It was about this time last year that I was shopping in one
of my favorite places: Wegmans.
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| Jerusalem Artichokes |
It’s on the other side of town, so it is a special treat,
not a weekly haunt. I was scanning the produce section when I spotted a
plastic-wrapped package of Jerusalem artichokes. It took all of two seconds for
it to end up in my shopping cart. It wasn’t my stomach that was growling, it
was a flashback of the Fleur-de-Lys sign at the corner of Hottenstein and Eagle
Point, framed by the yellow fireworks of Jerusalem artichokes in bloom.
I bought my first Jerusalem artichoke tubers from the Maine
Potato Lady catalog, official purveyor of organic seed potatoes, shallots, and
Jerusalem artichokes. It was a leap of faith that I bought these supermarket bound-for-the-kitchen,
who-knows-how-long-they’ve-been-sitting-around tubers, but, what the heck.
When I got home, I pulled out a shovel, dug several holes at
the far end of the vegetable garden path, dropped each of the tubers in,
covered them up with soil, and forgot about them.
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| Glorious Neck Pumpkin |
Also last fall, on my routine Saturday morning Amish market
run, I bought a tan neck pumpkin. It was getting to be pumpkin pie time, and
Kutztown folk wisdom insists that “neck punkins” make the best pie. Kin to the
butternut squash, neck pumpkins are named for their long, curved necks. Unlike
your typical jack-‘o-lantern, a shell filled with a slimy webbing and seeds,
the bulk of the neck pumpkin is solid, pie-bound flesh. As I chunked up the
neck pumpkin for baking in a shallow pan of water, I scooped out a few seeds
from the cavity at the base and placed them on a paper towel. I scribbled Neck
Pumpkin Seeds on the paper towel, and stashed it in my bedroom – visions of summer
dancing in my head.
Well, the 2012 growing season has come and gone with last
week’s hard frost and blackening of the basil plants. But before the cold snap
hit, I took my camera into the garden to capture two of this year’s success
stories.
The lighthouse of this year’s garden was my Wegmans towering
Jerusalem artichoke stand, a beacon of beauty, while below sprawling swells of
neck pumpkin vines washed over the soil, straw bales, and garden path, cresting
as they scaled the split-rail fence. An amazingly strong woman, Mother Nature.
As a final hurrah to the season, I gathered about two
teaspoons of lavender blossoms and sprinkled them into the batter of Gateau au
Yaourt, and celebrated the growing year with my favorite comfort cake.
Lavender Yogurt Cake
2 eggs
1 cup unsweetened yogurt
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 cups flour
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. lavender blossoms
Grease the sides of a springform pan and pre-heat oven to
350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl combine eggs, yogurt, sugar, oil, and
vanilla. In separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and soda. Add
flour mixture to yogurt mixture, blending gently. Then sprinkle in lavender
blossoms. Pour batter into cake pan and bake for about 35 minutes, or until the
top is golden and an inserted knife comes clean. Let cool slightly on a rack,
and remove outer ring. Then, indulge. Laurie Lynch
News from Across the
Pond: Marina is settling into London, but still has Fleur-de-Lys in her
heart, as you can see from her photograph. She swapped the kot and Metro of
Brussels for a flat and Tube of London—a whole new language, a whole new world.
On This Side of the
Pond: It is garlic-planting time. Rocks are abundant in my new garlic
patch, but the bulbs seemed to thrive on the limestone. This year’s planting cloves
are huge!
Written on Slate:
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the
universe. –Carl Sagan
