Twelve Perfect Little Novels

So you’re off for a long weekend and need something to read. Something that you can enjoy on the plane, on the beach or in a hammock. Something that’s going to sweep you away into another world, but with little effort and little more than 300 pages. Something that won’t take you all summer to read. Below is a (Gatsby free!) list of some favorite shorter novels.

1. Remains of the Day by Kasuo Ishiguro –
Who can forget the incredible performances in the film by Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins? But the book is even better. A complex relationship between a housekeeper, a butler and his duties in an formal English estate.


2. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya – New Mexican family and folklore as the traditional and modern worlds interact.

3. Charms for the Easy Life by Kaye Gibbons – a Southern midwife and holistic healer passes her wisdom on to her grandaughter.

4. The Grass Harp by Truman Capote – a quirky book about the outsider sensibility – a boy living with his eccentric aunts in the South.

5. Little Altars Everywhere by Rebecca Wells - forget the Ya Ya Sisterhood and read this instead. A sometimes-funny but dysfunctional and inebriated Louisiana family.

6. My Antonia by Willa Cather

– a gorgeous classic about a young woman and her immigrant family on the Nebraskan prairie.

7. Bee Season by Myla Goldberg – what happens to the already charged Jewish family dynamic during stressful spelling bee studying.

8. Waiting by Ha Jin – Love and politics in communist China.

9. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver –
Kentucky girl moves to Arizona and unexpectedly becomes a mother.

10.
That Night by Alice McDermott - detailed snapshot of teenage love and coming of age in the suburbs in the 60s.

11. Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama – complex lessons learned by a young man recovering from tuberculosis in pre WWII Japan.

12. Secret Letters from 0 to 10 by Susie Morgenstern – a boy who lives a colorless life learns to love and find joy savoring life’s simple experiences. Good to share with the kids.

Since I’m always looking for them, I’d love to hear what some of your favorite perfect little novels are!

Matterhorn's Green Rooftops and Steps

Matterhorn Nursery, located in Spring Valley, NY is the “king” of nurseries around here. This is the place where I even like to bring my out-of-town guests -- for the plant enthusiasts at least, it's probably a better attraction than a Broadway show -- just so that they can see their incredible gardens and displays. On Saturday I visited with my friend Sonia and we saw something new.

It’s a dog house with a green rooftop! And there was an even larger shed. The rooftop modules, which I’m told are about 1.5’ square retail for about $75. The plants are varied in color – not all of them green.

We also loved this “Stepables” exhibit.

So much that we couldn't resist taking off our shoes.

Matterhorn Nursery
227 Summit Park Road
Spring Valley, NY 10977
Tel: 845 354 5986
www.matterhornnursery.com

A Few New (to me) Herbs

This year I’m expanding my herbal vocabulary and growing a bunch of new varieties. Here’s a bit about some of my new favorites:

Cuban Oregano- (plectranthus amboinicus)This is a member of the coleus family and has beautiful rounded, fuzzy leaves. It isn’t a true oregano, and the variety I’m growing smells amazing – very green an citrusy. When you bite it, though, the flavor is pretty bland. Cooking this herb would be wasting it, I think, but I would definitely add it to pestos, salads and salsas, or use it to flavor olive oils, vinegar and drinks (white wine sangria, anyone?) This is a tender plant and is best used potted and brought inside before frost.


Purple Opal Basil - (Ocimum basilicum) There are several purple varieties of basil. The leaves of the “Opal” variety aren’t a solid purple, but have almost golden undertones that become more obvious as the plant matures. I like to use them along with the green basil to give a little color variation to caprese salad, or in a green salad to add some flavor. Annual, easily grown from seed.


Chocolate Mint-(Mentha piperita cv)

The leaf edges of the chocolate variety of mint have a pretty reddish-brown color that would make this a beautiful garnish for a chocolate cake. I’ve been using mint lately to flavor cocktails, muddling it with fresh fruit (peach is my favorite) in a shaker with flavored vodka. Would make a great tea. Mint is invasive and perennial around here, so I’ll probably just leave it in the pot and hope it comes back next year.


Vietnamese Cilantro (polygonum odoratum)– My experience growing cilantro in the past has not been good. Around this time of year, it usually turns yellow and leggy or flowers and peters out. This variety doesn’t seem nearly as tempermental. It’s completely pest resistant, very pretty and creeps like thyme, but is easly controlled by cutting it back. The flavor is just like cilantro and I’ve been using the leaves in salads and salsa just the way I do cilantro. Terrific in chicken or egg salad. This is an annual plant that I purchased at a local nursery.

Lemon Thyme – (thymus citrodorus)

Thyme has tiny leaves and the tips of this variety are yellow. It behaves just like English thyme in the garden. Thyme is excellent with potatoes. I make a sliced potato and thyme tart in a skillet that is flipped over and finished in the oven, the thyme leaves are sprinkled on top. Also yummy in potato salad or added to a marinade. It could come back as a perennial and will be left in the ground.


Purple Sage – Salvia officinalis purpurea

I chose this for my Garden of Purple Paisley Delights that I planted in honor of my all time favorite musical hero, Prince. When I smell sage I think of roast turkey and am looking for some ways to use it apart from as a poultry herb. I saw some beautiful crackers recently that had a whole sage leaf pressed into the top of them before baking. Could be extra nice with the purple leaves. Sage can be grown from seed and can be found in most nurseries.


Hyssop- (agastache Foeniculum)I had a crazy time trying to identify this herb. I searched through Martha Stewart’s culinary herb garden at the NY Botanical Garden and didn’t find it, but later found it in another bed of plants that were featured for their smell. They smell a lot like root beer. You could use hyssop to give things a licorice flavor. It’s also used medicinally, boiled, with the steam inhaled for coughs. This is perennial in zone 7.

Got any good ideas for using herbs?

Letter L: Leg

The S. man bought this at the flea market on 7th Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

No, he doesn’t have a strange toothbrush or body part grooming accessory collection.
But when he saw it, he knew he had to have it.

Alas, we will never know what it feels like to clean our teeth with a sexy foot because the leg has never been removed from its original packaging.

Doesn’t it remind you of this icon of tacky tastelessness?

Why not post something for letter M? Visit God Bless Ya'll Real Good and Pam J to see more.

Have a Fun Fourth!

Theme Thursday: Funky

Pay no mind to the stoned Rastafarian in the first seconds of this video. That is the most normal part. The real fun starts with the couple in tights.

"Funky Kingston" by Toots and the Maytals

Fun at the Fig Farm

A fig tree? Me? You gotta be kidding! When I first started thinking about which small fruit tree to put in a container on my deck, figs were not even in the running. Anything that I have to move to overwinter is usually not at the top of my list. But I kept reading about gardeners who are growing them in the northeast – and it was time to rise to the overwintering challenge.

Encanto Nursery in California is known as one of the best places in the country to buy a fig tree, but when I contacted them, hoping to get one by mail order, I was referred to Bill Muzychko.


His fig tree nursery in Flemington, New Jersey, is not exactly around the corner, but is considered the best around. Bill started growing figs about 5 years ago and began selling them just a year ago. All the trees that have resulted were propogated from his original stock.


Here’s some photos of the greenhouse where he starts the cuttings in a mixture of perlite, sand and vermiculite.

He has varieties from 1-4 years old for sale and about 135 different varieties total.

This is a perfect example of why getting a plant from a local grower is so much nicer than buying mail order, where you’re at the mercy of whatever small bits of info about growing methods that you can glean from the catalog or even the small tag attached to it.

Since I have no fig-growing experience whatsoever, I was grateful that Bill was able to take some time on Saturday to explain the care of a fig tree to me, including his watering system – these self watering barrels. A five year old fig can drink several gallons a day.

This 1-year-old Brown Turkey variety has a few fruit on it already – that can be rare for a one-year-old tree.

This is the one I chose to come home with me.

Here are some fig growing tips from Bill. For northern climates like ours, Bill recommends keeping the trees in a potted container that can be moved inside for the winter.

1) Place the tree in a sunny location, outside after danger of frost has passed. If frost is predicted, cover the tree.

2) Use a self-watering container, like EasyCare to house your tree.

3) The tree can survive frost, but not freezing. Before Thanksgiving, bring it into the garage and water once a month, bringing it out again in the spring.

4) Trim branches back by 1/3 before bringing inside.

5) A fertilizer like Osmocote is good to use once a year. When potting, 10 cups of limestone will adjust the Ph factor. Figs like 7 - 7.5 ph.

6) Fruits are usually ready in August or September and can be picked with they start to feel soft.

There’s lots more info at this link: http://figs4fun.com/bills_figs.html. He also has fig growing classes and a "Fig Fest" in September.


Bill's Figs
329 Old York Road
Flemington, NJ 08822
Phone: 908-806-4887
Email:wmuzy@comcast.net