A nice problem

 

Too many tomatoes...I picked at least 6 of those bowls from the one potted Roma tomato plant, on top of that, hundreds of cherry tomatoes. 

In the old days of Seattle gardening, when summers were much cloudier and cooler,  you were proud to get a handful ripened by September. Everyone had green tomatoes sitting around in the kitchen in the fall. And there were only a few varieties to choose from then, none good for this climate. 

The tomato cross-breeding and hybrid selection over the years has really increased the short season varieties and yields. 

Anyway, a sad day in this house when the tomato bowl runs dry. I've made a delicious fresh sauce a few times-- just a big pile of rough chopped extra ripe tomatoes, generous olive oil, garlic, basil, salt, pepper flakes. And to top it off last night, a grilled hot Italian sausage. How could this not be good for you? 

The most popular American vegetables are: Potatoes, Corn, Broccoli, Garlic, Carrots, Onions, Green Beans, Tomatoes.  Really, tomatoes #8 on the list? Maybe because supermarket tomatoes are so bland and watery.

In the no-so-good food news category, "Gary" and "Blackie" the two Carlton farm drakes, were killed this week, probably by coyotes. They had a dandy summer, running free in the orchard, without a care in the world, but they got too wild and stubborn to go in the chicken house at night with the hens and roosters. Life is sure fun on a farm, until that day when you become someone’s duck dinner. Well, we all have to eat, but that's an expensive morsel for a coyote. 

Cute memories, although I have a feeling Amanda is out of the duck business next year.

Old Sparky

If Charlotte the Spider knows what's good for her, she will stay outside the kitchen window...

I gave John a battery operated insect zapper racket (Marshall's impulse purchase) for Father's Day. He loves it. We call it Old Sparky. 

The poor fly or spider doesn't just peacefully drop down dead, it gets electrocuted with a loud snapping, sparking noise. The bigger the insect, the bigger the snap. It is quite satisfying and fun, in a gruesome way. Living proof that even the nicest people have a mean streak buried in there.

Speaking of spiders, this is the time of year when the biggest ones start showing up in our basement. Old Sparky might need new batteries soon.

And while we're on this spider creepy binge, a hideous illustration from a hideous Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale about a wicked girl who was so vain, proud and cruel she steps on a loaf to avoid dirtying her shoes. Germans were big on old fairy tales, and this book used to scare us to death when we were kids. 

 "Great, fat, sprawling spiders spun webs of a thousand years,
round and round her feet."
from, The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf

Small and wormy

Which is par for the course with "organic" homegrown apples in western Washington. These are destined for the yard waste pickup bin. That's where Seattleites throw everything from chicken bones to dirty pizza boxes to diseased plants. 

One reason why I don't use municipal compost. The other being, it smells sour and putrid and contains bits of white plastic, sometimes even glass chips. They have a nerve selling that poor quality stuff back to us after we pay to have it hauled away. 

Anyway, the garden has been lush the last few years without winter compost or fertilizers of any kind. I leave most of the cleanup until spring now, partially out of laziness, and also for the sake of the insects and birds. Who knows? Maybe the rotting foliage helps put nutrients back in the soil.

OK. Carlton cute pet alert!

 

Yoko and Nica playing a gentle game of tug while Nova supervises. 

And the weenie one now weighs almost 5 pounds. The furry lump that looks like a discarded floor mop is Millie relaxing on her back. It won't be long until the pet menagerie moves from cool kitchen floor to the Russian stove hearth. 

 

Last bloomers

 

 

I was in the garden yesterday scrounging a few vase flowers and finding slim pickins, but this old L.D. Braithwaite rose decided to bloom late. 

The plant was developed in 1988 by the British rosarian David Austin. He named it after his father-in-law, which was either a sweet or suck up gesture (if you're cynical.)

The poor thing is struggling along now in a dry and shady spot, because trees and shrubs grew up around it over the last 20 years. 

But such a beautiful flower. I've noticed sometimes, when under stress, plants suddenly give their all to the reproduction effort. I should transplant it, but where? And it has especially wicked thorns. 

That's something you don't think much about when just starting out. Then the decades hand out good and bad gardening lessons for free. 

The mornings are suddenly so dark! At 6 am, there was a perfect view in the east of Jupiter hanging off the tip of the crescent moon, just as it was starting to get light. 

Another sure sign of fall-- Charlotte the Spider has set up her web again outside the kitchen window. More on that later. 

Livin' the good life

 

No offense intended to the German people, but this dense Alki Bakery Black Forest cake is better than what we had in Bavaria. 

 At the cuckoo clock tourist trap store back in June. Which seems a lifetime ago now.  

Also on the Seattle menu yesterday, strawberry waffles for breakfast.

And rib eye steaks for dinner. Now that's a rare treat around here. 

Well, the occasion was John's birthday, and other than an early trip to Home Depot, we stayed home and let the holiday weekend swirl around without us. 

It was a spectacular football weather day, and most of the city was watching the Apple Cup. The Huskies won, but not very prettily. Disloyal to my UW Alma Mater, I've turned into an eastern Washington Cougar fan. There is talk lately of Nova applying to college there, which would be fantastic. 

After dinner we watched gorgeous Marilyn Monroe and stunning Jane Russell in "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend." By the end of the day, the birthday boy looked as satisfied as this fat spoiled cat, lounging in the farmhouse window.  

 

Applesauce

 

 

It's a lot of bother making applesauce from scratch, but it tastes so much better than anything out of a supermarket jar, which tends to be cloying sweet. And since John did the peeling and chopping this morning when I was at the gym, we cooked up six pints by lunchtime. 

 

These are an organic new crop from Lone Pine. It's a bit early for apples and they were on the hard and tart side, which was perfect for applesauce. Honeycrisp (primarily an eating apple) are juicy and sweeter later in the season. 

 

 

They cook down to soft mush quickly, and just need a light mashing for a slightly lumpy consistency.

We like a chunky texture over the baby food smooth applesauce our moms made with these "mid century vintage" food mills. 

Anyway. I used a touch of brown sugar to give it that light caramel color. No cinnamon and light on the white sugar. It's nice to have some good stuff on hand in the winter for pork roast and those fattening fried potato pancakes I make with leftover mashed potatoes.

So Labor Day weekend is here leaving no doubt that we're headed into that bittersweet season of fall transition. After some good rain, the early mornings in Seattle are suddenly so dark. The screen light of laptops and phones is hard on my old eyes, so I've changed my blogging routine with the season. Besides-- why start the day with NYT doom scrolling? 

Enjoy your holiday weekend and take care on the roads if you're heading out somewhere. We will be at home.