GG Mora

I nominate GGMora! Spring Fling in the Green Mountains, wooohoooo!!! (Actually, I just want to see more crazy marzipan critters. How about a catamount? ...or "champ", the elusive monster of Lake Champlain? There's an idea... it would have to be huge!) Well...I did Thanksgiving week...does that count? Malheureusement, the marzipan freak is not of my own making.

I nominate JohnnyD. A summer's week in Maine! (Actually, I'm just dyin' to know if he wears that hat year 'round, like some incidental-but-totally-crucial Northern Exposure character) Diggin' yer blog, BTW.

Pity given. I'm in the very same boat, having replace my tidy cottage and its carefully manicured grounds and gardens with an overgrown unlandscaped hulk. I can't even begin to establish perennial beds since nearly all of the property is to be excavated and regraded once we have the $$$. We did get the very front of the house graded in our first year, and last spring laid out wood-framed raised beds in which to do some vegetable gardening. They were quite successful (and rock- [though not stone-] free). We added two more this year. You can really overcome a multitude of sins this way. As for all that rain...you have my deepest sympathy. A few years back, we had such a rainy spring & early summer that the soil started to grow great patches of icky yellow mold. And don't get me started on the slugs. I'll pray to the sun gods for you.

Raw green bell peppers. They're nothing but unripe sweet red peppers, and that's just wrong. Caviar. Big yawn. It's not even that I don't like it, I just don't find it interesting enough that I actually want to eat it. And I've tried it every way known to mankind. Actually, it was almost good on a toast point with peanut butter. I have the same issue as Reesek with orange flavors; stems from that horrid Bayer baby aspirin that I was given whenever I had the pukes as a kid, which was too often. Sea urchin? Tried it once in a sushi restaurant where it was most certainly unfresh. Vile. I will, if I ever get back to Cassis in France, sample fresh oursin right on the quai, fresh from the ocean, washed back with a very cold local white wine. And then I will decide. Moxie. Apple pie made with Delicious apples (a crime against humanity). Andouillette: Hey! This really does taste like shit!

You're in luck. This thread deals mostly with chess pie and offers some lively discussion and a few excellent recipes. Oh, and Welcome® to eGullet.

I'm joining the party late, too, and for my first time!!!!! Please elaborate on feeding with Neptune's Secret...Where, what, and how often? Thanks.. gg Oops, my bad. It's actually called Neptune's Harvest. Kind of a slurry of rotted things from the sea...I use the fish/seaweed blend. Very mild organic fertilizer, and not terribly stinky as fish by-products go. I just dump the contents of a bottle into a hose-end sprayer/mixer – like the Ortho Dial-n-Spray. I generally set the mix to 2 tbsp/gallon. That's stronger than recommended (I think), but the sprayer isn't all that accurate, since water from the hose tends to leak into the bottle. Besides, it's such a mild elixir to begin with, there's no real danger of burning the plants or anything. When I plant out seedlings, I water them in well with NH for a few days. You can get the "sprayer" to output sort of a heavy dribbling flow, with which I water well at the base of each plant. It helps get the seedlings past that nitrogen-deprived yellowy green they often develop sitting crammed in starter trays. Throughout the growing season, I fertilize again about every 2 weeks. I also highly recommend using some kind of quick-release couplings for your hose and attachments. This type from Gardena, with the pull-back release, are primo (just including the link to show the type – Hell's Depot carries something similar for a lot less money). This lets you switch around your attachments without having to wander back to the faucet and turn it off every time. Between the sprinkler, the fertilizer sprayer, and the pistol-grip sprayer, I do fair bit of switching them around, so it saves a lot of wandering.

Oh, goody. I'm loving this. Been to Chi once, for three days....loved it, can't wait to get back, so for now: vicarious thrills via Adoxograph. Sarcasmo.

Tutti Fruitti. Now that's just plain wrong.

Try spraying with a solution of Neem Oil. It's also effective against apple rusts and scab (and a host of other ills). I've used this product from New England Hydroponics, with good results, against cabbage worm, whitefly and aphids.

Yes, but did his happiness quotient rise? As any good earthworm should.

You got that right.

Rub it in. I'm lusting after a VC grill so badly I can taste it. You won't be disappointed; I got to test drive one of the lesser models at a friend's house & it made my Weber (which I already hated) feel like a Kenner Easy-Bake.

You know, I lived in New Beige for 4 years while I was in art school & never got hipped to Antonio's. You'd think it would've been a given for starving art students. But we were high-minded and insular, and who knew anything about food then? Dayum. Next time I'm through town, I'm taking the family to Antonio's.

Huevos Rancheros. The permutations range from the basic warmed flour tortilla with two over-easies, some grated cheddar and a spoonful of bottled salsa to the Sunday morning blowout with black beans, homemade pico de gallo, sour cream and chopped fresh cilantro. Anything in between counts, too. Sometimes it has to have a corn tortilla. Lots of strong coffee. Problem is, this kind of indulgence negates the possibility of a slothful Sunday on the couch. All that food necessitates a good long bike ride or, in winter, a long snow-shoe or XC ski.

Dang. And me just now getting mine in the ground...

I'm joining the party late; it's just planting time here in SoVT. Spent most of yesterday turning under the soil in my raised beds and planting out, while my husband built two new beds and the kids filled them with dirt. Won't bore you with lists or general pics unless anyone's really interested. The real purpose of this post is to share my unorthodox technique for growing leeks. Rather than plant them in a trench and hill them throughout the season, I tuck seedlings into pre-poked holes and then leave them be, aside from weeding and fertilizing (FWIW, I water everything with a solution of Neptune's Secret throughout the season). Goes like this: I start by marking out a grid and poking holes. I use an iron rod for poking holes. The beds are 8" deep, so I just drive the rod in and circle it slightly to pack the sides of the hole. The holes are about 1/2" dia. I knock all the dirt off a bunch of seedlings... ...then carefully pull out one seedling at a time. Since I'm not using all the seedlings, I choose the ones with the most vigorous, and longest, green tops. I hold the seedling by the top of the white, just below where it starts to be flimsy... ...and tuck it deep into the hole, probably 6". Here's the planted grid: There's enough green top to soak up sun and air to feed the roots. They take a little while to get going, but this method has several advantages: it produces leeks with plenty of the desirable white, blanched section; the leeks have less dirt and grit in the layers; they're quite fuss-free relative to "trenched" leeks. And they'll grow big and fat just the same. Also wanted to share this: A full box of hardneck garlic, planted last fall. Just starting to develop scapes. Does anyone have any experience with a variety of tomato called "Black from Tula"? The tag at the nursery described it as "the ugliest, most delicious variety grown". Couldn't pass up a promise like that & brought home one plant for trials.

Now, Jelly Bellies...I'm just a plain old addict. I'll regularly (well, like every couple of months, maybe) buy a 1/4 lb. mixed and chomp through them in an afternoon. Unfortunately, the mixes are often abominated by mint flavors and bubble gum – gack. Vanilla and marshmallow are sort of boring – they're just sweet and not much else. Other than those, I love nearly all of them. Some faves are jalapeno, margarita, cappucino, popcorn, pear and pina colada. Or am I confused? Are there only coconut and pineapple? Which are both good, too. This is sort of dopey, but I'll share it anyway. A few years ago, I was driving around snarfing jelly beans and started to feel a little sick from overindulgence. But I knew that, so long as those beans were still in the car, I would keep eating them until they were gone. So I opened the sunroof and starting tossing jelly beans out by the handful. It felt like some wierd quasi-Johnny Appleseed thing, only planting Happy seeds. Pure coincidence, I'm sure, that I met my soul mate about a month later. But I blame it on the beans. Bollocks. Now I'm jonesing for a bag of beans.

Lucy - Just to indicate how deeply this blog is affecting me: I dreamed about it last night. I dreamed that you were actually somewhere in New Jersey, using photos from a long-ago trip to France to illustrate your blog. Since I am from New Jersey myself, and since I have scads of photos from trips to France past, and since I ache to someday live in France, I believe there is some funny transference going on here. I do not for a moment believe, consciously, that you are anywhere but Lyon. I think I'm just envious down to the core. I know I've already said so, but your photographs are beautiful. You have a fine sense of composition, one that seems entirely intuitive. I hope that you have aspirations towards becoming a professional food photographer; if you don't, you should. I'm also envious of your ability to stick to a dietary regime. My aging metabolism is so worn out that diets just don't get me anywhere, at least not with the sort of haste that keeps one making the sorts of sacrifices required. I've decided to try and exercise away my excess size (since exercise is the only thing that has worked at all for me in recent years). I'm doing circuit weight training 3 times a week, in addition to cycling anywhere from 50 - 100 miles weekly and keeping up my already careful(ish) eating habits. My house itself functions as a stair-master , with two steep flights between my office and the main floor – I make at least 10 trips up and down daily. I'm to be measured today to gauge my progress after the first month (I'm trying to eschew the bathroom scale). Fingers crossed that I'll show some shrinkage. Sorry to hijack your thread. Just want you to know that I'm following ever-so-closely.

This may or may not explain lovebenton0's and Fifi's mystery squash. Cucurbits are notoriously promiscuous and subject to enthusiastic cross-pollination between species. Most winter squash, summer squash, gourds and pumpkins can cross-pollinate with each other, though not with melons or cucumbers. When cross-pollinated, the plant will produce fruit with seed that is not true-to-type. A zucchini cross-pollinated by a delicata, for example, will produce fruit that is true-to-type, but the seed of that fruit may produce plants whose fruit have characteristics of both the zucchini and the delicata. When squash are grown for seed, the recommended isolation between species, to prevent cross-pollination, is half a mile. So, lovebenton0, if your squash can't be identified as one distinct variety, and you grew it from purchased, labeled seed, it's possible that the seed grower wasn't aciduous about isolating their plants. And Fifi, the squash in your mother's compost probably grew from the seed of a fruit from a cross-pollinated plant (which could have happened anywhere – your garden, her garden, the field at any farm...). I've had all kinds of crazy vines grow out of my compost pile. I just use the fruit as decorative gourds, since there's no telling what they might taste like. There's your botany lesson for the day. Edit: Lovebenton0, I just went back and read that your mystery squash came from a plant labeled zucchini. Possibly the grower was doing their own seed-saving and didn't have the isolation quite right?

My husband makes an omellette of Granny Smith apples and cheddar with sautéed onions. It's delicious, and not unharmonious in the least. Edit: But Mac & cheese with apple? How is it Jinmyo says? "Gah?" "Feh?" Ick, anyway.

There's so much I can't get here in Vermont, I'd die without the internet... Cheese from iGourmet. The quality and selection are excellent, and their customer service did way right by me by doing a walk-though of the warehouse to check on availability of some unusual stuff. Spanish products from Tienda. Paella rice, chorizo, sherry vinegar, smoked paprika, gas burners... Saffron and vanilla beans in large quantities from Vanilla, Saffron Imports. Quality and prices are excellent, and their website has a wealth of information about both products. The CMC Company for all things Mexican – a vast variety of dried peppers, also masa harina, corn husks, herbs and spices. Macadamia nuts from Zenobia for my coveted Macadamia Toffee. I'm sure I'm forgetting some other gems, but there's a start.

I'd second (third?) the rec for going in October. I've been there in August – don't bother: all tourists and (nearly) everything good is closed. Late April / early May: can be lovely but can just as easily be miserable. Twice I've been in Paris in the fall, once in early October and once in mid-November. Mid-November might just as well have been the crappy bits of spring. Early October might just as well have been early September – that year, anyway. It was sunny, warm and wonderful for an entire week. Fall seems to be less touristy, too. If you decide not to take your nephew, I could probably fill the empty spot.

"Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me, twice on the pipes if the answer is 'no'..." You can't be serious.

Mr. Mora and I plan to attend. With dessert in tow.