Working in the Kitchen

Jon and I have been exploring all aspects of food production here in Maine--we've been learning about the journey of food not just from seed to produce, but from soil to table as well. This is (in my opinion) one of the most fun, relaxing, and rewarding aspects of gardening that we've experienced so far.

Any bread in the house is homemade. And since I eat lots of bread, I've done lots of bread baking. I've explored poolish baguettes, vienna torpedo rolls (left), english muffin bread, and anadama bread (a New England specialty made with molasses and cornmeal) and enjoyed all of them. Since Jon's arrival, he's treated us to several sourdough bread experiments. Each one has been better than the last--and they've all been great!

We've also been cooking with the early garden produce: kale, swiss chard, dandelion, and several other random greens are picked from the garden and incorporated into our lunches and dinners almost daily, as are a variety of herbs (the lemon thyme is my favorite at the moment). We made blueberry-lemon scones with blueberries frozen since last year's harvest, and Bonita

has made us two fish dinners with the frozen salmon she caught in Alaska last fall.

While Bonita's rhubarb hasn't been around long enough to produce much (rhubarb, like asparagus, is a perennial that needs several years to establish itself before it grows enough to harvest), Jon and I were able to harvest several pounds from a neighbor's backyard. We've made a rhubarb-apple crisp, a rhubarb-blueberry crisp, and a delicious rhubarb-strawberry pie (and we've still got 4 quarts in the freezer).

Some other meals have just been

for fun--like molasses ginger cookies, celeriac risotto, and the french onion soup Jon made with my Anadama bread and his mom's recipe. He made his own mushroom stock for a vegetarian-friendly soup, and mixed the remnants of this stock with barley for a delicious side dish.

French Onion Soup

Ingredients:

salt

pepper

sherry (optional)

Multiply the following ingredients by the number of servings required:

1 cup water and 1 cube beef bullion OR 1 cup mushroom stock

1 large onion

1 teaspoon butter

1 slice of bread

a few slices gruyere cheese

In a large pan over medium-low heat, saute the onions in the butter until dark brown and sweet. Warm the water in a pot and dissolve the bullion into it. Pour the mixture into the cooked onions. Let simmer. Add salt, pepper, and a small amount of sherry to taste. Let simmer for at least an hour, until the soup is reduced.

Meanwhile, slice a baguette and the cheese, covering each slice of bread with enough cheese. When soup is done, ladle into individual serving dishes, place a slice of bread with cheese on top, and broil until the cheese is lightly browned and bubbly. Alternatively, broil the bread and cheese on a cookie sheet, then place on top of each bowl of soup (this works well if you don't have oven-safe bowls).

The Beginnings of Spring

I arrived in Searsmont, ME on a Tuesday night in mid-May to a wealth of seedlings covering Bonita's front porch: tomatoes, leeks, eggplants, onions, shallots, celery, artichoke, chives, bell peppers, hot peppers, celeriac,

and many more.

The growing season is relatively short in Maine,

so in order to maximize the amount and variety of fruits and vegetables we produce, seeds are started indoors (like these squash seedlings in

the front window).

The seedlings can be moved to a more

outdoors-y area as they grow, but they still need protection: cold frames to cover them at night; a greenhouse with windows that can be closed when needed; or the front porch, where they can

be easily moved inside on frosty nights.

These seedlings will be hardened off eventually and planted in the back garden (newly tilled and relatively bare upon my arrival) or sold to neighbors, friends, and fellow gardeners at our "Clueless Gardener" farmstand.

I spent the next week and a half getting acquainted with Bonita, the garden, and the cats, Harvey and Chicken. I began learning about the process of springtime planting by starting seeds in new flats, planting rows of leeks and celeriac in our kitchen garden, and weeding witchgrass from the fava beans (an early, hardy crop that was already well on its way in the garden upon my arrival).

On the last day of May I drove down to Boothbay Harbor, a little more than an hour south of Searsmont, to greet Jon as his ship, the Harvey Gamage, sailed into port (which you can read and hear a story about here).