potato patrol

One of the jobs in the garden today, which Charlie and I both did, was to go carefully through the potato plants and collect full-grown potato beetles, larvae of various ages, and eggs on the undersides of leaves. All these are dropped into a small bucket of paint thinner, not good for their health. What a nasty job. I remember years ago reading gardening books which said, for some pests, "hand pick." "Yeah, right!" I thought. But this is the worst and earliest infestation we've ever had, so there's no choice. Luckily the eggs are bright orange and easy to spot.

Also some weeding, the last cucumbers planted, reseeded the empty spaces in the corn (now about 2 and a half inches high), and planted a little more dill. This year I have a special corner of the garden reserved for arugula, cilantro, and dill, all of which reseed themselves enthusiastically. I figure I'll let them fight it out next year. Normally we plow most of them under, very sad.

Everything is looking good. We had amazingly good germination on beans; usually we replant them several times. Our soil is so dense that it's hard for them to push through. This year all of them are planted in a top layer of miracle-gro potting soil. This worked great.

I continue to race through FC 79. We had company over the weekend (Tom and Vera). We were out when they arrived Friday night (at the Woods'), so I didn't cook then. On Saturday for lunch I made the avocado/pancetta sandwiches in Q&D. I'd made one for myself the day before, just mixing garlic with regular mayonnaise, and it was fine. Actually made from-the-ground-up aöli on Saturday, and the sandwiches were even better. Vera loves to cook, so she helped. On Saturday night, after going briefly to two parties (one graduation, one retirement), we made the Greek chopped salad. Instead of arugula, (what we saved from the volunteers has already gone to seed and the new is still tiny), I used the first batch of cut-and-come-again mesclun, of which I never plant nearly enough. The salad was truly good!! Then after they left late in the morning on Sunday (I made crèpes for breakfast), I made the Dijon chicken on a bed of thyme. I have two thyme plants that got big fast, so it didn't hurt to shear one pretty hard. It was quite good, too. Served with small red potatoes roasted with rosemary and the last of last year's broccoli. For supper (on Sunday dinner is at noon) I made the eggplant/tomato pasta in Q&D. It was good, too, though if I make it again I won't cut up the eggplant so small. Half to 3/4 inch pieces would be better than the tiny dice they suggest. Anyway, I'm running out of recipes! I plan the green-olive chicken breasts this week, but I need to get some decent green olives. What did you use, Suze? I'd really like to use luques, one of our favorites, but Kowalski's didn't have any last week. It sounds very good, so I'm glad it was a success for you.

Tonight it's just spareribs, french fries, and corn. One can only do so much. I'm waiting for our berries to ripen before I do the berry recipes. We have strawberries, raspberries (red & black) and even blueberries, our first real (though small) crop of them, starting to ripen. The only recipe I don't anticipate doing is the waldorf salad (sniff) because Charlie will not eat it. But you've covered that, Suze. Oh, and I don't know if I'll do the basil recipes (except for the stuffed cherry tomatoes, much later in the summer). They seem a little much. But we'll see . . . .

It sounds like you had an overbusy Sunday, Suze. Just imagine what it'll be like to actually have time to do stuff, though I find it's hard to make myself do things sometimes, just because it seems that I have all the time in the world. Mom understands this.

I am, for some strange reason, rereading Moo, one of my all time favorite books. Suzy, do you know anything about the recent graphic novel A Fun Home?

Photos soon. We are desperate for rain!!