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Monthly Archives: January 2010

Turnip greens

Thursday, January 21, 2010

The grocery store in Walnut Cove had turnip greens this week for $1.29 a bunch. As Michael Pollan says, eat more leaves. Especially at a good price. By the way, what you see on the countertop is what we around here would call a mess of greens. When I was in elementary school, a teacher […]

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Here comes the asparagus

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Waiting for the water to boil One of the grocery stores in Walnut Cove had some very nice, slender asparagus yesterday for $2.29 a pound. It went really well with mushroom quiche. All three eggs in the quiche were laid today. Tomorrow the hens will be rewarded with the asparagus ends.

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Coffee substitutes

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

I’m amazed how easy it was to give up coffee. I decided that the caffeine couldn’t possibly be doing me any good. And besides, when one no longer has to go to work each morning, the caffeine kick really isn’t necessary. For years I was very San Francisco-ized in my taste in coffee. I drank […]

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Mid-January: What's green in the woods

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Moss Holly Another clump of moss The ferns have lain down in the cold. How did the squirrels miss the hickory nut? Ice in the little waterfall I believe this is wild ginger. Rhododendron or mountain laurel … I can never tell them apart. Running cedar. It grows on the ground with long runners. Honeysuckle. […]

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Two recommendments

Thursday, January 14, 2010

For your DVD list: Jane Eyre, BBC/Masterpiece Theater, 2006. Perfect. Ruth Wilson, who plays Jane Eyre, is Jane Eyre. October Sky, 1999. Based on a true story, Jake Gyllenhaal is a nerd boy growing up in the West Virginia mountains who doesn’t want to be a coal miner. Instead, after seeing Sputnik pass overhead in […]

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The history of fireplaces

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

My fireplace burns propane. While watching on DVD the 2006 Masterpiece Theater / BBC production of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, I realized that, though some features of houses have changed a great deal over the years, fireplaces have changed very little. There was the Rumford fireplace — a more efficient fireplace — that was becoming […]

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The history of nerds

Monday, January 11, 2010

From an old advertisement It occurred to me recently that, by now, somehow had probably written a history of nerds. I Googled. Indeed, someone has: American Nerd: The Story of My People, by Benjamin Nugent. I have not read this book, though I’m considering buying the eBook version for my Sony Reader. I am curious […]

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Fried apples

Monday, January 11, 2010

Fried apples are a Southern standby. The grocery store apples have been good, and cheap, this winter. When the choices are poor in the produce department, those apples start looking more and more like a winter vegetable, which is not how we usually think of them. Slice them fairly thin and cook them gently in […]

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Steam punk heat pumps

Sunday, January 10, 2010

The compressor It’s cold outside, so let’s talk about heating systems. Over the years, I’ve lived in houses with all kinds of heating systems — wood stoves (including wood cookstoves), wood circulators, oil circulators, oil-fired furnaces, gas-fired furnaces, and, in San Francisco, electric baseboard heaters. The heating system that I remember most fondly (other than […]

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Quiche

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

I wonder why quiche is belittled as a food for wimps. Quiche actually is a very rich food. And, like apple pie and pizza, it’s a pie. But quiche can be a huge fat, cholesterol, and sodium bomb. Even though my chickens have made me egg rich, I had not made a quiche in ages […]

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