take me home country road

This album has a few shots from a recent drive out to the Hemlock Hill Farm, Westchester's only working farm. They can hook up lamb, turkeys, chicken...all of its running around a few days before you pick it up, so its super fresh!

harvest scorecard

Statement of the obvious: its been a while since I updated the blog with any kind of progress report from the garden. Unfortunately, I haven’t spent that much more time in the garden itself. But I clipped a few cuttings yesterday that ended up on the dinner plate, and figured that I’d try and match the outdoor efforts with a written report.

So here we go: the (almost) end of the season report…sorted subjectively by a combination of eating and growing satisfaction:

Eggplants…ichiban! I always liked the sound of the Japanese word Ichiban. It translates to #1. And this was the #1 producer in the garden. A fairly continuous harvest of curvy, long, purple delights! They went on the grill, they went into pasta alla norma, and they went into a ratatouille style sauce. They definitely out-produced their heirloom cousin, the Rosa Bianca, on the other side of the garden, but she was tasty too!

Shell peas: As a kid, I hated peas. I was completely scarred by early encounters with school dinner “mushy peas’. I’d push ‘em round the plate, drop them “accidentally” on the way to my mouth, pretty much anything to avoid eating them. But the ones that came up in the garden completely changed my perspective on peas. Next year, I’m going to grow them on a larger trellis to increase production. Their one shortcoming was that I never harvested enough to serve more than bird sized portions.

Cucumbers: This was the midsummer highlight. Mad production out of one plant that kicked off at least a dozen tasty treats. This made tzaziki and all kinds of salads. It could have been even better, had I not overplanted the lemon cucumbers, which overran the garden in July and August without really justifying their space. Lemon cukes definitely grew themselves out of a place in the 2010 garden!

Arugula: One of the first plants to end up in the salad bowl, I got a small crop of this in the spring. Looking forward to a second fall harvest soon. Nice and spicy.

Squash: I thought I was gonna be rolling in these, as they pretty much dominated the southern tier of the garden. It was not to be. The acorn squash did well, kicking off 7 fist sized fruits that I look forward to roasting. First readers to invite themselves up can have a taste! The summer squash weren’t so prolific…one Ronde de Nice and a handful of flying saucer shaped pattypans ended up on the grill, but we did enjoy a summerlong stream of zucchini flowers to stuff and sauté. You gotta, you gotta, stuff ‘em with Ricotta!

Beans: The proverbial mixed bag. The tavera string beans were tasty, kicking off a couple of great side dish sized harvests. The black turtle beans were one of the biggest disappointments: after waiting for them to ripen, the pods turned a beautiful shade of purple on the plants. After picking them, I left them to dry in the kitchen and put them in a mason jar in the closet. After a 4 day business trip, the jar was pretty furry, and my bean harvest was gone. Weak.
Herbs: The winners were oregano and parsley. The mint grew well, but didn’t have much flavor flav. I got a fair amount of basil, but not nearly as much as I could have used. Ditto thyme. It was gone faster than Morris Day. Cilantro and dill both bit it in the first rainstorms.

Broccoli: Last night’s dinner. Very tasty, and very good looking plants. But a lot of effort for one side dish! I’m hoping that they kick off a few more florets before they expire.

Radishes: Leslie’s favorite. A nice bitter kick for some early season salads. There should be another decent crop kicking in, if I haven’t planted them too close together.

Spinach and Lettuce: Both tasty, but definitely need more space for a decent sized harvest. The spinach was gone in one rabbit sized meal, the lettuce was more baby leaves than properly developed heads.

Peppers: They’re still on the vine, so I couldn’t tell you, but only 2/3 have fruited

Tomatoes: An unqualified disaster. Nine out of ten succumbed to Dan Barber blight. His NY Times editorial blamed a combination of bad weather and suburban gardeners buying from Home Depot (aka me), but his heirloom varieties seemed to succumb first. The one survivor was a san marzano varietal that ended up in a classic tomato/basil pasta sauce.

Romanesco cauliflour: I had such high hopes for this crop. Only one seedling made it to a plant, and although its still growing, I don’t see any signs of the fractal vegetable that I was looking forward to photographing. And eating. I’ll keep my fingers crossed, but I’m not holding out too much hope.

Diablo brussel sprout: Still growing…likely to be the last survivor.

Beets, brussel sprouts, broccoli rabe, artichokes, onions, and most disappointingly, carrots (my favorite veg of all time) all failed. The beets, brussels and carrots were over run by the squash. They never had a peep of sunshine. I’m not quite sure what did the others in, but I’ll have to try again next year.

In the meantime, there’s a fall crop of spinach, arugula, lettuce and radishes to come out. I want to put some garlic in for next spring. And we’ll see what happens with the peppers and cauliflower. Stay tuned for a photographic wrap up, and the last of the LoHud articles later this week…

exploring

Every time I get on my bike, I like Katonah a little more. A quick loop around the Titicus reservoir became a good exploration of some local farmland and a couple of quad-busting hills.



A note to Jeff...we'll have a garden update soon...frost forecast for tonight...I wonder what's gonna survive?

Raspberry ride

Definitely got my country fix today...took the bike out with el diablo and rode out to the Amawalk farm where we ate our fill of raspberries and brought back a couple of pints for the ladies to turn in to Julia Child inspired dessert. It was a lovely spot tucked up in the Muscoot Park, and has a bunch of other organic veggies that you can pick. We tasted some of the porcelain music garlic which has some crazy bite to it.



The ride also took us past some fly fishermen...and I fully intend to get some waders and check out this spot sometime soon!

stoopid loopid

I managed to get fairly lost on my bike today, and ended up having to double back on a route that I had already blazed a few months ago. We did cover some serious hills though, and saw some beautiful farmland...certainly not an unsatisfactory journey, but a little longer than i would have liked in 90 degree heat! The extra loop provided the killer climb of the day, but with that came the best views...

thinking about the garden

There was a very interesting piece in today's Times about how my garden (OK, and the other 43 million home gardeners) is partially responsible for a colossal systemic failure of agriculture. There's definitely food for thought here. Dan Barber argues that industrial farmed plants distributed through major retailers are responsible for introducing fungal pathogens from other regions into the Northeast.

While I found the article very thought provoking, I couldn't help noting the irony that I've observed in my garden: namely that my plants that seem to be suffering from blight came from his farm! Doh!

Still, after a week of biz and recreational travel, I can't wait to go home to the garden and see the progress.



Sticking with the topics of gardeners and recreational travel and the NY Times, they published this photo by my friend Jason Gardner in the travel section today. Congratz dude, may it be the first of many!

harvest time + ichiban

The last couple of weeks have thrown off a pretty consistent bounty from the garden...I've harvested peas, cucumbers, beans, and today, a Ronde de Nice squash and a Japanese eggplant. And because its the first eggplant, it gets dubbed with the ICHIBAN label...truly one of my favorite words on the planet!

tour de france it ain't

Gorgeous ride around Titicus reservoir, past a bunch of horse farms with Jeff "El Jefe" Haber. Good stuff!

july 4 flowers

The beginning of July has featured the first harvest from the garden, a salad bowl of lettuce, arugula, radishes & spinach with Elliot & Asegul. And to celebrate the holiday a bunch of the veggies have started to flower...i've got action on the peas and peppers, cucumbers and courgettes (zucchini, but altered for alliteration).

Thought I'd share some of the color...double click to enlarage.

kicking it lohud style

Big shout out to Bill Cary and the LoHud crew who are following the progress of my garden! Check out the article here

It was good to see that there are other local gardeners who seem as obsessive as I've become! I was definitely jealous to hear that one of the other gardeners has had to give her lettuce away...

The first harvest was a tasty salad made up of lettuce, arugula, spinach, radish leaves and radish. Made whole with a lovely rose' from Provence. They know their winemaking stuff down there!

So two questions for any gardeners who show up here: any tips for tomato plants that are showing little yellow and black spots on older leaves? and what do i do about the carrots that have been shaded by the squash plants? can they dig a little bit of shade, or are they done for?

One last request for LoHud: can you make the link to the blog live?

A great way to sell cars...

I thought that this was a very interesting way for a car company to catch my attention. I would like to see more brands trying to break out of the box that says advertising has to be about one way messaging. Even if VW mistakenly think they can sell me an SUV, they've definitely proven to me that they get interactive advertising!

Creative Zone by Eyeblaster - Volkswagen - Twitter in banner

garden mid monsoon/mid summer

After 2 weeks of almost constant rain (6" plus), the garden is certainly not thirsty. Now if we could get a little sunshine up in Katonah, I reckon I'll see some real growth. Still, this photo shows you a pretty major difference since the last shot at the end of May...

The zucchini, squash and a host of heirloom tomatoes are raging along the northern and southern borders of the garden. I'm hoping that the carrots, arugula and radishes don't mind the shade a little bit. The trellises are supporting a couple of varieties of peas and cucumbers, and there are herbs, peppers, broccoli, cauliflour, brussel sprouts and eggplants chugging along as well. Even the artichokes that I had left for dead seem to have perked up a bit. Keeping my fingers crossed for those guys. So far, the only casualty out there has been my dill plant; it was too fragile for all the rain.

city country city

The song that gave this blog its name...



I'd highly recommend the album The World is a Ghetto. Not only is the album cover awesome, but the tunes mix up a tasty stew of soul, funk, jazz and blues.

shillin' for nike + murphy family conundrum

When did Charlie Murphy become funnier and more relevant than Eddie Murphy? This has to be one of the great mysteries of comedy. The man who gave the world Billy Ray Valentine is now reduced to a megalomania where he has to play all the parts, and none of them are funny...while his brother lets some writers - and in this case ad writers!!! - feed him material that's actually worth watching. Its a travesty!

Watch him shill for Nike's Air Jordans here...I don't think he ever says the word Nike, but you know they're behind it, and you've got to give them their props for staying firmly in the background. There's a whole website of Leroy behind this, and some pretty funny stuff back there!

garden update

Its been a while since I posted any kind of garden related content...and Jeff is sick of seeing Air Bart, so here are a couple of pix from the veggie patch. Here's where things stand at the end of May:



In the left hand row, from front to back, there are brussel sprouts, zucchini, arugula and lettuce. The next row in also has some growth, although its harder to pick out...a few beets, acorn squash and spinach have come up and a strong showing from the radishes. The beans haven't done so well...I replanted a bunch today (cucumbers too), but there are also a couple of varieties of carrots that i'm holding out hope for. the other prominent feature to the left of the planks are the peas...i've got some trellises at the ready to help them go vertical.

To the right of the planks, there are onions, peppers, eggplants, a couple of dead or comatose artichokes (RIP), all kinds of herbs, several varieties of heirloom tomatoes and a half dozen rutgers tomatoes, so that I can get a little Jersey in Westchester! There are also some broccoli rabe, broccoli regulars, and romanesco cauliflour seedlings that are coming up...and the last round of seeds are germinating for the summer garden: okra and more peppers.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to start sampling some of the lettuce in the next few weeks...there won't be any proper vegetables for at least a month, but I'm anxious to start eating something before the groundhogs discover the patch...

new brunswick 1989

something like THIS

the web meets the kitchen

this is pretty genius. link from www.mashable.com



definitely worth a try one of these days!

For old time's sake

Waking up this morning and making my habitual rounds of the interweb, I came upon this picture, one of the most memorable moments of my childhood. It was definitely the first great sporting memory for me, the genesis of way too much time following the Arsenal!

I must have watched the replays of the 1979 FA cup final almost as many times as I watched Star Wars on one of the super clunker VHS machines that were in circulation back then (big ups to dad, always an "early adopter", even before the phrase was coined!



Anyway, I'll always remember Liam Brady as the best player on the pitch, and his cross to the gloriously afro'd/bubble perm'd Alan Sunderland to slide into the net just before the final whistle. Its a shame that Arsenal fans won't enjoy anything like this in 2009, but this goal will always live on!

higher ground

For any of you looking for some good tunes (albeit tres tres retro), check this album (and blog) out! CTI records are pretty tough to find, and it took me more than 15 years to upgrade my original copy of this album: a blank tape copy of a blank tape copy...talk about lo-fi! Anyway, I found this dude who has put a MAJOR collection of music together... on his blog. Check it out, in particular, this album, and dig the Big Sur Suite! If it was good enough for DJ Premier, you know you're gonna like it!

2 recent themes collide

Combining two recent themes of the blog... gardening and out of home (OOH) advertising, comes an entry from a very unlikely corporate source: Mickey D's:



A nice find by the "Ad Mouse"! http://ad-mouse.blogspot.com/2008/06/green-mcds-billboard.html

I have to say that I admire ads and stunts like this, even if its unlikely to send me to the golden arches anytime soon! bravo, and hopefully, i'll be planting lettuce tomorrow!

while i'm on the subject of OOH advertising

Clyde on the job shared this...


see more pwn and owned pictures

BMW going Bobby Fischer on their Teutonic competitors. How do you say Touche' in Deutsch?

the demise of fashion advertising

If you're reading this blog, you probably know that I'm no expert on fashion. Not even fashion advertising. And certainly not jewelery. For that, I must defer to my man Stu the Jew. But now that my commute exposes me to full station outdoor media buys at Grand Central Terminal, its hard to avoid the ads targeted at the Metro North crew.

During the month of April, Saks Fifth Avenue ran a pretty extensive campaign featuring watches/necklaces/broaches, etc. While their ads didn't quite capture the spirit of the time, you know busted up economy and all, they featured some very upscale photography of fairly creative pieces, along with playful copywriting that might actually get your attention. And while that's not quite enough to send me to the store to buy wifey some jewelery, at least I know its there in the event that I win the lottery.

Fast forward to May, and now Tiffany's has the floor. Their pitch? A bunch of over- made-up models wearing keys?! Apparently, they're iconic or something. Whatever.

But a funny thing happened while I was typing out this post. I tried to find the images of the Saks advertising online to post here. And it was nowhere to be found. Not on their website, not in the Google results, not in the ad blogs, no PR...nowheresville. Just a bunch of Soviet style images that looked like Stoli ads. And Tiffany, to their credit, feature the collection on their website, and run Google ads to support it.

I'm willing to bet which company gets a better return on its ad budget... I wonder if they see higher conversion from Metro North zip codes?

almost famous

LoHud.com, the online version of the Journal News, the local newspaper is hip to the Almar Garden and CityCountryCity! The ran a feature story on local gardeners today, with a teaser on the front page and a huge photo of me holding seeds on the front page of the life & style section. The neighbors hipped us to this in the AM...told us to watch out for the Katonah paparazzi. When they're finished with Martha, maybe they'll swing by...



This was all much more excting than the reality of today's task: working in a bunch of compost and shrimp based fertilizers...literally shovelling shit and seafood. Somehow, I can't quite capture that smell in a blog!

getting back into it...

After 10+ years of Manhattan based biking, it's great to get out on the bicicletta and pedal some new pavement. Katonah is slap bang in the middle of one of NYC's reservoir systems, which makes it easy to pick biking loops with a nice view on hand. I'm really enjoying getting moderately lost and piecing together exercise and exploration...

Unfortunately all of this water is off limits to my kayak, so for the meantime I'll be trying to build up some strentgh in the legs to tackle all those hills!

breaking ground

Almar garden update...

After spending my morning freeing the last of our trees from an army of vines, Jeff and I broke ground on a raised bed vegetable garden today. I've got the sunniest spot near the house, inside 8' of deer defence fencing, but still have to figure out a defence against the woodchuck that lives nearby. I foresee caddyshack scenes unfolding...

We put in a solid afternoon of lumber lifting, pole digging, circular sawing and ended up with a reasonably solid structure to work with. There's still a couple of weeks before the last frost date, but after that I'll have more to post...

before & after

Now i'm ready to begin the "country" part of this blog in earnest: the last two weekends have marked the start of the gardening project. I've marked off roughly 100 square feet of lawn to turn into a vegetable garden. The lawn is off, the soil is tilled, and the compost is stinking up the joint. Now all I need is a little bit of warmth and I can get some of the many seeds I'm gonna grow into the beds. I'm gonna do my best to keep a visual record of this, as well as a description of any standout meals that come out of the project. And anyone who wants to link to my blog gets a claim on whatever kind of harvest I produce...

moving ad

i didn't use these guys (guess i'm not hip enough to fit their demo), but i did have them over to give a quote and they were very professional and courteous. even offered to drop their price to get the business, but i had already chosen another firm by then. still, i thought this piece of advertising was pretty amusing...

trackback http://evgrieve.com/2009/01/pandering-to-hipsters-this-ad-must-have.html

first pix of the house

i suppose i should have posted these before, but here are a few shots of the new house.

Two wheeled exploration

Les and I got our gluttony on this weekend with Evan and Sam. We checked out the Hemlock Hill Farm, which was a beautiful 20 minute drive from home. We enjoyed water views on both sides of the road, and the black baby seemed to enjoy hugging corners on windy 2 lane roads...We picked up some locally raised lamb, chicken and straight from the swine bacon and proceeded to cook up a couple of feasts.

It was pretty tough to motivate on to the bicicletta, but I got my first Westchester bike ride on today. Shame I can't follow it up with a fat tire, but I'll settle for the fake microbrew Michelob that I ended up with last time I went shopping. Anyway, here's a look at the route I took...straight past Martha and Ralph's pads...not too shabby. Martha is rocking a sweet greenhouse too...hopefully I'll be able to post some more of these routes as I work the legs back into shape...

first post=someone else's creativity

So begins the blogging adventure. Sure its several years after I first intended to do this, but I figure I'm gonna have a little extra time for it on Metro North.

Anyway, check this out. NYC as depicted in legos. So creative that it deserves to be the first "city" post. credit to the artist...
http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/i-lego-ny/

Future updates will include stuff i love about nyc, new discoveries in the country - OK, fringe of the 'burbs - and whatever else captures my imagination while yo-yo-ing between the two.

BTW, I'd highly recommend a musical exploration of the blog title...you can start here:

http://www.last.fm/music/War/_/City,+Country,+City