Woodland Orange

For three days I've been spotting an unusual orange deep into the middle slough woods, but it was early, rainy, and the mosquitos had finally blossomed. On the fourth day I traveled down the Alwin trail looking to take some photos and confirmed what I tried to dismiss -Laetiporous sulphureus.

Not only is this appearance unusually early, it is also in an unlikely location. The log has been down for years, is partially decomposed, covered in moss, and completely surrounded by water. Because I didn't act quickly, the mushroom received a couple of rain soakings, but it was completely bug free -a benefit of its island location?

Our two woodland sloughs have been steadily filling with more and more water, often independent of rainfall. It is an unusual occurrence that we feel may be connected to the partial filling of the gravel pit adjacent to the west side of the property. Rex was concerned that this change would raise the water table, and his concern appears to have been legitimate. In the back slough, nearly every tree has died -there is one old, large ash surviving the inundation. All the shrubs that were green in prior years are grey. The trail that was always accessible along the western edge is now completely submerged and invisible so that a new path will need to be cut much closer to the property line.

We do not want the trees in the middle slough to die off from inundation or fall in a storm because of soggy soil. The increased sunlight will advance an army of buckthorn well positioned on the south slope and already making headway in the middle slough. If it does not begin to drain we are likely to dig a drainage, or rather enhance the drainage that already exists. Any action of this magnitude will have consequences, but we cannot consider our woodlands as anything but altered or unalterable -it is a place completely transformed.

Hog Peanut

Amphicarpaea bracteata, the Hogpeanut, is common in our woods. It grows in sunny patches or where mature trees have fallen. By that measure, its habitat is expanding since so many trees have come down this year.

These flowers will produce small seeds in pods. The "peanut" of its name is a seed produced at or below ground by this plant's other self-fertile, closed flowers. These seeds are quite edible.

Hog peanut is a vine, although it does not have tendrils, and plays well with others outside of a garden. It scrambles along the ground in the woods, but arrives on the scene quite late, well after most ephemerals have retreated back under the soil. It also contributes as an uncommon, woodland nitrogen fixer.

Open Season Fungus

These morels were brought to us by our hunter. He foraged them from our woods after a couple hours of chainsaw work clearing old timber fall on the trails. We dried them for future cooking.

Now that it is raining, mushroom season opens in earnest. Oysters and jelly fungus are appearing, and soon enough there'll be chickens on oak timbers.

Cooking Local

Allium tricoccum var. burdickii, prepped for cooking, common to our woods (99.5% are this variety) and delicious. They are milder and I think sweeter than the more common, larger-leafed, red stemmed ramp. I've made ramp pizza, pasta with ramps, stew with ramps, eaten them raw, put them in nearly everything. One of my favorite spring dinners is asparagus and eggs. Why not add ramps to the mix?

First, I made some polenta in our rice cooker.

Six organic eggs from our local farm park.

Fried some naturally cured bacon from the very same local farm park.

First layer asparagus and ramps, then eggs, and more ramps on top, cover, cook and flip once.

Stack polenta, bacon, egg, asparagus and ramp mixture. Add grated Parmigiano reggiano and black pepper to taste and I like to drizzle Arbequina olive oil over the top.

Ramp On

Ramps! I'd forgotten about them, curious as that is because I did have plans to plant them at some point in the future. As with any forage, I questioned my instinct, and kneeled down for a leaf tear. Unmistakable onion scent, however more, um, woodsy, earthy, funky even, with the slightest floral essence.  The taste? Earthy, mild onion and exceptionally sweet (especially after our 30 degree nights). Our ramp is Allium tricoccum var. burdickii, a contested species or variation of the Allium tricoccum found at ramp festivals of Appalachia and farmers' markets of the North American east.

I stood admiring my patch, how wonderful the woods can be, until the creaking timbers above my head urged me on. As I continued my walk I discovered another four or five small patches. A number low enough to recall each without resorting to markers or maps. Consistent preference for slopes (prompting Betsy to humorously suggest it as another origin of its name) and well-shaded, summering sites suggested that they should have blanketed our shady, sloping woods.

The next day, cool and damp after a decent rain, I stepped into a woods of rain softened, pliable leaves under foot. I floated. Squirrels and chipmunks went about their business unaware of my approach, but wary were the ducks that fluttered into flight the moment the chorus of frogs went silent. No matter, I wasn't out in soft shoes and sweater to see the ducks, I was out to collect a few ramps for dinner.

I began to spot more and more ramp colonies, in all corners of the woods, although mostly out back and along the south-facing side slope. They grew under most species of trees, often near the trunk, nearly always on a slope, yet in one instance on a flat near the great wetland. In all cases an abundance of leaf litter, and in none was there any garlic mustard (although prevalent nearby in at least a couple of locations). There are so many patches that I, like a squirrel forgetting his buried nuts, can hardly remember a portion of them. This is for the best, as there is plenty for the two of us, and we must ensure the continuance of the species.

Our ramps belong to the variation burdickii. The common ramp grows in dense colonies, with relatively large leaves, and most strikingly shows red or purple coloration just above the bulb along the lower stem. A variation burdickii colony shows fewer individual plants, has somewhat shorter, more slender leaves, and does not show purple coloration on its all-white stem. Burdickii flowers significantly earlier than its counterpart and is also more likely to reproduce from seed due, in part, to the colony's open habit.

Along with the popularity of ramps in restaurants and home kitchens, they have become abundant at New York area farmers' markets and on foragers' tables. New York State has declared Allium tricoccum var. burdickii as endangered, placing it on its protected native species list. It cannot be legally wild-harvested, although Allium tricoccum is still open to harvesting (for now). Given the rarity of burdickii, it is unlikely that you will find much of it in New York, but if you do, don't harvest.

If you find yourself salivating over a patch of ramps, check for a dense colony habit, then pull away some soil to look for purple coloration on the lower stem. If you're sure you've got the right ramp, only pluck a few whole plants from each colony, or better, just clip a single leaf from several plants. Ramps take several years to mature, and several more if the colony is severely depleted, so please contain your harvest zeal. The bulbs may be four inches below the soil surface, so dig deeply with a long, slender trowel without disturbing or severing several neighboring bulbs. Do not trample ramps or other plants on your way to them and be mindful of seedlings along the edges of the colony. Finally, beware of causing soil erosion on the wooded slopes ramps prefer.

In our woods we will tread lightly, doing what we can to minimize competitors like garlic mustard, Alliaria petiolata, and take a measured harvest. Tomorrow I'll cut a few new leaves to eat with eggs. Sure, I cook, but here's a local chef with the real ramps recipes.

Saturday Must Do

I was all ready to sign up for this walk with Marie, had I not been reminded that it cuts way too close to Betsy's opening this Saturday in Greenpoint Brooklyn. I share this with you because I think everyone should go to both, or if half of you pick one and half the other because they do cut awfully close and are 31 miles apart by major highway which in NYC could be 45 minutes or could well be 2 hours.

Marie's foraging adventure is, I think, just the right way to think of it. You've probably not been to Staten Island and probably aren't sure what to think, although the news and SNL have probably carved a certain perception. In fact, even I haven't been to the southern reaches, having only staked out the central locations of the Greenbelt, high up, on the moraine. You never know what you might find. From Marie's blog:

This is an adventure. The urban kind. Plus lots of nature. In the biggest city in the US of A.
Seriously, where can you combine the big city, a sea voyage, a perfect view of the Statue of Liberty, a woodland walk, a grassland ramble and a shoreline visit in one day?



Now, if art openings are more your style, consider heading up to Greenpoint, where you will find Betsy's latest art at No Globe Exhibitions. She's been working with ceramic castings of lace and I think you'll love the compression of delicacy and strength into a single sculpture. There will be art, lots of interesting people, autumn weather, and plenty of beer. Hope to see you there!

Farmers' Market Prospects

Entirely strange way to enter Prospect Park, and having done so felt its soft transgress.

Above, I spied a white redbud. I wasn't aware of this expression.

Departing the carriage road for the market, so many bins of vegetable scraps. I wish I was making my own compost and I do miss the city's free stuff (to which this does not contribute).

There were nettles (and hops), and many things free should you take the time to hunt and pick them.

Like ramps, which I grabbed, for spring's pasta with all things green. 

And quite a deal on lilac bunches at ten dollars for nearly as many branches; so one for us and one for grandma's Mothers' Day visit.

A Beautiful Day

Fall back on a beautiful day. Crisp air, slight breeze, blue skies, the scent of fallen leaves, and the yellowed and tawny leaves of the beech tree. The beech is the reason I go to High Rock Park on Staten Island, and mushrooms the excuse. Today there simply were no mushrooms, but a few small, pale yellow caps, and a strange, large white wood mushroom that smelled, to me, spicy, verging on anise. Marie took samples. This was our second trip to High Rock, and I was high with hope to find some edible mushrooms. We did find an old, large hen of the woods, and a minute after that, a tick of the woods. Pants into socks, but nothing to eat.

We did see lots of these Striped Wintergreen (or the much more fun Spotted Pipsissewa), Chimaphila maculata down near what I call dead tree pond.

These are the seed capsules of the same plant. Marie says the seeds are as fine as dust.

Moss, always respectable.

So we didn't have much luck with mushrooms, but we did stumble into Pouch Scout Camp, where I was awed by the range of reds of all the oaks surrounding the large pond, known as Ohrbach Lake. It's a little odd, but G. maps does not show a pond in that area in maps or terrain view. But there it was, isolated and beautiful. Save Pouch Camp.

Hungry and unprepared, we ate some Staten Island pizza at a place called Francesca's. Marie had some wine, Vince and I cokes. Military History channel was on the tv, displaying as many dead soldiers as it could muster between our cokes and that last slice. Readers from Staten Island, send us in the right direction for lunch -we were at the mercy of the road to the Verrazano.

I delivered Vince and Marie to their place and off I was to the beach farm to plant some garlic.

Late in the day it was warm, a touch balmy. The air had stilled, and I had some cloving to do at the picnic table with scale, garlic, and notepad. The soil is nothing like my upstate plot, soft and friable, but with small stones and occasional chunks of concrete. The dibber dibbed, and I planted 100 or so cloves, drank my still hot coffee (thank you real thermos), thought about where next year's vegetables would go given the greater space commanded by the garlic. Tomatoes will stay put, and the haricot vert will be in this year's garlic/broccoli bed. Herbs are staying put, as will the pea/cucumber trellis. But where will I experiment with the allium vineale? Still unknown.

I harvested my first ever cauliflower -the one I planted near the compost hole. Grew twice as large and twice as fast as the others. Still, so late in the season, it was not a big head -maybe 6 inches across. Yet it tasted so good, and sweet, that I ate most of it before Betsy got home, leaving just enough for her to taste. So good.

Some broccoli are producing side shoots and I like how they purple. They are also very sweet. I ate all that I picked, which isn't very much as much of broccoli has yet to head up and probably won't so late in the season. There were also many snap peas, some of which I snacked on while planting garlic, but left most because of the early dark that afflicts all outdoor activities at this time of year.

I stood enjoying the warm blanket of air, the white noise of waves in the distance, coffee in hand. How I wished my agricultural practices could all happen right here, at the beach farm. I was reminded of my roots on Long Island, two landscapes at my core -the red oak woods and the beach, and the atmosphere of life near the ocean. Then I thought of our eastern farm lands, changing from potatoes and cabbage to sod, then to grapes, but more often than not -to homes.

I went home, as the moon rose, to make meatballs of lamb and red cipollini onions mixed with diced dry sausage and fennel.

If You Love Lower Manhattan So Much That You Cannot Leave It...

... And, you insist on eating the latest in foraging, those last chance foods... consider the West Side Highway. In early morning, preferably before the traffic, and eyewitnesses.

Do not look at the roses. They are a distraction, a colorful blur, as you accelerate under yellow, then red, signals. Look amongst the weeds, the disheveled, distasteful zip of floral disfunction that can be the barrier between those that travel north and those who prefer south.

All the best things are over-looked because they lack such formal amplitude, yet they buzz with oscillations, first this, then that, layer upon layer of dissonant fecundity. Step outside, move toward the river, cross three lanes, real casual, enter the barrier and pull exquisite earthiness from the soil. Do not cross against the signal. Clean. Eat.

There are thousands of Wild Garlic, Allium vineale, bulbs from roughly W12th Street up towards the 40s. Two hot spots: W13th-ish and W22nd-ish and West Side Highway. Be safe, thank me later.

Dinner With WNYC

The last thing I ever intended for this blog was to talk about food or cooking. To be fair, I began blogging with aesthetic gardening, flower gardening, with nothing of the vegetable kind, in mind. Since then, I began reading what others were saying around their gardens, and of that became an awareness of the accord between the garden and the kitchen.  It may be hard to believe, but I never gave that much thought, and most often saw the produce of any vegetable garden I have tended as a source of fresh vegetables to eat uncooked, there in the patch. 

But all this has changed, hasn't it? I am now a dedicated foodie, a forager, a farmer, my kitchen a forum for fresh and fancy foods? No, not really. Although I have a few tricks up my sleeve, my meal palette is actually quite limited, and my time for cooking quite the same. But the media does like talk of food way more than gardening, enough so that garden talk has become the preamble to food discussion. And I suppose that makes sense, especially as we talk of vegetable, ahem -food, gardening.

This Thursday I'll head down to the WNYC studios to record 20 minutes of talk with Amy Eddings about gardening peas, and more specifically pea shoots, and maybe some chat about city vegetable gardening, garden blogging, and community gardening. I hope to figure out a way to drop the word artist and frankmeuschke.com in there somewhere, maybe as a .exe, one that surreptitiously opens only after the 20 minutes has been edited down to the broadcast five. In preparation, I'm constructing statements on the confluence of painting and gardening.

As it so happens, I have had WNYC over for dinner once before, several years ago. My family's turkey stuffing was on the table, and Leonard Lopate and Ruth Reichl were guests. Ruth, editor of the now defunct Gourmet magazine, mentioned that the recipe had reminded her of polpettone. If you were listening, you may have heard the crickets, because I had no idea what that was and had little interest in admitting to my ignorance (until now, apparently). So, like everyone else, I looked it up online afterward, to find it's essentially meatloaf, Italian style, albeit more interesting than your average American loaf of ketchup, onions, and ground beef.

This time my guests would like to have pea shoots for dinner and I've harvested just enough to experiment with a pasta recipe before my appearance on Thursday. Of course, my instinct is to relate how delicious it is to eat them raw, snipped right off the plant, washing optional. After that, wouldn't one want to have it in a salad with the slightly bitter and snappy fresh greens also harvested now, a dash of olive oil and lemon, salt, and pepper? Those really are the first things to talk about and two things I've already eaten this spring. A way to eat cooked pea shoots is in a simple stir fry, which I made the first time I ate pea shoots several years ago, after I bought a rubber-banded bunch for one dollar from Hmong farmers at the Minneapolis Farmers' Market.

Pea shoots are sweet, a little nutty, distinctively pea, but without it's starchiness. They go well with earthy, woodsy ingredients, so I went to the farmers' market on Cortelyou to pick up cultivated mushrooms more exciting than the usual baby browns I can get around the corner -but those would work, too, in a pinch of any kind. The yellow and gray oysters were 7.99 a half pound and the hen of the woods was the same. My brown paper bagful cost me ten even. Dry, fresh mushrooms are fairly light-weighted and you'll get your money's worth in flavor.

I went to Caputos on Court to pick up some guanciale, fresh ricotta cheese, parmigiano, pecorino toscano, fresh pasta (out of pappardelle, out of fettuccine, had to settle for linguine), and ravioli. I bought the "wrong" ravioli, and left that out of the evening's exploration, saved for Wednesday when I will cook them with farmers' market asparagus and the remaining mushrooms. The guanciale is a cured, but not smoked pig jowl, a delicately textured "bacon," that reminds Betsy of flavors somewhere between turkey skin and pancetta.

Wild garlic, Allium vineale, has a very earthy flavor, with subtle hints of garlic and shallot. I foraged these from the fields at the beach farm on Saturday, clipped the roots and stems, peeled the first layer of skin, washing thoroughly, and chopped. You can find wild garlic in most any woods or unmowed field right now in the metro area.

I have been growing peas in house as well as at the farm. Those on the right are cut from mature, beach farm plants, earning them the right to be called shoots, as opposed to the sprouts seen on the left. There may be some confusion about which should be called shoots on the web, but there is no doubt in my mind about which is which. Recently sprouted peas should be called sprouts, while mature vegetation cut for eating can be called shoots, but should be called pea greens to save from any confusion. Don't confuse pea sprouts with mung bean sprouts, which are an entirely different food.

The field grown pea shoots are robust, leafy, and with flowers -a mouthful of fresh pea flavor.

The in house sprouts are similarly flavored, although I expected them to be less so, and slightly more tender, but without flowers, and an altogether different eating experience because of their diminutive size.

I sliced the guanciale, pronounced gwan-chee-ah-lay, and crisped it to a light golden brown over low heat. I poured the rendered cheek fat into a bowl for later use -it's liquid flavor gold. After placing the the guanciale on the side, I placed a couple of pats of unsalted butter in the pan and softened the wild garlic. Then I cut up some of the mushrooms, which were very clean and required no washing (nice! no water), and tossed them in. Meanwhile the salted water was boiling and ready to receive the fresh pasta.

I added a splash or two of cream, two spoonfuls of ricotta, two spoonfuls of the liquid guanciale fat, two spoonfuls of pasta water, some salt, some pepper, a dash of nutmeg. After draining the liquid from the pasta, I chopped the pea shoots into one or two inch pieces, and tossed them into the saute pan. The key to cooking with pea shoots is to not wilt them -just warm them up. Throw them in at the last minute and the heat of the food will do that. I stirred the whole mixture, quite sloppily, together and grated some parmigiano on top.

All in all, I think it came out pretty well, although I have some after eating thoughts. The first thing is more shoots -I wanted more shoots in the dish, yet I cut pretty conservatively at the farm because I am hoping for a few snap peas. The second is the ricotta, which I added haphazardly, and I think the dish could do without, or maybe just one spoonful. And lastly, the mushrooms: When I sampled the oyster mushrooms, I thought they were quite strong and opted for a greater hen to oyster ratio, but after cooked, the oysters lent a woodsy flavor and the hens seemed overwhelmed. Its possible that the dairy overwhelmed all of them and would consider making this with olive oil and butter, omitting the cream altogether. 

One final thought about eating pea greens (shoots). Eating the tendrils raw, they are tender and easy to eat. However, I find that when you cook them, they toughen up just a bit.  With this in mind, my recommendation is to cut the tendrils to one inch or less in length when cooking them, while leaving the leaves, flowers, and branches larger. Or you can simply remove the tendrils altogether, snacking on those while you cook.

Sea Scapes and Other Weeds

An important trip to the beach farm yesterday to see how things are doing. It is very hard to get to the farm this spring -way too many activities. In fact, the rush of spring food gardening is outside of my favored behavior. It's a lot of do it now! Our small plot hasn't helped matters, either, where quick decisions have led to cramped quarters and footprints on young seedlings. 

But yesterday had the nicest weather of my spring visits thanks to only light winds. The great growing weather we've been having lately has been a boon to the vegetables as well as the weeds. Little to harvest in the plot, my favorite part came to be harvesting the wild garlic which is abundant, and everywhere you look around the beach farm.

Dandelion, Taraxacum officinale -king of the weeds, rising above the courtesan Dead Nettles and Chickweed. I'm told you can batter and fry the flowers, while the young greens are sought after by some for salads and cooking.

The field of Herb Robert, Geranium robertianium? I hear it may be edible, but I cannot imagine which part -the root? Wait, wait. Maybe it's Filaree, Erodium spp. Don't eat anything before you're sure!

What I believe is Field Forget-Me-Not, Myosotis arvensis

A closer look.

And finally, the wild garlic, Allium vineale. Easy to confuse with the wild onion, A. canadense, in the field and the internet. Apparently two distinguishing characteristics: wild garlic has hollow round stems and unsheathed bulbs, whereas the wild onion has flattened stems and fibrous-sheathing on its bulb. I'm going to add another -notice the curvy scape-like stems/leaves? My cultivated garlic will grow curving scapes in May, which I am eagerly awaiting. The scape is the flowering "stem" that will eventually produce bulblets.

The Pleasure's All Mine

While doing my morning walky-runny thing in Prospect Park, I stop to eat. Am I the only one who does this? I found a whole new bank of raspberries (not the one above, mind you). I snacked from four different patches yesterday. Some where close to the flavor of blackberries, some mildly sweet, but most were still tart and seedy.

Creatures have not yet taken an interest -neither human, furry, feathered or six-legged. The gettin is good. As for a map, I will draw this much -stay away from the greensward, hit the paved-path woods. Bring a can, the next two weeks should be prime for picking.

Good Prospects

Today I had some red and some black raspberries in the park. I was caught eating only once.

These roses (swamp rose, Rosa palustris?) are blooming as well.

The bees adore them.

These roses, molded from putty, are called...?

Again, they're called...and can we eat the fruit?

I found these high bush blueberries. Today I ate just one.

Every year I pass by this forsythia shrub, on a path south of the lake. Invariably, it has this yellow venation on the same branches each year.

Are all leaf variegations the result of endemic viruses that do not kill the host plant?