I Am My Mother’s Daughter

Looking through old photos, I came across this one of my mom gardening at my grandparent’s home in Baltimore. Now, I know where I got the gardening bug.

Whenever I see pics of my mom when she was young, the resemblance to me at her age is uncanny. I know I inherited lots of her genetic traits, but seeing her in a place she loved, brings back memories.

My grandparents’ home was in the city, but it was a large property. Lots of room in the house and yard. Even a garage. I assume that the garden was a victory garden as my mom was a teenager during WW II, and it seems like everyone was gardening if they had any space to do so.

When I was a child and my grandfather passed away, we lived there a short time until my parents bought their home just a few miles down the road. I remember good times as a toddler and pre-schooler playing in that yard. A luxury in the city, and probably the reason why I always wanted to buy a place with enough land to garden.

On Mother’s Day, this connection to my mom is even more important for me. I remember all those carefree times as a family and cherish the time we have together and the phone conversations that go all over the place. The memories, the plans, the family, what is happening in her neighborhood. Little things that keep that connection alive.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there, in my family and yours!

Wine and Chocolate

Valentine’s Day is an interesting holiday. The cynical side of me considers it a Hallmark holiday, where much money is spent on cards. We don’t do cards. Just like the advent of digital cameras impacted film, and the progression to ebooks is affecting book stores, and newspapers and magazines fall one after another, it is only a matter of time until cards in the mail disappear as well.

But the point of this post is “What did we do for Valentine’s Day?”

Wine and chocolate.

More of the first and less of the last. I try to limit the amount of chocolate in the house, so just a taste is what I want. Not a box full of empty calories.

This fit the bill. Just enough to enjoy, and the wine lasted two nights. 15.9% alcohol will make it last more than one sitting. I have to thank Les Amis du Vin, the predecessor of Taster’s Guild, for introducing us to Biale Zins. Big Zins. With interesting names like Black Chicken. For a trip down memory lane, we reminisced about Yogi Barrett and the wine tastings at the old Chez Fernand, where we first tasted Biale wines. A piece of HoCo loco trivia. The names of the restaurants where Fernand worked. Where was Papillon? Chez Fernand? It also had us to trying to remember the name of the restaurant when he was in Baltimore after the fire in Ellicott City. Then returning to Ellicott City with Tersiquels.

This wine is from 2002. It is a Lodi appellation, from Spenker Vineyard. High in alcohol yet not with that burn that high alcohol wines sometimes contain. Perfect with a chili infused dark chocolate.

hocoblogs@@@

Dark Days Challenge Week Five Christmas Dinner

I suppose I subscribe to the philosophy when I accept a challenge to go big or go home. Being somewhat crazy, I decided to make Christmas dinner be our dark days meal for the fifth week of the challenge. I am leaving the easier dinners for when I am really running out of vegetables. Besides, I can’t believe the lovely romanesco cauliflower that was in our first Zahradka Farm CSA delivery last week. All ready to roast, it looks just like a Christmas tree, doesn’t it?

Dinner ended up being:
Roasted Cauliflower
Hydroponic tomatoes with goat cheese and basil and balsamic
Stuffed butternut squash
Virginia country ham on sweet potato biscuits
Linden Hardscrabble Chardonnay

The biscuits and ham came home with us from my brother’s house, so I do know that the biscuits were made using regular flour, one of the few non-local items in the meal. I just warmed them up in the oven.

The squash were stuffed with a honeycrisp apple, squash I roasted earlier in the week, local black walnuts, local honey, and local butter. The squash were from the Lancaster Farm Fresh CSA that just finished before Christmas.

The tomatoes came from the nearest grocery store, but Hummingbird Farms on the Eastern shore of Maryland grows lovely flavorful tomatoes year round in their greenhouses, hydroponically. The cheese was the end of the Firefly Farms chevre log. The basil from Mock’s Greenhouses in Berkeley Springs, WV.

The balsamic is not local, but bought from St. Helena Olive Oil Co., when we went there in 2006, I brought back three bottles of their aged balsamic. This is the last bottle. I need to order their oil and vinegar again, while it is cool enough for them to be shipped without damage. I buy their Napa Valley olive oils by the half gallon.

The wine is one of my absolute favorites from Virginia, Linden Hardscrabble Chardonnay. This was the 2008 vintage, the second year of our hot dry summers, and this wine is big and beautiful. It is made in the Burgundian style. Jim Law is a master of terroir, and his wines show his love of the land. If you meet him, he will tell you he is first and foremost a farmer, who happens to grow some of the most amazing grapes on his land that borders the Appalachian Trail near Shenandoah National Park.

Dinner doesn’t need to be fancy. Just flavorful. The wine, the salad, the roasted veggies, and the salty tang of country ham, all came together to make a lovely Christmas dinner for me and my husband. We do cherish the quiet times, far from the rat race we lived through in our journey to retirement. Our first Christmas since he retired, and it was a special one.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Christmas at Home

For years, we traveled at Christmas. Not so local relatives, and the trips on snowy highways made us more frantic and less relaxed that we often didn’t enjoy the season totally.

Now, we have slowed down the pace and stay home more. This year I chose to replace the traditional tree with lots of greens, and some special older items not usually displayed. It made it much more relaxed and I had time to bake, and to make gifts for the family. I baked three kinds of cookies this year. Cocoa flavored butter cookies. Coconut butter cookies. Chocolate peanut butter oatmeal bars.

I also deliberately chose local items as much as possible, or failing that, small business produced gifts for the children at my brother’s house. We do a traditional Christmas Eve dinner there with family and friends. He lives about 40 miles away so it is easy to drive down and back the same day.

I really do need to learn how to make my mom’s sugar cookies. They are so thin and crisp. I don’t know how she gets them that way. I never try to make and give these to family as they don’t look or taste as good as hers. Here are her cookies. I didn’t even try this year to do sugar cookies.

I also took the time to find my better half’s favorite holiday treat. Homemade ice cream from Baugher’s. Holiday flavors like candy cane and pumpkin roll. It doesn’t get any better than local foods, friends, family, traditions and Christmas at Home.