True Confessions

If you know me well, this won't be a surprise.

I'm pretty good at writing about gardening.

I'm lousy at actually... gardening.

Want to know how lousy? I'll lay it on the line for you. Remember, faithful readers, how eloquently I wrote about the varietals of garlic I planted last year? They were beautiful bulbs, satiny and firm, beckoning me with the promise of life.

Key word in that sentence: bulbs. A bulb is something that grows in the ground.

So where did I ever get the idea that new bulbs of garlic would sprout from the... um... top of the plant? I think it dates back to a conversation dp and I had in the spring, in which we both commented that Gosh, garlic you buy at the store sure looks all shiny and new and not like something that came from the ground (seriously)and at the time the tops of our garlic stalks were sprouting things that looked vaguely bulb-y.

The fact that they never developed into bulbs didn't tip me off. Or the fact that other people cut off their scapes. On the contrary, I became more sure that I was correct--but just a bad garlic grower--when the flowering heads developed fruit that looks and tastes exactly like tiny little garlic cloves. I still have several of these rattling around the garlic basket, pretending to compete with the big boys.

It wasn't until last week, when I said, "Look at what's growing in the garlic patch! It looks like cottoned on just in time to prepare the bed for winter. We'll have a lot of garlic next year.

The upside? It's a good thing we're unschoolers. 'Cause without experiential, interested-based learning, my poor child would have gone through life unaware that garlic grows in the ground. (Not really, because he's way smarter than both of us and probably would have corrected my assumptions if I'd asked him--but you know what I mean.)

President Barack Obama

I just wanted to write it. The race was called at the stroke of midnight Atlantic time. I couldn't breathe, in a good way.



Now, as dp says, "The good cop cycle begins." ;-)

Green Betty Goes Solar

Working my thing for the National Wildlife Federation...

Thanksgiving

Although I'm an American by birth, I'm Canadian by choice, marriage, and luck. Enormous luck.

One of the many benefits of living in Canada is Canadian Thanksgiving. The timing is far more sane than American Thanksgiving--instead of having a long, intense holiday month that begins with turkey and ends in an exhausted heap of discarded holiday wrapping paper, Canadians eat their big birds in October. Everyone gets a chance to breathe, get away from their families (and their family disagreements), and generally calm down before revving up for the next round.

On top of that, mid-October is a lovely and logical time for a harvest festival. It's gorgeous out right now. The leaves are brilliant but still mostly on the trees, it's still warm enough for long, lazy strolls, and all the traditional Thanksgiving food are at the height of harvest.

Down to the facts. Here's what we ate:

Turkey from Maplegrove Farms, stuffed with sage, thyme, parsley, and onions from Rumtopf Farm as well as garlic from the backyard, cooked in a clay pot. (Not terribly attractive, but succulent as all get out)

Stuffing made with bread from La Boulangerie Vendeenne, red peppers and mushrooms from Glad Gardens in the valley, sausage from Kurt Wentzell at Wooly Mountain Farm, and chicken stock from one of Sustenance Gardens organic chickens

Gingered puree of buttercup squash (the 'pumpkins' in our back yard that persistently refused to turn orange or get big, whoops)

Mashed potatoes, Rumtopf Farm

A corn and creme fraiche pudding, corn from Glad Garden (Those guys really need to get a website for me to link to! Guess they're too busy building those interesting log greenhouses of theirs)

Cranberry relish--and I actually made my own this year, with local organic cranberries, of course

A baguette from Vendeenne, and

Mama's secret gravy (hint: the secret is a lot of sherry)

Autumn Love

The Local Joe

One of my favorite parts of rural Nova Scotia life is the opportunity to get intimate with my food chain. I go to the post office to pick up mail and exchange greetings with Donna, who grew the cilantro for last night's Ginger, Sherry, and Cilantro Scallops. We drive past the cows that will feed us this winter on our way to the grocery store. Just this morning I had a nice chat with Perry Brandt, who produces our honey. (OK, his bees produce it.) His hives were knocked over by hooligans a couple weeks ago but happily, the queens all survived and are buzzing away.

And one of my very favorite local food businesses is Laughing Whale Coffee. Fair trade, organic, and soon-to-be something else sexy that I'm not allowed to give away, Laughing Whale is a glowing example of best practices in a situation where the local meets the imported. Even better, they occasionally give me some free beans. Are they any good? Here's the scoop:


I confess that I approached Laughing Whale’s new Sumatran blend with trepidation. As a connoisseur of fine food and drink, I’ve always felt that I should like dark roasts—yet I rarely do. A history with inferior darks, tinged with bitter or sour notes, has curtailed my exploratory nature. Starbucks, I point the finger of blame chiefly at you. Too many unpalatable cups had led me to think of dark roast as a sort of S&M food --with a cautious exception for the French, who surely must know what they’re doing.

Sue’s Sumatran turned out to be a delightful exception to my dark past. I found it rich and smoky toned while managing to avoid any outright bitterness. This finely attenuated roast was dark but smoothly balanced, and strong, yet gentle on the palate.

My favourite thing, though, about Sue’s Sumatran was its stellar ability to stand alone—no sugar, no cream, no crutch or mediator of any kind. Unlike most coffees, including my household staple grinds, the Sumatran tasted best to me straight up black. It was just me and the cup, poised in a long, calm sip with a clean finish before a headlong plunge into the day. 

Perfecting the Half-Assed Garden

I accept that I will never have a neat and tidy full-assed garden. It's simply not my style. The thought of getting things in the ground at just the right time in straight little rows makes me break out into hives.

Luckily, there's always more than one way to plant a seed. My backyard is bursting with the most gorgeous squash and tomatoes you'd ever hope to see.

Of course, I didn't plant any squash or tomatoes. Not on purpose, anyway. Last week I took down our tent to pack it up for a camping trip on Prince Edward Island--and behind it, in a narrow alley between the back wall and the pine trees, was a forest of green that had sprouted from a leftover pile of last year's compost. Since I've moved the tent it's blossomed further; squash tentacles adorned with huge, school-bus colored flowers have stretched out nearly five feet into the tent's old footprint.

Conversations with local farmers affirm my suspicions that this is actually a great way to garden: eat local, organic produce and toss the (seedy) scraps in the compost. Spread it out on a likely plot and just see what grows. The best-suited and most vigourous plants will claim the space. Next year, I'm just going to do more of the same and enjoy whatever decides to present itself.

We've been talking about our plans for the unexpected bounty. Between the squash, tomatoes, herbs, and garlic (all four varietals are producing beautifully), I think there will be some serious late summer soupmaking. Watch this space for recipes!