June Bloom Day

I'll start with the tickweed and daisies, and move on to parsnips and chamomile, but mostly this month is about the 100 petunias on my porch. I usually have more exotic items on the porch--palms and licorice plants, gynura, cordyline. Last year I left the pots empty "to fill up with possbilities"

But this year I needed something simple and bright and prosaic. Something that would just widen the pupils and put a smile on everyone's face.

Ah. Petunias.

Tickweed and daisies

Parsnips and chamomile

Petunia Sun Spun "Silver

Petunia "Daddy Strawberry"

Petunia "Cappucino" and Verbena Lanai "Peach"

Petunia "Yellow Madness"

Sour Cream Rhubarb Bread

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground clove

2/3 cup diced rhubarb

1/3 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup walnut oil

1 egg

1/2 cup sour cream

1 tsp vanilla

Topping

2 Tablespoons raspberry sugar

1 tsp butter

1/4 tsp clove

Preheat oven to 325F/160C

Whisk dry ingredients together. Add the rhubarb and cranberries. Beat the liquid ingredients together until thoroughly combined then add to dry ingredients and mix all bread ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Melt the butter in a small bowl, combine with the other topping ingredients and whisk until well combined. Grease a bread pan. Pour the batter into the pan. Drizzle the topping over the batter.

Bake for 55-65 minutes or until a knitting needle inserted into the center comes out clean. This is a very moist bread. Allow to cool completely before tipping out of pan so it doesn't fall apart.

For a sweeter bread, macerate the rhubarb in a 1/4 cup of sugar for 1/2 hour before adding to batter. If you do this, add the rhubarb last.

A hundredth of an acre

Not that it's really possible to calculate, since my garden is like me: a little sideways, a little chaotic, a little haphazard, and always wandering off to do something else, but I think I have 435 square feet of vegetables.

One hundredth of an acre.

I feed four people with this. Two of them don't live here right now, so I pack up food and send it home with them. Anyone who works in my garden gets some too. I'm trying to grow/preserve enough to make it through January this year, and I'm trying to do it using as few appliances as possible. (It seems silly to plant a garden and then buy 14 different appliances, all shipped from China, to preserve it.) I'm able to fuss with my garden, since it's so small, in a way that a giant potager or a small farm can't-- the more space the more you have to trust that you'll lose some, but there's enough extra to make up the difference.

Although I joke that I grow on the Shaker system-- a third for the family, a third for the parish and a third for G*d (in his guise as the critters)--really, there's nothing to spare. I plant 40 snow pea seeds. If I lose half, that's half our meals for a month. On the other hand, I can individually tie every one of them to their supports, which is something I did today. I don't have to thin my lettuce; instead, I can pull the tender seedlings and rearrange the rows, or slip them in bare dirt somewhere else, because there are only a hundred of them.

Every sprout is a precious child, and I take joy in each. With a 10th of an acre, or a quarter, I wouldn't feel each tiny life elbowing or spearing its way to the surface.

So a hundredth of an acre isn't very much. But I very much believe that it's one hundredth of an acre that is helping to save the planet.

Spring Stir Fry with early vegetables
1/2 tofu cake
1 rhubarb spear, diced
1 bunch asparagus
3 cups spinach

Dice the rhubarb and macerate in 1 Tablespoon sea salt and 1 tablespoon sugar. Let sit for 10 minutes. Cube the tofu, and drain it on a paper towel to draw off some of the moisture. Saute in a hot wok in a couple tablespoons of sesame or peanut oil. Add the rhubarb, including any moisture. Saute until the moisture has steamed off. Add the asparagus and saute til it's bright green. Add the spinach and saute until it wilts.

Add soy or oyster sauce, or leave as is. Serve over rice.

One day a week

I've been getting on my soapbox a lot lately, because I lost a lot of weight recently, and people are noticing. They ask me how I did it, and my response is "by eating."

You heard that right, I lost weight by eating. I never set out to lose weight, and didn't care that much, as I wasn't terribly overweight for someone of my age (BMI 29, now down to 25). But in March, I started eating SLOW- seasonal, local, organic, whole. I actually increased the percentage of animal fat in my diet, without increasing the amount of animal products I eat. So- whole milk and whole milk products, grass-fed beef, sustainably farmed chicken, with !gasp! the skin on. I stopped buying food with ingredients, and have been making my own everything: crackers, salad dressing, bread, jam, mayonnaise, you name it.

I have not been eating any less. By eating SLOW and other efforts (walking a lot more, expanding my garden) I reduced my family's carbon footprint by an entire planet.

And when I tell people this story, the responses are predictable-- too expensive, don't have time, don't know how to cook, my kids won't eat like that (why, do they have an independent income for their own food?) and on and on.

So here is MY challenge-- change your eating one day a week.

Just one day.

Do you eat out all the time? Start cooking from scratch one day. I'll let you buy pasta, but make your own tomato sauce, and buy your lettuce in a head instead of a bag. Use oil and vinegar instead of additive-rich purchased dressing. Just for one day a week.

Do you already cook from scratch one day a week? Pick another day, and eat only seasonal, whole foods that day. I'll let you go to Whole Foods (if you must) or another aware market, and buy strawberry preserves in March, as long as they're organic. I'll let you buy pasta, but read the label and make sure it says "semolina flour, water" and nothing else.

Already doing that too? Make bread. Or jam. Or crackers (they're ridiculously easy, look for my recipe on this blog). Roast a chicken. Don't worry how it turns out the first couple of times, you're only doing this once a week, remember? Do you bake a lot? One day, don't use the mixer-save the electricity and do it by hand.

How often do you go to the grocery store? One day a week, right? Go to the local, organic market instead, or the nearest farmers' market, or Whole Foods if you must. Too expensive? It's only one day a week!

Are you like me, and way into this already? You can change yourself, and your family, and your planet one day a week as well. Eat vegetarian one day a week. Already doing that? Eat vegan one day a week (that's where I've gotten). Already doing that? Eat raw one day a week.

If you've taken your food as far as you're comfortable, then take your one day a week and walk everywhere. Use it to donate time to a community or school garden, or a political action group. Grow a tomato plant- that's way less effort than one day a week, and then use your day at harvest time to preserve the bounty. Use your day to write your elected officials and demand recycling, the end of Big Ag subsidies and work arounds, and fair rules for small family farms.

I believe it. I lost 25 pounds with literally no effort toward that goal. We can save the planet, folks. What will you do one day a week?

And yes, I know it's sconeday, one day a week. Here you go:

Rhubarb Cream Scones
(adapted from The Way the Cookie Crumbles, who adapted it from Gourmet via Smitten Kitchen)

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ cup oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¾ stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
2 cups diced rhubarb (¼-inch cubes), about 3 stalks, macerated in sugar (abt 3 T)
½ cup honey
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup sour cream + 1/2 cup milk, whisked

Preheat oven to 400F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Adjust a baking rack to the middle position. In a small bowl, mix the rhubarb with 3 tablespoons sugar.

Mix the dry ingredients, then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, knife or your hands until it resembles a coarse meal. Stir the rhubarb into the flour mixture. Lightly beat the honey, egg, yolk, and milk/sourcream together in a bowl (use the same one you used for the rhubarb), then add this mixture to the flour mixture. Stir until just combined.

On a well-floured surface with floured hands, pat the dough into a 1-inch-thick round (about 8 inches in diameter). Using a 2-inch round cutter or rim of a glass dipped in flour, cut out as many rounds as possible, rerolling scraps as necessary. Arrange rounds about 1 inch apart on baking sheet and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until pale golden. Transfer the scones to a cooling rack and let them cool slightly before serving.