D.C. isn’t a state, but now it’s going to have its own state fair.
A group of local food bloggers, including our friend Amelia Showalter, have organized the event to take place on the same day as Columbia Heights Day, with all kinds of contests to judge baked goods, pickles, jams, tastiest tomatoes, “most funky looking vegetable”–the [...]
Entries Tagged as 'tomatoes'
Meet Me at the Fair
August 8th, 2010 · No Comments · food news
Tags: contests·state fair·tomatoes
Tending Tomatoes
June 20th, 2010 · 2 Comments · garden
Do you prune your tomato plants?
In the past, we enclosed our tomatoes in big cages made of concrete reinforcing wire and let then grow wild. By mid-summer, they didn’t look great–all that wilted foliage–but they were making great tomatoes. So who cares what they look like?
Well, this year we decided to try a different look: [...]
Germination!
March 14th, 2010 · 2 Comments · garden
The miracle of seeds sprouting never gets old. Only the annual ritual of showing photographs of seeds sprouting gets old.
Did you know that seeds are actually little embryos, waiting to be born? All they need are the right conditions: moisture and warmth. Some, like these tomatoes, need more warmth than others. I sprouted these in seed [...]
Tags: eggplant·germination·peppers·tomatoes
Small Pleasures Of The Kitchen
December 3rd, 2009 · No Comments · kids
My wife thought these tomatoes coming out of a pot of steaming water were so lovely she inspired me to take a photo.
I am peeling the tomatoes for a Senagalese black-eyed pea salad destined for tomorrow night’s parents night dinner at the elementary school where I teach my food appreciation classes. Normally I would not [...]
Sweet Pickled Green Tomatoes
September 16th, 2009 · No Comments · Recipes, garden
So our 12 tomato plants came down this week to make room for cabbage and fall greens, leaving me with about 20 pounds of perfectly usable green tomatoes. What to do?
In fact, there are any number of things you can do with green tomatoes, probably more than you think. Everyone’s heard of fried green tomatoes by now. [...]
Tags: canning·green tomatoes·pickles·tomatoes
Grilled Lamb And Pomegranate Swiss Chard
September 8th, 2009 · No Comments · Recipes, dinner, garden
Forgive me garden mother for I have neglected my Swiss chard.
We consider chard one of our most reliable vegetables. It marches through almost any kind of weather and doesn’t seem to mind how many times you harvest: It just grows back. We usually plant the ruby variety of chard but this year planted some green [...]
The Last Fish: Black Cod With Fresh Tomato-Green Chili Pepper Relish
August 24th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Recipes, Sustainability, garden
What’s the difference between a salsa and a relish?
I’m not sure there is any other than the name. The occasion for for this one arose when our friend Ben returned from a trip to New Mexico with an armful of green chilies. I don’t know the variety. He’d just seen them in an open market [...]
Breakfast
August 23rd, 2009 · No Comments · breakfast
Fried egg with “pork pudding” and tomato slices from the garden.
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Shopping: none
Pork “pudding” is made from the odd bits of the pig and contains no grain products, which differentiates it from the more commonly known “scapple.” The ingredients in this pudding from our local dairy, South Mountain Creamery, are listed as “unskinned [...]
Home Again
August 13th, 2009 · 1 Comment · garden
I miss my morning walks in Maine.
Two miles each way along back roads out of South Freeport. The roadsides were thick with wild flowers: Queen Anne’s lace, goldenrod, purple loosestrife, buttercups, black-eyed Susan’s. Gold finches flitted in the dense branches of an apple tree. Amidst the low din of bird sounds, the mechanical trill of [...]
Canning, Interrupted
July 29th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Recipes, garden
Do you set aside a day to can tomatoes?
I know I don’t. If I spent a day canning tomatoes, we’d have enough canned tomatoes to feed an army. We’ve found that just two healthy Roma tomato plants provide enough tomatoes to last us the entire year. In fact, we just used the last pint of [...]
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.
