Last year we experimented with growing tomatoes in the Florida Weave. It was fabulous, so we left the stakes in place to do it again. The Florida Weave uses twine, woven around stakes, to support the tomato plants. As the plant grows, we thread the branches through the twine. Setting up the stakes takes some time, […]

Today I harvested 30 pounds of gooseberries, which is about a quarter of our crop. Anybody have any new gooseberry recipes? Because I think I’ll be making a lot of pie, jam, chutney, and fool! Two years ago, I asked my husband to plant a gooseberry bush. He planted 24 and they are all thriving! (Unlike […]

Certain food combinations are much more than the sum of their parts: tomatoes and basil; bacon and eggs; chocolate and raspberries. To this list, I must add goat cheese and honey. Just drizzling honey on goat cheese and eating on a cracker is a sensory delight. Inspired by this taste, I created this dessert to showcase goat […]

For those of you who are growing garlic, now is the time to snip the scapes. Our garlic leaves are waist-high and even avid gardeners have said, “I didn’t know you grew leeks.” We don’t grow leeks, but the garlic plant looks like a giant leek. The scape (which has a round stem not a flat leaf […]

Our chicken coop now has an addition — a nursery for chicks. The separate section protects the young birds from being pecked by the older hens. Toward the back of the coop is the wooden house with a roost and the nesting boxes where the hens lay eggs. We have a dozen hens and we get about […]

Phyllo dough seems so simple: buy a box from the freezer case, defrost, brush with butter, and wrap around a filling. But the result tastes like paper, so is homemade phyllo dough worth the effort? Maria Sakellariou, who teaches Greek food classes for Kitchen Conservatory (next one is “Greek Goddess” on June 12), graciously taught […]

Parties are just more fun when they have a theme. I love duck, so why not an all-duck dinner? Great, except no one wants duck liver ice cream, so I served a mousse (not a goose or a moose) for dessert. I bought seven ducks, saved the livers, cut out the leg quarters for duck […]

My father always told me that the surest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. But I have found that not any food works; there are some controversial foods that do not bring the desired outcome. But this particular dish is sure to result in satisfaction – for all parties involved. Chicken-Leek Pot Pie (Cock-a-Leekie) […]

Our bees are angry and frustrated. The spring has been cool and wet, which has kept the bees inside their hives. What do you do when you are cooped up? Have sex. Yes, bees do do it. The bees have rapidly multiplied, which is good — except the crowd of bees produced multiple queens. The […]

The three ingredients that I always have in my refrigerator are butter, eggs, and heavy cream. Butter and eggs have a long shelf-life, but sometimes I run out of the more perishable heavy cream. What to do? My ace in the hole is a supply of canned coconut milk in the pantry. Coconut milk (which […]