Fleur-de-Brusselicious

 Can you have four favorites? Or does that defy the nature of the word  “favorite?”

I’m talking about gelato, so it certainly could be possible:

1. Lemon Basil

1. Hazelnut

1. Melon

1. Apricot

Marina holder the photog's gelato, and her own.

And that’s just the proverbial tip of the culinary iceberg.

Where do I start? Well, we started in Brussels, where, “It’s impossible to find a bad restaurant,” Dirk, a long-time resident and world traveler told us. He’s not the only one who thinks so. The city named 2012 the year of culinary delights, with Brusselicious the campaign slogan and the plump green Brussels sprout the poster child. From restaurants to museums, parks to trams, Brussels is all about food.

To celebrate her graduation, Marina took us to dinner at La Villette, specializing in “cuisine belge,” where we dined outside along Place Sainte-Catherine. An old pro at cuisine belge, Marina ordered Anguille au Vert/ Paling in Het Groen,  aka river eels in a green herb sauce of chervil, sorrel, spinach, and parsley. Others in our group ordered seafood, Flemish beef stew with beer, and the classic chicken Waterzooi (meaning boiled or stewed in water) and finished with finely chopped onions, carrots, leeks, celeriac, and potatoes in a buttery cream sauce and a dash of nutmeg.

Wild Asparagus

Waffle and friterie stands are found at every town square and market. At a farmer’s market I visited in Stockel with Dirk’s wife Tracey, I found a flower I had never seen before, Asclepias ‘Moby Dick’, and a vegetable I had never seen before, wild asparagus. One night, we sautéed the asparagus in olive oil and garlic, and tossed it with pasta.

Another day, using Dirk’s pick-a-restaurant-any-restaurant theory, I asked to return to Place Sainte-Catherine with the boulevard of plane trees shading outdoor cafes. Our tummies were grumbling and raindrops were falling. We needed shelter fast, but wanted to stay outside. Row upon row of restaurants assaulted us—so many choices, so little time. Then I spotted one with a little sign at the door that said “Slow Food”.  I’ve espoused the slow food movement for years; we found our spot.

We sat at a table protected by an awning and chose the blackboard special of the day: Gazpacho with Chicken Kabobs and Frites. The whole meal was flawless, but it was the Gazpacho that made it memorable. That and the fact that the sun broke through the stubborn gray clouds midway through the meal. We were ready for an icy tomato soup, but to our surprise the burgundy puree was comprised of luscious spices and beets, not tomatoes, with a cube of goat cheese in the center.

In Antwerp, we ate traditional Moroccan dishes from Ziggy’s mother’s homeland. We had a sweet mint tea early on, then Harira, a traditional soup, and finally, Chicken Tagine (cooked in an earthenware pot called a tagine). When I asked Ziggy for his mother’s recipe, I had to laugh. The basic recipe, he told me, could be found at www.moroccanfood.about.com Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemons and Olives. Except that Thea substitutes raisins for olives, she uses saffron powder not threads, she leaves the skin on the chicken, and, oh yes, she adds coriander, always coriander. Sounds like a woman I’d be happy with in the kitchen!

Then, there was Italy. Like a lusty tomato sauce, the foods of Italy will spill onto the next blog. Until then, I will forget about geography and finish what I started:

1. Lemon Basil gelato, light and refreshing, with flecks of green basil which gave the lemony flavor a WOW! punch.

1. Hazelnut is as ubiquitous in Europe as the peanut is in the States. I was 17 when I first tasted it—I spent a summer with a friend in the Netherlands where we’d start each day with a chocolate-hazelnut spread slathered on bakery bread—love at first bite. Hazelnut gelato goes great with people-watching in a piazza on a summer evening.

1. Melon is a big flavor in Europe, whether you’re talking fresh fist-sized melons at the market, melon at the gelato stand, or melon throat lozenges! Looking for something to soothe Marina’s cold and sore throat at the Delhaize Supermarket across from her kot (house with 9 kots or bedrooms which share a kitchen, shower, and toilet) I found Swiss-made Bonbons aux Plantes. The melon candies soothed rather than numbed, like the American menthol types, and I fell in love with the cute little box they came in. The box had a Swiss-engineered flip top that locks with a snapping sound, using only the miracle of folded cardboard. I’m still intrigued and keep playing with it, popping the lid open and shut, melon lozenges long gone.

1. Apricot. Apricots were in season and Richard couldn’t believe he was eating a fresh apricot. “Isn’t it a peach or a plum?” He was used to dried apricots or mealy fresh ones. The ones we sampled at the Rialto Market were perfection—and apricot gelato captured that burst of fresh flavor.

Until next time, bon appetite/smakelijk -- Laurie Lynch

Ooops: Shortly after we returned, I was on the phone to my nephew/chef Wille describing the meals we encountered. Then he asked a simple question: “Did you take photos of them?” No, I was too busy eating! Looking back over the almost 500 photos, there are definite themes: cobblestones, laundry drying on clotheslines, and rooftops (well, I work for a roofing company), but few food shots. Yes, I was too busy eating!

Straw Bale Garden Update: While we were traveling, it rained in State College almost every day. On the days when it didn’t, my sister Larissa hauled out the hose and watered the straw bale garden. The entire regular garden was filled with weeds upon our return; the straw bale garden was weedless, but also pretty ratty looking. In the weeks I’ve been home, I’ve continued to water and pamper, but the plants are stressed. So stressed that I added backup plantings of Poona Kheera cucumbers, squash, and pumpkin in the “ground” garden.

Garlic Garden Mystery, Solved: The beauty of gardening is that no matter how many years I’ve done it, I’m always learning and always learning how downright dumb I am. A week or so ago, I noticed something strange—a whole row of my garlic was flattened. It was if someone slid over it with a toboggan load with firewood. All the other rows were fine. Was it drought stress in that narrow patch of clay soil? A disease? Did Belladonna the llama take a sudden interest in the garlic garden and step on each plant? Do we have an especially fat raccoon roaming about now that Richard is shooting all of the groundhogs? Hey, a black bear was spotted nearby…could it be bear damage?

Destiny's Wedding Slate Garden

Honestly, all of these thoughts raced through my brain. Then I used it, my brain, that is. I looked at my garden “map” to see what variety was planted there. Hmmm, Chet’s Italian Red. A soft-neck variety. I usually plant hard-neck garlic. So, why is it called soft-neck? After a little research I found out that soft-neck garlic is ready a few weeks before hard-neck, and the leaves fall over when it’s time for harvest... Blew that one!

Written on Slate: Destiny emailed a sweet note and a photo of her new garden with a wedding slate from Fleur-de-Lys. She wrote that every time she looks at it she’s transported back to Kutztown to the lovely day she spent at the farm.  Ahhh.

Fleur-de-Bisous

One day we figured out we had traveled by Lancia rental car, plane, bus, train and metro, not to mention our blistered feet, all before our afternoon panini.

But the journey wasn’t all rush-rush.

There were the hours spent luxuriating at sidewalk cafés, sipping latte macchiato (warm milk “stained” with coffee), Prosecco or Mort Subite Kriek Lambic, and watching the world saunter by.

Marina and her au pair family, Denise, Emelie and little Jeanne

Our student-turned-graduate spent much of her time coaching Mom on the finer points of living in the center of the European universe. Marina was on constant pickpocket alert, reminding me to zip my purse completely closed and to tuck it tightly under my arm. Yet those moments of mistrust dissipated completely each time Marina stepped into a crosswalk, fearless in her confidence that motorists would indeed brake in time.

Others continued the instruction. When Ziggy, Marina’s significant, took Richard and I to our first Brussels café, he discreetly slid the 15% euro tip I placed on the pewter-covered table back to me, explaining that our wait person was a professional, and the large tip would be considered an insult. Upon meeting his mother Thea for the first time, as we leaned in for welcoming bisous, she whispered in her shy English, “In Belgium, we do it three times,” and so we switched cheeks from right to left to right again.

With Marina’s French and Flemish, and Richard’s Portuguese and Italian, I was in good company. Marina gave me a Flemish cheat-sheet to study on the train to dinner with Ziggy’s family in Antwerp, with please (alstublieft) and thank you (danku) and a few other essential words.  Richard interpreted stories and translated directions from my father’s 86-year-old Italian cousin as we navigated seven sharp turns up the mountainside beyond Fregona.

I could handle a “bonjour” to greet a ticket-taker in a Brussels museum, but after a while, the revolving doors of languages totally befuddled me. As I was leaving a shop in Venice where the personable young women told me in perfect English that I looked like a Northern Italian (talk about Brownie points!), I was so flustered and giddy that when I opened my mouth to say good-bye, out came “muy bien’’ (very well) from high school Spanish class. Both of my kids rolled their eyes on that one. And, in the fog of too many tongues that settled on me, I know at least one time I intended to go to the women’s (vrouwen or donne) restroom but ended up in the men’s (mensen or uomini). Oops!

Faux pas aside, as we traveled around Belgium I was truly inspired by the women who bicycle to work each day.  I decided their example would be my take-home souvenir. I don’t have their native panache, the way they knot their scarves and wear their business clothes astride a bicycle. I can’t walk in high heels let alone pedal in them. But I could just do it–ride to work as often as possible—even if it meant wearing sweats and carrying a change of clothes in a knapsack.

So, first workday back, I did just that.

The ride was exhilarating. My Northern Italian face flushed. I paced the office, cooling down. Then I went into the women’s room to towel off and change. I slid on my sophisticated black-and-white dress, stepped into a sandal.  And froze. In my haste to pack for the ride, I brought two different sandals.

I spent my jet-lagged return to reality in mismatched shoes. At least luck was on my side. I brought a right and a left. Bisous, three times. Laurie Lynch

Fleur-de-Ciao

Here I go, dating myself again. As the refrain of Peter, Paul and Mary’s hit “Leaving on a Jet Plane” rattles through my brain, it’s time to pack my blog with updates and follow ups and general catch ups.

First, an apology to Elaine in Arkansas who, in an April blog comment, asked for my elderblossom cordial recipe. First, I just discovered the request about a week ago, and then, after I responded in the comment section, the recipe disappeared into cyberspace. So, here it is, resurrected:

Elderflower Cordial

20 heads of elderflower

4 lbs. granulated sugar

1 1/3 quarts water

2 lemons

¼ c. citric acid

Shake elderflowers to expel any lingering insects, and then place in large bowl.

Put sugar into pan with water and bring to boil, stirring sugar until completely dissolved.

While sugar syrup is heating, pare zest of lemons off in wide strips and toss into bowl with elderflowers. Slice lemons, discard ends, and add slices to bowl. Pour boiling syrup over flowers and lemons, and then stir in citric acid. Cover with cloth and leave at room temperature for 24 hours.

Next day, strain cordial through sieve lined with muslin and pour into plastic container to freeze. Scoop out as needed.

I add a teaspoonful of elderflower cordial to my tall glasses of ice water on hot days. It adds a refreshing flavor.

Hay Bale Hoedown: We had our April showers in May, so the daily watering of the hay bales was the primary responsibility of my cohort, Mother Nature. She did a splendid job leading up to the urea application for Week 3.

Richard did offer to have his campfire cronies, a 20-something crowd of S’more-slurping, cooler-popping fellas, take aim at my hay bale garden – but did I really trust these guys to walk the length of Beaver Stadium in the dark, find the garden gate, walk down the garden path, and use Mrs. Lynch’s hay bales for target practice? As Richard would text, “nah”.

Suffice to say that once again Mother is the necessity of invention. My nighttime collection device used over the course of several weeks and stored surreptitiously in my bedroom closet (away from the eyes of the older and younger generation who would in unison scream, “Gross!” or something to that effect) worked.

I made two trips to the garden a few days apart, with just shy of three gallons of liquid gold each time. I zeroed in on two potential planting spots for each bale, and only once got my foot instead of the intended goal. “Gross!”

Week 4, I inspected the bales and saw mushrooms growing – once again, Mother Nature was ahead of me. I stuck my hand down into the approximate spots on each bale and was rewarded with warm, composting hay. “Gross!” some might say. But as I pulled out handfuls of the hay, steaming with biological action, my confidence grew.

My Mother’s Day wheelbarrow was filled with a generous mixture of composted leaf mold from the woods, composted llama manure, and Ace Hardware potting soil. I used my Dad’s trusty trowel to slide a few scoops into each planting pocket. Perfect. Meanwhile, the Poona Kheera cucumbers, Thai eggplant, Costata Romanesco Zucchini, Thelma Sander Sweet Potato squash, Jimmy Nardello and Golden Marconi peppers, Katanya and Cream of Saskatchawan watermelons, were hardening off on the shady patio. By Memorial Day, the traditional Fedon family planting day, I was tucking my babies hay bales.  

What a Guy: During week 4, Richard presented me with an OJ bottle labeled “URINE” that he had filled. Too late for the hay bales, but just in time for a urea application for the garlic crop!

What a Gal: A true friend not only gives you a couple dozen stalks of rhubarb for your spring tonic of stewed rhubarb but also digs up a clump of rhubarb roots for you to plant! Ah, the riches of Rebersburg farmland. Thanks, Sharon!

Wildlife at Fleur-de-Lys Central: We’ve had a squirrel problem in the golf cart barn/garlic curing shed/storage nook/garage band staging area for quite some time. The squirrels crack walnuts all over the place and gnaw up anything in their path, but when we noticed they actually ate the cover off half of a golf ball … it was time for action. After a few calls, The Hundred Cat Foundation stopped by with a crate containing Houdini and Cali. HFC is set up to humanely reduce the number of feral cats through spaying/neutering and then find homes/barns for them.

Houdini and Cali were rescued with 20 or so others in a few colonies living at Rockview State Correctional Institution. One inmate smuggled out food to feed the strays living in barns around the prison, but the (cat) population got out of hand. So Hercules (the name that continues to come out of my mouth instead of Houdini) and Cali took up residence at our place. For the first two weeks, they were on lock down so they could get acclimated. Last week, we set them free and have only caught glimpses of them since, but know they are still around by the emptying food bowl.

Deadlife at F-d-L Central: Richard and his grandfather’s .22 are curbing the groundhog population. Seven down so far.

Really Dating Myself: In a recent copy of the AARP Bulletin, I came across a wonderful idea: the Little Free Library.  A fellow in Wisconsin made a doll-house size repository for books (compete with a glass front that opens up, allowing people take a book, return a book,) and planted it in his front yard, like a mailbox. The idea took off. There are building plans at www.littlefreelibrary.org, with at least700 mini-libraries in 45 states and 20 foreign countries

True Confessions:  I am leaving on a jet plane. Richard and I are flying to Brussels for Marina’s Vesalius College graduation.  After that, the three of us will take a celebratory trip to Venice and northern Italy to trace my father’s roots (you can’t beat $100 round-trip air flight from Brussels to Venice). Then, we’ll return to Brussels for more visiting, re-charging my daughter-batteries for another separation. (After spending the summer in Brussels, Marina will head to the University of London for graduate studies.) So, you won’t hear from me for a while – and when you do, I’ll be a changed woman.

You see, I’ve crossed this line before. When I was in college, I became smitten with Charleston, SC. Collected books on Charleston, “Porgy & Bess” albums, skate egg cases and sand dollars from Isle of Palms, Spanish moss from Johns Island, a Mount Pleasant wooden spool with a string to tie to chicken necks to lure blue crabs into a waiting net. I ended up living there for five years, sprinkling my vocabulary with y'alls, and creating a place in my heart for the Lowcountry.

Then, just before we bought the farm on Hottenstein Road, Paul and I took a trip to Provence. Once again, geography (and culture, and food, and people, etc.) pulled me into an undertow of place. This is the French-ness that created Fleur-de-Lys, from periwinkle blue shutters to cuckoo maran roosters, French lace curtains and Purple Passion asparagus, crystalizing simple country ways into a good life with family and friends.

And now, during the last few weeks, I’ve felt a strange sensation coming on.

I first noticed it on a visit to the local library. As I slid a few books into the return slot, I actually heard a book on display call to me. Moments later I was checking out The Glassblower of Murano. Weeks later, I went armed to the AAUW used book sale with a list – and found Death in Venice and The Broker—as well as a first edition Venetian Stories. On my last visit to the library: Venice, Pure City; La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind; The City of Falling Angels; and No Vulgar Hotel, The Desire and Pursuit of Venice.  

Then, I bought a dress for graduation. The sales clerk commented on the Fortuny pleats. Was she drinking too much Prosecco? Was I?

Luckily, Judith Martin’s No Vulgar Hotel explained the beginnings of my malady—I may be turning into a Venetophile—and I haven’t even boarded the plane.

Ciao. Laurie Lynch

  

Written on Slate:  “O, Venice is a fine city, wherein a rat can wander at his ease and take his pleasure! Or, when weary of wandering, can sit at the edge of the Grand Canal at night, feasting with his friends, when the air is full of music and the sky full of stars, and the lights flash and shimmer on the polished steel prows of the swaying gondolas, packed so that you could walk across the canal on them from side to side! And then the food – do you like shellfish? Well, well, we won’t linger over that now.” – Sea Rat in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows

Fleur-de-SecretGarden

While I was arranging and watering hay bales, my son Richard and his Nonna were conspiring with their own project.

Richard got the idea after spending a weekend at the farm, visiting his dad for a Lynch family cookout. The festivities centered around “Stonehenge,” the fire pit and stone benches we built near the former shop.  Stonehenge is surrounded by in what many people refer to as “the hobbit village,” the miniature log cabin, wishing well, lighthouse, etc. built by W.A. Saul in the 1960s after he retired as a schoolteacher.

Secret Garden Entrance

When Richard returned to State College, he decided his Nonna’s house needed a fire pit—and he knew exactly where it should go—in Nonno’s Secret Garden. About the time my father became a grandfather he decided to create a secret garden. He placed an arbor at the entrance and planted climbing hydrangea to clamber over top. Then he cut a path, a good 80 yards or so, into the woods that opened into an area with tall shade trees. Between two of them, he stretched a Pawley’s Island hammock, thus creating a sanctuary.

Last week was finals week at Penn State, so Richard didn’t have classes and devoted much of his time to resurrecting Nonno’s Secret Garden. With a list, lawn mower, machete, wheelbarrow, shovel and rake, and a property that lives and breathes fieldstone, my 20-year-old man of muscle created his version of his grandfather’s hideaway.

Richard's Circle of Fire

The pathway is lined with solar-powered lights and opens into a clearing. In the center, Richard built a double ring of stones for his fire pit. Tiki torches line this “room”, which has a stack of firewood, a small charcoal grill, benches encircling the fire pit, and artwork. Artwork?

Richard was born on his grandfather Richard’s 70^th birthday, and they share more than a name. When Richard was clearing the secret garden, he found two marble figures that my dad chiseled during an adult-education sculpture class. They apparently got lost in the undergrowth of the woods. The two sculptures have the patina of age, and a good deal of moss growing on them, but Richard could see the inherent beauty of the female form.

Shy...

“Boob statues,” he calls them. Nonno’s artistic expression and Richard’s folly.  Laurie Lynch

Purses with a Purpose: Shopping is one of my least favorite activities. But sometimes I’m shamed into it. While I was visiting San Francisco, Trig saw the fraying innards of my long-loved tapestry purse and said, “You really need a new bag.”

In the months since I’ve made half-hearted attempts to look for a new purse, but how many possibilities are there in plant nurseries and supermarkets? Then I noticed an article in the local paper about a philanthropic organization selling one-of-a-kind purses at Seven Mountains Winery over the weekend. Wineries are another shopping haunt.

The bags (which range in price from $15 for cosmetic totes to $300 travel bags) are handmade by tsunami victims in Aceh, the Indonesian province that was destroyed by the earthquake and subsequent tidal waves the day after Christmas, 2004. From that disaster, Laga Designs International Inc., not a charity but a business with a mission, was born in California. The company was formed to empower people who lost their livelihood as a result of the 2004 tsunami.

The bags are intricately embroidered with Acehnese designs that have been handed down through generations.  One medium-sized bag takes a full day to complete. You can check them out at www.laga-handbags.com and, if you’d like to order one, contact Jill Lillie at jlillie@lagahandbags.com, the State College, PA, Laga consultant.

Written on Slate: “I find television very educational. Every time someone switches it on I go into another room and read a good book.” –Groucho Marx

Fleur-de-P-word

OK, so I’m in bed watching Suzy Bartels’ YouTube video on hay bale gardening during the wee hours of the morning.  She’s talking about adding high nitrogen fertilizer to the bales during the third week and I’m zoning off. Then she says: “Peeing on them is the best thing, or you can go to Agway and buy somebody else’s pee. They call it urea. It’s still just pee.”

I practically fall out of bed.

When I was a kid, I was taught to say,  “I have to tinkle.” As I got older, “I have to go to the bathroom.” I remember in high school, my cool friend Meggie called it “piddle” which is cute if you are talking about a puppy. But the word “pee”? Nice girls didn’t say that.

So, let’s just call it urine, for the sake of science, and figure this out. I start Googling again.

·      One site explains that urine is a natural source of agricultural fertilizer with negligible risks. In fact, urine treated and disposed of is more of an environmental problem than when it is used au naturel as a resource.

·      At the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, researchers have been studying urine recycling for 15 years. Our digestive system strips the “waste” down to basic mineral forms that plants just suck up.

·      An article in Scientific American magazine reports that in Finland researchers are growing beets, cucumbers, cabbages, and tomatoes using urine as a sustainable fertilizer.

·      Each year the average human produces 500 liters of urine, full of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus, all craved by plants. Five hundred liters would fill three bathtubs.

·      Urine is practically sterile. Astronauts on the International Space Station drink the darned stuff after it has been purified.

This late-night research is boggling my mind. Memories flood in like high tide.

Flashback: We are in Avalon, NJ, for a summer vacation with several families. A friend is visiting. One of the moms thinks the girl is ill mannered because she “forgets to flush”. It turns out her family was conscious of our limited resources before ecology and recycling became household words. She taught us this little water conservation ditty: “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.”

Flashback: I’m studying at Penn State’s Marine Science Consortium at Wallops Island, VA. I’m chasing after my duck-footed professor as he dashes off into the dunes. I don’t want to miss the family of ghost crabs or a tasty patch of salicornia I think he is racing toward. He stops, spreads his legs apart, his hands busy in front of him. “The pose.” I turn and scamper in the opposite direction, laughing at my naiveté.

Flashback: Just the other day I’m giving my son “the lecture” after spotting him outside the house in “the pose”. He is aiming at the rhododendron, but tells me he is looking for groundhogs.

“We may be outside the borough, but this is a college town. The police call that open lewdness or indecent exposure or, at the very least, urinating in public. You’ll get in trouble. And what would your grandmother think?”

“Maaaahommm.”

Back to Reality: A new day is dawning. I’m enlightened. I still won’t say the P-word but I do have a plan.

“Hey Richard, are you doing anything the third week in May? I’ve got a job for you…”

Laurie Lynch

No. 2 Thought: “There is no doubt about it, the basic satisfaction in farming is manure, which always suggests that life can be cyclic and chemically perfect and aromatic and continuous.” –E.B. White

Fleur-de-HayBale

There is a certain danger in having a laptop when negotiating mid-life divorce insomnia.

The other night I woke abruptly with a solution—hay bale garden. I’m still not sure where it came from but it melded a series of unrelated items on my to-do list into one project.

1.    Need to get rid of the stack of two-year-old dusty hay bales taking up room in my mother’s barn.

2.    Decide what to do about two grassy patches inside my newly fenced-in vegetable garden. The grass would be a hassle to mow and could have been turned into garden space had I the foresight to smother the grass with cardboard last fall, readying it for spring tilling.

3.    Figure out what to write on my next blog.

If I were still relying on my old clunky computer, I would have gotten out of bed, put on thick socks and a robe, and headed down to the basement to the dank depths of the “office”.  Instead, I switched on the light, reached for my laptop, propped up my pillows, fluffed up the comforter, and Googled “hay bale garden”.

I clicked and tapped through a bunch of straw bale gardens then I hit pay dirt, so to speak. There was a video of Suzy Bartels speaking on Hay Bale Gardening to a group at the Plumsteadville (PA) Grange. And that’s where this story started taking twists and turns.

Future Fingerling Potato Patch

Bale gardening is an elevated form of raised-bed gardening. (A brief pause for an agricultural teachable moment. Straw is dry stalks of wheat or oats, often yellow in color, has no nutritional value. and is used for bedding; hay is dry grasses or legumes, such as alfalfa or clover, with a greenish color, nutritional value, and therefore used for feed.)  

With bale gardening, there is no weeding, no tilling, and not a whole lot of bending. If your soil is poor or poorly drained, bale gardening solves those problems too. For me, lining my two grassy areas with bales (on their sides, bristle-side up, so the twine is not touching the ground) and then filling the interior with loose hay would help smother the grass while providing planting room this season. And, it cleared a space in my mother’s barn.

Nonna: "What's she doing now?"

With my trusty wheelbarrow and 15 trips from the barn to the garden, I created two pocket gardens between my dad’s original raised-beds with 30 bales of hay. In the larger garden, about 12’x14’, I’ll plant pumpkins, squash, and cucumbers to tumble down into the inner hay-covered courtyard. In the second narrower bed, 6’x14’, I’ll plant peppers and eggplant up above in the hay bales and in the lower section, I’ll line the bottom with soil and plant my fingerling potatoes, covering them with more soil, and adding soil as they grow.

With May Day approaching, you too can design a bale garden and plant by Memorial Day. After arranging your bales, you soak them daily with water for two weeks. The third week you apply a cup of high nitrogen fertilizer on each bale to get composing action going, repeat two days later, and two days after that. Each time, you water the fertilizer in, but you don’t water it through.  By the end of the third week, if you put your finger in the bale, it should feel hot, which means it is composting. On the fourth week, keep bales moist and let them cool. By then, your bales are prepped and ready for planting. Use your hands to make two holes in each bale and fill with a little compost or soil, and insert your seedling. Water in.

If we don’t get enough help with rain from Mother Nature, you will have to water plants occasionally, as you would for any garden plant, but hay helps retain moisture better than straw does.

That’s it for today’s simple bale garden lesson. Tomorrow’s blog, the twists and turns of frank farming. Laurie Lynch

May Day Special: Robyn Jasko, Kuztown resident and co-founder (with husband Paul David) of websites Dine Indie and Grow Indie, has written Homesweet Homegrown: How to Grow, Make and Store Food, No Matter Where You Live. The book is available at bookstores and on Amazon.com May 1 for $9.95.

An Apology: Yesterday I attended another writing conference and learned that as a blogger I'm supposed to respond to all blog comments. I promise to do so in the future.

Fleur-de-TaitTaters

The class, Preserving the Herb Garden with Cindy Tait Law, was a homecoming of sorts.

From 1969 until the mid-1990s my mother was the proprietor of The Country Sampler in Boalsburg, PA, the quaint “birthplace of Memorial Day” on the outskirts of State College. She and two friends opened the shop in a former Clover Farm Store because they were avid cooks and entertainers—and there wasn’t a shop around that sold wooden stirring spoons or any of the kitchen gadgets they yearned for.  In no time, “The Sampler” was the place to find Romertopf clay pot cookers, Sabatier knives, Bodum coffee presses, and Cuisinart food processors.

In the rear of the store they installed a mini-kitchen island where my mother or a guest chef would present cooking classes in the evening to spark culinary adventures for Centre Countians.

While I was finishing up high school and then enrolled at Penn State, I spent term breaks and holidays helping out at The Country Sampler. And that is where I met Cindy Tait. She was a little bit older than I and much wiser. We spent countless hours solving the world’s problems while trying to stay warm in the shop where cold air seemed to gush through the worn floorboards. We greeted customers offering steaming mugs of Russian Tea (an instant tea-Tang concoction spiced up with cinnamon, allspice and cloves) on cold December nights before the holidays. I remember Cindy’s specialty was dusting merchandise on the display shelves and mine was wrapping gifts in the even-colder storage room. But, oh, we loved it when there was a cooking class. Imagine getting paid to be entertained with a class and then to sample the goodies!

Cindy has come a long way from those early Sampler days, and she is now in charge of product development at Tait Farm Foods, creating chutneys and sauces and preserves and vinaigrettes at Tait Farm just outside of Boalsburg.

My mother and I went to Cindy’s class and learned about rolling basil “cigars” and freezing them in snack baggies, steeping Thai basil in white wine vinegar, and freezing pesto in quart-size baggies, pressed flat and thin, so it’s easy, fast, and safe to thaw in the refrigerator before adding it to pasta. She tempted our food imaginations with herbal salts and herbal honeys and herbal butters.

But my personal favorite was what she calls Sage-Roasted Potatoes. After making them for a pre-Easter dinner, and again later for a photo shoot, I’m inclined to call them Stained-Glass Potatoes. They are delicious hot out of the oven, warmed up for leftovers, and, truth be told, even cold as a midnight snack. The stained-glass part of the title flashed in my mind because they are miniature works of art, herbs pressed in an arrangement and roasted until golden.

Stained-Glass Potatoes

Russet baking potatoes

Olive oil

Kosher salt

Fresh sage leaves and/or rosemary sprigs

Preheat oven to 350°. Brush a film of olive oil on baking sheet. Sprinkle the sheen of oil with coarse salt. Arrange sage leaves in an attractive pattern on top of oil, making sure the “right” side is down.

Cut potatoes in half lengthwise. Place potato halves on top of sage leaf patterns, keeping each “arrangement” contained under each potato half.

Place baking sheet in oven and roast for an hour. When the timer goes off, you can lift one potato half up and take a peek…the sage should be stuck to the potato, and the potato should be a crusty, golden brown. If it isn’t, return potatoes to oven until they turn golden.

This is such a simple and delicious variation on ordinary baked potatoes that I’m sure you will want to give it a try. Or, as they say at Tait Farm, “Bon AppeTait!” Laurie Lynch

Another Tait Farm Story: Late last fall I visited Tait Farm to send a few Central PA gift boxes to Marina’s adopted Belgian families, my adopted Aunt France, and yes, I treated myself to an old favorite, Harrison’s Fig and Olive Relish (that I eat with a “relish” on sandwiches, cream cheese and crackers, even stirred into my homemade yogurt), and a new favorite, Lavender Scone Mix.

In late January or February I got a call from Aunt France. She finally tasted the strawberry-rhubarb conserve I mailed to her. “I’ve been salivating for this since Christmas,” she told me. I asked why she waited so long. “Well Laurie, that’s a long story.”

It turns out that France couldn’t open the jar. She twisted and strained and twisted some more, but the lid wouldn’t budge. Weeks went by and the jar just sat there, staring at her. Then it was time to take her strawberry-red vintage Mustang convertible to the service station. France put the jar of conserve on the bucket seat next to her. When she dropped off the car, she told the woman at the desk her plight. The woman disappeared with the jar, and came back minutes later. The mechanic had loosened the lid. “He told me he washed his hands and used a clean towel and everything,” France recalled. Then she went home and had toast topped with Tait Farm Strawberry-Rhubarb Conserve.

Check It Out: www.taitfarmfoods.com

Written On Slate: “Talk of joy: there may be things better than beef stew and baked potatoes and home-made bread—there may be.”—David Grayson

The Last Word: “Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism are all very good words for the lips.” –Charles Dickens