Category Archives: Local

Blueberry Picking and Summer Rhythms

Posted on by

I’ve had trouble finding my Summer rhythm this year. June was taken up with finishing school, our trip to South Dakota, a big project on antique silver, meetings, and music lessons. On July 4th I thought, “how have we not started our Summer yet?” and got kind of sad about it. Everything has been so busy and planned out.

Finally yesterday, we got to do something just for ourselves that wasn’t written on the calendar. After our bumper strawberry crop, I wanted more berries to play around with and blueberries were at the top of the list. Since I’m very particular about my berries and other thin skinned fruit being organic, I was worried about finding a local U-pick place that doesn’t use pesticides or herbicides. Luckily, I found a great farm about an hour away that fit my criteria perfectly.

We arrived early in the morning, though it was already hot and muggy. An on and off breeze cooled our necks.

We learned how to spot the ripest berries, and how to properly pick them.

There were plenty of blueberries everywhere, and we sampled all the different varieties at the farm. We ate a lot of blueberries.

We filled up 2 gallon buckets. My Mom and I could have picked longer, but the children were hot, tired and ready for something else. There were also dark clouds gathering in the sky, and we heard the rumblings of thunder.

Before leaving, we fed huge albino catfish at one of the fish ponds.

Right as we paid for our berries and before we walked back to our car, it started raining. The best kind of blessing for all those wonderful blueberry bushes, and for the owners who treated us so kindly.

Now my berries are sitting in the refrigerator, and I’m on the search for blueberry pie and jam recipes. I’m not sure I want to use my berries for jam though. We go through jam way too fast in this house, and I want to turn these berries into something precious like pie or cobbler. Something precious just like our morning.

Skirt Sewing

Posted on by

So, I’ve been doing a little skirt sewing.  Almost two weeks ago, I participated in Anna Maria Horner’s two day Skirting Couture workshop at a local museum, and have been hooked on skirts ever since. The workshop was fantastic, and Anna Maria is just as fun and full of sewing knowledge as she seems, if not more so.  When she announced the workshop a couple of months ago, I literally couldn’t think about anything else until I heard back that I had a spot.  It turned out that my friend Julie was going, and then Erin got a spot and decided to make it a family trip, so I was really looking forward to the weekend. Meeting 20 something other women who love to sew was great, and one of the best surprises of the weekend was seeing Cassie at the workshop. A decade ago, we were both art teachers at the same elementary school, but then I moved away to Alabama and had no idea what happened to her.  Well she is still here and an art teacher, though at a different school, and makes these really cool belts on the side. She also came up with the brilliant idea of local sewing get togethers, so the fun that started at the workshop can continue.

For the workshop project, Anna Maria sent us three drawings of skirts and we had to chose one to make. It turned out that these skirts are her newest pattern, the Proper Attire skirt, which will be released this Fall. It was so new that the printed patterns only arrived at Anna Maria’s house the day before the workshop. I don’t want to say too much about the pattern because I’m sure Anna Maria will do a big post about it, but it includes two versions of a yoked skirt (a softly pleated one which I chose to make out of Little Folks voile and a funky paneled schoolgirl type one I will probably make in the future), both lined and in sizes XS through XLLLL.  Anna Maria even drafted a third version (a simple gathered skirt attached to the yoke) as another option for the class, and I have a feeling she will share how to make that one too. In fact the sample she brought to the class had a patchwork skirt out of some of thenew voiles with a cotton velveteen yoke, and I’m already planning on blatantly copying it once I have my hands on the new fabric.

I’m not going to go too much into the specifics of the workshop. I was too busy sewing and chatting (mostly chatting) to think about taking photos, but luckily a lot of the other awesome sewing ladies have already given the details.

Various great moments from the weekend: Taking a tour of the Golden Age of Couture show from the V&A Museum, and wanting to take nearly every dress home with me.  Drooling over the new cotton velveteens when Anna Maria previewed her new fabric collection, Innocent Crush. Learning sewing techniques from Alexia, Anna Maria’s assistant who helped at the workshop, like how to cut out patterns pieces in order to achieve a seamless fabric design.  Watching Anna Maria and Alexia demonstrate how to sew an invisible zipper – I had no idea it needed to be ironed first! Meeting Erin in person, meeting Fatty and the girls in person, and eating breakfast with them at a fun, semi-touristy place specializing in large amounts of good Southern food. (Will even got the story of Fatty’s name over a big platter of biscuits). Erin and I got to talk sewing, though I should have asked her more of my stupid sewing questions, and I got to witness the lightening speed in which she cuts out patterns and sews. I might have heard a swear word or two coming from her table, but I’m sure she heard way more than two coming from mine. Anna Maria brought quite a few goodies from her store with her, and I don’t think a single participant left without buying something as they are too pretty to resist.  Sigh.  It was such a great weekend.

So now I’m sort of hooked on making clothes for myself, even though it seems you need a failure in order to have a success. My workshop skirt is too big, but instead of ripping the stitches out and taking in the sides (important lesson - try on the skirt first before sewing the exterior and lining together), I just made another one in a smaller size, barely eking the skirt out of the yard of volumes from Anna Maria’s Drawing Room.  The cotton sateen decor weight might be a little heavy for this skirt, but I love the pattern so much that I’m not going to let that bother me. Now I have something to wear to Cassie’s first sewing gathering tomorrow, and still have something to work on.

Hot Chocolate

Posted on by

For our honeymoon, Will and I traveled around Spain for two weeks.  We did a lot of driving (almost 2000 miles), a lot of sightseeing, and a lot of eating. Back then we lived in a town of 40,000 people, and the only place where we could get really good food was in our own kitchen.  Whenever we traveled somewhere else, we made sure to eat very well before returning home to the drought.

One of our favorite food discoveries in Spain was churros and chocolate at a well known chocolate cafe (a chocolatería) located in an alley in Madrid. I remember it being a little hard to find, but the allure of long, skinny fried donuts and thick, warm chocolate drinks that are more like a pudding than a beverage kept us going until we located the cafe.  It was our first day in Spain, and as we sat at an outside table and people watched, I thought that our honeymoon was starting off very well.  At the end of the two weeks, we returned to Madrid to catch our flight back home. We also made sure to return to that cafe for one last order of churros and chocolate, though the waitress looked at us like we were crazy when we said we only wanted to share one order. She didn’t know that the chocolatería was our first of three food stops of the evening, and that we needed to save room for cider on tap and goat cheese bruschetta at a favorite bar, followed by a delicious but inexpensive seafood dinner at a restaurant recommended by friends.

The only problem with enjoying hot chocolate in Spain is that you get totally spoiled.  The powdered stuff in a packet won’t cut it anymore, and even the better, gourmet cocoas pale in comparison.  My favorite local restaurant and its sister cafe serve delicious hot chocolate with a homemade marshmallow just as good as what I drank in Spain, but I needed to figure out how to make it at home.  I googled some recipes, and realized all I needed to make Spanish hot chocolate is a really good dark chocolate bar, some higher fat milk or cream, and a sweetener of some kind.  I don’t have an exact recipe for my concoctions, but if you taste as you go it always turns out just right.  Sometimes I have a very dark chocolate bar (like 70% or more), and sometimes I have a less dark one (like 40-50%), though I never use milk chocolate.  I like a combo of my favorite local milk and cream, which is more like half and half than the ubiquitous ultrapasteurized cream.  For my sweetener, I usually grab the bottle of local honey, but sugar will work too. I always add a pinch of salt at the end to intensify the chocolate flavor. 

I start off slowly heating and stirring 1-2 cups of milk in a heavy small saucepan, adding broken bits of the chocolate bar.  It is better to start off with too little milk, and need to add more, than to have too much because your hot chocolate will be weak.  Once the chocolate bar is completely melted, I whisk in some honey and a pinch of salt, stir some more, then taste.  If I need to adjust anything, I do it now. As the chocolate heats up, it will thicken. A lot of the authentic Spanish hot chocolate recipes called for the addition of corn starch, which I’ve never bothered to do. While the final beverage won’t be as thick as the chocolate in Madrid without corn starch - nor as good without the churros (I put my foot down at frying donuts before) - it is pretty close. 

When Winter arrives, I always delay the beginning of hot chocolate season, because once I start I want to make it all the time.

I made the version above with local Oliver and Sinclair sea salt chocolate given to me by Santa Claus.  It was very good.

The Most Wonderful Day of the Year

Posted on by

This year, that would be July 6, the first day of my local fabric store’s 50% off, two week long, Summer sale. I like to show up to the sale on the first day 15 or 20 minutes before the store opens, because often they let people in early and I’ve found if you wait until later in the day, the fabric you want is already gone. Last year, I (stupidly) forgot my list of Anna Maria’s Drawing Room fabric for her Birdcage on a Chain quilt and I decided to come back in the afternoon to purchase everything instead of the few yards I could remember by sight. Of course by then, several of the fabrics were gone and I could only get a handful of the ones I needed. Natalie Chanin visited the fabric store in May, and was impressed with all the trims and buttons.

This past weekend was all about plans being thwarted. On Saturday evening, we were supposed to go to the local minor league baseball game and fireworks. I had babysitters (aka grandparents) lined up for the girl, because 16 month olds and stadiums do not mix. About 15 minutes before we needed to leave, the rain started and didn’t let up until the morning. It hadn’t rained here in over a week but had to start the evening of the 4th. And last night, we decided to go to the latin jazz concert and have a picnic supper on the grounds of the plantation beforehand. A couple of hours before the concert, a huge storm blew in and the torrents didn’t stop until later in the evening. I was thankful no tickets for either event were purchased ahead of time.

Today, instead of being at the fabric store at 9:45am, I was on the way to the doctor’s office for well visits for the kids. What rotten scheduling! I was so tempted to try and reschedule the visits, but I didn’t want to put them off for another month, especially when I need to send updated vax forms into school soon. I managed to make it to the store a little after 11am (though toting two children to the fabric store is usually not my idea of fun), and the fabric I wanted was still around. The minimum cut for the sale price is one yard, so I picked up a yard of Far Far Away unicorns and an Echino bird print. Textile Fabric just started carrying Liberty Tania Lawn, and I really really wanted a yard of it, but even on sale it will cost me around $27 so I decided against the purchase.

We’ll see how strong my willpower is next week…

Mint Patch, Part 2

Posted on by

There is another very important reason why we have a mint patch – mojitos. I can’t think of a better drink for a warm evening.

We make ours with gin, as my husband will not do rum. Now that I’ve made them with gin for several years, the rum ones taste a little funny to me. I won’t turn one down though.

I’ve tried several recipes, and the two below are my favorites. The first one – a regular mojito recipe where I simply replaced the rum with gin – is great because you don’t have to prep anything ahead of time, as long as you have superfine sugar (also called castor sugar). I can find castor sugar locally at Whole Foods or Fresh Market, though any gourmet kitchenware/food store should carry it.

The second recipe is a recent discovery in Frank Stitt’s new cookbook, Bottega Favorita. I was thrilled to see a mojito made with gin – he calls it a Southside – in the Cin Cin! and Cheers! chapter. When we lived in Alabama, we drove the hour to Birmingham as often as we could to eat at one of Frank Stitt’s restaurants, Chez Fonfon. He owns three others, and I’ve eaten at Highlands Grill (we received a gift certificate here as a wedding present and it was the best present ever!) and the cafe side of Bottega. Not only does Frank Stitt make wonderful food at all four restaurants, he uses local Alabama and Georgia food purveyors and has done so for a long time. The Southside is delicious, but you do need to have simple syrup which is, of course, simple to make but needs to be cool before you use it.

Gin Mojito
serves 2

- 3 oz. fresh lime juice (about 3 limes)
- 2 Tbsp. superfine/castor sugar
- 6 sprigs of fresh mint
- 3 oz. gin
- seltzer or water to taste

1. In a small pitcher, combine lime juice, sugar, and mint. Stir and muddle the mixture until the sugar has dissolved.
2. Add the gin and stir until combined.
3. Fill glasses with crushed ice. If you want, you can run a wedge of lime around the rim and dip each glass into granulated sugar.
4. Pour cocktail (you may strain if you’d like) into the glasses and top with seltzer or water to taste. Garnish with a mint sprig.

Southside
adapted from Bottega Favorita by Frank Stitt; serves 2

- 4 lime wedges
- 2 oz. simple syrup (recipe follows)
- 2 oz. fresh lime juice
- 4 mint sprigs
- 3 oz. gin
- splash of club soda or water

1. Squeeze the lime wedges into a small pitcher or cocktail shaker, then drop the wedges in.
2. Add the simple syrup, additional lime juice, mint, and muddle with a spoon or muddler to bruise the mint and extract the oils from the mint and lime peel.
3. Add the gin and stir to combine.
4. Fill two glasses halfway with crushed ice; pour the cocktail evenly between the two.
5. Add a splash of club soda or water to taste.

Simple Syrup
The recipe for simple syrup is very basic – add equal parts sugar and water and heat on the stove until sugar is dissolved and mixture has thickened slightly. You can store extra in a tightly sealed jar in the fridge for several weeks, or if you have a tiny saucepan, you can reduce this recipe. If I find I’m not using my syrup up fast enough with mojitos, I make lemonade or limeade as a special treat.

- 2 c. sugar (I use natural cane which makes the syrup an amber color, but works and tastes just the same)
- 2 c. water

1. Combine sugar and water in a small heavy saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat.
2. Simmer for 2 minutes, then remove from heat and let cool.
I think I’m going to make some gin mojitos this afternoon for our impromptu Memorial Day grill fest.

Mint Patch, Part 1

Posted on by

At the beginning of last Summer, my husband got a few sprigs of mint with roots from his mother and planted them so we’d have our own mint patch. Since mint grows very enthusiastically (to put it mildly), We chose an ugly and unused long strip of grass between our ugly driveway and even uglier backyard fence. My husband is a true Southerner – he was born in the South, grew up in the South, and comes from many generations on both sides of Southern born and bred people. While I often call myself a Southerner, it’s only because my parents moved here right before I was born. My husband’s favorite beverage is fruit tea, also frequently known as tea punch. There are a few food and beverages unique to the part of the South we live in – one is hot chicken, the other is meat and 3, and the last one is tea punch. While you may find these three in other parts of the South, you don’t find them with the same frequency and intensity as you do here. I am a huge fan of all three, but while I only eat hot chicken at Prince’s and meat and 3s at Arnold’s, I will make fruit tea at home.

Most people associate sweet tea with the South, but I have never been a fan. It is just way too sweet. I like my tea, both iced and hot, nice and strong. I might like sweet tea better if it was just a little sweet, instead of the all too common sickening sweet. I feel the same way about lemonade; tart is much preferable to sweet. There is only one place I know of where I like sweet tea, and that is Interstate Bar-B-Q in Memphis, where they serve a wonderful peach sweet tea I’ve never seen anywhere else.

Fruit tea is basically ice tea with fruit juice added to it. There are so many variations of fruit tea. Some recipes use pineapple juice besides orange juice and lemonade. Other recipes call for the addition of mint while the tea is steeping, or extra sugar. My mother in law likes to add Mountain Dew to hers. I’m sure there are many other secret ingredients I don’t know about. When I moved to Alabama almost ten years ago (the real South, I thought, as opposed to the South I grew up in), I was determined to figure out how to make fruit tea.

This is what I came up with:

Fruit Tea

I like fruit tea strong and if I have mint, then I absolutely want to add it, as it adds another lovely, nuanced flavor to the brew. I think the juice makes it sweet enough on it’s own, but if you are a sweet tea fan then you may want to add extra sugar. You can also play with the proportions of juice to tea.

- 6-8 black tea bags
- 4-5 mint sprigs
- half of a 12 oz. container of frozen oj concentrate (I buy mine at Trader Joe’s because there is no added sugar or high fructose corn syrup; your Whole Foods or natural foods store might carry a similar product but mine doesn’t for some unknown reason – don’t let me get started here…)
- half of a 12 oz. container of frozen lemonade concentrate (again I buy mine at Whole Foods to avoid HFCS)

1. Boil 8 cups of water in a tea kettle.
2. In a large pyrex or stainless steel bowl, add the mint and 6-8 tea bags. I usually tie or clip the tea bags together, so they don’t fall into the bowl and are easier to remove later.
3. Once the water is boiling, add it to the bowl. Let the tea steep for the recommended time.
4. When the tea is ready, remove the bags and the mint. Stir in the oj and lemonade concentrates. Since you only use half of a container, you have enough leftover to make another batch in a few days. I find that fruit tea disappears quickly in my house.
5. Chill in the refrigerator, then pour into a pitcher.
6. Serve over ice and with a mint sprig.

I learned a neat trick at the Savannah Tea Room for making any tea decaffeinated. The caffeine in the tea leaves is released in the first minute of brewing. If you want to decaffeinate any tea, discard the water after a minute of steeping, then add new hot water. The resulting tea will be decaffeinated. I use this trick a lot since I don’t like to have caffeine after my much needed one cup of coffee in the morning, and I also like to avoid any chemical process that decaffeinates tea or coffee.