Adkins Arboretum Mystery Monday! Guess the Picture Below
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Nonpartisan and Education-based News for Chestertown
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Advance-sale tickets are now available for the biennial Talbot County Tour of the Maryland House & Garden Pilgrimage. The May 11, 2024 event is not to be missed!
The Talbot County Tour gives visitors access to seven of Maryland’s most celebrated historic properties, fabulous private waterfront estates, and exquisite spring gardens – all with Easton and nearby Trappe addresses.
Properties on tour include Canterbury Manor, Ellenborough and a lovely home on Hanson Street (all in Easton) plus Chloras Point Farm, Ferry Farm House, Lloyd’s Landing, and Trappe Landing Farm (all in Trappe).
Two significant historic sites – Scotts United Methodist Church and Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church (White Marsh Parish) in Trappe – will benefit from facilities preservation and restoration work afforded by tour proceeds.
To purchase reduced-price advance-sale tickets, go to https://buy.stripe.com/cN2eWcc7RexN5207sO
For Talbot County Tour details, visit MHGC.org
For lunch info, visit talbotcountygc.org
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This week, between the rain drops, I wandered around the back yard and started thinking about our summer garden. I am ill-equipped for the heavy labor involved in actual gardening – like digging holes – in the sunshine. Heavens to Betsy! That’s why having a modest raised garden bed is enough of a project for me. I can dig small holes, and poke small plants into them. Weeding? Well, maybe this year I will be more responsible when the daily weeding should commence. I am aware of my limits. I should just plant a few tomato plants, and maybe a handful of basil plants, in pots. No staked rows of heirloom tomato plants, with thoughts of burbling pots of fragrant spaghetti sauce. There is no gardening staff to bustle around anticipating my every whim, doing my work for me, however much I would like to will them into being. I’m sure you are familiar with your own shortfalls.
It’s too late, already, to plant peas. I needed to have done that work in a cold frame weeks ago. Peas just seem so springlike and green, as they change colors when cooked: they start off a nice medium Girl Scout uniform green, and after the briefest of moments spent in steam they are suddenly jewel-like, and chartreuse, and irresistible. I will have to wander through the grocery store and hope to stumble over a cache of fresh peas. Or maybe the farmers’ market will have a seasonal surprise for me this weekend!
The rains this week, while excellent for the burgeoning hydrangeas and the thirsty, unfashionable lawn, have flattened the daffodils and threatened the tulips as yet undiscovered by the deer visiting at night. (The deer did find the few tulips nestled among the pansies in the urns on the front porch, and nibbled them to nubbins. You’re welcome.) It feels like everything has bloomed early. Some of the azaleas have begun to pink up, modestly, around the edges. Forsythia bushes have burst into full flame in the hedge next door.
I’m thinking of light spring-y recipes while I am plotting the weeding and mulching. Winter feels finished, and I am longing for lighter, fresher meals. No more meatloaf. No more chicken pot pie. Bring on the pasta primavera, with new peas and garden-fresh farmers’ market tomatoes, please. Lemon Primavera
Our friends at Food52 have a delicious spring salad that is loaded with fresh asparagus as well as peas. This will put a spring in your step and you go out to mulch your raised garden bed: Peas and Asparagus Salad
This is more interesting than a salad plate of wilting iceberg lettuce. It is redolent with springtime: Fresh Peas
This transcendent pea compound butter is good on toast, or spread on cooked meats: Compound Butter
I think this Guac recipe will make for a very nice appetizer on the back porch this weekend as we venture out for our first cocktail hour of the new season. (Don’t forget to Spring Ahead Saturday night!) Something light and crunchy, to go with a small glass of rosé Prosecco.
Green Pea Guacamole
If you feel you must cook peas:
Buttered Green Sugar Snap Peas
1 pound sugar snap peas
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon shredded fresh mint
Pluck off and discard the string from each pea pod.
Bring salted water to boil; there should be enough to cover peas when added. Add peas. When water returns to a boil, cook about 3 minutes. Do not overcook. Drain.
Return peas to saucepan. Add pepper, salt, butter and mint. Stir to blend until the pieces are well coated and hot. Serve immediately.
You should try their sweet deliciousness raw:
7 Ways to Eat Sugar Snap Peas
And more Sugar Snap Peas
“They sowed the duller vegetables first, and a pleasant feeling of righteous fatigue stole over them as they addressed themselves to the peas.”
― E.M. Forster
The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.
The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.
We are back home from our brief Florida spring break sojourn. We have returned, to grayer skies and cooler temperatures. But we’ve also returned to the welcome sights of budding daffodils, deer-tempting tulips, and the neighbor’s magnolia tree, burgeoning with cascades of lush pink and white blossoms. Give me flowers and breezes that smell of spring over swaying palm fronds any day!
The weather has been erratic and unpredictable this week. Just when we get lulled into thinking it’s cotton sweater weather, when the temperatures rise and the robins cluster drunkenly around the bird bath, a cold wind starts to blow, and we are driven back inside. Suddenly we need warm, soothing comfort food. Again.
I have to admit that I am tired of making hearty winter-y meals. The constant routine of dinner planning and prep can be soul-sucking. Dinner, again? How many times can we have meatloaf, or chicken, or sausage and peppers? If it’s Tuesday, it must be Taco Tuesday. Ugh. It’s my fault. I am tired of the routine I have imposed on myself. I like having a Meatless Monday, and I like having pasta on Mondays – a throwback to making Mac and cheese when our children were little. And every single Monday I stand in the pantry and weigh whether we should have a red sauce, Fettuccine Alfredo, Cacio e Pepe, or Spaghetti with Butter and Garlic à la Shirl*.
When we were on Spring Break last week I enjoyed the novelty of dining out a few times. I had the delightful experience of having to choose side orders: did I want French fries, cole slaw, sweet potato fries, salad, Brussels sprouts, or okra? Whoa! Variety! Did I want healthy delicious food or hot delectable food? It was too much for me – the concept that someone, other than us, was cooking, serving, cleaning up, washing dishes and offering dessert.
At this time of year, before I can foist outdoor cooking responsibilities onto Mr. Sanders’s capable grilling shoulders, I need to be a little more flexible and creative. Thank goodness for the internet – there are always dozens of solutions to everyday problems. Google (and I am sure Bing is, too) a great source. And my friend Alexa (the AI assistant, not another old college pal) can answer questions at the drop of a hat. While I have not stood in the middle of the kitchen to ask Alexa what to have for dinner, I do ask her how many grams are in a tablespoon of “OO” flour, and to convert centigrade to Farenheit for me.
You can just type in “what should I cook for dinner?” into the Google search bar. I haven’t tried that, because it seems to me that it screams of desperation, and I am afraid that Google will tell me to try offal, or tripe, or squid. But I did ask it about sheet pan dinners, and I found a veritable compendium of ideas, which gave me hope. I’d rather tinker with a new recipe, than make meatloaf one more time this season. I find I have to apologize to Mr. Sanders with some regularity – because these dishes don’t always turn out as the recipe writers had intended. At least we are not bored to tears, falling asleep in a pile of bland mashed potatoes. We are enjoying some variety, some serendipity, and some pixie dust.
I love the convenience of sheet pan dinners, where I can artfully toss meat and veggies together on an aluminum foil-covered cookie sheet, throw it all in the oven, disappear to work for an hour, and wander back into a fragrant kitchen to find that dinner awaits. It is magical! It is transformative! It is almost like having Martha’s staff buzzing around in my tiny kitchen. (And the aluminum foil makes clean up a breeze, too; there are no pans to scour or soak!) Here are some of Martha’s recipes: Sheet Pan Suppers
Our friends at Food52, who always have the best ideas, are all over the sheet pan dinner concept:Food52 Sheet Pan Dinner Ideas
We like this recipe, when we are being particularly impetuous, and want to have breakfast for dinner: Huevos Rotos
Spring is just around the corner. Soon we’ll be outside, enjoying the sun and the great open back yard. Happy March!
“When the groundhog casts his shadow
And the small birds sing
And the pussywillows happen
And the sun shines warm
And when the peepers peep
Then it is Spring”
― Margaret Wise Brown
*Spaghetti with butter and garlic a la Shirl: is named for my college chum who invented it one night when were were broke and starving. It is spaghetti, boiled until al dente, tossed with butter (we may have been using margarine, considering that our budget, which could be stretched for beer, but not real food), garlic powder, red pepper flakes and store-brand Parmesan cheese that comes in a cardboard canister. Deelish. I cannot recommend it too highly, although these days I also use a splash of quality olive oil, a crushed clove of actual garlic, and I add a cloud of fresh, grated imported Parmesan cheese. I also have a plate of green salad, and a glass of wine that comes from a bottle with a cork. We have higher standards these days.
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Ciao Tutti!
Piemonte has been our destination for most of February; but it’s no surprise since the region is blessed with delicious reds that are perfect companions during the cold of winter.
This weekend we will explore the Alto Piemonte ,the upper NE part of the region, to taste the Vino Rosso from the Cantina Sociale Coopertiva di Gattinara ($19.50). Archaeological digs discovered that vines had been cultivated there from the ancient Roman era. “Gattinara” takes its name from the Latin “Catuli Ara”, Altar of Catullus) in honor of the site where Proconsul Lutatius Catillus vanquished the Gauls in 100 BC. Fast forward to the 1700’s when Gattinara’s reputation for producing exceptional wine was well known and caught the attention of Thomas Jefferson, during his tenure as Ambassador to France. He wrote letters home expressing his great appreciation for this region’s wine and no doubt Gattinara’s wines were well represented in the over 650 bottles that accompanied Jefferson back to Monticello.
In the 19th century, Alto Piemonte enjoyed a period of great prosperity and Gattinara’s reputation surpassed its cousins to the south, Barolo and Barbaresco, and even France’s Burgundy. Prosperity was soon dealt a double punch with the plague of phylloxera that decimated the area’s vines and a ferocious hailstorm in 1905. Gattinara’s vines that once spread over 600 hectares were reduced to 95 vines that exist today. With the economy in ruins, many Piemontese left to work in the cities’ factories or emigrated to America. The region’s fortune changed again with the inception of modern winemaking throughout Italy and in 1908, the Cantina Sociale Coopertiva Gattinara was founded to sustain small growers of grapes to give them stability and independence. Forty families work their own plots over 15 hectares.
In Joe Campale’s book, “Vino”, he writes about how Alto Piemonte has now become “the hotbed of Italian wine today”
For the Vino Rosso, the grapes are co-harvested and co-fermented. Each vintage varies but the blend of grapes is approximately 60% Nebbiolo, 30% Barbera, 5% Vespolina, and 5% Uva Rara. When Emily and recently tasted this wine with our rep, we found it to be semi-dry and light bodied, fruity with good acidity and great complexity. Pair with risotto, meat dishes, or Piazza’s aged and blue cheeses. This wine is a favorite of the locals in Gattinara, who arrive at the Cantina each night with empty jugs to fill up from the tank for their evening meal -my kind of people! You may not be able to bring an empty jug to Piazza’s wine tasting but I can offer you a taste-come join me at Piazza Italian Market on Friday from noon to 5:45 and Saturday from noon to 4:45.
Cin Cin!
Jenn
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Adkins Arboretum has announced the 2024 lineup for its popular Soup ’n Walk programs. Explore the Arboretum’s forest, meadows and wetland on a guided walk themed to the season, then enjoy a delicious lunch and a brief talk about nature and nutrition. Copies of recipes are provided. All gift shop purchases on these days receive a 20% discount. This year’s offerings include:
Early Blooms, Songbirds & Spring Frogs
Sat., March 16, 11 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Listen for songbirds and spring frogs while searching for early purple, pink and white blooms. Plants of interest include skunk cabbage, paw paw, spring beauty and bloodroot. Menu: hearty vegetarian chili, sweet and tangy sauerkraut salad, brown rice bread with spinach dip, dark chocolate chewy cookie.
Spring Ephemerals & Pollinators
Sat., April 13, 11 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Look again! The blooms of ephemeral plants, trees and shrubs are here and gone in the blink of an eye. Look for pink, white and yellow blooms and listen for early pollinators. Plants of interest include pink spring beauty, may apple, dogwood, golden groundsel, spicebush, sassafras and white beech. Menu: ginger sweet potato soup, Eastern Shore crunchy cole slaw, ancient grain bread with strawberry jam, oatmeal walnut cookies.
Beavers, Tuckahoe Creek & Beyond
Sat., May 18, 11 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Observe the beautiful Tuckahoe Creek view while scouting for signs of beavers. Plants of interest include mountain laurel, beech, tulip tree, pink lady’s slipper, Solomon’s seal and may apple. Menu: kale, apple, and lentil soup, green bean salad with honey cider vinaigrette, pumpernickel bread and apple butter, cinnamon crunch apple cake.
Sat., Sept. 21, 11 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Walk the meadows in search of golden brown grasses and yellow and purple flowers while watching and listening for bluebirds and dragonflies. Plants of interest include milkweed, black-eyed Susan, goldenrod, Indian grass, big bluestem and sumac berries. Menu: split pea soup, wild rice berry salad, anadama oatmeal bread with orange marmalade, spicy pumpkin pie in easy crust.
Sat., Oct. 19, 11 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Fall colors dazzle the eye and pique the appetite. Listen for migrating birds and woodpeckers while watching for changing color on red and orange sweet gum, sassafras, tupelo, sumac, dogwood, yellow paw paw, hickory, beech and tulip trees. Menu: butternut squash sweet potato bisque, red pepper and chick pea salad, whole wheat flaxseed bread with blackberry jam, tasty peach and berry crisp.
Sat., Nov. 16, 11 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Enjoy autumn as we hunt for nutritious berries, nuts and seeds and check for signs of beaver. Plants of interest include dogwood, hibiscus, partridge berry, oak, loblolly pine, juniper, verbena, ironwood and strawberry bush. Menu: kale and chicken soup with lemon, black-eyed pea salad, dill rye bread with raspberry jam, Black Forest cake with cherries.
Soup ’n Walk programs are $30 for members and $35 for non-members. Early registration is recommended. Visit adkinsarboretum.org or call 410-634-2847, ext. 100 to register or for more information.
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Mr. Sanders and I have flown the coop – and gone to Florida for an early Spring Break. This is an updated column from a few years ago, all about our favorite thing to do when winter weather is hanging on, when we are longing for summer. Grab your seed catalogues – time’s a wasting!
Seed packets are so beautiful. On the front there is an idealized illustration of a freakishly perfect tomato; it is round and radiates sun-warmth. This is so unlike the soggy cardboard tomatoes we have been buying all winter. On the back there are instructions about sowing the seeds after all danger of frost has passed. Hmmm. It’s not even mid-February and I am ready to hang up the snow shovel and start planting summer salads.
I wandered past the seed section of the garden department at the hardware store last weekend. Mr. Friday thought we were going in to buy windshield wiper fluid and light bulbs. Such charming naïveté! Instead, we walked out with wiper fluid, light bulbs and three seed starting kits, a handful of flower seed packets and a boatload of potting soil. I might talk a good tomato game, but I am longing to have hollyhocks and zinnias and armfuls of coreopsis. I am going to run through a Technicolor meadow of pollinating cutting flowers this year. Oh, and have a nice little vegetable garden, too.
I have been waiting all winter for this – I admit it. I have been thumbing through seed catalogues and imagining my new and improved raised garden bed, spilling over with cukes, beans, and tomatoes. I have been thinking about all those tender herbs that I will manage to coax along this year. I have pictured the extra little flourish and the modest bow I will take when I humbly present our salad greens at the Fourth of July picnic. Envisioning how I will please, delight, and amaze Mr. Friday when I whip out a fresh, homegrown shallot for the homemade salad dressing. I will embrace weeding.
Last year we over-estimated the number of tomato plants that two people actually need. We started with a dozen small plants, but were completely clueless about how big they would get. It got Tokyo-subway-crowded in that tiny little garden. There is science to be applied, and a lot of math, too, according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac: Planting Space Resolve: fewer tomato plants in 2024.
We also planted the basil farm, which is our favorite ingredient, second only to garlic. We had half a dozen basil plants, which were well-tended and yielded a hefty amount of basil through the spring and summer. The plants were all pretty leggy by September, but I managed to fill a gallon-sized Baggie with fragrant basil leaves to tide us over the long winter months. You can never have too much basil.
Resolve: more basil in 2024.
The row of nasturtiums was shiny and bright with color for a few weeks. The plants did not self-sow, which was a disappointment to my lazy soul, because I never remembered to plant any more nasturtium seeds. My neighbor had mentioned once that she just loved nasturtiums, so I really should be concerned with her view of the neighborhood.
Resolve: be a better neighbor, and plant more nasturtiums.
I like to have slicer tomatoes sunning on the kitchen windowsill. I can always make a happy lunch of a tomato sandwich, Pepperidge Farm white bread and a thick schmear of mayonnaise. With some potato chips, please. There is nothing better than a home-grown sun-warmed tomato. But Mr. Friday is fond of some cherry tomatoes, which he likes to sear under the broiler, and serve with burrata, basil and good olive oil. He might prefer growing some Sungold or Sweet Million cherry tomatoes.
If you do not feel not up to the responsibilities of growing your own vegetable garden from seed this season, now that the snow has paused (Thank you, Punxsutawney Phil!), and the daffodils are popping up every where, please think about supporting your local farmers at farmers’ markets and farm stands and CSAs. They were cool long before Brooklyn with all of its mustachioed, plaid-sporting, artisan, organic, heirloom, microcosmically hip farmers, butchers, chicken farmers, bakers and baristas. We like locally grown and all the virtues associated with it.
I was appalled to see that the cheater’s way of buying lettuce at the grocery store has gotten so expensive – $4.49 today for a single puny bag of pre-washed mixed spring greens! I have had enough! Enough of the madness! I am fighting back. I have just spent $5.95 for 500 lettuce seeds. Let’s see what my actual return on the dollar is, at roughly 1.2¢ a seed…
Here is Burpee’s perky and un-intimidating video for growing lettuce. How to Grow Lettuce If I only harvest two heads of lettuce I will be slightly ahead.
While I was earnestly researching lettuce seeds I was diverted by the fantasy that I am able to grow hydrangeas, which are my favorite flowers (after violets, daffodils and lily of the valley) but which I can never seem to grow well. Maybe this year I’ll be lucky. I have finally determined where the wet areas are in the back yard, perfect for hydrangeas. I have ordered another Nikko Blue Hydrangea, as well as the lettuce seeds. I am crossing my soon-to-be-muddy fingers, and am hoping for an early jump on our summer salads.
“From December to March,
there are for many of us three gardens:
the garden outdoors,
the garden of pots and bowls in the house,
and the garden of the mind’s eye.”
– Katharine S. White
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Ciao Tutti!
This weekend we will taste the Erbaluce di Caluso DOCG, a white wine from the Cieck Winery in Piemonte. Call me sentimental but I was enchanted by the story of Erbaluce, an ancient white Piemontese indigenous grape. Once upon a time, when people worshipped the Moon, the Sun, and the Stars, they also believed nymphs lived in the woods. One nymph was Alba (Dawn), whose day was night since she became drowsy when the Sun began to rise into the sky. Fate intervened one cloudy day when Alba and the Sun glimpsed each other and instantly fell in love. They were distraught because they knew they were destined to be apart, for they could never meet. Seeing how miserable her brother the Sun was, one night the Moon lingered and did not leave the sky so the Sun could hide behind her to meet his beloved Dawn near the village of Caluso. Nature took its course, and soon, the nymph Albaluce was born. The people of Caluso worshipped Albaluce, and when a flood occurred many years later that caused great damage and deaths, Albaluce shed copious tears. Wherever her tears dropped into the ground, a vine grew that was named Erbaluce.
In 1967, Erbaluce di Causo became Piedmont’s first white DOC wine. Its illustrious history includes winemaker Piero Genta’s being awarded the gold medal for it at the 1855 Paris Exhibition. He also was very gratified that his wine was served at the court of Napoleon III. Soon after, Erbaluce wines became the wine served to important guests by humbler hosts.
The Azienda Agricola Cieck was founded in 1985 by Remo Falconieri. He had left his job designing typewriters for Olivetti in his quest to learn about making sparkling wine in France (where else?!). The Cieck estate is named for an old farmhouse in a nearby village. Their five vineyards are primarily planted in Erbaluce and they still have an original, ungrafted vine that is around 100 years old. The embossed image of a falcon on the Erbaluce label refers to the translation of Remo’s last name.
Cieck’s Erbaluce is light-bodied, and its taste reminds me of crisp apples that impart just the right amount of minerality. Pair Erbaluce with antipasti, fish, light creamy entrees and vegetarian or vegan dishes.
Come join me for a taste on Friday from noon to 5:45 or Saturday from noon to 4:45.
Cin Cin!
Jennifer Martella has pursued dual careers in architecture and real estate since she moved to the Eastern Shore in 2004. She has re-established her architectural practice for residential and commercial projects and is a referral agent for Meredith Fine Properties. Her Italian heritage led her to Piazza Italian Market, where she hosts wine tastings every Friday and Saturday afternoons.
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Talbot County Garden Club’s Free Winter Lecture Series TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2024 – 11 AM TO 12 PM Talbot County Free Library, 100 W. Dover St., Easton, MD
Horticultural consultant, garden coach, award-winning educator/author/podcaster EVA MONHEIM, Verdant Earth Educators, LLC, Glenside PA
Eva Monheim teaches “Woody Plants” as a faculty member for the Professional Horticulture Program and Continuing Education Department at Longwood Gardens. She was previously an assistant professor at Temple University, where she taught hundreds of students who are now leaders in the horticulture industry. In this presentation, Eva shares the multiple functions that each shrub plays of which we are most likely unaware when we plant them. The more we know about their functions, she says, the more likely we are to team up with the right plants to do the heavy lifting in the environment!
Information: Paige Connelly: [email protected] / 301-641-7337
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