I’m doing my best to take a few days off from the kitchen so I can give some attention to this vast expanse of dirt (er, soil) that I have so ambitiously laid out for myself. It’s going well–I’ve got the potatoes in there, as well as radish seeds, white turnips, dill, rosemary, lupines for…
how to freeze kale
Six kale plants.A six-pack of kale starts will run you about $2.50. Kick in a little more for a bag of compost and you’re on your way.Those six plants can be packed into a tiny garden bed in the spring. Nurtured. Watered. Even sung to, if that is how you roll.They will start to feed…
gooseberry elderflower jam
My great-grandmother on my father’s side was a woman called Buckner Hollingsworth. I have heard that she was a woman of many talents, but the one by which she is remembered by the few people who find her books in a dusty and treasured corner of a used book store or who happen to be…
fire escape farms
Someone once told me that one’s thirties are the time to conquer the world. I was in my teens at the time, and 30 seemed outstandingly old.In the last few years, I have seen the truth in this prediction. All around me, friends who once had ideas and hopes of what they wanted to do…
why i plant marigolds
The spring of my junior year at St. John’s in Santa Fe, I moved into a little house with my friend, Eilen. We had lived together before in a big house filled with cranky roommates and lots of conflict, and we were eager to set up on our own where we could cook and sing…
Occasionally I teach workshops, and I have one coming up this fall. Join me and stellar novelist 