By Roberta Bailey Over the last few years, I have been discovering shell beans. Their diverse flavors and uses are well worth the time that I once considered to be the reason that I didn’t grow them. This year I have discovered fava or broad beans. I tried growing them once, about 15 years ago,
Drawing by Toki Oshima By Roberta Bailey For the first time in almost, 20 years of preserving food, I had a surplus of canned green beans and tomato sauce. I had planned on putting up a little less food as my son, Isak, was leaving for college. I hadn’t planned on my daughter having swim
Georgian Fire garlic. Nason photo. By Roberta Bailey The late psychologist James Hillman once said that our duty is not to rise above life but grow down to it. He believed that each of us has a purpose or calling in life that reveals itself at an early age and reappears until we heed it.
By Roberta Bailey About 15 years ago, I wrote a column entitled “What is Tofu?” Tofu was just hitting the market shelf in individual, one-pound containers. Until then, it was only available at co-op storefronts or health food stores. You brought your own container and ladled out blocks of it from a 5-gallon bucket. If
Toki Oshima drawing By Roberta Bailey “Simplify, simplify,” said Thoreau. I sit at my table and eat steamed kale and a barley pilaf. Outside the winter wind whips snow against my windows. Other than that, silence prevails. No radio, no stereo, no television fill my house with the sensational and negative news of the world.
From spring spinach to fall kale, Maine’s growing season offers ample opportunities for us to savor every moment. English photo. By Roberta Bailey We all pack a lot into our fleeting Maine summers. Lettuce, spinach and peas intertwine with weddings and graduations, green beans and raspberries bump up against summer camp, melons and blueberries go
Many fruits grow in Maine and can be preserved easily. Grow your own or purchase produce at farmers’ markets or at the Common Ground Fair for making low- or no-sugar jams and jellies. English photos. By Roberta Bailey From spring through fall, Maine cranks out the fruit. Our winter weary palates get shocked awake with
By Roberta Bailey Every season has its soups. In summer, soup is light, often fruity or chilled. Autumn brings us corn and tomatoes and minestrone. In winter, soup is at its best; slowly cooked beans and grains and root vegetables offer warmth and satisfaction. And spring is a fickle time, one day a dark onion
‘Shuyo Long’ cucumbers growing in a hoophouse. English photo. By Roberta Bailey Cucumbers are back in style. They are all the rage! Haven’t you noticed? Hmm … maybe it’s just in my backyard or in my mind. Or maybe the buzz just hasn’t reached your town yet. But more likely, I am just catching up
Toki Oshima drawing By Roberta Bailey “Garlic,” says the French writer Raymond Dumay, “is peasant, rustic; the onion is urban. The onion brings to the kitchens of the cities a little of the countryside. The onion offers always, and especially in winter, a little of the springtime of the soil, preserved in its bulb.” Rustic
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