Hidden Gems

It’s no secret that I love potatoes.

I love harvesting them – pawing through the soil, uncovering each new spud with anticipation – kind of like scratch-off lottery tickets, only better tasting! I love the fact that they store well – often “discovering” some in our pantry when we’re looking for a quick, comforting meal. I [...]

RESHAPING MY FOOD 'TUDE

Last summer I didn’t shed my winter weight.  I carried it with me right into the next winter and into the spring.  My clothes were tight and I was four pounds over my “red alert” weight of 150  and threatening to add on some more.  I caught sight of my butt on a video and [...]

PUTTING SUMMER IN A JAR

The summer squash is upon us along with tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, and basil.  There’s so much food that we can no longer keep up by simply turning it into meals.  No two people can eat ten pounds of potatoes, ten pounds of tomatoes, and five pounds each of cucumbers and summer squash each week!

We fully [...]

SPUD LOVE

Red Thumbs

With all the CSA action going on around us, we hardly have to grow anything in our own garden.  But Bob could no more stop growing food than a fish could stop breathing water, so this year he decided to plant more of the things we end up buying at the grocery store.

That [...]

TWENTY-FIVE TOP FIVE

Earlier this month, Bob and I took a couple of weeks off for our annual road trip north to visit family and friends.  Those 1500 miles on the road in Blanche, our Mercedes 300TD “Hoopty Ride” wagon gave us plenty of time to chew on things.

It wasn’t long before our conversation turned to food and [...]

SPRING PARSNIPS - a hard core lesson in letting go

Sometimes you have to try something just to see how it comes out.  Great cooks and gardeners are fearless, or quote a gardener, “There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments.”

This week Bob and I found ourselves with a couple of pounds of parsnips.  I wasn’t sure what to do with them but decided to give [...]

SIMPLE GREENS

I recently figured out any easy way to process the abundance of greens Bob and I take in from our garden and two CSA’s.  It’s my job to keep the produce flowing from farm box to plate and the bulk of it is greens.  Making sure we eat them is the best health insurance we [...]

THIRD GENERATION SEED

The other day, Bob went to Windy Meadows Farm to visit Gerry Levitt and brought back a crooknecked pumpkin they grew from seed we saved.  This beautiful squash represents three generations of crooknecked pumpkins, beginning with the first one we brought home from The Cupboard in Denton, Texas.

Bob plays around with the grandmother crooknecked [...]

A CASE OF CABBAGE

Our friends at ECO (Eastern Carolina Organics) do a great job of getting local produce into local markets and restaurants.  As is the nature of their business, they sometimes end up with seconds.  When that happens, they generally alert the people who work nearby at Piedmont Eco Industrial park.

A few weeks ago, it was cabbage.  [...]

FREEGAN DIVERS

I’m noshing on a toasted blueberry bagel, thinking how wonderful it is to be living off the largess of the machine. By that I mean, the bagel was destined for the landfill before our friends Link and Tim rescued it from a dumpster.

In this country, we have so much food that 40% of it never [...]