FULLNESS

What a glorious morning! So much sun, just the right amount of heat, and limitless potential. On mornings like this, I feel an excitement that is difficult to articulate. It has to do with the fact that almost anything seems possible as I navigate this day and it unfolds its secrets.

My first stop was at one of the many large zinnia patches spread in various spots around the house and garden. They are in superb and profuse bloom now, and to see them in such splendor is to fill ones soul.

I have been collecting zinnia seeds from my plants in the fall of the year, October or November, for about 14 years now. Last year I collected 10 gallon bags full! I love zinnias. Their color is so intense and varied, and sometimes, on the same stalk there are flowers of different colors! Their shapes and sizes are beyond chronicling, and never cease to amaze me, and again I have found zinnias differently constituted on the same stalk.

Here are just a few:

I think I'd like to be the Johnny Appleseed of zinnias, and in the spring of the year, I give away bag after bag. I also like to give zinnia packets as part of birthday or special occasion gifts. There can't be enough zinnias in the world as far as I am concerned.

My second stop this morning was at my garden, which is a profusion of greens and bursting with produce.

This is what I harvested before 7 a.m.

Tried a new green bean dish tonight...it included some of the half bushel of delicious peaches which are fast disappearing.

and it was incredibly delicious and refreshing!!

Saute onion rings in olive oil, when golden add 1 # of snipped green/yellow beans, a bit of salt, 1 tsp. or more of snipped fresh rosemary, 1 clove garlic, minced, and cook until beans are just tender crisp. Add two to three sliced fresh peaches, and squeeze the juice from 1/2 fresh lime over all. Serve hot or cold. I refrigerated and served a few hours later, mmmmm.



My third stop was at the gooseberry bushes.

These are domestic gooseberries. When I lived in South Dakota, we owned a lovely home in town, but with a 3/4 acre ravine as a back yard. It was wonderful. The ravine, among other delights, had lots and lots of wild gooseberry bushes. I spent countless hours gathering the tiny berries.

These domestic berries are anything but tiny, and even eating one berry fills the mouth with pleasure.

Now the hitch in gathering and utilizing gooseberries is that there is a stem on one end and a dried blossom at the other end, and each has to be picked off. This is a time consuming task, but compared to doing this with the tiny wild berries, it is nothing.

Gooseberry jam is one of my two favorite jams, the other being currant.

On a day like today, I am overcome with gratitude to these plants, the earth, the elements, and all of nature. I feel the life in these plants and the forces they exert to become. I have a great reverence for this food, and for my garden. I cannot help but think of the countless people around the world who have little or nothing to eat, and wish there were truly some way to share my bounty with them.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF BLUE

I wanted to 'Pick Your Own' blueberries this year, but could not find the time to get over to the blueberry patch outside of Tomah. An Amish friend of ours brings in produce and sells it by the box, bushel, etc. I went there on Friday and bought 10 #'s of really good blueberries and a half bushel of peaches.

...a lovely dusky blue....

Picked through, washed and dried all 10 #'s when I got home. I froze most of them, but left enough out to have with yogurt and also to make a pie, which I did early this morning way before it was going to be 105 degrees with the heat index.

Hard to wait, but Freddie didn't succumb until mid-afternoon...


perhaps because of the extreme heat today, the pie still seemed warm...




and with some vanilla ice cream, he deemed it ...the best blueberry pie he'd ever eaten...

On another blue note, I went to Gramma's Attic (a twice per month jumble sale in an old building...and jumble is really a descriptive word for this place) yesterday and scored with.....

these brand new, Hand loomed brilliant blue and cream cotton napkins, at ten cents per. They are really lovely and I sure would like to replicate the weaving pattern. The colors are stunning, as well. I also got brand new beautiful place mats, four for a dollar. It is a real chore to weed through all of the items, but in this case, there they were, sitting right on top of the box waiting for me.

Now this is a blue that's easy to take.

FROM GARDEN TO TABLE

Such bounty this month, so much green and such good eating...I can't resist devoting a blog post entirely to food, some simple and some not quite so simple, all delicious.

I stop harvesting asparagus on the first of July, with some regrets, but also with an eagerness for all the greens and other produce now ready in the garden. However, I will begin this food journey with asparagus. When something is in season, I am inclined to serve it often, even nightly, in a different form. We ate a GREAT deal of asparagus this year, and I often gave thanks to the Steinmetz family from whom we bought this farm. They had planted an ample asparagus crop many, many years ago, and it is still giving and giving, and spreading its circular self farther out each summer.

A simple cold dish with a yogurt, dill dressing, given to me by my friend Janet...mmmmmmmmmm, served here with a spinach omelet, and the almost nightly fresh greens salad.

Here is one of the easiest, and truly tasty, simple ways to serve this vegetable. Cleaned, cut up, and lightly sauteed in good olive oil, with a great deal of diced garlic, which one must add close to the end of cooking time so it does not burn.

Served here with a chicken cutlet. We do not eat a great deal of meat, perhaps once or twice per month, and it is mostly chicken. Chicken cutlets, Sicilian style is a favorite.

An asparagus frittata.

Pre-sauteed asparagus served with a wild rice mix, loaded with chopped onions and garlic.

And last of the asparagus, but surely not least

the Quiche



We also had an abundance of spinach this summer and we ate it frequently raw, but I also found a new way to serve it which we loved. It is a bit complicated, but worth the effort.

Spinach and Herb Torta in a potato crust.

3 large potatoes; 2 tbs. olive oil; large onion chopped; 1 tsp. fresh chopped dill weed; 1/2 c. chopped fresh parsley; 1/2 c. chopped fresh cilantro; salt and freshly ground pepper; 2 large bunches spinach roughly chopped; 1 c. small curd cottage cheese; 1/3 to 1/2 c. crumbled feta;
grated zest of one lemon.

Peel and slice the potatoes, and fry them in some of the olive oil until golden, remove from pan and lay on paper towel. Add a bit more of olive oil to pan add onions and herbs and saute about four minutes. Season with salt/pepper and remove to bowl. Add the spinach to pan with the water that is clinging to the leaves (add a bit more water if it seems too dry) and cook over high heat until leaves are wilted and tender, about 4 minutes. Put spinach in sieve and squeeze out all water, then add it to the onion mixture. Add the eggs, cheeses and lemon zest. Meanwhile preheat oven to 375 degrees.

To assemble torte, butter a 9" spring form pan. Cover the bottom with the potato slices making sure there are no gaps. Pour the spinach mixture over this and bake immediately, until firm and golden.

Torte just out of the oven.........

...and served with a green salad, fresh pineapple and strawberries.

My broccoli came on very early this year, and I picked four large heads just the other day. Keeping it pretty simple, I made broccoli cashew stir-fry...

and served it with fresh spring rolls with fresh cilantro, and pot stickers, both with a great dipping sauce.



Greens, greens, greens....Kale helped make our Sicilian Greens and Beans deeply flavorful.

Onion, garlic sauteed in olive oil, and in this dish, one inch slices of Italian sausage sauteed, as well. Lots of stemless kale added and cooked until very soft, and a can of cannelloni beans, drained but not rinsed, added at the end. Salt/pepper to taste.

Here served with slivers of Romano cheese and a fresh cucumber, dill mayo salad.

And something new I created after reading several Swiss Chard recipes...wanting to combine various aspects of each.

I took the largest leaves, snipped the stems off close up in the leaf. Blanched each leaf for about 30 seconds until very green. Set them aside.

Sauteed chopped up chard, lots of it, in olive oil with of course, chopped onion and garlic, salt/pepper, until soft. Drained and squeezed, set aside to cool.

In a bowl I put one container of ricotta cheese, 1/2-1 c. grated raw milk jack style cheese (Organic Valley) or mozzarella, 1/4 c. of Romano cheese, 1 large egg, pinch of nutmeg, and the cooled chard mixture. Mix this very well, let sit and drain for a few minutes.

Take the soften, blanched leaves, and lay them flat on the counter. Place one heaping spoonful of mix in the center, fold sides of leaves up and roll from back to front until you have a small 'sealed' bundle. Continue until leaves are used, (I used about 14) and mixture gone.

I made these early in the afternoon and refrigerated until supper time.

To cook: Olive oil the bottom of a small cake pan and cover lightly with your favorite tomato sauce (I use my frozen roasted tomato sauce). Place a layer of the chard bundles, grate some of the jack style cheese and romano cheese, add a layer of sauce, repeat until bundles are used up. End with a layer of sauce and the grated cheeses.

Cover with tin foil and bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes. Remove foil, and bake for about 10-15 minutes more.

I served these over linguine, and my husband's first words were WOW! I've never tasted anything like this before, it's delicious. And, indeed, it was.

A posting of mine about food would not be complete without my all time favorite meal, which we have at least once per week....

PIZZA

And for the dessert we have most often in the summer, cobbler (for a recipe check my May 11, 2010 posting).

In this case fresh strawberries

Served with honeyed fresh whipped cream, Organic Valley, of course.

I just made this cobbler with fresh peaches and blueberries the other night. It is a great recipe because you can use it with any fresh or frozen fruit you might have on hand.


What a wonderful time of year for those who love gardening and cooking. If you just love cooking and don't/can't garden, the abundance of local Farmer's Markets offers the same produce. At this time of year, it is pretty inexpensive to buy fresh local produce. Buying local---GOOD!

MY MORNING GARDEN

When I was a child we lived in a great old house on Liberty Street, in Fredonia, NY, with my Grandmother Gennuso, my mother's mother. When I was really young, my Aunt Minnie, my mother's older sister, also lived with us, as her husband had died of TB. My father, at that time, was in the navy, and away 'at war'. We were three girl children, as my youngest sibling, my brother Butch, had not yet been born. Jackie, my eldest sister and Barbara, my youngest sister and I helped make up this world of women in which we lived for several years.

I must say that high among my fondest memories is my grandmother's garden. It was extensive, and stretched, or seemed to, far behind our house. It was a garden laden with tomatoes, basil, onions, garlic, leafy vegetables, broccoli, and much, much more. Grandma spent much time in the garden. I can still see her slightly portly figure, in a faded, flowered, cotton house dress, her white, white hair tied neatly in a bun at the nape of her neck, bent over the green rows, hoeing or weeding by hand. My grandma loved her garden! It was apparent in the tender way in which she toiled, in the reverent way in which she gathered its harvest, and in the deeply respectful way in which she used its produce. We wasted nothing, what was not prepared for immediate consumption was lovingly 'put up' in her working basement. Not only did she have a wood cook stove in the kitchen at that time, but she also had one in the basement so that all the women could keep cooler while canning.

I loved trailing behind my grandma in the garden...I am sure it is her influence and example that has led to my deep love for the outdoors.

Approaching my garden in the morning, I feel as though I am entering a cathedral...

...this small arched opening which leads to my garden seems like a portal of some holy kind...

This morning I felt my grandmother presence more strongly than on some mornings, though she is there always. The light, the lush, verdant greens, the ampleness of it all speaks to its givingness, its readiness to break through to the 'other' side.

My broccoli has been pushing to make it to the table, and as I can just barely see the burst of soon to be flowers, I harvest two heads this morning, which will be on our table tonight.

The basil is looking beautiful, and I can't resist the temptation to snip a leaf and rub it behind my ears and on my wrists. Soon we will have fresh pesto, too.

The tomatoes are honestly looking the best that I can remember in years...huge, healthy looking stalks with plenty of yellow flowers. We have eaten two small tomatoes from one plant, and it is about to yield two more. Those will sit on a dish, sliced with a fresh onion and basil, with a dirzzle of olive oil and wine vinegar, perhaps tonight as well.

And one of my very favorite garden gifts is the cucumber. I have two that are very near to harvest, and I hope I can wait another two to three days to let them get to their prime.

This is the first year I can remember, this late in the summer, that the potatoes do not (as yet) have potato beetles munching away. I generally walk through the rows with two flat stones in hand, and although it is a very difficult thing for me to do, I place the potato bug that is only doing what it is meant to do, on one of my Killing Stones and squash it with the other. This is a part of tending my garden I do not relish. I wish there were some way the potato beetles and I could both share this crop.

The rows of dill have finally gotten some growth. I love to snip a piece off and chew on it as I am working.

Yes, I love my garden and I am so grateful to my grandmother who so loved her garden as well.

Rag Roses

I thought when I retired, as I am sure most newly retired people do, that I was going to have time unlimited, time that was filled with a leisurely approach to all that I wanted to accomplish. Well, granted I'm not so much a leisurely person, I still thought my life would slow down and I would have ample time and space for all. This is just so not true!! I often think it is time to retire from retirement, as this is so frequently tire-ment or day by day, retire-ment. I do not mean to complain, as I LOVE retirement; time spent with my grandkids; time in the garden (despite the weeds racing ahead of me); time for the vineyard; time for biking; time for cooking and baking; time for writing; time for friends; time in the workshop, weaving, sewing, creating.

I can honestly say I am not 'tired', but I do feel crunched and often have to leave something out of my day that I long to have done, for instance a bike ride. Somehow that is always the first to be left out, but that is changing today, for as I leave this computer, I am hopping on my Gary Fisher.

The latest item to emerge from my workshop is a Rya Rag-roses lampshade. I am having lots of fun weaving lampshades, and have plenty of frames still to go. I am nearly out of rag balls, so I am going to have to explore other avenues for further shades.

This is the Rya Rag-roses shade as initially completed.

This is a shot of that same shade with the addition of a tendril of leaves connecting the roses.

This looks lovely lit from underneath, but I think it is pretty as is, as well.

I'VE GOT THE BLUES....

Before getting to the Blues, below is the completed lampshade, which when placed over a bulb, lightens beautifully, any blue feeling one might have. This shade took quite a long time, and is woven on a wool warp with cotton and silk weft. I found the frame many years ago, and loved its unusual shape. One doesn't often see a rectangular lampshade anymore.

And now for the BLUES!

Way back in April I had been weaving a blue wool rug on my old Union #36 loom. I began, of course, thinking it was going to be lovely, although as I wove along, I started to see the 'rug' differently, and not altogether kindly. I plowed ahead, being unable to just hack it off, and when it was done, gloomily cut it off the loom.

Here it is just off the loom, and truly I thought it ugly. Mostly I did not like the warp-faced white showing up so strongly on the blue wool.

It sat until just last week, rolled up, forgotten and unfinished on the couch on the unused front porch. For some reason last week, I decided to return to this rug, and at least finish the ends.

And here it its, and I still don't like it very much. While I was tying and twisting the ends, my husband walked by and said, "That's beautiful!" My reply was, "I hate it."

I laid it out on my workshop floor and kept it in my mind, wanting somehow to make it into something that I did, in fact like.

I decided to put some fabrics and object on it that complimented its colors. I gave some thought to turning it into a wall hanging. Mmmmmmmm.....what could such a BLUE background support. I thought, perhaps the ocean. So I drew and cut out some fish templates and laid them there as well. I hunted up some beautiful Chinese silks that I had been squirreling away for years, and laid them on the rug as well.

And for several days, when I entered my workshop I saw this...and let it sit in me and peculate.

This is the hanging that was born from that prolonged thinking. The fish were assembled beforehand, each from multiple silk fabrics. After I had finished all of the fish, I laid them out on the rug and thought for another day or so.

Finally, I appliqued them to the rug. And yes, I do think it is nice now.


Some close-ups of the fish.

And though I do have lots of Blue, I don' have the BLUES anymore!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

Thinking about my father, Bartholomew John Adragna, especially today, Father's Day!
I owe so much of what I am, and so much of what I love to this man, who despite being 'on the road' as a traveling salesman so much of my youth, has left an indelible mark upon my life, my loves, and my talents, especially regarding food preparation, and creating in general.

I owe my love for and ability with food, to my father who always showed deep respect, even reverence, for the ingredients that he used. I never recall him using 'short-cut' methods, or using anything remotely ready-made. I do recall him using the freshest ingredients possible, and he always seemed to exude a love for what he was using...and for the finished products. I do not recall anything he ever made that was not beautiful and delicious, except of course for squid, which I simply could not even pick up with a fork. He never, as I recall, used a recipe, but conjured up his artistic dishes from his soul. No holds barred where food was concerned. We may have gone without a lot in our childhood, but food was never skimped upon.

I owe my love for creating to my father, whose creative outlets were food, the saxophone, and the fact that he could sing. (Unfortunately, among all of the 'gifts' that were bestowed on me, singing just was not one of them.) He couldn't help himself from creating, and he loved the process, I think even more than the end product, which is how I feel as well. Give this man an audience and a mike, and he'd bellow out a song in his beautiful, deeply rich baritone. Give him a saxophone and without the aid of sheet music, he could wail out some lonesome jazz piece or a jitterbug special. No saxophone available at some Italian wedding??? Loan him the trumpet and he'd blow you to pieces.

It has been a very long time since my father passed away as way to young a man...and though I miss him, he is never far from me, my kitchen, and my creations.