Potatoes!

“What I say is that, if a fellow really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.” A. A. Milne 

Despite limited garden space, I decided to try my hand at growing potatoes.  Wood Prairie Farm has an excellent selection of organic seed potatoes and great advice on growing potatoes.  After much deliberation, I elected to try their Rose Finn Apple Fingerling and Yukon Gold varieties.  

I planted one crop in February and have been harvesting a few potatoes each week since late May.  A second crop was planted in March with a third crop planned for planting in August. I planted the sprouted (aka "chitted") tubers in raised beds a few inches deep and about a foot apart using the “hilling method” of adding soil & compost as the plants grow, burying the stem, and leaving only half the stem exposed.  I repeated the hilling process every few weeks. The hilling method allows for better drainage, less compaction & makes it easy to harvest just a few potatoes at a time rather than pulling up the entire plant.  

Next Spring I hope to try the “potato tower” method outlined in Pam Peirce’s “Golden Gate Gardening: The Complete Guide to Year-Round Food Gardening in the San Francisco Bay Area and Coastal California.”   Inside a wire-mesh tower 3 feet high and 2 feet in diameter, tubers are planted in layers with 10 inches of compost-rich soil separating each layer.  The tower seems perfect for the home gardener.  Hayes Valley Farm has used the towers successfully in their urban garden and their site provides excellent instructions on how to build the towers.

  

Initially, I was so eager to savor the earthy flavor of the new potatoes that for my first few "harvests" I merely steamed the fingerlings with baby artichokes, and tossed the lot with olive oil, tarragon and a spritz of lemon.  However, I’ve become more blasé as the harvests continue and plan to try this recipe adapted from Laura Calder’s “Pommes De Terre a la Boulangere: Potatoes a la Bakery”

2 tablespoons of butter
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 pound of potatoes, thinly sliced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Fresh thyme leaves
1 cup of stock

Saute the onions until soft and golden in half the butter & olive oil.  In a baking dish brushed with olive oil, layer the onion and potatoes, seasoning each layer with salt, pepper and thyme leaves.  Pour the stock over the layers, cover with foil and bake at 300 degrees until the liquid has been absorbed, approximately 1 1/2 hours.  Uncover for the last 30 minutes for a crispy crust. Note: If you are using older potatoes you may need to bake for 2 hours.  Newly dug potatoes require less time.

Cave art, tracing your ancestors & Pistou soup

Werner Herzog’s “Cave of Forgotten Ancestors” is a must see.  Cave paintings created 32,000 years ago in the South of France were discovered only in 1994 by 3 cave explorers led by Jean-Marie Chauvet. 

Chauvet

I was interested in seeing this documentary because in the summer of 1983, as an archaeology student, I visited many caves in the South of France including Lascaux.  

Lascaux

The documentary is historic for a number of reasons, including, inter alia, access was unprecedented as only a few scientists are permitted to enter the cave and after herculean efforts Herzog was permitted a mere 4 hours a day for 1 week. The shooting in 3D conveys, as flat photographs cannot, how the artists used the bulges & ripples in the rock formations to show the muscles and movement of the animals.  Finally, Herzog's interviews with the scientists explain the magnitude & importance of the discovery.  I highly recommend listening to Terry Gross’ interview with Herzog about the making of the film.  If you do nothing else, watch this trailer for the film.

Speaking of ancestors, I’ve been tracing my own after reading a New York Times article about the available Internet tools and encouraged by the success of my friend Rebecca.  She traced her ancestors back to the Revolutionary War, plowing through hundreds of records online, patiently reviewing town hall records in print and corresponding with groups who have created indices of early gravestones. There are a number of books about her patriotic ancestor, Seth Warner.   You can read about Warner & his ancestors in this article, which includes photos of Rebecca and her son Zeb.   Rebecca has been wonderfully patient in guiding me through the maze of finding ancestors & creating a family tree. Below is a photo of Rebecca at a ceremony for Israel Putnam Warner, Col. Seth's son, who bravely served at age 9 (yes, at age 9!), a courier at the battle of Bennington and died at age 93.  

So what does all this have to do with gardening?  Nada.  However, in honor of my recent discovery of French ancestors and the French cave artists of southern France, tonight I am using the chard, escarole, spinach and spring garlic from my garden to create Provencal Pistou soup with a recipe adapted from Laura Calder’s recipe:  

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, chopped

            3 cloves of minced garlic

1 cup each of shredded escarole, spinach & chard 

     1 potato, peeled and diced

1 cup carrots, diced

Salt and pepper

1 bay leaf

1 sprig thyme

1 cup cooked white kidney beans

1 cup zucchini, diced small

2 tomatoes, seeded, and diced

            4 cups of stock

Pesto, for garnish (See recipe below in the 4/23/11 post)

Parmesan cheese, for garnish

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a sauté pan and gently cook the onion until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic.  Add the greens, potato and carrot dice. Pour over 4 cups stock. Season with salt and pepper, add the bay leaf and the thyme. Bring to a boil, and simmer 10 minutes.

2. Add the kidney beans and the zucchini and continue cooking until all the vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes longer. Stir through the tomato. Ladle the soup into bowls. (Remove the bay leaf and thyme sprigs). Add a spoonful of pesto to each bowl, and grate over Parmesan cheese.

Hey - Look what I made in camp!

The first artichoke of the season was "harvested" today.  Silly me, I planted only 6 plants.  I love artichokes -- the fruit of the plant as well as the leaf structure -- but they require so much room!  Tonight will be a feast of homegrown asparagus, artichokes, radish and snow peas with this yummy aioli sauce.  The recipe below is from Laura Calder.  Huge fan of her Food Channel show and her books. 

Ingredients

• For the aioli

• 1 egg yolk

• 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

• 1 cup grapeseed oil

• 1 head garlic, roasted*

• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

• Juice of 1 lemon

•

• For the artichokes

• 12 baby artichokes (poivrade variety, which are the tiny ones)

• 1 to 2 lemons

• Kosher salt

• 2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil

Directions

To make the aioli: Beat the yolk with the vinegar and mustard in a bowl. Whisk in the oil, drop by drop, to make a thick mayonnaise. Squeeze the garlic out of the roasted cloves into the mayonnaise and whisk smooth. Season the aioli with salt, pepper, and lemon juice, to taste.

To prepare the artichokes: Trim the artichokes, rubbing with lemon as you go, until you are down to the core with a bit of stem attached. Halve. While you're trimming, bring a pot of water to the boil. Squeeze the juice of a lemon into it and salt it. Drop in the artichokes and cook until tender, about 10 minutes, depending on the size. Drain, and pat dry. Heat the olive oil in a skillet and brown the artichokes on all sides. Transfer to paper towel to drain. Serve with the aioli.

Cook's Note:

* To roast a head of garlic, wrap in foil and bake for an hour at 350 degrees F.