Teich.Net :: All In

My mother warned me when I told her about the tomatoes I had planted this year that yellow pears were lousy. I had already put my plants in the ground, didn’t think about the opportunity costs for the space, and didn’t really believe they could be that bad — I usually love cherry tomatoes! My mother was right; no surprise. One of the farmers at the California Ave. market put it best when I asked her honest opinion on them: “they’re just filler.” She was right too. They are amazingly prolific plants, and they are pretty, but their raw flavor is bland and dull.

Fortunately, they do improve with cooking: so far we’ve made them into a lovely tomato soup and roasted them with curried cauliflower. Next up: pasta sauce.

As for next year: I’ll be using the yellow pear’s spot for a more interesting varietal. Stay tuned for the judgements from this summer’s many tastings.

This post was supposted to start with evidence upholding the adage that the things you work for — in my case this weekend, berries picked in the hot sun and plums I climbed a tree to reach — are more satisfying than something more easily gotten, say, from a grocery store. Then Oren and I got to debating the idea. Then the post became a he said, she said. But the discussion, abreviated, sounded trite. So here I am, left with telling you about the history of what this post almost became.

Quality and provenance being equal, maybe you, like Oren, would choose to buy fruit rather than pick it, or eat out rather than cook, but when time permits, I still find it tremendously gratifying to harvest and make my own food. Maybe it’s my feminine gatherer instincts. Maybe it’s just the mark of my mother, long-time queen of hard labor to produce all manner of edibles.
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I answered my own question: what to do with more greens than I can eat and give away? Make arugula pesto!

I more or less followed my own traditional pesto recipe, substituting pecans for pine nuts and using just enough oil to get to a spreadable consistency. Unlike basil, arugula does not turn brown when cut edges are exposed to air, so this spread stays vibrant green indefinitely.
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My new vegetable garden — that genteel little plot in back with the nice red paths that was so recently just dirt — has exploded with edibles. With the exception of the sugar snaps, of which there are barely enough, and the tomatoes, which aren’t yet bearing fruit, it’s a bit out of control. I may be on the verge of actually turning green with all the salad I’ve been eating, daily, from the biggest mixing bowl I own. People at work are starting to ask what’s with the lettuce. I can’t give this delicious organic salad mix away fast enough. Of course I want it to go to a good home, where it will be appreciated, but soon it will be going to anyone who will take it or, worse yet, to waste. If you know me, and I haven’t yet tried to push greens on you, and you want some, please ask! Otherwise, creative suggestions for what to do with salad greens besides, well, salad?