Well, I learned something this week. I found out that what we consider the typical American potato salad with mayonnaise is not American, but from Northern Germany. That is fun for me, as all my people come from the north of Germany.
Richard Hellman he of the mayonnaise company, immigrated to New York City in 1904, married a young German woman who had a great mayonnaise recipe and parents who ran a deli, and the rest is history. He was from Prussia, in Northeast Germany. My research tells me that most North German potato salad has mayonnaise and always has had mayonnaise, and that only the South Germans, mainly from Schwabia, have hot potato salad with a vinaigrette on it. Northern Germans apparently eat this stuff by the gallon. I guess that the number of immigrants to the US from Northern Germany influenced potato salad culture here.
I found a terrific Northern German potato salad recipe and made some this weekend.
Last Friday morning we got a call on our landline from a retired Lutheran pastor named Roger, who wanted to know if one of us would be available later in the morning to give his horticulture club a tour of our church garden. They were touring several local gardens as well as the NDSU Extension gardens in town. I had time, so I met him and his group in the garden along with our senior pastor, Lisa. It was a blast!
I have known of Pastor Roger for years, as he worked in some smaller communities south of us, and also was a licensed counselor. We often referred clients to one another. He is retired and lives in Medora, our cowboy town in the Badlands. He is kind of a character. As Pastor Lisa said “You never know what Roger is going to ask you”. I had never met him in person, though.
Roger and about 25 retirement-age garden club members arrived at the church garden, which is located just behind the church parking lot. Some club members were from as far afield as Valentine, NE and Hermosa, SD. I knew several of them as former foster parents . Most lived in smaller towns in our region. Lisa and I told them the history of our garden, and then the questions started.
Our garden consists of six, waist high. raised beds for vegetables, a central space with a fire pit and benches for gatherings and contemplation, and walkways with flower beds. Husband and I primarily take responsibility for the vegetable beds, all the produce going to the food pantry. We invited the congregation to adopt a flower pot to plant flowers in this spring, and there are about fifteen pots lining the walkways. We planted everbearing strawberries that are spreading all over. The children like to eat them after services. As hard as we try, there are weeds, and congregation members weed sporadically in the flower beds. The questions were numerous.
“Why don’t you have fruit trees? You should plant fruit trees. There are disease resistant varieties, you know. You could have a grape arbor, but if you plant pear trees, make sure you plant two. What kind of cabbages are those? (They are savoy cabbages). What do you cook with them? Cod bundles? Minestrone? How interesting! Where did you get the recipes? What do you use for cabbage moths? Bacillus Thuringiensis? That is organic, isn’t it? What seed companies do you get these from? Do the people at the food pantry even know what pattypan squash are? Cold hardy spinach? How do you spell that variety name? Oh, come here so we can take your picture as we give you this gift card”. I answered the best I could. I was thankful I had reminded myself of all the vegetable variety names ahead of time.
All through this barrage of questions, the club members couldn’t stop themselves from pulling up every weed they saw and pinching off the spent blossoms from the flower pots. It was as though a swarm of weeding locusts had descended on the garden. Roger lectured every chance he got about the link between horticulture and spirituality. Husband and I are now invited to his house in Medora for supper. He has some white iris to give us for the church flower beds.
I love being part of a community. I chuckled all Friday about the meeting with Roger and his group. With Pastor Lisa’s blessing, I plan to use the gift card for more iris.
What communities are you part of? What do you have a hard time stopping yourself from doing? Who were the “characters” you remember in your life?
Weather warmed up this week, then to cooled off one day, then the humidity spiked again. Cooler next week. Jeepers, roller coaster of weather. They say if you don’t like the weather, to just wait a minute.
I did get the oats cut on Monday. I had to run into a local parts store and buy a new battery for it. The old one was just 2 years old, but it didn’t have any “oomph” for starting. Tried jumping it a couple different way and times and when that didn’t work, I gave up and got a new battery. I figured I don’t need the best battery in here; it only runs a couple days in the summer. Well, all the batteries were $179 plus the core deposit and refund, plus tax and I paid $195. Dang. But it started and I cut the oats. Had no issues, It seemed to cut pretty well, even the downed stuff. Whew! That old machine always makes me anxious. It’s almost as old as me and makes more noises than I do.
Got the oats harvested on Thursday. One neighbor, who usually takes a wagon load, wants it all this year. Which is fine, except having not worked all summer, that oat check is what gets me through the last hump before I start back at the college. And we probably won’t exchange cash here, we’ll just keep track of the total and figure the difference this fall after they harvest my beans and corn. The oats didn’t yield as well as I had hoped and test weight was lower than my usual too. It was planted a little later than usual, the weather was maybe too hot at the wrong times for it. Plus we had mix up with the fertilizer this spring so it’s hard to say why it didn’t do so well this year. There isn’t much oats grown anymore so it’s hard to find out how the neighbors oats did. (I don’t have any neighbors growing oats.)
Next up then is baling the straw. I’m only expecting about 2 loads. One load for the strawberry farm up the road, and one for my customers.
I added a camera to the baler so I can keep an eye on the knotters and strings as the one string gives me more trouble. Seems like something that should be fixable, but I haven’t been able to figure out what’s out of adjustment the last several years… so I added a camera so at least I can see a missing string sooner. Caught soon enough, I can add a piece of twine and tie the string back together. Otherwise I can’t see it until it’s coming out of the baler and then it’s too late to fix. So either I pull it out by hand, or if I miss it there, the thrower knocks it apart and that makes a mess. Expect photos of this next week.
The corn is looking good. It’s way taller than Kelly now.
Interesting how many plants have 2 ears this year.
When there are plenty of resources and the plant can spare them, resources go into creating a second ear. Usually that also jeopardizes the main ear and you end up with two mediocre ears, rather than one really nice ear. Notice the kernels are all in there, and the size of the ear was determined way back when the corn was only knee high! And then each leaf node starts to create an ear, then when it reaches tasseling, just the top ones emerge and take priority. So now it’s just getting those silks fertilized by the pollen from the tassel and getting all the kernels to fully develop. Man it’s so cool!
Kelly went out to feed the chickens the other day and they all followed her down there. They sure know the routine.
Baby ducklings are doing well too. Two escaped the other day; they found a little hole in the pen and got out, but I distracted them and Kelly captured them and reunited them with momma. All is well.
WHAT CEREAL DID YOU EAT AS A KID? WHAT DID YOU HAVE FOR BREAKFAST TODAY?
Over the past month, Husband and I cleaned out and reorganized our kitchen cupboards preparatory to ordering a fresh supply of the lentils, beans, and other kitchen staples we were getting low on. I am sorry to say there were things we found I had forgot about completely, and I have only vague ideas what I planned to do with some of them.
When we lived in Winnipeg, our Italian landlady would serve us preserved lupini beans whenever we came over to pay the rent. They were a real delicacy to her. This was a very formal occasion during which we would drink her and Emilio’s homemade red wine and eat the lupini beans she had done something to that made them savory and soft, sort of like olives. A couple of years ago I saw dried lupini beans on a website and ordered a pound, thinking that I could replicate those beans and those fond memories. I had no idea that lupini beans are toxic unless you soak, rinse, soak, rinse, soak rinse, ad nauseam. Well, they still are in the bag, unopened, as is the pound of fava beans that I ordered because I wasn’t quite sure if Angela used those or lupini beans. I didn’t figure it out until after they arrived and I actually looked at some recipes. Neither bean interests me now but I am too Dutch to toss them and I know no one around here who would use them.
More recently I bought a pound of red Italian rice, which seems to be different than Asian red rice, and is reportedly quite hard to digest if you eat too much at one sitting. I have looked for recipes but they are few and far between. I bought the rice because I was buying other things from the company and thought “why not” when I ran across it. I am determined that the rice will actually get used up. Maybe it goes well either lupini and fava beans . Husband wants to make salad out of it.
What weird foods lurk in your kitchen? What would you do with fava’s, lupini beans, and red Italian rice? Any good landlord stories?
The Botanical Garden, which opened to visitors here in 1859, is the oldest public garden in the US and among the top three public gardens in the world.
The first US kindergarten was started here in 1873 by Susan Blow. (You can still see her original class room!)
The Eads Bridge, completed here in 1874, was the first arched steel truss bridge in the world. The bridge continues to carry automobiles, pedestrians, cyclists and light rail trains!
Several new foods were popularized here in 1904: the hot dog, the ice cream cone and iced tea.
Famous folks from here: Maya Angelou, Yogi Berra, Daniel Boone, William Burroughs, Vincent Price, Stan Musial, Marlin Perkins.
Bill mentioned a few days ago that his first little tomatoes had been swiped right off the vine. Now I’m paranoid about my first ripening beauties. There are 3 cherry tomatoes and 2 romas that are in various blushing states; I hope they survive until I pick them.
My cherry tomato plant is now taller than I am. Granted, it has a 24” start since it is in a straw bales, but I’m thinking that even without the bale, it’s going to give me a run for the money.
You all know that I started gardening in straw bales after someone here talked about Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook. I hadn’t grown any veggies for years prior to that, but the book was horrifying enough that I started casting about for ways to raise my own tomatoes and that’s when I discovered straw bale gardening. The rest is history.
I have the book The $64 Tomato by William Alexander on hold at the library. Actually it’s “paused” and I keep pushing the pause date back. It’s subtitle is “How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden”. But now I’m a little worried. What if it makes me re-think my straw bale protocol? What if it makes me do the math?
I’m hoping it’s just a fun read with some laughs. Fingers crossed.
I made brownies and cookies for a funeral luncheon last week (and, of course it was the hottest day of the summer so far). I just did the basics and was happy that my friend didn’t insist on lemon bars, which seem to be a funeral luncheon staple these days.
The chocolate chip recipe that I used is one that I got from our Anna years ago, which she got from the Betty Crocker Boys & Girls Cookbook, which was published in 1957. Since Anna shared this recipe, it has pretty much replaced every other chocolate chip cookie recipe that I’ve ever used. Great taste, great texture and really reliable. What more could you ask for in a chocolate chip cookie?
Betty Crocker’s Boys & Girls Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
2⁄3 cup shortening (I used butter-flavored Crisco)
2⁄3 cup butter softened (but not too much)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
Directions
Heat oven to 375 degrees.
Mix thoroughly shortening, butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla.
Stir in remaining ingredients adding chips at the end
Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown.
Cool slightly before removing from baking sheet.
Yield: I use an ice cream scoop so this recipe makes approximately 3 dozen larger cookies.
At the luncheon THREE different people asked me for the recipe. Luckily since I had just made 3 batches the day before, I still had it in my memory. The yesterday another friend texted me, asking for the recipe as well. I’d feel proud except that I feel Betty Crocker and Anna should get all the credit!
Last week YA and I had dinner out with friends of ours. In the course of the evening I mentioned that my last program was coming up – a warehouse run for which I always buy donuts for the warehouse crew. This led to our friends sending us a Star Tribune article from a couple of weeks back that listed the top donut shops in the Twin Cities AND a lengthy discussion of their favorite donut place: Mel-O-Glaze.
Mel-O-Glaze has been around for sixty years and I’ve driven by it numerous times but never in the morning, which is when my donut-desiring genes normally kick in. Most of my routines are south and southwest of my place, so I have to make a decision to go someplace east and it doesn’t happen on a regular basis.
But after listening to rave reviews for a good ten minute, I determined to make a different decision. I went east the next morning, timing my trip to about the time they opened. This turned out not to be the best time to go…. although they were open, they weren’t really up to speed yet. An hour later would probably have been better.
There were enough to choose from however. When the owner, Paulette, came out from the back I told her it was my first time. She quickly ran to the back and when she returned she had a donut hold that she gave me as a sample. It’s easy to see how people say these are addictive. In fact, even though I’m not usually a donut-hole fan, I bought six, along with another donut for myself and one for YA. The donut holes didn’t even make it back home. So now in addition to Sunrise Donuts, Bogarts Donuts, Sunrise Breads and, of course, Dunkin, I’ll be adding Mel-O-Glaze to my roster of donut place. Guess I’ll be going east a little more often now.
The announcement about my retirement has finally been made (took my boss and her boss about three weeks to try to talk me out of it).
One of my co-workers, in a very serious tone said “but what are you going to do with all your time”. She wasn’t joking (although I had assumed she was). How could she not know me after working in the same department for 20 years together.
Without even a thought I rattled off:
Reading
Gardening
Cooking/Baking
Crafting
Walking the dog
Volunteering
Home improvement projects
Travel
Hang with friends
I put an app on my phone that is counting down for me. Kinda fun. Right now as I’m typing it’s: 1 month, 18 days, 15 hours, 53 minutes and 32 seconds.
Today is the first day of “Summer of Love”. Ten years ago, the owner of my company unveiled a summer employee appreciate program. The main components are no dress code (seriously – the printed instructions say “if you can’t get arrested wearing it, it’s good”), 7 half Fridays off with pay, food trucks on Wednesdays and dogs allowed on Fridays. There are usually three summer concerts as well on the big lawn of Building One, complete with snacks and beverages (of the alcoholic sorts). Most years we’ve received t-shirts or hats. It’s a lot of fun.
For opening day of Summer of Love I’m in shorts and one of my State Fair t-shirt collection. YA actually went to the Memorial Day Mini State Fair yesterday. Friends had gone the night before and said it was more robust than last year. But in looking over the website, it didn’t look that much more robust to me, so I passed. I don’t need any pretend state fairs… I can’t wait. (I already have tickets for this year – bought them in January.) YA has reported that the mini state fair was exactly that – mini.
And, of course, zories (flip flops). To get ready for spring and Summer of Love, I got my zori bin out and straightened it up and re-organized it by color. My current zori count is 45, although unbelievably enough I don’t have any red ones; the red ones bit the dust last summer. Guess I’ll have to make a trip to Old Navy soon!
Trail Baboon 