Blighted blackberries, all you can eat
August 5, 2005
In the valley, all of the climbing berry bushes are suffering from blight. Blackberries, raspberries, rusty and yellow leaved are making the locals depressed. My neighbour Jean-Louis tells me, ‘Take them all, I just can’t stand the sight of it’. ‘You want me to take all of your blackberries?!’ Even when I offer to bake him a blackberry pie he makes it clear that he just wants the blackberries out of his life forever. As if to spite the bush he tells me that he’ll never grow blackberries again.
Maybe it’s because they’re not wild that they taste a bit bland, maybe it’s the over-watering, maybe it’s the blight. It’ll take me a few summers to know the difference, but I climb in the tangle to duke it out with the wasps, who are for some reason unusually passive this summer. Maybe they also can’t stand the thought of a crop of blighted blackberries. They’re just buzzing around and don’t seem to mind me shooing them off the dull and heavy berries. ‘Just please take them away,’ they’re saying in wasp-talk.
Speaking of dull and heavy, afternoons at river’s edge we just loll about and let the sun do it’s sun thing, chez former folly of the sun king.
debra at 9:00 | Comments (1) | post to del.icio.us
That’s French for BBQ practice
August 2, 2005
Last year I bought my first BBQ, a very cute bbq-for-one sort of thing. The level of my naïvete concerning all things BBQ became apparent when it turned out that there really is no such thing as BBQ’ing for one. After giving her a good shining, I announced to the hungry hoard that it was I who would be preparing that night’s dinner on the barbie. There were a few grunts and not a little bit of silver-back posing, but in the end the gents were somewhat content to let me have a go at the girly BBQ as long as I didn’t fiddle with their well-composed fires or ask too many questions.
Up until this moment, I thought BBQ’ing was little more than guys hanging around playing with fire, but to my disappointment it turned out that there was actual skill and engagement involved in producing and maintaining a fire suitable to transform a hunk of meat into something amazing. And while I was busy making a dog’s breakfast of some dainty sardines on my Barbie-doll-barbie, I also realised that the average eleven year old boy has a great deal more BBQ’ing experience than I do due to his vast experience in playing with fire.
No worries, this year is a year for solving all of life’s little problems and now that I am generating loads of burning material in the garden I have the perfect excuse to work on my own fire-making skills instead of facilitating others by making meat marinades. And since we’re in Occitania, it seems that it’s OK to go around lighting fires on hot August afternoons in your garden if you want to. Tonight we’re having dainty little sardines, on the big barbie.
And check out my fire! The ash heap was still hot the next day and when I distributed the ashes thoughout the garden I accidentally cinged a little tomato plant in two. It’s like youth serum, fire-making.
debra at 14:57 | Comments (1) | post to del.icio.us
So except for the coffee…
July 26, 2005
You may have noticed that culiblog has entered holiday mode. Hopefully this will all end soon. Profound apologia for the die-hards, but it’s summer and all I want is homegrown. Please just go outside.
Here in Occitania, most of our food doesn’t even make it the fridge before we’ve brushed the dirt off the roots and gobbled it up. Breakfast happens during the morning’s water & weed and consists of cherry tomatoes, blackberries and baby courgettinissimi. Raw sheep’s cheeses from the market, either very young or very old are our favourites and the saltiest dried ham compliment our salad at lunch. We have decided that we like all of our lettuces pure, not mixed. They’re so sweet and full of flavour when you grow them yourself.
Except for the coffee, tea and peanut butter (you can take the girl out of California, but you can’t take the California out of the girl), we’re easily eating food grown within 5 kilometres of where we live. Yes, including the wine.
Now if we could just say that about our cosmetics. Please send black nail varnish.
images from l to r: today’s harvest to be eaten at lunch, my garden (which changes every single day)
(Please read more… )
debra at 16:34 | Comments (0) | post to del.icio.us
