Tomato Seedlings: The Great Outdoors

Here's a list of the varieties I've transplanted so far this year: (Depp's Pink Firefly is shown here on the left and Andes, Maruskin Strain on the right.)

Marge's Plum: Red canning plum/paste variety. From Seed Savers' Exchange's Yearbook. I've never grown it, and no other grower has listed growing this variety in several years. An adventure. It has the typical wispy foliage of many of the Italian/Polish pastes, but is not quite as wispy as some. Not commercially available.

Russian 117: A gigantic red meaty oxheart, some to 1 pound. According to Tomato Growers Supply Company, it's very flavorful (most oxhearts are), and more productive than the average oxheart type. Stocky sturdy plants.

Yellow Cookie: Large golden oxheart, beautiful firm delicious flesh. Productive for an oxheart. From Neil Lockhart last year, Seed Savers Yearbook exchange. Not commercially available.

Depp's Pink Firefly: Large (some to 1 1/2 pounds) pink old-fashioned Kentucky variety. Potato-leaf plants. From Doc and Emily Coy of Louisville via Cecil R. Ison in 2001. Now commercially available from at least three sources, but in 2001 this tomato was being grown only by Dr. and Mrs. Coy. They had kept this strain going for many years - Depp's was grown in the Glasgow, KY area since roughly 1890 by Mrs. Coy's family.

Hartford: Large deep-ruby-red oxheart. Just beautiful - taste, production, ease of growth and sheer loveliness made Hartford a joy to grow last year. From Bill Minkey via SSY exchange. Not commercially available.

Mr. Tartar's German: Large red round to oblong fruit, excellent fruit quality and taste. From Bill Minkey. Not commercially available.

Granny Carville's Yellow Roma: Golden-yellow roma paste shape. Robust plants, productive. Pretty for pale sauces and preserves. Not commercially available.

Andes, Maruskin Strain: Elongated, highly productive, tomato-soup-red French paste/canning type. Unlike many pastes, excellent for fresh eating as well as canning. Large fruits to 12 ounces. Typical wispy leaf of many older paste varieties. Even the original strain of Andes is hard to find: this strain has been selected for 8 years for thinner skin, more complex taste, and larger size than the original strain.

Cherokee Green Pear: Green-at-maturity large pear. From Marianna's, the only source of this seed. Marianne Jones, the owner, found this sport growing in her Cherokee Greens.

Jaune Flammee: This workhorse beauty of the salad bowl has it all: bright golden-orange (the name means "Flaming Yellow") tomato, perfectly round and uniform to 5 ounces, highly productive, early - and a complex palate, nicely balanced ratio of sweet-to-acid flavors.

Peacevine Cherry: This unassuming, tasty little red cherry hides a secret. Higher in many vitamins than many other varieties, this tomato is extraordinarily high in vitamin C and gamma-amino butyric acid, a naturally ocurring body sedative. A Seeds of Change exclusive, but available elsewhere.

Italienne Noire: AKA Italian Black. From Bill Minkey via SSY. A small black canning paste/plum to 3 ounces. Very productive; strong vines resemble some of the frillier cherry tomato types. Not commercially available.

Lusignan's Special: A antique French variety of elongated paste / plum to 8 ounces. Just gorgeous sunset-red with a pink opalescence - makes for excellent fresh eating. Productive, sturdy, and now endangered. Originally from Bill Minky via SSY. Wispy foliage. Not commercially available; no growers listed in SSY 2009.

Verna Orange: Splendid orange oxheart to 1.25 pounds. Mango-colored, nearly solid flesh. Early for an oxheart, and divine ratio of sweet to acid. Cans well, beautiful orange juice, nearly seedless. Not resistant to late blight, but Verna (an Indiana heirloom) will produce well, faithfully, and early. Mildly tolerant of cold. Wispy, dark green foliage.

Rose Beauty: Beautiful, but NOT ROSE! RB is named for the Rose family of Estill County, from whence this splendid old-fashioned banana-cream-yellow beefsteak hails. Hugely productive, sturdy, fast growing vines. Lots of foliage cover to prevent sunscald on the pale fruits which develop a sweet pink blush on the blossom end at full maturity.

Ernie's Plump: Red-orange tomato shaped like an 8-ounce drawstring bag! Described as a large double pear by grower Marianne Jones, this is a workhorse in the garden. Vines tend to be short and stocky. Bears heavily; displays leaf-rolling when setting fruit.

Aunt Anna: Gigantic red beefsteaks purportedly from an Amish source in Holmes County, Ohio. Taste is fantastic, fair to good yield. Cage plants without suckering rather than staking.

Yasha Yugoslavian: Extra-large pink beefsteaks, from Yasha Crnkovic via Dr. Carolyn Male.

Calf's Heart: A smaller, blood-red oxheart with exceedingly tender flesh. Only available from Maria Stenger, a Hardin County, KY gardener/seedswoman from her eBay shop, Blue Ribbon Tomatoes.

Vinson Watts: Pink beefsteak fruit with a splendid taste for fresh eating (the best BLT on earth!); long vines, productive; Vinson Watts of Morehead, Kentucky, worked on this variety for more than 40 years.

Egg Yolk: From Baker Creek; this open-pollinated variety produces up to 30 pounds of addictive yellow tomatoes that look exactly like their namesakes. Strong plants, impervious to cold, heat, bacterial disease or drought.

Butler Skinner: Large, late, rose-red beefsteak grown by Winchester resident and jailer Butler Skinner. Beautiful plants that are nearly potato-leaf in structure - produces late but consistently. Not commercially available. First year to be available in SSY.

Britain's Breakfast: A large elongated bright red cherry tomato with a pointed tip. Extraordinarily productive, strong plants. Multiflora plants produce clouds of blossoms; a typical English "truss" tomato. Great halved and grilled as a side dish for poached, scrambled or fried eggs. Very hard to find commercially.

Fast Food: Roots and Shoots Program

Tonight our program was "Fast Food: From Seed to Table in Six Weeks". And we had a wonderful turnout of some local gardeners from three different counties - 42 participants in total, all ready to get out there and start digging and weeding and composting - in spite of the snow that was falling outside the French doors of the meeting room!

We discussed some alternatives for small and urban gardening spaces, including a wonderful video clip from www.sendacow.org.uk about making keyhole gardens in Lesotho. To see a group of beautiful, funny, hard-working and smart! children making two different types of garden, go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjcjCCx3BWY

To give folks some ideas about what to do with some of the humble veggies we discussed (turnips, kohlrabi, beets, chard, and so forth) we tasted two dishes: Roasted Tamari Radishes and Kohlrabi-Chard Rainbow Slaw.

So here are the recipes:

Roasted Tamari Radishes

Clean, tail and quarter three bunches fresh radishes (about 45-50).
Slice 3 medium-sized leeks into 1/4" thick rounds.

Combine these two vegetables in roasting pan in a single layer. Drizzle with 3-4 T olive oil or grapeseed oil.

Sprinkle with 1 to 2 tablespoons coarse salt (table salt will do if that's all you have, but it's harder to control the saltiness of the dish - and use at most a scant single tablespoon of regular table salt).

Massage the radish-leek mix briefly but thoroughly until coated lightly with oil and salt. Sprinkle with 3 tablespoons of sesame seeds.

Place roasting pan in a preheated oven at 425 F. Check and stir every 5 to 10 minutes for 20 minutes. At this point, the radishes should be getting somewhat fork-tender when pierced, but are still resistant. Sprinkle with 2-3 tablespoons low-sodium tamari or soy sauce. The higher the quality of the tamari or soy, the better the radishes will be. Bragg's may be substituted for either.

Continue to roast for a few minutes - stir about every three minutes or so. When fork-tender, remove from oven and sprinkle while hot, hot, hot, with thinly sliced scallions.

Kohlrabi - Chard Rainbow Slaw

2 medium sized green or purple kohlrabi, peeled and cut into large chunks
4-6 slender fresh organic carrots, skins on
4-5 medium leaves of Bright Lights or other colored Swiss Chard, julienned with stems
1/3 cup walnuts
1/4 cup currants
4 scallions, chopped
1 cup fresh watercress, cleaned and chopped coarsely

Run the kohlrabi chunks and carrots through a food processor for your choice of slaw, or grate as for slaw. Combine kohlrabi and carrots with julienned chard, watercress, scallions, currants and walnuts in a large salad bowl. Toss until combined.

Mix together 2/3 cup real mayonnaise and 2 -3 tablespoons Nakano rice vinegar. Mayonnaise should be "pourable", like a thick creamy salad dressing. If still pudding-like, add a splash more rice vinegar. Add freshly ground black pepper to the dressing, and pour over the other ingredients. Toss again until all ingredients are evenly moistened.

Chill until serving. May be kept overnight or served immediately.

First Week of AppalSeeds: $212,606 Worth of Groceries!

This week three public libraries took part in the AppalSeeds program: Paris-Bourbon County, Cynthiana-Harrison County, and Berea-Madison County.

In three programs (one week) 168 potential gardeners participated. They took home 920 packets of tomato, pepper, and eggplant seeds, and transplanted 252 Stupice tomatoes to take home.

Our Regional Library Consultant, Anne Van Willigen, asked me how many pounds of tomatoes the program produced in a year - and I'd never thought of it that way. So last night after the post-program seed count, I did the math.

If every one of the 168 participants from this week alone grew even 6 seeds from each packet to maturity (there are 15-40 seeds per packet), they would grow a total of 5,520 plants. 63% of the varieties chosen were tomatoes. A safe average produce for tomatoes would be 25 pounds per plant.

63% of 5,520 = 3,477 tomato plants producing 25 pounds of fruit, or
86,925 total pounds of tomatoes.

At a market cost of $2.00 per pound, this represents $173,850 in produce.37% of the seeds taken home by participants were peppers and eggplants, producing 2,042 plants. At 9 pounds of fruit per plant, these plants would produce another 18,378 pounds of fruit.

At $2.00 per pound, the potential market cost savings would be $36,756.

Final outcome? 168 participants now have the seeds, knowledge and ability to grow more than $210,606 worth of produce, for a total of $1,253.60 per person.

In addition to the savings at the market?

1. Nutritional benefits from home-grown food

2. Global environmental savings in shipping costs and use of petroleum products

3. Emotional and physical benefits from gardening

4. New community ties and friendships built by sharing gardening skills and information

5. Deepening plant genetic diversity by sharing seeds on the local level, thus preventing the loss of old or rare varieties

5. New skills and awareness of potential earnings from selling produce and plants

6. Historical value of saving heirloom varieties

7. Environmental benefits from recycling plastic, paper and wood food-grade waste products to produce plants and produce.

AppalSeeds at the Paris-Bourbon County Public Library

Last night was opening night for AppalSeeds 2009, with 53 Bourbon County folks in attendance. Participants took home 299 packets of tomato, pepper and eggplant seed and transplanted over 80 Stupice tomato seedlings.

It was a wonderful turnout and a gracious audience....and the folks there are always so warm and enthusiastic. In addition, there's always someone who brings seeds to share with me! This year one of our regular participants brought a beautiful pint jar of Goose heirloom pole beans...

The tomato you see here is a sample of Rebecca Sebastian's Bull Bag tomato, which was grown from a gift of seeds from Mrs. Sebastian at the Bourbon County Program in 2007. Mrs. Sebastian has grown her father's special variety of large, sweet tomato for many years, and it was a wonderful gift. This particular tomato was nearly 5.5" across when sliced, and weighed 26 ounces (over 1.5 pounds). The tomato has a solid high-quality flesh, very sweet, and holds up beautifully when canned. We had our own Bull Bag Bacon-Tomato Soup this week when the temperatures dropped below 10 degrees.

Raising by the Moon

All of us have heard at one time that plants are more productive, healthier, or more beautiful depending on the moon sign or moon phase in which they've been planted.

Many folks swear by it, some folks pooh-pooh it entirely. Regardless, raising a garden or farming according to the signs has been an agricultural tradition for centuries.

Join John Maruskin on Wednesday night, March 11 at 7:00 p.m. at the Clark County Public Library as he presents both the fascinating, complex history and the how-to of Raising by the Moon.

In addition to the somewhat controversial moon calendars, John also presents phenological sayings, such as "plant your corn when the oak leaves are as big as a squirrel's ear", or "fertilize your lawn when the forsythia blooms".

Although many people think of phenology as old wives' tales, biologists and botanists define it as a study of the times of naturally recurring phenomena. In other words, the oak trees in your front yard begin to leaf each year once the soil warms to a particular temperature, or after day length reaches a certain point in the season.

Indigenous plants respond to the climate around them rather than a date marked on our calendars, so planting your corn when oak leaves have developed to the length of a squirrel's ear (because the soil has warmed to the right depth and temperature) makes sound agricultural sense.

So we hope that you'll reserve your seat at Raising by the Moon by calling (859) 744-5661 today. The program is free - and all participants will receive a free packet of zinnias, sweet peas or four-o'clocks for their annual flower beds.

From Goose Beans to Greasies

Monday, March 09, 2009 ... not doing anything at 7:00 p.m.?

Sign yourself up at the Clark County Public Library- (859) 744-5661 - to join Bill Best, of the Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center in Berea. Dr. Best will be recounting the peculiar history and growing habits of one of Central Kentucky's historically favorite garden vegetables, the pole bean.

Dr. Best has collected more than 100 varieties of greasy bean alone, and hundreds more old-timey pole beans from the Southern Appalachians and Kentucky's seven regions. Many of these varieties were teetering on the volcanic brink of extinction, having dwindled from acres of that variety grown all over a county district fifty years in the past to a handful of carefully-guarded plants in a single elderly person's backyard garden plot.

Dr. Best has spent a good deal of his life seeking out these heirloom varieties, talking to the family members still growing them, collecting both beans and family stories, documenting the stories and growing out the seed to spread them to a wider audience of younger folks. The strings of these beans now weave gardeners together from all walks of life.

Before I met Dr. Best six years ago, I thought that there was only one kind of greasy bean, and that it was probably impossible to get hold of them any more. By that time, it had been over 20 years since my mother and I would buy greasies at local flea markets and roadside stands in Southeastern Kentucky.

For those of you who have not met the acquaintance of a "greasy bean", your life has been poorer. Greasies are so called because the outer pod of the bean lacks the botanical pubescence, or fuzziness, of a regular green pole bean. The greasy's pod is dark green and nearly slick, almost like a peapod. Greasies generally, but not always, yield a "cut-short" bean, a little bean that has the ends squared off because they grow so tightly packed in the pod.

A good greasy is usually a short-podded bean, and packed so full of seeds that each pod resembles the figure of a middle-aged man romantic enough to give his grown daughter's hand in marriage wearing the tuxedo that fit him at his own wedding thirty years ago. Greasies generally taste sweet and peanutty. Many varieties go so far as to taste a little smoky, even if you are cooking them up without the benefit of bacon.

Anyway, I hope I see you at the library on March 9th. Not only is attendance free --- but everyone gets a free packet of heirloom bean seed to take home, courtesy of Dr. Best. So come on down, and start dreaming about a big pot of snap beans served up with a side of homemade cornbread, fresh sliced tomatoes and a cool glass of iced sweet tea...

More About Roger's Moons

Moon's SuperBush was sown on Sunday, 02/22/09, and germinated on Friday, 02/27/09. Now, three days later, on Monday, 03/02/09, I have a veritable forest of little green tomato Martians. As Moon's is supposed a dwarf, I hope this bodes well for quick growth so that I'll have enough plants for the three programs scheduled in the third week of March:

Garrard County
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
1:00 p.m .

Fleming County
Thursday, March 19, 2009
6:30 p.m.

Anderson County
Saturday, March 21, 2009
1:00 p.m.

Hand-Me-Down Light Stand

Our friend Andy Gary gave us two really wonderful hand-me-down gifts over the course of the years, both of which have come in handy for library program preparation: the first was a vintage KitchenAid mixer with an indestructible engine, and the second was this fluorescent light stand. This little light stand is tucked into one corner of the office, and is responsible for churning out as many as 6,000 seedlings in a season.

Stupice Seedlings Ready to Leave Home

Here we have a bumper crop of Stupice (say "stoo-PEECH-ka") on Monday, 03/02/09, ready to leave home for the Bourbon County Public Library in Paris, Kentucky.

....But There are Harbingers of Spring (Harspringers)

Just in the last week, the pussywillows have started to emerge. This is the first year in a long while that they've begun to bloom at the right time of year. This particular tree is now well over 15 feet tall, having grown more than a foot and a half in height and probably a foot in circumference each year.

I planted a knee-high wispy little shrub in the spring of 1999....I think she likes it here. So, between this "harspringer" of hope and the little green guys shrugging off their potting soil covers down in the fluorescent light-trays, there are signs everywhere that spring is coming on like an avalanche. Gentlefolk......on your mark - start your seeds!

Pix in the Present

....but this is the Kentucky landscape today, on the last day of February. This was taken from kitchen side of the porch, looking across the dormant native wisteria down into the garden. You can see that John spent many hours cleaning the fallen limbs out of the yard under our poor, beleaguered, 70-year-old Norway maples.

John's compost heap is just barely visible behind the hackberry tree (big deciduous tree on the left).

Seed Log

The first of Roger Postley's tomatoes, Moon's SuperBush germinated successfully yesterday, 02/27/09, Friday morning. Five days to germinate with somewhat sparse bottom heat isn't bad for one-year-old seed.

I hope that four flats will carry us through the programs this year. I know there are plenty of seeds to give away - the problem is just getting them packed in record time. There's a good selection this year from Baker Creek Seeds, Tomato Grower's Supply, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, and Roger's donations from last year.

Although there are still 50 varieties for participants to choose from, I pared the list down to what I think our attendees will want the most. It's still so hard to get people, for the most part, to try anything that isn't big, red, and late. This seems to be the quintessential tomato that people dream of most in the dead of winter, although a choice few - mostly elderly Kentucky gardeners and young adventurous beginners - rhapsodize about the gold-and-red creamy slices of the old-fashioned bicolored tomatoes that were once a staple for many Appalachian truck gardeners.

Rose Beauty, a tomato that supposedly hails from Estill County, Kentucky, is neither rose nor a beauty. It produces a ton of big, pale yellow lumpy fruits with a modest pink blush on its bottom, and the taste is sweet, creamy, and delectable. As a bicolor it doesn't have the truly intense tie-dyed hues of Mr. Stripey, Hillbilly, or Big Rainbow, but it's a winner for taste and ease of growth. It's shown here in the bottom right-hand corner of the picture, to the right of Butler Skinner. From left to right sitting on the bench above them are Depp's Pink Firefly, Maruskin's Andes, and a bumper picking of Egg Yolk, a highly productive and lip-smacking yellow that mimics its name.

Raising Miso by the Moon

...and here we see Miso, ever the flower-child, under a waxing moon in the twilight. John is holding him up to see the topmost sunflower at close range.

Moon's SuperBush

Sunday morning I awoke in a panic. I've started two flats of Stupice and a flat of mixed peppers, but it may not be enough.

Everything seems to be a bit off this year. Seed orders from Baker Creek were very late, and with the workshops starting next week I haven't been able to label envelopes and repack the bulk seeds. Looks like it'll be a long week.

Sunday morning (2/22/09) I started two flats of Moon's SuperBush, about which I know virtually nothing except that it's supposed to be a dwarf, productive red globe type. From Roger Postley last year. I have a lot of faith in Roger's seed-saving process (and Roger in general), so I know they'll be great plants to use in the workshops.

...Eighteen Weeks Seems a Lot Longer....

...and even though it's exciting to think of the tiny seedlings pushing up every day, it's still a bit depressing to think that it's at least eighteen whole weeks until I see a ripe Verna Orange again.

For some idea of how very large Verna fruits are, on average, each check in this tablecloth is two inches square. This particular tomato weighed in at 24 ounces, most of it flesh the consistency and color of a ripe mango.

This part of the season, especially with blight-sensitive (although wildly productive) Verna lasts less than four weeks. It's hard to believe that the average gardener's total tomato season really lasts, at best, for 8 weeks...So, gather ye organic home-raised produce while ye may.

In Eight Short Weeks....

It's hard to believe that eight to ten weeks from today the porch will be covered (once again) with hundreds of plants straining out of their pots and boxes...

I'd like to think that I'm a better gardener than I was in 1988, or even in 2001, but I think not....I just love to grow out seedlings for some reason - and I love to pick and can the results. Nothing in the middle of the gardening process truly inspires me, although I've gotten to the point where watering is very deeply satisfying - and I used to hate the very thought of it.

More Peppers Up Today

So far, Tunisian Baklouti (which is a large red tapering spicy pepper used - supposedly- in a variety of Tunisian cous-cous-based delicacies), has been joined today by Aji Dulce, Leutschauer Paprika, and Hinkelhatz.

What fun! Peppers are always so sturdy and jolly looking; tomatoes, by comparison, often seem so wispy and fragile at the seedling stage, belying their resilience and hearty constitutions.

It's a lovely thing to imagine all the late summer and early autumn suppers that will feature the fruits of these newborn jolts of bright green.

I pledge that this year I will bag the blossoms from each new plant I try so that I can save my own pepper seeds. I'm tired of buying pepper seeds every year - and I'm not as greedy to try new ones as I am new tomatoes. Peppers are also so much easier to tuck into a flower bed or a pot...and a few hot peppers go a long way...so the end product is in many ways much higher.

Looking forward to the next variety up - it looks like Tobago Seasoning and Topepo Rosso have loops up in the soil, leaving Paradicsom and Roberto's Seasoning bringing up the rear. I'm actually a bit worried that these last two won't germinate for me at all; I think the seed was already compromised when I bought it last year.

Today the Tunisian Baklouti germinated - looks like well over 95%, which is very good (I think) for pepper seed over a year old.

I don't think I've seen this pepper listed commercially this year, but I haven't checked the big pepper sites for it, either. I still haven't looked up the description since I planted it.

It looks like Aji Dulce will be next, which is surprising considering that the C. chinense are supposed to be later in germinating. I've never ever had a problem with the chinense or baccatums, perhaps because I like them so well - and they know it! We all do better, strive harder for someone who has a genuine fondness for us, yes?

Perhaps plants respond to us as we do to each other - it's so much easier always when you know someone understands you perfectly. I often say in workshops that the plant chooses the grower - and this is true! Very often the plant we desire the most will not do well for us, but another species will respond so beautifully that it's impossible not to fall in love with it. As for me - I love green beans and asparagus above all, but the nightshades are what grow best for me always.

This magic element of being simply understood - understood without a negative or positive cast - just that someone knows who you are when the fences are down - and sometimes when the fences are up! There must be a single word for this special category of relationship in some language somewhere.

Perhaps they know that I understand them without trying hard, that I can feel the way they grow and recognize so many of the varieties' special scents - Mortgage Lifter with that orange bergamot odor! And Stupice with its own strange smell of mineralized earth and fresh-cut grass.

Seed-Starting Again

This year I've already started the first tomatoes for the AppalSeeds workshops. Two flats of Stupice are beginning their second set of leaves (first set of true leaves) on my wonderful hand-me-down light shelf.

This year I used commercial seed-starting mix with as few additives as possible; I plan to experiment at last with a brick of coir that is lurking under a table in my office like a giant chunky cocoa brownie.

Stupice seeds went into the seed trays on Monday, January 26 - just in time for the big ice storm - but they germinated fully on Friday, January 30. They seemed to be gazing calmly and unconcernedly at the winter wasteland of snow and ice, these little spring-green harbingers of warmth and light.

Yesterday I planted 8 varieties of peppers in recycled mushroom tills, my favorite mini-seed tray of all time. All varieties were from last year's orders, and are as follows:

Paradicsom Alaku (Sarga) (a Hungarian selection from Baker Creek)

Roberto's Cuban Seasoning Pepper (a hot Cuban - no! - from someone named Roberto, we can only surmise - also from BC)

Tobago Seasoning Pepper (sweet flesh, hot membranes, with all the smoky floral bouquet but none of the heat of the most feral Habanero. From Seed Savers' Exchange.)

Hinkelhatz (A reddish-orange William Woys Weaver hot pepper approximately the size and shape of a chicken heart, hence the name. Hot, hot, hot and quite prolific - and it always makes me think of the old Cosby comedy routine.)

Topepo Rosso (a sweet round pimiento type that I've never grown. Seed from Roger Postley of Lexington, KY.)

Leutschauer Paprika (supposedly a Slovakian pepper that wound up in Hungary. Thin walled, sweet and spicy, for drying as paprika.)

Aji Dulce (another sweet Habanero type without the bite. Golden gleaming orange, like a Halloween moon, instead of the solid Crayola red of Tobago. Flatter and more Chinese-lantern-shaped than Tobago, which looks like a wrinkled pendulous day-old party balloon)

Tunisian Baklouti (I can't remember. All I know is I like saying the name. From Baker Creek.)

It's pepper-eating weather. Time to break out some hot peppers, roasted garlic and tomatoes preserved in good green olive oil and lather them up in some thin, tender pasta for a good, soul-warming dish on a bitter evening in the dead of winter. We are, after all, nearly a month into our journey back to the sun from the Solstice...so break out some sun-soaked harvest of the 2008 summer's end and think yourself toward tree frogs, sandals, iced tea, fishing, fresh-mown grass, and floating...