Archive | June, 2010

In honor of summer: Sungolds!

By on June 22, 2010 in Garden

My first ripe tomatoes of the season

My Sungold tomatoes have started to ripen. They are orange cherry tomatoes, so the three brightest colored ones are fully ripe. Or make that two, because I had to eat the one on the far left right after I took the picture. This is three weeks later than normal, and the plants went in three weeks later than they usually do. I didn’t expect that time to be so precise. All of my tomato plants are now LOADED with fruit, some full-size, although I don’t see any others ripening just yet. It’s going to be a good year!

My blue lake green beans are reaching the top of their trellis and blooming, and the four other varieties I planted a few weeks later are growing like crazy. The Spanish musicas are especially fast and have almost caught up to the blue lakes. It’s fun to see the differences between the four bean varieties side by side. My peppers and eggplant have a few small fruits, and the summer squash has a bunch of flower buds.

Summer is really here!

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October in Provence!

By on June 21, 2010 in France, Provence

Gordes on a gloomy day in October 2005. This is the last time I was in Provence in the fall.

I’d resigned myself to the fact that trips to France were no longer an option because my husband’s lung disease just won’t allow it anymore, but a few days ago he suggested (again) that I go by myself or with a friend. This time he struck a nerve. I thought about it for all of five minutes before my mind started spinning with possibilities. A few days of furious googling and emailing and my plan is set, accommodations are booked and plane ticket purchased. All that remains is to rent a car.
View My October Provence trip in a larger map

I’ll fly to Marseille in early October for 2+ weeks.

The first week will be in Bédoin in the northern part of Provence. We’ve only been in this part of Provence for brief daytrips, and I’ve wanted to spend some more time exploring the area for a long time.

I found this nice little house right in Bédoin almost immediately and bookmarked it while I went back to see what other possibilities there were. It was soon obvious that this would be my first choice. It has everything I hope for in a rental:

  • Central location in a small, but not too small, village with great daytrips in every direction
  • A reasonable kitchen and sitting area with a real sofa, not a futon, and tv
  • Outdoor space with a view (a balcony AND a rooftop terrace!)
  • A separate bedroom
  • Laundry facilities
  • Wifi
  • Even a garage, for pete’s sake!

I’ll spend the second week in Lourmarin. I didn’t have to think about this one, because I’ve been wanting to return since the day we last left in May 2007. I also knew exactly where I wanted to stay, an apartment overlooking the cafes of the Place de l’Ormeau in the center of the village. I’ve never seen the apartment but I spotted it on the website of the owners of two places we’ve stayed before. It’s Le Loft, the second one down on the page.

This one meets all the same requirements except the garage, which isn’t really a requirement anyway. I’ll have a fabulous view of cafe life from the windows, and the cafes just downstairs take care of the outdoor space.

Normally, I can spend weeks researching and dithering to choose a location, accommodations, and dates. I decided four days ago to do the trip sometime this fall, emailed back and forth with the owners of the accommodations to get the availability dates to line up the way I needed and everything was done in three days.

I still can’t quite believe it’s happening, but I am as excited as I’ve ever been about a trip!

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Summer fruit tart

By on June 17, 2010 in Food

Browsing my favorite cookbook (Patricia Wells, At Home in Provence), I noticed her recipe for an apricot-honey-almond tart, one of the few recipes in the book I’ve never tried. I came home from the farmer’s market a couple of days ago with only two apricots, but I also had a couple of peaches, a couple of plums, and a basket of strawberries, so I used them all.

I LOVE this tart! The crust and cream filling are not terribly sweet, and the fruit flavor is intensified by the time in the oven. It would be good with any single ripe summer fruit or any combination. Here’s my adaptation of her recipe.

Mixed fruit-honey-almond tart

Equipment: One 9-inch fluted tart pan with removable bottom

The Crust

Unsalted butter for preparing the pan
8 tablespoons (120g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup (100g) sugar
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon almond extract
A pinch of fine sea salt
1 1/4 cup plus 1 tbl (180g) unbleached all-purpose flour

The Cream Filling

1/2 cup (12.5 cl) heavy cream
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 tablespoons raw full-flavored honey (I used sage)

1/4 cup finely ground unblanched almonds (ground in the food processor with a teaspoon or so of flour to keep it from turning to almond butter)

Fresh summer fruit, pitted and halved but not peeled, to equal about 1.5 pounds (750g)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 375.

Butter the bottom and sides of the tart pan.

For the crust, combine the butter and sugar, then add the extracts, salt and flour and stir to form a soft, cookielike dough. Do not let it form a ball. Transfer the dough to the center of the tart pan. Using the tips of your fingers, evenly press the pastry onto the bottom and sides of the pan. It will be quite thin when you finish.

Place the pan in the center of the oven and bake until the dough is slightly puffy and set, about 12 minutes.  (Don’t overcook now, because the crust will go back in the oven for another 50 minutes or so.)  Sprinkle the almonds on the crust. (This is to prevent the crust from becoming soggy and it tastes good too.)

Meanwhile, prepare the cream filling by combining the cream, egg, almond and vanilla extracts. Add the honey and whisk to blend.  Her recipe called for a tablespoon of superfine flour to be whisked in as well. I didn’t have any, so I skipped it, and it worked fine without it.

Starting just inside the edge of the crust, neatly overlap large chunks of fruit (I quartered the apricots and cut all the other fruits to about the same size). Make concentric circles, working toward the center, and fill the center with the remaining fruit.

Pour the cream filling evenly over the fruit. Place in the center of the oven and bake until the filling is firm and the pastry is a deep golden brown, 50 to 60 minutes. The fruit may shrivel slightly. Remove to a rack to cool.

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Best garden tour ever

By on June 7, 2010 in Garden

Permaculture garden on the side of the river levee. The summer squash are already producing, and look at that fennel!
(Photo by Dave Larzelere)

The very best garden tours take you to real people’s real gardens, where you can talk to the gardeners who created them and do the work. The tour I attended yesterday may be my favorite of all time. Just five gardens, but incredible variety!

First, the permaculture garden created by Holly. The large mixed ornamental/edible garden with terraces on the side of the Sacramento river levee just vibrated with life and fertility. I loved to listen to Holly – she’s incredibly knowledgeable about permaculture, but even more than that, she seemed so attuned to that space and those plants that she knew exactly what they needed to thrive.

Mine was second, then Elizabeth’s back yard garden. I loved it. She had curving beds carefully situated throughout the back yard to take advantage of sun and shade and lots of wonderful plantings and whimsical accents. I also really liked her outdoor dining area–so comfortable and inviting that I just wanted to plop down and stay.

Dave’s large garden was a revelation to me. He chooses beautiful, vigorous, waterwise plants and just sets them free. He has a deep backyard with a winding path through the middle and a riot of beautiful plants, such as huge purple butterfly bushes, that have been allowed to spread and intermingle in a completely natural way. This whole approach made a deep impression on me. I doubt that I’d ever be able to relinquish control that much, but I just love the beauty of what he’s created. And I’ll definitely think twice before I pull up a volunteer next time.

One of Karen's two large, beautiful koi ponds.
(Photo by Dave Larzelere)

Finally, Karen’s garden was amazing. She grows all edibles — bananas and kiwis and avocados and every fruit tree imaginable, plus she has gorgeous koi ponds in the backyard, a freestanding music/band room that she built herself for her own rock band and her sons’ bands to practice, a beautiful mosaic-tiled sitting area in front (she did it herself), murals she painted on the garage wall and a “Monet” mural she’s painting for the garden gate, a beehive, a bat house, and on and on. She’s a whirlwind of creativity.

Karen's beehive. She attended beekeeping school to learn how to care for them!
(Photo by Dave Larzelere)

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June garden, April weather

By on June 5, 2010 in Garden

Tomatoes lower left and upper right, basil, eggplant & beans lower right, squash and beans upper left. Leek flowers in background and nasturtiums here and there.

After a long, cool, wintry spring, we may be about to jump headfirst into summer. The forecast says the temp will finally reach 90 today, weeks later than our normal first 90 of the year.

Except for some powdery mildew on my roses and crepe myrtle, the cool, wet spring doesn’t really seem to have done any harm. In fact, I think my tomatoes are better for having a chance to get settled in and growing well before that first blast of summer heat. They couldn’t look healthier, and the two cherry varieties (sungold and sugar smack) have reached the seventh rung on the tomato cages, about 36 inches. They were about 12 inches high when I did the last blog update, 17 days ago!

Every tomato plant has set little tomatoes, and the sungold has several of those long clusters that make me so happy. Normally, I would have found one or two ripe sungolds by this time, but it looks like that’s still a few weeks away.

Everything else is growing just as well. I pulled out the peas and planted an assortment of other pole beans on that long trellis. The other trellis is all Blue Lake pole beans, so on the new one, I planted 1/4 each Spanish Musica, rattlesnake, purple pole and French gold. If nothing else, it should be colorful!

Elsewhere in the garden, things are looking good. The raised planter on the side of the house (pictured in my header) is overflowing with color, dominated by the snapdragons I planted for winter color last fall. They just sat there looking uncomfortable until about a month ago, and now they’re blooming their heads off. It will interesting to see how long they last in the summer heat. My back fence is completely covered with white star jasmine blossoms that perfume the whole garden, house, and probably the neighbors’ as well now that it’s finally warmed up. That’s only fair, considering the cold suppressed the citrus blossom smell almost entirely this spring.

About a year ago, I joined a yahoo group of mostly women gardeners here in East Sac. Tomorrow we’re having a private tour of one anothers’ gardens. I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of them and showing off my own.

Jasmine keeps growing over this sun and a matching moon plaque. Occasionally I remember them and prune away enough to expose them again.

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