Printer-Friendly
Email this Story
Post a Comment (0)
Bean there, done that
Yeah, I suppose I could eat a little healthier. But my diet is varied. I enjoy both dark and milk chocolate, white and red wine, red and white meat (and the other white meat, while we’re at it), iced and hot coffee … you get the idea.
And while those are the things that truly make dinner worth having, I do like vegetables. No really, I do.
There’s a wonderful sublimity to a ripe red tomato, warmed by the late afternoon sun, plucked from the vine. And I look forward to the fresh corn on the cob, providing that storm winds or deer don’t get to the stalks first.
Green beans, yellow and zucchini squash, cucumbers – fabulous. But when my husband starts bringing them in from his garden by the bushel-load, every day, it all becomes a bit much.
I should be grateful. In 2007, Loudoun’s soggy spring and Great Dust Bowl of a summer pretty much made gardening a lost cause. We resorted to roadside stands and (gasp!) store-bought produce at the height of the growing season. Oh, the indignity of it all.
But like so much else in life, the gardening game seems to be feast or famine. And this year – thanks to lots of sunshine and well-timed, soaking rains – we’re looking at feast, folks.
We know the drill. It’s great at first. We get a couple of squash, cut ‘em up, and sauté the slices in a little garlic and olive oil. We revel in the vivid greens of crisp cucumbers and tender green beans.
I make the stuffed squash recipe that usually doesn’t get pulled out until Thanksgiving. It’s in the old “Joy of Cooking” book we received as a wedding gift from an aunt back in Ohio 24 years ago. The page with the recipe is so stiff with ancient bits of dried stuffing that I don’t even need a marker to find it. OK, it’s a little gross, but danged convenient.
However, pretty soon the vegetable crisper is full to brimming, and there’re piles of produce on the counters. Squash and beans are rolling off onto the floor. The dogs are sniffing the alien objects, trying to figure out whether they are something worth fighting over. Beans maybe, squash … naw. The truth is there are just not enough beef roasts falling off that counter to suit them.
Faced with such garden bounty, we of course pawn some stuff off on Grandma and Grandpa – never mind that they have their own garden. There are such things as family obligations.
We take some Swiss chard and beans over to the neighbors. I helpfully suggest that my husband pay his employees (In part! Just in part!) with produce for the next few months. Hey, it will save them some trips to the grocery.
He does end up taking great bag-fuls to work, and I think the folks there are glad to have them … or they’re just too polite to tell the boss otherwise.
I remember reading somewhere that another over-achieving gardener in our area was known to leave piles of squash and cucumbers on the seats of unlocked cars in town. Ha! That’s the kind of initiative you just have to admire … even if it’s probably illegal.
I ask my husband, gently, why in heck (or a word much like that) we need so much produce. He responds, very reasonably, that he never knows how many plants the deer or the rabbits or the weather will claim. He has to overdo it, just to make sure there’s enough.
Of course, this year he added a little bit of extra insurance with the installation of a tough but lightweight fence around the garden’s perimeter. This put the odds decidedly in his favor.
And so, our cup overfloweth. And it really is grand. I just need a few more squash and bean recipes.
Next year, we’re going to change our strategy: vineyards, cacao and coffee beans, and cattle. Here’s to a bumper crop! And we’re keeping it all.
# # #
You must be logged in to post a comment.