Pie in the sky

Thoughts of Summer and Beyond


The garden has offered up over 8 quarts of berries this month. I just spent 45 minutes picking the last batch. I left a few on the branches for the birds. It would be nice if the woodpecker could get his breakfast from there rather than rattle the rafters with his 6:00 Am drum solo. I cannot make blueberry jam because I have yet to finish last year's 20 pints. Since I am the only one in the house eating blueberry, that may take some time. I should have planted grapes because that seems to be the preferred flavor for PB&JS. My youngest suggested I make a pie, but surely no one will eat that. So I am stuck with all this fruit and nothing to make, but not for very long because my favorite canning book, Ball Complete Book Of Home Canning suggests I make Blueberry Basil Vinegar. Surely I can sneak that past my husband in salad dressing.

This week has also sent my oldest son off to the Berkshires in Massachusetts for the entire summer. He has been hired on as a YMCA camp counselor at camp Hirock. I find it fascinating that this tech savvy, Blackberry carrying, Cable TV watching, Macbook junkie who takes one 40 minute shower a day every day is willing to leave the comforts of home and while away the breezy summer hours atop a mountain in the middle of nowhere. And by the comforts of home I mean clean folded laundry, three meals a day, maid service by yours truly, and a job that was paying twice what I am sure a counselor makes for the summer. But God bless him, go be young while you can. There must be more to summer camp these days than friendship bracelets and nature trail. Anyway, I miss him terribly when he away and I think of him most of the day like when I am picking blueberries. How did that sweet little boy of mine grow up so fast? This summer will be practice for the following year when he goes off to college. Good thing I stared this blog without this hotel guest here I should have extra hours in my day.

I had the most delicious bibb lettuce salad with green and purple pea pods and green snap beans with frsh basil and Chevre cheese for dinner. I wish I had that blueberry vinaigrette to go with it. I did enjoy it with olive tappenade bread that I made from my sour dough starter. I had a bread dough starter going fom January, but I killed it through neglect this spring, so I started up the yeasty beast last week and started all over again with the starter. You guessed it, no one wants olive bread or Chevre cheese salad here either. I sometimes think when it comes to my family's food palate I was adopted because we have very little in common. Good thing I chose to be a chef and serve that high tech gourmet food to a wider audience. The best thing I ever ate you want to know? There was a braised veal cheek in a South Norwalk restaurant many year ago that I to this day can remember vividly the taste and texture. Raclette cheese melted on a soapstone in front of a roaring fire served over crusty French bread was a Sunday dinner staple that I fondly remember as a kid in Middle Haddam Ct
For summertime, although my mother served zucchini in every possible way, that was not a choice for the best thing I ever ate category. She was very good at disguising zucchini so you were fooled into thinking something new had made it to the table. Why is it people can grow so much zucchini and yet after they grow it, they look for friends and family to give it to? Grow something you like and keep your unwanted zucchini to yourself. No, my favorite garden food for summer has always been rhubarb brown Betty with the buttery cubes of sugar crusted bread perched atop soft and silky rhubarb sauce with the mandatory melting crown of vanilla ice cream. My rhubarb plant has only yielded three skinny stalks so far this year, so it looks like blueberry zucchini pie for us! I wonder wht they are serving at camp tonight.

Get out there and grow something even if it is zucchini. Just don't leave a bushel basket on my front porch unless you want a pint of blueberry jam in trade.

Bee El

Dear Old Dad

Father's Day June 20th, 2010,



Well it is Father's Day today and I am very fortunate to still have my Dad here. I haven't called him yet, however. I always wait until the end of the day to make sure he is home. At the age 76 young he spends his retirement years working harder than ever at leisuring. He bikes three miles to the tennis court, then plays two hours of tennis, bikes home, bikes to the library, bikes to buy the paper and swims in the ocean. If you ever saw him on his bike out on Cape Cod you would laugh at the old skinny guy covered from head to toe to avoid the slightest amount of sun exposure. We make fun of his rag bag homeless person outfits all the time. My mom leaves a pile of clothes every fall before they migrate back to Florida and I am supposed to burn or destroy them in the spring when we open the house back up. I wonder if he knows about his wardrobe sacrifice ritual or he just forgets what he left behind each season.

Spendthrifty or frugal does not even begin to describe my Dad. He grew up in Lakewood Ohio just a few blocks up from Lake Erie. His mother saved everything. I remember cleaning out her house and wondering why anyone would save the rubber band from each newspaper delivered over the course of 50 years, two hundred margarine containers, plastic coffee scoops in every color ever made and a closet solely dedicated to plastic baggies. Now I wish for just one of those plastic coffee scoops because they do not put them in the cans of coffee anymore. She saved all the cans as well and the Pringles potato chip cans. She filled them with original Tolhouse and Molasses cookies and mailed them to us in Connecticut. I guess if you grow up during the war selling bacon grease and delivering ice for pennies you save everything.


When we visit the house on The Cape my children have a whole routine of teasing Campbell as they call him. He starts to think about what is for dinner as he wanders the kitchen brushing and flossing his teeth. We do not need a grandfather clock to announce noon, we have a Grandfather who is at the lunch table at precisely high noon every day with one slice of ham on rye, sun brewed tea with 1/2 a packet of sweetner , a squeeze of fresh lemon, and three crushed leaves of mint along with one handful only of Cape Cod potato chips. Lunch is served on the deck covered of course by a giant umbrella. We live at the beach to look at the sun, but never let it touch our skin. Before cocktail hour Campbell takes a poll to see how many clams exactly or how many ears of corn each person will eat because cooking one too many would be an unacceptable waste. My youngest imitates him by saying " Yeah let me get a small pizza cut it into 8 slices, that should be enough for all of us". When we descend on the beach house there are anywhere from 7-10 sharing that small pizza cut in 8 slices. It is the only vacation home you can return from 10 pounds lighter .

The reason my boys call Grandfather Campbell is because he was born Richard Campbell ,but back in his day they shortened Richard to Dick. Do I have to spell it out or can you just hear the snickering from the three boys. So Campbell it is. My father is a retired Orthopedic surgeon, very intelligent and extremely well read. He reads about four books at a time in his spare time between biking, tennis and swimming. We cannot get him to use a cell phone and we just got a computer in his house four years ago. It was the best thing that ever happened because now we can email each other every day. It was the worst thing that happened because he sends each sentance or one thought in one email, so I get 10 one line emails in a row. We do not share the same political interests, so his jokes and satire are not always welcomed. If you have not guessed by now all special occasion cards are emailed because he can save on the postage.

I love my father. I thought about all the special moments in my childhood that still to this day come back to my fading memory without much effort. He loves to fish. We fished every river, stream, pond, lake and ocean that was within home. I remember when he brought me to a trout hole at the waterfall in the woods behind the house. He made me swear to keep it to myself, so the fish would be there next time we came back. One time he asked a friend if we could fish in his pond at the end of a great field. We hopped the fence with our bamboo poles and styrofoam cup of worms and headed down the path. Well apparently he neglected to inform his friend that we would be fishing that day, because the neighbor had let his bull out in that pasture. We were chased all the way to the pond and jumped in to avoid being target practice for that angry beast. I did not want to fish there after that.

My dad was a very busy man while I was growing up, often times on call and heading to the hospital to take care of someone else's child, but he never missed a school play, science fair, field hockey game, Halloween trick or treating, softball tournament or graduation. He took us hiking, sledding, sailing, clamming, biking, skating to the movies, fishing, football, basketball and baseball games, firework displays, and just around the block for a walk. He made us shovel the snow, rake the leaves, mow the lawn, cut the hedges, weed the garden, carry the wood, pack the car, paint the shutters, clean the fireplace, do our homework. I would not be Me without my Dad( and my Mom of course but this is Father's Day so catch you next year Mom)Being a parent is on of the hardest jobs to get right. There are so many critics out there. I couldn't wish for a better Dad and I sure will miss him terribly when the day comes. For now I will continue to snicker and laugh at him with my boys, but I will always know that my Dad would be here in a second if I needed him and he is proud of me and he loves me his way.

Happy Father's Day to all the dads and Grandfathers out there. If your Dad is still here go call him. If you are one of the many unfortunate enough to have lost your Dad, go remember what you loved so much about him and know that he is still here in You.

Bee El

Getting Started

Garden Verses: The beginning

Wow Really?
That is all it takes? I said I want to start a blog about my garden, my bees, my chickens and my restaurant business, and my family. Click on how to start a blog and you are in. Why me? What do I have to offer? My life is full. I have all the balls in the air on any given day. I have been on this planet four and a half decades. I want to make my corner of the world better,stronger, happier, cleaner, more positive and more joyful.
Today:

Day off from work. That means no kitchen, no restaurant. No. Trying to get lost in the garden after a one hour spin class where I leave it all behind they call from work to catch up on the day. I have a lot to do here at home. The silkie rooster and the frizzle rooster have to go. They are just learning how to crow and the sound at 5:30 in the morning is like lambs being slaughtered. I know my neighbors cannot take this. My husband cannot take this. I cannot take this but I would never admit it! I love my dingy flock of mismatched chickens; Silkies, Austrolorps, Buff Orpingtons and Frizzles. How we got started with chickens is an entire new posting for a later date.


My good friend John A dropped off scrap wood from his carpentry job for the wood burning stove, but I could not burn up that quality wood, so we built two more raised bed boxes for the garden and added on. My son brought home bush beans, popcorn and green beans started in a paper towel and plastic baggie as part of his science/ clean out your desk end of the year project. i put those out along with the lettuce and basil my husband bought from the farmer who took the roosters. He brought them in a pet carrier and asked if they wanted any roosters. They sometimes take them, but she said she was not interested. She asked" where are the birds?" He replied " in the car; one is a grey silkie and the other is a frizzle" She went crazy because she always wanted a frizzle, so she took them both and he bought $5.oo worth of lettuce and basil. We can visit them in December when we go to cut our Christmas tree down.

I split the oregano and gave some to the neighbor. I watered the whole garden from the rain barrel. We checked the shallow supers on the beehive only to find that they have not filled out the foundation in the shallow supers. My husband jokes that maybe this year we will harvest our first jar of $500.00 honey. The bee project is not going well. Swarming, freezing and inexperience are working against us. I have the flowers and the nectar, I just cannot get them to make enough honey.



Tomorrow brings the opportunity to make the most of another gift of a day.







Queen Bee El