they go together

Certain foods are forever linked in my mind to certain holidays/events: Leanne's Bread Pudding & Christmas Eve, Reunion Pea Casserole & New Year's Day, Boiled peanuts & trips to Florida, ice cream bombes & Arowhon Pines, Bar-B-Q and Owensboro -- and perhaps most firmly, Wheatberry Salad & Wisconsin Crew Regattas.

I can't eat Wheatberry Salad without being magically transported to Maggie's College Regattas. For four years, Magggie rowed for the Division I Wisconsin Women's Crew Team and for four years Ed and I went to as many of the competitions as we could. We would pack up the van and head to Madison, Bloomington, Knoxville, Philadelphia, even Sacramento. We would watch for hours and cheer for minutes as the Wisconsin boats battled to the finish lines. 

The Wisconsin parents would arrive early, stake out a  prime spot on the rivers' banks, put up a tent, blow up Bucky (the mascot), set out an amazing spread of food, and fire up the grill for beer-soaked bratwurst. To almost all of the regattas, I would bring wheatberry salad. It was easy to make a day or two ahead of the event, travelled well, and was received enthusiastically by both the fans and the rowers. 

Maggie graduated four years ago and I haven't made the salad in a long time. This morning just seemed like a wheatberry salad kinda day. So I made up a bowlful for our lunch and remembered back to Maggie's college years. I miss those times, those talented and hard-working girls, and their families. I hope they are all doing well.

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Wheatberry Salad

This salad is inspired from the one they serve at Blue Dog Cafe. It is nutty, crunchy and good for you.

ingredients

2 cup uncooked wheatberries

1 cup dried currants or dried cranberries

I cup walnut pieces

1 cup celery, diced

1 bag of frozen shelled edamame, cooked for 2 minutes in boiling water 

1/2 cup vinaigrette dressing (I like to use Hendrickson’s Original Sweet Vinegar and Olive Oil dressing) 

preparation

Cook wheatberries in plenty of water for about an hour. Let cool. Mix wheatberries with the all the other ingredients. Serve chilled or at room temperature. 

solved

One of the first things that Mary did when she came home for Thanksgiving was break out a new jigsaw puzzle.

In keeping with the Galloway puzzle rules, the box top was hidden; so no getting clues about what the puzzle was ultimately to look like. Over the holiday weekend, the kids spent hours solving the 1000-piece puzzle. Slowly jewel-toned beetles of all sizes began to take shape.

Last night when Ed and I got home, we found Maggie sound asleep on the couch but the puzzle completed. Way to go Maggie!

lovely end to a lovely weekend

So very much to be thankful for...

The long wait...

...for the Thanksgiving feast. Getting VERY hungry.

Anticipation

My! how my shopping cart has changed

I chuckled today as Ed and I were in the check-out line at Rural King in Shelbyville. We had stopped in to pick up some orange flagging tape and some mouse traps.

By the time we finished shopping our cart held the following items:

• 2 bales of straw for mulching my strawberries and garlic
• 4 tee posts for anchoring our new trees against the wind
• 1 garden hose to cut into pieces to use as a collar around the new trees 
• A coil of tie wire to run through the hose and anchor to the tee posts
• 2 rolls of flagging tape to remark all our tree seedlings so we don't run over them with the mower
• a 21" bow saw to use when we get the chainsaw stuck halfway through a large limb and need to cut it out
• 1 pair of brown work socks (for my Christmas stocking)
• 1 can of terminal protector -- not sure what this is for: I think the battery terminals in the Polaris
• 2 gallons of distilled water for capping off the Polaris batteries
• 6 mouse traps, self explanatory
• 1 sharpie marker to mark the contents of freezer containers
• 5 lbs of tobacco bale twine for wrapping Christmas gifts.

When we lived in town, I used to head into Target for laundry detergent and come out with unscented candles, running shorts, cute shoes, birthday cards, cocktail napkins, nail polish, and coordinating desk accessories. My! how my life shopping cart has changed....

Ben and his Backhoe/Bulldozer to the Rescue

I mentioned in my last post that we had purchased some trees on Friday night. Our friends Jackie and Paul met us at the nursery and loaded 3 large Willow Oaks, 2 large Tupelo (Black Gum), 3 large River Birch, and one Christmas tree onto the back of a trailer that Paul was hauling behind his pickup. They then delivered them directly to the doorstep of Farm Dover. I don't know how we would have managed without their help.

Then today, our new neighbor, Ben, headed up our drive with his backhoe/bulldozer to help us dig holes for the trees. He worked with us all afternoon. He would dig the hole with his John Deer yellow machine, then Ed and Ben would roll a large tree into the hole and all three of us would work to pack the hole with dirt. As dark came on, Ben headed back down the drive to his farm (just two doors down from us) and Ed and I gave the new trees a good watering. Again, I don't know how we would have managed without his help.

When we lived in the city, we looked to our neighbors when we needed to borrow a cup of sugar or an egg. Now that we live in the country, we turn to our neighbors to help plow our garden, bush-hog our fields or dig wide and deep holes for trees. In every instance, they show up and are happy to help. When we tried to pay Ben for his afternoon of hard work and use of his equipment, he was reluctant to take any payment, saying he just did it to be a good neighbor. I'm promoting him to great neighbor status.

Guilty, as charged

We have a rule in our house: No Christmas music until after Thanksgiving. I get irritated at seeing holiday decor decking the malls the day after Halloween. And I never consider getting a Christmas tree until one week before the 25th -- of December, that is. I have, in fact, been accused of being rather Scrooge-like in my regard for Christmas decoration.

But yesterday, I did the unthinkable. I bought a live Christmas tree. I don't know what came over me. Ed and I were shopping for some Farm Dover trees with friends Jackie and Paul. I spotted a 7-foot Hemlock and decided that it would make a grand Christmas tree.

Last year, we bought a live tree but it was rather Charlie-Brown-like -- small and crooked. And while I got kudos from my kids for getting any sort of real tree – a step up from the artificial one that I insisted on for years – they were clearly disappointed that it was so pathetic.

So Ed humored me and we brought the tree home. Paul, Jackie and Ed wrestled it into a tin bucket and set it on the front porch. There it will stay until Christmas Eve, when we will bring it inside. Then, before New Years, we'll plant it out near the front fence, close to last year's tree -- creating our own Christmas tree forrest.

So, I suppose that Christmas has officially come to Farm Dover. Only 44 more shopping days....

Garlic's in the ground

I took advantage of yesterday's warm and sunny weather to plant garlic in my garden. Maggie had ordered me two kinds from the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange: Italian Softneck and Porcelain-type Rocambole Garlic. The Seed Exchange offers more than 40 kinds of garlic, all certified organic.

The garlic was mailed to us  a couple of weeks ago. Jack had tilled up the garden earlier in the week. Yesterday, I opened the two small brown bags of garlic. Included in each were whole bulbs of beautiful white garlic. I separated each bulb into cloves and then planted each clove about 6" apart and covered them with 2 inches of soil. In a few weeks, green shoots will come up. In the spring I'll harvest some of the garlic scapes and then in August, I'll dig up (hopefull) a basketful of garlic cloves that will last us all of next winter.

The earth says 'hello'

Super Foods

Some super foods are popping up in my winter garden: watercress, beets, arugula, carrots, dill, turnips and spinach. I've been harvesting some microgreens (of watercress and arugula) for our salads this week. On nights when a hard freeze is predicted, I simply cover up the garden with a thin blanket. The next morning, the blanket comes off, the sun shines down, and the garden grows up.

Tilling

My talented landscaping-design friend, Barbie, gave me her garden tiller this past summer. I didn't have a need for it until today, when I decided it was the perfect day to get the garden ready for fall-time garlic planting. Coincidentally, Jack had come out for dinner (and laundry). So, I put him to work tilling up a long row in the garden. It worked beautifully. Thank you Barbie! And thank you Jack!

Hawk

We've been mesmerized by the red-tail hawk that has taken up residence at Farm Dover. He/she spends most of his/her day sitting atop an electric pole. But now, he/she has a girlfriend/boyfriend. Yesterday, Ed and I saw both hawks floating above the farm. When they perch in a leafless tree, they are easy to spot with their great white breasts. Amazing birds.

And then when they fly, it is with such grace.

November Blooms

Back in the spring, I bought a small terra cotta pot of geraniums. They limped along through the summer; but come September, they perked up and have been going strong ever since. Just this week, I moved the pot into my kitchen and now it feels like a bit of summer lingers on. It's nice.

Untethered

One of the best parts about our move to the county is our ability to untether ourselves from the clock. Most days, I have only a general idea of the time and that is based on the sky or my stomach. If the new day's sun is slanting through our bedroom window, it is time for me to wake up. If it is pitch black out, then I think about going to bed. When my stomach grumbles, it is time to satisfy it with a meal. Lunch may happen at 2 p.m. and dinner at 9 p.m. So what?

We, in fact, have only one clock in our entire house. Guests often complain comment about not having an alarm clock in the cottage, but I just tell them that is part of the Farm Dover experience.

By not being tied to the clock, I can start a project and, if I feel like it, I can finish it. It's not a race. I don't have to multitask.

This was not always the case. In my old life in the city, I'd hit the ground running, multitask all day and night and still not get half the things on my list done. I'd look at the clock and realize I had 15 minutes to get over to school to pick up one or more child and if I made all the green lights, I could make one stop on the way -- not the three errands I needed to check off my list, all of which were en route. Those would have to wait until the clock told me I had enough time.

This whole silly concept of "springing forward" and "falling back" I could never fully grasp. And, twice a year when those events happened, I'd be thrown off kilter for at least a week. Now, I  may get around to changing our one clock, but if I don't, it really doesn't matter. I'll get up with the sun and so what if the clock says it's 7 a.m. or 8 am?

Waking Up to a Warm Breakfast

Cold mornings demand a warm breakfast. Our fall/winter weekday breakfast of choice is McCann's Steel Cut Oatmeal. The problem is, it takes about 30 minutes to cook and requires that one stir it every 5 minutes. Fortunately, this slow, steady cooking method suits Ed to a T. The night before, I measure 1 cup of oats to 4 cups of water and add a dash of salt.

Ed gets up before me and hits the "on" button to the coffee maker and then gets the oats to cooking over extra-low heat. He sets his phone timer in 5-minute increments and gives the bubbling oatmeal a quick stir every time his alarm goes off. By the time I awaken, coffee and oats are ready.

Ed doctors his up -- with cranberries, almonds and chopped dates -- and a drizzle of Farm Dover honey. I like to stir into mine a heaping tablespoon of unsweetened applesauce. It's amazing how a bowl of Irish Oatmeal never fails to warm my heart and soul.

Note: We make enough for at least a couple of days. It heats up nicely in the microwave. 

It's Apple Season and I'm Loving It

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.

– Martin Luther

Like asparagus, strawberries or tomatoes, there is a time of year for everything and now it time to celebrate the apple. Yes, you can buy apples 12 months of the year, but it only for a few short months that you can get local ones. And, like asparagus, strawberries and tomatoes, it makes a difference.

Last week we went to the farmers' market in Baltimore and could select from a dozen different varieties; some I expected, and some I had never heard of. I wanted to try them all.

Looking at the crates full of apples reminded me of our yearly fall expeditions to Reid's Orchard in Owensboro where we would pick bags-full of Golden Delicious and McIntosh. Ed's Aunt Gladys would be the instigator of the outing and the most productive picker. She loved picking apples and would disappear high up into the trees until she was well into her 90s. We would have to beg her to come down, but she would always say: Just one more; there's a nice one up here that I can almost reach – tottering precariously on the ladder.

Aunt Gladys died the month before we moved to Farm Dover. In her memory, our closest friends gave us three apple trees for our orchard. It may be a few years before we are picking our own, but I can't wait to make Farm Dover cider, apple butter and apple sauce.

In the meantime, I'm making three recipes this weekend, each featuring glorious apples.

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The first comes from my friend and awesome cook: Marla Garfield. It's a tasty dip on fall apples and everyone tries (mostly unsuccessfully) to guess the ingredients.

Awesome Apple Dip 

ingredients

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

2 tablespoons vanilla

handful of peanuts, salted and roasted

preparation

Mix all but the peanuts together until smooth. Add nuts and mix. Serve with sliced apples.

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The next is an simple apple cake that my Great Aunt Frances would make every September for Ed's birthday. It's the perfect fall-time cake.

Frances Rinehart's Apple Cake

ingredients

3 eggs

2 cups self-rising flour

2 cups sugar

1 cup Canola oil

3 cups apples (diced)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

preparation

Mix all ingredients together and spread in buttered 9x13 inch baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Top with whipped cream.

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Spiced Apple Cider Sorbet

And the last recipe is one I'm trying for the first time. The inspiration comes from a dessert we had last weekend at our favorite restaurant Woodberry Kitchen in Baltimore. Mary's friend, John, sent me a recipe link. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Monday morning note to all: the spiced apple cider sorbet recipe is a keeper. It was smooth, tart and delicious, served with Frances Rinehart's Apple Cake. Try it; you'll love it.

Disappear. Reappear.

I'm back. Ed and I took a quick fall break to enjoy the autumn colors, do a little fly fishing, visit Mary in Baltimore and celebrate our 27th anniversary. Given that you have been patient enough with our travelogue about our trip out west, I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, it was a lovely week away.

Debbie and Ed's Wild West Adventure: Final Chapter

Part 5: The Badlands, SD to home

The last leg of our journey brought closer and closer to Farm Dover and included a final stop in Owensboro for barbecue and cider. Homeward Ho!

Day 15:  The Badlands, SD to Omaha, NE
Drive time: 6 hours, 35 minutes; 457 miles

We hiked the next morning in The Badlands, being mindful of rattlesnakes, and watched a Swainson's hawk hunt its breakfast.

And then we set off for Omaha, Nebraska, where we had a Czech goulash dinner at the Bohemian Cafe and listened to an outdoor concert by the US Air Force Heartland of America Band Brass in Blue. Nice way to end a nice day.


Day 16:  Omaha, NE to St. Louis, MO
Drive time: 6 hours, 48 minutes; 435 miles

We started our day at the Omaha Farmers' Market, stocking up on coffee, scones, craft root beer, and listening to some original music.

Then we were off for St. Louis, our final night's stop. Using our trusty i-pad, we located the Italian part of town and headed there for a final trip dinner with the friendly folk at Charlie Gitto's on the Hill. While waiting for our table, we found a nearby hotel using Hotwire, so were all set for the night.  We even parked for free on the street, dodging the parking charge and making Ed happy.




Day 17:  St. Louis, MO to Farm Dover, Shelbyville, KY
Drive time: 4 hours, 44 minutes; 290 miles

Leaving St. Louis on Sunday morning, we crossed into Illinois and felt we were almost home. We made two final stops on our way home: Owensboro for a barbecue lunch with Gay and Steve at Old Hickory and then Reid's Orchard for some fresh-pressed cider and apples.

And from there, it was a straight shot home to Farm Dover. Nice to be home. Really nice to crawl in our own bed that night and know that we had been on a great journey and lived to tell about it. We slept soundly.

Relish the Day!

Debbie and Ed's Wild West Trip: Part 4

Part 4: Yellowstone National Park to The Badlands, SD

Come along on our adventure through South Dakota: Four giant presidents carved into a mountain, America's favorite roadside attraction, camping in the middle of nowhere, even shooting stars across the Milky Way....

Day 13:  Slough Creek Campground, Yellowstone to The State Game Lodge, Custer, SD
Drive time: 8 hours, 38 minutes; 492 miles

We said farewell to Yellowstone and headed east toward the Black Hills National Forest.  We stopped in Cody, Wyoming, for lunch at the Irma Grill located in Buffalo Bill Cody's hotel which he named for his daughter.

We stretched our legs with a walk around the town before heading to the Black Hills of South Dakota where we had a reservation at the State Game Lodge in Custer. The lodge was built in 1920 and served as the "Summer White House" for Calvin Coolidge in 1927.

Day 14:  The State Game Lodge, Custer, SD to The Badlands, SD
Drive time: 3 hours, 38 minutes; 191 miles

Up and out to Mount Rushmore by 8 a.m. I'm not sure why, but I wasn't particularly looking forward to our visit to this national landmark. A bunch of presidents carved into a mountainside? Sounded a bit lame -- plus I had seen photos of it. How much more of it was there to see? Well, I was wrong. It was amazing -- the grandest piece of art ever.

From there, we drove up to Deadwood in hopes of seeing some familiar landmarks from HBO series of the same name. As much as Mount Rushmore exceeded my expectations, Deadwood underachieved them. It was really dead. No sign of Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Seth Bullock or Al Swearengen...not even a backdrop from which to take a photo to prove that we were there.

The day picked up as we barreled along to Wall, SD, home of Wall Drug, America's favorite (according to the good folks at Wall Drugs) roadside attraction. Wall Drug has over 500 miles of billboards on Interstate 90, stretching from Minnesota to Billings, Montana. They spend an estimated $400,000 on billboards every year -- many of them promoting free water. We, along with 2 million other visitors, fell for the billboards and stopped.

The afternoon was getting away from us and we didn't know where we were going to stop for the night. Just outside of Wall was the Badlands National Park and so that where we went. It was like landing on another planet.

It looked like nothing could survive this environment. But then we came upon a herd of sheep.

As we got to the south end of the park and evening was coming on, we realized that there was a campground that we could stop at. So we did. We set up camp in the middle of nowhere. Cooked dinner and had a lovely supper.

It was one of my favorite nights of our trip....Dark comes early there and there's little to do but crawl into the tent – so it was easy to wake up in the pre-dawn morning. The clear night sky in the plains with the horizon far away in every direction has not lost its power. We hadn't seen such a sight in years: the bright constellations, the Milky Way, even a shooting star. This was once the birthright of every child on earth. It is saddening to realize that with our thoughtless night lighting pollution only a few children will ever know what it is to see such a sky and wonder about what it means.

To be continued. Stay tuned....