Grudgingly Vegan

Although Lent is first and foremost a time for spiritual growth, there is no ignoring the practical reality of 49 days without animal products. (Curiously, shellfish are allowed, most likely because ancient Christians considered them one step above insects. Fish with backbones are permitted on two days.) We don't eat a ton of meat, but I do miss the freedom to exercise the option, and I eat eggs, cheese and yogurt nearly every day. It's difficult to plan around this without overindulging in the permitted luxuries of flour and sugar. But, over the years, I have come up with a few standbys that I can pretty reliably enjoy:

Easiest (Someone else cooks)

Chipotle's Sofritas salad. If I add guacamole, I can barely finish the whole thing.
Mussels, preferably from Victoria
Falafel (current favorite, Nora's, is Armenian-owned!)
Shrimp Ceviche from the Mexican restaurant I just discovered EIGHT BLOCKS away
Any Thai curry: also fairly easy to make, but then it would jump to the next list.

Medium (Under an hour)

Roasted cauliflower with tahini sauce; green salad on the side
Kimchi rice (Trader Joe's sells it frozen) with stir-fried baby bok choy
Turkish lentil soup with French carrot salad
Quinoa tossed with cucumber, avocado, tomato and a preserved-lemon dressing
Curried tofu salad over arugula (I add chopped apples and grated carrots)

Hard (but worth it, if there's time)

Hummus, Mahammra and Baba Gannouj from this book
Gypsy Beans (I like to serve them over spinach as an entree)
Asian Shrimp Salad (this is not difficult, but involves a lot of prep as it's served with a platter of fresh vegetables, herbs, rice noodles and fruit.)
Vegetarian Pho (the broth takes awhile, but I make a ton, so subsequent meals are faster)
Broccoli Aglio e Olio (technically this is not Lenten because of the anchovies, but it is amazing. You absolutely must use Aleppo pepper.

Having a list like this is comforting for that point in the fast when absolutely nothing besides bacon sounds appetizing. Now, if I can just remember that I posted it next year . . .

Une Vie Francaise

A month ago I lost my driver's license at a concert. (They actually didn't ID us that night, and to add insult to irony, it was a lousy show.)

I hate the MVA so much that I put off getting a new one, going so far as to carry my passport on a recent domestic flight. But last week I remembered there was an express office in Columbia that's open on Saturdays. So I rounded up the following forms of ID as per their website:

Passport (proof of identity)
Name Change Order (my passport only displays first and last)
Credit Card Bill (proof of residency)
Pay Stub (proof of SSN, but mine only displays the last 4 digits)
Recent Employment Contract (proof of full SSN)

So, guess how many she looked at?

Zero. She asked for my name, then my SSN, pulled up the file, took my picture and sent me on my way. But not before she asked about my middle name, which gave me such trouble at the MVA when I first changed it. I told her it was Armenian, then couldn't resist adding that her name meant "sing" in French. She was tickled by this and wanted to know how I had learned French. I told her high school plus practice, and she seemed genuinely interested and impressed that it was part of my daily life.

After that, I stopped for breakfast at La Madeleine, where the cafe is strong and the croissants can be found as God intended them (toasted almonds outside and marzipan within.) The staff is all Francophone, but diverse, and they are happy to chat with you a bit while you wait to enjoy your meal close to the fire.

Speaking French is occasionally useful, as at the concert (this one was amazing) when I calmly directed some confused patrons to their seats in their native language, or the time I watched a movie at a theater where the subtitles weren't working. It also brings me grief, mostly in the form of sarcastic comments from friends and family who wish they could understand me. But mostly it is a joy -- anytime I think, speak or dream in French, my life seems a little bit sweeter.

Becoming Lebanese

Last summer a group of friends at the SMI was staying up way, way too late drinking wine and unloading after a long day of teaching and learning. They invited me to join, but no sooner had I settled in than one friend decided it was time for bed. He began saying goodbyes, and I began laying on the guilt:

"You're leaving? I just got here!" (It was after midnight.)

"We never have any time to talk!" (Patently false.)

"Why do you hate me?" (If your Middle Eastern do not habitually play this histrionic trump card, you must not really be friends. It's a staple of the culture, as common as "keep a stiff upper lip" to the British.)

This last line prompted an outburst of laughter from all the Arabs present, which was just about everyone but me; one of them dubbed me an honorary Lebanese on the spot. Defeated, my tired friend stayed another half an hour and then asked for my permission to retire.

Of course my real attraction to the Lebanese culture is not the guilt but the food. Last Pascha Rob surprised* me with the gift of this incredible book, which contains over 500 (!) traditional recipes and modern updates. It's a work of art, full of gorgeous photographs, and I enjoyed leafing through it for several weeks until the summer began. Then we hit a whirlwind of travel: we were gone 6 weeks out of 8, with mere days at home between trips. We finally arrived home on the cusp of the Dormition Fast, ready to stay put for awhile, and I was itching to start cooking for myself again after gracing the interior of far too many good and bad restaurants.

Here's the thing about fasting: it should be simple. Eat less, give more -- to God, to the church, to others. That's it. Instead, it becomes a chore. Reading labels. Planning exit strategies for social events. Trying to think of an allowed meal that sounds appetizing and contains something healthful. I hit Fasting Fatigue early and often during Lent and Advent, and this usually leads to breaking the fast or resenting the fast, or both.

So on July 31, I picked out a few traditional Lebanese recipes I wanted to try. All were fast-friendly (vegan) and fairly easy to make, if a little time-consuming: the fresh ingredients meant that a lot of chopping and pureeing was involved, though each dish was elemental in its simplicity.

I was overjoyed, as I finished each one, to find it tasted exactly as it did at the best Middle Eastern restaurants (of which none exists in this area, and believe me, I have tried them all.) At the end of two days I had a fridge full of healthy meals that were easy to prepare and so delicious I wouldn't even think of straying. We ate dips made from eggplant, chickpeas and walnuts; salad with lemony garlic dressing and pita croutons; and olives and pickled turnips, twice a day for a week. Then it was gone and we had to make more, only this time we added falafel, fried cauliflower, tahini sauce, tabbouli, preserved-lemon dressing and semolina almond cake, and doubled everything in honor of my mother's birthday. Over a dozen people crowded my house, each one effusive in praise of the amazing food, and the recipes were so straightforward I couldn't even try to take credit.

I didn't miss meat, not once. As much as I wanted to try the grape leaves with cinnamon-laced beef, raw lamb with spices and thick, creamy yogurt dip, I was perfectly happy with what I had made, the other 80% of the Lebanese canon. And it got me thinking about fasting and community. Saydeh touched on this in her comments about Holy Week (buried midway through this piece -- good luck!) When everyone is eating the same things, there are no pins and needles about cooking for guests or choosing what to eat at a host's table. And when the food is naturally, wonderfully simple, fasting becomes the norm; days when meat or dairy is allowed seem like a luxury.

We noticed this about our friend who is a priest in Southeast Asia and also a fabulous cook; most of his favorite recipes are based on vegetables and tofu, seasoned with a wide variety of aromatics and spicy sauces. When he's eating meat, he might throw in some chicken or beef, but tofu alone is delicious because it's allowed to be tofu -- it's not trying to be a hamburger. American food is just stubbornly unadaptable: all our traditional favorites (hot dogs, sandwiches, ice cream, pizza) are not only generally unhealthy, but also unpalatable without cheese and meat. Ever tried a veggie sub? Bread and sliced raw vegetables. As asetic and pitiful as it sounds.

Last year I fell into the habit of grabbing something small to eat during the school day -- yogurt, fruit, a boiled egg -- and eating my main meal of the day in the afternoon when I returned home and had access to my whole kitchen and pantry. So on Friday I had some nuts and fruit at school and came home to fattoush, hummus and mahamra. Then Rob mixed up ground beef, rice and spices and we rolled over a hundred grape leaves. We brought a few to the house of some close friends to enjoy, nightfall bringing the start of a non-fasting day, and in our conversation they pointed out the crux of what I'm getting at here. Not that the whole world should convert to a Middle Eastern diet (I wish!) but that being part of a traditional community makes fasting not only doable but enjoyable.

Next on my journey to becoming Lebanese: discovering what magic they can work with chicken. And a very pleasant Advent fast.

*I may have ordered and paid for it myself, but I promised to give him credit. That counts, right?

Our Christmas Card: The Extended Version

The first couple of days of Christmas break are always wasted in a flurry of movie-watching, cookie-baking and snuggling with furry things on the couch (blankets, animals, unshaven husbands.) Suddenly, on Christmas eve, I realized we hadn't done Christmas cards. I half thought of scrapping it, since we'd been good about it for our first ten Christmases, but I realized what I said last year is still true: I like the whole process, the hassle of changing addresses and names and the fun of scribbling little notes by hand and the nice finished product at the end -- a pile of pretty stamped envelopes waiting to join our friends all over the country.

So, those are on their way to you, and meanwhile, for those of you who really want a play-by-play, here's what we've been up to this year:

First, we had a lot more work to do with our two new end-of-2011 projects: dog and kitchen. It took me a very, very long time to get used to having Mishka in the house, but I do enjoy her company, as well as the protection she offers me from burglars, the UPS man and umbrellas. (Bubble wrap, however, is a different story. If bubble wrap ever broke into the house, she would hide in the corner while it made off with all the valuables.)

She also forces us to get outside more, which is definitely a good thing, as she has an endless capacity for running, sniffing and chasing. On one recent foray in the woods near our house, I enjoyed calling her back with a whistle: I would hear nothing, then a very faint rustle growing louder as she trampled through the fallen leaves coming toward me. The last time I called her back, however, the rustling grew louder and louder until I saw, with much alarm, half a dozen deer charge over the crest of the hill in front of me, on high alert with tails up. A hundred yards behind them was Mishka, having the time of her life.

Snow is like crack for dogs, apparently.

She loves the snow, but unfortunately, this little dusting was it for the year until this week. Thankfully, we got in a visit to our dear friends in Colorado and saw some real snow, along with real mountains, trees and blue skies (you think we have these things on the East Coast, but you're so wrong!)

Spring brought more raised beds and another attempt at filling them with our favorite heirloom varieties. Unfortunately, our summer traveling always interferes with the crucial work of watering and harvesting, but we still got quite a few tomatoes, beans, berries, carrots, beets and greens, plus all the fresh herbs we could handle!

Some pretty flowers, too, especially in the spring -- and yes, we still have the cat, and yes, she tolerates the dog who wants so badly to be friends with her.

Church is a constant source of peace and healing for us amid the stresses and trials of everyday life. I am grateful for my job as protopsalti, training and leading the other chanters; it keeps me connected to the community of Holy Cross, and to the Cross itself, eliminating the possibility of intruding busy-ness. We had a beautiful Lent, Holy Week and Pascha this year, including this lovely flower-covered bier with which we processed around the church on Holy Friday, commemorating the Lord's death and looking ahead to the promise of His Resurrection.

In the late spring, Rob and his dad, along with some friends, rode in Bike New York -- a a 42-mile ride that spanned all five boroughs and gave them some great views and an even greater workout. My mother-in-law and I happily tagged along for shopping, dining and a beautiful visit to the new Ground Zero park.

Giant waterfalls outline the footprints of the original Twin Towers, surrounded by a peaceful tree-lined arcade. The names of the fallen inspire personal tributes like this one.

Then we turned right around and went the opposite direction, to beautiful New Orleans for a weekend filled with sunny weather, beautiful music and way too much good food. We also enjoyed a visit to nearby St. Francisville to spend time with some dear friends who took us out for crawfish and stopped for cracklins on the way home (that comment about too much good food? I really meant it.)

New Orleans may be Party Central for most, but to me it's more a place of peace than anything else. The people we meet, the cocktails we toast with, and the streets we walk are all infused with a quiet, refined grace that trickles down into the days and weeks following our return. I couldn't ever get enough of the place.

Almost as soon as we returned from these trips, and as we were wrapping up the school year, I ended my 21-year academic career by walking the stage at Loyola University to receive a Master of Arts in Teaching along with a Secondary English teaching certification. In other words, after ten years of private instruction and seven in the classroom, I am finally, officially, a teacher.

As the school year ended, I signed a contract making the leap to full-time employment; I would have my own classroom for the first time, as well as increased administrative and supervisory duties. I was a little nervous about this, but Rob assured me it was not all that different from what I had already been doing as a part-time instructor. He's still full-time at the college level, teaching design courses to diverse classes that include both starry-eyed teenagers and professionals older than he is. One of the biggest perks of his job is that every other year or so, he gets to run a travel study program in Paris!

Like any good husband (and he is the very best) he brings along his French-speaking wife so she can enjoy herself and help him out of Metro limbo when necessary. This year we ventured further south of the city on our days off, seeing some incredible chateaus in the Loire valley.

(For more about our travels in Paris, I invite you to read my Top Ten series. Loyal readers (all four of you) will notice that not all of the ten pieces are published yet, but please enjoy what's there and I promise to finish soon!

Upon returning, we hosted a huge, fancy dinner in honor of Bastille Day, featuring five French courses paired with hand-selected American wines. The most prestigious Louisianan journalists all covered the story.

We spent time at the ocean as the summer ended, and also attended three beautiful weddings -- a longtime friend of mine in a three-part French-Indian extravaganza, a longtime friend of Rob's in a sweet homegrown ceremony on a farm, and a cousin's eclectic celebration in some local ruins:

School began again this fall, and with my increased class load, I made the difficult decision to stop teaching private piano lessons. My students were an important part of my life for nearly ten years, and it was hard to say goodbye, but I know they will be successful elsewhere: several have transferred to my mom's studio and are already making great progress. Meanwhile, I've enjoyed teaching a French class in addition to the English that makes up the bulk of my workload. I credit Rosetta Stone with my quick recall of vocabulary I learned when I was my students' age!

We've made time for lots of fun weekend trips this semester, too: besides the weddings, we also took in a couple of concerts and enjoyed the stately beauty of Williamsburg with our family. And a friendship that began at the summer Sacred Music Institutes took me to Boston for two weekends in a row, to rehearse and record as part of Charlie Marge's Boston Byzantine Choir. I was so honored and humbled to be a part of the incredible musicianship and camaraderie of this group, and we enjoyed quality time with our Boston friends in my free time. They call this the "Hahbuh."

We were out of town so much this fall that I'm afraid I was a bad mother to this blog. I hope this New Year will bring some more stability, but I also have to blame social networks for some of that: although Facebook's time-sucking capabilities have kept me away so far, I have enjoyed the simple beauty of sharing photos via Instagram (in fact, many from this letter were originally published there; it's a nice backup in case, say, your hard drive crashes when your laptop falls off the couch and your last month or so of data is unrecoverable.) I've also enjoyed reviewing restaurants on Yelp, and as one of their Elite members I get to attend fun events around town. You can check out the content on the left-hand sidebars, and if you share either hobby, please look me up!

And now, having celebrated the glorious Nativity of Christ with a late-night festal Liturgy, and having feasted and clinked glasses and given gifts and sung and laughed, we prepare for an end-of-year gathering with family and friends to do more of the same -- and we wish you as much peace and joy as can fit into your hearts.

Merry Christmas from Baltimore!

Love, Emily and Rob

Glory to God for All Things

What do you do when you lose your family, possessions and livelihood in one terrible day? If you're Job, you resist the impulse to write country music and instead give glory to God, who blesses you with even more than you lost.

Roughly two thousand years later, another dedicated servant of the Lord was dying in exile from the empire he had struggled to evangelize all his life. St. John Chrysostom, with his final breath, praised his creator: "Glory to God for All Things!"

Another millenium and a half after that, a Russian priest composed a beautiful Akathist, a sort of prayer poem, based upon those words:

When the lightning flash has lit up the camp dining hall, how feeble seems the light from the lamp. Thus dost Thou, like the lightning, unexpectedly light up my heart with flashes of intense joy. After Thy blinding light, how drab, how colourless, how illusory all else seems. My souls clings to Thee.

He knew whereof he spoke: the "camp dining hall" was at a Communist prison camp where Fr. Gregory Petrov, after numerous tortures, died in 1940. From hearing the hymn, you would never guess at the circumstances under which it was written. We sing it every year on the eve of Thanksgiving, and every year I find some new nugget of wisdom to treasure in my heart:

Glory to Thee for Thy goodness even in the time of darkness, when all the world is hidden from our eyes.

Glory to Thee, sending us failure and misfortune that we may understand the sorrows of others.

Glory to Thee for what Thou hast revealed to us in Thy mercy; Glory to Thee for what Thou hast hidden from us in Thy wisdom.

Glory to Thee, building Thy Church, a haven of peace in a tortured world.

Glory to Thee for the humbleness of the animals that serve me. (This one always makes me smile. Clearly, Fr. Gregory Petrov never owned a cat.)

This morning I am mindful of the "endless variety of colors, tastes and scents" as I assemble a salad, stuff a squash, cook down a whole bag of onions into a tiny caramelized pile (for transcendence, just add bacon, bourbon and brown sugar -- oh, Bittman!) and try not to eat ALL of the cookies I baked yesterday. It may seem small compared to what else is going [wrong] in the world, but our God gives beauty in abundance, even to the tiniest moments.

Most of all, I am mindful of the "love of parents, the faithfulness of friends." What friends you all are, especially for calling and writing and grabbing my arm to ask where I've been and why I haven't written. There is no reason besides the busy-ness of life. I thank God for this blog, one of the few relationships I have that doesn't inspire guilt when I let it go temporarily. When I pick it up again it feels just like an old friend. Just like you.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Paris Top 10: Fine Dining

Visiting Paris on a budget is not difficult, especially for young people: most museums are reduced-price (or this pass is worth every centime, if you’re an art lover) and cheap food is easy to find. In fact, I was just moping about yesterday about how much I wanted to go back to Maoz, home of the unlimited falafel toppings for a five-euro meal that could satisfy even a “starving” teenager.

HOWever. You owe it to yourself to visit at least one high-end place, somewhere you’d pay fifty or even a hundred euros per person for a multiple-course meal with wine. If this sounds insane, consider that it’s frighteningly easy to spend two or three times that amount; I’m still thanking my lucky stars that Josephine chez Dumonet was full or closed every time I called for a reservation, because when we walked by to check out the menu my eyes almost rolled out of my head.

So: an indulgence, but one you can afford. Hang out at a park for a day or two if you have to (more on that later.) It will be worth it: in France, dining is an experience we just don’t understand here.

Paris Top 10: Cafes

If you don’t do a single other thing in Paris, you must sit in a cafe for at least two hours some afternoon. Nothing will teach you more about the city than this simple adventure.

You’ll realize right away that cafes are not restaurants. I could rhapsodize endlessly about French food and wine: meltingly tender duck confit under a blanket of crispy skin; chewy chunks of baguette with eye-wideningly tart jam made from the freshest summer fruits; mounds of soft, lightly-dressed greens surrounded by an inventive combination of accomaniments (ever had a Caesar salad with dried plums, olives and hard-cooked egg?) And while most cafes serve above-average to excellent cuisine, for most of the day, most of the customers are not eating anything.

The Christmas Letter

As long as I have a hand to write with and a tongue to moisten the seal, I will try my darndest to send out real Christmas cards — the old-fashioned, tree-killing, carbon-producing kind. I just like the feel of a card in your hands: it’s a physical connection between you and someone you haven’t seen in a long time. I’d much rather meet you for lunch, of course, but we can’t always do that. Hence the cards. This year’s came from England. See how much I love you?

On to the wrap-up. 2011 began with snow on snow on snow: quite a lot, though not nearly as much as last year. Snow is usually accompanied by snow days. Cinnamon rolls optional.

When things had thawed out a bit, we headed north for a brewery pilgrimage with some friends and family. Here’s us with my parents on the beautiful, chilly Delaware beach:

However, I happen to prefer this photo as representative of my nearest and dearest:

Spring brought a new friend and beautiful colors to compliment the Little Red House:

We enjoyed a brief jaunt to Boston, where our dear friend Stephen was elevated to the priesthood and Rob made a new friend (no, I don’t mean the duck!)

And scarcely had we returned than we flew south for a whirlwind week in New Orleans, where we were treated to uncharacteristically fine weather and characteristically fine food and drink. Matthew was definitely the star of this trip — he wheeled and dealed at the antiques market, doubled back in an ingenious move for a second batch of beignets at Cafe du Monde, and almost left his wife for a 50-year-old bartender.

But in the end he stayed. Why wouldn’t he?!

We enjoyed a quick weekend in the Carolinas, where Rob’s beautiful cousin was married:

What’s that? You don’t believe I was really in the American South?

Ham, peanuts and BB guns. Yes, sir. And the views across the fields were spectacular.

As the summer began in earnest, I enjoyed writing weekly about the food from our CSA. You can read these columns, as well as quite a few others, at Catonsville Patch.

We also welcomed our brother Zach for an extended visit. Zach presided over a series of dinners that started big (The Goat Meal) and ended bigger (a Georgian-style supra for 13 guests that lasted about six hours, with almost that many courses.) In between, we steamed live crabs for the first time:

Six hours is also the amount of time we waited in line for front-row spots when U2 played in Baltimore. Totally worth it.

Once I had recovered from my swoon, we had a long visit with the West Coast, seeing the sights, visiting family and playing with friends.

And by “playing with friends” I mean we sat in our hotel room in beautiful Sonoma for embarrassingly long lengths of time, playing simultaneous games of “Words with Friends” on our iPhones. Hey, it’s Apple Country.

Somehow, we managed to harvest a few things from our sadly-neglected garden: I blame the beautiful raised beds my dad built for us, without which I think we would have only had weeds.

More guests — human and feline — followed by a quick trip to Atlanta to claim our inheritance and gallavant with cousins. Cat games, long dinners and the best Elton John impersonator I’ve ever seen.

Labor Day brought one last chance to enjoy the sun — this time at beautiful Lake Eufala in Oklahoma. Our BFF’s hosted, assisted by a pack of semi-wild dogs that often outnumbered us.

School began again, and we buckled down: business as usual for Rob, who’s working on some landscape projects as well as teaching architectural design, and one last semester of grad school plus high school for Emily, who is almost finished with her MAT and continues to teach English at a private Catholic school. We took a break in October to accompany the same wonderful family (and the same semi-wild dogs) to Lewes in celebration of Jamie’s 30th birthday. Long walks on the beach, light sightseeing and an incredible late-night bonfire:

The fall wound down with a few great concerts and a day trip to Bear Run, Pennsylvania, where Rob took his students to see some architecture and Emily tagged along for the scenery.

And we saved the last month of the year to tackle two daunting projects: a new kitchen and a new member of the family. This is Mishka, the stray who whined and chewed her way into our hearts.

Kitchen photos will have to follow in a week or so. And now, back to Christmas preparations: wrapping, decorating and practicing music. For the first time I can remember, we’re celebrating Christmas on Christmas this year: church in the morning before returning home for breakfast, presents and a day of family traditions.

How we wish you could be here with us — and you are, in our thoughts and prayers.

Love, Rob and Emily

Changes are Coming

Give a husband and wife five days off in a row, and there’s no telling what might happen.

They might, for instance, serve Thanksgiving dinner to eleven, and in the process decide they’ve had enough of making do in their hodgepodge kitchen, and two days later order brand new cabinets and appliances and start gathering volunteers to tear the place up.

Or they might hear a sob story about a friend of a friend of a friend who found a sweet shepherd-mix puppy in the city and is looking to give her away. They might visit, swoon and make plans to bring her home, right about the same time they’re planning to lose their kitchen and most of their dining room.

And it’s always possible that the English teacher who hasn’t had time to read anything but papers like this will pick up a book that will change her life. And if that were true (hypothetically) it wouldn’t matter a bit that the book was a gift from the author, her cousin — if anything, it would make the experience that more meaningful, a little like a letter from an older and more experienced friend who knows the way.

The Urban Farm Handbook is a witty, practical guide to your personal paradigm shift from big-box grocery to local living. Organized into seasons (beginning with winter — how timely and / or perfect for Christmas!) that are further subdivided into subject chapters, it gives just enough detail to instruct but not overwhelm.

I’ve read a lot about the locavore movement. The vast majority has been in the form of personal narratives, moving and off-putting by turns. The author (and, usually, spouse) is drawn to traditional methods of farming, producing, cooking and living; s/he spends a set length of time, almost always a year, practicing these methods, and in doing so reaches some degree of enlightenment. Even when they’re beautifully written, as most are, these books don’t do more than vaguely inspire you in some ways and nauseate you in others. Titles in this category include:

On the other side of the spectrum are books that are so professional, they’re largely over your head. They’re also fun to read; they’re great daydream material and would be perfect resources if you decided to move out to the country, but you can’t find much use for their advice where you live. Examples:

The Urban Farm Handbook has found the Goldilocks sweet spot: just right for people like me, who are frustrated when their increased knowledge doesn’t lead to life changes. It’s for environmentalists who want to produce less waste, parents who want their children to grow up in a real community, and cooks who are obsessed with freshness. It gives loads of advice to all kinds of readers.

I’m scheming to make this a monthly feature in my Patch column next year, supplementing the authors’ advice with my own research about the Mid-Atlantic region (they live in the Pacific Northwest.) But I’ll write here about the behind-the-scenes activity, which you might find just as interesting. In fact, I’m already hard at work on the first chapter. Stay tuned!

First Harvest

Once I was lucky enough to interview Eliot Coleman, an incredibly erudite and witty subject in addition to one of my biggest gardening heroes. “Weeding is like voting in Chicago,” I remember him saying. “Do it early and often.”

How right he was. And how discouraged I was when, after two weeks of fun in the mountains and at the beach, my yard and garden looked miserably unkempt.

But there’s nothing to do but tackle the project. In stages, of course — one bed at a time, preceded by a soaking bath with the sprinkler, and the lamb’s quarters and morning glories shrug and slip out of the soil. (Not the crab grass, though. I think Eve would have thought twice about eating that fruit, had she known what she was paying forward to generations of gardeners.)

The one place I don’t have weeds, however, is in the beautiful square-foot beds my father built for me. Everything is going gangbusters there, from melons to okra and tomatoes and even little thyme starts grown from seed. In the midst of washing the first batch of radishes and pinched-off basil, I was struck by the beauty that exists in the silliest places in nature — spicy, knobby roots and wrinkly, lush leaves. They later became pickles and pesto, but even in their rawest form they were delicious.

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