Taking a Break from the Gardening Blog

I am headed to the Southern Hemisphere for six weeks. I will return in early February to a mailbox filled with garden catalogues and hopes for spring. No doubt I will dream garden dreams as I return to high summer.

When I can, I will be recording my adventures down under in my travel blog. Please feel free to visit there.

Reflections Away From Home

Until then, rejoice in the season and in the promise that comes at solstice as the earth faithfully begins her journey back to springtime.

Oh Woe is Me!!

How long does it take to make a recipe that you find interesting? Try : a year and counting? Last year I ran into this sweet recipe at La Tartine Gourmande. It is a luscious looking concoction of crab and kiwi and pomegranate. I set out to make it last fall and then realized I did not have any Piment d'Espelette ... nor could I find any. So one of my missions while I was in Paris last spring was to find some ... which I did. But alas, by then pomegranates were out of season.

So yesterday I roamed around Whole Foods gathering the ingredients in my basket. Then this morning as I looked at the recipe once again I sadly realized that the Piment d'Espelette is living on the spice rack back in New England. Grrrrrrrr.

I'm going to do it anyway, but I swear ... what an ordeal!! Anyway, go take a look around Bea's blog. It is pretty spectacular.

Saying Farewell to the Garden

The sunlight is penetrating deep into the far reaches of my living room these days, yet it is gone over the hills before 4:00 sending me into an early and almost endless night far earlier than I am ready for. I don't usually experience December light here in my "summer home" and so I feel lucky to be present for the contrast of BRIGHTNESS and early retreat that is New England in December.

I retrieved my last two rutabagas and the last of my tiny, tiny Brussels sprouts this morning. The winter squashes are packed as is the bushel basket of sweet potatoes and and shallots and more garlic than I will ever consume. And there is lots of frozen tomato sauce to bring the reminder of August back on a cold winter evening. It is all a blessing.

In a strange turnabout this year I am headed to the Southern Hemisphere to experience the solstice in its fullness not its darkness. I am reluctant to switch out so close to completing the seasonal cycle ... there is something about being witness to that shortest day that earns you the right to start the cycle yet again.

And so I head the car down the snow dusted driveway and say thank you, garden, for another year of bliss and blisters.