Cleaning House

I don’t depend on the calendar to announce seasonal changes. For example, this time of year there is a quality connected with temperature which I call “the cold underneath.” This fleeting sensation is as nuanced as a barely felt breeze but it is a distinct foreshadowing of the chilly weather to come.

Today as I watched our farmer friend Daryl cut the dried peas on the southern slope adjacent to our property, and I felt the cold underneath (despite the 80º reading on the thermometer) I knew it was time to face fallish things. This season brings such bittersweet memories I dread its arrival. And yet, even in the challenging months ahead, there is much too be thankful for. We are enjoying a bountiful harvest from our garden and orchard, for the first time ever quail have moved into the lower garden and are wandering up toward our back porch, larger wildlife provide endless hours of viewing pleasure, and we will be celebrating many family birthdays over the next few months.

This afternoon I thought about how agricultural chores and the liturgical calendar are/were braided together. . . which put in mind Très Riches Heures. So with a thank you to the brothers Limbourg, I send you a post card of the grape harvest in 15th century France.
Rose

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Due to technical issues that are still being resolved the video (now morphed into a Power Point presentation) may be at least a couple of days away from launch.
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I note with interest the steady deterioration in substance and content of DW’s blog.   I have never been in philosophical agreement with DW, and I find him far from the brilliant author/theologian his fawning groupies assert he is, but he is able to put a sentence together, probably with fewer typos than I can. But my goodness, the things his mind is fondling these days:

the effect of diet on women’s gynecological processes, (why in the world would he be interested in such an issue and what the heck does he know about endocrinology?)
a serialized, tee-hee-hee, nasty, little novel that he couldn’t peddle in the open market,
and just today, he is pimping a little internet shop he created to market a photo-shopped image of Barach Obama on tee shirts and coffee mugs.

Either times are hard at the old tax exempt private home/parsonage or the cholesterol rich breakfasts he regularly wolfs down at a local restaurant are coating his arteries and limiting the blood flow to his brain. Metaphorically, his brain appears to be sliding down between the hash browns and the sausage; which explains, perhaps, why Doug and the Toadies were recently overheard at said restaurant discussing pregnancy in the congregation: who was, who wasn’t, and who should be. I wonder if the ladies in the church enjoy having their fecundity discussed as though they were a herd of brood mares over a cowboy breakfast.
Rose

Two self-challenges have taken a great deal of my time over the last month. The first, a quest for the perfect croissant, has led me down a winding path. This is a journey that featured a couple of dead ends and extra food for my chickens. (Nothing is handier than a chicken bucket for getting rid of kitchen failures and kind-of-old produce. Chickens aren’t picky and the food isn’t wasted.) After a couple of wrong turns, I decided to hire the grande dame of French baking as my guide. Enter Julie Child and her twenty-four hour plan for the quintessential breakfast delight. And, I’m not joking, it is a twenty-four hour deal, but oh, the results. I am only about 80% there in terms of a really fine finished product. When I finally arrive at what I consider to be the 98% croissant I’ll take a photo and post it – along with a la-ti di-da Gourmet-style critical review.

The other self-challenge is more demanding and far more important than feeding my belly. I use the word demanding deliberately. While I have little problem using routine Microsoft programs like Word, I am a far cry from a sophisticated computer user. In particular, I have never ventured into the realm of making movies. And yet, it has long been my thought that it’s a super way to deliver a direct message. A couple of weeks ago it occurred to me that it was time to revisit a topic that I have written about many times, but to do it in a way that might shed new light on the problem. Imagine it as a visual punch to the paunch of our local neo-Confederates. It is my hope that within a day or two my film debut will appear on this blog. It’s short (3 minutes) and yes, to the point. Meanwhile, I’d like to thank my friends and family who have patiently taught me how to get a handle on the technical end of things and served as a preview audience.

My subject is the infamous and ignorant screed produced by Steve Wilkins and Doug Wilson, Southern Slavery As It Was. While it is not an enjoyable viewing experience, it does offers a learning opportunity for those sympathetic to the Wilson - Wilkins curiously inaccurate and unseemly version of history.

Rose

Image Source

What’s not to love about strawberries? The color, the taste, the smell — they are the epitome of summertime. There is simply no greater treat than a strawberry still warm from the sun. My children, and now my grandchildren, have always been encouraged to wander out to the berry patch for grazing whenever the mood strikes them. Our strawberries are more prolific than usual this year and I have been busy freezing quarts and quarts of them. Freezing them suits me better than making jam this time of year, and, if I decide next January 3rd to make a small batch of jam the smell alone is a great therapy for winter doldrums.

Of course, not all the strawberries make it into the freezer. We keep some on hand for snacking and shortcake. I haven’t tried the recipe below but I will be making it later on this week.

July 2001, Bon Appetit

Ingredients

For biscuits

• 1 ¾ cups all purpose flour
• 5 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup (½ stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons chilled whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon grated orange peel

For berries and cream

• 3 1-pint baskets strawberries, hulled, sliced
• ½ cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons thinly sliced fresh mint
• ½ teaspoon grated orange peel
• 1 cup chilled whipping cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation
Make biscuits

Preheat oven to 375°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Blend flour, 4 tablespoons sugar, baking powder, and salt in processor 5 seconds. Add butter. Using on/off turns, process until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add 1 cup cream and orange peel. Process just until moist clumps form. Gather dough into ball; gently knead 5 turns. Roll out dough on floured surface to ¾-inch-thick round. Using 3-inch-diameter cutter, cut out 3 rounds. Gather dough and re-roll as needed to make 3 more 3-inch rounds. Arrange rounds on prepared sheet. Brush with 2 tablespoons cream; sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sugar. Bake biscuits until pale golden and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool 15 minutes. (Can be made 2 hours ahead.)

Make berries and cream

Combine berries, 1/2 cup sugar, mint, and orange peel in medium bowl; stir to blend. Let stand at least 30 minutes and up to 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

Combine cream, vanilla, and remaining 3 tablespoons sugar in large bowl. Whisk until soft peaks form.

Cut biscuits horizontally in half. Place 1 biscuit bottom in each of 6 bowls. Top each with berries, then sweetened whipped cream and biscuit top.

Thinking about strawberries I am reminded of a fabric that I have yearned for since I first saw it.

Now, it is the case that the cost of a yard of this fabric is astronomical ($159.00 a yard with a two-yard minimum order). Even if I could/would justify spending that kind of money for fabric, the morality of doing so would stay my hand. And, of course, there is the practical aspect of the issue. If I had the fabric I would be literally unable to cut it or use it for anything — it’s just too beautiful to monkey around with.

Somewhere, in that last paragraph I think a life lesson is hidden . . . . . . I’m just not sure I know what it is.

Rose

Don is a fabulous gardener. He has a large vegetable garden, strawberry bed, not enough raspberry plants, and a good sized orchard — mostly apple and plum trees. He loves to plant trees and (to date) has planted and nurtured over 400 trees on our property. But, his first and greatest love are flowers. We have roughly twenty-four roses, including an old Harrison’s Yellow which is spectacular in the early summer. Right now my favorite is a red climber on a trellis leading to the orchard. It is extraordinarily beautiful!

Rose