Vin de peche...

Oh, I forgot to add: I started another vin de maison: a batch of vin de pêche (from the excellent book aperitif by Georgeanne Brennan), using new growth from my two peach trees. I mostly used just the tips of the new growth. Six cups of leaves, five bottles of cheapo white wine, a pint of vodka and a pound of sugar. We'll see how it turns out in forty-five days.

Added: Here's a quick recipe for vin de pêche, based roughly on the one in Brennan's aperitif. Use the cheapest UN-OAKED white wine you can find (I used magnums of Sauvignon Blanc from the grocer): For every bottle of white, one cup of packed peach leaves, a half-cup of cheap vodka, a heaping third-cup of sugar (you can add more later when you're bottling). Mix them together in a well-washed crock or large jar. Shake or stir daily. Leave in the fridge for forty-five days. Bottle and enjoy immediately or store for several months in a cool, dry area.

I changed the recipe slightly by adding a few grains (less than a teaspoon) of mahleb, a spice made from the pits of a Prunus fruit, the St Lucie Cherry. (Mahleb is used in place of bitter almonds in baking. I love the flavor.) I added them because the leaves of a peach tree smell EXACTLY like mahleb, and I wanted to increase the presence of that flavor in my wine. (Peach leaves smell like fresh almonds, which makes sense, I guess, since almonds and peaches are fairly closely related.)

I tasted this for the first time yesterday-YUM! Slightly sweet, with a pleasant bitterness and very redolent of almonds, peaches and some exotic spice notes. Mmmm. Still green and a bit raw tasting, but I can imagine how it will taste in a month. My wife preferred it to the vin de pamplemousse, but she doesn't care for bitter things.

Quick garden update...

Well, it's surely summer here. I know that because I yanked out my last remaining collards last week (whiteflies!) and my sweet potatoes are running rampant. Let's see... 'Cucino' cukes are (surprisingly) still producing, though they're suffering greatly from some fungal issue, probably anthracnose. I'm getting only one or two a day, but enough to keep the girl-child happy and to make a batch of gazpacho from time to time. My cuccuzi is still growing wildly, but it's taken a breather from producing fruits. 'Fastbreak' cantaloupe is still consistently setting a fruit every time I pick one--it's in a pot, on a trellis, and seems capable of supporting only one fruit at a time. That said, it's very healthy with almost no trace of disease, so maybe it will produce all summer. Beans (Macaslan and Rattlesnake) are producing fitfully, which is pretty typical for this time of the year. Sometimes I'll go and pick a half-gallon of beans, sometimes just a handful. Willow-leaf limas from Southern Exposure are putting out a tremendous amount of pods--I'm looking forwrd to harvesting them all summer. Pretty plant, no signs of disease. Emerald blueberry has put out tons of growth--the others a bit less. Citrus crop looks to be excellent. I'll get two mangoes from my tiny Cogshill. Grapes look great--tons of fruit, and the promise of even more next year. Peppers are healthy and happy, just not setting that much fruit. Cassava is growing like a weed (and it looks like weed!). Eggplants are kicking into production, as are my okra. Aside from a disappointing tomato season (still no idea why), the garden is growing well...

Wildflowers...

It's a start...

Wildflowers: Safety, savings bloom on Florida's roadways -- OrlandoSentinel.com: "Contract manager Chris Grossenbacher, a consultant to the DOT, said that not mowing during spring and fall blooms and especially not during the seeding phase has resulted in an explosion of naturally occurring wildflowers."

I think sometimes that people believe that what looks normal is some sort of universal, eternal state. But what looks normal is culturally defined. We've gotten used to, say, St Augustine lawns as what looks "normal" and people are afraid to upset that norm. However, given time we can reset what counts as normal and, if we're careful, that new normal can be much more interesting...

Vin de pamplemousse...

I made this a few weeks ago, and it's slowly clarifying in the fridge now. Wow, is it ever tasty. Just the right balance of bitter and sweet. The French know how to make cheap wine taste good...

Pickling peaches...

I love all pickles... Too many peaches, and they have such a short shelf-life.

I never can my pickles--refrigerator pickles, if you have the space, are way tastier and easier.

My morning project.

Quick Pickled Peaches

by Chef Michel Nischan

Makes 1 quart

Ingredients

• 2 cups white wine
• 1 cup cider vinegar
• 6 peaches
• 1 vanilla bean (split and seeded)
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 cup honey
• 1/2 cup raw sugar
• Juice of 1 lemon

Directions

1. Blanch the peaches for about 10 seconds. Peel and cut in half.
2. Place wine, vinegar, honey, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon sticks, and lemon juice in a large saucepot. Bring to a simmer and let cook for 5 minutes. Add peaches and cook until heated through, about 6 minutes after returning to a boil.
3. Using a slotted spoon transfer the peaches to a canning jar with vanilla and cinnamon sticks evenly disbursed. Pour the boiling syrup over the peaches and fill to 1/4 inch below the rim of the jar and seal. Peaches will last in the refrigerator for up to a month. Serve over a roasted chicken, in a salad, or with goat cheese.

Update: OK--very simple recipe. I didn't peel the peaches, I used Trader Joe's vanilla paste (very good quality product), I reduced the honey to one-quarter cup, increased the sugar to a three-quarters and added a quarter cup of light-brown sugar (for a net decrease in the sugar--my peaches are quite sweet without the added sugar). Oh, and I left out cinnamon (can't stand it!) and added a few whole cardamon pods, instead.

Warnings for Inland Volusia County, Florida : Weather Underground

Warnings for Inland Volusia County, Florida : Weather Underground: "... Several rainfall records set at Daytona Beach during may...

A record monthly rainfall of 22.33 inches was set at Daytona Beach
during the month of may. This breaks the previous monthly record of
12.33 inches set in 1976. An all time daily rainfall record for may
of 6.37 inches was also set on may 20. This breaks the previous may
all time daily record of 4.22 inches set on may 26 1947. The may
rainfall of 22.33 inches also breaks the mark by itself for the
wettest Spring on record of 20.47 inches set in 1991. For Spring
2009 the rainfall total was 25.19 inches at Daytona Beach."

Broccoli rabe

I have a nice stand of broccoli rabe (aka rapini), left over from spring plantings. I tend to forget, every year, how tasty the stuff is. I expect it (this late in the season) to be bitter, but if cooked right and matched with pasta, it's sweet enough that even my kids (who have very low tolerance for bitter things, unlike me) like it. We made this recipe tonight, with pesto and rabe from the garden. Very tasty, very quick.

A quick update in words...

Back from a week on the road. The garden is holding up pretty well. Lots of split tomatoes, but that's to be expected. Pleasing and surprising--the tomatoes have also set a bunch of new fruit, hopefully making a miserable tomato season a little less miserable. The peaches are ripening--so many of them that the branches are bent low to the ground. Cuccuzi continue to produce nicely with no sign of mildew/anthracnose. Cukes, surprisingly, are also holding up well, recovering from ten days of rain. The leaves were in pretty bad shape (anthracnose), but they've put off plenty of new growth and set a lot of fruit... Let's see. Peppers are producing, but this hasn't been a good year for me so far. I picked a couple beautiful eggplants today. Broccoli rabe is holding up well. Last of the onions got pulled today. Green beans have been disappointing this year so far, but a bunch are on their way.

A quick update in pictures

First peach of the season!

I planted this FlordaPrince peach (from Just Fruits) on December 10, 2006. So, this is the third spring it's in the ground. It's about ten feet tall, and loaded with forty or fifty peaches. I picked the first one a couple days ago after the birds took a peck of it (I figured they knew when it was ripe!). It smelled terrific, and finished ripening on my counter. It ried it today and it wasn't at all as I had expected--I'd expected a tropical peach, which I like (sweet, low acidity, more peach fragrance than taste). Instead, I was surprised to find it was a classic southern peach--lots of peach flavor, nice balance of sweet and acidic, strong fragrance and perfect texture. It wasn't as sweet as it should have been, but that's because I picked it a little early and ate it too soon, I think.

Alison's questions...

Looks like the rain's finally ended... We got something like fourteen inches. Ech. I ventured out this morning, thinking the rain had ended. Everything looks OK, but in serious need of sun. (Really--since MOnday, we've had nary an hour of sun!!!)

I noticed my cukes were succumbing to some mildew or fungus, sprayed them thoroughly with neem... and then, five minutes later, it poured. Sigh.

Picked my first peach today! It smelled heavenly. I'll let it sit ont he counter a day or two to finish ripening, then post tasting notes! I have about forty more on the tree.

Alison asked me some questions... I'll share answers.

1) Are your rattlesnake beans the same as rattlesnake pole beans?

[mad :-] yes

I tried the rattlesnake pole beans with moderate success, but I wouldn't say they were anything spectacular. I noticed in the seed catalog that they had both with the pole and without. And how did they end up doing with the dry winters?

[mad :-] I only grow beans during the spring/summer. I wouldn’t try them in the winter. They need a fair amount of heat and a longish season. I guess if you put them in at the end of August, you might get a decent harvest.

2) How about that Okinawan spinach? Good summer green?

[mad :-] Very good, prolific, easy. Want some? Perennial.

And were you able to keep the malabar spinach through the winter?

[mad :-] Blech. Mucous.

Does it get bitter in the summer? If you have the malabar, is there any point in the okinawan too?

3) How did your strawberries do for the summer?

We'd like to start a strawberry patch this fall, but I really don't like the idea of replanting every year. Our chosen spot is against the east side of the house so it gets good morning sun, but is shaded from the afternoon sun. Would that get enough sun in the winter to bring a decent spring harvest I wonder though. I had 2 plants there doing very well, but planning to do more, I didn't have it fenced off. Some escaped chickens, after 3 tries, have finally killed them both. :-<

[mad :-] [mad :-] Forget ‘em. Not worth the space. I planted FIFTY one year and still only produced a handful per day. There are much better uses for the space/water/fertilizer—persimmons, figs, citrus.

4) So your Mississippi cowpeas... are you serious about growing them right in sand and not needing water?

[mad :-] Totally.

We planted some cowpeas in our pasture last summer, but if I didn't water them a few times a week, they quickly dried up.

[mad :-] Were the MS cowpeas? If not, you should try them…

5) What variety of collard greens do you prefer? Not a huge fan myself, but Randy loves them so I'm willing to give them a try. Just not year after year of attempting failed varieties!

[mad :-] Champion. You should try Lacinato (Dinosaur) Kale and chard. They’re prolific, too, and milder in taste.

6) We've tried bulb onions with no success. Same with beets and carrots. The carrots I think are mostly stumped by nematode problems. Beets and onions never bulb. Don't know why. Any suggestions? Just not going to do carrots and beets this year, but I hear about so many people doing onions that I would think I should be able to get them to work too.

[mad :-] Work PLENTY of organic junk into the soil, at least the top four inches should be straight-up compost. Beets are a PAIN in the ass, but tasty, nutritious and bountiful. I discovered that they can be transplanted, even quite large, and still produce. (This flies in the face of all advice I’ve read.) So, try to start the beets in cups in August, and plant them out when they’re growing well. Carrots do well for me, but they take a long time (couple of months at least). Make sure that the soil is very loose—dig down at least 6 inches. I really like Sweet Treat: http://www.burpee.com/product/vegetables/carrots/carrot+sweet+treat+hybrid+-+1+pkt.+(1500+seeds).do

Onions—you gotta make sure they’re granex. Then, give them a LONG time. I planted them Nov 15 and just harvested them a couple weeks ago. They need a fair amount of water, lots of sun, and lots of compost.

7) Is de Cicco your favorite broccoli variety?

[mad :-] Sure. They’re all similar. I noticed that the ones from seed produced better and longer than the ones from seedlings (Lowes).

How about for lettuce?

[mad :-] JERICHO!!!!

Rain...

Now that, my friends, is rain we can believe in... My guess is that since Sunday here in DeLand we've had in excess of ten inches of rain... about what we get in a typical May and June combined... in three days.

Rainfall at area airports from Sunday the 17th to 11 am this morning:

Daytona Beach 12.45
Orlando Intl 5.11
Melbourne 6.12
Vero Beach 3.61
Leesburg 6.55
Sanford/Orlando 10.40
ft. Pierce 3.28

Cooperative station totals from 7 am Sunday to 7 am wednesday:
Clermont 6.66
Deland 10.60
Kenansville 3.67
melbbourne NWS 8.44
Ponce Inlet 7.05
Plymouth 8.55
Sanford wp 10.46
Windermere 9.24

Fastbreak Cantaloupe

About the size of a softball. Sweet and firm. Nice fragrance.

Very end of the spring garden...

I pulled almost all the onions left in the row, keeping a few red ones in there to finish bulbing up. The white Granex were by far the best--they're about the size of tennis balls and sweet enough to eat out of hand, but with just enough heat to use for cooking, too. The reds ended up smallish. Yellows were good producers, too, but not really any different from the yellow onions in the grocer's case. I was pretty pleased with these carrots--I thinned the patch twice before harvesting these. Sweet and straight and practically no woody core.

Picked my first full-sized tomatoes of the season. For whatever reason my indeterminate tomatoes still haven't set much fruit. I guess they have six or seven weeks left, but I think it will be a disappointing season, though I set out plenty of plants. Peppers are doing well--I should give up on all of them except Sweet Spot and maybe Cubanelle. Perhaps the others will start producing better later in the season, but those two are both early and vigorous.

Let's see... planted a bunch of sweet potato slips. I held back a few small potatoes from my November harvest and left them overwinter in a shady spot, in a wicker basket, on the gazebo. Stuck them in a pot and they're happily producing scores of slips.

Pole beans are behind schedule, but starting to produce. Eggplants have set fruit and should be producing steadily more eggplants than I could ever eat. I have some salad greens going, lots of basil and parsley, okra and cranberry hibiscus. Peaches are blushing so I guess they should be ready to pick in a couple weeks. I have at least one banana ready to send out fruit. A few mangoes and I need to repot my papaya...

The real reason to eat locally...

I don't eat processed foods for the exact same reason that I don't watch television: I just don't want to participate in that economy--an economy driven by greed and based on gulling people.

Food Companies Are Placing the Onus for Safety on Consumers
May 15, 2009
By MICHAEL MOSS

Increasingly, the corporations that supply Americans with processd foods are unable to guarantee the safety of their ingredients. In this case, ConAgra could not pinpoint which of the more than 25 ingredients in its pies was carrying salmonella. Other companies do not even know who is supplying their ingredients, let alone if those suppliers are screening the items for microbes and other potential dangers, interviews and documents show.

Yet the supply chain for ingredients in processed foods — from flavorings to flour to fruits and vegetables — is becoming more complex and global as the drive to keep food costs down intensifies. As a result, almost every element, not just red meat and poultry, is now a potential carrier of pathogens, government and industry officials concede.

Floridiverous...

I'm working on my local eating guide for Central Florida. Anyone have input?

http://floridiverous.blogspot.com/

Hawk in the garden

No comment...

In today's Times.

When ‘Local’ Makes It Big

By KIM SEVERSON

WHEN Jessica Prentice, a food writer in the San Francisco Bay area, invented the term “locavore,” she didn’t have Lay’s potato chips in mind.

But never mind. On Tuesday, five potato farmers rang the bell of the New York Stock Exchange, kicking off a marketing campaign that is trying to position the nation’s best-selling brand of potato chips as local food.

Five different ads will highlight farmers who grow some of the two billion pounds of starchy chipping potatoes the Frito-Lay company uses each year. One is Steve Singleton, who tends 800 acres in Hastings, Fla.

“We grow potatoes in Florida, and Lays makes potato chips in Florida,” he says in the ad. “It’s a pretty good fit.”

Mr. Singleton’s ad and the other four will be shown only in the farmer’s home state. A national spot featuring all five potato farmers begins next week.

Frito-Lay is one of several big companies that, along with some large-scale farming concerns, are embracing a broad interpretation of what eating locally means. This mission creep has the original locavores choking on their yerba mate. But food executives who measure marketing budgets in the millions say they are mining the concept because consumers care more than ever about where their food comes from.

“Local for us has two appeals,” said Aurora Gonzalez, director of public relations for Frito-Lay North America, which is owned by PepsiCo. “We are interested in quality and quickness because we want consumers to get the freshest product possible, but we have a fairly significant sustainability program, and local is part of that. We want to do business more efficiently, but do it in a more environmentally conscious way.”

Vin de pamplemousse...

Started a batch today from Christine's beautiful grapefruit and some frozen Meyer lemon juice that Barbara donated to the cause... Should be ripe just in time for my trip to the Keys for non stop fishing.

Vin de pamplemousse.

So very dry...

Man, it's dry out there. I spend half an hour every morning and another thirty minutes every evening watering. I prefer to do it old-school: fill a bucket, water carefully while the next bucket fills. I've gotten good at it, so that I know when the next bucket's full and can time my watering perfectly. A bit of healthy exercise, running from garden to bib in the morning cool.

Tomatoes are still somewhat behind, but I noticed my 'Bella Rosa' is starting to ripen. First full-sized tomato of the season. The cukes and melons continue to produce.