CSA – Community Supported Agriculture is for You

  • Post published:04/13/2014
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For some people the initials CSA are just another of those annoying acronyms that can make our conversations sound like an unintelligible inter-office memo. For some CSA means Community Supported Agriculture which encompasses delicious local food, help for the farmer, and a community of like-minded folk who enjoy fresh food, and enjoy knowing they are supporting farmers and farms, and the very land and environment that surrounds us. Small farmers never think they are going to get rich…

Cooking Lessons Over the Years

  • Post published:03/13/2014
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As a liberated  woman I have made sure that my grandsons have had a few cooking lessons over the years. Rory was 13 when this photo was taken, but it is not his first lesson. Perfect scrambled eggs was probably an early lesson, but by 2009 he had moved along to the perfect omlette. Saumon en papillote, a Julia Child recipe, amazingly simple, but a dish with dash, has become Rory's specialite. I cannot begin to tell you…

Cookies for Moonlight Magic

  • Post published:11/21/2012
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  I'm still baking for the Family Feast tomorrow, but I just finished my cookies for Moonlight Magic in Shelburne Falls on Friday, November 23. Lots of  cookies for sale at the Visitors Center and lots of magic throughout the town. For more Wordlessness this Wednesday click here.  

An Autumnal Wedding in Heath with Cake

  • Post published:09/24/2012
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Yesterday I finished making a cake, to serve as ONE of the wedding cakes, for the wedding of our good friends Lyra and Ed. This is an All Occasion Downy Yellow Butter Cake with Mousseline buttercream frosting from my favorite cake cookbook, the Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. When I bought this cookbook I was particularly taken by the love story Rose tells in her Introduction and I can never resist repeating it when I am serving a…

Look At My Loot

  • Post published:01/05/2012
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As Christmas drew near a  friend asked if I his Christmas gift had been delivered. I said no deliveries and then waited every day for my treat to arrive. I did get a Package Too Big notice from the Post Office and picked up this bag of compost that had a mailing label right on the bag. I assumed it was some sort of sample from the Seven Years Gold company, although it did seem an odd time…

Monday Record June 13, 2011

  • Post published:06/13/2011
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Rain. Downpours. But the intrepid Garden Club of Amherst members were undaunted. I met them for a tour of the Elsa Bakalar/Scott Prior garden. In the background you can see that the old rhododendrons in back of the house near the woodland path are still blooming. The daffodils are long gone It's iris season in the garden right now. The Siberians don't mind how much rain they get. Of course, there are other bloomers right now like these…

Apple Blossom Time

  • Post published:05/27/2011
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I hope this photo give some sense of the amazing bloom of the Sargent crabapple. It is  not 15 feet tall, but it is at least 15 feet wide and was planted about 15 years ago. It thrives in the Sunken Garden even though it is very wet in the spring.  It is now in full flower - almost a single tree-sized blossom at this point. This apple tree, name unknown, produces apples but they are not the…

Sprouted Wheat Bread

  • Post published:01/06/2010
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Bread is the staff of life. I love making bread in general, especially in winter when the oven helps warm the house, but in preparation for my sprouting workshop at the Northampton Winterfare on Saturday, Jan. 9, I decided to make sprouted wheat whole wheat bread. I got a good recipe from the Sprout People website, and the result is delicious. The recipe made two loaves. One, the prettier one, went into the freezer so I can bring…