The edible garden pays off

I don't know if I have been watering the roof farm with my eyes shut or what. Yesterday, while the sun was still high at 5pm, I took to the roof armed with a pair of Felcos and plastic bag. And a drink. Of course. The drink was St Germaine and sparkling water and lots of cucumber and lime slices and ice. It sat on the parapet between us and Raccoon House and melted. 

I was up there to snip dead leaves and pull pigweed, prune the blueberry at the wrong time of year, pull up trout lettuce going to seed and generally spruce things up. Also, I needed to check for signs of those blasted tobacco hornworm caterpillars - Vince noticed a very large moth visiting the tomato plants the other night. No sign. But they will emerge at some point. I may have to buy a hand gun (oh, don't go all funny on me now. I hate hand guns more than I can properly express. Still...).

And then I started finding things. The huge big striped zucchini: I scored three. A long purple eggplant, lying hidden beneath some yellowing leaves. Huh. Two small purple peppers. When did that happen? And two round squash with blossoms attached, from the vine that I was about to bin. And one Cape gooseberry. Or ground cherry...

About those. These are decidedly not same species as the Cape gooseberries my mother grows or the ones we buy in stores in Cape Town - and here (at the Garden of Eden, labeled 'goldenberries' - weird shop). Yes, they are Physalis, but the plant is ground hugging rather than bushy, with very rigid, horizontal branches and very, very small fruit that grows uncomfortably close to the stems. And very sweet, even when not orange. Curious.

I collected another cucumber and the first black cherry tomatoes and an electric yellow eggplant. Beans. All under that blazing sun and accompanied by the panting cat and melting drink.

Supper was the vegetable marrows, hollowed and stuffed with some leftover lamb, the chopped eggplants and plenty of summer savory and marjoram. And honey. A salad of many of the vegetables and lettuce. And then a sort of trifle with the strawberries I collected  from the terrace, whipped cream, and some pâte sablée that had shattered when I tried to move it entire to a serving plate. We shared one glassful - being too full to eat one each.

The extra serving disappeared mysteriously in the night, coinciding with a trip by the sleepy Frenchman to drink from his bottle of water that lives in the fridge.

Leaf wraps

Sunday in Brooklyn was horrible. The sky white, the air on the terrace hot and thick. Inside the apartment the air conditioner roared, and we were grateful.

After baking a peach and almond cake in the middle of the night on Saturday (what can I say? I needed cake), I did not really feel like turning the oven on again, and wasn't brave enough to stand outside and cook over coals, either. The answer? Leaf wraps.

Lots of rinsing and chopping later, the loaded smells of fish sauce and fresh lime, the chicken caramelizing with sugar and shallots, and the SE Asian leaf wraps now reside, at long last, next door, at 66 Square Feet (the Food). They are a summer staple, when the mint and basil on the terrace are booming.

Rain came at last, from the west, and the air felt better. We ate outside, feeling tropical, and smelling the sweet Abyssinian gladiolus, blooming only two months too early.

Bees and burrata

The bees are very happy with the echinacea. I am very happy with the basil. Burrata is waiting in the fridge for some skinned tomatoes and freshly torn basil. But first, a redcurrant gin with bitter lemon, I think.

Red

I arrived at the Borough Hall farmers market yesterday just as the stalls were packing up, but in time to collect red currants, raspberries and the first field tomatoes from New Jersey. And here they are.

I brought Frank's cured, cultivated field garlic out of hiding, to slice thinly into the base for the basmati rice.

This time I would stuff them with pine nuts - Spanish, not Chinese because of You Know What - and currants, in addition to the basmati and dill.

Very good. Full of lycopenes. 

It was a red evening. We drank Red Hook Pink Dahlia rosé and ate the raspberries for dessert. They did actually need the sugar. To make matters worse, we poured cream over them. 

While we spooned them up we discussed holidays and where to take them and how to manage them. Vince may have become a little dewy-eyed. He has not had a holiday in a year-and-a-half, and needs to use vacation time he has accrued at work after a year or it gets cancelled. Brutal.

We'll see. We may venture to his old, old stomping grounds. I can write. He can dive.

Thinking.

- Stuffed tomato recipe at 66 Square Feet (the Food) - 

Flying pig premonitions

I saw it all happening in slow motion. No, really. I did. In the kitchen, while I was packing the tray with the plates and the pork tonnato, I imagined Vince handing it up to me, he on the terrace, me on the roof - that's how we get picnics up there - and I imagined the pretty antique porcelain plate of pork slowly sliding, sliding off the tray and splash! - hitting Vince in the face. And in my little domestic day dream, as I finished assembling the soon-to-be-transported tray, I laughed, because Vince had tuna sauce all over his head.

That's not exactly how it happened, 30 minutes later. But as he handed the tray up  to me it teetered and then the plate tipped and slid the way I had imagined it sliding and smashed onto the gravel below. The tuna sauce covered the fall anemones, not the Frenchman. The cat, safely under the stone-top table, looked pleased. I think I yelled, loudly, Oh, shit! Vince sat down.

I found him there on the chair when I finally made my way down. The terrace smelled fishy. Vince was stricken. The plate was shattered. The pork medallions lay neatly in a heap on top of the mint and creeping jenny. And I laughed. Because it was not a surprise. It had already happened in my head. Yes, it was a wonderful plate that I had recently found, but a thing is a thing and the pork was safe. Who cares about a mint leaf or two?

So we scooped it all up, hosed down the anemones, re-plated the pork with the extra sauce in the frigde, scattered more capers across its surface and did it all over again.

Our bubbly was sipped gratefully. A good break from prosecco, a Spanish cava (Castellroig,  look for it). The red sun came out from behind high clouds and dipped down over New Jersey, lighting up the sails of the yachts in the harbour. The cat begged for tidbits.

The apricot cake, once we got to it, was still warm from the oven.

Local is lekker

We have had two perfect days. Warm, but without the clinging humidity that smothered us last week. I have been grazing on the terrace strawberries - this is their third flush. I water the pots, and chew the red fruit. All day yesterday I thought it was Tuesday. Which explained why there was no farmers market when I walked by, in the late afternoon - I thought they had packed up early. But after writing today I'll go back to Borough Hall and see if I can find the tomatoes I was looking for. Mine are not ripe yet, but New Jersey is beginning to produce. I went to Trader Joe's to try for real tomatoes, there. They had tomatoes on the vine from Holland. Organic tomatoes from Canada. Small yellow pear tomatoes from Mexico.

Across the Hudson, the real thing is growing.

Time to start a local produce section in every store, oh Hawaian-shirted, forcefully friendly emporium.

Don't you think?

The log lady

I am the proud owner of a log.

A few days ago a long box addressed to me from Virginia was left by FedEx in the hallway downstairs. It was very heavy, so I left it there for the Frenchman.

Inside was this log. A very heavy log. I'm not sure what tree it is. Possibly locust? Webb, who (very generously) sent the log, had already explained everything to me, and so I knew that it had inoculated with shitake mushrooms spores. If all goes well and I water it as I should, one day I will have mushrooms. First, I water it twice a day. Then, when I see the mycorrhizal network forming, I must...soak it for 24 hours in the bath. Hm.

Even if it never mushrooms, I like the log. Logs are nice, and I have always wanted one. The cat's scratching pole isn't a proper log. It was stolen from Flatbush Avenue years ago by one of the cat's admirers and is very splintery, but the feline liked it, so it moved with us.

I leave you with the original log lady.