The Independent Stitch

Gardening, such as it is, 2011 version

Ah, gardening. I still haven't adjusted to making it work in clay-soil, semi-arid conditions. We do keep trying.

This year we ended up with LOTS of tomato plants and we managed to keep them from being shredded by hail, which is a major accomplishment. The plants are happy in the raised beds. (They get water; the grass hasn't gotten much, and the summer has set records for heat.)

Both of the square beds are full of tomatoes. This was just a few days ago. I've planted a few herbs in the small bed, including some perennials, in the hope that we will have some continuity from one year to the next. The abundance of tomato plants, though, was unexpected, and I know we're not supposed to plant tomatoes in the same place two years in a row. So next year may be a puzzle.

Here is our tomato crop so far, picked and photographed on Monday the 5th:

That's my daughter's handwriting. We did share it. Even our tiny bites had more flavor than several pounds of store-bought tomatoes.

We do have some bounty this year, though. We are participating in a new CSA (community-supported agriculture) farm. We have a mini-share, which means that we don't get a lot of produce, but because of the way this CSA is organized we get to choose from a "menu" of options each week. Because of work and other commitments, for several weeks I arrived very late in the pick-up hours, and the number of the menu items still available was limited. However, each time there has been basil, and it's been abundant and gorgeous. So for a several weeks I have taken our whole allotment in basil. We are also growing a bit of basil.

Here's what happened after last week's pickup:

Isn't it BEAUTIFUL?

Then came this:

And then this:

I ran out of pesto-sized (half-cup) containers, so we had to eat the leftover amount in the big bowl in the middle. Somebody needed to be responsible for taking care of the extra. It was a tough assignment, but we managed. ("HEY! How come there's only a tablespoon left? I haven't had my share yet!" - ("(oops) um, i guess i ate it . . . "))

Shortly after the packaged bits went into the freezer (alongside two previous batches), I asked the rest of the family, "Do you think we have enough pesto?" . . . wondering if I was nuts to be considering a whole mini-share of basil again the following week. Their response? "I think we need more."

These are the sorts of relatives it makes sense to live with.

They also are the sort who tend to say, "I hope you doubled the garlic."

Yesterday was the pickup. I got more pesto-size containers, more almonds, more asiago. We already have the garlic and the olive oil. This winter we may not need to ration the pesto supply. Last year's total pesto stash consisted of 8 containers. The photo above includes 10, and that was the third batch, with another about to be made.

We do love pesto.

So despite the garden's less-than-stellar performance, I'm feeling really happy about our harvest.

Plus we might still get a few tomatoes.

__

P.S. I riff off Susan Tweit's recipe. We read the garlic quantities as "at least this much." We minimize the olive oil (using half to two-thirds the amount called for), figuring that if we want a more fluid pesto we can add oil later, and the way we prepare the stuff reduces our need for both containers and freezer space.

The National Needlework Association (TNNA) trade show

I spent last weekend at The National Needlework Association's trade show in Columbus, Ohio. It's called TNNA for short, and there are actually four shows throughout the country during the year. Columbus is, as far as I know, the biggest of them. It's definitely the one located near Jeni's Ice Cream, which is a bonus that I've heard about for years and finally experienced for myself.

This was the first time I'd attended a TNNA show. As a trade show, it is not open to the public. Attendees have to be in the needlework business, as producers of goods (exhibitors, who purchase booth space at the show to publicize their wares), owners of shops (who look at the items in the booths and decide what to stock for the coming seasons), or teachers and designers (who network among the producers, shop owners, and themselves). There are a lot of educational programs on business matters and techniques.

"Needlework" includes everything from spinning to needlepoint, by way of weaving, knitting, crochet, needle-felting, tatting, and any other fibery technique you might think of. Booths overflowed with yarns, needles and accessories, bags, painted canvases, and books. In addition to the fact that the show is limited to people in the trade (all of whom have to have special badges to attend), nothing can be sold directly from a booth. Orders are written for future delivery. Lots of them. That's the purpose of the show. If your local yarn shop is going to carry a new product this fall (say, Juniper Moon Farm's new line of yarns or Nantucket Bagg's versatile project and tool containers), there's a pretty good chance that the owner or buyer ordered the stock this past weekend in Columbus.

I've been a member of TNNA off and on for years. I've wanted to attend the show before, but time and finances have always been barriers. I finally got there for two reasons. Cat Bordhi's group of Visionary authors was having a booth for the first time, which I wanted to support, and with the release of The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook this was a great opportunity to meet shop owners and let them know about the book.

In preparation for the show, a number of the Visionary authors knitted garments (Swirls) from Sandra McIver's new book, knit, Swirl. I had made mine as evening relaxation during one of my working weeks in the mountains. I have a whole post on the process almost finished. In addition to the Swirls we were wearing, Sandra brought a lot of prototypes and samples to the show, and we had a great time helping folks try them on. The booth was busy that way, and while people were looking at the Swirls they also browsed, and placed orders for, the other Visionary books that were featured.

Here's the Visionary Authors' booth:

I took this wide view because the discussions spilled out into the aisle. While the booth is in the background, that group of folks on the right is also talking about Visionary books.

Here's Sandra, wearing a gold Swirl, giving a Swirl tutorial to two visitors. A lot of this went on. The Swirl is a great project for all levels of knitters, and will make a terrific knit-along subject for shops.

The most fun was watching people try on the Swirls from the book. They are easy to wear and extremely flattering to diverse body types.

Behind Sandra is the main Unicorn Books booth complex, specifically the book-signing area. Unicorn, a major industry distributor (run by folks I've known for decades), sponsored the Visionary Authors' booth, which was great for everyone. That meant that we simply educated people about the books and then they placed their orders with Unicorn. It was a great collaboration.

Signings. . . . As at BookExpo (the trade show that serves similar purposes for the book industry), there were book signings. The ones that took place in the Unicorn area are very well established and run like clockwork. There are a certain number of books available. An hour before each signing, tickets become available. Shop owners who want a signed book line up to get a ticket. When the tickets are gone, all the books are committed. Ticket-holders return at the appropriate time and stand in line to meet the author and get the signed book.

JC Briar signed her new Charts Made Simple, about which I also have a post-in-process. Simply put, it's the book on charts for knitting that has been needed for a long time.

(JC is wearing her Swirl, a beautiful and classic combination of grays. Margaret Fisher was assisting, although she was outside the frame of this photo.)

Sandra signed knit, Swirl. Her husband, Bill, helped out. It is hugely useful at a large signing to have someone opening and handing the books to the author. There is also, out of sight, someone from Unicorn helping organize the line of people with tickets.

 

And I signed The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook.

I'm wearing my Swirl, in blues and greens, that there will be much better views of in another post. Alee Marsh from Storey Publishing helped me out enormously.

Carol Ekarius and I will both be signing the book this Saturday, June 18, 2011, at Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins in Boulder, Colorado. Because of logistics, we aren't doing many signings, so this is worth remarking on.

For me, TNNA was about the people, and I had a lot of great conversations. I wish I'd been able to attend in previous years, and I'm very happy I was able to be there this time. 

There was so much to do at the event that I only got to Jeni's Ice Creams twice. Yes, it's as good as people say it is. Finding lunch and dinner in the convention area was easy. (Check out Knead if you're in the area! It's on North High Street, directly across the street from the Greater Columbus Convention Center.) Finding breakfast was very challenging, and I'm a breakfast person. There wasn't even a grocery or convenience store within walking distance. There was great coffee and chai, but for some of us that doesn't constitute breakfast. On Saturday morning, I had Jeni's strawberry buttermilk ice cream for breakfast, after I gave up my hunt for orange juice and for milk to put on the cereal I'd even brought with me in my suitcase (this was the first time I've failed to find o.j. and milk readily available when traveling). I figured the ice cream at least contained some protein. It was delicious.

Then, shortly before the end of the three-day show, I took a break and walked over to North Market for a second flavor that I'd had my eye on: rhubarb lime cardamom. It was divine.

I'll have to go back another time to try the extra-dark chocolate.

Artposium travel 1: One of the Colorado Scenic Byways

Last weekend, when I attended the Artposium in Delta County, Colorado, I stayed with Priscilla GIbson-Roberts and Jack Roberts. The Artposium's topic was food, and we ate wonderfully throughout the official event.

Priscilla and Jack value the garden and the table as well, and breakfasts, before the official day began, were also delightful: oatmeal cooked with garden fruits, homemade grape juice, Icelandic pancakes rolled around jam made from homegrown strawberries. Priscilla attended part of the Artposium, but during other parts she was at home slow-roasting tomatoes from their garden, because they'd just had their first frost.

When I stopped back by the house to say goodbye before heading east again, Jack had made ice cream with more of their garden's strawberries (this year produced a more-than-abundant crop; they were talking about strawberries like most people talk about zucchinis). Fortunately, I hadn't eaten to capacity at the lunch: almost, but not quite. I initially said no to the ice cream, then, when I realized it was homemade, thought I might be able to handle a tiny bowl . . . exquisite.

___

I chose to drive from the Front Range to Delta County, scene of this Artposium, by way of the interstate only as far as Glenwood Springs, where I turned off onto the highways that lead to Carbondale, Redstone, and Paonia. This constitutes half of the Colorado Scenic Byway known as the West Elk Loop, and goes up over McClure Pass, reputed to be one of the best aspen-viewing locations in a state known for aspens (although they're only in the mountainous sections). And this is peak aspen (and elk-bugling) season.

I've loved exploring the less-traveled parts of Colorado, although I tend to do so only in the course of a need to be somewhere other than home (usually work). But I figure if you've got to be somewhere, you might as well enjoy the journey.

My most recent, and by far the most useful and beautiful, guide to the landscapes of Colorado is Colorado Scenic Byways: Taking the Other Road, with text by Susan Tweit and photos by Jim Steinberg. Jim takes fantastic photographs (and lets me see what the place I'm traveling looks like in other seasons, too). Susan's text takes me under the surface of the places I'm seeing with enough detail to be satisfying. On this trip, she especially helped me enjoy the rocks, which are extraordinary.

Colorado Scenic Byways is actually two books: both have text and photos, but the big one is for browsing and the smaller atlas is for use on the road. They stay safely in a slipcase when they're not being enjoyed. Great idea, beautifully accomplished. It won ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Award and the Colorado Book Award, and never did a book (or set of books) more deserve that type of recognition.

Getting back on track with the next post, after my rhapsodic outburst. . . .

Artposium in Delta County: Dinner Stories--cooking with Howard Dubrovsky

Saturday afternoon at the Artposium, we had three fine presentations:

Writer Katherine Leiner, of Colorado and New York, has conducted 130 interviews of people between the ages of 19 and 38 who are going back to the land in search of good food for her upcoming book called Young and Hungry.

Chef Howard Dubrovsky from Toronto demonstrated that contemporary molecular gastronomy is within reach not just of diners with very deep pockets but can be played with in the kitchens of regular folks as well. . . . He's opening a restaurant in Toronto, and it looks like it would be fun to visit. . . . (Howard's a vegetarian and a beer connoisseur.)

Multimedia artist Cathi Schwalbe-Bouzide, also known as the Corn Lady, comes from Chicago and I felt like I'd known her a long time, even though we'd just met. She grows corn in the city and keeps people surrounded by concrete aware of their agricultural heritage and the necessity of growing things. She's obviously having a great time with her art.

_________

Sunday morning, the farm-and-vegetable group of Artposium participants gathered at a grange way out on a mesa to cook lunch for fifty people under Howard's tutelage. Howard is not only a gifted culinary artist, he's a wonderful teacher.

Here's what he had to work with:

• sixteen people, ranging in skill level from those who had been told to stay out of the kitchen all their lives to someone who had run a catering business (most of us were in the middle)
• a grange kitchen with broken plastic colanders, not enough knives or other tools, and no really big pots
• a fridge where "keep cold" was implemented as "lightly freeze"
• just over three hours

So first we put all the food out and got oriented to how this would work: Howard said he was taking the day off and we would be doing the cooking. We did do the cooking, but he didn't exactly take the day off. We also got oriented to the health processes: which sinks we would wash our hands in, which were for washing food, which were for dishes, and how all the procedures needed to take place in each of those locations.

He divided us into three teams—five, five, and six people—and put each team in charge of two of the dishes that would be served. Everyone in the symposium would be arriving for lunch, for a total of about fifty people. The other participants were elsewhere for the morning, either learning how to make wine or making pear strudel.

My team was responsible for the carrot soup and the spaetzle.

On the main counter to the left of the sheet of paper was the working area for the savory tart (its team is shown in the photo above with Howard). To the right of the paper was prep area for the most complex of the salads. The soup-and-spaetzle team set up at the round table in the background, although we hadn't moved our stuff when I took this photo—our two quart bottles of malt liquor are still at the far end of the counter.

Here's what the kitchen looked like for most of the morning:

That's thirteen of the seventeen people all working in the same space simultaneously. I was taking a photo. The other two participants and Howard were over at the prep areas. The only person whose face you can see in this photo is Cathi Bouzide, the Corn Lady, who did get to prep the corn for the salad. Writer/presenter Katherine Leiner is in the red Dinner Stories apron. At front right is one of my team members, Ila Pound.

Come to think of it, the two missing participants are the rest of my team! They were a father-and-son pair. I must have ducked out to take a photo as a quick break from peeling and chopping carrots or mixing spaetzle dough. It took a really long time to mix enough spaetzle dough for fifty people.

So everyone's accounted for at the moment of that photo. And that's pretty much what the kitchen looked like for a solid three hours.

Finally it was time to lay out the feast.

Howard presented our dishes to the entire gathered group, from least complex (toward the kitchen) to most complex (foreground). Hmm: the spaetzle and the soup (black pot) are both at this end. The adjacent bowl is the ceviche, which was the only non-vegetarian dish. I think which dishes were placed where could be debated. That tart looked pretty complex (it's hiding in the middle).

Wait a minute! That was supposed to be six dishes, two per team, and at the finale we laid out nine dishes, going with the flow of what was available and how it fit together.

1. lentils with Moroccan spices
2. savory tart
3. heirloom tomatoes and olives
4. celery slaw
5. ceviche
6. carrot soup
7. spaetzle
8. salad with greens and colorful vegetables
9. medium-cooked eggs (really served as sort of a condiment: they were cooked fully, but the middles were the consistency of jelly)

Howard brought plans for each dish, but no recipes. We cooked by following our noses and tastebuds from the starting point to the finish line, with Howard's help along the way as we used unfamiliar ingredients—and familiar ones in unfamiliar ways.

Here's the centerpiece salad: greens, plus a lot of vegetables, many of which were lightly blanched to take off the raw edge (the yellow and red beets were gorgeous; this was also where Cathi's corn went):

Here's the celery slaw:

And the salad of heirloom tomatoes and good black olives:

I missed getting a photo of the Moroccan spiced lentils, but here's the savory tart with caramelized onions and other things—it was hard to tell what exactly was in it, but it was exquisite. It was topped with a pear compote:

That's the edge of our spaetzle at the right. Here's a better photo:

We cooked spaetzle in a little pot of boiling water all morning, batch after batch after batch. We were a lot better at cooking spaetzle at noon than we were at 10 a.m. It's purple because the liquid it was made with was purple carrot juice (the plan was to use beet juice, but that couldn't be found and purple carrot juice could). It was dressed with a reduction of butter and more purple carrot juice and dressed with herbs.

Here's our soup:

The soup is in two pots because we didn't have a single pot that was big enough. We started it by infusing olive oil with orange zest and star anise. While that was going on, we peeled carrots and cut them into chunks. We strained the flavoring agents out of the oil, added the carrots, and cooked them until they started to brown and caramelize. Then we added honey and malt liquor, along with some of the braising water from the vegetables for the main salad, and cooked until the carrots were soft. Next, we used a handheld blender to make the soup smooth . . . and poured the soup back and forth between the pots to blend the two batches.

I also missed getting a photo of the ceviche, other than the one above with the whole meal together, but here's my lunch (except for the ceviche, which didn't fit on a vegetarian plate; the eggs, which I helped prepare but didn't eat because I don't like eggs; and the pear strudel, which came later):

Everything there was truly delicious—while we were cooking, I wasn't so sure I was going to like the soup because of the malt liquor, but in the end it was subtle, complex, light, and tasty.

It's hard to say, though, which was better: eating the meal, or cooking it. Howard kept coming around and suggesting next steps and telling us we were doing a great job. So we did!