Iris Blooming in January!

It was hard to believe, but there it was. Not one, but TWO iris blooming, with five more buds coming along, yesterday, January 15! They were next to one of the houses in the Territorial Restoration in Little Rock, which next to the Arkansas Historical Museum where I was attending Crescent Dragonwagon's Fearless Writing workshop all week. The iris, a fall blooming variety most likely, seemed oblivious to the partly freezing temperatures. When I left L.R. today there was spitting snow and it was well below freezing, so I'm not sure if the iris survived past today.

There were 12 in our writing group and it was fun to share some time with Crescent. She's always inspiring and full of fun. She asked about the farm, the gardens here, friends we have in common. She and her late husband, Ned, used to bring their Gardener's Weekend groups here for part of the Dairy Hollow House Bed and Breakfast special events.

While in Little Rock I visited the Clinton Presidential Library. I haven't been there since the day it was dedicated, several Januarys ago. That day, Billy Joe Tatum, her daughter, Josh and I, sat, along with a few thousand others, watching the ceremonies. It was the only time I have seen all of the living Presidents together in person. It was bitterly cold that day, and pouring rain so hard that water was running into our shoes. We were covered with garbage bags over raincoats, all the area hotels were sending truckloads of towels which they were passing out through the crowd. They evidently didn't expect rain, because even the past presidents who spoke, got soaked, as well. It was a miserable, wet day and much better this time.

Being at the Library was interesting for me on many levels. First, I didn't realize they invite art exhibits to the Library, but it's a way of bringing in people who might not otherwise visit. This particular month they have an impressive display of artfully done choppers (motorcycles for you non-gear-heads). I took several photos of the ones that were especially interesting.

But it was the display of the Presidential car and things surrounding that which interested me. It brought back great memories of 1993, when Crescent Dragonwagon invited me to Washington, DC to help with an Inaugural Brunch for the Clintons. (Dairy Hollow House B & B was a favorite restaurant and private getaway for the Clintons while Bill was Governor). So I was in Washington that week for all the festivities and watched that very car, first with them in it in the parade, then as it went ahead of them after they got out and walked the parade route, waving. I snapped a photo of the crowd at the Library to see if I can find myself there in the crowd along the parade route.

There is a display of the Clinton campaign buttons there, as well. Ironic, isn't it, in the middle of the display is one that says, "Bye George" back when people were so glad to see George the First leave. Now, here we are 16 years later and we are even happier to say goodbye to another George Bush!

Because this blog is about my garden, and the gardens I visit, I asked if it would be possible to see the private garden on the top floor of the Clinton Library. I was told, "No, that's the garden of the private residence when the Clintons visit." Ok, that's cool. I took some photos of their "yard" out front, but it's rather unimpressive, being winter and all, and just grass anyway.

I also called P.Allen Smith to ask if I could stop by and take a photo of his garden for the blog. Funny, he gives the same answer I do when people ask to stop by my garden in winter, "It's not a good time to see the garden right now," he politely said. Well he did tell me to stop by whenever I'm in Little Rock when he was here filming a segment for his show, "P.Allen Smith Gardens." I was hopoing to take a photo of the work in progress fountain that his two Jack Russell Terriers had torn up this fall. (Our Molly would not do something like that!)

So it was a lot of writing and not much gardening on this trip. Three and a half hours home from Little Rock today, unpack, launder, repack tonight and leave for Urbana, Illinois tomorrow for an herb conference at the University of Illinois, 6 hours to the north-east. I've spoken there several times, but this year I'm just having a booth and "being." Lucinda Hutson is the main speaker. I always look forward to seeing her as she has creative and slightly off-center ideas about herbs and cooking. She's been obsessing over Illinois weather; living in Austin, Texas, where it's never this cold, she thinks she's heading up to the North Pole.

Back soon!

Visitors Inspire Cooking Flurry

One of the nice things about having people visit, is you clean house. The other nice thing, is sharing meals. Catching up on each other's lives over good food is one of the distinct pleasures of being alive, or so I believe.

Our friends, Billy Joe and Halley Tatum came to visit. It's been years since they've been here, and about 3 since we've been to see them at Wildflower, their home outside Mountain View, Arkansas. Dr. Tatum has retired from doctoring and Billy Joe has retired from writing. But for many years she had a very popular column in The Ozarks Mountaineer. She's also the author of one of my all time favorite books on plants and food, Billy Joe Tatum's Wildfoods Cookbook and Field Guide (Workman Press). Long out of print, if you can find a copy it is one of the best wild foods guides ever written. She and Halley came up for an overnight, just to visit. We walked in the garden and talked plants, cooked, ate, cooked and ate some more.

I was knee (or was it arm pit) deep in writing an article on mint for The Herb Companion magazine, and was in the process of testing some of the mint recipes. The article will run in the March issue and contains many of the recipes we tested and tasted this week. Mint found its way into several dishes including the Herby Beer Bread. I went searching for an easy and quick beer bread recipe and ran across the best sounding recipe on Farmgirl Susan's blog. She's on my favorite blogs list and I check to see what she's up to fairly often. She had posted a recipe and I tinkered with it and added my own ingredients, including some mint, lavender, rosemary and sharp cheddar cheese. It came out tasting so good I will make often. The lavender flowers are kind of like little crunchy bites, with a pleasant sweetness. Of course you can leave out the beer and use 7-Up or root beer instead, but the alcohol evaporates out, and the yeastiness of the beer gives it a particularly good flavor. Even my Aunt Lea, who would never let alcohol pass her lips, goes in disguise to the liquor store to buy beer for her beer bread! Here's the recipe, adapted from Farmgirl Susan's recipe:

Herb Beer Bread
The lavender flowers give the bread a nutty texture. Any seed can be added to the top, from whole rolled oats to sesame, poppy or others.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon fresh rosemary leaves
1 teaspoon dried lavender flowers
1 teaspoon dried mint leaves, crumbled
1 cup finely grated sharp cheddar cheese
12 ounces dark beer

Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Combine flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, herbs and cheddar in a mixing bowl. Stir in beer and mix until combined. Spread in a greased 8-inch loaf pan, top with 1 teaspoon whole rolled oats, raw sunflower seed or sesame seed and bake until golden brown and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes.

Shepherd's Pie, without the mint (but with rabbit, chicken and pork) was on the menu for the next meal, served with minted carrots and a Persian cucumber salad, more mint, of course. It's good that spearmint continues to produce leaves just above the ground so I could finish the mint article, which features an, "International Buffet Featuring Mint." Of course you would never want an entire meal with mint as the main herb. But like any buffet, you pick and choose what looks best to you. Look for the article in the March issue of The Herb Companion magazine.

Meanwhile I'm heading to Little Rock for a writing workshop with Crescent Dragonwagon. Instead of going back to Thailand for more cooking classes and summer temperatures this month, I'm heading only slightly more south and only a few degrees warmer. Crescent, author of a wide range of books as well as novels, children's books and more, can be every bit as exotic and inspiring as a beach in Thailand. She even offers a money back guarantee for anyone who isn't inspired by the Fearless Writing workshop. Details soon.

No Matter What I'm Doing

"So no matter what I'm doing, there's something I'm not doing."...Crescent Dragonwagon, on guilt.

When you do a garden well, it seems like there are two choices. You either spend all your waking hours, canning, drying, freezing and eating the excess, or you turn your head the other way and feel guilty at not using the bounty completely. Our long time Ozarks-now-Vermont friend, Crescent, described such guilt well on her blog. She and her partner, David, planted and grew, heads of cauliflower, described how they were eating a head a night, roasted.

I wish I liked cauliflower, or even broccoli. Those are full of amazing anti-oxidents, I'm told, preventing cancer and keeping the earth from shaking and the sky from falling. It's in my genes, I think, not liking cauliflower. You probably can't grow up eating cauliflower that's cooked to baby teething softness, drenched in Velveta cheese, and then later in life learn to love cauliflower that's slathered with good olive oil and broiled. Raw, it's fine, dipped in a homemade dipping sauce, maybe one from my favorite Easy Dips Using Herbs book. It's not too bad in soup, given enough flavors to give it some flavor. Give me a head of savoy cabbage anytime. Grill an eggplant with some olive oil. I like almost every vegetable I've encountered in one lifetime, broccoli and cauliflower just aren't on the list, unfortunately.

Our savoy crop this year has been outstanding. Rich, buttery, crinkled heads of the sweetest cabbage. Josh wanted to make kraut and I opined that using savoy cabbage for kraut is like spreading caviar on a peanut butter sandwich. But, since guilt had taken hold with cabbage about to go to waste (one can only eat so much coleslaw and summer salad) several severed and savoyed heads went under the kraut hammer this week and either into jars or into a crock, I didn't watch which.

The big news, for anyone who cares one bit about plants, is a new acquisition in the garden when Drs. Art and Sherry Tucker and friends from Australia were here. Art brought an Aeollanthus suaveolens, a fantastically coconut scented plant from Africa that now resides in the middle of the garden under an umbrella. Why, you might ask? Because newly planted plants, especially those having traveled by car across half the United States, have become pale and in need of a bit of protection. But doesn't this plant have a common name, you are probably wondering? Unfortunately, no. I think we will have to name it. Maybe just, "Art's Coco-nutty."

I read that Aeollanthus is used in voodoo rituals in Brazil, some kind of body washing ceremony, which is probably pleasant considering it's luscious aroma. It's used medicinally in Africa, it's home, and in fragrance and culinary processes, too. Some people say it reminds them of the beach, I think because it smells like Tropicana suntan lotion, only better. Very pleasant, and the fragrance lingers on your fingers for several minutes. We'll have to try it in a dream pillow and see if it evokes beachside dreams.

I enjoyed watching Hillary's speech at the Demo. Convention. She's good and thinks fast on her feet. The first time I met her, many, many years ago (1985, to be exact), she was holding up the lavender wand I had made for her, the first lavender grown at the Ozarks Folk Center's new Heritage Herb Garden. I'd designed and created the garden for the State of Arkansas - a garden that has evolved much differently than imagined and has a delightful life of its own now. Hillary Clinton was there to dedicate the Garden, and after I presented her with the first lavender wand from the garden, she held it up and gave a two minute off the cuff promotion of my work and my lavender wands. It came at a very fortuitous time for me. I'd had a back injury while working on the herb garden, had no medical insurance and could not work due to the injury. (She knew none of this, however). Her simple off the cuff remarks in front of a hundred or so people and news media, sold a lot of lavender wands for me that year, contributing to the pitiful little income I had.

Then in 1988, when Bill Clinton dropped out of the race for the White House, I sent another lavender wand to Hillary, this time with lavender made from my garden and including a quartz crystal from Hot Springs, AR. That wand was 18 inches long due to an exceptional lavender crop that year. In the presentation box I'd had made, I included a humorous note about how lavender has always been an enchanting and magical plant, and how some people believe that crystals have energy. In that note, I said I was sorry Bill had dropped out of the Presidential race, but if he chose to try again in 1992, to keep the lavender wand and it might give just enough boost of energy to put him over the top.

And, quite remarkably for me, I was sitting in Washington, D.C. in January of 1993, in town f the Inauguration, watching ABC news coverage of Bill and Hillary as they packed up to move out of the Arkansas Governor's Mansion. They had lived in that same public building for something like 16 years and were describing what was to be disposed of, and what was to goor with them. It was an enormous thrill for me, when Hillary pointed to a stack of memoribilia that "must go with them". The top of the stack included a basket from the Ozarks Folk Center, with my lavender wand in the very top.

That trip, with Crescent and Ned, along with a whole crew of folks from the Dairy Hollow House in Eureka Springs, AR, and including Mr. & Mrs. Workman, the publishers at Workman Publishing in New York, was to create an Inaugural Day Brunch for the Clintons. So it was with great pride that I watched Hillary's unifying speech tonight. I feel privileged to have known her and seen up close what a dedicated public servant she is and felt like that was a friend delivering that speech.