Sorbet and Summer Nights

I'm always glad for an excuse to turn herbs from the garden into food for guests. When our friend, Flavie inquired if her parents, Jean-Marc and  Soulange Mirat could drop by the garden yesterday evening and bring Julie Sonveau, the manager of the Ozark Medieval Fortress, and Jean, one of the developers of the castle, I was excited. First, we don't get visitors from France very often. Second, we are always excited to get to visit with Jean-Marc and Solange. They're fellow "foodies" like me (they're former restaurateurs in France), and appreciate fresh things from the garden. And lastly, the garden probably looks at its best right now, so it was a chance to show off the plants in their prime.

With temperatures still in the lower 90s when they arrived at 6:00 p.m., they meandered through the garden, taking photos, tasting, smelling, talking, fanning. It was a pleasant reminder of why I love to garden, the chance to share it with friends. (Flavie, by the way, with her husband, Paul, own Reeds Spring Pizza Co.  Flavie designs all of my books and their covers, Paul's company, Creative Printing, prints them).

From Jean (I'm sorry I don't remember your last name) I learned that the simple castor beans we grow beside the garden, are cultivated extensively in France. The oil is used in the manufacture of C-11 and C-12 plastics, which are manufactured for use in fuel lines and high pressure air piping. He said that France manufacturers about 80% of the world's supply of those specialty plastics. Now, every time I look over the fence at my castor bean plants, I'll think of France and specialty plastics. I love learning new tidbits like that!

After looking at plants we retired to the deck overlooking the garden, to sample a few fresh tastes from yesterday's harvest. You probably recall my oft-repeated opinion,  "why garden, if you can't eat what you grow?" The "theme," for the evening, if there was one, was basil.

I used a bit of brie, wrapped in prosciutto, and that wrapped in a Thai basil leaf for one of the tastes. There were yellow and red cherry tomatoes, halved, with a little marble-sized piece of mozzarella in the center, and a basil leaf, held in place with the other half of the cherry tomato. And, in honor of The Herb of the Year, dill, I made a some lobster salad with dill, piled atop cucumber slices.

There were fresh blackberries and raspberries, picked from the garden yesterday, served with glasses of cold-pressed mint tea for a beverage. Julie Sonveau was given the responsibility of churning the Donvier sorbet maker to make the Blackberry-Basil Sorbet, shown above. (The recipe is in my book, Fabulous Herb and Flower Sorbets, one of my favorites for summertime). Basically it's freshly made blackberry juice, some lemon, sugar and about 6 fresh basil leaves. From start to finish, it took a couple of turns of the crank by Julie every 2 or 3 minutes and in about fifteen minutes, it was ready. I'd frozen the dishes beforehand (so it wouldn't melt in the 92 degree heat before we got it to our mouths). That went down well.

Remember Josh's cherry pitter in an earlier post, with him processing gallons of fresh cherries? And the cherry cordial he made from some? It's ready, and that was the next, and final, round of summer tasting. His cordial tastes like cherry pie, all the flavor, but not overly sweet and I think everyone enjoyed that, as well.

Ozark Medieval Fortress

We visited about the progress that's going on at the castle (Ozarks Medieval Fortress). The first week of May I attended the grand opening and posted some photos here. Since then, lots of groups of visitors have been touring, taking part in the activities and fun. (Julie said the average visitor averages spending 4 hours, which speaks well for all the things they find to do there).

And tonight, paying honor to the daylily season, I made a daylily quiche for supper. Ingredients were 5 orange, double daylily flowers, garlic chives, French shallot bulbils (that's the bulbs at the top), some lemon basil, ham, cheese, a bit of brandy, a shot of hot sauce, 4 eggs and milk).

So, that wraps up the week. Tomorrow is open house in the garden for readers of my columns and blogs. If you would like the Blackberry-Basil Sorbet recipe, it's in my book, Fabulous Herb and Flower Sorbets. Happy summertime gardening!

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Hollyhock Days

Last week the Friday Night Dinner group went to DeVito's Restaurant and Trout Farm outside of Harrison, AR. We went to celebrate 3 birthdays, friends June, Mardi and mine. It's a beautiful spot, the restaurant overlooking a cave and spring-fed creek that's full of large trout. You can fish, for a fee, or simply dine in the quite beautiful restaurant. The DeVito family has owned it for 2 generations (it isn't  far from the Ozark Medieval Fortress I wrote about a few weeks back).

I had the country-style whole trout, which I must say was the best trout I've eaten since I was a teenager and ate my first fresh trout while in Colorado Springs. Often trout in restaurants tastes like fish food. DeVito's trout just tastes like fresh trout. The Dinner Group was so pleased that this week, when Barbara offered to take us out to celebrate Josh's birthday, I suggested Barbara, Josh, Adam and I meet our friends, Sarah and Neil, at DeVito's again. (Josh's birthday and mine are just 2 weeks apart, imagine, 2 geminiis living in the same house - it's often feels more like 4 people instead of just 2).

The reason I'm telling you this fish story is because of the hollyhocks just outside the restaurant. These are spectacular hollyhocks and in colors I have not seen quite like these anywhere before. The photos may not do them justice, but this is a collection of hollyhocks that have crossed back and forth between a dark red and a yellow parent and the offspring are various shades of rose, peach, pink, yellow and a truly beautiful blossom that is rose with a yellow throat. I think it's a spectacular range of colors.

I asked if this was a special blend or if there was a story about the flowers and the owner said he knew little about them other than they come up every year in that spot, in all the various colors. I also asked if he sprays his hollyhocks since they appeared to not have insect problems. He doesn't do anything, just lets them grow to be admired.

If you grow hollyhocks you likely remember there are hoards of tiny black insects that begin to eat on the hollyhock leaves in early spring. They start on the underneath sides of the lowest leaves and eat until that leaf is just a skeleton. The bugs move upward to the next leaf, eating that one, as well. Many times here, we barely get blooming out of our hollyhocks because of the destructive insect that saps the strength of the plants before it can bloom. I know some people use chemicals to kill the insects, but that also kills the bees and beneficial insects, as well. I use Sharon Lovejoy's great hollyhock spray.

Sharon Lovejoy, a long time good friend and author of Hollyhock Days (as well as a whole shovelful of other wonderful children's gardening books that also delight adults), lists this spray, which she passed on to me some years ago - it's also in her book. Mix together:  1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1 Tablespoon canola oil, 1/2 teaspoon dish soap, 1/2 cup white vinegar in 1 gallon of water. Mix well and spray the underneath sides of the hollyhock leaves, starting in early spring. Spray about every 10-14 days. It's safe, effective and you won't be killing bees, ladybugs or other beneficial insects. Her newest book is Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots, Gardening Together with Children. She has a wonderful blog, too and I highly recommend it. Her endearing writing and charming illustrations will make you a fan of Sharon's in mere seconds.

This week is a bid sad. We're getting ready to add a bathroom onto the house, which isn't a problem, but we also plan to add a small garage. Long ago when we designed the house, we made space for a drive-up back door, and to eventually add a garage with access without steps (we have lots of steps, we live on a slope, there's not much level in the Ozarks Mountains). But to build the garage it means tearing out the very first garden I built here, 30 years ago. It was first built to channel rain run-off away from the house, but over time it became a sort of meditation garden. There were pathways with lots of edible and decorative plants. It's where the black currants grew, and the tiger lilies from my mother's garden. It's where most of our spring tulips, daffodils and grape hyacinths lived and it had changed over the years from a sun garden to a shade garden. It was bordered by bamboo and had something blooming in just about every season. Unfortunately I have very few photos of the garden. I was so used to it being there, and it was hard to photograph from nearly all angles, I just didn't take pictures. What shows here is after a day of tree cutting and rock moving, only a shadow of what it was.

Adam has worked this week, moving as many plants as he can out of that "upper garden." Some plants had to be moved with a backhoe, like the clumps of currants, a large yellow rosebush and some native shrubby St. John's wort. Adam and Josh together moved about a ton of rock walls out of the way, and the backhoe has been busy removing 2 redbud trees and lots of soil. So tonight, as I write, the garden is all gone, a backhoe sits in its place. I'm sad about losing that garden, losing the rustic stone bench under the redbud tree, missing already the pathways and perennials and bulbs. But many have found a new home, some in the new lower garden area that Adam and I have worked on in the past 10 days. A new garden will spring forth again in another spot, and I expect a lot of bulbs will appear next year in places where piles of soil were dumped.

Adam, who was our intern in 2008 has been with us a month, helping get the garden in shape. He'll be off next week, heading to another garden project in Santa Fe, meeting up with his girlfriend for new adventures in gardening. It's always a pleasure when he comes to lend his creativity and excitement to our garden.

Happy gardening!

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