Quiet Reparations

Archive for May, 2008

May 10 2008, 09:05 PM Fruit

The wild grape vines are springing from the hillside again, finding ways skyward, making teasing attempts with the fences that I really need to pull out and replace with something more grape-resistant. The use the shrubs for scaffolding, curling up in piled masses on the top like cats on televisions, back before televisions became things where that sort of trick was not difficult. If I let them, the vines will work their way up the stay cable of the utility pole, and I do not want to see the end of that story; I engage in creative editing when they try. Folks ask me what the grapes taste like, but I do not know. I've never gotten any. There are particular ways one must stress a grape vine to make them yield fruit, and I have neither the knowledge nor the focus this season to take them to task. I have no doubt that they will return for me next year. And this year.

It is not yet time for plums. I swung by the markets late this afternoon, pleased to see that the farmers had once again taken up their weekly space at the firehouse, saddened that they were already closing up. In the produce place, I found no plums, but apricots instead, along with some good potatoes. The apricots are sweet, and the stone falls free so easily from them, so easy to snap up in little juicy halves. The apricots not yet eaten sit on a plate in the kitchen, fat and plump. I have perhaps room for apricot trees in the side yard. That may be a good choice, to go with hazelnuts.

There are tells of berries on the gooseberry shrub - the good man at the nursery made mention that I might get fruit this season, but I had not believed him. The raspberries are quiescent, but otherwise seem happy. The rhubarb is strong this year, but I think it may be one other or two before I can start lopping stalks for pies. The wizened horseradish is flowering, and something is eating all the leaves off the bush beans. So it goes.

In the front yard, mixed in with all the ornamentals, the strawberries are fighting a war on two fronts. In the mulched patch they are mingling with the feverfew, each upon the other the claim new territory. By far more spectacular are those hardy scouts that have wondered out into the lawn, where I dare not mow now. They sit tall with happy broad leaves, rising through the shouldering grasses. Once they are done, I will move them so I can mow again. For now, though, they are a field army of little white flowers. With each and every one, a small promise of sweetness.

I may even get enough for jam.

May 14 2008, 09:46 PM Keeping In Proportion

As of late, I have been cooking and baking far more with ratios than actual amounts. An example: breakfast these days is more often than not a construction of 1:1:1:some:some, with a side of "put enough coffee in the basket of the moka pot so that it doesn't explode". The coffee to milk ratio is not 1:1, but it is close. The trick I've discovered for fresh pasta is one large egg to three quarter cups of semolina, and make an egg's worth for each person showing up at table. The pizza dough is a 2:1:some:some an some again of flour, water, yeast, oil, and salt, respectively. More flour gets tossed around during the kneading, but that always happens, so I won't include that in the formula, and in cases like this it always seems best to me to simply toss all the numbers right out the window and let my hands figure out if the dough is a reasonable thing yet.

This makes me something of a heretic, in the storied tradition of baking. I find it odd and funny that I know longer actually have any idea of how to make bread anymore that I am able to transmit, just that I do it. I have worked hard to reach this point.

On the way back from work I was walking with a friend at the top of the long hill that is Murray as we were weighing merits of routes homeward. He mentioned that I could very well stop at the new Chinese bakery that we both had thought was a cafe, proceeding homeward with armloads of baked goods. This did not exactly happen, but: they have buns, stuffed with things, baked every morning there in the store. More: they have buns, stuffed with red bean paste, baked every morning there in the store. The bread is golden, airy, with a light sweetness, and the beans lurking inside have a light sweetness too, but coming from a different direction, dark and rich. I bought two.

I will have to go back to try the cookies.