Darienne

I say WOW! to both of you, Kerry and PanaCan.

Reporting back some wonderful changes. In Peterpatch, at least. FreshCo, which took over from Price Chopper (where do they get these names?) now carries canned tomatillos. Still no fresh ones available. We can now get large cans of Poblanos from a local 'hot stuff' store, Firehouse Gourmet. Fresh Poblanos available at FreshCo and Sobeys. Life just gets better...

We had "Darienne's World Famous in Cavan Fruit Pancakes" with yogurt. Never thought to photograph them. We eat our main meal at lunch always...except when we are having company at dinner time.

Corn other than what we call Peaches and Cream, super sweet corn, would be a delight. All the kinds of corn we used to be able to buy, Chieftain is one name I recall, are all gone. Nothing but super sweet now.

So glad you are able to save your corn.

Wild grape jelly sounds just about divine. We had a bumper crop seventeen years ago and a friend and I had a wonderful time.

We haven't looked for corn yet in East Central Ontario and it's still too early for local. Still, I am hoping to be able to buy it local and fresh by mid-August when we host our Annual Dog Weekend. Saturday supper tradition. Still we have now been without rain for some time and the hemp - we are a hemp farm - is looking a mite peaked. Vacationers hope for sun; farmers hope for rain (but not too much either).

Thanks for all the answers about the apples. It's true, we had a very hot early spring and then it got cold again.

How are the bees looking in your area? What bees? I guess that's your answer. ...although I don't recall a heavy bee season the year before. And it was not a mast year either. Our pollinators have gone the way of the Dodo. We used to raise hard-shelled gourds, but the extra chore of being a sexual slave to the lustful gourd flowers became just too onerous. Did you have blossoms on the apple tree? We have a small tree in our tiny urban backyard here in Toronto. Last year, the tree was afoam with blossom, then bore thousands of apples (every single one of which was sampled and thrown by squirrels. Every. Single. One.). This year, we had no blossom and, of course, now no fruit. I know that sometimes apples and other fruiters will alternate -- heavy set one year, almost nothing the next. Don't know if that's what happened this year or something else. It was a really mild winter and there was a late frost -- but was it severe enough to stop the blossoms? Toronto lilacs were full of bloom this spring. Is there an Ontario Agriculture office that might have info on stuff like that? I know the US ag offices always did, but another thing I don't know about how it works here yet. ETA: My apologies for the construction of that last sentence. Haven't had coffee yet! OK. Last year, as mentioned, we had a plethora of apples. All good. No problems. And Ed says that there were not many blossoms this year. Our ornamental cherry was full of blossoms...but then we don't eat the fruits. Other people in our area reported the usual lilac blooms, but then we are higher than the surrounding countryside and the trees are not protected as in a city. I don't know about the agricultural reportage either. However, there is the wonderful local resource to whom one reports all strange and wonderful natural occurrences, and I can write to him and ask. He'll know. hmmm...on the other hand, we have more wild grapevine than since 1995. I'm hoping for wild grape jelly makings this year. And I do know about the coffee in the am situation.

How are the bees looking in your area? What bees? I guess that's your answer. ...although I don't recall a heavy bee season the year before. And it was not a mast year either. Our pollinators have gone the way of the Dodo. We used to raise hard-shelled gourds, but the extra chore of being a sexual slave to the lustful gourd flowers became just too onerous.

Coconut milk/cream makes a fine ice cream base and there are many suitable recipes online. I'm sure you could use rice or soy milk also.

I have a question. What could be happening to my apple trees? Right behind the house are two apple trees, a Mac and a Northern Spy. Last year they had more apples than I have seen in 17 years of living on the farm. Apples up the wazoo and farther even. We ate them, cooked them, made litres and litres of apple juice. Froze apple sauce. Left hundreds on the ground. We are finally running out of last year's apples. This year? NO APPLES. Well, maybe one or two. What is going on? (I might add that we had almost no lilacs this year either and the farm is covered with lilac trees. It's usually property line to property line in lilacs.)

The 'wafer' type candies are perfect for kids to work on. You make larger circles or shapes from the basic 'dough' and then when it has dried...about 24 hours...you can give the children small snack bags with different colored royal icing inside them, pricked with a pin, and let them loose. They have a ball!

They look incredibly delicious!!!

A food mill might take care of the peel.

Each year I add new ice creams to my repertoire, but the old (well, old as of 4 years old) favorites just keep being made over and over. Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream is always on the list. Along with Butterscotch Toffee Ice Cream and a kitchen sink kind which is more or less vanilla with endless inclusions.

I'm speechless. And double the offer if I order right now!

Small bits. I'll often put the un-churned ice cream mix in a stainless steel bowl into the freezer for one hour before churning it. To keep the bowl cold, I put a big fat elastic piece around the outside casing, and then slip two or three gel pacs...the kind for aches and pains...under the band and that keeps the bowl good and cold. We have a few freezers in our life: two big ones and two fridge type ones. The coldest freezer is the dog food freezer (our dogs eat real meat) and I use it for my ice cream freezer. It's so cold that some containers of churned ice cream have to go into the kitchen fridge freezer to keep them scoop-able in under 20 minutes.

The same goes for me. I feel if I am reasonably careful and frugal...which I am...it will all equal out in the end. OTOH, DH is a comparison shopper. Drives me crazy. I just leave him to it. He's happy. I'm happy. What more could a human ask for?

When I was a young'un, my Mother taught me to make salad dressing (the only thing cooking-wise I ever learned from her) and it always had a dash of Lea & Perrins. Now I have been married 52 1/2 years and we currently have two bottles on the go, and have run through an uncounted number of bottles over the decades. I don't always use it, it's true, but it is a part of life. ps. My parents were not of British extraction either. What dries out to the point of being tossed is pure creamed coconut which I still don't 'know' how to use. Our daughter's Grenadian BF, who is a terrific cook, uses it when he comes and needs it. Otherwise it sits and takes up its space, unhonored.

My tomatillos are not thriving this year. Last year they did. But it's early times yet. We've had tons of rain...and then days and days without rain. Right now we are without rain and I am diligently watering my small patch (container gardening) and waiting and hoping.

Thanks for the Kelsey Nixon cake. Just lovely. Found the recipe online. I have a friend who loves peanut butter and chocolate and each year for her birthday, I make her some featuring both. This sounds like fun (and so simple). Sometimes I gotta go with simple. And yummy. But simple.

On our twice yearly cross-USA trip to Utah, we often have lunch at Taco Bell. It is not high tone, but it fills several on-the-Interstate requirements. We'll report back about the Cantina Bowls as we try them.

Try googling David Lebovitz Tahini and Almond Cookies. That will give you the correct URL. I took the URL from the top of the proper page, but I couldn't get it to work either. Sorry.

Tahini and Almond Cookies http://www.davidlebo...cookies-recipe/ Just posted about these yesterday. Excellent biscuit. I added cardamom to them. Short and delicious.