Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Monday, March 24, 2025
Seeing red?
Friday, March 21, 2025
Forage walks for spring
New spring Plant Walks and Forage Picnics are ready. Find them and book your tickets via the link.
Pictured above? Bloodroot, and ephemeral native wildflower, doing battle with English ivy. Who are your rooting for (sorry...)?
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Sunday, March 16, 2025
Bud break
Thursday, March 13, 2025
Daffodil hour
The Frenchman's birthday daffodils ablaze in the early afternoon sunlight, now bright through the skylight as that medium-size star climbs higher and higher in the pre-spring sky.
These were the first daffodils I have seen sold locally, and that means we'll have them for the next couple of months. In parks and gardens, they are already in bud, but still tightly closed.
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Choose your pepper wisely
So where and how did I convert? This country. Living with a food-loving Mexican for four years may have had something to do with it. New York City, and it's plethora of Southeast Asian eateries. And simply being on the continent in proximity to so many forms of fresh and dried chiles had significant powers of persuasion.
I like heat, now. A lot. But there's heat and there's heat. For my recent experiments making shatta, a gently fermented and staple chile condiment eaten in Palestine (and other Eastern Mediterranean countries), I learned that long red cayenne peppers make a fantastic shatta—sweetly hot and mellow. But that compact Scotch bonnet peppers (I know, what was I thinking?) blew the house down.
And atop labne, with an egg and some crisp celery and mint? Delicious, and pretty darn healthy, too.
My shatta recipe is up on Gardenista.
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