All of a sudden it is Fall😩I just returned from Ottawa after dropping off my grandkids to their parents.My garden is looking a bit sad and I pulled out some overgrown orach (saved the seeds as it is difficult to find) and replanted chervil that was a surprising star of my winter garden as it was hardy enough to produce all winter. I will pull out my Franchi lettuce and radicchio cutting garden and replant. Excellent seed company, large packages and excellent germination.
I am amazed to hear that your chervil was hardy. I think of it as very fragile and have never had luck with it over-wntering. I must try again. Thankyou for the prompt!
But I live in White Rock BC which is zone 8.Just discovered that snapdragons also over winter here. This year we had the best crop of Desert King figs, over 60.
MMMMM. It feels slightly miraculous that a food writer that has so informed my cooking over the past, well many, years shares her writing like this and I can say, Thank you! So Thank you!
My breakfast this morning was a sliced San Marzano tomato on toast made from a miche from Premiere Moisson with a generous rub of garlic on the warm toast. The tomato wasn't even fully ripe, yet and still it was so sweet and generous. I have a tray of them ripening and more coming on the weekend. There's no way the squirrels are getting these! Yesterday I made a chicken casserole with cherry tomatoes and lemon on spaghetti. There's so much bounty! How to preserve it for the winter and do all the other "Things" that need doing, I'm not sure. I'm hoping to can tomatoes for the first time.
Love the fact that everyone is into tomatoes--and why not? Here in the northern part of the world it's the absolute season and best time to consume them until our mouths ache. And then remember that fresh flavor come January. And I do love the way you just casually throw things together in a Staub pot and out comes a miracle!
But we do. Tomatoes have the most amazing history though. Even botanically. Where would the world be without the cute little xitomatl that was eventually spread to Europe by the Spanish from Mesoamerica where it had somehow landed after lingering as a cherry sized berry for tens of thousands of years in the wild from Ecuador or somewhere in the South American Andes. Before the Aztecs it was treated as a sometimes domesticated weed. Luckily for North Americans European settlers brought them back here and by the 1800s people were getting serious about actually eating them but even that took at least another 100 years before anyone would treat them like an edible item. The Italians of course had been doing so for a couple hundred years already, but I digress. It took lots of public demonstrations of people eating them and not dying before it became the most widely grown vegetable (fruit that is botanically a berry, actually) in the world. Today, still, although there are at least 10,000 varietals now. They are revered. Glutamates from tomatoes, kombu, mushrooms, etc. activate the umami receptor directly. Nucleotides (e.g., inosinate in fish/meat, guanylate in mushrooms) synergize with glutamates. When combined, their effect is more than doubled—why dashi uses kombu (glutamate) and katsuobushi (inosinate) together, or tomatoes with clams or anchovies, or garum or fish sauce as you used, are so fantastic. I think corn is also revered by those in the know as well, because like tomatoes, corn, green peas, asparagus, Chinese cabbage, potatoes, and most fermented or aged foods like Cheddar or Parmigiano-Reggiano or dried porcini or shiitake are high in glutamates or nucleotides or both. Sweet corn grilled (concentrating flavors) with grated cheese on it as is done throughout the world is proof of the existence of the divine. Hit that with a little lime or lemon and you get into epiphany territory.
honeysuckle and nasturtiums are beautiful!
All of a sudden it is Fall😩I just returned from Ottawa after dropping off my grandkids to their parents.My garden is looking a bit sad and I pulled out some overgrown orach (saved the seeds as it is difficult to find) and replanted chervil that was a surprising star of my winter garden as it was hardy enough to produce all winter. I will pull out my Franchi lettuce and radicchio cutting garden and replant. Excellent seed company, large packages and excellent germination.
I am amazed to hear that your chervil was hardy. I think of it as very fragile and have never had luck with it over-wntering. I must try again. Thankyou for the prompt!
But I live in White Rock BC which is zone 8.Just discovered that snapdragons also over winter here. This year we had the best crop of Desert King figs, over 60.
How amazing. And lucky for you!!
MMMMM. It feels slightly miraculous that a food writer that has so informed my cooking over the past, well many, years shares her writing like this and I can say, Thank you! So Thank you!
My breakfast this morning was a sliced San Marzano tomato on toast made from a miche from Premiere Moisson with a generous rub of garlic on the warm toast. The tomato wasn't even fully ripe, yet and still it was so sweet and generous. I have a tray of them ripening and more coming on the weekend. There's no way the squirrels are getting these! Yesterday I made a chicken casserole with cherry tomatoes and lemon on spaghetti. There's so much bounty! How to preserve it for the winter and do all the other "Things" that need doing, I'm not sure. I'm hoping to can tomatoes for the first time.
Thank-you!!
Love the fact that everyone is into tomatoes--and why not? Here in the northern part of the world it's the absolute season and best time to consume them until our mouths ache. And then remember that fresh flavor come January. And I do love the way you just casually throw things together in a Staub pot and out comes a miracle!
Tomatoes are so miraculous when freshly in season. How can we not worship them??🧡🧡
But we do. Tomatoes have the most amazing history though. Even botanically. Where would the world be without the cute little xitomatl that was eventually spread to Europe by the Spanish from Mesoamerica where it had somehow landed after lingering as a cherry sized berry for tens of thousands of years in the wild from Ecuador or somewhere in the South American Andes. Before the Aztecs it was treated as a sometimes domesticated weed. Luckily for North Americans European settlers brought them back here and by the 1800s people were getting serious about actually eating them but even that took at least another 100 years before anyone would treat them like an edible item. The Italians of course had been doing so for a couple hundred years already, but I digress. It took lots of public demonstrations of people eating them and not dying before it became the most widely grown vegetable (fruit that is botanically a berry, actually) in the world. Today, still, although there are at least 10,000 varietals now. They are revered. Glutamates from tomatoes, kombu, mushrooms, etc. activate the umami receptor directly. Nucleotides (e.g., inosinate in fish/meat, guanylate in mushrooms) synergize with glutamates. When combined, their effect is more than doubled—why dashi uses kombu (glutamate) and katsuobushi (inosinate) together, or tomatoes with clams or anchovies, or garum or fish sauce as you used, are so fantastic. I think corn is also revered by those in the know as well, because like tomatoes, corn, green peas, asparagus, Chinese cabbage, potatoes, and most fermented or aged foods like Cheddar or Parmigiano-Reggiano or dried porcini or shiitake are high in glutamates or nucleotides or both. Sweet corn grilled (concentrating flavors) with grated cheese on it as is done throughout the world is proof of the existence of the divine. Hit that with a little lime or lemon and you get into epiphany territory.