Having never done battle with a group of 12 tomato plants at mid August growth, I never understood how the idea for the film “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” came about. I know now, my friends, I do.
With Pepper Town USA neatly in order, the not- so-sleepy neighbor plot to the East (?) got out of control in the last few weeks. While it’s tenders were tending to other matters, the tomato trestle system could barely contain the high summer growth. Plants were growing every which way but as intended, with fear of taking over the basil and cucumber patches– egads!
A little known fact about grape and cherry tomatoes vines– allowed to grow along the ground, they will re-root and fuse with a neighboring plant. We had about 10 vines that made it from one side of the trestle to the other side. In an attempt to get some order back, I re-tied many of the vines and even tied some over the top of the trestle system so that the tomato bunches would start to grown over the trestle with fruit hanging down from the wires– rather than on the ground with easy access for all sorts of pests.
After 5 hours of re-giggering, Victory was indeed mine. Not with out some causalities, of course. About four sections of vine needed to by cut to make room and sun for other plants- there was just no way around it. Further, two pints of green tomatoes were shaken from their branches as the re-org took place. Not to worry, my friends, they will will not go down in vain. About three weeks from now, pickled green cherry tomatoes await your Labor Day martini!
As for the rest of the garden, the green beans and Pepper Town USA are in the lead with great strides and major yields ready for the taking.
I’ll wait for the Mayor of PT to arrive before harvest, as I think he has some plans for these beauties. The green beans were harvested and went to the pasteurization tank for their last Hoooray…
The cucumber plants seemed to suffer from the tomato invasion, and are not yielding as much as I would like to see at this point. I sourced some organic vegetable food from the hardware store and stuffed their little mounds– hopefully we see a turn around.
The Sugar snap peas maybe a complete loss, we’ll have to see how they do with the bit of maintenance and the additional water. Oh, and the basil party is on. One batch of basil pesto in the freezer already!
Having recently returned from an excellent road trip to Michigan’s lower peninsula, I have to say that the state does right by it’s motto : Great Lakes - Great Times. Also have to give a serious shout out to the cherry, a vastly undersung fruit. Traverse City, in addition to being an amazing lakeside summer town, is arguably the epicenter of world cherry farming. We were there at peak season and let me say: Hole. E. Sheet. The cherries were out of this world…sweet cherries, semi-sweets, sours for cooking….all of them had robust and complex flavors that are hard to imagine if you’ve never had them fresh off the tree.
I guess the same can be said for any fruit, but we were definitely blown away by the sheer cherry awesomeness. If you’ve never slurped the juice that collects at the bottom of the bowl you’re using for pitting cherries, you haven’t lived. We muled about 10lbs home; most are frozen awaiting future diabolical cherry plans, but some yielded an amazing cherry/balsamic reduction for a grilled pork loin. Is there no end to the cherry’s excellence?!?
True indeed.
Yellow Sweets
Mixed sweets pickin’ pail
Fresh cherry pie!
Also of note; they show appropriate reverence for the jerky in Michigan. I’m having all of my mail forwarded here immediately.
Although we are waist deep in cucumbers, beans and herbs, the tomatoes and peppers are just entering the home stretch. I’m happy to report that Peppertown USA, a subdivision of the Shambaugh Victory Garden, is about to see it’s population hit 100 - the bell, cubanelle, palladin, jalapeno, cayenne, poblano and habanero peppers will have mature vegetables next weekend. Every single plant other than the habaneros had to be staked, as the weight was pulling them over. Victory is at hand!
I have had a picnic in my apartment the past three days in a row. Radishes, cucumber, grapes, apples, almonds, water crackers, baguette, pate, prosciutto, chicken and tons and tons of cheese. Wash down with a bottle or two of wine. Repeat as necessary.
When I think about a picnic, chicken is the first thing that comes to mind. I decided to try a new Deviled Chicken Drumsticks recipe last night. The recipe says it serves 6 as an entree. Umm. This chicken is so good that two of us plowed through it in record time. And it’s insanely easy, only 15 minutes of active cooking time. Can be served hot or cold. This is a real winner.
The ingredients are awfully simple. Get 2 1/2 - 3 pounds of good quality chicken drumsticks. I used D’Artagnan which I bought at the local supermarket. If you haven’t had it, their chicken is nothing short of incredible. It makes a huge difference in any recipe. Pat the drumsticks dry and coat in Dijon mustard. You then coat the drumsticks in a breading that is equal parts panko bread crumbs and parmesan cheese, along with salt, pepper, couple tablespoons of melted butter and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. You then roast in the oven at 450 degrees for 30 minutes or until the chicken has browned.
It will look exactly like this. Chicken on deck!
If you haven’t read it yet, pick up the August 2008 copy of Gourmet magazine - the one with a cheesecake on the cover. It’s the best issue I’ve read in a while, most notably for some amazing stories, but it also has great pepper recipes. That hit a nerve since I have 24 pepper plants in the Shambaugh Victory Garden
In the 40’s and 50’s, every issue of Gourmet magazine featured cartoons. They posted a bunch on their site which I got a kick out of. Check them out.
The only thing I love more than cheese is potatoes. Put the two together, and you’re a speaking my language. A year or two back, I picked up a bunch of cast iron mini cocottes made by Staub.
They are pretty handy for a range of recipes like chili or mac n’ cheese, but I’ve been focusing on gratin dauphinoise. I have been experimenting a lot over the past year and think I finally cracked the code. Feast your eyes on this:
I don’t have a formal recipe, but this is super easy. I rub the cocotte with a garlic clove and butter. I then add layers of thinly sliced yukon gold potatoes. If you have a mandoline, use that to slice the potatoes. It’s not too difficult to achieve a similar effect with a chef’s knife, it’s just a lot more time consuming. After each layer, I add a tiny dollop of butter, a few finely chopped green onions, salt and pepper. Repeat until you have nearly reached the top of the cocotte. Mix equal parts whole milk and heavy cream, add that mixture to the cocotte so you have completely covered the potatoes. Top with Gruyere cheese. One tip: I place a sheet of aluminum foil on the oven rack directly underneath the potatoes to catch run-off - saves a lot of hassle, especially if you have sensitive smoke detectors. Cook at 375 degrees for around 30 minutes or until the cheese crust is bubbly, a little blackened.
I specialize in potato recipes and this has quickly become one of my all time favorites. One of the nicest things about the dish is the aroma of the green onions as you pierce the various layers. It’s irresistible. I am going to try a few new things for kicks: substitute jalapenos for green onions, add a few layers of pancetta but this recipe is a crowd pleaser.
You should get involved.
I planted every pepper variety I could find from the nurseries on the North Fork of Long Island: green bell, red bell, yellow bell, orange bell, purple bell, cubanelle, paladin, cayenne, poblano, jalapeno and habanero. 24 plants in total = Peppertown USA.
Although I am a big fan of peppers, I can’t say I personally cook with them all that much. I like to stuff bell peppers with a sausage breadcrumb mixture, make an occasional spicy Thai soup, but I don’t have a vast repertoire. Given that it’s about to rain peppers, I have got to get my house in order.
My first foray will be to make the perfect Jalapeno Popper, a favorite guilty pleasure. There is an incredible farm on the North Fork named Catapano that makes some of the best goat cheese I have ever tested. I think that cheese, jalapenos from the Shambaugh Victory Garden and a light tempura batter are going to produce a real winner. We’re also growing a lot of tomatoes and some really hot peppers so Salsas are a given. But what next?
If you have a great pepper recipe, please post a link in the comments section. I’d love to try a number of recipes and could really use the help!
The Victory Garden is at full cruising speed and starting to yield fruit. We harvested a first round of succulent cukes this past weekend, as well as some delicious green beans and kickin’ romaine. But the real news is all about mulch.
After hours spent toiling in the hot sun doing battle with weeds, we finally wised up and mulched the f out of virtually all of the garden. The results are damn fine to behold and should dramaticly reduce the amount of weeding required to ensure intended plant primacy. It’s our garden, we play god and we decide the natural order. We hope…
Peppertown USA - a great place to live with an excellent school system.
Prized Tomato Trellis; trespassers will be drawn and quartered by order of The White Witch.
Basil patch right next to the tomatos for gustatory convenience. If we could grow a prosciutto bush, a mozzarella plant and a Rose vine in the same plot, I’d never leave the property.
It’s been dumping rain on Shelter Island and the Shambaugh Victory Garden has been drinking it up. I snapped a few pictures this past weekend to show progress:
As you can tell, everything is doing well. The tomatoes show remarkable progress, but the prize for “early bloomer” goes to the Cucumbers. I’m growing right meow…
I cook a lot of American, Italian, French food - I sometimes venture to Asia, but I have never cooked Indian food in my life. It sounds like I missed the boat, but I lived in a carriage house for 8 years on “Curry Row” in NYC (6th Street between 1st & 2nd Ave). This is a small street with approximately 20 Indian restaurants. My house was in the center of the block and the kitchen of one of the Indian restaurants faced my house. The kitchen staff were very cool and would send waiters into my house and serve me there. Why cook Indian food when you can get Chicken Tikki Masala brought with a moment’s notice?
I moved out of that carriage house, am no longer overloaded by it all and decided to try my hand. First, make some Basmati rice. Second, make some Chicken Tikki Masala.
Sound easy? Well, it actually is. It’s really a tomato based sauce with some type of dairy product to cut it, and lots of spices. I looked at a few recipes and freestyled my own. Here’s some inspiration:
I had a watermelon on hand and decided to carve a “melon boat”, although I opted for the “melon basket” variation (easier to carry). I saw these a lot in the 70’s when I was a kid, haven’t seen one in a long while. You usually add cantaloupe and melon. It only takes 15-20 minutes and is all kinds of awesome. I served mine as desert with vodka.
Like everyone, I LOVE bacon. If I was on one of those cooking shows where someone gets eliminated each week, I’d just make bacon every time - how could I lose? So simple. I just ran across a video of a place down in the Lonestar State that makes Chicken Fried Bacon. I did some quick calculations and you have to run a mile for each strip that you eat, otherwise you better be “really funny” or a “good dancer” cause you’ll never get laid again. I can run a 10k these days so I’m good for a sixer…
The motto of the Dukes is “Res Firma Nitescere Descit” which means “Once You’ve Got It Up, Keep It Up”. This motto can be applied broadly across one’s life, and gardening is no exception. The Shambaugh Victory Garden is starting to take off after prodigious rain and sunlight. This past weekend, the Brothers Shambaugh built a few structures to keep the plants off the ground, and improve air circulation and pollination.
The first is an ingenious system for the crop of heirloom tomatoes. They built two towers on either side of the raised bed. Placed a few wood screws into the top of each and strung a few strands of decent gauge wire across the bed. Once those were in place, the plants can be connected to the wire by means of string. The overall effect is that of a marionette.
The second was a simple trellis for a crop of snow peas. They took some old wire fencing and strung it across the back of the plants, up against the paddock. The vines can be easily trained to grow up the trellis, making harvest a snap.
If you have any ingenious garden structures of your own, please send us pics to dofb@dofb.com.
19 Jun
Posted by Birch as Food, Gadgets, Misc, Motorcycle, Training, Travel
Well, the DOFB more than survived it’s trip to Laconia for Bike Week ‘08. In fact, a damn fine time was had by all on a ride that was, as any proper bike adventure should be, filled with hilarity, calamities averted and plenty of cold suds. I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking, but first I’d just like to say a word or 100 about one particularly memorable event.
On the ride up I experienced one of those moments that every rider dreads, the kind of thing that puts a not in your gut just thinking about. I blew a front tire on the Merritt traveling at highway speed in failing light. Blowing a front shoe is one of those things you hear about happening but is by no means a regular occurrence. In fact, most of the folks I know who’ve been riding for a lifetime have never had their number come up. Let me tell you something - it is not a good time.
The tire went flat in about 10-15 seconds. Not with a bang or a pop…just all of the sudden the handling characteristics changed. At first subtly enough to wonder if it was odd pavement. And then, very quickly, the front forks started traveling about a foot in either direction, yanking the steering back, serpentining the bike and generally making it impossible to control. Mind you 75% of the braking on most bikes, and prob 90% on mine, is done with the front brake. So it was a pretty impossible situation to get the bike to rapidly slow while keeping it upright.
With mountains of luck, and a formation of Dukes behind me making sure I wasn’t struck by an oncoming car, I managed to keep the shiny side up and get to the shoulder. Where I no doubt would have remained if it weren’t for the formidable aid and patience of Sergeant Raymond LaPlante of the Orange PD. Ray pulled up on his police Harley to see what was doing and, over the course of the next 12 hours, not only helped us sort out local accommodations, sustenance/beverages and a great mechanic, but actually borrowed a trailer and, (on his morning off with his young son in tow!), pulled the wounded SuperBad from where I’d stashed her in the woods overnight to the shop for an early am fix that got us back on the road.
Ray’s effort not only saved our trip from ruin, it reminded all of us a bit about what’s so special about riding. That it’s appreciably different than traveling the roads in a steel cage. There’s a different connectedness to the experience of moving from place to place. You don’t always know what might happen (especially on an old bike), but that the journey in and of itself is adventure. And, more than anything else, the camaraderie of two wheels and that bikers look after one another.
So a hearty DOFB thanks and toast to Ray LaPlante. We sent many a cold beer to it’s maker this past weekend and damn it all if most of mine weren’t dedicated to his awesomeocity. Keep the rubber side down and looking forward to when we get to ride together!
The SuperBad being seen to by Art Handleman @ Valley Motorsports in Ansonia, CT. If you’re ever in a pinch with your machine in CT - Art’s the man to get you back on the road.
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Turns out - I had a “rust-based failure”. On older bikes that have seen weather at one point or another, the insides of the rims can get to rusting. Small metal filings eventually peel off and will, inevitably, roughly have their way with your tube. Here’s the shop tech de-rustifying the inside of my front rim.
To recap = small metal filings + rubber innertube + highway speed = bad. Put it on your list of shit to think about if you have a late model ride.
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Sergeant Ray and his awesome little boy Nathan flying the DOFB flag after dropping our side-show off at the shop. Nathan’s already bewitched by bikes and shows great promise. Rumor has it Ray may be heading up to NH this weekend as well. Boundless thanks to both of them for spending their morning sorting us out - couldn’t have done it without you fellahs. Have an awesome ride to the granite state Ray!
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Th big man…..Emperor of the Rage Hut, host for this Bike Week jaunt and head of the New Hampshire DOFB Chapter. Not a finer NH specimen to be found.
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Ride on Winni to the Wiers for a peek around, some grub and one (read:10) Margarita.
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Graham lends a helping hand to a parched Hombre
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2300 CC Triumph Rocket Sled….daaaaamn.
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Sweet trike art - Rowwwrrrrrr.
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The next day the Big Man took us on an epic ride up over the Sandwich Notch road, around through Waterville Valley and back over the Kank. Being dirt, recently graded and pretty steep in many places, The Notch road was especially challenging for some of the bikes. Fritz on the Yammie FJR1300 gets the hero’s salute for muscling that beast all the way through safely. That bike was built for smooth speed and she was more than a little ornery about the conditions. He rodeoed it though and, in exchange, was treated to a singular adventure through pristine NH back country. Nice work man.
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Big and mean never goes out of style in NH.
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DOFB, now with more Back Road Action!
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Juanito going native. The arm stripes perhaps suggest some sort of vestment. A man of the cloth? A country bishop perhaps?
Subsequently gathered evidence would seem to contravene this hypothesis.
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Graham loves it.
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Like Rodin’s thinker, this Duke too is made of granite. NH Chapter member (and lead carpenter) Whitney on his KLR. The KLR really is a perfect match for this guy and his natural surroundings.
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Top of the Kank….one of the best roads for riding on the East Coast and my personal favorite. The Dukes relay team will also be running the Kank this coming fall in the “Reach the Beach” 200+ mile relay. A painful reality not lost on those of us who’ll be on the squad as we climbed upward for 13 miles….
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Stop in Chocorua to visit the DOFB patron Saint - Ghee. Here’s she’s getting her annual ride around the block on the back of the Guzzer.
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Fritz on the Yammie. Can you believe he just took that 600lb beast over 20+ miles of mushy dirt logging roads?!?
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Heading back into the Wiers we start to get a taste of the action.
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Bike traffic for miles.
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Some local fauna met in traffic. The lady on the front claimed to have been arrested at last year’s bike week for mistakenly slugging a cop. Oops. Things can get a little dicey at Bike Week but come on ladies. These two sisters seemed a wee interested in a certain debonair Duke.
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This guy - can you believe it? No accounting for taste I suppose…
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Sunset at the rage Hut
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That pretty much concludes our trip. There were some other adventures had…a visit to the Franklin Girls’ natural lair, a few ‘old bike’ struggles with the Guzzi, electrical gremlins with the Triumph and many many coordinated high speed drifts to the curb of the highway for one dangling plate/about to be lost luggage/ atomic wedgie or another. But you’ll get that on these rolling thunder jobs.
Next year we’ll hope to have a bit more time and get a little more submersion into the epicenter of Bike Week. But I know I wouldn’t trade the ride we had on Saturday for much of anything - pure magic.
Thanks to everyone who was involved in making it happen this year…Ray and Chris especially!
We’re fresh back from the Laconia Motorcycle Rally in New Hampshire. After a weekend of riding, wrenching and communing with Gilford Girls, one’s thoughts naturally revolve around the simpler things in life. I don’t know about you, but I love a nice fire. I have fond memories of a friend’s farm in Virginia where we’d spend the day clearing dead wood with a tractor and building enormous bonfires. Today, I’m lucky enough to have a house in the country where I can stack a few cords of wood and indulge my inner pyromaniac. I ran across a great article on 9 ways to start a fire without using matches. They put it best “There is a primal link between man and fire. Every man should know how to start one. A manly man knows how to start one without matches”.
The Dukes of Flatbush tried their collective hand in agriculture last year, planting a veritable cornucopia of vegetables in our 16′x16′ Victory Garden.
Some vegetables fared better than others, but overall, the season was a great success. The picture below shows the last harvest taken at the end of September, just some of the “fruits” of our labor:
We decided to add a second bed to the Shambaugh Victory Garden in our continued quest for agri-domination. The new bed in the background is almost entirely dedicated to the art of the pepper. We have red bell, yellow bell, orange bell, cubanelle, jalapeno, poblano, cayenne, habanero and the list goes on and on. 24 plants in total. The only pepper we seem to be missing is the famed Harlan Pepper. Truly a ‘Best in Show’ varietal, we’ll see if we can’t turn one up.
This year is off to a great start - plenty of rain and bright sunshine. We’ll keep everyone updated on the Victory Garden progress…
DOFB
