Happily gardening ever after
In youth, you look for mentors to get you going down a path. Later ...
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Maine Dish
Raise a glass to “Ruby Juice”
Our slow, cool spring produced a bumper crop of rhubarb for many folks. Although ...
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Garden barriers to keep the wind at bay
After an April marked by snowy mornings and chill winds, spring planting requires an extra shot of courage. Even if you’ve hardened off cold-sensitive transplants such as tomatoes and cucumbers, setting flats outside on sunny days, it will be an act of faith to finally put them in the ground. Will the weather “have …
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Gretchen Jost’s cookies sweet sensation
Who doesn’t love a fresh chocolate chip cookie hot from the oven? America’s favorite hand-held confection is credited to Ruth Graves Wakefield, owner of the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Mass. In 1938, Ruth made cookies with chunks of a Hershey candy bar, featuring them in her restaurant as the “Toll House Cookie.” The …
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Cream doesn’t belong in dietary damnation
A drizzle of cream. A dab of butter. A slice of cheese. What could possibly be wrong with pleasures like those? And yet, to the fat-fearful, they might as well be arsenic — especially heavy cream, which seems to occupy its own circle of dietary damnation. Granted there are some folks whose systems don’t react …
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Versatile vinaigrette for salads, marinades
Ron Fortier of Ellsworth recently wrote to me, “With the present stay-at-home situation, I have been delegated as chief cook. I’m rapidly running out of comfort food ideas,” he said. “Please, if you have any fresh ideas, please share, lest I am forced to eat them lobstah. Don’t want to take them away from the …
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Say cheesecake, lobster that is
The long stretch of keeping to home has given me the opportunity to catch up on some necessary spring-cleaning projects. Clothes have been sorted, books dusted and windows washed. One fruitful endeavor was tackling the kitchen refrigerator and freezer. I practice the frugal, homestead cooking technique of saving containers of food scraps in the freezer. …
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Syrup-laced muffins on tap
I keep a close eye on my pantry inventory these days; sorting root-cellared apples for sauce, peeling and freezing garlic and roasting the butternut squash with soft spots. The urge for this annual routine of spring sorting and cleaning reminds me of squirrels, checking their food supplies, cleaning out their nest and getting ready for …
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Biological and cultural diversity in your backyard
This is a great time to be a gardener. Each year the choice of what you can plant seems larger and more eclectic. And for the home grower, especially, much of what’s new is what’s old. Many catalogs include heirloom vegetables, many of them from places far distant, throughout the world. By not sticking to …
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Romesco sauce is good over fish and as a dip
My friend Susan Wells brought a bowl of bright red, chunky sauce surrounded with crackers and toast points to the garden club potluck. Smothering a cracker with the mixture, I popped it in my mouth. A taste explosion! Bright, tomato and sweet pepper flavors with rich undertones, a pop of acidity, hints of charred roasting …
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It pays to grow some herbs from seed
The herb garden needs a makeover. Some of the sage plants are so old and woody they look like a failed experiment with bonsai. Ornamental flowers of all sorts have stolen in. This year I want fresh new herbs and lots of them, so I can dry them, make herb vinegars, and have a plot …
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A feast for governors’ wives
What is your go-to dish for a special supper or festive potluck meal? A recent student query had me pause to reflect for several moments. My family enjoys eating a wide variety of foods, fruits, grains and vegetables. Our proximity to the coast and local farms allows us the luxury of plentiful seafood, fresh vegetables …