The Green-Wood groundhog

We have seen him a couple of times.

He (?) trundles along, pausing to crop the grass. 

I think he may be old, or have poor eyesight. Didn't mind us if we stood still, but hated the sound of our movement. We kept away so as not to bother him too much.

This is our second groundhog sighting in the city. Vince photographed the denizens of a borrow on Staten Island in the summer...

Autumn-olives

Autumn olive - Eleagnus umbellata

Autumn-olive is not Russian olive. There endeth the lesson.

At least there ended mine, a few years ago. Autumn-olive is Elaeagnus umbellata. And the autumn-olive (why the hyphen? No clue) fruit is perfectly round and red with silver flecks (occasionally yellow with silver flecks). It is beginning to ripen now, in these parts.

Russian olive - Eleagnus angustifolia

Photo: Great Swamp Watershed Association, NJ

Russian olive is Elaeagnus angustifolia, above. Called oleaster in Europe.

Many people confuse the two. I used to, too. But Russian olive is an elongated oval, and greeny-yellow. Mealy rather than juicy. The fruit of both are technically drupes, as the pit is on the inside, surrounded by flesh. They are mini stone fruit - like peaches, apricots, cherries.

Both are edible. Both are highly invasive. Neither is related to the olives we brine and cure in oil. That is Olea europea.

Autumn-olive jam

But the autumn-olive is dee-licious. If you like red currants.

Read more about autumn-olives and how to eat them in my article for Edible Manhattan. In print now or online.

Oh - and this didn't make it into the Edible piece because my editor didn't want to bore the pants off readers, BUT. There is an Elaeagnus from these American shores: Elaeagnus commutata, or silverberry. So there. I have never tasted it. Most reports say that is is dryish and mealy.

Moss rose

By lunchtime the moss roses - Portulaca grandiflora - on the sunny edge of the terrace have shut up shop for the day, their petals colourless, furled and dry. Until then they are a riot, enjoying cooler weather more than I would have thought, and staying open longer.

I nibble their leaves every now and then but they don't have the same very sour appeal that the sprawling weedy portulaca does - P. oleraceae - the one that boasts more omega-3 than any other measured plant source...

Banana bread

I have just bought a new* copy of the House and Garden Cookbook (Octopus, 1987), edited by Alice Wooledge Salmon. Online.  It is well out of print.

It is an odd thing for me to buy, perhaps; it was done on impulse: I was only checking the title of the book for this post, and then found copies of it available. I have just about internalized its contents. I can see its pages as I type this. The book lives in my mother's considerable kitchen bookcase and I can't count the number of recipes we've adopted from it as our own: yellow pepper soup with buttermilk,  gateau Victoire au chocolat, prosecco jellies, tomato roulade, off the top of my head. Lunch Under the Tree** classics, every one.

If you come to own it, I think it will become one of your favourites, too.  I love the way it is layed out, the themes within it, and what I remember of the photography.

This banana and macadamia nut bread comes from it, too. Another reason to purchase a copy. Wholewheat and white flour, sour cream, bananas, the nuts, and coriander. It is wonderful. In November I add cranberries to the batter.

* I notice that the remaining new copies at Amazon have been sold since I posted this. Used copies are still available there, or try a Web search for other sources.

**Lunches Under the Tree (Down the Ages):

The Collinses come to Visit
The Frenchman's Trial by Lunch
The First Blogger's Lunch
Tweede Nuwe Jaar
My Mother Cooks, I do Flowers and Table
Lunch for Three

Sage, go figure

The herbs on the edge are becoming a hedge.

I've discovered something interesting:

The blue sage, out of focus, above, is very slow. I thought it was something I was doing wrong.  The chartreuse, variegated sage, not pictured, is also very slow. Just sits there. Then, a few weeks ago I bought a quart pot of a common boring ordinary grey sage. I planted it and it took off. It is now twice the size of these two cultivars.

Did everyone know that, already? That straight up Salvia officinalis is the grower? I haven't had the plant for a couple of years after my last one died, one bad winter. It flowered, first, perhaps sensing The End. And I will use the new one, soon for abbacchio alla Romana. Also very good crisped in some butter and tossed over almost any kind of pasta, but especially where a little lemon is involved...

The lemon basil, at the end there, is about to bloom. The bees will be very pleased. The purple and the spotted basil are already stringy and pale, beyond flowers, and I have potted up some new seedlings that I started a month ago on the roof, to replace them.

I would love to be in the garden, such as it is, more often. But I have less than a month to go before I submit the book's manuscript and photos to my publishers, and I am now in the middle of choosing those images. Then they must be processed and meticulously labeled. Twelve months of New York, Terrace and Roof Farm, and Food. I so want them to be good. And new, and fresh. I am also cooking and photographing like mad, and revising text as I go. I would very much like to be three or even four (five?) people. One of me could be gardening, one of me could be shopping and cooking, one of me could be shooting and another of me could be writing recipes. And another me to be a much better proof reader than this me is. Oh, and a me to vacuum and talk to the cat and be nice to the Frenchman. Oh: a seventh me to take care of the blog would be helpful.

So if you hear a cross-eyed, high pitched squeal coming from Brooklyn...

...it's the cat. Absolutely refusing to multitask. And to think I gave him bouillabaisse for his dessert.

Farming in the city

The Black Cherry tomato plant has been cut back and pulled out. Now I have an empty milk crate waiting for kale. When will I plant? I don't know. I need a few more weeks in a day.

They were wonderful tomatoes, more dark green than black and pretty resilient.

The Yellow Pears are still going, but very blighted, and I'll take them out soon. They made more than we could eat. I left some at our neighbour's door in a bowl, and a few days later I found a pound of very good coffee at our door, with a nice note and the clean bowl.

The Mexican Heirloom's leaves are still fresh and healthy, with no blight or disease at all. The plants I have are all volunteers, offspring of the first tomato I grew several years ago on the terrace itself. The seedlings still pop up in the gravel.

There are a few more San Marzano plum tomatoes to come - their flesh has been quite dry. They are pretty, but I don't think I'll plant them again. And still about a dozen Green Zebras on those plants.Their leaves have been stripped by the tobacco hornworm caterpillars. They are delicious. Quite tart.

The Physalis - ground cherries (below) - are driving me a little demented. They won't stop. Every day more of their pale husks litter the roof. They taste very different from my mom's cape gooseberries - Physalis pervuviana - in Cape Town, which is the same as the fruit grown commercially in South Africa. The cape gooseberries are deep yellow with sweet with a tart finish. Wonderful for baking.

My ground cherries are "Aunt Molly's", and native to the eastern and central US, apparently:  Physalis pruinosa. Other sources say they are Physalis pubescens var. integrifolia. They are small and a muddy yellow, very sweet (too sweet for me) with a lightly strange aftertaste of Solanaceae. The bushes are different, too. Mine are distinctly horizontal and squat, with the fruit crowding the rigid branches. The ones grown in South Africa have longer, more upright branches, and the fruit dangles freely from the stem.

I enjoyed growing these - they are very easy and rewarding, but I'd like to find the other species, whose taste I prefer.

Not pictured are the Striped Germans and Brandywines - still a few more to come, or else I'll give up and cook them green. The eggplants must be removed, and there are few peppers still peppering. Seeds are waiting.

Photo: Hudson Clove

And in other news, Frank has gone commercial! If you'd like to order genuine, local garlic online, in a bouquet of varieties, visit his new site: Hudson Clove. Congratulations, Farmer Frank. He had a dream.

Boy hits girl, girl goes back to boy

You never know, with a fight.

I was walking down Congress Street to go grocery shopping a couple of weeks ago. It was raining hard and I stopped to take a picture of the big green linden trees in the rain. I heard two voices, fighting. Female, male. Coming from Clinton Street, which I was approaching. Soon I could see the altercation, still about 100 feet away, two people on the sidewalk facing off, shouting. And then he lunged, pushed, she fell back, and he went after her, very fast, fist raised and punching. I yelled as loudly as I could. HEY!

I made a big noise. He peeled off and headed towards Cobble Hill Park, and towards me.

I worried for a second that this guy might be armed. I didn't think gun, I thought knife. I really didn't want to get involved with a knife. I did not have my cellphone - it was back at home, charging. But he was walking away fast, looking at me and then at her, over his shoulder. Not taller than me, slightly built. I was more interested in seeing how she was than in taking off after him.

She was young. Very young. A kid. Skinny, with long, blondish-brown hair, a small, pretty face. Getting up from the wet tarmac where she had fallen between two parked cars. Her little white hotpants were muddied, kohl-lined eyes streaked, a gob of what looked like spit on her cheek. She cried and kept fussing with her hair, trying to tie it back up on her head. I held my umbrella over her and asked the obvious question. Are you OK?

Ye-e-e-e-s.

And then she turned and began to walk away, after him!

Whoa! I called her back. Addressed her as sweetheart. Said she needed to stay put, that I wanted to know what had happened. Was he her boyfriend? N-o-o-o-o. Who was he? E-e-e-ex boyfriend. How old was she? 14. Where was home? Two blocks away. Were her parents home? No. But her friends lived nearby. I need to get you to an adult who knows you, I said. Shook her head. You don't want them to know? Another sad, wet shake.

Oy.

By this time three other women had gathered, two crossing the road to reach us. A Muslim lady, scarf wrapped across her nose, a blonde, an olive-skinned woman. All three had been watching this unfold for about a block and had only now caught up. We stood around, tsking and discussing a course of action. The blond took charge and she and the Muslim lady took the 14-year-old between them, ostensibly back to the girl's friends' house in Brooklyn Heights. Frankly, I was relieved to be shot of it.

The third woman and I stood in the rain under our umbrellas and commiserated. I know her, she said, I recognize her from the neighborhood.

The reason I am telling this story now is that I saw them yesterday afternoon. The girl, and the boy. Together. Walking down Court Street in the sunlight, his arm draped proprietorially over her thin shoulders, a look of deep self satisfaction on both their faces. His red gangsta cap on a little sideways, an un-Hipster tattoo up his arm, a smirk on his lips. She looked like a cat that had eaten a very small, tasty canary.

I stopped. I turned and stared. I nearly took a picture, then mentally slapped myself. The owner of Pacific Gourmet watched me with interest from his perch on the sidewalk - something had cracked my aloof facade. I turned back and went in and bought potatoes. When I came out they were long gone.

I walked in their direction anyway, my phone ringing as I crossed Court Street, heading west and home. Vince, walking home from the subway, on Clinton. Where are you, he asked. About to go up Congress, I said. See you at home.

I crossed Clinton Street, the corner where the girl had been so wet and dirty in the rain, covered in spit.  An old man and his small dog stood on the bluestone sidewalk, the man saying to his dog, Let's go home, now. A few blocks down Clinton towards well-heeled Warren Street, where the olive skinned lady said this girl lived, the high construction wall still blocks all traffic beneath the lightning-struck church. The steeple will be removed piece by piece until it is no longer considered a threat to public safety.