Home Sweet Homegrown (+ Giveaway!!!)

The time of gardening is upon us friends! From spring weather-loving crops to those heat-cravings vegetables of summer, the days of seeds and soil and planting and gathering are here. Hubs and Huxley and I have been out in our garden every day, mucking around, getting dirty, and loving it all!

While I've been gardening for some time, there's always so much more to learn. The gardening and growing learning curve is so very steep, and long, it seems, perhaps owing to the variability of successful techniques from region to region, climate to climate, and even one growing season to the next. Adaptability and an "oh, well!" disposition are essentials in gardening, just as much as good gloves, compost, and a trusty trowel, I've decided!

To help me, though, and you, too, thankfully we've got Robyn Jasko. Introduced to me via my buddy Jodi (proprietress extraordinaire of Asheville's beloved Short Street Cakes), Robyn has just published a lovely little book on how to grow, and grow well. Home Sweet Homegrown takes your hand and lovingly walks you through the entire growing spectrum, from seed-starting to sowing to harvesting all the way up through cooking and even preserving what you've grown. It's compact enough to fit in your the back pocket of your gardening jeans, but dense enough to become a go-to source time and time again.

Robyn and her publisher, Microcosm Publishing, have generously offered two small measure readers copies of her book, along with the 5-packet seed kit pictured above. How cool is that?! All that's needed to enter the giveaway is a comment saying what you're looking forward to growing. For me, it's pumpkins. I have 6 varieties started and I can't wait to bake, carve and decorate with them come Autumn. YES!

I'll run the giveaway through next Wednesday, May 16th, midnight EST. In your comment, please leave a means of reaching you should you be the winner(s), via a link back to your blog or website or by leaving your email address in your comment (don't forget this essential step, folks! I've had far too many numbers selected by the Random Widget only to find there's no way whatsoever of reaching the commenter!).

Even if you don't win, do check out Robyn's book and her website, growindie.com. This lady knows what she's doing and has got an enormous amount of seasoned gardening wisdom at her (dirty!) fingertips! Thank you, Robyn, and thank you Microcosm!

Recent Acquisitions

I love considering other ways of being, of doing. When we were visiting Amanda in Maine this past March, at one point our conversation turned to schooling and education. She articulated her views on the importance of presenting children with different ways to living one's life, that the path from point A to point B, in terms of career and livelihood and education, needn't be always the same one, that there's a multiplicity of ways to achieve what you want in life.

Those sorts of "Well, what about?" or "Have you ever considered?" ways of thinking always grab me by the throat, pull back my cranium and make me realize that there are so, so very many different ways of living and doing and thinking on this lovely planet of ours. Which is wonderful, and challenging, all at the same time.

I think about those alternate views often. The way I parent my child, though similar to that of many of our close friends, is wildly different from many. The vocation and manner of our livelihood is unusual for many. And I think, underneath it all, is a pervasive love of "wildness" that calls to Hubs and I so very strongly.

We love wild, open spaces. We love wild, open thinking. We love wild, uncultivated foods. The idea of spaces and mindsets and foods untouched and unbound by human hands calls to us on a very core level, so much so, that it's our son's middle name, Huxley Wild English.

And so, owing to this love of wildness in all of its permutations, when Hubs recently gifted me with the book above, I couldn't have been more elated. The Wild Table: Seasonal Foraged Food & Recipes is stunning, and inspiring, and everything a good cookbook should be, in my estimation. It traverses the calender year (and even includes "Indian Summer", which is pure genius). Foraging huntress Connie Green and chef and culinary consultant Sarah Scott are highly innovative while inherently primitive, all at once.

The book is teeming with forest-to-fork recipes (Hedgehog Mushroom and Caramelized Onion Tart? Yes, please!), while also packed with stories, essays, tips and techniques for turning 40 mushrooms and plants into fresh and preserved dishes. Hubs scored this gem at the bookstore in the Screen Door. Locals, if cookbooks or gardening books or children's books or decorating books and saving money are your thing, you must go there, immediately. The deals to be had in that store are jaw-dropping.

I heard mention today of fiddlehead ferns 'a plenty nearby. There's also two big patches of woodland nettles on the way to the chicken coop begging to be rendered into pesto. And before too long, the wild wineberries on our property and the wild blueberries along the Blue Ridge Parkway will be ripening. I can't get enough of it! Let the wild rompus begin!

Of Food & Friends

We'd planned to host our lovely friends, Jen and Jon, of Decatur, Georgia this past weekend, along with this adorable 2 year-old daughter, Awynn. At the last minute, we discovered Jon had come down with a fever (last I heard there were suspicions of strep throat, which has been rampant around these parts recently). Poor guy! And so, their visit has been postponed by a week.

Our friends Mark and Maia, of Chapel Hill, N.C., and their two amazing kiddos, Roan and Wilhem, were in town, also hoping to see Jen and Jon (we're all old college buddies). We decided last minute to stick with the plan, and include our other mutual friend, Dan, in chatting and noshing chez English.

The best part of the resulting meal Saturday evening, aside from the wonderful times that are always had in the presence of beloved friends, was just how inherently collaborative it was. Dan picked chard and leeks from his garden and brought them along with a bottle of N.C.-grown wine, while Mark and Maia brought some hummus, pita, cucumber, grape tomatoes, Greek yogurt and feta cheese.

Hubs took their offerings and incorporated them into what ended up feeling like a Mediterranean-by-way-of-Provence feast. He added chicken,  Niman Ranch sweet Italian sausage, green peas, the tomatoes Mark and Maia brought, Dan's chard, wine, chicken stock, olive oil, olives, capers, lemon juice and zest, cremini mushrooms, Herbs de Provence, Greek spice blend, fresh marjoram, garlic, rainbow carrots, and onions (those last two ingredients came from Mother Earth Produce, a local multi-farm CSA that I've been writing for lately). All of that went into a cast iron serving dish, cooked on the stove and served right out of it, sprinkled with feta and fresh mint on top.

He also chopped up the cucumber (or maybe Dan did?) and mixed it with the Greek yogurt Mark and Maia brought, adding in some fresh dill and mint from our garden for a quick tzatziki sauce. The leeks were cooked down in butter, a kiss of sugar, chicken stock and wine until they were browned and sweet and creamy and utterly delicious. We dined al fresco, with wine and pita and hummus and kids and birds chirping and dogs running.

It was amazing, and really felt like an unofficial kick-off to the languid warm weather days of food and friends on the horizon. We're all in this together, this life, this journey, this wonderous experience. When we come together and literally bring different elements to the table, we enhance our time together ten-fold, I feel. Food, friends, family, and fellowship. It doesn't get any better than that.

Clean Up Your Act

My Small Measures post is up over on Design Sponge. This week I'm chatting about making several all-natural, inexpensive, supremely easy cleaning products. You can read the full post here.

As I mention in the post, whenever we've used up the contents of an attractive bottle, we give it a thorough sanitizing wash in the dishwasher and then store it away for later use. We've got a basement with a wall of built-in wood shelves in one corner that's perfect for this purpose, but, lacking that, you could store yours in a pantry, or even in a linen closet. The bottles come in handy for gift-giving purposes like homemade infused vinegars, as well as for prettying up homemade cleaners. It's a great way to upcycle both bottles and spray nozzles alike.

What about you? Do you make any of your own cleaning products? I'd love to hear your DIY solutions for greening up your clean up.

What I'm Digging

Happy Friday, friends! We've been working hard in the garden this week, getting all sorts of goodies planted and watered and gloriously growing. So wonderful to see it all flourishing. I'll take some photos of different planters we've built out there recently and share them with you soon.

A gaggle of friends is due out here tomorrow evening, to make tacos and drink libations and play with our collective kiddos together. It should be a good time!

Here's a smattering of things that caught my eye and sparked my interest this week: 
*Love this simple to build greenhouse. 
*Strawberry coconut milk popsicles!
*Making homemaking legit (with a quote from yours truly).
*6 riffs on the Mint Julep.
*DIY decor gone green.
*Chicks in the city.
*These color palettes are exquisite (Love the nature-inspired ones, especially).
*Even more reasons to love asparagus (it's prime time for the stalks, folks). 
*Strawberry freezer jam (made with honey & white grape juice!).
*Our roses just bloomed and I'm thinking of giving this a go.

We're off to the annual Asheville Herb Festival in a bit. Locals, you should definitely check it out. We've got most of the culinary and medicinal herbs we want, but one thing we're on the hunt for this year is sorrel. We want to plant a good bit of it so that we can pick that lemony goodness again and again!

Wherever you go this weekend, whatever you do, whomever you do it with, may it be grand!

Oh me, Oh my, Oh Pie!

You know when you work, and work, and work (and work and work and WORK!) on something and then, suddenly, it's done, finished, fully completed? And it feels so, so very good, right? Well, that time has come.

I am over the moon thrilled today to share with you a little sneak peek of my new book, A Year of Pies: A Seasonal Tour of Home Baked Pies (Lark Crafts, 2012). The idea for this book was presented to me when Huxley was only 6 weeks old. I started writing it when he was 3 months, turned in the manuscript when he was 9, polished off the last of the photo shoots when he was 13 months, and now, have a real world, in-my-hands copy to show you today, when he's just over 1 1/2 years old. Clearly, the growth of this book paralleled my growth as a mother and my son's growth from newborn to infant to toddler.

And what an amazing journey it has been. This book is such a joy to me. Not only does it cook as I cook, through the calender year, but in it you'll also find contributing recipes from 8 of my favorite blogging buddies, including Beatrice Peltre, Aran Goyoaga, Amanda Soule, Jenna Woginrich, Kate Payne, Tim Mazurek, Jessie Oleson, and Tricia Martin. There are sweet and savory pies. There are hand pies and galettes. There are lattice-top and double crust and freezer and fridge pies. There's truly something for everyone, including 3 gluten-free offerings. The book publishes August 7th, but is available for now pre-order (and it's discounted some kind of crazy on Amazon!).

I can't wait to share more with you closer to the publication date. For the time being, though, know that this book was made with lots of love, lots of baby giggles and shenanigans underfoot (and oftentimes, on hip, as in, he was on my hip while I was prepping pastry dough or mixing fruit with sugar in the mixing bowl), and lots and lots of butter. I hope that that love pours off the book's pages and into your home, a little slice of light and laughter and bliss, from me, to you.

Almost forgot, I've got two more bits of pie-inspired writing for you! On Verve, I'm chatting about how pies have shaped my life and on Mrs. Wages, I've got two berry-centric recipes up. Enjoy! 

I'm Bringing Cake Walks Back

We had SO much fun at the Slow Food Asheville sponsored Cake Walk this past Sunday. Hubs even won a scrumptious cheesecake from Rachel's Delectables. My mom and grandmother joined us at the event and Huxley showcased his best moves for the crowd (he's crazy about dancing; I'm thinking some music and/or dance lessons are in his near future). Locals, I highly encourage you to get involved with Slow Food Asheville. The local chapter regularly hosts fabulous events that are just as informative and educational as they are festive and fun.

I think the cake walk is an absolutely genius concept. Originally employed by southern plantation slaves, the activity involved dance moves mocking the more formal ballroom style used by slave owners. Dancers would move in exaggerated steps and, at the end of the competition, whomever was deemed the silliest dancer was awarded a cake.

Today's cake walks are more like musical chairs than their historical forebears. Dancers walk in a circle (although I typically dance my way along!) to a musical accompaniment. Along the circle are numbers, often written in chalk. When the music stops, dancers stand over the number they landed on. Whoever is orchestrating the cake walk then randomly draws a number and the dancer/walker standing over the chosen number is the winner and bestowed with a cake.  All of the cakes at Sunday's event were locally made by Slow Food members or area businesses.

As much fun as these modern cake walks are, I want to bring back the cake walks of yore. I'd love to witness my nearest and dearest attempt to outdo one another with the wildest, wackiest dance moves they can conjure. I've got a number of gatherings planned over the next year (all work for my new book-stay tuned for more details!) and I'm thinking the cake walk will make a cameo or two.

At our cake walks, each attendee would bring some item to be given away to the winners. Ideally that would be a cake, but I know that not everyone feels their baking chops are prize-worthy. So, the prize could be a batch of their amazing brownies, or their stellar homemade granola, or even a 6-pack of local beer. We'd dance, we'd make fools of ourselves, and then we'd be awarded for it in the end.

Good plan, right?