gifts from the tropics

I have a new favorite recipe!

It's an easy-peasy gem from one of my favorite food websites: Mennonite Girls Can Cook.

If you like coconut, I strongly recommend clicking the above link and giving this crustless coconut custard pie a whirl.

I wish I had taken better pictures, but it's too late now as the pie has been eaten. Maybe I'd better make another one?

Flashback! Years ago I did field work in the Caribbean National Forest. I remember driving up and down narrow, winding, mountain roads, and at one point, seeing a coconut vendor by the side of the road near a waterfall. A person, a machete, and a pile of fresh coconuts: a complete roadside stand.

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If there is an obvious association between the pie in my kitchen and a heap of coconuts in Puerto Rico, this one will be more obscure: a broken tooth and an orchid.

Sunday I broke a tooth. Apparently my life has reached a point where, in addition to lots of things aching, other things are going to simply fall off with no warning. Like half a tooth.

Don't worry - there will be no photograph of the broken tooth. Or of any teeth whatsoever. You're welcome.

But here is a preview of the orchid:

My truly lovely dentist made time for me to come to the office Monday morning, for some very welcome smoothing of sharp edges. (Welcome and successful: further treatment in the form of a crown can be postponed for a while, I am happy to say.)

So I left the office with good news, the ability to speak without wincing, and the bonus image of this orchid which was brightening the pristine treatment room: 

Is it not a beauty?

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circumstantial evidence

I don't know how this happened

Not for sure.

But I have my suspicions, Betula.

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wordless wednesday

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pattypanapalooza!

We had a couple of very soggy days and nights this week, but yesterday was lovely. A perfect day to poke around in the garden and discover what's been going on out there.

Unfortunately, I was held captive all day by a rogue migraine, and spent most of the day indoors.

But today! Today I spent hours in the garden!

Some of the goats kept me company, on the other side of the garden fence. This is Tsuga, nibbling mullein leaves and pretending she is not waiting for a chance to sneak into the garden and chow down.

"I am not trying to sneak into the garden! I am just minding my own business and eating mullein! Why are you always so suspicious? Sheesh!"

Five seconds after this picture was taken, Tsuga squeezed her pudgy little body through a four-inch gap in the gate. I grabbed her as she was reaching for a cauliflower, and bundled her right back out to browse with her mama.

Sheesh.

Okay, now here's a little update.

 The lemon cucumbers planted on the last day of June have been growing and reaching and grabbing on to the fence.

At least a few of the onion sets planted on 10 June survived the Massachusetts Monsoons of 2013 and are still holding their own:

This is one of only two potato plants from sets that went in with the onions. Both are an experiment; clearance-priced at the feed store, and already looking a bit sad when I brought them home. Not sure I'll see any actual potatoes, but you never know:

The first tomatoes! This may be one of the Cherokee plants. I've added so much goat poop and "used" hay around all the plants, it will now require some cautious excavating to locate the labels. The labels I carefully stuck in the ground by each tomato plant because I knew I would forget which is which.

 

Oh, and here is the first little zuke:

Isn't it adorable? It's a type that grows little round green globes instead of the traditional baseball-bat zucchini.

So, lots of activity in the world of plants, but the big story in the garden today is the pattypan squash!

Look here:

And here!

Ooh, and here!

 The patterns and markings are different on each one.

There seems to be an infinite variety.

 

Was Shakespeare writing about pattypan squash?

  I think maybe he was.

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wordless wednesday

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