Who Needs Shoes When You Can Have Scissors?

One of my all-time favorite television shows, and one of the few shows that doesn’t fall by the wayside during the hockey season, is House Hunters. I love everything about it; I love it when there are awesome people who get awesome houses, I love it when there are tools who get toolish houses, I love it when people are all excited to paint with fun colors, and I love it when people say they are excited to paint with colors and then paint everything ecru and eggshell. But one thing I never get is when the women on the show are thrilled to show off how all 800 of their pairs of shoes now fit into the walk-in closet that’s large enough to house a small family. I scoff and start to say, “Who needs that many shoes?! I have one pair for work and one for leisure. What more do you need?” But then I look over at my sewing table and have to stop short. Why? Because this is what’s tucked inside:

Pookie’s Scissor Collection

My name is Pookie, and I have a problem. A scissor problem.

It all started with a pair of gold stork scissors from Gingher. These were the scissors that Boomer supplied her daughters when they were starting out with needlework. To me they were like Kleenex: stork Ginghers were the definition, the beginning and the end, of embroidery scissors. I never questioned them. They were pretty, but light and not very substantial. They did the job, so I never really thought twice about them. When I turned to knitting, scissors were totally unimportant. In fact, most of the time I used a cheap plastic pair with blades that retracted into little stubby thing that looked like an early flashdrive. In knitting, the only thing I ever had to cut were the ends of a skein, but since I would then weave the ends in, the cutting didn’t have to be percise or clean. That was, until I had to cut open a steek on a fair isle sweater.

The fair isle sweater was knit in a tube shape, with a placket up the center. In order to make it into a cardigan, I was supposed to merely cut open the tube of intricate stitches I’d spent months knitting. Oh sure! No problem! ARE YOU MAD?!? It was the scariest thing I’d ever done in the realm of crafting, and there was much whining and many tears before I even got cutting. In order to help, Boomer lent me a pair of Ginghers she had for quilting. She handed me the insanely shiny bright silver tailor’s scissors and the entire universe rocked on its axis. The shears were a thing of beauty.

They were weighty, perfectly balanced, and the blades opened and closed with a precise, no-nonsense whoosh-snap. I was in love.

Ginghers

This picture is of a smaller pair, but the idea is the same. I realized in that moment that there was a whole word of scissors out there. The scissor world didn’t have to begin and end with lightweight, wimpy stork scissors. As long as I was knitting, though, there wasn’t a need for me to explore my other options. So I forgot all about it.

Then, a few years later, I was at the one and only Attic Needlework in Mesa, AZ, turning in one of the first samplers I finished after renouncing knitting for stitching. The counter at the framing station was a glass case filled with random gee-gaws: miniature boxes for needles, decorative thimbles, scissor fobs. I hadn’t ever paid the case much attention before then, but for some reason, on this fateful day I happened to look down and see these:

The Original Dovos

I don’t know what possessed me to ask to try them out, but the instant they were in my hand I knew they were meant for me. They felt just like those tailor’s Ginghers, but in embroidery size. The handles were smooth and soft, but the overall feel was of a satisfying but manageable heft. They were made, it turns out, by a German company called Dovo. And so the obsession began.

Not longer after I got that first pair, Jean, the proprietor of the Attic and the dealer for all us scissor junkies, mentioned that she’d gotten an order of more ornate Dovos. My original pair was working fine, but what was the harm in looking, right?

First Fancy Dovos

They were so pretty, for starters, but they were also smaller, with shorter blades, than my original pair. I was getting into more intense projects, like the “Cranberry Sampler”, which required more precision cutting. That was all the justification I needed!

The handles were gold when I got them, but from years and years of love, they’ve tarnished into a patina of “beloved and steadfast stitcher’s friend”. These are undoubtedly my go-to scissors, my most trusted precision cutting tool.

A few Christmases ago, Boomer surprised me with a pair that is similar to these, but with more delicate, shiny handles.

Miss Potpourri’s Scissors

They make the perfect home for Miss Potpourri, the scissor job that graced my old stork Ginghers. Sometime when I was in middle school, Boomer gave me two scissor related gifts. One was a châtelaine she got on a quilting trip to Amish country. It was a long cream-colored grosgrain ribbon, meant to be worn around one’s neck, with a pocket at one end for scissor-keeping, and a pin cushion at the other. The pin cushion was shaped like a little Amish doll. The doll always seems a little creepy, partially because it seemed very Voodoo to be sticking needles and pins into it, and partially because it had no face, as it was Amish, and thus the disapproval at the Voodoo-ish-ness of it all seemed that much more otherworldly. Or maybe Schnookie and I just have over-active imaginations. In any case, the second gift, a scissor fob made of a sachet shaped like a woman was much less horrific. Miss Potpourri has lost the little ribbon sash she started out with, and the sachet doesn’t have much of a scent any more, but I still get a kick out of seeing a little slice of my early stitching days going strong.

At the less ornate end of the Dovo scale is the two-pair set with a little leather carrying case.

Two-Pair Set

These puppies are my travel scissors (travel by car; thanks TSA). I zipper them up and toss them in the pouch with my chart, fibers, and linen without worrying that they’ll pop out of a sheath and slash everything to bits. They’re pretty utilitarian, but again, they get the job done. (And the case serves as it’s own ort collector. When working at KtG’s house, I can toss all my thread scraps on the fuzzy interior of the case and they stick, ready to be collected and tossed out at the end of the weekend. Normally, I use a miniature stoneware canister, but that doesn’t travel as well!)

You’d think with that line-up of Dovos, I’d be fairly well set. Well, sure, that’s what I thought too. Until I saw these beauties on my last trip out to the Attic:

Deco Dovos

The detailing on the handles is so different from the curlicues on the fancy pairs. They reminded me of the Chrysler Building. In fact, I’d say these are the scissors the lobby of the Chanin Building would use if it stitched. I also love the little brown-and-pink sheath I picked out for them. The whole package is just a breath of fresh air after all the fussy details of the other fancy scissors. These are the anti-storks.

The uber-storks, the fussiest of all the fussy, have got to be the latest additions to the collection, the Sajous. Jean sneakily snuck a picture of some new, shockingly non-Dovo scissors into the famous Attic newsletter conveniently near Christmas last year. And sure enough, Boomer noticed.

Tortoiseshell Sajous

How could you miss these? Particularly since they come packaged in an irresistible little, ornate, tres French box. A peek at the Sajou website will give you a taste of what I’m talking about. The tortoiseshell handles, the cheerily retro flowers, the matching tassel… How am I supposed to resist?! The drawback to the fancy box is that Sajou’s are sold without sheaths. Fortunately, my lovely sister KtG has a bizarre fascination with stitching and finishing needlework accessories, like the scissor fob on my original Dovos and this adorable scissor keep.

I was so happy to have a pair of scissors nice enough to grace a project that KtG made especially for me. Of course, like the ungrateful wretch that I am, I’ve already demanded she make me another for the second set of Sajous, the pearl-handled ones:

Pearl Sajous

Boomer bought these for Schnookie, so she wouldn’t feel left out at scissor gifting time. However, since these fine blades aren’t the best tool for the wool she works with, they were given to me, my fancy hand-me-down scissors! Right now they’re languishing in an ugly purple leather sheath, waiting for something to compliment their fabulous carved handles and dainty pink tassel.

All this brings us to the piece de resistance, the jewel of my scissor collection crown, the Vampire Killing Kit.

The Vampire-Killing Kit

Not far from stately IPB Manor is the marvelous Mercer Museum, a rambling castle filled to the brim with remnants of the pre-Industrial age. Off by itself in a special case is a little velvet-lined leather case filled with random tools with a placard announcing it as a “Vampire Killing Kit”. When Boomer presented these kits to each of us for a Christmas present several years ago, that’s immediately what came to mind.

This stunning set includes a tiny pair, the same size as my second pair of Dovos, a medium sized pair, and a fabulously large, fabulously hefty pair of large scissors.

They were made as a commemorative edition, celebrating the Dovo company’s 110 years of metalworking.

The blades are blue, and feature the jaunty metalworking logo of Dovo, and “Solingen”, the name of the town where the company is located. I think that’s somehow important, like that metalwork made in Solingen is a big deal. Or something. All I know is that they’re gorgeous.

I have this set out on my table at all times. I use the small size for clipping threads off the back of the piece after working with them. I use the medium size for cutting through entire skeins when first starting out. And I use the large size for cutting through linen. Really, they’re the perfect scissors.

So why do I need all these scissors? I don’t, of course. But just the way other women love wearing different shoes on different days, I love deciding one night to switch it up, tucking my trusty tarnished Dovos away, and bringing out the pearl-handled Sajous when I’m feeling fancy, or reaching for the travel case when I’m feeling workmanlike, or plucking Miss Potppourri out of the drawer when I feel like taking a walk down memory lane. Every pair of scissors has played a part in every piece I’ve worked. I consider myself an artisan, and they are the tools of my trade.

This Week’s Harvest

This week saw some monumental earthworks, harvest-wise. The onions had all finally fallen over, and were heaving out of the ground, and the potatoes were looking raggedy and limp. The time had come to reap those fruits of the earth and ready the beds for planting for Fall harvest. Last Tuesday we dragged our feeling-sorry-for-ourselves asses out into the garden for the only work we’d do all week: digging up the fingerlings and some of the Yellow Finns, and hauling up the first wave of Riverside onions.

We got well over 8 1/2 pounds of potatoes…

…and scads of onions, a welcome change from last year’s crop of zero onions.

I needed the onion goggles to trim the leaves and roots, but once everything was cut away, we had a lovely bowl of onions waiting to be cellared.

That was just the tip of the iceberg, too — today we braved the ruthless, merciless heat, humidity and brutal sun to bring in the rest of the Riversides and all of the Newburghs.

Oh, and it should be noted that in the first harvest picture up there, you can see our whopping haul of four blueberries on the table in front of the baskets. We had a lot of fun getting all artsy-fartsy with the berries:

My Lovely Commute

There are a zillion reasons why I love my job, but at the very tippy top of my list is my commute. It’s less than three miles, most of which is along grassy berms or on well-kept bike paths. I’m insanely lazy, though, and don’t often wake up early enough to stroll to the office rather than spending six minutes in my car. I’m making a concerted effort now, though, to walk more often, and I’m hoping that bringing the camera with me will encourage me to do it. Here’s a look at what I saw along the way yesterday when I pedicommuted:

It was an utterly beautiful, perfect July day yesterday, and I hit the road at 8:30, having slept through my alarm. After a few days of relentless humidity, it was relatively dry, surprisingly cool (in the low 80s? High 70s even?), and the sky was impossibly blue. My walk starts by wending through a couple of blocks of well-spaced houses, first in our little development of dumpy, older ranch houses, then into the ritzy, recently-built McMansions the next street over, and then into the weird, poorly-financed, ugly McMansions on the street past that. Because the builders of that development were shifty and ran out of money, the development comes to an abrupt stop where what used to be the neighborhood’s entry road has been bulldozed down to half its width (I happened to be walking to work the day they did that) and is now just an access road.

I love walking there because it looks, while approaching it, like it’s going to be wending into some lush, abandoned, overgrown woodland. Of course, the reality is that just on the other side of those trees is the main drag out of our little town toward my workplace. I don’t like that stretch of my walk, and it’s often the reason I use to talk myself into driving instead; the road doesn’t have a sidewalk or much in the way of shoulders, and while the speed limit is 25 heading out of town, it’s along a pretty sharp turn that’s reasonably heavily trafficked during the morning commute hours. If I could walk to work at noon I’d probably be able to stroll down the center of the road, but in the mornings, I cling frightenedly to the narrow shoulders, picking up ticks, and hoping the people driving by me are coworkers who like me, so they’ll do their best to avoid hitting me. The scenery along this stretch is lovely, I’m sure, but I don’t often look at it for how tightly I’m squeezing my eyes shut and hoping I don’t die.

Okay, it’s not really that bad. This is a really rural part of New Jersey, and the drivers in these parts are used to joggers, walkers, and especially bikers. We share the road pretty well. And what I love about this part of my walk is that it’s over an expanse of protected wetlands. Yesterday morning I saw a heron swooping down over the trees, and this was the view off the little bridge:

There used to be a huge tangle of fallen tree just beyond the rail of the bridge, and a couple of years ago Boomer, Pookie and I saw a kingfisher perched at the top of the broken branches while we were speeding by. Sadly, there wasn’t a kingfisher in sight yesterday.

The other reason I like the bridge, beside the view, is that it’s the only bit of sidewalk along here; once I get across it, the speed limit goes up to 45, and I become increasingly convinced I’m going to meet my maker. (And really, wouldn’t that suck to forgo an extra hour of sleep just to get hit by a car?)

Just past the bridge is the swampy bit where two geese used to lay their nest every year:

Every spring I would look forward to seeing the goslings when they hatched, but every year it seemed to happen on a weekend or something, and I never saw them. Then, one spring, we had torrential rains that flooded out the nest (and washed away the kingfisher’s tree), and the geese haven’t been back since.

There’s about a 100-yard bit of narrow shoulder to traverse after the bridge, getting buffeted by the whooshing of the traffic hurtling by and receiving puzzled looks from drivers who wonder if they’re supposed to be stopping to help you or if you’re actually voluntarily risking death by SUV, but then — hallelujah! — the farm fields start.

There’s a wonderful high berm, with a row of old maples evenly spaced along it, between the street and the fields, and this year the farmer has done a nice job of keeping the grass short and walkable. I’ve done this commute sticking to the road because the grass at the top of the hill was waist-high and full of ticks, and I much prefer it this way.

Besides, I get to stop on a sunny morning and enjoy the shade.

This side of the road is all cornfields, while the other side has more of what I’m guessing is wetlands, or maybe is just undeveloped farmland (considering how expensive that land is, I doubt it, though):

I think this bit of New Jersey, just this bit along the road to my office, is one of my favorite places on earth. I love how beautiful it is in every season. There are the big, gnarly maples, in various states of health…

… the corn and pumpkin crops that grow the same, year in and year out, spelling out the seasons…

… the white barn with the soybean field on the other side of the road…

… and the farm stand that sells the best corn I’ve ever eaten in my life.

As lovely as the walk toward work is, the view coming home is just as spectacular. I especially love, in the afternoon light, watching summer turn to fall along this stretch:

I’m under the impression that the land on this side of the road is owned by my employer, and leased to the farmer who grows the corn and has a modest herd of cattle.

Yesterday I got to wander past some wee baby corn, to be harvested late in August or September:

Middle-aged corn, at the base of which some pink volunteer petunias had sprung up:

And, in the field that runs along the length of the entry drive to my office campus, tasseled corn, almost ready to go (on my drive home this afternoon, the farm stand had put out the sign we all eagerly look for each summer — the first corn is harvested!):

As a little surprise treat for having made the effort to propel myself on foot to work, I was greeted in the field just inside the security gate by the cows.

They were quite charming, eyeing me calmly as I stepped closer to the fence, and then perking up and seeming to pose for me when I got out my camera. Seriously, they were very sociable cows — when they realized I was looking at them, they started primping.

So that was my walk to work yesterday. I am not an adventurous driver, and actually grew up in a neighborhood about a mile past my current workplace on this same street. I joked when Pookie and I first moved back here that I was going to have to get a job at the corporate campus here because it’s the only place I know how to get to, and as it turns out, that’s exactly what I stumbled into. The combination of the beauty of the land, the familiarity of the road, and the memories of my childhood is hard to top — yes, it’s helped by being such a short trip, but still, this has got to be one of the best commutes out there.

Midsummer Garden Update

It being 4th of July weekend, it seemed like a good time to take our camera out into the heavy, humid great outdoors and take a look at the progress of Maple Hoo’s bouteous bounty. This is about as lush as the garden’s going to look this year:

The potato thicket is bustin’ out of the back of the fence:

And the volunteer pumpkin at the front door is starting to make plans to eat the house:

The volunteer pumpkin at the other side of the door isn’t quite as impressive yet, but we have high hopes for it still.

Meanwhile, the actual, intentional pumpkin patch out front is… doing only okay. We half-assed the planting this year, and then totally neglected it, so it’s pretty well overrun with weeds.

Almost none of the seedlings we put out there did anything, but we have some robust volunteers growing like gangbusters, and a handful of full-on pumpkins we’re starting to keep our eyes on.

And speaking of volunteers that just won’t quit, two years ago we planted “pocket melons”, little melons that are a hair bigger than golf balls that were grown in Victorian times to carry around in your pocket. They don’t taste like anything, but they are delightfully aromatic, and would be trucked around for their perfume. We grew them for fun, and must have left a few in the patch by accident, because, lo and behold, for the second straight year we’re getting them without trying.

In the orchard, only one of the ten apple trees is growing any apples — here’s one of the Enterprise’s massive bumper crop (read: “six or so little bug-eaten fruits”):

Meanwhile, inside the garden fence, things are looking great for the gherkins we thought were never going to amount to anything. Here’s bed with a calypso bean plant, the three gherkin plants, and our most giant black plum tomato:

The gherkins proper have stopped looking like fingernail-sized, eensy-weensy sweet pickles and now look like finger-sized sweet pickles.

I was having fun trying to take artsy pictures of the plant today…

…and when I focused on one of the flowers…

…look what flitted in long enough to strike a pose then disappear off to more flowery pastures!

The Black Plum there is starting, like all the other tomato plants, to eagerly pump out fruits that can’t wait to be made into delicious sauce.

We left a handful of radishes in the corner of one bed to see what would happen when they went to seed, and they’ve developed these totally wacky seed pods in among their pretty pink flowers.

Elsewhere in that bed, we’re learning why you’re supposed to take the first few flowers off your pepper plants. Our tiny little nardello plants are being weighed down by their ever-huger peppers.

The big news today, though, was the harvesting. We took up the remaining two Desiree potatoes and the three All Blue plants, as well as the rest of the garlic (Chesnok Red and Persian Star).

The yield was just over ten pounds of potatoes:

And a counter covered with garlic:

After we were done digging up the garlic and potato beds, we went around to the side of the house to check on our blueberry haul. One of the bushes was positively groaning under the weight of its scant crop.

But any amount of fresh-picked, ripe blueberries is better than none.

They were sweet, juicy, and outrageously delicious. It was a pretty good day to be gentlewoman farmers, if we do say so ourselves.

A Blushing Pinko

We’ve been drawing a rather steady harvest of a handful of raspberries a day from our wee raspberry canes in the backyard. It’s been pretty remarkable, actually, how these scraggly plants — which we thought we killed in the car on the drive home from the co-op, by the way — have been churning out the berries. They were producing from late August through November last year, and here they are warming up again. Today’s haul was pretty light, though — only nine berries. So what to do with them? How about muddling them into a Moscow Mule?

I made this by muddling the three berries in the bottom of the glass, then cutting a whole lime into sixths, squeezing it into the glass, and dropping all the pieces in. After a brisk stir to combine the fruits, I topped with ice, poured in two ounces of vodka, and filled the glass with ginger beer.

These are ridiculously flavorful raspberries, so just the three contributed a huge amount of sweetness to the drink, and, as I was armed with some Chambord to add some color if it was needed, it turns out they gave just the perfect tint to it. After a really humid day in the garden, these were crisp, fruity, and magnificently refreshing.

And really, after watching six seasons of MacGyver in rapid succession on DVD and laughing about how much our dad complained about the lefty, “commie pinko” politics of MacGyver back in the day, what better to call a rose-tinted Moscow Mule than a “Blushing Pinko”?

Cookies by Martha Stewart… or Craig Biggio?

Last Christmas I went on a gingerbread cookie binge after finding a surprisingly good recipe in Baking Illustrated. The only problem was the only cookie cutters I had were circles and hearts. There are few sights sadder than a tray of gingerbread cookies cut into circles and hearts, believe you me. Adding insult to injury was the memory of the awesome cutter set we had when I was a kid. It had at least one cutter for every season, including shamrocks, turkeys, pumpkins, flowers, and… a hatchet. I didn’t put the hatchet together with President’s Day until much later in life, so to me it always seemed so delightfully absurd. Circles and hearts? Are no hatchet. The time had come (some six months later) to remedy this by investing in some more exciting cookie cutter shapes. Several trips to Wilton later, this was what I ended up with:

That’s four or five (I lost count) sets of seasonal cookie cutters crammed into one plastic tub. No more circles and hearts for me! I’ve got gingerbread men, snowflakes, angels and bells for Christmas; pumpkins, turkeys, schoolhouses and leaves for Autumn; witches, ghosts, haunted houses and spiders for Halloween; sheep, flowers, chicks and watering cans for Spring. Sadly, there’s no hatchet, but I can’t win them all. These cookie cutters had been burning a hole through that plastic bucket, just waiting for me to take them for a spin. The perfect opportunity afforded itself in the form of the latest Martha Stewart Magazine: Red, White, and Blue Stars.

The jam-filled butter cookies looked so beautiful in the magazine, I couldn’t resist.

Photo: MarthaStewart.com

Not only would I get to try a new kind of cookie, but I could use my new cutters. The result would surely be as beautiful as Martha’s!

Making the dough was easy enough (and I learned a new skill — separating yolks from whites) which was good because the rest of the recipe sounded fussy. (Schnookie reminded me about four hours too late that Martha’s recipes are always notoriously fussy. Information that would have been useful yesterday!) I was to refrigerate it for three hours, then roll it, freeze it for 30 minutes, layer the dough with jam, freeze it for 30 more minutes, cut the shapes out, brush with cream and sanding sugar, then freeze it again for 15 minutes, then bake. To me this just seemed like a few steps mixed into an otherwise restful afternoon of doing needlework and watching MacGyver DVDs. Not so.

Thing started to fall apart (literally) when I took the dough out of the fridge for it’s first rolling. The dough was impossible to roll. When I finally did manage to make some headway, huge chunks would crack completely off. I had wanted to roll it on the granite countertop, but it stuck too much, so I had to roll it directly on parchment paper which moved around too much while I was rolling. The whole thing was a disaster. The dough was supposed to be rolled into rectangles that I could layer them and have them line up perfectly so as to offer me enough surface area to get 40 sandwich cookies. HA! I was just happy to have four misshapen blobs when I finished. I will say I was pretty impressed with how uniformly 1/8″ thick the misshapen blobs were. I won’t, however, lie and say I didn’t have a pretty ugly meltdown over how frustrating the experience was. I believe the phrase, “I don’t care how good these are, I’m never making them again” might have been uttered.

The layering of the jam was pretty easy, although it did look very much like something out of “Semi-Homemade”. Cutting the cookies was a blast. I used as many cutters as I thought seemed seasonally appropriate (or fun to try); I made some flowers, some half-moons, some sheep, some umbrellas. Everything seemed to be fine except for the fact that there was no way this was making even close to 40 cookies. There was so much wasted dough. So much. I put some scraps on the tray to bake up but for the most part, they were too small and thin and the jam was too oozy to make transfering them worth it. Moreover, some of the cookies cracked when I moved them, letting jam seep onto the face of the cookie. I didn’t help things at all by leaving the second dough sandwich out while cutting the first. Lessons learned, as they say. (Another lesson learned? Gene the Wonder Fridge runs really, really cold. If a recipe asks for dough to be frozen for 30 minutes, the fridge will do. If it asks for dough to be refrigerated for any amount of time — I need to cut that amount of time in half.)

Anyway, once they were all cut and cream-washed I sprinkled them with sanding sugar. Martha’s look so glossy and sparkly in her picture. I knew I couldn’t get that same look because Schnookie couldn’t locate the clear sanding sugar, meaning I had to use the fun-fetti colored sanding crystals. A good craftsman never blames their tools unless they’re stuck with just fun-fetti crystals.

Finally, into the oven they went! They baked up like a charm (with some extra time than the recipe asked for; like Gene, the oven runs a little cold, I guess). I had succeeded in creating a lovely, Martha Stewart-esque cookie:

See that pretty cookie there! What cookie, where?

Look at it, all sparkly and fun, and perfectly star-shaped! Look at it’s neat little layer of raspberry jam! Look at it’s perfectly browned edges! It’s a thing of beauty!

Could I keep up this extraordinary show of baking prowess?

Uh… no.

Dear God, what is that thing?!

OK, so plated up, they’re not exactly magazine material. We have a joke here at Maple Hoo that when something is adorably imperfect (for example, a wrapped present that’s more than a little rumpled) we say that it’s what would happen if Craig Biggio, the famously dishevled ex-Astro, made it. These were clearly cookies that Bidge would make.

Looks aside though, these cookies taste delicious! They are rich and buttery with a nice saltiness in the dough that’s balanced by the sweetness of the jam. In the end, they were worth the effort! And I got to try out my fun cookie cutters. Christmas is going to be so much better this year, freed from the shackles of boring circles and hearts!

Recipe for Red, White, and Blue Stars
Source: Martha Stewart Living July 2008

5 cups of flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 sticks of softened butter
4 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 tablespoons heavy cream (plus some extra for brushing on the cookies before baking)
3/4 raspberry jam
3/4 blueberry jam (I used blueberry/currant)
2 tablespoons sanding sugar

Stir flour, power and salt together. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks and vanilla. Add the flour in three parts, alternating with the tablespoons of cream. Split the dough into four hunks and shape into disks. Refridgerate for three hours or up to 3 days (or less depending on how cold your fridge runs).

Roll into 1/8″ rectangles. You may need to let dough warm up a bit before attempting to roll. Refridgerate for one hour or freeze for 30 minutes.

Spread the raspberry jam on one layer and blueberry on the other. Cover each with the remaining dough so you have to jam-dough sandwiches. Refridgerate for one hour or freeze for 30 minutes.

Cut the dough into shapes and lay on trays 1″ apart. Brush with heavy cream and sprinkle with sanding sugar. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Refridgerate for 15 minutes.

Bake 16-20 minutes. The edges will brown, but the tops won’t so be careful not to burn them. Plate attractively and admire Bidge’s work.

4th Of July? Guess It’s Time For BBQ

Here at Maple Hoo we’re not much for making a big deal of holidays. Even our Christmas celebration isn’t normally much more than putting out tons of handmade decorations and opening presents. I kind of have one level of cooking in me: everyday. I think I do a good job of making it so we eat well on a sort of “weeknight dinners” kind of way, but when it comes to the big feast days, it’s normally just more of the same from me. There’s only so much effort I’m willing to expend in the kitchen, and that’s a level of effort I’m willing to expend all the time. Our fancy meals are never really that fancy. And our holiday meals are never really that holiday-appropriate. So imagine my surprise when, as I went to assemble my weekly menu plans last Monday, my brain said, “Hey! 4th of July weekend is coming up! We’re gonna BARBECUE!!!”

So, in the wee hours of last Sunday night I flipped through Cheryl and Bill Jamison’s Smoke & Spice to find a holiday-worthy recipe before heading off to the grocery store after work on Monday. (This is why we don’t eat well on weekends. I do one grocery run a week, and normally I only have the energy on Sunday night or Monday afternoon to think of a handful of meals, and I figure, “Oh, I’ll come up with something on the weekend.” Of course, come Saturday, there’s nothing in the house to eat, so we just have frozen pizza. But I digress.) What I found was a “Sweet and Fruity Pork Tenderloin”. This sounded perfect:

“Sweet Sensation Rub”
1 tbsp ground allspice
1 tbsp packed brown sugar
1 tbsp onion powder
1 1/2 tsp coarse salt
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp dried thyme

Two 12- to 14-oz tenderloins
Vegetable oil

Now, the recipe also called for an optional mop that sounded really good (it was made with extra rub, chicken stock, cider vinegar, and honey), but I use an electric smoker, so mopping really isn’t that productive. I regretfully opted out, but once the meat was in the smoker, I was just as happy to be parked in front of the TV with my stitching rather than trotting out to be mopping away at it.

So, the deal is that you mix all the rub ingredients up on the night before you’re going to barbecue, and then massage the tenderloins with a thin layer of oil followed by a couple of tablespoons of the rub. Then wrap them up tightly and refrigerate overnight. (The rub smelled exquisite.)

Then the day of the barbecue, you fire up your smoker to 200-220 degrees (F). While that’s getting up to the right heat, let the tenderloins sit at room temperature, unwrapped, for about 30 minutes.

Before tossing them in the smoker, sear the tenderloins on all sides in a skillet over high heat. Then cook them in the smoker for 2 to 2 1/4 hours; they’re done when they register 160 degrees (F).

The recipe also calls, though, for a choice of two spicy-sweet barbecue sauces, that you baste the pork with 30 minutes before it’s done in the smoker, and which you then serve on the side with the meat. The one I picked was “Jalapeach Barbecue Sauce”, a delightfully Semi-Homemade-sounding sauce:

16-oz can peaches in heavy syrup, undrained
1/4 cup minced onion
3 tbsp minced pickled jalapenos
2 tsp pickling liquid from jar or can of pickled jalapenos
2 tbsp peach chutney, or mango in a pinch
2 tsp packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cumin

You just mix all the ingredients together in a saucepan, bring to a simmer, and then let cook on low until the onions are tender and the sauce thickens, about 25-30 minutes. Serve it warm or chilled. It should be noted that I am highly suspicious of pickled jalapenos, so I used a fresh one, but I did use the pickling liquid from some pickled peperoncinis that I happened to have in the fridge. I also couldn’t find any peach chutney, so I went with mango. And I misread the recipe and put in two tablespoons of brown sugar (something I only noticed just now writing the recipe out). I also bought halved peaches in heavy syrup and chopped them pretty finely before mixing them into the sauce — I figured the peach halves probably weren’t going to be breaking down enough on their own to be sufficiently saucy.

You know what? I should make holiday barbecues more often. This pork? Was out of this world. It was, as promised, fruity and sweet, but marvelously, delicately smoky. The meat was tender and perfect, and the sauce was sticky and glaze-like, with the perfect balance of super-sweetness and a fun jalapeno kick. I loved this. I could eat it every single day. And what was especially nice about it was that my Bradley smoker makes it so you just plug the thing in, toss in the meat, and then go about your way. I know there are people who like messing with feeding fires and maintaining temperature and what-have-you, and having smoked things that way in my Webber, I can say with some confidence that, while I’m glad I’ve tried the analog smoking method, I’m happy to have a machine that does it all for me.

For sides, I decided to make corn muffins (just from the recipe on the back of the Quaker corn meal):

And the posole verde recipe from Rancho Gordo. I’d never eaten posole before, but when Pookie and I decided to buy a smorgasbord of beans from Rancho Gordo (ostensibly so we could taste the calypso beans we’d just planted in our garden), I saw this recipe on the site and decided to buy some posole just to try it. I don’t know what I was expecting it to be, but I know I wasn’t expecting it to be this:

The posole is just a dried corn, and as it rehydrated, I expected it to taste like the sweet corn we get here in Jersey. It was not like that at all. It was chewy and starchy, like a cross between corn flour and barley. It was delicious. I also was, stupidly, not really expecting this recipe to yield a soup. I guess I was thinking all that liquid was going to be absorbed like in a bean dish, so once everything came together, it was like, “Surprise! We’re having soup with dinner!” Of course, it was scrumptious. The roasted tomatillos make this magnificently tangy and tart, and there’s a sharp edge from the chiles, with a nice sweet base from the roasted onions. And then everything is brightened up with a hearty dose of cilantro. I used just about every bowl and utensil in my kitchen to make this, but it was really worth it — it seemed like something you’d get in a restaurant. If that restaurant served surprise soups.

So on a holiday we observed by sitting around stitching, drinking Rhode Island Reds, and watching MacGyver, I managed to plate a pretty fancy dinner for us:

Is That Bulgur I See There?

Back in September, 2002 there was a recipe for Chicken and Bulgur Salad with Avocado Food & Wine that I decided to try because I happened to have a bottle of the recommended wine pairing (a 2001 Lindemans Padthaway chardonnay) on hand. This is the first and only time to date that I’ve flipped through a magazine and realized “Hey! I have that wine! I’ll make this recipe to go with it!” I’m normally very obtuse about wines, and while we drink tons of it, I know nothing about any of them. Clearly this recipe was one I was meant to make, and sure enough, it’s spectacularly delicious. Of course, how could it not be grand? Take a look at what’s in it:

And one of my very favorite veggies:

I get a handful of heads of fennel a year from the farm, so I was extravagantly excited that they were part of this week’s haul. A chicken and bulgur salad dinner is pretty close to perfection.

Here’s the deal with making it:

Ingredients:

1 cup bulgur
1 cup boiling water
2 boneless chicken breasts*
1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp grapeseed oil**
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1/2 cup chopped basil leaves
5 tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 large scallions, thinly sliced
2 Hass avocados, cut into 1-inch chunks
1 medium fennel bulb, cored and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved

*The recipe specifies to use boneless breasts with the skin on. I use boneless skinless, because it’s easier to find, and I tend to avoid chicken skin in general.
**Every year I buy grapeseed oil, and every year I use it just for this, then, a year later, throw it out when cleaning out the pantry. So this time around I used olive oil.

Preheat the oven to 500°. In a heatproof bowl, cover the bulgur with the boiling water. Cover the bowl with a plate and let stand until the water has been absorbed and the bulgur is tender, about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, on a rimmed baking sheet, coat the chicken breasts with 1 tablespoon of the grapeseed oil and season with salt and pepper. (Since I was using olive oil instead of grapeseed in the dressing, I actually used vegetable oil in this “coating the chicken” step. Grapeseed oil is nice because it has a crazy high smoke point, and with such a hot oven, I was kind of paranoid that the olive oil, which has a low smoke point, would, like, burn or something. I have no idea if that would actually happen. Vegetable oil has a higher smoke point than olive, so I decided to circumvent the issue entirely by using it instead.) Roast the chicken on the top shelf for 15 minutes, or until golden brown and just cooked through; let cool. Slice the breasts on the diagonal about 1/4 inch thick.

In a small bowl, whisk the orange juice with the basil, lemon juice, scallions and the remaining 1/4 cup of grapeseed oil; season the vinaigrette with salt and pepper.

In a large bowl, toss the bulgur, chicken, avocados, fennel and tomatoes with the vinaigrette; season with salt and pepper. Mound the salad onto plates and serve.

You know that drooling sound Homer Simpson makes when he’s thinking of donuts? You know, after the “Mmm… donuts” thing? That’s what sound I’m making right now, thinking of this salad.

(Oh, and it should be noted that the fennel and basil for this came from the Farm, and the scallions? Came from our garden! We planted about 10,000, and managed a whopping harvest of four of them. Go us!)

A Very Maple Hoo Harvest

We were greatly encouraged by our “poking at the potatoes to see what’s going on down there” test harvest last night, and discovered the Desirees were already way bigger than we really wanted them to be. They were the first of our potatoes to sprout, and the first to flower by far, and now they’re the first to be getting that “yellowing leaves means it’s time for harvest” look to them.

The others? Still looking green and robust. And planning to eat the house:

Digging up potatoes is awesome. You just push the soil around a bit, and all of a sudden, attached to a little umbilical cord shooting out of the roots, is a potato!

Tugging up the plant brings up a handful of them:

There wasn’t a huge quantity under these first two plants, so we decided to leave the other two in place for a couple more weeks. But considering this was just 1/12 of what we planted, we’re awfully pleased.

And in the next bed over? A garlic bonanza!

We planted three varieties of garlic: Persian Star, German White, and Chesnok Red. The German White was the first to sprout and the first to get scapes, so not surprisingly, it was the first to get to harvest point. When 40% of the leaves are brown, it’s time to dig the heads up.

German White seems to have heads that are made up of just a few really big cloves. These are by far the biggest garlic heads we’ve ever grown…

… And we got tons of them:

The best part about the harvest today was that it was actually less than a third of the entire garlic bed.

The New York Times recently ran an article about how much cheaper it is to grow your own veggies than to buy them, and we laughed and laughed at that notion. There is no way this is a less expensive way to get the kinds of crops that are standard staples, like tomatoes, onions, and potatoes. But in looking at how much garlic we’ve gotten this year, and considering how little effort we put into them, this might just be one crop that is not only yummier to grow yourself, but also cheaper. Oh, and Matsui enjoys home-grown garlic a lot more than store-bought.

Cute Baby Veggies

On a day that saw some full-on, grown-up, for-reals vegetables pulled up out of the ground, we were equally excited to see some wee baby crops developing around the other beds.

For starters, the nardello peppers are spending all their energy growing peppers the size of the entire tiny plants. We should probably take them off, but they’re just too cute:

Even more adorable? The baby gherkins, which look like spiky infant pickles with flowers attached:

There are also itty-bitty, teensy-tiny pods growing on two of the calypso bean plants, but they’re so small we couldn’t really get a picture of them: