Almond Conundrum

July 11, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

Well, there they go—the last of the almonds. The last I will buy for a long time.

I absolutely love almonds. They’re one of my favourite nuts. But I had already replaced most of the almonds we eat (which come from California, producer of 80% of the world’s almonds) with locally grown walnuts, in my effort to eat closer to home. Now, however, they’ll be a very rare treat.

In my post last week about our relationship with bees, I talked about how North American bees are forced to forage in agricultural monocultures, leading to poor nutrition and exposure to pesticides. The largest of those monocultures is in California’s almond growing region, where the bees are “parked” every year during almond flowering in order to pollinate the trees.

Add to that the gallon of scarce California water that goes into producing each almond, and I find I can’t keep buying them. At least not the ones at the grocery store.

BUT, in deciding that, I’ve discovered that there are NZ almond growers as close to us as Marlborough, and that, with a little coddling, we might even be able to grow them ourselves!

So, with that, I have cheerfully sworn off California almonds. I’ll be checking out my local nurseries for almond trees, and tracking down those locally produced nuts!

Winter Holiday Craft Project

July 10, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

It’s the winter school holidays and it’s been raining for days, so my daughter and I decided we needed a project. After paging through some craft books and trolling the internet for a bit, we decided to make coasters.

With some old map books, a few scraps of linoleum tiles and felt, we turned out these cool coasters.

We cut the linoleum tiles into 3 ½ inch squares, then looked for the best bits of map to cover them with. We chose map locations that were either meaningful to us, or that were just neat looking. We cut out 4 ½ inch squares from our maps, and used glue and/or double sided tape to stick them onto the linoleum squares, wrapping the edges to the back. Then we glued a square of felt onto the back, and protected the maps with two coats of varnish.

Simple and fun! A great way to spend time with my daughter!

Dali would feel right at home…

July 9, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

(Transcript of an actual conversation between me and my daughter)

“You could blog about eyeballs!”

“Umm…the blog is supposed to relate to food.”

“You could blog about vampires, and how they eat eyeballs!”

“But vampires suck blood; they don’t eat eyeballs.”

“Yes they do. They suck the blood, then eat the eyeballs!”

“No, vampires have piercing-sucking mouthparts. They can’t eat eyeballs…Unless, of course, they liquefy them first.”

“Oh.”

Pumpkin Ravioli

July 8, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

Ravioli slicer/sealer

With a scratchy throat and the sniffles, I was thinking about easy dinners for this evening. I baked up some pumpkins mid-afternoon, and asked the kids what they thought I should do with them for dinner.

“Pumpkin ravioli!” was the enthusiastic response. I had to admit, it sounded like a great idea, in spite of my lingering cold.

“If you’ll help, I’ll make ravioli.”

And so my daughter and I made ravioli together. Pumpkin ravioli has traditionally been one of those once-a-year meals that I swear I’ll never make again every time. The ravioli takes forever to make, then explodes when it is boiled. I’ve used a ravioli maker with little wells in it, I’ve cut my ravioli with a biscuit cutter and sealed it with my fingers, I’ve cut it with a knife and sealed it with a fork. Doesn’t matter, it takes forever to make and falls apart in the water.

This time, I used a ravioli cutter/sealer my in-laws gave us for Christmas. Used like a pizza cutter, it rolls along, sealing the edges and cutting the ravioli apart in one quick motion. I was dubious, and I explained to my daughter that “this probably won’t work, and we might end up having to just make pasta noodles and use our filling as a sauce.”

Much to my surprise and delight, the little cutter did a brilliant job! I’ve never had ravioli go so quickly (even in spite of the fact the power went out half way through dinner preparation)—we rolled out big sheets of dough, dolloped them with filling, topped them with a second sheet, and ran the cutter along the edges. Slick as…

And the taste? We topped it with a sauce of butter, garlic, rosemary, sage, and dried tomatoes. Fresh Parmesan cheese grated onto it at the table, and it was absolutely divine!

Unfortunately, with the power out, I got no photographs of the finished ravioli, but we had a delightful candlelight dinner—quite appropriate for glorious homemade pasta.

Leftover Soup

July 7, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

There could be anything in here…

It always happens. At some point in winter, we start to see the end of the vegetables. Winter’s vegetables lose their fight against the cold and rain. The remaining potatoes are small and beginning to sprout, the pumpkins are nearly gone, as are the onions. The garlic is sprouting. The frozen and canned vegetables are harder to find, requiring rummaging around in the freezer or cupboard. There are still vegetables to eat, but we can start to see the bottom of the barrel.

At that point, leftovers from dinner stop going to the chickens. We keep an ice cream tub in the fridge, and leftovers go there instead. When the ice cream tub is full, we have enough for leftover soup.

Leftover soup is always a surprise. Indian food mixes with Italian food. Tomato sauce might mix with a Béchamel. Doesn’t matter what it is, it goes in. Add a little water, maybe make some savoury muffins to have with it, and ‘voila’! A dinner that doesn’t deplete the remaining stores from summer. And, usually, it’s not half bad, either! It usually takes us a week to build up enough leftovers for soup, and we’ll often time a leftover soup night for Friday. An easy dinner, then a family movie is a great way to kick off the weekend!

The Last of the Cheese

July 6, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / 2 Comments

We marked another milestone in the food year yesterday—we ate the last of the goat cheese. We managed to finish off the Parmesan and Bishop’s Corner* on the same day.

It’s true, you only know what you’ve got when it’s gone. The goat cheese is that way for me. During the height of milking season, when rounds of cheese crowd out other food from the refrigerator, I can forget what a gourmet delight it is. I can forget that our ‘everyday’ cheese would cost us about $100/kg if we had to buy it. But when I’m staring at the last tiny sliver of perfection, knowing that my next bite of cheese is going to have to be run-of-the-mill commercial cow cheese, I recognise the value of what we produce.

So we savoured our last bites, and look forward to spring, when the milk will again be flowing, and the rounds of cheese will start stacking up.

*Bishop’s Corner is a cheese of my own creation—a happy mistake that turned out better than what I meant to make. I make that mistake over and over again now, and have named the cheese after a local crossroads.

Vegetable Poetry

July 5, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Painted Mountain,

Long White Wonder,

Indigo Rose

Full Moon,

Flying Saucers,

Pink Banana Jumbo,

Bloody Butcher,

Collective Farm Woman,

Drunken Woman Fringed Head,

King of the Blues,

Peppermint Stick.

I love the poetry of vegetable names! I’ll be planting many of these vegetables this spring. Can you identify what each is?

Gardener’s Porn

July 4, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

The catalog has arrived! After a brief tussle with my husband, I snagged first rights to it. I poured a glass of wine, curled up next to the fire, and prepared to feast my eyes on what Ian calls ‘gardener’s porn’.

I have a seed catalog ritual. When the catalog comes, I first flip through quickly, looking at pictures, checking for new plants and things that catch my eye, and revisiting ‘old friends’. The second time through, I circle those seeds I know or think I want to buy. The third time through, I prepare my order, consulting my list of needs, and selecting or rejecting the many ‘wants’ I’ve circled.

I look at my order critically then. It almost always shocks me how many seed packets are on the list. Do I really need both large and small gourds? How many tomato varieties is too many?

While I’m fretting over the length of my list, Ian usually snags the catalog. He invariably manages to goad, heckle, and request several more seeds onto my order.

He is the id, and my super-ego has no chance against him when it comes to seeds. I give in every time, and the order gets longer.

Finally, the order is made and sent off, but the catalog doesn’t necessarily get put away. It remains out for a few days as we all enjoy the bright colours of summer in the middle of winter.

July = Seed Catalogue!

July 3, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Kings Seed announced yesterday that the new year’s catalogue is shipping this week. I can’t wait! I’ve also got my work cut out for me, now.

Before the catalogue arrives, I need to assess my current seed situation and make a list of what I need. If I don’t, I tend to buy EVERYTHING, and end up with too many seeds. As it is, I have a hard time limiting myself to what I need, plus a few “special” things.

It’s slightly easier here than it is in the US. Before we moved here, I used to get half a dozen seed catalogues every winter, and choosing among such a huge range of options was incredibly difficult. Here, with only one decent mail-order seed supplier, I at least have only one catalogue to pore over.

So tonight I’ll pull out the seed packets and the computer (where I maintain a spreadsheet of all the seeds I have), and update my records so I can purchase sensibly when the catalogue arrives…well…if not sensibly, at least I’ll know I’m buying too many seeds! 😉

Half Way!

July 2, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / 3 Comments

I have reached the halfway point—half way through my 365 Days of Food blogging challenge. So far, except for technical difficulties, I have not missed a day.

It has been an interesting journey from a writing standpoint, and I still feel as though I’ve not begun to exhaust my ideas around food. Winter, I will admit, is tough because there is little to do in the garden, and our diet tends to shrink to a few ingredients that store well. But invariably, every day brings something blog-worthy.

This morning, I took two friends to the airport for their trip home to the US. We spent the past week travelling, talking, and eating…and often talking about travelling and talking about eating. It was good to talk to them about food and our relationship with food. They asked probing questions that forced me to verbalise some of my thoughts about food that I have not really discussed with anyone before. Their reactions to my food and lifestyle choices made me reassess and appreciate anew the value of those choices.

I’m sure those discussions and new perspectives will make their way into this blog over the next days, weeks and months, and I suspect that when I reach the end of my blogging Food Year there will still be more to be said. So pour yourself a glass of wine and settle in!