Recycling Halloween Aftermath

Posted on November 1, 2021 by Ann Lovejoy
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Homemade Plastic-Free Halloween Decorations

Composting Pumpkins & Stuffing Stuffies

Last night, our modest community experienced our first Halloween costume parade event. Though only a handful of our 50 homeowners put up decorations, those that did, did it with delightful gusto and exuberance. Rather than have door-to-door trick or treating, treat tables were set out near the most decorated homes, offering treat bags, light sticks and small toys to costumed kids. We invited our neighbors from nearby condos to join us, and someone unknown posted the event on social media, so we had a larger response than anticipated. Fortunately, the result wasn’t overwhelming this year, but so many people asked about next year that we realized that we were at risk of setting ourselves up for repeat performances; on Bainbridge Island, anything fun tends to get turned into an annual event. What have we done?

This morning, the debate was about both commitment (are we obliged to do this again?) and about holiday decor protocol; how long can seasonal decorations be left in place? When does something fun and cute start to look dirty and neglected? Though our pumpkins and gourds aren’t going away yet, I immediately removed the clingy, stretchy fake spider webbing beloved of local kiddos. For one thing, I don’t want birds to get tangled in this stuff. For another, once it gets wet, it’s un-recyclable trash. If gathered up quickly enough, this fine-spun polyester fiber makes fine stuffing for soft toys-in fact, it’s basically the same thing as the commercial stuffing, but differently extruded. Fortunately, all of our fluffy stuff is now clean of leaves, dry, and safely repackaged for stuffy-making. Unfortunately, there are ragged, tattered sheets of this stuff all over the neighborhood, the island, the county, the state, the country. Ack!

Sustainable Holiday Decorations

I’ve never used the fake spider webbing before but I admit that I got suckered by youthful enthusiasm. Regrettable, right? However, I’ve already started developing patterns for crocheted webs and knitted spiders for next year. Made of cotton, linen, wool and fluffy angora (for spider legs, of course), our future decorations will be usable for many years to come. When at last they expire, they can be composted, just like the pumpkins and squash and long threaded swags of colorful fall foliage we make. As long as we use natural fiber twine or thread to make leafy or floral or evergreen swags, the whole business can be tossed in the compost or the green waste bin when colors fade and needles drop.

With a little advanced planning, we can extend this same rethinking to other kinds of decorations. When my grandkids wanted some plastic holiday decorations with long, fluttering ribbons, we made our own versions with cardboard, colored paper and crepe paper streamers. The kiddos always enjoy making things, so I keep their craft table stocked with supplies and rarely need to suggest anything to make, as they are always full of more or less practical ideas. I figure anything not dangerous is worth a try, and experimentation is an important life skill. If failures are treated as puzzles to be worked out, some very ingenious solutions may emerge from the (harmless) wreckage.

Living Trees & Edible Decorations

Though my grandkids celebrate the winter holidays at their own home, we have found some lovely ways to decorate around my little home and garden as well. Rather than bringing a cut tree indoors, we decorate living trees with swags of plain popcorn and apple slices. We stuff fat pinecones with natural, unsalted peanut butter and roll them in sunflower seeds we saved from our towering flowers. This is a super sticky, fairly messy process so it’s wise to have some wet rags, a washable table covering, and a large drop cloth in place before the revels begin.

Wild Bird Seed Cookies

5-6 cups wild bird seed mix
1 cup organic coconut oil
1 cup organic natural peanut butter (no sugar, no salt)

Put coconut oil and peanut butter in a bowl in the oven with just the oven light on and the door closed for about half an hour to soften. Lightly oil the inside of your cookie cutters, then place them on a rimmed baking sheet. Mix as many seeds as possible into the softened oil and peanut butter, then pack cookie cutters with the mixture all the way to the top (they’ll be about an inch thick). Now insert a few toothpicks bunched together or a small dowel into each cookie to make a hole for a string to hang the cookies with. Let the cookies firm up completely before removing them from the cutters. If your house is warm, try putting the baking sheet outside for half an hour or so to firm up. Thread the cookies with natural fiber string or yarn and hang them on an outdoor tree where birds can get them but cats can’t (important where cats are allowed to roam outside). Depending on the size of your cookie cutters, this makes about 8-10 small cookies or 4-6 larger ones.

 

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Celebrating With Plants & Pumpkins

Posted on October 25, 2021 by Ann Lovejoy
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Nature’s tapestry ofrenda

Reimagining Traditional Holidays

Yesterday an arborist pointed out a small colony of dwarf mistletoe, nestled high in a Douglas fir. I associate mistletoe with apple trees and winter holiday traditions, but this species (Arceuthobium douglasii) is a harmful if minor parasite, with ‘kissing cousins’ that attack other needled evergreens. Like the European mistletoe used in ancient pagan Solstice rites as well as yuletide kissing bunches, this native has viscous berries that burst when ripe, shooting sticky seeds as much as 30 feet, where they glue them to branches and create new colonies. Unlike European mistletoe, which has a long history as a medicinal plant with supernatural powers, our native dwarf species is apparently just a pathetic parasite with no obvious redeeming value.

As we all take deeper looks at many of our cultural traditions and assumptions, some are proving to be just as empty of benefit as dwarf mistletoe. Apparently. But even the hollow husks of some discredited holidays may contain seeds of value. I’m especially interested in reviewing holiday traditions these days, as their origins are being subjected to greater scrutiny. Halloween, one of my own favorite holidays, is a rich example; how did it move from a hallowed ritual to a candy holiday for kids? Like other, more major holidays, Halloween morphed over time, melding several ancient Northern hemisphere traditions associated with the waning of the year. It owes a lot to Samhain (pronounced sow-een, like hallow ‘een), pre-Christian Celtic festivities that involved bonfires to drive away darkness and costumes to confuse wandering ghosts. In 993 BCE, the Catholic church proclaimed October 31 All Souls Day, while November 1 became All Saints Day. In some countries, All Souls is like Memorial Day, a time for everyone to remember their dead in different ways. In North America, Halloween’s ghosts and ghouls and skeletons keep the fear of death to the fore, while in Mexico, Dia de los Muertos is a kindly, cheerful celebration of lost lives, focusing on appreciation and positive memories.

A Garden Ofrenda

Millions of people create ofrendas or shrines for Dia de los Muertos each October, filling them with pictures of the dead as well as decorated votive candles and flowers. Millions of flowers are grown especially for this holiday, notably marigolds, with their brilliant, sunny colors. For some years now, I’ve made outdoor ofrendas to honor the passing of summer and the swing of the seasons. This has been a marvelous year for fall color, so it’s easy to gather armloads of leaves stained gold or coral or bronze or blood red, adding sheaves of sunny calendulas for floral highlights. It’s especially fun to arrange leaves in artful sweeps along garden walks and public paths to entice walkers to pause and admire nature’s palette. These sweeps emulate nature’s ofrendas, gorgeous tapestries of colorful autumn leaves that shift with the wind (which there’s quite a bit of today, the aftermath of the “cyclone bomb” weekend storm).

I also love making fanciful costumes and so does my family, who this year are making matched pairs; a mosquito and a drop of blood; a moth and a lamp post. (I’m going as a fluffy pink unicorn, how about you?) We enjoy decorating with lights and candles, pumpkins and gourds as well as fallen leaves and bright flowers. Living in a mobile home park, of course it’s also necessary to have vampire flamingos and crows with flashing red eyes. All this is great fun, but even more valuable to me is the tenderness and good cheer of the ofrenda tradition. People picnic near the shrines and surround pictures of their dead with candles and lanterns, favorite foods, a glass of spiritous liquor such as tequila, candy and treats. There’s joyful music and dancing, story telling and exchanges of memories happy and poignant and sad. Sorrow is not denied a place at the picnic table of memory, but it’s interwoven with strands of gladness for love and lives shared. Our northern candy holiday tradition could be greatly enriched by intermingling with the loving, vibrant traditions of our southern neighbors, with their acceptance of grief and loss as natural parts of a life fully lived.

The Sweet Taste Of Sorrow

Traditional ofrenda foods include empanadas and enchiladas, various forms of mole, often with a bitter chocolate base, as well as any kind of favorite foods. The idea is that as family and friends savor the flavors, the spirit of shared food unites the spirits of the people as well. Sweet drinks like hot chocolate are also included, especially welcome on cold autumn days and nights. Sweet breads of many kinds are traditional ofrenda treats, from pan de muerto (‘bread of the dead’) to sweet potato or pumpkin breads. One of our sugar pumpkins took a tumble and after the largest pieces got roasted, they turned into this spicy pumpkin bread. It calls for 2 cups of cooked pumpkin pulp but a 15-ounce can of pumpkin works just fine too.

Spicy Pumpkin Bread

2 cups unbleached flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon each ground cinnamon and coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper (optional)
3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups cooked pumpkin puree

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. (Lower than usual, yes.) Butter two standard (8.5×4.5×2.5”) loaf pans, set aside. Sift together dry ingredients, set aside. Cream butter and sugar, then add eggs one at a time, stirring in well. Mix in pumpkin, then stir in dry ingredient until completely blended. Divide batter between the two loaf pans and bake at 325 F for 60-75 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool 10 minutes, then remove from pans to cool completely on a rack. Serves at least one. Even better the next day!

Spooky and spirited Halloween art

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Home Style French Soups

Posted on October 18, 2021 by Ann Lovejoy
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Pureed potato leek (and kale) soup with fresh herb garnish

Garden-Based Cool Season Soups

Recent oral surgery has me disgruntledly following a complicated and fussy regimen that disallows such delights as anything chewable and even restricts hot tea (!!!) for the first week or so. As I sullenly sip tepid soup (no texture allowed) and eat yet another serving of plain yogurt (to counter the sweeping effects of antibiotics), I’m entertaining (torturing) myself my re-reading favorite cookbooks. A few comments and questions about last week’s post on simple food led me back to Richard Olney’s classic cookbook, Simple French Food. Though he never experienced the public fame of James Beard or Julia Childs, Olney was highly regarded amongst professional chefs and food writers in the 60s and 70s. He’s credited with being among the influential few who re-shaped American cookery by popularizing French cuisine in a day when prepared and packaged food was becoming increasingly available and popular.

A decent writer, he’s wry, opinionated and sometimes amusing, and anyone who enjoys reading books about life in small Provencal villages will definitely appreciate the glimpses of his chosen home town of Sollies-Toucas, a beautiful (of course) place in the Cote d’Azur region. Olney lived there from the early 1950s until his death in 1999, and spent his time painting (not very well), cooking (very well), and writing about food (very well indeed) as well as his unmemorable memoirs. Like most of his contemporaries, Olney’s cookbook features a lot of meat, but he has time for vegetables as well, especially appreciating the “meaty” qualities of beans(!). He offers recipes for a number of vegetable purees, among which I most enjoyed the brothy ones. French water-based soups always have the clean, fresh taste of vegetables, rather than heavier, often greasy soups made with chicken or meat stock. I always prefer lighter, vegetable-based soups with self-broths that highlight the garden-fresh flavors.

Perfectly Simple Potato Leek Soup

A few years back, I wrote about an extremely simple version of French potato leek soup found in Olney’s cookbook. Where most potato leek soup recipes rely heavily on butter and cream or milk, Olney reports that such a recipe would very much surprise French cooks whose home style versions rarely include dairy ingredients. He does finish his version of this classic with a bit of butter in each bowl, but chopped herbs make an equally delicious garnish and also keep the soup vegan for those who prefer it. The recipe I posted, offered here again with a little update, is too simple for many people, who can’t resist gussying it up with a bit of this or that. It definitely does gussy up nicely, and almost anything from smoked salmon to kale and fresh herbs will complement it. However, there’s a reason that the plain version below is served nightly in many working class French homes and it’s not simply economy. Made with excellent ingredients, this soup is both satisfyingly delicious and even mildly addictive. Gussy if you must, but do t least try a bowlful, enjoying a mellowing glass of wine while it cooks. Bon appetite!

Home Style French Soup

I make this soup with avocado oil, which lends this soup a rich, buttery flavor, but a fruity olive oil works is more traditional. The version seen above included kale, and was pureed because my current condition requires it, but pureeing is a good way to make any soup seem creamier even without added dairy ingredients.

French Potato Leek Soup

1+ teaspoon sea salt
3 fat leeks, thinly sliced (white and pale green parts only)
3-4 medium potatoes, quartered and sliced
1-2 tablespoons avocado oil or olive oil or butter
few grinds pepper
2 tablespoons minced fresh herbs (optional)

Combine 2 quarts of water with the salt and bring to a brisk boil. Add leeks and potatoes, reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are quite tender but still mostly intact (30-40 minutes). Add a splash of oil or some butter, adjust seasoning (salt, really) and serve, with a bit of freshly ground pepper and fresh herbs for garnish. Serves 4.

A Different French Onion Soup

Here’s another autumnal recipe that’s lovely in this simple vegan form and can be gussied very pleasantly as well. If you don’t want to use the apple and green onion garnish, try grated Gruyere or Pecorino cheese instead (it will taste more like the usual French onion soups). This lighter version always reminds me of a magical time when Italian fellow students and I helped with the vendange at an ancient farmstead near Aix-en-Provence. The grapes were rose or purple or pale green, silvery with bloom, and we dumped our full buckets into big woven baskets slung over the sides of a velvety grey donkey wearing a floppy hat trimmed with flowers.

French Kale And Onion Soup

1/4 cup fruity olive oil
3 large onions, thinly sliced
1+ teaspoon sea salt
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 teaspoons stemmed thyme
6 cups chopped kale
1/2 cup dry white OR red wine
6 cups boiling water
4 slices of crusty bread, toasted
1/2 cup finely chopped crisp apple
2 green onions, finely sliced

Put oil in a soup pan over medium low heat, add onions and salt and cook until soft and golden (20-30 minutes). Increase heat and cook, stirring often, until onions are lightly caramelized (10-15 minutes). Add garlic, thyme and kale, cover pan and cook until kale is dark green and soft (5-8 minutes), stirring occasionally. Add wine, increase heat to medium high and cook until wine is reduced by half. Add boiling water, reduce heat to low and simmer for 20-30 minutes. Break up a slice of toast in each of four bowls, fill with soup, garnish with cheese (if using) and serve. Serves 4.

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Gardening Together, Happily

Posted on October 11, 2021 by Ann Lovejoy
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Never too old to garden; our beloved Carol inspires us all

The Goodness Of Gardening

I’ve been very grumpy lately for a raft of reasons, not least because I’ve been living with a minor but uncomfortable and annoying health condition. The worst of such situations is that it’s very hard to forget about them and at this point in my life, this one constantly reminds me that my body is aging. Of course there’s also a wonderful side to aging; the sense of becoming an elder, a loving grandmother, perhaps even the matriarch of an extended family. It’s pleasant to realize that you’ve actually accumulated a little wisdom along with all that sometimes costly life experience. Age brings more perspective and blunts the fierce edge of fear and anxiety over the small stuff. I’m not at the place where I think it’s all small stuff (it isn’t), but my life is certainly more peaceful than it has been for quite a while, annoying condition or no.

There are really two reasons for this; I am once again observing a media fast, greatly restricting daily news exposure, and I’m gardening at least 15 minutes a day, every day, rain or shine. If it’s cold and rainy and I feel like staying indoors just this once, I make the decision to at least walk around the garden. Small as the garden is, that brief visit offers a full body experience; there is the feeling of wind or breeze, scents of moist earth and late blooming flowers, sounds of busy birds seeking snacks, sights of squirrels storing up food for winter (and planting dozens of peanuts in every bed). I see falling leaves in gorgeous sunset tints and sheaves of coral River Lilies (formerly Schizostylis, now Hesperantha) against masses of dusky purple kale. Soon I’m pulling a random weed or two, snipping a few flowers for a vase, picking Italian dandelion greens and ruddy radicchio for dinner. Almost without realizing it, I enter the garden as a gardener, a participant, not an observer.

Gardening With Others

No wonder we gardeners get addicted! A recent study reported that people who engage in nature-based activities outside experience improved moods, less anxiety, and more positive emotions. Being scientists, they measured all sorts of factors and decided that the most positive results are experienced by people who spend between 20 and 90 minutes a week for a period of 8 to 12 weeks. For most participants, gardening was the activity of choice, and it turns out that gardening is especially rewarding in terms of emotional and mental health when we do it together. Spending time working on conservation activities and walking in natural settings is also beneficial, so hopefully the current trend for forest bathing will remain popular, as will eco-activism of all kinds.

I’m not surprised that gardening with others has proven to be especially healthy. Lead author of the study, Dr Peter Coventry, said: “While doing these activities on your own is effective, among the studies we reviewed it seems that doing them in groups led to greater gains in mental health.” Last week, several of us were cutting down tall thalictrum stalks and digging out overgrown clumps of Euphorbia Dixter Flame. Now and then, another Friday Tidy volunteer would appear and we’d break to decide where a row of roses should be moved, or discuss the fact that that week contains both a birthday and the anniversary of the death of a beloved husband. We nearly always talk as we work, sometimes ranting about climate change or politics, or celebrating some lovely family event, or call out an especially good book. A long-timer volunteer stopped in the middle of a somewhat painful story to tell a newcomer, “This is part of it for us; we work hard and we talk about things that matter to us.” The newcomer said, “This is why I’m coming back. I think it will get me through the winter.”

I think she’s right.

Leek and Corn and Kale Chowder

The last of summer’s corn, a small hill of potatoes, and a few fat leeks combine in this hearty autumn soup that’s also rich with leafy greens. My family loves chowders made in the New England way, with thin if milky broth that amplifies the flavors of each vegetable. No thickener is used, but some people like to mash some of the potatoes to make a thicker soup (and that’s traditional too). We call it green corn chowder not because the corn is unrip (or fermented into moonshine), but because the shredded greens make the broth deep green. This is another very simple recipe that depends heavily on using the freshest local ingredients.

Green Corn Chowder

1 tablespoon avocado or vegetable oil
3 large leeks, thinly sliced (white and pale green parts only)
1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
6 medium potatoes, cut in 1-inch pieces
4 cups shredded kale
2 cups shredded arugula
kernels of corn from 2-3 ear
s
2-4 cups whole milk
1-2 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper to taste

In a soup pot, combine oil, leeks and 1/2 tsp salt over medium high heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until slightly soft. Add potatoes, kale, arugula, and corn, cover pan, reduce heat to medium low and sweat vegetables until they soften a bit (8-10 minutes). Add water to cover by an inch or so, bring to a simmer and cook, covered, until potatoes are just fork tender (15-20 minutes). Add milk and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with a bit of butter in each bowl. Serves 4.

 

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