Do you want the good news or the bad news? We’ll start with the good news. The good news is that our hoophouse has successfully extended our growing season. Granted, it’s gotten an assist from the warmest winter in human memory, but it still felt good to be out there in January, harvesting the parsnips [...]
Our new flock of chickens is laying on all cylinders, and we’re collecting up to ten eggs a day. I’m giving a lot of them to friends, but I don’t have all that many friends, so I still have quite a few left. There’s nothing for it but to eat them. Which raises a very [...]
If you didn’t get chickens last year, or the year before, chances are good that you’re thinking about it now. You’re investigating local livestock ordinances. You’re deciding where to build your coop. You’re checking prices and availability at Murray McMurray. And you’re studying Henderson’s Handy-Dandy Chicken Chart to figure out how to pick your breeds. Henderson’s [...]
This year, we grew a kind of winter squash which has only one thing to recommend it: size. I couldn’t tell you the name of the variety; we’ve been calling it Sasquash so long that we’ve forgotten its real name. Sasquash is bland, it is watery, and it is very, very large. Together, the five [...]
I hate adages that don’t make sense. Like that one about which came first, the chicken or the egg. (That does count as an adage, doesn’t it?) It’s perfectly clear that the egg came first. It was laid by something that wasn’t quite a chicken, which had been bred to something else that wasn’t quite [...]
Since we left New York, Kevin and I have undertaken more new projects than two fifty-year-olds have any business attempting. And it is with surprise and gratification that we have seen most of them go well. We’ve raised chickens, turkeys, and ducks. We’ve designed and built coops, pens, and a hoophouse. We’ve grown a whole [...]
Mess with Thanksgiving at your peril. The traditional meal, anchored by a roast turkey, has been woven into the fabric of our American identity. And it’s not just because, as kids, that’s what we ate. As kids, we also made turkeys by tracing our hands and Pilgrim hats out of black construction paper as we [...]
God I hate brining. Sure, the concept is nice. The results are even good. But the actual brining is a royal pain in the ass. This year I’m brining two turkeys, about seventeen pounds each. They started the day in our boat cooler, submerged in ice water with three others – the five that remained [...]
I was very small when my mother explained death to me. Everything alive eventually dies, she told me. Pets, plants, grandmothers. You and me. And it is death, she has always said, that makes life precious. But that’s not strictly true. It isn’t death that makes life precious. It’s knowledge of death. Something our six [...]
This is what I was afraid of. It’s October, and the pain in the ass that is a flock of live ducks is a hazy distant memory. The joy that is a smoked, deep-fried duck is vivid and lasting. Back in June, when we slaughtered our flock, our smokehouse wasn’t finished yet. We wanted smoked [...]
Tamar Haspel has been writing about food and health for over a decade. She recently moved from Manhattan to Cape Cod. She’s adjusting well. [Read More …]
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