Well, there you have it, I am now the proud producer of chard (the tall guys) and two kinds of basil. I started these babies in the b&p seed starting class about 10 days ago and am now observing the fruit (sprouts?) of my labors. I was too lazy/cheap to rig up a florescent shop light over my little soil pots, but the beside table lamp with a compact florescent bulb seems to be doing just fine.
I've been casting around for the best spot to transplant these greenies, come spring (oh please, come spring). With my goofy sunlight I think I will have to have a progressive garden with stations all over the place. No one big spot gets sun for 6-8 hr.s a day. Plus there's the heirloom tomatoes, blue hubbard squash and green heirloom pumpkin seeds to think about as well.
Now I have to get up the nerve to thin my lovelies...
Oof, playing catch-up, again. Still, we've had a couple of good weekends' worth of classes and talks, and here are the pictures to prove it:
Two weekends ago,Liz Fiorenza of Wind Ridge Herb Farm shared tips for treating colds and the flu with herbs. Secret weapon: tea. She suggested a variety of tea ingredients: sage, rosemary, rose hips, lemon balm, mint. In combination with hot water and steam, they all offer varying degrees of comfort. Start with warm, moistened muscus membranes in the nose and throat and go from there. Surprising tip: the sole of the foot is also a good receptor for herbal remedies, so essential oils combined with a lotion (olive oil, shea butter) is a good delivery system. We mixed our own tea.
On Sunday, Paul Dionne taught a Kitchen Basics class on making stir fry. Much of the class time was spent on prep, to get all the various vegetables chopped. Secret to peeling ginger? scrape the skin off with a spoon, so you don't waste any of the fresh root itself. As with the pasta, the final dish was more than the sum of its parts and we had a delicious mound of Asian veggies and tofu, with leftovers for everyone to take home.
This weekend, Rose Hoffa (of Madame Purl fame), gave a talk on the source of wool: From Sheep to Skein. She demo'ed how to card and spin wool to get a ply appropriate for knitting or weaving. She had a pile of delicious wools and yarns for us to paw thru. It made me want to get out my knitting needles, immediately.
We also had several meetings of Bushel and Peck's Garden Club. Jackie is spilling the beans and trying to save us all from disappointment by teaching us how to plan a garden (remember how tall things are going to get when you space them) and how to start seeds (don't jump the gun, unless you want a lot of rotted, leggy seedlings). We dug in the dirt, discussed bats and rain barrels, and started basil, chard, and kale. My babies are upstairs right now, under a florescent light, awaiting late April. Hello extreme amounts of pesto!
No class this weekend, because of the Beloit International Film Festival, but stop on by. We're a venue and we're open all night (well, not quite, but it's going to feel like it...)!
To me, there are few things more appealing than a cheese tray. Gooey, crumbly, veined, stinky, waxed, mold-crusted; I'll take them all. I guess it's a good thing I live where I do, because--after California--Wisconsin is the biggest producer of cheese in the United States. AND, if you measure by the amounts of award-winning, artisan cheese, we're the biggest producer--take that Golden State!
Saturday afternoon we were pleased to host Jeanette Hurt, the author of The Cheeses of Wisconsin. She signed the book and taught a class on cheese pairings--with wine, with fruits and nuts, with various spreads. Very interesting and, man, did we fill up.
We tasted: Crave Brothers' Petit Freres (my fave, a soft cow's milk cheese); Carr Valley's Cocoa Cardona; Hook's Basic Blue; Hook's Sweet Constantine; Country Castle's Limburger. The Sweet Constantine was delicious on bread with a little smear of fig jam; the blue was perfect with Double D's Honey; and we spread mustard on the Limburger and it was very nice, and not too smelly.
We hope to have Jeanette back later in the spring to do a class on Tapas, so stay tuned!
