Jake came home from college last Friday and the one thing he wanted to do was make make his now-famous guacamole. It took some cajoling on my part to get him to share his recipe, but since it was Mother’s Day, he relented–under one condition. I was allowed to do only two shots…ingredients before and guac after. He wasn’t about to pose with each step of the process. So […]
I’m always happy when baby artichokes are in season and I can I pick them fresh from the garden. But last month when I added all new soil and compost to the planter on my deck, my three-year-old artichoke plants went into shock and didn’t survive. So until later this summer, I must rely on Trader Joe’s or Farmer’s Market. Today I decided that if I had to use store-bought artichokes […]
I don’t know about you, but when I saw leafy veggies in the market like Swiss chard, collard greens and kale I never quite knew what to do with them. But all that changed last September when I went to Tuscookany, the best cooking school in Italy, and met my chef, Franco. Franco had us use Swiss chard in his famous minestrone soup, which with his permission, I’ll share in […]
It finally stop raining long enough to think about my spring garden. For weeks I noticed that the soil was super wet on the front deck but assumed it was just because we had so much rain this winter. But when I was getting ready to plant I realized the drains in the copper beds were clogged. What a mess! With the help of Max, my gardener, we dug out […]
My good friends, Mark and Jeri Berland live in Denver and I don’t get to see them as often as I’d like, but every time I make Jeri’s delicious salad it’s like being in her kitchen. I picked the Romaine from my garden today. I’ve learned that lettuces like cool weather and I’ve had a great variety all winter. I have to be really careful because the bugs like to […]
I was just in the garden for the last of my winter harvests. The cabbages are ready to pick, but since I’m late for a St. Patrick’s Day boiled dinner, I’ll braise them instead. Even non cabbage lovers love it cooked like this. I’m always battling snails, especially with the cruciferous family. I’ve tried everything. My latest attempt to win that war was to line my raised beds with copper tape. […]
Winter is a great time for beets. And they’re really easy to grow. Just throw the seeds into good soil that you’ve worked with lots of compost and wait and wait and wait. They do take months to grow. Once you see their little tops peaking out of the ground, thin them, otherwise you’ll have long skinny beets that look more like skinny carrots. (I already made that mistake). You’ll […]
This is what my garden looked like last spring… after three years of trial and error. My first year as a gardener I planted everything….beans, corn, tomatoes, onions, zucchini, potatoes and every other vegetable I could find. But I didn’t have a clue about what I was doing and I planted them all way too close together. My friend, Cathy, warned me that my little bitty one-gallon tomato plants would […]