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zesty_pintoThe sky was rosy, calm, thoughtful. The colony of 8 bean plants, now almost a hedge of greenery, limped from the weight while another column rested on its side, defeated by gravity and lashings that time and erosion that deteriorated once-white cord that would have otherwise found a better home wrapped around a roast or hanging a cluster of drying foods.
I had to be quick. The mosquitoes would come when the weather was in transition. They would come with relentlessness and they had squatted all over my fields to feast on pollen and commit their orgies all over it between the raptures of japanese beetles and the daddy long-legs and the spiders that hid between it all.
Beans.
Canning
So. Many. Beans.
In the evening I promised myself to can a few, so I grabbed a black bag and reached for what I could get. I bought two pounds at a farmer's market, and jalapenos, and garlic, because dilly beans were on my mind. I figured those two pounds would be a backup plan in case there was not enough.
The mosquitoes that came, that intimidated me with their high-pitched lurking towards my face or any tasty part of my soft flesh to prick for sex, I swatted to little effect, to no effect, but still I reached, and grabbed, and grabbed.
When I returned, full of sweat and itches, Michelle lay on the couch.
"How did you do?" She asked.
I breathlessly dropped the bag on her stomach, its weight tumbled and slumped onto her with a bounty that left her smiling.
"Wow, this many?"
"I couldn't even check everything because of all the bugs. That's maybe a third of my search."
A third translated to two quart bottles. With two pounds, it made for six bottles, two quarts and three pints and another bottle of odds and ends. I washed the beans and cut the parts that had bite marks and brought out the big black pot that was too large but for the canning I wanted it was perfect. It awkwardly sat on the stove and would not boil even at high heat until I covered the lid. I had to make the kitchen as much of a green house inside as it was out.
Dill seed, yellow mustard seed, black mustard seed, red peppercorns, white peppercorns, black peppercorns. I normally add cayenne, but decided to trust half a jalapeno to do enough. A garlic clove and water mixed with vinegar and salt to brine it all. Once everything is done, I hoped to have it show the beauty of red peppercorns floating in the green brine with all the beauty of Christmas in a bottle. There was so much that this was a luxury not to be had.
The day afterwards,
Gardening
55 dollars. That's the price of three heavy-duty 7 foot poles that won't bend to the weight of gigantic green bean shrubs. They were wider than the handles of mops, with the thickness of a jawbreaker that would barely fit your mouth, with the protected coating to match. If these poles bent then I would swear on getting rebar just to support these beans.
Michelle joined me this time, bringing a mixing bowl to carry these beans. We dig through, a more thorough search while the sun was high and dry and the mosquitoes were not as brave. The damage from the limping bean bushes was obvious; yellowed leaves lined the trench between the two lines as though fall came upon there too early.
One of the neighbors with the gorgeous garden comes by to check on her own and she compliments the beans we have grown. Some of them have grown too much, now protruding with the vase-like snaking of beans that have become too big for their container. Perhaps too old to enjoy properly? I have left two of the thicker ones aside to dry out and become future seeds.
In the end, we head back, but not before stopping ourselves several times. Michelle's ankles reeked of garlic and habanero; a makeshift repellent after mosquitoes attacked her legs. I wore the last of the repellent on my skin and in my pants: it leaked as I sprayed it into my pocket with each seating I took. But that is not why we stop, it is because the beans hide in plain sight. We keep thinking we are done, and then we would realize we were staring at a cluster of them. I work from one end, she on another. By the time we think we are done, the bowl is full and heavy, and it would be even heavier if we did not offer some to our neighbor, who also offered us some of her parsley crop, which reeked of citrus and freshness and now is homed in a bag of brine for a flounder sous vide.
The canning was not as ambitious as before; I guesstimate five jars, then add a sixth, only realize there was only need for five; again, four for gifting and a fifth full of odds and ends. They needed to be re-canned when I find four of the cans bulging. I apparently packed them improperly. Back in they go for another ten minutes. Any fear I had of parasites that could survive the brine is assuaged from the fact that they bathed in thirty minutes in that pocket of steaming hellfire-fueled boiling.
Cooking
My parents visit left us some of their leftovers and so we had a bunch of sweet potatoes that were for them to snack on as they drove up and they left here. I ended up putting it into a pound cake. The recipe I find recommends a bundt cake tin and I immediately spot this alien mold with a ring design.
"I'm going to use this tin you don't use for this one," I tell Michelle.
"Okay," she mindlessly said as her mind reflexively worked into the Switch.
Apparently, sweet potato pound cakes are more of a Southern thing? Interesting enough, the recipe is pretty similar to what I'd normally see with a regular pound cake except I use the sweet potato as a replacement for the milk, which I think is better for it since the milk never gets me a result I like anyway. The most novel thing was making the glaze which mentioned the use of orange juice, but since we didn't have that, I resorted to a lemon glaze.
The result is effortless; I think pound cake has become almost reflexive for me to make, like chowder or pulled pork. In an hour, I grab the mold that I greased with sprays, turn it over, beat the top, and...
Nothing.
Another tap.
Nothing.
Pretty soon, I am beating it and am gifted with the result. Half of it.
The other half clung to the tin.
Okay, fine. I pushed the cake mess into a mixing bowl, poured some of the glaze in-between to play as glue, and then kept adding more cake until there was no more and then pressed it into the dome. In thirty minutes, the cake was cooperative. The rest of the glaze I poured over it. I'm happy with the results outside of how ugly it looks.
The rest of the weekend
-I order a propane torch for sous vide. It's actually coming in today, which threw me off since I expected it a week later.
-A car inspection and an oil change came with yet another problem as it seems our left fog light has a hole. The curse of dirt roads reminds us once again of the dilemma of living in rural bliss.
-A splinter managed to nestle itself into the one spot of my hand where I would not feel it, where I not using chopsticks all the time. I spent this morning picking at the skin and I pulled at the splinter between the gushing of pus that cushioned this foreigner to my body. I have squeezed and squeezed this pimple and now it feels fine. Whew.
-My sinuses had gotten better as the weather feels more like summer than fall. It is, in my opinion, the best of both worlds for the Vermonters I imagine, as it means the benefits of fall but also the joy of selling ice cream while you're here. As you can imagine, Vermont loves its ice cream. I wouldn't do it though, as there is still half an ice cream cake that Michelle's deceased grandmother would beat me up about not eating if I didn't eat this first.
-I took photos. I only wish I brought it with me when I was bean picking, but I wasn't thinking at the time. To come in the next few days.
-There's still juvenile beans on the line as well as some flowers. The tomatoes are still not ripening out and the squash is still not making fruit. Jerks.
I had to be quick. The mosquitoes would come when the weather was in transition. They would come with relentlessness and they had squatted all over my fields to feast on pollen and commit their orgies all over it between the raptures of japanese beetles and the daddy long-legs and the spiders that hid between it all.
Beans.
Canning
So. Many. Beans.
In the evening I promised myself to can a few, so I grabbed a black bag and reached for what I could get. I bought two pounds at a farmer's market, and jalapenos, and garlic, because dilly beans were on my mind. I figured those two pounds would be a backup plan in case there was not enough.
The mosquitoes that came, that intimidated me with their high-pitched lurking towards my face or any tasty part of my soft flesh to prick for sex, I swatted to little effect, to no effect, but still I reached, and grabbed, and grabbed.
When I returned, full of sweat and itches, Michelle lay on the couch.
"How did you do?" She asked.
I breathlessly dropped the bag on her stomach, its weight tumbled and slumped onto her with a bounty that left her smiling.
"Wow, this many?"
"I couldn't even check everything because of all the bugs. That's maybe a third of my search."
A third translated to two quart bottles. With two pounds, it made for six bottles, two quarts and three pints and another bottle of odds and ends. I washed the beans and cut the parts that had bite marks and brought out the big black pot that was too large but for the canning I wanted it was perfect. It awkwardly sat on the stove and would not boil even at high heat until I covered the lid. I had to make the kitchen as much of a green house inside as it was out.
Dill seed, yellow mustard seed, black mustard seed, red peppercorns, white peppercorns, black peppercorns. I normally add cayenne, but decided to trust half a jalapeno to do enough. A garlic clove and water mixed with vinegar and salt to brine it all. Once everything is done, I hoped to have it show the beauty of red peppercorns floating in the green brine with all the beauty of Christmas in a bottle. There was so much that this was a luxury not to be had.
The day afterwards,
Gardening
55 dollars. That's the price of three heavy-duty 7 foot poles that won't bend to the weight of gigantic green bean shrubs. They were wider than the handles of mops, with the thickness of a jawbreaker that would barely fit your mouth, with the protected coating to match. If these poles bent then I would swear on getting rebar just to support these beans.
Michelle joined me this time, bringing a mixing bowl to carry these beans. We dig through, a more thorough search while the sun was high and dry and the mosquitoes were not as brave. The damage from the limping bean bushes was obvious; yellowed leaves lined the trench between the two lines as though fall came upon there too early.
One of the neighbors with the gorgeous garden comes by to check on her own and she compliments the beans we have grown. Some of them have grown too much, now protruding with the vase-like snaking of beans that have become too big for their container. Perhaps too old to enjoy properly? I have left two of the thicker ones aside to dry out and become future seeds.
In the end, we head back, but not before stopping ourselves several times. Michelle's ankles reeked of garlic and habanero; a makeshift repellent after mosquitoes attacked her legs. I wore the last of the repellent on my skin and in my pants: it leaked as I sprayed it into my pocket with each seating I took. But that is not why we stop, it is because the beans hide in plain sight. We keep thinking we are done, and then we would realize we were staring at a cluster of them. I work from one end, she on another. By the time we think we are done, the bowl is full and heavy, and it would be even heavier if we did not offer some to our neighbor, who also offered us some of her parsley crop, which reeked of citrus and freshness and now is homed in a bag of brine for a flounder sous vide.
The canning was not as ambitious as before; I guesstimate five jars, then add a sixth, only realize there was only need for five; again, four for gifting and a fifth full of odds and ends. They needed to be re-canned when I find four of the cans bulging. I apparently packed them improperly. Back in they go for another ten minutes. Any fear I had of parasites that could survive the brine is assuaged from the fact that they bathed in thirty minutes in that pocket of steaming hellfire-fueled boiling.
Cooking
My parents visit left us some of their leftovers and so we had a bunch of sweet potatoes that were for them to snack on as they drove up and they left here. I ended up putting it into a pound cake. The recipe I find recommends a bundt cake tin and I immediately spot this alien mold with a ring design.
"I'm going to use this tin you don't use for this one," I tell Michelle.
"Okay," she mindlessly said as her mind reflexively worked into the Switch.
Apparently, sweet potato pound cakes are more of a Southern thing? Interesting enough, the recipe is pretty similar to what I'd normally see with a regular pound cake except I use the sweet potato as a replacement for the milk, which I think is better for it since the milk never gets me a result I like anyway. The most novel thing was making the glaze which mentioned the use of orange juice, but since we didn't have that, I resorted to a lemon glaze.
The result is effortless; I think pound cake has become almost reflexive for me to make, like chowder or pulled pork. In an hour, I grab the mold that I greased with sprays, turn it over, beat the top, and...
Nothing.
Another tap.
Nothing.
Pretty soon, I am beating it and am gifted with the result. Half of it.
The other half clung to the tin.
Okay, fine. I pushed the cake mess into a mixing bowl, poured some of the glaze in-between to play as glue, and then kept adding more cake until there was no more and then pressed it into the dome. In thirty minutes, the cake was cooperative. The rest of the glaze I poured over it. I'm happy with the results outside of how ugly it looks.
The rest of the weekend
-I order a propane torch for sous vide. It's actually coming in today, which threw me off since I expected it a week later.
-A car inspection and an oil change came with yet another problem as it seems our left fog light has a hole. The curse of dirt roads reminds us once again of the dilemma of living in rural bliss.
-A splinter managed to nestle itself into the one spot of my hand where I would not feel it, where I not using chopsticks all the time. I spent this morning picking at the skin and I pulled at the splinter between the gushing of pus that cushioned this foreigner to my body. I have squeezed and squeezed this pimple and now it feels fine. Whew.
-My sinuses had gotten better as the weather feels more like summer than fall. It is, in my opinion, the best of both worlds for the Vermonters I imagine, as it means the benefits of fall but also the joy of selling ice cream while you're here. As you can imagine, Vermont loves its ice cream. I wouldn't do it though, as there is still half an ice cream cake that Michelle's deceased grandmother would beat me up about not eating if I didn't eat this first.
-I took photos. I only wish I brought it with me when I was bean picking, but I wasn't thinking at the time. To come in the next few days.
-There's still juvenile beans on the line as well as some flowers. The tomatoes are still not ripening out and the squash is still not making fruit. Jerks.
