We couldn’t ignore Ken’s special announcement in the Order of Service at church on Sunday. It said “Raspberry Emergency – Help!”

The announcement went on to say that Ken had many more raspberries than he could possibly pick. Although I wasn’t dressed for raspberry picking, I was willing to help. Charles and I followed the directions, drove up a bumpy, country road, dappled with sunlight and found Ken’s house.

The enormous, overgrown, raspberry patch was behind an equally large vegetable garden. Raspberries, the fruit of perennial plants whose name comes from a European variety called Rufus ideaus, (which translates as “with red fruit”), need lots of sun and water. From the look of his raspberry patch, this hot, Vermont summer has been perfect for the berries. When Ken planted the raspberry canes 20 years ago, he was told that he had planted them too close together and that they would die. The canes are more than five feet tall and loaded with berries that are as big as the tip of my thumb.

We shouted, “Hello!” to our fellow, emergency raspberry helpers, found a shady, bug-free place to pick and got started. In almost no time, my small basket was filled and I transferred the berries into a large flat box so that the berries on the bottom of the pile wouldn’t get squashed. After half an hour, we had eaten our fill and harvested about eight cups of berries.

I froze all of the berries, except for what we planned to eat that evening. I lined two rectangular cake pans with aluminum foil and filled them with a single layer of raspberries. After half an hour in the freezer, the berries were frozen enough to be transferred to a resealable plastic bag. It took two batches to freeze all of the berries. Freezing the berries before packing them in plastic bags makes it easy to use a few berries at a time.

Raspberries, high in vitamin C and a good source of natural fiber and antioxidants, come in many colors: red, black, purple and gold. They are expensive to buy because they are soft, bruise easily, spoil quickly and don’t ship well. It’s much better and more fun to pick your own.

Having ruby red, homemade, raspberry jam waiting patiently on a shelf in my pantry is like having summer sunshine in a jar. Here’s how I made it: … read more

It’s been nearly thirteen years since that church supper that inspired all this pickle making.

I’m not quite so naïve but I still marvel at the beauty of Jersey cows’ eyelashes, I’m a member of that church and I design the poster for Red Flannel Hash Supper each year.

I decided to use apples is this recipe that is the last, for the moment, in my refrigerator pickle series. In all of the refrigerator pickle recipes, measurements are arbitrary; the amount of sugar and spice can be varied.  When I don’t have enough liquid to cover the fruit or vegetable, I use vinegar to top off the jar. These pickles will keep in the fridge for at least two months. These pickles are nice with a sandwich or served with grilled chicken. Here’s how I made them: … read more

In my childhood, wedges of ice-cold, pink watermelon, dotted with shiny, black seeds were the before-dark, Fourth of July Picnic dessert. When the fireflies appeared and the bonfire was glowing, we moved on to sticky, hot, sometimes burned, toasted marshmallows.

It was important to eat the watermelon before sunset because we needed to be able to see who could spit seeds the farthest. Even the grown-ups enjoyed the contest and so, spitting, limited to seeds at picnics, was exempt from the general prohibition against spitting.

The distance-spitting competition usually deteriorated into a melee of targeting siblings, rivals and unsuspecting pets.

Late in the afternoon, on July third, my dad would bring home a block of ice. He used an awe inspiring ice pick to break up the ice for the food cooler, the drink cooler and the metal tub that held the watermelon. For many years, I ate watermelon plain, not even dusted with salt. Watermelon juice dripped off my chin and down my arms.  It was sweet, pink, crisp, cool organized water.

Watermelon is an inexpensive fruit that is loaded with Vitamins C and A and also a source of the anti-oxidant, lycopene. Historians believe that it originated in Africa, and today China is the world’s largest producer of watermelon.  When I was traveling in Shanghai in the summer of 1985, the garbage collectors were on strike and watermelon rinds were piled high in empty lots across the city. There are more than a thousand varieties of watermelon ranging from under a pound softball size to gigantic fruits that weigh more than two hundred pounds.  Watermelon flesh may be red, orange, yellow or white.

I still love watermelon even though it rarely has the necessary ammunition for a distance competition or even target practice. I have progressed from serving plain chunks of watermelon to serving it sliced and dusted with smoky herbs, and have used it in salads, salsas, and drinks.  A sprinkle of seasoning and a squeeze of citrus made slices of watermelon sing.  Here’s how I made Spicy Watermelon Slices, Watermelon Salsa and Watermelon Coolers: … read more

I wanted to use the rhubarb that came in my CSA bag to make something incredible. I like rhubarb in pie, as sauce, in quick bread but my goal was to make something exotic with this reliable, New England, early spring offering. The most exotic ingredient I found in a recipe was nutmeg. Nutmeg – sure I like nutmeg and use it when I make a rhubarb pie but it wasn’t the zing I was looking for. When I  wondered what Julia (Child) would do, I thought of butter. And when I wondered what James (Beard) would do I thought of butter and cream.  An idea was coming into focus.

I would poach rhubarb in butter and sugar and then nestle it into meringue shell and top it with whipped cream to make a rhubarb pavlova. Here’s how I made it: … read more

Do you still have snow? Is the sap running? Have you seen mergansers on the river?

These familiar questions are heard at the post office, the Creamery, the market, and at community dinners in the early spring.

It was a bright morning last April, when I saw pink sprouts pushing up through the cold earth. Within a week, there were pink stems topped with dark green leaves. Rhubarb! It would be the first harvest from my garden. Along with the phoebes that nest in the rafters of the barn, it’s rhubarb that announces the arrival of spring in Vermont.

A lilac bush, a clump of rhubarb and a stonewall may be all that remains of a homestead abandoned a hundred years earlier. The dark green leaves, full of oxalic acid, are poisonous but the bright pink or drab green stems are loaded with flavor. It doesn’t need much attention, an occasion scoop of well-rotted manure and cutting back the flowering stalks when they appear will keep the harvest coming until early summer.

Technically rhubarb is a vegetable, but I think of it as a fruit that can be roasted and topped with a dollop of yogurt, baked in a pie or simmered with dried fruit to make chutney.

A week after the sprouts had appeared, it was impossible for me to wait any longer. There wasn’t enough rhubarb to make a pie, but there were enough stems for a ‘dessert for one’. That bowl of sweet-tart, roasted rhubarb satisfied my rhubarb cravings. Here’s how I did it:

Roasted Rhubarb

I put four stalks of rhubarb, cut in one-inch pieces in a bowl along with two tablespoons of sugar. While it rested in the sugar for half an hour, I weeded the rhubarb patch. When I’d finished weeding, I poured the rhubarb and the juice that had formed into a buttered ceramic baking dish. After roasting at 175-degrees C /350-F degrees for half an hour it was tender and surrounded with sweet pink syrup. I poured in a generous splash of heavy cream, added a sprinkle of freshly grated nutmeg and returned it to the oven for ten more minutes. It was edible proof that spring had come.

I like to eat it still hot from the oven, with an antique silver spoon that was my grandmother’s, but no one has complained when I have served it chilled as dessert or topped with granola for breakfast. Rhubarb from the garden with cream from a Vermont dairy and local maple syrup is eating local at its best.

Click here to get label.

A piece of pie is often breakfast in New England. A slice of custardy rhubarb pie served with a steamy cup of coffee does the trick. It was my friend Kathy who generously served me my first piece of this pie. Here’s how I made it when I was able to harvest enough rhubarb: … read more

I found these at the market….

Anybody know their name?  Do you have an idea what to do with them?  Other thoughts?

Take a look at the comments and you will see that Apu left a comment with the right name. I xx’ed it out but I’m sending her a small prize. There are more prizes for more correct guesses.