In the Maritime Northwest, with only the most basic of season extension techniques, you can celebrate Thanksgiving as a true, local harvest festival. Kale needs no protection, and looks glorious bathed in crackling frost. Chard won’t make it unassisted through a snap of real cold (teens/low-twenties around here) but protected by a cheap plastic tunnel…
The Slow, Painful Truth About Chores and Patience
It seems like there is this phase kids go through where they really want to imitate their parents. My 14 month old son is in that phase now. This’ll tell you all you need to know about how I’ve spent the last 14 months of my life: he just adores wiping up spills, sweeping and pushing his mini-vacuum…
5 Ways To Be A Better Vegetable Gardener Without Lifting A Shovel Or Spending A Dime
1. Order seed catalogues. Amateur gardeners buy seed packets off the rack at Home Depot. Serious gardeners place orders with trusted seed houses. Once you’ve placed a major order with Territorial, Johnny’s, Irish Eyes, or your favorite regional seed seller, you’ll be on their list and – soon – on everyone’s. This isn’t a bad thing. Seed catalogs…
The Finnish Potato Masher I Can't Live Without
A fellow personal chef friend of mine who is married to a Finnish man gave me this…uh…suggestive kitchen tool a few years back. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t entirely certain what it was (Scandinavian modern sculpture? World’s biggest muddler? Minimalist bishop from an oversize chess set?) or what to do with it, though several inappropriate…
Storing Winter Squash
To preserve many foods, you have to do a crazy water-bath dance in the heat of late August, or give over to acid-ravaged hands as you chop another ten pounds of tomatoes. Winter squash is easier. Like Goldilocks, all it asks is to be tucked away someplace not too hot, and not too cold, but…
An Ode From The Savoy Cabbage Patch Girl
I have grown the perfect Cabbage Patch Kids Cabbage. I could fit my 14 month old into the wrapper leaves of this beast without too much work. I don’t want to fish for complements here, but really – have you ever seen a nicer cabbage? The cabbage in question is named Melissa, and she is a savoy…
Mussels with Bacon, Thyme and Onion in Porter Sauce
If you like mussels, you love them. If you don’t…well, just come back tomorrow when I’ll be talking about something different. No hard feelings, really. There now, all the mussel-haters have gone and left just us, right? Great, more bivalves for us! This recipe a great way to steam clams or mussels that has a bit more…
How To Dice An Onion – Fast
There are some techniques that, when you have been doing them for awhile, seem so natural and automatic it comes as something of a shock to learn some people don’t know about them. For me, this is one such technique: How To Dice An Onion It will almost certainly take you longer to scroll through…
No Use For Coupons
I hate coupons. I consider myself frugal, and I love saving money, but grocery coupons just don’t do it for me. I’ve tried. About every 10 or 12 months, I forget that I hate coupons and decide that I could shave some money off our grocery bill if I just applied myself to couponing. So…
Herding Chickens
If you had told me ten years ago that I’d spend part of my Sunday herding chickens through a vegetable garden, I never would have believed you. But as I spent part of last Sunday herding chickens through our vegetable garden, something struck me: herding chickens is essentially – perhaps entirely – probabilistic. Gently persuade…
Kohlrabi Slaw and Baseline Slaw Dressing
And I quote: “Kohlrabi (German turnip) is a low, stout cultivar of the cabbage that will grow almost anywhere.” Now that’s my kind of vegetable. You can keep your hothouse flowering melons and peppers – “will grow almost anywhere” is exactly what I’m looking for in a vegetable, especially if that tenacity is combined with…
Morning Chores On The Modern Homestead
I’m not what you’d call a morning person. Years of culinary training hardened my own bio-rhythms into a preference for about a 1 am bedtime and a 10 am wake-up. Life, school, work, chickens and kids laugh at my own sleep preferences. And so, every morning, I get up, brush my teeth, pull my hair…