A New Project: My Quest for Italian American Cooking

Today I'm starting a new project. Getting back to my roots. Not my ancestral roots, I'd be making pasties, Welsh cookies, faggots, minted lamb and various oat based foods (for the prodominate Welsh roots) or Yorkshire pudding and Roast beef for the English, Marske by the Sea, roots or something Danish, that would take research because my Danish great Grandmother cooked the English fare that her husband Great Grandfather Bryan liked but maybe those jam filled cookies were Danish. No I'm getting to the Valley roots which means either Italian or Polish fare. The Italian is really Italian American the kind of dishes you'd find at Grecos or Periguinos. Today I'm making Pork Braciola Marinara from Frankie's Spuntino cookbook. Just like grandma made if Grandma lived in West Pittston.

While it simmers I'm decorating my Xmas Tree.

Utata Nocturnal Photographer

It's fineally out. I chose the Old Forge sequence and the concentration on my favorite food pizza.

We joined Gina's CSA

We took the plunge and joined a CSA this year. Gina's CSA.



The community garden is great and we get a lot of produce out of little space but we still buy lots of seasonal produce at both Whole Foods and Kimberton Whole foods. Kimberton is all organic and local if they can get it and a semi-local business so that's the store of choice but it is a trek so we get there twice a month.


In the garden, I keep us in salad greens from March to December, sometimes into January. I also do a good job with my herb obsession. I find that it's the herbs that, in the end, keep me gardening. Imagine not having fresh sage year round. In early June we have marjoram thyme sorrel lovage (yea-it overwintered and is established) borage, epazote perilla, spearmint, peppermint, it goes on.
In my backyard in the "nursery" I have flats of basil and Thai basil, more sorrel (plants are periennial but only last about 5 years so I try to start a new batch each year. and several pots of Vietnamese coriander. I tried to take this in and over winter it again but it was a bust so I went to the Asian grocery at 12th and Washington, bought 2 bags of rau ram cut the stems and put them in a jar topped this off with a zip lock bag and waited a week. Roots appeared and I planted it out in three big pots it looks like I have 15 plants. I love this stuff. When it grows more I'll cut some and repeat the rooting process.

Gina introduced our community garden to the coffee bag path, it's great and keeps the paths almost weed free all season. she gets coffee bags from a roaster. She has used them to supress the weed on the paths at her farm for years. We've heard about her farm. She sells her produce at the Clark Park farmers market. She recently the farm relocated to the Schulykill Center and started the CSA.

I'm distracted. I wanted to talk about Gina's CSA. We have been buying eggs from Gina all winter. Their just wonderful. Her hens lay these greenish blue eggs and speckled brown eggs that are tastier that any in the market and we only buy organice eggs.

We got our first allocation Saturday. She asked me if I wanted peas or snow peas I chose snow peas. She grabbed a huge bag.
We got great greens for cooking and eating raw. Bok choy Japanese Turnips, baby kale and mustard. and a quart of huge strawberries.

karenchristine552 March 365 grid

karenchristine552 March 365 grid, originally uploaded by karenchristine552.

this is my first 365 mosiac. It represents all of March, pretty cool I think.

World's End photo featured on Shutter Sisters One Word Project

http://shuttersisters.com/onewordproject/

My photo was featured on Shutter Sisters 365 site! Yea

I decided to do a 365 project this year. Different photos every day, no cheating. During the week I've taken to doing still lifes in the kitchen. It puts back dinner prep a bit but I find myself exploring ideas I might not come to like the leek photos. I was making lamb stew and had a great bunch of leeks. I set them up on my black and white sgraffito plate that broke in the kiln but is cool anyway. I concentrated on really pushing the depth of field. At sunset the window in the background turn blue who knew? I've been contributing the 365 photos to several groups including one of my favorite Shutter Sisters. On February 11 my Leek with Blue window was the featured photograph. Exciting and gratifying. I missed it and only noticed it on the 12th.Shutter Sisters - 365
http://shuttersisters.com/365/

Ordering seed and little snow

I was going to order seed this weekend. I pulled out my seed crate from the shed, sorted, and made a list of what I had. I looked over my seed orders and blog from last year to get a sense of what I liked. The red noodle beans I loved but couldn't find an order until I saw in my notebook this was one thing I ordered from Territorial Seeds and asparagus seeds that never got planted thanks to some gardeners who didn't get it.
My seed ordering stopped when I went on storm watch. We had snow.
Maybe 2 feet I think 18 inches here is about right. The snowman said 19 inches but he's made of wood and painted by MacLean so who knows how accurate he is.It really snowed. I was out at midnight taking photos. When I took Georgia out this morning I had to carry her to the road, she would just disappear in the drifts.
I't cool - lots of snow just like when I was little and my dad and crazy George Archer dug out our backyard skating rink, we made seats in the snow banks. What devotion, I never realized it.I remember my mom calling us in for hot coco at night; we had a flood light so we could just stay out ther in our snow suits and skates. Do my sisters remember this? Or my friend Paulette?

World's End Winter Camping Trip Postponed

We were going to go to World's End this week for our winter camping experiment. I couldn't wait to get out into the woods. It's so dark and serene at night, a roaring fire good book, and me with my long exposure photo plans.We bought snow shoes and tried them out when we had the big snow in Philly
Turns out that all the rain coupled with freezing conditions caused the Loyalsock Creek to flood wiping out the bridge to the cabin area at Worlds End. I didn't realize just how devastating this was until I came upon a photo album of the flooding.




We've always gone in the fall, the creek is pretty low,lots of rocks along the edge. This year we tent camped, getting back to our camping roots. Our favorite site is walkin in site 61.
We're heading back up at the end of March. Might be cold, spring will be in the air.

365 1/25/2010 the moon at sunset on cedar

365 1/25/2010 the moon at sunset on cedar, originally uploaded by karenchristine552.

it rained all day really crazy intense warm rain then, as I arrived home the sky cleared. The sun came out.

365 1/24/2010 Dense staple patterns on a telephone pole on 47th

365 1/24/2010 Dense staple patterns on a telephone pole on 47th, originally uploaded by karenchristine552.

Sunday is tough for the 365.Out to work early, in late. Elliot has the computer with CS4 all day.Took this while walking Georgia this morning. I'm interested in filling the frame with a dense object then looking at the activity in the background the shapes that occur.

The Winter Garden

While darkness keeps me from a daily visit, I do get to the garden a few times a week. I check things out what is growing- I gathered chickweed for a salad on Thursday. I look at the progress of withered things.The effect of freezing and thawing on the few peppers I left standing.
The've developed a transucency that, when photographed at sunset is lovely. There are herbs to gather and store for the week. Sage, Thyme and Rosemary are still quite viable, I've even gathered some mint although it is mostly withered.

It is time to get those seed orders in. I'm late this year, I'll take the cataogs to world's End next week to plan my strategy. I favor Abundant Life, Natural Seed Company, Seeds of Change and Johnny's. No catalogs so far from the latter two, maybe they've gone paperless!

New Years Photography and Plants

Time to put those New Years Resolutions in print.
1. 365 Photos one a each day, no cheats.
Hop on the exercise machine every evening. A good idea let's see if I do it more than a week.
Continue the garden photos every week.
I missed this week because of the holidays and it's so darn cold. I was the first to open the gate after the 21 inch snow on the 19th.
Start project - "Pottery as image and places seen."
Evaluate the seed situation and make great choices based on what worked last year and what I saw and wanted and regretted not planting. Continue documenting the garden even when the light is faint.

A book a week. Teen counts.
Continue the flickr project. Addiction to creative projects is good.