Category Archives: Vegetables

Bamboo for Dinner

Posted on May 16, 2013 by

Sometimes the best strategy for managing pests is to eat them. Cajuns savor stewed nutria.  Mexicans crunch fried grasshoppers. The French swallow butter-soaked snails. And I have started eating bamboo. After beautifully screening my bee and compost yard for fifteen … Continue reading →

Posted in Vegetables | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

A Mixed Pickle of Mixed Parentage

Posted on April 25, 2013 by

When Jennifer Burns Levin wrote about her encounter with atjar tjampoer in Amsterdam, I realized that this Indonesian-Dutch cousin of chow-chow was missing from my collection of recipes for the mixed pickles that originated in the East Indies and traveled … Continue reading →

Posted in Pickles, Vegetables | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Homegrown Belgian Endive

Posted on March 9, 2013 by

My California sweetheart farmer, Rich Collins, came through once again this year with a Valentine’s bouquet of Belgian endive. So I put off harvesting any of my own chicons until yesterday.       This is how my chicory plants … Continue reading →

Posted in Vegetables | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Eating and Drinking in New Orleans

Posted on March 5, 2013 by

Robert and I flew to New Orleans the week before last to spend time with our youngest, who was finishing an internship in southern Louisiana, and to see the city for the first time. I hope you don’t mind my … Continue reading →

Posted in Pickles, Vegetables | Tagged | 8 Comments

A Quick Wintertime Refrigerator Relish

Posted on February 19, 2013 by

What can you do with a few beets, some slowly shriveling apples from last fall’s harvest, and an ever-expanding patch of horseradish? Inspired by a traditional beet-horseradish relish from Russia and a canned beet-apple pickle that I read about somewhere … Continue reading →

Posted in Fruits, Pickles, Vegetables | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

A Bean Worth Drying: The Scarlet Runner

Posted on January 30, 2013 by

I was filling baskets with French beans and Spanish magic beans last summer when I noticed that some of my Scarlet Runner Beans were ready to eat. Why in the world had I planted so many beans? I was growing … Continue reading →

Posted in Vegetables | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

A Tart Little Tuber from the Andes

Posted on January 18, 2013 by

A couple of weeks ago I noticed the motley assortment of pots in the middle of my greenhouse floor, dragged there for minimal protection from the winter cold and now adorned with the limp, frozen foliage of various tender plants. … Continue reading →

Posted in Vegetables | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

The Tomato Report 2012

Posted on January 3, 2013 by

Seed catalogs have been arriving in my mailbox for two months now, and in another two months tomato seedlings will be coming up in the greenhouse. For all of us northerners who start our summer vegetables from seed, it’s time … Continue reading →

Posted in Vegetables | Tagged | 13 Comments

Un Blog Affidabile

Posted on December 12, 2012 by

The most enjoyable part of keeping a WordPress blog, to my mind, is checking your blog’s statistics to see where in the world your most recent readers live. Although many of my international readers probably lack enough facility with English … Continue reading →

Posted in Books and blogs, Vegetables, Wild foods | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Easy, Tasty Roasted Sliced Quince

Posted on December 10, 2012 by

I’ve been failing in my efforts to get people excited about quinces. I took baskets of handsome quinces to sell along with my jams at two events this fall, but everyone wanted my Asian pears instead. I’d say, “Smell this!” … Continue reading →

Posted in Fruits, Vegetables | Tagged , | 10 Comments