Fleur-de-Pinterest

Back in 1985, Betsy stopped in State College for a visit on her way to see Porgy and Bess at the Metropolitan Opera. The trip was a special one. It was the 50th anniversary of Porgy and Bess on Broadway. It was also 10 years since I had met Betsy, my first editor at my first “real” job as a reporter for The News and Courier in Charleston, S.C., and the first time she visited my hometown.

We drove Betsy all around town and campus. It was February and we took her to dinner at a restaurant at the foot of our local ski slopes, thinking it was as far as we could get from Charleston’s harbor and palmettos. It is funny, the things you remember. The comment that still brings a shudder to my Appalachian backwoods roots was, “Why does everyone still have Christmas wreaths hanging on their doors?”

Apparently proper Charlestonians remove all holiday trim by Epiphany. Not so in Central Pennsylvania, where outdoor decorations are frozen in place until March. April, this year.

We’ve had one or two days of spring-like weather so I was contemplating the front door wreath, complete with red ribbon and snow-flecked pinecones. Lucky for me, I was skipping through my latest computer diversion, Pinterest, and I saw my inspiration: An umbrella filled with flowers.

My sister Lee Ann introduced me to Pinterest. Its “Everything” site of DIY projects is like flipping through dozens of magazines for creative ideas, with just a roll of the mouse wheel. Most of my “pins” go onto a never-never-land personal page for “the future”. But this one shouted at me: “Now!”

I mentioned the idea to Marina, ensuring I would be prodded into action. We surveyed the current state of my mother’s umbrella population but found nothing suitable, only compact, pop-up types or HUGE golf umbrella models in U.S. Naval Academy blue and gold. So, the three M (Marina, Mom and Me) Musketeers drove to Goodwill.

We found a wooden, duck head-handled model for $4. Off to Dollar General for silk flowers, $1 a spray (four sprays), and a $1 spool of ribbon. Assembly took minutes, and the end result, perfect.

The next weekend, we visited Marina’s Great-Aunt France in Philadelphia. She still had her Christmas wreath on the front door. After Marina said her good-byes, France and I needed a diversion. France had a broken umbrella and off we went. We invested $5 at Dollar General, and ta-da, spring came to Pennsylvania once again. No wonder I’m humming, “Summertime”. Laurie Lynch

Ramp It Up: Alicia came across this ramp recipe and says that everything she’s made from the following blog is delicious!

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2013/04/ramp-pizza/

Benioff Book: City of Thieves, the book that Emelie suggested a while back, was a page-turner, indeed. And a central theme is a dozen eggs…

Quote to Note: “It’s better to have your nose in a book, than in someone else’s business.”–Adam Stanley

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fleur-de-Ramps

I knew the teaching tunnel would be full of lessons.

I didn’t expect the first lesson to come so quickly, or on the drive home.

The first time I saw the sign I was cruising at 60 mph toward Shingletown.

LEEKS RAMPS FOR SALE

A memory fluttered for a moment. No. It couldn’t be. The place must sell some type of truck ramp for DIY oil changes or something.

The next trip back from the teaching tunnel, Marina and my mom were in the car.

“Did you see that sign? Did it say Ramps?”

Marina hadn’t noticed. I was doing a double take, again, at 60 mph.

“I think it said Ramps. Ramps are like wild garlic and supposed to be delicious. They’re available for just a short time in the spring. Maybe they’re just selling truck ramps…but hey, this is spring. Maybe they have the ramps you eat.”

I made a U-turn.

Years ago, a big fellow stopped by Fleur-de-Lys Farm Market. He saw our Garlic Greens sign and wanted to know if we sold ramps. I had never heard of ramps (aka Allium tricoccum) but the seed was planted, so to speak. Some time after that, when my chef-phew Wille was working at Bucks County’s Yardley Inn, he said if we had ramps growing in our woods, the restaurant would buy them all. No such luck.

At the 2013 PASA conference I took a class on wildcrafting—foraging for uncultivated edible plants—and once again, ramps raised their broad, flat green leaves from the litter of the forest floor and waved at me. I even asked my co-worker Sharon if her dad had ramps growing in the wilds of his Rebersburg woodlands. We talked about escaping the office and gathering ramps and morels and other such delights of Penn’s Woods. We’d call ourselves The Wild Women. But alas, Sharon’s dad told her there were no ramps to be found.

We drove down the J.L. Farm lane to a complex of greenhouses. A pickup truck pulled in about 15 seconds later.

A fellow, probably in his 70s, climbed out of the truck. Marina and I approached him. He introduced himself as John. I asked if he had ramps. Not now, but he would on Monday. On Saturday he would drive to his place in McKean County, dig up the wild leeks, and return Sunday. Bushels of ramps would be available Monday for several local restaurants, and yes, I could buy some too. (McKean County is in the northwest section of the state known as the “Pennsylvania Wilds.”)

“They’re small this time of year,” John said, holding his calloused hands about 6 inches apart, “but they’re so good. Filled with vitamins and minerals.”

In Appalachia, ramps are the traditional spring tonic, warding off a long winter’s ailments. And what a long winter it was. I read that ramps are often cooked in bacon fat and served with a heapin’ helpin’ of eggs, potatoes, and bacon. Ramp festivals celebrate the allium in North Carolina, Kentucky, and West Virginia, all the way up to Quebec, where the French-Canadians call them “ail des bois”.

The spring ephemeral grows in cool, shady areas where you might find Mayapples or trout lilies. It emerges from the damp humus in late March or early April before the tree canopy fills in. By late May, the leaves of the perennial bulb die back, the flower stalk shoots up, and in June, the plant flowers and sets seed. Researchers at North Carolina State University found that seeds can take anywhere from 6 to 18 months to germinate. All in all, if you’re trying to cultivate ramps from seed to root harvest, expect to wait five to seven years.

But John is fortunate. Mother Nature takes care of the process for him. On spring weekends he returns to the 20 or so acres of his childhood homestead where the woodland floor spreads out in a sea of green—ramps rising from the thawing soil. Even with the bounty, careful harvest is required so the native population is not depleted.

When I returned to J.L. Farm on Monday, John greeted me with disappointing news. His restaurant clients were expecting 200 pounds of ramps. He had nothing to sell them. “There’s still snow up there.” He opened a black garbage bag filled with slimy, blackened leaves. Tucked in among them were a tangle of ramp roots and bulbs, barely sprouting. He was going to spend the evening planting them in his greenhouse beds to grow them out to saleable size. He cupped a few in his hand and then went to a raised bed where a few ramps were showing their stuff, survivors of John’s marauding chickens.

“These are a tonic for people, deer, even turkeys. Thins the blood. Your daughter has to taste these before she goes back to Belgium,” he said, placing a fistful in a paper bag. “They have a spark. Make you feel like a wild Indian.”

For Marina’s last Momma-cooked meal, I made Fasta Pasta chipotle penne with a sauce of bacon drippings, bacon, and diced ramps, sprinkled with Romano cheese. Comfort food, ramp style. Laurie Lynch

Gourmet Giggle: In the midst of my tramping for ramps I was emailing chef-phew Wille about my progress. Long after the dinner dishes were done, I returned to my email and found this:

“Awesome! I would glaze them and serve them whole on a side of pureed parsnips with fish. Top with a nice sauce to finish it off and a whiff of fresh rosemary. Hit with some nasturtiums for that extra little zip and eye candy. Let me know how it works out.”

I guess that is next week’s project.

 

 

 

 

Fleur-de-Chocolate

It is going to be a springtime of learning.

My Master Gardener friend Jo drafted Mom and me to help with a high tunnel project at Penn State’s Ag Progress Days site in Rock Springs, 10-plus miles from State College. Chris, another MG, heads the Centre County MG demonstration gardens just outside the high tunnel door.

A high tunnel is similar to the hoop house we had at Fleur-de-Lys, only this one is larger and has aluminum arches covered with clear plastic and sides that roll up when (if) the weather warms. Inside, we have a 4’x18’ raised bed and will soon have two tables holding a dozen Earth Boxes. The other half of the tunnel is empty, to make room for chairs when we hold presentations in the “teaching tunnel”.

Jo, an interior designer, transports her talents outside into perennial gardens and is a master at recruiting volunteers to showcase their skills. Chris has a long history with the MG program and is a gregarious gardener who always has a treat—plastic bag of Brussels sprouts in fall, jar of hot pepper jelly in winter, bulbs of stargazer lilies in spring.

We will have an “open tunnel” May 17, as part of the Garden Fair and Plant Sale, sponsored by the Penn State Extension Master Gardeners of Center County (quite a mouthful). Our MG herb expert will give a talk on Culinary Herbs, and with a little luck, our Earth Boxes will be billowing with fragrant, tasty and gorgeous boughs of basil, lemon verbena, rosemary, parsley…you get the picture. The raised bed will have three mini gardens: the Square-Foot Quilt Garden, the Pea Teepee Garden, and the Power Greens Garden. After the Garden Fair, we will switch out the raised bed plantings to make way for a grafted heirloom tomato trial garden for Ag Progress Days in August.

That’s the plan, anyway.

Chris stopped by the other day bearing gifts of peat pellets and donated seeds before she left for a business trip to Phoenix. I had never seeded a peat pellet before, so I was a little nervous, but heck, it’s only plant science. Chris warned me that you need “really warm water” to get the peat pellets to expand quickly.

The weekend arrives. I put the teakettle on the burner in the kitchen and start laying out the 86 peat pellets in their plastic trays on the atrium table. My cohort figures we are having a party.

When will the chocolate cookies be ready? Mom asks

They are not cookies. They are peat pellets. We are planting seeds.

When will the cookies be ready?

They are not cookies. They are for starting seeds.

They look like chocolate cookies.

They don’t taste like chocolate. They are made of peat moss.

So you don’t put them in the oven?

No. We’re using them to grow plants.

They look like such good chocolate. I could eat them up.

You know how there are two kinds of people in the world, those who see a glass half empty and those who see it half full? Well, there are actually three kinds—those who see chocolate. That’s my mom. Just a few nights ago we had dinner at an Asian-fusion restaurant where chocolate-brown linen napkins were wrapped around silverware and a white sleeve of chopsticks was strapped on top. Throughout dinner m mother would raise her eyebrows and motion to an unoccupied table, saying to Marina, “Look at that yummy chocolate dessert.” She repeated herself three or four times, despite our explanations to the contrary.

Back to our seeding. The warm water works. The peat pellets expand like pop-up sponges.

Those look like good chocolate cakes.

Well, they’re not. These are peat pellets so we can germinate seeds.

Every time I see them, I think it is a good piece of chocolate I can eat.

Finally, all 86 peat pellets are watered, seeded, and labeled. I snap on the clear plastic “greenhouse” lids and placed them on a card table where they will be warmed by the sun, if it ever shows.

Come to think of it, they do look resemble the cupcakes sealed in plastic containers in supermarket bakeries. All I can hope is that the darn seeds germinate before she tries to sneak a bite.

That next day we have a work session at the high tunnel to transplant donated seedlings into our Power Greens Garden.

My mom sits in a lawn chair watching the crew. We plan. We dig. We space. In goes the kale and chard. Next come the napa cabbage and spinach. We water. We label. Up go the bamboo teepees, our much-needed “visual interest” according to our designing woman. We are making progress. We are making a garden. As the cold rain patters on our plastic shell we are warm with activity and accomplishment.

Jo steps back, admires the work, and reaches into a bag for her Tupperware container. She peels off the lid and offers the first of her batch of chocolate brownies to my mom. Laurie Lynch

BTW: Our teaching tunnel is fueled by plant labels made from recycled wine corks supported by bamboo skewers.

Title Exchange: We had dinner with Emelie, a friend from the Lehigh Valley, last week.

She asked if I had read any good books recently. I knew I had, it’s just that the names didn’t come to me until I got home: The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge and the World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese by Michael Paterniti and The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert.

And Emelie’s suggestions were: City of Thieves by David Benioff and Plainsong by Kent Haruf..

Your Turn: If you’ve read a great book recently, add the title in the comment section of this blog.

Words Worth Reading: “The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, and all the sweet serenity of books.”—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

And Another: “With freedom, books, flowers and the moon, who could not be happy?”—Oscar Wilde