I spent last Friday and yesterday volunteering at the farm. These are seven-hour stints (plus an hour of driving each way) with a break for lunch.

From cooking 2011

After I get home, hose off, and catch up on mail, I've been trimming, cleaning, and cooking. Or, in the case of yesterday, clearing off the kitchen counter and playing photographically with garlic scapes. They're such goofy fun (and I'm such a big dork) that they deserve a separate entry (maybe next week, when I'm not less behind on homework).

There's been lots of salads, of course. Sometimes with good cider or wine:

From cooking 2011

Last week's labors on the farm included

harvesting, washing, and drying lettuce mix

transplanting "Black Knight" scabiosa seedlings

scrubbing at weeds with a hinged hoe, across rows of cutting celery, basil, "ping-pong" scabiosa, and other herb and cut-flower plantings

hunting for Mexican bean beetle larvae and squishing the adults

Yesterday's work included

harvesting and washing lettuce mix and lettuce heads

harvesting chard and garlic scapes

moving drip tape from the radish and lettuce beds to the onion bed. This is a process that involves taking up the tape -- plastic tubing with tiny slits every 6-12 inches -- dragging it to the new location, positioning it between and under the plants to be watered, working out the tangles and kinks and making sure the slits are facing up [so they don't get clogged], fastening the tape to the irrigation pipe, and dealing with old holes and leaks using knots or joints. It's fiddly work, but it's also pretty cool feeling the tape plump up between my fingers when the water is flowing through properly.

Things I've cooked recently (not all harvest-related):

radish-leaf pesto

From cooking 2011

eingemachts (not this exact recipe, but close)

eggplant-bean-chicken-vodka casserole

a fair amount of roasting...

From cooking 2011

and blanching...

From cooking 2011

of greens and roots for later use

And, a spicy chocolate pudding. This was the intersection of "oh, I don't have all the ingredients for" Nigella Lawson's chocolate chilli cake, half a quart of milk begging to be used sooner than later, and the recipe for blancmange in the Fannie Farmer cookbook.

From cooking 2011

Lovely with ripe raspberries:

From cooking 2011

Time to get on with the rest of my day. By the by, from
my church:

Boston-based poet Regie O'Hare Gibson will offer a poetry workshop on Saturday, June 4 from 2:30-4 P.M., and will perform in our FUUN Poetry Night that same night at 7:30. The evening event will also feature local poets, including youth from our congregation. Both events are free and open to the public, though donations will be gladly accepted.

(Yes, I'll be performing at the Saturday night gathering. Also, Sunday is Music Sunday, and Gibson will be one of the guest soloists in Sources, which should rock the house.)