A Cooking Life

Garden’s End

It's a melancholy thing, putting the garden to bed. Never mind the heartbreak of hacking back, uprooting, burning, and composting plants that were so lovingly nurtured. I can think of no more poignant herald of the long, cold months to come.

But gardeners are optimists by nature, and no sooner have I finished tearing down a season's effort than I've begun preparing and planning for another round. Maybe it's just a sophisticated form of denial.

Double Gingersnaps

When I was a kid, my favorite cookies were my Mother's gingersnaps – mahogany-colored with a good spanking of spice, they took some effort to bite into, they were so crisp. Her recipe came from a woman named Phyllis Dawes, the mother of a friend who was a good half-generation older than she. That would date the recipe to somewhere before the turn of the last century. Googling around, though, I find that the recipe is nearly identical to almost every gingersnap recipe out there, except for one critical difference: the quantity of flour. While the other ingredients are exactly the same, Phyllis's recipe calls for 3 cups of flour compared to only 2 cups in the other recipes. This, I believe, accounts for the dense crunch I so love. That, and giving them a proper baking.

Dish of My Dreams

Eight years ago on Labor Day I threw what was probably the most significant dinner party of my life. The universe had pointed out the guy I would spend the rest of my life with, but I was at a loss as to how to secure his attention. That night, I hosted a Mexican feast and invited the fellow in question along with a number of friends we happened to have in common. He was about to move into a house a mile up the road from me, and inviting him to dinner seemed like the neighborly thing to do. He stayed after everyone else had left, and we sat and talked long into the night. We've hardly been apart since – we were married 5 months later and live happily in the house a mile up the road.

When I mentioned last week that I'd invited guests for dinner over the weekend, my wise husband suggested that I cook Mexican.

Yes Sir, Yes Sir – Three Beds Full

There can't be an easier crop to grow than garlic, nor one that brings as much satisfaction at harvest time. Stick some cloves into the ground in November, feed it a few times in June, and come July the dirt rewards you with fat glorious heads of Vitamin G. You just can't buy garlic like this. Well, not unless you know a garlic farmer.

Garden Report: June 16

I finished planting over the weekend, even though the weather doesn't quite warrant it (overcast and 53° at 10AM this morning). The salad greens, peas, and garlic all look happy, but I'm pretty sure I caught the tomatoes scowling at me earlier, and the eggplant look like they could use a sweater. But everything was getting potbound, and I was afraid roots would start rotting from the damp. Some of the seedlings had a fine film of white mold starting on their soil surface. So into the dirt with them all! Still no beans planted, though – they'll just rot unless the soil dries out.