I love gingerbread; I always have. Gingerbread has always been my favorite. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of going with Mom to Heidi’s Bakery and choosing a cookie from the big glass case. My sister Kris always got thumbprint cookies, and I always …
Yesterday when I was watering plants, I spied something on a branch of one of my new camellias. At first I thought it was a clump of lichen fallen down from the treetops, a bit of debris. I leaned over to brush it away, but …
I had the day off on Monday, which was nice because it gave me the rare chance to look around and appreciate. I could go slow. I didn’t have to rush. Rushing ruins everything.
I had time to sit in the dry brown grass and eat satsumas off our tree. I sat there like a lizard, soaking up the sun, and my thoughts were very simple. I was thinking about satsumas–how pretty they are and how good they taste.
I played with the cats and spoiled them terribly. I let June sit in the laundry basket, for example, for about an hour, on top of the clean laundry. She was quite pleased. She looked very proud, so I guess in cat culture relaxing in a laundry basket is considered cool and not absurd.
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| June in the laundry basket |
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| Carl dozing nearby. He tried to take a turn in the laundry basket, but June wasn’t sharing. |
I weeded around the front steps in a careful, unhurried way, coming across a cocoon and a sleepy little snake. There were lots of earthworms where I was working, and the whole bed smelled like Christmastime because it was covered in a layer of spruce-pine needles.
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| Snapdragons |
My supper wasn’t exactly fancy. It was cranberry sauce, my favorite dish to make. The recipe’s so easy, and it’s fun when the water boils and the berries start popping. I like to eat my sauce piping hot, which most people think is weird, but it sure made for a cozy meal. I ate in the kitchen by candlelight (orange Halloween tealights) as a cold front moved in. The screen door kept banging in the wild, dark wind.
Yesterday Rob and I planted five new citrus trees, and in between number three and four, we made this quick soup. We used our own homegrown peppers and garlic in it, but the rest of the soup came mostly from cans, which made it very …
I work in downtown Tallahassee, in the Nathan Mayo Building to be precise, and on my breaks I often take walks along the streets around my office. This is not a a very pleasant area for walking or for human activity in general. It’s noisy …
If you live in North Florida and you’d like to grow citrus, your best bet is to plant a satsuma. A satsuma is a type of mandarin orange that’s extremely cold tolerant and just plain tough. It’s also very productive, offering copious amounts of luscious, tennis-ball-size fruit in fall.
Rob and I have four satsuma trees planted here and there around the house. They’re all the Kimbrough variety, which is hardy to 16 degrees F.
On nights when temperatures threaten to dip into the 20s or below, we cover our tender young trees with old sheets. After three years you don’t need to cover the whole tree anymore. You just have to wrap the graft.
Our oldest satsuma is almost five years old and quite beautiful now–dark and spreading and about 12 feet tall. It’s covered in fruit this year (the other day we counted more than 200 golden orange orbs). The poor tree is so loaded that Rob had to make it some special bamboo “crutches” to help the limbs bear the weight.
Satsumas are really tasty, great for eating straight off the tree. The thick, loose skin is sometimes referred to as a “zipper skin” because it opens so effortlessly. The fruit is mild, sweet, juicy, and not at all messy to eat since it’s divided into tidy, bite-sized segments that are easy to pull apart.
On Sunday we sampled our first satsumas of the season. We only picked two (one for each of us) since we felt we were probably jumping the gun a little bit. (Another week or two and they’ll really be ripe.) Picking them was a big ritual and celebration, accompanied by great fanfare, and eating them was kind of like doing a wine tasting; lots of appreciating was involved, and enthusiastic attempts were made at describing the delicious but elusive flavor.
“Mine’s really bright and sweet,” I said. “And there’s a little hint of honey!”
On Sunday Rob and I picked a whole bunch of peppers to cook up for lunch–Yellow Bells, Holy Moles, Long Slim cayennes, and Clowns. We were so excited by the bounty. We were weighing them and polishing them and taking pictures of them and generally …
Yesterday I made a batch of ginger molasses cookies with a recipe adapted from my favorite cookbook, Screen Doors and Sweet Tea by Martha Hall Foose. Have you all read this fabulous book? It’s full of gorgeous pictures and funny, lovely tales about Southern food …
I took the day off from work today, so to celebrate I made cookies last night. Everything seemed so festive and merry as I bustled about the kitchen, my whole day off ahead of me. Spilled sugar sparkled on the counters, and Buntin sat on top the refrigerator, studying me, looking very sincere. She seemed like my small apprentice trying her best to learn to cook.
I made a huge mess in the kitchen, but the cookies turned out just fine, so this morning I decided to eat some for breakfast, out on the stone patio behind the vegetable garden. I used all my best dishes and even picked a bouquet of cheery pink mums for the table. I wish I could say I wore a pretty dress to go with the pretty flowers and dishes, but instead I wore my pajamas . . . with shoes (actually sandals and socks). Luckily I’m not in any of the pictures.
Vegan Sugar Cookies
Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup vegan butter, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsps Ener-G egg replacer
2 Tbls water
1 tsp vanilla extract
Directions:
Combine flour and baking powder in a bowl and set aside.
Beat the butter and sugar with electric beaters until light and fluffy, about 3 to 4 minutes. Then, in a separate small bowl, beat the egg replacer and water together until frothy. Mix this egg replacer mixture in with the butter and sugar and add the vanilla. Beat for about a minute. Add the flour and baking powder mixture and beat until you have a smooth dough.
Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for about an hour or until the dough is firm enough to roll.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly flour your counter top and roll out the dough until it’s about 1/4 inch thick. Cut with cookie cutters and place cookies on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes.
I frosted mine, but I really think they taste better plain. This recipe is adapted from one I found in the great Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick Goudreau.
