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A Right and Proper Tea Party
To have a right and proper tea party, you must wear the right and proper clothing—and that means a gown, a hat, and gloves (yes, gloves). And not the kind you wear to make and throw a snowball or three. No, gloves for a right and proper tea party must be white and end just at your wrist—not an effective glove at all if you ask me, but absolutely essential for having a tea party. How else is your pinky finger to rise as you sip your tea? It is impossible otherwise. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. How you are dressed is important, surely, but not nearly so…
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Three Sisters Gardening, Bayberry Candles, and S’mores Kits
Yes. You heard correctly. The Farmer’s Wife will be posting a podcast each and every Wednesday. To hear this week’s edition for yourself, click on the picture below. Cheers.
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Farm Kitchen Chilled Spring Onion Soup
Just the other week, the Farmer’s Wife went to her garden to see what there was to see. And it was just what she’d expected—filled with the debris of last summer’s good work. The tomato vines, once so vibrant and full are shriveled, sunken, clinging lifelessly to their cages. The pepper plants show what they once were with the transparent remains of a few missed fruits displayed here and there. And the weeds. Those appear to be the only green things left in the garden. But wait. Is that? Yes! It’s onions—left just like the peppers had been. Only these are Not shriveled and useless! No. These are spring onions,…
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Spraying of the Trees
On the Farm, the trees get sprayed. If they don’t all sorts of bugs will come and eat that fruit right up! And we can’t have that. So, each year the Farmer goes about and sprays when and where his Wife tells him. And this is what she says: “Right here. This one,” she points to a tree whose buds are closed up tight. The Farmer aims the nozzle and douses it until it drips blue–for some reason the copper they use to stop any and all fungi is blue. Why blue? Why not green or brilliant orange as you’d expect any good copper to be? But it’s not. It’s…
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First Week at Market
This is the week Hannah and I begin going to Market. Oh and have we been busy! There were wool dryer balls to be rolled and spun, jellies to be jellied, veggie journals to be pulped and pressed and dried and assembled, and plans–oh the plans! This needs to go here and that needs to go there, and where or where should we put this? Our spare room is all aflutter–filled to the brim with good things set here and there. It was decided (during the plans, of course) that we would be bringing our Rhubarb (the very best kind, that only grows on the Farm), fresh herbs bundles of…
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A New Addition to the Farm: Turkeys!
The turkeys have come! The Farmer’s Wife is running here and there, checking this and that—are the paper towels just so? Is there water? Feed? Her hand waves under the heat lamp, checking it. She stands up, happy with all that this surveying has shown. The turkey’s spot is set. Now, it’s just time to go get the birds! The Farmer’s Wife races to the car to go to the Post Office. Yes, the Post Office. You didn’t know that’s where turkeys came from, did you? Were you, perhaps, expecting something a bit more glamourous—like the neighborhood feed store? No. The turkeys of the likes and kinds the Farmer’s Wife…
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Farm Kitchen Clams Casino
This. This it the thing I make best. Or the thing that gets requested the most. Yes, people have been known to ask for my boozy chocolate cake from time to time, and the stuffed mushrooms. Oh. Yes. The crab cakes. They ask for those an awful lot, too. And the hot chocolate and the pink drink and the Nog. But nothing like this. As far as the Farmer is concerned, I could make this each and every day and there would be no complaints. Not one. And here is how it’s done: First, three small sweet red peppers are chopped fine (to equal a half cup), along with a…
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Pan (rice) Pudding
There are few things that bring comfort like a warm pan settled on the lap, filled to the brim with rice pudding. It doesn’t hurt that it’s super creamy and flecked with freshy grated nutmeg, either. Oh. And there’s Bourbon. Didn’t I mention that? All in all, a delectable feast. And it all starts with simple rice. Well…as you may have guessed, not just any rice will do. You can’t set aside that gelatinous rectangle squeezed from your Chinese leftover container and expect the same results as say…Arborio. For those of you unfamiliar with this heaven-sent starch, it’s the short-grained Italian rice used for risotto. And that same creaminess, that…
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Cleaning of the Spring Sort
The sky has had enough of Winter, like the rest of those who live on and around the Farm. It has decided to give the sun a bit of a chance to shine brightly down, and shine it does, right into the Farmhouse itself. “Have the windows always looked this grimy?” the Farmer’s Wife mutters to herself as she passes through the Kitchen. Hannah stops and looks at the scattered sunbeam. “Why does it look like that?” she asks. Her Mother points to the window, where fingerprints and smudges are smiling up at her. “That’s why. Those smudges have to go!” Hannah groans, rightly sensing this will somehow involve her.…
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Farm Kitchen Spanakopita
I do not like cooked spinach-fresh is fine, good even. But cook it and it becomes a mushy pile of green goo. Unless of course you cook it in a bit of olive oil along with more than a bit of garlic, stir in some freshly crumbled feta cheese and stuff it in layers of buttered pastry. Then, it’s delicious. It is a bit cumbersome, but trust me, it’s the only right and proper way to eat cooked spinach. Unless you like your mush. If so, I leave you to it. To begin five cloves of garlic (I did warn there’d be a lot) are minced and added to a…
