Do you buy sweet potato seedlings? Or do you prefer to sprout your own sweet potatoes?
I always thought of sprouting sweet potatoes as an elementary school project. But apparently that’s what some gardeners do to plant their sweet potatoes.
I guess that makes me a lazy gardener. I get my plants from a small, family-owned [...]
Entries from January 2009
Buying Sweet Potato Seedlings
January 31st, 2009 · 4 Comments · Uncategorized
Tags: sweet potatoes
KIds Make Salt Cod Fritters
January 30th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Uncategorized
It’s a little known fact that people all over the Caribbean love salt cod. And why would that be?
In the not too distant past, the waters of the North Atlantic were swarming with cod. Going back centuries, when the fish were first discovered off Canada, fisherman from Europe and especially the Portuguese would make [...]
Tags: Carribbean·food appreciation·hors d'oeuvres·Jamaica·kids·salt cod·seafood
Are Community Gardens Obsolete? Part II
January 29th, 2009 · 11 Comments · Uncategorized
Yesterday’s post drew more than the usual number of comments. Rather than respond to each individually, I’m going to follow some of the threads that emerged.
I am encouraged by the number of people who support the idea of treating community gardens more like collective farms. As expected, there are a number of gardeners out [...]
Tags: community gardens
Are Community Gardens Obsolete?
January 28th, 2009 · 29 Comments · Uncategorized
Recently I was asked to consult on a possible new community garden in my neighborhood. The local parks and recreation department owns a 1/4-acre plot of land just up the street from my home that is being developed either one of two ways: a passive, walk-through public park with seating, or as a community [...]
Tags: community gardens
Winter Roots
January 27th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Uncategorized
It’s true what they say: root vegetables only get sweeter when they’ve been frosted over.
For our cholent dinner over the weekend I foraged carrots and parsnips from the garden. They were planted last spring and have fully grown. I left them in the ground to make their own storage. The soil here in the [...]
Tags: carrots·parsnips·root vegetables·winter
Homegrown Cholent
January 26th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Uncategorized
So many methods of making pot roast are disappointing. The meat too often comes out of the oven dry and tough. I’ve settled on traditional Jewish cholent as our preferred method of cooking a piece of beef shoulder for a long time, braising it in a heavy pot with beans and barley.
The result is [...]
Do You Like Warm Yogurt?
January 25th, 2009 · 7 Comments · Uncategorized
Now that we are making our own yogurt, I get to taste it in all stages of development. Bacteria are wonderful things. At least the bacteria that inhabit our yogurt are. They create a delicious tang from plain milk.
When I was a youth living in Switzerland, many years ago, I remember my host father [...]
Tags: yogurt
Lunch
January 24th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Uncategorized
Hebrew National beef hot dog with homemade chili on a potato roll.
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Shopping: none
The dog and the chili are leftover from our inaugural catering event. Oh, I am hearing the howls out there, the cries of “Foul!” Because there is nothing very sustainable here. In fact, I think it’s a pretty safe [...]
Kids Make Fried Plantains
January 23rd, 2009 · 5 Comments · Uncategorized
The Washington area isn’t known for it’s Cuban restaurants (that would be Miami). But at one time, back in my student days about a century ago, there was a great little Cuban place in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood here in the District of Columbia called The Omega.
The wait staff consisted of older Cuban gentlemen with thick [...]
Tags: Carribbean·Cuba·fried·plantain
Chili Variation
January 22nd, 2009 · 8 Comments · Uncategorized
My favorite resource for authentic Texas chili is our friend Melissa Guerra and her gem of a cookbook, Dishes from the Wild Horse Desert: Norteno Cooking of South Texas.
Chili in this part of the country is so simple a cowboy could carry the ingredients around in his saddle bag. A puree is made from [...]
Tags: chili
We are engaging the concerns of a hungry planet--slowly--right here in our kitchen garden in the District of Columbia, about a mile from the White House.
