(Via washingtonpost.com - A Cook's Garden by Barbara Damrosch)

Posted by admin to All, It, Pot, The, Throw, Undecided?, in on 2007-09-12, 20:00:00

In summer, so many vegetables beckon from the garden it's hard to choose. So I make soupe au pistou. Every country has its multiple-vegetable soup. In Italy you'd make minestrone. What makes this Provencal one a treat is the last-minute addition of basil, garlic and olive oil, pounded into a paste in a mortar. The pounding implement, the pestle, is what gives pistou its name.

(Via washingtonpost.com - A Cook's Garden by Barbara Damrosch)

Posted by admin to 'Little, Big, Defense, Squash', in, of on 2007-08-29, 20:00:00

If growing a giant pumpkin makes a gardener look like a hero, why does growing a giant zucchini make her look like an idiot?

(Via washingtonpost.com - A Cook's Garden by Barbara Damrosch)

Posted by admin to A, Bean, Praise, Well-Behaved, in, of on 2007-08-01, 20:00:00

If pole beans are allowed to get into trouble, they will. Early on, they are like a good baby that sleeps through the night. You poke the conveniently fat seeds into the ground, then let the warmth and easy moisture of late spring nudge forth the young shoots -- big healthy-looking things grouped in tidy circles at the base of their poles or lined up in long rows.

(Via washingtonpost.com - A Cook's Garden by Barbara Damrosch)

Posted by admin to Down, Gardening, Isn't, Lost, Translation, Under,, in on 2007-04-11, 20:00:00

Foreign travel is said to broaden one's horizons, but Australia turns it around backward. Let's start with the sun. There it still rises in the east and sets in the west, but it traverses the northern sky instead of the southern, moving from right to left. At night the moon's crescent turns the opposite way, and Orion is upside down. If you leave home in spring, as I did on a recent lecture trip, you arrive in fall, two calendar days later.

(Via washingtonpost.com - A Cook's Garden by Barbara Damrosch)

Posted by admin to --, Fine, Form, Function, and, in on 2007-01-10, 21:00:00

Any healthy, well-tended vegetable garden is beautiful, but some are works of art, and the one at the Chateau de Villandry in France's Loire Valley is considered the Mona Lisa of potagers. It forms only one part of the formal grounds that grace this Renaissance castle, but, on its own, it is a pilgrimage site for kitchen gardeners. More than 40 kinds of vegetables, from peppers to pumpkins, are set out in tidy square plots edged with boxwood, each a flawless composition of complementary textures, forms and colors that change with the seasons. Inspired by gardens of the 15th century, it is like a 100,000-square-foot bejeweled altar cloth, spread over the land in homage to the fruits of the earth.

(Via washingtonpost.com - A Cook's Garden by Barbara Damrosch)

Posted by admin to Another, Chance, Fun, Plot, Put, Some, Year,, Your, in, to on 2007-01-03, 21:00:00

New Year's resolutions are useless. In fact, I think they're a sort of jinx. Proclamations about losing five pounds or maintaining a perfect garden are doomed to failure because they're too much like homework. "Positive change," as the self-help books call it, happens accidentally when you're fully engaged in life. Progress occurs when you're so caught up in a project that you can't quit.

(Via washingtonpost.com - A Cook's Garden by Barbara Damrosch)

Posted by admin to Elusive, Pawpaw, Pursuit, The, in, of on 2006-10-11, 20:00:00

The old children's song makes it sound easy. "Where, oh where, is sweet little Susie? Way down yonder in the pawpaw patch. . . . Pickin' up pawpaws, puttin' 'em in her pocket. "

(Via washingtonpost.com - A Cook's Garden by Barbara Damrosch)

Posted by admin to Nasturtium, Up, Wrapped, in on 2006-09-13, 20:00:00

The view from the upstairs window was alarming. Titanic vines, full of purpose, had so engulfed my 30-inch-tall marigolds that only a few specks of gold color could be seen beneath the huge leaves. Tumbling over a low granite wall, the plants had begun to snake through the herb garden, with the Alpine strawberries next in their sights. These were not squash vines, or pumpkins, or even kudzu, the famous "vine that ate the South." They were trailing nasturtiums.

(Via washingtonpost.com - A Cook's Garden by Barbara Damrosch)

Posted by admin to A, Aims, Please, Pod, Radish, in, to on 2006-08-09, 20:00:00

It was the perfect light summer supper from the garden. Angel hair pasta sauced with the first of the French shallots and some locally foraged chanterelles, sauteed together in brown butter and a little sage. On top of that went a small handful of radish pods, lightly crisped in olive oil.

(Via washingtonpost.com - A Cook's Garden by Barbara Damrosch)

Posted by admin to Festive, Funky, No, Time, in, to on 2006-08-02, 20:00:00

"House proud" is a nice, old-fashioned phrase. It describes the feeling you have when everything is reasonably clean and in order. It reflects the fact that while we all may befoul our nests to some degree, we like visitors to feel comfortable and welcomed when they walk through our door, not assaulted by our mess.