Friday, May 30, 2008

let the games begin



This spring brings another new garden. Our decision to grow more of our own specialized produce for the restaurant, things we can’t get from our local farm partners, has prompted the design of another raised bed potager. As the days beat down sun and the air warms, the apple trees blossom, and we map out the space off our terrace and rent a sod cutter. The sod cutter is a brilliant invention. We thought about just tilling the garden, but knew better. The sod would just get mixed up in with the tilled soil and we would forever be fighting grass. (We speak from experience.) We are daunted by lifting the sod by hand. Then, we read about the sod cutter in Henry Homeyer’s classic collection of gardening essays: The Vermont Gardener’s Companion. Rented for the day, the sod cutter arrived in a friend’s pick-up truck shiny and red like a new fire engine, or a child’s red wagon. Almost with ease, we cut away and rolled the grass like so many little carpets. The neighbors, having just finished a building project, carted so many rolls away for seeding a new lawn.

So, we begin correctly, with a blank slate. The soft brown earth, now tilled, is a new canvas.

--Deirdre

Sunday, May 25, 2008

fresh eggs for sale




On the drive into the restaurant there is a little farm that has spent the last year getting spruced up. New white paint job, work on the porch, and now the barn is getting shored up and a new hen house. The farmhouse is on one side of the road, and the faded red barn and farmyard on the other. In front of the house is a little table with a cooler, a glass jar, and a sign that says “Eggs For Sale”. Across the road, laying hens and roosters scratch and squawk. They roam around the farmyard pecking at insects and worms and every morning the farmer’s very pretty wife fills their pans with yellow chicken feed. The roosters sing at passersby. They are a motley crew of breeds and bright colors with fancy plumes and red wattles. Their eggs are pastel blue, brown, pink, and cream. We stop just about every day to fill up our basket for the restaurant and at home. There is nothing quite so lovely as an egg cracked over the side of a mixing bowl, the yolk the color of sunrise.

--Deirdre

Thursday, May 22, 2008

still waters run deep


The easy May weather has been conducive to the garden. We begin to clean the beds, roll back the grower’s plastic, and rake away the straw. We are met by happy coincidence. The lettuces we planted last year have returned. The radicchio shows in tight clusters, the wild arugula narrow and spikey, the Swiss chard makes a valiant effort, and another lettuce—neither of us can remember its name—has come back thick and hearty. Edda’s Bavarian white radishes, seeds from our German neighbor planted last August, have continued growing beneath the cold frame all winter. When mature, they will make a tasty treat sliced on rye bread with butter. The punterelle which never came up last summer, now has taken over one of the beds in sprouts. We count the days off, and think that sometime in mid-July, if not sooner, we can make that classic Roman salad composed of the curly white spines of the puntarelle chicory tossed with an anchovy vinaigrette.

--Deirdre

Saturday, May 17, 2008

unexpected road food



We arrive home to green, cool, and wet. Now for several days we have had strong, clear sun. We are constantly on the look out for wild road food. It’s the season for fiddlehead ferns and wild leeks, allium tricoccum, or ramps as we call them here in Vermont. The name ramps comes from the Old English hramsa. In West Virginia, they also call them ramsons. They are the national vegetable of Wales, and they are protected and almost extinct in Quebec. Here, in Vermont, they are one of our wild food spring jewels, and grow in wet, moist areas. They are a member of both the onion and the lily family. We look along creek beds and hillsides. We know not to pick lily-of-the-valley which look very similar, but are poisonous and smell sweet. There is another plant here with broad lily-like leaves that's not lily-of-the-valley that always fools us. We’ll see a patch from the road, and shout, “Stop! Look!” But then after closer inspection, we’ll see they are not wild leeks, and move on. We are lways hopeful.

It comes as a big surprise when we are driving north and see those blade-like green leaves. A sea of them. We both think to ourselves that we must have seen a mirage. “Were those leeks?” Caleb asks. “I don’t know? Do you think those were leeks?” I answer. We turn around. They are indeed wild leeks, a treasure trove of wild leeks. We are not prepared, but go to work anyway with sticks and bare hands collecting a beautiful bagful. We go back the next day with trowels and buckets. We are rich in wild leeks. For some reason, the car smells like a Vietnamese restaurant.

We eat them in a frittata filled with a friend’s new sheep’s milk ricotta. We eat them fried up in a pan with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. They are slightly crispy and sweet. We serve them in a risotto, bulbs and leaves, at the restaurant.

--Deirdre

Thursday, May 15, 2008

abandoned civilizations








The town sits high up on a rock. So many towns here sit high up on rocks, are built out of the rocks, rising like Michelangelo's Slaves from the tufa and marble. But Calacata, rather than being on an open promontory, is tucked in between soft green hills. This town too was once abandoned, but rather than tony Romans or artsy Americans buying up the streets like in Civita di Bagnoreggio, the figli di fiori have made a strong hold. Flower children, or aging hippies, have taken up residence, or at least fashioned jerry-rigged art studios for crafting jewelry or Hindi- inspired paintings. Tea-rooms line the narrow corso, and the smell of wild iris is thick. Of a Sunday afternoon, visitors flock to see the pretty crumbling buildings and buy handmade soap, then lunch in the village at one of the small trattorias, or at the little house converted to a restaurant on the side of the road on the way into town. Sora Peppa’s is decked out with red tablecloths and a handwritten sign with a an ample awning-covered terrace with a dramatic view over the ravine and a look back at Calcata. Sora means sister much in the same way the French once used the name Citizen. Sora Peppa’s menu is small with local mushrooms and priest-strangling pasta and smoky spring lamb. We think of lunch with a view of happy ruins.

--Deirdre

Saturday, May 10, 2008

the city that is dying





The air is hot because the sun is strong and there isn’t a cloud in the pale blue sky. The wind is even stronger as we walk across the long, snaking bridge from Bagnoreggio to Civita di Bagnoreggio. Bagnoreggio is a pretty, quite town on the edge of two regions: Umbria and Lazio. It’s not far from Orvieto, not far from Lago di Bolsena, not far from Viterbo. Civita di Bagnareggio is an old town outcropping high on a basalt cliff reached only by walking paths. Not all that long ago, travel from Bagnoreggio to the Civita was done by donkey. The walking bridge is relatively new. You can walk there, ride a bicycle, or motorcycle. But there are no cars. Civita di Bagnoreggio is far from everything. The sign says Civita di Bagnoreggio and underneath in parentheses is says la citta que muore, the city that is dying.

Civita di Bagnoreggio was abandoned to the elements over the last century. The difficulty of living there and the difficulty of sustainability there drove the young to cities and abroad. Those tenacious enough to remain eventually left for more sound and easy-upkeep housing on the “mainland”. Yet architecturally it is a gem. Yet, as with many derelict but dramatic settings, Civita di Bagnoreggio begins to live again. Italians flock there as tourists for the day. Guides can be hired to take visitors out the country paths that lead into a verdant valley to see native flora and fauna. The Italian Cultural commission has promoted the rebuilding of houses and gardens. Italian and foreign artists have bought properties and done them up, renting them out in the high season. We think of a couple of nights of sophisticated camping, walking to town with only a couple of backpacks. A handful of very simple eateries of opened to feed the hungry and fearless who walk across the vertiginous bridge.

We eat at a bruschetteria (pronounced brus-kett-eria) in an old cantina and olive oil press. Inside is a cave filled with tables covered in flowered tablecloths and lighted by candles even at mid-day. The food is prepared in one fireplace, a grill over burning olive wood, the bread charred and blackened in places, then topped with a number of homemade condiments: tomatoes, eggplant, mushroom/truffle spread, sheep’s milk cheese, lardo(silky fat), and olive. Inside, the fire feels good. Outside, a long table is positioned in the sun. We eat a mix of bruschetta with a half carafe of house red wine. In this high perch, sitting out of the wind, we taste renewal. Salt, sun, fruit, and earth.

--Deirdre