Christopher Hapka
News and notes from the site administrator
There are some fruits, herbs, and vegetables that never made the trip from the traditional garden to the modern supermarket, because of changing tastes or because they're perishable rather than "shelf-stable." They are the Unmarketables, and if you want to eat them you'll have to grow them yourself.  I'm breaking in on my World Cup hiatus because one of the most delicious foods you can't get in the store is now in season. Or, from another point of view, one of the most widespread invasive weeds in North America is getting ready to spread to your garden. It all depends on how you feel about the wineberry.
The wineberry, sometimes called the Japanese wineberry (Rubus phoenicolasius), is a bramble in the same family as the blackberry and raspberry. It is easly recognizable by its stems, covered with fine red thorns that can look almost like fur. Native to Korea, China, and Japan, wineberries now thrive on roadsides, abandoned fields and forest borders throughout the central United States, especially east of the Mississippi. The leaves have bright green tops with faint red veins, and white undersides.
Posted by: chapka in spinach, mustard, lettuce, kale, freezing, feta, dill, collard greens, cilantro, blanching on
Jun 4, 2010
Last week I posted about lettuce soup, my favorite way to preserve lettuce that would otherwise bolt in the garden. But if a heat wave hits your beds and you don't have the time or inclination to make and freeze a big batch of soup, there is another way. Yes, lettuce can be frozen.
Posted by: chapka in livestock, eggs, chickens on
Jun 1, 2010
Backyard henhouses are popping up all over, and people are rediscovering the great taste of really fresh eggs. Using your own eggs in omelets and scrambles is simple, but as bakers quickly learn, some recipes can be fussier, especially if, like most backyard birds, yours are a mix of breeds laying a mix of large and small eggs. Here are the facts on home and commercial egg sizes you need to keep your batter at just the right consistency.
Posted by: chapka in ramps, mushrooms, morels, foraging on
May 27, 2010
Today's Ottawa Citizen has an interesting first-hand account of foraging for morels, one of my favorite foods of all time. If you don't have a secret morel hunting ground of your own nearby, there are companies that will sell you morel spawn--but since nobody is quite sure what morels need to thrive and it can take two years for newly "planted" spawn to form fruiting bodies, take any claims that you can grow these delicacies at home with a grain of salt. The recipe in the article also calls for ramps (Allium tricoccum, sometimes called
"wild leeks"), which can be easily grown if you have the right climate and a suitable spot of shady ground or, even better, a forest floor; here is a link to one source of seeds and bulbs.
In spring and fall, lettuce is a crisp, fresh, easy to grow green that only needs regular watering to produce delicious salad. But as soon as the weather turns hot, it's a bitter mess. And in winter, it's a distant memory. It doesn't keep; it doesn't can; it doesn't dry; and it doesn't freeze. This means that a sudden hot spell, like the one currently battering the Cellar and the Pantry gardens, can turn a whole bed of lettuce into bitter herbs fit only for seed saving and composting. But there is a way to save these greens from the compost heap.
Posted by: chapka in beer on
May 25, 2010
Okay, so technically it's Philly Beer Week. But more and more homebrew events are being incorporated into the schedule. From specials and classes at local homebrew stores to educational seminars to a plethora of meet the brewer events, even non-brewers seem to realize that to really appreciate good beer you need to understand how it's made. If you're in the Philly area June 4 through 13, don't miss a lot of knowledgeable brewers, brewing information, and of course great beer from the Philly area and around the world.
There are some fruits, herbs, and vegetables that never made the trip from the traditional garden to the modern supermarket. Some went out of fashion, while others aren't "shelf-stable" enough to handle modern industrial farming and transportation. Whatever the reason, if you want to eat them, you'll have to grow them yourself. They are...the Unmarketables. One of the earliest of the season is spring garlic.
Like many suburban homes, mine has a narrow strip in between the sidewalk and the street. They're called the "parking strip" and are usually surrounded by concrete or asphalt on four sides, making them the perfect container for a hardy, aggressive spreading crop that otherwise might threaten to escape and take over your garden. The only problem is that people don't expect there to be edible crops there--and neither do dogs.
Posted by: chapka in homesteading on
Apr 24, 2010
So says one of the "urban homesteaders" interviewed recently in the New York Times' look at traditional food crafters in San Francisco. Apparently "homesteading" is the term the Times has chosen to apply to people who make their own food from scratch. I'm not wild about it, but I haven't been able to find a better one ("foodcraft" was my attempt). What do you think?
Posted by: chapka in Untagged on
Mar 13, 2010
One blogger's interesting take on what makes food "traditional." I've run into this problem myself; when you make certain foods at home, you end up using a lot of ingredients that these "traditional food" advocates would shudder at; sulfites, tartaric acid, saltpeter...I just bought a bag of calcium hydroxide (aka pickling lime). And I'm using these products in an attempt to be more traditional. An interesting, similar take can be found in Why Some Like It Hot: Food, Genes, and Cultural Diversity, Gary Paul Nabham's excellent analysis of the so-called "caveman diets."
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