-
Whetting Your Whistle with a Refreshing Drink
Hot and muggy summer days are still with us, and you yearn for a refreshing beverage – something beyond a cool glass of water – that will not only satisfy that thirst but tingle your taste buds. I found a…
-
The Many Delights of Baked Beans
A half-century ago when I was serving in the Army, my boss periodically ate lunch at his desk. To my curiosity, one of his periodic lunches was a baked bean sandwich, a taste sensation that I had never experienced growing…
-
Can This Vegetable Garden Be Saved?
Here in eastern Massachusetts as the dry weather continues with no substantial rainfall on the horizon, everybody is worried about their lawns. At least the intense heat has let up. But we have bigger problems. If you’re a gardener, the…
-
Chilling Out with Blueberries
Back on the farm in the 1950s, I knew what the arrival of blueberries in the local store meant: my grandmother’s blueberry pie. Like many families, our blueberry expectations were centered around desserts. Occasionally, we had blueberry pancakes, and someone…
-
Creating a Community Cookbook
The New York Times declared in April that the community cookbook is experiencing a renaissance. I hope they’re right: Mrs. Farmboy and I are responsible for shepherding creation of our own local community cookbook: The Community Cooks, The Newbury Town…
-
Cool as a Cucumber
My garden is about to produce a big crop of cucumbers, and I want to put them to good use. After all, cucumbers are among the human race’s oldest cultivated vegetables – technically, a fruit. The Oxford Companion of Food…
-
A Meditation on Farm Foods of My Youth
During these dog days of summer, I’m having a hard time gaining any enthusiasm for cooking a meal. Instead, I find myself musing upon the favorite foods of my youth. Food nostalgia is built into our DNA early in life,…
-
Cool It This Summer
The heat of summer is upon us. Growing up on the farm in Illinois, for me, July and August were centered around baling hay, harvesting oats, and then baling the oat straw. That meant spending those 90-degree-plus, extremely humid days…
-
The Inexplicable Joys of Beach Pizza
Who doesn’t like pizza? Pizza is a one-dish meal that is just so versatile and so satisfying. Everybody has their own favorite style and ingredients, and everybody seems to have their own memory of their first pizza, not to mention…
-
Parsley, Sage, Red Madder, and Thyme
My kitchen garden provides a pleasant variety of fresh herbs to enhance our meals. Those plants had their origins in our local nurseries. But I recently learned that I had a lot more to learn about herbs from my long-time…
