all i want for my birthday

...is a new porch light. Well, ok, if you bought me a dining room chandelier, I wouldn't complain. And a few guys to powerwash and paint the exterior of my house. And, um, that kitchen vent? And new cabinets for the kitchen and a fig tree and a carport and a patio and a garden retaining wall and a new bathroom.

This is like "Stone Soup," but opposite.

honey, I'm home

We are so fortunate to live in an amazingly fecund place, the Willamette Valley. This month's Sunset magazine (the Northwest version, at least) features an article on the area. I went to an orchard this weekend just outside of town, and although I was sorely tempted to pick peaches, I settled on a half-flat of the biggest raspberries I've ever seen, perfect green beans, kohlrabi, cukes, walnuts, and a jar of local honey marked 'M/F.'

M/F is "meadowfoam," a marsh plant that apparently produces beneficial oils. It also produces an unusual honey from bees that mess around in its pollen. The farmer told me it tasted like caramel, and she was right. I've never tasted anything like it. It has notes of burnt sugar and what can only be called marshmallow (see list of honey types below).

You can read more about meadowfoam here, which is where I purloined the lovely image.

I always knew honey came in different types, based on the local flowers, and when we moved to Eugene I was delighted to see blackberry honey available everywhere. Blackberry honey doesn't have a marked taste of blackberries, though, and the delight turned quickly to disappointment. It seems, however, that meadowfoam is a local product, perhaps a flash-in-the-pan like the emu or nutria craze, but until they let loose the meadowfoamettes, I'm happy to call this a Willamette Valley specialty.

From this list, you can see how wildly honey varieties vary. Which ones have you tried? Are the descriptions accurate? And more importantly, what should I make with my meadowfoam honey?

fortification fridays - cold cherry soup

It's no secret that I love Hungarian food. This soup is a wonderful, simple way to either start a summer meal or end one. I've also been having fantasies about using it as a sauce over, say, crepes. There is an even better variation with sour (morello) cherries, and more traditional, complicated ways to make the soup (using more spices, cream, an egg yolk, etc.), but this one does in a pinch. And in the middle of the summer, doing in a pinch is good.

Cold Cherry Soup

Serves: 6 in tiny cups (it's rather rich)
Kitchen needs: A stovetop or hotplate

1 lb. pitted, halved cherries (bing are prettiest, but you may also use sour cherries)
1/2 cup Syrah or other intense red wine (Hungarian Bulls' Blood is perfect)
1/2 lemon, sliced and deseeded
4 T. sour cream, mixed with 1 T. powdered sugar
pinch cloves and a few shakes cinnamon, optional

Place cherries in saucepan and barely cover with water. Add lemon slices, wine, and spices to boil, then simmer until cherries soften but don't discolor. Whisk in sour cream and powdered sugar mixture. Simmer until slightly thickened, watching carefully so it doesn't boil, then chill before serving. Cold is crucial. Serve with whipped cream and cinnamon.

Image courtesy of a blog that makes me really sad I don't read Hungarian.

a sucker born every minute

There's a "sale pending" sign on the turquoise cottage. Crazy.

a berry happy july 4

The day the lonesome can. This is the closest you'll ever see me flag-waving, so enjoy!

Mr. Reluctant and I chose Independence Day 1998 to become officially husband and wife. We liked the irony. Now, nine years later, we're spending the day apart for the first time ever, I think. Even when we lived in different states (for three years), we were always together in the beginning of July. So I slave over a hot stove, on a hot day, turning berries into magic. There are worse things, I suppose.

Next year my raspberries will be, with all good luck, fecund. This year, I had to go to the farm stand to buy them. Oregon's Willamette Valley, where I am very pleased to say I live, is a huge berry-producing area. We are most proud of the Marionberry, which is a huge blackberry and not to be confused with Marion Barry, but I love the Boysenberry the most. Boysenberries are a cross between a blackberry, a red raspberry, and a Loganberry (itself a cross between the first two). They are reddish-purple and plump, and have a particular haunting, tart edge to the blackberry flavor. Needless to say, they make delicious jam. If you are ever in Oregon, be sure to find a place to taste our varieties of blackberry jam: Marionberry, Evergreen blackberry, wild (Himalayan) blackberry, Ollalieberry, and Boysenberry.

Although I've made blackberry jam and have eaten Boysenberries off the vine in Michigan (we had them at our house growing up), I've never been lucky enough to find a flat at a farm stand. Until now! YUM! I added a bit of my homemade blueberry liqueur, and used less sugar than usual (and Pomona pectin), and put up a big stock of Blue Boysenberry Jam and Hungarian Kisses Raspberry Jam (with Hungarian apricot liqueur).

And I did it all without an operational hood fan and no ventilation in the stove area on a 90-degree day. Now if that isn't hard core, I don't know what is. Let the freedom to do dumb things in the heat ring.

an apple (and a plum) a day

Name that fruit! I was surprised to find my plum tree bore bright tiny, red fruit with an amber flesh. Word on the street says that it's been a bad year for plums, and they are all small, so I'm not sure about the regular size. The poor little apple tree is suffering from peach leaf curl, I think, and it bore a bunch of fruit on exactly ONE branch. I'm not sure what to do about that. I think the apples may be Granny Smiths. They aren't quite ripe yet, and it's surprisingly early for them to be ripe at all, so I just have no clue. Anyone have any ideas on what kinds of plums or apples these might be?

EDITED TO ADD: Turns out the crops that need pollination, such as apples, didn't set well this year because it was so cold and the bees amscrayed. Only the sunniest branches of many fruit trees were visited by bees, hence the weird fruit set patterns.

The weeding project is going pretty well. The ground cover sucks eggs, man.

wish you were here...

...to help me weed! I'm tackling the front beds, which, according to the neighbor, haven't been touched as long as he can remember. That means over 10 years! Yay! Projects include digging out layers of root-running grass roots, removing heinous ground cover, murdering vinca vine shoots, disentangling grape vine, resetting the ugly brick border, laying out soaker hoses, and worrying over shubbery that was mangled with a chain saw.

The only nice thing is working under the gloriously magenta fronds of my flowering butterfly bush tree. And you, of course, since you're coming over to help. Thanks and see you soon!

Love,
me