The buns ride shotgun

On Saturdays, I help Matt at the farmers market, for which I earn a little dough (ha!), and hang out with my honey (less common than I'd like during the gardening-and-baking season).

And every Saturday morning I mean to photograph the baking process (or the brief part of it that I am awake for). The loaves of sourdough this-and-that, the crackling ciabattas and the trays of seasonal fruit scones all look so pretty filling up the bakery racks. But the morning gets busy fast.

First I clean up any messes the dog has made in the night, and then I cook breakfast (not the most savory sequence of events). Next I walk the dog, and give her cuddles, and she and I discuss the fact that while it's really better to puke a river on the floor than on the couch, we're over it and on with our day. And all of a sudden it's time to pack bread, load the truck, and hit the highway. [Note to any of Matt's customers who might be reading this: dog not allowed in bakery.]

So all I have to post today is a somewhat blurry shot of Matt with the little honey oat loaves that would not fit in the back, as we pull out of the alley.

In my mother's night garden

I grew up an hour north of here, on ten acres that my parents have owned for 35 years. There they carved out a home from a horse pasture: house, artist's studios, wood shop, gardens. Hardwood forest grew up around them, thick and strong and tall.

Now my parents are leaving. Their reasons are complex, and some are sad. While their land has matured and, in ways, reverted (from cleared to wooded), adjoining land has recently been bulldozed and developed. Instead of the honey scent of milkweed flowers blowing over and into Mom's garden, there is diesel exhaust. Gas wells are being drilled in the area; the rigs are ironclad and obtuse, and marching in ever closer.

It seems like wildlife has concentrated on Mom and Dad's land in the past two years - both new species and a denser population of old ones. It is bittersweet - I see all those animals, my parents included, clustered in the middle, looking out. They stand in solidarity, but they are cornered.

For my parents, there is a way out, and if they could take all the others to Vermont with them, I guess they probably would. They would pack foxes, rabbits and nuthatches (with snacks!) into crates in the car, and off they'd go.

At the very center of my being, there is my parents' land. I grew up out of arrowwood tunnels and shad bowers. It is painful, all this long writing of the last chapter. All this forever saying goodbye. But that, I think, is what has caused my family to gather so many nights in the garden over this summer, and last. And so we got to know a gift: nocturnal sphinx moths.

They are loud (bzz bzz), and as the evening grows darker, the moths flap out of the shadows of the treeline. The biggest one (in the second and third pictures above) I think might be an ash sphinx, and to my eye, it is just a bit bigger than a hummingbird. It loves Mom's lilies ('Arena' is the one shown here).

My dad, Michael Poster, made these pictures last summer.

Roasted pork tacos with caramelized pineapple

Matt and I spend a lot of time talking about what we're going to eat next. It's good bedtime conversation, and out-on-a-hike conversation - anytime, really, it's fun to plan something delicious. During the summer, while the great cornucopia of vegetables that is the farmers market spills forth its bounty, we are creative, but short on time. So we talk about exciting possibilities, but it always just comes down to tacos. Luckily, tacos are versatile: you can stuff them with whatever there is.

These tacos were inspired by Garibaldi's, a Mexican restaurant in Scranton where the food is cheap, real, fiery, and f'n AWESOME. We have wedding pig left in the freezer, conveniently roasted and shredded, so we've been working on this rendition of taco yum yum.

For a light lunch for two, you need:
About 1 1/2 cups of roasted, shredded pork
1/4 cup pineapple in little chunks, fresh or canned
4 corn tortillas
Chopped onion
Chopped cilantro
Lime
Salt

Get two pans good and hot, and add a generous glug of oil to each. In one, fry the pork, and salt it a bit. After the pork has been in the pan a couple minutes, add the pineapple, and continue to fry until both are nicely browned. In the other pan, fry the tortillas, one after the other, turning when they just begin to go golden. Arrange the tortillas on a plate, top with porky pineapple stuff, onion, cilantro, and a squirt of lime. We had ours with some toasted chile salsa Matt made and a little chopped salad of lemon cucumber, chocolate cherry tomato, and Rose de Berne tomato.

Man versus beast

This is Matt's arsenal:

This is Matt's target:

After observing three separate assaults, I can tell you that trying to deter a woodchuck by hurling fruit at it is pretty much as effective as, say, trying to scare away a pit bull by handing it a pork chop. No matter - Matt's aim is improving, which I see as a benefit... I was impressed when he actually hit one, but he said it was just "on the bounce," and therefore does not count.

Spilanthes

On Saturdays I accompany Matt to the farmers market in Dallas, PA, where I help sling loaves in the Mockingbird Bakery stand. Our neighbor, Don of Dancing Hen Farm, often has something interesting on his table. Last week he opened up his van and immediately tempted us with a "surprise" that we couldn't have if we had any family history of epilepsy. That made me a teensy tiny bit wary of the surprise.

But Matt and I are suckers, so we just popped the surprises in our mouths. You know how sometimes experiences are described as eye-popping? I think that's what this was. There was so much intense tingling, accompanied by so much salty saliva... I thought I was gonna lose it. So I did, preemptively, and whilst hiding behind the truck.

The surprise was a Spilanthes (or toothache plant) flower, which this article by Richard A. Cech aptly describes as inspiring an "indescribable profusion of stimulatory responses... as if the teeth have begun to play musical chairs, springing painlessly from their moorage and rioting about in chaotic dance..." I don't really ever want to try another one, but I don't doubt this plant is a good toothache remedy. It's also very pretty, and the whole experience was, if not entirely pleasant, definitely thrilling and educational.

A Rosie and a lily

This is my friend Rosie, with my Lilium 'Conca D'or.' I think they are both lovely. For the record, I do not make a habit of planting Giant Yellow Things in my garden. In fact, as a rule, I despise them. But life is complicated, and thus... there is room in my heart for Conca D'or.

And also, we have a new pearled earth header, which I hope you like. I enjoy drawing pictures, and I plan to share some of them here going forward.

Married... the menu!

 

Now that things are all said and done, it's worth pondering: which came first, the proposal or the pig? It's a question without an answer, because there was no real proposal - we just all of a sudden moved getting married from the "maybe" to the "why yes, let's" list.

And then Matt started talking about the pig. Or he had been talking about the pig all along. I'm not sure. In any case, Matt needed a pig, and Farmer Pete had just the one. Pete and Matt slaughtered the pig and put it in the freezer a few months before the wedding.

The rest of the menu was designed to complement our porcine guest of honor. It was easy to decide what to eat: we just picked all our favorite things from all our favorite places.

Cocktails:

Rosie's sangria
Two Pennsylvania brews:
Victory Hop Devil and Lionshead

Wines selected by AV Restaurant:
Terlato Pinot Grigio
St. Antonius Riesling Spatlese
Toasted Head Barrel Reserve Pinto Noir
Paul Louis Vn Mousseux Blanc de Blanc

 Cocktail hour hors d'oeuvre:

Cow's milk cheeses from Calkins Creamery
Goat's milk cheeses from Ardith Mae Farm
Breads from Mockingbird Bakery (aka Matt):
walnut rye, sunflower sesame flax, olive,
and whole wheat sourdoughs, and ciabatta
Salumi platter by Pat Quinn
Roasted vegetable platter by AV
Smoked trout mousse and Sundried tomato white bean dip
by Summerhouse Grill
Olives, Hillside Farms butter

Supper:

Green salad with Hakurei turnips and scallions
from Skoloff Farm and Prospect St. Gardens

Garlicky ranch and Fig chutney salad dressings
by Toby Landon of Fig

Bean and corn salad and Fresh cucumber salad by AV

Macaroni and cheese with LeRaysville cheddar by Soup Chic

Homemade vegan sausage and peppers
by Can't Stand the Meat?

Pulled roasted pork from Clodhopper Farm
with Matt's rhubarb chutney

Sweets:

Raspberry buttercream and Lemon curd cupcakes with Daisy flour
by Emily Severson

Gluten free chocolate brownies by moi

...the above made with Hillside Farms butter and local eggs
Amazing artisan, raw, vegan chocolates by Immortal Mountain

 

 

Tent photo by Michael Mullen

Matt with pig and goat cheeses photos by Tonia Eden Mayton

The boys with pig and cupcakes photos by Michael Poster