The crabapples of last year’s tree are no more, and won’t reappear til next, amazing biennially producing tree that it is….except, this evening, I looked up and saw maybe two dozen crabapples, fresh, red, and at the tippy top of this amazing tree. Huh. What is up with that biennially producing crabapple?

Don’t know. But expecting no crabapples chez moi I’d undertaken a search. Had a source, but somehow they were sold from under me. Long story short, suffice to say: there may be no crabapple jelly 2014. Will keep you posted.

Meanwhile, the grapes look superb. Keeping with the trend of surprising fruits (biennial crabapple produces annually, wild grapes appear where there were none before, flowering quince no fruit becomes with fruit) I am going with it. Concord grape preserve yes, crabapple jelly maybe no this year. Cider sage on deck.  My sage is just out of control, am dreaming up how to do it honor. Quince, for sure…or as sure as these things ever are.

When it comes to the grace of fruit, of harvest, well, you just have to bend to it.

As the shadows lengthen so do the colors deepen and the textures shift. The bright berries and stone fruits of summer–strawberries and raspberries and blueberries, cherries and peaches and apricots–ebb and make way for crisp apples and crabapples, fragrant quince, sweet seductive grapes….

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Just in time for the dog days of August, adorable new jars for les collines……

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Have been mailing with Sara Baldwin, amazing owner and creative force of New Ravenna Mosaics in Exmore, Virginia, on the beautiful Eastern Shore. She went away to study art at U Penn but returned to where she grew up to start her business….

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Gooseberries (left) + heat, time, sugar = gooseberry jelly (right)

The magic of time and heat xo

Gooseberry pickin’ on this high summer day. …

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These beauties are lit-from-within jewels still hanging on the tree. Picked the day before the 4th, when serious storms threatened and the dew point spiked….

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Need I say more…

Five kilos about to connect with some sugar and strong-brewed Harney Lapsang Suochong to evolve into a divine preserve. That first smoky note on the palate may bring to mind–dare I say it–bacon!!!!

This wonderful farm in Ancramdale has some of the very best meat around. Buy some at their farm store to bring home, or find it on the menus of local-quality committed, thinking chefs like Dan Barber at Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Dan Smith at John Andrews.

I just love Herondale‘s new ad:

Along with Ronnybrook dairy, Amazing Real Live Food Company cheese, and local organic produce including MX Morningstar and Sol Flower, you will find les collines at the Farm Store now, too!

 

 

 

 

 

On a most gorgeous morning this past week, my job was to harvest rhubarb, the first local (oh so thrilling, after the winter that would not end), from Westendlock Farm. The farm sits on a hilltop with views to the Catskills and is surely among the most lovely in the state. A few fluffy white clouds skipped across a very blue May sky. A sow and her piglets romped across a field. This basket is what I carried out.

Nice work if you can get it, huh? Fingernails stained by quarts of rhubarb juice. Who needs a manicure? xo

PS Find les collines at The Farmer’s Wife in Ancramdale now as well!!