I make this cake more often than any other simply because the recipe calls for marmalade. I’m a big fan of anything that uses up marmalade. That’s because Rob and I have a whole closet filled with the stuff. See, last winter we made a big batch of marmalade with our own kumquats and Rangpur …
I had so much fun picking the rosemary that’s at the heart of this recipe. I went out at dusk the other day and picked a lovely handful of fragrant green sprigs. I have five rosemary plants scattered around my yard—small, attractive, well-behaved evergreen shrubs—and …
One of my favorite trees in our yard is the American holly (Ilex opaca). There’s a big one, maybe 50 feet tall, growing near the pond, just outside the picket fence. Right now it’s dropping its yellow leaves, replacing them with fresh green ones. I always wanted to have an American holly in my yard, and now, finally, I do.
I remember my first encounter with this native species. I got to know it in the ‘80s when my parents bought a little piece of an old quail-hunting plantation north of Tallahassee. Small hollies grew among the live oaks on our acre, and I was immediately enamored of them. I liked their pale, smooth, lichen-spotted bark, and their rounded leaves, which were so much less prickly—so much gentler—than the exotic hollies that grew around the foundation of our house (and that my father regularly clipped into balls and domes). I just thought the little trees were so classic and classy, and when my father told me they were American hollies, I felt very proud (I was a rather patriotic kid).
It probably goes without saying that along with the bark and the leaves, I also liked the fruits of these little hollies. I’d never seen real holly berries before; I’d only seen pictures and drawings, and plastic representations that my mom used to decorate her Christmas wreaths. (The exotic hollies my father shaped into balls didn’t generally fruit.) Real holly berries–I couldn’t get over it!
When I bought my first house, in Atlanta, I wanted to plant an American holly in the backyard, but I couldn’t find one at any of the nurseries, though I looked and looked. Then Rob and I moved to Quincy, and we were so happy when we discovered we had that beautiful holly by the pond fence, and that the big holly had given us dozens of “babies,” sprinkled all about the yard.
Shortly after we moved in, a former owner of our house, Mr. Stinson, came to visit (he had not been back to the house in a long time), and he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the big holly tree. Apparently he had planted it as a seedling more than 25 years before. I could tell by his expression that he was quietly rejoicing as he looked up at the tree. “It’s joined the canopy!” he said after a minute, clearly thrilled. And I understood his happiness. It’s a great thing to see something you did, an effort you made, come to fruition, pay off, make the world a little bit better. The tiny twig of a holly he had planted so long ago had become a tree, a grand tree—shading us, cleaning the air, providing food and shelter for birds. It had lived, triumphed.
Rob and I are very grateful to Mr. Stinson for planting the holly. And I think the birds and other animals that visit our yard appreciate it too. American holly is a great wildlife tree.
The berries are an important food for birds, food that helps them get through the lean times at the end of winter. Apparently the fruits are bitter, not delicious (they’re actually poisonous to humans), and birds won’t generally eat them until late in the season, when they’ve been made more palatable (milder) by repeated freezing and thawing. (Or at least that’s what I’ve read.) Here are a few of the birds that use the fruits: mockingbirds, robins, catbirds, bluebirds, brown thrashers, and blue jays. Raccoons will eat them too, I’ve heard.
American holly is a good tree to plant if you want to support pollinators. The tiny white spring flowers are visited by bees, moths, and butterflies in their search for nectar, and the Henry’s elfin, a small brown hairstreak, lays its eggs on the leaves. (Dahoon and yaupon hollies also serve as host plants for the Henry’s elfin.)
American holly is native from Massachusetts to Florida, west to Texas and Missouri. It’s slow growing and long-lived. Plant it in partial shade in moist, well-drained, acidic soil. Water it during dry spells until it’s established. Then just enjoy it. There’s no maintenance involved. Mature trees reach heights of about 20 to 60 feet.
You’d think with all the hollies I have now (the big one and all its offspring) that I’d have my house decorated to the nines at Christmas. But no. Not so. I can never bring myself to cut even a single leaf or branch, though I love the idea of natural decorations. I guess when it comes right down to it, I’d rather see the branches on the trees than on my mantelpieces.
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| Rob standing by the holly showing off some carrots |
One of the plants I’m really marveling over right now is the Ashe magnolia (Magnolia macrophylla ssp. ashei). I have half a dozen in bloom in my backyard, and I must admit I feel almost tortured by their beauty these spring days. You see, I …
Last Sunday night I went for a little walk around town, around my beloved Quincy, and took pictures of a few more of my favorite houses and other buildings. It was a delightful spring evening, and I had fun peering into the gardens, seeing pale, …
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| A ridiculously cute ornament on my Easter tree |
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| And another |
On Saturday, my family came over for an Easter party. I had such a great time. I was so excited for everybody to see my yard and eat the big lunch Rob and I had made with vegetables from our garden. We served up collards, cabbage salad, curried carrot soup, biscuits, vegan mac and cheese, and fried seitan sticks with barbecue sauce.
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| Carl just prior to the Easter party. During the party he hid in my closet. He’s shy. |
After lunch, we had an egg hunt, as we do every year. “Okay, there are 71 eggs hidden!” I announced. “And everybody has to hunt, including the adults. I won’t tolerate any quitting!” (You see, last year Rob and Mom dropped out of the egg hunt after about five minutes. While the rest of us were hunting, they just sat by the pond, cheerfully defying me, chatting about the goldfish.)
I had the egg-hunt prizes lined up along the mantelpiece in the living room. I went on: “You’re competing for the fabulous candy prizes you see here. First place wins these deluxe Lindt Kissing Bunnies, second place gets the Lindt Mini Bunnies. . . .” I ran through the whole line of candy. “And last place gets Elroy and Leroy” (my worst-behaved cats).
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| The Kissing Bunnies |
The egg hunt was a fun if unruly affair. A garden chair was broken in the process, and Mom and Rob kept getting in trouble with me for not cooperating again (Mom was giving all her eggs to Jake, and Rob had simply quit the game and started weeding). Jake was begging for hints, even though there were eggs in plain sight. “Just tell me if I’m getting warmer! Leslie, come on!”
Jake is terrible at finding eggs.
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| The front porch, where several eggs were hidden |
Along with the eggs, there were presents hidden about. These were from Mom for Sophie and Jake. The presents were wrapped in bright blue and purple tissue paper and dusted with golden pollen. I thought the packages looked so pretty peeking out from among the fiddleheads and the tufts of blue-eyed grass.
Sophie won the egg hunt. Jake came in second. After I handed out the prizes, we sat and admired the presents from Mom. Sophie got the neatest things—a little pot of lip gloss shaped like a cupcake, some flower-shaped hairpins, and a little compact with a cover like a cat’s face (the sassy cat was wearing a pink rhinestone collar).
Bunny and Kris and I were exclaiming over the compact and trying on the lip gloss. We were eating jellybeans, too, as we looked at Sophie’s gifts. We were eating them slowly, one at a time, and trying to guess their flavors:
“I bet this one’s going to be caramel.”
“Oh, no! Yuck! It’s root beer!”
I could have sat and talked about jellybeans all day (a conversation about jellybeans is just my speed), but after a while Mom said, “Isn’t it time we dye our eggs?”
The egg hunt had involved only plastic eggs, but Mom had brought over dozens of real eggs for us to dye (and for her to make egg salad with on Easter). We did our egg-dyeing out at the pollen-coated picnic table, and everything was extra fun just because it was spring, because it was finally warm, because the leaves were so soft and new, the color of key-lime pie.
We drew pictures of each other on the eggs—slightly mean caricatures, as we do every year. We call this tradition “making insult eggs.” Every year I draw Rob with his mouth open, being bossy.
Jake started drawing an Epic Face on an egg. “I’m drawing the Epic Face,” he kept saying as he worked. (The Epic Face is some sort of newfangled smiley face, I gather, and it’s big with the kids these days.)
“Do you know what this is?” Jake said when he was finished, showing me his egg.
“The Epic Face,” I said sagely.
“Good,” Jake sighed. “Somebody knows.”
“Only because you said it like 18 times,” Rob pointed out.
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| Rob and Jake dyeing eggs |
When we had dyed all the eggs, Sophie and Jake started chasing each other and “fighting” in the soft new grass and patches of clover. Jake is huge now, but he’s so cute and dumb that he always loses his fights with Sophie. Here’s an example of his “dumbness”: Every time he tried to kick her, she’d catch his foot and hold it, so he’d be standing there one-legged, smiling in his goofy way, trying not to fall down.
A few minutes after she was done with her fighting, Sophie came up to me and said, “I’m mad at Mommy.” (She was just playing.)
“Why?” I smiled.
“Because she’s always wrong. She thinks I start all the fights, but I don’t. Jake punched me just a minute ago, and I ran . . . because I’m scared of him. Jake starts everything, but then I get in trouble because I’m the better fighter. I shouldn’t get in trouble just because I win.”
“Of course not,” I said, still smiling. “That’s a complete miscarriage of justice.”
We ended the party with pieces of the very special 10-inch, two-layer Strawberries and Champagne vegan cake that I’d ordered from Sweet Pea Café in Tallahassee. It was so good, so pillowy and soft, decorated with fresh strawberries and little pearls of white icing. Sandwiched between the layers of cake was a ruby-red layer of homemade strawberry jam.
As we ate our cake, we talked about cats (another of my favorite topics). Sophie had her iPhone out and she was showing us the pictures she’d taken of Puff (her cat and best friend). He looks so dignified always. He’s all gray with a rather serious expression and noble high cheekbones. He likes to ride in the basket on Sophie’s bike.
It got dark as we ate, and I started feeling sad because I knew the party was almost over. I tried to convince people to have a second piece of cake so they’d stay longer, but it didn’t work. It was time to go. And pretty soon we were outside again, calling, “Happy Easter! Happy Easter!” And: “Goodbye.”
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| Sophie! |
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| A little decoration in the Vine House |
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| And another one. I know—these don’t really have anything to do with Easter, do they? |
Last Thursday night I went to the most interesting meeting. Althamese Barnes, a local historian, gave a presentation to members of the Tallahassee Writers Association about a book she’s writing on Smokey Hollow, a vanished community. …
On Saturday Mom, Rob, and I went to the Old-Timey Plant Sale at Birdsong Nature Center near Thomasville. We’d been looking forward to it for weeks. There were lots of rare and hard-to-find plants, and we didn’t have to feel too guilty about the money …
This weekend Rob and I had lots of fun working in our vegetable garden. We weeded, planted, harvested, and generally rejoiced for spring.
I was most proud of the weeding we did. We got everything looking so tidy. We kept standing back to admire our work and saying, “Now this is a fine-looking garden!” We have neat little “cells” (as Rob calls them) of purple cabbage, white cabbage, Savoy cabbage, broccoli, garlic, onions, collards, kale, carrots, and cilantro. There are so many different colors and textures: the garlic leaves are silvery ribbons, the kale leaves are purple ruffles, and the cilantro plants are bright green plumes.
On Saturday we planted our spring tomatoes: two Romas, two Matt’s Wild Cherries, a Stupice, a Striped German, a Riesentraube, an Amish Paste, a Tommy Toe, a Cherokee Purple, a Sun Gold, a Granny Smith, an Arkansas Traveler, and a Viva Italia. We got our peppers in the ground too: Datil, habanero, Holy Mole, Kung Pao, cayenne, and Long Red Thin cayenne. We amended the soil with lots of compost and a little blood meal.
On Sunday we harvested a white cabbage as big as a bowling ball, some pretty blue-tinged broccoli, some enormous collard leaves, and a bunch of carrots as perfect as Bugs Bunny’s. We spent a while admiring everything (“Now that’s what I call a fine-looking cabbage!” Rob said), and then we went in the kitchen and turned all our bounty into a tremendous lunch. The cabbage and carrots became egg rolls jazzed up with ginger and chili oil. We made broccoli in garlic sauce, sesame tofu, brown rice, and some deliciously oily, salty stir-fried collards that didn’t go with the rest of the meal at all.
We ate at our little ice cream table out on the screen porch. It was “nappy time” (as Rob says) for the cats. Some were sacked out on the stuffed chairs, while others dozed on the shelves of the pie safe with their long back feet in the air. The wind chimes were tinkling, and just outside the screens, among the wax myrtles, the cardinals and butter butts were flitting about. Every time Rob and I finish cooking our big Sunday meal, we always pat ourselves on the back quite a bit. So in between bites we kept saying, “Now this is good eating! . . . Now this is good living! Pretty good weekend, huh?”
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| Carl |
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| Leroy |
