The Stillroom

I remember when I turned soil and planted my first garden when I was about twenty eight. Our first home together in Baltimore. Pikesville to be exact. The plot was about ten by ten feet. I killed everything in it.

The only things that I grow now grow in pots, and that is sketchy too.

This season,I planted lettuce seedlings for the first time. This spot was where I usually planted lemon grass. Lettuce will be more useful especially since I’m wanting to revisit the challenge of eating what I grow. I am actually excited about growing lettuce!

I am happy to say that I have a pot of chives that have bloomed every spring for quite a few years. This year I noticed a weak strand of oregano that found its way to the chive pot. I want to transplant it into its own pot but I am not certain if that is the right thing to do. It looks fragile. Appropriate for the times we are living in. Then I see the strong, straight up chives. Bright green in color with flowers ready to burst through. I think I am fluctuating between the two. Some times fragile but mostly straight up determined to out run this virus, mask in hand, armed with sanitizer in my pocket, figuring out how to proceed our new normal in good health.

It is important to me for so many reasons. I help my parents from a distance. They are at a very precarious time in their lives. We have been working at their house a few days a week landscaping their property after they had some serious digging for a new sewer system.

So us “kids” have been masking up, distancing, digging, hauling, pounding, burning, tearing down, building up, recycling, designing and creating a new space for them to enjoy outside. We show up in random fashion. I think it will be done by Memorial Day. This weather.

One of the high points in the quarantine week for me is taking a short drive to Black Berry Meadows farm. Today I am buying a farm box. It will have strawberry plants, basil and a tomato plant too! This is something new on the farm and I’m excited about that too. I have no idea how they are put together so I’ll snap a pic and post it when I bring it home.

I enjoy walking across the field/lawn to the farm stand. It’s high on a hill and I’m always greeted by the farm dog. She rolls over for a belly rub and loves to play fetch. It’s a nice, albeit short visit. I walk slowly across the yard on purpose to take in the clean air. There is almost always a breeze. It is a tender mercy. A gift.

If this virus has motivated me to do anything so far, it is helping me discover the desire to garden like I used to. Except for the killing part.

And cook…except for the food poisoning part.

Oh, and the digging in the ground part.

Most all of it is container gardening. One thing that was difficult to grow were sunflowers because we have very hungry deer that come out of the woods behind our place. Sometimes, if I’m up in the middle of the night, I will see three or four just walking super chill up our street. It’s always startling at first then it’s like ahhhh…deer. ok

So Monday I cleaned out the fridge and had fresh shrooms that I needed to use up with a carton of mostly full chicken broth and I have to say, I made some excellent homemade mushroom soup. I shared it with my parents and it was a hit. Not creamy at all, which was different and the flavor, omg. I have to say I’m glad I took the “thyme” to make it. The dried thyme took the flavor over the top. Note to self, grow and harvest more thyme and time.

Tuesday and today are chicken thigh days. I took two of four bone in thighs and dipped them in melted butter then into freshly grated parmesan cheese and baked them. Holy smoke. This was a new prep and it came out gold and crispy and nom nom nom. Google this one and try it. The hardest part was grating the cheese. So worth it.

Today I’m making the other two thighs. I had a small container of buttermilk that I was going to use for buttermilk bizkits before I hit the wall with all of the carbs I have been consuming in the way of homemade English muffins, Friday night pizza dough and Sunday snack cannoli’s. Ugh! I soaked the thighs over night in the buttermilk and some red hot sauce. I’ll drain them off and coat with panko crumbs and fry. I will throw a small salad together to go with the chicken.

I try to strike a balance between baking and frying, plus I hate cleaning the stove and how the heavy scent of oil hangs in the air. Mike is more inclined to fry so we each get what we want at some point in the weekly meat menu.

Tomorrow is taco day a few days late. I had a pound of ground meat and made two hamburgers this past Sunday out of half of the pound. The other half was seasoned and browned for tacos for Thursday. You might think Sunday? Well, I grilled the burgers late Sunday and the tacos will be early lunch on Thursday so let’s say three days in the fridge. It’s fine. If I keel over I’ll get back to you on that.

Friday might be Pear and the Pickle day. We try and support one family owned restaurant a few times a month. They make a killer smoked lox and cream cheese on a locally made bagel. I’m pretty sure I don’t care about the carbs in that moment. Totally worth an early morning trip down 28 to Rialto. The steepest street in the city. And frickin’ narrow too. They closed to reorganize their store for a safer and better carry out service.

That’s pretty much a weeks’ worth of creative cooking and gardening for two.

The Stillroom? Yeah. It is still there. Familiar and quiet and peaceful like a cup of tea. Peak in the window if you long for nostalgia. You know. When you could come in as free as a bird to browse and enjoy.