vegetables

  • Carrot pudding

    This summer we’re trying out a CSA, or “Community Supported Agriculture.” Each week we pick up a manageable amount of fresh vegetables (and sometimes a potted plant!) from a nearby farm. Having paid the farm in advance for the season, we… Continue reading

    Carrot pudding

  • Fencing in the kitchen garden

    Josh and I have something of a squirrel problem in our backyard kitchen garden. Accustomed to running free and wild thanks to the apartment’s no-pet policy, these squirrels are daring. They take risks. They chew on plants and dig up… Continue reading

  • The best-laid plans of gardeners

    It’s been some time since we’ve visited the container garden. Let’s take a stroll, shall we? Here’s the basic layout: broad beans (the happy tall stalks in the corner); sugar snap peas climbing those bamboo trellises; one strawberry plant; onions… Continue reading

  • Spring greening

    Ah, spring! When a young lady’s fancy turns to…plants? Yes, it is all plants, all the time around these parts. When Josh and I go for a walk, I coo over the tiny purple stars blooming in the myrtle. I… Continue reading

  • Spring cleaning

    It’s getting to that point where things just feel blah. It’s officially spring but not quite warm, the kids are either bonkers or asleep at school, and the crust for my first-ever tart puffs up like a balloon. Even food… Continue reading

  • Starting seeds

    Earlier this week, it was finally starting to feel like spring. The air lost some of its chill, birds chirped in the tree outside our dining room window, and the first crocuses poked up from neighborhood yards. Of course, this… Continue reading

  • How I blog (plus potato pancakes)

    I’d like to pretend all my blog posts and series spill out onto the computer fully-formed. But like most of my writing, creating blog content is a slow, careful process. There’s a lot of planning, rewriting, deleting, and then some… Continue reading

  • The "First" Thanksgiving (I)

    With Thanksgiving little more than a week away, I’ve had cooking on the brain. No wonder–it’s the only national holiday entirely devoted to food (plus, well, giving thanks). Is there anything more wonderful? I decided to honor the holiday by… Continue reading

  • Pumpkin pie

    This time of year, Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On” always seems to be stuck in my head. Yes, I did play it in class because it connected to our Lord of the Rings discussion, but it’s also just so seasonally appropriate.… Continue reading

  • This meal brought to you by Christopher Columbus

    Ah, Columbus Day. I’m not sure there’s any other secular holiday more filled with angst and mixed feelings than this one. When I was little, we learned the basics of Columbus Day. We sang that catchy song, the one that… Continue reading