Adventures of an urban homesteader growing greens, preserving the harvest and tending a backyard barnyard
The road trip is over, for now. I was driving over the Staten Island Bridge heading into Brooklyn when my trip meter wound past 6,000 miles. What a long drive and how exciting to be home – however temporary that home may be. We hauled my suitcase, my watercolors and my books up three flights of stairs. After a few days of getting settled in,
I am back in the college world and, although this time I am a grad student, the college tradition of every meal being a potluck lives on. The overall quality of potluck dishes seems to have increased from chips and salsa to things like homemade tiramisu. Since we are all busy these days with piles of reading, model making, sketching, writing, etc. the potlucks have
I kind of disappeared from the online world last week when my mother-in-law arrived in New York to spend the holiday with us. Our days leading up to Christmas were filled with fabulous dinners and long walks through the bright city. We were lucky to have a little snow leftover from the previous weekend. Central Park was just lovely with those big towering London Plane
It is freezing here! The temperature has been somewhere between 16 degrees and the low 30’s all week, for which I feel wholly unprepared. I didn’t have nearly enough time to try to fatten myself up for winter. Florence, one of my hens, is still half molting. Winter has just come a few weeks earlier than we mentally and physically prepared for. Things are piling
My final design review for the term is this afternoon and we needed some snacks to serve for our guest reviewers. I wanted to bake a seasonal bread, but this is the time of year when seasonal produce is slim pickings. Cranberry hazelnut bread sounded like the perfect solution. I picked up the dried cranberries and roasted hazelnuts from my local hippie market and I
As millions of Americans spent their weekend crammed into the grocery store stocking up for Thanksgiving, I was hanging out on a nearby farm for turkey-butchering day. Some people would find that odd, while to others the thought of buying a factory-farmed, hormone-pumped frozen bird wrapped in plastic for $1 a pound – something that doesn’t even resemble the animal it came from – can
My buddy Harper was telling me about his recipe for zucchini parmigiana, which is basically an eggplant parmigiana but using a ton of zucchinis instead. Naturally, my ears perked up at the thought of one recipe that could potentially clear my counter of summer squash. To save you the suspense, it was absolutely fabulous – very flavorful and really rich. The down side to this
I am beginning to think Eugene, Oregon, may in fact be the plum capital of the world. It seems there is a plum tree in every other yard and they are just dripping with fruit! There are three or four alone at the Urban Farm, plus another four or five at a nearby abandoned lot. I have been actively sampling them all to find the
My favorite summer fruit has come into season: figs! There is a large fig tree near our house on an empty lot with branches almost touching the ground from the weight of these delicious treats. With a large metal colander in hand, I have been lightening the tree’s load. It is uncommon to find fresh figs in the grocery store because the fruit is incredibly
