Yes, this is also a Food blog!

Greetings and welcome to those recent readers who have found me via a very nice "Five Random Blogs" posting from Foodie Blogroll (or scroll down at my blog sidebar, at left) the other day. While I most often write about food in more of a second-hand way, as well as food-related and pantry-related pursuits (yes, I suppose even chickens and gardens are food-related), I do also post the occasional recipe and will try to do that more frequently.

For example, I've been a long-time browser at epicurious.com and have used many recipes there (as I no longer subscribe to Gourmet--however, I do still buy it in the market on occasion--I was delighted to find that they, and other, food magazines post recipes here). The other day I decided to sign up as a member of the site (free). That night for dinner I had made a succulent--for lack of a better word--rendition of orange-soy-braised pork ribs (substituting boneless beef ribs for pork and I braised them first in the pan on the stove top before baking them as directed--ah, the braise!). Rather than rewrite the recipe here I have linked to it with my comments/changes. I posted my comments on that recipe here (as "PantryGal" of course). I do enjoy tweaking recipes to fit. This will be a future favorite in our house. Next time I will try it with pork and fresh ginger but I suspect that beef will be preferable most of the time.

Bill Reilly

This morning we got the kind of phone call that one dreads. Richard, a friend from New Hampshire, called to tell us that his brother Bill had died suddenly on Thursday. He was only in his mid-50s.

Bill and Richard were not only brothers but best friends. They were also colleagues in the paint business for the past several decades. They were the best painting duo in the Monadnock region, without question, and long-time friends of my husband. Many times over the past thirteen years they have been a part of our days as they had painted most of our house--inside and out--at different times. They had also worked at the house for many years before we married (our former historic home was an on-going maintenance proposition).

Bill and Richard were always patient with our paint schemes and only once did they have to redo something they had done recently: our living room redo (when we opened two parlors into one) in November 2005. I remembered today that I had taken some photos of him then. Among the many other imprints they made on our new family life together in my husband's ancestral New England home: they painted and papered our first son's nursery (later my office, another redo) and painted and papered our two new (old-style) butler's pantries that I designed and that would inspire my book. They painted and papered our boys' first bedroom together. (Some rooms we had left alone out of homage to the original wallpaper.) They were as much a part of that big, old wonderful house as we were. When I remember that house I think of them in it, too, as the walls and woodwork are infused with their spirit and hard work.

Bill always had a warm grin and liked to talk about all manner of things including books (he was also a book dealer), sports (with his brother), even a harmless bit of gossip. It was never boring when the Reilly boys were around and Bill was happy to tell it like it was. I never minded when they listened to Howard Stern in the mornings (before he went to satellite radio), after our daughter headed off to school, as I was a closet listener myself (I don't think they could ever quite believe that).

It was also Stern's radio show that provided one of those unforgettable life moments. On September 11, 2001 Bill rushed into the kitchen from the front of the house, "Turn on the TV, a plane has hit the World Trade Center!" He had heard about it on Stern's show. The horror of that morning was somehow diminished by the presence of the Reilly brothers in our home. With them quietly painting, somehow it all seemed OK, that life was just going to go on. We talked, we processed, we vented. Always, Bill brought a certain Zen-like quality to his profession and presence. He also was an unwitting counselor and was happy to share his knowledge and experience on so many things.



While Bill was older than his younger brother and boss, Richard (whom we liked just as much), the respect and humor was always mutual. "Do you guys ever fight?" I'd often ask. Bill would make a snide comment with his wide smile and Richard would playfully fire something back. He was good to all of us: to my husband's aunt, to our three children, to our dog Lucy, whom he adored. Bill was just one of those rare and genuine people who truly meant what they said or offered in life. He was a craftsman, a jack-of-all-trades, a bibliophile. Bill was also a gentle giant. His heart was as big as his stature and that is ultimately, and suddenly, what ended his life. It is ironic that Bill's heart failed him in the end but I would doubt if he ever failed anyone in his life.

Chickens are in the House!

Mama Pond and her chickens: born on the first day of spring and delivered today.

At about 6:30 this morning we awoke to a call from Shelley at our local post office saying our chicks were in and we could get them as soon as they opened at 8 o'clock. The closest comparison to the bleary-eyed excitement I had is when we knew it was the day for each of our children to be born. I got to the post office while my husband got the boys to school. As soon as I opened the post office door, I heard a high "peep-peep" sound and there were the chicks, right up front next to Shelley. The divided box was small enough to keep 38 chickens warm: 10 New Hampshire Reds (of course), plus one extra that they provided; 10 Barred Rocks, plus one extra; 5 Rhode Island Reds; 5 Speckled Sussex; 5 Araucanas.



The chicks were shipped on Friday from Murray McMurray and apparently nature must have designed chicks to withstand three days without food or water. Sadly one died in shipping and, in dropping a light cord in trying to swing the cord over a rafter, I'm afraid I may have injured another (who is hobbling). I hope with some extra care and by making sure she gets to food and water several times a day that she will make it. I now realize why they sent 1 extra for each of the two sets of ten: things happen. We weren't expecting the chickens pre-dawn ("week of March 23" is a bit general but I guess they meant business), hence the light snafu. In other words, be prepared with the heat lamp before you take the chickens out of the box. Had it been colder we would have had to heat the box a bit before acquainting them and probably should have done anyway. Everything else was ready, at least, but that doesn't help the guilt I feel in harming a chick.

They also gave us a special "exotic chick," which is either male or female, and all we can determine right now is that he/she is a lovely silvery gray with an emerging distinctive tuft on his/her head. I think this chick might be a Blue Andalusian judging from a quick photo chick-check on a website, but we won't really know for certain right away. For some reason I immediately wanted to call he/she Alfonzo. When I later looked up the meaning of the name it derives from old German and means "ready for a fight," so perhaps it is a rooster. The naming of the chickens will be fun but I'm not sure how I will tell them all apart, even when they are larger. Perhaps they have their own distinctive characteristics that will help us. [Can you tell I'm a complete novice here?]


We retrofitted an old wooden frame crate with curved cardboard in the corners so the chicks won't bunch and crush each other.


When the chicks were taken out of their shipping box, I immediately put each one's beak in the waterer. I don't know where I read that but it seemed to work. Soon they were scurrying between their feed and water jars.


We also put a screen (not in photo) on top of the box so they can't jump out just yet.

Tonight the chicks are all warm under the heat lamp and are eating and drinking well on a soft bed of cedar shavings (a natural bug deterrent, too, like the cedar clapboarded chicken house). We waited until now to get the chicks because we wanted to make sure the outside temperature wasn't a sustained cold. Fortunately it is not too cold this evening and today was in the upper 70s. Before I came in to finish this blog, my husband said, "I was going to get you a subscription to Backyard Poultry magazine but our chicken house is located in the front yard." Ha, ha. (Or is that "peep, peep?") Either way, I look forward to many years ahead with the hens. With three boisterous male puppies, two boys and a husband (our daughter is 1,100 miles away), I need all the girls I can get around here!

How to Get Your Husband to Roto-Till

This is golden shovel kind of moment: my husband roto-tilling our first Kentucky garden patch which lies in front of our new "hinkel house" (Pennsylvania "Deutsch" for "chicken house")

I tend not to nag but started in about our small garden patch a few months ago. It was last planted two summers ago when the former owner had her last vegetable garden here (I am grateful for so many of her thoughtful plantings of trees, shrubs and some perennials and I'm sad to say I haven't done her gardening justice). Her wire fence was caving in and I wanted something more substantial. About a month ago, post-chicken house construction, the crew put up some sturdy locust posts and good solid wire--the kind we have inside and out of the chicken house--and a cedar gate. Not only does the garden have to be chicken-proof, it needs to avert puppies, guinea hens and any number of wild rabbits (and let's not forget the neighbor's often unpaddocked horses and goats--not that I'm complaining).

For several weeks I've been itching to plant onions, early cabbage and lettuces, spinach, radish and peas that, if I plant next week at the latest, I can pick in mid-late May. I'm realizing that mid-March here is like late April or early May in New Hampshire with its warm days, cool (often cold) nights, and still a chill to the ground and air. Because the growing season is longer here you can really have a spring garden, a summer garden (all annuals that thrive after frost), and a fall garden. Our first frost last year was well into October and I understand you can set out squashes, melons, peppers, tomatoes and everything else after May 10. By June it is too hot for peas and most lettuces or colder crops like kale and cabbage. [Not sure when I can plant leeks--spring or late summer here? Something else to check. Meanwhile I emailed my garlic farmer friend Edie at Bee's Wing Farm and she reminded me that garlic is planted in the fall and harvested in the spring. It will be interesting to try it here. "Definitely soft neck," she added.]

As the fence has been done for a while, I have been sending subtle--and not so subtle--hints that we need to get the garden roto-tilled. Today, while we were at Homestead Greenhouses, I mentioned in front of Lena the owner (knowing full well my husband was in ear shot, but pretending that he wasn't) that "we're here to look at your fruit trees and bushes and I can't buy my onion sets until our garden is roto-tilled." You know, breezy, not pointed, and kind of in passing. As soon as we got home what was the first thing my husband did? Hauled out the roto-tiller, changed the oil and away he went. Then our boys each had a turn. He was pleased that a 39-year old tiller could start as it did, especially after not being used in a few years. I chuckled, noting the proximity of my age to the roto-tiller (add about seven years) and questioned my capacity to do the same.

However, the emergent problem became: "that because the ground is hard, I will probably have to cut the wire fence and go in with the tractor and cultivate it." "OH NO! NOT THE FENCE!" I said, silently to myself, followed by an equally silent "of course, the garden soil probably wouldn't be so packed down if you didn't have the tractor parked on top of it all winter." Now all that remains: "Will he or won't he?" That is the question.

Meanwhile, I feel like, well, a mother hen awaiting the call from Shelley at our local post office telling me that my chicks have arrived from Murray McMurray Hatchery. Tomorrow we need to make a large half of a wooden shipping crate into a circle by affixing rounded cardboard in the corners (to keep the chicks from backing each other into a corner if they get scared), rig up the heat lighting, get the feeder and waterer cleaned and ready (of course I bought the feed and shavings weeks ago--the chicken baskets, feeders and waterers I've had for a few years--truly--it's like getting a nursery together for an expected child). We will be going to a local Mennonite auction next week where we will likely pick up some guinea hens and maybe a few other chicken varieties. The guineas will free range and live in the trees but I need to better research how or if I can mix older laying hens with chicks in the chicken house.

I've just ordered our Cornish X chicks (for the freezer--aka "The Chickens that Will Have No Name but for which We Are Thankful") that will arrive the week of May 11. It is probably best to have the chick arrivals staggered. Even though the meat birds and the future laying hens will be in their own half of the chicken house duplex, I'd rather not be overwhelmed with too many chicks at once. That also gives us four months or so to eat up the rest of the food in the freezer! At least this is my rationale given that the local source we thought we had for young meat birds is not getting them this year and May 11 is the earliest Murray McMurray will ship them now.


Two pots of emerging New Hampshire rhubarb plants await their new home, along with thirteen (always a lucky number for me) strawberry plants that I salvaged from our Kentucky garden, pre-roto-tilling, and placed on top. Now, where to put them? Our son Henry is having his turn on the roto-tiller.

I was delighted today to discover that a tiny bit of "Golden Glow" brought from my New Hampshire garden survived its winter pot and two glorious shoots of rhubarb are also beginning to emerge from theirs. That rhubarb came from the Gray Goose Farm, where my grandparents and mother farmed, then to my apartment, to our home in Hancock and now to Kentucky. The Golden Glow, in the Rudbekia family, is an old-fashioned tall perennial sunflower-type plant that blooms in late summer. It was often planted next to New England outhouses [in this photograph, above, it blooms happily next to the tool shop at the Sawyer Farm in Jaffrey, along with some phlox]. About ten years ago or perhaps more, my husband and I ventured up to East Hardwick, Vermont to Perennial Pleasures Nursery. This mother and daughter duo specialize in heirloom plants and every one is grown in their gardens and hardy to Zone 3 so you know they are tough. Golden Glow is one of the first perennials we bought (from this nursery) when we were setting out our first garden together so I very much wanted to bring some of it along here.


The other day we unloaded the contents of our "barn truck" that has been in a friend's driveway since last July. It was like Christmas in March--now all housed in the new shop and old garden shed. Eli holds a garden sign I found in a scrap pile at a New Hampshire nursery.

We wanted hardy New England stock for our first New Hampshire garden planted over ten years ago and it is really no surprise that after haphazardly watering the transplants in late fall, a few winter freezes, and puppy nibbling, that these pots from New Hampshire have survived. I am delighted that they did. Meanwhile, some transplanted apple mint--another Gray Goose Farm "original" heirloom via a transplanting from the Sawyer Farm--needs to be checked up the road at its temporary location. In the rush of our last few weeks in New Hampshire I dug those plants with my friend Rosemary (also a Cupcake--who prefers to be anonymous) who also dug some for herself. Somehow this last garden ritual seemed important to do and in sharing the plants with a friend, somehow less upsetting. I felt like the early settlers might have done when they carried root stock and seeds across the mountains from New England to their new frontier homes, among few things brought from their old homes along with them. It's been a very long while since I've wanted to put down new roots.

Oh it is good to dig in the dirt while watching your husband (and boys) roto-till. [And yes, I could probably get the thing going myself but there are some things that just aren't in my job description!] As he said, it is the last he'll have to do with the garden this year. I expect he is waiting to see how committed I am, first. I don't mind as the boys will enjoy helping me and it will be my own little patch of earth to tend. Meanwhile, the daffodils are thriving in front of the chicken house and seem to await the chickens' arrival, too. It amazes me that they pushed forth despite all of the activity on top of them in recent months. Spring is a glorious time and always an assertion that life goes onward, no matter what comes our way or what beats us down.

Oh, Happy Spring on the Ridge! Hurrah!

Here on the ridge, forsythia and Bradford pear trees are blooming, and the daffodils are poking up around my chicken house! This is a view up to our knob on Hickory Nut Ridge from the back of our chicken house in the circle in front of the double-wide where the old barn once stood. It is the largest knob on the ridge, Dick Knob (no, "Dick Knob Farm" just won't do, will it?), but you can't see the top from our double-wide. Soon it will be a pasture to cattle after we hay it one more season.

And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Sensitive Plant"

In third grade, we had to memorize Riley's "Little Orphant Annie" and "The Raggedy Man," with Miss Schell at Old Trail School outside of Akron, Ohio (a beloved place and time in my memory). Both are classic Riley poems about a hired girl and a hired man. Because of their sing-song cadence, amusing dialect, and images that delight children, it was not hard to memorize them. At the start of my kindergarten year in 1967, my grandfather Penfield in Akron also gave me his original illustrated book of Riley's children's poems, The Raggedy Man [This edition was reprinted several years ago.] I still have this cherished edition, complete with Grandpa's own childhood scribblings and a lovely inscription to me. [I am hard pressed if I can find it in my boxes and general clutter right now--for more on this topic of chaos and clutter, see my recent posting over at Cupcake Chronicles. The Cupcakes are all in a tizzy about spring cleaning, town meetings, Peeps, and our upcoming reunion in Asheville, North Carolina on April Fool's Day! Biltmore Estate will never be the same...talk about spring cleaning!]

Little Orphan Annie was a real person who came to stay at the childhood home of beloved Hoosier poet, James Whitcomb Riley, in Indiana. Riley wrote poetry in the native cadence and speech of his day, like Mark Twain and others, and for that reason was often considered offensive or in poor taste by contemporary critics (and even when examined in our more politically correct modern times). But I say, put aside your PC-ness and embrace this beloved rural poet. His poetry is made to be read aloud, preferably by a cozy fire with children and puppies at your feet.

Here is the first verse of this immortal poem:

Little Orphant Annie's come to my house to stay.
To wash the cups and saucers up and brush the crumbs away.
To shoo the chickens from the porch and dust the hearth and sweep,
and make the fire and bake the bread to earn her board and keep.
While all us other children, when the supper things is done,
we sit around the kitchen fire and has the mostest fun,
a listening to the witch tales that Annie tells about
and the goblins will get ya if ya don't watch out!

NOTE: If you want to read the poem in its original dialect and sentence structure, as written by James Whitcomb Riley, click here. To hear Riley reading this poem, and "The Raggedy Man," click here.

Today I was reminded of Little Orphan Annie (or "orphant" as Riley spelled it -- I should note, too, that no one knows if she inspired the comic strip version a few decades later on) when one of the Cupcakes asked about whether or not there was a local rag man in New Hampshire (spring cleaning and all that). Apparently, rag men used to come door to door and would buy old rags, clothes and cloth to sell to paper companies for pulp. I just learned of this term in Perley: The Story of a New Hampshire Hermit that the Cupcakes are reading this month. [In looking for images to illustrate this blog, I discovered a new blog that I know I will love. James Whitcomb Riley was written about over at Life at Willow Manor and I look forward to reading more of this blog on art, literature, good food and so many things I enjoy reading and writing about.]

I could use a Little Orphan Annie around here, or Wendy Darling from Peter Pan, especially when those chickens arrive next week (although I expect the puppies will do their best to shoo them off our porch). And I know those goblins will get me if I don't finish my office and bedroom tidying up. Today, and every Friday of late, I am blessed to have Debbie cleaning up a storm in the double-wide. It is helpful to have someone help me clean house, especially when I have ADD and am generally distracted by other things (like writing, office organization--she still hasn't seen my office and bedroom--and soon our garden). Fortunately, I have a tolerant husband and one who suggested that we hire Debbie in the first place. I had to admit I needed help and for someone with self-diagnosed compulsive-hoarding syndrome, Debbie is God sent.

...Now, I'm just thinking that Debbie might not mind if I call her "Little Debbie," as she has a great sense of humor, but now that has me thinking of the oatmeal pies creme-filled pies by the same name and Whoopie pies, those delectable chocolate pies that deserve an entire blog to themselves and that my Mennonite friends make to perfection--chocolate and pumpkin and that I once made from the King Arthur Flour recipe long ago (divine: click here for the recipe) and that were recently written about in The New York Times "Food" section--oh, dear, are Whoopie pies the new Cupcakes? Please, no! And can't you tell that I haven't had lunch?--and oh, just a literary aside, do you realize you are now witness to my ADD problem just flowing to the bark of the tree like fine New Hampshire maple sap, that is surely boiling on a day like today up there?...Believe it or not, this ADD-addled woman once wrote a book. Who was that woman!!?? Hopefully I shall find her again after I recover from this intoxicating, brisk first day of spring...and a necessary late-March frenzy of spring cleaning, too...