Happy Holidays!

Annual cookie baking marathon came and went. I baked three kinds of cookies a day for three days in a row. I can't bake 4 or 5 different cookies a day like I used to... All-time favorites included

• Lemon thin :double batch
  
• Thumbellina (also called thumb print): double batch
  
• Black and white chocolate: double batch, three variations
  
• Mexican Wedding
• Rosemary

Thumbellina cookies were especially adorable this year. I used 4 different jams/preserves that I made this year: strawberry balsamic, peach rosemary, raspberry, and concord. All the fruits were local with raspberry from our own back-yard garden. All the eggs were from Nancy and I weighted each egg to screen out large size eggs (between 2 and 2.25 oz). With no local flour mill around, it is hard to be "all local" when you bake, but I tried to use organic ingredient whenever possible.
Rosemary cookies were a bit different this year. Instead of chewy version that I have been making for the past 6 years, I made a buttery version but still kept the touch of lemon, by coating the dough with lemon sugar before cutting them to bake.

The new flavors/recipes for this year were

• sesame
  
• macadamia nut and coconut
• cardamom with pistachio
  
• mocha meringue

I put a little less flour by mistake in sesame cookies and they came out more like tulle, which I liked a lot - a fortunate mistake? I don't like coconuts in baked goods much, and thus seldom make coconut cookies. However, my coworker loves coconut and I love macadamia nut and thus tried the macadamia and coconut cookie recipe, which turned out very well.
I have to say cardamom cookies with pistachio topping was the best for me and Dan this year. It is really pleasing to find a new recipe you like and add it to the "favorite" list. Mocha meringue cookies are gluten free - Shannon, I kept some for you!

There are a few more recipes that I like to try to sweeten this weekend. Hope everyone stays safe and warm on this new year's eve. Have a happy and prosperous new year!

Yeon

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Lucky one

As promised, here are some more photos of the plants. We set up a small table in our guest bedroom so that we can keep some plants indoor over the winter. The first one you see is orange Thai pepper. I think they are also called birds eye pepper. I have grown them several times in the past years, but didn't know that they also come in orange color till Charles gave a seedling to me and Dan as a gift. It had a slow start, but grew prolific and gorgeous by November. I pot it up and now it sits by window sill. If I don't have aphids attacking the plant, I think I should be able to overwinter it. The peppers are excellent in Thai food and any type of stir-fried food.


You might remember the lonely lime blossom that I had early this year. Well, this little lime tree is such a trooper. It bloomed quite heavily and heavenly in the late spring and started to bear fruits. Then this fall it started to bloom again. According to Charles, they bloom several times a year! I am really excited to try the fruits. Some are about an inch in diameter now so I should be able to harvest a couple soon.


I love rosemary flowers. They are very delicate and delicious and taste like, well, rosemary but subtle. My rosemary plant in the raised bed never flowered, I wonder if it is ever going to flower? Whenever I saw Cakes for Cause's rosemary bushes blooming, I had to pick one or two flowers off and pop them in my mouth (of course after Elin's permission). When I saw this creeping rosemary plant spilling over the hanging basket , I had to adopt her. Mellisa smiled seeing me torn between this flowering rosemary basket and a small bay tree guy with five leaves! Well, rosemary won and now she is staying in my guest bed room too.

Do you remember the last Sunday in November this year? How the air was so warm and the sun was so gentle, and it made you think maybe, just maybe, this magical Fall is going to extend forever? Dan and I worked in our backyard garden that day and our friend Ricardo stopped by. We sat around the table chatting and absorbing every golden particle of the sun ray. Ric said he had orchid plants for us, disappeared, and appeared again with two orchid plants. I never grew orchids before and have no CLUE what I am doing. They are also staying in our guest bedroom.

How lucky am I to have these wonderful friends who give me plants as gifts, and also to be able to adopt plants from caring farmers and gardeners?

Immensely.



Yeon

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They thought it was Spring.

I woke up to white snow. It was lovely to have a breakfast looking out the window and see snow covering our little backyard garden.

Some plants have been enjoying mildly cold weather. This Sutera Cordata is called Snowstorm. How cute is to see Snowstorm covered with snow. This plant is annual/tender perennial. If I had a sun room or green house, I could keep her for the next year. Search reveals that this plant can only be propagated through cuttings, not by seeds. Maybe I should try bringing her into our house to overwinter.

I am not sure about the usefulness of borage as a herb plant. You could eat young leaves in a salad (commonly described as mild cucumber flavor), but if you miss that short stage, leaves get big, tough, and prickly. I keep borage for the beautiful star like blue flowers. They have been self-sowing.

I have too much parsley. They love cool weather but I am not sure how they are going to handle this snow and following cold nights. I should harvest some leaves and dry them.

Not sure about this young fennel fellow. I think my spring sowing produced plants that produced flowers and seeds, and they started fall crop themselves.

This is a new rhubarb plant that I got from a farmer's market this spring. I have a giant guy that started a few years ago from seed, but unfortunately he doesn't produce red stalks, so I adopted this new guy. I should harvest the tender stalks before they go into winter dormancy.

I grew sun flowers and nasturtium in one of the sunniest spots. The plants completed the cycle and I cleared the area out to plant some spring bulbs for the next year. However, the seeds decided it was spring and they got things going. Unfortunately, both sunflowers and nasturtium don't transplant well so I am not even going to try to pot them up and bring them in. Too bad their lives will be short.

And, asparagus thought it was spring too. There are a few more spears that are one or two inches above the ground. I shall eat them soon.

I will follow up with a few more photos of plants that I am keeping in the house.
Have a happy snowy day.
Yeon

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Love Leftovers.

Saturday) Dan and I bought a turkey from Maple Lawn Farm at Common Market a while ago, and it was time to cook. Dan took charge in cooking the bird. At last minute we casually invited a couple, who are vegetarians. We had some really good looking veggies from the farmer's market and some mushroom and fennel that we got from MOM's.
I like it when cooking sort of happens. When Dan put the bird away into oven, I took over the kitchen, and pulled out all the veggies that I want to cook, and arranged them in groups. Here is how it went:

• Thinly sliced fennel, red onion, and celeriac salad. Dressed in olive oil, and lemon juice.
  
• Mushroom, spinach and leek tart as a main vegetarian dish. Crimini and white oyster mushroom, baby yellow squash sauteed in olive oil and thyme. Baby spinach briefly cooked. Leek cooked in butter till melting soft. Layered in rich shortbread tart shell then filled with cream/egg.
• Multigrain roll, improvised to add gluten free serial and sunflower seeds on top of oatmeal and flax seeds.
• Par-boiled and then roasted beets, red and chiogga. Served with CapriKorn farm soft goat cheese.
• Roasted brussels sprout served with grated Parmesan Reggiano.
• Tatsoi sauteed in soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic and ginger.
  
• Fresh baby carrots, broccoli, fennel served with a dipping sauce
• Mashed rutabaga
  
• Apple tart
• Pear reduction with lavender blossom

I had three things to bake and veggies to roast, and the bird was taking its time in the oven, which made me a bit nervous when it got closer for our guests to arrive. Dan made the dipping sauce, mashed rutabaga, and gravy when the turkey finally came out. He also cleaned the dining room, set the table, entertained the guests while I continued to cook and serve. I needed this - the joy of cooking all day. Every dish turned out so well I couldn't pick my favorite.

Sunday) What a beautiful day it was! I spent all day in the garden. For breakfast, we had leftover veggie tart, apple tart, and toasted multigrain roll with raspberry jam. All home-made and it took just minutes to put together.

For lunch, Dan made turkey salad sandwich. Diced turkey meat, apple, celeriac, red onion and mayo, salt, pepper.

For dinner, we had turkey soup. Three main herbs in the stock were rosemary, sage, and oregano. Simple with carrots, celeriac and pasta, but deeply satisfying flavor from the stock that simmered all day.

Monday) I made a turkey tart following Cook's Country recipe. I had to modify the recipe as I go - too much blue cheese for me so cut down to 1/3 cup. We were out of pears so used an apple (the recipe calls for 4 pears which sounded way too much). We didn't have sour cream, so used different ratio of yogurt and cream. Overall it was pretty good combination - next time, I need to keep the tart longer in the oven, and refine the ratio of ingredients.

Wednesday) Eating more leftovers! Mashed rutabaga, cauliflower puree, fennel and celeriac salad, spicy green with dressing made from pear reduction, and tatsoi. Warmed up steak and pork tenderloin are also left over from previous meals.

In short, we have been eating well and the fridge is empty. Well almost empty since we still have lots of turkey meat left. I wonder what Dan is fixing for breakfast today - I'd better go check.

Yeon

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Let them roast

One November night I decide to roast vegetables to bring out their natural flavor and show-case beautiful colors. The vegetables were:

• Cheddar cauliflower from Gwen (Glade-link farm)
• Chiogga beets from Jim (Tomatoes etc)
• Red Thumb potatoes from Will (Whitmore farm)
• Yellow fingerling potatoes from Rick (Summer creeek farm)
• White onion from Chris (Jubilee farm)
• Yellow carrots and dark beets from my backyard garden

Potatoes and beets were par-boiled before roasting. I made a dressing with olive oil, sherry wine, mustard and some thyme and tarragon. It is visually stimulating and very satisfying to work with fresh and colorful vegetables. Needless to day, they were very yummy.

Talking about yummy roasting, check out Dianne's post on Thanksgiving. Everything looks so delicious!

Dan and I will be traveling for Thanksgiving and we are looking forward to a delicious meal and joyful conversation with our very special friends. Hope everyone travels safe, if you are traveling, and have a happy Thanksgiving.

Yeon

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Flowers this Fall

These photos are for Charles. I told him that I will post photos on Saturday and didn't get to it till today. My camera had lost the date setting so I don't know exactly which Saturdays I took these photos. Some time in late September to early October.

At the end of the day, I feel so drained and weak. This terrible clenching headache doesn't help either. Even with all the worries in me and gloomy news all around, I am going to stay positive and grateful.

It is going to be all right.

Yeon

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Calling all apples

A couple weeks ago, we had a rainy and cold Thursday. I wasn't sure if the vendors would show up at the farmer's market, but went anyway. Wendy and Rich were there in the hard rain to my surprise. When I told Rich how surprised I was to see him, he bragged that he never misses the farmer's market. The exception was when so-and-so storm (can't remember the name) hit the market a few years ago. Very re-assuring to know - you can get farm fresh veggies and fruits at the farmer's market unless a category 2 storm hits our town.
Rich had a long display of all kinds of apples. I decided to buy one apple of each kind so that I can get familiar with the color and shape of the varieties, and do a tasting. Rich wrote a label for each apple, and wrapped the apple in a bag with the label for me. He wouldn't let me pay for the apples either because I was going to "study" the apples. I bought some pear cider from him as well and two bunches of flowers from Wendy. I walked home and started studying.

First thing I did was to get my yard-sale stickers out, write down the names for apples, and put the sticker on each apple. It was only a matter of time that I would get apples and labels all mixed up. Now, I took mental notes of their colors, shapes, weights etc and memorized their names. I wanted to make fairly good guesses without eating them. I spent about a week basically staring at apples once in a while and see if I can figure out the names.

Dan joined me in tasting fresh apples. We did it over three days. We cut each apple into halves, save one half for baking later, and cut the other half into wedges. We had some crackers and cheeses (cheddar, Beemster, Comté) to accompany while we munched on apples. Here are our findings (left to right. Exterior is described in italic font):


Top Row

• Cameo: Tart but not granny-smith tart. Mildly sweet. Firm texture. Goes well with Cheddar cheese.
• Red Delicious: Sweet. Soft texture.
• Fuji: Crisp and firm. Not too sweet, not too sour. Balanced flavor.
• Stayman Winesap: Firm. Tart. Purplish dull

Middle Row

• Mutsu (Crispin): Very Firm. Slightly sweet and hint of tartness. Oxidized very quickly once cut. Goes well with Beemster cheese. Green.
• Golden Delicious: Sweet and very little tart. Somewhere between crisp and mealy texture wise. Goes well with Cheddar cheese. Yellowish green.
• Empire: Tart. Mealy.
  
• Gala: Mildly Sweet. Crisp texture.

Bottom Row

• Cortland: Flesh is very white. Soft and mushy texture. No tartness.
  
• Jona-Gold: Medium firmness. Very slightly tart.
• Nittany: Slightly tart, not sweet. Crisp texture. Goes with Beemster cheese.
• York: Not much flavor
  

York apple didn't have much flavor at all. I suspect the apple that we happened to taste was a bit young. We probably need to give it a second chance to be fair. Dan and I are big fans of Fuji and Gala apples - yes, we are biased toward crisp apples with balanced flavors. After tasting, our new favorites are Mutsu, Cameo, and Jona-Gold.

For the second-round of tasting, I made apple galette. I had to know where all the 12 of different apples went so I created a small map. (I will add a photo of galette later). Because apples are peeled and then cut into 1/8 thick slices and then baked on top of buttery crust, all the apples tasted pretty good. Flavors are more or less rounded so our notes are short.

Baked apples in apple galette

• Cameo: very tart
  
• Red Delicious: very sweet
• Fuji: good texture
  
• Stayman Winesap: okay
• Mutsu (Crispin): tart and good
• Golden Delicious: appley and tart
• Empire: tart
  
• Gala:very appley and sweet
  
• Cortland: very mild. hard to tell its apple.
  
• Jona-Gold: appley.
  
• Nittany: best balance of tart and sweet.
  
• York: mushy texture and mild flavor.
  

We liked baked Jona-Gold, Nittany and Golden Delicious in the galette. Fuji and Gala were pretty good (but we already knew this because these two are the apples that we eat/bake all the time).

Ideally, the next round of testing would involve making mini apple pies (or apple cobbler) for each variety. If that happens, I will send an invite out.

Yeon

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Roasted Cauliflower with Apple et al.

It was going to be my Apple challenge, but it turned out to be more of a Cauliflower challenge. I picked up this huge, perfect cauliflower head from Gwen and I wanted do something special. I had this roasted cauliflower with apple idea, and I ended up modifying a recipe from Herbal Kitchen cookbook. I took

• 2/3 of Cauliflower (about 1.5 lbs), cut into florets
• 1 Ginger gold apple, chopped into big chunks
• 1 Asian pear, chopped into big chunks
• 1/2 Onion, cut into strips
• 1 TBS dried currant
• olive oil, salt and nutmeg

Mix cauliflower, apple, pear and onion with olive oil. Season wit salt. Bake in an oven at 425 for about 25 minutes, until cauliflower starts to brown a bit. Add in currant (I want to use golden raisin next time) and bake it for another 10 - 15 minutes till they brown nicely. Stir in freshly ground nutmeg just a bit.

Yum.

With the rest of cauliflower, I made cauliflower puree. Cook cauliflower with milk and cream till it is tender. Puree the cooked cauliflower in a food processor. Season with salt and pepper. Again, I added a little bit of nutmeg. Very subtle but significant enough to make you wonder what's in it.

I shall follow up with more apples!
Yeon

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Inspired by Sweet Onions

Will of Whitmore farm brought delicious white sweet onions at the downtown farmer's market. I bought them the other day and made these little tarts. The recipe was from Tarts: Sweet and Savory by Maxine Clark and I modified a bit (less chopped rosemary. Also need to cut down butter for cooking onions next time).
It requires several steps to make these tarts - you need to make the crust and blind bake, cook the onion for one to two hours, cook garlic in oil and make the cream filling (steeping some rosemary). Beautiful Saturday mornings usually work for me to get in the mood for making tarts. If it was rainy, I would probably have made onion soups instead.
I also made onion marmalade following a recipe from Preserving by Oded Schwartz. This goes very well with lamb dishes. We served the onion marmalade with lamb kebabs at a gathering this weekend.
I have been making pickles, jams, sauces and even grape juice. Feeling a bit tired of canning, but I am sure I will be thanking myself in the coming months.

Yeon

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Flowers for the Market: August 22, 09

Photo by Dan

These are not exactly the flowers that I brought to Saturday Market on August 22. I made seven flower arrangements (1 big, 4 medium and 2 small) for Elin's birthday party on that day and this is one of them. Dan did a lovely job taking this photo - I don't know why but this photo makes me nostalgic. Captured are sun flowers, dahlia, tickseed Coreopsis and cut-leaf Rudbeckia. Dahlia and sunflower didn't last too long in the vase, but I am surprised to find out cut-leaf Rudbeckia going strong even a week later.

Yeon

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Dinner at Shannon's

Shannon already had prep going when I arrived at her kitchen. A mound of purslane from her sidewalk was covered by chopped tomatoes from her garden. She modified the recipe a little bit as she described, and I think roasted pepper really made the difference.

Leek and garlic scapes were sauteed, rice soaked in hot water was added, and all the other chopped vegetables went in.

It was really yummy! By the time the dish was ready, Jerica with baby Oliver and Jackie had joined us. I ate what remained after the first serving. I sort of asked, does anybody want seconds? but not really, and went ahead to finish what was left over.

With butternut squash from the farmer's market, Shannon also made a dessert. Quarter pint of Caramel Apple Butter from Rohrer's, 4 TBS of butter, coarsely chopped about 3/4 cup of walnut and sprinkle of light brown sugar were all she needed to create this gorgeous butternut squash dish.

Shannon cooked. Yeon ate and photographed. Jerica, Oliver and Jackie entertained. We had fun.

Yeon

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Sunday Evening

Photo by Dan

It was another beautiful evening. While Dan was grilling food for our dinner, I made very chunky salsa with ever-bearing strawberries that Dave brings to the downtown farmer's market and a pineapple tomato that I just picked from our garden. The salsa was lovely.

• Very coarsely chopped strawberries, about one cup
• One medium sized pineapple tomato, coarsely chopped
• about 1/2 TBS finely chopped onions
• 1 ts of fresh cilantro
• 1 ts of fresh marjoram
  
• Left over vinaigrette from the night before (1 part balsamic vinegar, 3 part olive oil, finely chopped garlic, fresh oregano, fresh basil)
  

Photo by Yeon

With another cup of fresh strawberries, I made strawberry muffins. I used a blueberry muffin recipe from Cooks Illustrated. I substituted diced fresh strawberries for fresh blueberries. The recipe also calls for cooking a cup of fresh blueberries into a syrupy mixture. I used left-over strawberry-rhubarb from making Chef's Christine's strawberry-rhubarb crumble. Dan and I loved these muffins - we have been eating one a day for breakfast. I love the touch of lemon sugar on top of the muffin.

Photo by Yeon

Our simple dinner was ready. Dan marinated the lamb kebabs we got from the Whitmore Farm stand at the farmer's market. I don't know what he did but it was just fabulous. He mixed his own spices and it involved grinding black cardamom and coriander seeds. It had red wine in the marinade. I will have to ask him to write down the recipe for me. Corn was from Jim at the Saturday farmer's market. It was so sweet. Last minute cucumber salad included plain yogurt, minced mint, scallion, salt and pepper.

Compared to last year, I have not put much harvest away yet. I am getting ready to pickle cucumbers, squashes; and preserve peaches and raspberries; and make tomato sauces. Next two weekends are going to be "preserving" weekends.

Yeon

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Flowers for the Market

It has been an exciting summer as far as growing flowers go. The sunflower seed packets that Shannon and I bought this spring brought me lots of Sunflowers. This red sunflower being most productive and also attractive to goldfinch. I think I picked up Coreopsis from Thistle Rock Nursery stand this spring. Those dainty blossoms really contrasts well with sun flowers in size and color. [July 11, 09]

First blooms of Lisianthus, Celosia, Liatris, Irish bell, obedient flowers accompanied by zinnia and white yarrow flowers. The flowers are greeting shoppers at Cakes for Cause booth at the farmer's market. [July 25, 09]

Yellow to orange flowers: perennial sunflower, cosmos, yellow yarrow, zinnia and dahlia. [August 1, 09]

Irish bells really going strong this week. Garlic chives are blooming and society garlic is blooming again (I love this one. Got it from Wendy this spring). Purple salvia, obedient flowers, white snapdragon, geranium leaf and of course zinnia flowers accompanied by yummy baked good neighbors at the farmer's market stand. [August 15, 2009]

I am not sure what I would do once fall arrives and summer flowers in my garden start to fade away. I wonder if I could start some quick annual flowers that like cool weather. As far as perennial goes, I have a few mums that I could temporarily pot up and bring it on some Saturdays. I could gather some nice fall color branches or berries too. I can't believe I am already thinking about fall. Time flies.

Yeon

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Following Chef Christine's Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble

I so wanted to make this strawberry-rhubarb crumble that chef Christine posted, but when I was ready to make this, we just got out of strawberry season. I don't remember why but I had to make cupcakes and used up last batch of fresh local strawberries. I thought I was out of luck till next year. Then last thursday, I was given a second chance.

Dave of Blue Mountain Farms brought ever-bearing strawberries at downtown farmer's market. They looked a little firm but still smelled wonderful. My rhubarb plant is still going strong, we always have lemon at hands, so with strawberries, rhubarb and lemon, I was ready to make this fabulous cake.
Please follow chef Christine's recipe word by word. I made this cake on Monday night after work, after dinner, while fighting my allergies. Hopefully that explains why I used 9 by 9 pan instead of 9 by 13 and the cake looks much thick rather than nice thin as chef Christine had.
Yeon pointing at her 9 by 13 pan: "Dan, is this pan 9 by 13? It looks awfully big." (Please remember I grew up with meters and centimeters and sometimes I still get confused).
Dan: That's not 9 by 13. It is bigger than that. (He has no excuse. He was probably not paying attention).
Yeon: "Okay. I guess I will use a smaller pan then."

I had minor modification as far as ingredients go:

• I had only 1 1/2 cups of fresh strawberries, and my rhubarb stalks are mostly green with red hue, which meant strawberry-rhubarb mixture was going to lack strawberry flavor and color. I added 3 tablespoon of home-made strawberry-balsamic jam to enhance color and flavor.
• When I combined wet ingredients together for cake batter, I added fresh lemon peels from one lemon. I cut down sugar to 3/4 cup in dry ingredient for the cake.

I placed a parchment paper and buttered it so that I can take the cake pieces out easily. I am not sure if it was necessary step or not, but they do come out very easily.

It is a wonderful recipe. Since it requires cooking strawberries and rhubarb briefly, I could try making it with frozen strawberries. And yes, I have a good amount strawberries that I froze this spring. Did I mention my rhubarb plant is still going strong?

Yeon

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More showings for Food Inc.

This is a follow-up posting to "Shall we watch Food Inc?"

Will and Rose of Whitmore Farm let me know today that Majestic will play Food Inc. at 7 pm on Friday August 7, and also 4 pm and 7 pm on Saturday August 8. They are going to show the movie till Thursady August 13. Dan and I were originally going to see the movie on Friday but now that we have choices, we might opt for Saturday option. If the weather is nice, maybe we could explore attractions around Gettysburg and then see the movie.

I was also told that Cinemarts in downtown Frederick might be considering to show Food Inc, but never received a confirmation. You can send email to their request line and let them know that you are interested in seeing the movie in downtown Frederick.

If you already saw the movie and want to share your thoughts, please leave comments.

Yeon

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breakfast, lunch and left-over dinner

My new year's resolution was to do less and have a simple(r) life. I am miserably failing. It is time to remind myself that it is okay to do less. In my attempt to catch up with blogging (and make a simple posting), I present you with three photos of the meals that we recently had. For a Sunday breakfast, I made chestnut scones. It pretty much follows a basic scone recipe but has a bit of chestnut flour which gives a subtle nutty flavor. The texture becomes very crumbly though. Blueberries from Glade Link Farm and peaches, plums from Scenic view orchards accompanied the warm scones right off the oven.
Dan and I never made BLT at home, so we asked ourselves why not? Pineapple tomatoes from our garden, lettuce from Chesapeake's choice, bacon from Rohrer's Meats etc, and gluten-free bread from A Better Choice Baked Goods.
We had friends over for a gathering on Thursday night and these are left-overs that we ate the following day. Potatoes were from my garden (yukon gold) and Whitmore Farm (red bliss? I will ask Rose today at the market Will and Rose told me they were red thumbs potatoes). I followed Chelsea's recipe and it was fabulous! Speckled roma and basil from our garden. Cucumbers, sungold tomatoes, onions, garlic, peach to make a nice relish. What didn't make it to this photo are grilled veggies - grilled sweet corn and yellow squash were just phenomenal.

What are you cooking with the abundant summer veggies and fruits? Send us your photos, stories and recipes to share!

Yeon

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Shall we watch Food Inc?

Dale told me about this movie on May 30, during our Strawberry Festival at West Frederick farmer's market. Food Inc. has come to conversations with our friends often ever since. Enough just talking about it - I feel it is time to go watch the movie.

Rose of Whitmore Farm at the Everedy Square farmer's market let me know that the movie will be played at Gettysburg, PA: Majestic on August 7. This will be a nice trip to Gettysburg and watch the so-much-talked-about movie. Also googling leads me to this page that shows all the movie theaters that are playing Food Inc. As Chelsea and SixGables commented on Shannon's posting, Shepherdstown, WV: Opera House Theatre is playing the movie. Other close-by locations include Baltimore, MD: Charles Theatre, Bethesda, MD: Bethesda Row Cinema, and Washington, DC: E Street Cinema.

It would be nice to see the movie here in downtown Frederick. I sent out an inquiry email last night regarding this - will keep you updated if I get a reply.

Yeon

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Sunday Lunch

I had a great time visiting friends that I haven't seen for a while. I was well fed during the trip, visited a farmer's market, a community garden and a really nice Italian garden, shopped a bit, and chatted a lot with friends. After all the fun and excitement, it was nice to come home, sleep in the familiar bed, and wake up in the morning and walk out to our garden.

On Sunday morning, I pulled out some carrots (yellow and orange) and a beet. Potato plants looked yellow but I wasn't sure if it was because they were ready for harvest or because they were stressed out from lack of rain. Feeling impatient, I decide to harvest one of the two potato bags. I simply dump the soil out of the bag, started going through and picking up potatoes! Oh my, that was so fun!!

For lunch, Dan decided to make grilled shrimp dish with lime, cilantro, garlic and peanuts, which happens to feature in martha stewart Living magazine. He marinated the shrimp in lime juice and garlic, grilled the shrimp first, and then in the skillet cooked the peanuts and cilantro briefly which later joined by grilled shrimp. He also made a small batch of fried potatoes with freshly dug yukon gold potatoes. Since we had a grill going, we also grilled the beet, and smallest potatoes from the harvest.

For salad, I made a quick thai-style slaw with sliced cucumber from the farmer's market, julienned carrot, chopped mint, vinegar, sugar and fish sauce.

First tomatoes are coming in too. We were very excited with our first two striped roma tomatoes, and made the classic combo of basil, tomato, fresh mozzarella drizzled with olive oil, and some salt and pepper. I know, we eat this a lot throughout the summer with different tomatoes, sometimes with different cheese, and sometimes dressed up more with balsamic vinegar and so on.

How local was our lunch? Let me list. Tomatoes, beet, potatoes, carrot, basil, cilantro, mint and garlic were from our own garden. Fresh Mozzarella cheese was from South Mountain Creamery in Middletown. Cucumber was from Whitmore farm in Emmitsburg. Peanuts were from Virginia. Olive oil came from Spain, salt from Portugal, peppercorns from India, and shrimps from Thailand. I wish we had local shrimp but overall we did pretty well. All the vegetables were very local, most of them being from our own backyard.

Dan and I are proud of our small garden and our on-going patronage to local farmer's markets. But really, it simply comes down to the pure joy of eating fresh delicious food. I can't wait to go to downtown farmer's market at Everedy Square this afternoon and buy fruits and vegetables at their peak. Oh, I shouldn't forget fresh eggs!

Yeon

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Travel

Last year I went out of town when my squash plants were under attack by squash bugs. I am going out of town tomorrow and my green zucchini plant is under attack by squash bugs again. That poor plant is so stressed out even though I did my best to catch all the bugs, trim out the leaves infested by the eggs, and even water the plant's root area. I am worried that when I come back from the trip, the plant might have lost the battle.

On sunday evening I watered my tomato plants too. The soil was getting pretty dry, I saw a tomato fruit showing blossom end rot, and thus decide to water them. This was the first time I watered tomato plants this year - it seems we are getting into a dry period and thus occasional watering would help. 

I will miss Frederick farmer's markets on Thursday and Saturday this week. While away, I plan to visit farmer's markets in my destination area. It won't be the same without talking to familiar faces and running into friends at the market, but will be fun to see how their local farmer's markets are doing. Hopefully I will come back with some photos and stories to share.

Yeon

 

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Sunflowers blooming, Goldfinch visiting.

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Photos by Dan

Shannon and I have bought many different varieties of sunflowers seeds this year. One of the tall, deep red (open almost black) sunflowers are blooming. Right after the breakfast in the backyard this morning, Dan noticed that we had a goldfinch eating our sunflower seeds! I took binoculars out and Dan took his camera out. We had an exciting moment watching this cheery little fellow. 

Yeon

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