Fall plantings

Out came the tomato plants. They were the victim of fungus and ultimately an early cold snap, which ended any hope that the late plants would yield some well-structured fruit. Alas! Nonetheless, I picked all the green tomatoes and have them on the windowsill. I doubt they will make sandwiches, but they will do in a sauce or cooked dish.

In place of the tomatoes I put down a split row of fennel and arugula. In the place of the tomatoes in Maia's plot I put down red lettuce. In place of the tomatillos, I laid down some carrots, although I am not at all convinced it will yield anything good.

The soil underneath the tomatoes was exceptional. Spongy and black. live worms rooting around.

The arugula I planted a ways back has produced immediate and beautiful salads for two weeks. It is a little thinned out at present, but I believe I can get lettuce for the week with no problem. My new row will hopefully produce when these plants are spent. As far as arugula goes, I will eat whatever I grow. It is a beautiful leaf. But it also reminds me how exceptional homegrown lettuce really is. Tender. Fresh. Delicious.

fall garden

In what might be termed a last gasp of futility, I fertilized the red peppers and tomatoes last weekend. With a kind of Pollyannish determination, I am trying to will my plants to produce one more harvest before the frost comes. The last batch was quite good, and so I was fairly convinced that an early November harvest might be possible.

This would be harmless except that it kept two large double rows occupied. Meanwhile, the arugula and radishes have sprung up. I am already enjoying a daily harvest of arugula which, combined with the last of my cherry tomatoes, are producing lunch-time salads. Delightful salads. With two more rows available, I could have another variety of chard, perhaps some more greens, carrots and radishes, and a welter of lettuces. And fennel. I'm sitting on a bag of fennel seeds that I really want to get into the ground.

And now we've had two unseasonably cold nights, dipping below freezing. I may be Pollyanna when it comes to my garden, but I'm not the village idiot. They are going to be mealy, and there is no real point in keeping them.

So they have another two days. On Saturday I will perform the massacre of red hill. I will leave the volunteer tomatoes in (they take up no real room, but will pull all the big plants. Then I'll prepare the beds and lay seed.

In my newly planted rows the chard is slow to rise. Coming much faster are several volunteer squash plants. Hopefully the vine borers are all dead from the cold.

Evolúcio Furmint (Tokaj) 2011

A little confession--I was uncertain what to make of the bottle because I did not immediately recognize Furmint. Combined with the clearly foreign spelling of Evolution, I half wondered if this was a proprietary or regional name of a blend. Perhaps this was the Hungarian version of a claret (only white, of course). Or maybe worse--a Frankenstein wine. After all, in an age when yeast is now being coaxed into producing synthetic sandalwood and vanilla, one can only imagine what small producers in Tokaj are doing in their spare time to compete with the Loire and Napa.

But, in the end, nothing that exciting was occuring. Furmint is a cold weather grape, appropriate of course for Tokaj and its world famous noble rot. It is dry and acidic without being bracing. It lacks the distinctive aromatics of Sauvignon Blanc, and is much closer to Riesling in its complexion and makeup. DNA profiling has established Gouais Blanc as the (perhaps unwilling) parent of this grape. My initial uncertainty was largely due to native ignorance. While I had quaffed a few Tojak glasses in my day, I am not an avid drinker of dessert wine. I prefer Cognac to Brandy, and whiskey to port. After a sumptuous dinner, the sweet does not usually appeal. So I had never closely examined a bottle of Tojak, or bothered to learn the first thing about it.

Furmint produces non-distinctive aromatics, as far as I can tell. I would have confused the nose with any number of whites. But this makes the grape probably more of a blank slate. And when one is looking for a quaffable white wine to start with, or to accompany a mildly spicy dish, or just to drink on a hot day, this grape is an option. And the Evolúcio was a pleasant and affordable option to stash away and pop into the fridge when necessary.

the new porridge

After complaining in a previous post about quinoa in breakfast cereal, I am now forced to eat crow. I have indeed made a super-porridge that features quinoa. But the key is to disguise the quinoa, which frankly does not do much for steel cut oats. The secret is amaranth.

1/2 cup steel cut oats
1/4 cup amaranth
1/4 cup quinoa (organic red, preferably)

1/4 cup dried cherries (dried fruit of preference, actually)
1/4 cup sliced almonds
some spices--cinnamon.
1 tbsp. butter

Heat the butter and add almonds and cherries. Turn up the damn heat. When it starts to sizzle, add the grains (yes, I know neither amaranth nor quinoa is technically a grain). Add any spices you want at this point. Stir continuously while a kettle heats up 4 cups of water on the stove. When the oats start to smell nutty, add four cups of water.

There will be a lot of double double toil and trouble fire burn and caldron bubble when one adds the water. Just don't panic.

Cover. Once the water is boiling freely, turn off heat and set aside. Let it sit overnight.

If one is cooking it up immediately, then just simmer for thirty minutes, stirring occasionally. You'll know when it is done.

Amaranth is my latest find. An Aztec "grain." Adds both texture and sweetness to the porridge. Which is good, because the run on quinoa has meant that not even the DeKalb Farmers' Market has it in stock any more. It will clearly be a while before supply meets demand, or demand curbs enough to bring it back to the shelf. In the mean time, I am making an equal parts oats and amaranth breakfast cereal.

Tonic Water #5 "Sugar and Spice"

My latest tonic water concoction may well be my best. I've made a batch in anticipation of a neighbor's housewarming party. The base recipe is unaltered--3 cups of water to 1/4 cup cinchona bark and 1/4 cup citric acid and a pinch of salt. Then I added about four lemongrass stalks, chopped, a teaspoon or so of coriander, and a sprinkling of cloves. For the heck of it, I threw in the peel of 1/2 of a lemon. It was in the fridge, after all.

I macerated the lemongrass after a 60 minutes boil. Then I let it sit three days, transferred it to a carafe, and let it sit another three before double filtering it.

The yield was 18 ounces. (2 1/4 cups). Rather than use agave, I used sugar syrup. The syrup was about a 1 1/2-1 ratio. I put in about 24-26 ounces of sugar syrup, brought it to a simmer, and then shut down the heat.

The cloves are noticeable in the profile. I decided to go with sugar rather than the agave to make the mouthfeel a little more rich velvet. This is a tonic water for the winter months--possibly a Christmas version.