasionally.  I’m walking as much as possible.

And you know what?  I feel great. Really great.  I can’t believe I allowed myself to get out of the habit of walking but thankfully its been an easy habit to get back into.  And thankfully we have a very walker friendly neighborhood.  There are tons of people out walking every day, there are restaurants and stores within very easy walking distance, we have both hilly and flat areas to choose from and there are lots of beautiful houses and gardens to ogle as I pass by.  (The Sigmund the Sea Monster mailbox and the pretty side yard are on my current favorite route.)

Walking.  It does a body good.

The Beach.

I love the beach.  No, make that I LOOOOVE the beach.

I love the wide expanses of cold, grey, hard packed sand on the Oregon coast.  I love the freezing cold, dark blue ocean off of Nantucket.  I love the warm, bouncy surf off of South Carolina.  And yes, I even love the tar stained sand and mossy water of Port Aransas.  I have yet to meet a beach that I didn’t instantly adore and I’m happy to report that I have added another beach to my heart throb list…

My sweet family and I just got back from a week in Grayton Beach, Florida where we played on the beach, played in the surf (which was surprisingly rough sometimes), rode bikes, ate lots of fried shrimp, snorkeled and rode bikes.  We rode bikes A LOT.  The bikes were the highlight of the trip for the girls.  They’ve never lived in a place where they could be so mobile on their own and they loved it.

 

         

   

               

This trip will go down in Venhaus family history as the trip where Charlotte discovered the joys of Key Lime Pie, Gumbo and Orange Fanta.  Where Penelope discovered that a bike can take you to all sorts of fun places.  Where James decided that he really doesn’t like snorkeling all that much and I added yet another place to my ever-growing list of places I would like to live.

A perfect pot of pasta.

A few weeks ago one of my best friends turned 49 (49!) and to celebrate she invited a wonderful group of friends and family to join her at her house for a festive birthday dinner.  It was a truly lovely evening.  The company was fabulous, the weather was perfect and the children were well-behaved (or, if they weren’t they were smart enough to be badly behaved out of earshot…).

At events like this I usually wind up in the kitchen helping whoever is doing the cooking and generally getting in the way.  At this party, I not only wound up helping, but I was put in charge of two seemingly simple, easy-peasy tasks… cook the pasta and bake the bread.  No problem!  I could handle both tasks blindfolded!!  But guess what?  I managed to screw up both of these assignments!! I was a little bit mortified, but luckily the drinks were flowing and the guests were kind and no one taunted me too much.

How, one might ask, do you screw up pasta?  Apparently if the water isn’t quite hot enough, the pot is a little too small and the pasta is two different varieties you wind up with a glob, a clump, a blob of sticky noodles.   Determined not to let a little bit of flour and water get the best of me, I decided to cook a big pot of pasta for dinner the next night.  This time, however, I did a little bit of research first.  Based on what I read, it seems that the following is the best way to cook a perfect pot of pasta:

 

1. Select the right size pot.  It needs to be large enough to let the pasta move freely as it boils. My box of spaghetti calls for a pot large enough to hold 4 quarts of water.
2. Add approximately 1 tablespoon of salt to the water.  (I think it was Ina Garten who said something to the effect that pasta tastes better in Italy because 1. You’re in Italy and 2. They use more salt.)
3. Don’t add oil to the water.  Oil will coat the pasta as it cooks which will keep the sauce from blanketing the pasta properly.
4. When the water has come to a rolling boil, add the pasta and stir immediately.
5. Set your timer for the recommended cooking time for your particular type of pasta (usually 7 – 11 minutes) and stir the pasta periodically as it cooks.
6. Before draining the pasta, reserve about one cup of the starchy, salty pasta water in case you want to thin your pasta sauce.
7. Drain your pasta in a colander (do not rinse unless you are going to use the pasta in a cold dish) and return it to the warm pot.
8. Toss pasta with your favorite sauce and cook together over a medium low heat for about two minutes.

That’s it.  It wasn’t hard at all, it just took a little bit more attention than I’d given it the night before.  I’ve now cooked pasta three times using this method and it has turned out perfectly each time.

Meanwhile… in a different part of the kitchen:

Charlotte whips up the peanut sauce for the pasta.  It was good, but not great.  We’re still looking for the perfect Thai style peanut sauce.  Any suggestions?

And Penelope serves slushies.  It’s her own personal recipe that she’d be happy to share it if you’d like.  (and yes, that is a dog bowl in the middle of our kitchen floor…)

Have a happy Thursday!

The second and third lessons of summer.

Please note that there are no photographs to go with today’s blog post.

There are no photographs because in one case there is nothing to photograph, which leads us nicely into the second lesson of summer:

When you see that the first two large tomatoes are almost ready to pick, that they might, just maaaaybeeee need one more day to be perfect,  pick those suckers right now.  Do not hesitate.  Windowsill ripened is almost as good as vine ripened.  If you wait, you just might find that the neighborhood squirrels got there before you.  Carpe tomato, brother.

In the other case, there is not a photograph because I’m a little embarrassed.  I’m embarrassed that I unwittingly grew a 10″ long, bright yellow zucchini weighing in at almost one pound. How, you ask, did I accomplish this feat?  By not paying attention to what exactly we planted.  We bought a zucchini plant, we stuck it in the ground and we watched it flourish.  It produced beautiful orangey-yellow flowers, and then started producing cute little yellow torpedo shaped objects.  As we waited and watched, these cute little yellow things grew to the size of a regular zucchini and didn’t turn green, then they grew to the size of a small cudgel and they still didn’t turn green.  Finally, I decided to read the plant marker that came with the plant and had one of those face-palm moments… “Golden Dawn Zucchini.  Best picked small.”  Well, that ship has sailed but it leads us to the third lesson of the summer:

Have a destination in mind so you’ll know when you’ve arrived.

That is all.  Hope you’re all having a great summer so far!

Perfect berries one at a time.

We have four lovely strawberry plants in our garden this year and they are producing the most luscious berries you have ever seen or tasted.  The only catch is they are producing these perfect berries one at a time.  As strange as it may seem, I have come to realize that I would much rather eat one of these homegrown, sun-warmed berries split three ways than a whole bowl of the cold, flavorless berries  we’ve been consuming for the past few months.

The first lesson of the summer.

The Reference Desk

Which famous author penned these words?

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.

Think you know?  Leave the answer in the comments section below or post it on The House on Kirkwood’s Facebook page.  If you’re feeling like a super smarty-pants tell me who said it, to whom it was said and in what book it was said.  Oh, and just for grins, what is the significance of the quote??

Happy Monday!