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.

Some new plantings...

So, a fall garden. Long desired. Finally planted. I put down radishes in a small patch next to the lemon balm. Along the walkway I planted arugula and zanzabar spinach. Or some spinach varietal. Can't recall now, and perhaps it does not matter--the seeds came from a neighborhood friend and I'm not entirely certain she knew what they were. Swiss chard went in the second row in Maia's plot.

Volunteer tomato plants are now fruiting much more bountifully than my original transplants. Of course it is late for tomatoes, and I am in bad need of some fertilizer. I am committed to the fish emulsion, so I must go get it. The fall garden, at present, has the potential to outstrip my summer garden. Already I'm seeing what I believe are arugula sprouts. Ha! Or perhaps spinach. I cannot recall which I planted closer to the door. Too little time to record such things. But hope springs eternal. If I can grow a decent fall garden, it will bode well for a new year.

Now to write that book I promised my editor...

The case of the missing tomatoes

The wet weather has claimed my tomatoes, I fear. So too did an ill advised decision to try and train the tomato vines to a single vine. My more successful plants were allowed to bush out somewhat. Also, I had a reversal of fortune. The front planter put up an admirable show, but did not produce near the level of quality fruit as last year. By contrast, the tomato in Maia's corner has produced succulent cherries, tart and sweet with a fair pop. Last year, that plot was near dead. My amending of the soil clearly had the intended impact.

I fertilized the garden two days ago. 2 oz. on everything. Last of the fertilizer.

mysterious recipe

I'm cleaning out my office and found this:

1 gallon water
1 tbsp baking soda
1 tbsp veg. oil
1 tbsp dish soap (unscented)

A recipe, I suppose. Either for a delightful beverage or as a natural insecticide. I'll find out this weekend...

Tonic Water #4

I planted lemongrass this year, mainly as an ornamental. Its vigorous stalks and long, wispy leaves have come in so abundantly, that I must find more uses for it. So why not start with tonic water?

You could break pencils with those stalks

My tonic water has always featured citrus. Moving into the wintery months, I decided to jettison the lemon, lime, and grapefruit peel in favor of, yes, lemongrass. Granted, many recipes call for both, but I am becoming more and more the minimalist these days. Why confuse lemongrass with lime peel?

So I cut up a bunch of stalks. Eight total or so. I put them in water for a day. (As an ornamental they give me the same impression as prairie grasses. They sits well in the vase.) Here is the recipe I am using:

3 cups water
1/4 cup cinchona bark
1/4 cup citric acid
8 stalks lemongrass, chopped and lightly crushed under the handle of the knife
20 cardamom pods
1 tsp., circa, coriander
1 tsp salt (three pinches)

boil water, add ingredients, reduce to simmer. Simmer 45 minutes. Steep for an additional hour before removing to fridge for a three day soak. On Tuesday I will transfer to another vessel, pulling out all the big pieces. On Friday I will strain the mixture and add agave. Probably 1 1/2 cups to start, but I will update the post with the proper proportions.

UPDATE:

On Tuesday I filtered the water off of the lemongrass and cinchona. The lemongrass is wonderfully fragrant, but without the citrus pop that usually came with it. Coriander is still strong on the nose. Amazing how dominant coriander can be.

I lost a lot of water on this batch. the net is 2 1/4 cups. So I should start with 1 cup of agave and move upwards. Slowly.

Cellar Up

If the Department of Agriculture can gather stats correctly, it appears that middle income parents spend anywhere from $240,000-$400,000 on one child. And that's only through high school, so it doesn't include college, an all-expense paid summer trip to Europe, law or medical school tuition, a down payment for a house, etc.

So, by rough calculations, one child equals roughly one good wine cellar. I can now smile at my first grader across the breakfast table, and while she dedicates an abnormal amount of concentration on correctly spreading honey over every bit of surface area of her bagel, think "you are why I can't afford cases of 1998 Bordeaux or 2005 Burgundy, or California cult cabs."

Of course, many people can afford both. I'm not one of them, so I've been forced to live bottle to bottle my whole life. My sole holdings amount to a 1994 Pomerol, a 2001 Port whose name I can't remember, and a bottle of red table wine from Cadeuceus Cellars in Arizona. The last one is a horrible wine, or at least it was a horrible wine when I tried it a couple of years ago. I felt obliged to buy at least one bottle since I'd made the trip to their tasting room in Jerome. The pilgrimage is worth it, as Jerome is a fantastic landmark mining town, and the food there and in neighboring Sedona is world class (or at least at the top of its class regionally). Proprietor Maynard Keenan is threatening to make wine cool, and everything from his website to his bottle designs to his styles denote an impish originality. Too bad the wines are awful. I did not take tasting notes at the time, but I just remember floating gobs of jam. The wine had no center, no essence. But that is not to say that time will produce something extraordinary out of Arizona, and if it does, I can at least claim I was there at the creation, and brought a bottle home to stick in the cellar.

My cellar is really a cellar. I have begun temperature tracking it and, given that I am not storing anything serious in it, am not all that concerned about temperature control. I can never imagine having more than 300 bottles in any case, and about the time I clear 100, I will build a drywall container to try to maintain temperature control. As it is, the summer temperatures have never been above 75. While that is 20 degrees too hot for a real cellar, it's only for a few months a year. And better wines have been kept at worse temperatures.

So cellar on. I'll try to build up a running stock, designate some for long keeping, come what may. I am not a collector--I have no desire to stockpile cult bottles of overblown, overpriced wine never meant to be drunk. I want to age some ageworthy wines while keeping good bottles in the cellar for immediate drinking. Table wines will be held upstairs.