Winter reading in Martha Stewart Living

Here, page one of a two page spread of really stunning books: carefully curated suggested winter reading for gardeners, appearing in this month's print issue of Martha Stewart Living. I think I have enough books and then I see something like this and my mouth begins to water. Where to put them? Stacks on floor. Only answer. On this page Amy Stewart's earthworm book, Latin for Gardeners and the gorgeous Ken Druse book (we share a publisher) speak to me.

(Also in February's issue, garden photographer Marion Brenner's own garden with her tips for capturing your garden at its best...)

Go, buy some paper!

Flowers and lemons

I am late. Like that rabbit. I chose to stew in my publishing juices yesterday (...also a little like a rabbit, but a less active one) and so failed to hook up with the flowerathon hosted at Small but Charming.

But, like that actress I knew who would arrive an hour late and make her entrance just as everyone else's sobriety was teetering on the edge as they drank to fill in the time, Here I am: Flowers! In the house.

I know. Tulips, February. But I have been loving them.

The books. Claudia Roden's is an old favourite, The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. I have begun to investigate The Lebanese Kitchen - a beautiful book, with some mistakes in the recipes, but very interesting ideas, some of which are new to me. I have not yet dived into Naomi Duguid's Burma, but can't wait.

I need your help

Roof picnic

Dear Readers:

Now that it is in the layout and design stage, my publishers tell me that we may need to cut 16 pages from the book over all, for it to fit within budget and size. Welcome to the fun side of publishing. I am so close to this project that I'd welcome more objective feedback than my ego's. So here's your chance to be editors for a day (er...that's if some of you are not already editors).

To recap: each chapter of 66 Square Feet - a Delicious Life, is a month. And each month is divided into three parts, for instance:

New York in August (parks, farmers' markets, the seasons on the street, foraging, the odd picnic), The Terrace and Roof Farm in August (gardening, as well as a picnic on the roof, perhaps, or on the terrace), My Kitchen in August (a menu for the month with recipes).

Here are two possible options and I would really appreciate your opinions. As potential readers, what would prefer:

1. To cut a piece of the introduction to each month, which means losing some New York scenes and stories about parks and the seasons on the street.

or

2. To cut out some picnics with their respective recipes. These are scattered through the Terrace and New York sections. Roof picnics, terrace picnics, park picnics, indoor picnics.

So. Lose some New York City background, or lose picnics and recipes?

Picnics?

New York?

Picnics?

New York?

I have put a poll in the sidebar to make it easy to vote. I do not promise to follow your advice, but I would really like to have a sense of what you, as potential readers, value more. Feel free to explain your vote in the comments.

And my thanks in advance. Without wonderful readers, there would be no book.

(Is it too early for a drink?)

Flowers in winter

We walked into Prospect Park from Grand Army Plaza. I was hunting snowdrops, but the Frenchman spotted an old friend of mine, this witch hazel, near the entrance. There was no trace of the sweet witch hazel scent. Maybe it starts later in the day...

On the snowy bank opposite was another, blooming on a branch that resembled a compound fracture. Many damaged trees have not yet been pruned after destructive storms. The witch hazels are flexible enough to withstand high winds but are crushed or broken when large trees or limbs fall on them. 

And a third, below. If we found no snowdrops, these were lovely compensation. See, it's broken, too.

I know. A squirrel. 

This is on the edge of the Vale of Cashmere. A steady volunteer group keeps this part of the park as tidy as it can, though fixing the paths - deeply grooved and rutted and exploded and pot-holed tarmac - is beyond their scope.

The woods above Battle Pass. Scene of one of many fights in the Battle of Long Island, August 27th, 1776, in the American War of Independence. At this spot the (newly minted) Americans fought the mercenary Hessians (...I am partly descended from a soldier of fortune, but English, not Hessian - not saying that's good thing, it just Is). It was a long day. The battle moved all the way to where we live, in Cobble Hill. We walk with ghosts. 

We avoided the Litter Mob woods. Too depressing.

And we found the snowdrops. One month to the day, earlier than before.

The leaf litter is very thick, and an enormous tree had crashed on top of a large patch.

Prospect Park should be a UNESCO World Heritage Site (these are the criteria that must be satisfied). Like the canals of Amsterdam. Then maybe the City of New York would spend more money on its upkeep. 

Cold after our long amble, in temperatures just a little below freezing, we found an actual picnic table just up there to the left, in amongst those trees.

We stayed long enough to eat many slices of our local, cured duck breast, to discuss how we could have more duck shipped from Granville Island in Vancouver, to watch dog owners bellowing at their dogs, and to see the arrival of an elderly Asian couple, well-insulated in big red puffer jackets, sit down to their own picnic complete with intriguing steam from flasks. 

After they had eaten she took a nap, head on arms on table, and he read the newspaper. 

It is never too cold to picnic. 

Snowdrops in February

We had a sprinkling of snow overnight. In the dark I could see cat paw prints on the table like an expensive mosaic.

Soon after I post this, there will be a snowdrop expedition. Vince's Quixotic quest for open water pictures has been delayed. I know of a patch of the flowers in Prospect Park (above and below) and am hoping there is till snow around them. I photographed these snowdrops in 2011, in March, just about when I was becoming outraged about the litter in the woods of Prospect Park. But there have already been snowdrop sightings in the city: reports from Strawberry Fields in Central Park, from Kensington and from Prospect Heights, both in Brooklyn...

I returned to the woods a couple of weeks ago, and it is as though we had never been there, cleaning for a year. The litter is back, the condoms are back, the men patrolling for sex are back. This part of the park is freshly abandoned, cut loose. The storms of last year have also destroyed many more trees in the woods. Several tall specimens in a cluster were missing their crowns; their trunks, ending abruptly in mid air, at about 30 feet, were spiraled and frayed as though a giant hand had come down and twisted them off.

In happier news, I was alerted to the presence of Meyer lemons at Trader Joe's. So last night I took a big breath, held my nose and plunged into the Saturday shopping crowd in the emporium that still makes me want to hyperventilate. Utter chaos.  Shoppers three deep in the aisles, nobody moving, everybody oblivious to traffic flow. How do they drive? I know. I'm a grump. I can't bear bear stagnation and I like to move fast, or at less with awareness. Chinatown is hard that way too. But when I got the line, at Trader Joe's, anyway, it moved very fast. Relief.

I now have many little sacks of the thin-skinned very perfumed Meyer lemons, two tall cylinders of Baleine coarse salt and will preserve one jarful of the lemons and make limoncello with the rest. Thank you, Clare Hambly, for the inspiration - she is a fellow South African whom I met for a drink yesterday evening, and she told me about the lemons and was talking preserved-in-salt.

That's all it takes, really.

Groundhog Day

Happy Groundhog Day, y'all!

To celebrate please view our New York groundhogs over in The New York Times' City Room (or just pick up a print version of the paper).

I find it rather funny, but mostly very nice, that Vince and I both have a groundhog picture in the article. It's not like we specialize in rodent photography. But, Go, Team Groundhog! Thanks to Marielle Anzelone (NYC Wildlfower Week) for alerting us to the need for groundhog images. We are very pleased they made the cut.

Of course, the photo at the top of the Time's article is terribly ugly. Taken by the man who is passionate about beautiful landscapes. The close up groundhog, looks mean, too. That was Staten Island, last May* - you can see more creatures spotted on that trip in the link.

I photographed this groundhog in Green-Wood late last summer, and we hope to see him/her again.

In other news...Oh, wait. There's no other news. Sorry.

That's it.

But is there a groundhog equivalent of New Brunswick stew?

Just thought I'd ask.

** Turns out this groundhog can be christened. I name him...Garfinkel: see Frank's post.

Beauty

Abraham Darby and Pat Austin - both David Austin hybrids

This is why I garden. To have these. This was May.

And it will be May again.