Tag Archives: peaches

Guess who’s back?

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No, not the slim shady, just me, your fearless foodie writer. Back from my Italian adventures and eager to hit the keyboard. I’ll spend a few minutes sharing about my trip and then we can get back to business. And how can I not thank the tireless efforts of my fabulous guest blogger Dan Doern? Was he great, or what? If you didn’t get a chance you should check out some of his inventive recipes, like roasted edamame, or breakfast pizza. I hope Dan will continue to contribute to the blog.

The trip was great: lots of carbs and vino were consumed, few churches were visited, and I honestly didn’t hit the pots and pans once. I visited friends in the Alps, and then spent the rest of the trip at the Tuscan seaside. We took advantage of Italy’s love of children to bless restaurant owners and casual diners with our son’s vivacious presence at mealtimes, dinner included. And when we dined at home, it was a simple preparation, more assembly than anything else. This picture of Sam reaching on his tippy toes for freshly baked focaccia sums it up.

 

Sam reaching for freshly baked focaccia – San Vincenzo, Tuscany, Italy

I took advantage of the delicious, locally grown, seasonal fruits with daily pit stops at the nearby fruit stand to stock up on peaches, plums (from green to fuschia to purple)  like these,

Reine-Claude plums

 

grapes and tomatoes of every color, size and variety. And also made daily pilgrimages to local bakeries and focaccerie.

For lunch there was usually bruschetta (or crostini, a local version), insalata caprese, freshly baked focaccia and an assortment of local cheeses like pecorino and thoughtfully prepared meats and salamis. We did have pasta at home a few times, but only in it’s simplest form. I prepared some store-bought hand-made ravioli on a few occasions, drizzled with olive oil and grated parmigiano. But I don’t really count that as hitting the pots and pans. No sauces were cooked, no ovens were heated, and no recipes were used on this trip. And that was just fine.

So, stay tuned for more recipes and musings from yours truly. And let’s give it up for Dan – woot woot!

It’s PYO Time

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Everything you need to know about how, where and when to pick your own fruits and veggies can be found at http://www.pickyourown.org.  What a great resource for seekers of local, farm-fresh foods and farmers. The site also has a lot of valuable tips on what I call the “lost arts” of home canning, preserving and freezing, as well as a Harvest Calendar for each state so you’ll know what’s in season where you live.  The site itself has a homegrown feel, too. And if you know of a farm that’s not listed, just submit it.  In Western MA, we’ve got blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and peaches in season right now. And I am already looking forward to fall apple picking.

I learned about this website from Red Rabbit Foods, a great organization that makes healthy lunches for school children in the NY area.

What are you picking now?

More on Growing Blueberries – Hopefully NOT for the Birds

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This is my favorite time of year for fruit. Blueberries are just coming into season and local peaches and various stone fruit are all in abundance in the northeast. Yes, we can purchase these year-round, but the local peaches, plums, nectarines all taste so much better than the ones that come out of cold storage. And blueberries can be downright watery at other times of the year, too. So, knowing they are local and seasonal makes me feel better on a morale level and smug on an intellectual level. But let’s be honest, I just prefer the taste.

Local Peaches Purchased July 26, 2012

I visited a greenmarket this morning and the farm stand had plums in every color under the sun – from varying shades of the traditional purple, to yellow to red to pink.  These 2 lonely fellows are all that remain from 2 pounds of mixed plums and peaches purchased this morning,. Here they are in all their glory – small, uneven in shape and even a little bruised. As you can see, they look nothing like the perfect specimens (in appearance only!) available year-round at the market, and thankfully don’t resemble them in taste either. Yum!

So, let’s talk about growing blueberries. Hubs and I have made 4 attempts so far in 4 years to grow blueberries on our own. And 4 failures. Kinda sad for a bush and fruit that are native to our region, don’t you think?  We were lulled into thinking they didn’t need much sun because they’re natives (wrong), we were careless in the soil we planted them in, and most recently, we had signs of success, but then failed to protect. Back in May we had little green berries growing beautifully on our 2 humble bushes. But they proved to be irresistible for the bird population and were gone before they had a chance to turn from green to red to pink to blue. Foiled again. But now we’ve got a 3 step plan and gosh darnit, 2013 will be our year for backyard blueberries. I hope…

I snapped this picture at the 2012 New Marlborough Garden tour last weekend. The Gays live in New Marlborough and have a beautiful property in the foothills of East Mountain State Forest, which they kindly opened up to neighbors during the tour. They’ve created a delightful garden in a wooded setting featuring shade-loving plants, a stone pond loaded with Koi goldfish and many stone sculptures crafted from stones on their property. I loved exploring their veggie patch and came across a creative way to protect blueberries pictured below. You must put up netting to keep away the birds, and this can often be unsightly. Here they’ve created tents using skinny tree branches and it looks almost natural. Ingenious and aesthetically pleasing. So, Hubs will be trying this next year (step 3 of Project Blueberry). I’ll write about steps 1 & 2 later. Non-linear, I know.

Blueberry bushes under netting at the Gays’ garden in New Marlborough, MA

 

Pilgrimage to Union Square Market

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I was in the neighborhood for a meeting and took the opportunity to make my first pilgrimage of the year to the Union Square Green Market. What can I possibly say that hasn’t already been said about this all things local/seasonal/urban farmers market? It is awesome. And if I wrote about “Things that are great,’ like my good friend Chris Vincent, the Green Market would be at the top of my list. I like it because it is colorful, native, funky, tasty and fun to explore. Even if I don’t need local boysenberry jam, or burp-less cucumbers, it is a great place to spend a few hours.

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So what’s happening at the Market? Very exciting times as we are getting close to peak of summer. We are starting to see some local fruit, like peaches from Southern NJ, plums of every color and local blueberries. Every kind of lettuce, salad mix, deep green veg you can imagine. Garlic and onions of every variety, new potatoes and greenhouse tomatoes (pic below from S&SO Produce Farm’s stand). We still have some time before locally grown, non-greenhouse tomatoes are available in the tri-state area.

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I am posting this pic of dandelion greens for my mother-in-law Kay, who told me a great anecdote about dandelion greens over the weekend. Kay said that when she was growing up in Vermont, her Italian-American father used to pick dandelion greens and prepare them with olive oil and garlic. No one thought this was such a sexy idea at the time. Flash forward ___  years…

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